Carlo Infante’s talk on the Memory of the Avant-Garde. Performing Media: From Video Theatre to Geopodcasting is part of the Performing Archive already initiated at ICBSA – the Central Institute for Sound and Audiovisual Heritage.
The talk takes place within the framework of the archival project Scenari dell’Immateriale, based on the festival of the same name held in Narni, where Video Theatre developed in the 1980s, and on the radio art archives of Audiobox – RAI Radio 1. It will explore the history of Performing Media, which today uses geopodcasts to reconstruct traces of memory across the web in the form of a “talking map”. This represents an important link between the avant-garde of 40 years ago and the Cultural Innovation of Paesaggi Umani, expressed through the Performing Media Storytelling project by Urban Experience.
The central focus will be the screening of the video Notturni Diamanti by Marco Solari, Alessandra Vanzi and Guidarello Pontani, based on the performance produced in 1984 by the Venice Biennale’s Theatre section. The video adaptation was created with the collaboration of Mario Canale, who recently passed away and will be remembered alongside Massimo Terracini, who was then involved in the soundtrack and much more: in 1977, he was a leading figure among the Indiani Metropolitani, the creative wing of the Movement.
The event will also provide an opportunity to evoke two other key figures in Rome’s theatrical avant-garde: Carla Tatò and Pippo di Marca.
Carlo Infante is a lecturer in Performing Media, a cultural project designer and the founder of Urban Experience. In the 1980s, he directed festivals such as Scenari dell’Immateriale. He has hosted radio programmes on RAI Radio 1 and Radio 3, including as an author, as well as television programmes such as Mediamente.scuola on RAI 3 and Salva con Nome on RAI News 24 (in 2009).
He is one of the founders of Stati Generali dell’Innovazione and a member of Symbola’s scientific committee. His publications include Educare on line (1997, Netbook), Imparare giocando (Bollati Boringhieri, 2000), Edutainment (Coop Italia, 2003), Performing Media. La nuova spettacolarità della comunicazione interattiva e mobile (Novecentolibri, 2004), Performing Media 1.1 Politica e poetica delle reti (Memori, 2006) and Paesaggi umani (bordeaux edizioni, 2021). He has also written dozens of other essays and thousands of articles for various publications, including NOVA-Sole24ore, Tiscali and L’Unità, for which he edited the monthly supplement UniTag, as well as La Nuova Ecologia, where he wrote the Urban Experience column. He has taught at various universities and academies, leading workshops and holding teaching positions in subjects such as “Performing Media” and “Digital Cultures”. He currently teaches Digital Technologies and Cognitive Processes, as well as Performing Media for Territorial Innovation, at Universitas Mercatorum.
A book-hybrid about his work, Performing Media, un futuro remoto. Il percorso di Carlo Infante tra Memoria dell’Avanguardia e Transizione Digitale (Editoria & Spettacolo, 2022), edited by Gaia Riposati and Massimo Di Leo, has been published about him.
