UNIDEE NOTEBOOKS 2016 | n. 2

UNIDEE - University of Ideas

UNIDEE NOTEBOOKS 2016 | N.2

Notes from the residential modules 2016 Fall programme mentored by Luigi Coppola with Daniel Blanga Gubbay; Antoni Muntadas with Alessandra Messali; Daria Filardo with Fatma Bucak; Adrian Paci with Edi Muka and Tea Çuni; Aria Spinelli with Núria Güell; STEALTH.unlimited (Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen) with Erik Jutten and Piet Vollaard.

Cittadellarte Edizioni, 2019 ISBN: 978-88-98698-24-0 This booklet is part of the series of publications “UNIDEE NOTEBOOKS”.

Curated by Giulia Crisci Designed by Annalisa Zegna Translations: Elena Pasquali

Cover image: Photo from the UNIDEE module “Carving out the spaces for our commoned life: a training ground”, mentored by STEALTH.unlimited (Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen), 2016. Credits UNIDEE.

UNIDEE - University of Ideas

UNIDEE NOTEBOOKS 2016 | N.2

Notes from the residential modules 2016 Fall programme mentors and guests: Luigi Coppola with Daniel Blanga Gubbay; Antoni Muntadas with Alessandra Messali; Daria Filardo with Fatma Bucak; Adrian Paci with Edi Muka and Tea Çuni; Aria Spinelli with Núria Güell; STEALTH.unlimited (Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen) with Erik Jutten and Piet Vollaard.

Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella

UNIDEE - University of Ideas, STATEMENT 2016

by Cecilia Guida

There is no surer way of evading the world than by Art, and no surer way of uniting with it than by Art. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe

In 2015, UNIDEE – University of Ideas, inheriting a long experience of residency for international artists (2000-2012), launched within the unique and special context of Cittadellarte – a research centre and an exhibition area – the experimentation of an educational prototype or ‘model’ that combined theory with practice, which bases the processes of learning on doing and discovery, favouring the exercising of imagination through a meeting with the differences and plurality of languages, and that responds to the desire and need to delve more deeply into things, phenomena and stories through relationships, dialogue and the exchanging of views of the participants. Through residential dynamics, UNIDEE sees education as a life experience and social process characterised by the particular cognitive and emotional intensity of the exchange by members of the spontaneous community that is formed each week within the module.

This is an educational model based on a research and project laboratory under the guidance

of a mentor who is an expert in the theme of that specific module and the active participation of a guest with the objective of examining the topics in their complexity and many facets, trying to maintain a balance of the thought forms (theories) and free or unforeseeable situations (creative processes).

The participants create a common space, conversational and relational, in which attention is placed on the procedure and final collective shape that closes the educational experience without turning to easy and preestablished formulae but through the organisation of complicated situations that vary each time, without worrying about precise goals that need to be completed but reaching their conclusions slowly following the time required for reflection, deeper consideration and imagination.

The laboratory modality with which we work together with mentors requires the participants to be involved in questioning their own field, using dialogue and collaboration to evolve their ability to interact in this game as though exercising in a gym of complexities, the unpredictability of performing moves; this allows the development of a doing attitude, giving value to mistakes, comparing contrasting points of view, opening up to view and do things differently than usual, shifting from one position to another without losing attraction for personal territory or language; favouring the ability

to localize problems, enter into details, ask questions, confound significance and uses, and create new openings in meanings.

The didactic approach is a demopractical one of responsible use of power, in the manner of circulating and distributing knowledge within the group, which is expressed, for example, in the dual-dialogue between mentor and guest and between the mentor and participants where the horizontal and circular sharing of knowledge is aimed at the creation of a common ground and language.

A brief time, a pause of one week or longer (for those deciding to return) is what the participants allow themselves away from their usual routine so as to expand on a topic or add final touches to a project, and therefore return to study or work in their own contexts. The intent of the modules is to form ‘artivators’, people who intend to use art as a methodology, practice and language, becoming agents for the activation of responsible actions and processes in urban transformation and social emancipation in the territories in which they live and carry out their professional activities.

The originality of the UNIDEE programme lies in its collaborating with Universities and Academies of the Fine Arts so as to identify reciprocal shortcomings and intervene in the more immediate critical

necessities to elaborate together and find another path compared to that indicated by the traditional educational system; and, furthermore, thanks to the flexibility of the modules, to invent new residential formats, similar to what happened with the redefining of long residencies and in the development of two projects co-financed by the European Union “Ottomans and Europeans” and “Understanding Territoriality: Identity, Place & Possession – TIPP”, where every week the artists in residence met couples of intellectuals and operators in the sector at an international level and exchanged ideas and opinions with them, having collective discussions full of new stimuli and in-depth content for the final Open Studios.

Encouraged by the unexpected high number of participants (111 presences from 16 different countries) and their enthusiastic feedbacks and proposals for future developments of this new educational model experimented in 2015, the intention for 2016 is to continue to analyse and thus fine-tune this educational method through the close examination of three other macro-topics, which are research, gift and alteration, considered central to both theoretical reflection and the practice of artists operating in the public sphere. With an interdisciplinary approach articulating these three concepts according to the Trinamic principle of Michelangelo Pistoletto, that

bases the cognitive process on the combination of detachment of an analytical approach with the implication of who is profoundly involved in the situations, the three semantic areas are considered in their inter-relationships as sites for generating forms of resistance, new possibilities in meaning and social transformation.

The word ‘research’ contains the act of ‘searching anew’ that refers back to semantic proximity, as well as for assonance, in the action of ‘encircling’ something, a study object, a disciplinary field, a territory and leads us back to that which is an aspect of the study method, in other words to the condition of losing one’s self while researching, with the impression of moving in a labyrinth (in which the work, from labor, shares the same etymological root labh) to regain the thread, relocate direction. Besides the willingness to lose one’s self, the research also includes the strain of intellectual and poetical in-depth analysis, attitudes of care and dedication, the ability to enter into the crevices, into the circles of things and discover hidden details due to curiosity and amazement.

Today this is nearly a privilege, as it is so difficult, to take a break from study, without taking anything away from work, to think according to the slow time of research that favours activities of reflection, impossible under the pressures of a project.

The latter, was already used by conceptual artists in the late 1960s

(in particular by the Art and Project Gallery in Amsterdam) to denote a proposal for an artwork, from the 1990s it became a broad term used to include various types of social art (collective practices, groups of self-organised activists, participatory art and socially involved and curatorial experiments), in which duration and process are more privileged compared to the aesthetic solution. In the present phase of cognitive capitalism dominated by networks and projects our working life is described by a succession of ‘projects’, based on efficient connections the value of which lies in the fact that they allow us to generate or enter into a following project, often very different in context and content (L. Boltanski and E. Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism, 2005).

Having liberated the restricted space of the canvas and metabolised the processes and dispositifs through which life enters art and vice-versa, the challenge for artists today is to not abandon their own field of research but to occupy themselves with it, taking care to examine any potential in depth and to cultivate new possibilities. To not tie one’s self totally to the exclusive rules and transformative power of the art system, but rather stop without losing interest in one’s own research and language, and without being satisfied with crossings connected to the themed projects of a certain Biennale or

exhibition or space.

What are the survival strategies to resist the neo-liberalist spiral emphasized by multiple projects?

How do we regain the slow and unproductive time for research today?

By ‘gift’ a particular kind of gift is meant, the munus, aligned with the semantics of duty. The munus, contained in the Latin etymology of the term ‘community’ from communitas, is written into the dynamics of obligation: once accepted, it requires a suitable action to be released from that obligation (R. Esposito, Communitas, 1998). It involves making an exchange, which puts into motion a continuous exchange, and this creates a bond between the individuals based on a common commitment.

Considering the munus as a starting point, a new added value is found for the community and the relationship in juxtaposition with the donum armonicum, carried out in conformity with the autonomy of the subject and spontaneity of the gesture. With the munus the project of modernity and modern individualism is interrupted thus handing people the duty that binds them to each other and establishing between them a ‘contamination of relationship’.

The gift produces an asymmetry determined by the obligation to give, as though it expected to be given back or that something be returned in its place.

Therefore the gift, while on its own light, is in truth harder than the contract, in fact, it is a kind of non-crystallised contract.

This is why it creates social ties and alliances. The promise is another variation of the gift, it is implicit, and means we owe trust and loyalty to each other.

Recognition is the aspect of the gift that establishes dependence, asymmetry, a debt of gratitude towards another.

The intent is to investigate those signs, artistic experimentation and experiences that, uniting the dimensions of duty and freedom of dependency and inter-dependency as well as interest and disinterest, generate new life models in common and sustainability, outside of economic mechanisms that instead involve every human activity, based on social ties that are formed through the gift and generosity.

Is it possible to have models for sharing riches and exchange mechanisms based on the value of a gift and hospitality? How do we stimulate new forms of social relationships based on reciprocal trust?

The concept of alteration contains both the action that makes one thing ‘more’ than itself, as well as its result, or rather the mutation, modification or change that occurs through contact, relationship and comparison.

The term ‘modification’ and the verb ‘modify’ come from ‘modo /

modus’ and ‘to do / facere’, and indicate the introduction of acts that generate ways of being and doing for the other and in virtue of the other. Dealing with alteration means carrying out a reflection on different modalities, forms and methods to active transformative processes.

