SALVATORE VITALE

Death by GPS

Death by GPS by Salvatore Vitale (Palermo, Italy, 1986) is radical in several respects. His presentation acts simultaneously like a laboratory, a TV-studio, and an agitative event. The artist combines documentary photography with staged sabotage videos, sampled video and hard edited video in order to establish a link between the gig economy, the mining industry and the idea of technological sabotage. In the vicinity of Johannesburg, he moves in the grey area between the gig economy and a gold rush mentality, seen as a metaphor of mining both digital data and raw materials. His project, which has been created with the collaboration of the workers, is cutting edge. It expresses a question about the human being in the current technological revolution, in which every action, every being is determined by technology, by the automatization of working processes, and by the market.

Salvatore Vitale (b. 1986, Palermo, Italy) is a visual artist, curator, editor and professor based in Zurich, Switzerland. His work focuses on the development and complexity of modern societies, in particular through an exploration of their power structures and technological mediation as well as the influence of these elements on people. His work has been exhibited in a number of prestigious international centres, including Fotogalleriet Oslo (2020); Fotostiftung Schweiz, Kibla Contemporary Art Space, Maribor (Slovenia), Foam Amsterdam, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation (2019); OCAT Shenzhen (Cina), MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art, Krakow, Swiss Foundation for Photography Winterthur (2018); T3 Photo Festival Tokyo (2017).