Digital Residency Week – 2024 Edition
from November 28th to December 1st
From Thursday 28th November to Sunday 1st December the Digital Residency Week returns – an opportunity to witness the online and/or in-presence debut of the winning artistic projects of the Residenze Digitali / Digital Residencies call for proposals, a call that has supported artists in their exploration of digital space every year since 2020. Four artistic projects will be presented in November: Non Player Human by dancer Simone Arganini and digital designer Rocco Punghellini, an interactive performance on Twitch that explores human existential tensions through the ‘Non-Playable-Character’ figure, questioning the relational power dynamics that form when a subject is controlled in a live-stream context; Radio Pentothal, by actor and director Ruggero Franceschini, is a radio inspired by the character of Andrea Pazienza and the iconic Radio Alice, where contents are generated by an A.I. programme trained with material from the 1970s counterculture; Spazio latente by Filippo Rosati, founder of Umanesimo Artificiale, is an immersive digital experience taking place in a virtual anatomical theatre where a brain implant is being grafted, thus allowing the audience to modify the patient’s memories, in a project that analyses the relationship between technology, art and human consciousness; Metabolo II: Orynthia by Valerie Tameu is a cyber-magical ritual in which the movement of a human body, of an aquatic biota, and of an artificial intelligence software collaborate to give life to a numerical entity inspired by the Mami Wata, a legendary shape-shifting aquatic deity from West and Equatorial Africa.
“The fifth edition of the Digital Residencies Week highlights four artists strongly motivated to work in the online digital space, with live projects that demand a relational and interactive participation from the spectator: Residenze Digitali is getting closer and closer to the objectives we had in mind when we launched it in 2020 – that is, to create a space in the Italian performing arts scene that had not existed until then’ – claim Lucia Franchi and Luca Ricci, general directors of the CapoTrave/Kilowatt Association and coordinators, together with Armunia, of the Residenze Digitali network.
Residenze Digitali was created from an idea by the Artistic Residency Centre of Tuscany (Armunia – CapoTrave/Kilowatt), in partnership with the Marche Association for Theatrical Activities AMAT, the Artistic Residency Centre of Emilia-Romagna (L’arboreto – Teatro Dimora │ La Corte Ospitale), the ZONA K Association in Milan, the Piemonte dal Vivo Foundation – Lavanderia a Vapore, C.U.R.A. – Centre for Artistic Residencies Umbria, and two newly added entities from this year: the Dance and Performing Arts Production Centre Fuorimargine, in Sardinia, and the Association Quarantasettezeroquattro (In\Visible Cities – Multimedia Urban Festival) in Gorizia.
The artists’ creative process was supervised as well as economically, technically, logistically and dramaturgically supported by the project partners, and relies on the cooperation of three tutors, digital creation experts, joined from this year by a fourth professional: Laura Gemini, Anna Maria Monteverdi, Federica Patti , and Marcello Cualbu.
Selected projects
NON PLAYER HUMAN
by SIMONE ARGANINI and ROCCO PUNGHELLINI
performed by Filippo Arganini
direction, writing, live-stream
Simone Arganini, Rocco Punghellini
In 2023, one of the most peculiar viral phenomena was that of ‘real-world NPCs’. The term NPC is borrowed from gaming and means ‘non-playable-character’, indicating a character programmed to perform a specific task, but lacking free will. This parallelism between reality and gaming, already found years ago with the ‘NPC Dialogues in real-life’ video memes, has developed to such an extent that today there are NPC streamers, i.e. people who execute prompts sent by their live-stream followers in exchange for tokens, often for erotic or fetishistic purposes. This is one of many examples revealing the radical paradigm shift we are continuously experiencing in the post-digital society. Through the figure of the NPC, the artists stage the most human existential tensions, questioning the relational power dynamics that form when a subject is controlled in a live-stream context.
Faced with the complexities of a present in which relationships, technology and identity are constantly changing, Non Player Human is the ego’s attempt to reduce its freedom to the point of becoming an object, delegating to an unknown and undefined audience the possibility of collectively deciding its fate. The performer moves in a domestic environment, which is shown to the audience in the form of an interactive live-stream on Twitch, during which the performance will be influenced by the audience’s choices.
Simone Arganini studied contemporary dance with Manfredi Perego and electronic music at the Conservatory of Parma and Vicenza. He is a dancer and performance author, as well as a sound designer, composer and programmer of interactive devices for theatre performances. He is a member of CollettivO CineticO.
Rocco Punghellini is a digital designer and freelance web developer with a passion for technology and its social implications. He trained in visual communication at the Politecnico di Milano and the Royal College of Art in London.
