Talks
Digital Art Dialogues: A conversation with artists Mara Oscar Cassiani and Ginevra Petrozzi
Join us for a presentation and discussion with Italian artists Mara Oscar Cassiani (MOC) and Ginevra Petrozzi, currently artists in residence in Bangalore as part of Silicon Plateau— a research project and publishing series edited by Marialaura Ghidini and Tara Kelton.
The event will begin with an overview of the project, followed by presentations by the artists on their creative practices. It will also explore the theme of Silicon Plateau’s forthcoming Volume 3: exploring the intersections of technology, magic and ritual, and how folklore and cultural traditions can challenge dominant digital narratives, inspiring alternative pathways for human–algorithm collaboration.
Through distinct approaches, Cassiani and Petrozzi engage with digital cultures, alternative perspectives and the role of technology in shaping contemporary society. Petrozzi focuses on themes of care, the future and algorithmic governance.
Embracing the role of a “digital witch,” she reimagines mysticism and the occult within the context of technology and politics. Cassiani, working across performance, choreography, digital media and club culture, explores the margins of both online and offline worlds. She examines how digital platforms shape collective experience and reflects on the loss of local identity in an increasingly globalised age.
Join us as each artist draws upon ritual, myth and digital aesthetics to question our relationship with technology and envision new possibilities for our shared realities.
This event and the artist-in-residence programme are supported by The Consulate General of Italy in Bengaluru.
Bookings
Mara Oscar Cassiani (MOC)
Mara Oscar Cassiani (MOC) is an artist from Southern Italy who works with performance, choreography, digital media and club culture. MOC explores how digital platforms shape collective consciousness, engaging with the aesthetics, semiotics, and rituals of online communities to reveal the intersections between personal expression and mass cultural phenomena. Moving fluidly between online and offline peripheries, MOC investigates the loss of geographical roots and the new rituals emerging from globalisation and the erosion of local heritage.
MOC’s work has been showcased at major Italian and European festivals, including Rome’s Digitalive, Kilowatt Festival, Vernulvier Ghent and Vorspiele Transmediale. Notable projects include SPIRIT (winner of the Digitalive Award at Romaeuropa Festival in 2019), NUOVO HABITAT, and Ai Love, Ghosts and Uncanny Valleys (winner of Residenze Digitali 2023). https://maracassiani.tumblr.com
Ginevra Petrozzi
Ginevra Petrozzi is an interdisciplinary designer and artist currently based in The Netherlands. Her work explores contemporary issues around care, futurity and algorithmic governance. Through critical research, writing and creative production she aims to make space for other ideas and forms of intelligence, knowledge and wisdom, both human and non-human. Currently, she is exploring the possibilities of mysticism and the occult within the intersection of technology and politics.
In this framework, she has taken on the role of a “digital witch”, reclaiming the archetypal role of the sorceress as a healer, and as a political rebel. Petrozzi was a resident at Jan Van Eyck Academie for the 2023-2024 fellowship. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Het Hem, INDEX Braga Biennial, ADI Design Museum and BASE Milano.
Marialaura Ghidini
Marialaura Ghidini is a curator, lecturer and researcher with a particular interest in how digital technologies influence human behaviours and relationships with the surrounding environment. Since her PhD, she has explored the impact of online and digital curating on cultural production, access to culture and audience engagement.
Her curated online projects include the platform or-bits.com (2009–2015), #exstrange (2017), the archive curating.online (winner of Italian Council 9, 2021) and We Are All Users, Till We Are Not (2025) on MACTE Digital. Marialaura has lectured at various universities, including Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design & Technology (2015-2021), and has presented her work in academic journals, books, conferences and workshops. She has collaborated with organisations such as the Exhibition Research Lab at Liverpool John Moores University, The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art and Digital Methods Summer School 2020 at the University of Amsterdam.
Tara Kelton
Tara Kelton is an Indian-American artist and designer living in Bangalore, India. Tara investigates forms of drawing, and the relationship between human and machine, in light of new technology and tools of image production. Experiments and collaborations with digital labour, and processes typically involving relinquishing aesthetic control over the outcome, are an important part of the work. Recently her practice has focused on the diminishing role of the human in contemporary life (replaced by automation, AI and digital mediation) and the remote control of labour by western bodies and corporations.
Tara has exhibited internationally at the ZKM Karlsruhe; ICA Singapore; Dilalica Barcelona; Queens Museum of Art; distant.gallery; GallerySKE; Serendipity Arts Festival; Clark House Initiative; Mumbai Art Room; The Centre for Internet and Society; New Digital Art Biennale; and the Kochi Muziris Biennale. Her work has appeared in Artforum, ID Magazine, rhizome.org, Platform Magazine, Arts Illustrated, Vogue, and Shifter.
Silicon Plateau
Since 2015, Silicon Plateau has been a space for reflecting on the social and cultural dimensions of technology. Rooted in Bangalore’s dynamic technological landscape, this publishing project amplifies diverse voices and local narratives, promoting dialogue across disciplines. This edition continues the editors’ ongoing interest in deepening connections between India and Italy.
