The European project Urban Travel Machines brought together three art universities, forty-five visual arts students and fifteen poetry performers from across Europe, with the visionary aim of renewing the literary sector through immersive technology. By merging slam poetry with 360° video-mapping inside planetariums, the project explored new ways of engaging audiences and expanding the possibilities of poetic performance.
The performance was built on Radici, a poem by Eleonora Fisco, which explores the fragile boundary between dialogue and conflict in the choices of those who remain in marginal or depopulating places—such as her native Sicilian town—and those who leave in search of opportunity, while facing the practical and emotional weight of voluntary exile.
In collaboration with students from Aalto University in Helsinki, Radici was translated into an immersive environment.For the performances at the Tartu Planetarium (Estonia) as part of the Prima Vista Festival and at the Brussels Planetarium during the Brussels Poetry Festival, the work evolved into a 360° animation projected inside the dome, enhanced by a generative soundscape created from migration data, adding an autonomous yet thematically resonant layer to the performance.
An accompanying zine/poster combined riso-printed stills from the animation with the bilingual text of Radici, offering audiences a tangible extension of the immersive poetic journey.
https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/urban-travel-machines-cosmos-met-poetry
Janna Beck, The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp — AP University College of Applied Sciences and Arts
Philip Meersman, The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp — AP University College of Applied Sciences and Arts
Olga Wroniewicz, Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw, Poland
Tarja Nieminen, Aalto University / School of Arts, Design and Architecture
Eleonora Fisco, – text and performance
Milja Komulainen – concept, zine, animation
Noa Joulin – animation
Liisi Soroush – soundscape
The performance was built on Radici, a poem by Eleonora Fisco, which explores the fragile boundary between dialogue and conflict in the choices of those who remain in marginal or depopulating places—such as her native Sicilian town—and those who leave in search of opportunity, while facing the practical and emotional weight of voluntary exile.
“This immersive sound design explores the evolving nature of society and the global rising mentality of individualism in the context of a neighborhood in Sicily.
This immersive soundscape traces the transformation and shift of the urban space from industrialization to digitalization, - through changing frequencies and tonalities .
By using sonifications of migration patterns and unemployment data from Sicily (1950–2020), it discusses the paradigm shift between tradition and contemporary times.
The narrative follows two central figures: an old woman who embodies heritage, and a young woman who symbolizes self-fulfillment. Their sonic identities are distinguished through leitmotifs that reveal their existential beings within their respective eras. Through waves of soundsfrom rhythmic sewing machines to the whispered hashtags of social media used by globetrotting influencer, this piece confronts themes of loneliness and the cyclical nature of human existence. In the final moments, silence prevails, leaving the audience with lingering questions about time, progress, and the cost of self-reinvention.”
- Liisi
This immersive soundscape traces the transformation and shift of the urban space from industrialization to digitalization, - through changing frequencies and tonalities .
By using sonifications of migration patterns and unemployment data from Sicily (1950–2020), it discusses the paradigm shift between tradition and contemporary times.
The narrative follows two central figures: an old woman who embodies heritage, and a young woman who symbolizes self-fulfillment. Their sonic identities are distinguished through leitmotifs that reveal their existential beings within their respective eras. Through waves of soundsfrom rhythmic sewing machines to the whispered hashtags of social media used by globetrotting influencer, this piece confronts themes of loneliness and the cyclical nature of human existence. In the final moments, silence prevails, leaving the audience with lingering questions about time, progress, and the cost of self-reinvention.”
- Liisi
In collaboration with students from Aalto University in Helsinki, Radici was translated into an immersive environment.For the performances at the Tartu Planetarium (Estonia) as part of the Prima Vista Festival and at the Brussels Planetarium during the Brussels Poetry Festival, the work evolved into a 360° animation projected inside the dome, enhanced by a generative soundscape created from migration data, adding an autonomous yet thematically resonant layer to the performance.
An accompanying zine/poster combined riso-printed stills from the animation with the bilingual text of Radici, offering audiences a tangible extension of the immersive poetic journey.
https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/urban-travel-machines-cosmos-met-poetry
Project initiators
Janna Beck, The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp — AP University College of Applied Sciences and Arts
Philip Meersman, The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp — AP University College of Applied Sciences and Arts
Olga Wroniewicz, Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw, Poland
Tarja Nieminen, Aalto University / School of Arts, Design and Architecture
Artists
Eleonora Fisco, – text and performance
Milja Komulainen – concept, zine, animation
Noa Joulin – animation
Liisi Soroush – soundscape