Le Nuvole di Aristofane

Art Direction — Scenic Design — Real-time 3D

Aristophanes' The Clouds. Teatro La Fenice, Senigallia (2023).

The second 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), this was the year the scenography went fully three-dimensional.

Four student groups developed concept research and visual sketches in Three.js, each assigned a theme from Aristophanes' comedy: grids, planets, the Thinkery, clouds. The real-time 3D engine, the live performance system and the core visual architecture were built by Daniele, with students contributing research, prototypes and scene-specific sketches controlled live during the performance. The tool was released as open source software on GitHub.

The standout contribution was the clouds themselves — metaballs in continuous transformation, shifting material and form across the performance: aulique and silver when invoked by Socrates, dark and threatening when turned against the audience, grotesque when textured with AI-generated distorted faces. Each sketch variant was triggered live from the keyboard, timed to specific lines and choreography. Two additional scene layers — Cabaret and Incendio — were designed and performed live by Daniele.

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.

Course Syllabus

Poster

Docs

GitHub Wiki (new tab)
GitHub Repo (new tab)
Demo (new tab)

Credits

Scenic Design 

Art Direction: Daniele Tabellini
Scenography: students from the Master's Degree in Interaction & Experience Design at the University of the Republic of San Marino
Tech: Three.js / Live visuals

Students: Griglie: Alice Di Francescantonio (@AliceeDF), Claudia Ciulla (@ClaudiaC), Paola Moroni (@PaoMor) / Pianeti: Maria Letizia Di Gennaro (@emmelle7), Alex Giuliano (@AlexGiulian0), Federica Rossi (@FedericaRossi) / Pensatoio: Linda Amodeo(@LindaAccount), Greta Baltieri(@gretablt), Alessia Gravina(@Alessia-9) / Nuvole: Enrico Giunchedi (@EnricoGiunchedi), Marta Mezzetti (@martamzt), Nicolò Sinatra (@nicolosinatra)

Text

Directed by Giorgio Sebastianelli
Performed by students from the Classical Theatre Lab of the G. Perticari State Classical High School (Senigallia, IT)
Choreography: Paola Piccioni
Costume Design: M. C. Mazzaferri
Coordination: I. Antonietti
Collaboration: M. Bellocchi, O. Olivieri
Sound Design: S. Barchiesi

Images