Entagled Relation

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Entangled relation Diego CIbelli

writers

Lilli Messina . Roberta Colavecchio . Antonia Stasi . Francesca La Rocca . Roberto Terraciano . Nina Ferrante . Max Andersen . Alessandra Cianelli . illustrators

Debora Califri . Giuseppina Maria Cozzolino

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introduction

The different stories presented in this book ‘ Entangled Relation ’ are ispired by the topic of the ‘Shifting Cultivation’.

Starting with the ‘format’ of the Shifting Cultivation the tales are based on two pre-emptive assumptions: the relational nature of collaboration, and the paradoxical nature of thought as a relation with difference in itself; as such, collaboration cannot be other than thought.

The basic question addressed in the stories is how to think (and therefore collaborate with) difference, how to draw a rhythmic nexus out of this encounter.

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White Between Blackness

And at the beginning stays the end.

As the day to the night.

As the White to the Black.

And as the head to the tail.

But this head is a head without a tail.

The head eats his tail, swallows it with only one bite of his serrated Jaws, thinks, the tail would follow him, burst through his inner and once again spring out.

But it isn´t so...

And the tail remains eaten and the head remains tainless.

And the tainless head cries. And the crying tainless head thinks: Once I was a head with a tail, once I was turning around and my true fellow followed.

But now...

What´s the use of a head without a tail?

Who bathes in my light?

Who do I offer my shadow?

And the head eats his tail and togetherness leads to loneliness.

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And the head eats his tail and loneliness leads to emptiness.

And the head eats his tail and emptiness leads to blackness.

And where blackness is, there is no being.

And where no being is, there is no life.

And where no life is, remains only the death.

And the lonely tainless head rots and dies.

And as the death is the nothingness, the dead head in the nothingness thinks: A head without a tail is nothing.

And nothing is empty as death.

And the death is as black as the night.

And the night is as stiff as the rest.

And the dead head rests and hardens to stone.

Stiff and inanimated, as black as the death and as restful as the night.

And the blackness in him becomes to blackness around.

And the Earth´s core inside pulls, and Earth outside pushes, and the stony head tightens. rotund as a star, Fruitless and deserted and stiff like wasteground.

Cold ash lays over him, and the tainless head rests.

Closer to the Black than to the White.

Closer to nothing than to the being.

And the dead stony head thinks: Once I was a head with a skull.

Once I was a skull made of bones.

Once I was bones, made of pure white stardust.

And once I was shiny and once I was bright.

And now...

Now I am black and now I am matt.

And the matt dead head thinks: But where Black is, there must be White. Like the day to the night.

And where White comes upon Black, where the dry meets the wet, where black rain the white light, a rainbow breaks through, between the earth and the sky.

And a rainbow is colored.

And colours are variety.

And variety is plentyness.

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And plentyness is life.

And the dead head revives.

The inanimated becomes animated.

And the dead head blooms.

And the blooming head thinks: Thinks the head, is the head.

Lilli Messina

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Octopus and the Thin Tellin or The Eternal Return of the Nascent Estate

“ ‘Once upon a time’, that’s how fables always start” - Octopus thinks, while turning the pages of his pop-up book of fairy tales. “Once upon a time”. Indeed, the figures popping up, and out, from the pages seem to be so near in time and space. They seem to be here, now. He can touch them, he can feel them with the sensors of his electrical tentacles. “Look!”, Octopus says to himself, to his figure reflected on the black mirror of his tablet, “you can do the same on this screen. Creating new worlds. Building them up with your electrical touch. Fish, sand, ocean floors, ships sailing the surface of the floating waves, green and blue, and black too.”

Octopus tries to turn his tablet on. Once upon a time, stories were written and sketched in ink, worlds and their inhabitants popped up from sheets of paper. But now… but he… he belongs to another generation, when and where electricity, instead of ink, goes from the tentacles to the sea, to sketch out new worlds, to impress and express new words, like holograms floating from the screens toward the liquid reality of the ocean, and backwards.

