(A)social Ecology. Special Event for the Venice Architecture Biennale

Francesco Proto is a chartered architect, design practitioner and an architectural historian and theorist with a diverse and extensive knowledge of history and theory of architecture, architectural philosophy, critical thinking and studio practice. He has a reputation as a leading theorist and historian, with a solid track record of excellence in research and teaching.

Francesco earned a Magna cum Laude degree (first class) in Architecture and Urban Design from the First University of Rome “Sapienza” (Parts I and II equivalent) and completed an MA in Architecture and Critical Theory from the University Nottingham with a dissertation entitled “Architecture and Simulation”, which focussed on the three developmental stages of Post-modern architecture and its transition towards super-iconization. His PhD in Architecture, Visual Culture and Social Sciences from the University of Nottingham, entitled “The Obscenity of Subjectivity”, investigated the ever-changing relationship between architecture and contemporary society. The thesis later developed into an interest in the ‘post-human’, a topic he has addressed in both his research and teaching.

A full member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, registered with the UK Architects’ Registration Board and the Italian Registration Board, Francesco has worked for Dominique Perrault in Paris, where he focused on international competitions and projects such as the London Olympics 2012, Donau City (Vienna), the Marinsky Theatre (St. Petersburg) and the transport exchange in Naples (Central Station, Piazza Garibaldi). He is also an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA).

Francesco has either curated and/or participated in a number of exhibition such as “Italian Pop Art: 1960s Until Now” (University of Chieti), the 10th Venice Architecture Biennale, “Cities: People, Society, Architecture”, where he exhibited short films on urbanism entitled “Serial Townscapes I & II” for the cinematic exhibition “Other Visions” (2006), and, recently “The Post-human and Architecture” at the Lincoln ‘Frequency’ Digital Arts Festival (2015). He is also active in entering international architecture competitions. He recently submitted entries for three international ideas competitions - the ‘RIBA Journal Bull’s Eye Design Competition’ (2013), the ‘Berlin Natural History Museum’ (2014) and the ‘Costa Concordia Lighthouse Memorial’ (2015), all of which having received special Honourable Mentions.

Francesco has a sustained record of research and scholarly activity. After publishing his first book in 2006 - Mass Identity Architecture: Architectural Writings of Jean Baudrillard - he has contributed to a variety of specialist refereed journals and conference proceedings on architecture, psychoanalysis, philosophy and art. He has been a peer reviewer for the journals, National Identities (Taylor and Francis), Theory, Culture & Society (Routledge), The Journal of Architecture (Cambridge University Press), and a book reviewer for Ashgate Publishers. He is currently collaborating with the University of Paris IX ‘Nanterre’ and Columbia University in New York for the launch of the 2nd International Conference on Baudrillard Studies.

2016: Baudrillard for Architects (‘Thinkers for Architects’ series), Routledge.
2016: “Seducing God(s): The Ideal City as the Mirror Stage of Western Subjectivity” in Architecture and the Unconscious (John Hendrix and Lorens Holm, eds.), Ashgate.
2013: “Fatal Objects: Lacan in Baudrillard, Part 2 (The 3rd Simulation Stage: Post-modernity)”, The International Journal of Baudrillardian Studies, Vol. 10, No. 2.
2013: “The Subject & The City: A genealogy of Western Narcissism”, AHRC -10th International Conference on ‘Transgression’, Bristol.
2012: “Berlusconi & Other Hostages”, The Journal of Baudrillard Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3.
2011: “Architecture”, The Baudrillard Dictionary. Edinburgh: Yale University Press.
2011: “(In)Visible Cities”, International Symposium on Electronic Arts, Sabanci University, Istanbul.
2010: “On the future of Architecture”; Architecture and Communication conference, University of Lincoln.
2009: “That Old Thing Called Flexibility: An Interview with Robert Venturi” in “Theoretical Meltdown: New Trends in Art and Architecture”, AD – Architectural Design.
2007: “Italy Between Pragmatism & Theory”, in “Italy: A new Architectural Landscape, AD - Architectural Design.
2006: "The Pompidou Centre, or the Hidden Kernel of Dematerialization”, The Journal of Architecture, Vol. 10, No. 5.
2006: “Architecture and Desire”, 2nd International Congress on Transparency in Architecture, University of Thessaloniki, Greece. (Awarded best paper)
2006: “The Chemistry of the Leftovers: Architecture and Postmodernity”, 1st International Conference on Baudrillard Studies, Swansea University.
2006: Mass Identity Architecture: Architectural Writings of Jean Baudrillard. Wiley.

