RAISEmotion brings art and science to the stage at the Festival of Science

On Wednesday, October 29, in the majestic Sala del Maggior Consiglio of Palazzo Ducale, RAISEmotion transformed the heart of Genoa into a stage where research and creativity merged into a poetic and sensory experience.

The event, part of the 2025 Festival of Science programme, featured the performances The Ocean Without Us and Another Beat – two narratives intertwining artistic expression and scientific insight, showing how knowledge can take shape through music, imagery, and theatre.

The evening, introduced by Cristina Battaglia, Programme Manager of RAISE, and presented by Marco Faimali from CNR, leader of Spoke 3, guided the audience through a journey that blended emotion, research, and awareness.

Michela Chiappalone (IIT, University of Genoa and San Martino Hospital) and Veronica Penza (IIT, Spoke 2), together with Francesca Garaventa (CNR-IAS, Spoke 3), offered a scientific perspective on the works, highlighting both the complexity of the themes explored and the value of cross-disciplinary collaboration.

The first performance, Another Beat, conceived and directed by Lidia Giannuzzi with the theatre company La Pozzanghera, shifted the focus from the sea to the human body, exploring the theme of the digital twin. On stage, the heartbeat became a metaphor for dialogue between humanity and technology: a composition of light, sound, and words staging the possibility of a future where medical innovation supports life without ever replacing it. Actors Domenico Baldini, Roberta De Donatis, Francesco Maria Giacobbe, and Martina Pittaluga embodied the tension between the real heart and its virtual counterpart, offering the audience an intimate and universal reflection on the meaning of being alive.

The second performance, The Ocean Without Us, created by the Stellare collective in collaboration with artist Giuseppe La Spada, led spectators on an immersive journey through the depths of the sea and the data that reveal its fragility. The sounds, generated by the Ocean software developed with Emilio Pozzolini, translated microplastic concentrations in the Ligurian Sea into frequencies and sound variations, giving voice to an ocean in transformation. Through fluid projections and electronic harmonies, the work evoked a sea that breathes, suffers, and regenerates—translating the research carried out within RAISE Spoke 3, dedicated to the protection and care of the environment, into a sensorial and poetic experience.

“Another Beat, another heartbeat—a digital twin heart on which to test, experiment, and try out new treatments. An attempt to give a theatrical voice to what research is already making possible. A great hope for us all, coming from science,” said Lidia Giannuzzi of La Pozzanghera Company.

Curator Maria Pina Usai, speaking about The Ocean Without Us, remarked: “The Ocean Without Us took shape from the encounter between two practices of inquiry—scientific and artistic—that, despite operating through different languages, share more than one might expect: methodological rigour, a drive toward the unknown, openness to the unexpected, and the evolutionary transmission of their outcomes. In both, the act of investigation implies the ability to interpret data and signs of reality through study and expertise, but also through sensitivity and intuition. From this perspective, art does not merely communicate science—it accompanies its journey of discovery, translating it into aesthetic and perceptive experience. Like in Alan Weisman’s novel that inspired it, the audiovisual performance The Ocean Without Us does not seek to provide answers but to raise questions, inviting the audience to an exercise of awareness and responsibility toward the world we are part of.*”

Both performances powerfully embodied the essence of RAISE the innovation ecosystem that fosters dialogue between science, technology, and society. During this special evening, art gave form to the questions of research, and research found a new voice through artistic sensitivity.

The audience responded with deep engagement, recognising in the shared language of RAISEmotion a unique space for reflection and wonder. The meeting between scientists and artists revealed how knowledge, when it opens itself to creativity, can become a collective experience and a vision of the future.