On Thursday 18 September, at the Mattatoio la Pelanda venue, the Romaeuropa Festival previewed the programme for ULTRA REF, a festival within the festival, which opened on 20 September with concerts by Lyra Pramuk and Isabelle Lewis.
A space for experimentation, encounter and celebration: these are the definitions we read in the press release, which aptly summarise the spirit that runs through this section and the incredible variety of events, including music, dance, theatre, visual arts and digital cultures, “a platform that transcends the boundaries between genres and forms of expression, combining dance, theatre, music and visual arts in a constantly evolving territory”.
There are several events revolving around Ultra Ref: “Dancing Days”, dedicated to dance and choreography; “Anni Luce”, mapping the future of Italian theatre with a constellation of emerging artists, new paths and perspectives that illuminate the present; ULTRA CLUB, dedicated to new electronic and pop sounds; REF Kids & Family, proposals for children (actually increasingly interesting for all ages); Design Talks, a new space for discussion dedicated to contemporary graphic design. Other initiatives are added, such as virtual reality experiences, projects that investigate the relationship between artificial intelligence and creativity, and international focuses such as the Lithuanian scene, including music, dance and new dramaturgy.
The festival within the festival, like the entire Romaeuropa Festival, is an incredible source of inspiration for the way this event moves within the local and international territory, among a variety of institutions, not least the academies. See, for example, the collaboration with RUFA, which participated in the Raster Prize, curated by Caterina Tomeo, which has scheduled the debut of Ireen Amnes & Merlin Ettore, Amit Dagim, Maarja Nuut, Léa Paintandre and Camilla Pisani, among the winners of raster.call soundtrack europe 20-25, selected by a prestigious international jury.
On the same day, 23 September from 5pm to 7pm, a new phase of collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome will be inaugurated with FLESH AR(T) ATTACK, an augmented reality performance event conceived by multimedia artist Chiara Passa that will take place throughout the entire space of the Mattatoio and the Pelanda, with augmented reality works created by 25 students from the Multimedia and Technology Arts course at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. The Romaeuropa Festival audience will be able to explore this place of industrial archaeology, projected into the future and destined to become a city of the arts, through guided tours. REFrame Pascolo Abusivo, a collective of RUFA students, retraces the history of the Festival, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, in a journey between past and future using ChatGPT’s narration and memory. The Collettivo Noise, in partnership with NABA – Nuova Accademia delle Belle Arti– explores the concept of noise as a metaphor for disturbance, the unexpected and the marginal.
The collaborations continue in a dense web of intertwining institutions and non-profit organisations, as in the case of MY DEAR AI, I AM LOST IN THE SUPERMARKET *___*, which once again features the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome with the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, as part of the EAR project – Enacting Artistic Research project, the result of a collaboration with Re:humanism, which has been working with the Romaeuropa Festival for several years and this year presents Improbable Excess by Jess Tucker and Orynthia by Valerie Tameu, winners of the Digitalive Prize. On this occasion and in this context, Mara Oscar Cassiani & Guido Segni meet a group of researchers and artists to experiment with the use of artificial intelligence in artistic practice.
The team will create a temporary installation/action in which organic and artificial intelligences will coexist, questioning the uses (and abuses) of AI in order to counteract the very confusion that such a multifaceted and problematic product can cause, just as when we are faced with a huge variety of products in a supermarket “and we wonder whether we are consumers or consumed”.
The local and global territory has always been central to the festival, as is the Mattatoio space, conceived as a hub for “relationships with artists, institutions and the world”, as Fabrizio Grifasi described it in his introduction to the press conference for this special section of the festival within the festival.
