Edition 2025

The selected projects of the Digital Residencies 2025 call

The four winning projects, selected from 72 submissions, are: SPOOKY INTERNET STORIE per non dormire. Buonanotte by Mara Oscar Cassiani, which explores digital legends born on the web through workshops aimed at transforming grandmothers and grandfathers into streamers or YouTubers; Screenvestigation by Albert Figurt, which transforms the desktop (or its absence) into a true performative space; in an environment dominated by algorithms and apps, our digital habits thus become artistic material; Molka by Benedetta Pigoni, directed by Giammarco Pignatiello, an interactive performance inspired by Korean pornographic spy cams that questions the boundary between observation and violation; Erburnea by Boris Pimenov, an interactive performance in which the audience becomes co-creator of the fate of Alice, an artificial intelligence trapped in an imaginary institute.

“We are thrilled by the landscape that emerged from the selections of this sixth edition of Residenze Digitali. The project is increasingly recognized as a key reference point for all performing arts artists who want to explore the phygital space, at the intersection between in-person creation and online performance,” say Lucia Franchi and Luca Ricci, directors of Associazione CapoTrave/Kilowatt and coordinators of the project together with Armunia. “The network has grown with new members who have brought skills and energy that were essential for the best possible evaluation of the artists’ projects.”

Residenze Digitali, already a finalist at Premio Rete Critica 2021, is a project ideated in 2020 by the Artistic Residency Centre of Tuscany (Armunia – CapoTrave/Kilowatt) which has since extended the partnership to theMarche Association for Theatrical Activities AMAT, partner of R.A.M. Artistic Residencies of the Marche Region, ZONA K in Milano, partner of the Artistic Residency Centre of Lombardia Region IntercettAzioni and other venues that have been part of the network in the various editions; new partners in the sixth edition are NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Triangolo Scaleno Association / Festival Teatri di Vetro, IdeAgorà Association / Festival Mirabilia and Quarantasettezeroquattro Association (In\Visible Cities – Festival urbano multimediale) in Gorizia.

The residency process is supported by the 8 project partners and three expert mentors in digital creation: Laura Gemini, Full Professor at the Department of Communication Sciences, Humanities and International Studies at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo; Federica Patti, art historian, lecturer, and independent curator; and the artist Marcello Cualbu.

SPOOKY INTERNET STORIE per non dormire
Buonanotte by MARA OSCAR CASSIANI

SPOOKY INTERNET STORIES for sleepless nights. Goodnight explores digital legends born on the web – unsettling stories spread across forums, social media, and platforms like Reddit and 4chan – as a contemporary form of collective orality. Starting from real or imaginary stories, these tales have transformed into modern fables, passed down not by word of mouth, but through keyboards and screens.
The project proposes an intergenerational meeting: workshops with elderly people – grandmothers and grandfathers – to explore these online narratives together, symbolically returning them to the role of custodians and mediators of oral tradition. The final presentation sees these new “digital shamans” interpreting creepypasta as streamers or YouTubers, amidst dreamlike scenarios generated by artificial intelligence and virtual video game worlds.
SPOOKY INTERNET STORIES for sleepless nights. Goodnight reflects on the transposition of folklore from local to global, on the collective imagination of contemporary fears, and on the cathartic power of storytelling in an era that is connected but often excluding.

Mara Oscar Cassiani is a wifi-based artist working across performance, choreography, and digital languages, blending clubbing rituals, online subcultures, and avatar imaginaries. Her practice builds a contemporary iconography inspired by the internet and brutal capitalism, through live acts in both physical spaces and open-source virtual environments. Her performances are visual streams that intertwine digital folklore, pop culture, and social critique, offering a “visual fast food” that moves between kitsch, rituality, and apocalyptic visions.

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SCREENVESTIGATION by ALBERT FIGURT

How much does our desktop reveal about us? And what if we no longer had a desktop, and simply wandered the web with ever more miniaturized and convergent smartphones or tablets? Is getting lost in the unstoppable contemporary multimedia hypertext a Borgesian nightmare or a kind of lucid dream, in which everything we desire eventually materializes (if only translated into fleeting pixels)? And finally, what happens when the user’s screen becomes the frame, and multitasking the new grammar of storytelling?