The tablet does not work. Octopus can’t turn it on. That’s because it’s out of power and it needs a charger to come

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back to life… Energy is a matter of cooperation, of exchange and connection. Octopus can’t find the charger, so he decides to buy a new one. “There is a pop-up store selling mobile devices near here, just behind the barrier reef. I’ll swim till the relict of the old wrecked ship, I’ll be there in two shakes of a fish’s fin… oops… better to say, in eight shakes of an octopus’ tentacles.”

Octopus swims till the relict of the old wrecked ship, then he turns the barrier reef and here it is: DELICACIES – MOBILIZE YOUR DESIRE, the neon sign says. A thin tellin is fitting the shop window with chocolate and tablets, candies and smartphones, lollipops and ultrabooks. “Thank God you’re still here! I was afraid I would not find you anymore. One can never know when the shop is moving!”

Octopus is really happy, because it’s not easy to find the same shop at the same place again. Flash retailing: stores disappear as fast and unexpectedly as they pop up!

“Hi ya! Here we are, still and again! The shop was meant to stay until next week…but actually it’s going to move tomorrow”, the thin tellin says. “Oh, really? So, I’m a very lucky mollusc!” Octopus exclaims. “Yes, you are! Just in time! Didn’t you hear about the campaign for pollution and the emergency evacuation plan? The sea is too dirty and dangereous for our survival and that of the marine flora, so the Sea League has announced the evacuation plan and a selection of projects for the proposal of new, smarter ways of inhabiting the sea, for reinventing a new one where to move and live. The contest is called SMART SEAS. In the meantime, we all have to escape somewhere else!” the thin tellin says. Octopus remembers his fairy tale book, the figures popping up from the pages, the world of magic and imagination, of dream and desire, exceeding the pages and floating together with the waves of its real world of water and filtered light. “That’s why I’m here!” he exclaimes to the thin tellin. “To buy a charger, a piece of wire that can help me revive my tablet and connect to it so that we can start up a new world!” The thin tellin smiles, her shell click-clacking, both amused and perplexed: “What are you saying, Octopus? I can’t understand you!” “I need a charger to power my tablet.

I want to turn it on and play with it, I want to touch the worlds we can build together, I want to augment the sea we’re living in with all our real imagination. And now, you

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tell me about this emergency plan, and about this selection of proposals for a new world. Come on, tellin! Come out of your shell! Stop moving from place to place with this same changing store popping up hither and thither!”

“I’m very (am)used to move from place to place, from sea to sea… I pop up with the store everytime we move. And I think it’s funny!”, the thin tellin answered back. “Funny?

Moving a temporary shop from sea to sea? Following the stream’s currents? Seasonally changing with them?

What about your desires? I want to propose you a new temporariness!”, Octopus incites. “A new temporariness?

I’m okay with the flexibility I learned popping up with(in) this shop. It changes everytime we move. The stuff inside changes, too. So, now we sell delicacies, both foods and technologies. Other times, we had books and clothes, plants and shoes… it’s not boring, Octopus. Believe me! I love this flexibility! I change everytime I move. I’m mobile too!” the thin tellin insists. “Plus, now that the Sea League is asking us to move away from these polluted waters, it’s not shocking for me! I’ve nothing to pack, being my shell my only home.”

“You know, tellin? There is the possibility to keep moving from place to place, from sea to sea, from this ocean floor to many other ones, but in a smarter way: by learning to be resilient, while feeling at home everywhere. Resilience is about springing back to an original form after it’s been squeezed or stretched. It is about desiring the changement you perform in mobility. Pop-up stores allow you to explore different places and seas, while selling the stuff someone wants you to sell. At the end of the day your shell is your home: the door locked, you are your only host. Why don’t you join me in a start-up project? It’s temporary too, I mean, it’s changing. It’s inventive and it’s ours! It is about evolving, growing, exploring and sharing desire! That’s the moment to start up a new world!

