A series of secret documents leaked into the public eye in the mid 90s. They revealed the existence of secret armies (Stay-behind operations) set in place and organised by the CIA and NATO to avoid the seizure of power from the left in post-war Europe. The story of Operation Gladio -the codename for a Stay- behind operation active in Italy from the late 60s until the early 80s–is full of uncertainties, ambiguity and violence without culprits, a story in which the Strategy of Tension was tested and perfected.

The works in Waking State point at some of the interventions that occurred in these so-called Lead Years, a time in which foreign agencies developed intricate tactics to control the opinion of the citizenry by using fear, false propaganda and double discourses, using false flag terrorism to ultimately achieve their geopolitical and business-oriented aims.

The seven works included in Waking State use two kinds of documents, some from NATO regarding Operation Gladio, and others from the CIA regarding the French inteligentsia in the mid 80s. Together, they present an aspect of the Cold War related to the use of language, secrets and false discourses, questioning the possibility of thinking, assimilating and feeling part of a history whose fundamental characteristic is the use of lies.

In order to achieve this questioning, the work focuses on the materiality of texts, on the belief in its power within the civilizing utopia founded during the Illustration; and on the relation between text, city, geopolitics and violence. Thus, the technical reproducibility of the utopian discourse embodied in press printing unfolds in the present works, mirroring the secrecy of the archives from intelligence agencies.