www.mit.edu/frontiers/
The History Unwired project has given me the chance to imagine working in another format. My experience working in film, video, photography, and online new media each posed unique challenges. But I must say, the walking tour with its interactions between user, city, and audio-visual content posed new, unique problems. I tried to envision locations that would be a relational backdrop to the video segments. I had to do some research in order to find still images that synced up with my imagination. I found that I was more interested in composing these layers of environment, person, and images, rather than scoring a walking audio tour. Due to the small screen size, I decided to use close shots whenever possible.
I organized my four themes according to four locations along the route where video segments would be triggered. Each location point is marked by a numbered star on the neighborhood map. A sketched PDA-user stand-in "walks through" the larger image of the Venice environment. Using semi-transparent red outlines, I highlighted an aspect of the Venice environment that would trigger the PDA's GPS. I used a traditional chandelier seen through a palazzo's window, a glass-art gallery banner, shelves of glass souvenirs in a tourist trap, and the island of Murano on the horizon. Again I used semi-transparent red to graphically telescope out to the relational image on the PDA screen. This first image on the triggered PDA would serve as the link between the environment and the video content. The first is an ornate chandelier; second a gallery-hopper entering into the art-glass gallery; third a tourist inspecting a glass souvenir; and fourth, one of the few extant Renaissance paintings depicting glassblowing.
The first theme deals with issues of modernity and tradition within the context of Venice and its glassblowing history. We are introduced to Fabio in his glass showroom. Fabio's interview will give his perspective as he shows how he has "modernized" glass forms by making them sleeker while still linking them to the original function of Venetian glass as chandelier. This sequence really functions as a "portrait of the artist." It's a personal oral history. Hopefully, we will get some family photos from Fabio to illustrate this documentary segment.
The second theme questions the role of the museum and the odd practice of putting art objects in glass cases. Fabio brings us on an irreverent gallery tour of a glass-art museum. He finds a piece—red flames made out of glass—that he was hired to fabricate from another artist's sketch. He now thinks it was a waste of time for him as an artist. His name does not even appear on the curator's tag. Then again, he reveals an inner conflict: he wants to make useful objects, make money from honest work as a craftsman. At the same time he is trying out a persona, marketing himself as a passionate artist.
The third sequence takes on kitsch and tourism, globalism and local identity. We see Fabio's website and how he markets himself (we may even get to use his MTV style glass-artist promotional video) as well as "NO GLOBAL" Murano glassblower promotional pamphlets. The evolution of art object/luxury item to tourist trap souvenir is humorously addressed. The glassblower of Murano want to keep their recognizable identity and yet, how will their art develop and grow if it's stuck in the past?
The final sequence allows the viewer into the space of the glassblower's studio. Some archival images from the Renaissance are used and Fabio speaks to the fact that glassblowing tools and craft have not changed for hundreds of years. The tradition of passing on skills through generations has been broken in most cases: humorously, Fabio gripes about having had to work under his glassblower father.