WORLD MAKERS
23. Juni 2026, 12.30 Uhr Kunstuniversität Linz, Domgasse 1, 4020 Linz, Seminarraum IC (DO0327)
Interface Cultures lädt zum Gastvortrag von Marco Mancuso.
The lecture explores how art, in dialogue with philosophy and technoscience, engages with more-than-human forms of bodies and intelligences — natural, human and artificial agencies — capable of shaping ontologically coherent worlds and layered realities that exist on imperceptible time-space scales alongside the one we know. Situated within a theoretical discourse that unite his scientific and art critic background - from his last book Chimera (Intellect Books, UCP, March 2026) to his next one World Makers (soon 2027) - Marco Mancuso investigates the practices and esthetics of those artists that explore the possibilities inhabited by expanded corporality and complex cognitive systems to interact, collaborate and give life to a complex and entangled environment.
What interests is not so much art’s capacity to model a cosmology different from the one we inhabit, to pursue alternative forms of existence throughout myth, narrative, and speculation, to simply engage with forms of worldbuilding; the challenge is rather to embrace all these tensions to integrate with scientific research and technologies, looking for those worlds that exist “truly” beyond the phenomenological one in which we are immersed. The ethical and political thinking that underlies this praxis steps out of the binary debate over the positive or negative impact of technoscience on society and the planet — a pressing object to either accelerate or flee from. Instead, it regards them as instruments which participate in the eurhythmy of reality and contribute to the discovery and exploration of all possible worlds, promoting a new ecological-planetary thinking.
Marco Mancuso is a critic, researcher, and curator working at the intersection of art, technology, philosophy and scientific research. He holds a degree in Chemistry from the University of Milan and a PhD in "Digital Cultures" from Iuav University of Venice. He is a tenured professor at the Politecnico delle Arti in Bergamo, a visiting professor, and the coordinator of the program "Curating the Digital" at the Node Center for Curatorial Arts. He also teaches at University of Bologna and in the master program Digital Philosophy at the University of Udine. He is interested in how the interdisciplinary discourse enables the observation of ongoing changes in the relationships between human beings and environments. His focus lies on the potential implications for identity, ethics, and politics in designing and conceptualizing new forms of interaction between humans and non-humans within the collective, natural, and artificial environment. He curated exhibitions and events at both national and international levels, participates in conferences and roundtables, and has been a partner of festivals, media labs, and institutions including Transmediale, Impakt, V2, Baltan Labs, Goethe Institut, Sonar+D, Sonic Acts, Elektra, STRP, TodaysArt, Fabrica and Subtle Technologies among others. He founded the online platform Digicult in 2005 and has published the books “Chimera. The Expanded Body for a New Ecosophy of Art” with Intellect Books and University of Chicago Press, “Intervista con la New Media Art”, and “Arte, Tecnologia e Scienza" with Mimesis Edizioni.
