Education

One of the most appealing characteristics of working with computers is a real necessity for a lifelong training. Indeed, either new projects, the definition of new standards or the updating of technologies imply a costant learning, which is a task I find particularly interesting.

Besides improving my competence in (X)HTML and style sheets, I am perfectioning on Dublin Core standard as a must for Search Engine Optimization. The Internet provides a wide range of resources, which I am going to publish in a spefic section in the next days. I also suggest to those interested in the web design with css to read Eric A. Mayer’s Cascading Style Sheets, Hops Editions.

Moreover, I have also taken up one of my greatest passions: arts. Thanks to my participation in the Associazione Culturale Parrellarte (Parrellarte Cultural Association) I have been given the chance to work with well-known artists. This is the reason why I have been brushing up my art history competence. Everybody should read Federico Zeri's Dietro l’Immagine. Conversazioni sull’Arte di Leggere l’Arte. It represents a good example of how it is possible to talk about specific topics with a simple and appropriate language without being too 'didascalic'.

Another basic book about art history is Gillo Dorfles’ "Ultime Tendenze nell’Arte d’Oggi" which offers a general image of the art in 1900s.
Giulio Carlo Argan, Achille Bonito Oliva: L’arte moderna 1770-1970 - L’arte oltre il Duemila, Sansoni is noteworthy, very rich in well documented colour figures.

However, my basic knowledge of art history is due to my studies at Liceo Scientifico in Potenza, thanks to both the beautiful books Storia dell’arte italiana by Giulio Carlo Argan (which unfortunately got lost during the earthquake that devastated Potenza on 23rd November 1980) and the passion my teacher and artist, Mr. Mario Vasta managed to transmit to me.

Even though fond of music since I was a child, I started self-teaching music informatics only in 2004, studying the book Fare musica con il PC (Creating music with the PC), APOGEO editor, and other free material from the net, to learn MIDI protocol and different audio/video formats in order to offer audio and video contribution in web sites I have empowered. This study allowed me to master open source programs such as LAME (to convert various audio formats) and Audacity for editing.

I used these programs to make MP3 files present on Emma Borgi and Parrellarte’s sites.
Of course, these passions cannot be seen as divided worlds, also because I have been involved in multimedia since 1987.

That’s why in the last years I have been investigating into relations between various kinds of arts, particularly between visual arts and music and music and linguistic, at first attracted by synesthesia, then by the relationship, also lexical, between different arts; yet, this is a topic still in embryo.
When you think about this issue, dance is the first artistic form you can recall. What immediately follow are cinema and theater, with photography, sound tracks and sceneries (who doesn’t remember the wonderful ones from Lele Luzzati, recently exhibited in many Italian towns and re-proposed at the theater?). But I am particularly interested in the relation between music and painting, with a particular curiosity for multimedia.

After reading the beautiful Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks, where the English neurologist focuses on synaesthesia in one of the chapters, I am going to broaden this topic with works by Kandinsky, before starting with his correspondence with Schoenberg and with a more detailed study of Mondrian’s paintings linked to scores.