Tiepido Cool

Description of impact

Our collaborative methodology has informed the creative practice of our non-academic collaborators, for instance prompting D’Elia’s to explore the interface between image and sounds.

Who is affected

- Davide D’Elia, artist who lives and work in Rome. He has participated in several international exhibitions including: Beyond Existence, Cordy House, London, 2009; Every Other Day, Zico House, Beirut, 2009; DrawMusicDraw, Booze Cooperativa, Athens, 2008; Booze Around Light Bulbs, Heimatmuseum, London, 2013. His works have been exhibited, among solo and group exhibitions, in museums and institutional venues such as MAXXI, Museum of 21st-Century Art, Rome, 2012–2013; Nell’Acqua capisco, fringe event 55th Venice Biennale, Procuratie Vecchie, Venice, 2013; American Academy, Rome 2014; Artsiders, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia, 2014; Horizontal, Casa Italia (Giochi Olimpici), Rio De Janeiro, 2016; Sensibile Comune, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, 2017. Finalist Premio Lissone 2018, MAC Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Lissone, 2018; FRESCO, Museo Davia Bargellini, Bologna 2022.
- Elisa Del Prete and Silvia Litardi, curators of the Tiepido Cool publishing project and editors of Nos Production https://www.nosproduction.com/
- Jan Mertens, musician and sound designer, former member of the bands Roses for Ashley and Archivist. His work has been heard at the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Wellcome Collection among other venues.
- Jeanette Sendler, textile artist at Hat in the Cat, Perth, Scotland (https://sendler.co.uk/).

Narrative

This project builds on the Tiepido Cool publishing project funded by the Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea, Ministero della Cultura, nell’ambito del programma Italian Council (X edizione, 2021) [Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture Italian Council under the Italian Council Programme (10th edition, 2021)].

Davide D’Elia is an established visual artist whose work investigates the sensory landscape and how we respond to it and in it. His current project, ‘Tiepido-Cool’ funded by the Italian Ministry of Culture, is a cross-cultural exploration of how we perceive shifts and contrasts of temperature, visually and through touch. D’Elia was funded to create a multi-textured visual album with an Italian art publisher. The book contains images by D’Elia and two academic commentaries on the project. Printed on different papers, the book is a tactile object and its images invite the reader to touch as well as look at them. The Italian Ministry of Culture has funded D’Elia to present the book at various locations in Europe as well as Italy before its formal presentation at Maxxi, Italy’s national gallery of contemporary art in Rome in late in spring 2023.

The interactive workshop scheduled on 7th February was lead by Duncan, Laügt and PGR Tilly Nevin, funded with the support of the I&IF and the School of Modern Languages. It explored D’Elia’s work and its themes stemmed from the CPI’s research on ekphrasis, multilingualism, creative writing and the politics of aesthetics.
The workshop involved students and academics from across the University. Participants worked collectively with word and image to produce a prose poem using the languages they are familiar with and which they feel most appropriate for the task.
The poem was recorded by Johanna Linsley and Jan Mertens and worked into an electroacoustic composition ('Don't You Think It's a Bit...') with voices that takes the logic of Tiepido Cool, and the project’s notion of a human algorithm, and explores them sonically.
The poem has been re-interpreted by D’Elia, in collaboration with 15 Italian designers, for its presentation on 9 March at the 'Tiepido Cool All Over St Andrews' where creative critical responses to D'Elia's work were performed, a film of the workshop made by Sendler was screened and 'Don't You Think It's a Bit...' was played. D'Elia has created three Manifesti (the Aesthetic, Multilingual and Climate Manifesti).

'Dont' You Think It's a Bit...' was performed at the MAXXI museum as part of D'Elia's book presentation on 15 March 2023.
The poem created at the workshop held on 7 February has informed the work that D'Elia has then carried out in Belgrade late April.

We are preparing a flipbook that will be published (early May) on the Centre for Poetic Innovation's website and accessible by means of a QR code.

Further stages of the project include:
- a bespoke publication with Fife-based Matecznik Press.
- the rolling out of the workshop with different sets of participants (including schools).
- the creation of a toolkit for schools (two UGs are currently working with us as part of the StARIS scheme).

Impact status	Open
Impact level	Involvement - mid or active stage