by Yuri Catania, Lugano 2023
LVGA/XY ASTRO FLOWERS is a street artwall conceived by Yuri Catania, set to debut at the NFT Festival in Lugano from August 30 to September 10, 2023, made possible with the support of Lugano Living Lab. Catania's work aims to juxtapose the provocative interplay of nature and technology. With the backdrop of NFT Fest at Villa Ciani, he delves into pivotal themes of the moment: WEB 3.0, Blockchain's role in art, cryptocurrencies, the metaverse, and more. Catania seeks to harmonize these concepts with the breathtaking natural beauty of Parco Ciani. The project unfolds through nighttime photographs of plants and flowers from the park, captured specifically by Catania. These serve as the setting for his astronauts, symbolizing the modern-day heroes tasked with steering humanity through space via technology and science. Their mission: to ensure the future of life on our planet through a harmonious interplay with nature.
Location: Palazzo Congresso, Villa Ciani.
Palazzo dei Congressi lato viale Carlo Cattaneo.
A site-specific ephemeral installation measuring 42m x 8m. A unique, eco-friendly artwork, crafted from paper using the street art technique called Paste-Up (literally meaning 'to glue onto a surface' in English). The piece will be a collage of photographs (plants and flowers from Parco Ciani) and digital images (astronauts) designed and printed in a 1:1 scale personally by the artist through a real-scale digital art process. The installation will take place with the collaboration of volunteers of all age groups who can participate both as individuals and as associations or institutions within the Lugano area. The work will be carried out over several days and will consist of cutting the produced images into sections (collage) which will then be glued with the artist using brushes and adhesive. Most of the work, aiming to make the piece as collective as possible, will be done from the ground up to an average height of 3 meters, and then in certain spots it will extend up to about 7.50 meters.
Digitization/Tokenization of the Artwork
The artwork will be digitized using a 3D scanner (Polycam), enabling it to be tokenized and subsequently gifted by the artist to the Municipality of Lugano. This will allow the artwork to be museumized in a dedicated space within the city's Metaverse. The piece will also be viewable and reproducible through mixed augmented reality, anywhere and in any size, using any mobile device. This will enable individual citizens, or during events, conferences, and school sessions, to experience the artwork regardless of the physical location.
Augmented Reality
The artwork can display multimedia content in a 1:1 scale, such as videos, for instance, a timelapse of the performance or an animation of the piece in 3D with sounds created by the artist. These can be activated on mobile devices through a free app: Artivive, which is downloadable on any smartphone (iOS or Android).
Info: Lugano Living Lab