THEY KNOW IT includes:
first parassitosis (2013, HD video, 2’19’’, color, sound)
second parassitosis (2013, HD video, 2’59’’, color, sound)
third parassitosis (2013, HD video, 2’32’’, color, sound)
The trilogy “THEY KNOW IT” wants to show the intrinsic nature of the city of Cagliari through short microzoops with an epiphanic character. Through these apparitions the spectator finds himself helpless to observe his own city devoured by ants. Become part of a system, that of inaction, of the lack of solutions, both on the part of institutions and on the part of ordinary cItizens. Cagliari as a symbol, like any other city, capable of living only through what it was without a more than faint idea of any future. Fortunately, something moves, only for a few eyes. Those who know the city know that reality is somewhere else, that Cagliari is alive. There is really a strong ferment among the new generations, but they are only able to expand their small and limited ego. There is no social cohesion, there is no human solidarity. Sometimes it happens to meet some rare exceptions, and it is an immense pleasure in a dead city. Dead, because there is no other way. Cities are now doomed to failure, cities as we know them now. The ants know this and sanction it with their arrival.
In the 2013 this series wins the video section of “Premio Babel”, a competition for young artists under 35 aimed at the promotion and enhancement of contemporary art in Sardinia.
Matteo Campulla (b. 1982 – Iglesias, Sardinia) began his artistic practice in the late 90s in various anonymous collectives. After graduating from the art school of Cagliari and briefly attending the electronic music and new technologies course at the Cagliari Conservatory of Music, he was trained as a production technician in a small Sardinian Television Station, a job he will carry out for more than 10 years and greatly influenced his work. In 2019 he moved to Milan, where he still lives and works.
His work is influenced by the contamination between languages and uses the glitch as an aesthetic description of the contemporary crisis of the individual and his perception of reality.
In 2013, with the series “THEY KNOW IT”, he won the video section of the “Premio BABEL”, dedicated to the best Sardinian artists under 35. In 2022, the work “BE HERE NOW” was selected by VisualContainer for “PANORAMICA*21 “ among the ten most significant videos of the Italian video art scene of 2021. In 2022 he was a finalist of the “Videoinsight® Prize”, in 2020 he was a finalist in the Video Art Section of the “Art Rights Prize”. His work “OUTSIDE” win in the 2021 the Honorable Mention at the “Deep Focus Film Festival” – Brooklyn, New York City, US.
His works have been exhibited, screened and presented in countless public venues, galleries, foundations and museums around the globe: Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris, FR (2023), TAM Torrance Art Museum – Torrance, Los Angeles, US (2023,2020 ), Fondazione Morra Greco – Naples, IT (2022), Institut Français En Croatie – Zagreb, HR (2022), SASCA, Saudi Arabian Society for Culture and Arts – Dammam, Saudi Arabia (2022), Museu de Arte Leopoldo Gotuzzo – Pelotas , BR (2022), Videoinsight® Foundation – Turin, IT (2022), Bartoli Felter Foundation – Cagliari, Sardinia (2022), Municipal Art Gallery Casa Bianca – Municipality of Thessaloniki, GR (2022), Palazzo delle Esposizioni – Rome, IT (2022) MAC Contemporary Art Museum of Lissone – Lissone, IT (2022), MACA (Museum of Contemporary Art of Alicante) – Alicante, ES (2022, 2021), Doral Contemporary Art Museum (DORCAM) – Miami, US ( 2021), Fondazione Ragghianti, Lucca, IT (2021), Casa del Cinema, Villa Borghese – Rome, IT (2021), Hegemon Hall, Zhovten Cinema – Kiev, UA (2021), Cinémathèque québécoise – Montreal, Quebec, CA (2021 ), Teatro Municipal “Baltazar Dias” – Funchal, Madeira, PT (2020), Victoria Theater – San Francisco, US (2019), Conservatoire d’Avignon – Avignon, FR (2019), The Impress Theater – Vallejo, US (2019 ), Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum – Fremont, US (2018).
