Artist Interview: Livia Ribichini

Sep 22

Written By DAB

Livia Ribichini is an artist and set designer from Italy, currently based in the Netherlands. Her research reflects on the diversity of identities between users and avatars in the virtual and physical world. She experiments with sensations, perceptions, new media, and technology.

She is the founder member of the artistic duo, Fulminate, focused on light art, and of fffjpg, a mixed media duo based on electronics, noise and synthesizers.

We asked Livia about her art, creative process, and inspirations.

*Digital Art by Livia Ribichini: Mostro, 2023*

Can you tell us about your background as a digital artist? How did you get started in this field?

When I arrived in The Netherlands from Italy, the approach to my process changed from analogue light art into abstract digital video art and virtual world building. The early stages of this change was through the experimentation of the node based software TouchDesigner for visual programming, later HTML, and then Unity.

What inspires your art? Are there any particular themes or subjects that you enjoy exploring through your artwork?

I see more possibilities of creation and inspiration in the topics of inhabitation and dysfunction. Dysfunctionality became simultaneously the process I use while making. It is stimulating for me to use a machine in the wrong way that it is suppose to work and push its boundaries of functionality until the unexpected is created.

Can you tell us about Kinesintesi — what was the creative process like, and what’s special about it?

The first Kinesintesi experiment was created during a masterclass in ‘Body, Art and Artificial Intelligence’ at Sineglossa in Turin (Italy). My idea was to create a digital plant that could grow in symbiosis to human movements. It came natural to me the combination of speculative future and forgotten past. The AI created in Python recognizes movements of farmers from a found video archive and trigger the growing of procedural digital nature.

*Digital Art by Livia Ribichini: Kinesintesi, 2022*
`Kinesintesi is one of the featured artwork for DAB’s virtual exhibition “We’ve been dreaming about a magical jungle” at The Wrong Biennale!`

How do you balance technical skills with artistic creativity in your digital artwork? How do these two aspects complement each other in your work?

I feel I am in a moment where I learnt different softwares by searching and looking at many tutorials. Imitating and then creating. These days I watch less tutorials, I prefer to create and make mistakes that can became interesting starting point. A new moment now is opening up, combining the different digital tools I learnt and put my aesthetic further.

How would you define the digital art space in where you’re based?

The digital art space where I reside does not belong to any border, during the pandemic I started occupying the digital space. Starting from the Covirtual Hotel, interactive rooms inside the computer screen, html pixels, pink green and b/w.

Then DREAMSCREENS, surrealist imaginary future cities where the VR set becomes an extension of the body, here the screen is the window on those worlds. My digital art space is made up of numbers, formulas and mathematics; made of dreams, suggestions, memories and surrealism; made of glitches, sculptures, performers and distorted representations.

*Digital Art by Livia Ribichini: Still from Covirtual Hotel, 2020*

What is a fun fact about you?

I can move the toes of my right foot but not of the left one.

What would we most probably find you doing if not creating art?

Making pizza!

What advice would you give to aspiring digital artists who are just starting out? Are there any resources or learning materials you would recommend to help them improve their skills?

The knowledge of coding! Coding is a right and duty, it’s a weapon we could have to be free in the digital space and occupy your place in it!