In the computer animation "Gates" by Mario Canali, basic geometric shapes are dancing a kind of ballet to music specially composed for this purpose.

The images of "Gates" were constructed three dimensionally on an IBM AT, AT&T TARGA 16 and BCD Frame Controller (with Targatips, Artwork, Videowork Software) and animated frame-by-frame. The music was realized exclusively by Computers (Macintosh, Yamaha CX5M2, TX7, Rev7, AKAI S900, S612, Casio CzlOl, Software: Performer, Yamaha Composer, Voicing Program) and mixed without manual intervention.

In the beginning there is the sign: an open circle, an isolated line. Signs that are the desire of shapes in expectation of a time that might allow them to develop. The music provides the sign with time, animates it allowing to live its own destiny. And so the sign Starts to fill the space on its quest for a shape, for a sense. In the first triangle it expresses its wish for existence, and the tri-angle's own vertex, the point, the triangle's will is pushed against the first barrier in order to break trough the safety of the circle. The only way of conferring sense to a barrier is to overcome it. The only possibility of saving one's identity is by accepting what is beyond the barrier, all the in-numerable possible variations, the risk of permanent change, the challenge of time. The point decides to run along the barrier, to overcome it again, to lose itself and to find back to itself. The point's demand for space calls for an additional dimension, the third, multiplying the ways and the shapes.

Inside and outside, the first barrier we know is ourselves: Where are our own limits to be found? The breath always reminds us of this borderline and simultaneously of our connection to the outer world. The sphere, center of our attention, crosses our border and plunges into our depths on the quest for a bottom that might fill it - also our attention fills us - beyond the diaphragm, in the stomach, the center of our physical being.

So the desire for the spirit, for the mind is born, or rather, the reminiscence of the spirit returns. Even within we are many. Are we going to find friends, companions or mirrors? We are just all alone with ourselves.

And again the triangle, the desire of going on. Fear, a new passage, but maybe it is not really fear, maybe it is just a moment of rest, of waiting and tension: Let them go on.

But we already have made a choice (which part of us has?) One out of three has been chosen. The interest for the others is decreasing: they are the ones that usually get lost on the way. For the moment we accept that they disappear.

Also reminiscence leaves its marks, fills you, oppresses. The only way of keeping it intact and transposing it into the present is to give the reminiscences a new shape. This is a new border, a new barrier, that has to be overcome in order to be recognized. The One is dividing in two and the two again generate the One. And now it is a cube. And finding itself stronger than before, more compact, the cube is ready to show its facettes to the world. This is the moment when we throw our breath out. We have experienced the inside and the depths, the fear of a new abyssus, the nostalgia of what is lost, we have cried for an impossible entity.

The music becomes essential in order to give a sense to the procedure and the auto-definition of shapes and structures. In the repetition, the dimension "time" acquires increasing importance, and without the Intervention of music it would be left un-expressed, confined to remembrance.

The evolution of the musical theme, its variations, the mutations of orchestration recall the reminiscences, make memories present, make them live up in the flow of the present through eternal overcoming and invention.

Animation: Mario Canali, Music: Riccardo Sinigaglia