A quantum cat sets out to discover science — the opening sequence for BergamoScienza XXIII.

BergamoScienza is the science outreach festival that, since 2003, has involved the city and province of Bergamo every October with talks, conferences, exhibitions and workshops, with the aim of “making science accessible to everyone, especially young people and schools”.

For the twenty-third edition I was commissioned to conceive and animate the opening sequence, starting from the official image created by the Bergamo studio PG&W.

The image reinterpreted Schrödinger's cat, a symbol of the paradoxes of quantum physics, as a contemporary, recognizable character, mascot of the theme “In-Formazione. Dai quanti alla vita” (“In-Formation. From quanta to life”). Its paradox accompanied the exploration of information as a fundamental principle of nature, across quantum systems, biological processes, technology and artificial intelligence, with a different pose and situation for each field.

The opening sequence had to grow out of those images, so I started from the different versions of the cat, each with its own specific situation. I linked them with a single uninterrupted camera movement, using transitions to recreate the idea of a journey through science made of encounters with the same character, at once the same and different, just like in a paradox.

The event's key visual and the cat's eyes then became the protagonists of social content and digital billboards across the city.