Parcels of Venice

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20 February 2025
Online on Zoom
3pm — 5pm (CET)

about

This is a project founded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and led by the EPFL, designed to facilitate the exploration of historical sources related to Venice.

The platform’s search engine allows users to find names, places, urban functions, and other data drawn from various primary and secondary sources, including census data, historical cartography, and trade annuaries across a broad chronological span. Each information is verifiable and traceable within the extraction process. The published datasets are accessible to both the scholarly community and the public for reuse in specific studies. The platform is designed to be incremental, allowing for the addition of new datasets and citations.

The course will cover the technical background, methodologies, and development choices, presenting datasets and analyses conducted by scholars on urban morphology and city functions. A follow-up workshop aimed at young researchers will focus on data analysis and interpretation.

The lesson will be held in English.

Lecturers

Frédéric Kaplan

He is the director of the College of Humanities at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He also holds the Chair of Digital Humanities and is President of the Time Machine Organisation, a non-profit association of over 600 institutions. He is the author of a dozen books, translated into several languages, and over a hundred scientific publications.

Isabella di Lenardo

She is a researcher at EPFL’s Digital Humanities Institute, specializing in Art History, Digital Humanities, and Digital Urban History. She focuses on the circulation of artworks and historical cartography. Leading the Time Machine Unit at EPFL, she uses AI and digitization to explore Europe’s cultural heritage. She is the PI on European projects and co-PI on the SNFS-funded “Parcels of Venice” project.

Paul Guhennec

He is a post-doctoral researcher in the Digital Humanities Laboratory at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland). His research focuses on the usage of new computational methods for architectural history, and their epistemological implications. He recently finished his doctoral dissertation on Venice’s urban history, with a focus on vernacular domestic architecture.

Manuel Ehrenfeld

He is a software engineer at EPFL. He is the founder of Non-linear, a design studio specializing in visual communication and digital development. He lectures in Communication Design at IULM University and teaches Computer Graphics at Brera Academy. With extensive experience in front-end development, he has led projects for prestigious events and brands, pioneering in digital innovations and interactive design. Fluent in multiple languages, he is based in Geneva, Switzerland.

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Contemporary Art Animation Studio

Federico Solmi, The Bacchanalian Ones, Virtual Reality Experience for Oculus Quest 2, 2021
Federico Solmi, The Ship of Fools, Soft pastels, white pen and ink, gouache on canvas, 2024
Federico Solmi, The Painting Class, Single channel video loop, 2024

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13 and 18 February 2025
Online on Zoom
3pm — 5pm (CET)

about

The Contemporary Art Animation Studio is a class geared toward students who wish to learn how contemporary artists use animation techniques in the context of fine art. New York-based Artist Federico Solmi will demonstrate methods used in his studio, a process which integrates gaming, digital and VR technology with traditional painting and drawing techniques to create narrative moving image works.

The class will analyse how contemporary artists and Solmi himself have taken long-standing animation techniques and placed them into the context of fine art. Topics such as storyboarding, 3D software, production planning, stop motion, rotoscoping, collage, motion capture, and more are all potential subjects. In this course, animation and art will be hybridised in a personal way to each student’s practice, with a focus on formulating an original relationship between process and concept. A section of the course will also be dedicated to exploring new digital marketplaces like NFT Platforms and the blockchain.

The course will be held in Italian.

Lecturer

Federico Solmi

Born in Italy, he lives in New York. His groundbreaking work in video and audio was recognized with the award of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 2009. From 2016 to 2019, Solmi was Visiting Professor at Yale University School of Art and Yale School of Drama, New Haven, Connecticut. He was appointed Guest Critic at the Yale University School of Art for 2022. In September 2024 his solo show Solmi: Ship of Fools was also the subject of a major exhibition in Venice at Palazzo Donà Dalle Rose, during the Venice Biennale in 2024.

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Access to Materials in Digital Archives, Copyright and Related Rights: the Archivio Progetti IUAV as a Case Study

Archivio Progetti, Università Iuav di Venezia © Luca Pilot
Archivio Progetti, Università Iuav di Venezia © Luca Pilot
Archivio Progetti, Università Iuav di Venezia © Luca Pilot

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28 and 29 January 2025
Online on Zoom
3pm — 5pm (CET)

about

Established in 1987, the Archivio Progetti IUAV is an archival and research centre dedicated to the documentation and scholarly promotion of the documentary heritage of 20th and 21st-century architecture in its diverse disciplinary dimensions: building design, urban, landscape, and territorial planning, structural, technological, and systems design, urban development, interior design, industrial design, artistic craftsmanship, photography, graphic design, and communication.

Following the presentation of this Archive, the course will proceed with an overview of selected collections relevant to industrial design.

In this context, the legal issue of copyright and related rights (such as photography) will be explored, particularly focusing on the use of digitised materials from the archive (including photos, projects, etc.) with some examples of best practices adopted by the Archivio Progetti IUAV.

The course will be held in Italian.

Lecturers

Barbara Pasa

Barbara Pasa, Full Professor of Comparative Private Law at the Iuav University of Venice, teaches Comparative Intellectual Property, Contract Law, and Consumer Law. A graduate and PhD from the University of Trento, she worked for over 10 years at the University of Turin. A qualified lawyer, she is a member of national and international academic bodies, with research and teaching experience at universities across Europe and the US.

Rosa Chiesa

Researcher in Design at the Iuav University, she is an architect with a degree from the Politecnico di Milano and a PhD in Design Sciences from Iuav. Her research focuses on glass and design, exploring Murano’s entrepreneurial history through archival sources. A board member of AIS/Design and the ISEC Foundation, she has taught design history at several institutions, curated exhibitions on Luca Meda and Toni Zuccheri, and collaborates with scientific journals and publishers.

Giovanni Marras

From 2004 to 2014, Associate Professor of Architectural Composition at the University of Trieste, currently a member of the doctoral board in Architectural Composition at Iuav University of Venice, where he earned his PhD. His research focuses on form, construction, and architectural character, with emphasis on Latin America, cultural heritage, and landscape. He led the MIUR project re-HOUSING and has authored essays on memory and contemporary design.

Teresita Scalco

With a PhD in Design Science from Iuav, she is the Head of Archivio Progetti, the research and archival centre of the Iuav Library System, where she is in charge of the collection management, coordinating and supporting research, educational, editorial, exhibition activities, with the aim to improve the access and dissemination of archival fonds, such as the digital project Petit tour.

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