DIGICULT

Digital Art, Design & Culture

Founder & Editor-in-chief: Marco Mancuso

Advisory Board: Marco Mancuso, Lucrezia Cippitelli, Claudia D'Alonzo

Publisher: Associazione Culturale Digicult Largo Murani 4, 20133 Milan (Italy) http://www.digicult.it Editorial Press registered at Milan Court, number N°240 of 10/04/06. ISSN Code: 2037-2256

Licenses: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs - Creative Commons 2.5 Italy (CC BY- NC-ND 2.5)

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E-publishing development: Loretta Borrelli

Cover design: Eva Scaini

Digicult is part of the The Leonardo Organizational Member Program TABLE OF CONTENTS

Marco Mancuso Our Right To Internet: Interview With Alessandro Gilioli ...... 3

Jeremy Levine Non-locality: Myths And Metaphors In Networked Art And Quantum Systems ...... 17

Salvatore Iaconesi Fakepress. Ubiquitous Publishing And Distributed Storytelling ...... 25

Antonio Caronia Art, Activism, Subjectivity, Sabotage ...... 28

Barbara Sansone Hangar + Laboral = Summerlab ...... 33

Francesco Bertocco Derek Jarman’s Visual Painting ...... 38

Silvia Casini Wodiczko’s Video Shadows Between Visible And Invisible ...... 41

Giulia Baldi Sonar, Enduring Research. Interview With Giorgia Taglietti ...... 49

Valeria Merlini Sommercamp + Workstation. Temporary Autonomous Culture ...... 54

Alessandra Migani Losing Yourself In The Whitetree. Lippok Brothers & Ludovico Einaudi ...... 59

Lucrezia Cippitelli Contour 2009: Video And Historical Representation ...... 64 Silvia Scaravaggi Balint Boligo’ And The Magical Machines ...... 69

Marvin Milanese Architectures, Visions And Apparati Effimeri ...... 74

Elena Gianni Fluid Forms: Fluid, Digital And Personalized Objects ...... 77

Massimo Schiavoni The Sensible Scene ...... 83

Donata Marletta Marina Abramovich Presents: Experiments And Tension ...... 88

Gigi Ghezzi E-partecipation: Paradoxes And New Ways To Discover ...... 90

Monica Ponzini Sputink Observatory ...... 94 Our Right To Internet: Interview With Alessandro Gilioli

Marco Mancuso

territories forever, was absolutely naive in my opinion: there are many negative accounts of this, on a national and international level, some of which have been discussed in Digimag during the past few years.

Regarding these themes, the Italian government seems to have already triggered an unprecedented control I would say that it was almost and restriction policy in the Western inevitable. To live and work in a “democracies” and that, as the guests country, as democratic as it seems, of this interview Alessandro Gilioli and where the interdependent rapport Derrick De Kerckhove emphasise, between politics and mass media is could bring up a series of much tighter than in any other amendments and decrees that country in the world (excluding those constitute as a dangerous precedent openly totalitarian regimes that we to be imitated by other “democracies” mentioned for example in last all over the world. In fact it seems that month’s Persepolis 2.0 article, of in Italy, the freedom of the Press as course) and does not allow for we know it, is a right that exists libertarian utopias of any sort if they merely on paper and much less in discuss any subject that is a practice: how to interpret the latest fundamental part of democracy, like masked government action against the freedom of the Press, the right to the freedom of thought and of the an opinion, the freedom of thought. Press, the Alfano decree on wiretapping, which has in fact To think that the Internet, Blogs, P2P “muted” a whole series of bloggers on and Social Networks could be exempt the Net, threatening them with legal from censorship and restrictions from action and hefty fines? If the so-called the government, to hope that they obligation to rectify, thought of 60 would continue to be completely free years ago for the Press, is imposed on

3 all blogs (even amateur ones) with the worked as a collector of posts and foreseen hefty pecuniary fines, it free opinions, as well as a container would actually put a silencer on online for the images of all the bloggers who conversations and freedom of speech. gagged themselves by taking part in the protest. The project also involved In a government obsessed by a sit-in and meeting in Piazza Navona controlling the mass media, intent on in Rome, at 7pm on Tuesday, the 14th putting a silencer on every possible of July, and a symbolic gagging of the voice of protest, fundamentally bloggers that were present as well as ignorant to social and economical the statue that represents the dynamics that make up the Internet, freedom of speech, the statue of P2P, Open Sourcing and Social Pasquino. Networking, it’s almost inevitable to be afraid of that which you cannot control, of the so-called “word getting out” that could slip through the small mesh of an online community, as small as it can be, that has the potential to grow and could soon become politically important (if well- represented, of course).

Therefore in protest against the Alfano Decree, on the 14th of July a . virtual strike took place, a strike on The initiative inevitably caught my the main Italian blogs. This happened attention, be it for the objective thanks to the initiative of Alessandro importance of the theme in question, Gilioli (Journalist, writer, Editor and the fact that Digimag naturally tends blogger of “L’Espresso” with his to want to know about projects done Piovono Rane feature), and the by the vivacious voices of its guests collaboration of bloggers from all (that can be artistic and of protest), be political areas (and non-political areas it for the opportunity to be able to too) and representatives of various confront myself with a free-thinker parties and associations, the initiative whose activity and presence on the asked Italian blogs to just post the Net, in my opinion, are very important logo of the protest online, with a link for our country, for the distribution of to the statement for the Diritto Alla a “new” form of hybrid journalism Rete: http://dirittoallarete.ning.com. between the traditional form, The Social Networking platform

4 connected more closely to Print and concrete effects has the initiative TV and to the dynamics of classic been having on a social and political editorials, and what the media have level, that I presume is still thriving, erroneously crowned as being “citizen and what effects can it have in the journalism” (which I prefer to call “free future? And more generally speaking, journalism”). Derrick de Kerckhove in what direction, in your opinion, (whom I thank dearly) also answered should work be done so that protest my questions, an essayist who needs and gathering initiatives on the Net no introduction, an opinionist, can have a real and efficient fall back Director of McLuhan Program in in the real world of our lives? Culture & Technology and Professor of the Department of French of the Alessandro Gilioli: We’ll see the University of Toronto, who in “specific” results of the protest later someway has been closely following on: if and when the “blogkiller” the evolution of Alessandro Gilioli’s enforcement will be thrown out by project. Alfano, as we hope. It’s being discussed, there’s an amendment that Marco Mancuso: I would like to begin will probably be voted for: I am this interview by asking you to give probably “rashly optimistic” on the me an initial overview of the initiative hypothesis that the specific objective of the “blog strike” that took place on will be reached. But two results have the 14th of July after the creation of already been obtained. First of all, the the platform The Right to Net. initiative has brought the question of Personally I consider this initiative to communication “from the bottom” in be an important step toward the use Italy (and the ignorance of our of the Net as a real platform for politicians) outside the self-referential discussion, thought, gathering: for circuit of blogs. Dozens of Italian and example The Right to Net has united foreign newspapers (like El Mundo) many informative blogs and this is and TV stations (from Sky to the BBC) very useful for all those people that have talked about it – so that they wish to find their way through the could dissent from it. A lot of (hopefully) free and independent politicians and actors in politics asked universe of information from the themselves for the first time, “what bottom, that was quickly labelled are these blogs and why are they so Citizen Journalism by the media. At pissed off”?, which is something. The the same time I ask myself, and ask second result was the fact of getting you, aside from the act of protest and the blog sector to discuss and think strike that were absolutely legitimate about its own role and (why not?) its and justified, what practical and responsibilities. In particular the

5 passage from a phase of simple moment of mass distribution of the “defensive rejection” against stupid force of the Internet compared to that laws (D’Alia, Carlucci, ddl Alfano, etc.), of classic media. It means that to a phase of “purposeful strategies can be found to greatly counterattack” to stimulate the augment the impact of social legislators to produce laws that keep networks, which have an influence on in mind the different dynamics of political power, a power that we can online communication from the call ecological. Politics should be bottom compared to the vertical ecological. Another aspect is the journalism of Print, to be inspired impact that such a law has on toward opening, innovation, sharing people’s lives, that represses the and neutrality of the Net, instead of freedom of expression. Let’s hope that the “terrorised prohibition” with which we will not see a competition in Italy they’ve made their moves so far. between the organisation of a Network that defends itself and the Derrick de Kerckhove: The extension organisation of a government that of news from the official press, the attacks it. The contributions of Italian Twitter-like usage, the use of intelligence are clearly and heavily defensive technology, and threatened if such a situation arises, contributions of Italian intelligence. the emancipation of Italian minds What fall back can be produced by must not be blocked. protest initiatives on the Net is an interesting question. It’s true that only now are social networks beginning to generate some effect; citizen journalism through social networks involves increasing amounts of people and not only on blogs but also other forms of communication. It could have a very strong effect on the government, despite its dependence on the number of people who are . connected, and the ratio between the number of people on the Internet and Marco Mancuso: On the basis of the the actual population. I think for recent government anti-blog orders, example that Italy will find its point of as for example the Alfano decree this maturity on the Internet in the future past July, what are, in your opinion, just as America found its own with the the actual and potential risks that the election of Obama, the highest

6 Internet faces, concerning freedom of communication is, the insertion of thought but also free circulation and content in blogs or social networks, sharing of files, ideas and materials, and mechanically tend to apply laws movements of protest and gathering that were thought up 60 years ago for and autonomous processes of Print. Faced with all this, the way in creation of new professions and which the Italian Net will live in the economies, of the defence of one’s next few years depends mostly on us, own privacy and personal data? In that is to say, those people who want other, words, how long will the Net it to be free and plural: how we will remain a free territory as we have know how to move and influence the known it in the past 10 years and how Palazzo, giving up on isolated and dangerous could the illusion that it snobby positions and facing the will always be a marginal territory in reality out there. But also avoiding contemporary society be? vanity and personal ambitions, with every person working at the service of Alessandro Gilioli: In Italy the danger everyone of the Net comes from a combination of intolerance, fear and ignorance of Derrick de Kerckhove: The problem is politicians, especially those of the PDL in the fact that the Italian law does and UDC parties. Intolerance: not constitute as the exception but is Berlusconi can’t stand hostile media in the norm. Right now the tendency general, he tells people to not toward the norm is visible, predictable advertise with them, he dreams of an in many details, in China, France, Italy Italy of Minzolini communicators. and in Iran. The next law will require Fear: politicians do not know the Net the creation of an internal department but can suss how little it can be of defence (like the Basso fortress in controlled compared to mainstream Florence, built by the Medici, non to media, in other words that if a piece defend the city but to defend comes out on the Net that themselves from the city). The danger embarrasses them they don’t have a does not solely exist for Italy; the editor they can call the next day to danger is that every conservative ask for “compensatory” articles, they government can imitate the Italian don’t have a reporter from the Palazzo example at any stage. At this time it’s that they can walk arm-in-arm with clear how the governments are along the Montecitorio Transatlantic, tempted, and one is going beyond they don’t have any kind of blackmail temptation, the Italian one, to control power that they have always had over people in an absolute way. It’s a new editors. Ignorance: most politicians and innovative way to control the don’t know what horizontal population.

7 It’s also interesting to see to what point the image of Italy, that is not . seen under the best light right now Marco Mancuso: There’s an interesting with Berlusconi’s government, will post on The Right to Net concerning a continue to get worse to the eyes of comment of the lawyer Guido Scorza, the whole world with this new law. an judicial IT expert, who talks about This is not a positive example for a the risks that channels like Youtube country whose inspiration tends to are facing. In the light of the previous reach toward an openness that is very question don’t you think that it’s similar to the American standard. The increasingly necessary to create an American way means an openness open and possibly shared discussion that is under surveillance, but with a with those very people who can sense of free space, this sense can illustrate, clarify and eventually legally also be classified as ecological. It help all those people who work, gives the population the possibility to express themselves and communicate live with breathing space and I think on the Net and through Social that in Italy, to have a reputation Networks? Don’t you think that in this similar to that of China on the Internet sense, a platform like The Right to Net is not becoming. should discuss this deeply, clarify as But the other aspect that worries me much as possible and eventually help is the tendency that the right wing to create a legal case history that can governments have to research a sort constitute as a reference point for all of absolute control over people, to be those people who find themselves in carried out in many ways. If the Italian dire straits in the future? “experiment” (that I hope will never Alessandro Gilioli: Scorza is doing a come to be) becomes a model for great job, be it in terms of judicial other governments in the rest of the information be it concerning the world, if that should really happen, we project for the literacy of politicians. will be lost The Right to Net is just one of the many platforms where action can begin. To me it seems useful that the debate and eventual “political” initiatives are as flexible and plural as possible, even when offline. Let’s not fall into the trap of thinking of the Net as a problem that only regards bloggers. It’s an issue that concerns all

8 citizens, as an open democracy. Marco Mancuso: Social Networks and virtual/real identity. How can the Derrick de Kerckhove: The question is project “The Right to the Net” be very interesting! I absolutely agree compared to the universe of Social with the request to create forms of Networks, how do they or will they information, discussion and assistance use dynamics of integration with for all those people who are in platforms like Delicious, Twitter and difficulty concerning the problem of Facebook (I don’t mean integrating the forms of control. In Piazza Navona videos from Youtube, Vimeo or Digg, the people present at the event were that is commonplace now), ad most of less than those who had taken part all how will the unsolved dilemma of online, this probably depends on how giving a face, a body, a physicality for the news about the strike action was action to that virtual identity that distributed but also depends on the exists behind every account that novelty of it…. I hope that the number participates to your initiative? What of Italians capable of expressing their dynamics should be used as leverage? consent/dissent to these laws I ask you because you had the increases greatly because it is their courage to face this topic, in the right as well as their duty, in other moment when you asked people to words the more people participate participate physically in Piazza the more they create/whip-up a case Navona on the 15th of July while of legal interest… finding a way to doing the “blog strike” online at the protect this “Right to Net” with same time. international laws. Alessandro Gilioli: That’s the point. To For example, in part of the decree by make the issue of the Net in Italy Alfano there is a constitutional come out of the closed circuit of illegitimacy in relation to the art.21, bloggers and Net-Fans is what are we waiting for to denounce fundamental. You need to work at it this in uproar? A thorough juridical every day. Every person must, with his study would be best, to guarantee this or her own means – in order to create “Right to the Net”, to “build”, through a civil battle for everyone. It’s also an a scientific committee made up of economical battle: the innovation of Italian jurors, substantial legal Italy – is very slow and scarce support, with great visibility on the compared to other countries, not just Net, that underlines the contrasts European ones – and does not just between ddl Alfano and the pass through the widening of the Constitution band, but also through the widening of collective consciousness. A virtual

9 reality that distinctly sets against the raid on the Community Centre physical reality no longer exists (if it Cox18 and the Calusca Archive. How ever did): the virtual is a part of the do you conciliate your role as a real – and an important part too. The journalist for the editorial group “Physical” encounter in Piazza Navona “L’Espresso” with your role as a had a symbolic value. In this, I believe blogger online: in other words, how that whoever has acted on the Net for much does the Net (as a mass many years must step forward, avoid medium considered to be of little feeling snobby and part of a “different impact compared to newspapers and and more advanced world”, face TV) still allow for a margin of free themselves and get their hands dirty activist action to professional with topics like literacy and journalists like yourself, and how distribution. much will it increasingly become a balance between the will of the Derrick de Kerckhove:…e must individual professional and the persuade the mainstream media in ontology of the Press. And how big is Italy to join in. the risk of the proliferation of blogs that express precise opinions and assume certain positions with the purpose of collecting users (and therefore readers, or potential electors) from social areas that are more extreme (be they left or right wing)?

Alessandro Gilioli: Personally I am lucky to work for a newspaper that

. has a long tradition of civil battles and so I have the possibility to “use” blogs Marco Mancuso: You are an affirmed quite freely for that which you cal journalist of a large editorial group, “activism”. Blogs allow for a margin of but at the same time you are also one autonomy and independence that – if of the most renowned bloggers on managed with responsibility and the Italian Network. On more than awareness – is much greater than that one occasion you did not hesitate to of a printed newspaper (which is still a take an activist stand and you collective product). The balance presented your blog Piovono Rane between personal activism and the (It’s Raining Frogs) to the defence of position of the newspaper has many cases like, as I can recall, the case of variables though and must be

10 measured with intelligence every day. Every government experiences the It’s obvious that in my blog – which is temptation to control the media, a part of the website of the “Espresso” every newspaper at times experiences – I have greater responsibility and nervousness at publishing risky constraints compared to another reports. The condition of freedom, not hypothetical personal blog outside only of people´s expression but also the website of the newspaper. But it’s of their movement rests largely on an worth it, because being a part of the open relationship between “Espresso” you also have an audience government, mainstream media and and greater feedback, which makes it the network. The network is not a new easier to defend those cases that you underground, it is the ground itself. speak of, and eventually get to People have to be able to express activism. In other words, it means you their opinions and desires and see can move better – for the results that them reflected in the media when you want to obtain – in the “balance” they pertain to social well-being as in between positions of the newspaper the case of Iran. and personal freedom. On the other hand, the presence of On the other hand, here luckily the mainstream journalists who are also funny but golden rule that the BBC credible in the world of networks is gave as a unique policy to its part of the public image of great journalists-bloggers: do as you like, editorial groups. There is, in Canada, but use your common sense and your the principle of “arms length” head. Which isn’t bad as a margin for between the government and the freedom. As for the proliferation of media, that is, they are inevitably blogs that take extreme positions or closely related but manage somehow super assertive “to the sole purpose of to maintain their independence attracting users”, I don’t see anything mutually. A journalist with a blog wrong with that or anything “risky”: establishes the liaison between the everyone must have the right to do world of individual opinion and the blog he or she chooses, with the information to the world of media purpose that they want, and it will be consensus. It requires, of course the users – the readers – who will give someone capable to maintain a them credibility and authority. quality blog.

