2026
E se fosse una città / And if were a city / Video mapping installation / 6’47 »
Piazza Scaravilli / Bologna / 28.05.2026
Commissioned by Università degli Studi di Bologna – Facoltà di architettura / Developed as part of the European project Art of Darkness
E se fosse una città / And if it were a city is a 6-minute video mapping installation developed as part of the European project Art of Darkness. Beginning with a reflection on the image of darkness, the work imagines an imaginary city called Buia, inspired by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. Structured as a sequence of textual and visual chapters, the project uses the city as a narrative and critical device through which darkness is explored as a space of opacity, relation, and revolt.
The project also draws inspiration from the history of public lighting in Bologna, notably the introduction of the city’s first public illumination system on 26 September 1801 and the gas workers’ strike of 12 October 1907, which temporarily plunged parts of the city back into darkness. These historical episodes inform the fictional premise of Buia: following a mysterious event, its inhabitants collectively decide to switch off the city’s public lights.
From that moment, a process of adaptation begins: learning how to see in the dark. The narrative draws on scientific and perceptual phenomena associated with low-light vision, including hypnagogia, phosphenes, closed-eye visualizations (CEV), and eigengrau, the dark grey perceived in the absence of light.
The visual research combines text, writing, archival material, digital animation, and lights, translating these references into a site-specific projection.
Produced by Università degli Studi di Bologna / Facoltà di architettura
Sound design: Maru Barucco
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