Viaggio Sentimentale

"Viaggio Sentimentale" is a work designed to bring together the inspirations behind Senato Hotel Milano project and tells the story and soul of the Milan we like in a continuous flow.

The "video moodboard," commissioned from the creative duo Variante Artistica, will permanently replace the Cinema Milano projection. This piece blends historical and contemporary imagery, forging a new emotional connection to our city.
 
Starting in September 2024, Viaggio Sentimentale will play on a continuous loop in the Chester Room of Senato Caffè, offering guests and visitors a seamless fusion of digital and analogue in a dynamic, ongoing flow.
 
Watch selected extracts on YouTube from the full video, on show at Senato Caffè.

We interviewed the creators, Flavio Pescatori and Mattia Caprara, to discover their ideas behind this project.

What inspired you to create a project like this for Senato Hotel Milano?

(FP) We discussed for a long time what would be the right process to realise the project, but each time we found ourselves indecisive when we wrongly categorised all the themes to be addressed in the work.
Milan is historically a very deep and jagged city. It is indeed the true modern city of Italy and we realised this when we had to abandon a historiographic and analytical approach during our research. We therefore changed our modus operandi and, as if we had been guided by nocturnal euphoria, our sentimental journey veered towards unknown paths, paths that are in constant mutual connection, that dialogue with each other and that are constantly changing. 

(MC) It was necessary to make room for pure experimentation in the face of the analytical process. This is translated into images that through their combination speak to us simultaneously about the historical legacy and the new dynamics that are germinating in the city.

Do you think ‘Sentimental Journey’ can influence the guest experience?

(MC) Our need was to create a work that could convey new grammars for guests. As much as Milan is a city that immediately fascinates its visitors, our project is designed to offer new tools for a personal reading of the city. 

(FP) The Milanese experience can never be purely touristic because it is characterised by a wide range of suggestions; the project was born and developed with the need to welcome guests as if it were a guide to the feelings that feed the city of Milan.

What elements of Milanese history and art were crucial in the making of the video?

(FP) The research behind the project gave us an incredibly large amount of historical and artistic references. It was challenging but very stimulating to deal fairly with all the events that have sculpted the city. The most incredible, almost unique aspect that has contributed to Milan's historical success and which we wanted to be a tangible part of our work, is the incessant contamination of Milan's various realities. It is no coincidence that even today, on the international and contemporary scene, Milan is seen as a very important creative and avant-garde pole.

(MC) The urban character of the city has also played a fundamental role. Milan has a highly recognisable structure and architecture that is undoubtedly fascinating. We have drawn on both cinematography and literature to convey this Milanese aspect in the most romantic and poetic terms.

Why did you choose to combine digital and analogue in telling the story of the city?

(FP) Milan is a place that does not want to be out of date. It is amazing how even the city's most classic references manage to remain relevant and fascinating. Since we could not ignore this pivotal aspect of the city, we decided that only by exploring this temporal subversion, through a continuous discussion between analogue and digital, could the work be able to respect the elegance with which Milan manipulates time.

(MC) Our language does not only involve a dualism between analogue and digital, but also a relationship made up of many levels that stratify the reading of the work. The simultaneous superimposition of several images, as well as the scrolling of pages of books through our lenses, have multiple meanings: regardless of the aesthetic timbre, it is important to analyse the historiographical value as well as that of continuous confrontation of the Milanese community.

What makes Milan a hypnotic city?

(MC) Milan has a love-hate relationship with time. The object of easy irony, as well as harsh criticism, the Milanese citizen's sense of time is of such grave importance that it makes him a bewitching magician of the hands. The organisation of the diary, appointment times, the coffee break; in Milan, there is a precision in timing that reaches the sublime, a self-hypnosis that every true Milanese practices daily.

(FP) There is one aspect of Milan that I have always found disturbing: its absolute elegance. I have always wondered why and how this has become a value unanimously accepted by the whole city. Milan not only has a cult of beauty, Milan is also a city that always wants to improve, change and reinvent itself, and does so with extreme seriousness. Here you live the responsibility of being a city with desires, a city that does not rest on itself and always wants a bigger reason to live.