Overtures stops in Venice as part of the official supporting programme of the 52nd Art Biennale Collateral Event on the Island of San Servolo Mobile Journey.
Venice International University
Island of San Servolo
June 8, 2007
10 am – 6pm
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The Overtures research group in Iceland, 2006 |
Kalle Laar on top of the |
Kurt Johannessen (Norway): |
Overtures Hydroformances
Artists, curators, technologists, scientists and ecologists discuss the impact of global warming and melting glaciers on our environment and society.
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The interdisciplinary partners in Venice are Dr. Bernd Wiemann - Head of Vodafone Group R&D Germany, Dr. Ludwig Braun - glaciologist, Commission of Glaciology, Bavarian Academy of Science, Prof. Stefano Micelli - Dean of VIU - Venice International University and Dr. Stefano Della Sala - Environmental and Safety Consultant.
For information about Overtures:
art@artcircolo.de
Tel. +39 041 2719541
http://www.artcircolo.de
http://www.overtures.de
Overtures 3. North to South expedition along the water
2006 >> Iceland
2007 >> The Alps: Italy, Austria, Germany / Turkey
2008 >> Spain (EXPO)
At the start of 2000, Serafine Lindemann/ artcircolo (Munich) initiated the long-term project Overtures as a framework for working on future oriented art projects dealing with natural resources. It is an experiment in search of interdisciplinary cooperation in which artists, curators, scientists, economists and media specialists are all equally involved. At the core of the dialogue are the climate change and the element water, without that life on Earth is unthinkable. Artists in collaboration with the interdisciplinary partners develop projects which will reflect and comment the consequences of the global warming on the environment and society.
Following the exhibitions in Gelsenkirchen (2002) and Munich (2005), Overtures 3 has been conceived as a long-term expedition, with stops in a wide variety of cities and countries: North and South, Iceland and Spain - two contrasting areas and their relations to water. The North: an abundance of water and energy; the South: land of sun but of drought too.
Departing from Iceland (October 2006) the southbound expedition towards Spain (2008), with a stopover in the Alps and Turkey (2007), will gather experiences, visions and collective ideas. Through excursions and workshops (hydroformances), the interdisciplinary caravan intends to explore the water situation and the specifics of each country for creating different scenarios, which finally should be presented in a complex exhibition during the EXPO in Saragossa in 2008.
Curators
Juan Carlos Betancourt, Latin America - Art writer and curator of international art projects
Ark Fongsmut, Thailand - Teacher at Bangkok University, independent curator for exhibits such as Thailand Photography International Biennial
Marcus Graf, Turkey – scientist of Art- and culture. Artistic director and curator of Siemens. Sanat, Under Construction and AViVA art Program, Istanbul
Marianne Maasland, the Netherlands - Art historian. Curator of international art projects
Lorella Scacco, Italy - art critic and curator of international art projects “Mobile Journey” at the Biennial of Venice
Christian Schoen, Iceland - Curator and director of the Centre for Art in Iceland (CIA.IS), Reykjavik. Commissioner of the Icelandic Pavilion at the Venice Biennial.
Partners in Venice
Artcircolo
Since its founding in 1989, artcircolo, has committed itself to an art program that is both experimental and globally oriented, from it’s headquarter in Munich, Germany. The exhibitions and projects are presented in different and unconventional locations. artcircolo conducts an interdisciplinary dialog with culture, technology and the economy thereby utilizing a wide field of societal resources as effective tools for artists. Forms of cooperation enjoy growth and development in these contexts, and their social and economic functions are reframed in the course of this process. The cooperation in and with an international cultural community promotes and encourages intercontinental networking and creates new levels of communication. artcircolo offers artists, technologists and companies an exciting field of action for developing and realizing projects on a cooperative basis. The areas of the “environment and mobile communication” have priority.
Vodafone Group Research & Development
Vodafone Group Research & Development mission is to break new ground worldwide, investigating new markets for products and services and thus widening the horizon for mobile communication technologically, societal and culturally. The tools include the nurturing of a corporate culture and manifold creative processes such as trend monitoring, technology & industry shaping, piloting future opportunities, time travel, improvisation theatre and especially the challenge of artistic dialog. These are indispensable catalysts for technological research and the generation and testing of new hypotheses for implementing outcomes. In cooperation with artcircolo, Vodafone Group R&D Germany has been engaged with artists in order to scrutinize the future of work and everyday life from a wide variety of perspectives. The aim of the ongoing dialog is the development and fostering of new media and mobile art formats that are taking a transdisciplinary approach to a wide range of issues ('Mobile Art Lab').
Venice International University
Venice International University is an international center of higher education and research which was founded in 1995. On its campus on the Island of San Servolo in Venice, Italy, a community of international professors, researchers and students come together in a young and dynamic environment where they engage in topics common to the undergraduate, graduate and research programs. The shared aims of the members focus VIU’s activities on the themes of competitiveness, the environment and subsidiary through innovative forms of education and applied research. These topics are developed in all of the academic programs. The approach of the research and academic community engaged in VIU activities to the different topics guarantees the exchange and circulation of knowledge and experience.
| Venice International University San Servolo Island, Venice June 7 - 9, 2007 |
| Mobile Journey, held during the opening of the 52nd Venice Art Biennale, was a project to explore the relationship between artistic creativity and technological research. |
Venice International University regards contemporary art as a an experimental space to be used to promote innovative forms of research. “MOBILE JOURNEY” represents an important step in this direction, breaking new ground in order to establish a dialogue between artistic research, technological innovation and social sciences. The artist is given the task of exploring new ways of using technologies; the electronic engineer that of identifying and developing various potential forms of artistic expression, by rethinking certain basic aspects of the near future; whilst the researcher has the burden of offering a synthesis of the meeting of these two worlds,” says Stefano Micelli, Dean of Venice International University.
