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The Wu Ming Foundation: a Collective Approach to Literature, Art, and Politics in 21St Century Italy

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The Wu Ming Foundation: a Collective Approach to Literature, Art, and Politics in 21St Century Italy University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Doctoral Dissertations University of Connecticut Graduate School 12-8-2016 The uW Ming Foundation: A Collective Approach to Literature, Art, and Politics in 21st Century Italy Melina A. Masterson University of Connecticut - Storrs, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations Recommended Citation Masterson, Melina A., "The uW Ming Foundation: A Collective Approach to Literature, Art, and Politics in 21st Century Italy" (2016). Doctoral Dissertations. 1284. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/1284 The Wu Ming Foundation: A Collective Approach to Literature, Art, and Politics in 21st Century Italy Melina Anne Masterson, PhD University of Connecticut, 2016 The early 1990s marked a shift in modern Italian history with the advent of the Second Republic and the arrival of Silvio Berlusconi on the political and cultural scene. Berlusconi’s almost complete control of the country’s media, in addition to his political power as center-right prime minister, presented a unique challenge not only to democracy in general but to Italian culture in particular. It was in this context that Wu Ming, an ‘anonymous’ Bolognese writing collective emerged. In this study, I will argue that the group is both a unique product of and response to the period of 1993-2016, which runs from the start of the Second Republic, through the Berlusconi years and up to the elections of 2013 and the birth of Beppe Grillo’s “Five Star Movement.” This period also fully encompasses the literary, political, and cultural formation of the Wu Ming collective, from their beginnings as members of Luther Blissett to the publication of five of their collaboratively written novels (1999-2009) to their increased presence on social media platforms such as Twitter and Pinterest (2010-2016). My work will be organized into four distinct chapters in which I focus on a different element of the Wu Ming project—their novels, transmedial projects and performances, and digital presence—and discuss the variety of strategies and media platforms that they use to question the dominant paradigms established by Berlusconism. I will also assess and evaluate the effectiveness of the cultural and political solutions offered by each of these components, as some of Wu Ming’s strategies of ‘writing back,’ though aimed at subverting Berlusconi’s tactics of culture creation, might instead have the potential to undermine their project and ultimate goals. The Wu Ming Foundation: A Collective Approach to Literature, Art, and Politics in 21st Century Italy Melina Anne Masterson B.A., Colorado College, 2002 M.A., Boston College, 2007 M.A., University of Connecticut, 2012 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut 2016 i Copyright by Melina Anne Masterson 2016 ii APPROVAL PAGE Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation The Wu Ming Foundation: A Collective Approach to Literature, Art, and Politics in 21st Century Italy Presented by Melina Anne Masterson, B.A., M.A. Major Advisor _________________________________________________________________ Norma Bouchard Associate Advisor ______________________________________________________________ Franco Masciandaro Associate Advisor ______________________________________________________________ Eduardo Urios-Aparisi University of Connecticut 2016 iii For Mom, Dad, and Anthony iv Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One. Collectivity and Copyleft: Challenging Berlusconism in Q and Altai 24 Collectivity vs. Cult of Personality 24 Collective Identities and Subversive Collaborations in Q 29 The Multitude vs. the Messiah in Altai 40 The Readers Have Rights: Copyleft as Subversive Practice 57 Chapter Two. “Infinite Niches and Subgenres”: Transnational Popular Culture in 54 and Asce di guerra 77 Defining ‘Popular’: “I figli problematici della popular culture” vs. “il nazional- popolare” 77 Challenging the Mass Media Landscape: From the Postwar to the Second Republic 80 Constructions of Masculinity in 54 and Asce di guerra: The Evolution of the “New Man” 100 Female Representations in 54 and Asce di guerra: A Challenge to Velinismo? 