Derrick de Kerckhove: A healthy An “arms length” agreement” between relationship between the press and government and the press on the the networks is essential for the well- matter of reporting is thus necessary. being and the openness of society. By which I mean, that a respected

11 newspaper should never be refrained nineties, by seeking the opinions of from reporting on public opinion for people on line and offering special fear that the government will retire its services. Media began to act as support. And a respected journalist accelerators of pertinent citizen news. like Alessandro Gilioli should never Artists -artisvist- groups in Italy, such have to fear the consequences on his Taziana Bazichelli´s AHA or honest reporting in blogs as well as on Alessandro Ludovico´s NEURAL have the paper. shown the way. The idea has always been to help the main media, not to ut the then down. The consequence should be that the main media recognize the value added service provided by responsible reflexive hacktivism, and citizien, eyewitness journalism. If we want to still talk about democracy in the next few critical years, networks and media must work together to advise and

. dissuade governments from silly or dangerous impulses to block free Internally the editorial board may not expression of the public. always be ready to take risks. But, in Governments, after all, are not a many newspapers of international private profit-oriented businesses, reputation such as le Monde in they belong to the people who vote France, The New York Times in the US, for them and the electorate should be and La Repubblica in Italy there is able to expect the services it has paid enough professional honesty and for. standards to tolerate a critical attitude within their midst. The association Marco Mancuso: I’ll ask you a question creates a greater sense of trust that I asked the authors of the graphic among the papers´ readers. novel Persepolis 2.0 last month, an artistic project of re-editing of the Thus, there ought to be a mutual graphic novel Persepolis that traces support between network, citizen an artistic and narrative parallel journalists and the mainstream media. between the Iranian revolution of 1979 Long before blogs were invented, the and the protest movements of 2009. collaboration has begun dozens of My thought, and that of the authors, is years ago, with England´s Daily that from the moment that the Telegraphy taking the lead in the early protest of young people in Iran of the

12 past few weeks was repressed by propulsive dynamics, as naive as they violence, and causes the simultaneous may be? closure of Networks and a hunt for bloggers and all those from Iran who Alessandro Gilioli: Perfection is no were “guilty” of having communicated one’s and nobody’s, not even the with the rest of the world by reporting Net’s. But on the Net there are “long the violence that was taking place, the lines” and retrievals, and niche great mass media (but also online) did websites that don’t “let go” of a topic not cover or emphasize the situation, such as Burma or Iran just because abandoning the Iranian population current affairs has. So things are and leaving it to its destiny. In other better than they were 20 years ago, words, it’s evermore evident that the when there were just Print Net (as the mass medium that it now newspapers and so consult archives is) has an enormous potential in you had to go to the public library, or keeping the attention on certain if you wanted to know what was political situations in the world and happening in a far-off country that consequently has a growing was ignored by the newspapers you responsibility (be it ethical or had to walk around various professional) concerning its potential associations in a City. For example, for and its shortcomings. When the Net, personal reasons I follow the Burma the countercultures on the Internet, situation closely, but I cannot do a the initiatives that are concerned with daily post of Burma because if not I freedom of expression online, will have lost dozens of readers: which websites like Reppublica or would not be useful for the L’Espresso, blogs, do not use their distribution of other important news. potential (or only do so for short At the same time, when I see periods of time and only connected to something new or strong about the “hottest” news bulletins), you ask Burma then I gladly put it in there. yourself how much are we who work Once again, for a journalistic- on the distribution of news and generalist website or blog it’s a culture on the Net responsible of question of balance and good sense. some shortcomings or hypocrisies. Another issue for blogs and niche What do you think? Don’t you think websites, naturally, is that are like that at times the Net falls into online data banks that are perpetually professional dynamics that are too updatable and consultable. In other similar to those of common mass words, I wouldn’t get too paranoid media, therefore slowly losing part of about “Journalist logic” of online its revolutionary force and its activism as a negative dynamic: the

13 important thing is that there’s a activities of a journalist of an plurality that is as free as possible and important national Newspaper and a contains as many voices and topics, great editorial group, I ask myself battles and elaborations as possible whether this interview signals a certain weakness in the project The Derrick de Kerckhove: I don’t think so, Right to Net. In other words, don’t you because I think the problem lies think that there’s the risk that these elsewhere and is much more initiatives are perceived as vertical dangerous, as that quoted of the initiatives, directed by an intellectual repression of blogs in Iran. The elite that despite everything doesn’t accessibility of anybody on the Net speak the same language as the new creates conditions for absolute classes of professionals and control. There will be a great intellectuals that have been created in temptation in many countries, like Italy in the past decade, that despite Italy (and perhaps even the United everything remain too far away from States in the next Republican “reign”) the common people, from young to experiment a kind of “electronic people who do politics on the Net, fascism”. from the activist countercultures that animate it? I’m sure that, and luckily may I add, the initiative was a success and I’ve seen that many people participated in the platform The Right to Net, but at the same time, by reading a few posts here and there, I’m still struck by certain messages like: “The initiative has seen participants and bloggers from every political area (but also non-political . areas) and representatives from various parties and associations. Some Marco Mancuso: I would like to of the participants: Ignazio Marino, conclude this interview by trying to Vincenzo Vita, Mario Adinolfi and reflect on a point that I think is Francesco Verducci (Pd – Democratic important: the very existence of this Party); Antonio Di Pietro (Idv): Pietro interview! Aside from the obvious and Folena (Party of the European Left); right dynamics of the younger “Amici di Beppe Grillo” (Friends of professional who interviews the Beppe Grillo) in Rome, Calabria and expert, of the counterculture website Taranto; Articolo 21; Sinistra e Libertà like Digicult that is interested in the

14 (Left and Freedom); Per il Bene cleaner Luz and the neighbourhood Comune (For the Common Good); officer Erminio”, I would have been Partito Liberale Italiano (PLI). On an more horizontal and more individual level other people have democratic, but a little silly too. The participated such as Giuseppe Civati, important thing is that when the Sergio Ferrentino, Massimo Mantellini, initiative takes place, everyone mixes Alessandro Robecchi, Claudio Sabelli up the same way, without verticality Fioretti, Ivan Scalfarotto, Luca Sofri, or leadership (for this reason in Piazza Marco Travaglio and Vittorio Navona I avoided getting up on a Zambardino. Some parliamentarians stage and talking, leaving the from the ruling party (like Antonio speeches up to a judicial expert such Palmieri and Bruno Murgia), even if as Scorza and a Network expert such they won’t be in the piazza, have as De Kerckhove). If hundreds of expressed their opposition to the “unknown” blogs hadn’t participated “Net-Gagging” law in the Alfano in the strike, it would have been a decree…. in other words, the failure. But in the moment of introduction into “new” environments preparation the participation of is not underlined in traditional politics “authoritative” characters was useful and in the dominant intellectual so as to involve the “unknown” blogs. society, as much as the classes and In other words, we try to avoid groups and people who think they can ideologies and to be pragmatic: it’s represent a “guide” but that perhaps right that there are no leaderships and many people on the Net or people personal interests, but it’s also right who do politics through new that authoritative characters “spend technologies, are no longer perceived their time” if this can be useful to the as real “alternatives” from a political positive outcome of the initiative. It is point of view. What do you think strenuous to find the right balance about this? between the two each and every time. Alessandro Gilioli: I don’t want to repeat myself, but it’s still a question Derrick de Kerckhove: I don’t know of balance. If the participation in a Italian politics well enough to be able battle of people who are stimulated to answer this question, but I will say and considered authoritative for that whatever the quantity – be it different reasons is useful for the homeopathic – of the representation result of the battle itself, this should of the critique of power, the effect is be communicated and valued. If I had believable, if it does not touch the written: “My grocer Gino participated masses. This means that there are too, as well as my doorman Guido, my people circulating on the net that are

15 capable of having a believable and authoritative position, in the sense that Social Networks are a pertinent world of connections: person to person, group to group, they become a fact… like a Press Release…. It has happened in other historical situations. Think of the voice of a person who lives outside his or her . country and conditions an ever- Having said that, I continue to sustain growing network of people in the rest that in order to make a positive action of the world. of persuasion on the government, a It’s an interesting thing; it means that union of all the official Press is it’s perfectly possible to find a preferable, if they accept to take a reference on the Internet that comes stand on this topic… and I think that at light speed to the right person. I the Union of the Press would be think that this is the great power of essential in the future of political the Internet, from a small dosage of decisions. This in my belief and must information that becomes important, be the effect of other initiatives of that circulates at light speed and “The Right to Net”. allows people to “do things”. As Mc The stimuli and pressure come from Luhan says: “light speed is the the Internet, from Social Networks, maximum function of speed not the from blogs, and are released into quantity of information, it’s the speed reality, into the media, the of access that makes the mass, it’s a mainstream, because the Internet is mass of real time, a mass that is built underground. up and broken down. Information works that way, it’s a different way with respect to traditional strategies of the so-called mass media”. http://dirittoallarete.ning.com/

http://gilioli.blogautore.espresso.rep ubblica.it/

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16 Non-locality: Myths And Metaphors In Networked Art And Quantum Systems

Jeremy Levine

law, like the law of gravity or the second law of thermodynamics. So naturally it comes as a shock to learn that there is experimental evidence that suggests quantum systems violate this law of locality- a law that is central to our understanding of space as an objective medium. Locality imparts uniqueness and Introduction individuality to things by fixing them with a unique location in space/time. Quantum particle systems seem to According to Newton and by possess the ability to communicate empirical verification through our instantaneously with each other, senses we find that no two objects defying our classical understanding of can occupy the same space in time, or space and distance. This feature of we must assume that we are actually the quantum world, known as non- observing one object. And that is locality, is often used to describe the exactly what quantum mechanics is World Wide Web, and particularly telling us about entangled particles interactive networked art, which and quantum systems. No matter how seems to collapses space into mouse much space is placed between two clicks and links. But is it really entangled particles, they will applicable? communicate with each other as if Non-locality and quantum systems there is no space at all. This is impossible in the classical world to According to Newtonian mechanics which our senses have evolved, but no two objects can communicate not in the quantum world for which faster than the speed of light. This fact evolution has left us both perceptually has been elevated to the gospel of blind and cognitively unprepared.

17 particles. Bell showed that according to Quantum Mechanics entangled particles separated by enormous distances communicate instantaneously with each other. No lag time. Not even a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a nano- second. But instant communication between particles was a relic of the Newtonian world. This was exactly . what Einstein had overturned with his The feature of non-locality was always theories of relativity. This violation of an unstated aspect of the orthodox or the speed of light limit provoked Copenhagen interpretation of Einstein to call such correlations quantum mechanics proposed by the ʻspooky action at a distance. four of the godfathers of the new Einstein was convinced that the physics: Niels Bohr, Max Born, Werner Copenhagen interpretation proposed Heisenberg and Pascual Jordan, and by Bohr and his followers was missing presented in the Solvay Congress of some vital piece of information - 1927. Yet non-locality had no means of hidden variables that the particles empirical verification. This was not contained when they left their source- merely a technological limitation, but that would explain the phenomenon rather a limitation of the quantum in classical terms. Einstein was wrong. model itself. Or so it seemed. In 1965, This didn’t happen very often so it’s a crack opened into the black box of important to quantum locality, when John Stewart understand why he got it wrong. The Bell published his so-called “Bell answer lies in the Einstein’s inability to inequality”. The Bell Inequality gives a accept the premise of ontological limit for the highest degree of dualism: the existence of non-physical correlation one can obtain in holism, which implies a non-physical experiments involving pairs of element of reality that is outside time particles, if one assumes a completely and space. Anton Zeilinger warns local and deterministic universe. philosophers with only a casual With incredibly subtle logic, Bell acquaintance with the spooky teased out a violation of random correlations of quantum mechanics, probability as an explanation for the that they run the risk of becoming correlated behavior of entangled “terminally puzzled” [1] if they dig further.

18 Since 1982, numerous experiments each photon the outcome of the have been conducted by Alain Aspect measurement was one of two and others verifying Bell’s inequality. alternative values (say either + or -). In 1997, Antoine Suarez and Valerio What the Gisin and his fellow Scarani proposed an experiment physicists discovered was not only subsequently carried out by Nicholas that the outcomes the photons Gisin and his collaborators at his produce are correlated, but also that Group of Applied Physics at Geneva this correlation originates from University, which is crucial to outside of space-time. The results understand this show that “it is not possible, even in feature of non-locality in quantum principle, to distinguish which systems. The experiment took photon measurement is the independent and pairs, and shot off in opposite which is the dependent one” [2]. In directions at the speed of light. The other words there is no way to two photons were then measured in distinguish “before” from “after” as regions far away from each other. For independent space/time regimes. We are a long way from Kansas, Dorothy.

19 measurements the connection the correlations reveal does not correspond to any real time ordering and, consequently, is not tied to any experimentally distinguishable frame” [4].

Non-locality describes the underlying connections between parts that ignore our perceptions. However, . neither the “long range order” of complex systems, nor the “spooky Not to beat a dead horse, but if the action at a distance” of entangled speed of light limit is not violated, particles should be understood as then non-locality points toward instantaneous transmission. something truly profound: quantum holism. “In Nature there are “If the meaning of “quantum non- connections happening faster than locality” is unclear to you, quantum light and without propagation of holism has the huge advantage that it energy. This is the quantum does not suggest any kind of mechanical non-locality assumption” “instantaneous transmission”, but [3]. The connections Suarez speaks of explicitly refers to the existence of should not be interpreted as a global properties that are not violation of the laws of classical contained in the properties of the physics. The classica laws hold. subparts” [5]. Einstein’s speed of light limit holds. But only for the macro-objects that Non-locality is the indivisible property form the physical observables of our of a system that gives it an identity world. There is also an invisible non- that is more than the sum of its parts. physical level of “reality”: a quantum The “quantum potential’s reality. This sub-atomic world plays by instantaneous dependence on all a different rulebook. features of the whole experimental apparatus” [6] requires us to accept Einstein’s frames have no effect on that our notions of “space and time” “spooky action”, even though we are constructions rather than cannot use this fact to establish an discoveries. The notion of discrete absolute time. So what Quantum objects separated in space is not only Mechanics actually implies is that in challenged buy our understanding of case of space-like separated quantum mechanics, but also by our

20 experience with many kinds of new media art .

What good is analytic reduction when Non-locality, Media Art and World entanglement –a form of strong Wide Web coupling- lends”more reality” to a Our encounter with a Rothko painting composite system that to its parts” in a museum has a short-range [7]. But what is really meant by this character, but our encounter with a notion of “more reality”? In quantum work of art that is networked can terms, “reality” simply means a connect us to elements of the system quantum state according to our that are thousands of miles away from definition” [8]. But perhaps it is more each other. useful to say that “holism” constitutes another “order of reality”. The Networked new media art existing in composite or higher (hierarchical the public space of networks – be it nesting)”order of reality” of holism internet art or art involving mobile that we find in works of interactive art media such as cell phones and PDAs – and entangled quantum particles, is a can be understood as a new form of challenge to the reductive, binary public art. Compared to more logic of classical physical dualism. traditional forms of public art practice, Instead we need to adopt a Internet art, which is accessible from conceptual dualism where the the privacy of one’s home, introduces components of the system a shift from the site–specific to the have one reality, while their organized global, collapses boundaries between relationship with one another the private and public, and exists in a constitutes another reality. distributed non–local space” [9].

The non-locality that Christiane Paul speaks of is a function of the Internet’s elision of our sense of distance or spatial separation. Instead of geographic space, we have network space. “The computer is a connection machine. A lot of new media art, especially network-based work doesn’t have spatial dimensions Richard Wickers, 15×15 (2006), per se, but nodes and Screenshot levels of connection” [10]. Regardless, as Antoine Suarez points out in an e-

21 mail to this author, “the concept of a web cam to upload their live feed, quantum non-locality does not apply becoming part of a grid of videos to interactive art in the same technical from visitors to the site. Vickers helps sense: the interaction in art happens Warhol keep his promise. Vickers always via internet, and therefore not manages to collapse 15 different faster than light.” locations into the space of your browser window while encouraging Non-locality is a metaphor for what visitors to become participants. Barabasi calls the “small worlds” Maciej Wisniewski’s, “Instant Places” property of networks. Barabasi asks us [14] utilizes the non-local experience to imagine a circle strung out with of the Internet to connect different nodes, separated by short links like computers to form a matrix that was pearls on necklace. “Yet thanks to the free from the constraints of long bridges they form, often geography, time, and place. Instant connecting nodes on the opposite Places featured predators (hawks) and side of the circle, the separation prey (mice), which were able to move between all nodes between different data places and spectacularly collapses” [11]. Cyber communicated via instant theorist Manuel Castells describes the messaging.” [15] modern character of networks as “The space of flows…[which] links up distant locales around shared functions and meanings on the basis of electronic circuits and fast transportation corridors, while isolating and subduing the logic of experience embodied in the space of places” [12] The “space of flows” concept is a metaphor for the non- locality of the modern Maciej Wisniewski, Instant Places, telecommunications networks. Freed 2002, netzbasierte Installation, from geographic limits, a work of Karlsruhe 2002, Img by F. Wamhof networked art can glow on the . screens of thousands of computers at the same time. Telepresence technology utilizes the Net to challenge the notion of a Richard Vickers helps Warhol keep his localized self trapped in its organic promise of future fame, in “15×15″ [13] container. The tacit laws of proximity which allows anyone in the world with

22 that give greater relevance to those “Our private sphere has ceased to be things that are physically closer to our the stage where the drama of the bodies is turned upside down by the subject at odds with his objects and non-locality we can experience with his image is played out: we no through telepresence art. This is the longer exists as playwrights or actors affect of Eduardo but as terminals of multiple networks. Kac’s “teleporting to an unknown Television is the most direct state” [16]. prefiguration of this, and yet today one’s private living space is conceived The installation Teleporting An of as a receiving and operating area, Unknown State creates the as a monitoring screen endowed with experience of the Internet as a life- telematic power, that is to say, with supporting system. In a very dark the capacity to regulate everything by room a pedestal with earth serves as a remote control” [19]. nursery for a single seed. Through a video projector suspended above and Conclusion facing the pedestal, remot participants send light via the Internet The “collapse” of physical distance to enable this seed to that one experiences in art that photosynthesize and grow in total utilizes high speed the darkness” [17]. The visitors to Kac’s communication networks is evocative project share responsibility for of the behavior of entangled, spatially tending the plants, creating a virtual separated quantum particles, which community of “telegardeners” that are seem to communicate as if there was oblivious to the physical location of no separation at all. Non-locality any individual. describes a state in which we have information about spatially Will Pappenheimer‘s “search for you” disconnected components of [18] uses interactive web cameras complex systems. Quantum particles with mounted searchlights to probe a are “points of intersection’ of certain dark room in search of human relations” [20]. The exchange and contact. The beam of light is not manipulation of information without merely a tool for surveillance and regard to distance is one of the illumination, but instead functions as dynamic variables of both quantum a “virtual avatar”. The light becomes a systems and interactive media art. projection of one’s self. The Whether literal or metaphoric, our implications of “non-local” technology experience with these interactive are just beginning to be felt. systems reveals the holes in our intuitive understanding of space. For

23 both quantum systems and Eddington (1882-1944) wrote about interactive networked art, space is the limits of the scientific method: always relative to the perceiving “We should suspect an intention to subject. In both cases, our experience reduce God [ultimate reality] to a of non-locality is a product of our system of differential equations. That interaction with virtual phenomena: fiasco at any rate [must be] avoided. invisible communication networks or However much the ramifactions of the immaterial probability wave. [physics] may be extended by further scientific discovery, they cannot from Though the speed of light limit is not their very nature trench on the broken during our web-mediated background in which they have their interactions, we often experience an being…We have learnt that immediacy that erases distance, the exploration of the external world creating a “confounded sense of place by the methods of physical science and proximity” [21]. But as we’ve seen, leads not to a concrete reality but to a non-locality is more than a shadow world of symbols, beneath phenomenological challenge to our which those methods are unadapted intuitive sense of space: it is an for penetrating” [22] indication of a “deeper” virtual realm outside of Reality is more than “pointer readings” space/time– a holistic dimension, and differential equations which is stubbornly recalcitrant to our consequently we need to rely on scientific investigation. other means of understanding- to provide us with complementary models: enter the artist whose techniques of understanding are not limited by the need to quantify analytically, but rather the will to poetically synthesize. The full implications of non-locality may be beyond our grasp, but artists that utilize modern telecommunications networks are Will Pappenheimer, Search for you able to evoke aspects of the (2004), Installation render phenomenon. Here art fills the gaps in

. our scientific understanding of the world. The great physicist Sir Arthur

24 Fakepress. Ubiquitous Publishing And Distributed Storytelling

Salvatore Iaconesi

gestures and sounds.

