VII Interactive Book Club: “iDyssey” by Stefano De Luigi
In this VII Interactive Book Club, recorded live on May 9, Stefano De Luigi retraced the genesis of his iDyssey book project. In the spring of 2012, the photographer, armed only with two iPhone 3s to document his travels, set out to retrace the Mediterranean voyage of Homer’s Odysseus, considered one of the greatest masterpieces of Western literature. It was composed in the late 8th century B.C. and together with the Iliad, it is one of the oldest and most influential poems in Western culture. Traveling through Turkey, Greece, Tunisia, and Italy, De Luigi took Hipstamatic photos, recorded noises from streets and seas, filmed cities and ships, and asked people he met along the way to read excerpts from the Odyssey in their mother tongue. “The epic has its roots in an oral tradition, transmitted by itinerant poets, singers, and storytellers,” De Luigi writes. “In contemporary society, the digital revolution has drastically changed the transmission of knowledge and information. Everyone can now be a storyteller.”
This lecture was originally hosted at VII Interactive, a new resource for sharing insights and information on the craft of visual storytelling. We are building different platforms within the VII ecosystem, where the public can engage directly, online with a live instructor. VII Interactive offers programming that is free and available to everyone, in addition to paid classes and individual mentoring that can be fashioned to your needs.