Concept
Solarium is part of the Solarpunk series, a speculative narrative that invites positive imagination in the face of the complex challenges brought on by change.
2038| What if the sun’s UV rays turned deadly, making outdoor exposure impossible? We would need to turn to solar showers for health reasons.
There would be indoor light therapy for humans. We would share a moment of care and meditation together.
Humanity protects itself from UV rays in solar dens; the heliotherapeutic movement for the healing of body and spirit, MESC, has developed a therapy device that provides the body with the necessary vitamin D. An artificial voice guides the 10-minute therapy session, during which participants lie down on cushions and share a moment of care.
” Solarium is a cure for both body and spirit. A healthy mind in a healthy body, said the ancients of the First Era. Once, humanity fought against injustice, power, and oppression. It fought itself. Today, we face nature. And we can no longer blame anyone. We are all united by the same powerlessness: the inability to change the state of things. The Heliotherapeutic Movement for Body and Spirit invites you to free yourself from guilt. To live in the present. To share this therapy every week. A collective therapy where needs and necessities are shared, with people like you. All living beings are in a mutual relationship of dependence. Even individual suffering and happiness interact with those of others. This interdependence is not only material, but also spiritual. We can only cultivate love, compassion, tolerance, and generosity in relation to others.”
Technical description
Structure 8x4m, 32sqm, 320 light tubes, cushions, mirrors, quadraphonic sound. Duration 10′
LOCATION
GRESART 671, Bergamo, IT
YEAR
2023
For over a decade, transmedia artists Saverio Villirillo and Gregorio Comandini have been exploring the relationships between humans and machines, producing works ranging from installations, exhibitions, and social practices. After founding NONE collective, the duo of architects and A/V artists continues their investigation into the threshold between perception, consciousness and imagination with artistic practices that induce the audience into a liminal state.
Through the language of new media, the artists aim to guide participants in their works into ecstatic states where the boundary between reality and imagination dissolves. Mental journeys are generated by overstimulated bodily senses, assuming a condition of permanent change between present and future, fiction and reality, possible and impossible.
The liminal state of altered consciousness arises from speculative narratives where the artists activate a liminal rite in which the audience takes on the central role of enchantment generator, thus constituting the fantastical substance, the magical matter that frees itself from a disenchanted world overwhelmed by a cynical realism. The duo defines a transmedial aesthetic characterized by dark environments, where light, video and sound construct cyclic patterns, sudden glimpses, suspensions and hypnotic crescendos that become disruptive energy and lead to an unexpected rupture.
Their installative and performative works resemble collective rituals where participants find themselves in a liminal state on the threshold of consciousness, identity and time, where social constraints can be temporarily dissolved and future perspectives can be questioned. The dissolution of order during liminality creates an ambiguous, fluid, and malleable situation that allows for the establishment of new customs and an individuation process.
Saverio and Gregorio’s works have been exhibited at Light Art Museum (Budapest/HU), Somerset House (London/UK), Fukuoka Science Museum (Fukuoka/JP), Farol Santander (Sao Paulo/BR), GresArt 671 (Bergamo/IT), Design week (Milan/IT), K11 Art Space (Guangzhou/CN), Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Rome/IT).
They designed and realized historical and scientific outreach exhibitions including “Copernicus and the Revolution of the World” at the Archaeological Park of the Colosseum (2023, Rome), “Classico Pop” at the National Roman Museum (2018, Rome), the Italian Museum of Audiovisual and Cinema (2019, Rome), the Roman Museum of Santa Giulia (2023, Brescia).