SPIMEs (1), location based media, augmented realities, a distributed interaction, sensors that capture changes and distribute them, emotional and experiencing design: these are the main tools that enable the transition and help the transformation process. “Swarming city, city full of dreams! Even in broad day the spectre Enormous implications, accosts passers-by. Everywhere anthropological, philosophical, mysteries flow like saps through the political, economic and relational: narrow canals of the mighty giant” – C. reconsidering the way we Baudelaire (Paris, 9 Aril 1821 – Paris, 31 communicate, exchange, share, August 1867) distribute and disseminate knowledge within and through Infoscape(2), Infoscape where to interact with the inhabitants/elements (both physical The scenario described by a timless and immaterial) of the new landscape, flaneur as Baudelaire has been a desire/need is evident and it deeply significantly modified during the last affects the collective mind one hundred and fifty years, but the image of those “mysteries that flow A new idea of publishing house like saps in the mighty giant” belongs to us. An information layer in multiple How does the role of the publisher levels and distributed over the space, change in this context? And how do as well as objects, people and literature, essays and the reading architecture, determines the experience change? Which and are possibility to change the world into a the media involved and how do they hybrid reality generated by a great get involved? And finally, what are the variety of viewpoints, voices, shapes, faces and voices of these stories? How

25 are they told, and where? media tracks made by a variety of subjects: wide-tagging, geo-localised According to Salvatore Iaconesi (3) contents free to download, open- and Luca Simeone (4), as well as for ended stories. Federico Ruberti who soon joins the conversation with great enthusiasm In short: ubiquitous publishing and about the project, the answer is storytelling distribution. A process FakePress (5). A new model of where design, learning publishing house, based on the methodologies, education and creation of open narrative, cross- narrative forms cross together and media, multi-artist, able to use easily tend to adopt strategies p2p, by location based technology, changing theorists, specialists and augmented reality, SPIME and natural “staff” in new types of gestural interfaces to build layers authors/publishers/communicators. interpreting reality through non- deterministic and intrinsically How it works pluralistic network issuing processes. A FakePress publication is made according to precise methodologies. The topic – that was the result of a selection through projects, authors, social networks and territories – is described trough many media that can express a geographic and time distribution of the contents, possibilities and forms of interaction, the creation of social relationships, the interaction of bodies, emotions, . ideas and knowledge, according to the case. This step is performed The publishing house does not lose its through the contribution of some basic requirements – select, package, groups distribute information. But it expands. Interstices, distributed displays and According to this description, the projections become a stage to contents are joined together using a represent the information, the spime series of existing platforms (and made stories and the sentient from some mashup works) or specially cities(6): everyware. the book shape is prepared. In the case of the first disappearing, and it has been publications, for instance, three disjointed and rejointed through

26 communicative channels have been online. The three levels are not created: one in relation to the web, competing but correspond to one to the territorial consultation and different needs and use different the last to the paper format objects/products, while other consultation. These are able to publications have other channels of interact with other modes. communication, and there will be different forms of interaction and “The contents – as Salvatore Iaconesi different technological devices. explains – have been joined thanks to a modified version of the WordPress platform to create a fluid process in which a group of publishers/authhors could prepare the contents for all the channels. On the one side the elements of the publications are arranged in a visual way through georeferenced coordinates given by GPS, Google Maps and Google Earth functions. On the other side the same . contents are organized to be Then, reading becomes a complex accessible both from the web and on activity, which consists of reading the mobile devices ( iPhone, Android and classics, or looking at geographical Symbian platforms with adequate and architectural locations – where number of technical requirements, by you can experience contents through now), covering the territory. And on the places in which they were paper format, for books that through conceived and see the reason of their a crystalised form of hypertext allows existence – or as well, it can be the to serf on places, times and points of ability to make continuous changes of view”. perspective between authors, topics, In short: a web application; a mobile times and spaces. platform to view the publication in the To get a better idea of the browsing form of location-based contents and experience, of visualisation and of the of an expanded reality; a paper type of platforms used, we can finally publication in the form of a hybrid surf the website of (half touristic guide and half a NeoRealismoVituale-Nervi (7), an crystalised hypertext) produced in ongoing publication by FakePress, but self-publishing and printed on perfectly serves its purpose . demand, and wordly distributed

27 On going project artists,datascape researchers, institutions, and entrepreneurs interested in The newborn FakePress has already experiiencing the same viewpoint and had its official baptism in Rome at the the same themes that inspired its Frontiers Interaction V (8), an creation. environment that deeply belongs to it and which has shown interest to blend its stimuli 1. di Ubiquitous Anthropology is instead a Bruce Sterling (“Wired” ottobre 2004): project in which it will get involved in http://www.wired.com/wired/archiv the future. Anthropological research e/12.10/view.html?pg=4 by Massimo Canevacci on the Bororo, 2. O : paesaggio di population of Mato Grosso that the dati/informazioni. professor has been studying for about 20 years, turns into a cross media 3. http://www.artisopensource.ne/t publishing and location based web 4. http://luca.simeone.name/ application where access is a prerequisite for the creation of a 5. http://www.fakepress.net/ “tourist guide “ethnographic evolved and a new way of conceiving the 6. v. SENSEable City lab : academic publications /research. http://senseable.mit.edu/

We’ll talk about Ubiquitous 7. Antropology in another article.And we http://www.neorealismovirtiale.com/ leave with a clarification: apart from its name, FakePress is a real 8. publishing house open to work with http://frontiers.idearium.org/2009/pr ogram/

Art, Activism, Subjectivity, Sabotage

Dumbing Down Smart Objects Antonio Caronia

28 the S.a.L.E. in Venice, because even through the printed version, you can still hear the echo of a debate that has been lively and not diplomatic at all. But if I read the subtitle of the book again, I can remember the reason which prevented me from going. What prevented me from going was the fact that the relationship between contemporary art and political Who said that books dealing with the activism didn’t seem really interesting proceeding of a congress are boring? to me, or the issue was not well First of all it depends on the congress placed. This is still my opinion now: and the speakers, secondly on the the things I read in the book confirm way the book is conceived. The my belief. reading of L’arte della sovversione. Indeed one of the most interesting Multiversity: pratiche artistiche thing in The art of overthrow is the contemporanee e attivismo politico (The art of overthrow. Multiversity: dialogue carried out among people artistic contemporary practices and who turn a deaf ear between political activism) edited by Marco theorists, militants and activists of Baravalle for movements on the one hand,and art “Manifestolibri/Uninomade”, once you critics, art historians and owners of get over the title -a bit over the top- it galleries on the other hand. I don’t is very enjoyable because it is know if it was really like that during composed of many keen and the seminar, but that’s what emerges necessary statements (not all of them from the book. Let’s make an example of course) on a group of quite current Matteo Pasquinelli (founder, among issues, that though complicated, are other things, of Rekombinant and fascinating for those who deal with author of a book about media- cultural production in general, and activism, currently researcher of the with a political/social tone in Queen Mary University of London) in a particular. very bright speech on the “cultural factory” (heir of the cultural industry I wish I had gone to the seminar on of “Adornian” reminiscence) and on his 16th, 17th and 18th of May from which relation to the urban development, the book has originated (we asked to has emphasized the relationship Marco Baravalle himself to make a between contemporary art and the report for Digimag 35 in June 2008) in new urban development (the so called

29 gentrification). In a few words: much One of the assumptions that remains of the “alternative” or even dissenting valid is the direct sabotage of the cultural underground production, is income – in other words, the reversal used to give a sort of perverse charm of the value piled up on the shoulder to some metropolitan areas, on which of the common production of cultural the property speculation is ready to and symbolic capital”. It is really very assume control. well expressed , or so I think: surely difficult to put it in practice, and furthermore in need of further elaboration in order to produce meaningful experiences, but anyway an interesting direction.

How does Angela Vettese, as art critic of the Sole-24 ore, president of the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa of Venice and famous person, reply to this proposal (or this challenge, if you . prefer)? “As I can see from the tenor Pasquinelli writes: “Behind the new of the speeches in this seminar, I gentrification forms there is a crucial would say that my role here is to link between the property speculation make clear why speaking about and the cultural production, a link of sabotage is almost impossible today. I which the world of art and activism would like to describe the forces are not yet quite aware of”. After opposed to this sabotage”. And she having criticized much of the does her best to explain, with plenty contemporary art because of its “cynic of examples, how all the attempts of over-identification with capitalism” “sabotage, tried by artists of the (For example Damien Hirst), as well as second half of last century , failed” the paranoiac mélange and naivety of (from the Arte Povera to Joseph the politically correct activism (art Kosuth, to Nan Goldin to Marina strike, or on the contrary, “sustainable Abramovic): At the beginning all of art”), he concludes: ” The artificial them were protestors and “all very making of the value is the key proud of themselves when “they component of the financial game as made it”” once they conquered the well as of the gentrification process” . market. That’s because “the market is It’s the Stock Exchange that first a bin sucking everything, and at a explains us the sabotage of value. ( ) certain point artists turn to be proud accomplices”. The whole supported

30 by quotes of Zizek and of Foucault. of new subjectivities and that are Her argument is flawless. Vettese did trying not to be “caught” by the persuade us: To overthrow the art market. market from the inside is a useless and inconclusive argument. The only possible sabotage , in these terms, is . the one made by Damien Hirst against owners of galleries and critics, that is As it is explained in many parts of the selling his golden veal “directly” at the book, this is definitely the point: In the Sotheby auction for 10 millions of new post-fordism, cognitive and sterling: But this thing, on the immaterial capitalism, the key contrary, doesn’t affect the market at processes of the increase of value all. But, I would say, the sabotage line (economy value creation) are not undertaken by Pasquinelli, was not anymore the transformation of raw going in that direction. materials in goods: but they are those in which every relational and linguistic He was rather suggesting that it’s activities of the human beings, the possible to give birth to new forms of imaginary, are turned into immaterial production able to damage the goods, where new devices give them market (therefore without “staying value as they are able to read , apart”) because they introduce integrate, spread and produce them elements of incompatibility between as a brand. In short, to simplify a bit expressive activities and processes of but not that much: Not only art has valorization. Many of the expressive become a productive process, but experiences which were born in the production is becoming an artistic last decades inside the movements, or process itself. Art and production are just around them, are going in this starting to look more and more alike direction: of course, without really every day . “Production and creation”, reaching the proper “sabotage”, but writes Judith Revel, “are the same placing the bases. For example thing”. So it is not possible anymore as collective or fake names, mythopoeic it was at the time of the “cultural narratives, no conventional use of industry”, to play with subjectivity images: Luther Blissett, San Precario, against capitalism. Again Judith Revel: Serpica Naro, Anna Adamolo. Things ” With the new age of the cognitive, that do not appear in art galleries or in intellectual, linguistic and affective critics exhibitions, things that are not capitalism something has changed. “increased in value” in terms of With the valorization of new forms of monetary meaning, but things that social cooperation and circulation of can give rise to the forming processes

31 knowledge, of that inventiveness and fibers networks”. But as Revel points creative power which characterize the out, “the capital doesn’t invent, it only production of subjectivity and, as a absorbs with an extreme intelligence, consequence, with the subsumption and later it ascribes to itself what it of what turns life, as a power, into a has absorbed and what it has real artistic process, subjectivity finds expropriated from the real producers”. itself dragged into something from And that’s what creates “resistance” , which it was immune before”. the resistance meant by Revel, Holmes and Pasquinelli, which is that Does this mean that as the post- of the production of subjectivity, of modern vulgate claims, there is no the “new totally immanent forms of more space for any activity of denial being, which open new horizons” and refusal of this process? Are all the (Revel), and “which can’t be protests doomed to be reabsorbed, or completely transformed in goods, better still to become goods in its which are able to escape from the turn? This seems to me a mechanical valorization process, because of their conclusion, due to a blunder of the surplus. It’s the power of language (I new, regarding which it is normal that add, on the example of Virno) that apologists of the existence and the always produces a surplus of more or less secret admirers of the meaning, an asymmetry between the unquestionable performatory of new speech and the world, that doesn’t capitalism become preys. But it is a allow to be totally regimented in the blunder which anyone who believes in shape of goods. It is always Judith another logic, in another result for the Revel who explains this process richness of relationships, should not concisely: “the condition of possibility make or anyone who is for what of capitalism (the creative skill, the unites the human beings and not productive surplus) is the only thing what makes them apart, escaping capitalism. Or better, not dispossessing them from their own only capitalism can’t produce it on its life, because it’s life, as it is nowadays own, or ask any machine to do it, but that gains value. it has to surrender itself before the evidence: creative surplus is the “Surcodificazione”and “capture”, Brian instrument to get out of power, it’s Holmes explains us, are the two what unties and unfastens the devices that mark the subordination strategies for subjection and focuses of subjectivity to the global capital, the resistance again on the that have produced “a real explosion exploitation”. of fetishism in the goods on global scale markets and at a speed of optic

32 . even if they have little to say on the most burning analyses and proposals. Now it’s really to this “resistance” that Of course, I had expected that the “art-activism” refers to, or better, the introduction by Marco Baravalle, art that expresses the surplus of wouldL’arte della have sovversione. said something Multiversity: on this processes of subjectivity, and that for issue,pratiche going artistiche beyond contemporanee diplomacy and e this reason doesn’t need to merge addingattivismo alongside politico the faultless into activism or movements fights, presentationCurated by Marco of theoretic Baravalle themes and because it already derives from there workingManifestolibri/Uninomade, perspectives, some Roma and because each significant considerations2009 suitable to the expressive instrument during these institutionalpp. 222, euro world, 20 as some of his resistance processes, in these terms, exponents have been (rightly) invited is already art. And it is an art that can to the seminar. Maybe I’m pretending also appear, at the same time, in any too much (and above all, maybe, I’m galleries or exhibitions (as Marco not taking part to the running of a Scotini states), but that wasn’t born or cultural self-managed space with the hasn’t died in the art system, the one problems that S.A.L.E. has to face). of museums, critics, dealers and galleries. It rises and dies, lives, and develops itself, in the social processes. This stated, there is nothing bad in inviting art critics or art historians who seem more sensible to these themes to his/her seminars, even if they make a poor figure, or

Hangar + Laboral = Summerlab

Barbara Sansone

33 problem is the the art center Laboral de Gijón, directed by Rosina Gomez- Baeza. Among the various activities of this courageous lady is the establishment and management of the Arco Foundation, the association Friends of Arco, and the publication of the quarterly ARCO, Arte Contemporáneo, as well as the directorship of the contemporary art In this epoch, we are witnessing the fair of Madrid from 1986-2006. rapid evolution of technology, which facilitates scientific research and The art center Laboral de Gijón has improves our lives. But technology is been established two years, and is also captured, manipulated and used already a very active centre with for novel purposes in the arts. beautiful spaces that continue to Experimental practice with grow. Her team consists of ten full technology in the arts is increasingly time staff and eight assistants, who visible in exhibitions and museums support an exhibition center around the world and on the Internet, dedicated to arts, science, technology while there is always a strong and advanced visual industries. It also compulsion to create spaces where deals with research, training and experimentation is possible. The production, and thanks to a objective of these centres is the permanent call aims to help artists to public diffusion of this mix of fit into the channels of festivals and discìpines, to invite people to exhibitions. The center aims to offer experiment, understand and express support to local artists to find their creativity in unison with others contacts, grants, residences. As the and in this way to create culture. director explained, this is a remarkable effort, especially in the This process is not straightforward. territory of Asturias. The main We are in the midst of a period of objective of Laboral is now the strong contradictions, where the foundation of an extensive media institutions and society are not library, which will open December 18 sufficiently developed and it is with an exhibition curated by José necessary find teachers. One of a few Luis de Vicente. centers in Europe concerned with this

