Regular readers of barganews might have noticed over the last couple of weeks and those of you who follow what is happening on these pages via the social networks, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, foursquare and Instagram will have had without a doubt their inboxes and feeds flooded with images of Barga and brightly coloured Lego bricks.
It seemed like every single day for one reason or another, Lego was appearing on all of the images.
So what was going on?
This weekend the Italian LEGO® User Group and LEGO® Italia held an event called -- Il Ciocco Bricks Festival d’Estate -- The Ciocco Summer Bricks Festival for the many thousands of enthusiasts to be found in Italy.
According to Time magazine -- the Lego Movie is currently the highest-grossing domestic box office release of 2014, so there is a huge interest out there for Lego goods at the moment.
Lego is a popular line of construction toys manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company’s flagship product, Lego, consists of colourful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears, minifigures and various other parts. Lego bricks can be assembled and connected in many ways, to construct such objects as vehicles, buildings, and even working robots. Anything constructed can then be taken apart again, and the pieces used to make other objects.
Lego began manufacturing interlocking toy bricks in 1949. Since then a global Lego subculture has developed, supporting movies, games, competitions, and six themed amusement parks. As of 2013, around 560 billion Lego parts had been produced. -- source
The photographers Stefano Tommasi and Keane were both invited to take part in this event but neither of them had any real idea in what capacity and what form their participation could take.
They tried a couple of ideas of filming Lego figures moving through Barga and then a couple more of photoshopping Lego brick colours onto views in Barga Vecchia but nothing really seem to gel until they finally opened up the whole question to the regulars of Da Aristo -- which everybody now knows IS the unofficial cultural centre of Barga, so what better place for a brainstorming session?
A couple of large boxes crammed full of Lego were distributed around the tables and people started building their ideas.
It can be noted by close observation of the images that the hands busily putting together the coloured bricks were of all ages. From seven to seventy the lure of Lego was very strong.
After three building sessions, the final idea came to the surface and was immediately acted upon.
Post-modernism dictated that the two photographers should participate in the event with two Lego cameras and just to make it a little bit more interesting, they should be working Lego models of the now-defunct and sadly missed Polaroid instant cameras.
With the aid of some creative Lego construction, two iPhones each equipped with a neat application called POLAMATIC that is precisely what the two photographers used to document their two days up at Ciocco much to the delight of the participants, many of whom enquired on just where they could purchase the magical machines.
Polamatic, the official app of Polaroid, brings back the instant nostalgia of Polaroid pictures. Featured on TechChrunch, CNET, The Verge, Tuaw and many more. The best Polaroid experience since actual Polaroid film itself.
Il Ciocco Bricks Festival d’Estate
21 -- 22 GIUGNO 2014 La Tenuta del Ciocco, a pochi km da Barga, in Valle del Serchio, apre le porte al mattoncino più famoso del mondo: il 21 e 22 giugno, in occasione del primo Festival d’Estate, si terrà l’evento “Il Ciocco Bricks”.
L’iniziativa, organizzata in collaborazione con l’Associazione ItLUG -- Italian LEGO® User Group e con il supporto di LEGO® Italia – già recenti protagonisti del successo della seconda edizione di “Mattoncini a Palazzo” ad Empoli -- si svolgerà all’interno della Tenuta, allo Sport Village.
In una suggestiva cornice naturale, tra esposizioni di set ufficiali e diorami, tra riproduzioni di città e di mondi fantascientifici, grandi e piccini potranno rivivere la magia dei blocchetti colorati che hanno affascinato tante generazioni.
