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Cheil Italia The Art of Insight

Cheil Italia: The Art of Insight the exhibition connects creativity and socio-anthropological insights

P.Rew.: Studio Re Public Relations 
From June 28th to July 1st the Samsung Smart Arena hosts the Crypto art exhibition conceived by Cheil Italia, the creative agency of the Samsung Group.


Cheil Italia
, the data-driven creative agency of the Samsung Group, presents its hybrid identity in Milan through “The Art of Insight”, an exhibition open to the public and free admission that connects creativity and socio-anthropological insights.

If on the one hand, deducing, correlating, mixing, shouting one’s vision represent aspects of the creative process, on the other hand analyzing, identifying recursive patterns, converting reality into numbers that describe a trend are the steps necessary to outline an insight.


We live today’s personal and working reality in constant tension between these two approaches, one more intuitive, the other more analytical. Hence the title “The Art of Insight”, to offer a contemporary reading of the collision of these two gazes, an inclusive vision that demonstrates the seamless convergence of the two worlds, visceral and mathematical.

An exhibition of Crypto art that also becomes the skeleton of an economic and sociological analysis, the heart of those looking for a theory of great unification.

Nine digital artistic works exhibited on maxi screens that describe as many insights, an observatory on what happens around us in an unusual form, of empathy and impact, two worlds that come together, each remaining at its extreme.

The hybrid identity of the agency emerges in all its disruptive force: Cheil Italia reflects a mixture of different cultures and skills, which collide and incorporate each other, generating a reality that is anything but taken for granted. Korean rigor meets Italian flexibility, power of data and creativity intertwine, generating not only performances of measurable value, but real works of art.

“We are at the beginning of a process that intends to return to Cheil Italia a portrait of its true nature, perhaps hitherto hidden” – thus begins Claudio Nobili, Creative Director of Cheil Italia, in describing the reasons that prompted the Italian-Korean agency to offer this exhibition to the city of Milan.


The works
Nine digital works that describe as many insights, an observatory on what happens around us in an unusual form, of empathy and impact, two worlds that come together, each remaining at its extreme.

in-CANTO (en-CHANTMENT) . Cheil Italia The Art of Insight
in-CANTO (en-CHANTMENT) . Cheil Italia The Art of Insight

in-CANTO (en-CHANTMENT)
(Artists: Andrea Bertolotti | Arianna Ronco)
Gen Z was born with technology and evolves with innovation. The growth of this generation parallels the development of social networks, which lead to a new way of communicating, a new language, and new rhythms. The times of this generation, in fact, are fast, marked by a few seconds. It is a continuous development, with continuous innovations, which makes the Gen Z increasingly connected and at the center of its world. According to studies, in fact, 60% of Gen Z consumers say that social media is an essential part of their life.


60% of 13-20 year olds are interested in promoting brands on their social media and finally 81% of this generation say they would be thrilled if a brand wanted to use their (accredited) content in their ads of marketing.*

This digital narcissism arouses a real fascination for the generations to which it is alien. Boomers and Millennials, hypnotized by the Gen Z way of communicating, simulate their language made up of images, aesthetics and creativity lasting a few seconds and a story in a few characters. The desire to be part of this new universe is born, to be part of this new language that brings with it the desire to be included.

A dualism between active and passive, where the older generations are enchanted by what can be mere image, or great meaning. It is the song of a contemporary siren whose purpose is not clear, but which captivates other generations by raising the power of the ephemeral to the substantial.

PARADISI ARTIFICIALI (Artificial Paradises). Cheil Italia The Art of Insight
PARADISI ARTIFICIALI (Artificial Paradises). Cheil Italia The Art of Insight

PARADISI ARTIFICIALI (Artificial Paradises)
(Artists: Riccardo Piacenza | Daniele Meneghini)

“Since I was a child […] I’ve always loved a good story. I believed that stories helped us to ennoble ourselves, to fix what was broken in us and to help us become the people we dreamed of being. Lies that told a deeper truth. ” Robert Ford, Westworld

One of the greatest aspirations of the human being is freedom. Not a mere absence of constraints, but an explosive freedom, regenerating creativity and meaning. But what happens when this aspiration collides with a material condition characterized by limitations and a sense of general suffocation?

