Giancarlo Buzzanca - Presentazione
Reale vs virtuale
Real vs. Virtual
When you adopt the term “virtual”, fantasy usually gets the upper hand on reality.
It's also true that in literature some concepts related to “virtuality” are not yet so solidly codified in their definitions. Despite this fact, the Ministry of Culture, thanks to OTEBAC (Technological Observatory for the Artistic and Cultural Heritage) and its specific publication "Virtual online exhibitions. Guidelines for implementation” (Rome, 2011), has managed to publish some very useful recommendations regarding not only the definition of such concepts, but also the illustration of the development and implementation of exemplary projects in this field. The text contains a brief article by Susan Hazan and Shara Wasserman entitled "Factual vs. virtual exhibition. The point of view of the museum staff" which helps clarify the terms of our very action plan.
The added value of the virtual experience is conferred by:
• freedom to browse through the contents according to one’s own itinerary, pace and cultural needs;
• opportunity to expand the horizon of knowledge, passing from one digital content to another through crossed paths;
• easy access to cultural contents through personal computers or mobile devices .
The guidelines indicated above are intended for the cultural institutions which implement strategies for the use and the dissemination of knowledge through:
• websites, portals and web applications that can effectively represent the identity and activities of the institute and realize strategies of information and cultural and scientific divulgation;
• collaboration of professional internal or external consultants specialized on the activities of valorization and dissemination of knowledge;
• recovery of retrospective exhibitions through the realization of an online version.
And this last point corresponds precisely to our case.
Having to accept the impossibility to physically recreate the exhibition in 1972, whose concrete preparation consisted of tubular structures and canvas used to create the spaces , walls, partitions and wings apart from the actual works and the panels bearing their photographic reproductions, we developed the idea to offering the same exhibition virtually.
In our case, virtuality is both a synonym and an instrument for the persistence of the exhibition itself over time. It is a temporary exhibition that paradoxically gains consistency and stability through its virtual reconstruction, which occurs through the implementation of the huge photographic documentation found in the archives .
There is no particular artifice on this site . The visitors won’t come across 3D reconstructions, or the typical animations which the commercial world is swarmed with and which constitute examples – at times even blatant - of the non-accessibility of the web. The itinerary that stretches across the rooms or across the very artworks exposed is full of photo galleries which also provide the visitors with the possibility to zoom in, yet maintaining a high graphic definition.
The construction of the site did not constitute a financial burden on the government other than that relative and indispensable use of the resources already available.
(introduction by Giancarlo Buzzanca)