In summer 2010, the Brazilian multimedia producer Giovanni Francischelli led a Korsakow workshop in Campinas, a city located in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. “I work with web-documentary films and I found Korsakow an excellent tool to develop such projects, so I decided to use the software in workshops on the subject”, he told us via email.
During six days, he covered some basic concepts about interactive narratives on the web and afterwards, he encouraged the participants to create a collaborative piece of work with the Korsakow software. The result is a documentary, titled Artista a praça, about a traditional hippie fair for crafts that happens in the city of Campinas on the weekends.
The Feira de Artesanatos de Campinas occurs every Saturday in a square in the Cambuí neighborhood. In its forty years of existence, it has become a meeting point for young people, families, art lovers and tourists. Nevertheless, the artisans who sell their craft pieces have recently been dealing with a very common issue in these days of increased globalization: the ‘Made in China’ products that some merchants have incorporated in the fair at a cheap price. Francischelli explains: “The nomadic hippies and artisans, former founders of the fair, had their space limited and were isolated in a corner next to the bathroom.”
Artista a praça covers this matter through the voices of eight people who have been involved at different levels with the fair for many years. According to Francischelli, “The video brings testimonies from several people who watched the changes in the fair, and also tries to explore the hippie spirit in people who have been or are linked to the hippie culture. The basis of the documentary is this transformation of values, the difficulties of modern society and the portrait of a popular heritage of the city.”
The Korsakow film introduces the topic via a short soundbite from each interviewee addressing something crucial that summarizes her/his general opinion. As each individual comes into view on the screen, a preview for his/her testimony appears in the interface. Thus, it is possible to navigate à la carte through the various perspectives on the changes in the fair. This documentary covers sensitive themes – the disappearance of handmade crafts in favour of industrialized production of goods; the square as a key place for communities – in a very suggestive manner. And instead of using Korsakow for conceptualizing, it has been employed as a way for organizing the contents with a hippietextual approach.
Written and researched by Irene Serrano
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