Monthly Archives: May 2017

BuioMetria Partecipativa at the University of Pisa (May 16, 2017): how did it go?

Compositions

A very interested audience, composed both by students, researchers, and full professors from the University of Pisa (plus a guest from the S. Anna School of Advanced Studies) attended the seminar summarizing the experiences by CNR IBIMET and the BuioMetria Partecipativa project in the fields of light pollution and promotion and protection of night skies. In the same occasion, we also had a glimpse of the activities which the Pisa University will develop over the next two years, following an initial set of studies started in 2015.

Luciano Massetti from CNR IBIMET in the first part of the seminar

The seminar also represented the opportunity to lay the foundations for the upcoming Summer round of night sky quality monitoring within the BuioMetria Partecipativa project.

Thanks again to the Department of Biology, and especially to Elena Maggi and Lisandro Benedetti Cecchi, for hosting this event.

The next occasion to hear it from the BuioMetria Partecipativa project will by in Milano on May 30. There will be a morning lecture at the Politecnico di Milano, followed by an evening talk at the library of Lucernate, just North of the city. The morning talk will have a wider scope (but will still touch the issue of light pollution), while the evening talk will be focused on how to use artificial light with more awareness (than the average of what we see happening roaming over the past nine years on this topic).

For more information info@pibinko.org

 

High School Internships with Attivarti.org: mission accomplished

Announcements

From April 26 to May 14 Attivarti.org hosted in Torniella, Southern Tuscany, two students from the Fossombroni High School in Grosseto.

The students supported the association on two tasks: editing information material concerning the Farma Valley (using both pre-existings sources and new documentation acquired directly on the field) and helping with the promotion of the event calendar combining activities from different subjects residing in the hamlets of Torniella, Piloni, and Scalvaia.

These events start with the Summer season, but also cover the colder months, and take place not only in the valley, but also in locations where subjects from the valley are invited. For example we have considered exhibitions of the Band of Torniella, presentation by the BuioMetria Partecipativa project, as well as the traditional palla a 21/palla eh! tournaments.

To be updated, you may write us directly or check the billboard which you will see on your right entering Torniella from the South . This was used to show a map of one of the protected areas nearby, but was gradually being ruined. We asked the Municipality about the possibility of re-using the billboard to present both the calendar and a community map of the valley, and since April 30, it’s right there.

We would like to thank the Fossombroni High School for the interested in our project, and Mario Straccali, Giorgio Panerati, Andrea Bartalucci, Remo Ganozzi e Sonia Masini for the support they provided during the activities.

Pibinko.org Newsletter #5: Pisa tomorrow, and highlight for Milano at the end of the month

Compositions

If you have not yet seen the summary of the “No music allowed, episode 1” event on May 9 in Torniella, you can check it out HERE.

Then, we will be waiting for you tomorrow afternoon (May 16) at the University of Pisa, close to the leaning tower. We will give a lecture from 2PM to 4PM on research, outreach, and citizen science applied to artificial light at night, and then have a “debriefing” from 6 to 2PM at la Torre del Luppolo. The presentation of the event is HERE.

You should then take note of the two presentations we will have in Milano on May 30. In a sort of “double-feature” event we will first give a lecture at the  Politecnico di Milano (from  10.30AM to noon), and then have another talk at the Lucernate Community Hall (from 8.45PM to 10.45PM). Summing these two events you should have an exhaustive view on the projects for m(‘)appare, BuioMetria Partecipativa, and for the intertwining of culture, environment, and open innovation which we have been developing for over ten years from the Southern Tuscan hills.

The presentation wll also be the opportunity to learn directly about the  pibinko.org + attivarti.org , focusing on the Summer, but already including some hints for the colder months, and providing indications on how to participate in person.

Finally, I would like to recall that there are still 47 days to contribute to the  Etruschi from Lakota crowdfunding campaign, to print their third album. The campaign is going pretty well, but is not yet complete. You can see what this is about from THIS PAGE.

For more information: info@pibinko.org

May 30, 2017, 8.45PM – “For a more aware use of artificial light” Lucernate Community Hall

Events

The  BuioMetria Partecipativa tour continues, with a slightly revised angle and in a part of the country which contributed a lot to the 2005-2010 phase of the pibinko.org projects.

