Eleonora Roaro, “Odeon VR”
VR application for Oculus, 8’33’’
2020-2022
Stereoscopic 360° video, 8’56’’
2020-2023
Credits
Artistic Director: Eleonora Roaro
Scientific Director: Andrea Mariani, Università degli Studi di Udine Experience Designer: Alessandro Passoni, Virtew s.r.l.s.
Sound Designer: Emiliano Bagnato
Sound Engineer: Giacomo Vidoni, Digital Storytelling Lab
Stereoscopic 360° Video Editor: Saul Clemente, Operaventuno
Produced by:
Università degli Studi di Udine – DIUM Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici e del patrimonio culturale – Dipartimento di eccellenza, 2018-2022 MIUR;
Progetto HEaD – Higher Educational and Development – POR FSE 2014-2020, “Realtà aumentata e realtà virtuale per la valorizzazione del patrimonio artistico e culturale” 2019-2020;
MISTI – MIT-Friuli Venezia Giulia (FVG) Global Seed Fund, “Sensing Dolce Vita: An Experiment in VR Storytelling”, 2020-2022.
In collaboration with:
Cinecittà – Archivio Storico Istituto Luce (Roma)
Digital Storytelling Lab, Università degli Studi di Udine
Special thanks:
Archivio Fotografico Brisighelli (Udine), C.E.C. (Udine), Fototeca – Civici Musei (Udine), Vittoria Malignani, Bernardino Pittino, Xenia Rilande, Claudia Rossi, Enrico Sello, Guido Zabai
Memories:
Silvano Bearzi (projectionist), Neda Cainero (projectionist Gigi Cainero’s wife), Giuseppe Cane (projectionist), Annamaria Condorelli (cashier), Giorgio Cruciatti (projectionist), Franco Picco (projectionist), Guido Zabai (ex cinema’s manager)
The virtual reality 8-minute experience shows the former Odeon cinema (1936-2002) in Udine as it was shortly after its inauguration. The evocative reconstruction of the movie theatre, created using archival materials and oral testimonies, highlights the potentiality of digital and immersive media in preserving cinema heritage: in 2004, the Odeon cinema was declared of historical and artistic interest due to the prestige of its decorations and the architecture by Ettore Gilberti. Furthermore, the project is an experiment in retro-spectatorship that evokes a historically situated spectator: with the headset, the user becomes the protagonist of a narrative set in a specific historical period, in this case, during the fascist regime in Italy.
In February 1939, a child goes to the Odeon cinema to watch Walt Disney’s animated film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (dir. David Hand, 1937). She looks around and explores the surroundings: the outdoor area of the cinema and the foyer, then the auditorium and the first gallery. Two films from the Istituto Luce are screened while the oral testimonies of some key figures in the history of the movie-theatre accompany the experience: historical reconstruction and the realm of memory intertwine in an immersive narrative.
Screenshot of the Odeon cinema VR environment. Courtesy Virtew s.r.l.s.
Screenshot of the Odeon cinema VR environment. Courtesy Virtew s.r.l.s.
