MACRO Rome Hosts The Dream Syndicate Conference on Cultural Labor

The MACRO – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma will present The Dream Syndicate, a free international conference on March 13–14, 2026, curated by Carlo Antonelli and Valerio Mannucci. This event examines shifts in immaterial and cultural labor, with emphasis on music and contemporary art practices. It is part of MACRO's programming, supported by Roma Capitale's Assessorato alla Cultura and produced by Azienda Speciale Palaexpo, under artistic director Cristiana Perrella. The conference draws inspiration from Dissonanze, a historic festival founded by Giorgio Mortari, which is also the subject of an exhibition at MACRO until March 22 titled 'One Day You’ll Understand. 25 years da Dissonanze.' The Dream Syndicate reactivates Dissonanze's critical spirit to explore current issues like technology's role, production methods, autonomy, and the minimum quality of cultural work. Through lectures, conversations, and discussion panels, it brings together theorists, critics, artists, and cultural operators from Italy and abroad. Key topics include symbolic production in platform economies, creative fatigue, burnout, new value geometries, and collective organization beyond individual autonomy. Notable participants include David Toop, who will discuss music's 'vaporization' and sound dematerialization, and McKenzie Wark, analyzing cultural labor in informational capitalism. Italian voices from art, curation, music criticism, and independent practices will feature on the second day, with panels such as 'Dalla fatica al coro' on creativity and burnout, 'Ingegneria della gioia' on cultural work and value, 'Traditrice indispensabile' on technology and music, and a closing lecture by Bruce Sterling on autonomy in the platform age. The event underscores MACRO's role as a space for plural cultural production, critical reflection, and connecting memory with present experimentation.