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Artist ‘Biancoshock’ creates real-life Internet in small village – Metro US

Artist ‘Biancoshock’ creates real-life Internet in small village

In this day and age where everyone is online, it’s difficult to imagine what life was like before being ‘connected’. A small village of 400 people in Italy called Civitacampomarano, with a little help from Italian artist Biancoshock and his project WEB 0.0, shows us that people can socialize, shop, and date without the Internet.

What’s the story behind Web 0.0?

In this village, rich in folk traditions, the Internet is a partially unknown world: mobile phones have difficulty working and the data connection is practically non-existent. The idea is to show that these virtual functions, considered by the vast majority of the population as necessary and essential to everyday life, also exist in the country, where the connection is hard to reach. This is a sort of Internet “in real life” , which demonstrates that the ‘web world’, has, in a way, always existed and has allowed people and families to have cultural exchanges, by, for example, meeting at the bar.

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Why did you choose Civitacampomarano to make the project?

I was invited to a festival, CVTa Street Fest with the aim to create a site specific project for a little village (Civitacampomarano – southern Italy), which is semi-abandoned and populated by just 400 souls, mainly elderly.

What was the village’s reaction to your project?

They were very excited and surprised. Most of them are old (over 70 years old) and don’t know the meaning of the logos and their functions. But after explaining to them about the project, we found the perfect objects and situations to transform, in order to make the association between the real world and social media worlds. All the people helped me: some of them offered to participate in person, while others offered their shops or vehicles.

What did your project teach you?

That even without Internet, apps or social media, it is possible to have social relationships.

www.biancoshock.com

— By Daniel Casillas