Degenerativa starts from the idea that AI should not simply be used, but explored, questioned and bent toward new uses. Through technical foundations, critical exchange and collective practice, the programme offers tools for developing an autonomous approach to AI within contemporary artistic research.
With a methodological approach oriented more toward facilitating and enabling processes and thinking than toward acquiring purely technical skills, Degenerativa invites participants to experiment with error, hallucination, bias and deviation as tools for artistic research, turning AI into a space for critical imagination without setting aside an ethical perspective.
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Who it is for
Degenerativa is aimed at 18 artists under 35 active in the visual, performing and multimedia arts who want to deepen their engagement with the relationship between art and generative artificial intelligence. The programme is designed for those who want to use AI, cultural archives, datasets and generative AI tools as material for research and creation.
Selected artists
In September 2026 we selected 18 artists under 35, nine for each edition.
Bologna edition, with DumBO and SCG: Alessia Giardini, Mirko Vercelli, Alma Beccarelli, Elide Sulsenti, Leonardo Barbierato, Magalì Mariani, Chiara Sole Funiati, Tommaso Cherubini and Zoe Cinel.
Catanzaro edition: Angelo Ferlaino, Antonio Perticara, Filippo Gonnella, Gina Tamborra, Graziella Portia, Ilaria Ferrara, Linda Ann Cipriani, Matteo Osio and Valentina Romeo.
Their research explores the archive as an incomplete object, the relationship between memory and consent, error and hallucination as tools for understanding how models work, and the material side of AI: data centres, energy and water use, data labour and self-hosted alternatives.
The training programme
Online training
A preparatory programme of around 20 hours between October and November 2026, dedicated to the theoretical, cultural, technical and ethical foundations of generative artificial intelligence. With trainers Sei Iturriaga Sauco and Mateusz Miroslaw Lis, together with guest artists and experts from the sector.
Artistic residency in Bologna or Catanzaro
In January and February 2027, 5 days of intensive campus designed as a space for research, experimentation and production, where the selected artists work in groups to create prototypes. The programme closes with a public presentation of the collaborative project work developed during the residency.
Trainers
Federico Bomba
Mateusz Miroslaw Lis
Sei Iturriaga Sauco
Credits
DEGENERATIVA is a project by Sineglossa. The Bologna edition is in collaboration with DumBO and SCG, realised with the support of the Italian Ministry of Culture and SIAE, within the programme “Per Chi Crea”. The Catanzaro edition is financed under the Catanzaro Integrated Development Strategy. Operation sheet 5 intervention 3 “entrepreneurship training”. Funds: PR CALABRIA ERDF ESF+ 2021-2027 – URBAN STRATEGY 21/27-CUP: D69I26000260006.
Project designed by
BOLOGNA EDITION
In collaboration with
With the support of the MiC and SIAE, as part of the “Per Chi Crea” program
CATANZARO EDITION
Funded by
