Interactive Installations:Raising Awareness Towards Venetian Social

Concerns

Team Biennale

vWhat is an interactive installation?

Public art that aims to change the audience’s perception, impart knowledge or create awareness through interaction

Context and Rationale

Sponsor

• Venice Project Center and WPI Humanities and Arts Department

• No external sponsor

• Highlighting work done by the VPC on its 25th anniversary

Importance

• Bring awareness to social problems in Venice that contribute to the loss of cultural heritage that will continue if nothing is done

Community Concerns

Graffiti in Venice

Commercialization

Structural Concerns

Deterioration of Public Art Canal Wall Damage Acqua Alta - Flooding

What is Missing

• Long history of art used to create awareness

• Picasso’s 1937 painting “Guernica”Art Creating Awareness

• 25 years of VPC project work

• Projects end in reports: nothing done to create or increase awareness

Past Project Work

• Identified social concerns

• Prototyped public art installations

• Did not test installations for longevity or effectiveness in creating awareness

Postmodern Postmortem

2009

Mission

The ultimate goal of our project is to create awareness in Venice by creating interactive

installations that highlight the issues of social concern in Venice and which can be

showcased at the 2013 Biennale.

Objectives

1. To identify key issues of social concern in Venice

2. To design and prototype interactive installations that relate to Venetian social concerns

3. To perform strict, controlled tests on all prototypes to evaluate their usefulness in creating awareness

4. To create a plan for successfully deploying the installations in Venice as one cohesive exhibit to be entered in the 2013 Biennale

1. Identifying key issues of social concern in Venice

Researching to find what problems are relevant

Looking at past Venice projects – 25 years worth of project work in Venice

“Postmodern Postmortem” project in 2009 addressed Venetian social concerns–basis for our project

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2. Designing and prototyping interactive installations

Postmodern Postmortem installation prototypes – build upon, improve, re-create

Inspiration from interactive installations created around the world to promote awareness

“Bubletto” from Postmodern Postmortem (top);interANTARCTICA exhibit

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Test longevity of devices in Venice – build one prototype in A-term to test long-term when we arrive

Physically deploy prototypes to test effectiveness in relaying the messages of social concerns

3. Performing strict, controlled tests on any and all prototypes

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3. Performing strict, controlled tests on any and all prototypes

Create an objective means of evaluating effectiveness of each installation

Take observational measurements of deployed installations to record emotional reactions

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What is the Venice Biennale?

Bi-Annual Art Exhibition in Venice that brings together almost every country

116 years old, 7 months long (June-November) and has over 300,000 visitors

Transcend messages through their exhibits

Biennale exhibits from the American and German pavilions

Background research –requirements for Biennale exhibits

Contacts in Venice involved in the Biennale – Venice in Peril

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4. Creating a plan for successfully deploying the installations in the 2013 Venice Biennale

4. Creating a plan for successfully deploying the installations in the 2013 Venice Biennale

Creating an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) to encompass individual installations into one cohesive exhibit

Create a plan for entering installations as an exhibit

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Conclusion

“The world is not a problem; the problem is your unawareness” - Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Thank You!

https://sites.google.com/site/ve11bien/home

Contact:ve11-bien@wpi.edu

ve11.bien@gmail.com