Passo della Cisa has a new structure dedicated to slow tourism : the first TWIN hut , a hospitality structure that finds space between two major walking routes, the Via Francigena and the Sentiero Italia CAI.
Created under the coordination of the Politecnico di Milano and co-financed by the Italian Alpine Club (CAI), the development of the TWIN project was made possible thanks to the 2019 edition of Polisocial, the social responsibility program of the Politecnico di Milano funded by donations of 5 per mille ( we talked about it on MAP # 7, page 38 ).
Credits: www.twin.polimi.it/
The Cisa Pass is a very important crossroads crossed every year by pilgrims, walkers, cyclists and trekking lovers, but which nevertheless recorded a scarcity of accommodation facilities for tourists: hence the idea of choosing this place to promote the hospitality of travelers and create sustainable development, work and social inclusion.
"The project stems from the observation of the territory and the lack of reception facilities aimed at 'slow' tourists (walkers and cyclists) who tread the Francigena and the Sentiero Italia every year, in addition to the many itineraries that cross our country in the footsteps of saints, abbots, along ancient roads and high streets - declares to Altra Economia Paolo Pileri, professor of Urban Planning and Design at the Politecnico di Milano -“ We asked ourselves, 'How to welcome pilgrims ? '. We decided that the best way to do it was to get into the spirit of slow travel ”.
HOW IS THE TWIN HUT SHAPED?
The first TWIN hut was built at the carpentry of the Monza Prison using timber obtained from trees felled by the Vaia storm which, in 2018, had hit the Dolomites and the Venetian Pre-Alps.
The structure looks like a modern mountain bivouac, and is designed as a meeting place between hikers, the territory and its inhabitants. The hospitality is organized by the Cooperative of Berceto Nova which will welcome fragile people into the work field.
Credits: rivistanatura.com
SLOW TURISM AND CIRCULAR ECONOMY
Slow tourism within the TWIN project is intrinsically linked to social inclusion, the recovery of underutilized spaces, infrastructures and services .
The goal is to create modular structures and that can be placed along the great paths and cycle paths of the country, to promote the regeneration of marginal and fragile territories crossed by slow lines . In this way, local economies will be launched, giving work to socially weak categories (disabled people, abused women, but also tourist hospitality professionals who have found themselves unemployed as a result of seismic phenomena), through itinerant tourism along cycle paths and paths.
Travelers, by stopping in the TWIN modules and paying the accommodation fee, will thus make a vital contribution to a 'circular economy', which aims to link the regeneration of territories to the strengthening of the social fabric.
Credits: rivistanatura.com
The TWIN project was conceived by a research group that unites engineers, architects and urban planners from the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (DAStU) of the Politecnico di Milano. For more than ten years, the team has been committed to designing a slow tourist vision for the regeneration of fragile territories and they are also working with VENTO, the longest tourist cycle path in Northern Italy. TWIN involves, in addition to the DAStU, also the Department of Electronic Information and Bioengineering (DEIB) and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DICA).
To find effective solutions, you must first ask yourself the right questions. It is a lesson that the Polytechnic has handed down from generation to generation and it is particularly important today that we are facing the challenges of climate change, an unprecedented crisis that involves the whole world and whose urgency cannot be postponed.
Photo by Naja Bertolt Jensen on Unsplash
We are the last generation to be able to do something to save the planet: the United Nations will talk about it , together with young people from all over the world, during COP26, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference , to be held in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November 2021 under the presidency of United Kingdom, in collaboration with Italy.
ITALY'S ROLE
Our country, and in particular Milan, will host the preparatory events for the Conference, namely the Pre-COP summit , a fundamental event to discuss the most critical political aspects in view of the COP negotiations, and the Youth4Climate 2020: Driving Ambition , an opportunity for all young people to propose concrete ideas and proposals on the hot topics of the climate change agenda.
In preparation for these important events, the Ministry for Ecological Transition has launched the All4Climate initiative, which will give rise to events and discussions throughout Italy on the topic of climate change from 28 September to 2 October.
Politecnico di Milano is a key partner of this project through the Italy Goes Green initiative, which has the aim of identifying stimulating themes and questions for the reflections and discussions of politicians and decision makers on climate change issues , directing them towards sustainable and inclusive reflections and the promotion of tangible actions that give life to the radical change necessary to realize all the "potential" of the Paris Agreement .
