Our world is magic, our world is Nice

Imagining a path of deep evolution and cultural innovation, the Nice Group enriches its own ecosystem with inspirations that are not simply based on the industrial production anymore, but that revolve around its renewed capacity of thinking communities, people and their social creativity. It is with this view that Nice created TheNicePlace, a new area of 3,000 sq. m. next to the Headquarters, dedicated to exchanges, interactions, participation and knowledge construction, an inspiring space open to new experiences and initiatives.

Nice is a social organization that produces culture, relationships, work, and development: it does not interpret education as a simple accumulation of competences, but as knowledge flows that, weaving together, originate new opportunities, connections and growth. This knowledge is generated in order to be shared, it should not be limited to the sedimentation of values and learnings, but it should expand through a network of relations that multiplies people’s intelligences and sensitivities. And people, being social entities, need spaces like ThePlace where they can communicate, cooperate and share ideas. Working today means seizing chances to learn.

On the occasion of the opening of this “social hub”, Nice has chosen to translate its approach and its corporate philosophy into images, through a lyrical video, a visual poem. Conceived and directed by Giorgio Di Tullio (philosopher, anthropologist and innovation designer), it is a tribute to technology based on the words of Arthur C. Clarke (British writer, author of “2001: A Space Odyssey”): “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.

But the film is even more a tribute to Gio Ponti, architect, designer, thinker, writer, FontanaArte’s Art Director and one of the most inspiring figures of Italian style. Gio Ponti is the link connecting the temporary exhibition Shapes of Heart(curated by Wurbs) with the whole activity and with Nice philosophy. Gio Ponti used to say “nothing has come to pass, that hasn’t been dreamed before”: a vision that Nice adopts and shares, having always believed in the power of dreams, and in the passion, curiosity and search of excitement that allow their realization.

We are all connected, interactive, digital. But “digit” means “touch”: a new gestural and tactile alphabet is born. Gestures are part of our everyday life, they are meaningful, they are functional: we use gestures to open a drawer, to write a text, to push a button, to grab a remote control. Now even to launch an APP, a program, a code string. What’s happening when our new “digital” gestures directly originate events in real life, when the connection between gesture and nature becomes straight, unmediated? Something magic is happening, the magic of a world in which Nice wants to keep on being protagonist: “Our world is magic, our world is Nice”.

The video, which is site-specific, has been realized directly within ThePlace, and developed on a 21x4 meter screen.

Video transcript and credits: bit.ly/1ZT57iT.