Emmanuele Lo Giudice (Palermo, Italy, 1975) is an Italian architect and artist, has participated in several important exhibitions and festivals of art and architecture in Italy, Switzerland, Venezuela, Germany, Spain and Colombia: FESTARCH Perugia 2011; Hamburg Art Week 2012; Museum Architecture Leopoldo Rother of the National University of Colombia in Bogota, la Casa Velázquez in Madrid, the University of Architecture of Venice IUAV and ARCHIZOOM in Lausanne.

Since the year 2010, Yona Friedman and Emmanuele Lo Giudice have developed some projects, especially analyzing the tubject of the museum and reaching even more radical solutions over other projects by Friedman, considering the following projects: Venice Street Museum 2012; Perugia Street Museum 2011; Venice, 2010 The Museum of Civilization.

Emmanuele Lo Giudice work is multidisciplinary, where architecture, drawing, photography and readymade become instruments for critical analysis of the architecture and the city. His works have been acquired for the important Archivio Progetti IUAV of Venice and some of his books and articles have been published in ABITARE and SKIRA.

The main idea in these projects is that the Earth is over-built, so what is required is not more buildings but learn to creatively manage the space you have. Architecture and urbanism as frameworks for human life and creativity is well understood. Public Museums, low budget, which does not necessarily have to be buildings, but a visual display and a conceptual transformation of this new way to see the space, a museum focused on the content and management of an area not built.

Santiago Sierrra, (Born in Madrid, 1966). 1989. Degree in Fine Arts, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain. Workshop at Círculo de Bellas Artes, (J. G. Dokoupil), Madrid, Spain. 1989-1991 visiting student at Hochschule für Bildende Künste (FE Walter, BJ Blume and S. Brown), Hamburg, Germany. 1995-1997 Research Fellowship in the School of San Carlos, University of Mexico, Mexico City. His beginnings are linked to alternative art circuits in the capital of Spain—El Ojo Atómico, Espacio P—although he would go on to develop much of his career in Mexico (1995–2006) and Italy (2006–10), and his work has always exerted a great influence on artistic literature and criticism.

Sierra's oeuvre strives to reveal the perverse networks of power that inspire the alienation and exploitation of workers, the injustice of labour relations, the unequal distribution of wealth produced by capitalism, the deviance of work and money, and racial discrimination in a world scored with unidirectional (south–north) migratory flows.

Revisiting and updating certain strategies characterising the Minimalism, Conceptual and Performance Art of the seventies, Sierra interrupts flows of capital and godos (Obstruction of Freeway With a Truck’s Trailer, 1998; Person Obstructing a Line of Containers, 2009); he hires labourers to reveal their precarious circumstances (20 Workers in a Ship’s Hold, 2001); he explores the mechanisms of racial segregation derived from economic inequalities (Hiring and Arrangement of 30 Workers in Relation to Their Skin Color, 2002; Economical Study of The Skin of Caracans, 2006); and refutes the stories that legitimate a democracy based on state violence (Veterans of the Wars of Cambodia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Irak Facing the Corner, 2010–2; Los encargados, 2012).

Alain Urrutia (Bilbao, 1981). Lives and works in Bilbao.

MA STUDIO Resident Grant. Beijing. (2011)
FIRST PRIZE ERTIBIL, Fine Arts Show, Bilbao (2011)
Diputación Foral de Bizkaia Art Grant (2010)
C. de ingenieros del Pais Vasco ART PRIZE (2009)
ACCESIT in INJUVE ART PRIZE- Circulo BBAA, Madrid (2008)
UNED Bizkaia ART PRIZE (2008)
Rogaland Art Centre Of Stavanger Exchange Grant (Norway) (2008)
Residents Grant_bilbaoarte Fundation (2008)
Ihes Ederra (Ed. Alberdania 2009) / Comic Book with Hedoi Etxarte (2009)
La Bella Huida/ La Bella Fugida (Ed. Alberdania 2010) Spanish & Catalán ed. of “Ihes Ederra”

Massimo Mazzone, (Marino, Rome, 1967) sculptor, numerous exhibitions in Europe and beyond, a member of the group of artists complot s.y.s.tem, and a professor of sculpture at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. He has organized several groups to work between art and architecture. Among his recent performances, projects, proposal and publications:

    •    Ex Polis
    •    11. Biennale Venezia
    •    Edifici concettuali
    ◦    Post Lauream
    ◦    Città
    •    La Penisola degli Agnelli
    •    10. Biennale Venezia
    •    Lezioni di pittura
    •    Ex Mattatoio
    •    Piazza Shopping Centre
    •    Worker Bee Cemetery
    •    Triennale Milano
    •    Casa dell'Architettura
    •    Fass Gallery
    •    L'altra Roma
    •    Torretta Valadier

WORKS by Complot s.y.s.tem