The project featured the collaboration among International artists, Vodafone rersearch and development engineers, VIU researchers and curator Lorella Scacco.
During several months before the event took place, visual artists and performers well versed in the use of new technologies dialogued with Vodafone engineers in order to create installations and performances which could go beyond the concept of exclusive art, obtaining something which could be interactive and which used mobile phones as abilitators of the public who could in various ways communicate with artists.
Global Groove (Rome) presented a project to investigate the concept of mobility from the cameraman's point of view, Kalle Laar (Germany) created a mobile phone connection which allowed to listen to the sound of a melting glacier in the Alps, Silver & Hanne Rivrud (Norway) created an interactive work inspired by video games: from a mobile phone the public could guide a real person instead of an avatar, seeing what he was seeing while touring Venice, Peter Callesen (Denmark) attempted at an impossible journey reaching mainland while navigating on a carboard made boat, Crispin Gurnholt (Norway) selected and positioned professional models on a public boat to simulate the variegated population of Venice (noble, managers and ethnic minorities), Empfangshalle (Germany) investigated the behavior of mobile phone users by creating innovative and ironic services, Laura Beloff, Erich Berger and Elina Mitrunen (Finland) created a wearable work enabling the public to register their own heartbeats, Gaston Ramirez Feltrin (Italy/Mexico) invited visitors to produce their own videos of the Mobile Journey event via mobile phone.
Curator: Lorella Scacco
Coordination: Lorenzo Cinotti, Venice International University
Scientific partner: Venice International University
Technology partner: Vodafone and Palm
In collaboration with Artcircolo
Press releaseJune 8, 2007: Overtures 3 stops in Venice as part of Mobile Journey
Press release |
la mia Mente un Luogo sterminato e Tragico, |
The Inner-soul Island: Isolation and foolery, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, is the theme faced by Vettor Pisani, an artist who has investigated, precociously well ahead of others, the incest, the anti-nature, the hostage, the plagiarism, the anti-heroism and the abuse of ideology and of art.
Always in the balance between art and critical quotation, the work of Vettor Pisani proposes a rich mixture of imageries, alchemies, iconographies and contents without any gap between past and present.
Venice International University
San Servolo Island
June 7 - August 4, 2007
Curator: Achille Bonito Oliva
Scientific Coordination: Martina Cavallarin
Opening on June 7, 2007, 17.00
Organization:
Venice International University in collaboration with Fondazione Morra and Cardelli&Fontana.
Venice International University regards contemporary art as a an experimental space to be used to promote innovative forms of research. On a yearly basis, some collateral events of the Venice Biennale take place on the Island of San Servolo.
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On the occasion of the 55th Venice Art Biennale, the exhibition "Aquae" by Oliviero Rainaldi will take place at VIU from May 29 to November 24, 2013. |
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12th International Architecture Exhibition On the occasion of the 12th International Architecture Biennale, the exhibition "Mapping Contemporary Venice - from the city of today to the Venice of the future" took place at VIU. |
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53rd Venice Art Biennale On the occasion of the 53rd Venice Art Biennale, the exhibition "A Gift to Marco Polo: Contemporary Art from China" took place at VIU. |
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52nd Venice Art Biennale On the occasion of the 52nd Venice Art Biennale, two different collateral events took place at VIU: "Mobile Journey" and "The Inner-soul Island: Isolation and foolery". |
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51st Venice Art Biennale On the occasion of the 51st Venice Art Biennale, the exhibition "Inner Island: Art of Survival" took place at VIU. In conjunction with the exhibition, our TeDIS researchers developed a series of workshops to discover the relationship between creativity, society, sustainabilty and economy. |
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Biennale Sessions Each year VIU organizes a tour of the exhibition and a related seminar inside the Biennale spaces. |
When in 1991 I first had the opportunity to visit the famous Suzhou gardens of which I had heard so much, I was enchanted. I remained entranced by that magic for a good two days. Strolling down those paths gave me a sense of going back in time, retracing the history of man, from antiquity to the present. Between 1997 and 2000, 9 gardens of the town of Suzhou were declared part of the World Heritage by UNESCO. This region was already famous in Marco Polo’s time. He visited it for this reason, later describing the more than 6.000 small stone bridges and the exceptionally mild climate: an earthly paradise. The words of this Venetian were steeped in wistfulness at the memory of these gardens. The same that I experienced on my return to Italy.
When, during one of my later journeys to China, I told Samuel Kung, Director of the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, about my admiration for and attachment to the Suzhou gardens, he spoke to me about the garden of Master Ye Fang. The encounter with the Master and the visit to the garden created by him did the rest. The spell was complete: unlike other classical gardens, the garden of this “young” artist has been built to be lived in and to cultivate ideas.
I thus began to dream of bringing a garden in the Chinese classical style to the Island of San Servolo and of asking Master Ye Fang to create it: where better than in a University, and in the very town which was Marco Polo’s, to host a place of the soul, a breeding ground for thought, a bridge joining East and West.
The design phase proper began in September of last year [2008], with the first on-site inspection of the Island by the Master, to make a practical assessment of the various options for execution of the work.
The project has gone forward and gained increasing momentum; indeed, so much so that the project for a book with the title “A Suzhou garden in Venice” has taken shape, with a contribution by Samuel Kung and by other distinguished members of the academic and artistic world.
Umberto Vattani
President of
Venice International University