RADIO PENTOTHAL
by RUGGERO FRANCESCHINI
concept and direction Ruggero Franceschini
drammaturgia Ruggero Franceschini and Sonia Antinori
with the voices of Alberto Baraghini, Angelo Callegarin, Paula Carrara, Claudia Gambino, Samantha Silvestri
sound design I Fidanzati della Morte
set design Kinga Kolaczko
photos Tommaso Girardi
creative developer Michele Cremaschi
tutors Marcello Cualbu e Anna Maria Monteverdi
with the support of MALTE, Sineglossa
special thanks to Bifo and Frank Precotto
After surviving multiple police evictions and going decades unheard, Radio Pentothal is back: mixing Bifo’s speeches with archives of the Movimento del ‘77 movement, hacking textual AIs and re-appropriating technology – all of the audience’s questions will find an answer. All they have to do is dial up Radio Pentothal’s frequencies
This project finds its origin in a family-owned library in Bologna which has remained still since 1977: graphic novels by Andrea Pazienza or Max Capa, a guide on how to make a clandestine radio, Bifo’s philosophical essays, Radio Alice recordings. The creative fertility of the 1970s counterculture is a priceless dataset to train a textual A.I. with – an LLM, Large Language Model, that will be used to create a live radio broadcast. The performance will be accessible online. Before and after the performance, the radio will broadcast a so-called nastro continuo, the same continuous tape that Radio Alice used, which will also have been previously created through the LLM. Pentothal is both a character invented by Andrea Pazienza (who perfectly portrayed late 1970s Bologna) and another name for ‘truth serum’: still, what is true about all the information we receive?
Ruggero Franceschini graduated in 2014 from the school of the Piccolo Theatre in Milan and has worked as a theatre and film actor with Luca Ronconi, Declan Donnellan, Pappi Corsicato, Emilie Rousset, Federico Tiezzi, Giorgio Sangati, Rajeev Badhan, Francesca Merli, among others. He got his Bachelor’s degree in Modern Literature at UNIMI in 2016, and his Performance Design and Practice Master’s degree at CSM London in 2019. He works as a director both in theatre and public space for TSV Teatro Stabile del Veneto, MALTE, eunemesi (IT), switchoffthelight (TW), Momentum (AT) and LUIT (FR).
SPAZIO LATENTE
by FILIPPO ROSATI / UMANESIMO ARTIFICIALE
concept and artistic direction Filippo Rosati
R&D Umanesimo Artificiale
production operating system
technical office Neve s.r.l.
Is it possible to be free in a world where every experience, thought and identity is constructed artificially? Set in an unidentified future where humanity has lost control and is entirely ruled by algorithms, Spazio Latente plunges the audience into a virtual anatomical theatre for an immersive digital experience. A surgical operation is taking place to insert an implantable device into the brain of P1, a character who has decided to let themselves be ‘hacked’ and grafted with other people’s memories and experiences, to regain a new flame of life. What will the consequences of this choice be?
Through a live broadcast on Twitch, the audience will be able to follow the surgery in real time and influence the settings of the implant by ‘hacking’ the patient’s neuralink; post-operation, viewers will be able to decide whether they want to store all previous memories or delete some. Interactions will take place via the Twitch chat and polls.
The project invites spectators on a journey beyond the limits of physical space, going beyond conventional theatre to embrace technology, art and human consciousness. By speculating on new neural interface forms, spectators are immersed in a dynamic blend of storytelling, interactive gameplay and sensory stimulation. The 3D web space that hosts the piece acts as a portal to a new world of experiences designed to captivate the senses and stimulate the imagination. Still, beyond mere entertainment, Spazio latente also serves as a platform to explore profound questions on the nature of consciousness, on identity and on the ethical implications of emerging neurotechnologies. By taking an active part in the performance, participants are encouraged to contemplate the implications of a world where the boundaries between digital and organic are getting increasingly blurred.
Filippo Rosati is the founder of Umanesimo Artificiale, a company that works with growing technologies in the artistic field and operates worldwide from Italy, with a network of European partners. Umanesimo Artificiale was founded with the aim of exploring what it means to be human in the age of artificial intelligence. It promotes computational creativity by working with digital and performing arts, and raises awareness towards the possibility of a fertile relationship between artists and new technologies.
METABOLO II: ORYNTHIA
by VALERIE TAMEU
creative technologist Michele Cremaschi
sound design Michele Mandrelli
production Residenze Digitali
co-production Sineglossa
This is a cyber magical ritual, a techno-spiritual practice in which the movements of the human body, of an aquatic biota, and of advanced technology intertwine to give life to a numerical entity inspired by Mami Wata, a legendary shape-shifting aquatic deity from West and Equatorial Africa. The A.I. used in the piece has been trained on futuristic dances and rituals, thus evoking a hybrid creature that blends human and marine elements to take the shape of an alien being during the performance, to later dissolve into a fluid, living presence on the web. In 2024, Metabolo II: Orynthia expands towards the exploration of the underwater world, investigating the impact of digital colonialism and technological pollution on the aquatic biome. In response to these exploitative forces, inspiration is drawn from movements such as African futurism and black quantum futurism, seeking new myths and narratives that – through a science fiction and fantasy lens – can offer alternative perspectives to the predatory use of technology.
Valerie Tameu is a dance and performance artist and author. After graduating in dance studies from the Faculty of Cinema, Performing Arts, Music and Media in Turin, she has trained by collaborating with various artists on the Italian and international scene. She creates and carries out her artistic projects in several different contexts, ranging from performance to installations and research projects, all characterised by a hybrid and experimental approach. Her research explores the relationship between memory and imagination, while her artistic practice creatively merges body, ideas, theories and hallucinations.