DIGICULT Digital Art, Design & Culture Founder & Editor-in-chief: Marco Mancuso Advisory Board: Marco Mancuso, Lucrezia Cippitelli, Claudia D'Alonzo Publisher: Associazione Culturale Digicult Largo Murani 4, 20133 Milan (Italy) http://www.digicult.it Editorial Press registered at Milan Court, number N°240 of 10/04/06. ISSN Code: 2037-2256 Licenses: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs - Creative Commons 2.5 Italy (CC BY- NC-ND 2.5) Printed and distributed by Lulu.com E-publishing development: Loretta Borrelli Cover design: Eva Scaini Digicult is part of the The Leonardo Organizational Member Program TABLE OF CONTENTS Marco Mancuso Arduino: Technology Made In Italy ........................................................................... 3 Annette Wolfsberger Why I Cannot Writ About Isea 2008 ........................................................................ 12 Massimo Schiavoni Panorami Paralleli ....................................................................................................... 15 Annamaria Monteverdi Santarcengelo Of Theatres: Festival Is Still Alive ................................................. 20 Donata Marletta Eva And The Electronic Heaven ............................................................................... 25 Gigi Ghezzi From Sociology On The Net To That With The Net .............................................. 29 Clemente Pestelli Geoff Cox: Social Networking Is Not Working ...................................................... 32 Davide Anni Netsukuku. Close The World, Txen Eht Nepo ....................................................... 38 Lucrezia Cippitelli Maurizio Bolognini’s Postdigital Conversations .................................................... 41 Domenico Quaranta The Artist As Artwork In Virtual World – Part 2 ..................................................... 45 Marco Mancuso Julien Maire, Leonardo And The Visual Anatomy ................................................. 51 Silvia Scaravaggi Silvia Bottiroli / Zapruder: Conversazioni ............................................................. 60 Giuseppe Cordaro Paul Amlehn / Robert Fripp, Consciences Synthesis .......................................... 63 Marco Mancuso Soundmuseum.fm: The Sound Gallery .................................................................. 68 Bertram Niessen Bruce Mcclure’s Sculptural Material ........................................................................ 71 Annamaria Monteverdi Crack! Live Electronics In Palmaria ......................................................................... 76 Barbara Sansone Machines And Souls .................................................................................................. 80 Arduino: Technology Made In Italy Marco Mancuso and digital creativity in general. And somehow to represent one of the extremely rare examples in which Italian creativity and the scientific understanding behind it succeeded in getting out from under the domination of international hardware and software production. Well, I have had this opening ready for a long time, some months to be Arduino from Dadone or Arduino from precise, since when I tried for the first Pombia, known as Arduino from Ivrea, time to contact Massimo Banzi for an was the King of Italy from 1002 to interview. I wanted to talk about his 1014. The Romantic culture made his professional activity and his creature figure popular, because they saw in Arduino, an open-source electronic him a precocious representative of platform based on a hardware board the struggle for Italy to get out from and a software that can interface a under foreign domination. computer with an object/sensor. But after a brave chase in the fog of digital Digital culture gave him a sort of seas, during which I didn’t listen to added international popularity, that is whom warned me against the famous since when Massimo Banzi, former elusiveness of the character and while lecturer at the former Design Institute I was looking through my database of in Ivrea, current lecturer at NABA in knowledge to try and stimulate his Milan, as well as co-founder of the intellect with innovative questions, consultancy Tinker.it!, decided to use well, right when I wasn’t expecting it Arduino (in those days, it was no more anymore, I received an answer to my than the name of the snack bar at the questions and reading about Banzi’s Institute) to name his new hardware engagements around the world, I product, destined (at least for now) to cannot do without thanking him for revolutionise the world of design, art his availability. 3 sound generators, various networks, telephone companies and interface themselves easily with almost all existing audiovisual managing programmes. Around Arduino quickly grew a community of users, which rely on similar communities, such as the same Processing, and makes the most of the dissemination potentiality of the net. Arduino’s creator was . brought around the world to visit the main media centres interested in But before you read the interview, proposing workshops and here is a final remark: very few presentations. A real earthquake in hardware and software applications in the world of design, whose effects the last few years had the ability to aren’t completely perceptible yet. impose themselves as real standards, Even because of the fact that the used in schools, by creatives and Arduino project is constantly evolving, artists. Especially if we take into and we still don’t know what else it consideration what is outside the could do in the future . world of the great IT companies. If I had to think about it, and remaining within the “do it yourself” sphere, I could only mention Processing by Casey Reas and Ben Fry, Mark Coniglio’s Isadora, Open Frameworks by Theodore Watson and Zach Lieberman as long as software is concerned and Massimo Banzi’s magic board for hardware. Arduino is the hardware/software . object used by all those who, in the ambit of interaction design or design Marco Mancuso: Since some time in general, need to connect the now, Arduino became one of the machine (and the audiovisual fluxes internationally most used hardware inside it) to the physical object, and software tools for the interaction handling signals coming from between computers, software, different kinds of sensors, from lights, multimedia materials and physical 4 objects. I haven’t wanted to interview fact even my mum is now able to go you before, at the time Arduino was on the internet and use the computer, released and, as all innovations, was while 60 years ago you needed half a considered a real innovation in the palace and a team of engineers in world of creativity and digital art, but I white coats just to switch it on. The would like you to give a picture of the same happens with modern present situation. How is Arduino technologies, when you realise that, in experience proceeding; what is the order to modify the products you use, feedback at national and international you don’t need 5 years of university. level; how has Arduino entered, according to you, the world of digital The national feedback is quite art; how is it perceived by the negative, that is a kind way of saying specialists? that virtually no one knows us. But for how Italy works, it is possibly better Massimo Banzi: Arduino is spreading this way. quite quickly thanks also to magazines like Make and to the fact that it is used by now in design schools all over the world. We are still exploring the world of open-source hardware, which is quite a virgin field. The examples of open-source hardware are quite rare and definitely not widespread among the mass. Arduino was conceived as a tool for designers and, in the end, it became a . more general tool for all those Marco Mancuso: Even if your interested in “do it yourself” professional experience included technology, I think, because of low being consultant at Labour Party BT, costs and (relative) easiness of use. MCI WorldCom, SmithKlineBeecham, The field was dominated by engineers Storagetek, BSkyB, Matrix Incubator who often created complex user and boo.com, Arduino was born, also interfaces and difficult to understand humanly, from your experience at the devices, in the name of the concept of Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea. technology as an elitist field, where What did that experience leave in you; you can enter just if you are a “wizard” how does it actually materialise within of this religion. If you look at your activity with Arduino and Tinker computer evolution, as a matter of 5 and, more in general, what is left at favour innovation. national and international level of that research and development centre? Massimo Banzi: Ivrea generated many seeds that went around the world and created many little businesses, studies, ideas. Many students are now established designers in important companies such as IDEO, Panasonic, Canon, Microsoft and many more. If on one side, I have to thank some Telecom Italia for believing in this . idea, on the other I’m sad that another Marco Mancuso: What is for you the Telecom Italia didn’t understand that concept of “thinkering” and how much there was in Italy an institute that are you bound to the idea of “Do It could compete with MIT media lab Yourself”? I’m more and more and other international institutes. In convinced that it is necessary to the end, it was less expensive than provide the tools hardware, software other attempts to emulate the MIT, or codes that enable to work for which never produces visible those who approach