I had never heard of Arturo Di Corinto before i saw him talk at Resistant Maps, artistic actions in the interconnected urban territory but, boy, that guy rocks! Di Corinto is a psychologist, he’s teaching Computer-mediated Communication at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and Psychology of Online Communication at the Fine Art Academy in Carrara. He’s also writing for Italian newspapers La Repubblica, Il Manifesto, Liberazione, Aprileonline.

He started with a presentation of Voisietequi (You are here), a website that maps voters political position. A 10 minute test asks voters how much they are in favour (or against) of 25 themes (such as drugs, immigration, privatisation of state owned services, etc.) that get mentioned most often in the programmes of political parties or in political debates.

After having finished the test, voters can see how close or far away they are from political parties.

The website had in fact a hidden goal. It was launched to shed the light on a more ambition project: openpolis which profiles Italian politicians. The profile would include the usual (who they are, where they’re from, when they were born, etc. data that can easily be obtained from the Ministry of Internal Affairs) but also their income tax return, pending cases in court, law they put forward in the past, lobbying actions they support, etc. A Big Brother-isation of politicians. By collecting as much information about them as possible, some connections and unsuspected relationships between politicians might emerge (a bit in the They Rule and Public Whip way!) The platform offers other features such as the possibility to “tag” a politician, del.icio.us-style; a button to directly send a message to the politician, the possibility to follow petitions online, etc.

Openpolis will be at BarCamp in Turin on December 2, 2006.