The project reuses devices usually used in historical re-enactments as scenic and symbolic objects, creating urban settings and immersive environments
Affluenze, the programme that Fermignano proposed for ‘50x50 Capitali al Quadrato - Pesaro Capitale della Cultura 2024’, is a reflection on the relationship between man and the natural environment through a plurality of contemporary artistic languages, from photography to design, from performance practices to sound research. For this occasion, we designed and realized a diffuse installation in the various locations of the festival.
Every year, for the past few decades, in the municipality of Fermignano there are two events that are very important for the community, two historical re-enactments: the Palio della Rana and the Gran Premio del Biciclo Ottocentesco. Every year a series of structures are used for these events, mainly (historical) barriers, bleachers and a neon lighting system. These elements, which are used about ten days a year, lie in the warehouses of the municipality for the remaining time. We started from here to develop our installation project which, through a physical and at the same time symbolic action, puts these objects centre stage, making them protagonists.
For the design and realization of the urban scenographies we used the tiers of seats, used in historical city events as spectator seats, to which we added a recycled wood panel, thus creating installations with a double soul that makes them instruments to look at but also to watch. Communication systems to support the large posters, created by studio SS16, depicting the prompts used to generate the images through artificial intelligence on display at the Galleria Bramante. Furthermore, these scenographies were designed to be used as seats and positioned towards the landscape, in particular the Metauro river. We have created new elements in the space from known and familiar objects, giving them a different form and function. The purpose of this new configuration is to push the spectator into a change of perspective, generating amazement and wonder and leading him to relate to them in a different and unusual way, re-contextualising and re-actualising them.
The lighting system, which we designed for the different locations of the festival, was realized starting from a functional and vital element for the running of the festivals and re-enactments in Fermignano: the support system for the historical transennas. This element became the starting module with which, by coupling neon - elements that are also omnipresent at events - we gave shape to various light installations, creating recognisable elements scattered in the key locations of the territory and ideally uniting them. The addition of colour gave the installations an evocative value, creating immersive outdoor and indoor environments that, through the use of blue and green, evoke and refer to an abstract and natural context.
"The installation created reuses devices usually used in the service of historical re-enactments as scenic and symbolic objects. They are installations and urban scenographies that propose a shift in perspective capable of translating the contradictions of our relationship with nature into an immersive environment that invites us to observe places with an attentive gaze and a renewed sensitivity.
The project includes a series of images created by SS16 that expand the concept of a synthetic world in which reality and fiction are blurred, giving substance to a suspended atmosphere in which hypothetical inhabitants rediscover contact with water and the river, the source of life and sustenance; an imaginary multitude taking part in a sort of secular baptism.
The images, created with the aid of artificial intelligence, could be memories from the past as well as snapshots from the near future, a tale of a possible catastrophe or a collective rebirth". Jonathan Pierini
Alessandro Mason, Alice Cazzolato, Pietro Lora
SS16 Studio
Jonathan Pierini
Simone Sacconi and Pro Loco di Fermignano
Davide Corda, Donato Caggiano