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Mattia Casalegno

AEROBANQUETS RMX

I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal.

Groucho Marx

The Aerobanquets are immersive, sensorial experiences focussed on the perception of taste. Loosely based on the Futurist Cookbook the (in)famous Italian book of surreal dinners and recipes first published in 1932, the project is a collaboration with Flavio Ghignoni Carestia, chef at the Toscanini Cafe in Amsterdam. Aligned with the Futurist notion of a «total work of art», Aerobanquets RMX is a veritable multisensorial journeys that leverages virtual and augmented reality ( VR/AR ) technologies.

Part manifesto, part artistic joke, the Futurist Cookbook is a collection of recipes, experiments, declamations and allegorical tales: here are recipes for ice cream on the moon; candied atmospheric electricities; nocturnal love feasts; sculpted meats. The Futurist Cookbook is a provocative, visionary work on the future of nourishment, which well ahead of time touched on issues of post-capitalistic societies and labor that are so relevant to our times.

About the artist

Mattia Casalegno is an Italian interdisciplinary artist, live-media performer and installation artist working in a broad range of media. His multidisciplinary work is influenced by both post-conceptualism and digital art, and has been defined relational, immersive, and participatory. His practice explores the effects new media have on our societies, investigating the relationships between technology, the objects we create, our subjectivities, and the modes in which these relations unfold into each other. Casalegno was born in Naples, Italy and studied Communication studies at La Sapienza University in Rome and Design Media Arts at UCLA. He performed and exhibited in international arts festivals and institutions including MUTEK (CA), Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (TW), New Technological Art Awards (BE), Budafabriek Kunstcentrum (BE), La Oficina de l’Arte (AR), Optronica (UK), Le Cube – Contemporary Art Museum (FR), OFFF (SP), AVIT (GE), Wright Gallery, AxS Festival and LACMA in US, and Netmage, Sant’Arcangelo dei Teatri, Romaeuropa Festival, MACRO Museum and Auditorium in Rome, Italy. In 2001 he co-founded with Giovanni D’Aloia the project Kinotek, a seminal VJing and live-media group based in Rome, among the first Italian collectives to use digital tools during their performances. In 2002 he collaborated with the duo Metaxu ( Økapi and Maurizio Martusciello). In 2005 he collaborated with the electronic music composer Maurizio Martusciello in the audiovisual project X-Scape, presented in numerous international and Italian events.

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