Project "Park - Palladio" - The Provincia di Vicenza in Second Life
Second Life is A 3-D virtual community, created some years ago by the American company Linden Lab.
In Second Life, using your own nickname and your own avatàr (a virtual image), you can interact with the 3-D virtual world living in the community. At the moment, more than 10 million users from around the globe have joined the world of Second Life. Since each member corresponds to a real person, characters' meetings in the virtual world become real exchanges by means of avatars' figurative intermediation.
Researchers think that the 3-D virtual interaction - representation used today in Second Life will be the common interaction way on the web (web 3.0.) in few years.
In Second Life there are institutions, political parties, universities and religious organizations, even if they aren't very common. Electoral campaigns, arts exhibitions, lessons and conventions have been and are being arranged and the applications of this instrument are booming, even if it's at a pionieristic phase. A lot of research centers, such as ENEA in Italy, are testing the development of 3-D models of historic and artistic sites as an alternative way of culture fruition.
The Provincia di Vicenza, through its "Assessorato all'Innovazione" (Innovation Office), has decided to bring its institutional presence also in Second Life in three different fields: art end culture, meeting organization and services. Second Life platform can bring citizens, expecially young people, closer to institutions in an unconventional, innovative and emotional way. Second Life reaches people all over the world and promotes Vicenza territory, making people experience Vicenza cultural and artistic treasures, thus enhancing tourism.
"Park Palladio" project has been developed in the context of the celebrations for the Fifth Centenary of architect Andrea Palladio birth, and it is the reconstruction in Second Life of a space in which we find the virtual representation of three palaces: Villa Cordellina, Palazzo Barbaran Da Porto and the Basilica Palladiana, also including the garden of the virtual city.
Palaces have been faithfully reproduced starting from the drawnings provided by the Andrea Palladio Architecture Study Centre, as well as the frescoes, the floors, the plasters and the most remarkable works of art that we find in the buildings.
These palaces are going to house lessons, seminars, concerts, as well as meetings and events which potentially are open to a worldwide audience.
Park Palladio is going to be the "virtual" seat of "Provincia di Vicenza"; visitors are going to be welcomed by the avatar of Mr. Attilio Schneck - the President of Provincia di Vicenza - and by the avatar of Mr. Andrea Pellizzari - Councillor.
Provincia di Vicenza also aims to the creation of a public relation office in Second Life, which, in an e-government perspective, will provide visitors with information and citizens with useful services. The first services that are going to be tested, are the obtainment of authorization for fishing licences and for mushrooms picking; in these two services the public Administration is particularly close to citizens and they have been chosen in order to satisfy the demands of a large number of people.
Park Palladio aims to promote Vicenza territory and all its typical products all over the world. For this reason, in "Park Palladio" you can find the avatar of Burlina cow, a breed of cattle once common in the hills and mountains of Vicenza territory and now near estinction, which is protected by our administration.The Burlina cow interacts with other avatars illustrating its characteristics and story, which was tragic in the Fascist period when it was almost completely eliminated to give way to more productive breeds of cattle.