Caterina Davinio (born Maria Caterina Invidia; 25 November 1957, Foggia) is an Italian poet, novelist and new media artist. She is the author of works of digital art, net.art, video art and was the creator of Italian Net-poetry in 1998.
Biography Born in Foggia, Davinio grew up in Rome since 1961. She studied literature and art history (student of Giulio Carlo Argan) at Rome University La Sapienza, where, in 1981, she received a MA degree in Italian Literature. Davinio began to write poetry when she was fourteen years old. Interview, 2015 Accessed August 24, 2015 In Rome, she came in contact with the international circuit of experimental poetry and art,(2007.) "Interview: Caterina Davinio." . Accessed August 24, 2015. resulting in a number of collaborations with renowned artists, critics and poets of the avant-garde.Caterina Davinio, Tecno-Poesia e realtà virtuali (Techno-Poetry and Virtual Realities), essay with English translation. Preface by Eugenio Miccini. Collection: Archivio della Poesia del 900, Mantova, Sometti Publisher, 2002, pp. 239-270. Electronìe d'arte e altre scritture, meeting, Museo Pecci, Prato, 1995. Accessed August 24, 2015 Since 1997, she has been living in Monza and Lecco, working at an international level.
From the early 1990s, Davinio was a pioneer of Italian electronic poetry, in the experimental field among writing, visual art, and new media, using computer, video, digital photography and the Internet. She was the first woman artist who utilized the computer and Internet in literature and poetry in Italy."D'Ars", review directed by Pierre Restany, anno 43, n. 175-176, December 2003, Milano, . p. 98. See pp 89-98. Author of visual and sound poetry, Athens Biennial, 2007. Accessed August 24, 2015 she also created works using traditional techniques, such as painting and photography.AAVV, Davinio, Roma, Parametro, 1990. She is author of novels, books of poetry, essays, and has received literary awards and recognition in Italy and abroad. In 1997, she collaborated to netOper@, the first Italian interactive work for the web, by the composer Sergio Maltagliati.netOper@ Accessed August 24, 2015 She also initiated Net-poetry in Italy, in 1998, with the website and network Karenina.it.Digital Visions, UBC Accessed August 24, 2015RCCS, review by Jorge Luiz Antonio Accessed August 24, 2015 The participants included Julien Blaine, Clemente Padin, Philadelpho Menezes, Mirella Bentivoglio, Lamberto Pignotti, Eugenio Miccini, and many other new media artists, critics, and experimental poets.Caterina Davinio, Tecno-Poesia e realtà virtuali (Techno-Poetry and Virtual Realities), essay with English translation. Preface by Eugenio Miccini. Collection: Archivio della Poesia del 900, Mantova, Sometti, 2002, , pp 86-88.Karenina.it Experimental Accessed August 24, 2015
Her art has been featured in more than three hundred international exhibitions and festivals, among them two editions of the Biennale de Lyon, the Biennale of Sydney (on-line events), the Athens Biennial,Athen Biennial Artwaveradio Accessed August 24, 2015 E-Poetry (University SUNY Buffalo, NY, and Barcelona),E-Poetry 2011 Accessed August 24, 2015 Polyphonix Festival (Barcelona and Paris), seven times in the Venice Biennale and collateral events, where she collaborated also as a curator.Tecno-Poesia e realtà virtuali, cited essay, pp. 244-247, 251-254.AAVV, VeneziaPoesia 97, catalogue of the exhibition, Edimedia, Venezia 1997.Oreste at the Venice Biennale, Charta, Milano 2000. Documentation of the events by Progetto Oreste at the 48th Venice Biennale, 1999. 49ª Esposizione internazionale d'arte Platea dell'umanità La Biennale di Venezia, Electa 2001. Project: "Bunker Poetico", by Marco Nereo Rotelli.La Biennale di Venezia, 51ª esposizione internazionale d'arte, Partecipazioni nazionali - Eventi nell'ambito, catalogo Marsilio, . Project: Isola della Poesia, by Marco Nereo Rotelli, Achille Bonito Oliva curator.53ª Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte La Biennale di Venezia Fare Mondi Partecipazioni Nazionali Eventi collaterali, p. 254 Project: Mercury House One_Save the Poetry curated by Fondazione Mare Nostrum and Marco N. Rotelli.
