On 8 and 9 October, Bastardini hosted two days of ROBOT17, the international festival of electronic music and digital arts. A chance to rediscover the spaces of the complex through contemporary musical experimentation, just a few weeks before the official reopening.
Some buildings have such a long history that they have lived many different lives – and Bastardini’s includes a significant cultural season, with theatre and artistic experiments that helped shape the history of Bologna.
On 8 and 9 October, a new page was written by ROBOT17 – ?Syntax Error, which brought electronic music back to the halls of the former Ospedale degli Innocenti.
Two days in which music filled some of the complex’s most distinctive rooms, giving audiences the chance to rediscover them through a programme with plenty of room for sound and audiovisual research.
Two days of musical experimentation
On Thursday 8 October, the Sala Tagliapietre hosted the live preview of Tremulous Things, a project by Suz and Giuseppe Franchellucci that weaves the Bologna-based singer-songwriter’s music together with electroacoustic cello. Next, Australian composer and sound artist Lawrence English gave the Italian premiere of The Rest Is My Ghost, a work exploring the relationship between memory, sound and listening.
The evening continued with the vocal and electronic explorations of British artist feeo, before closing with a DJ set by Filibalou.
On 9 October, Luca Maria Baldini and Salvatore Insana opened the programme with Nessun cielo è senza luce, an audiovisual performance in which Gregorian chant, field recordings and digital processes shaped a reflection on Franciscan thought and its relevance today.
Aho Ssan’s electronic explorations then gave way to the hybrid live set of Front de Cadeaux with Gabor, before a closing DJ set by Matteo Vallicelli.
On both days, the Sala degli Innocenti hosted Baronato Quattro Bellezze, a Rome-based project with a collective, ever-changing nature, able to adapt its improvisation sessions to the spaces that host them.
?Syntax Error, or when the system breaks down
The seventeenth edition of ROBOT started from a reflection on our relationship with a present saturated with information, where codes multiply and become ever harder to interpret.
The theme ?Syntax Error proposed the system error as a chance to suspend automatic responses and reconsider the value of the unexpected. An invitation to recover the attention that listening requires, letting the live experience keep its unpredictability.
At Bastardini, this idea took concrete form in performances that asked the audience to listen in different ways, across electroacoustic compositions, improvisation and audiovisual experimentation.
The spaces played their part too. The Sala Tagliapietre and the Sala degli Innocenti, with their architecture and history, welcomed contemporary musical languages without losing their own character.
For Bastardini, hosting ROBOT17 meant making room for one of the organisations that have been reshaping Bologna’s cultural scene for years. And seeing its halls become places of experimentation and listening once again.
ROBOT17 – ?Syntax Error
8–9 October 2026
ROBOT Festival is a project by Associazione Culturale Shape.
Photos: Roberto Dari
