For three evenings, from 8.30 pm to 9.30 pm, Milan’s Teatro Continuo Burri will be hosting Loro (Them), a site-specific project by the Polish artist Krzysztof Wodiczko in collaboration with the non-profit association More Art and Casa della Carità, a homeless shelter in Milan. It is a multimedia installation and performance on inclusion, citizenship and marginality which uses the most innovative technologies to investigate the impact of immigration on the native population and give voice to the so-called “invisible citizens”.
Wodiczko interviewed some of them, with different backgrounds, age and origins, and registered their voices and eyes. He then embedded them into four drones equipped with two screens – which represent the eyes of the people he interviewed – and megaphones instead of the mouth. During the performance, the drones, usually used as military and intelligence tools and now made more human and empathetic, will fly at a low altitude in order to tell these people’s stories and establish a virtual dialogue with the public.
Loro (Them), with its exploration on social and political marginalization through the use of new media, reconfirms Wodiczko as one of the leading figures of international public art.