Franco + Eva Mattes

Eva and Franco Mattes (1976) are an artist duo originally from Italy, working in New York.

Their medium is a combination of internet, video and performance. Their work explores the ethical and moral issues arising when people interact remotely, especially through social media, creating situations where it is difficult to distinguish reality from a simulation.

Solo exhibition venues include Essex Flowers, New York; Postmasters Gallery, New York; Carroll/Fletcher, London; Site, Sheffield; PNCA, Portland; Plugin, Basel.

Links to many of Mattes’ projects can be found at their web site: 0100101110101101.org

The Others

The Others is a looping video slideshow of 10,000 photos that the artists "stole" from people's personal computers without their knowledge. Technically, the act of obtaining the images did not involve any hacking but took advantage of a software glitch that gives access to peoples’ hard drives. The project intentionally ventures into legal and ethical grey zones and tests boundaries of the public and private, as well as the distribution and perception of "personal" images. The photos that make up the slideshow are the types of personal snapshots—from the edgy to the banal—that people take with digital devices and post on Facebook and online photo sites on a daily basis. The fact that these images frequently become the property of the corporation behind the respective site and can be copied by anyone else without permission is often forgotten. By grabbing personal imagery without consent and displaying it in the physical public space of the gallery rather than the virtual online one, Eva and Franco Mattes highlight and question how the digital medium redefines notions of privacy, ethics, and ownership.

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Franco + Eva Mattes

The Others

Related Events

CTRL + [SELF]: INTIMACY, EXTIMACY AND CONTROL IN THE AGE OF THE OVEREXPOSURE OF SELF

< Back