Keeper at WUF Basel 2024

01 July 2024

Alessandro Vidale, Sonia Peggiani and Anna Facibeni, researchers at the Department of Energy of the Politecnico di Milano, have been invited, together with Professor Carlo S. Casari, to participate in WUF Basel 2024 during the week of Art Basel, the important annual fair dedicated to modern and contemporary art. The event took place on June 11-12.

Through a futuristic perspective rooted in its guiding principle, WUF (We Understand the Future) spotlights visionary projects and creators who are redefining cultural narratives — simultaneously empowering journalists, media professionals, and thought leaders to discover and connect with original, impactful insights into the world of art, design, architecture, music, and more.

In Basel, the Keeper group introduced Impronta, which includes two products for the certification of works of art; Impronta was born thanks to the collaboration with the Italian artist Skygolpe in the scope of the Pypaint project, which now evolved in Keeper. These two products consist of:

• a coloured ink containing nanomaterials that can be used with a normal ballpoint pen or brush with which the artist can uniquely sign his or her works.
• an invisible label, based on a set of inks containing nanomaterials, which can be used to identify the works of art by means of a unique code without the possibility of forgery.

These results will be exploited in the framework of the Keeper project through the start-up Enigma, a recent spin-off of the Politecnico di Milano.

During the event, Alessandro and Sonia were also invited to discuss the idea behind Impronta and Keeper in this interview, that was published on the Italian online magazine ArtsLife.