A Website for Cesare Zavattini’s Works. Digitizing and Dynamizing a Personal Audiovisual Archive

Digitization has been changing the methods of production, distribution and use of written and audiovisual products, according to a process of “platformization” (Van Dijck, Poell, de Waal 2018). Following the “network society” model (Castells 1996), platforms, as creative ecosystems (Montanari 2018) and medial ecosystems (Pescatore, Innocenti 2011), have introduced a new mindset that connects producers and consumers within a digital environment, breaking down space-time barriers, controlling data and simplifying the supply chain (Nasta and Pirolo, 2017). So even the audiovisual field has undergone a transition to companies with a service provider role, following a user-based model that feeds different forms of participation and spreadability through intermediality and storytelling (Abercrombie and Longhurst, 1998; Jenkins, Ford, Green 2013). The project of digitization of written material of the Zavattini Archive (Biblioteca Panizzi, Reggio Emilia) starts from a productive theoretical (and methodological) intersection between platform design and game design. As we will see, the paradigm shift that platform design has brought resembles certain characteristics of the “play” experience. The concepts of collaboration and intermediation lead to a rethinking of users as pivotal and at the centre, not only regarding their user experience (as in certain types of digital games) but also in the production of various types of content (as in platforms), leading to asynchronous collective experiences, whether they are related to gaming or to participating in platforms.