From Premiata Ditta to UnDo.Net. The artist’s dematerialisation

Abstract

Vincenzo Chiarandà and Anna Stuart Tovini have been active since the 1980s as Premiata Ditta, an "autonomous organisation that collaborates with an interdisciplinary network of experts, with the intention of 'unveiling' the increasingly pervasive aspect of the post-Fordist economic system". With this programmatic status, PD was chosen by Bourriaud as an example to articulate and illustrate his concept of Relational Aesthetics. In the same years, he participated in important exhibitions such as Il Faut construire l'Hacienda, curated by Bourriaud and Troncy, in 1992, and Project Unitè, curated by Aupetitallot, in the following year. In the mid-1990s, however, PD transformed its activity by creating a site, UnDo.Net, with the aim of giving its work a more participatory dimension and facilitating the sharing of information, research, resources and knowledge to build a freer and more open community. The essay aims to analyse this passage with the intention also of probing the limits of relational practice and, in parallel, to investigate the resistance, on the part of the artistic system, to understanding the importance of the construction of UnDo.Net as a structure for information and the creation of networked projects.