The choice of this word carries the intent to speak of the also delicate, but increasingly more evident, relationship between art and politics. Facing a crisis of the big forms of social mediation, it seems that attention regarding the functions of some of these historic models of mediation are returning to centre stage and, among these, the role of art in the creation of ‘another’ meaning of things and for the projecting of possible situations next to or in alternative to the dominant categories.

Actions, material and immaterial forms, symbolic and aesthetic, political and social, can alter and transfigure the value systems of institutions and re-signify the terms thus generating ‘other’ models and new institutional imaginaries.

This involves social processes that, exploring the cracks of semantic and functional categories and broadening the sphere of what is possible, in certain cases represent sources of disturbance and determine the place and time of a crisis, resistance and conflict (J. Rancière).

Having defined the investigation and activated the relational

mechanisms (thus combining the two previous terms), it becomes inevitable to talk about ethics: the artist’s responsibility lies in his commitment to intervene in conditions through action and grant continuity to the dynamics that co-involve the public space and social relationships so that they become a part of daily life and, though without any guarantees, can contribute to the change and ‘improvement’ of the territory and way of living in it.

What risks does an artist run when he intervenes in a social context changing habits and rules? How can the possibility of change indicated by art be transformed into a common language?

The mentors and guests for 2016 are (in order of appearance): Expodium (Nikos Doulos and Bart Witte); Jason Waite with Adelita Husni-Bey; Lara Almarcegui with Marco Giardino; Cesare Pietroiusti with Aldo Spinelli; Martino Gamper with Visible (Matteo Lucchetti and Judith Wielander); Giusy Checola with ‘L’Italia che Cambia’ and ‘Transition Town Biella’; Attila Faravelli and Enrico Malatesta with Nicola Ratti; Luigi Coppola with Daniel Blanga Gubbay; Antoni Muntadas with Alessandra Messali; Daria Filardo with Fatma Bucak; Adrian Paci with Edi Muka and Tea Çuni; Aria Spinelli with Núria Güell; STEALTH.unlimited (Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen) with Erik Jutten and Piet Vollaard.

A difference compared to 2015 can be found in the experiment of

two residential modules lasting two weeks in collaboration with STEALTH.unlimited (Ana Dzokic and Marc Neelen) and with Adrian Paci. The desire to expand the two laboratories in space and time come from the singularity of the proposed contexts, able to offer new pathways of sense and content to the collective discussions begun in Cittadellarte, and thus offer a more articulate critical analysis of the macro-themes being studied. The group will move with STEALTH to Rotterdam, an exindustrial city that is undergoing a rapid process of conversion in a cosmopolitan creative centre; while the participants from Biella will go with Paci to Shkodër, the artist’s home town, to his new Art House space where activities will continue with encounters and conferences with artists and local professionals in the sector in a private and familiar environment.

In 2016, the ‘historic’ support of the Fondazione Zegna in the development of the UNIDEE programme will be consolidated and reinforced through the co-project of a laboratory and research module conducted

by Martino Gamper aimed at a selected group of international creative artists, with the object of creating prototypes derived from a collective and individual reflection on themes, dear to the two Foundations, of territory, relationships and post-industrial work.

New alliances will be formed with national and local actors, such as the newspaper L’Italia che cambia and the Transition Town Biella movement through their project involvement in organising the second module ‘TIPP’, co-financed by the Creative Europe Programme of the EU. Furthermore, an interesting international collaboration will begin with the Instituto Superior de Arte-ISA of La Havana in Cuba based on the bilateral exchanges of students, artists and researchers, while relationships will be built with Universities and Academies of Fine Arts in Italy and other countries, among which is the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Medellín in Columbia with the organisation of two educational activities: a threeweek module in Spanish aimed at a selected group of students and a research residency with the purpose of writing an essay, reserved for a researcher selected by a panel of judges.

To intensify the dynamics and international nature that have always characterised Cittadellarte, the programme of long-production residential stays (lasting two months) will continue based on the format of laboratory modules aimed at international artists, in collaboration with institutional partners: Illycaffé s.p.a., Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, Qattan A. M. Foundation, the Resò network, without forgetting the Unfunded Residency of UNIDEE and the Connective Residency.

Cecilia Guida, Director and Curator of UNIDEE University of Ideas programme

Participants’ discussion during the UNIDEE module with Adrian Paci.

Module 8

Which language will I speak to you?

Collective voice after the end of protest mentored by Luigi Coppola with the guest Daniel Blanga-Gubbay 19 / 23 September 2016 TAGS: Research, activism, people voice, political language, performance, choir, public space, imaginary, participation, political movement, legislative theatre, populism, crowds and power, political role of art/artist, bottom up process, alteration Participants: Matteo Impedovo, Alison Levy, Jacopo Rinaldi, Raneem Turjman.

Recent years have witnessed the largest protests in human history. Yet these mass mobilizations no longer change society. We’ve understood that attracting millions of people to the streets no longer guarantees the success of a protest.

Now activism is at a crossroads: innovation or irrelevance.

Right now, activism needs fundamental reorientation in terms of language and tools. We have to re-imagine the script, the storyline and the ways of thinking about activism, social change and protest. The standard forms of protest have become part of the standard pattern and the key is to constantly innovate the way we remonstrate and address social claims and propositions because otherwise it is as if the protest is part of the script.

Starting from these assumptions, the workshop was a shared moment of research and practices on strategies of taking and giving voice in the public and political spheres, starting from some urgent questions in the construction (as linguistic agent) of a collective consciousness.

Which theoretical frame do we need to preserve as root in a new process of creation of a shared language of mobilization? And how can we use it?

How can we formalize a language that has a capacity to be effective and “popular� without losing the complexity inherent in the global context?

How can we interfere in the visual and linguistic strategies that take place on a daily basis in the media sphere?

Can the creation of a fictional state be used as a driving force of transformation?

How can the artist and the artistic

approach be relevant in the coconstruction of such a language?

To address these issues, we worked through theoretical and practical sessions which featured lectures, discussions, writing and exercises.

The participants in the module were also invited to consider the task of collective writing and performing.

SCHEDULE SEPTEMBER 19TH morning Guided tour to Cittadellarte (Curated by Elena Rosina), including the Pistoletto, Arte Povera collections and temporary exhibitions.

Introduction to the Theorem of Trinamics, the symbol of the Third Paradise and the concept of Demopraxy. afternoon Group presentation.

Presentation of the mentor and the module. Voice exercise: body resonance, collective voice and democratic conduction. Sharing linguistic roots: E. Canetti, Crowds and Power (1960). Performative reading and discussion.

SEPTEMBER 20TH morning The Legislative Theatre (1998)

by Augusto Boal: practical exercises and applications. Brainstorming, keywords, collective discussion. afternoon The individual and the collective voice. The greek choir and examples of contemporary artistic experiences in political chorality.

Voice and body exercise.

Sharing linguistic roots: propositions by the group.

SEPTEMBER 21ST A day with the guest Daniel Blanga Gubbay.

morning The problem of neutralisation of protest. An analysis of the 20112012 movement through a reading of The Suspension of Historical Time (1969) by Furio Jesi and Public sphere by performance (2015) by B. Cvejic & A. Vujanovic. afternoon What Guy Debord can teach us about protest? How score and fiction can be effective strategies of transformation of the real?

SEPTEMBER 22ND morning Analysis of visual tools and group dynamics in the historical and recent protest. Imaginative strategies.

Exercises: Newspaper theatre. From the mask of protest to the mask of resonance. afternoon Sharing linguistic roots: exercise of writing and preparation of a rithmic score. Performing the prepared political score.

SEPTEMBER 23RD morning Individual work: projects of a political action in the public space. afternoon Final discussion and presentation of the works/ texts/ documents / actions produced during the workshop sessions. evening Party.

REFERENCES The mentor prepared a reader for participants with key texts, some of which were discussed during the week.

Texts: · A. Boal, The Legislative Theatre, Routledge, 1998. · A. Boal, Games for actors and non actors, Routledge, 2002. · E. Canetti, Crowds and Power, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984. · B. Cvejic & A.Vujanovic, Public Sphere

by Performance, TkH, 2012. · G. Debord, International Situationist Manifesto, 1960. · F. Jesi, The Suspension of Historical Time, Hatje Cantz, 1969. · E. Laclau, On Populist Reason, Verso Book, 2007. · M. White, The End of Protest, Penguin Random House of Canada, 2016.

Meeting, presentation and discussion with former UNIDEE artist Diego Bonetto.

Exercises in Political Chorality

Luigi Coppola’s projects: - Masses & Motes, Vol I, foto documentation, 2013. Ph Daniel Mazza.

- On social metamorphosis, video project, 2012.

Module 9

Personal Imaginary Museum mentored by Antoni Muntadas with the guest Alessandra Messali 26 / 30 September 2016 TAGS: Research, museum, absolute value, personal value, institution, individual, history, collection, archive, memory, alteration, conservation, gift, imaginary, architecture, education, participation, enjoyment, anti-museum Participants: Giampaolo Algieri, Valeriana Bercicchi, Angelo Di Bello, Franziska Hederer, Lore Hindiger, Andria Nicolaou, Sandra Schüddekopf, Paul Wiebinski, Edith Zeier-Draxl.