The evening meet-up will follow the morning lecture at the Politecnico di Milano on Land protection and planning: interdisciplinary experiences from ten years of projects from a lesser known area of Southern Tuscany.

The event will be hosted by Consorzio Bibliotecario Nord-Ovest Milano, the consortium of the public libraries operating in the North-Western quadrant of the Milano province (about 40 facilities). We will be in the Lucernate Community Hall, Rho, just North of Milano.

Here is a translation of the official event announcement  (in Italian):

For a more aware use of artificial light

Artificial light, and especially light powered by electricity, has represented one of the revolutions of our civilization, disconnecting human activities from the dawn-on/sunset-off pattern and improving security.
On the other hand, an excess of artificial light will determine significant impacts on landscape, ecology, energy consumption, human health, and security itself.
In 2008 the BuioMetria Partecipativa project was started, to provide awareness raising on artificial lighting issues, proposing a citizen science paradigm. From the Farma Valley, in Tuscany, about 100 km South of Florence and at the heart of one of the areas in Italy with the darkest skies due to low population and infrastructure density, the project has spread throughout the country, and has established significant collaborations internationally.
The presentation will provide an overview of the project and will announce some highlights of its 2017 campaign, where everybody can participate.

Please note: the official event page indicates a duration of two hours…we will surely be available for two hours, but the presentation will not be running for 120 minutes…ideally it will fit within one hour, and then we will have time for videos, photos, and interaction with the audience.

If you are in the Milan area and would like to attend, please write for additional information on how to reach the location.

No music allowed – episode 1: how did it go?

Compositions

This was a day with multiple musical nuances. Dario Canal from Etruschi from Lakota arrived around 1PM (after his musical induction classes in the morning). Incidentally, our second guest, Pietro Crivelli, showed up in the main square in Torniella around noon and stated playing fingerpicking guitar for twenty minutes, creating a cool mood, with notes floating in the air.

During the afternoon we had the opportunity of interacting with other residents.

The public official part of the program started at 6.30PM. Attendees included some Farma Valley residents, and delegations from  Chibumba (an all-acoustic band from Grosseto) and from the farming-musician community in Tatti, a nearby hamlet. After a quick dinner at the  Boscaiolo, the second part of the event took part in the Tornella music hall.

The hall is normally used for rehearsals of the Band of Torniella, in addition to parties and celebrations for special occasions in the village, but for a couple of hours it turned into a forum where the two guests debated on key issues for musicians, such as self-produced records, or the opportunities deriving from crowdfunding platforms (by the way: check out the musicraiser campaign for the publication of the third Etruschi from Lakota album). Summing all the issues emerged in discussione from lunchtime onwards, we surely improved our insight on the idea of “producing and performing music in a rural area”.

At the end of the discussion we also had some 20 minutes for casual jamming, involving audience and hosts mingling with different sets and using instruments casually present on locations, from different sources…or were the proportions between the talking and the playing opposite? Can’t remember right now!

Stay tuned on the pibinko.org calendar or subscribe to our mailing list to receive weekly updates on initiatives and events unfolding during the coming months in the Farma Valley or in other locations where we collaborate.

Kudos to those who provided a special support for the success of the event: Claudio and Fabiano Spinosi, Mario Straccali, Andrea Bartalucci, and Wolfgang Scheibe.

 

Pibinko.org Newsletter #4 (May 8, 2017)

Compositions

Following an undocumented process already seen in past cases related to pibinko.org, over the past few days a casual two-hour meeting arranged about a month ago took the shape of an event which was rated “very cool” by those who heard it presented. This will be called “Proibito suonare” (i.e. “No live music allowed”)… a kind of symposium between two musicians from different generations, with the minimum common denominator of living in an area where it is not simple to make music (nor a lot of other stuff!).

The date is Tuesday, May 9 (tomorrow, but the neighbouring acquaintances have been pre-alerted). The full presentation of the event is on this page.

Meanwhile, preparations are taking place for the next tour, with dates planned in:

  • Pisa, May 16, With a lecture on light pollution and citizen science at the University
  • Pisa, May 19, Etruschi from Lakota live (venue and opening time in the next newsletter)
  • Cuneo, May 20  (more details in a couple of days)
  • Milano, May 30, with a lecture at the  Politecnico di Milano in the morning, and an evening event, currently in the process of being finalized.

