A red stamp with white text and a drawing of a personified brown and green flower.
A set of red, white and blue stamps with drawings of personified brown and green plants. They represent a male, a female and a baby in the middle.
A photo from an art gallery where on the wall is some sort of tetris design and some text with title: Dieventare Bionici Becoming Bionic. Also on a desk is some sort of bionic hand and near it a human figure with a mask.
A photo of an exhibition showing images of bionic human and also a bionic body on a table.
An image showing a bionic human schematic and some text label.
A set of images showing a bionic human and a normal human, each having labels around the body.
A photo of a newspaper article with pictures of children. On it there is the text: radio active Laine Oradium.
A photo of a group of people standing around a desk and checking something on a laptop.
A computer generated image made from human hands displaced in four directions.
A computer generated image made from a set of photos of a man.
A group of people sitting around a laptop and looking at something.
A group of people sitting in a classroom and listening to a lecture given by a woman.
A computer generated image of the letter S made from tiles.

Rome Day Eleven: Chiappini on Mind, Body and Sauce

Jun 06 2018

Text and Photos by Sarah Bachman

Today we met Cristina Chiappini, as she took us through some of her work. Cristina is a contemporary designer working on projects ranging from identity and packaging design, to environmental design and interactive exhibitions. She took us through her research phase on some of the projects, her design process, as well as some of her favorite concepts and mock-ups that were presented but not chosen by the client. It was super interesting and inspiring to hear the stories behind all of the projects she shared.

After showing some images of a few 20th century radioactive products (yikes!) that were sold in the early 1900’s, Cristina shared with us an exhibition that she designed to outline and offer interaction with ultrasound, radiology, and nuclear medicine. She used infographics, lasers, fiber optics and scanning techniques to create visual interpretations of the way these processes work. One of my favorite graphics was the eyeball showing how the retina and the brain are connected through the optic nerve. This exhibition was up for 3 months, and may come back to a city in Italy or in Europe – I would love to check it out, and would totally recommend to anyone who can make it!

Another project I really enjoyed were the stamps that were created for the Republic of San Marino. She created adorable characters representing fertility. On on of the stamps, she fixed seeds to the inside of the mouth of a screaming baby. The stamp dissolves in water and you can plant the seeds. They were very cute, strong and memorable graphics.

Lastly, she showed us some of the work her students created, which was really fun, and fun-ny! She has a project called “body to body” where the students can only use their bodies, through photography, sounds, skin tones, etc. The images of body parts were tiled in different ways and as the viewer mouses over the composition the body parts move to a beatbox sort of tune, a mesmerizing experience!

Cristina has an expansive range of work, and a very impressive portfolio. She was lovely, and happy to answer our questions. More of her work can be found at http://cristinachiappini.com/.

Needless to say, her lecture was inspiring…which will come in handy as most of us will probably spend the majority of our day working on our projects for out meetings with Louise tomorrow.

A few of us did manage to squeeze in a quick trip to the Colosseum this evening. Unfortunately they closed early unannounced…womp. Luckily we were able to extend our ticket and will come back tomorrow. That is the great thing about having so much time in Rome, and being conveniently located. To end the day, fresh pizza will do the trick!

 

 

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