Salone Ludico

“We started from the etymology of the word salon, a large room where people meet up, which then became a professional salon, a domestic space and a living room,” explains Douglas Stanley, professor of the Media Design Master course at HEAD Genève (Haute École d’Art et de Design) which has brought 12 projects developed by 20 students to MDW. All go in search of potential and, as yet unexpressed, links between the analog world and digital technology. Visitors are asked to take a playful approach to the subject and play becomes the means by which to experience it in person and absorb the concept.

They range from a complex alchemic contraption for mixing cocktails by Margaux Charvolin and Jessica Friedling to a collection of modern day curiosities, conceived by Benoît Renaudin, rediscovered by a hypothetical future population in the year 3017. A videogame developed by Sèbastien Beureux, Marianna Czwojdrak, Laurent Monnet and Vincent de Vevey is played by holding a long, lit match instead of an Xbox controller – certainly a more physical and perhaps even burning experience.

Descending into the basement, the exhibition turns into a real gaming room with tables set up for a game. Be it a case of stepping into the graphic designer’s shoes, trying to construct an atom by combining particles (in collaboration with CERN), grasping the imperfections of any democratic system or surviving on a desert island, the game always proves the most serious and effective way to understand the world.

4 – 9 April 2017
Salone Ludico
Mimmo Scognamiglio gallery
via Goito 7, Milan