ITALY GOES GREEN
The initiative Italy Goes Green fits into this context and is the result of the collaboration between Officine Italia, Vodafone Italy and Milan Polytechnic. It has the ambition to involve all Italian citizens in the discussion on the fight against climate change, with the aim of formulating 10 transformative questions to be delivered to the Italian delegation that will take part in COP26 .
Anyone can ask decision makers questions about sustainability challenges simply by logging on to the site www.italygoesgreen.com . The ideas thus collected will be at the center of the event scheduled for 1 October at the Vodafone Theater in Milan, during which 50 young people will be asked to summarize the ten questions confronting the institutional and business world .
Photo by Bill Oxford on Unsplash
THE APPEAL TO OUR ALUMNI
The challenges of sustainability touch on issues closely intertwined with the work of Alumni: land use and agriculture, smart cities and buildings, mobility infrastructures, manufacturing industry and industry 4.0, biodiversity, energy, circular economy and waste management, health and well-being, education, green finance and investments.
It is important that the Alumni of the Politecnico actively participate in the formulation of the questions, presenting them on the website www.italygoesgreen.com by September 15th , to bring your technical, scientific, cultural and managerial experience to the table on strategic issues in the fight against change climatic.
The challenge of climate change and a just transition to new patterns of production and consumption is as urgent as it is extremely complex. Only by asking challenging questions to ourselves and to decision makers we can find the right paths together to tackle the issue. I believe that the Polytechnic and its Alumni have a moral duty to contribute to this challenge to ensure a sustainable future for the next generations. The skills that the Politecnico and its Alumni can put into play are fundamental to participate in the dialogue on climate change in a scientific and proactive way.
Prof. Raffaella Cagliano, Deputy Director of the Department of Management Engineering, coordinator of the project for Politecnico di Milano.
The new technology, conceived by the researchers of the Department of Physics of Politecnico di Milano, of the institutes of Nanosciences (Nano) and Photonics and Nanotechnologies (Ifn) of the National Research Council (CNR), together with the University of Brescia and Université de Paris, is based on the study of optical nanoantennas . These are very thin cylinders of semiconductor material, 100 times thinner than a hair, designed to absorb wavelengths of visible light.
When the nanoantenna is illuminated, it concentrates the light energy in an extremely small volume. Under these conditions, the color of the light can be changed by a phenomenon known as non-linear generation of light. "This process is of great interest in various application sectors, from telecommunications, where it is used to transfer information from one transmission channel to another, to night vision devices based on the conversion of infrared thermal radiation into visible light, to laser sources "- says Eva Pogna, Alumna PhD in Physics at the Politecnico di Milano and young researcher of the CNR-Nano.
Photo by Erfan Afshari on Unsplash
INNOVATION
Until now so-called static nanoantennas had been demonstrated, that is, such that once manufactured it was not possible to modify their properties, that is to reconfigure them to change the characteristics of the light that they can emit.
The new study is pioneering because it demonstrates for the first time the possibility of controlling the behavior of these optical nanoantennas very quickly using the light itself as a control signal: when a light pulse is absorbed in a nanoantenna it in fact it modifies the resonant characteristics. The change induced by the pulse of light is reversible and lasts a time equal to a few tens of picoseconds, allowing the signal generated by the antenna to be modulated at an unprecedented speed .
AN INTERNATIONAL PROJECT LED BY ITALY
"This discovery could open to the development of a new class of ultra-fast miniaturized photonic devices based on non-linear effects, of application interest in various fields, from optical fiber telecommunications to quantum computers" - says Giuseppe Della Valle , Alumnus, professor of the Department of Physics and coordinator of European Project Horizon 2020 METAFAST (“ METAsurfaces for ultraFAst light STructuring ”).
The discovery is the result of an Italian-led international consortium which sees the collaboration between the nanophotonics and ultra-fast spectroscopy groups of CNR and Politecnico di Milano (Prof. Giuseppe Della Valle, Dr. Eva Arianna Aurelia Pogna , Prof. Michele Celebrano, Prof. Marco Finazzi, Prof. Giulio Cerullo), of the University of Brescia (Prof. Costantino De Angelis) and of the Universitè de Paris (Prof. Giuseppe Leo).
