06 Sep 2009

Mario Milizia_Mood Mixer at Jousse Entreprice, Paris

Mario Milizia_Mood Mixer

On Saturday, September 5, 2009 at the Parisian gallery Jousse Entreprise, Mario Milizia will inaugurate his solo show with the project Mood Mixer.
The second installment of a research begun with Style Mixer in 2003, Mood Mixer is a sort of game, but also an investigative tool: it presents itself as a refined disk in glossy white cardboard with two levels, which allows users to generate over 15,000 different moods by combining seemingly contradictory or irreconcilable emotions, states of mind, and sentiments. Yet from their union are born new and unpredictable feelings and moods, able to define real present phenomena or to evoke possible future conceptual models: 'catatonic satisfaction,' 'compulsive regret,' 'stressful delight' are but a few of the suggestive combinations created by Mood Mixer.

Mario Milizia plays once again with the concept of language hybridization in contemporary culture and aesthetics, just as he had done in 2003, on the occasion of his solo exhibition also at Jousse Entreprise, when—with the same design but in a rigorous black—he presented Style Mixer which, at that time, randomly combined music genres, architecture styles, and art movements, thereby giving rise to combinations that were oftentimes ironic and dissonant, and at others absolutely credible. It's not easy to imagine what a 'Minimal Louis XIV' or a 'Medieval Hip-Hop' could be.

Mood Mixer picks up on and re-elaborates in its design and irony the research of Robert Plutchik, an American psychologist who in 1980 proposed in his Theories of Emotion a classification of eight basic emotions with varying intensity. In establishing a three-dimensional combination model, Plutchik demonstrated that the combinations of these eight basic emotions generate eight other emotions. For example, by joining two sentiments such as 'ecstasy' and 'admiration,' one obtains 'love.' Grateful to the American scholar but not satisfied, Milizia proposes with Mood Mixer more nuances in the field of possible or impossible, experienced or yet-to-experience moods.

Accompanying the presentation of Mood Mixer is a video entitled Jubilant Hallucination (from one of the 15,000 possible combinations) lasting twenty-one minutes.
By using footage and images from a live concert, of which we are not given any information, Milizia composes a video where, with the support of a sound engineer, he rewrites the audio. By editing ten sound tracks by different artists, from Madonna to the Black Eyed Peas, from Katy Perry to Armin van Buuren, the artist gives life to a 'real' pop concert, where the images narrate in a hyperrealistic way a live concert that never actually took place.
Milizia's goal is to create a short-circuit between real and unreal, giving shape to and provoking actual emotions.

Critical essay by Luca Cerizza.

Biography

Mario Milizia was born in Milan in 1965, where he lives and works, mainly focusing on art direction and communication for important international luxury brands.

His work has been shown in Italy and abroad, in prestigious public venues and private galleries. Some of his most significant solo exhibitions have been held at Jousse Entreprise, Paris, 2001, 2003; at the Galerie Edward Mitterand, Geneva, 2002; at Niitsu Art Forum, Niitsu, Japan, 2000; at Neon, Bologna, 1998; and Soundtrack without film, at Viafarini, Milan, 1996.
He has also participated in various group shows, including: The World, Speak For Gallery, Tokyo and Jousse Entreprise, Paris, 2003; Design et activisme, Speak For Gallery, Tokyo, 2001; Expander 1.0, curated by Pierre Bal Blanc and Laurent Godin, in collaboration with Blocnotes, Galerie Jousse Seguin, Paris, 1999; Seamless, curated by Luca Cerizza, De Appel Foundation, Amsterdam, 1998; Jingle Bells, curated by Uwe Schwarzer, Galleria Massimo De Carlo, Milan, 1997; Chi o che cosa a seconda dei casi, Neon, Bologna, 1997; Ne Dites Pas Non, curated by John Armleder, MAMCO, Geneva, 1997; 504, Zentrum für Kunst, Braunschweig, 1997; Aperto '97, Trevi Flash Art Museum, Trevi, 1997; 1° Premio Trevi Flash Art Museum, Trevi Flash Art Museum, Trevi, 1996.


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