Irrational: A Visual Directory to a World with No Reason
Francesco Jodice and Francesco Zanot
MACK Books
English
Edited by Tom Ridgway
Softcover
176 pages
100 x 148 mm
2025
ISBN 9781915743916
In Irrational, artist Francesco Jodice and curator Francesco Zanot dissect the rise of irrationality in modern life and society through an extensive and thought-provoking array of visual case studies. Addressing topics such as AI, fake news, post-truth, and new populism, this illustrated essay challenges our understanding of a world increasingly dominated by unpredictability. This text offers incisive insights into the chaotic forces shaping our present and future, prompting readers to reflect on the fragile balance between reason and chaos.
(Source: https://mackbooks.co.uk/collections/spbh-editions/products/irrational-francesco-jodice-francesco-zanot)
About the Artists
Francesco Jodice (Naples, 1967) lives and works in Milan. After graduating in architecture in 1995, he devoted himself to his first artistic research using the media of photography and video. In 1999, he took part in the establishment of the Multiplicity collective. Between 1996 and 2004, the relationship between large urban landscapes and communities was at the centre of his research, as evidenced by the projects What We Want, The Secret Traces, and The Morocco Affair. Afterwards, Jodice’s attention turned to the different anthropological cultures in relation to the new phenomena of megapolitism. Hikikomori, Ritratti di classe, and the Citytellers film trilogy belong to this period. Since 2008, geopolitics has been at the centre of the artist’s research. The analysis of the Western system crisis has led to the creation of movies, installations, and photographic projects such as Atlante, American Recordings, Rivoluzioni, and the more recent West. Jodice considers the practice of art as a civil poetics; his artistic processes promote forms and models of public participation. Examples of this activity can be found in the projects La notte del drive-in. Milano spara, Babe,l and Scenario. He teaches at the Biennio di Arti Visive e Studi Curatoriali and at the Master in Photography and Visual Design at NABA – Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti di Milano. He participated in group exhibitions such as documenta Kassel, the Venice Biennale, the São Paulo Biennial, the ICP Triennial in New York, the Liverpool Biennial, and the Yinchuan Biennial. Jodice exhibited at the Castello di Rivoli (Rivoli, Turin), the Tate Modern (London), and the Prado (Madrid). His main projects include the photographic atlas What We Want – an observatory on landscape changes as a projection of people’s desires, the archive of urban tailings The Secret Traces, and the trilogy of films on new forms of urbanism: Citytellers. His most recent works – Atlante, American Recordings, Rivoluzioni, and West – explore possible future scenarios of the West. His works are part of numerous Italian and international public collections.
https://www.francescojodice.com/cover.php
(Source: https://www.francescojodice.com/bio.php
Francesco Zanot was born in 1979 in Milan, Italy, and lives and works in Milan and Turin, Italy. As a critic and curator of photography, Zanot has collaborated on exhibitions and books with some of the most renowned international photographers. He has curated photobooks by artists such as Linda Fregni Nagler, Guido Guidi, Olivo Barbieri, Takashi Homma, Charlotte Dumas, Mark Cohen, and his essays have been published in various monographs and catalogues. His last contributions appeared in books dedicated to the works by Luigi Ghirri (Kodachrome, Mack Books) and Domingo Milella (Steidl). He is the author of Ping Pong Conversations (Contrasto), an extended interview with American photographer Alec Soth. Director of the Master in Photography organised by Forma-NABA in Milan, he is an associate editor of Fantom. Since 2015, he has served as curator of Camera—Centro Italiano di Fotografia in Turin.
(Source: https://www.rencontres-arles.com/en/artistes/view/327/francesco-zanot)
About the Publisher
MACK is an independent publisher of award-winning books on contemporary art, critical theory, film, and architecture. They work with pioneering creative minds and institutions across the globe and pride themselves on the rigour and care that goes into every stage of the book-making process.
https://mackbooks.co.uk/
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