But when we came out, tired and dazed, from the Venice station and saw the Grand Canal and the marble palaces that touched the muddy water, that jewel of culture that swayed on the fetid and moldy canals, we suddenly understood how strong and tenacious it is the man and how wonderful their spirit, and such love for humanity has awakened in us, humanity with its pains and epidemics; and we penetrated with open eyes into a dream, because Venice is the dream of every city.
(Abraham Yeshoua)
There is a team studio specialized in CGI, a component of computer graphics that allows you to create environments, static images and 3D videos for cinema and television. It is Vitruvio Virtual Reality a team of designers, authors, 3D artists "interested in developing their own language without renouncing to collaborate and support artistic directors, creatives, directors, artists from other experiences and bearers of different imaginations".
"It was not easy to think of the Ca’ Foscari program for Art Night 2021 - says Silvia Burini, scientific director of Art Night Venezia - there were many elements to consider: the different season, the restrictions due to the health emergency but above all the need to leave a mark. We concentrated on the most important cultural event for Venice: the celebration of its 1600 years, asking Vitruvius to elaborate a video starting from a corpus of images that come from our research. The result is a surprising video that manages to show us the history of Venice with an unprecedented look but also to make us feel real emotions. "
On 2 October on the occasion of Art Night Venice, organized by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in collaboration with the Municipality of Venice Vitruvio Virtual Reality created a breathtaking event, a tribute to the 1600 years of Venice through a corpus of over 1000 images including paintings, photographs and film clips, made available to the Ca’ Foscari University.
"The idea - says Simone Salomoni coordinator of the project and co-founder of Vitruvio Virtual Reality - was born looking at the painting by Bernardo Bellotto, Canaletto's nephew, The entrance to the Grand Canal, Santa Maria della Salute and the Dogana from Campo Santa Maria Zobenigo, an oil on canvas from 1743 preserved at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Venice is an extremely difficult subject, I could say insidious - continues Salomoni - we have tried to approach ourselves aware of the great tradition we had behind us and to integrate it harmoniously with our language which is that of Computer-Generated Imagery."
Venezia 3021 is a short movie set in the Venice of 3021 that opens not with the stereotypical image of Venice, that of tourists but with a different image: the Venice of the people. There are women and men at work, on the street, on the balconies ... people who have their own personal idea of Venice, "an imaginary that has been built and settled over the centuries, or rather over the millennia because Venice is not just a city but a symbol, belongs to everyone. No city has been told, painted, photographed, filmed as much as Venice. And every Venetian, of origin or choice, has collected in their memory a series of images superimposed on each other.”
In the video installation, the various characters provide the viewer with their own vision and memory of Venice through a superimposition of images. The heart of the scene is a view of the Grand Canal painted by Bernardo Bellotto, but with elements that move the viewer's imagination forward a thousand years: skyscrapers, steel gondolas flying to the surface of the water. The view of Venice from above, with its sestieri, is the setting within which the thoughts of the characters in the story move, each with their own idea of the city.