Ludovica Carbotta and Alessandro Manfrin on Utopia, Solitude, and the City in Flash Art 366

Flash Art Italia's issue 366, titled "The City Who Sold The City," features a written conversation between artists Ludovica Carbotta and Alessandro Manfrin exploring the relationship between space and subjectivity, utopia and dystopia. The discussion, framed by the editors as a threshold rather than a container, delves into radical utopias of the 1960s and the dystopian complexity of contemporary dwelling. Carbotta discusses her ongoing project Monowe (2016–present), a city inhabited by a single citizen, which uses solitude as a generative force to rethink community from the individual. Manfrin presents his series Windows (2025), where text fragments on receipts and tickets are embedded in window frames, blurring private and public. Both artists reference Superstudio's Supersuperficie (1971) and Monumento Continuo (1969) as premonitions of the current digital age. They critique Praxis Nation, an "internet native nation" promoting racist ideas and capital over democracy, as a dystopian echo of radical architecture. Carbotta's new project, begun in 2024, examines the street level through children's perspectives, residual objects, and dissident bodies in public space. Manfrin's Bomboniere (2025) series mixes architectural maquettes in transparent boxes, creating collages of Western architecture that oscillate between lightness and ruin. The conversation underscores a renewed attachment to physical space amid geopolitical conflicts and the virtualization of capital.