“We often call useless what we can’t understand. I am the son of 1980s commercial television, pop culture, video games, and Japanese apocalyptic cartoons. I grew up in the 1990s, an era when technology flirted with analog, the age of music videos and the MTV Generation, Urban Tribe, graffiti, Rave Culture, and electronic music. My work is born from the underground, reflecting what I perceive in the folds of society. I favor multidisciplinary approaches, where technology (innovation) and the analog (tradition) coexist in an infinite loop of experiences.” (Cesare Bignotti the Useless Idea)
Useless Idea is the stage name of Cesare Bignotti, an Italian interdisciplinary audiovisual artist. His work is characterized by a dreamy and captivating aesthetic that combines painting, video, and electronic music, where technology and tradition coexist within an imaginary universe that promotes contemporary themes such as posthumanism, advertising, social critique, post-vandalism, and error as an aesthetic value.
Bignotti belongs to the second generation of multimedia artists from the post-rave electronic audiovisual scene and to the first generation of early 2000s post-graffitists. This duality distinguishes him and at the same time distances him from genre classifications. His work reflects a broad creative independence, assimilating, reinterpreting, and renewing genres inspired by pop and underground culture, transitioning from urban art to digital art. Useless Idea represents an anti-brand, an act of liberation, and a subversive tool to explore and question conventions of commercial beauty and expressive freedom.
Bignotti began his career as a visual designer and concept artist in the communication field, collaborating with renowned entities such as Fabrica and Colors Magazine in the 2000s, which influenced his language and approach. During the same period, he exhibited in important institutions such as the Shiodomeitalia Creative Center in Tokyo, the Shanghai Art Museum, the Centre Pompidou, the Kunsthaus in Hamburg, and the Bevilaqua La Masa Foundation in Venice. In 2010, he won the European Biennale of Montrouge in Paris, experiences that solidified art as a space for experimentation and research.
An expert in underground culture and digital audiovisual culture, he has collaborated with institutions such as IIT (Italian Institute of Technology), the DAD Department of Design in Genoa, the Ligustica Academy, the Bevilaqua La Masa Foundation, PAC, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Villa Croce. Since 2025, he has been listed among the professional registers of the University of Milan as an expert in audiovisual and multimedia arts. Under the pseudonym Useless Idea, he has released electronic music on specialized labels such as WeMe and Suction Records. Like his visual art, his music draws inspiration from multiple genres, often distant from each other, revealing a personal IDM style as described by reality like Bleep. Due to his versatility as a producer, besides Useless Idea, he releases music under various pseudonyms such as Seven Nights Alone and Dual.
He has been studying artificial intelligence since 2018. From 2019, he has been a Digital Art teacher at the Computer Art course at the Academy of Fine Arts of Genoa and works in the fields of visual and sound design.
Art Shows
– Antinomia – Avantgarden Gallery – Milan 2024
– Living Room – Prisma Studio – Genoa 2021
– Paratissima – Turin 2016
– Exhibition Hall Regione Piemonte – Piazza Castello – Turin 2015
– Klaipeda Hall (Klaipeda, Lithuania) 2013
– Museu Amadeo Souza Cardoso (Amarante, Portugal) 2013
– Bevilacqua la Masa – Venice / Piazza San Marco 2013
– IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) – Florence 2013
– Galerie im Traklhaus (Austria, Salzburg) 2012
– GMB Mirbach Palace (Bratislava, Slovakia) 2012
– Musil Museum (Brescia, Italy) 2012
– Pécs Zsolnay Cultural Quarter – M21 Gallery (Hungary) 2012
– Kunsthaus (Hamburg, Germany) 2012
– Klaipeda Hall (Klaipeda, Lithuania) 2012
– Bela Edizioni Gallery (Brussels, Belgium) 2012
– Problem Project – Musil Museum of Labor, Brescia 2012
– Salon d’art de Montrouge Contemporain – JCE European Biennial (Montrouge, France) 2011
– Defective Science – Palazzo Ducale (Genoa, Italy) 2011
– MC2 – Museum of Contemporary Art Villa Croce (Genoa, Italy) 2010
– Start – Palazzo Ducale – Genoa 2010
– Shiodomeitalia Creative Center – Colors Notebook / Fabrica (Tokyo, Japan) 2008
– Shanghai Art Museum – Colors Magazine / Fabrica (Shanghai, China) 2007
– Triennale di Milano – Colors Magazine / Fabrica (Milan, Italy) 2007
– Centre Pompidou – Colors Magazine / Fabrica (Paris) 2006
Sound Art
– As a composer, he has released music for specialized labels such as WeMe and Suction Records.
