Saturday, December 06, 2003

The SITO Artchive - a collaborative digital art project that's been going since 1993

Well worth a visit....

They say:

"SITO.org is a non-profit website. SITO's mission is to promote art, artists and the exploration of new art forms. To that end, we offer a host of free services to artists, including space in our Artchive and experimental fun in our Synergy collaborative art projects. SITO has been operating non-stop since 1993."

EUROPA/N'DO' ... at Castello di Rossena

A while back I took part in organising a miniseminar on youth mobility, together with Nicola Bigi, highly prized collaborator in my semiotics course at the School of Communication, Economic and Information Science of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia; Stefano Spaggiare, a young italian lone world traveller, due shortly to leave from Carpi for a round world trip of about two years; and Marilena Cataldi, with a new Master in the Economics and Ethics of Tourism (MEET) of the University of Bologna (organised in Rimini), who is working on a microeconomics project to develop responsibile/sustainable forms of tourism in Albania.
The miniseminar, titled suggestively "Viaggiamo o spostiamo: gli sviluppi del turismo dopo che il baco del duemila non ha cancellato il mondo" (here is the visual support for my presentation), was part of a larger event named EUROPA/N'DO' which has as its objective to inform interested young people from university and European volunteer environments about mobility policies and programmes promoted by the European Commission.
We were joined by 30-40 enthusastic participants on Saturday, November 15 at the antique Castello di Rossena, in the beautiful Reggio Emilia Appennines , in countryside clothed in stupendous autumn colours.
EUROP/AN'DO' was organised in its entirety by the Reggio Emilia based cultural association microsophia, founded recently by a group of students and other young people active in european and internatrional volunteer work.
Saturday evening there was also the opening of a small but excellent photograpy exhibition entitled "Di êter pòst", with work by four young photographers from Reggio Emilia: Alessandro Mortari, Federico Salsi, Silvia Sai and Cosimo Bizzarri, represent themes and motives which are both pungent and esthetic from places so different as São Paolo in Brazil, Lisbon in Portugal and Berlìn in Germany.
Sunday morning there was also time for us to follow a very interesting and informative guided tour thanks to our hospitable and well-informed castle custodian.
This whole weekend has been an inspiring and pleasing experience!

Friday, November 21, 2003

Comments is back!

Just added the excellent "Comment" function today, courtesy of the "Blog Back" site. which has been non operative for a while, but now back in action. Feel free to try it out and comment on our site!

Thanx a million, BB folks!

Sunday, May 04, 2003

Easter in Chamonix

This Easter we spent a few restful days in Chamonix where we did some skiing and walking in the mountains. Most of the pistes were closed since Easter was quite late this year, and we are nearing the end of the skiing season in the Alps. But we did manage a day at the Grandes Montets, where the excellent weather allowed us to finally do the superb black piste Point de Vue, which runs from the Aiguille des Grandes Montets (3233 m) and back down to Lognan, all the time with a continuing and changing panorama of the Glacier d'Argentiere on your right hand side. Fantastic!


Mont Blanc summit (4810,40 m) from Aiguille du Midi

Then a couple of days before we went back to Bologna we had the good fortune to have yet another perfect weather day, which allowed us to ski the Vallé Blanche (with a guide) for the second time.



A not uneventful trip, however, since one of our group had some rather serious technical problems right from the start, and after rather a lot of toing and froing, our guide decided to call a rescue helicopter and have him airlifted out. As it turned out this was exactly the right thing to do, since the piste over the glacier at this time of the year is very dangerous indeed, due to the generally low levels of surface snow and the concurrent risk of encountering small and large crevasses.

The photos are all grabbed from a digital video I made during the trip (with a Canon MV550i), so the image quality is only moderate, but they still give quite a good idea of what our trip was like. We were five in all who completed the trip, myself, Patrizia, Sam and Mark from London, and our guide, Nicole.


Click on the image of the Vallé Blanche above to begin the photo series.

Saturday, April 19, 2003

With this sign of life and hope we wish family and friends around the world a very pleasant and peaceful Easter weekend and holiday!



Auguriamo con questo segno di vita e speranza una buona e pacifica festa di pasqua a tutti nostri cari amici e parenti intorno in tutto il mondo!

Med dette tegnet av liv og håp vi ønsker våre kjære venner og slekt omkring i hele verden en riktig hyggelig og fredfult påske!

Saturday, March 22, 2003

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Some pictures from the peace demonstration in Piazza Maggiore, Bologna, Thursday, March 20th 2003









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Wednesday, February 19, 2003

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Iraq Peace Rally: Rome, Saturday February 15, 2003


Some contestation apparently about numbers: the civil authorities said 600.000, while the organizers said 3 million!!

That's quite a difference!!

Weird...

So who's right?

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Thursday, January 23, 2003

New Digital Media initiative in Bologna, a part of which is located in a chic new meeting and exhibition space called "Raum", just down the road from our house in Via Ca'Selvatica in the Saragozza area of Bologna:


NETMAGE


Tonight we went to Raum to see "Cane Capovolto" by Massimo Capovolto, from Catania, in Sicliy. An experimental digital video which was technically quite well made and interesting in parts, but not really too much more than that.

A couple of text citations off the screen:
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"Terrorist: A man with a bomb, without an airforce"

"If you believe something is "true", is it true?"
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Saturday, January 11, 2003