Pigreco 1991 - 1994

In 1991 Mario Canali, Flavia Alman and Stefano Roveda founded the company PIGRECO.
Their mission was to offer high-quality electronic graphics and 3D animation, multimedia products and interactive installations.
The company owned one of the first workstations capable of running advanced 3-D modelling and animation programs. Their work was featured in television ads, scientific films, advertising, book and magazine covers, including the first 13 covers for Virtual magazine.

Through an agreement with Sony they were given permission to use one of the first experimental recordable videodiscs, which allowed them to create the first interactive stations for managing multiple video screens while using the emerging, touch-screen interface technology.

The year 1992 marked the beginning of their research work in the field of virtual reality.
The SATORI virtual reality station, created in 1993 together with computer scientist Marcello Campione starting from a communication project created for Reggiani Illuminazione, was the first Italian example of artistic research in the field of immersive virtual reality.
SATORI’s virtual spaces were visited by over twenty-five thousand visitors at national and international events (Arte Virtual in Madrid, Culture Technologies Convergence at the McLuhan Institute of Toronto, The European Media Art Festival in Osnabruck, Germany, L’opera e i suoi racconti at the Triennale in Milan, Futuro Remoto in Naples, the Video Art Festival in Locarno, Artec’95 in Nagoya, Japan and Segnali d’Opera at the Civic Gallery of Modern Art in Gallarate).

In 1994 their research on real-time animation and its interactivity led Stefano Roveda and Flavia Alman to create EUCLIDE: a virtual entity that appears under the guise of multiple synthetic faces that the public is free to interact with. The character is animated through a data-glove by a hidden actor, the brilliant Giacomo Verde.

The company was dissolved in 1994. Stefano Roveda joined the Studio Azzurro group, Flavia Alman and Sabine Reiff founded PIGRECA and Mario Canali continued his work with Studio Canali.