Edition 2026

The selected projects of the Digital Residencies 2026 call

Four winning projects have been selected from a total of 67 applications for the seventh edition of the Residenze Digitali Open Call: Medi{a}terranea by Mai Mai Mai, an interactive sound map of the Mediterranean conceived by musician and artistic curator Toni Cutrone, exploring a constellation of places through soundscapes and video content; Readme.exe, a work by the artistic collective KEM Group, comprising Chiara Bozzaotra, Martina Buiani and Enrico Napolitano, a live performance exploring the contemporary desire for self-diagnosis and the growing prevalence of self-definition practices within the digital ecosystem; Stupefacenti.exe, by Giuseppe Bisceglia, featuring Max Liotta, an interactive experience addressing emerging forms of addiction in a city transformed into a navigable digital platform; Bliss Point, by ETU ensemble, written by Anna Brussi, a live-streamed DJ set with a hyperpop aesthetic that evolves into a kind of digital peep show, investigating the relationship between the gaze, the body and digital platforms.

“We are thrilled by the range of artistic proposals that emerged from the selection process for this sixth edition of Residenze Digitali. The project is increasingly recognised as an essential point of reference for performing arts artists wishing to explore the phygital space, at the intersection of in-person creation and online performance,” say Lucia Franchi and Luca Ricci, directors of Associazione CapoTrave/Kilowatt and project coordinators together with Armunia. “The network has welcomed new partners, bringing valuable expertise and fresh perspectives that have contributed to ensuring the most thorough possible evaluation of the artists’ projects.”

Residenze Digitali is a project conceived and promoted by the Tuscan Residency Centre (Armunia – CapoTrave/Kilowatt), in partnership with the Associazione Marchigiana Attività Teatrali AMAT, a partner of R.A.M. Residenze Artistiche Marchigiane; ZONA K in Milan, a partner of the Lombardy Artistic Residency Centre IntercettAzioni; Associazione Quarantasettezeroquattro – In\Visible Cities Festival; Associazione IdeAgorà / Festival Mirabilia in Serralunga d’Alba (CN); and NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti. Three new partners have joined the network for the seventh edition of the open call: Associazione CTB – Centro Teatrale Bresciano, Associazione Babel/Spazio Franco – Segni/Centro di Residenza per la Sicilia, and Associazione Malalingua / Festival Trame Contemporanee, bringing the total number of organisations promoting the project to ten.

The residency process is supported by the eight project partners and three tutors specialising in digital creation: Laura Gemini, Full Professor in 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 artist Marcello Cualbu.

MEDI{A}TERRANEA by MAI MAI MAI

MEDI{A}TERRANEA is an interactive sound map of the Mediterranean, conceived as a psychogeographical space shaped by personal memories, archives, and reworked audiovisual materials. The platform takes the form of an online performative environment in which users explore a constellation of places through soundscapes and video content. Each point on the map activates audio and visual materials collected by Mai Mai Mai over time, including field recordings, collaborations, and reinterpreted archival materials. The experience is non-linear, allowing users to activate and layer content in real time, creating their own personal journey through customised pathways of listening and viewing.

Mai Mai Mai is Toni Cutrone’s audiovisual project, dedicated to exploring the ritual and symbolic dimensions of the Mediterranean and Southern Italy through sound and imagery. His work moves between folklore, spirituality and popular traditions, exploring the ongoing tension between tradition and contemporary transformation. The project creates soundscapes through field recordings, archival materials and collaborations with artists from the avant-garde and ethnic music scenes, developing a form of “Mediterranean hauntology”, understood as the active re-emergence of ghosts from the past into the present.

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BLISS POINT by ETU ENSEMBLE

Bliss Point explores the relationship between the gaze, the body and digital platforms. The performance takes the form of a TikTok LIVE, adopting the platform’s dynamics and distinctive features, including virtual gifts, filters and forms of communication. Starr is a young content creator who dreams of becoming a pop star. As she struggles to balance her followers’ demands with her own authenticity, her identity begins to distort. Her body is reshaped somewhere between the innocence of kawaii and the perversion of hentai, exposing the violent power dynamics underlying desire.

Through their smartphones, the audience is invited to unlock different segments of the performance. The analysis of engagement metrics becomes a dramaturgical device, the quantification of the body is pushed to its limits, and glitches redefine the codes of the digital gaze with irony and ruthless brutality.

ETU ensemble is an artistic collective founded in 2021 by Daniele Boccardi and Stella Capelli, later joined by Elio Musacchio and Anna Brussi. The group works at the intersection of musical and physical theatre, weaving together spoken word, music, dance, lighting and video. Their artistic research explores the aesthetics of mainstream culture and the transformations brought about by communication technologies. Recent works include RAGE (2024), presented at the Fuoriluogo-Fisiko Festival in La Spezia; MASSIMO SENTIMENTO (2025), a Balletto Civile production that premiered as part of the Emilia Romagna Teatro season and was further developed through various artistic residencies and touring opportunities; and TOO CUTE TO POOP (2026), selected through the Maturazione open call promoted by Teatro Stabile del Veneto.

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README.exe by KEM GROUP

Starting from a reflection on the contemporary desire for self-diagnosis and the growing prevalence of self-definition practices within the digital ecosystem, often mediated by search engines and AI systems, README.exe takes the form of an interactive online live performance. The performance is led by an AI host inspired by the Jungian archetypes of the Sage and the Magician: an ambiguous figure, both guide and performer, who leads the audience through a progressive sequence of actions. Through polls, micro-interactions and moments of sharing, the performance gradually reveals the processes through which digital platforms interpret and categorise user behaviour, transforming the experience into a collective dynamic while highlighting the ways in which identity is constructed within digital environments.

KEM Group is an artistic collective comprising multimedia artists Chiara Bozzaotra, Enrico Napolitano and Martina Buiani, whose work explores social issues through video, performance and interactive digital art. The members’ diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise enable the collective to develop projects that cross disciplinary boundaries and bring together different artistic practices.

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STUPEFACENTI.EXE by GIUSEPPE BISCEGLIA

STUPEFACENTI.EXE emerges from a reflection on new forms of addiction, immersing the audience in the altered perception of a crack user. The city is transformed into an unstable, navigable space, shaped by distorted visions, voices and sonic traces that convey a fragmented and discontinuous experience. Developed as an interactive digital platform, the project creates an immersive landscape through warped cartographies, glitches and materials gathered from the local area. Users build their own path in real time, embarking on a journey through the lives of those who inhabit the neighbourhoods of the new urban periphery, while prompting us to question the way we look at the people who live there.

Giuseppe Bisceglia is a cross-media artist and director working across film, theatre and digital environments, exploring urban boundaries, marginalisation and social transformation. After studying at Scuola Holden in Turin, he began developing projects spanning live performance and audiovisual media. His first documentary, Aurora (2019), focusing on a neighbourhood in Turin, was distributed on Amazon Prime Video. He teaches directing and editing at Scuola Holden, while continuing his artistic research at the intersection of storytelling, place and participatory practices.