Francesco Fonassi (Brescia, 1986), is an italian artist, sonic researcher and musician operating in the field of contemporary art, live media and experimental music. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at Italian and international institutions such as Palais de Tokyo, Paris; MAXXI, MACRO, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome; Viafarini DOCVA e CareOf, Milan; Mambo, Bologna; The Emily Harvey Foundation, New York; Färgfabriken, Stockholm; CSMVS Museum, Mumbai. He has been finalist at Furla Prize (2015), LUM Prize (2011) and winner of Moroso Concept Award (2017) and 6Artista Prize (2012). Among the interventions in festivals, and indipendent spaces: Clark House Initiative, Mumbai; BB15, Linz; Blockhaus DY10, Nantes; DKSG Galerija e Remont Gallery, Belgrade; A Certain Lack Of Coherence, Porto; Glassbox, Paris; Spazio O’, Milan; Sarajevo Winter Festival, Sarajevo; Bjcem, Skopje; Q16_Rome Quadriennale, Rome.

Forming a primarily ethical relationship with knowledge and with others, the work of Francesco Fonassi acts on the dynamics of perception, forcing reality to clash with the devices of separation and interaction that are implied by and express a general feeling. He does this by focusing on the human tendency to submit or react to forms of aggression and isolation, interruption and duration, through the experience of listening, which he takes as a threshold on which to explore relationships of activity and passivity, and beyond which to trace out realms of co-belonging. Through actions, recordings, environmental configurations, radio transmissions, listening sessions, live performances, and the creation of audiovisual and sensory spaces, Fonassi gives tangible form to the place where knowledge and imagination flow into each other, and the image – whether mathematical, visual or auditory – takes on a function of actualization. Linking together different forms of knowledge, Fonassi designs the space for a multitude of subjects that are no longer passive, both perceiving and perceived, susceptible to developing ways of holding together and resisting inclusion in a self-sufficient whole, be it acoustic or social.