Anima Mundi is a journey to discover the secrets that lie hidden at sunset among the gnarled trunks and foliage of Palermo’s Botanical Garden. A magical and immersive experience created by Odd Agency to transport the public into an imaginary world populated by fantastic presences and in contact with the soul of the world.
Local
Italy
Palermo, Sicily, Italy
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
2021-10-24
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Odd Agency Type of organisation: For-profit company First name of representative: Fabrizio Last name of representative: Pedone Gender: Male Nationality: Italy Function: Vice president Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Alloro 36/44 Town: Palermo Postal code: 90133 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 091 2738915 E-mail:fabrizio@oddagency.it Website:https://www.oddagency.it/
Anima Mundi is a night walk of about 850 metres into Palermo’s Botanical Garden. The storytelling is aimed to emphatizing the audience with the “creatures of light” developed by Odd Agency, personifications of the souls associated with the cultures and mythologies of the places of origin of the arboreal essences preserved in the gardens.
The experience connects different passages of the story to the upheavals actually afflicting the planet, using the emotional support developed by visitors to increase their engagement on environmental issues and to inform them of the wounds inflicted by human beings on the universal soul of the world.
The path consists of eight stages each of them telling a chapter of the whole storytelling through the use of projections, holograms, musics, lights, sounds, interactions and scenographies.The aim of each chapter is to emphasize some of the most iconic places, trees and plants of the Garden.
Throughout the entire journey, visitors will get in touch with the creatures of light like Jinn, an holographic avatar of the Genius of Palermo, a mythological figure who personifies the various cultures converging in the city; Puch (based on Ah-Puch) linked to the Ceibe, tree of life for Mesoamerican cultures; Sun (Sun WuKong King of the Apes celebrated by tales throughout the East), shown on the bamboos; Yara (the aboriginal Yara-ma-yha-who) which put her evolutions on the branches of the big Moreton Bay fig (Ficus macrophylla), and also Kurma, avatar of Visnu, that can be found at the lotus flower pool.
Each one of these creatures had to face one of the effects of climate change, as desertification, fire, hurricane, flood, often embodied by a giant dragon, borned from the Dracaena Draco tree. Visitors could help them, through specific digital and cooperative interactions.
Biodiversity
Culture
Identity
Diversity
Cooperation
The experience connects different passages of the story to the upheavals actually afflicting the planet, using the emotional support developed by visitors to increase their engagement on environmental issues and to inform them of the wounds inflicted by human beings on the universal soul of the world.
Since climate change is the core theme of the experience, we used recycled materials for scenographies, we co-financiated a research about the effects of of noise and light pollutions on bird fauna that populates the Botanical Garden. Whenever possible, with the exception of technological equipment, the structures are built with natural materials such as bamboo from the Botanical Garden and the traditional reeds of Sicilian structures.
The Palermo University, owner of the garden, received 51.000 € from the ticketing as a percentage to invest in the maintenance and improvement of the site.
We also attempted a connection with the municipality of Palermo to identify an area to be re-afforested compensating the emissions produced by the event, but this dialogue had to be stopped due to the inability of the municipal offices to complete the project.
Aim of the project is to combine an emotional and easy-to-use experience with an information museum component. Cultural diversity was the edge of our concept. The storytelling is aimed to emphatizing the audience with the “creatures of light” developed by Odd Agency, real personifications of the souls associated with the cultures and mythologies of the places of origin of the arboreal essences preserved in the gardens. Throughout the entire journey, visitors will get in touch with the creatures of light like Jinn, an holographic avatar of the Genius of Palermo, a mythological figure who personifies the various cultures converging in the city. The aim was to draw a parallel between the city of Palermo as a result of the convergence of different peoples and cultures in the same place, and its botanical garden, where plants from all over the world coexist merging into a single great soul of the world.
An objective of the project is to making Palermo’s Botanical Garden accessible and interesting to tourists and residents, beyond the canonical opening hours, by using an innovative storytelling made through the use of new technologies: projections, lights, holograms, interactions, sound spatializations. We sold 7314 reduced tickets (university students, kids under 18 yo, people with disabilities) and issued 1730 free entrances (kids under 6 yo and disabled people accompanying persons).
Anima Mundi has been very successful in the community attracting over 40,000 visitors in four months. The fb page reached 3322 followers, 1549 on the Instagram page. 59.635 are the visitors of the website from june. Anima Mundi collected over 50 press releases in the main local and national newspapers. The main newscasts (Rai, Mediaset, Sky Tg 24), as well as main newspapers (La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera), national and local magazines (Gente, il Gattopardo, I Love Sicilia) and the sector press (Sky Arte, Artribune, Bell'Italia) have given a great diffusion to Odd Agency’s work of cultural and natural heritage enhancement.
