Giorgio Cini Foundation inaugurates residency program for creatives and experts in new technologies

For the first time, the Giorgio Cini Foundation is inaugurating a residency program dedicated to creatives and professionals in new technologies. The initiative aims to explore the narrative and expressive possibilities offered by the reuse of the Giorgio Cini Foundation’s digital archives.

Starting January 20, 2025, the international call for Digital Artist in Residence (D.A.I.R.), conceived by the Giorgio Cini Foundation’s Digital Center - ARCHiVe, will be available online. The call is aimed at creative artists and experts in the field of new technologies, who will have the opportunity to reside for a month on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, guests of the Center. During the residency, they will have access to the digital archives and databases that hold the Foundation’s digital heritage, in order to develop and propose innovative ideas for the enhancement and use of these resources. Projects may range from audiovisual artistic experiments to practical and applicable initiatives, which the Foundation will consider for eventual implementation.

In the 2024 pilot edition, artists Hiroaki Yamane, Mersid Ramičević and Matteo Rattini had the opportunity to conduct their research, experimenting with advanced digital humanities technologies provided by the Digital Center - ARCHiVe. Their work integrated artificial intelligence tools and video animation software, demonstrating how the digitization of cultural heritage is not limited to online preservation and publication, but also represents the starting point for creative enhancement that can narrate the collections and reach a wider and more diverse audience.

The Giorgio Cini Foundation, already known for its residential fellowships at the Vittore Branca Center aimed at scholars of various disciplines, introduces with the D.A.I.R. program an absolute novelty, dedicating a specific space to creative artists and digital experts.

The Digital Artist in Residence project is the brainchild of Chiara Casarin, head of the Digital Center - ARCHiVe, in collaboration with Ennio Bianco, an art historian and curator specializing in digital arts. The proposal follows in the wake of biennial projects dedicated to digital cultures carried out in Isola, such as La Maschera del Tempo (2022) and Chameleon (2024), and aims to create a dialogue between artists, computer scientists, developers, designers and archivists. The goal is to break down disciplinary distances, foster contaminations between different languages, and generate new works that reinterpret the digital heritage of the Giorgio Cini Foundation.

The artists selected for the first edition of the D.A.I.R., Hiroaki Yamane, Mersid Ramičević and Matteo Rattini, pursued distinct research paths, reflecting the variety of their experiences and training, and presenting original and innovative projects at the end of the residency.

“The Digital Center - ARCHiVe is a strategic laboratory for the Foundation because it brings the artistic, historical, architectural and documentary heritage of the past into the contemporary,” says Renata Codello, Secretary General of the Foundation. “Bringing artists and digital creatives to interact with that heritage, on the terrain of new technologies, allows us to look at the Foundation and the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore with new eyes, gives us a glimpse of new possibilities and listens to new narratives.”

Giorgio Cini Foundation inaugurates residency program for creatives and experts in new technologies

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