ImmaterialFacts » Italy

swissmiss: Mercer’s 2008 Cost of Living survey highlights

Joern — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:27:48 +0000

(Via swissmiss: Mercer’s 2008 Cost of Living survey highlights.)

Spreeblick » Berlusconi

Joern — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:11:49 +0000

“Wenn Russland eine gelenkte Demokratie ist, dann ist Italien eine ungelenke Schultheateraufführung des Politikkurses über die Verführbarkeit der Massen. In anderen Worten: In Italien ist Politik tatsächlich so, wie sie sich ARD-Kabarettisten vorstellen.”

(From Spreeblick » Berlusconi.)

(Sorry, Text in german.)

Twittercamp / Barcamp 2008 in Mestre, Italy

Joern — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:45:01 +0000

Gigi Cogo asked everybody on the Venetocamp Google Group to spread the word about Twittercamp / Barcamp 2008 in Mestre, Italy. I myself will not be there because of personal reasons, but I believe it’ll be a great experience. So go to the Wiki Page for Twittercamp / Barcamp 2008 in Mestre, Italy read the information and add yourself to the list of attendees.

Ricordi Fugaci

Joern — Thu, 31 May 2007 15:46:35 +0000

It's the time of the year again when Como is getting ready for the Notte Bianca. It’s the third time we (my wife and I) participate in this event. I have prepared a little microsite for this year's photographic exhibition called “Ricordi Fugaci”.

The Notte Bianca 2007 in Como will take place on the June 16th. This time we got a very nice venue, the “Chiostrino di Santa Eufemia” in Piazzolo Giuseppe Terragni, 4. For some reason it is rarely used, but we visited some exhibitions there and really liked it, so we asked the organisation team if we could use it for the Notte Bianca. Luckily they agreed.

If you are in Como on June 16th stop by, have a look at the photos and maybe chat a little bit. We'll be there from 18:00 on Saturday until 03:00 or 04:00 on Sunday. The official schedule is 06:00 on Sunday morning.

We’ve written a little introductory text in italian. I’ll post it here for everybody who’s interested (and can read italian).

Ricordi Fugaci

Fragilità e incertezza caratterizzano l’atmosfera nelle immagini della mostra “ricordi fugaci”. Le fotografie di paesaggi in grande formato parlano della fugacità e della bellezza fragile della natura.

Dalla nebbia che vela le immagini nasce speranza, ma anche incertezza. Il concetto della mostra si basa su questo contrasto. Nei paesaggi superficialmente intatti si inseriscono discretamente edifici, boschi artificialmente impiantati o altri interventi dell’ uomo. Queste modifiche appaiono solo guardando con attenzione. La civiltà sta lasciando delle tracce ovunque.

Cross-posted on biconcav )(.

TicketOne — and don’t forget the www.

Joern — Wed, 02 May 2007 14:39:08 +0000

I don’t usually use my blog for rants, but this time it is inevitable. The reason is a website that is widely used in Italy: www.ticketone.it (don’t forget the”www.”, it doesn’t work without.). I tried to buy tickets for an event called “Chiasso danza” in Chiasso, Switzerland using my browser of choice Firefox, Safari, Opera, I even tried Sunrise and others.

I always got the same error: “Error during seat assignment. Please try later”. So I tried again later. For four days always the same. So I looked for the customer service and found an email address. I described friendly and in the best italian I could what happened, the system and browser I used, and so on, and got an answer on the next day, which read something like this: “If you don’t use Internet Explorer we can’t help you.”. What? This is 2007. This is not even funny.

Ok, I turned on my rarely used Windows PC and fired up Internet Explorer, version 7 and tried 6, too. But also here, no luck for me. I wrote back to the customer service in a less friendly, but still objective, way that I had no luck even with Internet Explorer. Of course, no response. How can TicketOne just ignore the users of their websites? Small theaters like the “Cinema Teatro Chiasso” have to use their services, because they can’t afford their own online ticket system and I suppose they pay a lot of money to TicketOne, for a service that doesn’t work and doesn’t even care about their customers.

Beppe Grillo a well known blogger and entertainer in Italy stopped selling tickets for his shows on TicketOne. He wrote a post on his blog about it. According to this post TicketOne has a substantial monopoly in Italy.

We will see what happens. I really hope that more event organisers and artists see the problem with TicketOne and use other services.

Camera Tossing Exhibition during the "Festa del Paese" in Lentate

Joern — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 16:37:13 +0000

During the “Festa del Paese” in Lentate sul Seveso on Octobre 15th we will exhibit our “Camera Tossing” photos again, this time in the Trattoria “al Murun”. There will be also a “tribut to Vasco Rossi”-concert by the band “sensazioni forti” in the same place. It will be a lot of fun again this year. So see you there. Lentate sul Seveso is between Milan and Como.

If you want more information on the exhibition see this page: Exhibitions on biconcav )(.

If you need more information on Lentate go here: Lentate sul Seveso.

Notte Bianca aftermath

Joern — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 13:30:06 +0000

The Notte Bianca in Como didn’t go well for us. Our exhibition was in the foyer of the Cineplex Astoria. There were two DJs playing just annoying music, one louder than the other. I don’t know why there were two DJs playing against each other. Nobody really came inside to see our pictures. It was the wrong location for an exhibition. the street outside was quite busy but the DJs were placed right in front of the entrance, so nobody went inside.

But then again we were lucky, because on the second floor there were the guys from Go Wine, an association to promote unknown wines and the consciousness of which wine you drink and its background. I tasted a lot of interesting wines that I never heard of and I got a lot of useful information on each wine. And we met a lot of interesting people there, too. So, thanks to go wine we had a great evening and a lot of fun.

Finally the website for the Notte Bianca in Como is online

Joern — Tue, 23 May 2006 11:12:39 +0000

They finally made it: The website for the Notte Bianca 2006 in Como is online. And they put us in the list of exhibitions, too. Wow. Now we need to get everything prepared for the event, print some flyers and posters and, of course, get our photographs printed. Our exhibition will take place in the Cineplex Astoria from 18.00 until 6.00 in the morning of Sunday the 11th of June. So, if you are around there have a look inside.

More information about our exhibition on the biconcav website.

Italia could have done better

Joern — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 14:36:43 +0000

The Italian elections are over but they still leave a bad taste in my mouth. How can so many people vote for Berlusconi? There is a nice article in Beppe Grillo’s Blog. He has a link to a good article in The Economist: Basta! Time for Italy to sack Berlusconi.

My (italian) friends are all (as far as I know) left. They would never vote for Berlusconi. I thought, the majority rumbled Berlusconi, his media manipulation, his changing the law to the benefit of himself and his friends. But there are still about 50% who do not understand. Okay, at least he didn’t win this time.

Italia could have done better, I know that!