ART GALLERY

1999 Arcore (Milano), “Arte in Gioco” (playing with Art).

During the fair, a workshop is hold where children try to do weird things over artworks, using the computer and image processing programs.

On the wall there is a “gallery” of curious paintings, already changed in a strange and funny way, that anyhow look to be “almost true”.

Children watch at them, then they are told: “Do you think it is difficult to obtain something like this? Do you think you’d be able to do?”

In the room there are also several PC’s. We see together how to take the original pictures, going and “opening” some art CD ROM’s (and exploring them, and searching through the folders, beyond the trap of the auto-run that often makes us used not to think that perhaps in the “closed box” we could also take a look inside!). Then those pictures, those paintings, we open them in the right programs and writhe them! (a friend of mine that’s art teacher told me we shouldn’t do, because she thinks it's not correct superficially joking about important thing we do not know. But if it’d be the occasion for someone to face then really those unknown images met while playing, it maybe could be a way to make them unexpectedly interesting!)

Particularly, we use a program very nice and easy (usable also by children of the nursery school) allowing sudden deformations and  transformations, and mixing of pictures very effective, with the possibility to turn all into a video sequence at once. Many children and parents would to buy it, but the reseller, by us contacted by telephone, did not send us.

To day, as the most of the nicest and easiest things that allow also average people to really use computers and not only to watch at them, that program is available no longer!