VIRTUALITY&INTERACTIVITY
II
"Digital Renaissance"
26-30 May 1999 "Ex Stazione Leopolda",
Piazzale di Porta al Prato
Florence, Italy.
Curator: Franz Fischnaller
Production: F.A.B.R.I.CATORS
Architects of Culture - Fabricators of Ideas
Via F.lli Bronzetti 6, 20129 Milano - Italy
Phone : 39-02-70128233. Fax: 39-02-76110498
email: fabricat@galactica.it
www.fabricat.com
Virtuality & Interactivity II is an "International Exhibition of Multimedia Arts and Applied Research" of Mediartech, promoted and organized by Regione Toscana and Rete Toscana dell'Alta Tecnologia.
"Virtuality &Interactivity II" explore the sensuality of the new arts and experience the breaking down of the frontiers of the traditionalism of the twentieth century!.
"Virtuality &Interactivity II" displays provocative interactive installations, unexpected digital works, cutting edge pieces and installations in the fields of art, science, culture, virtual heritage, technology..Multimedia, VR, telematic, robotics. Creatives interfaces will be used as the media."Virtuality and Interactivity II" invited selected institutions,universities, labs, events, authors, producers, Interactive Science Centers, museums for digital arts, labs, artists and designers, digital production houses,scientists and cultural entities, from Europe and around the world.Also invited groups, individuals and institutions which are working on cutting edge projects and key research projects, who are inventing, creating, developing, and are participating actively with the evolution and development of Digital Media.. who undertand the historical consequences and, have assumed the challenge for making it a reality.
An integral review among various installations in which producers and laboratories that work in the sector of virtual reality as well as people involved in applied investigation and in the world of investigation and multimedia. This year, "Virtuality&Interactivity II" is dedicated, to a great extent, to the installations that are being produced ad hoc for the purpose in coproduction or in collaboration with different laboratories and companies on an throughout European. For example: " Pinocchio Interactive, Robots avatars dreaming with virtual illusions, Tracking the Net!".
One of the objectives of "Virtuality&Interactivity II" is to assume the responsibility of producers and to generate within its own event installations and productions which could be presented later, on a world wide level and eventually remain on display as permanent works in museums and interactive centres.The productions of "Virtuality&Interactivity II", independent to its contents and typology of installations, carry with it the basic philosophy. The "Digital Renaissance". A substantial part of "Virtuality and Interactivity II" will be itinerant, including naturally, the works produced ad hoc for the exhibit.
Education, information, culture, art are main priorities of "Virtuality&Interactivity II"..to extend the knowldge of the new media in the different stratas of society.. as among students, professionals, and people who are simply facinated by what is taking place. As well as to stimulate interest, to increase the awareness of this new reality, to stimulate the field of cultural patrimony, to use and integrate high technology, to contribute to the evolutive process of media and culture, to establish a dynamic interaction within the public and inform them of what is taking place, when and where in the areas of research, development, production, and application of Digital Media.
Italy is a country of content, culture, art.. where the concept of the aesthetic and history is deeply rooted and the new technolgoy, in essence, is not seen as the ultimate objective but as the intrument, the tool, the media..
Important indeed it is to give the whole variety of potential possibilities to those actively involved in the forming of the what, where and when .. so the visitor could have a solid point of reference to analyse, interprete and approach this field in more familar terms and situation.
It is frequently heard that in Italy there is resistance to technology..??. that it is not part of the stream in which it is flowing, it is not absorbed nor is it used in such vital aspects as that of culture and art, for speeding up the systems, for creating new work mechanism , new source and means of elaboration processes to keep abreast of time and rhythm in Europe... But we have seen, with curiosity that the public, the younger generations as well as professionals have great expectations and it is only a matter of chanelling, in a more ordinate manner, our efforts to make the process more meaningful and more profitable, live and functional to technology. Technology does not exist for itself, it does not function by itself. It is not produce, stimulated, promoted.
Insofar as the technology and contemporary instruments of expression and production are concerned, investigations in Italy, despite the outstanding talents and capacities, are somewhat lagging.
Without investigation there is no novelty, without novelty there is no market , without market there is no supply, or demand... a state of stagnation takes hold which stems practically all growth as well as reflexion. With investigation, impetus is given in all directions not only to the market and the economic well being but to culture as well... We could do well to immagine that without investigation and evolution we will be converted into a monothematic society, completely brainless and without objective and renovation, empty, dry, dead. Without the flow of feedbacks it is elemental to visualize what could take place ....we could easily look into the status quo of some outstanding countries (of the past), with their present mentality and outlook, inserted in a highly evolutive world, they are unable to find their rightful place under the sun.
Insofar as to what relates specifically between applied high technology, applied to the net and culture...to the sector industry and diversion... the process is exceeding slow and this will be unforgivable on a world wide basis since Italy, synonymous with culture, content and art...it is simply to be a little more organized... to plan...conceive...poroduce, create and generate new specializations and in the process generate employment as well as material and cultural wellbeing.
The access mode will undergo changes, however, the evolutive process anticipates the dematerialization of the corporal aspect of the opera and the fragmentation of the scheme of tangibility. The possibility to live the imaginary corporal form increases, and by the same token the possibility to live in the work itself from within is extending, the power of the vision is increasig as well as that of the senses and of the hands, the invisible takes form...
they are works that permit you to experience that what your senses in the ordinary manner will not permet you to experience... it is a particularly revolutionary moment for who understands it and is able to tap into this technology in a sublime and genial way... it is a technology that has been around for a while but only now seen as an instrument of revival for bringing about an intense and revolutionary change to the extent that the product suparsses the technology, and man himself in his dimension and remain as evidence throughout time and space, becoming a way of doing and crystalizing... and in a certain way that craving entertained by almost everyone for the making of history. In any event we ask how man of prehistory has evolved through the senses and infact how it contributed to bringing about an evolutive process of inserting man within a society and by the same token producing mordern societies...it could be the moment to start thinking of a second atlantida....
This initiative of the technological network of Tuscany, presided by Prof. Bianchi and by the Director of Mediartech Walter Ferrara is not a simple initiative, it is an intense work of patience and perseverence and which example, much more people should follow in an effort to hold together the contry in this process of change and historical evolution.
Virtuality&Interactivity II is articulated in 5 Sections.
Section
1:
Introduction to Digital
Media & Virtual Reality
a) Development of Computer and
Digital Communication b) Virtual Reality&Interactivity
c) Robotics d) Holograms e) Stereoscopy f)
Telepresence, Networking
Section
2:
Digital Media Screening
Section
3:
Virtual Reality and
Interactivity
a)Art b) Virtual Heritage c)
Architecture
d) Industry e) Science f) Experimental works
Section
4:
Robotics+Virtual
Reality+Interactivity
Production ad hod for MEDIARTECH
a) Robots avatars dreaming with virtual illusions
b) Pinocchio Interactive
c) Tracking the net
Section
5:
Digital Media &
Stereoscopy
a) Stereoscopic Video
b) Soccer Interactive VR
Who is the Prince of the Digital Renaissance?
I will like to live to all you this questions
or interrogants in the air... Who is the Prince of the Digital
Renaissance?
We ask, in a very intriguing way who was truly the
leader of an evolutive process so fundamental in mankinds history
... who is the digital prince of Italy or Europe of the 2000's?
We do know who was the Prince of that epoch that gave the human kind such a shining light such as the Renaissance to transit from darkness, stagnation and confusion into all the human progress and splendour we are witnessing today ...Lorenzo II the Magnifico of course...but do we know who fulfills this role in the digital revolution of the 2000's??The Renaissance was produced not only because the authors were excellent, and the time was fertile but also because of the Prince, the master mind of the epoch was as cleaver and futuristic as the artist-master himself.
The dynamic and charismatic Prince of this epoch cooperated in the building of what is now considered one of the most intense key tendencies in the world. Then, in that epoch Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Alberti had found an excellent interlocutor who undertood the importance of their work and cooperated in allowing them to make it something real and tangible.The Renaissance epoch was built by who invented, who created, who undertood the historical consequences and, who assumed the challenge for making it a reality.
These are two worlds: 1) the one which creates, 2) and the other that possess the power, and which meet on a common ground of mutual undertanding for the purpose of fulfilling a common objective thereby creating history. It became a sort of very productive and fertile interactive relationship in "real time".
Two worlds that interact in real time at a very specific period for producing fundamental changes in the annals of mankind's history. It is often said that history repeats itself.Now, we have analyzed very deligently this point and, are aware that: the Prince of the "Digital Renaissance" is most probably not in Italy!! Not even remotely in the vicinity of Europe.
We ask therefore, who is the Prince of the "Digital Renaissance".Who could have this strength.. the charisma and who have created the necessary platform for such a driving adventure. Who possess all the characteristics, the drive, the subtetly and in consequence the intelligence for comprehending when a moment or activity is in the making of history. Who or what has had the strength and the sagacity to create an empire based on the digital culture which has become something very real today, and which initself bears a tremendous impact on the history of mankind.
Who is the Prince of the "Digital Era".It is a hot discussion which holds breathless quite a few thinkers and innovators in this land of the Renaissance .There is a dire need for the figure of: the Prince charismatic, enlightened and ambitious with a drive for creating history and to projecting, his own vision and action of the present, into a driving force and tendency of the century we are about to commence, a real historical opportunity.
It is a crucial theme for "Virtualtiy&Interactivity II" 2000 Digital Renaissance, taking into consideration we are at the angle which permits us to catch a glimpse of what the 2000's has in store for us. Which is rather a provocative, historic, creative and challenging encounter, determinant for the history of Italy and that of Europe.
Thanks
Franz Fischnaller
" The idea is the media". FF