art-sci-tech

Photosynthetic You

Photosynthetic You workshop and participatory action
project 2022

Concept and design
Vanessa V

with
Max Viale (sound designer)

and
Irma Milanese (PhD student in plant physiology)

Technical Assistant
Enrico Turletti

 

This workshop was presented at Ars Electronica 2022
and in the Program What is life? of Noema Journal (Pier Luigi Capucci) – Urbino Art Academy 2022

If you are interested to know more about the narrative behind the two projects that Vanessa V created around the idea of Human Photosynthesis (Photosynthetic Me and Photosynthetic You), here you can find a long article in the Academic Journal Surprize n°4 by Noema Media and Publishing (curated by Pier Luigi Capucci) noema.media What is life 2022.pdf (pp. 43-48 ITA+ENG).

 

Max Viale is a well-known Italian sound designer, producer and music composer in the field of media art and cinema. Together with founding and directing the music collective Gatto Ciliegia against the Great Cold (10 albums realized), Max won many important awards including a David di Donatello and a Silver Lion (Venice Biennale Cinema in 2021), and a Golden Ciak Awards (Best score) in 2018. She also teaches at the Civica Scuola di Cinema “Luchino Visconti” of Milan.

Irma Milanese. After graduating in Biology, she specializes in the field of plant biotechnologies, with a keen interest in environmental and bioenergy issues. Now she is a PhD in Physiology of the interactions between plants, microorganisms, and the environment at Trento University.

 

go to Photosynthetic Me


06 December 2022

Photosynthetic You is a workshop and a participatory action that carries on the idea of human photosynthesis that Vanessa V started to explore in 2020 (S+T+Arts Prize For Social Good winner 2021) with the installation Photosynthetic Me.
It investigates fundamental ethical and political questions related to the renewed debate on genetics reaching as far as the hypothesis of being able to exchange our human genes with those of other species (plants) using innovative systems such as CRISPR/Cas. What if we can all decide, paradoxically and in an extreme, mass democratic act, to become thin and motionless like leaves, energetically self-sufficient like plants, feeding only on light and solar power? How can we imagine a world in which we all are hybridized with plants?
In the workshop, participants are invited to undertake a training and learning trail guided by plants and mediated by technologies.
The idea behind this path is that humans must be domesticated and colonized by plants in order to activate an evolutionary path that will mutate people into photosynthetic and plant-like hybrid organisms, self-sufficient for food and energy requirements.

The workshop was presented for the first time as part of the “What is life?” program curated by Prof. Pier Luigi Capucci at the Academy of Fine Arts in Urbino.
In September 2022 it was presented at Ars Electronica.

If you are interested to know more about the narrative behind the two projects that Vanessa V created around the idea of Human Photosynthesis (Photosynthetic Me and Photosynthetic You), here you can find a long article in the Academic Journal Surprize n°4 by Noema Media and Publishing (curated by Pier Luigi Capucci) noema.media What is life 2022.pdf (pp. 43-48 ITA+ENG)

Photosynthetic You workshop and participatory action
project 2022

Concept and design
Vanessa V

with
Max Viale (sound designer)

and
Irma Milanese (PhD student in plant physiology)

Technical Assistant
Enrico Turletti

 

This workshop was presented at Ars Electronica 2022
and in the Program What is life? of Noema Journal (Pier Luigi Capucci) – Urbino Art Academy 2022

If you are interested to know more about the narrative behind the two projects that Vanessa V created around the idea of Human Photosynthesis (Photosynthetic Me and Photosynthetic You), here you can find a long article in the Academic Journal Surprize n°4 by Noema Media and Publishing (curated by Pier Luigi Capucci) noema.media What is life 2022.pdf (pp. 43-48 ITA+ENG).

 

Max Viale is a well-known Italian sound designer, producer and music composer in the field of media art and cinema. Together with founding and directing the music collective Gatto Ciliegia against the Great Cold (10 albums realized), Max won many important awards including a David di Donatello and a Silver Lion (Venice Biennale Cinema in 2021), and a Golden Ciak Awards (Best score) in 2018. She also teaches at the Civica Scuola di Cinema “Luchino Visconti” of Milan.

