Biography
Our research, called Living picture, is an approach to art installation using a projector, an oil painting and a digital video. Through mapping techniques, it provides the projection, by means of a projector, of the visual output of a computer on the image of an oil painting. We design and create, with the final representation in mind, both the painted image and the digital contents. The latter, individually viewed, have no coherent meaning for the viewer. It gains significance only when projected, and interacts with the composition and colors of the painted artwork. Digital images projected can be fixed or moving, created from scratch with the aid of software or imported from a medium of reproduction. Texts, drawings, colors, paintings, photographs, videos, computer algorithmically generated content, 3D and many other aspects of the digital culture may be perceived by the viewer within the frame of the painted artwork.
Recently we showcased one of our works, Landscape after landscape..., at the group exhibition Ecco Sant'Orsola in Florence. It was a major event for this city, which saw the reopening of the converted convent of Sant'Orsola in the heart of the city.
Li Yang was born in Xuzhou, China in 1988. After achieving her Bachelor's degree in Painting at the Hunan Normal University, she obtained her MA degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy, in Visual arts and new forms of expression - Painting (First cum LAUDE, supervisors Prof. Mauro Betti and Prof. Franco Speroni). During her university years, particulary those spent in Florence, she developed the theme of landscape at first researching classical and realistic landscape, before focusing on breakdown and reduction of figure to simple elements. Li Yang is fluent in three languages: Chinese, Italian and English. Since 2014 she has been working on various commissioned portraits and currently she is a chinese language teacher.
Michele Foti was born in La Spezia, Italy, in 1982. He graduated in Medieval and Modern History in 2008 at the Perugia University (First cum LAUDE). After working as a researcher (University of Perugia, cooperating with M.Santanicchia, professor of Medieval Art History), he began studying computing and completed a master's degree in Computer Science and Text at the University of Siena. Subsequently he was hired by the same university for a four month research project on an archeological site near Arezzo. Since 2010 he has expanded his skills with various programming languages and 2D/3D software. Starting from 2011 he has collaborated with the Web 3D Consortium, an international non-profit organization that creates web standards featuring 3D content. At present he is working as a professional web developer and database administrator.
Michele Foti & Li Yang married in 2014 and since then they have been working together in Florence. Besides Living picture, they created two interactive installations: Money is the devil's dung and The lamp without bulb.
