online/IRL project curated by Treti Galaxie
The starting point of Land of Nod is the recording of biometric data (breathing rate, heart rate, body movements) of my partner, Federica, during sleep. The recording, made through a wearable biomedical device, provides a report, a kind of portrait in data form, then recorded and marketed as NFT. The process was documented through a photograph taken with a view camera, created in collaboration with photographer Marcello Galvani. Produced in two versions - contact print and print from digital scanning scaled to the actual size of the subject represented - the photograph constitutes the physical part of the project. Land of Nod thus consists of an edition of NFTs, titled The Sleep, and the two versions of the photograph, titled The Sleeper and The Sleeper (life-size). The fruition of the NFT, a three-page pdf file, is reserved for purchasers.
Bringing the different outcomes of Land of Nod together is an almost animistic conception of the device, along the lines of the long-standing topos of soul theft often associated with photography and updated to the use of biomedical devices and blockchain. This animistic conception is echoed in the current issue regarding privacy and control over sensitive data, which reactualizes archaic fears with respect to the influence of technologies - broadly speaking - on the human. Sleep, terra incognita par excellence, is subjected to a regime of value extraction, desacralized through the measurement of data and re-sacralized in the form of a computer fetish. The project is accompanied by a sci-fi tale by Treti Galaxie, entitled From the Dream Experiments Collection.
The Land of Nod, from which the project takes its title, is a place mentioned in the Book of Genesis (4: 16), located “on the east of Eden”, where Cain was exiled by the Lord after the murder of his brother Abel. Often described as a dark place, dwelt by monsters and beasts, the Land of Nod was also reported by the Christian scholar Origen as a place that symbolizes the condition of all those who abandon God. Later, being in the Land of Nod took on the idiomatic meaning of being asleep, and gradually lost its somber connotation.
Land of Nod is commissioned by OmniArtVerse and has been realized thanks to the support of FAB Foundation
Graphic design: Studio Visivo (Marco Casella, Mattia Pajè)
Press:
KubaParis
About (interview)
Segnonline
Exibart (interview)
Tropico del Cancro
Phroom
Pictures:
1-3 The Sleeper, 2022, contact c-print from 4x5” negative on Fuji Chrystal Archive papaer, 36x27x3cm (framed)
4-6 The Sleeper (life-size), 2022, inkjet print on baryta paper Canson II 103,5x130x4,5cm
7-9 The Sleep, 2022, pdf file, 0,99 kb (blurred)
10 Graphic design
Ph: Manuel Montesano
