Fuse (stylised as fuse*) is a multidisciplinary art studio based in Modena, Italy.
History fuse* was founded in 2007 by Luca Camellini and Mattia Carretti in Campogalliano, a small town north of Modena, Italy. Friends since childhood, they started mixing their different skills and interests to technically support external organizations and companies after graduating from their respective colleges. Camellini graduated with a degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and has pursued his passion for computer programming and graphical simulations, whilst Carretti graduated with a degree in Chemistry and later in Business Administration from the Polytechnic University of Milan. Their passion for digital arts, technology and science brought them to merge the three through immersive art installation and artworks. Sound design has always been one of the main pillars of the studio, and in 2009 sound designer Riccardo Bazzoni also joined fuse*. Snow Fall was the first artistic project realized in 2009 in Modena, which consisted of an interactive installation that processed images of the audience captured by video cameras in real time, displaying the silhouettes of the audience surrounded by snowflakes. This first version was created with infrared cameras while the successive iterations of the work, exhibited in Manchester, UK (2015) and Washington DC, US (2019), employed new and more modern hardware and software.
In 2011, the studio began to experiment with live performances based on the real-time interaction between sound, movement and light. N 4.0, an art piece which is projected onto a variety of architectural backgrounds, was first presented in 2011 for the Celeste Prize art competition, in which the piece won the award for Live Media/Performance. Continuing to experiment with live performances, fuse* started developing a trilogy composed of Ljòs (Light in Icelandic), Dökk (Darkness) and Sál (Soul) in 2014. Ljòs and Dökk are currently on tour and have been presented at international festivals such as Mutek - Montreal (CA), Kikk - Namur (BE), Digilogue - Istanbul (TR) and RomaEuropa - Rome (IT). Sál, the third and final chapter of the trilogy, premiered at the prestigious National Taichung Theatre in Taiwan in April 2025, marking a significant milestone for the studio. The performance was presented to an audience of over 1,500 people and represented the culmination of several years of artistic and technological research. Developed over several years of research on the behaviour of matter around black holes in collaboration with KU Leuven and the University of Toronto, Sál explores this fleeting threshold between one state and another, examining the intricate emotional dynamics that unfold in these moments of uncertainty and instability.
Over the years, the studio has developed more and more immersive artistic experiences that have traveled all around the world and have been exhibited, among others, in Prague (CZ), Beijing (CN), Milan (IT), Barcelona (ES), Helsinki (FI) and Atlanta (US).
Multiverse premiered in 2017 in Parma, Italy with a monumental installation consisting of a vertical projection and two mirroring surfaces 7.5 meters high. The work builds on the multiverse theory of Lee Smolin and won awards such as the Art and Science Innovation Award from Tsinghua University and the National Museum of China. In 2020, the studio started diving into the concept of trust and developed Treu, a piece examining the relationship between economics, politics, and trust, presented at the Pochen Symposium of 2020. The concept has been further developed for the studio's second solo show at Artechouse NYC, titled Trust (2022): Exploring the Theme from Different Timelines, the installation also includes a sentiment analysis of 750,000 tweets containing the word “trust” uploaded during the pandemic.
That same year, the studio released Artificial Botany, an ongoing project exploring botanical illustrations through machine learning algorithms: premiered at Cosmo Caixa in Barcelona (ES), it has later been adapted for shows in Venice (IT) and Utrecht (NL). In particular, the project has also been adapted for the spaces of Unipol's Cultura Bologna, using illustrations from the herbarium guides of Ulisse Aldrovandi provided by the University Library of Bologna, the Botanical Garden of Bologna and Alma Mater Studiorum.
In July 2022, fuse* created Luna Somnium, a site-specific installation for the Festival of Vision and Digital Transition held in the Gazometro of Rome. The piece consisted of a sphere suspended within the cylindrical metal structure of the Gazometro, with projections of the moon displayed upon it. The piece is said to be inspired by Johannes Kepler, who gazed upon the moon and saw a new side of it, just as viewers do as they walk around the Gazometro.
The studio also collaborated with Nederlands Kamerkoor, combining the choir's music with the visuals of their live media performance Van Gogh in Me, generated from paintings of Vincent van Gogh and Gustav Klimt. The piece premiered in the Konzerthaus in Vienna, and later was on exhibit at the Koninklijk Theater Carré in Amsterdam.
