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Hybrid Realities Lab - ZEROFEEDBACK -Talk - Week 8 extra session
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Giovanni is the founder of Zero Feedback, a project started in 2007 that initially focused on digital performances and video labels. However, the project came to a halt due to changes in technology and the decline of electronic music festivals in Italy. Four years ago, Giovanni revived Zero Feedback with a new focus on photography. He started an open call and published a series of zines called "Influences" that featured conversations between photographers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Giovanni launched another open call titled "The Annihilation of Space and Time," which received over 400 submissions and resulted in his first book featuring 78 artists. Currently, Giovanni has another open call called "Rational Inattention" and aims to connect with artists and explore the tension between social media and real life. The process of selecting artists and compiling the book was challenging but rewarding for Giovanni, as it allowed him to build relationships and expand his knowledge in photo Hello, Craig. I think we should see it speak to me. Should we start in a couple of minutes, and then we can start? You know, I did actually go see a comedian over the weekend. Did you? Yeah, and I think I realised that I think I hate comedy. It is just brutal. Was it not good? Was it not funny? It's okay. I like it. It's just the crowd that comes out for it. I don't know. It's just miserable. Was it a famous comedian or nobody? It was this guy, Josh Johnson, who's on the Daily Show now. So he's like kind of famous. He's getting big. And he's cool. I mean, Josh Johnson. Yeah, I mean, he's like, I listen to him like, you know, on YouTube or whatever. But my friend was like, Yeah, I want to go. And I was like, All right. And I was just like, Man, I think I hate comedy. I don't know what it is. I just I can't do it. Perhaps it needs to be the right comedian. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. We'll see. I think I just hate laughing. Not a very funny guy. Come on. I'm just kidding. Should we make a start? Do you think that means a couple more minutes? I think I think we're good to start whenever and then probably a few people will join us. Yeah. If we don't keep talking, Craig gets upset. Seriously, start questioning. I'm not sure what the time limit is, but if there's silence, it pops up a message offering to stop. Do you want to introduce Matthew? Do you want to introduce Giovanni? Quick, quick introduction from from what I know. Yeah. So I invited Giovanni to come along and present his kind of platform, which is called Zero Feedback. I got to know him through an open call that he did. And I think the way it worked is that you reached out to like hundreds of photographers on Instagram. And I looked it up and I came back with a different proposal. I asked him to kind of have a chat about his platform and to kind of see if there's any ways we could collaborate with Memezine or something like that. And ever since then, we've had, you know, we've been chatting quite regularly. And I thought it'd be interesting to have a guest because of the open call he's running right now, but also just in general, maybe to see or to discuss publishing practices, the purpose of them in the digital age, maybe also the role of images or photography in the digital age. But what I also find quite interesting is that, you know, especially with the last book that he's published that I'm sure he's going to show you, is that he works quite collaboratively or he tries to showcase works by many different artists. I'm sure you're going to tell us how many artists you had in your first book. Yeah, but it's quite a lot of them. And I think the way Giovanni works is quite interesting. So I'm curious to see what he's going to present us today. I'm curious to hear about the history of Zero Feedback. And as always, if you do have any questions towards the end, do ask so we can have a bit of a closing discussion for the program. Giovanni, I think you may start whenever you are ready. Thank you guys for having me. I'm Giovanni. I'm the founder of Zero Feedback. Zero Feedback is a project that I started in 2007. It wasn't a project that was going to be published. Zero Feedback in that period in Italy was very active, like the community of audiovisual and live cinema and DJing. And as the opposite of a book, we were doing all things that were just existing in the digital. It was a performance, first of all, and it was a digital performance. There was no trace of it. So I decided to create this video. Zero Feedback was a video label. I have not much material. The only thing that there is is this page on Discogs of the first DVD that I printed. And also this one was a compilation of Italian video artists mostly. And at that time Myspace was a thing. And I was in contact with several net labels and I collaborated with the Japanese net label at the moment. And we just released this DVD that was kind of the start of Zero Feedback. I produced maybe another three DVDs and some audiovisual thing. And then the whole thing ran into a halt. The DVD wasn't a media anymore. And also all the electronic music festivals in Italy started to diminish and that scene kind of ended up. And then I stopped the project until I think four years ago where I started to take an interest in photography. So since I