Irma Milanese. After graduating in Biology, she specializes in the field of plant biotechnologies, with a keen interest in environmental and bioenergy issues. Now she is a PhD in Physiology of the interactions between plants, microorganisms, and the environment at Trento University.

 

go to Photosynthetic Me


VR in Wonderland#1

VR in Wonderland#1 VR and real-time streaming 360°
project 2018/2019

by Vanessa Vozzo (IT), Maša Jazbec (SLO), Aleksandra Mitic (SR), Jürgen Ropp (AT), Martìn Nadal (ES), Bàlint Budai (HU)

The research was supported by the Interface Culture Master Program
Kunstuniversität Linz


01 September 2018

Virtual Reality (VR) systems allow the user to experience a sense of presence in a place other than the physical body. VR also allows users to feel like someone else when they take the first-person perspective of another real person or avatar.

With the help of VR tools and devices for consumers integrated into our VR in Wonderland#1 system, the perception of the body of the participants in another room can be directed to a new perspective. Consequently, the VR in Wonderland#1 research setting actually makes it possible to manipulate the participants’ physical perception through self-localization. The natural view of the participants is replaced by the vision of a small robotic device running in an abstract city labyrinth model. While wearing head mounted displays and looking around, users can observe themselves from the perspective of the third person from below and above, leading to confusion about self-localization. This is a common approach where bodily illusions influence bodily self-awareness.

VR in Wonderland#1 was premiered at Ars Electronica Festival 2019

VR in Wonderland
research setting in Ars Electronica 2019

VR in Wonderland
research setting in Ars Electronica 2019

VR in Wonderland#1 VR and real-time streaming 360°
project 2018/2019

by Vanessa Vozzo (IT), Maša Jazbec (SLO), Aleksandra Mitic (SR), Jürgen Ropp (AT), Martìn Nadal (ES), Bàlint Budai (HU)

The research was supported by the Interface Culture Master Program
Kunstuniversität Linz


Missing Out

Missing Out VR and real-time streaming 360°
project 2019/2020

Concept and curated by Vanessa Vozzo
Platform Officine Sintetiche
Students involved in the Narrative design: Mya Arbues, Guido Artioli, Maria Luisa Favia, Lorenzo Paggi
Researchers involved in the Narrative design Alessia Gervasone
Performer Chiara Vallini
Students involved in the VR System, video production and post production Carlo Gioia (chief technician), Giuseppe Bruno, Massimo Gismondi, Katia Grasso, Giulia Vilardo
Technical consultant Francesco Strada (researcher), Enrique Valido Moure (student)
Supported by Fondazione CRT
with Università degli Studi di Torino – Dipartimento Studi Umanistici , Politecnico di Torino – Cinema and Media Engineering
Media partner Torino Città del Cinema 2020


01 January 2019

Missing Out explores the FoMo (Fear of Missing Out) fear of being excluded through the medium of VR and real-time streaming 360°.

FoMO is a social state of anxiety derived from the need to constantly be informed about everything that everyone else is doing. It is characterized by the obsession that others are having more gratifying, interesting, exciting experiences in other places, but without us. This pervasive sensation of aprehension can be exasperated by the continuous reading of messages and posts published by others on social networks or through various apps. Some scholars, like Andrew Przybylski and his team, have recently brought to light various basic facts of FoMO and its consequences given the increasing restlessness in the absence of control over social network posts.

Missing Out directly involves the user by putting him in a critical comparison to his own relationship with social media.

In Missing Out the temporary and self-positioning proprioception, or sensorial perception, in surrounding space becomes modified in real time, creating an effect of disorientation between reality, virtuality, and ambient streaming.

Through an experiential path which travels from 2D vision to immersing oneself in VR 360° through living fully in the Real Reality of live streaming 360°, the spectator is given the possibility of living a specific situation from a more active and engaging perspective.

RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTATION

The research is based on one hand, on recent studies in the field of immersive journalism and, more generally, of immersive and interactive documentaries. On the other hand, it is based on the study of innovative techniques in embodied narratives and cross-media writings which profoundly involve the spectator causing participation from a new point of view. This is a point of view in which the distance between reality and virtuality are obviously reduced through an illusionary mechanism of space-time distortion.

Research into the new field of social media regarding the cause and effects of FoMO has been also launched with the Politecnico of Turin.

This research was accompanied by a series of experiments and studies held during the Ars Electronica 2019 exhibition (Linz – AU) by a research and work group, among whom Vanessa Vozzo took part (see VR in Wonderland).

Première at Circolo del Design of Turin (Italy).

Missing Out.
Circolo del Design of Turin (Italy).

Missing Out VR and real-time streaming 360°
project 2019/2020

Concept and curated by Vanessa Vozzo
Platform Officine Sintetiche
Students involved in the Narrative design: Mya Arbues, Guido Artioli, Maria Luisa Favia, Lorenzo Paggi
Researchers involved in the Narrative design Alessia Gervasone
Performer Chiara Vallini
Students involved in the VR System, video production and post production Carlo Gioia (chief technician), Giuseppe Bruno, Massimo Gismondi, Katia Grasso, Giulia Vilardo
Technical consultant Francesco Strada (researcher), Enrique Valido Moure (student)
Supported by Fondazione CRT
with Università degli Studi di Torino – Dipartimento Studi Umanistici , Politecnico di Torino – Cinema and Media Engineering
Media partner Torino Città del Cinema 2020


Photosynthetic Me

Photosynthetic Me Bioart, Interactive and immersive Sci-Fi documentary
project 2020

Concept and design_interactive and VR system
Vanessa V

Scientific design
Vincenzo Guarnieri

Images
Andrea Macchia

Production
Alessia Gervasone

In collaboration with
The Molecular Biotechnology Center (MBC) of Turin (IT)
Mara Brancaccio
Interface Culture – Kunstuniversität Linz

Thanks to
Andrea Ballo, Petra Ballo, Fulvio Montano, Cian McLoughlin,
Dario Cottafava, Lydia Easley

 

Winner 2021 S+T+Arts Prize for Social Good
Premiered at Ars Electronica 2020

 

 

            

 

 

go to Photosynthetic You

 


01 January 2020

Photosynthetic Me is a bioart, interactive and Immersive installation that emerges from a process-based experiment around the topic of becoming plant-like. In the project, a biotechnologist activates a photosynthetic system in a situation of altered evolution that can make Vanessa V self-sufficient for food and energy requirements and, eventually, a producer of energy (energy-autarkic system).
In the installation, the visitor jumps from being an observer to being a protagonist through an effective embodied narrative process.

Innovative technologies that allow techniques such as CRISPR bring up again the debate around genetics since it places us in front of new scientific possibilities that strongly affect important issues in our contemporary society.
Photosynthetic me deals with some ethical questions related to this debate: what if we could replace the diseased parts of our DNA? What if we could swap genes with other species, becoming thin and motionless like leaves? Can I evolve in my imperfection? Is it really possible to be perfect?

Photosynthetic Me Bioart, Interactive and immersive Sci-Fi documentary
project 2020

Concept and design_interactive and VR system
Vanessa V

Scientific design
Vincenzo Guarnieri

Images
Andrea Macchia

Production
Alessia Gervasone

In collaboration with
The Molecular Biotechnology Center (MBC) of Turin (IT)
Mara Brancaccio
Interface Culture – Kunstuniversität Linz

Thanks to
Andrea Ballo, Petra Ballo, Fulvio Montano, Cian McLoughlin,
Dario Cottafava, Lydia Easley

 

Winner 2021 S+T+Arts Prize for Social Good
Premiered at Ars Electronica 2020

 

 

            

 

 

go to Photosynthetic You