Escape from reality can become a reasonable option. It is no coincidence that research has shown that 57% of Gen Z believe they feel freer to express themselves in video games than in daily life and that even 77% declare that the identity assumed during gaming sessions is more corresponding to what one really is. *

These digital worlds are therefore contemporary Artificial Paradises. Their plurality always guarantees novelty, they are designed for the most total involvement, identification is ensured and there are no real risks for the person. They appear to us as forbidden fruits that we can finally feed on to finally be free, complete and always innocent. But at a price.

Their ephemeral and artificial character means that they are not a cure for alienation but its extension. The hands that suffocate us do not disappear as in a bad dream, but draw their lymph from the same worlds in which we take refuge. Just as the Ideal can be transformed into an idol, so the Artificial Paradises can be transformed into Artificial Purgators. Not places of residence, but simply of transit. When the escape ends, we return to come to terms with Reality. Which, perhaps, deserves to be the real battlefield of our freedom and our identity.
* Vice Media Group and Publicis Group’s Razorfish agency 2022

WMI About identity. Cheil Italia The Art of Insight
WMI About identity. Cheil Italia The Art of Insight

WMI – About identity
(Artists: Francesca Delvigo | Mario Esposito)
Who is the protagonist of this work? We do not know. On the other hand, he / she / them asks for it too. “WMI?” it is in fact an acronym that stands for “Who am I?”, “Who am I?”. The theme of fluid and indefinable identities is deeply felt in the new generations: according to recent research * on In Gen Z, 66% think that gender equality is an increasingly serious problem.

According to another study **, 27% of children between 13 and 20 identify themselves with the LGBTQ + macro-category. Finally, the data *** tell us that 34% of Millennials and 38% of Gen Z believe that systemic racism is widespread in the world of work, thus suggesting that we need to intervene to strengthen the inclusiveness and respect of all.

 The work creates a contemporary chimera, made up of elements and bodies united in a fluid and mysterious continuum. The only thing we know about this magnetic being is that we do not want – and cannot – know its genre. An asterisk rests on the non-protagonist’s mouth. Graphic sign originally used in militant writings (but now widely cleared of customs) to indicate a word that does not want to represent either the male or female gender. It is recently the news that, in Milan, trans and non-binary people will be able to freely use the name they have chosen, based on the gender they hear, on municipal documents.


Good news, which pushes us to continue on an increasingly open and inclusive path. Ready to accept the challenge launched by the work. Yes, because a possible answer to his mysterious question is that the subject depicted, if we look closely, is all of us.
*Team Lewis Foundation 2022.
**YPulse Report2022.
***A call for accountability and Action, Deloitte 2021.

DIVERTIMENTO FOTONICO ROTANTE (Spinning Photonic Fun) . Cheil Italia The Art of Insight
DIVERTIMENTO FOTONICO ROTANTE (Spinning Photonic Fun) . Cheil Italia The Art of Insight

DIVERTIMENTO FOTONICO ROTANTE (Spinning Photonic Fun)
(Artist: Claudio Nobili)

measurable increase in anxiety in the population.  For this reason, an emerging trend has been consolidating: 75% of consumers declare that they want to escape the gravities of life through the use of lighter and more fun contents and experiences *. People’s worries often concern the fundamentals of survival: 43% of Millennials and 41% of Gen Z ** say they fear a worsening of local economies in 2022. In all this, 77% of consumers are also expecting to be supported by brands in times of crisis ***.

 I decided to represent this insight through my experience, in a very personal way, in the form of an avatar, the beautiful Fanny. Fanny clearly perceives the gravity of life around her and tries not to see it, to fragment her vision of her and fill it with something else, to find her “fun antidote” to her.