"The issue of female employment, although it does not exhaust the debate on equal opportunities, unequivocally represents one of the central points of the question, a potential engine for structural change and revitalization of the country".
This is the opinion of Vice Rector Donatella Sciuto in the Corriere della Sera's interview, talking about equal opportunities and how these have been severely affected by the pandemic, which has brought out the structural weaknesses in terms of female employment, unequal family burdens and imbalances in life between men and women.
Credits: www.orizzontipolitici.it
Even if the data disseminated by Istat report describes a country where women are more educated than men (22.4% against 16 , 8%), the presence of women in technical-scientific degrees, although growing , it is still very low: only 16.2% of women acquire a title in STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, mathemathics), against 37.3% of men.
"At the international level, the 2021 edition of the Global Gender Gap Report concludes that the time estimated as necessary to 'close' the gap between men and women in this area is 276.6 years".
WHAT CAN BE DONE TO EVEN OUT THE GENDER GAP?
“The moment of choosing the university path can be an important turning point, because this choice is fundamental to foster autonomy, freedom and awareness for young women” continues the pro-rector Sciuto.
Precisely for this reason, the Politecnico di Milano has created Girls @ Polimi , scholarships for future students enrolled in engineering courses with low percentage of women (Mechanics, Electronics and IT) , which make available to deserving candidates 8000 euros each, repeatable for the three years of the degree, in addition to free accommodation.
Girls @ Polimi is an initiative that is part of the strategic plan Pop - Equal Polytechnic Opportunities and aims to bring girls closer to the study of STEM - and specifically engineering - starting from high schools , to support them in a choice of value from the point of view of personal fulfillment but also far-sighted with respect to future professional prospects. If you want to support the scholarship with a donation, click here .
In 2017, the European Commission anticipated the need for 350,000 cyber security experts by 2022, but today this number has already doubled. There is talk of millions of jobs that Europe needs to cover, a number that continues to grow with the increasing pervasiveness of technologies in our lives. The Politecnico is one of the spearheads of this transformation and hosts one of the most consolidated European centers of competence in IT security which, among other things, in recent years has given birth to the course in Cyber Risk Strategy and Governance (we talked about it in MAP # 6, page 22), born from collaboration between Politecnico di Milano and Bocconi University, with the support of 6 business partners (Cisco, Kpmg, Intesa San Paolo, Ntt Data, Spike Reply and Vodafone). On 20 July, the first graduates of the course graduated: Rodrigo Messina, Alexandra Blia and Giacomo Minello . The first edition was attended by 38 students from all over Italy and various European countries, and when fully operational the course will be able to host 50. But the topic has been the subject of study since the 1990s also in computer engineering courses and beyond.
Today, as a target commented Donatella Sciuto, Vice Rector of the Politecnico di Milano , "the digital sector represents a strategic component of the PNRR and one of the areas in which Europe invests most to find unity and competitiveness. In a digital world, cybersecurity becomes fundamental for many sectors such as transport, energy, health and finance. We must face this with new skills that are able to analyze the risks and opportunities not only from a technical, but from an economic and social point of view".
Politecnico di Milano and Centro Cardiologico Monzino (CCM) signed a framework agreement for scientific research, which will strengthen the role of the two institutions in the panorama of high-tech medical science.
The agreement provides for the carrying out of scientific, technological, training and technology transfer activities aimed at research programs with shared personnel; the participation of Politecnico personnel in Monzino research programs funded by the Ministry of Health and, vice versa, the participation of Monzino personnel in Politecnico research programs funded by the Ministry of University and Research.
The creation of the new Research Center Joint "Cardio Tech-lab, Modeling and Application for Human Health" is also planned, which will welcome staff with double affiliation at two laboratories in Monzino: one dedicated to digital technology, imaging, sensoring projects ( LEGO - DigitaL t Echnologies for imaGing and sensOrs ) and one focused on tissue engineering and biomelecular sciences ( OASIS - Omics data, Analytics, System biology, Tissue engineering and cellS).
