Eva & Franco Mattes (b. Brescia, Italy) are an Italian American artist duo living in New York and Milan. In the early 90s, they realized that the nascent internet would play an increasingly influential role in shaping contemporary culture, and they started devoting their waking hours almost exclusively to exploring this new medium: its possibilities, pitfalls, and implications for the creation and dissemination of content, predicting the fundamental insinuation of the internet into every aspect of our lives. Operating anonymously or releasing works under various pseudonyms – most notably 0100101110101101.org – they became central figures in the scene, and with classic works like Life Sharing (2000) they helped shape the medium.
Through videos, installations and online interventions, their work responds to and dissects our contemporary networked condition, always approaching the ethics and politics of life online with a darkly humorous edge. Some of their most controversial works have even got them into legal troubles, like the famous trial with Nike – which ended, unexpectedly, with the victory of the artists -, the invention of notorious artist Darko Maver or the spreading of a computer virus at the Venice Biennale. Interventions like these have given them cult status, and their influence on younger generations of artists continues to grow.
