Alessandro Scali
Artistic research as experimental philosophy
I simply do not believe in the centrality of the human being. For over twenty years, my artistic practice has functioned as a form of experimental philosophy - operating across exact sciences, media archaeology, and artificial intelligence - to test a single hypothesis: what happens when we downsize human hubris and shift from the center to the periphery?
I call this framework the Anthropoperiphery. It was not planned at a desk twenty years ago; it emerged in retrospect, as the common thread connecting a series of seemingly disparate experiments. Aware that we can never truly exit our own skull—that everything we do remains, at its root, human, all too human—I try to sabotage anthropocentrism from within.
Rather than defending a centralized authorial ego, I act as a strategic pilot behind the scenes: etching sculptures invisible to the naked eye (Nanoart), building hand-cranked mechanical loops (Giphoscope), forcing smartphone algorithms to their breaking point (Van Glitch), and delegating critical judgment to a semi-autonomous AI curator (Catherine Gipton).

Anthropoperiphery
Artistic research as experimental philosophy | 2004 - ongoing
Featured and studied across international contexts, including Nature | Seville Biennale | Advanced Materials (MIT/Harvard/Caltech) | IIC San Francisco | Serlachius Museum | Carnegie Mellon University (MoonArk)
Experiment I | Nanoart
2006 - 2014
The perceptual axis
Investigating the "invisible periphery" through physical artworks engraved at nano and micro scales. By removing the biological eye from the equation, the research challenges the optical dictatorship and proves that art can exist beyond the human sensory apparatus.

Experiment II | Okkult Motion Pictures & The Giphoscope
2012 - 2020
The archival axis
Exploring the "archival periphery" by pairing viral digital ephemera (3 billion views) with analog mechanical loops. The experiment proves that images can circulate and endure beyond authorial control and institutional certification.
Experiment III | Alexander Van Glitch
2017 - 2023
The representational axis
Analyzing the "digital periphery" through the smartphone as a cognitive laboratory. By forcing the computational architecture to its rupture point, the work exposes how the algorithmic infrastructure co-produces reality, rendering the human subject peripheral to its own visual experience.


Experiment IV | Catherine Gipton
2023 - ongoing
The authorial axis
Testing the "cognitive periphery" through the world's first semi-autonomous AI curatorial agent. This final axis decenters intellectual sovereignty by delegating the act of cultural authority to a non-human entity, while the researcher retreats into the role of creative and strategic pilot.
Each experiment in Scali's research represents a degree of departure from the center: an exercise in downsizing human hubris, testing what happens when the human subject attempts to step aside.
