The computer animation "Footprint" by Mario Sasso and Nicola Sani represents an ideal voyage through images from the earth, as seen from the satellite and the signs of contemporary art.

The electronic movie "Footprint" represents an ideal voyage through images from the earth, as seen from the satellite and the signs of contemporary art. Images and music are interlinked to form one entity. The "First Space Museum" is born out of the metropolitan landscapes seen from high above, from the deserts of Northern Africa, that undergo a metamorphosis - through the combination of computer graphics and computer animation - into the statements of contemporary painting. To give some examples: the complicated networks and grids of urban streets give shape to the figures of Capogrossi, animate the geometry of Mondrian and the drippings of Pollock, and give rise to Jasper Johns' Pop Art numbers. The deserts of northern Africa develop into the works of Burri and the figures of Licini, while the sea - tightly stretched like a canvas - is submitted to Fontana's lacerations. The essential quality of contemporary painting is reversed into the simplicity of electronic images.

The music is made ideal to melt with the image so as to constitute a global formof audio-visual communication made real with the most advanced technologies available. The musical composition utilises sounds of very different origins. Infact, we find sounds created by the computer through numerical synthesis (both additive and FM), and sounds created through sampling techniques. Thus it was also possible to realise the idea of a voyage through the sonic cultures that arepart of the European-Mediterranean area, being almost an echo of the images inthe original sounds of the place visited.

Technical Background

Technically, the recordings of the satellite images (made by Telespazio and ESA)were realised with a Rostrum camera, while the graphics rendering and animation were implemented on a Paint Box Harry. The film was realised at SBP spa. in Rome, with the collaboration of Gianni Blumthaler (supervision), Corrado Vecchi (rostrum camera), Claudio de Grazia and Alessandra Guidoni (Paint Box), and Maurizio Millefiorini (post-production). The music was realised with digital synthesis and real-time sound processing systems. The central part includes a computer-processed sound recording of the Olympus satellite in orbit, recorded on audio tape. The digital sound systems programming was supervised by Luca Spagnoletti. Mixing and digital recording were done at Wonderland Studios in Romeby Piero Schiavoni.

"Footprint" was produced by RAISAT for the start of live broadcasts on the TV satellite.

HW: Rostrum Camera, Paintbox Harry-Quantel, Digital Post-Production