Stefano D´Alessio | ...as sad as it seems
Virtual Environment

All alone, all together, some in quarantine, some in the streets, some getting shot, some showing off that brand new automatic rifle. Because it’s our right to feel safe and protect our freshly cut green loan. We fall asleep in front of our smart devices, listening to conspiracy lullabies, while breathing ashes coming from too far away to be concerning. Did you see the video of that gigantic glacier breaking down and melting? It looks and sounds amazing! The spectacle of the apocalypse… now available in stream party!

“…as sad as it seems” is a virtual environment built in Mozilla Hubs, available for visitors to be experienced and explored online. A sky of conspiracy theories surrounds the space, the ground is fragmented, as the humanoids that stands on it. These characters are distributed in the space, their gaze is lost in flickering screens, their movement are subtle, slow and repetitive. If approached their screens became hearable, each character shares a particular conspiracy theory with the close listener. The environment is foggy, ethereal, broken, a distorted speaking voice is permeating the whole environment, someone is talking to a crowd. Immaterial dark walls slowly move through the space, shading the visitor’s view while an abstract dark snow keeps falling.

Stefano D’Alessio (1987 Italy) is a new media artist, performer, composer, educator and all-round tech nerd. He creates audio-visual compositions using media technologies as performing partners. His research is in developing interactive environments that balance between being playable as expressive instruments, understandable in their dynamics and able to convey meaning. He addresses the digitisation of the human in new technologies and the virtual representations of the “real”, with a special focus on the multiple influences that the internet and derivates have on the human body and human behaviour. Stefano is a musician, he played in different bands (Criminal Café [IT], Running Fetus [AT]) as drummer, vocalist and guitarist, and now composes and produces electronic and electro-acoustic music, often collaborating with dance, theatre and video directors. Stefano regularly exhibits and performs in international music and new-media art festivals. Stefano received a bachelor degree in Visual and Performing Art from the IUAV University of Venice and a magister’s degree after studying Transmedial Art with Brigitte Kowanz at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Since 2010 he has been lecturing, coaching, giving workshops around the globe, and collaborating with Klaus Obermaier and Martina Menegon on various artistic projects. Stefano currently lives and works in Vienna (AT).

https://cargocollective.com/stefanodalessio

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