34 unpredictable and curious results. Participation in the second edition summer workshop held from 3rd to 9th August 2009, gathered a large crowd of people from Barcelona, the majority of which were women, dispelling the myth that the world of ‘electronic art is for men only. The activities were divided into different nodes, each managed by one or more . coordinators and open to those Among the summer activities, the wishing to participate in one all week center hosted the week of or check out each one. In addition SummerLab organized with the there were groups and individuals Hangar Center in Barcelona, a who collaborated in several nodes to meeting of digital arts enthusiasts develop personal projects and who who work with software and will continue their usual activities hardware to produce free electronic taking advantage of the aid and art projects of all kinds. The activities experience of other participants. of the summer workshop were Each day was inaugurated with a grafted in different research areas of meeting coordinated by the director the center, including sustainability, of Hangar, Pedro Soler, to present the ecology, free media, collaboration, daily program and schedule, including distribution, security, electronics and free bike transport and meals the art of inventing. The head of the (breakfast and lunch were prepared educational programs of the Laboral, by members of the organization in a Mónica Bello, with the help of other kitchen set up in the same space). By team members of the center, was late afternoon, after a few hours keen to assist participants by working in a fully autonomous providing help and tools, as well as manner, there were a series of accompany them to visit the center presentations on the various activities and the current exhibitions. of the participants related to art and Under the auspices of the Hangar in technology. Barcelona and the art center Laboral Among many interesting speeches de Gijón, dozens of creative people was a presentation by Italian architect came together for a week to take over Michele Pecoraro on ‘Houses of a campsite and a large space, with Straw’, data visualisation and

35 ecological projects by Hernani Silva by Marcos García del Medialab Prado ((re: the farm city); presentations of in Madrid, and reportage of the most free video and 3D software called exciting moments in the laboratory. Qeve; processing by VJs Lot and On the final day of Summerlab, Blender; works and inventions by the Saturday, August 8th, there was a eclectic artist Julio Lucio; multimedia presentation of the results of the installations and sound by current workshops, performances and artist in residence at Hangar Magdi concerts at the Laboral space which Mustafa from Egypt; presentation of continued later at the bar of Gijón operating system of GOTO10 , an XYZ. international collective of artists and programmers dedicated to free Among these, perhaps the most software; and the work of Shady El successful was Absurd Machine Noshokaty, also Egyptian, and tAndy created in the node Gracie, which combines robotics, OpenFrameworks, directed by Arturo biology, ecosystems, and software. Castro and Chris Sugrue. Thanks to The event was honored by the this tool and other free software and presence of two impressive artists: hardware like Processing and Arduino, Shu Lea Cheang, prominent figure of the group has created a closed circle new media art for many years, and of computers that sends and Marc Chia of One Man Nation. sequences messgaesin a disparate form (lasers, detecting movements by webcam, socks lying around, lentils, Hairdryesr, inventions of all kinds), creating striking effects and futile fun, where profound attention was paid to the mistakes of machines.

There was also funny musical performances performed using tools more created at different nodes during the week: like Arduinome, an . audiovisual controller inspired by the monome platform and realised in the Throughout the week, minipimer.tv in group directed by Alex Posada, collaboration with Surt.tv Neokinok Director of the interaction aboratory streamed and documented the event, at Hangar; or sound objects broadcasting online a series of live assembled in the node “Cacharreo interviews, discussions coordinated do-it-yourself”, directed by Jano,

36 Víctor Mazón and Diego de León, . where people constructed electronic sound project from recycled, low-fi To promote ecology and materials (the first task of the node sustainability, Hernani Silva (re: the was to retrieve a wheelbarrow full of city farm), in collaboration with electronic waste to be disassembled people from the laboratory Huerta and reassembled in the form of new Guerrilla, created a little vegetable objects which produce sounds). garden that was irrigated in response to changes in plant moisture level and Among the video documentation environmental temperature. They also were the urban interventions of the created small bombs of seeds to node Su última voluntad, which throw about the city in a guerrilla caused many people to cycle around action that was a statement of protest Gijón hunting for abandoned or against a lack of green urban space. unused places in the city, and to create a map and a video document The week was dedicated to of interviews with local inhabitants, productivity, exchange and and Frikikids, a node dedicated to the recreation. People can access the introduction to digital art to children, video of some moments from the a place where you could propose laboratory online. Activities will activities that will teach critical continue at the Hangar and the consumption and creative use of Laboral, hopefully with more frequent technology. intersections, given their complimentarity.

http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org/

http://www.hangar.org/

http://summerlab.hangar.org/

37 Derek Jarman’s Visual Painting

Francesco Bertocco

towards painting also with a quite good success (remember the Lisson gallery). When he was 28,Studio after an experienceBankSide as scenographer for the visionary director Ken Russel, Jarman produced his first film ( , 1975 ), a kind of documentary-witness on what happened to his house-studio on the river Thames in London – a district The incredibile influence of Derek made of old factories and warehouses Jarman’s cinema is considered as an which in those years was becoming a unavoidable background for every Green Village of the English East: the research on the new visual languages Bank Side. from the end of the ’70s. His ability to survive and fall always on his feet in a The introduction of super8 between vogue of indipendent the end of the ‘60s and the beginning cinematographers, outside the main of the ‘70s signed a great change in channels of cinematographic the research of moving images. The production made him a kind of living influence of this support should have god (Holy Derek). He is a survivor in a its own historigraphy: a diffusion generation which spent all its energies going incessantly through four and attention in the visual research decades of the last century. It was the and representation methods. initiation for most of the film makers of the new generation and the best His films are the example of a expression for those artists who found perseverance which ended only with in plasticità an almost painting-like the artist’s premature death, at the support or the way to continue a begninning of the ‘90s. The first films series of visual researches on the came relatively late in his artistic greediness of time. production, which was moving

38 the omosexual “queer” culture of travestiment. Jounrey to Avenbury, Ashden’s Walk on Sun, belong to the category of spacial-environmental films, where the human presence is substituted by the landscape and the abstraction coming from the departure from reality. appartengono. The subjects of these works are the Extract from Blue, Director: Derek English landscape, the moon rocks in Jarman, 79 min. 1993. 35mm, Courtesy Jounrey to Avenbury, the star globes of Basilisk Communications in Ashden’s Walk on sun. These are all images of a past civilization – the . Egyptian one. They investigate on the genesis of a myth in a pre-human, Derek Jarman represents maybe the almost divine civilization. The strong top of a generation of artists who rielaboration of images is due to a pushed to the limits the painting complex and difficult post-production features of this support, beyond the work, even if it would be more correct painting and cinema border, in a to speak about “re-production”, where hybrid highly evocative ground which the original images are overlapped by seems more poetry than portrayal. In other fading-out images, coming from The art of mirror, one of Jarman’s first coloured filters, which create a films, some mysterious characters stratified, complex and indefinable make a kind of ritual reflecting the body. Every frame is the result of a light through a little mirror towards series of overlappings aiming at the the public. Each individual represents fading out of the original image and a character of a theatral pièce the distruction of the appearance between tragedy and alchemic surface produced by the initiation ritual where the light seems cinematographic medium. Jarman to be the symbol par excellence. goes beyond the already strong Here are presented those elements pictorial identity of the 8mm support. which constitute the symbols of all He eliminates every references, he Jarman’s poetics, both in the redesigns it and stratify it with colours experimental films and in the most like a painting (images over images). institutional ones: the mask, the ritual He creates a pictorial- as expression of a collective cinematographic model on which he communication through symbols and can base all his production. In these

39 environmental films, as in the other mythological-visionary films, the . visual process remains the same and There is a will which encloses this works as leive-motive in the periodo f Jarman’s production production of his films. activity. It is a central work including Beyond these two types, there is in a same structure all these films: The another one aiming at closing the Shadow of the Sun. It is the sum of a circle of a representation mythology: whole production period, visual and the bibliographic films. Because of experimental, realized with this their name, they are often assimilated support. It is a real film, both from the to the cinematographic point of view of the duration (all bibliographism, similar to Jarman’s super8 films were more or documentation and agiography. They less medium-lenght films) and in for are instead moving portraits of its parts. For the first time sound characters loved by Jarman, and becomes as fundamental as images whose image is given by the author in and not an absent support as in most a really personal way. They are of his films (here the cooperation with revealing movements living above the the experimental group “Trobbling image of the portrayed subjects. A Glister”, for which Jarman realized a constellation of myhts and figures kind of proto-video clip titled, Tg belonging to a universe other than the Psychic Rally in Heaven). In The author’s one, but who are assimilated shadow of the sun, Jarman collects to his expressive universe as models the main works carried out until that to follow and identify himself with. moment and creates with them a huge visual collage, a pathway including the visual universe of mythological-visionary films, the dreamlike landscape of the environmental films and the intime and emotional style of the portrait films.

For all those people who would like to know this great author a little bit Extract from Derek (2008), Director: more, and for all those people who Isaa Julien, 78 mins, Colour Digital already love and apreciate him, we Video, Sound underline a full-length film/documentary directed by Isaac

40 Julien and produced on Jarman’s Don’t lose it!. music and featuring Tilda Swinton. This film collects a lot of archive material and unpublished interviews: http://www.isaacjulien.com/films/

Wodiczko’s Video Shadows Between Visible And Invisible

Silvia Casini

the installation assumes the features of a real projection in which all typical cinematographic devices are deconstructed – think only to the loop movement enphatized by Douglas Gordon or to the decomposition of film into monitors dispayed in a row (Chantal Akerman).

The cinema meant as “dark space” in Despite all promises of more attention which moving images are projected to figurative arts and above all to welcome the public when it enters painting, the 53° Esposizione the hall dedicated to Poland. However Internazionale d’Arte della Biennale di the result is quite different from the Venezia (International Art Exhibition in experience of a cinema and shows Venice) focuses again on video new creative possibilities of video installations and expanded cinema, installations, which are often which does not necessary mean obscured by the video art crowding experimental. In most cases it is a the galleries. My aim is to illustrate revisit of the exposition space after them. Goscie/Guests is the title of the the typical experience within the exposition created with the video cinematographic field. The screen projections of the jewish-polish artist becomes a wall or a plasma TV and Krzysztof Wodiczko. The characters

41 are shadows, silhouettes of people blockbuster hollywoodian cinema or immigrated from different countries, from the who goes arount at represented (or better projected) the Biennale from a hall to the other while their work, relax, tell their story, full of bulimic tediousness due to the discuss about the common worry of fact that these box-halls often contain getting a residence permit. nothing and leave the world outside. Wodiczko is one of the few artists at The political dimension of Wodiczko’s the Biennale Arti Visive who replies in work, however, is not only linked to a creative way to the invite of the the installation subject, i.e. the scado- director Daniel Birnbaum who asked immigrants, or to their precence to “Make worlds”. Compared to the which is almost invisible but at the other national halls, the protagonist of same time real and similar to our the Polish hall is the hall itself. The everyday life. This installation is meaning of the building as a political also for the kind of expositive area is brought into experience rising from it: an question, as well as the distance taken alternative experience, different from from a certain type of cinema both the passive one typical of the analogic and digital.

flâneur

42 and invisible, faces and bodies that can be seen beyond opaque windows. They are faces which will remain inevitably unclear, just shadows roughly traced out, undistinguished in their own features. Cinema, according to the co-promoter of Cahiers du Cinéma, André Bazin, works as “effigy and mummy of reality” through its Krzysztof Wodiczko, Goscie/Guests, magic of shadows and lights art. The 2009, video installation, 17 min., subjects’ bodies projected by Courtesy of the artist Wodiczko are disembodied, shadows Profile Foundation and Zacheta hanging in empty space which seem National Gallery of Art, Warsaw to acquire substance in the same moment when they get in contact . with an imaginary glass existing only The image is like a window on the as projection. This desire of contact is world, a transparent frame able to embodied in the female figure with take us in the dimension usually the veil who keeps the head bent and contemplated by the publicum with grazes with her fingers with a little uncharmed eyes bound to stay always pression the projection-glass on the other side of the frame. The separating her from us. In other cases, tromp l’œil effect from the the corporeity is not acquired by Renaissance period is not given bodies but by objects such as the through wall paintings, but through paper sheet (a document or maybe a projections which at the end deny the repulsion paper?) hold in the hand and illusion itself, the depth of the field, showed by a shadow to the other. the centrality of the publicum usually Krzysztof Wodiczko transforms the created by the tromp l’œil . It focuses hall in a space which is at the same to the contrary on the surface values time open and closed to the world. On and the denial of the contrast the walls and on the ceiling unclear background/near distance. These figures of immigrates are projected shadows live in an unclear grey- and photographed (as mummies) in lightblue background without the their everyday life: while cleaning the depth and horizont of the sky. windows (the imaginary window The effect made by these projections separating them from us), talking in is a continuous interchange of visible small groups during a pause, working on a staging, trying to see who is

43 beyond the glass or just standing, walls have no more their usual straight, the arms along the flanks function of support for the projection ready to move the first step towards of images or of surface in which us. These figures still live in a liminal, moving images can be impinged. The evanescent zone and become the phenomenology of the wall played symbol of social ambiguity and continues to play a fundamental experienced by immigrates. This is the role in the political events of the last visual poetics of ambiguity, as defined and current century – think for by Ewa Lajer Burcharth in the example to the building and fall of the exhibition catalogue, according to a Berlin wall and the building of the wall concept loved by the French in Israel between West Bank and phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty. Jerusalem – and becomes even more real and visible in its function of The walls of the Polish hall become borden between near spaces which the liminal zone between reality and are not allowed to get in contact with imagination, between inside and eachother. outside, between them and us. The

44 Krzysztof Wodiczko’s projections are always in dialogue with cinema and video installations. They challenge the narrative cinema to which too often the video installations are acritically inspired. At the same time they offer a possible alternative to think and make cinema and video installations, since they recongnize the contribution of Krzysztof Wodiczko, Goscie/Guests, the so called “attraction cinema” (that 2009, video installation, 17 min., of magic lanterns, light and shadows Courtesy of the artist games) and of the experimental Profile Foundation and Zacheta cinema. From one side, entering in the National Gallery of Art, Warsaw hall means entering in the dark cinema room, in the maternal womb, . ready to be illuded: two mechanisms on which most of the narrative The installation is polyphonic since hollywoodian cinema is based. On the different actions and voices (clean the other side, the screen, the perspective windows, tell one’s story, relax, drink) and the illusion of the cinema happen in the same time or one after armchair fade away. The public must the other on the walls of the hall and feel his own “symptom”, à la Žižek. on the cealing. The public must This illusion is first of all brought in therefore continually change the question and then denied by the focus of his eyes and attention. It is perception that real people are impossible to keep a privileged fixed beyond those screen-windows and position. The public.visitor becomes beyond those shadows. No the real subject of the work of art identification processes with the main since it occupy the same space of the character of the story can happen work of art and ends to be like in a because in reality what the public can shop window, in a cage, looked (or see are only shadows. better ignored) by the ones who are still outside. The shadows, the lights, The coexistence between esthetics, the desire of seeing and knowing, the visibility and invisibility has a strong division between near worlds, the political meaning. This does not mean obscurity change the Polish hall in the that the hall deal with political topics, artistic contemporary version, which although the silhouettes represent is however modified into the myth of immigrates and the aim of the artist is Platon’s cave. to bring them on the stage with their

45 non-presence. The real meaning is La compresenza di visibilità e instead deeper and more refined and invisibilità è anche erotica, oltre che according to it those who does not politica. Non tanto grazie al gioco tra enter (or are not able to) on the stage, visibile e invisibile, quanto piuttosto who does not emerge from the grazie al continuo rimando (nel senso unclear background and become di posponimento) del tocco che tale visible, are bound to a sort of limbo gioco permette di attuare, un gioco hanging between visibility and che necessita per esistere dei concetti invisibility. Visibility e invisibility are di superficie e di limite. Anche se noi two dimensions which the video art fossimo in grado di raggiungere always compared with, maybe tank to queste silhouettes , di sfiorare la the power that the video has to make sottile membrana che ci separa da bodies appear and disappear at his esse, toccando così il limite tra interno own will. ed esterno, tra spazio del padiglione e mondo là fuori, non di un toccare si Using Raymond Bellour’s words: tratterebbe, ma di una continua “video is only a surface even if it interruzione del contatto che non è contributes to take away from image altro se non uno dei volti di Eros – e di part of its old deepness (…). Moreover Thanatos. Quando verranno infrante it gives the cinema a new deepness queste finestre? Quando riusciranno a difficult to define. It makes bodies entrare queste ombre? Sono già qui, magic up and spirit away. This has incedono cercando di guardar dentro, always been one of the most le unghie contro il vetro. Quando traumatic dreams of image”. (2007, p. saremo abbastanza coraggiosi da 169) riuscire a infrangere quel vetro, aprire le porte del padiglione e lasciar entrare chi sta fuori, invitando a dividere il nostro spazio, e andar noi fuori a condividere il loro punto di vista?

Se non vi è alcun processo di identificazione, se non vi è alcun ruolo Img courtesy by “Art:21- Art in the da protagonista al quale possiamo Twenty-First Century,” production ispirarci e illuderci di sostituire, allora still, 2005 forse queste video-ombre proiettate potrebbero essere le nostre proprie . ombre, le finestre specchi, noi loro. Così Wodiczko ci porta a un altro

46 livello ancora, quello dell’auto- esplicita la sua concezione della referenzialità della Biennale, che poi politica come creazione di uno spazio spesso non è altro che l’auto- pubblico dove le persone condividono referenzialità autistica della scena significati, si incontrano e si artistica contemporanea, basata su un scontrano, costruiscono e mettono in processo di validazione per gli artisti questione la loro identità personale e sicuro e certificato. Nel padiglione collettiva. Se la dimensione politica della Polonia si incontra un Artista, dell’opera di Wodiczko va non un Narcisista. Il sollievo è che sottolineata, la politica, tuttavia, non è l’arte contemporanea e con essa la un semplice contenuto dell’arte, una video arte non è adolescenziale come sorta di soggetto che l’arte si potrebbe temere, né chiusa in un rappresenta e su cui l’arte si interroga. discorso incomprensibile a chi non ne Detto altrimenti, l’arte che è politica fa parte. Essa riguarda la collettività – e non è necessariamente – meglio, non ci guarda. è quasi mai – arte a contenuto politico. Piuttosto, l’arte è politica Nell’intervista fatta a Wodiczko da quando riesce a creare configurazioni John Rajchman contenuta nel alternative dello spazio e del ruolo che catalogo della mostra, l’artista le persone esercitano in esso.

