science – Sony CSL – Rome https://csl.sony.it Mon, 31 Aug 2026 17:38:02 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.3 Ulysses’ Gates presented in Venice on the occasion of the 2026 Venice Biennale https://csl.sony.it/2026/05/10/ulysses-gates-presented-in-venice-on-the-occasion-of-the-2026-venice-biennale/ Sun, 10 May 2026 17:25:00 +0000 https://csl.sony.it/?p=3792

Ulysses’ Gates, the first chapter of Climate-tides, was presented in Venice at the Art Gallery of Caffè In Paradiso on the occasion of the opening of the 2026 Venice Biennale.

The presentation marked the first public encounter with the project, which brings together art, science and technology to explore Venice’s relationship with water, tides, climate change and infrastructures of protection. The event was met with great interest and participation from the public, opening a shared space of reflection around one of the most symbolic and urgent questions of the lagoon city: how to listen to environmental transformation before it becomes emergency.

Ulysses’ Gates stems from a cultural proposition by Umberto Vattani: to interpret the theme of the 2026 Biennale Arte, In Minor Keys, curated by Koyo Kouoh, by transforming the sound and presence of the MOSE, Venice’s invisible defence against rising sea levels, into an artistic experience. From this initial intuition, the dialogue among the authors opened into the broader framework of Climate-tides, an art–science series dedicated to tides, climate change and new forms of listening to nature.

Created by Filippo Gregoretti, Hiroaki Kitano and Vittorio Loreto, the work transforms more than a century of lagoon history, tidal records, environmental signals and data connected to the MOSE system into sound, music and generative images. The project does not treat data as neutral information alone, nor as aesthetic material in itself. Rather, it uses artistic and technological languages to make environmental change perceptible, meaningful and collectively shareable.

During the presentation, Hiroaki Kitano and Vittorio Loreto introduced the scientific and conceptual dimensions of the work, addressing the role of artificial intelligence, complex systems, environmental data and technological infrastructures in understanding transformation. Filippo Gregoretti presented the artistic and generative dimension of the project, showing how data, thresholds and movements of the lagoon can become a sonic and visual composition: not only a representation of environmental change, but an experience of listening.

At the centre of Ulysses’ Gates is Venice itself: a city built on water and within water, which for centuries has not lived against the sea, but in dialogue with it. Its history is made of fragile balances, thresholds and adaptations. Today, however, that rhythm is changing. The challenge is no longer only the sudden storm or the exceptional event of acqua alta, but a slower and more continuous transformation: rising sea levels, climate change and the increasing frequency with which nature exceeds the thresholds that humankind had learned to recognise.

 

In this narrative, the MOSE is not presented as a final victory over the sea, but as a threshold. Hidden on the seabed and rising only when the threat becomes concrete, it embodies a form of protection that does not erase fragility. It intervenes, restores balance, and then disappears. For this reason, Ulysses’ Gates evokes not domination, but vigilance; not conquest, but adaptation. Protecting Venice does not mean denying the sea. It means continuing to listen to it.

The cultural and narrative framework of the project has been developed with the contribution of Milena Di Canio, who has accompanied Climate-tides / Ulysses’ Gates since its early stages, working on the language through which the project connects art, science, environmental data, Venice, listening and climate awareness. A special thank you also goes to Yoko Honjo for her support in nurturing the cultural dimension of the project and helping it take shape across its different stages.

 

With Ulysses’ Gates, Venice is not only the site of the work. It is its interlocutor: the body that breathes, resists and adapts. The first chapter of Climate-tides opens from this fragile and powerful image, inviting us to rethink the relationship between civilisation and nature through attention, care and listening.

The sea becomes a voice.
Data become a way of listening.

]]> Leading our first Eu Project in Rome: let the S+T+ARTS residencies begin https://csl.sony.it/2022/03/05/leading-our-first-eu-project-in-rome-starts/ Sat, 05 Mar 2022 21:57:00 +0000 http://cslromeprod.wpengine.com/?p=1677 Susi Gutsche, Olga Kisseleva and Liu Bauer are the winners of the artistic residencies we promote in collaboration with MAXXI- Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, in the framework of the European project S+T+ARTS | Repairing the Present.

The S+T+ARTS initiative is a program funded by the European Commission aiming at bringing artistic perspectives into the innovation process to address current challenges in today’s society. The initiative, through the previous editions, has already launched 125 residencies all over Europe, in agreement with the Green Deal and determined to set up a new European Bauhaus to define an aesthetic for the biggest challenge Europe is now facing together with the rest of the world: the climate crisis.

We are now entering into the heart of the project launching, together with MAXXI, the two artistic residencies won by Susi Gutsche and Olga Kisselva with Liu Bauer, who will develop their artistic projects during the next months. In addition to those promoted by us and MAXXI, the overall initiatives counts 21 residencies in 12 European countries, all promoted by some of the most important institutions and innovation centres in Europe: Art Hub Copenhagen, CYENS, MEET, CCCB, In4Art, STATE, Onassis Stegi, Kerniskova, Snowball & Gluon, Ars Electronica.

But let’s move now to the detail of what our winners will create in the next few months! All the artists participated to a competition answering to two main challenges: Big Data and the City and Improving Urban Sustainability. The first one won by Susi Gutsche and the second one won by the duo composed by Olga Kisseleva and Liu Bauer.

Susi Gutsche

Susi Gutsche is an artist with a background in art history. She completed her master studies in Social Design – Arts as Urban Innovation at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Besides these qualifications, she participated in archaeological excavations and worked in a clinical research setting, including laboratory work. She works with multiple media, such as video, photographic documentation, performance, casting and mould making, while experimenting with unconventional materials. Collecting images and objects is one of her primary research methodologies. The focus in her previous projects lies on societal processes in urban contexts: Death, Isolation and (Bio)diversity; «Right to Green» in cities, ground/soil sealing, allotments and participative processes.

Susi Gutsche Starts

Trace your Waste: Urban Garbage Mobility

The project aims to observe and visualise movements of our garbage and explore possible impacts on future urban life within the context of waste. Gaining more knowledge and data in order to understand the usually hidden dynamics can produce a wider discussion and understanding of challenges and problems. How to pave the way to a resilient waste mobility?

Olga Kisseleva & Liu Bauer

One of the key figures in the international “art&science” field, Olga Kisseleva approaches her work as a scientist. She calls upon collaborations with exact sciences, biology and geophysics and she strictly respects the methods of each domain. Kisseleva has had major exhibitions in Modern Art Museum (Paris), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid), Foundation Cartier for contemporary art (Paris), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Guggenheim Museum (Bilbao), NCCA (Moscow). Her works are in the world’s most important collections: Centre Pompidou, Louis Vuitton Foundation, ZKM, NY MoMA. She teaches contemporary art at Sorbonne University, she is the head of the Art&New Media program and Founding director of Art&Science International Institute.

Liu Bauer is a researcher and PhD in Theoretical physics from Humboldt University. She has been working on urban and architectural projects and her recent focus is on citizen science and open city-data. She is currently developing these topics in the City Interaction lab in Montreuil, France. 

Olga Kisseleva Starts

Cities live like Trees

The idea is to map, based on the combination of citizen science and data processing algorithms, human emotions from citizens and link them with tree memories and location, as well to provide new spaces in the cities for citizens to recharge. The idea behind is that using the power of trees inter-connectedness, we can repair city spaces, which are full of emotions of solastalgia and nature-lack-disorders.

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