In the run up to the Media Art Festival at the Rome Maxxi, 250 students from 11 schools were involved in seven labs. Today, we learn about the four labs that were held by artists as part of Project ENLIGHT – European Light Expression Network, financed by the European Commission as part of the Europa Creativa Programme. For further information, please consult the LABORATORIES page on the Media Art Festival website.
3ª I 41.9183532 N – 12.5065285 E
Silvia De Gennaro, Istituto comprensivo Settembrini (middle school)
The project, inspired by Jerry Brotton’s “History of the World in 12 Maps,” is named after the name of the class and the geo-coordinates of the school. Each student created his own galaxy formed by school and seven other worlds, just like the number of planets recently discovered by NASA: Internet, spirituality, happiness, culture, nature, adults and fears. And just as in a real solar system, each planet has its satellites.
The student data, photos and ideas on their planets will be used to develop a video that will film the movement of this immense, diverse and original galaxy throughout the day.
434 QUARANTATREALLAQUARTA
AOS – Art is Open Source
Liceo Aristofane and Istituto tecnico agrario G. Garibaldi, Roma
Take 43 faces and divide each into 4 sections: forehead and eyes, nose, mouth, and chin. There are 434 possible permutations of these elements for a total of 3,418,801 faces and different identities.
We photographed our faces and used facial recognition software to mix and identify our traits. We then produced a video with the “remixed” faces. Each face appears for four seconds in the video. The video lasts 13,675,204 seconds, equivalent to 3798 hours, 158 days or 5 months.
0, one, no one, one hundred thousand. From just a few dozen, we became millions. 434 is a project on identity, fragility and mobility of the self. Where does the “I” begin and the “you” end in the era of ubiquitous technology, algorithms and social networks?
The project was conceived and developed over 3 days at at workshop held at the Fondazione Mondo Digitale. Two roman school classes generated a metropolis. During the three days of the festival, we will only be able to view 1.898% of the generated faces.
LA SUA LINGUA E LA NOSTRA [interactive sound installation]
Francesco Bianco, ITTSET Emanuela Loi in Nettuno (Rome)
The students worked on art as a metaphor and interpretation of the surrounding world, as a conscious linguistic choice, and they not only participated in the conception and development of the project, but also became the very subject of the work. The topic – Dante Alighieri’s Inferno in the Divine Comedy – was chosen by the students following a debate with the teachers on the central role of freedom of thought and expression. Each student chose a passage, he or she found meaningful from the work, and was then recorded reading the excerpt.
The installation reacts to stimuli from visitors and responds with the recorded verses from the Divine Comedy. A light has been turned on. The intention is to illuminate a path, individual or collective, that can shed new light on students’ personality, expression, reflection, and individuality in a collective context. Light has been shed on their thoughts, sentiments, and knowledge through the light of Dante’s phrases.
LIGHT: ON [live sound performance]
Paolo Gatti, IC Tullia Zevi (primary school), Rome
Author Ippolito Nievo explains in an aphorism that “where a fact thunders, a light has shined” (“dove tuona un fatto, siatene certi, ha lampeggiato una luce”). This is a beautiful image of the light of creativity that connects to sound and propagates an idea that produces further ideas in a recursive cycle of light, creativity and sound.
The “Lights: ON” lab alternates the study of music and new technology with creative exercises to stimulate student creativity as they perform music together for a sound art performances at the Media Art Festival 2017.
