Performed in October for the Bologna’s Robot Festival, Salvo and Vercelli’s The Enlightenment is a “hidden concert of pure light” performed by an “uninhabited” orchestra of lighting elements, including stagelights and high-powered bulbs. “Instead of violins are neon lights,” the artists explain in their video description. “To replace drums are strobe lights, and instead of clarinets, we will see theatrical headlights illuminating the audience.”Each lamp in Salvo and Vercelli’s 96-light orchestra was fitted with its own copper coil, allowing it to receive various electrical currents at programmed intervals. The electromagnetic fields they produced were then captured by a sensor, also attached to each lamp, which turned currents into sounds.
But the electrical buzz alone was not quite worthy of a symphonic performance—this is where Salvo and Vercelli entered the scene. Moving seamlessly between each of their makeshift orchestra members, the artists modified and amplified each lamp’s electric emissions in real time. Through these helping human hands, each burst of sunburnt light and every blurry ray of bluish electricity was transformed into The Enlightenment’s rhythmic, robotic symphony.
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