A Castle becomes an artist to establish relations with people: Arts, Sciences and Technologies collaborate to achieve better energy behaviour.
Over the years, hundreds of artists premiered at the contemporary art week of Turin. This 2017 edition offers something new, a signal of changing times.
Historic building and UNESCO heritage site, Castello del Valentino has been officially registered as resident artist of Nesxt Festival, acting as the author of the artwork “Sul Caldo e Sul Freddo”. The piece is an interactive environment where the so-called “smart” technologies turn themselves into poetry.
The castle has been made sensitive to people presence, movements and stories and tells their climatic adventures, depending on its most elementary components: hot and cold. An algorithmic poem, generated in realtime by digital sensors and bodies comes to life. The result is an immersive experience where visitors can listen poetic texts and generative soundscapes, modulated by temperature variations and by their interactions with the building.
The artwork is the first step of the research HOME project, Human Observation Meta Environment, which explores the relation within architecture, technology, data and energy consumption. Soon, a HOME Smart Agent will make its own entrance into the two main Turin University campuses. It is a software agent with which inhabitants can “negotiate” the energy management of the building using natural interfaces, such as voice, body and text interactions (e.g. on social networks).
Salvatore Iaconesi, president of HER and now member of the Italian Task Force on Artificial Intelligence claims:
“Thanks to smart technology, we can establish meaningful relationships with spaces, objects and environments of our daily life. The impacts concern services efficiency, but above all, our rights, our freedoms and the meaning of our life itself. For this reason a transdisciplinary approach is required to deal with this topic from different points of view: the technological one, the humanistic one, and the imaginaries with which we shape the world around us.”
Between art and science, research and communication, HOME fits into increasing area of interest that conceives of Art as a catalyst for research and for technology innovation processes. It is supported by European programs such as STARTS – Innovation at the nexus of Science, Technology and the Arts (www.starts.eu).
The launch of the project during the ContemporaryART Torino Piemonte week, defines its conceptual space: a crossroad between university and city where – thanks art and design – cutting edge technologies, languages and contents related to research field are translated into poetic and inclusive experiences accessible to all.
“Politecnico and University of Turin are working on this project, together with DIST and the two Green Units.”
Researches Giulia Sonetti (Green Team Polito) e Dario Cottafava (UniToGo) state,
“Our attempt is attempting to cast our net wider in order ibridate with other disciplines: in this project engineering meets art, social science meets software. We need a complex approach to cope with environmental problems and art has a central role in this process: to develop new sensitivities and also to act as a bridge between disciplines, research and society”.
In this perspective, the inauguration will host a roundtable putting together PA with cultural institutions and universities to open a dialogue about the project from different points of view. Immersing themselves in the new space of interaction of On the Hot and Cold installation, will be the first step of the day for every participants, hosts and audience.
CREDITS
Sul Caldo e Sul Freddo is a concept by AOS – Art is Open Source.
Technology: HER – Human Ecosystems Relazioni; partner: Dipartimento Interateneo di Scienze, Progetto e Politiche del Territorio (DIST), PoliTo Green Team e UniTo Green Office.
HOME is a project born out of the collaboration between Dipartimento Interateneo di Scienze, Progetto e Politiche del Territorio (DIST), PoliTo Green Team, UniTo Green Office and HER – Human Ecosystems Relazioni, and supported by Urbe” – Understanding the Relationship Between Urban Form and Energy Consumption Trough Behavioural Patterns (scientific responsible: Patrizia Lombardi), Siebel Energy Grant.