DIGITAL ART SERIES
#BornToBeVirtual
#BornToBeVirtual is a digital art series by Italian multidisciplinary artist Anna Utopia Giordano, created in 2013–2014, exploring privacy, social media and the changing boundaries between the intimate and the public.
The work reflects on the increasingly common practice of sharing private and intimate images online, asking what happens when moments that once belonged to a private sphere become part of a permanent digital environment.
Through digital imagery, everyday objects, toys and references to early internet culture, Giordano examines the relationship between personal identity, technology and the exposure of private life online.
The work also raises a deliberately uncomfortable question:
is it right to share private events involving an unconscious human being on the internet?
And if images of our lives are increasingly created, stored and circulated online from the earliest stages of existence, are we becoming a generation that is, from the beginning, #BornToBeVirtual?
Notes and thanks
The work incorporates the Windows XP startup sound and toys and imagery associated with Chicco, Fisher-Price and Prenatal. Giordano hand-sewed a plush version of Larry the Bird, Twitter's iconic mascot and logo. No toy was damaged in the production of #BornToBeVirtual. The font used in the work was derived from the artist's own handwriting. The person portrayed in the sonography agreed to its use.
Thanks to my parents, my brother, the internet and everyone who supported the development of this project, especially Alice, Lucia and Iabo. Special thanks to Wichee, Francesco Lanza and Alfredo Mariani.
