A visionary interpreter of the troubled human mind, of the streams of consciousness and the anxieties of the present, Jon Rafman explores the all-encompassing impact of the virtual within the representation of our time. Through an immense vocabulary drawing from internet subcultures, virtual worlds, video games and devious areas of the web, Rafman creates surreal and absolute landscapes in which he nourishes a constant sense of loss and alienation, of resurrection and death, of instinct and memory, of extreme sacrifice and rebirth. In a world oppressed by obsession, paranoia, a sense of emptiness, and loss of identity, the artist leads us into the most concealed realms of the web, among the gooiest drives that replace reality and at the same time embody it.
Within an absorbing architecture created by the BB studio (Fabrizio Ballabio, Alessandro Bava) which distorts the coordinates of the exhibition space and creates a claustrophobic and befuddling environment, Rafman presents Player Character, the main character of a video game, who lives in a virtual world, and whose actions are decided not so much by the rules of the game but by the will of the gamemaster. Rafman plunges us in a world where violence, abyss, transformation, and rebirth fuel a game with no rules, no memory, and without a future.
Here, videos, films, AI-processed images, and control rooms intertwine in an all-encompassing experience, consisting of the winding walls of a gothic novel story created for the exhibition, and of new video stations that integrate with the spirit of the place. A wide selection of Rafman’s most iconic films including Dream Journal (2016-2019), Punctured Sky (2021), Minor Daemon (2021-2023), are also programmed in cycles, within the Rafman Cinema. Finally, for this exhibition, Rafman presents his new album Musique Pour le Chevalier Aux Fleurs together with the flipbook that goes with it.

“In our time, the internet has been the venue for delusional paranoia. The censorship problem of the internet- so overwhelming that people can’t even discuss it without striking the entire nervous system or losing a family member in the process- seeks its pariah in Rafman, the first artist to see and represent the 21st century’s world wide web for what it is: a masquerade deformed by industrialism; a vanity hell-fair unlimited in its artifice as never before; a last carnival of avatars for Western Civilization; a virtual landscape of art-tribes, freshly neutered and desperately seeking pleasure that they suspect exists but not for them. Proofless, conspiracies can’t be confirmed but only indulged.” (Jon Rafman)

Text by Ilaria Marotta

Minor Daemon Volume 1, 2022
Single-channel HD Video with stereo sound
Music: James Ferraro
87:52

The film is screening Wednesday – Saturday, from 2:30 pm until 7 pm.
Runtime: 1 hour and 28 minutes

SHOWTIMES
2:30 pm / 4:00 pm / 5:30 pm

Minor Daemon, Vol. 1 (2021) is set in a surreal dystopia that feels like the deranged fever dream of Hieronymus Bosch if he grew up on 4chan, and traces the intersecting fortunes of two young men, Billy and Minor Daemon, who share an extraordinary gift for virtual reality gaming and go through a series of nightmarish events. Billy, a spoiled frat boy, is the top dog at an elite prep school. Minor Daemon, abandoned at birth, is a guileless asthmatic raised in a child labor compound. After a nightmarish sequence of events, the two are incarcerated at the same supermax penitentiary. They join forces and catapult their VR prison team to the league championships, where a victory will secure their freedom. After a devastating defeat in the grand finals, the two men then plan an intricate escape. Billy ends up betraying Minor Daemon during a bungled prison break, and flees to a remote pleasure planet. There Billy climbs the ladder of an intergalactic criminal underworld, as Minor Daemon suffers through the horrors of prison life. When he’s finally released years later, Minor Daemon, obsessed with vengeance, tracks Billy down to the violent alien planet. In a place where dreams are paid for in blood, Billy and Daemon face-off in an ultimate showdown that will seal their fate.

April 03–April 20, 2024
Punctured Sky, 2021
Single-channel HD Video with stereo sound
15:03

A piece of a gamer’s past vanishes without a trace, triggering a quest for answers. Along the way, he encounters uncanny obstacles and part-human avatars – meticulously crafted from found pixels and cyber history – which call his own recollections of youth into question. Early internet aesthetics collide with the dark edges of online folklore, creating an unsettling yet deeply funny commentary on how technology pervades and mediates our humanity, memory, and concept of self.

April 24–May 23, 2024
Dream Journal, 2019

Jon Rafman’s Dream Journal 2016-2017 is a video installation that explores the effects of technology and information overload on the contemporary psyche. The project initially arose from the artist’s daily practice of animating his dreams using hobbyist 3D software. In Dream Journal, two young female protagonists – one of them an archetypical millennial, the other a kid-warrior – embark upon a Dantean journey through a succession of absurd dystopian landscapes. The film’s fractured storyline weaves together deep-web imagery with classical epic tropes and repressed libidinal fantasies to create a nightmarish vision of an internet addict’s unconscious. Experimental electronic musicians Oneohtrix Point Never and James Ferraro composed the soundtrack. The video installation is completed with shag carpet and anthropomorphized sculptural seating. Rafman is recognized for his interdisciplinary practice that spans photography, sculpture, video, virtual reality, and installation. His work explores the impact of technology on contemporary consciousness, incorporating the rich vocabulary of online worlds to create poetic narratives that critically engage with the present.

The film is screening Wednesday – Saturday, from 2:30 pm until 7 pm.
Runtime: 1 hour and 28 minutes

SHOWTIMES
2:30 pm / 4:00 pm / 5:30 pm

Curated by
Ilaria Marotta, Andrea Baccin

Produced by
Basement Roma

Exhibition Architecture
BB Milano

Installation Views
Ph. Roberto Apa © Jon Rafman

Courtesy: the artists and Sprüth Magers