Who We Are

Renata Sheppard – Director and Choreographer
Born in Italy and raised in the United States, Renata Sheppard is an interdisciplinary artist who specializes in performance and choreography with formal training in theatre, music, and visual arts. Since 2007, she has been working specifically in performance-as-research deeply investigating the nature of technology as an extension of human function and expression.
She began a dialogue with movement and technology through Dance for the Camera Dance at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she obtained her MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography. She then worked in the Tele-Immersive Environment Lab at UIUC’s Department of Computer Science with Klara Narhstedt and traveled internationally to present their work. Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis (LMA) is fundamental to her teaching, choreography, and interactive design, especially with human-computer interactions.
As an international artist, Renata is dedicated to nurturing collaboration, exchange, and cross-cultural relationships through the arts. She began working at Virtual Reality and Multi Media Park in Turin, Italy as a Fulbright Scholar, continuing with support from the US Embassy to work on fraMESHift. She is currently a Henry Luce Scholar at Taipei National University for the Arts in Taiwan.

Paolo Armao – Sound Designer and Production Manager
Paolo is a Sound Designer with experience in producing audio contents for movies, documentaries, TV series as well as for interactive applications and performances. He currently works at the multi-company organization Virtual Reality and Multi Media Park (VR&MMP) in Turin, Italy where he is the Sound Editor for Lumiq Studios and Audio Researcher at Asa Lab, developing real-time audio systems and creating contents for multimedia and audiovisual projects. His work, “Il Naturalista”, was selected for the 2009 Cannes Festival.
He studied at the University of Turin, the School Of Sound, and seminars held by David Sonnenschein.

Fabrizio Nunnari – Lead Developer
Class 1975, is a computer science researcher and developer.  After receiving a Master Degree in 2001, he got a Ph.D. in 2005 at the University of Torino, Italy, with an interdisciplinary research activity spanning across the fields of Human-Computer Interaction, Cooperative Work, and real-time 3D Computer Graphics.  Since 2005 he’s been working as Researcher, Developer and Project Manager for many national and european, industrial and research projects in the fields of Interactive Real-Time 3D Multimedia Systems, Virtual Storytelling, Procedural Character Animation, Art & Technology performances and installations.  Since he put his interest in many of the fields that computer science covers, he likes to call himself a “360 degrees programmer”.  Although he doesn’t dare to consider himself the deepest expert in one of these fields, he always worked in integrating many different technologies into complex and rich multimedia frameworks.

Davide Di Giannantonio – CG Supervisor
Davide started creating real-time computer graphics in 2004: he began as a Software Developer in applied research projects, participating to the foundation of the open source platform MESH, a previsualizaton and production software. After his graduation he has been involved in several linear and interactive 3D productions, working primarily as a Tech Artist, but also as a 3D Modeler, Environment Artist and even Texture Artist. He also teaches scripting and content production for real-time engines.
Having developed a deep knowledge of production pipelines and different professional roles, he now covers the role of CG Supervisor, coordinating and supervising productions of architectural and design previs, museum installations, interactive applications and performances.

Jacopo Landi – Compositor and VFX artist
Jacopo is a freelance video editor and compositor with experience in post-production for interactive arts exhibitions, corporate video and collaborative short-film projects. In 2009, he earned a Bachelor of Science in Multimedia and Interdisciplinary Art, Music and Entertainment from the University of Turin. He later received his Masters in Video, Effects and Compositing at the Virtual Reality and Multi Media Park (VR&MMP). From 2010 up till October 2012, he worked as a video editor and compositor at VR&MMP, also collaborating with Lumiq Studios and Studio Azzurro for “Making Italians” post-production (2011). He assists with pre-visualization cinema short-film projects at VRMMP’s research laboratory, Art- Science-Allies (ASA) Lab where he also teaches pre-professional video shooting and editing courses. In addition to his work and study, he enjoys experimenting with different visual languages in contemporary art and has participated in international competitions and art exhibitions within the national art gallery circuit.

Maurizio Casini – 3D Modeler
My name is Maurizio Casini and I am an Italian 3D Computer Graphics Artist and Software Engineer.
After taking a Bachelor’s Degree with specialisation in Technical Engineering,
I attended a two years master in Computer Graphics at Virtual Reality & Multimedia Park in Turin (Italy).
Afterwards I worked for over a year to a film production as lighter, compositor and Research & Development team member at Animoka.
Currently I am working as 3D Tech artist for ASALab at Virtual Reality & Multimedia Park.

Luca Zanconi – Software Developer
I’ve always worked in different departments of computer technology, from web applications to car-engine test bench but my real passion is real-time 3D applications which brought me to work at Asalab (a laboratory resided at the Virtual Reality Multemedia Park in Turin) where I’m currently employed.
In my spare time, I’m currently developing a 3D engine for mobile devices on the Android platform mixing C++ and Java code.

Ludwig Parentela – Show Control and Interaction Design Programmer
Ludwig Parentela was born in Catanzaro on 03/07/85, graduated in RAM (address multimedia), Master Degree at the University of Turin, and graduated in DAMS (address music) at the University of Calabria.
Attracted by arts, especially music. He’s author of many short films and soundtracks. He always tries to emphasize its original and extravagant character to pleasantly surprise its audience.

Vanessa Michielon – Performer
Born in 1984, Vanessa is a PhD student in Cultural Heritage (Polytechnic of Turin), holding a Bachelor and Master Degree in Media Engineering and researching in the field of movement-based interaction in museum exhibitions.
As a dancer, she trained in ballet, modern, contemporary and community dance and took part in interactive performances with international artists. Since 2011 she is a guest dancer in the ensemble “The very secret dance society/Raffaele Irace”.
Life philosophy: looking through different eyes and building bridges.

 

Ramon Moro – Music Composer
Trumpeter really particular, with a stylistic borderline mark, always recognizable for his visionary and imaginative sound. In the last fifteen years he played in jazz areas, electronic experiments, pure improvisation, rock bands and he did precious participations in pop music and songwritings’ works.
Band: 3quietmen.
www.ramonmoro.com
www.3quietmen.com