Better than the one we live in now, cleaner and smarter, sustainable and resilient! Let’s collect the forces and do project an app for clearing our oceans. Let’s contaminate waters with other energies: love and careness. Let’s make a team, a smart, plural, synergetic team! Let’s reconcile our creativity and desires with those of the machines.

Let’s become all together desiring machines! Maybe a smart sea is possible!” The thin tellin takes a charger from the shelf and takes Octopus by his third tentacle. “Let’s

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go home and turn your tablet on. Let’s take your pop-up book from the shelf. Let’s eject all inks for the writing of a new story. I share my experience as a traveler who has seen so many places, who has filtered so many sediments in the sand of so many ocean floors.” “I’ll put the force of all my tentacles, and all the smartness of my short- and long-term memory.” Octopus says. Technology will do its part in the starting up of a shared, resilient, eternal movement of return of the nascent estate.

GLOSSARY Octopus – it is a mollusc, with two eyes and eight arms, called ‘tentacles’. Octopuses are amongst the most intelligent and behaviorally flexible of all invertebrates. They inhabit many diverse regions of the ocean, including coral reefs, pelagic waters, and the ocean floors. They have numerous strategies for defending themselves against predators, including the expulsion of ink, the use of camouflage and deimatic displays, their ability to jet quickly through the water, and their ability to hide. Octopuses have a relatively short life expectancy, with some species living for as little as six months. Problem-solving experiments have shown evidence of a memory system that can store both short- and long-term memory.

Tellin – tellin is a species of marine mollusc, hermaphroditic or bisexual. It is found off the coasts of north west Europe and in the Mediterranean Sea where it lives buried in sandy sediments. It burrows in clean or slightly muddy sand and has a large foot and two long siphons which it extends to the surface of the sediment. The longer one gropes around for organic debris which is drawn down to the mollusc through this si phon while water is espelle through the other. It is both a deposit and a filter feeder.

Pop-up Store – flash retailing, a trend of opening shortterm sales spaces. The trend involves popping up one day, then disappearing anywhere from one day to several weeks later. There shops, while small and temporary, can build up interest by consumer exposure. Pop-up retail allows a company to create a unique environment that engages their customers and generates a feeling of relevance and interactivity. They are often used my marketers for seasonal items such as Halloween costumes, Christmas gifts and trees, fireworks…

To pop up means to appear suddenly from below, like pa-

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ges that rise when opened to simulate a three-dimensional form or windows suddently appearing over or above the open window on a computer screen.

Start-up – it is a business in the form of a company, a partnership or temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of development and research for markets. Conversely than small business, implementing a well-known existing strategy, start-ups explore unknown or innovative business models in order to disrupt existing markets. They are characterized by uncertainty and instability. They essentially go from failure to failure in an effort to learn from each failure and discover what does not work in the process of searching for a repeatable, high growth business model.

They are designed to grow fast: the value of a start-up rests entirely on its future growth potential.

To start up means to come or cause to come into being for the first time, originate; to spring or jump suddenly from a position or place; to set in or go into motion, activity, etc.

Roberta Colavecchio

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The eternal Nexus, and the scar of the missed encounter

Remember “I never perish but I’m never the same. I’m an endless flow.”

My alarm goes off, it’s 6.30AM. I wake up in agitation; sweat is running down my temples, a sort of metadata breakage has gone through. Something interfered with my brain-board. Again…

I feel the weight of my past following me everywhere. I can’t run away, not even in my dreams.

I must get through this, once and for all. What am I scared of?

Nexus’ words resonate in my head incessantly. I thought I had got over it. Perhaps, as a coward: data- brain quarantine.

It always comes back, just in a different way. How is that possible? I can’t delete it. It won’t go. Why? Why can’t I get past it?

I killed Nexus. That’s the reason why. I’m scared to face the truth at the other end of the stick waiting for me.

“This has happened many times… the energy won’t be lost, ever” Nexus used to say.

