"Machiavelli rules the world"

2015-2022

multi-media 

object

videoinstallation

performance

satellite works

"Machiavelli rules the world", is a multimedia work that since 2015, has been shown in several hybrid forms.

It develops around the old Italian card game, “Machiavelli”, of which the four classical figures (hearts, clubs, spades, diamonds) have been replaced to: Infrastructure and services, Money, Access to education, Natural resources. there are no jokers. In "Machiavelli", the one who shares all the cards wins, unlike monopoli.

At the contemporary art gallery "Galerie für Gegenwartskunst Barbara Claassen-Schmal" (2015) appeared as a video-installation. The exhibition shows a living room setting: a table, surrounded by four pillows, on the table top four virtual hands are playing cards, but seats are empty. The floor lamp in fact, instead of the light bulb, hides a projector, recalling conspiracy theories imaginary. 

At Horner Eck (2020) the video installation included a public more active participation: the bar guests were invited to actually play the game too.  Under the umbrella-theme "Mind the Gap", the video installation have been surrounded by collateral works, developed in dialogue with it. 

"The skeptic society", (fictional dialogue between a young former member of a german radical left group and extracts of Antonio Negri´ s essay performed by an actor), “White courtesy phone” (a landline phone, installed on the wall, where the artist called every evening at the same time) and “materialism pong 16.0” (two computer screens debating the themes of historical materialism) as well as an open-air screening of the artists shortfilms projected on the neighbouring buildings, visible from the streets. 

In 2021, commissioned by Remote Gallery, “Machiavelli rules the world” appeared as a performance action in the city of Zwickau.  The action ("Is it free here?") took place on the 30th anniversary of the terrorist attacks against families of Turkish and Kurdish origin. Gabrio Gabrielli and Luisa Eugeni used the diverse urban spaces (from the inside of a bank to the river bank) as scenario to play cards. The card game in this case became a pretext for investigate the presence of the bodies in the public space.