Francesco Bertelé's Video for Malta Biennale 2026 Explores Body, Territory, and Technology

Francesco Bertelé (Cantù, 1978) presents 'Repertoire in Intermedial Mode' for the Thematic Pavilion of Malta Biennale 2026, curated by Sara d’Alessandro Manozzo and Caterina Riva. The project investigates borders as physical, symbolic, and perceptual spaces, connecting body, territory, and new technologies. It includes the works 'Hic sunt dracones' and the new '#REL1=OFF', for which a video is now visible, evoking myths of sea, wind, and legendary presences. In '#REL1=OFF', the artist's body becomes a tool for measuring space, leaving minimal traces on climbed rock, documented by a drone and presented as a video installation. 'Hic sunt dracones (release alpha 2026)' is a bio-hypermedial VR and mixed reality installation, evolving from the winner of Italian Council 2018, using VR headsets to let visitors traverse a digital environment built from surveys, maps, and data collected in Lampedusa, addressing information manipulation, error, and symbolic construction of borders. The curators describe Bertelé's method as an investigation by stratification around climbing and two Mediterranean islands: Lampedusa and Malta, contrasting linear narratives with open, controversial themes like borders and migrations.