On Google Maps the mapping of the creative places of Venice and its islands.
People, new enterprises and professional offices are developing a new creative movement in the centre and islands of Venice.
Giudecca, Murano, San Servolo and other islands are rethinking themselves through investements in the innovation field. Can these productive and working groups reach a critical mass and demonstrate that Venice is a contemporary, live city, constantly changing and interacting with the world?
A project of the Venice International University, on San Servolo island, is contributing to the development of a new system for getting to know the city of Venice that will be available also on Google Maps.
VIULIFE consists of a series of workshops based on the participation of students from the Venice International University and the Iuav and Ca’Foscari universities. Led by an artist, the students are asked to study different aspects of Venice following certain themes like Venice and globalization (2006), Future Scenarios of the mobile telephone ( first semester 2007, in cooperation with NOKIA) or The islands of creativity, which started last October with the multimedia artist Gaston Ramirez, involving students to go beyond, and even against, the tourist image of Venice.
The different creative experiences in Venice can also become the leading path to a new unusual concept of tourism: a contemporary, charming Venice that will be able to attract respectful visitors, investments for new productive activities, create new jobs and possibilities for new residents through creativity, innovation, artistic production and research.
And if these new residents were creative, technologists, researchers or teachers, coming from other countries and with information and cultures different from ours, the essence of Venice, a city open to new ideas and new influences for centuries, would be preserved. The first law on Intellectual Property in the world was passed by the Serenissima Republic on the 19th of March 1474:
“there are a lot of people in this city and around it,…, people from different places and with ingenious minds….. and if it were possible to make sure for them that no other man will exploit their inventions, then they would use their minds to discover things very useful for our Republic. Anyone who will create a new ingenious device in Venice,….., must register it at the offices of the city. In our Republic then no one will be allowed to create an object similar in any way to the registered one, without its inventor’s permission, for a period of ten years.”
Students will meet creative professionals that work on the creative islands and will produce images and videos, documentaries, visual stories and videoart. Their works will be part of the exhibition at the Venice International University in mid-December and will be presented during the event at the end of the semester.
VIULIFE: The Islands of Creativity
Info
www.univiu.org
www.univiu.org/undergraduate/viulife/
www.gastonramirez.net