From 2016 until 2023 to 2023, fuse* has been actively involved in the organisation of NODE, an international festival for digital arts and live-media held in Modena.
In 2023, Onirica (), a new audiovisual, immersive installation, premiered at INOTA Festival in Veszprém (HU). For this particular artwork, the studio collaborated with two dream banks: the first from the Laboratory of Psychophysiology of Dream and Sleep of the University of Bologna, and the second from the psychology department of the University of California Santa Cruz, created by psychologists G. W. Domhoff and A. Schneider. Onirica () collects 28,748 dreams from these two banks and translates them into an audiovisual experience through a Large Language Model (LLM) and a custom pipeline that included a text-to-image diffusion model.
In addition to the installation, fuse* has also developed the live media performance Onirica (). In this adaptation, the visuals representing dreams are dynamically generated in response to the movements of a dancer, creating an interplay between physical performance and digital imagery.
In 2025, the studio premiered Mimicry, an artistic series that imagines speculative hybrid species existing at the intersection of plants and insects, generated through artificial intelligence to reflect nature’s adaptive strategies. Drawing inspiration from Donna Haraway’s essay “The Promises of Monsters”, the project invokes evolutionary concepts such as exaptation and mimicry, positing new forms of coexistence that respond to ecological stressors and climate change. The artwork was presented to the public at the Light Art Museum in Budapest (HU) in September 2025.
Works
Mimicry, 2025 Sál, 2025 Onirica () (performance), 2024 Onirica (), 2023 Luna Somnium, 2022 Trust, 2022 Van Gogh in Me, 2022 Fragile, 2022 Multiverse.dome, 2021 Treu, 2020 Falin Mynd, 2020 Mimesis, 2020 Artificial Botany, 2020 Everything in Existence, 2019 Multiverse, 2018 Dökk, 2017 Amygdala, 2016 Clepsydra, 2016 Ljós, 2014 N 4.0, 2011 Snow Fall, 2009
Selected exhibitions and shows +YearWorkLocationCity2025DökkStanford UniversityStanford2025Onirica ()Lost Art FestivalBerlin2025MimicryLight Art MuseumBudapest2025Onirica ()VideocittàRome2025SálNational Taichung TheatreTaichung2025Onirica ()TriennaleMilan2025Artificial BotanyPalazzo DucaleGenoa2025Onirica ()T33Shenzhen2024Onirica ()UniversumMexico City2024Onirica ()Centro Cultural Pozu Santa BárbaraMieres2024Unseen FloraA4 MuseumChengdu2024Van Gogh in MeGrand TheatreShanghai2024Van Gogh in MeHong Kong Cultural CentreHong Kong2024Onirica ()Espacio Fundación TelefónicaMadrid2024Onirica ()MoCA TaipeiTaipei2024Artificial BotanyQinTai Art MuseumWuhan2024Artificial BotanyPalazzo del GovernatoreParma2023DökkMUTEK.MXMexico City2023Onirica ()Fondazione Alberto PeruzzoPadua2023Artificial BotanyDongdaemun Design PlazaSeoul2023Multiverse .echoPalazzo CipollaRome2023DökkLEV FestivalGijón2023Artificial BotanyHong Kong Design InstituteHong Kong2022DökkYokohama Kannai HallYokohama2022Multiverse .domeMUTEK.MXMexico City2022Van Gogh in MeKoninklijk Theater CarréAmsterdam2022Luna SomniumVideocittà FestivalRome2022Artificial BotanyCUBO, UnipolBologna2022TrustArtechouseNew York2022Falin MyndLuxHelsinki2021FragileArtechouseWashington DC2021Artificial BotanyCosmo CaixaBarcelona2021LjósSónar IstanbulIstanbul2021DökkLEV festivalGijón2021Multiverse .domeTaiwan Contemporary Culture LabTaipei2020TreuPochen BiennalChemnitz2020MimesisTransart FestivalBolzano2020Falin MyndMalpensa AirportMilan2019MultiverseNational Museum of ChinaBeijing2019DökkMUTEKMontreal2019DökkMUTEK.SFSan Francisco2019Everything in ExistenceArtechouseWashington DC2018MultiverseBorgo delle ColonneParma2017DökkTAxT FestivalTaoyuan2016AmygdalaCubo UnipolBologna2015LjósSTRP BiennialEindhoven
References