In an interview with LeGrace G. Benson, Gilardi stated that his personal encounter with artist Michelangelo Pistoletto and others helped him in the development of his own artwork (in parallel with that of U.S.
While trying to comprehend the cybernetic idea of feedback and the scientific rationale behind man's mental synthesis, his perspective on reality changed; he then focused on the fluxus and relationship of things around him.
His uncompromising commitment in favor of closer ties between art and life pushed for action in the fields of psychiatry and anthropology; Gilardi experimented with collective forms of political theater, workshops, and activist struggles with the workers of Fiat and against the implementing of TAV (Treni Alta Velocità: High Speed Trains) in the years 1970–80.
During the 2000s, Gilardi initiated the outdoor project "Park of Living Art" in Turin, that welcomed artists ( Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Gilles Clément, Almarcegui Lara, and Michel Blazy ...) but also scientists and especially the public, invited to participate directly.
Creative experiences not only in Italy but also in Nicaragua, various countries in Africa, and in the territories of Native Americans in the United States of America contributed to the efforts as well.
Among the various creations "remember to install pulse" , in which the heartbeat of the observer of the work – recorded by a sensor – determines changes to the whole; Absolut, forest of synthetic materials, translucent and cold shared emotion, involves two people in a performance interactive computing, referring to new approaches and exchange in society: virtual and globalized.
A collaborative effort that grew from Gilardi's design, PAV is a monumental undertaking that transformed a disused parcel of land in the heart of Turin's working-class Lingotto district into a six-acre green space devoted to community, environmental, and artistic concerns.
Commissioned earthworks by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Lara Almarcegui define the site and provide an ongoing place of exploration for city residents and visitors alike.
The characteristic that this cycle of works has in common is that of involving as many people as possible in the interactive technology, placing in evidence the relational component in the sharing of the virtual and digital dimension.
The illustrated work "Connected Es" is characterized by the offer of bodily interfacing with devices for measuring one's breathing and heart-beat, leading to an intense emotional attuning.
This was a project (not achieved) of an "artistic-technological park" developed with a large group of artists and designers in the field of new media art, during the second half of the 1980s, for Parc de La Villette in Paris.
The project was centered around an enormous inhabitable sculpture, containing a virtual creative path dedicated to the five senses, and representing a "giant child" stretched out lying upon a grassy field.
Gilardi, also based on experience accumulated in elaborating the IXIANA project, then developed a new idea coherent with the new goals of artistic research, with particular reference to Life Science Art.