The sixth edition proposed by the artistic director Giovanni Troilo and by the photographic curator Arianna Rinaldo is once again a mainly outdoor formula in full compliance with the regulations in force on safety and social distancing. The idea, therefore, also for the summer of 2021 is to bring the museum among the people, allowing the public to admire the works while walking through the historic center of Monopoli or diving into the crystal clear waters of its sea. But without depriving yourself of the magic of some small indoor locations.

Over twenty exhibitions will allow the public to immerse themselves and discover the heart of the city of Monopoli and, at the same time, to be amazed, questioned and reflect on the concept of the body.

In an evolutionary phase in which man seems to migrate to a new planet, the immaterial one of the network, the body seems to take on an increasingly marginal value, it becomes a ballast, a limit, the fragile part to be kept only for the purpose of preserving life. The pandemic seems to have accelerated this awareness, this migration.

But today, more than ever, the body is at the center of the debate and becomes a discriminating factor for politics. Think of Minneapolis and #BlackLivesMatter, #MeeToo and Covid itself, all issues capable of shifting the political balance of the entire planet and on which many of the upcoming social conflicts will focus. The conquest and control of biometric data becomes at the same time the key factor to complete the most sophisticated control device ever made by man (the Agamben biopolitics) and the last mile left for Artificial Intelligence to start the Novacene, the Age of Superintelligence of which James Lovelock speaks, towards its more mature stage.

Among the artists participating in PhEST 2021, numerous international artists stand out, who with their distinctive approach will take visitors to worlds where physicality is combined with aesthetics, where cybernetics alternates with the exaltation of color and where present and future meet. merge into a multifaceted exploration of the tangibility of the human body.