The site-specific installation “Viral Human” was conceived by artist Sara Grilli, in order to evoke the historical origins of the Venice Redeemer's Festival.
The work “Viral Human” – available digitally from 25 June to 16 July 2023 through a mobile application – travels parallel between two eras: the Plague of 1575-77 in Venice and the Covid-19 pandemic.
The visitor, equipped with headphones or earphones, will live an interactive and immersive listening experience: an app conceived as a “time capsule” that travels between two historical eras which, 447 years apart, will be forced to face a long health emergency, such as to threaten the safety and survival of the respective communities.
Thanks to this comparison it was possible to create a “bridge narrative” between two apparently different, yet surprisingly similar, historical moments in their attempts to stop the spread of the virus: containment measures such as quarantine and social distancing were in fact implemented already four centuries ago.
Arte Pubblica e Metaverso is the first International Collective Exhibition set up in the virtual perimeter of the island of Venice visible from 17 July to 2 November 2023 and accompanied by a call for participation dedicated to Visual Arts and Contemporary Music.
The purpose of the initiative is to:
• investigate the relationship between public art and the metaverse by exploiting immersive reality and a geo-localized map; this combination could be measured with the urban context generating a path of visit and a hybrid exhibition space, halfway between the physical and the virtual;
• create a digital mobilization of contemporary art and music and an integration of globally distributed expressive codes.