This, without neglecting interest in current issues that move away from the physicality of territories. Thus, from the investigation of the relationship between technology, narration and urban space in the Urban Experience project by performing media pioneer Carlo Infante, rediscovering the city as an interactive stage through participatory experiences (8 October), we arrive at the “synthetic reality” explored in the performative lecture by ethnographer, writer, performer and curator Donatella Della Ratta, created in collaboration with experimental filmmaker Alessandro Turchioe, an investigation into the “speculative violence” of synthetic images, realities that exist only in the realm of the possible. Among the territories that Ref does not neglect to reach are those visible through perceptual potentials other than optical ones, such as those offered by the extension of Speaking Cables [EXPANDED] by Agnese Banti, where the voice is transformed into sign, space and relationship through sounds, silences and dialogues, this year created by the community of blind and visually impaired people.
And with the celebration of the festival’s 40th anniversary this year, the event pays tribute to Luciano Berio with the installation Tempo Reale and the performance Berio a colori (3 October, 2025), reflecting the complexity of the composer’s artistic universe.
These are just some of the events that we invite you to visit on the website and through the press release, before returning with a variety of in-depth features.
ULTRA REF, Romaeuropa Festival, 20.09-04.11.2025
Ultra Club, section curated by Matteo Antonaci, Giulia Di Giovanni and Federica Patti, 23-27.09.2025
FLESH AR(T) ATTACK, 23–28 September 2025, former slaughterhouse, various locations, 5–7 p.m.
Conceived by Chiara Passa as a collaboration between the Academy of Fine Arts (Multimedia Arts, coordinated by Maria Cristina Reggio) and Romaeuropa Festival, FLESH AR(T) ATTACK features works by students from Chiara Passa’s three-year course in Multimedia and Technological Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome: Annamaria De Paris, Anton Tkalenko, Aurora Tittarelli, Caterina Pitrola, Chiara Stella Landi, Davide Solarino, Enea Tomassi, Federica Santoro, Francesca De Rosa, Giovanni Pio Appoloni, John Javier Zuniga Perez, Katharina Faller, Lanyi Zhang, Laura Molino, Lidia De Nuzzo, Martina Panico, Mirko De Paolis, Olimpia Paldi, Pietro Guerrini, Sophia Rossetto, Tiziano Orlandi, Wei Jia Deng, Yueqi Tu, Yuting Hu, Zihang F
REFrame, VR experiences, created by Pascolo abusivo (a collective made up of students from the Master’s degree course in “Multimedia Arts and Design”, RUFA), Pelanda in VR, 23 – 27 September 2025, 6 p.m. – 11.15 p.m.
MY DEAR AI, I AM LOST IN THE SUPERMARKET *___*, Mara Oscar Cassiani and Guido Segni, in collaboration with RE:Humanism, as part of the EAR – Enacting Artistic Research project, which is participating in the 2025 edition of European Researchers’ Night (link) with a series of events open to the public, curated by the various Work Packages and dedicated to the interactions between artistic and scientific research. With the participation of Giovanni Bernocco, Agnese Cuomo, Lidia De Nuzzo, Giovanni Locastro, Federico Paganelli, Aurora Tittarelli, Manuela Violi In collaboration with Re:Humanism and Romaeuropa Festival (Ultra REF)
Design Talks, project curated by Stefano Cipolla and Studio Mistaker, coordinated by David Aprea
Lithuanian Art and Culture in Italy at REF2025, in collaboration with the Silvio d’Amico National Academy of Dramatic Arts, various dates
BAMBU, conceived by Roberto Castello, various dates
DANCING DAYS, Francesca Manica, in collaboration with the European network Aerowaves and DNAppunti Coreografici, a project supporting choreographers under 35
Anni Luce, curated by Maura Teofili
REF Kids & Family, section curated by Stefania Lo Giudice, 28 September – 16 November 2025
images: (cover 1)Agnese Banti, “Speaking-Cables”, foto Monia-Pavoni (2) Enea Tomassi in FLESH AR(T) ATTACK (evento performativo di Chiara Passa con gli studenti di ABARoma, Ref 2025 (3) Donatella Della Ratta, “ Ask Me for Those Unborn Promises that May Seem Unlikely to Happen in the Natural #4”, 2025 (4) Luciano Berio, installazione sonora