Have you ever experienced that feeling of a happy and altered world when you get on a carousel as a child? Or when looking inside a kaleidoscope? Fanny takes these feelings and immerses herself in them, becoming a kaleidoscope, but empty, to be filled with precious stones, pure gems of cold flashes, which not only alter her body and her vision but also that of those around her. , transforming it into a carousel of light. Rotating photonic fun.
*GWI, 2020.
**A call for accountability and Action, Deloitte 2021.
***Havas, 2021

RISING BABEL . Cheil Italia The Art of Insight
RISING BABEL . Cheil Italia The Art of Insight

RISING BABEL
(Artists: Liliana Pillon | Marco Dispenza)
Distrust rules our society. Six out of ten people *, in fact, confirm their tendency not to believe anything until there is undoubted evidence to support it … evidence that, perhaps, will never come. We live in the era of fake news that shake the waters of information and social networks that give anyone the right to speak, an era that questions objective data, manipulates and interprets them, bends them to logics other than that. to those of pure information. The result is that 67% of people believe that journalists and reporters try “to intentionally mislead people by saying things they know to be false or gross exaggerations” ** while 64% say they are unable to constructively, if not even civilly, confrontation. with people of opposite opinion ***. When the truth is lost in the fog of relativism, dialogue inevitably collapses.

In the work, in the center of a bizarrely populated landscape we see a mysterious prism. Its crystalline nature of jagged truth is covered by a crowd of words: it is the “truth” in its thousand forms and declinations, itself renouncing the Oneness that thought attributes to it. Around it, a staircase paved with fake news spirals like a modern tower of Babel in search of an asymptotic center.


The truth is reflected on the steps as a faint glow, distant memory and provisional semblance of the origin. On the other hand, the same light that allows the main act of knowledge, seeing, encloses in its clear simplicity a complex and dancing world like the light spectrum. The search for Truth requires commitment and time, an undertaking that in the era of “everything and now” is no longer even attempted, but abandoned without regret. The objective data that represented universal language and yardstick, anchoring opinions to reality, give way to emotions – as clearly shown by the film and media phenomenon “Don’t Look Up”, where empiricism succumbs to ideology (yes think of climate change, the phenomenon of terrapiattism, the same denial of Covid-19). Relativism has cast the shadow of arrogance and absolutist despotism on truth, leading to post-truth, a comfortable, chosen, fashionable, fleeting, desired truth, in short, a tailored-made truth that implodes and collapses on itself.
*Edelman The Trust, 10 2022.
**Edelman Trust Barometer, 2022.

INTERNAL WANDERLUST . Cheil Italia The Art of Insight
INTERNAL WANDERLUST . Cheil Italia The Art of Insight

INTERNAL WANDERLUST
(Artists: Manuel Gorgolini | Francesco Rondinelli)

What can defend us from the pitfalls of life? Perhaps the worlds we build within ourselves. Protected and safe places to feel (more) free, emotional living spaces, in which – metaphorically but not too much – to escape to decompress from the weight of the world, to relax, to let off steam, to cultivate one’s interests. In other words, to let the essence of oneself, one’s feelings, one’s true, most sincere nature flow.


These are the “rooms of the soul”: spaces of the mind, which often find correspondence even within our homes.

In this regard, 79% of consumers in 30 countries say that their mental balance is as important as their physical well-being *, while the trend of spaces dedicated to the expression of emotion appears to be growing in the digital universe; on Pinterest, in fact, the searches dedicated to this theme have increased: + 150% searches for rooms of anger, + 2% for music-themed rooms, + 8% for so-called rooms of glass and crystals, dedicated to well-being, + 12% reading rooms and even + 190% home massage rooms **.

 Yearning, drive, with the image that becomes a statement, suggestive, mysterious and very clear at the same time, of the search for a truth.
It is the “inside” that coincides with the world, the affirmation of another possibility, the simulacrum of a new life.
* Ipsos research, 10/2021.
** Pinterest 2021 emotional report.

HUMAN FLOW . Cheil Italia The Art of Insight
HUMAN FLOW . Cheil Italia The Art of Insight

HUMAN FLOW
(Artists: Luca Biglieri | Antonino Astone)

Awareness. In this work it lights up and shapes itself free towards a world no longer willing to bear the weight of spasmodic and uncontrolled consumption.