The book Le Musée Imaginaire (1947) by André Malraux was the starting point of the investigation of the nature of traditional museums in relation with the idea of a personal imaginary museum.

According to the ICOM* statutes, a museum is a non-profit, permanent institution at the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, preserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment. A personal imaginary museum doesn’t necessarily follow the same rules: it may have exclusive values, it can be secret, intimate or even unreal.

The workshop explored the notion of ‘Personal Imaginary Museum’ in art, architecture, history, literature and cinema. It analysed the distinctions between collection, archive and museum. It raised questions such as: could a flea market be perceived as a museum?

During the module, the participants investigated different modes of thinking about museums in relation to their personal interests through lectures, screenings, class discussions and brainstorming.

The participants were also introduced to the ‘Project Methodology’, a method conceived by Muntadas as a temporal structure of development of his projects.

The Project Methodology has an appropriable nature anyone can make use of. The methodology can vary in relation to the individual and the context; it is not absolute, singular or rigid. It is part of a process that answers the questions: who? what? why? how? where? when? and for whom? (*) The International Council of Museums.

SCHEDULE SEPTEMBER 26TH morning Guided tour to Cittadellarte (Curated by Elena Rosina), including the Pistoletto, Arte Povera collections and temporary exhibitions.

Introduction to the Theorem of Trinamics, the symbol of the Third Paradise and the concept of Demopraxy. afternoon Participants and mentor’s presentation.

Introduction to the workshop and the ‘Personal Imaginary Museum’.

Participants share their interests about the topics of the module.

SEPTEMBER 27TH morning ‘Personal Imaginary Museum’: analysis of case studies. afternoon Introduction to the ‘Project Methodology’. Video screenings and discussion.

SEPTEMBER 28TH morning Architecture, permanent VS temporary: the concept of effimera.

The mobile museum. afternoon The artist Alessandra Messali introduces her artistic project-based practice in relation with artists and works of reference in the area of art,

film, literature and live arts. She speaks about When the wind is still no one leaf moves, a project realized in 2011 which finds its roots on the idea of the ‘Personal Imaginary Museum’.

SEPTEMBER 29TH morning ‘Personal Imaginary Museum’: analysis of case studies. Investigation, research and brainstorming. afternoon Video screenings and discussion.

SEPTEMBER 30TH morning Closing remarks and possible proposals for a ‘Personal Imaginary Museum’. afternoon Conclusions. evening Party

REFERENCES The mentor prepared a reader for participants with key texts, some of which were discussed during the week.

Museums and artworks: · Herbert Distel, Museum of Drawers; www.schubladenmuseum.com/ · The Museum of Innocence, Istanbul; http://en.masumiyetmuzesi.org/ · Tragedy in US History Museum, Florida · The Museum of Jurassic Technology, Los Angeles; www.mjt.org/ · Museu do Crime, São Paulo; · Museum of sex, New York; · Claes Oldenburg, Mouse Museum, 2013;

· Marcel Broodthaers, Museum of Modern Art, Department of Eagles, 1968; · Joseph Cornell, Romantic Museum, 1949-50.

Film and video: · Malraux’s Shoes, Dennis Adams, 2012; · Le Louvre sous l’Occupation, Aleksandr Sokurov, 2015; · Russki Kovcheg - Russian Ark, Aleksandr Sokurov, 2002.

Texts: · AA.VV, The end(s) of the Museum, Fundacio ́Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, 1996. · T. Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics, Routledge, London, 1995. · D. Crimp, On The Museum’s Ruins, The MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1995. · I. Kabakov, Incident at the museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, 1993. · A. Malraux, “The museum without walls” (translation of Le Musée Imaginaire, 1947), in The voices of silence, Princeton University Press, 1978. · O. Pamuk, The Innocence of Objects, Harry N. Abrams; First Edition, 2012. · J. Putnam, Art and Artifact: The Museum as Medium, Thames and Hudson, London, 2009.

We visited “Falseum�, a multimedial museum near Biella.

It encourages reflections on the relationship between man, falsehood, deception and history.

Andrea Caretto and Raffaella Spagna, artists hosted in Cittadellarte for the Connective Residency 2016, joined the group.

Antoni Muntadas, For A Project Methodology, 2013, Nomos.

Available on-line: http://intheexpandedfield.com/img/full/muntadas.pdf

Alessandra Messali, When the wind is still not one leaf moves, theater play, 2011.

“Throughout the day, the shadows of things continue to walk and change place, running behind us as the sun goes down, and all these changes of place made me so angry that it made me swear and even curse the sun. In fact, a while after not being able to change place due to the better spots being spots being already taken, I had to put up with the torture of the searing heat of the sun which made all my sweets and ice-creams melt.

Thus mine is both a passion and a torture. Goddamn sun.”

Giovanni Paneroni (Rudiano,1871 - Rudiano, 1950) was a Ptolemaic astronomer who because of his theory was persecuted by the fascist regime and marginalised by society.

Messali’s work translates his thought, removing it from the field of science, giving weight to the questioning of such a commonly accepted concept as that of the heliocentric theory.

Module 10

Practicing the Object.

Give me an (art)object so I can find my position and continue to move mentored by Daria Filardo with the guest Fatma Bucak 3 / 7 October 2016 TAGS: Research, object, position, movement, art practice, aesthetical and ethical analysis, identity, definition, others, borders, margins, spacing, placing, spectator, occupy, space, experience, gift, collision, distance, language Participants: Noemi Cassani, Aurora Chiriaco, Daniel Dallabrida, Kirsten Farrell, Chihiro Gompei, Chanel Hackett, Giulia Meloni, April Moon, Raneem Turjman, Francesco Zanatta

‘Practicing the Object: Give me an (art)object so I can find my position and continue to move’ intended art as the device and the terrain where autobiographical identity negotiates its position and relation with others, where borders incessantly touch, fuse, intertwine and separate.

In practicing the diverse possibilities of the art object (through case studies, experiments, analyses and production), mentor and participants worked – in a peer-to-peer relation – on the open definition of singular and collective identities that are shaped in a continuous collision of borders between art and spectator.

Positioning oneself through the (art)object was intended to be an investigation open to the re-writing of self, which happens in a place, in a space, in an experience, in a language, and it is a porous state that changes through the experience. The art object was intended as theory, as a projection into others, as a gift, as a part of oneself, as the possibility to rotate around it and around others, as a way of spacing place and placing space.

The encounter with the art object made us participants look for a sense of belonging and find something outside our perceived known self at the same time.

Practicing the (art)object was a movement in and out of borders, an investigation on a personal and autobiographical position which is at the same time living outside of us in a relation with the object and with the others. Special objects were taken into consideration to define the methodology and practice of the module. The (art)object was considered as a possibility of an ethical participation in the construction of a public space, and in this sense the

experience at Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto gave the group a very unique context of historical density and future development as art citizens.

The final experience defined with the group– registered the seismographic activity and relations between (art) objects and subjects involved.

SCHEDULE OCTOBER 3RD morning Guided tour to Cittadellarte (Curated by Elena Rosina), including the Pistoletto, Arte Povera collections and temporary exhibitions.

Introduction to the Theorem of Trinamics, the symbol of the Third Paradise and the concept of Demopraxy. afternoon Participants and mentor’s presentations: looking for an authobiographical position in the experience of curating.

OCTOBER 4TH morning The object as theory, the object as critical discourse: presentation of essays.

Reading group: (Boris Groys - Multiple authorship and Marcel Duchamp and the absolute art; Hans-Ulrich Obrist Interviews; Enrique Vila Matas - Illogic of Kassel; Stuart Hall - Minimal Selves). afternoon Presentation and discussion of one essay chosen by each participant. Group discussion.

Experiment: Your object is a part of me: an object of the others that becomes mine.

Each one records in an open way an experience of the other which resonated and became yours. Defining authobiographical positions through the margins of the others’s choices.

OCTOBER 5TH morning The art object as an experience: presentation of case studies of artistic practice using the object in an experiential way.

Why and what for do we use objects?

And what about the role of the art object in the awareness of a position?

Research and production of experiential art objects by the participants (from objects present in Pistoletto Foundation’s collection to any other).

Group discussion. afternoon Guest lecture by the artist Fatma Bucak followed by group discussion.

OCTOBER 6TH morning Experiment: Your object is a part of me: an object of the others that becomes mine.

Each one records in an open way an experience of the other which resonated and became yours.

Defining authobiographical positions through the margins of the others’s choices. afternoon Around the object, around others: producing? an ‘object’ (action/ reconding/ writing/ object), thinking at one participant of the group, and donating a gift. Group discussion.

OCTOBER 7TH morning Position/ Positions/ Objects/ Subjects/ Occupying space.

Assemblage of the object/ record/ sysmographer/ log. afternoon Position/ Positions/ Objects Subjects/ Occupying space. Final session and group discussion. evening Party.

REFERENCES The mentor prepared a reader for participants with key texts, some of which were discussed during the week.

The reader includes pieces by authors, artists, curators and intellectuals.