started, I moved to Japan in 2011. And because of the problem of my life there, it was like a lonely life. Because I went there for work and then I met what is my wife now. And I was working as a freelance still. I was working with Italy. So I didn't have any human contact basically. But I had no need of like fine contact for work and I already have a girlfriend. So it was a kind of a lonely life for a couple of years. And then I started to get interested in photography and then I joined some group of street photography. And during this year Instagram was like the main like output of my photography as many others. But it started to get like kind of frustrating because it's not like the ideal output for photography at all. I think the output for the photography is printing the photography. So I decided again to start the feedback and I started with an open call. And I put the open call out and the submission wasn't good at all. So I decided like to shut down and I started a project that is called Influences where I was speaking to photographer for each zine. And it was a conversation through photography. So it was like for example, if the zine was bad, Mattia was like putting my photo and he has to answer to my photo with something that has a relationship to my photo. It was just the relationship could be like aesthetic or like conceptual. There have to be some relationships. And I printed I think 13 of this zine. And then two years ago during COVID, I decided to start trying again with an open call. And I was thinking about this concept for a long time. This relationship with the space and time was also like traveling a lot from Italy and Japan. All these kind of things make me think a lot. And I came out with the open call was called The Annihilation of Space and Time. And this is the time when I got in contact with Mattia because again, I opened the submission that I was getting was not so much. So every night I started to like scan Instagram and copy paste a message and invite people like maybe 100 photographers every night. That was the process. And at the end, the participation was quite overwhelming for me because I had maybe more than 400 submissions. And at the end, like the final book I published, I chose 78 between photographer, graphic designer and like poet and whatever. It was like my first book. And currently I have the open call. And the title of this open call is...hold on, I'm going to share the screen. The open call name is Rational Inattention. And again, the inspiration for the open call was my real life because like two years prior, my parents came to visit me in Japan. And my father had an Instagram account. And I was checking his Instagram account and he looked like he had his time of his life, but actually his health condition was not good at all. So it wasn't a good holiday at all. And so I started to reflect of like this dichotomy, like the life that you're showing on the social media and your actual life and how much this is imposed and how much there is a pressure of this. And so I started to develop this open call that you can read on my homepage. So it's currently going on. I just extended the deadline to the end of May. And yeah, I think that's about it so far. Thank you, Raleigh. Can you tell us a little bit more about the Annihilation of Space and Time? What's that about? What's the theme of that? And what have you compiled in terms of this? Is it a bit of an anthology? It is at the end. It's like, for me, what was interesting, it was to have an analysis, a collective analysis. I'm always interested, like it's not only one voice, but I want to know more voice concern regards to a subject. And he, as I was saying before to you, it's like I started with a certain idea that what was the open call about. And then since the submission started to come in, my perception of my own concepts started to change because people started to send me like a project that was like, I'm sorry, I cannot find the English term, but like they were escaping for the world. So there was like a relocation of people and like finding the family in a different place. Or there was a more abstract project. But again, it's like I reconnect to the team in ways that I wasn't even like really thinking about it. That, for me, was an interesting experience. And then for me, this project is mostly about connecting with people. So one of the efforts that I always made and I always remade is like to try to build a relationship with the artists that they want, actually. Not everyone wants, but I built, I can say, friendship with some of them. And that like allowed me to grow so much because like, for example, I'm kind of a beginner photographer, so I never had any like formal education on anything. But I start to like, for example, I'm like, I have regular talk with this Portuguese photographer, and he's a teacher of photography. So always when I'm talking to him, it's like, oh, man, it's like my knowledge is increasing so much. So it is through a collective experience, but also for me, you know, not only for them. And then at the end, how I compiled the book, that was another challenge, because at the same time, it was like my first open call. So I had to say no, like to more than 300 people. And that was like heart wrenching, because I never did anything like that. And once I decided the final selection, I started to think that the editing and the sequence of the book, that was like kind of another challenge. It took me like two months, because