Durante each of these events (and in between, may I add) we will give details about the Summer/Fall range of activities, as planned by : pibinko.org, Attivarti.org, Etruschi from Lakota, Filarmonica e Banda di Torniella, Pro Loco Piloni-Torniella, and other colleagues in Tatti and Milano.

As usual, the best way to check what’s on is the pibinko.org  Calendario together with the  News section, where you can also review past interesting situations.

Ten Years ago, today

(for the musical part: checking the singles charts from 2007 every week is not so stimulating in the end…but I lilke to recall that in May 2014, during the palla a 21 mission to Milano, we were thinking about “Spread your Wings” by Queen in the branobags)

Coming back to the actual 2007 events leading to the Palla a 21 experience in Chicago, Illinois: on May 4 we have yet another fundraising card tournament, this time in Ciciano. Meanwhile,  Leigh Fagin, from the Department of Cultural Affairs sent us the boilerplate narrative which (according to them) was to be used on our marketing material to promote the events inserted into the “Art of Play”, Summer Calendar. I did not remember that installations by Nikki de Saint Phalle, were one of the highlights of the exhibitions (and Nikki de Saint Phalle is in fact well known in Southern Tuscany for her Tarot Garden, which I visited only once, in 2014):

ART OF PLAY BOILERPLATE:

SHORT VERSION (for your website, press releases, printed materials etc.)

Your event name goes here is part of Art of Play, the citywide summer celebration of toys, games and the spirit of play from June 1 through September 30. For details, call 1.877.chicago (1.877.244.2246 toll-free) or visit ArtofPlayChicago.com. The TTY toll-free number for the hearing impaired is 1.866.710.0294.

LONGER VERSION (For your information)

Your event name goes here is part of Art of Play: Summer in Chicago 2007, the citywide initiative with 150-plus fun-filled events celebrating toys, games and the spirit of play from June 1 through September 30. Art of Play is presented in collaboration with over 70 Chicago cultural organizations, the Chicago Office of Tourism, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, the Mayor’s Office of Special Events and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Bureau of Tourism.

Art of Play: Summer in Chicago 2007 features performances, demonstrations, tours, exhibitions, hands-on activities and more. Its centerpiece, Niki in the Garden at the Garfield Park Conservatory through October 31, is an extraordinary exhibition featuring 30 colossal, colorful sculptures by world-renowned artist Niki de Saint Phalle, many inviting interaction from touching to sitting to climbing. At Come In and Play, explore the history of Chicago-invented and -manufactured games and toys in an exhibition, through demonstrations of the latest inventions and by playing the featured game of the week. For a pre-planned weekend itinerary, try an Immersion Weekend featuring world’s fairs, museums or theater. Or, play Games for Guests and find special hotel packages at select hotels.

For more information or to request an Art of Play guide stop by Come In and Play, located at 72 E. Randolph Street, check ArtofPlayChicago.com or call 1.877.CHICAGO (1.877.244.2246 toll-free). To book hotel accommodations with special offers or to book an Immersion Weekend, call 1.877.CHICAGO or visit ArtofPlayChicago.com. For those calling from outside the United States, Mexico and Canada, call 1.312.201.8847. The TTY toll-free number for the hearing impaired is 1.866.710.0294. Chicago tourism information is also available at www.cityofchicago.org/Tourism.

Visitors can also find information about Chicago’s exciting events at one of the City’s official Visitor Information Centers, located at Chicago Water Works (163 E. Pearson Street) and the Chicago Cultural Center (77 E. Randolph Street).

[continua…]

No Live Music Allowed – ep. 1: In the Hilly Valleys (May 9, 2017, Torniella)

Events

Tuesday May 9, 2017, in Torniella, Farma Valley, Tuscany, we will have the first episode of a series which will unfold during the coming months (see the flyer, in Italian).

We want to raise the issue of the complexity of playing live music (especially for a living) in areas which are far from the big cities and the cultural hubs, but at times revealing hidden talents and artistic alchemies which are hard to find in town.