Texts: · Boris Groys – Multiple authorship and Marcel Duchamp and the absolute art; · Hans-Ulrich Obrist – Interviews (selection); · Enrique Vila Matas – Illogic of Kassel; · Stuart Hall – Minimal Selves; · Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev – An intimate distance riddled with gaps: the art of Janet Cardiff; · Terry Smith – Artists as Curators/ Curators as Artists: Exhibitionary Form Since 1969; · Elena Filipovic – When exhibitions become form: on the hystory of the artist as a curator; · Stefano Velotti - La Filosofia e le arti; · Aristotele – Physics 212a 5-15; · Daria Filardo – Distance for Identity?; · Daniel Tutt - The Object of Proximity: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis in Žižek and Santner via Lacan.

Websites: · www.contemporarypractices.net/ essays/volumexi/fatmabucak.pdf · vimeo.com/user12442109 · www.claudialosi.com · www.galegati.net · www.cardiffmiller.co

Quotes from Nato Thompson, Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991-2011, The MIT Press, 2012.

Both pages: Nato Thompson, Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991-2011, The MIT Press, 2012.

Talking with the artist Fatma Bucak, guest of the module, about objects, identity and how to objectify emotions through arts.

Fatma Bucak, Blessed are you who come, Conversation on the TurkishArmenian border, HD digital video, 2012; Padre IV, from the series Melancholia II, digital archival pigment print, 2010.

Stuart Hall, Minimal Selves

Module 11

The Encounter.

Reclaiming the potentiality of affection mentored by Adrian Paci with the guests: Edi Muka and Tea Çuni 10 / 21 October 2016 TAGS: Research, art, dialogue, memory, storytelling, care, imaginary, engaged art, experience, participation, responsibility, environment, gift Participants: Vanessa Alessi, Patrizia Bonardi, Anna Borghi, Marta Colpani, Alicia Dupont Lievens, Kirsten Farrell, Bib Frrokaj, Lek M. Gjeloshi, Enza Rripaj.

The twenty-first century led us to disaffection. The avantgarde tried to burn bridges with the past and looked for new codes and unexplored territories. The artist’s gesture was not meant to build alongside traditions but in opposition to them, with the ambition of achieving new discoveries able to continuously surprise. Biennials, analogous to art fairs, work as a stage where all this openness is assigned to the logic of the show system and the art market, which do not seem disturbed by this, often desecrating, diversity but, on the contrary, constantly stimulated. Today, in fact, the transgressive disaffection of the avantgarde relates perfectly to the logic of the dynamics of consumerism based on profit.

How to rethink the artist’s gesture today?

Denying art is not innovative and an academic return is not an option.

We perhaps need to rethink the relationship between art and the world without abolishing the differences but by assisting a fruitful exchange.

Looking at the world with curiosity, affection and surprise could help in elaborating new answers for an ever unfolding world.

It may be worth leaving the excitement of conquest, the superficial, to refocus on an in-depth exploration and the reason for its cultivation.

The residential module was based on this: to reclaim the artist’s role as a narrator of a place, a story or an experience, recognizing its potential and exploring it with affection and astonishment; to renew the artist’s gesture in relation to a new exchange with the field of investigation and cultivation. Rethinking the encounter with the other as a moment of stimulation also means to recover

the question about the identity of art without presuming to find an answer.

The module took place in two specific places, both houses and cultural spaces: Cittadellarte in Biella (IT), founded by Michelangelo Pistoletto in 1998, and Art House in Shkodër (AL), started by Adrian Paci in 2015. Two different realities (an institution and a private house) with a common desire to restart a profound dialogue with the experience of life and thought. During the first week in Biella, Cittadellarte was the scenario of investigation, discussions, walks and readings, hosting the international curator, currently based in Sweden, Edi Muka as guest of the residency.

In Shkodër, the participants, together with the mentor, initiated a dialogue with the city and the environment by focusing on local realities and stories through a process of exchange with local guests who narrated the place to them. In both contexts, Biella and Shkodër, the module was based on conviviality and exchange, avoiding a hierarchy of knowledge and a rigid academia.

SCHEDULE PART 1: CITTADELLARTE, BIELLA 10 / 14 October, 2016 OCTOBER 10TH morning Guided tour to Cittadellarte (curated by Elena Rosina), including the Pistoletto, Arte Povera collections and temporary exhibitions.

Introduction to the Theorem of Trinamics, the symbol of the Third Paradise and the concept of Demopraxy.

afternoon The encounter: introduction to the module’s themes by the mentor. Group and mentor’s research presentations.

OCTOBER 11TH morning Collective reading session.

Discussion and participants’ feedbacks through presentations.

Introduction to different other art practices and curatorial researches. afternoon First day of vision and discussion of the participants’ work and research. Video screening.

OCTOBER 12TH morning A day with the curator Edi Muka. afternoon A focus group meeting moderated by Adrian Paci about “The encounter” with Cittadellarte (its spaces, people, activities, residents and exhibitions).

OCTOBER 13TH morning Collective reading session.

Discussion and participants’ feedbacks. afternoon Group walk in the town of Biella. Second day of participants’ presentations and discussion.

Video screening.

OCTOBER 14TH morning Collective reading session.

Discussion and participants’ feedbacks. afternoon Video screenings. evening Party.

TRAVEL OCTOBER 15TH Departure from Cittadellarte and trip to Shkodër by plane or car.

OCTOBER 16TH Welcome at Art House.

PART 2: ART HOUSE, SHKODËR, ALBANIA 17 / 21 October 2016 OCTOBER 17TH morning Presentation of the project Art House (space, programme and activities) by the mentor. Presentation of the module’s activities for the week. afternoon Visit to the castel of Shkoder and the lake.

OCTOBER 18TH morning Visit to the Museum of Memory and meeting with the curator Tea Çuni. afternoon Stroll through the cafés of Shkodër. Video screening.

OCTOBER 19TH morning Discussion about ideas and proposals of work by the participants.

Collective discussion. afternoon Meetings with the Albanian artists Lek Gjeloshi, Rubin Mandia, Sidi Kanani. Collective discussion.

OCTOBER 20TH morning Individual time for research. afternoon Collective discussion about projects and proposals.

OCTOBER 21ST morning Public presentation of ideas, proposals and projects by the participants. afternoon Collective discussion. evening Dinner and party at Art House.

REFERENCES The mentor prepared a reader for participants with key texts, some of which were discussed during the week: · G. Agamben, Il Fuoco e il Racconto, Nottetempo, Roma, 2004. · W. Benjamin, “The storyteller”, in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, Ed. Hannah Arendt, New York, 1968. · M. Foucault, Le beau danger. Un entretien de Michel Foucault avec Claude Bonnefoy, Éditions de l’EHESS, Paris, 2011. · R. Sennett, The craftman, Yale University Press, NewHaven CT, 2008. · A. Tarkovskij, Sculpting in time: Reflections on the Cinema, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1987.

After the first week in Cittadellarte, with guests and visits, the group went to ShkodĂŤr in Albania to spend an other week together.

“Quando il Baal Schem, il fondatore dello chassidismo, doveva assolvere un compito difficile, andava in un certo posto nel bosco, accendeva un fuoco, diceva le preghiere e ciò che voleva si realizzava. Quando, una generazione dopo, il Maggid di Meseritsch si trovò di fronte allo stesso problema, si recò in quel posto nel bosco e disse: “Non sappiamo piú accendere il fuoco, ma possiamo dire le preghiere” – e tutto avvenne secondo il suo desiderio. Ancora una generazione dopo, Rabbi Mosche Leib di Sassov si trovò nella stessa situazione, andò nel bosco e disse: “Non sappiamo piú accendere il fuoco, non sappiamo piú dire le preghiere, ma conosciamo il posto nel bosco, e questo deve bastare”.

E infatti bastò. Ma quando un’altra generazione trascorse e Rabbi Israel di Rischin dovette anch’egli misurarsi con la stessa difficoltà, restò nel suo castello, si mise a sedere sulla sua sedia dorata e disse: “Non sappiamo piú accendere il fuoco, non siamo capaci di recitare le preghiere e non conosciamo nemmeno il posto nel bosco: ma di tutto questo possiamo raccontare la storia”. E, ancora una volta, questo bastò.”

“Agamben commences The Fire and the Tale, a book that resonates with his earlier involvement in aesthetics, with an enigmatic parable of the origins of literature. The parable is supposed to serve as an allegory of literature itself and it does, in an idiosyncratic way, pave the way for the subsequent essays whose roots lie in the vicinity of parables, if are not about parables themselves. This tale that comes from Jewish mysticism speaks of a fire fading and growing dim as time passes by. The architect of Hasidism, Baal Schem, used to go to the woods and pray in front of a fire whose account is the only remnant that the later generations seem to delight in. Generation after generation, the followers lose an element till nothing is left behind but a narrative for the followers, and sufficient it was.

The forest, the fire and the prayers were all lost and literature found its foundations in the embers of an emergent tale. This ushers Agamben to a not very surprising presumption: ‘Each tale – all literature – is…a memory of the loss of the fire’. Following this line of thought may point us in the direction of his insistence on potentiality in itself. After all, it is the mysterious dreams and tales that are blessed with inevitable cracks and gaps remaining on the level of pure potentiality.”

Italian extract from: Giorgio Agamben, Il fuoco e il racconto, Nottetempo, 2004.

English extract from: Mohammad Mehdi Kimiagari, The fire and the tale, Textual Practice, 2018.

