Inaugurating the Florence Art Week 2023 will be zancan’s exhibition Sheltered Landscapes. From September 28 to October 15, at the Rifugio Digitale gallery, it will be the first event in the Digital Horizons cycle curated by Serena Tabacchi and in collaboration with Forma Edizioni: the layout of the exhibition is designed to heighten awareness of and interaction with digital art in all its forms, from generative art to multimedia installations. The exhibition is produced in collaboration with Forma Edizioni, Cinello who will present two DAW® (Digital Art Work) works by the artist, and POAP Studio who will install a unique token from the Digital Refuge community. The opening event is built thanks to the technical contribution of Vannucci Piante, responsible for the green installation in the courtyard of the shelter and along the street of Via della Fornace and Il Sorriso Ricevimenti, which will curate special refreshments for the opening. Digital Horizons will involve a sequence of native digital artists of international renown who, with the advent of new technologies linked to the world of the web and computer programming, have been able to manipulate the digital framework to create artistic forms linked to the art of the ephemeral, creating works of video art, digital sculpture, immersive environments and sound landscapes. The technology that supports this form of artistic expression is continuously evolving, offering digital horizons in which spectators can glimpse the future, thanks to the artists’ intuition. The series of exhibitions scheduled will bring site-specific works of digital art to Florence, conceived and created specifically for Rifugio Digitale, formerly a WWII air raid shelter, restored thanks to the work of the architecture studio Archea Associati, inaugurated on 2022. For Sheltered Landscapes, the artist has chosen to compose a naturalistic landscape coded along sixteen monitors. Its specificity is given by the arrangement of the work itself, which reflects the artist’s desire to reconsider his whole concept of composition, adding a narrative dimension to the work and using the length of the tunnel as a timeline. Every part of the work is continued on the screen that follows, creating a constantly evolving landscape as the viewer walks through the gallery. The works exhibited are the culmination of two years of plotting algorithms, and were created by the artist to represent nature through the medium of digital programming code. zancan’s new work follows one of his earlier works, Kumono Shingou, a collection of one hundred generative works inspired by Japanese culture. Transposing the setting to Italy, he introduces elements of Florentine architecture into the process of artistic design, albeit in a minimalist and highly stylized format, with local arboreal species typical of Tuscan landscapes. The intent of this work is not realism, or naturalistic accuracy, but rather a mixture of elements from different cultures testifying to the artist’s experience of the world seen through his works. There is a certain timelessness about them, where the remains of ancient civilizations encounter the graphic elements of the digital era. The tension between the digital architecture, at times rigid and clearly identifiable through monochromatic lines and shapes, confirms the coexistence as well as the interference of humanity with the natural world. The exhibition presents Rifugio Digitale collectors with two DAW® works in collaboration with Cinello, two limited edition lithographs of 15 each and organic cotton T-shirts with zancan's original graphics available at Forma Edizioni's website.