47 production of a double effect: on the one side the understanding of a political meaning; on the other side a perceptive and sensorial shock caused Fra le by those elements which survive the immagini. Fotografia, cinema, video. process of signification” (2004, p. 63)

Wodiczko succeded in the difficult undertaking of making esthetics The Politics Krzysztof Wodiczko, Goscie/Guests, political, literally projecting the Polish of Aesthetics 2009, video installation, 17 min., hall in a real space of encouter and Courtesy of the artist conflict. Profile Foundation and Zacheta Enjoy your Quoted works: National Gallery of Art, Warsaw Symptom! Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out . Bellour, Raymond (2007)

As the French philosopher Jacques Traduzione di V. Costantino e A. Rancière cleverly said: “The Lissoni. Milano: Bruno Mondadori. engagement is not a feature typical of art (…). This does not mean that art is Rancière, Jacques (2004) unpolitical. This means instead that . Traduzione di G. esthetics has its own politics (…). An Rockhill. London: Verso. estethic politics is always defined Žižek, Slavoj (2007) through the concept of “sensible” or as a ri-configuration of given . London: perception forms (…) A relevant Routledge political art should ensure the

Sonar, Enduring Research. Interview With Giorgia Taglietti

48 Giulia Baldi

the right choices and leaving oneself) the line up has as much celebrated the real classics as it has opened to real news, including different artits, remarkable and original. In fact, there were great moments of collective exaltation were . Undoubtably, we didn’t dance or listen to something “really new” This is the beginning of a new season But we are in a post-modern and of night music in clubs. This means cultural remix age, and we cannot that the day music festivals have just expect radical revolutions. Still, they come to an end. And peace, of course. will occcur in a few years (as we’re At the least we must accept life talking about cycles ). Meanwhile, we cycles, at the most we may even learn can enjoy the great amount of the to love them. Yet, although an “current right now”, that is kicking elaboration and an analysis on the around, as well as all the experience that is being lived are unpredictable and powerful sounds possible thanks to the prolonged together, the instruments, the times of the clubs, we cannot forget attitudes, the aesthetics, and the that the profound elaboration and the generations, which are typical of the analysis of the festivals represent the present moment. And that have explosion and the synthesis of it… characterized this Sonar. As usual, the And in that sense no festival in Europe important thing is to learn to (maybe in the world?) is so important distinguish signals from ground for electronic music as the Sonar in noises. And this, especially in times in Barcelona: 16 years of continuing which information is overloaded. And research, characterized by a rare in that sense, nothing more useful ability to make some steady progress than a well-thought festival, an event (although a wrong move may be that definitely cares about the inevitable along the way). And the audience, more than the rest A 2009 edition was the umpteenth festival that gets to involve sponsors proof of that. Especially during the and good partners, by developing day (but also during the night, making sometimes unexpected and always

49 creative synergies, as the Red Bull and lasted all day. The festival ended Music Academy. And a festival that is with a three hours dj set by Laurent effectively experiencing horizontal Garnier and was preceded by some communication, that is in web and performances by Spanish artists, such social media, as well as in the vertical as La Mala Rodriguez, and one, as in traditional media international artists, such as AGF and Carsten Nicolai, to introduce children to electronic music. Besides, the area was enriched with other creative laboratories dedicated to the younger children, for example with illustrator Jordi Labanda, and with the older children’s favourite activities, such as ramp skateboarding

Giulia Baldi: And what feedback did you have? . Georgia Taglietti: SonarKids had a To understand best present and past wonderful and stimulating feedback. choices, we met Georgia Taglietti, the There was suddenly an important festival’s International connection of generations: children Communications Manager. having some fun, parents relaxing and Giulia Baldi: Sonar is an ever evolving everyone learning something new! I festival, what were the changes this would even say that children also year? relaxed, as well as parents decidedly had fun! Garnier’s set has reached Georgia Taglietti: There were many such a peak of delight that we haven’t changes. Among the most interesting seen since his sea sunrises at the end ones, I would indicate the presence of of the Nineties! Many of those parents well-known artists from very different were probably there ten years ago countries, such as Syria, Congo, Ethiopia, with Omar Souleyman, Giulia Baldi: Speaking of the audience, Konono n1, or Mulatu Astatké and The Sonar is a festival representing Europe Heliocentrics. More than that, this to say the least, but actually it year Sonar Cinema has had a break, represents all the world, and this in but we have created Sonar Kids, a relation to the kind of audience that is festival addressed to the under attracted by it. How did it develop fourteen that took place on a Sunday over the years

50 Georgia Taglietti: I think that this kind same way as we danced on Jeff Mills’s of spectators are commonly rhythms. How did media react to acquainted with Sonar, because these amalgamations? Did reactions they’ve been there before or rather change over the years? because they’ve heard about it, that’s why they easily move among the Georgia Taglietti: They have boxes and they spontaneously developed, in the sense that they interact with the town. And this have passed from the discovery and allows a more and more relaxing surprise of the early years (or even atmosphere during the days of the rejection towards the event of the festival. And besides, there’s always a festival), to the most recent in-depth great attention towards new music. experience of the individual proposals and the great success of the less commercial proposals, or less evident at least. And there are also those who are mostly interested in undestanding the festival organization and its relationship with the town, the audience, and the media themselves.

Giulia Baldi: From the point of view of collaboration and help you have always received from the . Establishments and the sponsors, how did things change? Giulia Baldi: Let’s speak about line up, instead. Sonar has always payed much Georgia Taglietti: The Establishment attention to classics as well as to new and the sponsors have always paid music, it has represented the past, the attention and have taken part to the present and the future of electronic event. But this year contributions avantgarde music. On the first day of inevitably diminished, for the general this edition, on the same box, we saw economic uncertainty. But the for example Jon Hopkins and Tim economic crisis needs not be lived as Exile, Roland Olbeter’s show with his a creative and cultural crisis, because robotic instruments (that is an it is clear that it is not We can learn advance of future and technology), to offer the best within the limits of and later Konono n®1 with their what the situation itself offers, and Afrikan music, that is past coming this is everywhere and not only in a back. Because indeed, we danced the festival. A difficult moment as the

51 crisis can contaminate creativity, but nationalities such as Cecile (Italy), it may help find as interesting new Debruit (France), Taras 3000 (Russia), ways as restyling, if not more. I think Dorian Concept (Austria), that the restructuring of the new Cardopusher (Venezuela), Culoe de Sonar (there was one room less, for Song (South Africa). An intelligent, instance, at Sonar by Night) was really interesting and funny turning point, accepted and even appreciated and eventually free from the most (Sonar by Day was in fact the most traditional dynamics of the sector. crowded in all the history of the What can we expect in the future festival) from the interaction between these ‘illuminated’ realities? Giulia Baldi: the collaboration with RedBull , for example, was deeper Georgia Taglietti: I think that there is a than in previous years, and the Dome, natural cohesion between Sónar and the box that hosted the new entries of the reality of RBMA. This willingness the RedBull Music Academy, surely to search for new talent across the represented a success of Sonar by world is perhaps what joins us. We Day, with live concerts and dj sets by hope for a collaboration at the same emerging artists of various level next year.

52 Moderat, the dance sets by James Murphy & Pat Mahoney and the bass mash up by Rustie, the electro e techno ones by SebastiAn, Deadmau5 and Agoria, could only entertain with happiness the thousands of people there In the end, this edition was to be remembered by the audience. Now you only have to restart! What are your conclusions, then, and what . are your previews for the next Giulia Baldi: During the day, at the edition? Village, with the set of wizard Mills, Georgia Taglietti: The next edition? I the showcases by Ghostly have no idea. Always on and always International, the proposals by Huw looking ahead anyway. There are Stephens of BBC and EdBanger various conclusions: to deepen the Gazpashow(!), was a nonstop feast. In journey towards new bounds, since the Hall, among the experiences by Omar Souleyman had a tremendous Hopkins/Exile, the futuristic funk by success for example, and to keep on Ebony Bones and the trance with new collaborations with visionary old/modern by Konono n1, the digital artists close to the festival, such as abstractions by Raster Noton, a Olbeter. We can already figure out the variety of styles and energies were future. piled up for the next 10 editions. In the night all was someway thinning, but the great shows by Grace Jones and the Orbital, the live performances by http://2009.sonar.es/es/ Animal Collective , by Fever Ray, by

Sommercamp + Workstation. Temporary Autonomous Culture

53 Valeria Merlini

to the urban work, sensitive to electromagnetic landscapes, by Martin Howse/xxxxx and Julian Oliver. The second, managed by Derek Holzer, presented different approaches to the construction of musical instruments: from the antennae by Ciat Lonbarde/Peter Blasser, which produce sounds by reacting to the movements of the On the 16th of August Haus der people present (principally based on Kulturen der Welt in Berlin hosted the Theremin); to the particular string presentation of works created during instruments by Halldor Ulfarsson, the course of six days of intensive focusing on the production of workshops within the Sommercamp feedback; to the acoustic laptops by Workstation project, an event Tore Honoré Bøe, described by the conceived as a mobile laboratory for art and media, which came about artist as being “Social Sculptures”. The from the very important experience of third theme, managed by Medialab the ex-research centre Tesla Medialab Prado from Madrid, saw James (www.tesla-berlin.de), a project that Wallbank and Jordi Claramonte lasted four months and was situated stimulate a critical and creative in various places in the heart of Berlin. approach to the concept of medialab and operative art whereas Adam Hyde The workshops of the first part of the illustrated how to develop FLOSS project, Sommercamp, were (Free/Libero/Open-Source Software) developed on three themes: manuals in little time. A detailed simulation and representation description of the single projects can systems; the development of musical be found on the Wiki pages of the instruments and the procedures to Sommercamp Workstation. create and organise cultural projects. Sommercamp, as well as using the The first, managed by Martin Howse, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, also used showed some examples of simulation: the structures of the Radial system for from the graphical work by Jessica the inaugural event. On that occasion Rylan, to the botanical work by Zoviet France, Matt Wand and Atau FOaM/Nik Gaffney and Dave Griffiths, Tanaka showed their reinterpretation

54 of Variations VII by John Cage. time he dedicated to this interview, which was an opportunity to discuss Workstation on the other hand will be the origins and operative strategies of the second part of the event, mostly this project. dedicated to the production of projects (four artistic residencies and Valeria Merlini: Where does a curator fund), which will be open to Sommercamp Workstation come the public from the 20th to the 22nd from? of November at the General Public in Berlin and will see the presence of the Derek Holzer: Sommercamp artists with their projects as well as Workstation comes from the experts of scientific and technological experience of Tesla, the historical fields. Berlin centripetal medialab, for the development of multimedia and technological projects, located in the Podewils’sches Palais. Within that structure, the presence of Tesla was too close to the management of the Podewils’sches Palais, having met with its “conservative” politics a few times too many. On various fronts, it became difficult to create projects in that place. For other reasons, Tesla could not have a great audience at its . events. The city, which had funded This is a delightful chat with the project, after having seen the low soundartist Derek Holzer (a old friend number of attendance, did not of Digicult, who Claudia D’Alonzo met renovate the contract once it was for Digimag31 in February 2008 for his terminated. Tesla thought of asking project Tonewheels with Sara Kolzter for less money by no longer using that – structure; but the money and that http://www.digicult.it/digimag/articl location were connected. It was e.asp?id=1111, but that Bertram impossible therefore to separate the Niessen also met for his wonderful two. As a consequence Tesla did not project of sounds and architecture die in any way, but a structural and urban spaces, Tuned City, for support was missing as was a location Digimag36 in July/August 2008 – to do things in. From there Carsten http://www.digicult.it/digimag/articl Stabenow, Carsten Seiffarth and other e.asp?id=1251), whom I thank for the people got together to make the

55 organisation DOCK. The idea that was able in Berlin? behind DOCK was to not search for a new physical place as a base, but to Derek Holzer: In Berlin it is not create events using different necessary to have a physical location, resources that already existed in because there are infrastructures Berlin. The idea behind Sommercamp everywhere. Last summer for Tuned Workstation, therefore, it to unite City the same nucleus of people used different resources from different the infrastructures of the Technical people: to invite people to present University, many public parks and the workshops as well as other people to big Funkhaus Berlin studio in participate in them, creating a social Nalepastrasse, therefore existing environment. structures. At this time everyone talks about being eco-friendly, about Valeria Merlini: Is this strategy, that renewable stuff and it’s such a waste was thought up to get around the to set up a new place every time. It’s difficulties imposed by the cultural more sensible to take existing politics of the local scene and to make resources and connect them certain artistic practices possible, do- intelligently.

56 best elements of existing organisations, to take portions of them, configure them and make the next step.

Valeria Merlini: Do you think that the example of Sommercamp Workstation can be exported?

Derek Holzer: Yes. It’s a finger that . points in a certain direction. I think that every local situation is different. It Valeria Merlini: What does medialab could be interesting to talk about it mean to you? with people from Medialab Prado for example, who seem to have been Derek Holzer: When I lived in Holland I organising many events of this kind tried to make a medialab. I find the for many years and in different ways. idea of a medialab connected to a They have a different culture, which is fixed place is a bit archaic, a bit dated. heavily based on volunteer work. They Personally, I don’t want to criticise put together a lot of people to work other forms of practice in medialabs, on specific projects. It’s kind of the but I’m very interested in transitory opposite of here: the artists go to situations. I’m interested in creating someone in order to create something multi-use areas that are quick and and all the technical volunteers are temporarily autonomous. In creating a involved in the project. Here we invite transitory situation like “let’s do artists and technicians and then something quick, in on week”, you people come to learn from them. must not worry about the problem of Perhaps that kind of situation works being continuously eco-friendly or well in Spain, in that specific cultural about long-term issues. For example, context. I believe that there’s no in the 80′s there were many crystal ball that works everywhere, initiatives, now they have stopped every situation is different and you and they keep sucking up locations, cannot simply try to copy it, paste it money and oxygen. I’ve seen a lot of and export it. I don’t want to criticise situations like these and they bore Dutch culture, but their tactics in me, as well as being a complete dealing with media are to export it waste. I believe that to create everywhere: it’s like a flyer stuck to temporarily autonomous situations is every culture that they can put their more exciting. It’s a way to use the hands on.

57 Valeria Merlini: Compared to the Sommercamp construction of analogical and electronic instruments to the detriment of an excessive and limited use of code and software, how did you apply your ideas and your knowledge to your section of the workshop?

Derek Holzer: In reference to the . section of the workshop that I managed, I can say that the Valeria Merlini: What did you expect construction of a physical object is from ? Are you very different from programming stuff satisfied? with a computer, because programming isn’t visual, no one sees Derek Holzer: My objective was it, it’s totally imaginary. In fact it simple. I wanted to have a lot of doesn’t even exist. If you build a people who shared the same space, physical object in order to create that did things creatively with their sounds, this becomes a sound hands and that had fun in doing so. I instrument, but also a visual didn’t have great expectations. I didn’t instrument. I believe that the pleasure expect to see works of genius and of that people have had from Acoustic course there were good moments, Laptops, Deerhorns and because pleasant things came out of Hallodrophones is more in the visuals it that I didn’t expe. than in sounds.

http://www.sommercampworkstatio n.de/wiki/doku.php?id=start

Losing Yourself In The Whitetree. Lippok Brothers & Ludovico Einaudi

58 Alessandra Migani

– it has taken and carried me, without even realising, to a hidden place where I had never been, but which appeared to me in my mind. On each musical journey, the mind has in fact this wonderful ability to visit places hidden inside a space that does not necessarily follow the conventions to which we are accustomed. Cloudland intervene in this process, conversing directly with the imagination of the listener.

The sound that Ludovico Einaudi creates on piano is incredibly The first time I heard Cloudland, the evocative. He is capable of producing first album from Whitetree, I thought a very special energy. In unison with about one of my friends traveling, the accurate rhythms of Ronald, and sitting in front of a waterfall at the the distinctive touch of Robert on the foot of the Himalayas, in contemplation of the height and drums, the melodies grow in magic depth of the universe. The song was accord. The balance between the Mercury sand. Whitetree is a parties gives life to the songs, and the collaboration between the Italian notes come together in perfect pianist and composer Ludovico composition. Einaudi, and brothers Robert Lippok The collaboration between these (software) and Ronald Lippok (drums), musicians seems to flow quite formerly part of German post-rock spontaneously, you feel at no point trio, To Rococo Rot, along with Stefan that it is forced. For musician and Schneider on bass. (1) composer it is a natural to attempt to Cloudland, like the Faithful Hands of break down barriers between genres the story of African writer Amos and experiment with new possibilities. Tutuola titled The Palm-Wine Drinkard This desire unites artists from very (a drink from palm wine) – one different routes, academic or not. For inspiration for the name of this project example, the musician and DJ Jeff

59 Mills, who has worked with the Whitetree’s live set was accompanied Montpellier Philharmonic Orchestra, by visuals from D-Fuse, a collective of defines the relation between classical artists and designers founded by Mike and electronic music as the ability to Faulkner in London, who worked for ‘share common emotions and years producing video, installations expressive elements’. These common and audio visual live performances. emotions resonate even more Projected on a single screen, the powerfully in live performance. images were taken during a three month research trip to China a few years ago for a project called Latitude, which was sponsored by the British Council and the Arts Council of England.