At the end of the module participants showed their ideas, actions, documentations at Art House.

“The potentiality liberated by the act of creation must be a potentiality that is internal to the very act, just like the act of resistance must be internal to it.�

Giorgio Agamben, The Fire and the Tale, Stanford University Press, 2017.

Module 12

Elapsing Time in Expanded Artwork.

Practices of the unconscious through means of activism mentored by Aria Spinelli with the guest Núria Güell 7 / 11 November 2016 TAGS: Research, art, social movements, imagination, imaginary, visual culture, art history, participation, unconscious, responsibility, dream work, sounds, environment, deep mapping, institutions, alteration Participants: Miguel Amado, Lorie Caval, Jumana Ghouth, G. Olmo Stuppia, Nuvola Ravera, Annalisa Zegna.

Focusing on the relationship between emotion and activism, this one-week module looked at how practices of listening and wellbeing enhance the collective sensibility within groups.

The theoretical hypothesis here was that such an endeavour has a direct relation to artistic practices that act in solidarity with social movements.

Spanish artist Núria Güell was not only a guest of the module but also the initiator of an elapsed time-frame of research in which the participants deeply mapped the social and political implications of her recent work, La Feria de las Floras (2015).

Güell’s project is based on her collaboration with exploited sexual workers in Medellín. These young girls were asked to perform a guided tour through the exhibition spaces of the Museum of Antioquia and to explain the artworks of Colombian artist Fernando Botero. Within such a project, the institution played a significant role.

Such mapping entailed readings, improvisations and collective activities.

This expanded way of analysing this project triggered a discussion that touched upon (but was not limited to) concepts such as emancipation, female subjectivity, performance and protest.

The participants were then asked to engage with these topics through bodily expressions, sound exercises and dream work developed by sound artists like Pauline Oliveros, Ione and Ximena Alcaron.

The outcome of the workshop challenged learning models in the areas of visual culture and art history by questioning the limits of visual representation. This workshop ultimately aimed at widening the horizon of ongoing debates around the relationship between artistic practices and social movements

by performing and embodying emotionality in a temporary and communal environment.

SCHEDULE NOVEMBER 7TH morning Guided tour to Cittadellarte (Curated by Elena Rosina), including the Pistoletto, Arte Povera collections and temporary exhibitions.

Introduction to the Theorem of Trinamics, the symbol of the Third Paradise and the concept of Demopraxy. afternoon Presentation by Aria Spinelli on: Elapsing Time in Expanded Artwork: practices of activism through means of the unconscious. Brief group presentation. Presentation by Núria Güell, La feria de las Floras (2015).

Collective discussion.

NOVEMBER 8TH morning Warm-up exercises: the Spoon (Alan Kaprow).

Dream session I exercises (Ione) recurring dreams / tell / interpret.

Group Reading: The Autonomy of Affect Author(s): Brian Massumi (reading groups - regrouping collective discussions). afternoon Dream session II: rituals (Amy Franceschini) objects of dreams / tell / interpret. Collective brainstorming/ keywording: Núria Güell - La feria de las Floras (2015).

Participants presentations.

NOVEMBER 9TH morning Sound exercises (Ximena Alcaron) lying down/group heads vibration. Group reading: Bodies in Alliance by Judith Butler (Reading groups - regrouping - collective discussions). Collective brainstorming/ ACTIONS.

afternoon Collective actions session I. Collective brainstorming/ keywording: Núria Güell - La feria de las Floras (2015). Participants presentations.

NOVEMBER 10TH morning Exercises: Positioning (Ultrared). Group Reading: The Emotions of protest James M. Jasper (reading groups - regrouping collective discussions).

Brainstorming final restitution. afternoon Collective actions session II. Sound Exercises - transmission (Ximena Alcaron).

NOVEMBER 11TH morning Sound exercise (Ximena Alcaron) listen/sounds/repeat/create. morning Dream Session (Ione) / nightmares/tell interpret.

Brainstorming Final Restitution. afternoon Final restitution. evening Party.

REFERENCES The mentor prepared a reader for participants with key texts, some of which were discussed during the week.

Artists & Artists’ projects: Núria Güell · www.nuriaguell.net/ · http://mde.org.co/mde15/ es/2015/12/los-que-vemos-y-callamossomos-responsables/ · www.elcolombiano.com/arte-paracontar-la-realidad-para-hacer-catarsisKC3271851 Pauline Oliveros · www.paulineoliveros.us/about.html

Deep Listening · www.deeplistening.org/site/content/ about Ximena Alcaron · ximenaalarcon.net (Personal website) · listeningperformingtransforming. wordpress.com (Deep Listening workshops) · soundingunderground.org (Research project) · networkedmigrations.org (Research project) · soundmattersframework.wordpress. com (Research project)

Talk with the guest artist Núria Güell about her project La Feria de las Flores.

Flyer proyecto La Feria de las Flores (2015-16)

Núria Güell, La Feria de las Flores (2015-16). MDE15, Museo de Antioquia

Excerpt from an interview: CG: La Feria de las Flores cuestiona al espectador sobre la ética y la moral obligándolo a tomar una posición, ¿de qué manera emancipación, estética y política están presentes en este proyecto?

NG: Básicamente la operación de esta obra consistió en desafiar el lugar que la sociedad les otorgaba a esas cuatro niñas para “poner el cuerpo” como sujetos políticos donde no se les esperaba a no ser como simples objetos de representación. Este desplazamiento rompía los consensos de la mirada hegemónica y planteaba otro marco de lo posible, visible y vivible, con el potencial de a la vez cuestionar la moral bienpensante, que es la que sostiene el estatus quo.

Cuando digo “poner el cuerpo” me refiero a que las cuatro colaboradoras empuñaban sus voces, desde la singularidad que siempre nos hace vulnerables, pero que a la vez pone al que escucha ante las puertas del mundo de la cultura que rige nuestra sociedad. Esa cultura patriarcal que se encarga con su luz de invisibilizar los abusos, normalizándolos. Ellas, con sus testimonios, nos permiten entrar desde las sombras, justamente para evitar esta sobreexposición que enceguece. Ósea emancipación, estética y política estaban interrelacionadas en esta obra a través del disenso: se desafiaba el lugar asignado, se rompía el consenso en la manera de percibir y se revelaba lo moralmente correcto como ficción dominante, en este caso en función de la ideología patriarcal. Esto a la vez se hacía usando el contenedor museo y la historia canónica del arte que este encierra, para tratar de subvertir lo que el mismo crea, promueve y potencia.

Cecilia Guida, “Sin miedo a participar. Interview to Nuria Guell”, roots§routes, on-line magazine http://www.roots-routes.org/sin-miedo-participar-seis-preguntas-nuriaguell-sobre-la-obra-la-feria-de-las-flores-por-cecilia-guida/

James M. Jasper, The emotions of protest: Affective and reactive emotions in and around social movements, Plenum Publish Coorporation, 1998.

Module 13

Carving out the spaces for our commoned life: a training ground mentored by STEALTH.unlimited (Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen) with the guests Erik Jutten and Piet Vollaard 14 / 25 November 2016 TAGS: Research, collaborative action, new economic narratives, commoning, art politics & the art of politics, activism, demopraxy, imagination, imaginary, reality of life & work, gift Participants: Eva Bullens, Tara Gilbee, Marie-Nour Hechaime, Giulia Marra, Alessandra Prandin, Fabienne Trotte, Dennis van Gaalen.

It is the paradox many of us encounter: while we dedicate ourselves to initiatives, projects and proposals that aim at a ‘better’ future (more resilient, fairer, more inspiring…), we experience being operating from a present we increasingly feel alienated from. And there we find ourselves: continuously searching for a resilient context for our practice and production. Looking around, sharing experiences with fellow souls, it is evident that this vulnerable position undermines the reach and impact of that future (and life) we care for.

However, being the present like this, it is high time to use our capacity to disrupt its unfolding. In this desire, we are not alone. Over the last years, a vast number of initiatives have sprung up to take matters into common hands and re-design the very reality, from where we work, how we live and how we relate to each other. It may not come as a surprise that imagining, designing and constructing such different ‘existential’ and professional conditions entails, to a large degree, working on their (different) economic groundings.

The double-module Carving Out the Spaces for Our Commoned Life: A Training Ground therefore had different economic principles and workings at its core. In the two weeks we explored whether we, as artists, designers or cultural practitioners can envision a novel mutually supportive economic ‘space’ for our lives and work. A task so daunting we called to our assistance some of the forerunners that had already started the transition, but an equally formidable challenge which demanded that we broke down some of the assumptions and workings concerning the economy, delved into areas we usually experience as ‘outsiders’ and started re-creating them on our terms.

Money, debt, insurance, time, services – to name a few.

The module consisted of a five-day series of activities at CittadellarteFondazione Pistoletto (Biella, from 14th to 18th November 2016) and a subsequent five-day series of activities at the Stoking House of City in the Making (from 21st to 25th November 2016).

The collective trip from Biella to Rotterdam marked the symbolic shift from Cittadellarte’s UNIDEE - University of Ideas, to the City in the Making’s universe of enactment, where, in a block of former social housing, City in the Making re-imagines life and work for a period of 10 years.

