ROBOTOR was invited to Cologne for DIGITAL-X 2023, the world’s largest exhibition dedicated to digitalization themes. 

On September 20 and 21, in one of the city’s central squares, a ROBOTOR robot sculpted a marble artwork directly in front of the public.

As a tribute to the host city, the robot created Hennes, the copy of the mascot of the Cologne football team, in white Carrara marble. The goat, always a symbol of the city club, has become the most popular mascot in the entire German football world and is present in the club’s logo.

DIGITAL-X is the global exhibition of digitalization: two million square meters of event space and over 50,000 participants.

In the heart of Cologne, the innovations of the near future, presented by George Clooney, can be experienced firsthand. 

“Be digital” has become the mantra of the millennium as digitalization increasingly determines our daily lives and life in general. ROBOTOR is a concrete example of this, and for this reason, the organizers wanted the sculptor robot in Cologne.

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Artist Barry X Ball installs a ROBOTOR robot in his studio in New York.

The artist, who has never hidden the importance of technology in his way of working, had relied on TORART over the years.

Barry X Ball is a sculptor who lives and works in New York.

Barry X Ball deconstructs works of the past, analyzes their content, thinks of new ways to present them, what to change and what not to… and the result takes radically different forms.

From a technical point of view, Barry X Ball combines manual craftsmanship, familiar to sculptors working centuries ago, with cutting-edge technological processes, such as robots, digital modeling, 3D scanners, computers, etc. Their combination is what makes his work unique. “I think Michelangelo Buonarroti would also use robots today. – declared Barry X Ball – I use what is best for the work.”

In his new studio in New York, Barry X Ball wanted a ROBOTOR robot.

It is a robot from the BOT-ONE series, specifically the L model, which allows working with blocks of up to 35 tons for works up to 3.5 meters high.

Barry X Ball, who for many years entrusted TORART with the task of creating his works, thus had the opportunity to verify the potential of ROBOTOR robots, an experience that led him to decide to become “autonomous”.

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The replica traveled around the world as a powerful symbol of peace and hope: New York, London, Dubai, Florence.

Palmyra, also known as the Bride of the Desert, was one of the most important cities in Syria in ancient times. Before its occupation by the terrorist group ISIS in May 2015, the Roman monuments of Palmyra were not widely known to the general public. Just a year later, the site became a powerful symbol of the value of cultural heritage.

Palmyra is a crossroads of civilizations.  Indeed, perhaps more than any other archaeological site of its kind, the fabric of Palmyra reads like a history of the early fusion of Eastern and Western cultural practices, styles, religions, and languages.  

At the heart of Palmyra is a spectacular colonnaded street with a Triumphal Arch at its entrance. This Roman arch is one of the most beautiful monuments among the many remarkable ones of the ancient city.

In late summer 2015, the arch, along with numerous other significant buildings on the site, was reduced to rubble by ISIS terrorists who had occupied the ancient city since spring. 

The UN Security Council condemned the destruction of cultural heritage in Syria by the so-called Islamic State, devastation that UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova called outright ‘war crimes.’

In 2016, it was decided to reproduce the Triumphal Arch not only because it is a powerful symbol of Palmyra but also as a means to send a message of peace and hope, demonstrating how new technologies can contribute to the process of restoration and reconstruction, and drawing attention to the importance of helping to protect and preserve the history and heritage of peoples threatened worldwide – whether due to conflict, natural disasters, or simply a lack of investment or changes in local circumstances.

The Institute for Digital Archaeology (https://digitalarchaeology.org.uk/) was, in those years, in the early stages of a project to document and protect the cultural heritage of Palmyra, essential documentation for creating a 3D reconstruction of the Arch.

TORART, one of LITIX’s Business Units, was entrusted with the task of reproducing the destroyed monument to scale.

On April 19, 2016, the 26,000-pound reconstruction of the Triumphal Arch was erected in Trafalgar Square and opened to the public in a ceremony led by then-Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. The public reception was extraordinary, with many tens of thousands of people making the trip to visit it. On September 19, 2016, after two weeks at sea, it was unveiled for the second time by Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, H.E. Mohammed Al Gergawi, and IDA Director Roger Michel at City Hall Park, New York City. Since then, the replica has traveled to the World Government Summit in Dubai and the G7 Culture Summit in Florence.

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The replica of the Parthenon marbles, now in the British Museum, could be the solution to the ongoing dispute between Greece and England.

The life-size copy of the head of the horse of Selene from the Parthenon in Greece, which has been in the British Museum in London since 1817, was produced by LITIX using the expertise of TORART and the robots of ROBOTOR to demonstrate how faithful replicas of classical works can be the solution to cultural disputes such as the one between Greece and England.

