Can spirituality still speak to us in the age of artificial intelligence? And how can technology engage with the most radical questions raised by Franciscan thought?
Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Mumbai, in collaboration with G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture, presents No Sky Is Without Light/ Nessun cielo è senza luce, an audiovisual performance conceived and created by Italian artist Luca Maria Baldini, with video by Salvatore Insana, that brings the writings and ideas of St Francis of Assisi, St Clare, St Agnes and the early followers of the Franciscan movement into dialogue with some of the most urgent questions of the present. The project is produced in coproduction with Fondazione AAMOD, with the support of Campsirago Residenza
Starting from medieval texts, the performance explores themes that remain strikingly relevant today: the relationship between human and non-human worlds, the ecological crisis, forms of coexistence, poverty, care and interdependence. Rather than treating Franciscan thought as a historical legacy, the work approaches it as a living body of ideas capable of generating new questions about our relationship with the world.
Divided into seven chapters, the performance moves through themes including ritual, fraternity, the sacred, our relationship with the living world and the desire for a renewed sense of belonging.
The soundscape combines elements from different eras and musical languages. Gregorian chants, field recordings, live electronics, pop fragments, artificial voices and the baglamàs coexist with analogue and electronic instruments, sampling practices and processes involving artificial intelligence. Tradition and innovation, memory and speculation are brought together in a deliberately hybrid composition.
The visual dimension, created by Salvatore Insana, expands this sonic landscape through archival materials, original footage, digital processing and symbolic fragments, creating a dialogue between historical memory and contemporary technologies.
Artificial intelligence plays a particularly significant role in the project. The title Nessun cielo è senza luce (No Sky Is Without Light) itself emerged from an encounter between Franciscan thought and generative AI: a phrase produced through a dialogue with generative systems while reinterpreting ancient texts, opening unexpected paths between past and future.
The work therefore also questions the very meaning of intelligence. By placing human sensitivity, the natural world and artificial systems in relation, the performance explores the possibility of a dialogue between spirituality and technology and asks how new forms of interpretation can emerge from their encounter.
At the centre of Nessun cielo è senza luce is a broader question: how can we imagine a spiritual dimension capable of engaging with the complexities of the present without losing its poetic and transformative power?
The performance offers no definitive answer. Instead, through sound and images, it creates a space for reflection, a journey between past and future, nature and technology, memory and speculation.
Wednesday, 14 October | G5A Warehouse, Mahalakshmi, Mumbai | 7:30 PM onwards
Admission is free, upon registration. Register here. https://forms.gle/7DQkCTBy1Nakw9Tz7
Luca Maria Baldini is a musician, sound designer and artist whose research focuses on the relationship between sound and images, music and environmental space, and sound and the body. His work spans theatre, cinema, sound art and performance. He has presented his projects internationally in galleries, theatres, museums and festivals, working across composition, improvisation, spatialised sound and experimental research.
Salvatore Insana is an audiovisual artist, filmmaker and visual researcher. His practice explores moving images, photography, archival materials and the transformation of visual imaginaries across cinema, video art, visual anthropology, multimedia installation, performance and live audiovisual work. Since 2020, his research has focused particularly on the reinterpretation and creative reuse of film and photographic archives.