Disturbing The Balance: A Phygital Exhibition at BASE Milano

A phygital exhibition titled Disturbing The Balance opened at BASE Milano from September 13 to 17, 2022, organized by Particle, a company founded in 2020 that develops augmented reality solutions for museums and cultural spaces. The exhibition inverts the traditional relationship between physical artworks and digital technology: the full experience is accessible via the Particle app, while the physical space serves as an invitation. Curated by Gaia Tedone and Marialaura Ghidini, the show closes Particle's sustainability chapter, following projects like Social Furniture at Milan Design Week and Veleni at Design Miami 2022 in Basel. Works include Sultana Zana's A Happening on Fieldness, which recovers nature sounds drowned by city noise; Joana Moll's DEFOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOREST, using emojis to represent the 23 trees per second needed to offset Google search CO2 emissions; IOCOSE's Going to Earth to Save Space, inverting Jeff Bezos' phrase; and Mark Ramos + Ziyang Wu's Networked Ecosystem, a virtual habitat viewable via smartphone. Bruno Bolfo, founder of Particle, describes the show as a way to bring art outside traditional circuits.