NYCVE - Italian American Magazine - Usa

A contemporary touch on the River Hudson

Massimo — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:34:01 +0000

Leaving behind the bustling comings and goings of the commuters who crowd Grand Central Terminal, in the direction of Poughkeepsie, the train submerges itself into the relaxing green valley of the River Hudson. It has become one of the favourite destinations of the New Yorkers looking for tranquillity and a place where they can dedicate themselves to various sports, the Hudson Valley also constitutes for the tourists on holiday in New York, an occasion for an original trip out of town. Among wooded hills and orchards, which conceal elegant country houses built by the powerful families who controlled the local industries. Picturesque farms and wine industry businesses supply the restaurants of the area. Museums, art galleries and antique shops which give life to the pretty villages.
Only an eighty minute train journey separates Manhattan from the small town of Beacon, on the east bank of the river: sufficient time to forget haste and noise. Going up an uphill road in the opposite direction of the town centre, you arrive in a few minutes at the Dia: Beacon the museum that hosts one of the main contemporary art collections in the world. Opened in 2003, the museum boasts an unusual location, occupying about 27,000 sq m. Of that, which was once a factory of Nabisco (National Biscuit Company), today it is written in the register of places of historical interest. The visitor is pleasantly moved by the structure that welcomes them, from which perspires unmistakeably its industrial past. The spacious galleries of which its ceilings reach to a height of 8 metres, lend themselves perfectly to host works on a large scale. The wide windows, that are situated in regular intervals along the perimetrical brick walls, and the 3,000 sq m of skylights heat the environment with natural light. The surrounding landscape – a great quantity of wooded land surface that runs along the river – penetrates through the glass into the exhibit spaces, inserting itself without being overbearing on the artistic complex. Thanks to the essential linearity of the structure that hosts them, the works become uncontested protagonists. The ones that at first sight could appear as just scattered objects without any logical order, reveal themselves as components wisely placed of a unique work, to accept unitarily.
The museum hosts the works that as from 1974 have become part of the patrimony of the Dia Art Foundation, an institution wanted by Heiner Friedrich and Philippa de Menil with the objective of promoting new projects that for characteristics or dimensions would have difficulty finding other sources of financing. In the intent of overcoming the limited posts of a traditional structure and the less lent to functional requirements, each gallery has been given a thought, in order to favour the specific needs of every single artist and of their works.
Among the artists who immediately merit the attention of the institution are some masters of the 60s and 70s of which Joseph Beuys, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Agnes Martin and Andy Warhol are some. Already during the first ten years of life of the foundation, numerous works of other artists have been added, among which (to mention only those which are exhibited) the ones of John Chamberlain, Imi Knoebel, Blinky Palermo and Fred Sandback. On the occasion of the opening of the museum, the collection was further enriched, also thanks to generous donations.
The series of three ellipse and a spiral stand out, by the sculptor Richard Serra, a scrupulous researcher of physical characteristics of materials, mainly industrial ones. The massive structure in steel is able to stimulate an unexpected interaction with the spectator, to whom it is suggested, to adventure along the corridors in which the internal part of the structure is divided, in which the spaces undergo unexpected modifications up to a point to disorientate one. Just as winning are the metallic coloured sculptures signed by John Chamberlain: for the main part made of car bodies that the author has modelled into new and unusual shapes. Among the temporary exhibitions the work “You see I am here after all” by Zoe Leonard amazes everyone, and it will be exhibited until September, 2010. It deals with a composition made by putting together about 4,000 vintage postcards showing Niagara Falls in a period between the start of the 20th century and the 50s, a dramatic testimony of the changes done to the landscape by human interventions. However, the subject is always the same, with a more attentive analysis you can grasp the diversity of the quality in the detail of the images and in the technique of printing used in the course of the years.
Space, light and works are in perfect balance. The wishful absence of any element of distraction is strained to create an ideal environment for a spontaneous perception of the exhibited works with which the visitor ends up establishing a singular and profitable dialogue. Then it will be the silence that wraps around everything, a presence that cannot be disregarded, to give them the rightful privacy.

