Futurism
Posted by cvetka on 31 October, 2009
Giuliana Perco Cvetka Nacht
Last October 5, I brought my students to SL to visit a 3D exhibit to celebrate the centennial of the publication of the Futurist Manifesto. Before our visit, we read the Manifesto in class, discussed it, looked at some reproductions of futurist paintings (Giacomo Balla’s “Dinamismo di un cane al guinzaglio” was particularly appreciated by my students) and sculptures, and discussed how they represented the tenets of the Manifesto.
The exhibit is at Experience Italy , but I am not sure for how long it will still be up, especially given the trend of sims that disappear into nothingness. In the exhibition, some of the words and sentences of the Manifesto, in 3D, become part of the landscape that we had to cross. Key futurists words (speed, courage, etc.) were whirling around us while we were walking into the exhibition’s tunnel, other words shouted their imperative commands from above and all around us.
Unfortunately, the series of little trains that were supposed to bring us throughout the exhibition did not work, so we had to walk. In the end, this proved to be better than riding the train, since we could stop at certain areas and discuss what we were seeing.
Because of scheduling conflicts, I had to bring two different groups of students to SL, the first in the morning and the second in the late afternoon. During the morning visit I logged on from my office and discovered with my dismay that I could not use the mic from the Mac mini. So our whole interaction was in text (and I am a terrible typist, especially when I type quickly!) Luckily in the afternoon I was at my computer and could use voice without problems.
In the evening, two friends/colleagues joined me: Anna Begonia (who kindly also filmed the whole session) and Su Nacht. Both teach Italian at universities abroad, Anna in Spain, Su in Ireland. Anna and I attended MUVEnation together and she helped me last semester by being one of the native speakers that my students had to interview. At times, I attend her excellent classes of Italian in SL and I am always amazed by her creative ideas for those classes.
The trip was divided in three parts, after the first (the exhibit), we went to a different area of the same sim which hosts a gigantic 3D reproduction of Fortunato Depero’s “New York” (1930). It was possible to walk into the painting (up to a certain point).
The last stop was at a virtual shop that sold futurist clothes. Of course, we bought none, but my students seem suddenly revitalized once we got there and they spent a while looking with interest at different clothes: I was a bit amazed by this, but I guess that fashion is still fashion, even when it’s virtual. 
All in all it went well, even though it was very tiring for me to lead two different groups over the same path on the same day. I basically repeated the same things both times of course, but the two groups reacted in different way. In the morning students were more talkative and participated much more. In the afternoon, I had the feeling that I was the one talking all the time, while they remained silent for most of the trip. Was it because I did not use voice in the morning and students did not fell the pressure to understand my spoken words? Or maybe because the two groups included students with different personalities?
