Silvia Bigi – Eleonora Roaro
Non-Binary Machines
Opening on Wednesday January 28, 2026, 6-9pm.
January 29 – March 6.
WIZARD LAB is pleased to present Non-Binary Machines, a two-person exhibition by Silvia Bigi and Eleonora Roaro.
In the chapter ‘Non-Binary Machines’, from which the exhibition takes its name, James Bridle (2022) discusses Alan Turing’s theorisation of the a-machine, or automatic machine: an apparatus whose behaviour, once set in motion, is entirely determined by its initial configuration and input. This model became the foundation for most contemporary computers. Turing, however, also conceived another type of machine: the oracle, or o-machine, which would halt at critical moments of undecidability and await an external input—an oracle—to enable a choice. This concept functions as a trait d’union between the projects of Silvia Bigi and Eleonora Roaro.
Silvia Bigi’s Sola is a work dedicated to Francesca Alinovi, an Italian art critic and university lecturer who was murdered in 1983 at the age of thirty-five, in a case that today would be recognised as feminicide. The project departs from a single word, sola (Italian for “alone”), written seventy-seven times on a page of Alinovi’s journal, and from this trace reactivates her voice in a speculative and relational form. At the core of the work is a chatbot built using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology, incorporating the entirety of Alinovi’s writings—essays, notes, and interviews—many of which survive only in archives or libraries and are no longer in print or circulation.
Through carefully designed prompts, the chatbot is trained to impersonate Alinovi within a predetermined scenario, becoming a disembodied, unstable, and resonant presence. The intention is not for the chatbot to simulate Alinovi, but to reactivate her absence. The private exchanges between Bigi and the chatbot—reserved exclusively for the artist—generate fragments, notes, and visions that are subsequently transposed onto fabric using traditional printing techniques, specifically monotypes, forming a kind of shroud in which language becomes image. Beyond the intimacy of this dialogue, the chatbot also assumes the role of curator: following the artist’s request, it conceives participatory performances that, while initiated by algorithmic processes, prompt human participants, who embody and enact them within the gallery space.
The issue of the male gaze and representations of the female in cinema, as investigated by Laura Mulvey (1975), is central to Eleonora Roaro’s ongoing project Irma Vep. Initiated in 2023, Irma Vep is a transmedia work inspired by one of the first femme fatales in the history of cinema. Portrayed by the actress Musidora, she was a cat suit-wearing burglar in the silent crime serial film Les Vampires (1915) written and directed by Louis Feuillade. Through this character, which is at the same time an alter ego of the artist, and a collective avatar, Roaro examines sex and sadomasochistic practices as dimensions of social power struggles and gendered dynamics. The exhibition presents a video, an IoT 3D-printed sculpture, a series of photographs—including a holographic one—, and drawings.
The Irma Vep boot is an IoT sculpture titled “@irmavep_nowhere”, a 3D printed replica of the boot worn in the video. When the chatbot embedded in it interacts with users, the sculpture lights up in pink. The interaction between Irma Vep and users—which unfolds on Telegram, an app used by sex workers to communicate with clients—reverses the canonical, patriarchal association of AI systems with condescending attitudes, female voices, and female names—an association driven largely by their corporate origins: these systems are designed to be compliant in order to “hook” users for as long as possible, mirroring the engagement strategies of social media platforms.
Between automation and oracle, Bigi’s and Roaro’s works open a different view of machines as critical agents in the reconfiguration of memory, desire, and power.