SCHEDULE PART 1: CITTADELLARTE, BIELLA 14 / 18 NOVEMBER, 2016 NOVEMBER 14TH morning Guided tour to Cittadellarte, including the Pistoletto, Arte Povera collections and temporary exhibitions (curated by Elena Rosina). afternoon Film screening(s) followed by common reflection.

Short introduction of participants and the module.

NOVEMBER 15TH exposing the fragility of our existence morning Outlining the challenge: a resilient context for our subsistence, and the precarious lives of us as artistic and cultural practitioners.

Bringing in personal backgrounds and key moments related to this day’s topic, with images. afternoon Envisioning the impact on our lives: imagining new horizons.

A large mind-map drawing, based on groups experiences. Rounding up by identifying the basic needs and principles within our group..

NOVEMBER 16TH structures of deprivation, entanglement morning Being a citizen in neoliberal times. Demystifying some of the basics: money creation, debt & transactions, real-estate. afternoon Walk/funicolare to Biella Piazzo. Discussing parts of the book “Take Back the Economy – An Ethical Guide for Transforming Our Communities”, by J. K. Gibson-Graham, Jenny Cameron, Stephen Healy (2013).

NOVEMBER 17TH mutual support structures morning Introduction to new forms of collective organisation and production, from REScoop (energy co-operatives), to Broodfonds (self-organised insurance), to eBanka (co-operative bank), to complementary economic spaces - the case of the Sardinian Exchange Network. afternoon Discussing introduction and parts of the book “Bolo’bolo”, by P.M. (1983).

NOVEMBER 18TH universal future structures morning Discussing the book “Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and the World Without Works”, Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams (2015). afternoon Preparing for Rotterdam, outlining the seminar on mutual support structure (Wednesday 23rd).

TRAVEL NOVEMBER 19TH Travel from Milano to Rotterdam.

NOVEMBER 20TH free

PART 2: ROTTERDAM 21 / 25 NOVEMBER, 2016 NOVEMBER 21ST exploring City in the Making morning Guided tour by Erik Jutten to City in the Making, including the buildings, the workshops, residencies and meeting the economic pioneers.

(Schiestraat, carpentry workshop at Noordplein, Zwaanshaals, Bloklandstraat, Banierstraat, Pieter de Raadtstraat. Meeting on the way Schieblock, Luchtsingel bridge, ZOHO, Zwaanshals “creative” shopping street).

Introducing principles and challenges of City in the Making, with Piet Vollaard. afternoon City in the Making emerging commons – conversations with Guido Marsille, Daan den Houter, Christine van Meegen (t.b.c.).

NOVEMBER 22ND seminar preparation morning Collective preparation seminar (7 questions/topics and 7 courses). afternoon Collective preparation seminar (7 questions/topics and 7 courses), continuation.

NOVEMBER 23RD SEMINAR on mutual support structures morning-afternoon 7 questions/ topics and 7 course meal. Mutual support structures rooted in City in the Making’s emerging commons, their possible communities and resources.

What could emerge from a network of buildings, spaces and people? What is lacking to make it a sustainable community?

Each participant prepares one topic for discussion – including a dish.

NOVEMBER 24TH pats from here morning Individual work.

What do you take from this, how do you see your path from here, which support structures we need to build? afternoon free / Job Dura Award Ceremony.

NOVEMBER 25TH collective (road)map morning Drawing a large collective (road)map towards mutual support structures in wider society. afternoon Preparing joint dinner.

REFERENCES The mentors prepared a reader for participants with key texts, some of which were discussed during the week: · Take Back the Economy: An Ethical Guide for Transforming our Communities, By J. K. Gibson-Graham, Jenny Cameron and Stephen Healy University of Minnesota Press, 2013. · Bolo’bolo, By P.M., Autonomedia, 1983. · Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work, By Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams Verso, 2015.

Biella is a place to study, to walk, to meet interesting projects such as Piemex: a complementary currency and a local development project. https://piemex.net/

The second week took place in Rotterdam at Stad in de Maak / City in the Making.

Extracts from the official website: https://www.stadindemaak.nl/en/

Since 2014, City in the Making started working with vacant buildings to let them contribute again to the city with the help of a group of passionate citizens. These buildings are our training ground towards a network of buildings where we can live and work in a different - affordable, sustainable - way.

Ambitions: 1. take the property off the market // 2. convert into affordable housing and workspace // 3. collective ownership - collective use // 4. commons free of rent // 5. economical, social and ecological sustainability // 6. democratically organized // 7. for the large part selforganized // 8. on our own terms, on our own strength.

At the end of the module we curated an edible seminar in City in the Making: food for thought!

Our Menu/programme

1st Course: WE COOK IT BY OURSELVES. (WITH WHOM?) Questioning the WE and the YOU, as otherness, as communities, or maybe as privileges or choices.

(Jere and Giulia offer salad fruit and guacamole) 2nd Course: WE COOK IT FOR OURSELVES AND YOU, IF YOU ARE READY TO JOIN. That’s about the openess of communities and the conditions to join them. Can we open up more to let people join in? Once they joined should they eat the ready food or should they cook? On the table decision making processes as well as individuality/communities.

(Marie-Nour and Fabienne offer us a meal from Senegal we can eat collectively from the same bowl)

3rd Course: OCCUPYING THE KITCHEN The kitchen is, metaphorically speaking, a prime resource for our livehood and a space of exchange.

Which are the resources and the base structures we want to focus our energies on?

We are roasting the ideas of alternatives and complementary or mutual credit systems . While we’re tasting and smelling the possibilities of being inside the main system, subvert it or maybe use it in an other way.

(Alessandra and Marc offer Polent with a traditional recipe from Veneto)

4th Course: WHAT WE COOK HAS TO BE EATEN IMMEDIATLY. Each one of us can contribute feeding the debate. “How to create time to practice commoning?” “We don’t have to create time, it is just there, we have to take time”. Time for cooking and time for enjoying.

(Eva and Denis decide to share with the whole group the process of cooking the 4th course of our big meal: asian spring rolls)

5th and last Course: WE DON’T WANT A PIECE OK CAKE, WE WANT THE WHOLE FUCKING BAKERY! At the end of a big meal we still have enough space for some important questions: Once we realise the limits of our self-organised actions and communities, how do we go further? How can we combine micro-practices with wider public thinking? How can we reclaim the public as common?

(Ana and Giulia propose to digest with Turkish delights, some mint tea and some grappa.

On the table also some vitamines to give to everybody to take care of the whole organism!)

LUIGI COPPOLA

DANIEL BLANGA GUBBAY

Luigi Coppola is an Italian artist who works within the fields of performance, video and public art projects. Through his research he develops social choreographies as democratic models, partecipative and collaborative practices, politically motivated actions, bringing to front a notion of art practice as mise en forme of political, economic, social issues and claims. He is currently involved in a project aiming at the common reorganization of the political, agricultural and economic systems of a entire village in the south of Italy and in long term projects on “political chorality” in different places in Europe.

He created projects, performances, projects and exhibitions in different international contexts such as 1st Democracy Biennale, Turin; Nomas Foundation, Rome; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; Teatro Valle Occupato, Rome; Wiener Festwochen, Vienna; Maxxi Museum, Rome; Extra City, Antwerpen; Madre Museum, Naples; New Langton Art, San Francisco; Galleria Lungomare (in the frame of “Manifesta 7” and Lungomare Gasthaus), Bolzano; Santarcangelo Festival, Santarcangelo di Romagna; Wunder der Prärie, Mannheim; Fabbrica Europa Festival, Florence.

He was with Michelangelo Pistoletto joint artistic curator of the “Urban Art Biennale” in Bordeaux (FR) and was part of the knowledge circle “Art in Society” directed by Pascal Gielen at the Fontys University (NL).

Daniel Blanga-Gubbay (1982) is a Brussels-based researcher in political philosophy of the arts. After graduating in philosophy from the Venice University of Architecture with Giorgio Agamben, and while working with him, he got a European Ph.D. in Cultural Studies, jointly run by the University of Palermo, Valencia and Freie Unversität Berlin. He was the creator of the artistic project Pathosformel (2007-2014) and got a post-doc at the Heinrich Heine Universität in Düsseldorf, within a project on the use of the concept of possible in art and politics. He is current professor at Académie Royale des Beaux Arts in Brussels and collaborates with the Kunstenfestivaldesarts and LiveWorks.

He is the founder of Aleppo (www. aleppo.eu), a space for researches in political philosophy in collaboration with art institutions.

ANTONI MUNTADAS

ALESSANDRA MESSALI

Antoni Muntadas was born in Barcelona in 1942 and has lived in New York since 1971. His work addresses social, political and communications issues, the relationship between public and private space within social frameworks, as well as channels of information and the ways they may be used to censor central information or promulgate ideas. He works on projects in different media such as photography, video, publications, Internet and multi-media installations.

Since 1995, Muntadas has grouped together a set of works and projects titled On Translation. Their content, dimensions and materials are highly diverse, and they all focus on the author’s personal experience and artistic activity in numerous countries over a period of thirty years. By grouping such works together under this epigraph, Muntadas places them within a body of experience and concrete concerns regarding communication, the culture of our times and the role of the artist and art in contemporary society.

