Article translated by Amritee Mahabir

The 52^nd Venice Biennale “Think with the Senses – Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense”, has by now been closed for a while, to be precise, since November 21^st 2007. The exhibition curated by Robert Storr, was held as usual in the traditional Biennale location: Arsenale Corderie and Artiglierie and in the Padiglione Italia at the Giardini, and in other sites in and around Venice’s town centre registering 319,332 visitors - the most attended Biennale in the past twenty years. If you unfortunately did not attend this great International Art Exhibition, you will have another very simple and comfortable occasion to do so via technology.

Artefacta was based on ideas put together by Stefano Scialotti and Giuseppe Polegri, and is a multimedia account of the event that weaves through the pavilions of the event, lagoons and beyond this to areas in the city. On the site Treccanilab (www.treccanilab.com/biennale_di_venezia) anyone can discover works and performances, meet artists and the most important critics and enjoy over 330 short-films in Flash format lasting about 60 to 90 seconds. More than 50 films are interviews with curators, artists, and world cultural and economic leaders. The other 300 on the other hand are micro-reports about one or more works. Initially, the organisers thought to make about 90 films but the project’s potential was immediately recognised and therefore it was decided that all the works should be recorded excepting those that were specifically forbidden by the artist.

All of this was very easy and comprehensive and the visitors could simply access the information that interests them most. It starts off with a map of Venice and then you choose where to go: from the Gardens, the Arsenale or the numerous collateral events around the city and some of the islands.

This intuitive interface gives each visitor total freedom as to where or how they navigate, the possibility of choosing what to see. It’s the nearest thing to a natural real life tour only a lot less tiring. Among the possible multimedia tours of the Biennale, we can meet Sophie Calle and a performance of “commissaires refusès” at the French pavilion or even Vanessa Beecroft’s performance inspired by the Darfur genocide, but we can also see Louise Bourgeois, Gerhard Richter, Bruce Nauman and deceased artists like Felix Gonzales-Torres and Sol LeWitt. Moreover, there is a good section centred on the Italian pavilion dedicated to Francesco Vezzoli and Giuseppe Penone. While for the interviews, we find Storr, Achille Bonito Oliva, Gorge Soros, Philippe Daverio, Buren and many others.

The project was born from the Treccani collaboration with Dinamo Italia and Trolley, it is already chalking up a huge success registering a huge confluence in every pavilion. If Storr’s intentions for the Biennale were intended for a public that was in no way elite, but vast and motivated, we can underline the fact that this multimedia project will allow the vast public to use the artistic event to navigate daily on the web. Finally, the Biennale will reach its audience, or rather, it will grab various spectators that are not, as Stendhal would say “the happy few”.

www.treccanilab.com/biennale_di_venezia