Returning for its seventh edition, Videocittà will be held in Rome from July 5 to 7. This festival, conceived by Francesco Rutelli with Francesco Dobrovich as the creative director, explores the most innovative aspects of audiovisual and digital arts. Grand installations, video art, immersive experiences, live and DJ sets, talks, AV experiences, and much more will light up Europe's largest industrial archaeology site, the Gazometro in Rome, once again this year.
For the 2024 edition, early bird tickets and the first release of passes are already sold out, with nearly half of them purchased by national (outside Rome) and international audiences. Three days of cross-pollination will add a piece to the 2024 season's puzzle, part of a quadrilogy that will conclude in 2025, themed around digital and ecological Transition.
This edition offers a reflection on the connection between humans and nature and the practical dialogue between environmental thinking and new technologies as an essential path to building a new world where digital, inclusion, and sustainability coexist. Following the lunar theme (2022) and Earth theme (2023), the theme for 2024 is the Galaxy.
Within the Ostiense location, home to the ROAD Technological Innovation District and Joule - Eni's Business School, the central themes of human centrality, innovation, and culture are presented in a varied but integrated and complementary manner. This mirrors the integrated energy approach of Eni, becoming a common thread in a joint narrative with Videocittà. As tradition now dictates, Videocittà will open with a grand site-specific artwork that will transform the largest metal cylinder of the Gazometro, a symbol of the Ostiense district and contemporary Rome.
For 2024, the installation titled Nebula is created by Quiet Ensemble and Giorgio Moroder. Quiet Ensemble, a leading creative studio in Italy's visual arts and new media scene, is renowned for creating immersive digital art installations. Their works blend art, science, and technology through interactive techniques and attention to minute details such as natural sounds or insect movements. Nebula will offer an unexpected, grand audiovisual experience, a luminous intervention in close connection with music specially composed for Videocittà by the pioneering synthesizer user, soundtrack master, Oscar winner, and David di Donatello Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Giorgio Moroder, recognized globally as one of the most influential figures in electronic and disco music. The metal framework will transform into a dense constellation, enveloping the audience from all directions: a unique immersive experience where one becomes part of a night studded with stars and sounds from distant galaxies.
The installation, realized by Eni, curated by Videocittà with scientific support from INAF and the Astronomical Observatory of Rome, and with executive production by Eventi Italiani, will be unveiled on Friday, July 5, opening the festival with a talk and speech featuring Quiet Ensemble and Moroder.
Among the guests at Videocittà 2024 will be: Silver Lion winner Camille Henrot, Golden Lion winner Blanca Li with the VR experience Le Bal de Paris, the national premiere of ODE corporis, a VR project by the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma; the only Italian date of Overmono, the eclectic Tomy Cash, live AV performances by Venerus, Caterina Barnieri & MFO, Bluem, Thru Collected; video art by Sahej Rahal, Bjørn Melhus, talks with Tinti & Rapone, Vita Lenta, Michela Giraud and Maria Onori, a special event on Guglielmo Marconi on the 150th anniversary of his birth, conducted by Prof. Vincenzo Schettini “La Fisica che ci piace”, the professional program of Pro-Agorà, the technical panels of the Union of Publishers and Digital Creators of ANICA, and much more.
Videocittà will transform the twilight of the Roman summer, not only on the main Gazometro cylinder but across the entire complex and the numerous spaces within this new audiovisual district, which Eni is significantly rehabilitating.
