In December 2014, two young donkeys named Thea and Noah arrived at the Vatican with a donation of donkey-milk powder intended for the maternity unit of the Vatican’s paediatric hospital. They were neither scenery nor a curiosity. Their visit made a practical initiative, brought by Eurolactis founder Pierluigi Christophe Orunesu, immediately tangible.
The encounter acquired an unexpected personal dimension when Pope Francis recalled his childhood in Argentina: his mother had given him donkey milk when she could not provide enough breast milk. A business initiative suddenly became a story about memory, care and what can pass from one generation to another.
Making an overlooked resource understandable
Established in Morges, Eurolactis set out to approach a resource largely overlooked by modern markets with seriousness: agricultural knowledge, demanding production methods and scientific collaboration. The point was not novelty for its own sake. It was to place an old resource in a contemporary context while recognising animal welfare and the constraints of its production.
The Vatican visit gives that approach a clear form. Thea and Noah made an unfamiliar subject easier to grasp; the donation had a defined institutional destination; and the Pope’s recollection connected the gesture to lived family memory. Innovation carries more meaning when people can recognise the human need within it.
From biological origin to artistic presence
Pierluigi Christophe Orunesu later turned to immersive culture through Cybel’Art and the icologram® protocol. The fields may appear far apart, yet they share a discipline: begin with an existing source and find a new way to convey its value without reducing it to a technical effect.
In this approach, an icologram® is presented as beginning with the volumetric capture of a real artist, physically present in a capture environment. That artist’s movement, expression and posture inform the representation. The intention differs from constructing a performer from scratch: the system is meant to serve an artistic presence, not replace it with a synthetic approximation.
That distinction does not remove the need to scrutinise tools and uses. Nor does technology, by itself, establish authenticity. Its value depends on the framework, artists’ consent and the care taken with what is carried forward.
Transmission without making the machine the subject
A visitor need not understand volumetric capture or Gaussian Splatting to meet an artwork. When a life-size artist speaks and moves from a recorded performance, the experience can make the technology understandable through emotion. The aim is not to hide the machinery, but to ensure that it does not become the main character.
This perspective suggests possibilities for museums, concert halls and classrooms, as well as for people unable to travel to a performance or cultural venue. It also informs the work shown in Cybel’Art’s portfolio. From the 2014 visit to today’s immersive practice, one question remains: how can an idea be carried forward without falsifying its origin? The answer begins less with technology than with attention—to the person, the animal, the artist and the memory they carry.
Editorial adaptation of the article by Pierluigi Christophe Orunesu, originally published on Substack on 1 September 2026. Read the original article on Substack