"The joint research center represents the culmination of a collaboration path between the two entities consolidated over the years and extremely profitable - declares Alberto Redaelli, Alumnus and full professor of Biomechanics and coordinator of the Research Area in Bioengineering at the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering of the Politecnico di Milano - The rapid technological evolution in the field of diagnosis and treatment has made the collaboration between doctor and engineer an element strategic for a conscious and efficient use of new digital and data analysis media, and of the so-called enabling technologies. The Joint Research Center sanctions this transformation and is a candidate as a laboratory for innovation in the field of training, research and care, testifying to the priority commitment that the Polytechnic of the third millennium places on the theme of health and 'man ”.
The agreement will make it possible to carry out joint projects with a high scientific and technological profile that are the subject of joint publications with a high impact factor, applications for funding for competitive calls such as Community programs such as Horizon Europe, to attract industry investments and to obtain joint patents.
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Senior Director of CrowdStrike, a leading company in the field of cyber-security, which in 2017 acquired Iperlane, founded by Alumnus. Vincenzo Iozzo studied computer engineering at the Politecnico di Milano, is an angel investor and a member of the Review Board of Black Hat Conference . Former research associate at the MIT Media Lab, he is co-author of the "iOS Hacker's Handbook" (Wiley, 2012).
Interviewed last April by Il Sole24Ore, which defined him a "CEO with a tech soul", Iozzo reflects on the most promising technologies of our era , machine learning, artificial intelligence and biotech , and comments that the new generation of entrepreneurs and executives of the the technological world, which has formed or is being formed in recent years, is a generation of people attentive to the ethical and social implications of their work and the impacts it has in terms of equity and sustainability.
LUIGI REBUFFI
https://dnsc.ro/certcon11/speakers/
He is secretary general of the ECSO, European Cyber Security Organization . Alumnus nuclear engineering at the Politecnico di Milano, he worked in Thomson CSF / Thales between France and Germany, becoming in 2003 Director for European Affairs for the civil activities of the group. He coordinated the creation of EOS, European Organization for Security, of which he was CEO for 10 years, contributed to the creation of ECSO and participated in various initiatives in this area as a support to the European Commission. In 2019 she participated in the creation of the Foundation Women4Cyber , “an idea born in 2017 during a conversation with Prof. Sciuto, Vice Rector of the Politecnico di Milano ”, remembers Rebuffi, to promote the participation of women in the cybersecurity sector. In 2020 he entered the " IFSEC Global Influencers in security - Executives “. He took part in the birth of Stem in the City and in the creation of the joint degree course between Politecnico and Bocconi in Cyber Risk Strategy and Governance. Read more about the new degree in Cybersecurity
“Finding myself nominated on a list is something that always surprises me,” says Rebuffi. "It never occurred to me to be an influencer, but I realize that today it is important to be recognized for the work you do." And he continues: "Our universities must enhance the possibilities for students to move towards this transformation of skills , which responds to the needs of digital transformation: technicians and scientists, but also lawyers, managers and people capable to evaluate the impact of IT risk at 360 ° ".
GIOVANNI VIGNA
https://sites.cs.ucsb.edu/~vigna/bio.html
Lives in California, where he teaches at the Computer Science Department of the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) . “I graduated and did my PhD at Politecnico di Milano”, says Giovanni Vigna. "I finished in 1997 and went to do a postdoc at UCSB: it was supposed to last 6 months, but after two years of postdoc the department asked me to stay as a teacher and I'm still there 24 years later". Vigna's research focuses on different areas, such as malware analysis, the study of cybercrime, vulnerability analysis, web security and the application of machine learning to topics safety.
"The beauty of doing research is that it always puts you in contact with new ideas", he comments, "but I think that the impact of the work of a teacher and researcher goes beyond scientific ideas and contributions. It is above all a human impact : that of forming individuals who in turn will make their contribution ”. In this approach, he says, there is a lot of Politecnico: "it was the environment in which I grew up and I trained: my advisor, Carlo Ghezzi , was not an IT security expert but he was an exceptional mentor and taught me to do research and follow students. In fact, almost all of my doctoral colleagues have entered large universities all over the world ”.
STEFANO ZANERO
https://sector.ca/speakers/stefano-zanero/
He is associate professor at Politecnico Milano. Alumnus of computer engineering (class of 2002) his main focus is the security of cyber-physical systems, computer virology and data analysis applied to security . He has started several startups in the sector.