What is at stake is the abundance of thought (i.e. the purchase of products that we don’t really need). That’s why 85% of people in the US, UK and China are willing to rethink the way they live and spend to tackle climate change *.
Additionally, 69% of consumers worldwide believe brands should do more to drive more informed consumption **.

In this work, what takes shape is the choice. Choice between two possible ways in a fluctuating ecosystem and in a precarious balance. Rebirth begins at the base of a bonsai, a symbol of balance, harmony, simplicity and time. Among its branches we see chrysalises ready to hatch to start a new path, below instead insatiable caterpillars try to devour them. Two distinct figures driven by different impulses. Awareness on the one hand and compulsive consumption on the other.


But only those who choose change can shake off those self-inflicted barriers and finally spread their wings. Whose heartbeat generates a stream of consciousness called to wipe out the equation – short-term use, long-term environmental damage. An impetus to open your mind and have a new life in your hands to give to our planet.
*JWT 2021.
**Accenture 2021.

HOW DARE YOU . Cheil Italia The Art of Insight
HOW DARE YOU . Cheil Italia The Art of Insight

HOW DARE YOU
(Artists: Sharif Amer | Marco Dispenza)

In the end we will only keep what we love, we will love only what we understand and we will understand only what they have taught us. ” Baba Dioum

In 2018, almost one in four Swedes chose not to fly * because of the “flygskam”, literally “the shame of flying”. Another study reveals that, in 2021, over 50% of Americans said they were concerned about the consequences of climate change on their mental health **. It is the phenomenon of “climate anxiety” that is spreading around the world to such an extent that 35% of global consumers have actively reduced their carbon footprint ***.


Climate change quickly turned into an emergency. Gen Z, the innocent victim of a development paradigm with obvious limits, is perfectly aware of this. A digital native generation that inhabits the world before a single country and that has made its way through the ashes of ideologies, the rubble of international finance, the unsolved problems of globalization and has found value in respect for the environment. universal in which to identify and to fight for. Change of course or risk of extinction: there are no alternatives.

This awareness has led Gen Z to no longer hide their heads in the sand to look reality in the face and set their eyes on an alternative future, this time with bright and reassuring tones. She has thus become an ambassador of a breakthrough thought that promotes revolutionary values ​​such as harmony and sustainability, responsibility and collective thinking. Face of rebirth, the Gen Z protagonist of this work absorbs green values ​​into its identity, marking an irremediable break with the past.

This favors new development models, such as the net-zero economy, and new sensitivities flourish. Think, for example, of the ever-increasing attention to bees, responsible for the pollination of 75% of the world’s food crops **** and yet suffering greatly from pollution. The response of the city of Oslo is interesting, which has decided to give space to nature by creating motorways for bees.

Slowly, we are learning to love our Planet. It will be enough?
*WWF Klimatbarometer, 03/2019.
**American Psychiatric Association, 10/2020.
***Euromonitor, 2022.
****Lancet Planet Health, 2021.

L’ABBUFFATA (The Binge) . Cheil Italia The Art of Insight
L’ABBUFFATA (The Binge) . Cheil Italia The Art of Insight

L’ABBUFFATA (The Binge)
(Artists: Federica Di Marcello | Mario Esposito)

According to the South Korean philosopher Byung-chul Han “… multiplicity and choice simulate a diversity that does not actually exist”. Bringing the concept back to the world of mass communication we could paraphrase by saying that “too much choice is never real choice”. And the data * comes to our aid by reminding us that 46% of streaming content users say it is increasingly difficult to find the content they want because there are far too many services available. 64% of respondents ** would in fact want a single platform where they can choose more simply.


A variety, in short, which is not true variety and which forces the new viewer to a “hell of the same” (also by Byung-chul Han’s words), in which everything ends up looking alike precisely because nothing stands out distinctly from the rest. Here – at this time, in this work – food for sight piles up pleonastically, in front of a solitary diner, left to himself, restless and disturbing, who will not be able to forfeit everything without finally risking bad indigestion.
*Nielsen 2022.
**Nielsen 2022. 

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