For our first evening we will have two guests which might pose as Cat Stevens’  “Father and Son”, having almost two generations in between. The “son” is Dario Canal, frontman of the Etruschi from Lakota, a young rock band from  Montecastelli Pisano with two albums made and long tours through all of Italy. The “father” is Pietro Crivelli, bass on the first line-up of  the Whisky Trail (the first group in Italy to propose Celtic music, in the mid-Seventies). Pietro relocated in Piloni, right next to Torniella, in 2011, after forty years of roaming the globe, as a musician and a painter, living in India, USA (mostly West Coast), and Bali.

The idea for the evening is to hear from the two artists their opinions and experiences, touching different angles: artistic inspiration, sound engineering, organizational issues, without neglecting anecdotes and juicy stories which take place on- and off-stage.

 

The event will be moderated by Andrea Giacomelli, aka pibinko. As an environmental engineer he used to be typically involved in geographic information systems, but since he started proposing also other initiatives, such as palla a 21 promotion or buiometria partecipativa (participatory night sky quality monitoring) he also exposed some ideas on music and events where live music has a key part.

Meet us in Torniella, Southern Tuscany, at 6.30PM at the restaurant il Boscaiolo. There will be a nice “aperitivo”, a dinner with typical dishes (or pizza if you prefer), and the actual event will be at 9.30 PM. We expect to close shop at 11PM, with highlights from the pibinko.org calendar of upcoming events.

If you plan to dine at Il Boscaiolo, please contact directly the restaurant: info@ilboscaiolotorniella.it or +3905641768029.

For more information on “No Live Music Allowed”: Andrea Giacomelli – info@pibinko.org  – +393511337020

(Photo credits: Federico Giussani)

Politecnico di Milano, May 30, 2017: Land protection and planning: interdisciplinary experiences from ten years of projects from a lesser known area of Southern Tuscany.

Announcements, Maps

On May 30, at 10.30AM, I will give a lecture at the Politecnico di Milano (the third since 2011). We will meet in the Aula Rossa, building 4A of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, campus Leonardo. If you can’t make it, I will be in town from May 29 to May 31st, and there will probably be another outreach event in the evening of May 30, so there will be options to meet.

The presentation will provide highlights of a track record of projects started in 2006, where technicians and experts in geosciences and geotechnologies started a set of independent promotion and protection projects centered in a lesser know part of Southern Tuscany (the Farma Valley), including residents of the area in research and technology transfer projects.

These experiences were started in relation to little-known aspects of the region, not exactly at the core of environmental disciplines, such as ancient games, gradually making contact with topics which are more in the environmental engineering and land planning “mainstream”. This led the group to addressing renewable energy and energy efficiency, light pollution -with the peculiarity of the Farma Valley being at the centre of one of the darkest areas in Italy- optimization of alien species mitigation, environmental monitoring, and rural development.

The outcome of such an effort, which has not been made simple various factors, starting from the difficulty for many stakeholders to acknowledge the “out of the box” composition of the working group, has gradually showed and obtained recognition from different directions. From a research standpoint, we have activated collaborations on various EU-funded programs (FP7, COST and HORIZON2020), plus collaborations with Universities plus the Italian Research Council. Relevant results have also been obtained in the area of outreach and dissemination -with recurring coverage by national media- and education and training, with internships for various levels of students. Last but not least, these project have generated actual technology transfer and a positive socio-economic impact on the interested communities.

In addition to an overall summary of the projects, the presentation will outline the dissemination and citizen science program for the coming months, where it will be possible to participate both as tourists, possibly during the Summer season, but preferably as students or researchers, with the possibility of collaborating with ongoing activities and proposing new topics.

Andrea Giacomelli, MS in environmental engineering (Politecnico di Milano, 1993) and PhD in Hydrology (Politecnico di Milano, 1997), specialized in geographic information systems and environmental data management. He has 23 years of professional experience, spread across different sectors: university, applied research and technology transfer, consulting, and project management in corporate environments. Since 2011 he operates as a freelancer, based in Southern Tuscany. In 2006 he started a series of projects focused on the protection and promotion of lesser known resources in the fields of culture, environment, and open innovation, including a significant component of community engagement elements (participatory processes, events, communication) and a strong level of “contamination” with arts, collaborating also with photographers and musicians, including live events.

pibinko.org newsletter #3 (May 2, 2017)

Announcements

This week is going to be quiet, execpt for a live show by Etruschi from Lakota (no leass!) at Joe Koala, Osio Sopra, in the Bergamo area.