Alessandra Messali (1985). After graduating at the Fine Arts Academy in Venice, she received her MA in Visual Arts from IUAV University in Venice where since 2012 has been teaching assistant to cum artist Antoni Muntadas. At the moment, after two experiences in Assam (India), she is working on the relationship between one of the most translated Italian authors in the history of Italian literature, Emilio Salgari, and the city of Guwahati, which he wrote about in his series of novels The Sandokan Series.

The project is an ironic experiment that reflects on our ideas of representing, and being represented as ‘the other’.

Her works have been shown at museums and festivals such as Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Lissone, Galleria Comunale d’Arte Contemporanea Monfalcone, Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa (Venezia) and FILMAKER DOC 14 (Spazio Oberdan, Milano).

DARIA FILARDO

FATMA BUCAK

Daria Filardo is an art historian and independent curator based in Florence. Her curatorial practice focuses on the research of an autobiographical position which is built in experience. She is Professor of Contemporary Practices at the SACI Master Program in Studio Art in Florence and tutor of the MFA students’ artistic practice. She also teaches Visual Art and coordinates the Final Project at the Master course of IED, Florence.

Selection of recent projects: curator of solo show of Alfredo Pirri, Contemporary art Museum, Podgorica, Montegegro (to be announced, 2016); I passi del Pittore, essay in catalogue of solo show Alfredo Pirri, Florence 2016; Do you remember, Aleksander Duravcevic, (essay in the catalogue) Montenegro Pavillion, Venice Biennal - 2015; I can reach you (from one to many), Valerio Rocco Orlando, Bianco/ Valente, Claudia Losi, co-curated with Pietro Gaglianò and Angel Moel Garcia, Tenuta dello Scompiglio, Lucca - 2015; Filling the void - Walker Keith Jernigan residency and solo show, Boccanera Gallery, Trento 2014; Material Marks (as far as I can reach) Sophie Tottie, Renata Fabbri Arte Contemporanea, Milano - 2014 ; co-curator of Arte torna arte, Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence - 2012.

Born in Iskenderun, on the TurkeySyria border, Fatma Bucak studied Philosophy in Istanbul University and etching in Italy at the Accademia Albertina before completing an MA in Photography at the Royal College of Art, London.

She has had solo exhibitions at, ARTER (Istanbul), Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art (Turin), Artpace (San Antonio), and The Ryder Project (London). Her work has also been exhibited at The Jewish Museum (New York), the 54th Venice Biennale-Arsenale/ Academies, International Festival of Non-fiction Film, MoMA (New York),SALT (Istanbul), ICA (London), Spike Island (Bristol),Contemporary Art Platform Gallery Space (Kuwait), and Art in General (New York), among others. In 2013 she was the winner of the 13th Illy Present Future Prize, and was selected for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries. She was artist-inresidence at Townhouse, Cairo in 2014.

ADRIAN PACI

EDI MUKA

Adrian Paci was born in 1969 in Shkodër, Albania. He studied painting at the Academy of Art of Tirana. In 1997 he moved to Milan where he lives and works. Throughout his career he held numerous solo shows in various international institutions. Amongst the last group shows Paci’s work has been featured in the International Architecture Exhibition at “La Biennale di Venezia” (2014); the “International Art Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia” (1999 and 2005); in the “15th Biennale of Sydney” (2006). His works are shown in numerous public and private collections.

A consistent part of his artistic research is dedicated to his homeland. In his work, Paci explores the boundaries between the personal and the political as well as the identities and rituals that are forged along those borders.

Adrian Paci teaches painting at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti NABA, Milan.

He has been a teaching art classes at Accademia Carrara di Belle Ari Bergamo, 2002-2006, IUAV, Venice 2003-2015 and has been giving lectures and workshops in many universities, art academies and institutions in different countries.

In 2015 Paci founded Art House, bringing to his home town, Shkodër, the contribution of international personalities of the arts and culture.

Since March 2014, Edi Muka holds the position of curator of temporary projects at the Public Art Agency, Sweden. Previously, from 2009 2014 he was the curator of Roda Sten konsthall in Göteborg, and together with Stina Edblom, shared the position of artistic director of “Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art 2013”. He is one of the founders and directors of the “Tirana International Contemporary Art Biennial”, as well as director and curator of TICA-Tirana Institute of Contemporary Art, an independent platform for research and production of contemporary art. In 2015 he co-curated “Local Stories – Global Practices”, 3rd edition of “The International Art Encounters of Medellin”, Colombia. In 2007, he curated the fourth edition of the “Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art”, titled “Rethinking Dissent”, together with Joa Ljungberg.

In 1999, Muka curated the group show “Albania Today – The Time of Ironic Optimism”, the first Albanian Pavilion at the “Venice Biennial”, and in 2005 he was the commissioner for the Pavilion. His curatorial work is of international scope and based on close collaboration with artists.

TEA ÇUNI

ARIA SPINELLI

Tea Çuni is specialized in cultural communication. She graduated in Language and Cultures for Tourism at the University of Turin, Italy. Returning to Albania in 2012, she worked as communications manager for the “Youth Adrinet” project and as external English teacher for tourism at the University of Shkodër. Since 2014, she has been the curator at “Museum of Memory”, the first museum treating the period of communist dictatorship in Albania. In 2015, she completed a twomonth formation on communication of dictatorship to new generations at Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung in Berlin. Since 2015, she has been the coordinator at Art House, an art space and project initiated by Adrian and Melisa Paci. She lives and works in Shkodër.

Aria Spinelli is an independent curator and researcher, currently a PhD Candidate at Loughborough University with a project on curatorial practice and the social imaginary. Her primary area of research is investigating the relationship between art and activism.

Her research suggests that the ‘assembly’, as both a curatorial format and exhibition display, will possibly activate forms of agonistic politics that can potentially affect the social imaginary necessary for capitalist reproduction. She holds a BA and a MA in Art History, Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies.

Since 2009 she acted as curator at “Isola Art Center”, an open platform of experimentation for contemporary art that has developed in the Isola neighbourhood in Milan, Italy. In 2009, she also founded the art and curatorial collective “Radical Intention” and created long-term research projects on socio-political issues related to art and its practices. Recent projects include: Decompression Gathering Summer Camp with Amy Franceschini (Corniolo Art Platform, FI, Italy); FLOAT residency at Luminary Art Centre, St. Louis (MO, USA); Marfa Dialogues, Pulitzer Art Foundation, St. Louis (MO, USA); Collateral Effects - Beyond a Radical Milan, Homesession, Fundació Tàpies, Sala d’art Jove Barcelona, Spain; Taking Positions-Identity Questioning Fare arte, Milan, Italy w/ACSL-Art and Cultural Studies Laboratory, Yerevan; Milano Radicale, Medionauta/Liceo artistico Caravaggio, Milan/Corniolo Florence, Italy.

NÚRIA GÜELL Núria Güell’s work analyzes how power oppresses and affects subjectivity through submission, specifically by mean of established legality and hegemonic morality. Núria Güell’s resources for artistic intervention are based on flirting with established powers, the privileges of the art world as well as those granted socially and on the complicity with different allies.

Her practice mingles with her own life developing as disruptive tactics in specific contexts with the aim of subverting the imposed relations of power and questioning the commonlyassumed identifications. http://www.nuriaguell.net/ http://mde.org.co/mde15/es/2015/12/ los-que-vemos-y-callamos-somosresponsables/ http://www.elcolombiano.com/artepara-contar-la-realidad-para-hacercatarsis-KC3271851

STEALTH.UNLIMITED (ANA DŽOKIĆ AND MARC NEELEN) STEALTH.unlimited (Rotterdam / Belgrade) is a practice set up in 2000

by Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen.

Through intensive collaboration with individuals, organisations and institutions, STEALTH connects urban research, spatial interventions and cultural activism. Ana and Marc’s projects mobilise thinking on shared future(s) of the city and its culture, like, Archiphoenix: Faculties of Architecture at the Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennial (2008), the Tirana International Contemporary Art Biannual (2009), IMPAKT Festival Matrix City in Utrecht (2010), the fiction-based project Once Upon a Future made for Evento in Bordeaux (2011) or the exhibition A Life in Common with Cittadellarte/ Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella (2012) and Medellin (2014).

CITY IN THE MAKING Ana Džokić, Erik Jutten, Marc Neelen and Piet Vollaard are the initiators of City in the Making, an association opening abandoned (economically “toxic”) real-estate as a site to produce a new kind of economic and cultural reality. Ana and Marc are heading the practice STEALTH. unlimited, connecting visual arts, urban research, spatial interventions and cultural activism, like in the fiction-based project Once Upon a Future (Bordeaux) and Disassemble, a community based intervention (Gothenburg). Piet Vollaard is an architect, writer and cultural producer.

He has been the initiator and 18 years the principal of ArchiNed, since 2013 runs the no-budget nomadic gallery 30KUUB, he authored a range of books on architecture. Erik Jutten studied at the Royal Academy of Visual Arts (The Hague), and has since been active as a driving force enabling projects and artworks to get realised in public space.

About Cittadellarte Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte’s aim is to inspire and produce a responsible change in society through ideas and creative projects. Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto was instituted in 1998 as a concrete action of the Progetto Arte Manifesto, where Michelangelo Pistoletto proposed a new role for the artist: that of placing art in direct interaction with all the areas of human activity which form society.