as you probably know, if this kind of thing, you can go on forever, making modifications. At a certain point, it kind of revealed itself, and I stopped in that time. And I'm pleased actually how the book came out. There's some amazing photographers on the book. I can show you some of them. After the big F of this, I decided to keep going on, on this collective exploration, because it's something that interests me. But at the same time, I felt the need to work with Artists 101. So I decided to open the app. Now there's only the online magazine, where I feature one photographer every couple of weeks. And we have a chat with them, and they decide which project they want to present. And then I publish the project online. And this is going on for maybe like around a year. But this also is going to transform into a physical one. So I'm planning now to work with some of them, and I'm going to release this new publication soon. There's like focus on one photographer at the time. And the last thing, I recently... The next step is like, I'm also organizing open calls that go not towards publication, but towards exhibition. And the problem of Tokyo is like... I guess it's the same problem in many other cities. It's like you have to rent a gallery usually. And a gallery is extremely expensive. It's like $1,500 a week. And that for me, this is like, it's my project. I'm like, it's a self-funded project. So I can't afford this one. But I somehow found a place. And I just signed a contract three weeks ago. So in June, we have a small like space in Tokyo. And it's like inside a small house. So I can show you maybe. This is just a mock-up of the space. It's like a small Japanese house. It's like 20, 22 square meters. So this is going to host my next event. So I don't have to ask anymore to anyone. And this is the photo of the exhibition that I organized between Tokyo and Italy. So I have actually also physical space, finally. So I can keep a certain consistency. Because the problem also like in renting a space, it's like that space is doing many different things. So also the audience, you cannot catch up. They're not really interested in what you're doing. They're just going for the space. And I'm curious to ask about your audience development. I mean, with you, you say you have 400 submissions for your, you know, that's quite phenomenal. I mean, obviously, you'd need a wide audience just to get a number of people submitting anyway. Can you tell us a little bit about how you've developed a bit of an audience and how you got that many? Or if it's a secret? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, For the moment, yeah, because also the necessity that I felt of like doing something physical for me was like my work in Japan, I do picture mapping, so it's again something digital that when you're off the computer, what I'm doing doesn't exist at all. And like I actually first job, I was a product designer, I was like designing fountain pen, so I really felt the need of like to do something in my hand physical, so but I don't know at the moment, maybe not, but in the future, I'm not sure, but and I also I have to say I was really inspired by the work of your of what I see in your presentation the other day, it was so inspiring. Yeah, actually, I had a session, same place, like we just check all the all the works, like on a huge screen. Yeah, it was super cool. Thank you. Thanks for that. What I am, from my perspective, in terms of producing something like a book is quite a different process to being in a digital arena, you know, there's just possibly some similarities in the starting points, you know, having ideas around aesthetics and that way, the space you want to get to, but the process of creating something that's going to be printed physically is very different, as is the process or the consumption of the object by the person. It's a very different relationship. And possibly, as a more slower, more considered relationship, which is something I aspire to try to push back into the digital realm, I can actually start take your time about how you consume these things, it doesn't have to be a rush. I'm not sure if that will ever really happen within the digital space. But I think it's nice to consider that. And I think as we develop, we'll start to develop more of a manifesto, which I will actually, you know, would like to see some more consideration of that in there. I suppose, I've still got a question in my head. I was going to ask something really important. Oh, yeah, that was it. It's why. So I, as I told you in our chat before we met up, I produced three volumes of this publication, a print publication. And often you get approached by places like issue to put it online. And you think that just doesn't quite make sense. Because with the transition of taking a concept that was created for a book onto an online space, it has to be something completely different. Otherwise, you're just creating a poor copy. I just wonder if you have any ideas about how you begin to transition from the ideas or ideals within that considered space of a printed publication and put it into a digital publication? It's probably an unanswerable question, really, because I've been pondering on it for 10 years now. I think what comes to my mind, like immediately, like where you were talking, I don't think you can. I think you have to do something. As you say, it's going to be just a copy of a poor copy of that, because it looks like media is totally different. The