HISTORY AND FUTURE

In the year of 2003, the HOLOTOPIA Experimental Contemporary Art and Music Festival was created in one of the most formidable and unforgettable places of the world: Punta Campanella.

Punta Campanella is a magical location described by Homer in his Odyssey - when Ulysses is confronted with the sirens.

In 1911, the British writer Norman Douglas referred to Punta Campanella in several occasions: «It seems to me that the Sirens, like other old Hellenic ideals, are coming to honour again. During their westward progress they tarried long about the headland of Athenaeum, which is the southern horn of the Bay of Naples now called Punta Campanella…».

It also was a region that conquered in definitive terms the legendary king Richard the Lion-Hearted, when he stayed there before going to the Middle East to fight Saladino. At that moment, in the 12th century, the British king delayed his departure to Jerusalem in about one year, so fascinated he was with the region.

Between Naples and Salerno, king Richard lived some of his most peaceful and enchanted days.

From the high lands, together the profound sea, turned to the magical islands of Capri and Ischia, with its majestic renaissance tower, Punta Campanella presently is a private property of Dr. Alberto del Genio, a worldwide leading surgeon and scientist.

Not only a fabulous historical site, with an amazing renewed Renaissance tower, Dr. del Genio's large property is also equipped with housing for residents.

For the creation of the festival in 2003, Dr. del Genio invited the architect and composer Emanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta to elaborate and direct an international event oriented to contemporary music and art always with a transmediatic approach, connecting future and past, technology and nature.

The first edition of the HOLOTOPIA Festival joined important personalities like the composer Phill Niblock, one of the creators, with LaMonte Young and Terry Riley, of the minimal music in the 1950s; the Japanese composer Takehisa Kosugi, who actively participated in the Fluxus contemporary art movement in the 1960s; the architect and philosopher Marcos Novak; the philosopher Massimo Donà; the musician Leonello Tarabella; the artist Renzo Tieri, the poet Aldo Roda, the art promoter Lucrezia De Domizio and a formidable exhibition with original works by Joseph Beuys

The site of the 2003 HOLOTOPIA Festival with more information about the event is at http://www.asa-art.com/holotopia.html

In 2007, together with Maria Graff and Emanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta, Dr. Alberto del Genio decided to transform the HOLOTOPIA Festival in the HOLOTOPIA Academy - enlarging the spectrum of activities and creating a unique pole for reflection in a transcultural and transdisciplinary basis.

The word HOLOTOPIA has its etymological roots in the Latim holos and topos, which respectively indicate the idea of totality and of place, indicating a site for activities linking the most varied disciplines.

Started under the sign of contemporary music - because Homer appointed the place as the site of the muses - its field is enlarged to all disciplines in different epochs, always having the human values and the future of Humanity as its main referential point.