Quayola is an Italian artist whose practice explores the intersection of technology, visual art, and sound, using computational systems as a lens through which to reinterpret historical, natural, and cultural forms. His work investigates the tension between the real and the artificial, the figurative and the abstract, the organic and the synthetic, translating canonical imagery into dynamic audiovisual structures.
Working with custom-built software, Quayola develops immersive installations and live performances that draw from art history — including landscape painting, classical sculpture, and iconography — while engaging with contemporary questions around machine perception, automation, and algorithmic interpretation. His practice spans audiovisual performance, large-scale video installations, sculpture, and works on paper, all generated through computational processes.
Quayola’s work has been presented internationally at major institutions and festivals, including the V&A Museum (London), Park Avenue Armory (New York), National Art Center (Tokyo), UCCA (Beijing), How Art Museum (Shanghai), SeMA (Seoul), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Ars Electronica (Linz), Sónar Festival (Barcelona), and Sundance Film Festival. In 2013, he was awarded the Golden Nica at Ars Electronica.
Alongside his visual practice, Quayola has developed a body of work in the field of music and audiovisual performance, where sound and image are conceived as a single computational system. In these works, algorithms operate as autonomous agents, simultaneously generating musical structures and visual compositions in real time.
His performances explore machine interpretation, probability, and error, revealing the expressive potential of computational processes and the aesthetic implications of non-human decision-making. Rather than illustrating sound with visuals, Quayola constructs tightly coupled audiovisual environments in which both elements evolve together, producing immersive and synesthetic experiences.
Transient is n audiovisual performance and installation series based on real-time algorithmic composition. Developed for motorized pianos and generative visuals, Transient explores impermanence through continuously evolving sound and image, produced by autonomous computational systems interacting with physical instruments.
Luce is an audiovisual project developed from the historical archive of Archivio Luce, in which photographs and film footage are transformed into algorithmic paintings. The work investigates machine vision and interpretation, shifting the focus from historical meaning to formal structure, uncertainty, and computational error.
More information: quayola.com