Politecnico has a long tradition linked to cyber security dating back to the mid-90s , with the contributions of prof. Dècina ”, comments Stefano Zanero . "We were one of the first universities in the world to participate in international university hacking competitions in the early 2000s, and to include security teaching as a compulsory course in the master's degree in computer engineering, in 2010 . Over the years, many Alumni have trained here and today they are well integrated into the academic and industrial world, even if they are not on the list they are doing very interesting things ".
One of the peculiarities of those who trained in IT security at the Politecnico is the ability to take into consideration the human side of these tools. "I'll take the most common example, that of passwords to access services", continues Zanero. " If the authentication system asks for passwords that are impossible to remember, I already know that the user will write them on a post-it , compromising their security. Security policies must take this into account and be designed to be used by people, otherwise they don't work ”. The technological part, in short, is important (we would say a prerequisite), but there is more : "The economic element of risk analysis underlies everything, as well as that of a social and psychological nature ". In short, logging into Netflix is not the same as logging into your bank account.
Information security is a field in which the Politecnico invests heavily also in terms of research. "Zero risk does not exist: at Poli we study how to break things, even security systems, to find solutions that are more difficult to break ", continues Zanero, underlining that the more we computerize production and digital becomes widespread in our lives, the more this represents a risk (think for example of the protection of sensitive data, but also of home automation increasingly present in transport, in the management of buildings and spaces, the internet of things, etc.) and therefore cybersecurity must become equally pervasive. " pervasiveness is one of the main challenges for researchers: wherever there is a computer object there must be a security system , from the computer that regulates the distribution of electricity to the app for smartphones with which I turn on the lights in the house ".
Valentina Sumini, Alumna and Visiting Professor of Politecnico di Milano , was nominated
“ Ambassador of Italian Design for 2021 ". The title was awarded to her in Washington during the fifth edition of Italian Design Day , promoted by the Italian Embassy to celebrate Italian design and creativity in the world.
DESIGNING FOR SPACE
"I have always been fascinated by space and already as a student of the Polytechnic I was able to try my hand at tackling a project for the creation of an accommodation infrastructure on the Moon. My desire is to be able to design a structure that allows man to become a multiplanetary species, where the Earth will always be our mother planet " Sumini told Forbes .
Credits: TEDx Talks
According to the architect, due to its natural propensity to travel, the human species is destined to become multi-planetary, and the first stages can only be the Moon and Mars. This is why it is important to be prepared: it is a question of arriving on other planets and staying there, and consequently designing housing solutions is of primary importance.
“The fundamental point from which to start, - declares the Alumna to Sole24ore - it is well to consider the difference between the environment in which we live and have evolved and the other two we consider. Here gravity is decisive, even our body is modeled by millennia and millennia of the action of gravity on our bones, venous system and balance. If we talk about the Moon and Mars instead, we go down to 1/6 for our satellite and to about 1/3 for the Red Planet. A person weighing 60 kilos weighs only 10 on the Moon and about 20 on Mars, to get an idea. The problem, therefore, is not the constant vertical action of gravity, which in practice also pushes buildings downwards, but moves towards the problems given by the difference in temperature and atmospheric pressure and by the presence or absence of radiation harmful to the human being."
DESTINATION: SPACE STATION - MOON - MARS
Designing for space for architects like Sumini means thinking of three different stadiums : the first is the closest to us, 400 kilometers from the Earth, and consists in retiring the International Space Station - the largest artifact built to date in Space - to transform it into a hotel, to be built right on the skeleton of the ISS. Around the central core, 12 chambers have been designed made of super resistant but also light fabric, to be able to reach orbit more easily, folded.
The second stage involves the realization of the Moon Village project, the settlement on the Moon of a village made up of small houses, each designed for four guests, also built with local materials, how you adjust it. The main criticality of the Moon is the scarcity of water, which is present in limited areas; for this the "houses" will be built in a region at the South Pole of the Satellite, in an area with more availability of water, solar energy and with a constant view of the Earth.
