Publications

In the first contribution to this new publishing series, Chiara Casarin pays homage to the illustrious research precedents, conditions, needs and urgencies that led to the birth of ARCHiPub. On Cultural and Digital Matters as part of ARCHiVe at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini.

Full Professor of Physics at Ca’ Foscari, and a LIMS Fellow, Guido Caldarelli illustrates how science and beauty are often thought of as being distinct and separate fields, with science concerned with understanding the underlying mathematical mechanisms of the natural world and beauty typically considered a subjective experience.

And If Venice is Sinking: A Case Study of Material Pedagogy Using Place- and Problem-Based Learning on ‘A Sustainable Serenissima‘ by Bryan Brazeau, Head of Liberal Arts at the University of Warwick. A Sustainable Serenissima was first taught as an experimental transdisciplinary pilot module in AY 2018-2019. The module’s learning objectives include critical analysis of local sustainable solutions, analysis of future implementation plans, and consideration of the scalability and adaptability of the problem of Venetian sustainability to other global challenges.

Alessandro Codello’s contribution introduces “Long Data” as a novel approach to unlocking the cultural heritage within historical archives. This concept contrasts with Big Data by focusing on the deep historical context found in meticulously preserved archives, revealing insights into cultural heritage. Utilizing new Artificial Intelligence technologies in harmony with traditional archival methods, Long Data aims to analyze, transcribe, and model historical data on an unprecedented scale. This approach promises a more comprehensive understanding of history, enhancing studies on societal and cultural evolution. A key example of Long Data’s application is the Venice State Archive (ASVe), which holds over a millennium’s worth of documents. The initiative seeks multidisciplinary collaboration to make accessible this vast archive, thereby safeguarding its cultural heritage and preparing the ground for a revolution in historical research.

In the introduction to the second issue of the series, Chiara Casarin reflects on the relations and connections between the things. As she write in the contribution,  “In the ‘between’ lie the creative and interpretative processes, with all their risks and opportunities, but it is here that the effectiveness of a method or the correctness of a programme comes to the fore”.

Pierluigi Basso Fossali explores the critical potential of augmented reality (AR) in museums, beyond its use as a simple informational tool. Centred on the Augmented Artwork Analysis project, it proposes a prototype that supports in situ interpretation of artworks through interconnected visual corpora. The study emphasises preserving aesthetic experience, fostering interpretative engagement, and integrating AR with supervised learning as a path toward collaborative intelligence.

The contribution examines the contemporary relationship between humans and robots, focusing on the persistent human tendency to anthropomorphize autonomous technologies despite knowing their artificial nature. Drawing on the concept of homo faber and the dialectic of Enlightenment, it argues that technological progress generates new myths in which robots are perceived as “human.” Through a comparison with Joseph Beuys’s performance I Like America and America Likes Me, the analysis centers on Silke Grabinger’s performance SPOTSHOTBEUYS, which stages this problematic relationship in three moments: immediate anthropomorphic projection, its critical demystification through the revelation of human control, and the re-emergence of projection even in full awareness of that control. The essay shows how performance art can make visible and critically examine the complex, contradictory human–robot relationship without resolving it into a technological or human–robot utopia.

This text explores the paradox of digital preservation: while high-resolution technologies allow unprecedented documentation of cultural artefacts, they risk reducing them to decontextualised data. Drawing on Martin Heidegger, the study frames this tension between art’s capacity to disclose meaning (poiesis) and technology’s tendency to enframing (Ge-stell). Based on practice-led research at Fondazione Giorgio Cini, the project proposes moving from passive recording toward active preservation through Compositional Interfaces. Central to this approach is the concept of “Δ” (delta images), which compares multiple scans of the same artefact to reveal environmental, material, and temporal variations, grounding digital objects in physical reality.