Franco Berardi

Interview

• "The real and the virtual" (Bologna, 18/10/95)
• "Reflecting on the Internet" (Bologna, 29/10/1996)

Biography

Franco Berardi (lop1912@iperbole.bologna.it) has been known as "Bifo" since he began to sign his abstract paintings at school with the name. He later became a left-wing anarchist, joining the group Potere operaio (Worker Power). He participated in the Italian '68 movement in the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy of the University of Bologna, where he graduated in Aesthetics with professor Luciano Anceschi.
In 1970 Feltrinelli published his first book, "Contro il lavoro" (Against Work).
In 1975 he founded the magazine "A/traverso", which became the paper of the Bologna creative movement. In '76 he was part of the editorial team of Radio Alice. The relationship between communication technology and social movements became central to his thinking and action. In 1977 he fled from Bologna where he was wanted by the police for inciting class hatred over the radio, and went to Paris, where he met Felix Guattari and Michel Foucault.
He published "da Seuil Enfin le ciel est tombe' sur la terre". He returned to Italy and published "La barca dell'amore si e' spezzata" (The Ship of Love is Broken Up), and then moved to New York, where he worked for the review "Semiotexte", and from where he sent in articles for the Milanese magazine "Musica 80", edited by his friend Franco Bolelli. He travelled for some time in India, Mexico, Nepal and China. He returned to Italia in 1985, and, with some friends, opened TOPIA, a "centre for mental ecology". At this time he became interested in thematic channels and published the article " Tecnologie comunicative" (Communicative Technology), which forecast the explosion of TV channels as a decisive social and cultural phenomenon, in the magazine "Alfabeta".

In 1989, after a period studying in California, he published the pamphlet Cyberpunk with the publisher Synergon. That was followed by "Piu' cyber che punk" (More cyber than punk), "Cancel", "Politiche della mutazione" (The Politics of Mutation) and "Mutazione e cyberpunk" (Mutation and Cyberpunk). In 1991 he wrote and acted in the film "Il Trasloco" (The Move) by Renato De Maria. In 1994 he organised, with the consortium Universita' Citta' di Bologna the international convention CIBERNAUTI, which was published in four volumes by Castelvecchi. He has published "Come si cura il nazi" (How to cure the Nazi), :Neuromagma", and recently "Exit, il nostro contributo all'estinzione della civilta" (Exit, our contribution to the extinction of civilisation).