”Darkness Matters” by Costanza Julia Bani
Darkness Matters is a transdisciplinary collaborative artistic research project in the field of speculative and generative documentary. It will be a 25-minute-long time and place travel exploring the future of light and sound pollution.
The aim is to co-create immersive 360 degrees audio-visuals, possibly in 3D, addressing these urgent but underrepresented environmental crises. Specifically we want to represent the (eco)-systems fireflies and stars and the way they fill the nocturnal vault. The result will be exhibited in a full dome environment but is adaptable to other formats and exposition spaces. The meditative experience offered will ideally incite (young) audiences to pro-actively reconsider their relationship to darkness and consequently to light and acoustic pollution.
With Darkness Matters the interest is both in best practices in digital storytelling and in investigating if machines can offer truthful representations and therefore be more reliable than humans. We want to test technology’s role in shaping the future of creative expression, expanding documentary narratives.
As project leader and creative producer, I want to work in equal co-authorship with invited artists and scientists, and in cooperation with technology and nature itself; the purpose is to be able to project possible evolutions of the landscapes we want to portray in a more-than-true setting, using exhibition places that can guarantee an auditory-sensory involvement of the viewer and listener.
Darkness Matters tries to redefine documentary’s gesture and identity beyond indexicality, rooting it in today’s techno-cultures and its relation to the concept of “documenting” the/a truth. Specifically concerning ecological issues.
Aim and research questions
Our aim is to place artistic research in a context of relevant topics that are a direct consequence of our current lifestyle. How can Art become part of a transformation? What approaches can create experiences that initiate engagement? Darkness Matters wants to establish synergies between art, science and technology to preserve the past, record the present and ideally capture the future.
Research implementation and anticipated impact
The research will be carried out through workshops among the interested disciplines. By 2028 Darkness Matters will be presented on the Research Catalogue, in a final symposium at interested venues, like Tekniska Museet, other Wisdomes and full dome venues in other countries. Through a collaboration with Vetenskapens Hus and AiRstructures we plan to disseminate the research to the surrounding society presenting the research outcome in their inflatable domes.
Collaboration
NATIONAL COLLABORATIONS
Within SKH: Erik Gandini, creative technologist Valentin Malmgren
KTH – Royal Institute of Technology - Division Of Media Technology And Interaction Design (Roberto Bresin); NAVET, KTH’s transdisciplinary research hub , which exemplifies contamination in practice
Read more here: NAVET
AI designer Beckmans College of Design, Jonas Johansson – applying AI as an adjuvant for artistic practice, who is actively initiating the Dome Dreaming festival in Sweden
Artist Annie Tådne;
Director of Photography Oliver Akermo specialized in immersive storytelling Lund’s Faculty of Biology, exploring tech-art in evolutionary biology. Professor Dan E. Nilsson.
Read more here: Lund’s Faculty of Biology
Karolinska Institutet’s Ophthalmology Department:
The Division of Eye and Vision, Dept of Physiological Optics (process of seeing, optics of the eye, physiological and psychological process of seeing, structure of the eye and visual system) (Alberto Dominguez Vicent and Abinaya Priya Venkataram).
Read more here: KI, The Division of Eye and Vision
Tekniska Museet / Wisdome – will offer an arena for the implementation
Vetenskapens Hus / – will offer their portable dome to bring Darkness Matters to schools or show it to classes coming to them
INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS
Anthropologist / light pollution experts like Irene Borgna, author of Cieli Neri, my first collaborators on this project and Paul Bogard
Read more here
School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, cooperating with scientist Daniel Hanley
The Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI) University of Exeter, (biodiversity and conservation studies, Professor Kevin Gaston)
Read more here
Sound ecologists and sound pollution experts like David Monacchi and / or Bernie Krause
Physicist Fabio Falchi, author of the World Atlas of Light Pollution , Astronomers (IDA, International Dark Skies Association), Roberto Ciri and astronomic observatories
Read more here
The School of the Arts in Ghent; Cluster: Negotiating Realilties:
https://schoolofartsgent.be/en/research/clusters/negotiating-realities
SISME, a company offering, producing and distributing high tech audio-visual solutions;
UK based Hardware developers Teenage Engineering and software developers at Anamorph, a generative media studio and software company exploring the future of cinema, whose mission is to open up new creative possibilities for filmmakers and provide one-of-a-kind viewing experiences for audiences.
UK based creative technologists Brendan Dawes (TBC)
Volucap GmbH in Potsdam, Babelsberg, leading expert in computer graphics, as well as Germany’s first volumetric studio. Innovator in AI and filmmaking, with his focus on immersive media;
Alex D’Emilia DOP specialized in mountain shootings and Nicola Gualandris, sound artist, field recordings
Schedule
The artistic research project will end with an output we aim to release – depending on financing and funding availability between summer 2026 and 2028.
