52 spaces

52 spaces by Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner (London, 1964), presented in the museum’s Audio Room and curated by Maria Lodovica Ferrari, is a seminal sound work by the British artist and composer. Created in 2002 to mark the 90th anniversary of the birth of filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni, it draws on L’eclisse (1962), starring Monica Vitti, Antonioni’s favourite actress. Dialogue, ambient sounds, urban landscapes and fragments of music from the film are broken down, transformed and reassembled, interwoven with field recordings made by the artist in the streets of Rome. The real city and its cinematic counterpart thus overlap, merging into a single acoustic fabric. The result is an enigmatic narrative that invites audiences to pause and inhabit a space of pure contemplation. Through this process of fragmentation and recomposition, 52 spaces explores the relationship between sound, memory and place, transforming familiar elements of the city and the film into an immersive listening experience. The work encourages visitors to engage with Rome through its sounds, allowing the boundaries between cinematic fiction and everyday reality to become fluid and open to interpretation.