Work
Work
Botticelli Interactive created many non-linear narrative projects from 1995-2002. Founded by a core group from MIT, the company explored the potential of interactive media in documentary, fiction, and educational applications. Projects like the "Star Festival" web series and "CamKidz" interactive television prototype focused on content development with new medial approaches. PDF FOR DETAIL
Ellen Sebring (Co-Founder and President)
Michael Roper (Co-Founder and Principal)
Glenda Manzi (Principal and Executive Producer)
Scott Shunk (Senior Producer)
Dustin Di Tommaso (Senior Producer)
Andrew Burstein (Designer/Coder)
Stuart Lipsky (Business Manager)
Douglas Tanger (Business Development)
Mia Keinanen (Research/Producer)
Projects include (pictured below):
Star Festival, interactive documentary, Best of Show, MacWorld Expo
Star Network, web series, Distinguished Award by Multimedia Grandprix 2000, Tokyo
CamKidz, interactive television prototype, Institute for Civil Society
Iridium Games, Best of Show, Iridium Booth, Geneva Telecom
Sybase Lab, learning tool
Titian Kiosk, touch screen, Silver Medal, New York Festivals Interactive Multimedia Competition, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Discovery Kiosk, touch screen, Worcester Art Museum
This Place Called Home, interactive documentary, EPA
As for the computer images, they actually are a big deal. The Gardner’s DVD (Digital Video Disk) kiosk allows you to take any element of Europa and blow it up to full-screen size without sacrificing resolution. The Gardner staff have divided the painting into 20 “nuggets” (you can get a list by touching KEY): Europa, the bull (Zeus in disguise), the fish, the putti, the mountains, etc. — each with its own lucid accompanying text.
The “black hole” area toward the lower left is the “Death” nugget; it tells how Titian died, in 1576, from the Plague. Don’t miss “Echoes,” which shows how Titian unifies the painting by repeating thematic elements: the angle of legs, the swirling of drapery, the preponderance of eyes.
You could easily enjoy an hour at the kiosk, but even five minutes before going in to the show will have you poised to compare what Titian and Rubens have done.
Titian Kiosk
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Titian Kiosk
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Titian Kiosk: one of 20 silent animations that reveal details in Titian's painting, "Europa." The touch-screen kiosk designed and scripted by Botticelli Interactive for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1998, was awarded the Silver Medal of the New York International Multimedia Festivals. The review of the show, "TITIAN AND RUBENS: POWER, POLITICS, AND STYLE," discusses the kiosk, then a some what radical intrusion into the Gardner exhibition.
["Europa Europa: Another Gardner Thunderbolt: Titian and Rubens"]
Star Festival
Interactive documentary, MIT
Star Festival
Interactive documentary, MIT
Star Festival is an interactive cinéma vérité style documentary based on the experiences of Shigeru Miyagawa returning to his hometown of Hiratsuka after living for many years in the U.S. The documentary footage captures the places he visits in the town and the comments of people who live there, triggering his memories of childhood. The non-linear narrative places the viewer in the position of explorer who finds a lost PDA filled with these clips and attempts to reconstruct the journey to find the owner. The interactive version builds on these vignettes to add language components, and historical and cultural information. The core of the application focuses on what it means to belong to several cultural heritages.
This excerpt from the “Star Festival” interactive documentary, Produced by Botticelli Interactive for MIT. Filmed by Michael Roper. MIT © 1998
In an increasingly complex and diversifying world, it is through the understanding of the personal histories and cultures of other people that we come to recognize the common bond we all share and begin the work of building the global community of the future. ‘Star Festival’ does this with style and luminous humanity.