I’ve never understood what it meant. But now I think I might. I guess it referred to its potential contagion. Or did

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it? It had never crossed my mind that Nexus would have haunted me.

Cyber-organisms, I thought, were toys. I was too young to deal with such a responsibility.

But I did blame myself. I missed it; I didn’t make it on time.

Wired up, I reset and update my bio-software. I’m back to my homeostatic levels. I check my remote storage driver.

Here it is. I open the folder PAST, I encrypt it and close it.

I’m safe now. Firewalls, anti-malware and anti-virus software are all running. I can’t believe after all this time it is still clinging onto my system. Why is this? I must resolve this riddle. **** It feels different though. Each time, I’m changed. I can’t define it. It’s like Nexus is infecting my system without corrupting it. It’s not a vicious alteration; it’s more like an unexpected generative process whose outcome I’m not able to define. What’s it trying to tell me?

I plug the data-chip about cyber-plants into my brain to extend my research. I’m quivering while I’m reopening my PAST folder.

I scan trough everything, different processes are on at the same time; I don’t feel safe.

I get lost into images of the past, recordings and academic definitions about cyber-organisms. My childhood, my first chip, the seed of Nexus planted, the video of the missed encounter. I’m smiling with my friends. Everything goes fragmented. Death. Overload. “Go back to right levels!”

It’s not responding. Security warning… **** 5 hours later I find myself crouched down on the floor. I had passed out.

I’ve got an excruciating headache.

I open my eyes, but I’m still wired up. All I see is Nexus under the bright springy sunshine. Its colours are unbelievable, from a silver purple to indigo, it changes according to the position of the sun, getting touches of crimson and emerald at times. Its scent is so sweet, a mixture of citruses, flowers and vanilla. I will never forget that perfume.

It takes me straight back to my early days.

The images move quickly backward in time.

I’m smiling, happy as ever. I had waited patiently for 3

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weeks to see the little seed changing shape and piercing through the vitaminized soil. I had watered it every two days, according to the instructions, left it in the sun for 2 hours in the morning and under the nurturing lamp for 1, every night. My mum had got it for me to teach me about collaboration, she said.

“Honey, the seed needs you along with the little bioevolving chip and all the elements like the sun, the water, the soil and… it’s a question of collaboration. Do you understand? It’s not a toy like the others. If one of you guys misses the encounter when needed, Nexus would change its flow and you might not see him again in the same shape.” **** “Are you a special flower?”

“Me? I’m Nexus, that’s what I am.”

“What do you mean? Is that your name?”

Gosh, I had forgotten everything about it. Now I understand. I had been scared for ages to go back to my past.

I learnt how to put my folders in quarantine when I was only 8. When you put your folders in quarantine you forget about what’s in it. It tricks the brain, that’s its purpose.

Even if Nexus has been able to infect my system, every time, I had been able to keep everything hidden.

That’s it now! With my eyes wide open again, I start from the very beginning; from my mum’s words.

Open search engine. Search for collaboration. Collocation found. Definition: the creation of a nexus. A ‘togetherness’ of occasions of experience, a participation of elements where every actual entity, is the temporary singular ‘encapsulation’ of many different and diverging potentials .

“The creation of a nexus?? Nexus!!

No way! its name…

Hallucinations. Nexus again is rubbing against my optic nerve. I see it. “ You took your time. “ “What? This isn’t real. It can be you. I killed you!”

“I can’t die. My life is a transformative curve.”

We are all part of a collaborative nature, of a bigger nexus. We never dissolve. We just change. We are potential, energy flow, that at times become resilient. We

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influence each other into different directions. I was a resilient being that now has changed its configuration. I don’t exist in the same shape but my energy is still going around in an endless flow. I was born from a potentiality.

I took my configuration thanks to you and the elements.

You guided me into that direction.

I was the result of a generative collaboration.

“I don’t understand. That day I forgot about you. The sun burnt all of your constituents. I found you lifeless, the chip was discharged, and…”

“Mother Earth kept my nutrients and made food out of me for the constitution of other beings. My chip sent a scarring virus into your metadata at the moment you found me out and realized you had missed our encounter.

