Maria Grazia Mattei on Digital Culture: Beyond the Pandemic

Maria Grazia Mattei, founder and president of MEET, Milan's digital culture center established in 2018 with Fondazione Cariplo, argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed Italy's cultural sector's digital gap but also accelerated a necessary shift. She insists the internet must be seen not as a mere communication tool but as an environment requiring specific digital-first content. MEET, designed as a physical node of a virtual network, will open its 1,500 sqm space by architect Carlo Ratti with three interconnected floors for immersive, collaborative experiences. The inaugural program includes media artist Refik Anadol, who creates AI-driven immersive environments. Mattei highlights the 'Charrette' project with George Brown College's Institute without Boundaries and Harvard University to develop sustainable economic models for digital cultural initiatives. She cites transmedia storytelling, exemplified by Jeff Gomez's 2012 talk, as a model for cross-platform engagement. The pandemic, she says, has forced digital literacy and a paradigm shift that cannot be reversed, citing the Ministry of Cultural Heritage's 2019-2021 white paper on museum digitization as a starting point. Key priorities include cultural understanding of the network as a production space, digital experience design, internationalization, and hybridization of physical and virtual production.