We started our journey at Ponte di Calatrava, which is the most recent bridge between the dryland and the city of Venice. This bridge is a material link between two separated places, and we decided to use it as a metaphor for the structuration of space, made of places and various links. As a matter of fact, we realized there were types of bridges, or links, some we see and walk on, others that we don’t see and take other forms, but that play the same role : making a link, in an immaterial way. For instance, there are a lot of dark tunnels in Venice, they can be seen as bridges establishing a connection between two different places. But they are not only “some” links, they also are actual places where people live and where things happen. Actually, tunnels and “in between places” are often “places of expressions”, there are a lot of posters, graffiti and other types of street art, which can’t be found in the classic places. To a certain extent, these kinds of places reveal what “living in that space” for real is all about. The street art is a marker of space, one that is telling something, although the message can be different if you are a university student (is it curiosity?), or a couple with kids (is it fear?). But no matter what, something is happening, some people are marking the space, appropriating it through the message.
What do we have here? We have a cue on what space is all about, indeed, Venice, as a one of the great touristic places in the global world, show that some places are symbolically overcharged (by history…), such as San Marco, a place where the viewer hasn’t got any room for interpretation. To the contrary, other places, especially the “in between places”, send mixt messages depending on the viewers’ reading. In a sense, Venice allows us to propose a general gradient of space, with the “no place to interpret” on one side, and on the other, ”places open to interpretations”. We are talking here more on interpretation, but feelings obviously come into play.