third Internet Pavilion by Miltos Manetas
After the Embassy of Piracy and Island of the Net, surfing in the Internet Pavilion has reached a new landing-place. Near the Maritime Terminal in Venice, a small 16th century chapel has been re-named “the church of the Unconnected�. The antique oratorio of San Ludovico has rediscovered its ancient vocation and meets with the cult of Miltos Manetas. A cult which is at the same time temporal and spiritual, profane and reclusive. The Internet population is mustered. The journey becomes withdrawal. Let us celebrate the Unconnected! The boundless Internet nation summons them: the few who do not use e-mail or do not connect with any social network, who still today remain outside the borders of the Internet world. The missing inhabitants. And they, uncontaminated, could remain oblivious. In the Internet state there are no Sans Papier, but only the blessed Unconnected. And we, the Franciscan officials of the Net will not be proselytes, we will not try to convert them nor will we become missionaries. Neither, on the other hand, do we wish to deprive ourselves of technology in order to affirm the absolute value of being Unconnected. The Unconnected are not models to imitate, but rather living proof of a divine, ancestral existence. The chance for us to achieve redemption, though never complete, from a everincreasing connectivity. Through them we can reconnect to an intimate part of ourselves, to a primordial solitude. Not that the Unconnected are intrinsically more lonely or isolated, it is just that they are still able to experience that state of definite solitude that belongs only to those who remain unconnected. An analogical binary situation: to be alone / not to be alone. The third Internet Pavilion is perhaps the tale of a journey along this ever more uncertain course. At times it seemed to be ensnared in a web of singularity, at other times in the heart of relationships. Thanks to the Unconnected we can reach the Pillars of Hercules of the Internet. The last bulwark before the point at which there is no turning back. Francesco Urbano Ragazzi