‘Office Party’, Fabio Lattanzi Antinori

HS Projects is delighted to present ‘Office Party’, an exhibition of new and recent work by Fabio Lattanzi Antinori that raises questions around the production and consumption of data.

Office Party explores power dynamics, beliefs, and the way our perception of reality is collectively shaped and disseminated within society. Lattanzi Antinori’s work delves into the narratives of data, the agency of digital technology, and how these elements shape the future of society. The artworks in the exhibition are inspired by keywords, a term often used in digital marketing to describe words and phrases searched for by people online.

Every time we look for something online, our search terms are recorded and combined to build a personality profile for each one of us. This data is then used to forecast our future behaviours, predict the products or services we might want to buy, as well as understand and influence our political preferences and social behaviours. Behind the scenes, there exists a vast market that commodifies keywords. These keywords are gathered through elusive intelligent algorithms, creating profiles for everyone, which are then sold to advertisers and private companies. This business model has become dominant among companies, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo, that bring disruptive proprietary technologies to the masses.

The ‘Keywords Karaoke Machine’ is inspired by the way digital technology is shaping our notion of reality, our idea of history, and the way we interact with each other. The artwork plays songs with lyrics and music generated by an Artificial Intelligence (AI) model, using collected geo-localised (to 12 Hammersmith Grove) keywords. The work will be constantly changing with new text and music experienced through headphones. We can also organise an artist led Karaoke event, when speakers and microphones will be added to allow viewers to actively perform. The objective being to engage with the tenants of the building and any other desired audiences. With a touch of humour and irony, this work aims to reflect upon the issues our society currently faces.

‘Highly Predictable’ presents the price of a selection of keywords, displayed on a custom- shaped screen made of bright LED lights. These are the result of online searches that the artist has found on Google and other platforms, which are relevant to the surrounding area of Hammersmith. The keywords and their prices are constantly changing on the sculpture’s display screen.

‘Fat Fingers’ alludes to the fact that secret extraction won’t leave anything unexploited and presents mistyped keywords, together with their prices. These words are selected from among those initially presented by Raymond Williams in his 1988 seminal book on particularly important words (now better known as keywords) which have been used to understand developing aspects of society over time.

Fabio Lattanzi Antinori (Born 1971 Rome) studied MA Fine Art Computational (distinction) at Goldsmiths College and attended MoMA PS1 Summer School with Marina Abramovic. His recent exhibitions include Chronicles of Future Superheroes at the Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest and Kunsthalle Bega Timisoara, Chased by Unicorns at Pi Artworks London and Istanbul, and Frieze Sculpture at Regent’s Park, London. He has been awarded the Lucas Artists Fellowship and the First Plinth Award by the Royal Society of Sculptors and was selected for the MMCA International Artist in Residence Program in Seoul.

‘Office Party’ is at 12 Hammersmith Grove from April 2024 to October 2024.