Edipo Re Tiranno
Teatro La Fenice (2026)
Art Direction — Scenic Design — Live digital drawing
Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Teatro La Fenice, Senigallia (2026).
The fifth collaboration between the Digital Experience Lab held by Daniele Tabellini at UNIRSM Design and the Classical Theatre Lab of Liceo Perticari directed by Giorgio Sebastianelli. After Macbeth (2022), Le Nuvole (2023), Inseguendo Orlando (2024) and Elena di Euripide (2025), this was the year of errors, ruins and blinding light.
Edipo sees too much and understands nothing; only when he goes blind does he see the truth. Four student groups built the scenography around that inversion, each working on one invisible layer of the tragedy: flesh, shadow, pattern, veil, using Tagtool and TouchDesigner as the shared technical core.
At the climax, the projection screen was lifted, mid-performance, no warning, exposing the theatre's bare architecture behind it. What looked like a mistake was by design. Without the screen to catch it, the projector's raw light spilled straight into the audience's eyes: an accident that became the clearest image in the show, the same light that reveals is the light that blinds. Behind that exposed space-void, hand-built silhouettes cast twelve-metre shadows from four torches held and calibrated by performers.
Elsewhere, a real-time AI engine reinterpreted hand-drawn gestures into decaying flesh and feathers for the play's climactic revelations. Chladni figures — geometric patterns formed by sound vibration — moved from laser-cut cardboard to a generative system controlled live via MIDI. Three wire-and-Lycra "light traps", carried by performers, caught rear-projected live drawings and animation that fragmented as the structures moved through space.
Nothing stayed where it appeared to be.
About the Lab
Each production is the final project of the Digital Experience Lab, a semester-long course in the Master's Degree in Interaction & Experience Design at UNIRSM Design. Starting from a brief on making the invisible visible, students learn to research, design and direct complex open source projects, approaching generative design, creative coding and machine learning from a designer's perspective, with the methods of a creative technologist, art director and artist. The final project is not a prototype: it is a live performance in a real theatre, where the scenography they built runs in front of an audience. All tools and documentation are released as open source on GitHub.
About Daniele Tabellini
Daniele is a designer, creative technologist and artist. Since 2013 he has directed labs at UNIRSM Design at the intersection of interaction design, generative design and creative coding. He is one half of Teller & K and Nasonero Studio.
Poster
Credits
Scenic Design
Art Direction: Daniele Tabellini
Scenography and drawings: students from the Master's Degree in Interaction & Experience Design at the University of the Republic of San Marino
Project support: G. D'Ambrosio, T. Lucinato, E. Lumini, P. Petrangolini
A D/venti initiative for the twentieth anniversary of UNIRSM Design
Tech: Tagtool / Touchdesigner / Live drawings and generative visuals + Custom veils and shapes + Lights
Students: Carne: Giulia Biscetti (@giuliabiscetti), Caterina Minelli (@caterinaminelli), Giacomo Zanardi (@GiacomoZanardi), Filippo Zoja (@filippozoja) / Ombre: Miriana Briscese (@mirianabriscese), Pierfrancesco Manfrin (@Pierfrancesco Manfrin), Lorenzo Schillaci (@SchillaciLorenzo), Gianmatteo Zerbini Marenzi (@gianmatteozerbini) / Pattern: Laura Pesenti (@LP-ui), Camilla Pozzi (@camillapozzi), Sofia Maggiani (@maggiansss) / Veli: Giulia Rutigliani (@GiuliaRutigliani), Alessia Pace (@alessiapace2002-hue), Federica Zonta (@federicazonta), Lorenzo Magrinelli (@lorenzomagrinelli)
Text
Directed by Giorgio Sebastianelli
Performed by students from the Classical Theatre Lab of the G. Perticari State Classical High School (Senigallia, IT)
Choreography: Lisa Esposto
Costume Design: M. Bellocchi, R. Onori, M. Volcan
Costume Design Collaboration: M. C. Mazzaferri
Collaboration: M. Bellocchi, R. Onori
Coordination: M. Volcan
Sound Design: S. Barchiesi
Assistant Director: E. Bonazza, S. Caroli, A. Daniele, S. Giudilli, G. Mancini, A. Palmioli
Images
2000–2026© Daniele Tabellini and Erika Gabbani / All rights reserved except where otherwise stated. / Tutti i diritti riservati eccetto dove specificato diversamente.