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Stefano Sburlati digital artist // immersive video maker // creative technologist

I am an independent immersive video maker, digital artist and creative technologist based in Turin, Italy.

In my work, I like to explore the boundaries between technology, communication and art in video and everything related to it.
Video installations are fascinating to me too, connecting visitors to operas and making sense only with people: the magical space in between can let users moving in with gestures based on natural interaction.

I graduated from University many years ago, with a final thesis about VideoArt and Social Activism (Major of Sciences of Communication). Shortly after, I started shooting and editing videos and working on video installation. Few years later, I’ve founded Motion Pixel Studio, a creative video production agency. Meanwhile, I completed my doctorate in Cultural Heritage at Politecnico di Torino, focusing my activity in renewing digital archives and video installation of some museums.

Teaching is also part of my experience: I have taught courses on video editing/post-production and videoart, interactive video and installation. Among other places, I have taught these course at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Novara, IED – Istituto Europeo di Design, Politecnico di Torino and Scuola Holden.

Link:
Motion Pixel Studio – www.motionpixel.it

stefanosburlati.net // All subjects are Copyright-free, everyone can use them as he/she/it prefers, just let me know

Stefano Sburlati

Digital Artist – VR – 360 Videos

VR FREE

VR 360

Starting from September 2018 until March 2019 I worked in one of the most interesting project I ever did: a VR movie shot in an italian prison, with a very talented director, Milad Tanghsir. In this project I did the 360° photography and post-production, but the inheritance that I carry with me goes beyond the technical aspect, and has to do with the people and situations I have met and the questions that I have asked myself, about major issues such as freedom, detention etc…

The idea of VR FREE was based on the immersive potential of VR, able to create bridges between the jail time and space and the outside world, building interesting connection between the two sides.

VR FREE is now out and ready to go into Festivals all around the world!

Senegal Detour

VR 360

Lac Rose, near Dakar

I’m proud to share this new VR project: I worked on it during last 6months!

Senegal Detour is a 360 VR experience about climate change, environment and agricolture in Senegal.

Climate change is a global phenomenon however, its effects vary widely around the world, depending on ecosystems and economies. In Senegal, they cause great problems for people, environment and agriculture.

The rediscovery of the cultivation of fonio which is one of the oldest cereals in Africa and a highly nutritious cereal that requires little water to grow, could be one response to the challenges of climate change.

 There is also an in interesting work on audio made by Mattia Meloni with a double track: head-locked binaural audio for some things and stereo track for other things. Some voices and ambient audio follows the viewer to increase immersivity, other audio tracks are fixed!

I’ve worked on this during a 2-weeks travel all across Senegal with Luca Puzzangara, a journalist that has realised the related documentary “Contro Coltura”, in a transmedia project called “Butterfly Effect”.

Butterfly Effect project, a European Union project funded by COP (Consorzio delle ONG Piemontesi) via “Frame, Voice, Report!” and it is made in collaboration with Nutri-Aid International.

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←  L’Aventure. Récits de voyage

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L’Aventure. Récits de voyage

VR 360

“L’Aventure. Récits de voyage” is project that reflects about migrants and their trip from home to Europe, focusing on the microcosm of Mali people in Turin, Italy: malianian migrants talks about their migration experience inserted in landscapes and situations of their own country. That idea started from a collaboration with an Italian NGO called “Engim Internazionale” in a project called “Proteja”.

screenshot from L'Aventure. Recontes du voyage

In this video I worked with 360° images and videos, shoot in Mali and Italy and mixed, also with audio and video interviews I made with many persons that came from Mali. The result is extremely interesting, you can hear and watch people counting their stories in some different scenarios, some full of life and others almost abandoned, and hear directly by them words something about their trip. Trip can be extremely long, painful and dangerous.

Tis project is done with the precious collaboration of Andrea De Georgio (interviews in Italy), Michele Cattani (video 360 in Mali) and Francesco Cretti (music). Also, I’d like to thank people talked to me, letting me know their stories, at least just a bit, due to the complexity and the force of the situation: in random order are Bako Sissoko, Yacouba Kone, Kanda Kouyate, Mariam Cissé, Oumar Sanogo, Nomago Haly, Diane Soumaila, Moussa Kanti, Genevra Coulibaly and Kekoto Coulibaly.

