About

The project is a joint effort of the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics (formerly Department of Computer Science) and the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage (formerly Department of History of Art and Conservation of Artistic Heritage) of Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, in the context of the Multimedia Information & Interaction Design Laboratory.

The project aims to set up a modern critical instrument to allow museum and exhibitions visitors to understand art and architecture under many facets using interactive mobile guides. The guides provide visitors with comprehensive information about art collections, artists, with rich multimedia material prepared by experts, researchers, art critics, collectionists, etc.. A content management system provides designers, programmers and domain experts with a system in which they can gather, organize and tailor multimedia content of heterogeneous nature.

People

Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics
Faculty: Augusto Celentano, Renzo Orsini
Post-doc: Marek Maurizio

Department of Phylosophy and Cultural Heritage
Faculty: Giuseppe Barbieri, Silvia Burini
Post-doc: Marco Del Monte
PhD Students: Angela Bianco, Valeria Finocchi, Dunja Radetic

The project experimental results are due to the joint effort of other experts, colleagues, PhD students and graduate students, who are gratefully acknowledged (in alphabetical order): Stefania Amerighi, Michele Baggio, Matteo Bertelè, Valentina Cefalù, Eleonora Charans, Davide Giurlando, Giulia Mialich, Alessandro Niero, Gian Piero Piretto, Fabio Pittarello, Francesco Restifo, Elisabetta Rossi, Luca Rossi.

Publications

2011

A. Celentano. Reflections on Design for Unfamiliar Knowledge, in Proc. of CHItaly Conference, Alghero, Italy, 2011.

A. Celentano, M. Maurizio. An End-User Oriented Building Pattern for Interactive Art Guides, in M. F. Costabile, Y. Dittrich, G. Fischer, A. Piccinno (eds.), Third International Symposium on End-User Development, LNCS Series, Springer, 2011.

M. Maurizio, V. Cefalù, M. Dal Monte, A. Celentano. Building own's guided tour in a contemporary art guide, in L. Aroyo, F. Bohnert, T. Kuflik, J. Oomen (eds.), Proc. of 2011 Workshop on Personalized Access to Cultural Heritage, 2011.

G. Barbieri, A. Celentano. Multimedia Technology: A Companion to Art Visitors, in G. Styliaras, D. Koukoupoulos, F. Lazarinis (eds.), Handbook of Research on Technologies and Cultural Heritage: Application and Environments, IGI Global, 2011.

2010

A. Celentano, M. Maurizio, R. Orsini. Content Management for Mobile Multimedia Art Guides, SEBD, Proceedings of the 18th Italian Symposium on Advanced Database Systems, 2010.

G. Barbieri, A. Celentano, V. Finocchi, M. Maurizio, R. Orsini, F. Pittarello. Experience with Interactive Multimedia Art Guides, in G. Santucci (ed.), AVI 2010, International Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces, ACM Press, 2010.

A. Celentano, R. Orsini, F. Pittarello. Towards an Environment for Designing and Evaluating Multimedia Art Guides, in G. Santucci (ed.), AVI 2010, International Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces, ACM Press, 2010.

A. Celentano. Un anno multimediale a Ca' Foscari, in G. Barbieri, S. Burini (ed.), RUSSIE! memoria/mistificazione/immaginario. Arte russa del '900 dalle collezioni Morgante e Sandretti, Terraferma, 2010 (in Italian).

V. Cefalù, M Maurizio. Punta della Dogana, prima e dopo, in Far Vedere Far Comprendere: cinema, fruizione, multimedialità, Venezia, 2010 (in Italian).

2009

G. Barbieri, A. Celentano, R. Orsini, F. Pittarello. Understanding Art Exhibitions: From Audioguides To Multimedia Companions. DMS 2009, Int. Conf. on Distributed Multimedia Systems, San Francisco Bay, USA, 2009

A. Celentano, R. Orsini, F. Pittarello, G. Barbieri. Design and Evaluation of an Art Guide on iPod Touch. IxD&A - Interaction Design & Architecture(s), Design for the Future Experience, 5-6, 2009.

A Celentano. La guida multimediale iPod: obiettivi, valutazioni e prospettive. In V. Finocchi (ed.), La multimedialità da accessorio a criterio. Il caso Nigra sum sed formosa, TerraFerma, 2009 (in Italian).

A. Celentano. Un compagno di visita: la guida multimediale su iPod touch. In G. Barbieri, G. Fiaccadori (ed.), Nigra sum sed Formosa - Sacro e bellezza dell'Etiopia cristiana Terraferma, 2009 (in Italian).

Exhibitions and Guides

A family of multimedia guides for art exhibitions on Apple iOS designed to provide the visitor with a rich explanation of the artworks, each in connection with the context of the exhibition and the cultural, historical and social context in which it was conceived.

Punta della Dogana Art Guide (prototype, 2011)

Video by M. Maurizio

This prototype is the result of a joint research project with Palazzo Grassi-François Pinault Foundation, and presents multimedia documents related to the works of contemporary art and architecture of Punta della Dogana. Media are organized in structured visits shaped by the visitors through a dialogue aiming at interpreting their profile;the guide creates a custom visit according to their inclinations, interests and curiosities.

NoPlaceLike - 4 Houses 4 Films (August 29 - November 21, 2010)

Video by M. Maurizio

The guide serves as a complement to the visit of the Portuguese pavilion of the Biennale of Architecture hosted at Ca' Foscari in 2010. The exhibition presents four architectural projects and four short films by Portuguese filmmakers, related to the projects. The guide does not illustrates the works directly, but explores their role and meaning through interviews to the architects, the filmmakers and the exhibition curators.

Russias! Memory, Deception, Imagination (April 22 - July 25, 2010)

Video by M. Maurizio

A guide to a rich collection of works of Russian art of the 20th century, with video interviews with the curators and experts that illustrate the exhibition historical and political background, necessary to understand the conception and the meaning of the evolution of the Russian art.

Bruce Nauman - Topological Garden (June 6 - October 18, 2009)

Video by M. Maurizio

The guide was built for a section of the American pavilion of the Biennale of Visual Arts hosted at Ca' Foscari in 2009. The guide explains the installation of the artist through interviews with the curator and his staff and presents two related events: the Golden Lion award and the attribution of the honoris causa degree by the IUAV University on Venice.

Nigra sum sed formosa. Beauty and sacred in christian Ethiopia (March 12 - May 10, 2009)

The first guide designed in this project has accompanied an exhibition of religious art and sacred objects from Ethiopia spanning a period of four centuries. The guide allows the user to explore the artworks through multimedia presentations and comments of the experts, according to different perspectives. The user interface of the guide is reminiscent of the style of the Ethiopian art and of the exhibition settings.

Acknowledgments

The project has been partially supported by Banca Friuladria - Crédit Agricole and by Regione Veneto under the FSE programme.