Open House Roma 2019: Spazio Chirale puts its processes on show

This year too, Spazio Chirale will be one of the protagonists of Open House Roma, the event that in a single weekend celebrates the design and architecture of the Capital.

The appointment is for Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 May 2019, at via Ignazio Persico 32 in the historic Garbatella district, home of the first and most prestigious FabLab in Rome — since 2015 enriched and transformed into the innovative Spazio Chirale, a unique place that is at once an art gallery, a process gallery and an innovation laboratory open to the territory, and seat of the first Italian Academy dedicated to the Arts, Sciences, Technologies and Crafts of the 21st century.

For the occasion all the laboratories and the exhibition space will be open and staffed from 10:00 to 20:00, both on Saturday 11 and Sunday 12.

Visitors will have the opportunity to learn about and experiment with some of the processes that are currently the subject of Chirale’s R&D activities — from the use of ancient techniques, revisited in the light of modern digital fabrication technologies, applied to art and design, to the latest frontiers in the fields of electronic prototyping, Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence.

The work-installation, made exclusively by the great contemporary master Maurizio Mochetti, “Spazio diviso Due” — present in Spazio Chirale — will reveal the original primary vocation of this place, founded as a laboratory in support of artists who use electronics and technology for their own productions, and today increasingly frequented by important exponents of the Italian artistic avant-garde and beyond.

Among the attractions on display in Spazio Chirale, planned for this edition of Open House Roma, some are absolutely not to be missed.

Production processes with cold ceramics and decoration in digital print

Practical demonstration of the use of the most recent results in the field of materials chemistry, for the production of design objects through rapid replication processes via digital fabrication and silicone moulds, with subsequent decoration via printing and pigment-transfer technologies.

Design and realisation of e-textiles

The use of conductive and interactive fabrics is the latest frontier in design applied to the textile sector. Applications range from technical clothing to stage costumes, special effects and High Fashion.

Spazio Chirale is the first Italian FabLab to collaborate continuously with the Accademia di Costume e Moda di Roma, one of the top 5 fashion schools in the world.

Analog Photography Laboratory

One of the great technologies of the last century that was believed to have disappeared with the advent of digital is actually more alive than ever and is experiencing a real Renaissance, gaining more and more space in the field of Visual Arts.

Spazio Chirale possesses an important collection of devices and technologies from the early 1900s, and inside the FabLab there is a state-of-the-art Darkroom where the latest developments in the field of photochemical technologies are used together with the great products of the past — contributing to the construction of the language of the photography of the future.

Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

The technologies that are collectively presented under the title of Artificial Intelligence are becoming increasingly pervasive and are today present in many products of daily use. But what is Artificial Intelligence really, and above all is it correct to speak of Intelligence — or are these simply technologies that mimic behaviours and functions typical of the human mind, but without true intelligence?

In the FabLab of Spazio Chirale it is possible to see many prototypes that make use of these new technologies and to learn more closely about the latest frontiers in the field of artificial vision, robotics and analysis of the large volumes of data that the entire world population continuously produces through its activities on the Internet and on Social Networks.

FabLab

Even though the term FabLab is now used and abused — often appropriately — and iconic technologies such as 3D Printing and Laser Cutting are now present in many craft enterprises, schools and professional studios, the laboratory in the basement of Spazio Chirale deserves to be visited, if only because it is one of the official FabLabs of the global network, and its canonical structure complies with the standards of the Fab Foundation of Boston — according to which a product conceived, designed and built here can be manufactured without problems in any of the other 1,500 FabLabs of the planetary network!

Spazio Chirale is therefore one of the 1,500 Fabolous Laboratories on the planet where it is possible to Fabricate Practically Anything (or almost anything).

Electronic Prototyping Laboratory

A central and mandatory element of every FabLab, the electronic-prototyping laboratory seems made on purpose to surprise you. Through technologies such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Circuit Playground and Micro:BIT, you will discover how electronics can be a technology within everyone’s reach — much like a hammer or an electric drill.

In a short time, and without specific knowledge, it is possible to build robots, home-automation systems, automate the vegetable garden or the garden, or dedicate yourself to interactive art.