"Never before has it been necessary, almost urgent, to develop an architectural vision on a possible" permanent "lunar settlement that recovers that spirit and gives guidelines and perspectives for sharing and planned development, therefore a real and own masterplan in which residential, infrastructural and productive areas evolve according to a unitary philosophy, a bit as if we refer to the concept of "ideal cities" theorized many times in the past, from Palladio to Le Corbusier " added the architect to Corriere Innovazione .
Credits: forbes.it
The last stage is the settlement on Mars : for this reason a crater was chosen in a depressed area of the planet, which would guarantee a greater density of the atmosphere and more water in the subsoil and a lower level of radiation. Most of the premises such as homes, offices, gyms and offices will be underground, under transparent dome
The men's track pursuit team formed by cyclists Filippo Ganna, Simone Consonni, Francesco Lamon and Jonathan Milan won the gold medal and set a new world record (3: 42.032) at the last second. Italy won with a breathtaking comeback of over half a second behind, as Il Post recounts , “pushed" by Ganna and snatching gold from the reigning champions of the Danish team.
World record and 30th medal won for Italy during these Olympics : an "epic feat for an Olympic title in track pursuit that had been missing for more than 60 years", reports the Gazzetta , which continues underlining the "impetuous" progress made by this group in recent years.
Francesco Lamon nella Galleria del Vento del Politecnico di Milano
AN ITALIAN AND POLITECNICO'S SUCCESS STORY
The company of the C.T. Marco Villa and the Italian team also passed through Politecnico di Milano , and through the Wind Tunnel , the large research laboratory described in MAP 6 on page 40. “To better prepare for the Tokyo Olympics, the quartets of the men's and women's track pursuit came to the Wind Tunnel to optimize performance from an aerodynamic point of view, checking the materials and the position on the saddle. The tests were carried out in close collaboration with the FCI technical commissioners and the sports science institute of CONI ", comments prof. Marco Belloli, professor of the Department of Mechanics who in the video below tells the "behind the scene" of one of the most extraordinary research laboratories in the world, the Wind Tunnel of Politecnico di Milano, of which he is scientific director .
Aerodynamic performance is crucial in sports that are characterized by high speeds because they allow you to gain precious seconds. Over the years, in addition to the Italy Olympic track pursuit, our Galleria del Vento tested champions like Elia Viviani , Olympic Gold in Rio, Alex Zanardi with his handbike, Slovenian ski champion Tina Maze, the Olympic luge champion Armin Zoeggeler and Luna Rossa.
As published on focus.it in this video, within the LaST researchers are studying how to reduce the risk of injury to occupants of a means of transport, from cars to trains and even helicopters .
The activities of the laboratory deal with passive and active safety. Politecnico has been one of the pioneers in the field since the 1960s and the history of LaST begins in those years, as the first academic crash test laboratory in Italy.
Researchers and students gravitating around LaST are involved in evaluating the behavior of structures during an impact, from single component to full-scale vehicles or aircraft, modeling of catastrophic events and the behavior of the human body. For example, energy absorption tests are carried out on objects that are accelerated and then dynamically destroyed to evaluate their behavior during impact; deceleration tests for components that are not directly involved in the impact but that receive the effects, such as car seats; or even bird impact tests, an increasingly serious risk given the growth in air traffic.
This type of research activity Politecnico di Milano also makes use of the collaboration of many companies in the transport sector , for shared projects ranging from design to certification of products that then enter circulation on our roads and in our skies.
As an alumnus in industrial design with a focus on multimedia, Mario Taddeiis one of the first designers in the world to have embarked on the path of virtual reality. “. In 1998 I wrote my thesis on one of the first VR headsets: I wanted to reconstruct the Castello Sforzesco as it was in Leonardo da Vinci's time, but it was still science fiction; the technology wasn't yet ready. The headsets gave people a headache, and the resolution of the images was still disappointing compared to what people expected.”
Twenty years later, the technology has caught up, and Taddei is again one of the first designers in the world to create a virtual reality station in a museum: it is located in Milan's Piazza della Scala, at the Leonardo 3 museum, of which Taddei was curator and co-founder.