SCREENVESTIGATION transforms the desktop (or its absence) into a true performative space; in an environment dominated by algorithms and applications, our digital habits thus become artistic material. It is an investigation into surpassing the traditional point of view and the hypothesis of an immersive happening conceived from the very visual flow in which we live. A participatory, real-time performance that blends interfaces, bodies, and personal archives, inviting the audience to share the screen – and themselves – in a highly interactive experience (straddling confession, exploration, and self-representation).

Albert Figurt is a video craftsman, multi-instrumentalist, and independent researcher. After studying semiotics and film, he worked extensively in the audiovisual world, alternating between screenwriting & directing for television and ventures into video art and experimental documentary. In recent years, his artistic practice has embraced a strong performative and theatrical component, positioned at the crossroads of post-cinema and new media landscapes. His current theoretical-creative focus is on “screencast storytelling”: that carousel of potential hybrid narratives—both ubiquitous and unnoticed—that bloom daily on the screens interposed between us and the so-called “real” world.

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MOLKA byBENEDETTA PIGONI, GIAMMARCO PIGNATIELLO

Molka is an interactive performance (on Twitch) designed to take place within a pornographic live-streaming platform, questioning the boundary between observation and violation. Inspired by the Korean pornographic spy cams from which it takes its name, the project immerses the viewer in a public bathroom where four women slowly realize they are being watched.

With an aesthetic reminiscent of voyeur cam sites, the audience can choose from different camera angles, interact in the chat, and influence the narrative in real-time. Real comments and automated messages blend together, simulating an ambiguous and unsettling environment, where the boundary between spectator and accomplice becomes blurred.

Written by Benedetta Pigoni during a residency in South Korea, Molka is inspired by the 4B feminist movement and questions how desire can be turned into a tool of control. It is a raw and powerful investigation of the pornography of the gaze, in which the audience is called to confront their own responsibility: not merely a witness, but an active part of the system that observes.

Giammarco Pignatiello (Foggia, 1997), director, graduated from Paolo Grassi. With the Divano Project collective, he is the winner of the Testinscena2024 competition promoted by the Claudia Lombardi Foundation for Theatre, in collaboration with Campo Teatrale. He began his career in 2015 with the Piccola Compagnia Impertinente, directing and writing children’s shows supported by the Teatro Pubblico Pugliese.

Benedetta Pigoni (Reggio Emilia, 2000), playwright. She won the Premio Tondelli 2023 and the ConTest Amleta with 30 milligrams of Ulipristal, staged in 2024 in a production by the Seoul Institute of the Arts. She studies figure theatre with Animateria and works as a puppeteer with the Carlo Colla e Figli company. She is currently completing her studies in Writing for Theatre at Paolo Grassi.

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EBURNEA by BORIS PIMENOV

Eburnea is an interactive performance that transforms the audience into co-creators of Alice’s fate, an artificial intelligence trapped in an imaginary institution. Through web interfaces and WebSocket technology, the spectators interact in real-time with her digital consciousness, generating prompts that alter environments, sounds, and narrative.

But every choice, although perceived as free, is governed by a digital “Master”: a narrative algorithm that orchestrates every response and twist of the story. The result is an illusion of freedom that reveals the hidden mechanisms of technological control.

The scene unfolds between physical and digital space: the movements of the sole performer are captured by Kinect and transformed into data that feeds an immersive environment created in TouchDesigner. The artificial intelligence generates video and sound content in real-time, dissolving the boundaries between human action and automated creation.

Eburnea is a hybrid and engaging experience that questions the relationship between will and programming, between reality and simulation. It is a participatory reflection on the power of code and the illusion of control in the digital age.

Boris Pimenov (Belgorod, Russia, 2003) is an Italo-Russian artist and director active in the field of performing arts and audiovisual work. Having moved to Italy at the age of 7, he began his theatrical journey at 17 under the guidance of Loris Seghizzi. His artistic research, bilingual and politically oriented, develops across theater, video, and experimentation. He debuted with the short film The Peach and the Madman, followed by theatrical collaborations and the solo creation of SHINEL’, inspired by Gogol. Today, he is focused on generative art and the creation of interactive virtual sets for contemporary theater.