That was not my act. I can’t stop anything from flowing and changing and collaborating. That scar was only to tell you the secret of the silence of transformation that lies upon every being. It was my way to tell you that I still exist, I do in you, in the soil and in every little thing around.

But at the same time that’s not me anymore.” “ We are contagions. Whatever kind of living organism we are. You are the product of collaboration, you are a nexus too. You are being resilient, the “temporary singular ‘encapsulation’ of many different and diverging potentials”.

Soon your energy will change its shape. I’m guiding you.

Like me, you will fight to perpetuate your flow without even realizing it.”

I see the flashing lights of the recovering chamber. Doctors and programmers are working on me at the same time. I open my eyes, from above I see my body on a stretcher. My brain-board will be reprogrammed, they say, to be implanted along with my eyes into another being. My lungs will be kept into a self-evolving solution to experiment the latest technology on breathing and my heart will be held in reserve for a month connected to a pumping appliance and after being restored it will be donated to a patient of this branch.

Collaboration and change.

I laugh. Nexus freed my energy. I’m ecstatic, and on the move, again and again…

Antonia Stasi

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A paper puddle

When I was a little girl, I would often go to my uncle’s a-telly. I called it like that because I could not pronounce that French word the grown-ups said. It was an enchanted place, packed with all things strange, coloured objects looking like mechanical harlequins, space indian totems from another galaxy. It was a a world of shapes, pure shapes: it was like standing in a funny Eucleadean geometry book. Spheres, cubes, zigzag lines.

And yet, when I was there, drawing on my scrapbook on his desk, my uncle would tell me that those shapes were not really real, they were abstraction, that is, they were rules of repetition humans learned from nature, they exited the natural thing and entered another object.

The evident proof was in my doodles: the blue sun i drew, my mom’s and daddy’s eyes in the same size of their mouth, pink trees and yellow meadows. It was just a matter of time, he said, and those abstraction would return to nature. My uncle explained to me that his job was getting those abstract objects grow in something else. Planets are round, the Earth is round, yet it is not a perfect sphere,

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and probably a perfect sphere does not exist in nature.

And yet it can serve as the base of a cup or it is the empty belly of a teapot. It was just a matter of time: that shape, that sphere, that cone or pyramid was a reincarnation of abstract objects and archeologists could guess what time and whose civilization that object belonged to, beyond a shadow of the doubt. That concrete object was made of different matters and ideas, eternal ideas, that just like skrews and linchpins kept together the matter of the thing in a certain composition, it worked like a signature of the times.

“See, my dear” he told me once “ideas are waves, they do not move horizontally, but up and down rhythmically: it looks like water is moving but its surface is not. Have you ever tried to throw a stone in a pond? the leaf resting on the surface does not follow the ripple, it rather stays or drifts gently in other directions. So are ideas, they travel through people and return to the object. For example, when I was young, me and other people like me whose job is to imagine new things, thought that glossy was the quality of future things, so we stole the gloss and the glare from the honey and the water and brought them to almost everything: cloths, furniture, cars. But again, it was just a matter of time. That ripple had just passed from hand to hand, from heart to heart, from head to head, from one object to another. When people meet, just like ripples in a pond or a puddle coming from different stones, they create other ripples, a different set of waves with different patterns, different ideas. So my you young lady, forget about heroes and geniuses, they deserve being celebrated only because they organize things so that they propagate and repeat like waves, they melt things, they take eternal objects and make them mortal for the mortals”.

Those obscure words echoed in his a-telly. That place was the puddle where those waves became everyday things, that transformed themselves in the houses of who bought them or found them: they were born all the same, well not exactely the same...if you know what I mean.

