Milan, a multimedia project on Leonardo curated by Studio Azzurro at Palazzo Reale

To celebrate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death, the City of Milan-Culture, Palazzo Reale and theIstituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, are promoting a multimedia project, entitled Leonardo. The Machine of Imagination and entrusted to Studio Azzurro, which by integrating different languages and skills (from video to graphic animation to interactive systems) has embarked on a complex project path, supported by the scientific expertise of art historian Edoardo Villata.

The itinerary, which can be visited from April 19 to July 14, 2019, is punctuated by seven video installations, five of which are interactive, that involve the viewer in a tale of images and sounds that, starting from Leonardo’s multifaceted legacy, “speak” to us as much about his, as about our time.

The large scenographic machines, whose structure is freely inspired by Leonardo’s drawings, correspond to as many sections: The Observations on Nature; The City; The Landscape; The Machines of Peace; The Machines of War; The Anatomical Table; Painting.

Studio Azzurro has designed a space that immerses visitors in the world of Leonardo’s imagination. A world of machines sometimes as transparent as his horizons, sometimes as opaque as the paper of his notebooks. The visitor’s experience moves from observation to participation, moving among forms that recall the geometric rigor of Luca Pacioli’s Platonic solids and remodel themselves into useful tools. This world of machines transformed into narrative devices, of giant sheets of notes waiting to be awakened, welcomes the visitor into a penumbra from which the colors of wood, canvas and paper stand out. Interaction takes place with different systems: modulation of light and voice are the privileged tools.

In four sections, in fact, the visitor can choose some key-words taken from the vincian lexicon, which, once pronounced, give life to the video narratives, in which Leonardo’s drawings are flanked, traversed or revisited by films that are sometimes hyper-realistic, sometimes almost abstract. “In some cases the elaborations or juxtapositions emphasize and accentuate the disturbing, subversive character of Leonardo’s drawings, while in others they provide a kind of affectionate, ironic counterpoint: an attitude that Leonardo would surely have liked,” writes Prof. Villata. “The visitor will thus come face to face with some examples of Leonardo’s ideas and studies: the bird’s-eye view, the machines, both for civilian and military use, the maps, the studies on the anatomy of horses and birds; but also to terrifying images of deluge, to faces transfigured by wrath, to melancholy thinkers, to tender and amused images of dogs, cats or crabs. All this is always commented on by sounds, which sometimes hint at becoming a sketch of a musical phrase, and by quotations from Leonardo’s manuscripts.”

Leonardo. The Machine of Imagination, on view at the Palazzo Reale from April 19 to July 14, 2019, curated by Treccani, Studio Azzurro, with the support of Arthemisia and scientific advice Edoardo Villata, is promoted by the City of Milan - Culture, Palazzo Reale and Treccani.

For all information you can visit the event’s official website.

Milan, a multimedia project on Leonardo curated by Studio Azzurro at Palazzo Reale

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