110 Chapter Three. Beyond the Text: The Transmedial and the Multisensorial in the Wu Ming Project 133 Defining Transmediality 134 The Transmedial and the Multisensorial, Part I: The Visual 136 The Transmedial and the Multisensorial, Part II: Sound and Music 151 The Transmedial and the Multisensorial, Part III: Manituana and Gaming Culture 159 Chapter Four. Digital Activism: Giap!, Twitter, and the “Net Delusion” 187 Introduction to Digital Activism: Rebellion, Collective Action, and the “Cute Cat” Theory 188 Twitter 191 Giap! 216 Conclusion 240 Bibliography 249 v vi Introduction The early 1990s marked a shift in modern Italian history with the advent of the Second Republic and the arrival of Silvio Berlusconi on the political and cultural scene. Berlusconi’s almost complete control of the country’s media, in addition to his political power as center-right prime minister, presented a unique challenge not only to democracy in general but to Italian culture in particular. It was in this context that Wu Ming, an ‘anonymous’ Bolognese writing collective emerged. Initially, the five members of Wu Ming were part of the international guerilla cultural group Luther Blissett, which took its name from a Jamaican born soccer player who played in England and Italy during the 1980s and who was known for his purposely erratic play and refusal to engage in the capitalist system that has long governed European soccer clubs.1 It was under this name that the original four members of the collective wrote Q (1999), a novel that takes place in 16th century Germany following the posting of Martin Luther’s theses. Despite its temporal and geographical setting, the work is clearly a response to the political situation in Italy at that time and must be considered in light of the era of Berlusconism,2 of the period of government corruption known as Tangentopoli (Bribe-City) that preceded Berlusconi’s venture into politics, and of the dawn of the Second Republic, (the beginning of Berlusconi’s political and cultural hegemony). The same can be said of the subsequent novels and projects of the collective. This study will contextualize the birth of the Wu Ming collective and chart their evolution into the transmedial and transnational political, literary, and cultural presence that they are today. I argue that the group is both a unique product of and response to the period of 1993-2016, which runs from the start of the Second Republic, through the Berlusconi years and up to the elections of 2013 and the birth of 1 See “The Luther Blissett Manifesto” for an explanation of the name and an outline of the group’s identity. 2 “Berlusconism” is the term for the phenomenon of the former prime minister’s mass-mediated cultural dominance. See Orsina, Il berlusconismo nella storia d'Italia, for a more in-depth analysis of the historical and cultural impact of Berlusconi’s brand of neoliberal capitalism and his style of governance. 1 Beppe Grillo’s “Five Star Movement.”3 This period also fully encompasses the literary, political, and cultural formation of the Wu Ming collective, from their beginnings as members of Luther Blissett to the publication of five of their collaboratively written novels (1999-2009) to their increased presence on social media platforms such as Twitter and Pinterest (2010-2016). My work will be organized into four distinct chapters in which I focus on a different element of the Wu Ming project—their novels, transmedial projects and performances, and digital presence—and discuss the variety of strategies and media platforms that they use to question the dominant paradigms established by Berlusconism. I will also assess and evaluate the effectiveness of the cultural and political solutions offered by each of these components, as some of Wu Ming’s strategies of ‘writing back,’ though aimed at subverting Berlusconi’s tactics of culture creation, might instead have the potential to undermine their project and ultimate goals. II. Wu Ming and the New Italian Epic There is little about the Wu Ming collective that does not challenge long-existing paradigms and traditions. Part of the innovation of the group is in the approach of the authors themselves, both to their texts and to their own role as writers. First, the Chinese name immediately disassociates them from a direct connection to the Italian context and therefore automatically inserts them into a more liminal, indefinable, and inter/transnational position in the literary world. The choice of the name has double significance, both literally and symbolically: in Chinese it can alternately mean, based on pronunciation of the first syllable, “anonymous” or “five names” and is commonly used by Chinese dissidents as a form of protest. The group’s collaboratively written 3 The populist, anti-establishment political party created by popular comedian Grillo claims to fight for the “five stars” of “public water, sustainable transport, sustainable development, right to Internet access, and environmentalism.” See Grillo, et al. "Programma Del Movimento Cinque Stelle.” 2 novels are all signed with the pseudonym, while the individual works of the different authors are attributed numerically, i.e. Wu Ming 1, Wu Ming 2, etc. Though the collective avoids their visual representation in the media, refusing to allow themselves to be photographed or videotaped, they do not hide their actual identities, and their ‘numbers’ reflect the alphabetical order of their last names. Wu Ming 1 is Roberto Bui, Wu Ming 2 Giovanni Cattabriga, Wu Ming 3 Luca Di Meo, Wu Ming 4 Federico Guglielmi, and Wu Ming 5 Riccardo Pedrini. Four members of the collective are responsible for the writing of Q, under the name of Luther Blissett. The group became a quintet in 2000, and therefore 54 (2002) was the first actual novel “a dieci mani.” The five authors would go on to collaborate on Einaudi’s 2005 edition of Asce di guerra, Manituana (2007), and the screenplay for the 2004 Guido Chiesa film Lavorare con lentezza (aka Radio Alice).
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