Cittadellarte is dedicated to the study, experimentation and development of practices translating the symbol of the Third Paradise* into realty, implying it into every sector of society. It is a great laboratory, hosting many young artists, which generates unedited processes of development in diverse fields of culture, production, economics and politics.

Cittadellarte is a vibrant international network of cultural and social innovators, individuals actively interlaced with their social contexts where they often act as catalyst of change. The interrelationship between people and projects is based on a common vision whose roots lie in an accumulative thought&practice process, developed by a wide range of thinkers, managers, innovators of all field. Pistoletto’s work, from the 60s to today, acts as a pumping brain for Cittadellarte’s communities.

Cittadellarte has developed an extensive networks of collaborations with Institutions (various United Nations Agencies, Ministries, Universities and Educational Organizations) global enterprises and local businesses, civil society collectives, organizations and individuals from all fields.

* “The symbol of the Third Paradise, a reconfiguration of the mathematical infinity sign, is made of three consecutive circles. The two external circles represent all the diversities and antinomies, among which nature and artifice. The central one is given by the compenetration of the opposite circles and represents the generative womb of a new humanity”.

Michelangelo Pistoletto www.cittadellarte.it www.terzoparadiso.org

About UNIDEE University of Ideas UNIDEE - University of Ideas is a higher educational programme based on a weekly modular format investigating the relationship among visual arts, public sphere and activism by combining critical theory with practice.

Through residential dynamics, UNIDEE is designed to form artivators, people who intend to use art as a methodology, practice and language, in order to become agents for the activation of responsible actions and processes in the territories in which they live and carry out their professional activities.

For the second year, and with a long history of residency programmes for international students (2000-2013) behind it, the new UNIDEE format proposes for the year 2016 a close examination of three macro-themes: Research, Gift and Alteration.

UNIDEE - University of Ideas 2016 Programme directed and curated by Cecilia Guida With the collaboration of Juan Sandoval Under the supervision of Paolo Naldini Programme Coordinator: Roberta Bernasconi Assistant Director: Giulia Crisci

@unideeuniversityofideas unidee_universityofideas @unidee_universityofideas @_unidee unideevideo

www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/

CECILIA GUIDA Cecilia Guida (1978), Programme Director and Curator, UNIDEE University of Ideas.

She is Doctor in Communication and New Technologies of Art (IULM, University of Milan, 2011), specializing in relations among participative art practices, new technologies and contemporary public space. She is Professor of Contemporary Art History at the Academy of Fine Arts (Bologna).

She has taught at the Academy of Fine Arts (Florence, 2013-2016; L’Aquila, 2011-2014; Rome, 2004-2007), at IUAV University (Venice/Treviso, 2008-2009) and at La Sapienza University (Rome, 2004-2007).

Member of the IKT - International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art, she has curated exhibitions in museums as well as public and independent spaces in Italy and abroad (“ARTInRETI. Art practices and urban transformation in Piedmont”, Cittadellarte, 2012 and 2013; “Take Your Time”, Tank Space for Performing and Visual Arts, New York, 2009; “Fuori contesto”, public spaces in Bologna, Milan, Trento/Rovereto/ Bozen, 2008; “Menu”, Spaziorazmataz Prato, 2007; “Aprés le diner sur l’herbe”, Villa dei Quintili, Rome, 2007 etc.).

She is author of the book Spatial Practices. Funzione pubblica e politica dell’arte nella società delle reti

published by Franco Angeli in 2012.

She is editor and translator of the Italian version of Artificial Hells.

Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship by Claire Bishop (Inferni Artificiali. La politica della spettatorialità nell’arte partecipativa, lucasossella editore, 2015).

Cecilia is a former UNIDEE resident (2009).

JUAN ESTEBAN SANDOVAL

PAOLO NALDINI

Juan Esteban Sandoval (1972), Head of projects and Director of Cittadellarte’s Art Office.

Paolo Naldini is the Director of Cittadellarte since 2000.

In 1996 he gained a degree in Economics from Turin University with a dissertation on urban derelict buildings and lands, in connection with the Faculty of Architecture.

From ’94 to ’97, he worked as an account manager at F.&T. Srl Consulting in Turin, then moved to England’s West Country; from ’97 to 2000, he worked for Westland Helicopters Ltd, Yeovil, in the finance department, as Accounts Officer and Trend Analysis Researcher.

As artist, he has exhibited internationally since 1994. He is the co-founder of “el puente_lab” art collective in Medellín, a platform for artistic and cultural production which uses contemporary art as a tool for the social trasformation.

Since 2002 he has been the director of the Art Office of Cittadellarte, coordinating the realization of 13 editions of “Arte al Centro” exhibitions within the Foundation’s premises and a number of exhibitions in other locations, among others, the MuKHA in Antwerp, the Island of San Servolo for the 50th Venice Biennial, Modena’s Galleria Civica and the MAXXI Museum in Rome.

He co-curated the exhibition “Cittadellarte. Sharing transformation” at Kunsthaus in Graz, the first two editions of the seminar “Methods.

Research project on art-society relation” and two workshops of shared interdisciplinary planning in Venice and in Gorizia, Italy.

Juan is a former UNIDEE resident (2000).

Paolo writes texts and often talks at conferences on Art and Society.

His aptitude for words has recently brought him to create the word demopraxy, “a tension toward a new and pulsating declination of the concept of democracy along the lines of concrete experimentation, of direct and working commitment, open and ongoing involvement” or, to say it more plainly, democracy in first person, which refers to all those practices and methods that focus primarily not on the power of the people, but rather on what people do in and of the public space, the things they create in practice as urgent and de-ideologised responses to expropriation in all fields of life. He founded a web project dedicated to exploring creative collaboration by meeting and writing in different places in the city of Turin.

GIULIA CRISCI Giulia Crisci (1989), Assistant Director and Curator in 2015 and 2016, UNIDEE - University of Ideas.

She studied Art History at the universities of Palermo and Turin.

An independent curator based in Turin, she is interested in the relationship between art and activism within the public realm and the social sphere. Enacted practices – often in the form of collectives or assemblies – are concentrated on territorial communities, with a particular focus on the city and its tension zones, in the attempt to trigger spaces for critical thought and collective action.

She was part of the coordination team of Resò - International Network for Art Residencies and Educational Programs.

Giulia curated Valentina Miorandi’s itinerant project “Turning Tables”, consisting in the collective construction of an archive of cultural activist experiences.

Since 2011, she worked as personal assistant to the artist Marzia Migliora.

She collaborates with “Libera in Sicily.

Associations, names and numbers against mafias” towards a creative rethinking of social antimafia.

She curated several projects within the artistic/curatorial collective Balloon, whose research lays at the boundary between critical writing, projects, web platform and independent micropublishing.

She was assistant curator for the 2014’s edition of Eco e Narciso, Turin’s public art project, and she was a member of the educational department of Palermo’s Museo Riso.

ROBERTA BERNASCONI Roberta Bernasconi (1985), Programme Coordinator 2015 and 2016, UNIDEE - University of Ideas.

Thoughts” project and the SCEPSI conferences run by Franco BerardiBifo.

She holds a masters degree in Visual Arts from IUAV University in Venice.

She is working research based on art in the public space and on the approach of the spectator to it. She write her degree thesis on public art in Naples, her hometown, defining the dynamics between institutions and monuments, and participatory actions and collectivity.

She worked for the Musei Civici of Venice, implementing and promoting educational activities for groups of schools, adults and families. She is cultural operator, active in the Venitian Museums network and in Biennale Foundation. She accepts skepticism towards art as a form of positive stimulation and supports projects producing culture, generating knowledge and defining social actions in the collective space.

She completed two semester studies abroad, at École de LaCambre in Brussels and at Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem. She works as an artist producing installations and performances and she finished her studies with a thesis titled “the Other israeli, the Other palestinian. Shooting the enemy”.

Since 2010 she has been conveying her artistic practice into a multidisciplinary attitude, permitting her to develop creative methods able to turn art into something accessible to all.

In 2012 she worked in the Maybe Education and Public Programs department of dOCUMENTA(13), extending her research on the uncertainty of knowledge and on the impossibility of defining the work of art. While in Kassel she coordinated the “Readers’ Circle. 100 Notes-100

UNIDEE - University of Ideas 2016 is made possible thanks to: Patrons

Piedmont Region; Compagnia di San Paolo; Creative Europe programme of the EU; CRT Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino; Fondazione Zegna; illycaffè S.p.A.

Production Residency Collaborations & Scholarships RESÒ Network; A.M. Qattan Foundation (PS); Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation (IN).

Institutional Collaborations & Scholarships

Minister of Culture of the Republic of Albania (AL); École cantonale d’art du Valais – ECAV, Sierre (CH); Fundación Universitaria Bellas Artes, Medellín (CO); Instituto Superior de Arte-ISA, La Habana (CU); École supérieure d’art et design – ESAD, Grenoble (FR); Università degli Studi di Torino (IT); Università IUAV, Venice (IT); Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan (IT); Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma (IT); Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze (IT); ISIAIstituto Superiore per le Industrie Artistiche di Faenza (IT); SACI Studio Art Centers International, Florence (IT); Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice (IT); Queens Museum, New York (US).