Until the end of paper has come

Massimo — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:00:36 +0000

More than 30 years ago, when the newly invented walkman helped bringing music out of the home, hardly anybody could imagine that like sound, also words might leave the shelf one day, and follow us in our daily movements. Even though the Gutenberg Project – launched in America in 1971 with the goal of digitizing the contents of copyright-free books – has arrived at more than 20,000 titles, the progress in computer science is actually responsible for relevant changes that are currently going on. Over the last decade, in fact, the contents of the printed book have started to migrate; thanks to the availability of several electronic formats, a new medium of reading is gradually spreading: the e-book reader.Already now, the term e-book – umpteenth neologism with “e” like “electronic” – refers to tangible publishing activities: the traditional book is revamped in a compressed form in electronic format, which seems to capture the sympathy of the public (or anyway the customers) in an expanding market whose roots are North American. The most widespread formats are pdf, dtb, Oeb, html, rtf, txt and prc: all of them so called proprietary formats, with the exception of Oeb, which became an open source format under the name epub. In a sense, thus, the Gutenberg Project is developing extremely well, instigating even the procreation of “twin” projects. With the accomplished variety of formats – which often binds the book’s producer to determined hardware and software products and limits therefore the end-user’s freedom – it can be argued that the dissemination of e-book readers (the appropriate data medium), as the decisive technology for the assertion of electronic publishing, is gaining a foothold in the collective imagination of literature lovers.
Among the companies that are the most active in e-book reader engineering, we have Amazon, one of the giants of world-wide distribution of culture; and Japanese Sony, a pioneer of design and development of technical devices and gadgets. Amazon has created Kindle, a reader now available in its second generation (operating on Linux) that is supporting more than ten data formats; Sony offers its reader in various models (Touch, Daily and Pocket), each with its technical specifics re display size, wireless connectivity and respective options of editing the texts available for reading. Apple, at last, who have overturned the use of music and the concept of telephony with their iPod and iPhone, respectively, are not yet present on the e-book reader market, even though it seems plausible that they’re planning to introduce a high-end reader: their Writing Pad might, thus, join the devices of Sony and Amazon, providing users with its extraordinarily simple, interactive and self-explanatory interface, capable of stimulating utilization of certain contents. As far as Apple, by the way, the case of iTunes Store – where to find applications for iPhone and iPod Touch, music, audiobooks and podcasts – is prototypical: entertaining a software platform meant to complement the various data media (in particular, the reader, as far as iPod, or the “phone”, as far as iPhone) has proved successful in creating a relation of extraordinary confidence and reciprocity between user/consumer and producer/dealer. In this sense – considering both what has been explained using the example of iTunes, and the specifications of the two principal e-book readers (though there are more than ten such products available) – it seems desirable that the characteristics of the new e-book readers merge in one technical standard that warrants, above all, a high degree of interactivity like, for example, the possibility to edit the text, to “annotate” something by hand or with an electronic pen, and to use the “touch” function to select content; consequently, the possibility of navigating in internet so as to download e-books from an appropriate website and with an appropriate software that provides for both data management and user support (both models, in one way or another, make use of online resources: Sony refers to http://ebookstore.sony.com, and Amazon’s Kindle to the “mother” website amazon.com) will help along the building of loyalty and ties between dealer and producer, and may become an incentive for getting used to usage which, at however early a stage, could point editors into a direction to follow as far as production and distribution.
And yet, interest for the electronic book and its easy distribution via platforms and software with user-friendly interfaces doesn’t exclusively capture the attention of the important protagonists in the world of technology, electronics, web and cyberspace. Actually, even traditional publishing houses in the paper sector, like the American Barnes & Noble, have been starting kind of a transfer of contents, converting the core of their production into an electronic format designed to be read with Nook, their proprietary reader. And by the way, not just traditional books, but also well-known magazines and newspapers, with their subscriptions and offer packages, are becoming a party to the marketing of the various e-book readers, lending themselves to digitization of their contents, they too ready to be downloaded wirelessly and at the desired time. To sum it up, that the passion for reading be pocketed seems already tangible. Without making its weight apparent.