"The Forbidden City, as its name suggests, is a place that can only be visited from the outside: the interior is closed to tourists. Virtual reality will allow you to go inside, admire the earthquake-proof Chinese architecture of the year 1000 and its marvellous joints; moreover, with the VR controller, you will be able to touch and handle artefacts that today are absolutely inaccessible. For the first time, visitors can pick them up, rotate them, hold them in front of their eyes, even break them if they want to. The only thing that beats virtual reality is going there in person, and not always either: in VR you can interact with the artefact in ways that would not be possible in real life".
NEW PROFESSIONS FOR VIRTUAL WORLDS
The world of virtual museums, and virtual reality in general, is expanding and opening the door to many completely new professions: designers, programmers, architects, set designers specialised in VR, modelling experts..
The work behind this technology is extremely complex and the devices are not easy to operate for an untrained user: it takes specialised technicians to customise each use. "For now it is only seen in a few museums. But the day is not far off when anyone with a visor will be able to purchase a virtual visit to the Forbidden City,, the Louvre, the Uffizi Gallery or the International Space Station from an online store, without having to queue, and with the opportunity to enjoy experiences that are unimaginable in person. We are very close; a matter of a couple of years at the most.
Virtual art is Taddei's chosen field of study, and he has published the essay“Leonardo da Vinci is dead!”, which has just been published on Amazon. It discusses digital art and NFT, an informative overview of this technology with disruptive potential in the digital art world.
Book – LEONARDO DA VINCI È MORTO – Come fare soldi con gli NFT e arte digitale COVER e retroBook – LEONARDO DA VINCI È MORTO – Come fare soldi con gli NFT e arte digitale Credits: Mario Taddei
"The same issues that faced both Michelangelo and Leonardo on the (absurd and sometimes paradoxical) concept of copyright are even more relevant in the digital world. The book is supposed to make us reflect on the fact that the artists of the past are dead, and it is the contemporary ones that an investor should look to; and, just as our old masters used the best of the technology available to them, so do today's artists".
THE SPOON DOES NOT EXIST... BUT WE NEED IT ANYWAY!
Taddei will be one of the first to explore the new profession of virtual art curator: “My Politecnico studies are useful to me once again, particularly those relating to usability, ergonomics and proprioception. . I cannot send just any user into an environment that he is not used to. Using the example of the virtual museum, how do you move between the different rooms? Do you walk, or teleport yourself by pushing a button? In itself, the virtual environment does not need fixed rules: there is no need for floors, natural light, and physics can be tricked. But our body does need them, otherwise we feel ill, nauseous, dizzy, even panicky. Everything is possible, but not everything is tolerated by our nervous system. To make virtual reality usable for everyone, the rules of the physical world we are used to must be applied. . This also applies to the ability to take trips, have experiences, take virtual lessons remotely, that are indistinguishable from the real experience”.
Taddei is also a digital artist: "The work I am most fond of has a digital character all of its own. It's not like the others... it has been around for 16 years!". Sponge, created in 2004, is a dynamic digital form whose geometric structures change on three planes of symmetry.
"Its original form resides in a fourth (temporal) dimension and manifests itself just as a three-dimensional object would in our 3D space, i.e. it takes on different forms as it crosses its planes of symmetry".
In other words, it lives, according to the artist's intentions, within software. "I am fond of it because it could be considered the oldest living digital art form to date; it has been living in a PC for 16 years. . Even if the power goes off now and then, it comes back to life where I left it. In 2006 it was featured in several art magazines, and in 2013 it was exhibited in various galleries in Italy in both digital and real form, through 3D printing. In 2021, it became an NFT and became part of the Neoart3 Virtual Museum”.
His works are exhibited all over the world: for example, the contemporary art museum Yellow Box Art in Quingdao, China, has dedicated an entire section to him: "I have never been there physically, in person, and this is also one of the many revolutions that digital technology has taught us. I transferred my digital works, my images, 3d models and videos via the internet. The museum printed them and installed them in an exhibition that I curated from the comfort of my workshop in Neoart3, on the other side of the globe.
“Oggi lavoro come architetto curatore di mostre e musei virtuali e collaboro con uno dei grandi galleristi di Milano, Deodato, con il quale stiamo preparando in anteprima mondiale una mostra virtuale che presenteremo ad ottobre e che collegherà arte e tecnica, passato e presente con la tecnologia odierna della realtà virtuale”.
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