Re:humanism is pleased to announce Morti Immortali /The Deathless Dead, a conference curated by Elena Giulia Abbiatici, taking place at Villa della Regina in Turin.
The dream of immortality is drawing closer, driven by rapid scientific and technological advances in genetic and tissue engineering, biotechnology, regenerative medicine, and AI-assisted medical research. Death recedes, suspended between an expanded corporeality—both earthly and digital—while the code of life begins, at least partially, to reveal itself.
The conference seeks to trace a path through the life of biological and genetic codes, within the arduous and abundant attempt to decode, immortalize, or even provocatively mystify them, in dialogue with the most recent developments in artificial intelligence applied to medical and genetic engineering. Artists, philosophers, and scientists will engage with the theme of immortality—of cells or of data—through the ambivalence of artistic, philosophical, and scientific perspectives.
The urgency of a cultural debate on this topic emerges at a moment when, on the one hand, we witness the expansion of biotechnological progress capable of redesigning and effectively controlling life itself, and on the other, the systemic archiving of our biometric, genomic, and digital data for purposes that remain uncertain, though far from unknowable. At the same time, notions of the limitless possibilities offered by AI—including digital resurrection—overlap with the cultural immortality that every civilization has historically sought to secure for itself. These developments intersect with the biopolitical role of capital in dividing society between those who can potentially afford the means to prolong life and those who are still struggling for basic survival.
The pioneering work of Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr at SymbioticA and through The Tissue Culture & Art Project opened a fundamental debate on the manipulation of cellular life and the cultural implications of laboratory-grown living matter, radically redefining our understanding of life, agency, and mortality. In dialogue with these perspectives, Lyndsey Walsh will explore the relationship between the necrobiome and the microbiome, moving beyond an anthropocentric conception of death and reconnecting it to ecological and planetary cycles of biological transformation.
The conversation with Heather Dewey-Hagborg will further interrogate the ethical implications of a possible hypermediated condition of the human being and the genome, beginning from the application of artificial intelligence to Forensic DNA Phenotyping—the prediction of an individual’s phenotypic traits through genetic analysis. Anthropologist Roberto Mastroianni will instead address the embodiment of death in different cultural contexts, analyzing ritual practices in which the relationship with the dead body functions as a symbolic instrument of rebirth, resurrection of the living, and subversion of temporal linearity.
Philosopher Davide Sisto will investigate the concept of mind uploading: the theoretical process aimed at transferring and preserving the contents of the human brain onto non-biological supports in an attempt to guarantee a form of digital immortality beyond the limits of bodily finitude. In parallel, artist Ginevra Petrozzi will explore experiences of death and mourning in the digital age through emerging rituals and artistic practices linked to the online persistence of identity.
At the conclusion of the conference, curator Marialaura Ghidini will reflect on notions of life, transformation, and resurrection within digital environments, retracing the relationship between birth, obsolescence, and the freezing of online projects through her own curatorial experience.
The conference thus seeks to illuminate one of the most emblematic conditions of the present: contemporary intolerance toward death, the emergence of forms of digital resurrection, and the growing impossibility of disappearing completely. Human life today exists at the threshold between species extinction and technological eternity, between the microbiology of death and molecular becoming, between planned obsolescence and the survival of data. Following Plato’s allegory of the cave, the human being ultimately risks consuming the illusion projected onto the walls of its own technical representation, transforming into an imperishable product: a sequence of extracted, archived, and monetized data governed by the logics of contemporary capital.
The conference is promoted by ReHumanism, a cultural association that since 2018 has explored the relationship between contemporary art and artificial intelligence, including through an award dedicated to emerging artistic practices.
The initiative is also part of Elena Giulia Abbiatici’s doctoral research project: SECOND CREATION. The Aesthetics and Biopolitics of Becoming: (Pre)Cognitive, Sensorial and Molecularly Enhanced Subjectivities.
The conference is promoted by Re:humanism, a cultural association founded by Daniela Cotimbo, which has been exploring the relationship between contemporary art and artificial intelligence since 2018, through a biennial award for international artists, as well as exhibitions, workshops, educational programs, and dissemination activities.
The initiative is also part of Elena Giulia Abbiatici’s doctoral research project: SECOND CREATION. The Aesthetics and Biopolitics of Becoming: (Pre)Cognitive, Sensorial and Molecularly Enhanced Subjectivities.
Program
2:00 PM — Welcome remarks by Daniela Cotimbo, President and Founder of Re:humanism; and Salvo Bitonti, Director of Accademia Albertina, followed by an introduction by Elena Giulia Abbiatici
2:20 PM — Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr (The Tissue Culture & Art Project)
2:40 PM — Roberto Mastroianni
3:00 PM — Lyndsey Walsh
BREAK
3:40 PM — Heather Dewey-Hagborg
4:00 PM — Davide Sisto
4:20 PM — Ginevra Petrozzi
4:40 PM — Marialaura Ghidini
5:00 PM — Q&A
The event is supported by the Directorate-General for Libraries and Cultural Institutes of the Italian Ministry of Culture and is realized with the support of the Royal Residences of the House of Savoy – Villa della Regina and the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti di Torino.
June 4, 2026 From 2:00 PM
Villa della Regina, Turin
Free admission