– In 2022, Bleep (independent record shop created by Warp Records) named the EP “Split,” released by Suction Records, as the best EP of the week.
– Publishes: Dual – Ca.Net_is – EVES Music 2022.
– Publishes: Useless Idea – Glitch In The Colours – Suction Records 2022.
– Publishes: Useless Idea / Seven Nights Alone – Split – Suction Records 2022.
– Sound Installation: Living Room – Prisma Studio – Genoa 2021.
– Publishes: Useless Idea – Xa Peh – EVES Music 2019.
– Publishes: Useless Idea – Acid Hologram – WeMe Records 2018.
– Publishes: Dual – Moon Water – EVES Music 2017.
– Sound Performance: Art Test Fest – Museum of Contemporary Art of Villa Croce 2016.
– Sound Installation: I AM – International Augmented Med – Genoa / Sala Dogana, Palazzo Ducale 2015.
– Sound Installation: Exhibition Hall Regione Piemonte – Piazza Castello – Turin 2015.
– Sound Installation: Micheletti Award – at Palazzo Martinengo, Brescia 2015.
– Publishes: Dual – Musil Live – EVES Music 2014.
– Sound Installation: Problem Project Probject – Musil Museo del Lavoro, Brescia 2012
– Sound Performance: 40 Years of Video Art in Germany from 1963 to 2004 – Museum of Contemporary Art of Villa Croce 2008.
– Sound Performance: Electrowave Festival Selection 2001.
Teaching Digital Culture
As a researcher and experimenter, thanks to his experiences, he has embarked on a career as a lecturer in digital arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Genoa and is registered in the register of experts in audiovisual and multimedia production for the University of Milan, in the roles of visual sound design and concept art.
– Since 2018, he has been a lecturer in Digital Art at the Computer Art course at the Linguistic Academy of Genoa.
– Since 2025, he has been part of the experts in audiovisual and multimedia production for the University of Milan.
– In 2010, he collaborated with the IIT (Italian Institute of Technology) and tested the first virtual reality devices for musical performances.
– In 2006, he founded EVES, an organization specialized in audiovisual research and an independent netlabel for electronic music and new sounds.
– Speaker: DAD Department of Architecture and Design, Genoa 2024
– Speaker: European Researchers’ Night – Palazzo Rosso, Genoa 2023
– Speaker: Multi – Academy of Fine Arts and Paganini Conservatory, Spazio Senarega, Genoa 2022
– Speaker: Art 2.0 – Museum of Contemporary Art Villa Croce, Genoa 2008
– Speaker: Web Art – Science Festival, Genoa 2008
Teaching Urban Culture
– Speaker: Post Vandalism – Museo di Arte Contemporanea Villa Croce, Genoa 2023
– Speaker: Contemporaneo Effimero, Notte Europea dei Ricercatori – Palazzo Rosso, Genoa 2023
– Speaker: MURA, From Writing to Street Art – Spazio Giustignani, Genoa 2023
– Speaker: W:OW Lo Spazio Pubblico – Spazio Giustignani, Genoa 2022
– Speaker: Documentary Fame Festival by Angelo Milano / Studio Cromie, Genoa 2019
– Speaker: Lettere dalla Città, Museo di Arte Contemporanea Villa Croce, Genoa 2016
– Speaker: Banksy Does New York, Genoa 2016
– Copywriter: All City Writers: The Graffiti Diaspora, 2009. A book on the anthropological phenomenon of Graffiti Culture.
– Speaker: Street Art: The Street as an Exposed Space – Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, Venice 2007
– Speaker: Teach Me Festival – with Oliviero Toscani and Paolo Crepet, Genoa 2006