The initial images are quite abstract and dynamic; taken from the window of a train, they reveal a landscape, then many, large buildings in a hyperreal urban landscape. The Whitetree presented their project on scenes are repeated in a rhythmic the 9th August at the Big Chill festival loop, and I wonder if that is how a city in a beautiful valley near Eastnor sounds: A buzz of architecture, Castle in West Midlands (about three lighting, paths from everyday life, hours by train from London). In this branching out in roads and stories. suggestive scenario, the first notes of The images that close the set the opening track, “Slow Ocean, the alternate between familiar street public grew more numerous in front scenes of a girl hugging her mother, of the Open Air Stage. There were someone falling asleep driving a many people who paused in front of scooter through intricate urban alleys, the stage, fascinated by the music, and other families traveling through who stopped then to listen to the live the city by motorcycle. performance. Some called or checked the program to verify and remember The energy of the music combined the name of the group. The audience with the images of architecture and were carried away by notes of emotive spaces created offered by D- Whitetree under the afternoon sun, Fuse make this experience truly which made everyone happy and special. Cloudland gives us the keys to smiling after days of gray skies and a dream, and invites the viewer to get rain. lost in another dimension, only to find

60 themselves at the end of the journey. Studios in Berlin, inside the building It was therefore imperative to ask where the GDR radio station Robert Lippok to tell us a little about operated. We made the recordings this new project. during the largest storm to have taken place in Europe during the last twenty years, Kyrill (2).

Alessandra Migani: How has the creative process worked between you three?

Robert Lippok: Working with Ludovico and Ronald together is big fun. Very fast. The whole Album was basically done in the rehearsal days in Milan. Alessandra Migani: How did the Sometimes I came up with a theme or collaboration with Einaudi start? Can just with a rhythmical structure. you tell us how you met and how you Mercury sands is based on a track decided to start this project together? from my 2006 CD, Robot. I played the track and Ludovico had this fantastic Robert Lippok: Ludovico saw a show really light melody and Ronald with of To Rococo Rot in Milan. After the the Percussion. Other Songs started concert, we met backstage and he by Ludovico. He is a source of told us he was interested in working beautiful melodies. Really amazing. with us. In 2006 he invited me and my Soon as he gets to his instrument he brother Ronald to Milan to work on starts throwing music in the air. new material. We spent four days in Ronald and Ludovico have a special the rehearsal room and improvised a connection in terms of rhythm. Its a lot. We arrived at a result very quickly. bit like voodoo. hard to understand. The funny thing was that Ludovico Even for me. organized a whole tour, shortly after the rehearsal. We started the next Alessandra Migani: The name day, performing at Teatro Politeama Whitetree is inspired by a novella by of Palermo. Ludovico was sure that the African writer Amos Tutuola we had created something good. entitled The Palm-Wine Drinkard (The Immediately after the tour we felt Palm-Wine Drinker). Why did you that we should continue and recorded discuss this story and choose this some songs in a studio. So in early name? 2007 we went to record at Planet Roc

61 Robert Lippok: In the summer of 2007 Robert Lippok: For me it is the uneven we worked with Louis for a play path of life and the comfort that directed by Luca Ronconi. The comes at unexpected times. The book representation was taken from the has changed my good Catholic vision book of Tutuola, The Palm Wine of good and evil a little. In African Drinker. The book was suggested by culture, things do not seem so simple dramaturge Cesare Mazzonis, who and clear. The White Tree is a place of wrote the script for the play version. resting, and healing but also violence We were very happy with this choice and chaos. because we did not know much of Tutuola’s work, but we were very Alessandra Migani: The sounds of curious. The White Tree is a very Cloudland are very evocative. Did you ambivalent. A little paradise, a little all have some images in mind while jazz and gambling. An area that creating the music? encompasses wild beauty and Robert Lippok: I can only speak for darkness. Very magnetic. myself of course. I would not say images but shapes and/or different qualities of light. Some tracks are condensed like dark matter, some are bright like a yellow lizard sitting on a piece of kryptonite reflecting the sun.

Alessandra Migani: Thinking of the images for your music, I think the visuals by D-Fuse during your concert at the Big Chill have worked very well. Alessandra Migani: I read the story. Do you have other collaborations of The White Tree is an incredible place, this kind? governed by a mother figure who cares for people in need and subject Robert Lippok: We could not see what to punishment, offering a place to D-Fuse have done for us. We had only stay, food and wine, and a place to a quick conversation before the show dance every night. It is described as a and we have total confidence in place where people can forget the Mike’s sense (3) for the images. You torments of the past, but to enter the said it worked well, I’m happy. tree they must sell their death and Sometimes you would like to be away rent their fear. What does the white from your own concert to watch from tree represent to you? the front, but you can not have it all.

62 During our first tour in 2006, we musicians performing. The Big Chill worked with the team video of Berlin, was fantastic. Made with so much Visomat. But I think that our music love and craziness. So many nice ideas works well even without visuals. I like beside the music program. I especially it when every person in the audience loved the big white zombie and the has a small projector inside and can ghost dresses in the trees lit by project every possible image in the bicycles (4). I think it was one of the space inside their skull. Sometimes best festivals I ever been. after a show people came to us to tell us what they saw. Notes

1 – To Rococo Rot played live at the Big Chill Festival last 8th of August. They also presented new pieces that will be part of their new studio album, planned to be released in 2010.

2 -Kyril is the title of the second track in Cloudland.

3 – Mike Faulkner is the Founder and Img: Latitude screenshot, courtesy by Director of the English collective, D- D-Fuse fuse. Alessandra Migani: Can you tell me 4 – Robert is referring to Visions of your experiences on tour with Angels, inspired by William Blake and Whitetree and in particular to the Big realised by Electric Pedals, as part of Chill? The Art Trail at the Big Chill Festival. It Robert Lippok: We are not a rock’n’roll is an installation that is engaging the band so touring doesn´t mean to be spectators (invited to activate the three months on the road. We played power of a generator by pedalling not so many shows this year. I love to fixed bikes), bringing to life Blake’s play live and I love to play on big angelic vision as white dresses stages. It gives me the opportunity to amongst the branches of an old oak listen to our music to a different tree. power and volume. The live situation adds so much to the music. And somehow you understand the music http://www.myspace.com/whitetree on a different level when you seen the space

63 www.ludovicoeinaudi.com www.bigchill.net http://www.myspace.com/torococor www.dfuse.com ot

Contour 2009: Video And Historical Representation

Lucrezia Cippitelli

The curator, Katerina Gregos, who had been directing the Argos exhibitions in Brussels until 2007, has managed to give an international dimension to an event which has occurred only in the local surroundings up to the last edition, and whose general aim has been to give space to video projects connected to the search for new For its fourth edition the Biennial of generations merely in the Video Art in Mechelen (Belgium) Belgian/Flemish area. Contour has opened the doors to a Instead, thanks to Katerina Gregos, curator and to internationally who lives in Brussels but has got renowned artists. Greek origins and has been working in The Biennale was inaugurated on the field of the international visual arts August 15 under the title Hidden In for many years (even if, far before the Remembrance Is The Silent Memory failure of Manifesta 2006 in Cyprus, Of Our Future: a complicated concept, she was pushed by her critical and Leaps of Faith whose aim is to show history and the political mind to create , present in our collective thought, and a complex exhibition project right in where the past is a key element to Nicosia, a city equally split between understand the future. Turkey e Greece), an event deeply

64 rooted in the local spheres was active Photographic Museum. Think of introduced into a global context. Antwerp, which became the European capital of fashion, which houses the Mukha, Extracity ed an active Photographic Museum. Then think of Ghent (Gent or Gand), which works on cinema and new media thanks to the Vooruit (remember the festival I had mentioned in Digimag issue 39 last November 2008, Almost Cinema).

If this European area is beginning to share with the Netherlands the same . interest for digital culture at large, the Halfway between Brussels and Mechelen city council seems to have Antwerp, Mechelen (or Malines in weighed up the pros and cons, just French) is a little town set in nothern like many other towns often ignored Flanders. A rich, flourishing, on a worldwide scale did in the last bourgeois, prosperous, wealthy, calm two decades: just organize a Biennale and silent town: these are perhaps the et voilà, as by magic the town exists main characteristics of an urban area on maps and becomes a destination of less than one hundred thousand for cultural tourism. And to end with inhabitants, which is diffusing all this drift of cultural policy, it’s no around a cultural halo that can save it accident that the characteristic of the from a stuporous state and give a sign festival is to host videos in the of contemporraneity. After all in different ancient buildings scattered Belgium (o rahter in Flanders, the throughout the town. Even the northern area where Dutch is the Countour press release stressed it: official language of such a little ‘Mechelen is hosting a unique event country split in two parts), two towns for those who are keen on have already managed to build their contemporary art and architectural self-relliance that goes beyond the history at the same time». beauty of its centre square, the And so a languid and incredibly sunny canals, the typical buildings of the Saturday afternoon in late northern Flemish golden era. summer has turned into a pleasant Think of Antwerp, which became the stroll trhough the Renaissance and European capital of fashion, which Late gothic buildings, cobblestone houses the Mukha, Extracity ed an pavés, canalsides provided with tables

65 and terraces, the visit to cynism becomes evident when we deconsecrated churches, ex-hospitals, think about the historical paths that ex-factories, the town hall. have led us to a present crisis.

Black Box, Herman Asselberghs‘s video, just ordered for the Biennale (as well as other works presented among which there is the very VIP one by Eija-Liisa Ahtila), may be considered one of the most successful works, even with the plain simplicity of the installation and its short duration. The video shows that the beginning of our present, that is of the . millennium in which we live, is not As we said, the title of the fourth updated since early 2000 in the edition of Contour 2009 alludes to calendar, but since the international history: ‘demonstrates it, supports its demonstrations against Iraq War 2, in importance and looks into matters of February 15th 2003. The drifting world historical representation and that we see today, began with the historiography». It’s no accident to protests against the decision of the talk about globally historical U.S. Government to attack Baghdad. processes in 2009: twenty years after Even before the images of death and the fall of the Berlin Wall, artists seem those of the embedded journalists, ready to examine again the recent the artist/videomaker and film critic history, to write it again with a born in Mechelen and living in different viewpoint, focusing on Brussels, shows us the beginning of events and facts that in a time of the XXI century through videos of the conflicts we are experiencing take on demonstrations shot by different the meaning of symptoms, early artists all over the world and uploaded warnings, metaphors, symbols. on You Tube. What we see in front of us is the effects of those moments: Intent can consistently get on with blurry images, toned grey and balck, the curatorial choices made by abstract. People moving in front of us Gregos. After having visited Contour look like ghosts. The narration is 2009 (apart from the obvious matters carried on by a voice whispering (and of cultural politics and the town’s then speaking louder and louder) that self-achievement), a deep sense of only in the present we can give a heaviness, disorientation, and lucid value to past events. The video is also

66 one of the few works that try to che the avereage audience watches it for cercano di re-elaborate and study the about a dozen seconds and then goes medium of the video and its use in an away. also plays on the exhibition. This is evident right from space in which it is projected. Low the title. tones and monochrome make the video almost invisible, leaving the In fact, one of the fundamental limits audience in darkness and of a video exhibition in the context of disorientated in the black room where Contemporary Art, is often the it is projected. The voice is always carelessness on the video time and whispering the same sentence and environment factors. Videos should absorbs you into a state of alert and be exhibited in a cinema and not anxiety; the abstract images in grey inside exhition halls, with suitable and black raise tension and curiosity audio and armchairs, so that the the towards something that seems about audience is predisposed to see the to happen. Just at this point the video narrative development (be it audience understands the sense of objective or abstract). Instead, in the the video and just at this point it plays context of Contemporary Art, videos all over from the beginning, in a loop are still shown in black boxes, where without interruption.

Black Box

67 fear, conflict. No statement , not a point of view, not even epic involvement: everything is too beautiful, too perfect, too politically correct and longlasting to catch something.

And finally the participation of the Russian collective Chto Delat is worth to be mentioned (and there are no . less than 18 creations by 12 different artists at the Biennale). Their work Alternatively, the eagerly-awaited consists of two videos and a video by Eija-Liisa Ahtila Where is newspaper which they produce by where? seems the revival of an themselves and they distribute to the aesthetics that the Finnish artist had audience. Perestroika Songspiel: The already used in her former works: a victory over the Coup and Chronicles multi-part projection on five of Perestroika, both of 2008, are two enormous screens installed in a black videos that have to be watched in box. And so the narration is sequence. The first one is the story of segmented into five different and the birth of “democracy” in Russia afer simultaneous viewpoints. The story is the attempt of a restoration coup the revival of a massacre in Algeria détat was stopped in 1991; the second during the Fifties. An event that took one is the video assemblagshowing place when Algeria was occupied by the protests in the streets of Saint France and that cunningly brings us Petersburg between 1987 and 1991. back to a vague post-colonial past; Both of them actually describe the the confrontation and the conflict exact end of the Soviet Union and of between Muslim and Western worlds; the bipolar world after the Cold War. scenes of war, violence and escape While the Second one consists of the similar to the common scenes shown editing of documents, the first one is all over the world every day on tv; the pure fiction and is featured under the artist’s personal perspective and her form of a greek tragedy, in which uno daydreams. 57 unbearable minutes of coriforo tells the events accompanied video: a post-modern pamphlet by a chorus that sings or comments perfectly shot, recorded, installed, and the report of those days, mixing the synthesized, playing with the Muslim Russian song tradition with jokes and common mind which may be good or puns about the creation of a bad, western bad conscience, death, democracy based on trade,

68 multinational companies and capitalism. Chto Delat’s project was http://www.contour2009.be/en/ho censured in post-Soviet Russia. The me/ project by Chto Delat was censored during post-Soviet Russia.

Balint Boligo’ And The Magical Machines

Silvia Scaravaggi

course of his artistic activity he does not want to create objects and sculptures that are scientifically significant, but instead wants to explore that thought-provoking space that brings art and science close together and has always made them unique and united.

Science, therefore, reveals itself in Bálint Bolygó, born in 1976, of artistic activity, creating objects, Hungarian origin but a London sculptures, installations and visions resident, appears to be an artist who that are rich with charm and mystery, works with science. His family history where light, colour and shapes win confirms this: both his parents are over the spectators’ mistrustful scientists, and Boligò himself declares nature, giving them the chance to that this field was his initial means of delve into a magical and dream-like inspiration for his own experiments reality that investigates processing, and his own cultural growth. But the passage of time and the when talking with Balint you realise emergence of natural forces behind that, despite maths, Physics and the hands and minds of man. chemistry being significant reference points for the development of a The first works, such as Pendulum personal poetical scheme, during the (2001) or Lissajou Light Drawings

69 (2001-2004), are (2005), creates a world of spheres and machines/pendulums built to cartographies that are different every generate drawings and writing with a time, and Trace (2008) investigates harmonious movement, A work like the meaning of human representation Ekka JP2000 (2001) on the other hand generated by technology, is a machine that conceptually reinterpreting it through a mechanical develops a more complex process: a process tire that has an engine and sprays paint in great concentric circles Silvia Scaravaggi: Let’s begin with one without continuity and following the of your most recent works: Epicycloid laws of the most absurd randomness: [Laser Theremin] (2009). Are you a machine for unlikely road signs and working around live human a device for the urban evolution of interaction? Is it an important theme action painting. to you? Is it new in your path or have you always been interested in this aspect?

Bálint Boligó: Epicycloidoscope in a certain sense came about from a previous work I had done where I based my work on human interaction so that something visual can happen. That’s how I understood that the public doesn’t always interact with the new objects in the way that you . expect, and it’s something that I’m really interested in. My works try to In Bálint Bolygó’s machines there are involve the spectator in some way, different scientific and artistic even when it means simply pushing a theories; the imaginary locations that pendulum or giving life to events with he creates gain extra visual and movement sensors. I think that as emotional strength when in contact humans we have an internal with the action of the spectator who mechanism that is based on all the can activate the pendulums, ropes senses – including touch – when we’re and pulleys, thus partially determining in contact with a new object or the movement and product of the sculpture. The exploration through works that each time give back a new human curiosity is the path that I am interpretation of shapes, colours and trying to set forth. lights. More recently, Mappings

70 Silvia Scaravaggi: What are the main construction and control of the ideas that you develop in your work? machines that I create is really interesting. I have a specific action or Bálint Boligó: The exploration of time objective in mind for every machine with three-dimensional objects – or when I build it, so every machine with time-based objects – is an usually has some variations or element that is evident in all my work. inaccuracies that show the limits of The processes, and naturally, the time the system. My activity explores the the processes require, are nucleus of meanings that are between components that I try to show as part this urgency for “control” and the of the work or the object. sufficient margin so that inaccuracy or a “happy accident” can be seen. It’s Silvia Scaravaggi: How much do you simply impossible to repeat certain want to control the functioning of phenomena, even if the result comes your machines and the result of each from a mechanical process. The process? exploration of this area between Bálint Boligó: The process behind the chaos and order is really fascinating.

