Un’installazione di arte contemporanea, la “BLUE DESERT TOWER” realizzata dall’artista Andrea Ferrara, è stata esposta al Convitto della Calza dal 26 al 28 Gennaio in occasione dell' evento “Europa 2020: innovazione del Mediterraneo” organizzato dalla Regione Toscana.

Grazie a un sofisticato sistema di sensori, le voci di poeti mediterranei si diffondono dalla Torre, alta 3 metri, creando un suggestivo effetto per lo spettatore, che è immerso in una singolare esperienza di partecipazione poetica. La Torre è offerta a titolo gratuito dal Centro Studi Europeo PLURAL, che partecipa all'evento come partner della Regione.

L’opera d’arte interattiva ha un alto valore simbolico per la cultura della cooperazione mediterranea. “Abbiamo voluto quest’opera perchè innovazione e arte in Toscana possano coniugarsi offrendo uno sguardo sulle nostre radici mediterranee ed aprirci al futuro in Europa” spiega Paolo Parrini, Presidente di PLURAL, che ha ideato l'evento espositivo.

" The Poetry Tower is a completely automated, interactive audio station. The background artistic rationale is the following. Europe is nowadays characterized by a constantly changing variable geometry which includes the constant flow, superposition, and embedding of new linguistic, cultural, geographical and symbolic territories. New human landscapes and environments are added at a rate which is hard to conjugate with the daily life of its inhabitants. Yet, Europe exists and its perception becomes more coherent if gathered from the image reflected by the rest of the world.

In this spirit, we will collect poetic texts from poets born/living in countries that are located along the current European frontiers. We will ask them to send us a recorded reading of the texts in their own language. These texts will form the basic audio material that will be later space-projected.

The installation is constituted by a transparent (recalling the European flag color) square-base parallelepiped, i.e. the Tower. Such structure is about 3 m high, is about 1.0 m on a size (exact dimensions may vary depending on site requirements) with a hollow interior. It is made of a synthetic material (PVC, plexiglass) which guarantees the necessary flexibility and resistance. The panels of the structure are glued together apart form the floor and a small aperture in the back. On each panel, small holes are present in order to enable the positioning of the multimedia devices (microphones, sensors, webcams). Under the floor a series of blue LEDs (recalling the European flag color) are positioned; on the floor top a high-quality active loudspeaker directed towards the upper aperture diffuses the audio signal."