Stay tuned!

Organic Arch-Live

creative videointeractive installation

Organic Arc Live is an interactive installation made expressly for an interesting museum in Turin named PAV – Parco d’Arte Vivente. The goal of the installation is to refresh the archive with a simplified fruition for the people in the museum, giving the archive of the museum, from past exhibition to events and forums hosted to the people. Organic Arch Live allows a creative use of the archive, made for generic public, with main information packed in a simple and well-looking short videos.

Users can explore handy cards, expressively projected for the installation, with images and a short text about past exhibition and events. For every card a video show information about the exhibit, with completely automatic on/off.

This installation was made as part of my PhD thesis. Tech: webcam, MacPro, Tuio protocol and Isadora.

More info here: http://1995-2015.undo.net/it/evento/118396#

My latest works

Apnea

creative videointeractive installationVR 360

Apnea explores the dimension of the emotions of migrants who venture out to cross the sea.

Apnea proposes an inner itinerary that we can all recognise: a cartography of feelings and fears mapped using interactive immersive technologies and an exhibition of objects that were salvaged from the sea.

Apnea ’s audio-visual contents were realized in Lampedusa.

THE BACKGROUND TO THE PROJECT
The Apnea project came about when the Fondazione 107 for Contemporary Art came together with the platform of the Interactive Media Art Officine Sintetiche, which involves the CIRMA, the Department of Humanities at the University of Turin and the Department of Cinema Engineering and Communication Media at Turin Polytechnic. The International Castel dei Mondi Festival at Andria later also joined as a supporting partner.

In May 2016, the project won the Ora! call for tender issued by the Company of St Paul, which enabled it to launch into a pre-project phase of training and research that led to the organisation of a public event in March 2016.

The artwork develops on an idea devised by Vanessa Vozzo and is curated by Vanessa Vozzo and Stefano Sburlati, who started conducting research about migrants and the sea in 2015. Since January 2016, Stefano and Vanessa have been guiding groups of students and managing complex research in immersive and interactive technologies. Since then, Apnea has involved students, researchers and lecturers from Turin Polytechnic and Turin University, as well as extramural professionals: altogether, a large group of more than 20 people.

THE ARTWORK AND THE USE IT MAKES OF IMMERSIVE AND INTERACTIVE TECHNOLOGIES

Apnea uses interactive and immersive technologies for the purpose of awareness raising, basing its approach on generating a personal, emotional sense of involvement in each individual.

The visitor’s exploratory experience unfolds through three episodes or environments that offer different degrees of immersiveness and interactivity: a journey into our own emotions.

Visitors start this journey with a display of photographs, videos, pieces of writing and original artefacts found on the wrecks (especially the 3 October 2013 wreck) or brought on land by individual migrants. These are taken out of context and located in a procedural soundscape that is recomposed in real time.

The water, the sea and the objects are the central elements of the next two episodes, which were devised specifically to enable visitors to achieve an individual experience:

– the first is a space with an interactive projection that refers to a dive to the seabed, to primordial places that conflict with raw, real voices. As visitors move through the audio-visual environment, they modify it in real time.

– the second is a 360° video that enables visitors to plunge into the seas around Lampedusa. The performative dimension here can really take your breath away. Creating this part of the work involved intense periods of research for shooting the footage, editing it, creating the spatial audio and programming a specific player.

More info here: http://www.officinesintetiche.it/en/?portfolio=apnea

ph Domenico Grossi // photo-psycho-video-cook

Cucino la tua Storia

creative videointeractive installation

ph Domenico Grossi // photo-psycho-video-cook

Cucino la tua Storia (Cooking your Story) photo.psycho.video.cook is a particular work made with a group of friend that involves photo, video, cooking and interviewing people. In this work, we decided to talk with 5 different persons about their relation with food and cooking, mostly about their favourite recipes and comfort food: I curated the video part, making the video interview with Elena (psycologist) for the installation, during the performance people eats one of their favourite food cooked by Anna (cooker), photographed by Domenico.

cucino la tua storia / photo.psycho.video.cook was exposed @ Qubì, in Turin, during the exhibition Play With Food in 2014.

More info here: http://www.playwithfood.it/pwf5/cucino-la-tua-storia/