Streamcolors designed and created the immersive room for the ETRO – GENERATION PAISLEY exhibition at MUDEC using the Stream Machine, a platform developed by Streamcolors based on Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. The Stream Machine continuously generates 2D and 3D images in a process of endless semiosis. To borrow the words of Charles Sanders Peirce, the Stream Machine produces “an endless series of representations, each representing the one behind it, […] conceived as limited by an absolute object” (Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, edited by Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss and Arthur W. Burks, 8 vols., Cambridge MA, Belknap, 1931–1966).

The Stream Machine did this by sampling and reworking videos and photos of Etro’s collections, taken from archival footage. The graphic elaboration was partly controlled by the visitor, who could use a console to rotate, zoom, recolor, and mix the images. At the same time, part of the visual flow was left to chance. The result was a generative artistic product, one that builds its identity on a pre-existing artistic work.

The setup curated by Streamcolors for the Etro exhibition at MUDEC included a 48-inch touchscreen interface, a LED wall, a large mirror doubling the scenic surface, and a reflective floor. As Giacomo Giannella, the creative soul of Streamcolors, explains:

The idea was to offer a long-term vision of how Etro projects itself into the future. That’s why we designed a fully immersive room, inviting visitors to create their own personal, subjective experience, making it unique and unrepeatable.