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Mobile Photography & Art – ‘Intimate Interview’ with Andrea Bigiarini from Florence, Italy

Andrea Bigiarini is the founder and president of the New Era Museum. Bigiarini promotes the creation of visual art on mobile devices and creates the most spectacular multi-media exhibitions throughout the world, these have included shows in Rome, Florence, Kansas, United States and Paris France,  He is based in Florence, Italy.

This is our 29th interview in this series of intimate interviews. TheAppWhisperer is the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website and we feel it is important that our community feel close to one another, as it is this support that helps us to nurture each others art, gain confidence and continue to grow.

To read the other published interviews in this series including artists, Adria Ellis, Rino Rossi, Mehmet Duyulmus, Alexis Rotella, Lou Ann Sanford Donahue, Irene Oleksiuk, Kerry Mitchell, Filiz Ak, Dale Botha, Lisa Mitchell, M. Cecilia Sao Thiago, Deborah McMillion, Rita Colantonio, Amy Ecenbarger, Jane Schultz, Anca Balaj, Joyce Harkin, Armineh Hovanesian, Kate Zari Roberts, Vicki Cooper, Peter Wilkin, Barbara Braman, Becky Menzies, Sukru Mehmet Omur, Sarah Bichachi, Michel Pretterklieber, Alon Goldsmith, Judy Lurie Whalberg and myself, go here.

All images ©Andrea Bigiarini

First Recognition?

As you can imagine, my plan to land on the moon went awry, both due to lack of funds and lack of reindeer, so I decided that, since I had managed to draw that whole project, I would have focused my efforts towards art (or at least what I thought it was).

Note that I grew up among art books, especially from the twentieth century and thousands of films and photos of my family. Above all I absorbed the spirit of the Futurists (Marinetti, Balla, Boccioni, etc.) that I tried to apply to my strange designs.

I will get to the point but first I want to make a detour and tell you when my mother (perhaps worried about my drawings) took me for a test to a paediatric psychologist because she believed I was totally stupid.

After two days of testing, the psychologist told my mother not to worry and let my creativity vent. I took the ball and made twelve A3 drawings, went to the school director and told him I wanted to do an exhibition inside the school. In short, he accepted and the twelve drawings remained in that school for over 30 years.

That was my first recognition and a great satisfaction for me.

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First Job?

At 18 as assistant in a graphic designer studio that’s why I love visual arts so much.

Private or State School?

I come from a wealthy upper middle class family but my father decided that I would (fortunately) go to public schools.  As if that were not enough I attended both primary and secondary schools near the Florence central market along with the children of the people who worked there. I owe everything to the road and to these people.

They were children and young people with little education and totally without good manners but thanks to them I learned how to “read the streets” (it is not easy to translate this concept into English but I hope you understand what I mean).

Recognise in an instant who is a friend or foe, know how to get out of potentially dangerous situations and above all to make yourself respected and to respect everyone. This has helped me a lot in my life.

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University Work?

I studied on my own and found it more useful to earn money and spend it. In those days I was an inveterate consumer.

Who was or still is your mentor?

Definitely my father.  He was my mentor without teaching me anything.  By osmosis he transmitted to me complex concepts that allowed me to formulate my profound vision of the world.

I believe that there is no objective vision of the world but rather billions of completely subjective visions.

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How physically fit are you?

For almost 55 years I have done many sports, if that’s what you mean by physical fitness. Now at 63 I love to lie in bed, surfing (the web) and observing who does physical activity with a certain detachment and concentrate on idleness 🙂

Ambition or Talent?

Neither one if you misuse it.

Ambition has the flavour of an internal defeat that must necessarily be transformed into victory. Talent is a bit like the little match girl of fairy tales without mother or father and above all poor.

I believe that life above all for an artist, must be lived without conflict, without goals, without anguish.

One must think that everything is lost at the start and keep doing things with the certainty that we have won on all fronts. It looks like a nonsense but it is not.

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How politically committed are you?

I think that politics is totally useless for human beings.

It is very useful for banks, lobbies and lodges but it is not useful for us mere mortals.

I also believe that right, left, conservative and popular, in short, any kind of political colouring are the same thing and take orders all from the same small group of people.

Make love, grow flowers, watch the sunsets for hours but forget politics.

What would you like to own that you don’t currently possess?

What I would like to possess that I don’t already have. Good question.

May I change this question with another question:

“What would I do that I haven’t done yet”.

