History unfolds as a non-linear process, rich with bifurcations and untaken paths. Yet we always find ourselves bound to a single trajectory. To tell a story, to weave a conspiracy, is to slip back into those forgotten possibilities, to walk the roads that history left behind.
PROGRAMMA 101 - REINCANTAMENTO's installation for MFRU31 - moves between narrative and factuality, uncovering the hidden fragments buried at the origin of our digital present. The work explores the unique experience of Olivetti, the most successful 20th century italian technological company. An almost utopian model of technical and social development, Olivetti's experience was rooted in humanistic principles and social solidarity, with its roots in catholic heresy and anti-fascist resistance. A project that peaked in the early 1960s before coming to a very abrupt end.
Infused with the aesthetics and logic of conspiracy, PROGRAMMA 101 invites viewers to navigate hidden connections and obscured truths about italy's cold war trajectory, the influence of the us empire, and its impact on the current western technological landscape. Rather than presenting a singular truth, the work engages with an evidentiary paradigm, shifting between absences, suggestions, and fleeting impressions. Its truth is not a whole, but a fragmented mosaic to be reassembled.
The two ideos facing each other tell the enigmatic story from two differing perspectives, while the terminal receives cryptic messages and prompts from the PROGRAMMA 101 archive. The installation becomes a space for active interpretation, where visitors piece together clues to form their own understanding of this pivotal moment in technological history.
Credits: