FLORENCE, ITALY – Florence is one of the most visited cities in Italy, it has a huge artistic density. On one side this high concentration of art and artworks leaves the people inebriated, speechless; on the other side that concentration unleashes the will of not being annihilated, swallowed up.
People want to interact with that beauty and greatness, want to leave a sign, a keepsake of their presence; people want to appropriate that beauty somehow.
Most of the times it means acts of vandalism on statues, walls and architecutral masterpieces. At the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore the App Autography transforms these acts of vandalism in the analogical world into a digital testimony and keepsake.
The Autography App is loaded on tablets available within the Campanile di Giotto in Florence. Autography allows the visitors to create digital graffiti choosing between different tools (pen, marker, paintbrush, spray and pencil), colours and virtual surfaces.
Autography sensitizes the visitor against the acts of vandalism, and it allows him to vent his impulse to leave a mark, yet a digital one.
That mark becomes part of a new story: the made in Autography graffiti will never face removal, but they will be part of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore’s digital archive.