Torino's first virtual sound mural unveiled at Primo Liceo Artistico

Fondazione Spinola Banna per l'Arte has completed the first virtual and interactive sound mural in Turin, as part of the 'Segni per la speranza' project. Initiated in 2016 by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage's Directorate General for Contemporary Art and Urban Peripheries, the project aims to revitalize urban outskirts. The mural covers 365 square meters on the exterior wall of the Primo Liceo Artistico Statale di Torino. Over 200 people, including artists, technicians, high school students, and public and private institutions, collaborated for two years. Fifty students, under a school-work program, painted words from literary and cinematic works by Natalia Ginzburg, Vittorio De Seta, and Abbas Kiarostami in French, Chinese, and Russian. Their voices, processed by composer Stefano Gervasoni and computer music designer Marco Liuni, form the sound component. The project was inspired by 'Viale dei Canti', a multimodal work by artist Giuseppe Caccavale and Gervasoni, realized by the Italian Institute of Culture in Paris in spring 2016 with Fondazione Spinola Banna's support. Unlike the Paris version, which used hidden acoustic speakers, the Turin mural integrates sound via a virtual platform accessible at webwallwhispers.net. Gervasoni noted that the strong pedagogical component made the artwork a common good, with the artist interacting with young people, breaking barriers between arts and technology.