The making of a genius: Antonio Canova

A Possagno c’è la casa e il museo di Antonio Canova. Ci arrivi una domenica pomeriggio, con la figlia che sbuffa perchè vuole andare a fare un giro in centro. E trovi uno dei soliti, a questo punto, miracoli del Veneto.

Una visita guidata del signor Marcello, volontario. Uno spettacolo di passione e competenza gratuita.

In due ore (due) ti fa capire come nasce un genio e come il genio modifica il suo territorio. Ti fa partire dalla cucina – qui siamo nella Giogiosa Marca, a due passi c’è la terra del Prosecco – e da lì ti accompagna stanza dopo stanza a capire come impara, come lavora “Tonin” Canova. Ti parla del nonno che sa lavorare la pietra, del Falier ricco veneziano che lo fa studiare. Storia di persone, di idee, di lavoro, e di un territorio.

E così, io che ero venuto qui a vedere le tre grazie, Amore e Psiche e le altre meraviglie, scopro che Canova e Possagno sono molto di più: sono un modello di come si sviluppa un talento, una idea: Venezia investe sul talento di “Tonin” e Canova che cambia il suo territorio. Ci devo pensare su.

[en] In Possagno there is the home and museum of Antonio Canova. You arrive on a Sunday afternoon, your the daughter snorts because she wants to go for a stroll downtown. And you stumble on one of the usual miracles of this Veneto.
A guided tour of Mr. Marcello, a volunteer. A performance of passion and expertise, for free.
In two hours (two) he makes you understand how a genius was born and how he changes its territory. He leads you from the kitchen – here you are in the Joyful Marca, a few away there is the land of Prosecco – and room by room he makes you understand how “Tonin” Canova learns, how he works. He speaks you about Canova grandfather, who knows how to work the stone, about the rich Venetian Falier who made him study. A story of people, ideas, work, and a territory.
And so, I came here to see the Three Graces, Cupid and Psyche and the other treasures, and I’ve discovered that Canova and Possagno are much more: they are a model of how to develop a talent, an idea: Venice invest in the Tonin’s talent and Canova changes its territory. I need to think about.

link: Museo di Canova – Possagno (TV) – Italia

img: Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss – From Wikipedia

Switch: how to change things when change is hard

txt: Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard – amazon.com

One of the most consistent findings in psychology is that people behave differently when their environment changes. When we’re in a place where people are quiet (church), we’re quiet. When we’re in a place where people are loud (stadiums), we’re loud. When we’re driving and the lanes narrow, we slow down. When they widen, we speed up again. This may seem obvious, but when we try to make change at work, we often make the mistake of obsessing about the people involved rather than their environment. Often the easiest way to drive change is to shape the environment.

video: Stand By Me | Playing For Change | Song Around The World – vimeo.com

Question: how has the internet transformed our lives for the worse?

txt: You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto – A Q&A with Author Jaron Lanier – amazon.com

Question: You argue the web isn’t living up to its initial promise. How has the internet transformed our lives for the worse?
Jaron Lanier: The problem is not inherent in the Internet or the Web. Deterioration only began around the turn of the century with the rise of so-called “Web 2.0″ designs. These designs valued the information content of the web over individuals. It became fashionable to aggregate the expressions of people into dehumanized data. There are so many things wrong with this that it takes a whole book to summarize them. Here’s just one problem: It screws the middle class. Only the aggregator (like Google, for instance) gets rich, while the actual producers of content get poor. This is why newspapers are dying. It might sound like it is only a problem for creative people, like musicians or writers, but eventually it will be a problem for everyone. When robots can repair roads someday, will people have jobs programming those robots, or will the human programmers be so aggregated that they essentially work for free, like today’s recording musicians? Web 2.0 is a formula to kill the middle class and undo centuries of social progress.

link: www.jaronlanier.com

The roots of the future

Vò di Brendola: un borgo nel mezzo delle zone industriali, che trattiene la grazia e la fatica della campagna veneta e le sue ville. Una sala gestita da persone per le persone, duecento posti. Una rassegna di musica internazionale e di teatro. Una gioia inaspettata di questo Veneto così piccolo e così globale. Come Marco Polo.
Da sentire e vedere.

