Politecnico Internazionale "Scientia et Ars"

Versione Italiana

INTRODUCTION

“Art is Me; Science is Us” said Victor Hugo to claim the individual value of the artistic creation process compared to the collective collaboration necessary to develop and ascertain the scientific knowledge. But the artistic product has a value only if the time itself is able to assume a mimetic meaning for a community which identify itself in it: this “vicious” circle, in the case of music, is possible only when the reference scientific paradigm is already well predefined in which the creator-user communication process – tonal music, thematic music, etc. – must occur. But when the innovations in aims, languages, methodologies and expressive technologies make available, as today, an immeasurable whole of new mediatic potentialities almost all to be explored and, therefore, not yet standardised by the culture industry,it is necessarily needed to restart from the global scientific redefinition of the artistic communication process, from its foundations and with the use of the most potent analysis and knowledge tools today available, to pass maybe from a “reductionist” approach (“the whole is the addition of its parts”) to a more “holistic” approach, where, for example, an entire Physic-Mathematics of the Musical Dynamic Systems should be previously developed, transforming the initial assertion of Victor Hugo into that one much more recent of Pierre Boulez: “Music cannot improve without Science”.

In this cultural ferment and with the aim of the “education-research-production” trinomial, on September 2003 the International Polytechnic“Scientia et Ars” has been established in Vibo Valentia as a result of the Consortial aggregation of Conservatoires, Academies, University Structures, Vibo Valentia Municipality, Catanzaro Province, and Industrial Groups.

This is the first Italian institution authorized by the Italian Ministry of University to carry out triennial 1st level and biennial 2nd Level Courses on Visual and Sound Arts and it is the first to issue Academy Diplomas on “Music, Science and Sound Technology” and “Visual Arts, Communication, Science and Image Technologies” in cooperation with the Vibo Valentia Conservatoire and the Reggio Calabria Academy.

The Polytechnic, whose Rector is a Physicist and whose Director is a Musician, explores the whole noise-sound-note-composition-musical product path, joins together the “analogical” acoustics of traditional musical instruments with the most advanced “digital” technologies of sound creation and management, creates new “professional figures”, which are lacking and therefore highly requested in the most qualified job market, in a more and more strict programmatic relationship with industry, and it always links the individual study in classroom with the collective orchestral practice and with the direct artistic production.

In this sense its new-born “POLIS ORCHESTRA”, which is made 80% of students and 20% of Polytechnic Lecturers, after only a few months of its institutional activity and also thanks to the extraordinary talents of the students, represents the first result, unique for quality and dimension (100 components + the Director), of this high education-production “bridge”; the Programmes chosen by the Orchestra are often purposely referring to the ‘800-‘900 transition period, desecrating, innovative, stimulating, in a symbolic parallel with the current transition to third centuries potentially much more radical and global.

In such a scenery the Polytechnic activities find their roots in an approach where the two higher forms of human creativity, sciences and arts, meet in a new dialectic relationship which is not foreseeable and containable in the existing bureaucratic and institutional schemes.

Beside the big POLIS ORCHESTRA, the POLYTECHNIC develops also the creation and the production of small “Combos”POLIS ORCHESTRA SCAT, aimed to chamber music, jazz, ethnic music and ,above all, to the research and production of new expressive forms.

And equally, the same Science and Art binomial recurs for the Visual Arts:

In the Polytechnic, physics, electronic and new technologies join the traditionalartistic knowledge to create new professional figures with high occupational impact in the increasing market of the “knowledge civilisation”, as well as people suitable for the education and the research in the sector.

In parallel with the ongoing activities of High Education, Music and Scientific Research, the Polytechnic pursues other important strategic lines such as:

the creation of aCentre for the Production ofArtistic and Cultural Heritage Assets, Communication and Show, with the use of advanced fully digitalized technologies, subdivided into Five Production Lines (Cartoons, Videos and Radio and Television Fictions, Audios, Telematics-Publishing-Research, Services), to be realised with the major sector industries and “front-end” integrated with its education and research activities.
the creation of Academic Laboratory/Academic Workshop to recuperate old and ancient professionswhich are disappearing but which could have a great job potential such as: lutherie, maintenance of electric/electronic instruments, maintenance of watches, etc.
theproductionofacousticandelectronicinstrumentsandnewsoftware.

In such a way the Polytechnic will become a unique center of high level know how able to become a reference Pole for the entire Mediterranean Area.

THE RECTOR