Communication – Sony CSL – Rome

Sony CSL – Rome at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale

milena — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 15:32:35 +0000

We are thrilled to share that Sony CSL – Rome has been invited to present their work at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2025, as part of the exhibition Lighter within the general framework of the triennale dedicated to the inspiring question: How Heavy is a City?

The installation, titled The Weight of Urban Inequalities, reflects on the invisible forces shaping how we move, live, and breathe within urban spaces.

The installation was curated by Vittorio Loreto, Milena Di Canio, and Matteo Bruno, who collaborated closely to transform scientific insights into a story and a visual experience. Drawing on research developed at Sony CSL – Rome, the work translates complex data about accessibility and inequality into a sensory representation of the “weight” each citizen carries in navigating the city.

Living in a city carries its own weight. Moving around to reach our points of interest or essential places carries weight, meant as effort, burden. Going for a run in the park, meeting people, having a coffee, visiting an exhibition, taking care of our health, feeling accepted by the community, and spending our time; everything carries weight in the city. And a city’s weight becomes heavier the more unequal its access to opportunities is.
Inequalities in accessing and enjoying housing solutions, infrastructures, efficient transport, green areas, hospitals, recreational centres, and much more often become obstacles to the growth of cities and the people who inhabit them. Many are forced to leave, or else live under conditions of social segregation.
This is why “What if?” becomes the guiding question of our research when applied to urban contexts. We begin by observing a city’s state-of-the-art and formulating, first within ourselves, a triggering question: “What if people could have equal access to the countless opportunities a city can offer? And if not fully equal, then at least more balanced?” From there, we project this question outward, turning it into a scientific objective: to imagine (and propose) possible future scenarios in which everyone is more and more released from this weight, aiming for a more equal and sustainable life, where the words LIVING, MOVING, BREATHING stand as fundamental pillars.

The piece emerges from “What if Machines”, which are computational systems designed to analyse future scenarios through the lens of complexity theory, based on mathematics and laws of physics. They represent our method for predicting dynamic outcomes, managing intricate patterns, and adapting to evolving variables. These systems foresee potential developments by processing vast datasets, making informed decisions more achievable. Their predictive power reshapes how we navigate uncertainty and complexity. These systems help us imagine and test more equitable futures by asking a simple but powerful question: What if everyone could access the city’s opportunities equally?

Presented at the Triennale, The Weight of Urban Inequalities invites visitors to reflect on the unseen burdens embedded in urban life, and on the collective possibility of making cities lighter, fairer, and more livable for all. The exhibition, curated by John Palmesino and Ann-Sofi Rönnskog of Territorial Agency, can be visited at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Architecture of Lisbon until January 2026.

Sony CSL at Expo Osaka 2025

milena — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 13:36:47 +0000

Sony Computer Science Laboratories (Sony CSL) participated in Expo Osaka 2025 as part of the activities planned by the Italian Pavilion and in particular within the week dedicated to opportunities and growth scenarios for businesses in the Lazio region.

Specifically, Sony CSL implemented its participation through two addresses during the event “Investing in Lazio: Japan tells Italy in Osaka through the territory,” which were held on May 19 at 3:30 p.m. at the Auditorium of the Italian Pavilion.

Hiroaki Kitano, Chief Technology Fellow of Sony Group Corporation as well as president and CEO of Sony CSL, and Vittorio Loreto, director of Sony CSL – Rome, alternated themselves to tell the audience in the room the story of a virtuous relationship established between Sony CSL and the Lazio territory that gave birth, a few years ago, to the research institution’s Rome laboratory, which before 2022, had its European base in the city of Paris alone.

Therefore, central to Hiroaki Kitano‘s speech has been the narration of what it means for an organization like Sony CSL to invest in Italy and in particular in the Lazio Region in a crucial sector such as scientific research and within a global landscape in total revolution from the point of view of global challenges. This was followed by a talk by Vittorio Loreto, scientific director of the Roman laboratory (Sony CSL – Rome), who dropped Kitano’s words into the territorial context to talk about the ecosystem of knowledge and know-how that the Roman laboratory has generated at the municipal and regional level and how the latter has been able to attract attention abroad.

In particular, Loreto brought the example of the research studies on cities and the urban environment that have already been the subject of an agreement with Città Metropolitana di Roma Capitale in a way that we imagine could be scalable to other areas and institutions, and will announce what research projects Sony CSL is investing in in the area and the implications in terms of impact and value creation.

“Our research studies in the field of cities and urban environment have already been the subject of an agreement with Città Metropolitana di Roma Capitale, in a way that we imagine could be scalable to other areas and institutions”- said Vittorio Loreto scientific director of Sony CSL – Rome “and this is only the tangible part of the virtuous processes triggered by the presence of Sony CSL in the territory, in addition there is a whole network made up of people, skills and interactions that is creating an extremely thriving ecosystem based on the exchange of knowledge at high levels that is perhaps the phenomenon to be observed with the greatest interest.”

Picture: Italy Expo 2025 Osaka

Rome Future Week: our collaboration with Rome Municipality in the name of Innovation

milena — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 07:55:21 +0000

Sony CSL – Rome will be the scientific partner of the “Casa delle Tecnologie Emergenti” (CTE) on the occasion of the Rome Future Week 2024; the three entities will collaborate for the creation of the city’s Innovation Map.

Announcing this is Monica Lucarelli, Rome Municipality’s councillor for Security Policies, Productive Activities, Equal Opportunities and President of the CTE Board, who describes the agreement as “a significant step for the future of innovation in the Capital.”

