TÉMENOS

Year          2018
Place         Infinity and a shell 
Project       Academic work, Atelier Jain 
Typology    Pavilion for the arts
Theme       Biological resonance

Témenos is a space born from music, especially from singing, a personal passion. Sound inspired its ethereal design: the main material is light, that with its evanescent qualities has the power to transform, to flatten and deepen space, to expand beyond reality, like the space of creativity and imagination. The space cancels itself out in order to valorise what it contains.
Témenos — from the greek portion of sky, sacred enclosure — is a space designed to be a pause in the city, a place for every human to converge their thoughts, feelings and emotions to the highest degree through a one to one experience with art. Through the cultivation of the Ganzfeld effect, the space defies its compact floor plan, dissolving into the perception of the boundless and infinite: all visual distractions are blended out leaving space for introspection and empathy. 


TÉMENOS

to sing

Time      08-10 2019
Place      Chiesa San Giovanni, Casciago (VA), It
Client     MADWORKSHOP Foundation, L.A

The Madworkshop foundation, based in Santa Monica (L.A.), supported the first realization of the project. The installation was inaugurated on the 13th October inside the deconsecrated church of San Giovanni in Varese, in northern Italy. Nested inside the soaring Renaissance chapel, Témenos extended down from the vaulted ceiling with its walls of translucent white fabric to create a new alluring interior space. After passing through the evanescent shell, each guest took a seat on the opposite side of the light-soaked room to experience their private concert for one. 

The 54 guests were asked to answer a questionnaire made to test some specific aspects of the space. The last question asked the visitor about his psychophysical state once he/she had left Témenos: “How would you describe yourself with one word, after having been in the space?” The answers were incredible. They felt:

NEUROAESTHETIC & NEUROARCHITECTURE

The physical indefinition and sense of disorientation reached in Témenos through the Ganzfeld effect, lead to the annulment of the scientific perception of space given by the hippocampal place cells, in favor of a more introspective perception through the mirror neurons.
Mirror neurons, discovered in 1991, are the basis of empathy. Through several recent neuroesthetic fMRI studies, it is demonstrated how man, through empathic understanding, triggers a process of “internal imitation” - led by mirror neurons - which is not only neuronal, but also corporal and muscular, that has been defined by Karl Groos as “body resonance”.
Generator of empathic resonance, Témenos allows the visitor to tune with himself, to self-empathize, to feel present in space as body-subject and therefore to a sense of integration and comprehension that leads to empathy towards others.