Vita-Salute San Raffaele University is bringing contemporary art to Berlin from 11 September with TECHnotOXIC

Vita-Salute San Raffaele University (UniSR) is the first university to be awarded – as part of the international commissioning of works of art – funding from the Italian Council, the programme run by the Ministry of Culture’s Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity, dedicated to promoting and showcasing Italian contemporary art worldwide. This is a significant achievement for a programme which, since its inception in 2017, has consistently recognised Italian and international museums, foundations, associations and cultural institutions as winners, and which, through UniSR, directly acknowledges a university’s leading role on the international contemporary art scene. The winning project, promoted and organised by ICONE, UniSR’s European Centre for Research into the History and Theory of the Image, is TECHnotOXIC by the artist Christian Fogarolli (Trento, 1983), which will be presented from tomorrow, 11 September, at Futurium – The House of Futures in Berlin, where it will remain on display until 31 December.

At the heart of the exhibition lies one of the most pressing issues of our time: the relationship between the human body and digital technologies, and the effects of hyper-connectivity on mental and social well-being. Smartphone addiction, isolation, compulsive use of devices, cyberbullying and online gambling form the subject of an artistic investigation built upon field research and testimonies from patients, practitioners and researchers.

With TECHnotOXIC – a name that evokes the absence of oxygen caused by the overuse of technology – UniSR brings its commitment to the integration of knowledge to the international stage, fostering dialogue between its three faculties – Philosophy, Medicine and Psychology – through the language of art. A transdisciplinary approach that examines the contemporary iconosphere in order to critically analyse the transformations brought about by technology and to investigate the new forms of unease in the present day.

“This achievement highlights the commitment of the Faculty of Philosophy at UniSR to offering a unique programme of research and training in art history on the international stage, thanks to the interweaving of traditional art-historical disciplines with the theoretical and critical insights of philosophical reflection,” emphasises Professor Francesca Pola, the project’s academic coordinator and Chair of the Master’s Degree Programme in Theory and History of the Arts and the Image at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University. ‘The project reflects the distinctive nature of our approach: a focus on the digital realm, explored in its cultural, artistic, aesthetic and communicative dimensions, to build active knowledge capable of engaging with the needs of contemporary society.’

Following its run in Berlin, TECHnotOXIC will be presented at the Fondation Boghossian in Brussels from 10 February to 12 May 2027. The works will become part of the permanent collection of MUSEION in Bolzano. TECHnotOXIC is produced by the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University with the support of the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture as part of the Italian Council (14th edition, 2025).