71 Bálint Boligó: I think it’s more of a dialogue between the two things. Knowledge is something that people naturally associate with scientific art, and without a doubt my activity is evocative in this sense. Despite the fact that the aesthetics of my work can refer to this area, my works are not scientific apparatus, nor demonstrative models for . laboratories. The function of my Silvia Scaravaggi: How much does mechanisms is to control certain your activity have to do with aspects of the creation of images, be awareness? they projections of incisions, of drawings or light drawings. This Bálint Boligó: I think there are control is flexible, sometimes it is different levels of awareness during totally entrusted to the machine and the construction of my work. The the presence of the artist is hidden. initial phases of concept, innovation, engineering and fabrication of the Silvia Scaravaggi: Can you describe machines are all connected to aware the way in which you use time and decisions and are scientifically light in your work? methodical. Once the mechanism Bálint Boligó: I got interested in using takes shape, a freer process is light and time since my project in triggered in the interaction with the Florence of prolonged photographic machines. The artistic visions of space exposure (Florence Light Drawings, composition, lines and colours all 2002). I used a laser beam and a represent elements that are handcrafted pendulum to create laser confronted unconsciously. The drawings on the sculptures in exploration of randomness and the Florence. More recently I used these possibility that some unpredictable two elements in the objects and in the phenomena may occur can often be installations. Light, at any given time, the result of a mental passage that is a temporary phenomenon: a change opposes preconceived notions. in light conditions can create a Silvia Scaravaggi: Is there a conflict completely different experience in between knowledge and control, in any given space. Many of my drawing experiencing your work? machines generate drawings as a product of the passage of time during

72 the process of development, so that aesthetics. I think that today’s my light works are a series of unique technology has miniaturised moments that often cannot be everything into little boxes that seem repeated and are really unique at any to be able to do anything you can time. This makes working with light possibly think of, and that this has left interesting, considering that it also people completely isolated from has a greater resonance with the technology. You can imagine that a theme of memory and with the computer can create anything emotions associated with it. without questioning where it came from. We cannot see the electrons moving around circuits and there are always fewer parts in movement in our gadgets. We don’t ask ourselves any questions, we simply accept this as reality. To see a simple pendulum drawing a mathematical diagram can be the work of a computer; in this sense past technology becomes significant in contrast to our

. computer era. I always try to reveal the technology that is behind my Silvia Scaravaggi: How can work, but it is an object that can be technology change the way in which explored visually; works that reveal the spectator sees things, in reference reality are at the base of the system. to your work? Silvia Scaravaggi: Can art help us to Bálint Boligó: Despite the fact that I understand the world we live in use technology in my work, I don’t better? consider what I do to be technological. I try to stay informed Bálint Boligó: Anything that makes us through the Internet and newspapers, realise that we are alive and what it but I don’t want to use the most means to live in our ecosystem can recent product to come out of contribute to a greater understanding research just for the sake of using it. In of the world. I believe that art – as a certain sense, my work approaches well as other disciplines – does just technology from a vague prospective. that. I try to use the aesthetics of past technologies, usually associated with the 1900’s more than with current

73 www.balintbolygo.com

Architectures, Visions And Apparati Effimeri

Marvin Milanese

creating video sets that appeared to be unthinkable until only a decade ago. The introduction of mapping has certainly been one of the most interesting aspects in the field of live video over the last decade. It is not uncommon nowadays to see performances and video installations boasting remarkable architectural Long gone are the times when the elements with base supports that are first Vjs entered the scene in the clubs a far cry from the classic projection brightening up the dance-floor. surfaces on a 4:3 screen, and that Over the last few years live video has allow to wrap up the public in stretched its borders merging with dynamic environments thanks to the parallel visual and artistic disciplines use of broad multi-screen projections. to become an out-and-out Some even project the images communication tool that allows to straight onto pre-existing objects and range from artistic projects, mainly walls. performances and video installations, to purely commercial projects, down It’s about time we introduce another to the world of advertising with group that has turned mapping into creative and innovating ideas. their strength: Apparati Effimeri, a collective of video artists that was The increasing number of softwares founded in Bologna in 2008. They that have been developed to meet the develop unique visual settings, most diverse needs have allowed all making the most of any kind of the enthusiasts to have a blast environment.

74 Apparati Effimeri consists of Marco design background and has focused Grassivaro, Federico Bigi and Roberto his research on the development of Fazio, three talented Italian guys, interactive systems that bear a whose personal projects go under the connection with video. Federico Bigi name of Mcfly, Lardz, Grassivaro at is a cinematographic language and 3D events, festivals, national and animation expert. international meetings. I had the chance to exchange a few words with Marvin Milanese: What is your them for an interview that will better relationship with architecture and illustrate where live video is going and visual arts in general? what its future developments may be. Apparati Effimeri: Architecture is for us a natural screening support base, which sets us free from the limits of the cinematographic screen. The name itself Apparati Effimeri describes an element that has constantly been used in history.

Marvin Milanese: How do you develop your projects and what are the basics for a good location in your video . installations?

Marvin Milanese: Hello guys, how did Apparati Effimeri: Generally we let the idea of Apparati Effimeri come to ourselves be guided by the aesthetic life? analysis of the shapes. Our goal is to craft a perfect illusion, therefore the Apparati Effimeri: We were sharing choice of the perfect location is often the video console at electronic music, linked with technical motivations. Our visual art festivals and vjing events. research aims at the perfect match The idea of Apparati Effimeri is the between our ideas and the existing result of the meeting of our personal technical elements. artistic experiences. Academically Marco Grassivaro comes from a visual Marvin Milanese: What triggered your arts background and has enriched his artistic research and how did you technical and cultural know-how by approach the mapping technique? working with an international theatre research company. Roberto Fazio has Apparati Effimeri: Our desire to a web programming and graphic overcome the limits imposed by the

75 classic screen used in vjing lead us to Apparati Effimeri: There are countless the discovery of Mapping. possibilities, just think about the big techno-metropolis like Tokyo or Dubai, where images are being increasingly used or about the most advanced technologies such as augmented realty.

Marvin Milanese: The time seems to be approaching when all the visual disciplines will merge and be born under new principles. A mutual contamination that will entail the . development of new forms of artistic expression. What’s your opinion? Marvin Milanese: From a technical and artistic viewpoint one of your latest Apparati Effimeri: This artistic trend video installations Hexagram for has always been constant and a goad Enlargment is definitely a step for artists, because it allows to create forwards, if compared with the new forms of expression. The only existing standards in terms of difference is that today the process is relationship between visual arts and faster and standardized. architecture. How did this project come to life and what are its goals? Marvin Milanese: Art and technology, today more often than ever, are going Apparati Effimeri: Hexagram for hand in hand. We often talk about the Enlargment has been developed for pros of the technological revolution the Itinerario Festival di Rocca that has characterized the last few Malatestiana Cesena. The show, from years, but what are in your opinion the planning down to execution, granted drawbacks from an artistic viewpoint our work an outstanding reception. in this historical period? Our aim is to create a very captivating show. Apparati Effimeri: The development of technology and its user-friendliness Marvin Milanese: If until yesterday the have increased the artistic proposal, support base for a projection was the standardizing it; in this framework screen and today any surface can research and criticism have taken up a serve the task, where are we going to, crucial role to help get one’s bearings exactly? in this myriad contemporary works.

76 Apparati Effimeri: We are working on new mapping and interactive installation projects. Our dream is to take our works abroad.

Marvin Milanese: A message to finish

Apparati Effimeri: Thank you very much for the interview and keep up your great work. .

Marvin Milanese: What are the projects you are working on at the http://www.apparatieffimeri.com/in moment and what are the dreams of dex.html Apparati Effimeri?

Fluid Forms: Fluid, Digital And Personalized Objects

Elena Gianni

from a digital model. The name “3D printer” is explicit enough to let us imagine what it is about, but also unknown enough to allow our imagination to travel towards sci-f- -like scenarios.

There are several technologies of this kind, which usually are grouped under the name “numeric-controlled 3D printers are machines which allow machines” or “digital fabricators”; us to “print” a physical object starting numeric-controlled mills and lathes,

77 for example, use a tip (similar to a called mass customization. drill) which carves a block of material and outlines the shape of the desired object; other machines instead use heads or lasers able to fuse, sinter or stick dusts of various materials (ceramics, metals, plastic). The “numeric-control” definition means that these machines are controlled by a software which takes care of “translating” the 3D model created by the designer, into commands. When a design becomes original, it Initially these technologies were used means it can be spread through the for quickly prototyping, but today, net, so it can be shared, downloaded, also thanks to the costs lowering, they modified. This is true not only for are even used for production. It is in music and digital arts, but also for 3D fact possible to purchase a 3D projects to be used with digital professional printer for less than fabricators. These objects – or to be 10,000.00 Euros, and low-cost precise their printable 3D projects – printers – for less than 500.00 Euros – become digital thus can be shared, were also produced; these remain too downloaded, modified. inaccurate for industrial production, but they risk to become economically The diffusion of 3D printers, apart revolutionary. from giving life to debates about copyrights, allows for the return of an Imagine you could freely download old practice very common in the the 3D project of an object (or to draw handicraft world while nowadays it it it yourself), and to own a machine only used for luxury goods: which can print it, what would you personalization. Before the industrial need the hardware store for? You revolution, anyone could personalize could print bolts, handles, even plastic an object simply by communicating shoes at derisive costs, and then you their preferences to the craftsman could melt the object once you don’t who would create it. Today, this is not need it anymore, and recycle its possible anymore, apart from isolated material for other objects. Anyway, cases, and the new diffusion of beside the futuristic scenarios, the numeric-controlled machines. diffusion of these machines has already brought forward a revolution What is the 3D printers revolution? If

78 we have a digital design, it means it is customization itself, in being able to possible to program softwares that say “I chose the colors” or “look, my allow the customer to manipulate the name is on this shoe!”. data that describe that object, thus modifying it. The next step is to project these softwares so they can be hosted on a website so they are accessible to many. Anyone can connect to the Internet and customize the desired object, if the Company allows it.

There are many Companies which are moving in this direction, but only few . of them offer a full personalization. You can choose the color of a t-shirt This kind of experimentation is or decide to engrave your name on a interesting, but do not make the most watch, you can ask a tailor to modify of the potential of mass an item of clothing following your customization. Fluid Forms, a group of taste, or choose the accessories of designers based in Graz, Austria, your new car. We can personalize an further developed this concept thus object more or less and in the most giving life to many interesting different ways, but the choices we projects. make will influence not only the economical value of the object (i.e. Earth bowl pinstripe is, for example, a the case of the car’s accessories) but fruit basket, but also the 3D also its emotional value. topographic prospect of a place. Through Google Maps, the online The website NikeID software created by Fluid Forms (www.nikeid.nike.com) allows selects a geographical area, which will customers to change the colors of a then be turned into the fruit basket. shoe, to choose the materials and This way, it was possible to trap into a even a text to be embroidered on it. piece of wood the aerial view of a city, The website Freitag or any other place on planet Earth. (http://www.freitag.ch) allows users to choose the piece of cloth, and the Moebius Ring is a ring created model of bag which will be created following a data processing algorithm. with that cloth. The emotional value QR Buckle is a belt whose buckle is these objects gain is in the engraved with a 2D bar-code where a

79 certain number of characters is personal information, like a beloved codified – i.e. a URL. QR codes are place, an important date or your very popular in Japan: it’s enough to website. install a dedicated software to allow your cell-phone, once you’ve taken a What Fluid Forms projects is not only picture of the code, to decode it and an object, but a family of objects, a eventually to connect to the obtained series of possible solutions. The URL. design is not pre-defined, it instead constituted by various realizations, a These are just some of the projects of set vast enough to offer many the Austrian studio. The resulting different possibilities, but small objects are elegant and finely crafted, enough to not diversify these besides being great examples of possibilities too much. We are not computational design, that is projects talking about design anymore, we are which are shaped following talking about design-space. algorithms. It is programming that allows the creation of a specific shape. Fluid Forms is in fact also a group of creative coders, or creative programmers: Once they choose the object they want to create, they program an application that allows them to manipulate its shape by assigning values to variables. These variables can be geographic Photo by Alexander Kerelly coordinates, dates, code sequences or many more depending of the . algorithm describing the 3D shape of the object. The work of a designer nowadays, is not to find a sole interesting shape The costumer becomes thus a co- but a family of shapes, not to define creator, is able to take part to the solid and static forms but fluid forms creation process of the object by which can change following the desire defining the shape it will have; he of the customer while keeping their doesn’t only participates by choosing own characteristics and their color or other details. The emotional functional and aesthetic value. I value these objects acquire is very discussed about this and much more high: through online softwares it is with Hannes Walter, CEO of Fluid possible to trap inside the object Forms.

80 Elena Gianni: Could you introduce us customers in the design process we to Fluid Forms and its basic concepts? can create products that are emotionally engaging conversation Hannes Walter: Fluid Forms enables starters and a source of pride. anyone to create One of a kind Products with the help of easy to use Elena Gianni: I would define your Online Design Tools. Before the design as conceptual. You emphasis industrial revolution one could on concept more then on function or communicate preferences and on shape(s).What is the process aesthetic ideals to an artisan who underlying the realization of projects would produce a unique piece. This like the “QR buckle”? became a luxury during the industrial revolution. Now in the post-industrial Hannes Walter: Fluid forms are used age Fluid Forms makes design a as a statement, because the persons democratic process once again. personality is always a part of the product. Fluid forms are not mass- Elena Gianni: Big companies as Nike market products, they are something are coming out with therir wbsite for special that combine aspects of our customization. But the customizations society, human nature and personal that you offer are different: I think you experience. Digital production is exploit the emotional value that can important, because that enables us to be embedded in the experience of produce unique pieces for the customization in a way that those reasonable price. Our whole world is companies do not (I refer especially to becoming digital and in the case of earthbowl project). If you think I’m QR we reference this fact. The initial right, how you would describe those idea was that once QR Codes reach different types of customization? In the main-stream as they have in which ways yours could be different Japan we will be able to leave our (and better)? business cards at home and wear our twitter of facebook QR belt or brooch. Hannes Walter: There are two types of Some customers have used it to hide customization. 1st. Functional puns or references to their personalisation like medical implants, personality. Since the QR Code custom cut cloth, and 2nd emotionals technology is still new to the western customization like for instance Fluid world there is a level of early adopter Forms or Freitag F-Cut bags. We aura to them. enable our customers to integrate their emotions and feelings into Elena Gianni: Bruce Sterling define unique products. By involving generative art and design projects as

81 Kaleidoscopes: they offer a variety of produced with desktop-fabricators. different visual outputs. When you Should the industrial design business design an object you define a space of be affected in the way p2p music solutions that has to be wide enough sharing affected music industry? How as well as little enough. The problem designers could face the problem? is that you should create a family of objects with similar aesthetic but Hannes Walter: The real interesting interesting differences: your thing that comes with the new Kaleidoscope. How do you define the possibilities is the remix culture. We boundaries of this “design space”? like this culture very much, because it will bring much more variety in our Hannes Walter: Emotional with as lives. But at the moment just a small much personal input as possible; the minority are able to work with 3D- developer or designer defines the programs. You can see our Design- aesthetic freedom for the customer or Tools as very simplified 3D-CA- co-creator; we call the kaleidoscope -programs for anyone. Many people meta-design; on the technical side it can use Word and many designers can ensures that every product is use photoshop, but the program does producible and functional. not make the good design. It’s the designer – in our case the creative coder who’s defining the meta-design or design kaleidoscope. We aren’t afraid of design Piracy at all, because good design will always have it’s place and the really interesting things are a combination of technology and craftsmanship. As soon as a product can be printed on your 3d printer at home its day is probably already done;

. onto the next idea. The first products to be produced by home 3d printers Elena Gianni: Mass customization, 3D from pirated STL files will replace printing diffusion and the rising of DIY cheep utilitarian products not objects culture should spread “design Piracy”. of desire. A lot of designs should become open- source (as they can be shared for example as CAD files) and self- http://www.fluid-forms.com/

82 The Sensible Scene

Massimo Schiavoni

Desires are explored in the Prince song, where adolescent dreams are revealed in music and also in their own defenselessness, helpless but hopeful. He then takes part to the final venues of the 3rd edition of the Premio Internazionale della Performance with Your Girl, performance derived by the previous Alessandro Sciarroni from San production where the love experience Benedetto del Tronto already has a was told through the eyes of a Madame Bovary long-lasting and refined artistic disabled girl, a who history, and above all is appreciated in wishes upon what is common, and the European panorama of not what would be normal. Actress experimental theatre, and he turned Chiara Bersani is perfect in her role out to be a “sensitive interpreter of which redeems her from her own the contemporary artistic scene”. This condition, and puts her on the same young actor and director from the level as performer Matteo Ramponi, Marche region, grew as an intense without redundancies or emphasis. A and impeccable actor with the show which delicately involves the Compagnia Lenz Rifrazioni from spectators, beyond the mere visual Parma, and then went back to his impact, beyond the minimal scene; a native region, where he conceived the courteous subtext and a valuable If I was Madonna idea of the Corpoceleste laboratory, epilogue. , his most and organized seminars and theatric recent work, was organized with productions. His first artistic creation, writer and arts critic Alessandra If I was your girlfriend – inspired by La Morelli; in it, the identity of each of us Bovary c’est moi, collection of poetry is revealed through the stories that by Giovanni Giudici, and Madame Alessandro collected on the web from Bovary by Gustave Flaubert – was hundreds of users, who in turn showed in the athletic track in Porto manipulated the texts of the d’Ascoli, a non-conventional place American pop star’s songs. The and a demanding adaptation. performance is structured like a long

83 video clip which examines the main themes of the poetics of Miss . Ciccone, who has no control over the I met Alessandro Sciarroni a late direction, and above all in her place as afternoon in the quiet Piazza del a performance artist there is someone Plebiscito in Ancona, and with interest else (three men of different age, a and kindness, a profound dialogue young disabled girl, a woman and a was born, together with an intense little girl). The spectator therefore exchange of opinions on his work and watches an original and new, since the situation of research theatre in the work is moving through the Italy, and to many answers to my difficult territory of identity of each questions. one of us. Massimo Schiavoni: Alessandro, you The Marchigian direcotr and have a storic-artistic and actor- performer naturally moves between performer upbringing. How big was scenic event and living conscience, in the influence of your studies and that inter-human phenomenon which experience with the Lenz Rifrazioni is the root of theatrical act. His company of Parma, for you to become experience and research stimulated a one of the more sensible interpreters sensibility of loneliness and social of the new contemporary scene? matters, even pouring over to literature, philosophy and Alessandro Sciarroni: Working with anthropology, where he can research Lenz Rifrazioni means to confront constructions of a great visual impact, with a visual artist’s modus operandi. I without becoming banal. His research learned more about contemporary is meticulous and hand-crafted, arts while working in this research classical and modern at the same acting company, than during many time, well-balanced between years of academic studies. It is true, creativity and modelling. A new anyway, that had I not studied Arts happening for the audience, and a History at the university, I wouldn’t new season for theatre. have been able to develop a personal taste and style. The theoretical lessons which influenced my concept of “vision” the most, were those of contemporary photography I followed in Lisbon. Discovering photographers like Diane Arbus was like a revelation.