The Greeks claim the works, but the British Museum maintains they were acquired legitimately. The problem could be solved with the help of robotic workmanship. This is the dream of Roger Michel, executive director of the Institute of Digital Archaeology at the University of Oxford, with whom LITIX had already collaborated with TORART to create the copy of the Arch of Palmyra destroyed by ISIS and now for the replica of the Parthenon marbles. 

The first reconstruction in Pentelic marble of the Parthenon sculptures was presented at the Freud Museum in London on November 1, 2022, and it was a huge success! Roger Michel of the IDA and Sir Simon Jenkins unveiled the marble reconstruction carved by ROBOTOR robots and hand-finished by TORART craftsmen — precise to a fraction of a millimeter — to an enthusiastic crowd of journalists, artists, academics, and diplomats. The precision of the copy of this iconic sculpture was immediately evident.

The national and international media coverage was massive and immediate, with the story of the inauguration covered by BBC, ITV, Sky, ABC Culture, Reuters, AP, The Times, The New York Times, National Geographic, Times Radio, and major newspapers and TV stations worldwide.

All the major Greek national newspapers reported the story on their front pages: Ta Nea, Kathimerini, Greek City Times, Europost, Neakriti. 

The Greek ambassador to the UK, Ioannis Raptakis, stated that this solution provides the government with a “unique opportunity” to return the sculptures.

“Greece is willing to lend the British Museum cultural treasures that have never left the country – the ambassador told the newspapers – or explore the idea of allowing the British Museum to create a high-quality marble copy not only of the sculptures it holds but also of those of the Parthenon in the Acropolis Museum in Athens.”

It is thanks to the quality of LITIX’s work that a previously unthinkable discussion has been opened. 

One of the great advantages of using robots is the ability to work 24/7 without any human supervision. In 2020, TORART sculpted one of Canova’s most famous works , Cupid and Psyche, the sculptural group that the neoclassicism master took five years to complete in 1793, in marble in just over 10 days.

Today, thanks to LITIX, reproducing a work of art from the past is possible with sustainable costs and timeframes, allowing more people to enjoy the artwork.

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The collaboration between LITIX and major museum institutions continues in the service of digital archaeology projects and the recovery of artistic heritage.

Giacomo Massari and Filippo Tincolini, founding partners of LITIX, accepted the request of the “Isidoro Falchi” Civic Archaeological Museum in Vetulonia for a contribution to the realization of the exhibition “In Time of DANCE. In Harmony, Grace, and Beauty” by reproducing in Carrara marble the divine Tersicore, a work by Canova.

The life-size work (182 cm), representing the Muse of dance and choral song, was completed by Canova around the end of 1811. Belonging to the illustrious collector Giovanni Battista Sommariva, it was acquired by Luigi Magnani in 1984. Today it is visible in the eponymous Foundation in Parma, where LITIX technicians went to make the first 3D scan of the statue.  

The execution of the work involved the two Business Units of LITIX, ROBOTOR and TORART. 

The scanning of the work was essential to allow TORART’s sculptor robots to create the replica. TORART is an art workshop that combines tradition and innovation, linking respect for traditional work with a passion for the most modern technologies. TORART, in fact, uses ROBOTOR’s robots to work the stone. OR-OS, software developed internally, uses the 3D file of the work to be created to autonomously generate the program that allows the robot to work the stone independently.

“The Tersicore on display is not the banal copy of the Tersicore we admire in the Traversotolo museumo – declare Giacomo Massari and Filippo Tincolini. -. The Tersicore shaped by the robot summarizes all the values of the Canova original but lives its own life. As a replica, it has a clear function of representation and memory multiplication. We chose not to intervene on the work with any hand finishing because it would inevitably lead to chasing the goal of a faithful copy of the original, confusing copy and original.”

From today, Canova’s Tersicore also lives in a 3D file and a marble replica. 

The fragility of the artistic and cultural heritage we have inherited finds in technology the solution to make accessible to everyone works destroyed by natural or human events, works that cannot be moved from their natural location, works contested due to disputes over legitimate ownership, or simply impossible to exhibit. 

Reproducing a work of art for LITIX has become a mission: to preserve and enhance to pass on.

“IN TIME OF DANCE. IN HARMONY, GRACE, AND BEAUTY” 

“Isidoro Falchi” Civic Archaeological Museum in Vetulonia (July 1 to November 6 2022) 

An archaeological-artistic themed exhibition, featuring DANCE and the feminine declination of this extraordinary performing art, a common thread of a narrative capable of crossing the concepts of HARMONY, GRACE, and BEAUTY.

In addition to Tersicore, the exhibition features masterpieces on loan from the MANN, National Archaeological Museum of Naples, and the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara.

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