Chiara Passa's Algorithmic Imagination Invades Rome's Mattatoio

At Rome's Mattatoio, Chiara Passa (b. 1973, Rome), a pioneer of Italian media art since the late 1990s, presents "The Abstract Films: Sculpting Narratives in Space (2023-2025)" until August 2, 2026. Curated by Paola Lagonigro and Laura Leuzzi, the exhibition transforms Teatro 2 into a digital aesthetics laboratory. The core is a quadrilogy of interactive films—Yellow Film, Black & White Film, Red Film, Blue Film—that reimagine cinema as a dynamic, non-linear, anti-narrative environment. Using artificial intelligence, the films respond to visitors' movements, altering solid geometries and apparitions. The space itself participates in the perceptual experience, echoing participatory practices of the 1960s and 1970s and the optical research of Julio Le Parc. The work's time coincides with visitors' duration, making each experience unique. Electronic music and abstract fields induce gestures that activate algorithmic code, realizing Frank Popper's "spectator-actor" concept. The exhibition confirms Mattatoio as a hub for artistic experimentation in Rome. A catalog with critical texts by Darko Fritz, a master of Croatian digital art, is scheduled for September.