Massimo Schiavoni: Can you tell me

84 about your roles in the monographic lifetime, and I was lucky enough to project on Calderon de la Barca? meet her, even if our paths seem divided now. Alessandro Sciarroni: It was a monographic project which lasted Massimo Schiavoni: You told me many years; we produced Life is a about experimenting, generosity, Dream, The Mighty Magician and The enthusiasm and meetings which Constant Prince. I played the role of changed somehow your being a man the male protagonist in all three and an artist. How important are creations, respectively Sigismondo, these specificities in building a Cipriano and Don Fernando. It is contemporary artistic journey? impossible to resume in a few lines many years of work. For example, Alessandro Sciarroni: The artistic artistically it was very important to me research I carry on with the to confront myself with a group of ex- collaboration of critics and writers like patients of the Colorno psychiatric Alessandra Morelli, is strongly hospital, where we had many theatre influenced by these experiences. My laboratories for the staging of Life is a biography cannot be separated by my dream. From the point of view of art, especially today, a moment in visibility these roles gave me the which it is more and more possibility to work outside Italy, and complicated to be able to identify a to be noticed by the critic. We were common tendency in the twice at the prestigious Festival di contemporary researches. If we think Teatro Classico of Almagro, and in about the fact that 2 years ago, the Italy Franco Quadri positively award for an event like Performa in reviewed my performance in The New York, went to Francesco Vezzoli constant Prince. Remembering those who staged inside the Guggenheim a moments is like going in search of lost version of Così è se vi pare by time, and maybe also of my lost Pirandello, we understand that the scenic body. I don’t think it would be concept of “contemporary” can really possible for me, today, to meet be extended to anything. another strong personality like Maria Federica Maestri’s (the artistic director of Lenz Rifrazioni), with which I was able to be generous and enthusiastic as a performer, while at the same time receiving so much in exchange, as an artist and as a man. There are encounters that happen only once in a

85 . protagonist, and graceful, natural and spectacular moves in a slow rhythm. Massimo Schiavoni: How was the What does Chiara Bersani really “separation” between the industrial desire? What did you want to share spaces of Lenz Rifrazioni, and then with your actors and what did you how did the birth of Your Girl, your want to pass on with this visually first important creation as an impressive work? independent artist happen? Alessandro Sciarroni: By staging Your Alessandro Sciarroni: First of all, I Girl, I concentrated on the moved away from Parma, a city where representation of the moment we I had been living for almost 10 years, were living during the rehearsals. It and founded the company was my first important appearance on Corpoceleste_C.C.00# in the the national scene and I suddenly was province, in San Benedetto del Tronto, presenting my work with other artists the small Marchigian town where I from around the world and this made was born. This allowed me to get me and the interpreters particularly easily in contact with the spaces and enthusiast but also scared. All this was funds concession system so I could translated in Chiara Bersani’s action, start to work. At the same time, the physically disabled actress with choice of this province, limited the Osteogenesis imperfecta, who lets all expenses I had to face to open that her clothes to be sucked into a activity. So I started with a theater vacuum cleaner, until she remains laboratory, and by renting a room in a completely naked in front of the dance school for some days a week. public. For all the play’s duration, the The lab was the first study occasion audience believes Chiara undresses of we had, and as a result it produced her clothes as you would pick all the the Your girl project. At that point, I petals of a daisy, to find out if Matteo sent the program to the Ramponi, who stands behind her, Contemporary arts gallery of Trento, could love her. Instead, when Matteo and they decided to let me participate comes to the forestage he lets Chiara to the International Award of guide him in the same action until he Performance with that work. too remains naked. In a sense Chiara redeems herself from the genetic Massimo Schiavoni: In Your Girl you condition her disease imposed on her: put on scene a girl redeeming herself because in nudity and desire, her and from her condition, and you Matteo become equal. highlighted some kind of a “body opposition” with the other Massimo Schiavoni: Tell me about

86 your last production, If I was Madonna, which was previewed in Ancona and had a great success in the Festival Teatro a Corte in Torino.

Alessandro Sciarroni: If in Your Girl I wanted to portray the moment I was living with my actors, in If I was Madonna I researched in my life for some events and conditions I could . counterpoise to those of the pop star Madonna. It is not a mimetic attempt: It is not a narrative play, I don’t want the function of performer I have on to tell any story. It is a kind of the scene is always the same, while I evolution journey, moving from the look for a subject who resembles evocation of an infantile trauma just myself as much as possible. For this to regress. I tried to treat the figure of reason, After several failed attempts, a pop star as if it were a classic to which symbolize my own story, translate and stage with my language. towards the end of the show, moved The show will be on October 18 in by a cognitive egocentricity, my figure Milan, at the Spazio Mil; on October 16 divides in two thanks to the physical inCowboys Macerata, Vetrina Nuove Sensibilità; presence on scene of Ettore on October 10 & 11 in Naples at the Lombardi, an actor physically very Nuovo Teatro Nuovo. On September similar to me. In one of the final 19, instead, I will present in Ravenna images, through a video projection, (included in the “Vetrina giovane utopia becomes reality: thanks to the danza d’autore”) a sneak peek of a digital artifact our figures become new work, a performance short albinos, and move around an Eden format lasting 20 minutes, titled ruled by the apparition of the pop , on color and superficial star’s voice. identity

www.myspace.com/alessandrosciarr oni

87 Marina Abramovich Presents: Experiments And Tension

Donata Marletta

success of her performances. Her early works were characterized by extreme dangerous and violent rehearsals, through which Abramovic pushes to the extreme her mental and physical limits, by reaching a trance status which prescinds from her consciousness of pain.

An example is the cycle of 10 For about 2 weeks, between last July performances titled Rhythm’, during 3 & 19, the Manchester International which the artist, through the use of Festival commissioned and produced knives and other torture devices the performance Marina Abramovic repeatedly risks her life . The presents..., created by the Serbian intermediate phase of Abramovic’s artists especially for the festival. For career, sees a collaboration with artist the performance, the spaces of Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen) and ends in 1989 Whitworth Gallery in Manchester were with the final project “The Great walk”, completely emptied of all arts pieces, a 90-days walk on the Chinese Wall. and put at the performance artist’s Her latest works are characterized by disposal, event almost unique in the a search for purification and mystic contemporary art’s world. introspection, connected to her studies on Shamanism, Tibetan Born in 1946 in Belgrade, Marina Buddhism, and Tantric and Sufi Abramovic started her career in the philosophies. A constant in 1960′s as a painter, and later, by the Abramovic’s works, which we can see beginning of 1970′s, transitions to in the various phases of her artistic performance art. From her debut it evolution, is the energy that arises was evident the desire she had to from the interaction between artist communicate directly with the and public, transforming the audience audience by creating a synergy, which into a participant element, and not a is a fundamental element to the mere spectator.

88 in the various rooms of the Withworth gallery.

At this point, we are free to explore, attend, participate. The performance by Irish artist Kira O’Reilly, was the one which interested me the most. Kira slowly falls from a staircase, naked but a pair of driver’s gloves, in silence, controlling her gestures up to . making her movements almost imperceptible. Italian artist Nico Marina Abramovic Presents… begins Vascellari, in a cupboard, repeatedly at 7 pm and lasts 4 hours; the public is hits 2 huge stones, producing a expressly requested to stay until the constant and violent sound which end of the event. At the entrance of becomes an obsessive, disturbing, Whitworth Gallery, us spectators almost apocalyptic loop, which (about 250) are invited to wear a accompanies us until the exit of the white lab gown: time stops, the gallery. Ivan Civic with Back to experiment begins. We are then taken Sarajevo …After 10 Years… goes ideally to an enormous room in the gallery back to his hometown by climbing on and take place on small stools, the a wall where scenes of the city, atmosphere is pervaded by a common excerpts from interviews to people anxiety and tension. who aren’t there anymore, are The first part of the performance, The projected; a kind of visual diary which Drill’ consists in an 1-hour long de- tells the story of a Sarajevo on war. programming and re-programming of Irish Amanda Coogan, throws herself the audience by Abramovic, who in repeatedly on a huge mattress, this occasion takes on the role of screaming and groaning in ecstasy as shaman, and starts with having us if she was possessed by demons. drink very slow a glass of water. Scottish Alastair MacLennan creates Through a series of exercises for an installation with shoes of any kind relaxation and concentration, the and size arranged on the floor, and an artist, undoubtedly endowed with a enormous table covered with earth, magnetic charisma, prepares us to paper, cotton thread and the head of face as best as we can the remaining 3 a pig divided into 2 parts. Russian hours, which will consist of 14 Fedor Pavlov-Andreevich, of whom performances of the artists displaced we can see only the mouth, asks the

89 members of the audience to feed him, performances is highly questionable, give him something to drink, or to but the event in its whole is engage in other actions through a undoubtedly a unique and small window, The Glory Hole; and for unforgettable experience, that takes those who do not comply with his the spectator in the middle of requests, there are unpleasant performance art, overcoming the consequences. distance between artist and audience. Paradoxically, after the 4 hours spent inside the gallery (where time, actions and space dilate), once we strip off the lab gown and take back our identities, the routine of everyday actions becomes quite surreal.

http://www.mif.co.uk/ http://www.mif.co.uk/events/marina . -abramovi-presents%E2%80%A6/

These are just examples of what http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/v happens during the “experiment”, ideo/2009/jul/06/marina- naturally the artistic value of some abramovic-manchester-festival

E-partecipation: Paradoxes And New Ways To Discover

Gigi Ghezzi

90 as elections and traditional participation forms (political parties and trade unions). However the new technological developments gave young people many new possibilities to raise their voices and take part to society in alternative ways (for example online forums, SMS, e- democracy).

The Directorate of Youth and Sport of These are the new trends and the Council of Europe organized in developments which brought to a March 2009 a seminary reserved to reflection process within the Council young researcher, policy-makers, of Europe. This process found its youth organizations and young people expression in a series of tests and coming from 47 European countries. programs, as well as seminars like this This seminary had as topic the new one, whose aim was to investigate on partecipation methods based on “the new partecipation ways”. They Information and Communication analysed the actual trends of young Technology (e-participation). The people based on IT technologies and results were collected in a document, on a constructive exchange of which can be consulted online practices and information among the (http://www.coe.int/t) and fitness an principal subjects in youth sectors. open structure of encounter, where all partecipants had the opportunity to live a practical experience of cooperation in an important field within the Council of Europe.

During the organization the Directorate of Youth and Sport of the Council of Europe developed a clear thought: if public partecipation is a foundamental element for “human rights, democracy and rule of law”, . then everywhere there is a general Experts and partecipants developed 3 trend toward the decreasing of main discussion areas: the first related partecipation to the traditional events to the relationship between young of the political life of democracy such people and partecipation (the

91 exclusion reasons of young people These advices go from a generic to a from partecipation by adults, the more specific target such as for repentance towards change by example for researchers and policy- politicians declared by youngs); the makers: the wider reflections concern secondo one concerns open questions the relationship between digital gap about e-participation (what does e- and e-partecipation, whereas the participation really mean? Does it more specific ones – for example for really offer opportunities of higher policy-makers – suggest to integrate partecipation? Does it really bring to more and more the e-partecipation e-democracy?); the third one had forms to the actual global priorities instead a more positive approach (environment, public debt of poor because it was dedicated to the countries, education and identification of positive factors employment) within a transparent contributing to e-partecipation decisional process with a daily system incentivation (e-participation is an of comment, discussion and opportunity of emancipation, action evaluation. Another important topic and change; it is open and inclusive, it regards the ways of inclusion of has no limits and offers a rapid access disadvantaged youngs, the settlement to information). of enough funds for information in formal and informal context in order At the end of the seminary all to increase technological partecipants elaborated also concrete alphabetization among young people. advices which will be used by The advices directed to researchers stakeholders to create a synergy concerned the development of between joung people doing e- studies regarding ICT competences participation and the youth sectors of among young people as well as the European Community. They were motivation and behaviour in presented during the meeting of the decisional processes both offline and State organs within the Council of online. For youth organizations the Europe holded in Mollina from the 23 advice was to increase the interaction to the 25 of March and will be with mass-media and relevant widespread to all researcher networks subjects (NGO, public institution etc.) who activated partnerships to the in order to ensure the value, impact European Community. Everything and visibility of all e-partecipation happened also in relation to the programs developed by youth implementation of the future organizations, involving young social declaration titled “The future of youth parts (for example parents, teachers, policies in the Council of Europe: peers…) in planning and Agenda 2020”.

92 implementation so that these are not so enthusiastic, but they programs can bring to a real social contribute to give back complexity to change. It is moreover necessary to a frame work of partecipation think out a common ethical code for dinamics which need different e-partecipation by young people who measures in order to be really cooperate with European as well as to incentivated on a widespread level. organize educational activities in which young people can hand down The sudy underlines how the their competences in ICT sector to mechanisms to involve citizens in the their peers and to old generations. diffusion of scientific and technologic knowledges are nowadays popular all over the world. However those mechanisms with a bottom-up nature aiming at influencing the decisional processes had only a limited success. The authors deepened the potentialities and challenges needed to facilitate the engagement of citizens in the sector of nanotechnologies following the logics of Top Down, i.e. how academics and . researchers can develop a fructuous A study titled Partecipatory engagement with citizens within Paradoxes, Facilitating Citizen public institutions supporting Engagement in Science and partecipation. Technology From the Top-Down? by The authors got to the conclusion that Maria C. Powell of the “University of the comparison between Wisconsin” and Mathilde Colin of the stakeholders, researchers, policy- “University of Wisconsin”, published makers and citizens is possible, but last month on Bulletin of Science, only if they all invest a great amount Technology & Society focused on the of time for partecipation: a high same topic – i.e. public partecipation – expenditure of energy only possible but within processes of diffusion of with a huge institutional support. technologic knowledge. The results

93 Sputink Observatory

Monica Ponzini

culture.

Sputnik uses as “launching pad” a dedicated web site, where through interviews to thinkers and experts in the most different fields, traces unexpected paths and improbable connections, offering an organic, multimedia, open and shared picture of ideas that are shaping the way we “Ideas are energy. Your brain is a are and the way we relate to the satellite. Your mind is out there.” world. The website was designed by These are the basis of The Sputnik Jonathan Harris, who has been busy Observatory, an ambitious for years in designing websites that documentation project and allow to represent the load of data to representation of contemporary which we are constantly exposed to, culture. Sputnik- literally “fellow tracing a really personal “poetics” traveler”- was born from the idea that within the information aesthetic field, all the knowledge and arguments are in other words in the creative display in some way connected to each other, of information (Digimag interviewed that the “six degrees of separation”, Harris in number 39- November 2008: connecting all human beings on earth, http://www.digicult.it/digimag/articl are applicable also to their mental e.asp?id=1323 ). elaborations, and that also the most radical concepts, considered as marginal, are fertile matter of investigation and can contribute in a critical way to our cultural landscape.

The Sputnik Observatory was born from the Sputnik. Inc., a cultural organization based in New York, dedicated to the exploration and documentation of contemporary

94 contributions from users, that create a stimulating intellectual exchange and Differently from an encyclopedia, widen the reflection horizon- from the which files and defines the acquired spirochaetas to the interplanetary knowledge in a systematic and system, passing through the urban homogeneous way- but “plain” and metabolism. mono dimensional-, the project Sputnik wants to stimulate the Today more than ever, users of the concepts association through a Net are a majority less and less quiet multidimensional approach based on and more and more active in defying the context and on general themes. In the cultural context in which our order to do so, Sputnik offers different society moves and evolves. At the perspectives and new ways of same time, the representational displaying and of fruition: for models of thought have been “Themes” (classified in alphabetic transformed in a radical way, order), “Conversations” ( Interviews including fruition paths that allow that gathered in bulks define a multiple and personalized “montages” Theme), “Paths” (a track left from of information derived from an open other users which gathers the and always changing system – such as examined Conversations on each the Sputnik Observatory. Our Ideas Theme), and “Transmissions” (a are energy: now we just have to put montage of several Conversations). them out there”.

Sputnik becomes in this way a sort of organism, constantly growing and evolving, enriched and updated in a http://sptnk.org/ cooperative system, by Conversations http://www.number27.org/ of selected “Thinkers” as well as by

Link index

Our Right To Internet: Interview With Alessandro Gilioli http://dirittoallarete.ning.com/ http://gilioli.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/

95 http://www.cittadinolex.kataweb.it/article_view.jsp?idArt=88618&idCat=120

Non-locality: Myths And Metaphors In Networked Art And Quantum Systems Fakepress. Ubiquitous Publishing And Distributed Storytelling http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/view.html?pg=4 http://www.artisopensource.ne/t http://luca.simeone.name/ http://www.fakepress.net/ http://senseable.mit.edu/ http://www.neorealismovirtiale.com/ http://frontiers.idearium.org/2009/program/

Art, Activism, Subjectivity, Sabotage Hangar + Laboral = Summerlab http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org/ http://www.hangar.org/%20 http://summerlab.hangar.org/

Derek Jarman’s Visual Painting http://www.isaacjulien.com/films/Derek%20Jarman:%20The%20Last%20Bo

Wodiczko’s Video Shadows Between Visible And Invisible Sonar, Enduring Research. Interview With Giorgia Taglietti http://2009.sonar.es/es/

Sommercamp + Workstation. Temporary Autonomous Culture http://www.tesla-berlin.de http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=1111

96 http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=1251 http://www.sommercampworkstation.de/wiki/doku.php?id=start

Losing Yourself In The Whitetree. Lippok Brothers & Ludovico Einaudi http://www.myspace.com/whitetreespace http://www.ludovicoeinaudi.com/ http://www.myspace.com/torococorot http://www.bigchill.net/ http://www.dfuse.com/

Contour 2009: Video And Historical Representation http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=1324 http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=1324

Balint Boligo’ And The Magical Machines http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=1323

Architectures, Visions And Apparati Effimeri http://www.apparatieffimeri.com/index.html

Fluid Forms: Fluid, Digital And Personalized Objects http://www.nikeid.nike.com http://www.freitag.ch/shop/FREITAG/page/frontpage/detail.jsf http://www.fluid-forms.com/

The Sensible Scene http://www.myspace.com/alessandrosciarroni

Marina Abramovich Presents: Experiments And Tension

97 http://www.mif.co.uk/ http://www.mif.co.uk/events/marina-abramovi-presents…/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/video/2009/jul/06/marina-abramovic-m anchester-festival-adrian-searle

E-partecipation: Paradoxes And New Ways To Discover http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/youth/Source/Resources/Publications/2009_Sem inar_new_ways_participation_en.pdf

Sputink Observatory http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=1323 http://sptnk.org/ http://www.number27.org/

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