consumption is totally different. So you may take the same concept and then develop for the digital space. But it's going to be a brand new thing, I guess. In fact, I wanted to ask you about that, about your program. Are you considering to remain just online? Or are you considering making some installation for people to see? Or are you just going to be like from your computer, you access it and you enjoy from there? I suppose, Chris, are you going to answer that one? Yeah, I was going to say that we definitely like the sort of future goals is to do some sort of physical things. And like even with this cohort, we've sort of talked about the potential for that. I mean, it's kind of it's interesting, just like as you were talking about, you know, finding space in Tokyo, in Tokyo. Yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, the sort of like difficulty of finding physical space versus the, you know, accessibility of just, yeah, like we're saying, having this sort of virtual space. So it's I mean, it's it's definitely like something that's in the cards, but that we maybe need a little bit more time on to actually do something physical, you know, because, yeah, I was curious, like, actually, to throw a question sort of back at you a little bit, how you think having this space is going to sort of change, you know, your approach to things like, you know, this jump into the actual and it, you know, I know that you've kind of done stuff physically. But yeah, if you could talk about like how the jump into this like space might might change things. I haven't seen much in terms of like how the artwork will be consumed by the viewer. But I was thinking mostly like in my term, like to have a space where I can have continuity with what I'm doing. And like, I can decide every week to do something without begging and to create like a reference because weirdly enough, like in Tokyo, like the majority, like, for example, photography, it's street photography, there's not much of contemporary photography, at least there are some of like our gallery, but mostly the focus is like street photography, there's a majority of people in street photography, where they don't even understand what is like contemporary photography. So for me, it's like, I see that at the moment as a space that can give me like this, the new extension of what I'm doing mostly, but I think it's gonna with time, I guess, and I really hope like to work in more close with the artist by each exhibition. So yeah, I don't know if that answer your question. Yeah, I think so. I'm curious what the, like, the space looks beautiful. I'm just, I'm kind of curious, because the space looks so beautiful. But like, what kind of area is it in? Is it like a busy area? Or is it sort of like, like, I guess, I can show I can show it. So it's an interesting area, because it's like, it's a suburb. I mean, Tokyo, it's huge. It's like, it's a kind of every building is kind of old. So also, we rent the space, but this house may be not there in two years time, because Tokyo is like, it's incredibly dynamic. So it's like, I'm in Italy, but I'm sure that I'm going back to Tokyo next month, and buildings disappear and new stuff is turning on. And the area is like, it's kind of near to one of the three big cities of Tokyo. But that is like, super quiet, like small houses. Hold on, I'm gonna show you if you give me just one second. Because I think, like, what's interesting for me is sort of, like, you know, if this space, like, it sounds like maybe this space is something that people will have to kind of, like, go out of their way to go see, which is, I mean, for me, it's, like, super interesting to consider, like, the proliferation of, like, offsite spaces, you know, in the past few years, where, you know, people, like, because of Instagram, and because of social media, will, like, see a gallery space and be like, okay, I'm going to travel to X rather than the sort of busy areas, you know, where it's, like, if you if you get what I mean. No, no, I know. Also, the other choice that I haven't said of this area is like, it's kind of, so the one surprising thing, like, in Japan, it's not easy to, for a foreigner to get a rent contract of anything. So they're, they're not trust foreigners a lot. And it was why so we, we rent the space, we are three, three artists, it's me, another Italian, Japanese guy. And but then we decide that I will be the name of the contract. And the owner was like, Yeah, sure, no problem. Because in there, there's another maybe three, like, there's a cafe, and then there's another, like a small gallery. And every this place is run by foreigner. And somehow potentially look like it's an area that is open to it's not like in the middle of anything. And hopefully, we can create also like a synergy with other places, because the cafe place is like, he opened a couple of years ago. And it's quite successful, because there was a lot of people going to this place. So we are thinking like to to create like a connection with the gallery. So the people like with transit from them because it's like, it's three minutes by walk from the gallery. Hold on, I'm just trying to find the place on the map. Well, it's a bet. I mean, the rent itself is not very expensive. The place is small, as I say, it's like 20, 22 square meters, but let's see. Oh, okay. I'm going to share the window. Hold on. Let me guys, when you can see the map. Can you guys see the map? No, not at all. Not yet. Sometimes this goes a