Meanwhile, other initiatives are brewing for the rest of the month. Between mid May and early June there will be another pibinko.org tour. At present the confirmed dates are:

  • Tuesday, May 16 in Pisa, with a lecture at the university and a debriefing at the Torre del Luppolo beer shop (read the full announcement)
  • Tuesda, May 30 in Milano (venues to be confirmed shortly).

We are also working on Grosseto (Souther Tuscany) and Florence, but there is some time ahead, so please be patient….or you might want to check out recent news such as the “opening” of the Farma Valley community map billboard, by Attivarti.org.

Ten Years ago, today

Justin Timberlake (was on the air), but most of all the short video on the construction of the palla a 21/palla eh! ball was being produced: If you start well, you end up well.
The video was shot at Fausto Landini’s place, starring Ilo Ferrandi and co-starring a bottle of very serious Tuscan red wine (we are intentionally omitting the brand), following the making of a ball and then highlighting the key phases of the process.

The anniversary of the video is timely, since just yesterday we confirmed the date of the first course on palla a 21 (o palla e) ball making, with Ilo Ferrandi as the tutor: this will be on Saturday, July 17, in Torniella (Southern Tuscany). More details will follow, or you may write to info@pibinko.org for details…but please save the date in the meantime!

 

May 16, 2017: a lecture on research, outreach and citizen science applied to artificial light at night at the University of Pisa

Announcements

Tuesday, May 16, 2017, from 2PM to 4PM in room A of the Polo Didattico Nobili, Pisa University, Italy, there will be a lecture on “Artificial Light at Night: Perspectives between Tuscany and Europe on Research, Outreach, and Citizen Science“.
The lecturers will be  Luciano Massetti, Senior Technologist at the Institute of Biometeorology of the National Research Council, and Andrea Giacomelli, MSc Environmentla Engineering and PhD in Hydrology, manager of the BuioMetria Partecipativa project.  The event is hosted by the Department of Biology, thanks to the collaboration with Dr Elena Maggi
postdoctoral fellow from the Marine Biology and Ecology group in Pisa.
The event will be an opportunity to learn about the state of the art on the issue of artificial light at night from a perspective combining research, dissemination, and engagements of experts from various disciplines, and analyzing both risks and opportunities related to the use of this resource.
The talks will combine a local viewpoint with a global one: experiences ongoing in lesser known rural areas, such as Southern Tuscany (which -together with the Tuscan archipelago- represents in Italy one of the areas with the best night sky quality) will be reviewed in relation to a wider framework, accounting for the experiences of the lecturers in European research networks and other international initiatives.

The afternoon will also be the opportunity to present the program of activities where everybody -from experts to citizens- may participate during the Summer and the following months, continuing the night sky brightness monitoring campaign started in 2008 with the BuioMetria Partecipativa project (which for 2017 will propose some marine options, as an extension to its scope).

After the lecture, some of the attendees will move to  La Torre del Luppolo, via Fucini 13, where it will be possible to further discuss the issues presented in “after hours” mode (from 6PM to 8PM).
The event is organized by: Dipartimento di Biologia dell’Università di Pisa, CNR IBIMET,
associazione Attivarti.org e pibinko.org.
Admission to the event is free, but for organizational issues an e-mail to emaggi@biologia.unipi.it. will be appreciated if you plan to attend.
How to reach the venue
By train: from the Pisa Centrale train station walk North, along Corso Italia. Cross the Arno river on Ponte di Mezzo. Turn left on Lungarno Pacinotti. At the traffic light of the following bridge (Ponte Solferino) take a right in via Roma, and keep walking to the intersection with via Volta.
By car: toll parkings exist on Lungarno Simonelli, via Roma or piazza Carrata, driving from Lungarno Pacinotti
For more information

Elena Maggi: emaggi@biologia.unipi.it, ph +39 050 2211444