With Anima Mundi we have worked closely with the University of Palermo, owner of the garden, and with Coop Culture, the main manager of cultural sites in Italy.
The cultural sustainability of the project was guaranteed by a technical-scientific committee made by people from Odd Agency (historians, historians of art and literature, architects, restorers, digital humanists) and also from the University of Palermo (Botanists, biologists, ethologists).
We also attempted a connection with the municipality of Palermo to identify an area to be re-afforested compensating the emissions produced by the event, but this dialogue had to be stopped due to the inability of the municipal offices to complete the project.
As every other Odd Agency project Anima Mundi is a continuous process of interaction between art and technology, between lyrical abstraction and everyday figuration, between the digital dimension and poetry that permeates every phase of our work: research, planning, creation and experience.
The cultural sustainability of the project was guaranteed by a technical-scientific committee made by people from Odd Agency (historians, historians of art and literature, architects, restorers, digital humanists) and also from the University of Palermo (Botanists, biologists, ethologists).
Computational analysis, cross-media research, data processing, 3D production of environments, CG animation, projection mapping, sound engineering, video generative techniques, virtual production, hologram creations, virtual and augmented reality, light design, and interaction design are just a small part of media and techniques we use, in a continuous search for new resources and solutions capable of innovating and implementing the creative process.
Anima Mundi had a significant impact both on preservation and enhancement of the cultural, environmental and social value of the site. With more than 40k visitors taking part in the event, while it was in progress, Palermo Botanical Garden became the second most visited site in the city after the Palatine Chapel.
In addition, since the human-nature relationship and its effects are the focus of our latest events, Odd Agency financed a research conducted by a team of experts from University of Palermo and collaborated with them with the aim of discovering the effects of noise and light pollutions on bird fauna that populates the Botanical Garden.
The Palermo University, owner of the garden, received 51.000 € from the ticketing as a percentage to invest in the maintenance and improvement of the site.
Anima Mundi is an innovative project both in terms of the technologies used for the enhancement of a cultural and landscape asset and also for the business formula we used, which involves an investment entirely entrusted to a private company, assuming the risk of the success of an event and guaranteeing in exchange to the site manager a percentage to invest in the maintenance and improvement of the site.
Methods and techniques are always the means (and never the end) to tell a story and design an experience that brings people together through emotions and entertainment, awakening their sense of belonging as well as their ability to marvel and open up to something new and unexpected.
Marvel and continuous research set in motion reflection starting from the narrative power of the image, a universal symbolic language capable of defining shapes, colours, architectures and textures serving the individual and the motions of their soul.
Just like digital humanities use technology to serve people and their needs, we use it to create something that is within everyone’s reach: more accessibility means more beauty, more wealth, more awareness and knowledge for those who are partaking in it.
We call it "Human content interaction", an approach that explores the possibility of creating a relationship between people, physical space and its tangible and intangible, visible and invisible, material and immaterial contents.
It is increasingly difficult to communicate data and information in a world saturated by an outsized offering of stimuli, news, feeds, and images; the synesthetic power of first-hand experience exceeds the limits of conventional narration, deconstructs the device’s mediation, and replaces it with the real space. Cultural and landscape assets, museums, and local communities need to communicate who and what they are to an audience.
That is why we transform contents, be they the stories, myths and legends of a cultural site into a usable experience that breaks down everyday life, an immersive and interactive story that represents a new, original and compelling cultural content. This way we can communicate more effectively and inclusively, converting the discipline of a traditional approach into the simplicity of a narrative language within everyone’s reach.
As opposed to most other forms of communication, this content is not mediated by a display and resolved in individual use, but on the contrary, it develops around the viewer. It is a path of physical, intellectual and emotional action and reaction with the real-world environment, where the artistic product transforms space into a place of sharing.
Human-content interaction allows us to use technology, traditionally a divisive means, to connect people and content. Furthermore, it makes it possible to convey a meaningful message that can affect what is real by keeping it from being confined only to the moment of its use in presentations.
For example After Anima Mundi we performed "Suoni in Estinzione" (Sounds in Extinction) at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo. A show that mixed live music and immersive videomapping with a generative design component. The performance was based on the concept of climate change, relating to artistic creation and the consequences that a mass extinction could have on the understanding of the work works of the past and the creation of future ones.
We believe in the power of experience and storytelling as agents of change. Art and technology can be the local and sitespecific means to communicate ti different communities the urgencies of an entire planet.
