INPUT 1981 - Venice, Italy

"INPUT 1981 was to have been in Paris. But the board, after checking out the proposed venue, decided it would not work. The decision touched off an international contretemops that threatened for a time to poison the well of good will on which INPUT relied. With Paris out, RAI offered Venice. Over vigorous objections from the French, the board accepted. Once again, RAI stepped into the host's role with conference planning in the hands of its team of highly experienced organizers from the Prix Italia.
The Venice site - or more properly, sight - was a 10th Century Benedictine monastry on the island of San Giorgio on the Grand Canal, rebuilt in 1565 by Palladio, and in more recent years renovated to accomodate the cultural activities of the Giorgio Cini Foundation. The monastery's near neighbour, the San Giorgio Maggiore church, is one of the Serene City's most familiar landmarks.
Sixteenth Century architecture greeted twentieth Century technology in screening rooms that were as chilly as they were awesome. Each morning, delegates boarded vaporetti to reach the island where, to the satisfaction of the Shopstewards, they were pretty well stuck in those rooms for the whole day. Except on that morning when dense fog kept the vaporetti immobilized until the fog lifted. Shopstewards notwithstanding, conference screenings waited upon nature."

- From "INPUT at 20" by James Day.