little bit temperamental. Is it a link? Is there a web link? No, but I can. Hold on. Because it's on Apple map, because they have like a 3D map, but I can do it from the link. Hold on. Yeah, it's totally outside of like the major places. But I have to say, like in Tokyo, there are many galleries in the city, so it's not unusual like to go out of your way, like to go to different places. Hold on. Yeah, I'm just, I'm super interested in how you're going to sort of like leverage your online platform to getting people into the physical space. You know, I think that that's like, yeah, that I've just like thought about a lot recently of like, you know, you've already built this sort of platform. So it's cool to like, it'll be cool to like see, you know, how it becomes reality. Yeah, we are thinking that a lot, actually. One of the things that we will do, hold on. The idea is like, at the beginning, like to involve like local photographers that we know they have a following because we have to start to put the name of the of the gallery like out. So that is going to be the first step. And then I think lots of advertisement, because like I'm, as I know many, there are, but the community I have of photography is more like international. So I'm going to have exhibition more of like international artists. So I want to be sure that when we do that kind of exhibition, like the audience will come anyway. But yeah, I'm not, I don't know, but I'm hopeful. I'm just zooming out of the map. You get a real sense of how fantastic it is. It's phenomenal. That is just amazing. Right? Yeah, it's insane. I used to teach, I used to lecture on fashion communication and promotion at university in the UK. And each year that we were teaching, we'd get sent out to a different location. And I got sent out to New York. Another one was Berlin, I think they've switched to Milan now and the other one they sent the third year to Tokyo and I really wanted to go but just never happened before I left. Unfortunately, I'm still itching to go to Japan, particularly Tokyo and just experience it. I want to go. Now is a good moment because the yen is so weak. Now is the best one. I don't think it's gonna be ever weaker than now. It's like it's crazy weak. So full of tourist sites. It's quite a big art scene in Tokyo. There's a huge art scene happening there. You mentioned before you feel, you know, certain type of photography that's just not happening there. People are following specific trends, do you think or is it why they're not more eclectic? Yeah, because there's a bunch of following. And I think the Japanese audience in general are more interested in already established artists. They are curious, but they don't tend to go out of their way if you're nobody, you know what I mean? So like there is a lot of museums, like big museums, where like some museums are really good, like some decoration is not that good. But like overall, like the big audiences I can see is like it's a western traditional exhibition like this kind of stuff. For me, it's like completely not interesting. And also I think that the system, the museum system, I don't know how it is in your countries, but like in Italy, it's like a state thing. But in Japan, it's like it's a private thing because there is no support for the art in Japan, like nothing. Wow, that's interesting. Yeah, I'm not sure what it's like in the States. But yeah, it's obviously it's a very much a state run thing in the UK. Nearly all museums, very few are privately run in the UK. Do you think, I mean, this is just a bit of a throwaway question. I'm sure you don't really necessarily have the insight. But do you think maybe the Japanese, are they open to the kind of thing we're putting forward in terms of our hybrid reality studio? I think so. I think that they are. I'm sure. Because if you check like media, new media, Japanese artists, it's like there's a lot of like they are like in the realm of the digital. There's several, like very good. I don't know if you're familiar with Ryoji Ikeda, but like, yeah, there's many. There's many. And surely it's interesting. They have interest because they're used to like that kind of aesthetic. And I think it's a familiar realm for the Japanese. I'm sure. There is also like, I think there's one museum that I'm sure that could be interested in what you're doing. And I'm going to, it's called the Intercommunication Centre, Entity Intercommunication Centre. It's my favourite museum. And it's run by the Entity. There's like a telephone company. And they have like this small museum and they have like a permanent exhibition. And then they have like every six months they change what's going on. It's always super interesting. And well done. The exhibitions are well curated. It's like, and at least until a few months ago it was free to go. So that was a plus. It's not free at all. I'm not sure because I went like before coming to Italy, I went to see they did a Sakamoto exhibition, but that was a paid one, but like $3. So nothing big. I'm sure to what you're doing is maybe more fit to your program. Definitely. Thank you. I'll have a look at that. Yes. There's also another one now I cannot remember. It's not in Tokyo, it's outside Tokyo, but definitely I think you can also contact them. Thank you. Thanks. Anybody have any questions, anything they want to ask? Other than me. Yeah, there's one thing I wanted to ask. I mean, since you've looked at so many artists, submissions, portfolios, those types of