Chased by Unicorns

After a successful stretch at Pi Artworks London in November 2022, Fabio Lattanzi Antinori’s solo show, Chased by Unicorns, will be shown at Pi Artworks Istanbul from February 4th. Accompanied by several new works and performances, Antinori’s show looks to value-systems in society, the tension between personal gain and corporate profits and the politics of surveillance.

Central to the show is a series of sculptural and printed works comparing Raymond Williams’ notion of key words, a tool to understand how ‘important social and historical processes occur within language’ with current digital marketing’s calculated use of keywords. Put simply, terms we look for online and which are secretively used to predict our behaviour and then influence it through advertising techniques.

In the second part of the show the artist reflects on the unsustainable nature of the current economic model and on the way happiness, coopted by advertising and brands, can be used to perpetuate a culture of consumption and production. Combining the results of a survey designed to understand the psychological consequences of life as a consumer, with a selection of self-help books, podcasts and transcripts from instructional videos, Antinori trains and later asks an AI model to reflect on the nature of happiness.