“The Casa delle Tecnologie Emergenti,” explains the Councillor, “is working on creating an ecosystem that brings together different innovation actors to improve the services offered to the city. Now, thanks to this collaboration, we will develop an innovation map that will serve as a platform for aggregation, combining ideas, services, and showing opportunities. The creation of this map will help us to understand and adequately respond to the demands of an increasingly connected citizenry, directing our actions effectively and smartly to improve the quality of life for those living in Rome, and also the quality of the experience we offer to visitors to our city.”

“There are many innovation maps, but what we ask ourselves is: is there one that goes beyond the clichés of places and manages to map innovation in a more widespread way, without leaving behind the commitment of those individual realities that no one talks about and no one knows?” comments Milena Di Canio, communications manager for the Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Rome.

“This is the challenge posed by Sony CSL,” she explains, “our researchers, Matteo Bruno and Hygor Melo, guided by the research director, Professor Vittorio Loreto, are already working to define the key parameters and criteria for this unique map of its kind. Together, we are exploring new perspectives and scientific approaches to fully understand the fabric of innovation in our city.”

Michele Franzese, the creator of the Rome Future Week, is pleased with the partnership. “During a visit to the headquarters of Sony CSL – Rome,” he recounts, “we were faced with a stimulating surprise: an interactive map that allowed us to note the sensations of the various areas of Rome. This approach goes beyond mere execution, aiming towards listening to and understanding the territory.”

Press

The Eco of truths, Dialogues between Literature and Science

milena — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 13:40:48 +0000

The event on March 25th will be dedicated to Umberto Eco and in particular to his famous book “Foucault’s Pendulum”, published in 1988. The title of the book refers to the pendulum, the object of the experiment by the French physicist Jean Bernard Léon Foucault, which demonstrates the movement of the earth.

For the purposes of the event, the book will provide the starting point to discuss, in a broader sense, modern information systems, focusing on some of their peculiar characteristics and malfunctions.

The key concept of the event, from which the dialogue will begin, will be “truth”, which in various forms has been a dear theme to Umberto Eco; moreover, the theme of truth is also a useful metaphorical key to understand some of the phenomena that characterize our information systems and many of the pathologies that afflict them.

Together with Emanuele Brugnoli and D. Ruggiero Lo Sardo, researchers in the field of Infosphere, other guests will participate into the dialogue: Antonio Perri, former student of Umberto Eco and currently a professor of Linguistics, Computational Linguistics, and Sociolinguistics of interactions at the University of Suor Orsola Benincasa, along with journalist Filippo Santelli, correspondent for the Economy section of La Repubblica and winner of the 2021 Tutino Journalist Award for his reports from China, where he covered, among other things, the democracy protests in Hong Kong and the development of the coronavirus epidemic.
The event will be moderated by Manuela Cherubini, director, actress, and expert in the relationship between art and science.

The event is open to public through the registration at this link. Entrance from Piazza del Viminale 1, Rome.

The Intelligence of Babel, Dialogues between Literature and Science

milena — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 11:57:40 +0000

Within the framework of the “Dialogues between Literature and Science” the Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Rome proudly presents “The Intelligence of Babel”. The second event of the “Dialogues” will take place on February 27th and it will be dedicated to Jorge Luis Borges and in particular to his story titled “The Library of Babel”, first appearing in 1941 in the collection “The Garden of Forking Paths” and then in 1944 within the volume “Ficciones”.

The event will start from Borges’ story to explore, through his great philosophical provocations and literary suggestions, the connections with the human mind and its famous artificial simulacrum. Sony CSL – Rome is particularly interested in these relationships not only to enhance the scientific understanding of the basic mechanisms of artificial minds, but above all to better understand the dynamics that characterize human creativity and their relationships with mathematical theories of innovation.

Alongside Alessandro Londei, researcher from Sony CSL – Rome and an expert in artificial intelligence, we will host Alessandra Ghezzani, professor of Hispanic-American language and literature at the University of Pisa, as well as an expert on the author, and Silvano Tagliagambe, philosopher of science. We will also be accompanied by the readings and moderation of Manuela Cherubini, actress, director, and expert in outreach.

The event is open to public through the registration at this link. Entrance from Piazza del Viminale 1, Rome.

Calvino is in the City, Dialogues between Literature and Science

milena — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 12:23:38 +0000

Within the framework of the “Dialogues between Literature and Science” the Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Rome proudly presents “Calvino is in the City,” an event dedicated to the author of the “Invisible Cities,” one of his most well known masterpieces, which is highly celebrated and remarkably relevant for an era where the debate on the future of cities becomes more pressing.

The event will begin with the reading of excerpts from the book, followed by an initial commentary with a scientific flavor. Subsequently, other guests will share their perspectives, opening the discussion and perhaps delving deeper into Calvino’s narrative, vision, insights, and transversality. The event will take on the form of a genuine and multi-voiced dialogue, where syntaxes intertwine and listen to each other.

In addition to Vittorio Loreto, Director of Sony CSL – Rome and Physics of Complex Systems lecturer at La Sapienza University in Rome, there will be contributions from Laura Guglielmi, journalist and writer, also an expert on Calvino and author of the book “Calvino and Sanremo”; Andrea Prencipe, Rector of LUISS Guido Carli University and author of the books “The Cybernetic Viscount” and “The Rampant Innovator,” accompanied in the narration by Manuela Cherubini, a director, actress, and expert in scientific narratives.

The event is open to public through the registration at this link. Entrance from Piazza del Viminale 1, Rome.