Romaeuropawebfactory
Salta il contenuto 1Fondazione Romaeuropa and Telecom Italia announce a challenge for all the artists and creatives that inhabit the web. A big project, a three-year marathon aimed at intercepting, showcasing and rewarding the creativity that explodes on the Net: Romaeuropa Webfactory in partnership with Telecom Italia.
An experiment that brings together Romaeuropa and Telecom Italia’s interest for artistic innovation and whose intention is to investigate - also by tapping the experience gained by the Virgilio portal that handles the entire interactive part - that phenomenon to which the Internet has assigned three letters: UGC, the three letters that have revolutionised the Net.
UGC - acronym of User Generated Content - have radically changed the way conversation is conducted by demolishing the figure of institutional content providers. News, art, music and advertisement are now conversations between users that dialogue through their own videos, music and writings. Those who were at one time only users have now become producers and creators of images, sounds and words by maximising the potential offered by new, inexpensive and user-friendly technologies. Thanks to the platforms available on the web, which form an endless interactive catalogue that can be constantly changed and upgraded without any restrictions of space and language, it is now possible to experiment and investigate without any mediation whatsoever, exposing yourself to the immediate and direct criticism of navigators. Webfactory, created by Romaeuropa and Telecom Italia, intends to intercept this creative democracy by highlighting the best and most interesting projects through a critical reading and curatorship. Webfactory is a large, always open, creative workshop offering four virtual stages to the Net’s four dominating creative expressions: video art, music, writing and advertising creativity. To each, a competition has been dedicated - or a “contest” according to the language utilised on the Net - open to all users who are given the opportunity offered by web 2.0 to express themselves through art.
Romaeuropa Webfactory’s four contests are due to open to all navigators from September 2008.
Video Art: the flow of images running on the Net in websites, blogs and videocommunities in the quest for the most creative and surprising atmospheres and ideas.
Curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi
Music@: a contest reserved to electronic music creators who deal with the previously unheard sounds that digital technology can generate in an unending flow.
Curator: Ernesto Assante
100Words: a contest of creative writing where only one rule is binding: not more than 100 words to develop the Romaeuropa slogan: “One Generation Ahead”.
Curator: Scuola Holden
Spot: consumers are turned into creatives whose task is to conceive Romaeuropa Webfactory’s new campaign, in partnership with Telecom Italia, based on the theme that binds cultural consumption and new technologies with “One Generation Ahead”.
Curator: Patrizia Boglione
On December 6, 2008, the four virtual stages become real: a Romaeuropa Festival event, co-produced with Telecom Italia, that will showcase in the halls of Officine Marconi a selection of the best creations in the course a long night of images, sounds and words. Further information, as well as the contest’s regulations, will be available starting September 15 on http://www.romaeuropawebfactory.it/, the website where it will be possible for participants to create their profiles, to hand in their files as well as to dialogue and to join a dedicated blog making full use of all Virgilio’s UGC platforms, including Dailymotion, MyBlog and the profiles of the Community.
Curators
Born in Rome in 1968, Bartolomeo Pietromarchi is an art critic and curator. He was general secretary of Fondazione Adriano Olivetti from 2002 al 2007, before being appointed, in 2008, curator of MAXXI, Rome’s Art Museum for the 21st century. Author of several publications focusing on the relationship between art, architecture and urban planning, he has curated numerous exhibitions and catalogues in Rome, Milan and Oslo, among which Antarctica, The Hot Season. Italian Art Now, Emergenze.
Journalist and musical critic at La Repubblica since 1978, Ernesto Assante, in a career spanning three decades has worked with a score of Italian and international music magazines and reviews, among which Epoca, L’Espresso and Rolling Stone. Author of television shows as well as radio anchorman for RAI, the Italian state broadcaster, Assante created for Repubblica the weekly insert Musica and Repubblica.it, a project he manages. He was also one of the founders and directors of Kataweb. He has published many books among which Bob Marley; La Storia del Rock; Il Novecento Americano; 33 dischi senza i quali non si può vivere.
Scuola Holden is a writing and storytelling school. Founded in Turin by Alessandro Baricco in 1994, its aim was to create a different approach to the study of writing and storytelling in terms of objectives, contents and didactic methods. A unique place where the practice and techniques of narration are taught with a view to producing stories for literature, cinema, theatre, radio and cartoons while also coming into contact with the new languages and expressive modalities of the Internet.
Patrizia Boglione has been working in the area of advertisement since over twenty years. She is currently the Creative Manager at Jump McCann, business unit of McCann dedicated to Italian culture and Italian made products that mainly focuses on new advertising and innovative projects. She held the post of vice president at the Italian Art Directors Club and is a board member of the European Art Directors Club. She was a member of the Press&Poster jury of the 2004 Cannes Festival and was nominated chairperson of the jury of the Press&Outdoor ADCE AWARDS 2008 at Barcelona.
