ONIRICA ()

A live media performance combining dance, real-time generated imagery, and artificial intelligence to explore the bodily dimension of dreams and their fleeting, unstable logic. Created in collaboration with Italian choreographer Diego Tortelli, the project expands the Onirica series, this time focusing on the relationship between the dreaming body and the synthetic image.

The performance is structured around fragments of real dreams drawn from the archives of the University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of Bologna, comprising more than 28,000 records collected since 1930. Their analysis reveals recurring motifs, images, and emotions that emerge across different times, places, and cultures.

These individual experiences are transformed by AI into a fluid, cinematic reality that unfolds live in response to the performer’s movement. The work asks what happens to one of the most intimate and subjective areas of human experience when it is analysed, processed, and visualised by artificial intelligence. Here, the dream becomes at once an archive, a dataset, and a space of shared synthetic imagination.

The visuals of Onirica 0 are based on a pipeline integrating the Diffusers: state-of-the-art diffusion model library developed by Huggingface and OpenGL Shading Language (GLL). The performance is powered by NOITOM’s MOCAP Perception Neuron.

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Credits

Direction: Mattia Carretti
Executive Production: Mattia Carretti, Luca Camellini
Choreography: Diego Tortelli
Performer: Hélias Salvador Dorvault
Music & Sound Design: Riccardo Bazzoni
Head of Visual Design: Matteo William Salsi
Software Development: Matteo William Salsi, Alessandro Mintrone, Matteo Amerena
Dream Selection: Alessandro Mintrone
Dream Voices: Matteo Amerena
Prompt Design: Alessandro Mintrone, Matteo William Salsi, Mattia Carretti, Matteo Amerena
Light Design: Stefano Cane, Matteo Amerena
Technical Direction: Matteo Amerena
Hardware Engineering: Matteo Amerena, Matteo William Salsi, Alessandro Mintrone
Communication and Copywriting: Virginia Bianchi
Production Assistants: Filippo Aldovini, Virginia Bianchi, Martina Reggiani
Studio & Event Management: Martina Reggiani
Booklet Graphic Design: Olimpia Zamò
Photo and Video Documentation: Matteo Torsani, Emmanuele Coltellacci