Beyond hierarchies: Electroacoustic music, intermedial dramaturgy and imagined space in <i>Esploratori dell’Infinito</i>

Abstract The article examines the artistic project Esploratori dell’Infinito as a paradigmatic case of intermedial theatre grounded in a research-through-practice methodology, in which sound, music, voice, text and scenic space operate on an equal ontological and functional footing. Rather than a narrative transposition or the layering of heterogeneous media onto a pre-existing dramaturgical framework, the work is conceived as a perceptual device whose dramaturgy arises from the dynamic interplay of multiple semiotic systems. Central to the analysis is the role of sound and music, not as a decorative or illustrative layer but as autonomous dramaturgical material capable of producing space, meaning and imagination. Drawing on practices of musique concrète, soundscape composition, electroacoustic processing and the live performance of acousmatic music, the project fosters an embodied listening that transforms the spectator into a co-author of the performative event. The article situates this process within current theories of intermedial adaptation, listening modes and sonic spaces, arguing that Esploratori dell’Infinito advances a counter-model to linear production logics and proposes an operative framework for genuinely integrated sonic dramaturgy.