Before the dawn, the night. Filippo Panseca, pioneer of digital art

Abstract

The essay aims to read the work of Filippo Panseca. Panseca, today an unknown name to most, was a protagonist of the contemporary art world from the 1960s onwards, opening a reflection on technological languages. Panseca began experimenting with digital technologies as early as 1975 when, together with the critic Pierre Restany, he created the first satellite work, sending a work of art via satellite from New York to Milan. At the end of the 70s, Panseca made the first digital portraits in San Francisco, to then continue throughout the 80s, both in the artistic and political fields (Panseca was the architect of the sets of the Socialist party in the 1980s). In the 1980s Panseca created many works with computers, among which we highlight SWART, the machine that creates works of art, a system created by the artist himself with engineers to produce automatic limited edition works of art. However, Panseca's art must be contextualized in the particular artistic climate of the seventies and eighties, also linked to the experimentation of new media and the incorporation of technologies within artistic practices.

Keywords

• digital art
• contemporary art
• filippo panseca
• pierre restany
• satellite art