'The piazza or town square used to be the center of urban life. People came together to talk, play, buy, sell, make music, paint...' It is this exchange, this dialog, which lends the square its life, color, and resonance. But the spirit of most public spaces today is lifeless. Public life no longer takes place here. 'The public sphere is no longer needed because we have television' according to the architect Robert Venturi. TV as a public space?
The 'virtual piazza' is based on the idea, of TV as a piazza whose communications processes reach the screen by way of electronic networks. Anyone can get involved at home: TV as dialog, 'Piazza virtuale' is a step in the direction of the media art of the future, in which interactive TV will provide an important collective form of expression. As a creative outline for interactive TV, 'Piazza virtuale' invites the viewers to help make the program. For this purpose a computer-generated presentation mode was designed which can combine text, stills, video, computer animation, sound and music on for the TV screen and can be accessed directly from home using a touch-tone phone.


Technical Background

HW: Macintosh, MS DOS
SW: Artist’s Proprietary

Die Arbeitsgruppe für "Piazza Virtuale" umfasst: Karel Dudesek, Salvatore Vanasco, Benjamin Heidersberger, Anke Scheib, Nicolas A. Baginsky, Katharina Baumann, Daniel Haude, Ole Lütjens, Axel Roselius, Manuel Tesloff, Michael Ulrich, Christian Wolff, Torsten Tapper, Martin Schmitz, Jan Holthusen, Corry McLeod und Wolfgang Werner.

Van Gogh TV considers itself a subgroup of the Ponton European Media Art Lab which was founded in Linz (A) in 1986. Since 1989 a media lab has been operated in Hamburg. Artists and technicians work together to make new technology useable for artistic expression. They have presented over 20 projects, some of them international (Documenta '87 and '92, Ars Electronica '86, '89 and '90, Mediale '93). The working group for “Piazza Virtuale” consists of Karel Dudesek, Salvatore Vanasco, Benjamin Heidersberger, Anke Scheib, Nicolas A. Baginsky, Katharina Baumann, Daniel Haude, Oie Lütjens, Axel Roselius, Manuel Tesloff, Michael Ulrich, Christian Wolff, Torsten Tapper, Martin Schmitz, Jan Holthusen, Corry McLeod and Wolfgang Werner.