in short
Born in Italy not long before 2000, I want to give my contribution to a collective change using listening, art, pedagogy, space, self-reflection, dialogue and research as tools. After studying art in Bolzano and Jerusalem, I became aware of my agency. I decided to use my potential by working with people in order to provoke awareness, starting from small things and dreaming of shaping a global network of meaningful connections. I am looking forward to working with you.
what I do
I do things with people. According to the situation, we call what we do together in different ways: art, music, zoom meeting, book, volunteering, dinner, youth work, radio station, social project, gathering and so on. Since I especially care about the organization of this collective something, which always happens in the present, there can even be no product—but when there is, it’s usually freely available and owned by everyone who took part in it. I am also experimenting alternative ways to evaluate and tell a collaborative process, collecting traces and being as inclusive as possible with the people I work with. This practice is important for me because I want to understand what listening is and how we can use it to imagine and create our future.
artist statement
Matteo Zoccolo is a listener and socially engaged artist. Questioning contemporary notions of participation and experiences of togetherness, he initiates and cares for inclusive physical/immaterial spaces for reflection and mutual exchange, encouraging the formation of horizontal groups, communities and networks using enquiry, active listening and pedagogy as tools. Since 2017 he has carried research and initiated/developed long-term and temporary projects in Jerusalem, Bolzano, Linz and Biella—close to his little Italian village of origin. Constantly reflecting and resonating with his surroundings, his transdisciplinary work embraces uncertainty, vulnerability, fluidity, openness and response-ability. Together with his main practice, which is situated and always happens in the here and now, he also seeks to collaboratively develop and establish new instruments and scales to evaluate the impact of an ongoing participatory process. Whether a collective experience/effort may lead to tangible products (e.g. publications, radio transmissions, performances, exhibitions) or leave nothing but ephemeral traces in some people’s minds, he hopes to participate with small but meaningful actions in a potential shift towards a culture of empathy.
resources (partial list)
- Andrea Mazzocco, Economia Comunitaria Indigena: Alternative al capitalismo e autonomia dei popoli latinoamericani, ombre corte, 2021
- Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, Princeton University Press, 2015
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1946), Der Kleine Prinz, Karl Rauch Verlag, 1956
- Antonio Brizioli (a cura di), Lezioni di Anarchia – Cronache di incontri realmente avvenuti in Edicola 518, Perugia, elèuthera editrice, Emergenze Publishing, 2019
- Beatrice Catanzaro, Journey into Relatedness: Ways to overcome the separation between inner and outer action, engender eco-social insight and facilitate new forms of transdisciplinary Connective Practice, Social Sculpture and Socially Engaged Art, PhD thesis, Oxford Brookes University, 2021
- Bill Harpe, Games for the New Years: A DIY Guide to Games for the 21st Century, Liverpool: The Blackie / Great Georges Community Cultural Project, 2001
- Brandon LaBelle, Acoustic Territories: Sound culture and everyday life, Bloomsbury Academic, 2019
- Brandon LaBelle, Sonic Agency: Sound and Emergent Forms of Resistance, Goldsmiths Press, 2018
- Brian O’Doherty (1986), Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space, Johan & Levi, 2000
- Byung-Chul Han (2010), The Burnout Society, Stanford University Press, 2015
- Callum Copley (edited by), Reworlding: Ramallah – Short Science Fiction Stories from Palestine, Onomatopee, 2019
- Carlo Rovelli, Sette brevi lezioni di fisica, Adelphi, 2014
- Carlos Castaneda (1972), Viaggio a Ixtlan: Le lezioni di don Juan, Rizzoli, 2016
- Céline Condorelli, Support Structures, Sternberg Press, 2009
- Claire Bishop, Artificial Hells: participatory art and the politics of spectatorship, Verso, 2012
- Daniel Chandler, Semiotics: The Basics, Routledge, 2001
- Dean Spade, Mutual Aid: Building solidarity during this crisis (and the next), Verso, 2020
- Edward W. Said (1978), Orientalism, Vintage Books Edition, 1979
- Erich Fromm (1956), L’arte di amare, Mondadori, 1995
- Étienne de La Boétie (1576), Discorso della servitù volontaria, Feltrinelli, 2020
- Fritjof Capra (1975), Il Tao della fisica, Einaudi, 1995
- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak?, in Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (edited by), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Macmillan, 1988.
- Gemma Corradi Fiumara, The Other Side of Language: A philosophy of listening, Routledge, 1990
- Gil Z. Hochberg, Visual Occupations: Violence and Visibility in a Conflict Zone, Duke University Press, 2015
- Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari (1980), Mille piani. Capitalismo e schizofrenia, Orthotes, 2017
- Guy Debord (1967), La società dello spettacolo – Commentari sulla società dello spettacolo, Baldini & Castoldi, 2017
- Hakim Bey, TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Pacific Publishing Studio, 2011
- Henry David Thoreau (1849), Disobbedienza Civile, Einaudi, 2018
- Hito Steyerl, The Wretched of the Screen, Sternberg Press, 2012
- Italo Calvino, Le città invisibili, Einaudi, 1972
- Jacques Derrida (1994), The politics of Friendship, Verso, 1997
- Jean Baudrillard, The Perfect Crime, Verso, 1996
- Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook, Routledge, 2010
- Kahlil Gibran (1923), Il Profeta, Studio Editoriale, 1985
- Luc Boltanski, Eve Chiapello (1999), The New Spirit of Capitalism, Verso, 2018
- Lucia Farinati, Claudia Firth, The Force of Listening, Errant Bodies Press, 2017
- Lucilla Meloni, Le ragioni del gruppo: Un percorso tra gruppi, collettivi, sigle, comunità nell’arte in Italia dal 1945 al 2000, Postmedia books, 2020
- Mahmoud Darwish (2000), Mural, 2009
- Marc Augé (1992), Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, Verso, 1995
- Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, PuddleDancer Press, 2015
- Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, Routledge, 1964
- Michel Foucault (1966), Utopie Eterotopie, Cronopio, 2006
- Michelangelo Pistoletto, il Terzo Paradiso, Marsilio Editori, 2010
- Milan Kundera (1984), L’insostenibile Leggerezza dell’Essere, Adelphi, 1985
- p.m., bolo’bolo, Edizioni l’Affranchi, 1987
- Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice, iUniverse, 2005
- Paulo Freire (1968), Pedagogia degli oppressi, Edizioni Gruppo Abele, 2018
- Roland Barthes, La camera chiara: Nota sulla fotografia, Einaudi, 1980
- Sascha Delz, Eainer Hehl, Patricia Ventura, Housing the Co-op: A Micro-political Manifesto, Ruby Press Berlin, 2020
- Silvio Lorusso, Enterprecariat, Krisis Publishing, 2018
- Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, Penguin Books, 2003
- The Care Collective, The Care Manifesto: The politics of interdependence, Verso, 2020
- Umberto Eco, Vertigine della lista, Bompiani, 2009
- Václav Janoščík, Boris Ondreička (edited by), Speculative Ruinology: Interpretation as a Mode of Survival, Class of Interpretation at Academy of Fine Arts Prague, 2020
- Vincenzo Estremo, Teoria del Lavoro Reputazionale: Saggio sul capitalismo artistico, Milieu edizioni, 2020
- Walter Benjamin (1935), The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, in Walter Benjamin, Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, Schocken Books, 1969
- Wassily Kandinsky (1926), Punto, linea, superficie, Adelphi, 1968
- Yuval Noah Harari (2011), Da animali a dèi, Bompiani, 2017