Biennale Tecnologia

A big cultural event with a series of wide-ranging national and international appointments aimed at proposing a broad reflection on the relationship between technology and society and at strengthening the dialogue between universities and civil society

After the success of Festival della Tecnologia (https://2019.festivaltecnologia.it/), Politecnico di Torino, under the coordination of Professor Juan Carlos De Martin, hosted the first edition of Biennale Tecnologia (November, 12th-15th 2020, https://2020.biennaletecnologia.it/). Biennale Tecnologia, as well as the Festival, is a series of wide-ranging national and international appointments aimed at proposing a broad reflection on the relationship between technology and society and at strengthening the dialogue between universities and civil society. In times of social, cultural and technologic turbulence, Biennale Tecnologia presents itself as one of the first events specifically devoted to a dialectic reflection on technology, its role on society and on the related future challenges.

Biennale Tecnologia is aimed to describe the key role that technology has taken on in all spheres of human life, from health to the environment, from personal relationships to the economy and democracy itself. To do this, Biennale Tecnologia decided to embrace an interdisciplinary approach and to adopt multiple languages, that of science, of course, but also of the humanities, art, literature, cinema, music and sport. Politecnico di Torino promoted the first edition of Biennale Tecnologia not only as its own direct expression but also as the expression of a vast and widespread network of partners (https://2020.biennaletecnologia.it/partner), including national and international research institutes, as well as public institutions, private companies, experts and high-level guests. Each of these contributions enriched a vast program with initiatives that, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, took place entirely online, experimenting new way to involve a very transversal audience in a common reflection of nowadays most relevant challenges that we must face as human being. In a very difficult time of the human history, the first edition of Biennale Tecnologia wanted to be a contribution of Politecnico di Torino to the City of Torino, to Piedmont and to Italy: a key element of its civic role and its strategy of production and sharing of knowledge for the whole community.

The first edition of Biennale Tecnologia proposed a series of online events
(https://2020.biennaletecnologia.it/programma/biennale) mainly devoted to the topic “Mutations – for a sustainable future”. Its program officially opened on November 12 with a double lecture held by two important guests who have always been attentive to innovation and new technologies: Francesca Bria, President of the National Innovation Fund, and Bruce Sterling, writer and main representative of cyberpunk literature. Over the next three days, over 180 online lectures, panels, concerts, reading, exhibitions and other activities were scheduled, with more than 300 speakers from all over the world, included scientists, writers, sociologists, economists, philosophers and many others, who carried on the reflection on technology’s impact on our society from different perspectives and with different languages. The Nexa Center, one of key partner of Festival della Tecnologia, contributed to the first edition of Biennale Tecnologia collaborating to the organization of several meetings that involved its large community of scholars and researchers (https://nexa.polito.it/biennale-tecnologia-20).

The first edition of Biennale Tecnologia was a great success with over 20,000 attendees in 4 days, 180 online meetings and activities, 6 exhibitions, 8 online shows, more than 60 collaborations activated, 116 laboratories (online and offline) for the primary and secondary school, and a significant presence on national press. The second edition of Biennale Tecnologia will take placefrom the 10th to the 13th of November 2022. In 2021, Biennale Tecnologia collaborated to the realization of the 7th edition of Biennale Democrazia (http://biennaledemocrazia.it), the “friendly” event with which it shares the same interest for the promotion of a real democratic culture, also as a result of a more awareness way of thinking to technology.