submissions, basically, I was wondering if you have any tips to the cohort about if they ever go on to submit open calls, what are things you can do to maybe help yourself stand out amongst 400 or 500 submissions? Are there things for you when you look at all of those that stood out to you as very high quality aspects of a portfolio or things that catch your attention, or what is it that made you choose the submissions that you chose? Yeah, of course. I think it's a very subjective thing because I'm tied in basically by myself, but usually I do not check bio at all. I don't care where you exhibit it, what you did. I just check the statement of the project, if it fits the concept. And many times what I see is they just took out of the call and they just... Like when I was doing Italian language in school, I was just copying and just going around there. There's no originality. And then, of course, I look at them submission and then I look at them portfolio usually. Not Instagram, I don't think Instagram doesn't show anything, but I think having a website now is quite important to show. But yeah, I think that bio, like not at all. Because I don't think it's important, like no bio, no how many followers you have on Instagram, like your statement, your work, and then your portfolio. But portfolio is secondary because even if this is your first work, it's like if the work is good, that doesn't matter if you have no other works other than that. Yeah, basically that's it. I think that actually can be seen as quite reassuring now. Because sometimes I would say that you feel like you yourself as an artist, if you apply to an open call, you have to have something to show for yourself. And we're always thinking about our online presence, what are we showing on Instagram? What is our following already? And also, there's always this feeling that goes with it that you have to have already had exhibitions and other types of publications or whatever. So it's refreshing to hear that for you. Maybe this has to do with the fact that you look at so many of these submissions that what counts is how you respond to the concept of your open call and also the quality of your submission or the quality of the project that you want to submit more so than anything else. And I think that is quite reassuring, as Alexa has also said. Yeah, because for me, at the end, what is important is what will be the quality of the final selection. So I want to have a great book or a great exhibition. And if you have one million followers but your photo is shit, I don't care. But I'm not sure about other organizations, how they think. And also, the effort I'm doing from the previous call is if I have some doubt on some artwork or if I feel that they mistook the submission, if I check their portfolio and I think that it fits more the open call, I'm going to contact them and say, listen, are you against, instead of your submission, doing this? Of course, if they don't want to, I can't do anything about it. But I try to have a conversation. And also, from the previous open call, what I introduced is that if the, let's say, rejected artists of the open call, if they want to know why I rejected them, I'm going to explain why. Because for me as an artist, one of the big issues was like, I applied for many open calls, I'm not going to choose, but I don't know why. So it's a quality of my work. And then being on the other side, like choosing, I realized that sometimes the project is fantastic, but it just doesn't fit the anvil of work or it doesn't fit the concept so much. But that doesn't mean your work is not worthy of being fantastic. So I felt this was important to give back to the artists at the end. Do you consider yourself a curator, Giovanni? Oh, man, it's a good question. Maybe, but I don't see myself, I don't ever introduce myself like that. I've always like, but yeah, probably I'm doing that kind of work, but like, yeah, maybe, but I don't represent myself as that. Fair enough. If there are no more questions, we could perhaps take a very quick break and let Giovanni go and say thanks for giving us a great talk. Thanks very much. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Again, just to let everyone know, the open call, as Giovanni said, is still running. Do apply if you want to. I think some of the work that you've produced in this course and also generally in your practice seems to fit the concept that he's working with. So I'm going to link it here again. It would be great to see some of your work in the final publication. And I would like to say one thing that I forget to say, that like now also for my online magazine, so far I just feature photographer, but it could be interesting to feature something else. There's no photographer, so please, that's free. So you just send me an email through the website and we can just talk about it. Brilliant. Thank you very much, Giovanni. Thank you, guys. Have a nice evening. Yeah. Thank you. See you again. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Shall we take five, ten, and come back and just, if you can say, I'd like to hear from all of you and hear what you're doing next, maybe, and then say goodbye. We've also got a feed platform I'd like to send you a link to. You can fill in in your own time and just let us know what you think of the whole thing. But should we, how long do we want, five, ten? Say five. Five. Yeah, see if I can five on. Okay, cool. See you in a bit.
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