To date, about a year and a half has passed since Artheria was founded.

I have always found it a little difficult to explain to people outside what we do, which sometimes seems a limitation, especially when representing Artheria to our clients. However, it would be misleading I say that I really feel limited. For me, it is precisely in this space of “lack of definition” that we find the potential of who we are; a heterogeneous group of passionate professionals, with different backgrounds and skills, all sharing the same goal.

It is important to legitimize the ferment that we live and feed within the company: our continuous exchange of ideas and cross-fertilization of our know-how, the desire to grow, evolve, improve, and more than anything else, to find our voice within the field of cross-realities.

After all, we operate in a sector that is constantly expanding, developing, and changing; maintaining certain plasticity is perhaps the only way to keep up with the times.

I believe that the name Artheria – a fusion of ‘art’ and ‘technology’ – is the best description we could find to communicate our approach. We work so that the innovative and technological dimension can meet a more artistic and visual research in a continuous attempt to establish new ways of relationship and dialogue with our audience, working on projects that could turn out to be enriching VR, AR, and MR experiences, both from a visual and perceptive point of view.

The first version of our game layout – so different from the current one!

When Iolanda came to me to talk about Vajont, I immediately thought it was perfect for Artheria; from the synopsis, I could see not only a project of human and social value, but also, its potential to break down and recreate boundaries between different languages, a view in which Artheria is so interested.

Where do cinema and videogames meet? How far can we go in making a passive spectator an active part of a story? How can VR help us to achieve these two goals? What is, basically, the maximum limit of a Virtual Reality experience?

All these questions quickly translated into a series of technical challenges in my mind. It was something which could only increase our skills, and could be a great personal and professional stimulus. Therefore, I immediately accepted her proposal to produce this project.

We presented the first draft of Vajont at the fourth edition of the Biennale Cinema College VR, and were selected. I will always be grateful for the opportunity offered by the Biennale to take part in two advanced training workshops. These were held by tutors who became fundamental for us, both from human and professional points of view. The time was used to explore our project, rewrite it, and test its defects and merits.

The 12 projects selected for Biennale College – Virtual Reality, 2019-2020 edition. Screenshot from YouTube. You can find me on the left side of this picture, happily smiling.

I believe that this adventure remains one of the greatest experiences I have ever had: to meet teams of VR directors and producers from all over the world, to share and talk about our different approaches to technology, our vision, and our skills. We drew together an idea of the near future of Virtual Reality.
But it was not only making friends and sharing efforts, tensions, and joys. If there is something I have re-evaluated – the greatest teaching of the whole experience – it is the absolute importance of establishing empathetic human relationships in order to really grow.

The rest I think you already know: we won the grant that Biennale Cinema College VR made available for the production of just one project among those selected to participate in the workshops.

So here we are, in the middle of this great adventure, which we decided to share with you through the opening of this blog.

Enjoy reading it!