Biography

Gianni Toti (Rome, 24 June 1924 - Rome, 8 January 2007) was an Italian poet, writer, journalist, and cineaste. In the early 80s he created "Poetronica" (poetry and cinema elaborated with electronic art). Graduated in Law, he published poetry books, articles and novels. He was partisan against Nazism and Fascism in the Italian Resistenza and, for many years, journalist and correspondent for the political newspaper L’Unità. Editor-in-chief of "La voce della Sicilia", "Lavoro", and of the cultural review "Carte segrete".

In the early 80s he began an experimentation where he mixed poetry, cinema and electronic art, creating a new language, which he defined "poetronica" (video poetry and electronic poetry). By realizing his works he collaborated with specialized cultural centers, such as CICV (Centre de Recherche Pierre Schaeffer, in Montbéliard-Belfort, France), that gave him the possibility to utilize technologies and equips of technicians for creating artistic projects.

In his works Toti mixes history, politics, legends, oral traditions, folk culture. His writing contains idiomatic expressions, neologisms, words taken from many languages.