Veneto Office – CSC Immersive Arts. A Center for the Expanded Moving Image

L’instrument technique une fois inventé doit être repris
par une volonté artistique et comme inventé une seconde fois.
M. Merleau-Ponty

CSC Immersive Arts. A Center for the Expanded Moving Image is an international center for education, research and production entirely dedicated to new XR languages and aesthetics. The new regional location will open in Venice on the Island of San Servolo, thanks to the agreement between Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and Veneto Region signed on September 5, 2022, and supported by the Veneto Film Commission.

The educational proposal of CSC Immersive Arts represents a unicum on the Italian territory as it offers the opportunity to explore the intrinsic relationship between artistic practice, academic research and technological experimentation in a unique context, that of the city of Venice. Immersive arts represent the perfect confluence of aesthetic and technological creation, characteristics that the city has naturally welcomed, nurtured and represented for centuries. The goal of this new center is also to highlight a Venice that is no longer just a setting for display but an active factory of imagination and production. In perceiving and imagining a new reality, immersive technologies thus represent a perfect dimension of experimentation.

CSC Immersive Arts is divided into two main educational streams: the Residency, a one-year program opening in spring 2024, and the Labs, intensive workshops starting in fall 2023. The one-year Residency will provide a solid theoretical foundation with the aim of opening a critical discussion on the specifics of XR technologies, extensive hands-on experience through production, and participation in a rich program of seminars, masterclasses, and bootcamps. The Residency‘s mission is to foster dialogue and collaboration between artistic and technical direction through two main curricula: the Creator and the Creative Technologist. The Labs, on the other hand, will start in late fall 2023, each with a maximum duration of 40 hours of activity. Specifically, they will be inaugurated with a workshop dedicated to Italian film producers interested in acquiring the skills to enter the XR production market and a number of introductory courses in Immersive Arts.

CSC Immersive Arts is addressed to the international community of creative industry professionals with no age limit. Calls for participation in the Labs and Residency will be posted on this website.

CSC IMMERSIVE ARTS. A Center for the Expanded Moving Image
Island of San Servolo, Venice
Fondazione Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Sede Veneto
immersivearts@fondazionecsc.it

Didactic Committee 

• Sara Tirelli, Director
• Michel Reilhac,  Venice Immersive (Venice International Film Festival) e Head of Studies, Biennale College Cinema and College Cinema – Immersive
• An-Iconology: History, Theory, and Practices of Environmental Images, ERC Advanced Grant, Dipartimento di Filosofia “Piero Martinetti”,  Università Università degli Studi di Milano

With the support of Regione del Veneto

Image: Kensuke Koike, photo-collage, 2023. Original image from the Photographic Archive of Cineteca Nazionale.

Artist biography
Kensuke Koike, born in Nagoya (Japan 1980) lives and works between Sempas, Nova Gorica and Venice. His research focuses on the variations of human imagination and perception, and his technique is that of collage, from simple photo-collages to three-dimensional moving pictures, for the realization of which he is constantly looking for image-trouvé. The fascination of his work also often derives from his having applied to the ready-made image the alchemical concept of “seeking value in nothingness.”