Autumn 2026. Notes from South Tyrol, London, Lugano, Vienna and the Vatican.

A sculpture of the world’s most elusive inventor still has to fit inside a lift.

In Lugano, before the conference rooms filled, part of my work involved coordinating the Satoshi Nakamoto sculpture’s movements at night. The photographs tell that story better than an event programme: a truck by the lake, people gathered around a plinth, Satoshi in the lift.

A flatbed truck carrying the Satoshi Nakamoto sculpture stands beside Lake Lugano at night.
Before the panels, a late-night delivery by the lake.
People stand around the Satoshi Nakamoto sculpture and its plinth inside a lift.
Satoshi in the lift. The part that never appears on the agenda.

It was an unusually literal version of something I spend much of my life doing: helping an idea find its place in the world.

This autumn, that work took me from Emotitech’s research in South Tyrol to conversations about Bitcoin and capital, a wave across the Vatican Library, and old friends reunited at Museion. Several projects finally reached their public moment. Behind each one were teams, long preparations and plenty of energy spent out of sight.

I came away tired, curious and more convinced that research, finance and culture belong in the same conversation. But the moments I keep returning to were often smaller than the events themselves.

Emotitech, and the questions we cannot shortcut

At home in South Tyrol, Emotitech is beginning to emerge from stealth. Years of R&D, investment and work with new partners are becoming something we can share more openly. Friends and collaborators have come from California, Zurich, Milan and Rome to spend time at our headquarters.

Those visits matter to me. A project can sound perfectly coherent on a call. Around a table, people ask the question you have been avoiding, or notice the assumption everyone else has accepted. The work becomes more demanding, and more interesting.

Several people sit around a meeting table under circular ceiling lights.
The discussions behind Emotitech’s next chapter.
Two participants wear chest sensors during a demonstration beside laptops displaying graphs.
Exploring what the body’s signals can tell us in a Snowroom.

Meeting Federico Faggin at NOI Techpark in Bolzano on 16 October brought another dimension to those questions. A pioneer of the microprocessor, Faggin now asks what computation can explain about human experience, and where its limits lie.

His ideas about consciousness and information have long influenced my curiosity. At Emotitech, our research explores electromagnetic signals in the body and whether they can reveal meaningful information about emotional and physiological states. Affective technology, concerned with recognising and responding to emotion, is part of that ambition; possible health applications widen the questions further.

Federico Faggin and a moderator sit on stage beneath the poster for L’uomo non è un algoritmo.
Federico Faggin at NOI Techpark, 16 October 2026.
More photographs from the Faggin evening and computing displays
An audience listens to Federico Faggin beneath an event poster at NOI Techpark.
A full room for Federico Faggin in Bolzano, 16 October 2026.
An orange BASIC programming manual lies beside a vintage computer keyboard.
A reminder of the computing history behind today’s questions.
A green computer expansion board with rows of chips is displayed on a white surface.
The physical history behind a digital world.

Inspiration gives us questions. Experiments must establish what we can actually measure, reproduce and use. Faggin’s theories are not evidence that our approach works, and a health application would need its own validation. I found the encounter energising precisely because it held engineering and these larger questions in the same room.

From a handshake in London to Satoshi after dark

My stop at Bitcoin Corporate Day at London’s Honourable Artillery Company was brief. I went to meet prospective partners, shake hands and put a human being behind the messages. Trust often starts with something that simple. What matters is whether you follow through afterwards.

A Bitcoin Corporate Day 2026 banner stands beneath a display of historic weapons at the HAC.
Bitcoin Corporate Day, London, 22 September 2026.
More photographs from London
The HAC sign hangs above a narrow entrance beside the Honourable Artillery Company headquarters plaque.
Arriving at the Honourable Artillery Company in London.
Small groups of guests talk on the lawn outside the HAC headquarters.
The conversations that continue between sessions.
A passenger stands on a London Underground platform beside a Devin advertisement reading Let the models compete.
Even the commute had an opinion about AI.

Lugano was more intensive. Working behind the scenes of The Future of Capital Markets at LAC and Plan ₿ Forum meant moving between established finance, the Bitcoin community and the practical work that makes a gathering happen.

For a deep-tech entrepreneur, the way money reaches a company is a daily constraint. Patient research needs people prepared to fund uncertainty. New financial infrastructure becomes interesting when it changes who can participate, how ownership works, or how long a team can keep learning. Those are the questions I bring into these rooms.