Then they turned into many other things: a gift, a roman-

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tinc thought, an unwanted present. A mug is also its sharp vein from a violent argument, and the glue of peacemaking. I remember that magic place like that: a lamp hanging on my uncle’s desk like the leg of a spider, pencils and brushes in all shapes and sizes, coloured cryons, scattered sketches, seeming to resonate in a harmony of mathematical precision. A math I couldn’t grasp the sense of, if not today, when I see that place form afar with my memory’s eyes.

At times, my attention was caught mainly by a book showing the rims of certain polaroid photos. Well it is not a book, rather a diary, a scrapbook where he wrote down everything he was thinking of and reading about meticulously. Polaroids were the stone he threw into that paper puddle. That book, filled with thoughts and quotations, was a machine that produced the ideas my uncle gave to the industry so that they could be brought materially into our world. Here they are, his polaroids from Sardinia, Paris and Nepal. But let me share with you some of his notes...

ATTRAZIONE MEDITERRANEA …una reazione alle materie lucide e cellophanizzate del 1920, ai vestiti di lamè, alle brillantine, agli smalti delle automobili (…) nasce un certo amore per tutto quello che è mediterraneo …è un amore per tutte le cose fatte con le mani e corrose nei secoli, dal sole e dalle sabbie bollenti; amore per i colori violenti e vecchi, per le materie dolci e granulose, per le paste tenere e fragili (67) SARDEGNA 1950: Sardegna meridionale, pianeggiante.

Le case sono costruite in mattoni crudi di fango e paglia e naturalmente non si può dire che siano case solide. Non è raro che le inondazioni le facciano sparire sciogliendole…

Il ramo di gerani rosa che il miserabile accattone dell’isola di Sant’Antioco ha piantato sopra l’ingresso bianco di calce della grotta che è la sua abitazione è una specie di avvertimento: l’architettura può essere fatta di poco, di molto poco, purché questo poco sia tutto quello che gli uomini devono avere per non dimenticarsi di esse-

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re uomini e niente altro… la miseria che non vuol dire pessimismo e non vuol dire melancolia ma anche serenità e freschezza… legare una sedia a un muro per metterci sopra dei fiori (52-58) MATERA 1956: La casa, la grotta più oscura del più povero abitante di Matera è un congegno infinitamente più complicato e raffinato di un superbombardiere o di una portaerei… Più complicato e più raffinato perché più misterioso e più magico. Perché la tecnica dell’architettura è la tecnica della magia : in essa giocano tutte insieme le carte umane dalla pazzia al sesso, dalle lacrime ai sorrisi, dalle emozioni ai ragionamenti. (98) FILICUDI 1988: Quando comincia il giorno, all’alba, l’isola di Filicudi è soffocata da tonnellate bollenti di luce solare, è come schiacciata da strati di miliardi di watt di luce che bruciano le erbe, gli animali, i sassi… Su tutto il mediterraneo e su tutta l’Africa del Nord, giù fino ai deserti sahariani e su tutta l’Asia Minore fino ai deserti bassi dell’Iraq e dell’Iran e su tutti i lunghi, interminabili deserti a nord dell’Himalaia…la luce dell’immensa lampadina del sole arriva senza filtri, precipita senza pietà, acceca gli occhi, brucia i polmoni, violenta i corpi, impedisce la vita… ombra oscurità, tenebre immobili, asfissianti, sembra fossero una specie di visione continua attraverso la vita quotidiana… una specie di luogo ottico da cercare possedere e non abbandonare mai. (356-360) UNA TECNICA MICIDIALE I giapponesi hanno lavorato alla materia molto più di quanto abbiano fatto i mediterranei in millenni, fino ad arrivare ad un risultato astuto e teso, molto più liscio e lucido che non il cellophane o il cromo degli anni ’20.