She exhibited animated digital poetry works - called "Terminal Videopoems" - in the 1997 Venice Biennale, in VeneziaPoesia, a project directed by the poet and writer Nanni Balestrini.AAVV, VeneziaPoesia 97, catalogue of the exhibition, Edimedia, Venezia 1997. In 1999 she participated, as a poet and a video artist, at the events organized by "Progetto Oreste" at the 48th Venice Biennale,Oreste at the Venice Biennale, Charta, Milano 2000 . where she also curated a video poetry exhibition.Caterina Davinio, Tecno-Poesia e realtà virtuali, Collection: "Archivio della poesia del 900", Preface by Eugenio Miccini, Sometti, Mantova 2002, a book sponsored and supported by the city of Mantua .
Davinio's net-poetry participated in the Venice Biennale also in 2001 - Harald Szeemann curator - in the context of Bunker Poetico,See the catalogue of the 49ª Esposizione internazionale d'arte Platea dell'umanità La Biennale di Venezia, Electa 2001. Project: "Bunker Poetico", by Harald Szeemann and Marco Nereo Rotelli.Marco Nereo Rotelli, Bunker Poetico. La poesia come opera. Porretta Terme - BO, I Quaderni del Battello Ebbro, 2001 , p. 81 and 245-246.. which was a collaborative installation - involving 1000 international poets and artists - created by the architect Marco Nereo Rotelli in cooperation with Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici of Venice, Massimo Donà, I Quaderni del Battello Ebbro publisher, Caterina Davinio, Milanocosa cultural association, and others.49ma Esposizione internazionale d'arte Platea dell'umanità La Biennale di Venezia, Electa 2001, p. 395. Davinio engaged in this project renown avant-garde poets and organized a virtual happening on-line called "Parallel Action-Bunker", simultaneous with real readings and performances at Orsogrill delle Artiglierie, a venue of the Venice Biennial..Tecno-poesia e realtà virtuali, cited essay, pp. 42-43, 253-254, 290-291.
In 2005, she created the net-poetry work "Virtual Island", a web site and poetry network, in the context of the 51st Venice Biennale.See the catalogue of La Biennale di Venezia, 51ª esposizione internazionale d'arte, Partecipazioni nazionali - Eventi nell'ambito, catalogo Marsilio, . Project: Isola della Poesia, by Marco Nereo Rotelli, Achille Bonito Oliva CuratorVirtual Island involved 500 international poets, among them: Adunis, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Alda Merini, Fernanda Pivano, and many other established writers.Isola Virtuale Accessed August 24, 2015
In 2009, she created the virtual installation The First Poetry Space Shuttle Landing on Second Life and other on-line happenings in the 53rd Venice Biennale Collateral Events, engaging more than 200 poets from around the world, to celebrate the centenary of Italian Futurism.In the project: Mercury House One_Save the Poetry by Fondazione Mare Nostrum and Marco N. Rotelli. See the catalogue of the 53rd Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte La Biennale di Venezia Fare Mondi Partecipazioni Nazionali Eventi collaterali, p. 254 In the same project she curated also the event Network Poetico Net-Poetry Reading in Webcam, a poetry reading in Skype videocall with poets from various continents and countries.Review Artxworld Accessed August 24, 2015 In the context of the 2009 Venice Biennale Davinio participated also in the exhibition Détournement Venise 2009.Review Artxworld Accessed August 24, 2015
In 2014, she exhibited her net-poetry installation "Big Splash" in the "Master Section" OLE.01 Master Section Accessed August 16, 2015 of the international festival OLE.01, dedicated to electronic literature, in the Doric Room of the Royal Palace of Naples;Review in the newspaper "Diario Partenopeo" . Accessed August 16, 2015 Review in the newspaper La Repubblica September 18, 2014, accessed August 16, 2015La Repubblica accessed August 16, 2015 The festival took place in many institutional spaces of Naples in October 2014 and involved some of the main international pioneers of electronic literature and experts and scholars in that field.OLE.01 Master Section accessed August 16, 2015.See the TV report on RAI 2 Italian national channel, accessed August 16, 2015.
