Simone Restifo Pilato

An Ecology of Beasts by Common Index Rooted in medieval imaginaries, the interactive installation explores a shared ecosystem where creatures emerge through collective contributions. BASE Milano ( @base_milano ) Hello Darkness 2026 April 20–26

We’re super excited to announce that An Ecology of Beasts will be presented at @base_milano during Design Week (20–26 April) as part of HELLO DARKNESS. Entering the shadow zones of the present, the project treats darkness not as a void, but as an active ecological condition. The unseen edges of our systems become spaces for collective creation, where instability is not resolved, but inhabited. Through a shared bestiary and a generative installation, uncertainty becomes generative ground. Multiple imaginaries coexist within a non-hierarchical structure, forming a living ecology shaped by relation rather than control. Huge thanks to @matildelosi , @giulicus and @base_milano for giving us this unique opportunity. See you at BASE!

Mapping soft disorder. A quick dive into organised confusion.

50 intense and deeply loved hours of An Ecology of Beasts. An adventure shared with @carlottabacchini @s0iasalsa @_pppete.xyz and @asiatrianda @nickozza @ferraginafe A project by @common.index Exhibition design by @sole.sole.studio Hosted by @t_x_t_studio Pics by @lucaventuroli (4, 5, 10, 11) @valeriosalvatore_ (1, 2, 3, 9)

A huge thank you from the Common Index team to everyone who helped bring this reinterpretation of the bestiary to life. In such a short time, you showed us trust and interest beyond our expectations. Alongside your contributions, we have been working on the curatorial framework and the installation to give this collective work a narrative form. The resulting collective bestiary will be on display on January 24 and 25 at TXT Studio, and we are excited to see how it will take shape in the exhibition space. We look forward to meeting those we have not met yet and to seeing our friends on the 24th. Common Index team @carlottabacchini @s0iasalsa @_pppete.xyz @simonerestifo Hosted by @t_x_t_studio Exhibition design with @sole.sole.studio

Common Index is a device for design inquiry and collective making, operating within the present. Through situated practices, we explore the space where technology and design meet to engage with the systems that define the contemporary. Common Index emerges from the need to build a shared reference, an evolving catalogue of gestures, ideas, and relations that reveal along the blurred edges of a practice.  It is an effort to inhabit the present together and to interrogate what is left aside. Not for impact, but for care.

Eden is a Screensaver reinterprets the myth of Eden as a digital space, an unattainable illusion of paradise. This is a place of untouched perfection where nothing happens, and from which we are forever exiled. Likewise, the screensaver is an idyllic and inaccessible world, a transient layer over the desktop. Both the Garden of Eden and the screensaver exist as spaces of desire and exclusion, places that can only be observed, never truly entered. Using a custom AI model, the installation explores this tension by constructing an artificial vision of paradise. These AI-generated landscapes intersect with desktop recordings created by participants. Given only minimal instructions, they interpreted the text freely by telling a story, performing an action, or doing nothing at all. Eden is a Screensaver invites reflection on the illusions of perfection—whether archetypal or digital—and the longing they leave behind. A project by Dorsa Rafiee and Simone Restifo Pilato featured at [ 4K: Touching Grass in Ultra HD - Curated by @simonacoltello ] With the contribution of @pietro.forino @_atoloi @annalisa.rusconi @asiatrianda @benedetta_bellucci @otttaa @flaviadoda @lucamaserati @sono_lillu @bdeitr @matt_maggi @granodsenape @valca.sara @east.vic Thanks to @bim_milano @pessimart @specificissimo @4096x2160pixels Exhibition pictures by @elaverre

While waiting to get to 100 items here a little post about my neighbour’s garbage, day by day delivery a new piece of interesting rubbish Should I tag him?

Simone Restifo Pilato is an interaction designer whose practice explores storytelling, digital tools, and critical research through a posthumanist lens. He works at the intersection of design, media, and aesthetics, questioning the evolving relationships between humans, non-humans, technology, and contemporary culture. --- @simonerestifo featured at [4K: Touching Grass in Ultra HD - Curated by Simona Coltello] 4K: Touching Grass in Ultra HD is a collective exhibit that reflects on artificial means of utopian life. Post Internet research, Early AI and 3D sculpture will be the main focuses to explore dystopian imaginaries, (chronically) online aesthetic influences, final-stage consumerism and promethean corruption of the artists’ depiction of beauty. Collective Exhibition with: Alfred Francis Pietroni Anais Bianca Beltrame Bautista Botto Barili Covid Room Dorsa Rafiee Eyeguys Eva & Franco Mattes Francesco Saverio Tani Jenia Filatova Lars Larkin Nelson Gutjahr Simona Coltello Simone Restifo Pilato X.luna --- Opening 29th March 2025 BiM Milano, Viale dell'innovazione 3, 20125 Milano MI 16:00-01:00 With Performances by: 19:00 Honey Jazz 20:00 manymanybow 21:00 t0ni 22:00 TUNA DISPLAY 23:00 DJ GHEPARD 00:00 Kunthug --- Curated by Simona Coltello Special Thanks to BiM Milano for guesting us and promoting our event Producers: Alessandra Pallotta, Anais Beltrame, Dorsa Rafiee, Simona Coltello Soundsystem: Outofcontext* Sponsored by Bim Milano, Specific, Pessima, Turbolean

After a mini digital treasure hunt through old folders and cloud services (thanks to my computer being stolen), I finally managed to recover some videos and photos for this project concept created over a year ago. This idea emerged during a one-week workshop with @studioaboveandbelow at the @transmediaresearch.institute in Fano, where I had the opportunity to experiment with various tools to explore new ways of seeing and interacting with our environment. The project investigates the hidden connections between us, the technologies we use, and the natural world. By revealing how artificial light impacts life in seawater, it underscores that every choice we make leaves a trace, affecting not only humans but also the broader ecosystem, while engaging with the concept of human presence.

A post that had to be made — in random order: Crawford Lake, me inside a Coca-Cola fridge, my thesis full-text displayed in under 90 seconds, the printed-out version, visual representations of case studies, an infographic highlighting the intersections of a bunch of disciplines, key steps in the development of extended reality technologies, Neo Geodesia performing at Lost Festival, and the full-text condensed into a single image

A robotic arm and slime mould are the main agents of this story, based on the questions arising from their relationship, which challenges the definition of natural and artificial. The video brings up a series of concepts introducing the viewer to different perspectives on the agents involved in the narrative, and on the meanings they hold, leading towards a less anthropocentric point of view. This audiovisual piece is grounded on the influences of cultural and philosophical studies regarding the natureculture continuum, body boundaries, agencies and Western ethics in robotics. The concept of our piece is not only the coexistence of two entities but their codependence. When the robot is set outside the human context it resignifies itself, losing its solutionist approach. In this change in the machine’s purpose where it is entangled with the living organism a series of dichotomies emerge creating ambiguity. The importance is not the agency of these entities by themselves, acting and existing separately, but their bond, their symbiosis, the two of them together. What do we understand by artificial? And by natural? Do any of the entities have the will to interact and to intra-act? Where does one’s body start? Where does it end? The project itself is a tool more than an answer, an object or an end. It is an opportunity to bring up questions and rediscover, with a speculative approach, new possibilities. A project by @niaceno @east.vic @vlachakiis @simonerestifo