In the age of the “Internet of People and Things”, the dematerialisation of digital innovation creates real and solid links. An interconnected digital fabric that is ubiquitous, collaborative and adaptable, that supports the new information-based competitive and technological ecosystem.
The so-called “things” are nodes that are able to create signals that can then directly interact with cars, electric appliances, intelligent platforms and systems.

The Internet Festival explores “forms of the future” that relate to this phenomenon. These digital “nodes and links” redefine the work of art and its audience, the economy and its agents, technology, sport, security, personal identity, conflicts, the media, education,…

What was it like 30 years ago, when the first Italian “ping” was sent by the CNUCE (the National University Centre for Electronic Calculus) to the American Arpanet, the ancestor of the current Internet? What kind of political resolve allowed for the take-off of the Internet as we know it today? What were the main focuses in academics and research? How, if they did at all, did the worlds of big business, research and institutions communicate between themselves? The IF2016 will be looking back at all aspects of the 1980’s, its music, radio and television, before attempting to imagine the future: what will the next “forms of the future” be in, say, 2048, in politics, sociology, technology and culture?