Among the literary critics who have written about Davinio's works of fiction and poetry: Francesco Muzzioli,Poesia2punto0.com September 5 2012 accessed August 16, 2015.Poesia2punto0.com August 29 2012 accessed August 16, 2015. Dante Maffia,Fatti deprecabili. Poesie e performance dal 1971 al 1996, Poesia2punto0.com, January 4 2015 accessed August 16, 2015. Ivano Mugnaini,Samgha.me May 21 2013, Il sofà sui binari di Caterina Davinio accessed August 16, 2015. David W. Seaman; some of the critics who have been interested in her work of digital poetry and electronic art are: Eugenio Miccini, Lamberto Pignotti,Lamberto Pignotti, Scritture convergenti. Letteratura e mass media, Pasian di Prato (UD), Campanotto Publisher, 2005 Jorge Luiz Antonio,RCCS, review by Jorge Luiz Antonio accessed August 23, 2015Jorge Luiz Antonio, Poesia digital, livro e dvd, Navegar Editora, Luna Bisonte Prods Jorge Luiz Antonio, Poesia eletronica, livro e dvd, Veredas & Cenarios, Christopher Thompson Funkhouser,Christopher Thompson Funkhouser, Prehistoric Digital Poetry: An Archaeology of Forms, 1959-1995, University of Alabama Press, 24/giu/2007 Christopher Thompson Funkhouser, New Directions in Digital Poetry, A&C Black, 19/gen/2012 Marco Maria Gazzano, and others.
Karenina.it Net-poetry project Karenina it (1998)Karenina.it Experimental Accessed August 24, 2015 was the first art-poetry-communication project presented on the web in an Italian context; the website was not a simple cultural on-line journal, but a "space of aggregation", which hosted an ongoing discourse, involving emerging and established experimental artists, critics, and visual poets. The communication aspect was treated as an artistic medium that goes beyond the contents or the quality of the words: borders among art, critic, and communication, in Davinio's own concept, were cancelled. The flow of words and information became art in itself, transcending the necessity to view art in traditional terms of form."CommunicAction and Perspectives on Modern Web Literary Avant-Garde", by Enrico Gianfranchi, in Digital Visions Festival, Sylvia Borda director, University of British Columbia . The suffix ".it" present in Karenina.it title is a geographic locator for the origin of the website. The value of the site resides within the conceptual framework of the Fluxus art movement."Enrico Gianfranchi, in Digital Visions Festival, Sylvia Borda director, University British Columbia . Karenina.it won MAD03 Award (section Net-Zin) in 2003, Madrid.AAVV, MAD 03, Secondo encuentro de arte experimental de Madrid, October 24 to November 16, 2003, catalogue published by AVAM, Artistas Visuales Asociados de Madrid, with the support of Ministerio de Cultura, Concejalia de las artes del ajuntamiento de Madrid, p. 97 and 102.
Other Net.art works Other Davinio’s net-poetry and net.art performances and events are based on the evolution of the multi-located structure experimented with Parallel Action-Bunker, mentioned before: beyond the simple presence of the performer on stage, performance is considered a collaborative, decentralized, multi-located action; poetry is conceived as "social structure, e-communication, real/virtual interaction", and "e-communication" is assumed as a new material for the artist. definition from the artist's page. The artist expressed these concepts also in some interviews and in the essay Tecno-Poesia e realtà virtuali, Mantova, Sometti, 2002.About caterina Davinio's net-poetry and video work see also the book with dvd Virtual Mercury House Planetary and Interplanetary Events, Polìmata Publisher, Roma 2012 Among them: