THE PROJECT



How the project started: Based on an idea by Stefano Scialotti and Giuseppe Polegri, who had already worked together on the website showcasing the Collezione Farnesina del Ministero Affari Esteri (Italian Foreign Office Art Collection) - like a smaller scale prototype of the Artefacta project.  With Massimo Bray, Chief Editor for the Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani (Italy’s Encyclopaedia) who immediately saw this project’s potential and with the support of the Istituto enabled its launch.

How it was produced. This is a co-production between partners: Istituto Enciclopedia Treccani, the London-based Trolley Publishers (specialised in art and photography editions) and the art-documentary production company Dinamo Italia. This project was also made possible by the insight and financial support of Alice Valli and Alessia Bulgari.

Artefacta-Treccanilab. An extraordinary multi-media tour around a mini-website, hosted by the Treccanilab, based on the Google map concept which allows the viewer to explore all the pavilions and discover the artists, their works and the collateral events of the 52° Venice Art Biennale.

Artefacta was developed like a series of very simple maps – a natural and intuitive interface to allow the visitor to easily access the favourite parts of this great Exhibition.

Maps and films.  How to simply and intuitively explore and access all the complex and diverse information about the Venice Biennale.
The Artefacta web tour project is based on a geographical map.  Initially only around 90 appropriately selected films were going to be made, however the appeal of the Map concept increased to such a point that most of the works presented were filmed (except those few specifically forbidden by the Artists) because maps only really make sense if they are really comprehensive. So each visitor can use the map of Venice as their starting point and consequently choose where to start their visit: from the Giardini, the Arsenale or the numerous collateral events around the city and on different islands. In this way visitors can simply access the information that interests them most. And then they can also decide if they want to see the artists’ work first or the short interviews etc.
This intuitive interface gives each visitor total freedom as to where or how they ‘navigate’ or explore – no written words, no hypertext just the possibility of choosing what to see and how. It’s the nearest thing to a “real-life” tour of the Marvels of Venice and its Biennale, although a lot less tiring!

Over 330 short-films.  These films are in Flash (flv) format and last between 60 and 90 secs., like a series of micro-reports about different artists and their work. There are also over 50 short-film interviews with the curators, artists and different international personalities from finance and culture. The other 300 short-films are about one or more art works.  This quantity of films is destined to grow as some are still being edited and the Artefacta project also aims to broaden its scope with more opinions and interviews.

Tag/Key words. Key Words enable a visitor to avoid the Map ‘entrance’ and directly access artists, nations, pavilions and collateral events.

Links to artists and curators. After exploring the different works of a particular artist, further information can be accessed using the direct links that Artefacta has set up to each of the featured artist and curators.

Blog-video and interaction with the general public.  Video blogs and written documents can be contributed by the general public to the ‘Treccanilab’ - the innovative technology Treccani web-site. In this way points of view, thoughts, photos and other films about the Biennale can be also shared on-line.

Special Biennale Features.
Sophie Calle and a performance of the “commissaires refusés”, the Roma pavilion and interviews with George Soros, Vanessa Beecroft  and her performance inspired by the Darfur genocide, a feature on the African and Syrian Pavilions, Philippe Daverio and his counter-festival,  Al Fadhil and the inexistent Iraqi pavilion. These special tours – already online in a short film format – will be more in-depth from September.

The Interviews
Interviewees include: Storr, Bonito Oliva, George Soros, Philippe Daverio,  Sophie Calle, Buren, Vanessa Beecroft, Penone, Nuvoli among others. There are over 50 interviews with curators, artists and personalities of culture and finance.

Multi-media direction.  Here the emphasis is on ‘communication’ in both the artistic sense and for the film directing, as well as aiming to engage the general public on an emotional level within this short web film format. These short films, coupled with concise interviews, sometimes double up as two complementary short films. The longer single sequence shots to approach the art works aspire to reproduce a visitors’ point of view in an exhibition. Each short film about one or more works by the same artist is always accompanied by a specific soundtrack, without any spoken commentary.
 
Easy-Navigating and the graphics.  ‘Simple’ and ‘natural’ were the key words behind the web design and graphic lay-out. The aim was to create a warm and welcoming website for this ‘natural’ tour.

Musicians experiment for the Biennale.  Under the music direction of the composer Antonia Gozzi, a variety of musicians including Mike Cooper, Domenico Ferrari, Luca Venitucci, Marc Ribot, Sabina Meyer to name a few and Antonia Gozzi herself, along with groups like Memoria Zero and Di Terra, have contributed music works for the Artefacta visuals.  The affinity and assonance between these diverse and experimental musics and the art seem synchronous, which definitely facilitated the composition of this complex and diverse soundtrack to the 52° Biennale Arte di Venezia web tour.