In August 2024, we had the incredible opportunity to be invited to Dynamo Camp, a nonprofit organization in Tuscany that offers free recreational therapy programs for children with serious chronic illnesses. Through artistic exploration, self-expression, and play, this experience reinforced how creativity and innovative technology can be powerful forces for social good, showing the profound impact these programs can have on the people they reach.

We have had the chance to collaborate around the artistic research of Onirica (), a project that explores the dimension of dreams, interpreting through synthetic languages the creative ability of the human mind during sleep. The workshop's main goal was to give the Campers the opportunity to create a collaborative artwork, where each participant would produce an animated video inspired by one of their most recent or recurring dreams. We worked with 102 Italian and Spanish Campers between 13 and 17 years old.

The visual generation process at the core of Onirica () is built on a custom software pipeline that integrates text-to-image algorithms and Diffusion Models - a class of generative models that use neural networks to synthesize images from textual descriptions. These technologies allow for the visual translation of texts, bridging language and visual imagination and bringing the records of dreams to life.  

For the workshop, we recreated this pipeline using the children’s real dreams as input. First, they transformed their oneiric narratives into text, then recorded their own voices reading them inside the Dynamo Radio booth. Finally, each Camper brought their dream to life through the "dream machine," the very heart of the project.

The custom system developed for the workshop was designed to merge digital and physical interaction. Using a software-based interface, the movements of each Camper’s hands—along with their creative compositions made from colors and materials inside the Lab—were captured in real-time. These gestures influenced and modified the images generated, allowing children to interactively shape their own dream visuals.  

The entire experience at Dynamo was envisioned as a live performance, breaking down physical, expressive, and emotional barriers. This approach gave each child the freedom to interact with the technology intuitively, fostering a personal connection with the dream machine and its generative power.  

During Dynamo Camp’s 2024 annual Open Day, the collaborative work created with the children was further developed into an immersive installation at the Dynamo Art Gallery. A first-person narration guides visitors through a visual journey into the children's dreams, seamlessly translated into an evolving sequence of images. These visuals flow continuously, forming characters, objects, and landscapes in an infinite loop.  

A dual-channel projection system highlights both the generative elements and the human presence behind them—the body as animator, director, and interpreter of the machine’s aesthetic possibilities. The installation also featured a dual-layered soundscape: on one side, the Campers’ recorded voices served as the narrative thread connecting the dream visuals; on the other, an original music composition by fuse*—the same soundtrack that inspired the workshop itself.

Onirica () .dynamo is now part of the Dynamo Art Factory Art Gallery.