Then there was the sculpture. Coordinating its night-time movements was a reminder that even the most abstract discussions have a physical world underneath them. Someone has to arrange access, timing and the people who will get an object into place. I enjoy that part of the work, when a project becomes tangible.

The Satoshi Nakamoto sculpture sits on its plinth by Lake Lugano, with lights reflected across the water.
The sculpture in place, with the city reflected behind it.
People stand around the Satoshi Nakamoto sculpture and its plinth inside a lift.
Satoshi in the lift. The part that never appears on the agenda.
Two attendees stand on either side of the Satoshi Nakamoto sculpture with Lake Lugano behind them.
The sculpture in place, and the conversations around it with Prague coming next.
More photographs from Lugano and Plan ₿ Forum
People work beside a delivery vehicle outside an illuminated building at night.
The work before the public arrival.
The glass entrance of Lugano Arte e Cultura is illuminated at night.
LAC before the conference day.
A layered sculptural object stands beside The Future of Capital Markets Lugano 2026 event signage.
The Future of Capital Markets at LAC, Lugano.
The Satoshi Nakamoto sculpture stands indoors in front of a window overlooking Lake Lugano.
A different view of Satoshi inside LAC.
An orange Bitcoin installation stands outside a conference building in Lugano.
Lugano during Plan ₿ Forum.
A person stands in warm sunlight beside a tall window in an otherwise quiet room.
A quiet moment between the busy ones.
Visitors move through a staircase wrapped in colourful artwork and Bitcoin motifs.
Art threaded through the route to the forum.
A visitor poses beside a staircase covered in Bitcoin-themed artwork.
A moment away from the conference rooms.
Two attendees wearing conference lanyards smile inside an ornate hall.
A reunion at Plan ₿ Forum.
A speaker appears in silhouette against a bright screen and a red-lit stage.
A moment from the stage.

What a sculpture can start

In Vienna, the Satoshi Nakamoto sculpture arrived in Viertel Zwei, near the University of Economics and Business. In a city so closely associated with the Austrian School of Economics, it feels like an invitation to continue an old argument about money in a new form.

A crew guides the seated Satoshi Nakamoto sculpture into position beneath lifting straps.
A public symbol begins with people getting it into place.
The seated Satoshi Nakamoto sculpture stands beside the lake in Vienna’s Viertel Zwei.
Satoshi Nakamoto in Viertel Zwei, Vienna.
More photographs from the Vienna installation
Workers and a crane position a sculpture beside the lake in Vienna’s Viertel Zwei.
Installing Vienna’s Satoshi Nakamoto sculpture.
A white cloth covers the sculpture and its plinth beside the lake in Viertel Zwei.
Before the unveiling in Vienna.
The layered Satoshi Nakamoto sculpture appears partly transparent on its plinth beside the water.
An inventor who appears and disappears as the viewpoint changes.
Sunlight shines through the layered sculpture beneath the glass towers of Viertel Zwei.
Satoshi against the light in Viertel Zwei.

A public artwork reaches people who would never open a technical paper. They can walk around it, watch it appear and disappear between its metal layers, and ask why it is there. That first question can take a conversation surprisingly far.

A wave across centuries of memory

At the Vatican, the scale was entirely different. JR’s Diluvium turned the sixteenth-century façade of the Apostolic Library into a monumental black-and-white wave, roughly 30 metres high and 70 metres wide.

Marco, my partner for Art-PR in Italy, handled communications around the opening. Seeing Pope Leo XIV take in the installation during his birthday visit was surreal. An image full of force and movement had entered a place built to preserve knowledge across centuries.

JR’s monumental wave covers the Vatican Apostolic Library façade beneath a pink evening sky.
Diluvium at dusk, Vatican Apostolic Library, 2026.
Pope Leo XIV and clergy look towards JR’s wave installation in the Vatican courtyard.
Pope Leo XIV during the exhibition opening on 14 September 2026.
More photographs from the Vatican
Pope Leo XIV stands with clergy and visitors inside the Vatican Library.
During Pope Leo XIV’s visit to the Vatican Library.
A wide view shows JR’s wave spanning the Vatican Library façade, with a small figure below.
The scale of Diluvium, seen against the library façade.

