Thanks to Officina Turistica for hosting me and Federico Giussani for the shots.

In July I took part in the first meeting of the participatory process of the Grosseto Municipality for the definition of proposal for the use of the 400000 Euro deriving from the “tourist tax” (i.e. the small quota payed by tourists when they stay in Grosseto tourism facilities).

I published a summary of this event onAttivarti.org, since a strong interest was demonstrated for the BuioMetria Partecipativa project.

Having followed the first meeting in Roselle, I was re-invited in Roselle on Sep. 29 from 5PM to 7PM.

Phase two of the process consisted in a first screening of the ideas collected in July, narrowing down the bunch of to three ideas using four coloured stickers for each participat to express a preference. Each of the three “leading” ideas was assigned to a “preliminary design” table, and the participants were invited to join one of the tables to further discuss the idea.

BuioMetria Partecipativa received only two preferences in this step. Considering the context and looking at it on the bright side, I might say it was a success to even have one preference in addition to myself! But -like in all the fairy tales- I was distracted at some point and did not take note of who was the other BMP supporter.

To follow the rules of the game I thus parked the “night sky issue” and decided to join the table of the idea ranked as #2 (or #3, I don’t remember), i.e. the planning of a series of cultura events in the suburbs of Grosseto.

Here is my proposal in a nutshell:

• Let’s exclude from the scope Grosseto city in itself and the Gorarella/Barbanella suburbs (not because I don’t like them, but because they are basically right next to a Grosseto)
• Take one event per month in each suburb, excluding the June-July-August-September months, where too many things are happening all over Southern Tuscany
• Assume a budget of 300 Euro for each event, and add to this property rights (if applicable), plus a 10% management/promotion  budget
• Launch a national (make it international, if you will) call for subjects proposinng events, with no specific exclusions
• Publish all proposals on the Municipality web site and vote them with some simple electronic system
• Generate the calendar of events evaluating the results of the voting process

Rough estimate on a first pass of calculations: 42768 Euro (to be tuned).

Other points of interest I found

• The input from other participants to my table. They recalled the importance of premises and subjects existing locally (even though I see the project more as an opportunity to bring in the suburbs some extra-Grosseto animation.
• some observations on the methodology, which I shared with the organizers

…more news about the BuioMetria Partecipativa developments will follow!

I really liked Athens. I felt at home. The language is not so alien (for an Italian who studied latin and has a basic knowledge of the Greek alphabet from engineering studies). If you listen carefully, and look sharply things will tend to more or less make sense after few days. Many Greek girls have a lot of traits in common with Greek icons (Maria Callas, Vanna Barba). Many Greek guys remind me of friend living in Rome or South of it, or of Anthony Quinn.

I took it from there…between the Balkan Light conference, covered in a previous articole, the closing of the political campaign and the Sunday elections, and some interesting strolls in the Exarchia neighbourhood and the Zografou area.

My only regret is to miss some shots of the concert which happened in some square West of Monastiraki with four bands (free jazz, swing, rock-blues, and finally surf). It ended almost at 1AM just because the generator was out of fuel. Then again, I don’t regret too much, because if you don’t take pictures you can bettern enjoy the groove.

Oh, by the way, yes…the Parthenon was there too, but feeling at home I was kind of less attracted to the key tourist points.

Between September 16 and September 18 I attended the Sixth Balkan Light Conference in Athens, Greece, organized by the National Technical University of Athens, the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education, and Religious Affairs, and the Hellenic Lighting Association.

Balkan Light is an event happening every three years, proposing the state of the art of research and best practice in the use of lighting in all of the Balkan region. The conference has a focus on this specific geographic area, but also sees the participation of experts from other countries. In this edition for example I met people from Germany, Italy, Thailand, Barbados.

I was invited by the organizing committee in the context of a session dedicated to light pollution. For this I proposed a talk with a joint overview by four non-governmental organizations and one research institute on artificial light at night in Italy.
The presentation was co-authored with Luciano Massetti from the CNR Biometeorology Institute (with whom I collaborate in the Loss of the Night Network), Mario di Sora from the Italian Stargazer Association (UAI), Fabio Falchi from Cielobuio, and Leopoldo Dalla Gassa from Veneto Stellato.

These are not all the stakeholders that I have been interacting in Italy on night sky quality issues, and in the presentations I made a point of reminding this. Simply, they represent those with whom in over seven years we were able, from the BuioMetria Partecipativa project, to build some form of collaboration. I also made a call to others, both nationally and internationally, to make contact with us and understand if/how we can relate for ongoing and future initiatives.

The conference was for me also a great opportunity to learn more about lighting technologies applied to anything: from interior design, to ancient monuments or caves, and recreation, reinforcing my current understanding of many issues related to artificial light, not just at night.

Last but not least: I had yet another confirmation that Italy, for reasons I am still investigating, has something (positive) that other countries do not. It appears that in ancient Greece, folks were building lamps for indoor lighting. However, the really elegant models of lamps were imported from Italy. Not that I needed to come to Balkan Light to learn that Italian design is really cool, but it’s interesting to see how a fact finds additional evidence in contexts where you wouldn’t expect it!

The next Balkan Light conference will be in Bulgaria in 2018. It would be nice to be there with some of the folks I met in Athens, presenting the accomplishments we will have obtained from the seeds we planted in Greece. Que sera, sera!

In the meantime, let me remind you of upcoming events where we can be in touch, should you be interested in learning more about these topics (or about participatory methods in general):

• September 25, Florence, presentation by Andrea Giacomelli at the Innovation in environmental education:ICT and intergenerational learning
• October 27, Gavorrano (Southern Tuscany), Join Maremma Online
• October 28-30 Monza, where I will be the tutor for geospatial technologies in the Connected Automobiles Hackathon
• November, date a venue to be defined, final Attivarti.org outreach event for 2015

Also, with Attivarti.org I am co-organizing together with SAIT Toscana a one-day symposium on light in October 29, Leghorn, at the Natural History Museum in Leghorn, The event will host presentations by Luciano Massetti and Federico Giussani.