Keywords:
Media Archaeology, Telepresence, Video Art, Feminist Media Studies, Visual and Sound culture
Synopsis
Much of contemporary media entails forms of telepresence. Interaction and perception across physical distance today underpin both everyday media—such as mobile phones and teleconferencing platforms—and simulation-based media, including immersive and extended realities, which consistently incorporate a live component. ARTCHAE traces the roots of these processes to the electronic arts from the 1960s to the early 1980s—video art, installation art, and sound art—where mediated presence first became a site of experimentation, while simultaneity, embodied interaction, and self-recognition were already challenged. Combining analyses of media artworks by leading international scholars with interviews of prominent artists and curators, ARTCHAE proposes an ar(t)chaeology: a genealogical inquiry into telepresence grounded in the early insights of artists, particularly overlooked women, who explored the ways tele-media reconfigured private and public spaces, the mediation of the Self, and collective participation.
Chapters
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Foreword
Barbara Grespi, Miriam De Rosa
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Introduction I Section
Miriam De Rosa, Lorenzo Lazzari
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A Genealogical Approach to The Disobedience Archive
Miriam Rejas Del Pino
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At the Thresholds of the Medium: CCTV, Playback, and Feedback Breaking the Possibilities of Video
Lorenzo Lazzari
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Techno-Pop: Virtual Doubles and Dystopian Futures Around 1984
Francesco Spampinato
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Navigating the Frame: Videoart, Lines of Flight, Deixis
Miriam De Rosa
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Speculative Materializations in Erika Tan’s Barang Barang: Spectral Entanglements (2021)
Lucy Reynolds
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Introduction II Section
Barbara Grespi
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Between Surveillance and Self-Surveillance: Feminist (Re)Visions of the Closed Circuit
Rossana Galimi
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Telephonic Presence. Marta Minujìn’s early works
Barbara Grespi
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Being There / Being Then. Rhetoric and Poetics of Tele-Presence from Art Radio to Radio-Art
Simone Dotto
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Broadcasting and Taping Loops, Feedback, Delays, and Noises: Tele-Presence as a Time Machine
Maria Teresa Soldani
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The Impossible Now: Limit Telepresence and Robotic Entanglement on Mars
Kris Paulsen
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Introduction III Section
Rossana Galimi, Maria Teresa Soldani
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Telepresence and Telematic Arts in Le Radici del Nuovo Archive. Interview with Maria Grazia Mattei
Miriam De Rosa, Rossana Galimi, Barbara Grespi, Lorenzo Lazzari, Maria Grazia Mattei, Miriam Rejas Del Pino, Maria Teresa Soldani
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Resonating Histories. A Lecture with Matana Roberts
Matana Roberts, Maurizio Corbella, Maria Teresa Soldani
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Closed-Circuit Faces: Archaeologies of the Face in Telepresence
Barbara Grespi, Anna Caterina Dalmasso
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An Excerpt from Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook (Anthology Editions, 2025)
Lori Emerson
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“She Is Shrouded”: Some Exploratory Notes on Scaffolding as an Urban Practice between (Architectural) Construction and (Activist) Intervention
Wanda Strauven
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Author Biographies
Barbara Grespi, University of Milan
Barbara Grespi is Full Professor at the Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti,” University of Milan, where she teaches Theories of the Moving Image and Media Archaeology and coordinates the XR-Lab in the frame of EXT—Extended Reality Research Center. Her research has explored the non-ocularcentric dimensions of optical media—from photography to extended realities—focusing especially on gestural practices. Among her publications: Il cinema come gesto (Aracne, 2017), Figure del corpo (Meltemi, 2019), and the co-edited volumes Harun Farocki (Mimesis, 2017), Apparizioni (Aracne, 2018), Bodies of Stone in the Media, Visual Culture, and the Arts (Amsterdam University Press, 2020), Mediarcheologia (Raffaello Cortina, 2023), and Il postfotografico (Einaudi, 2024).
Miriam De Rosa, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia
Miriam De Rosa researches and teaches Media Archaeology, Visual Cultures and Artists’ Film at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, where she serves as an Associate Professor and leads the MA Economy and Management of Arts and Cultural Activities. She also coordinates the IMACS network and sits on the NECS steering committee. Her last monograph is Camille Henrot: Notes on Desktop Cinema (Mimesis 2024).
Maria Teresa Soldani, University of Milan, Italy
Maria Teresa Soldani, Ph.D., is Adjunct Professor in Media Archaeology at the University of Milan and in Visual Culture Studies at Università Telematica San Raffaele Roma. She was Research Fellow at the University of Milan – within the ARTCHAE project – and the University of Bologna. She has published the monographs Naked City (Quaderni di CinemaSud, 2013), Made in USA (Mimesis, 2024), and co-edited special issues of journals and books, including Cronofagia e media (Meltemi, 2024). She is Associate Editor of G|A|M|E. The Italian Journal of Game Studies, member of the directorial board of “Afterimage” book series (Aracne), and of the international research group “Musical Lives on Screen.”
Lorenzo Lazzari, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia
Lorenzo Lazzari is currently a Post-Doc Research Fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and an independent curator. His academic and curatorial research moves at the intersections of contemporary art, cinema, urban studies, and forms of dissent. He recently published the monograph Rivendicazioni in videotape for Carocci Editore.
Copyright (c) 2026 The Author(s)