Doing and being is much more important than having and this is the answer: I would like to do a Haka (Maori War Dance) together with the New Zealand All Blacks team.

This is the dream of my life.

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What is your biggest extravagance?

The first one that comes to mind?

Wear a Scottish kilt and dance the tip tap together with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

What places are you the happiest?

In the woods while it is raining or on a deserted beach during a storm. I love everything that is empty, uninhabited.

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What ambitions do you still have?

I already told you how I feel about ambition.

I prefer to talk about desires.

Desire with a capital D is the most powerful force in the universe. We exist thanks to desire and desire moves everything because desire is love. Love for a person, love for a certain situation or simply for something that makes us feel good.

Do you know which is the true opposite of love?

It is not hate but fear so my desire is to continue to not to be afraid of anything.

What drives you on?

The desire. From the most primitive to the purest.

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What is the greatest achievement of your life so far?

What is yet to come.

What do you find most irritating in other people?

Falsehood and lack of respect. I’m a dominant Alpha.

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If your 20-year old self could see you now, what would he think?

He would not understand a word of what I would have to say to him. I would like to transfer to him 43 years of experiences and perceptions to enable him not to behave like a 20 year old boy.

Which object that you’ve love do you wish you still have?

Ask me which person. Things are just objects.

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Do you believe in an afterlife?

I see it this way.

We take a dress and have a life experience, then the dress breaks or stains, so we throw it away and take another dress to make a totally different experience, but we always remain, indeed the pristine part of us, the one without a dress.

For me, Afterlife has this meaning.

What is the greatest challenge of our time?

The big challenge? In a decadent civilisation like this the only thing to do is a great reset.

I don’t want to seem too radical but I’d like to say that exasperated respectability was the ruin of our century, so the first thing to do is to analyse all the shit that they told us and not let us be distracted by our inner and solitary path.

The systems are collapsing and we have entered a new era where entropy and consciousness are expanding exponentially and keep in mind that we are not losers but powerful entities that have the power to completely change the game. The first challenge is to know exactly this concept, this super power, then apply this to our reality. Jiddu Krishnamurti, an Indian philosopher, once said “society is only a reflection of our self”. So use our self to modify our private vision of the society in a positive way and stop whining on how this world is bad. We can change it in a second.

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If you had to rate your satisfaction with your life so far, out of 10, what would you score? 

Eleven.

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Contact Details for Andrea Bigiarini

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Joanne Carter, creator of the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website— TheAppWhisperer.com— TheAppWhisperer platform has been a pivotal cyberspace for mobile artists of all abilities to learn about, to explore, to celebrate and to share mobile artworks. Joanne’s compassion, inclusivity, and humility are hallmarks in all that she does, and is particularly evident in the platform she has built. In her words, “We all have the potential to remove ourselves from the centre of any circle and to expand a sphere of compassion outward; to include everyone interested in mobile art, ensuring every artist is within reach”, she has said. Promotion of mobile artists and the art form as a primary medium in today’s art world, has become her life’s focus. She has presented lectures bolstering mobile artists and their art from as far away as the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea to closer to her home in the UK at Focus on Imaging. Her experience as a jurist for mobile art competitions includes: Portugal, Canada, US, S Korea, UK and Italy. And her travels pioneering the breadth of mobile art includes key events in: Frankfurt, Naples, Amalfi Coast, Paris, Brazil, London. Pioneering the world’s first mobile art online gallery - TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com has extended her reach even further, shipping from London, UK to clients in the US, Europe and The Far East to a global group of collectors looking for exclusive art to hang in their homes and offices. The online gallery specialises in prints for discerning collectors of unique, previously unseen signed limited edition art. Her journey towards becoming The App Whisperer, includes (but is not limited to) working for a paparazzi photo agency for several years and as a deputy editor for a photo print magazine. Her own freelance photographic journalistic work is also widely acclaimed. She has been published extensively both within the UK and the US in national and international titles. These include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Popular Photography & Imaging, dpreview, NikonPro, Which? and more recently with the BBC as a Contributor, Columnist at Vogue Italia and Contributing Editor at LensCulture. Her professional photography has also been widely exhibited throughout Europe, including Italy, Portugal and the UK. She is currently writing several books, all related to mobile art and is always open to requests for new commissions for either writing or photography projects or a combination of both. Please contact her at: joanne@theappwhisperer.com