Since the arrival of Big Data, the limitless storehouse of neoliberal globalisation, it is our very psyche that is being handed over as merchandise. How Things Dream is a current project that imagines the possible consequences of the ongoing extension of the links between technology, neoliberalism, power and control. With the creation of AURA, an imaginary technological enterprise, the Discipula collective is installing the communication apparatus of a private body providing diversified and wide-ranging services. AURA supplies essential services in fields such as home automation, health, security, education and government, and soon the visualisation of our own dreams. If we scrutinise Google’s investment plans: Artificial Intelligence / business cloud / consumer interfaces / virtual and augmented reality / telecommunications and energy / transport and logistics / health and FinTech, it turns out that in noting the closeness of the worst case scenario we see it is already happening in actual reality. Discipula draws a potential post-democratic world, characterised by the irrevocable imposition of a global regime focused on business in which surveillance and control are fully accepted and integrated into the convenience of everyday life.

Discipula is a research collective based in Milan that has been active since 2013 in the fields of image and visual culture. Its founders, M. F. G. Paltrinieri, Mirko Smerdel and Tommaso Tanini, share the attributes of psychologist, artist and photographer. Most of their projects emerge from the appropriation, post-production and analysis of images captured from various production and consumption flows. They adopt various narrative strategies and explore the interleaving of fact and fiction. Being involved in the design, self-publication and distribution of their books and printed objects is a way of taking their projects outside conventional institutional channels and questioning the distinction between creation and production. Their works have been the subject of solo exhibitions in 2015 at the Format Festival, Derby, UK; Spazio Labò, Bologna; Kunsthalle Mélycsarnok, Budapest; and RED Gallery, London. They also participate in many festivals such as JimeiXArles, Xiamen; Unseen Photo Festival Amsterdam; Krakow Photomonth in 2016. Discipula is represented by the MLZ Art Dep Galerie in Trieste.

Photography : Discipula, How Things Dream