Sarah Ciracì, Technocentric

About

Technocentric is Ciracì’s first solo show in Milan after 15 years. For the occasion, three new series of works were produced, in which her reflection on the relationship between living beings, technology and control is taken a step further, namely, not centered only in the human, and not circumscribed to this planet.

Since the beginning of the Nineties Sarah Ciracì has been researching on the relationships between humans, technology, pop culture and the mass media. Her artistic research has been stimulated by the sense of bewilderedness that acceleration in science and technology produced in her.

For the artist, the outer space, and  especially the possibility of life in other planets and the existence of UFOs were a central topic of her first artworks and have always worked as metaphor, or better, as a tool in her oeuvre for thinking non-human ways of existence. In Technocentric, various elements of this topic reappear in the works on display, but in these new series the non-human forms of existence no longer concern outer space but are embedded into the feedback loop between living beings and technology on planet Earth. For example, in the Sacrilegio (2021), the circle, a universal symbol of unity and harmony, returns, only this time featuring, not abstract patterns as in Elettronica-mente (2008) o Neural Network (2014), but a bas-relief of an industrial livestock production facility in which the symbolic dimension detaches itself from the sacred to be circumscribed to a relationship of control.

The title of the show is not to be understood as an a-critical celebration of technology, but as a hint to read Ciracì’s reflection on the central role of technology for all the living.

Sarah Ciracì (Grottaglie, 1972. Lives and works in Milan) studied at the DAMS at the Accademia di Belle Arti, Bologna, and got an MPhil degree at Plymouth University, UK. She has had solo exhibitions in museums that include Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma (MACRO), Rome; the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University, New York; and the Galleria nazionale d’arte moderna, Rome. She has participated in group exhibitions in the context of national and international galleries and museums, including the Museo nazionale della Arti del XXI secolo, MAXXI, Rome; the Yuki Kondo ACAC Aomori Contemporary Art Center, Japan; 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; the Triennale di Milano, the FRAC Languedoc-Roussillon, Montpellier; PAC Padiglione d’arte contemporanea, Milan, and the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Guarene D’Alba, Turin, among many others. In 2003/04 she achieved the New York Prize, consisting of a yearly scholarship at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University, New York.