[en]

Vò di Brendola: a village in the middle of industrial areas, which retains the grace and the fatigue of the Venetian countryside and its villas. A hall run by people for people, two hundred seats. A review of international music and theater. An unexpected joy of this Veneto so small and so global. Like Marco Polo.

To hear and see.

Vo’ on the Folks – 15a edizione 2010 – “Musica-rito-danza fra le radici ed il futuro”
AMINE ET HAMZA (Tunisia)

video: Amine & Hamza M’raihi on youtube

link: www.amine-hamza.com

An adventure of the eye and mind

Nelle osservazioni di Jonathan Jones sul telescopio Hubble come avventura dell’occhio e del pensiero ritrovo un filo con quello che pensavo girando per Venezia questa estate. L’arte contemporanea mi interessa se è un modo di vedere per conoscere. Internet mi interessa se – oltre ad essere aiuto nella vita quotidiana – allarga il pensiero. L’arte contemporanea, internet per sè non mi entusiasmano più. Mi sa che sto invecchiando. Va assolutamente bene così.

txt: Art: the final frontier – guardian.co.uk

The Hubble space telescope has brought about a visual revolution, more significant than any recent work of art in transforming the way we see ourselves and the cosmos. And shouldn’t we be starting to admit that it was more important than Apollo? The moon missions were based on Newtonian science and confirmed a Newtonian model of the universe (planets in orbit, trajectories, everything very mechanical). The Hubble has revealed to the eye a cosmos that is far more poetic, mysterious, and fluid.

Vast Star-Forming Region 30 Doradus
Source: Hubblesite.org

Green economy in Venice

txt: Green economy – From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Green economy is a fast growing new economic development model in contrast to the existing ‘black’ economic model based on fossil fuels, such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas. The green economy is based on a knowledge of Ecological economics that aims at addressing the interdependence of human economies and natural ecosystem and the adverse impact of human economic activities on climate change and global warming. In the midst of the global economic crisis, the UNEP United Nations Environment Program called for a Global Green Deal according to which governments were encouraged to support its economic transformation to a greener economy (UNEP, October 22, 2008).

Green economy includes green energy generation based on renewable energy to substitute for fossil fuels and energy conservation for efficient energy use. The green economy is considered being able to both create green jobs, ensure real, sustainable economic growth, and prevent environmental pollution, global warming, resource depletion, and environmental degradation.

link: Green Economics Institute – Miriam Kennet teaches at Venice International University , April 22nd -24th 2010

Giorgione: the hidden myth

txt: The life of Giorgione – www.giorgione2010.it

On the whole, Giorgione’s works continue to elude us, not merely in terms of autography, but also in their most profound meaning. While the surviving and acknowledged paintings by the artist reflect exclusively secular, civic or “private” forms of engagement (even the Castelfranco Altarpiece was actually commissioned by the famous condottiere Tuzio Costanzo), many interpretative keys have been suggested for Giorgione’s work: they have been regarded as philosophical exercises of a Neoplatonic bent on the theme of love, as depictions related to Classical literature, even as manifestos of Jewish culture in Venice. Then comes legend, and what has been constructed on the basis of a very limited number of sources. Among these “inventions” is that concerning the painter’s death from “love sickness” when his lover fled with his disciple Pietro Luzzo da Feltre. This episode, which appears to have been told for the first time only in 1648 by Carlo Ridolfi, ultimately confirms an established fact: that by then the making of myths about Giorgione was already underway.

Exit the gift shop as soon as possible

Good or bad it’s your omen

txt: Omen – wikipedia

An omen (also called portent or presage) is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change. Though the word “omen” is usually devoid of reference to the change’s nature, hence being possibly either “good” or “bad”, the term is more often used in a foreboding sense, as with the word “ominous”.

Uncut

txt: wikipedia – uncut

Uncut may refer to:
* Without censorship:
Uncut (film), a docudrama about censorship
* Uncut (magazine), a popular monthly publication based in London
* A non-circumcised penis, meaning that the foreskin is intact
UNCUT, a pornographic magazine for admirers of uncircumcised men, unrelated to the music magazine
* An illicit drug lacking any cutting agent
* Uncut (band), a Canadian rock band signed to Paper Bag Records
* BET: Uncut, a show that aired on the BET network

link: Censorship – wikipedia

video: The Prodigy – Warrior’s Dance