I keep thinking about that encounter. An artist can change how a building is seen without moving a single wall. It makes me wonder what else we have stopped noticing simply because its familiar form tells us we already understand it.

RAMMELLZEE comes to Bolzano

Closer to home, RAMM:ELL:ZEE TIME:LINE arrived at Museion. I have followed this project for years. My friend Mari Horiuchi photographed RAMMELLZEE during his lifetime; seeing her images travel from the Palais de Tokyo to my hometown made the opening particularly personal.

RAMMELLZEE moved between graffiti, music, sculpture, performance and his own theories of language. His work resists a neat category. I find that refreshing after spending so much time trying to explain unfamiliar technology in terms people already know.

RAMMELLZEE, wearing an elaborate mask and costume, leans over a concrete ledge at night.
RAMMELLZEE © Mari Horiuchi. Courtesy of Red Bull Arts New York and Rammellzee Estate.
An elaborate masked costume is displayed under deep blue lighting.
Inside RAMMELLZEE’s constructed universe.
More photographs from RAMM:ELL:ZEE TIME:LINE
A visitor stands outside Museion in front of the yellow RAMMELLZEE exhibition graphics.
RAMM:ELL:ZEE TIME:LINE arrives in Bolzano.
RAMMELLZEE rides a white horse in an archival photograph.
An archival photograph of RAMMELLZEE on horseback.
An open suitcase-like artwork glows in blue, pink and green exhibition lighting.
An illuminated work in the RAMMELLZEE exhibition.
A colourful sculptural head with protruding geometric elements is photographed against a white background.
A sculptural work from the RAMMELLZEE selection.
A framed diptych contains layered line drawings and orange marks.
A work on paper in the RAMMELLZEE selection.
Visitors gather among illuminated artworks in a gallery lit with blue and pink light.
The opening at Museion, Bolzano.

The opening also brought friends from the international worlds of art, streetwear and urban culture to South Tyrol. There was pleasure in the exhibition, and just as much in sitting around a table with people whose paths rarely cross in the same place. This time, that place was home.

Two people talk across a restaurant table set with green glasses and bottles.
Time around a table with old friends in this pic Giorgio De Mitri with Fede.

A small region, a wider conversation

That connection between home and a wider world continued with Unruly Futures: The State of the Future in London on 4 November. Unruly Capital, a deep-tech investment firm directed from my region, brought people together around the technologies and institutions taking shape now.

Two speakers in armchairs are seen from the stage with an audience beyond them.
A different view of the conversation at Unruly Futures.
More photographs from Unruly Futures
An audience watches a speaker on a stage branded Unruly Futures.
Unruly Futures: The State of the Future, London, 4 November 2026.
Guests gather beneath pink lighting and The State of the Future signage.
After the sessions at Unruly Futures.
Four attendees pose in front of the illuminated Unruly Futures sign.
People behind the conversations at Unruly Futures.

I like seeing that ambition come from the Alpine Region. A place can give you roots and still leave the horizon open. The same is true of a profession: building a technology company has taken me into finance and art because the people and questions I encounter there change how I do the work.

The part that does not go on the programme

Between the journeys, family came to visit. We spent weekends together, with time to walk, talk and enjoy being in the same place. After so many schedules built around a project or a departure, I treasured days that did not need to produce anything.

A person stands in silhouette between trees against sunlit mountain peaks.
A weekend back in South Tyrol.
More photographs from weekends at home
Two people look out across an Alpine valley from a wooden fence.
Time together during a family visit.
A horse leans towards the camera across a paddock fence beneath a blue sky.
A less scheduled part of the weekend.
Sunlit mountain peaks rise beyond an autumn meadow and trees.
The landscape around home.

This autumn also brought a loss I am still finding words for. We said goodbye to Akiiki, our fifteen-year-old cat, who had accompanied us through so much of our journey.

Akiiki, a tabby cat, sits in a patch of sunlight beside a wall.
Akiiki, our companion through so much of the journey.

For fifteen years, he was part of the ordinary rhythm of home. The journeys and projects changed; he was there through so much of it. Now his absence is part of coming home, too.

I like to imagine him setting off on another journey, with new adventures ahead.

An illustration shows a tabby cat sitting in a suitcase beside a colourful bird in a castle-like setting.
For Akiiki.