How to Tell Obama’s Story

Massimo — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:50:13 +0000

In an epoch in which we live in and consume numerous disposable sources of information, one of the most misused words is the adjective “historic.” Perhaps there should be a team of psychologists to explain this tendency and to assign greater influence to the reality to many events unable to leave marks on the history of a country or the world. Without fear of exaggeration, one can say that the DVD “Obama - An American Dream” is a concentrated substance of news, ideas and frames taken from the stream of information from the previous 2008, a year that has become important for the world’s history.
Or, in some cases, it might just be useful for the understanding of at least an important piece of history.
Probably, as you read these lines you are on a plane trip between Europe and the United States. When the flight obligates you to keep your cell phones turned off and the background sound of their routine moves away from us, we enter in very suitable position to structure our thoughts. If you begin to think, it becomes easier to remember what was important in recent times than what was not. Between reading and chatting with the person sitting next to you, you can contemplate and reflect upon images accumulated during recent memories. You can probably remember the most engaging, the most serious, the funnest thoughts. Out in 2010, “Obama - An American Dream” may result, similarly, as the result of such an operation. Watching this DVD takes you on a journey back to a collective memory of the events in 2008 that have marked the history of the world: the campaign for the U.S. presidential election.
Many will remember the 4th of November, a night in which the first black president of the United States, a Democrat, was appointed to the White House. Many will remember the greeting of a gentleman who defeated his opponent John McCain, the Republican candidate. All these are images and phrases stored in this DVD. Not many people, however, will recall with equal clarity his speech in 2004; played four years later, when the African-American Barrack Obama stressed that the events which happened to him in the USA would not have been possible in any other country. The DVD contains those statements, as well. In addition to the collection of postcards, sound bytes, as the Americans call it, are also used.
To provide a central focus, and indeed more than one, a series of snapshots, quality reports and documentaries that flowed into 2008’s sea of information will be featured by a dynamic team of professionals at “SkyTG24″ led by director Emilio Carelli. Collaborating with this team was truly a pleasure. A team of journalists, directors and technicians which followed the events a year before the election to the White House, a team which paid particular attention to new forms of communication that enabled Obama to win, via the Internet, the consensus of many young people.
The journey through time via DVD lasts 151 minutes, but is intended for those who would like to focus on the main parts only. The DVD reconstructs the phase of the primaries. The duel between Obama and Hillary Clinton is not particularly a kind one, given the many declarative sentences used. The vain and impetuous media coverage of Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate running for Vice President is also taken into consideration. The race for the White House in the summer and autumn of 2008 between a liberal Senator, son of a Kenyan, and an enlightened Republican McCain, a wounded veteran in Vietnam.
Services curated by the team of “Sktg24″ came under the lens of Corrado Maria Daclon, the ‘engine’ of the Italy-USA Foundation. The result is an electronic anthology that the “Corriere della Sera” decided to sell as an attachment to a newspaper of strong traditions and international recognition. It contains, for example, a description of how the “caucus” meetings work, during which the selection of candidates is possible moving from one to another point in a room. Those interested in the origins of some low blows of political competition, increasing although not improving the selection of the ruling class, will find explanations about the American techniques of “character assassination”, or the killing of the character using both true and false revelations, sins or crimes of various kinds. One of the most interesting parts is a satirical gem: the parody of a press conference with Obama-oriented journalists and an excessively mistreated Hillary, by both reporters and moderators. With a conformism that this DVD is confined to the play-o-sphere of fiction.

Where books live

Massimo — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:40:31 +0000

The Italian market is still unknown, but the U.S. market has now been invaded by the new e-book format. This sector is now growing but has proven to grow rapidly, thanks to new entrepreneurs, professionals and readers, each of them ready to participate with new ideas. What is certain is that the era of the printed book seems destined to end, but maybe it’s just an opportunity to rethink a place that will continue to exist and exercise its charm. We spoke with Daniel Melamud, French department manager of Rizzoli Bookstore in New York.

How has the American publishing market been changed with the introductions of e-books? How are the customers changing?
“E-books are completely transforming the economics and fundamental processes of publishing. The titles sell for cheaper than their print counterparts but the costs to the publisher are lower as well. There are no printing, paper or binding costs; no warehousing costs; and no returns to factor in. It has simplified the practice of publishing tremendously. And the introduction of the latest e-readers certainly offers customers a viable alternative to the traditional book. In speaking with patrons of Rizzoli Bookstore I commonly find two things are considered in this decision; the weight and the font size. If you’re ready to tackle ‘War and Peace’ on your commute but not ready to work on your upper body strength then an e-reader is an attractive option.”

Many people say the book is condemned to die by the new technologies. Do you share this fear?
“Not in the near term. E-readers can improve portability and in some instances make text easier to read but cannot compete when it comes to presentation. Art, design, photography, architecture and other subjects require a certain format and feel to communicate their message. Also, such books often bring people together. A coffee table book that stimulates discussion cannot be replaced by an e-reader, which aims to be a personal device. Then there are people like myself who feel at ease and at home when surrounded by books. These new technologies provide an alternative medium but do not replace the traditional book.”

The traditional bookshops can have the same problems, as well. In your opinion, how does a modern bookshop act towards whose customers who follow these technologies?
“When it comes to novels, there will be many people who decide to download the e-book from home instead of visiting a store. So it is more important than ever for bookshops to stock visually appealing artifacts, objects of beauty that you want to hold and touch. These stores must take advantage of the fact they provide a space where you can more easily discover new titles and get advice and suggestions on which books you would enjoy. They need to ensure their service is more personal than what can be offered online. It is easy to forget just how enjoyable an experience a visit to a bookshop can be. Like a museum where you can touch the art, listen to music and lose yourself in different worlds and times, a good bookstore is an oasis and a respite from the chaos of daily life.”