« La “Musica cromatica” come training sensoriale nelle sperimentazioni futuriste »

International audienceThe article aims to reflect on the sensory impact of colour in chromo-luminous projections made by futurist Italian artists Arnaldo Ginna and Bruno Corra. A wide range of studies situated these experiments of chromatic music in continuity with the tradition of synesthetic devices, which, starting from Castel’s ocular harpsichord, focused on the equivalence between music and luminous féeries. Scholars also insisted on a relationship with psychological theories, paying attention to the psychological function of projected colours as signs of certain moods. However, the influence of the psychophysiology of color on Ginna’s and Corra’s animated paintings needs to be investigated more deeply. Starting from the connection between experimental psychology and avant-garde experiences, the essay seeks to discuss the practices and devices based on chromatic suggestion, which were used as therapeutic tools in the medical field, and the way in which the futurist chromo-luminous projections utilized these practices to condition the spectator. In Ginna’s and Corra’s experiments and writings, indeed, colour was conceived as a suggestive medium. The notion of suggestion (“A.B.C. Metodo”, 1910) was specifically borrowed from nineteenth century medical terminology (Charcot, Bernheim, etc.) and was popularized in Italy by Giulio Belfiore. This notion permitted Ginna and Corra to elaborate upon an experimental method meant to fascinate the spectator. In some ways, these visual experiments aspired to replicate suggestive practices typical of hypnotism, which used colour for its power to condition the mind. Various devices were adopted in psychological laboratories in order to induce hypnotic or suggestive reactions: rotating discs, coloured lights, magic lantern projections, chromatropes, etc. Therefore, Ginna and Corra used colour in the same experimental manner. As in psychological laboratories, moving coloured lights were thus projected in order to create different chromatic environments able to influence the spectator in various ways (“Musica cromatica”, 1912)