Basta guardare i legnetti dove si arrotolano in quadri dei giapponesi e come sono fissati i nastri per legare il rotolo e poi l’astuccio per metterci il rotolo: si capisce che tutto questo è un affare di tecnica arrabbiata e micidiale, dove non resta più niente di naturale, dove il sole e la pioggia e tutte le altre cose misericordiose di questo mondo, queste grossolane e immediate cose misericordiose si dimenticano subito … … e gli americani del primo Novecento hanno scelto

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giusto quando hanno scelto l’Oriente invece del Mediterraneo, perché da americani dovevano trovare un fondo folkloristico che continuasse a funzionare con il mito meccanicistico (68) TRA FRANCOFORTE E TORONTO 1991: Mi viene in mente che più nascono le città, più spuntano case ovunque sul pianeta, più siamo chiusi in mezzo ai muri e più si moltiplicano le agenzie che ti fanno vedere la natura… vedo la natura dal finestrino dell’aereo, vedo nuvole, strati di nuvole orizzontali sul pianeta. Non capisco bene, sto andando da Francoforte a Toronto ma fuori ci sono strati orizzontali di nuvole come si vedono su Marte, su Giove: deve essere davvero la natura.

COESISTENZA DI CORRENTI VITALI Nelle città indiane circolano liberamente le vacche sacre, che pensose attraversano strade e viali; sostano e dormono sugli spartitraffico e rubano verdure dai negozi. Investirle o ucciderle è proibito e soprattutto è peccato mortale e comporta la maledizione degli dei che le proteggono.

Qualche elefante contende la precedenza ai camion, mentre cammelli trascinano carri carichi di verdura; le scimmie e i babbuini si fanno dispetti sopra computer e stampanti … spesso si vede volare in alto gli avvoltoi che mangiano i cadaveri dei nobili parsi, esposti sulle torri appositamente costruite. Sui teleschermi, decorati come altari fioriti, scorrono a puntate i sacri miti Veda; i vivi e i morti convivono, le tecnologie avanzate con le teologie antiche, dentro a un sistema di flussi vitali che non si interrompono mai.

Queste sono le città dove l’ospitalità è interpretata nella sua dimensione più cosmica, come un sistema nel quale convivono il sacro e il profano, il regno umano e quello animale; davanti a loro la rigida logica antropo-centrica delle nostre città occidentali dimostra tutti i suoi limiti di ambiente mono-logico, ossessivo, istericamente specializzato; che può solo crescere di spessore e di dimensione, senza aumentare mai la sua profondità universale. (Andrea Branzi) BIRMANIA 1962: Nel tempio buddista, che poi non è un tempio ma una città di tempietti e vetrine e portici, ci sono bambini che giocano e gente con grandi fornelli che

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fa da mangiare per i banchetti e ci sono anche i banchetti con le belle ragazze sorridenti birmane, occhi neri e fiori nei capelli, che bevono strane cose con i cucchiai di porcellana mentre i suonatori accoccolati suonano melodie e i grassoni dormono sdraiati vicino a Buddha … e i monaci color zafferano passeggiano alla luce del tramonto e poi ci sno quelli che vendono caramelle… (108) INDIA DEL SUD 1962: … templi che ho visto sono come città immense, enormi postriboli, grandi luna park, sterminati caravanserragli, giornate di festa con fumi che salgono al cielo e odori, scimmie, lebbrosi, miserabili, bambini, donne, prostitute, vecchi e preti, cesti di fiori color zafferano e petali sulle scalinate, scalinate bagnate d’acqua, e suoni di tamburi. (118) JAIPUR 1962: è una città costruita su un piano reticolare molto rigido, e al centro c’è il palazzo, circondato da late mura, affondato nel silenzio dei suoi cortili… illuminato da penombre, collegato da rampe incassate tra mura perché le cortigiane, che si spostavano soltanto in portantina, non fossero viste o rapite… Così questa Jaipur intorno al suo palazzo metafisico è una città fredda anche se rosa. È una città fredda intorno al suo palazzo anche più freddo, immenso labirinto meraviglioso, tutto rosa. Intorno al palazzo la gente vive la sua vita quotidiana e grazie a Dio, piano piano, distrugge con l’orina e con lo sterco, con la negligenza e la pigrizia, con l’assassinio e lo stupro, distrugge piano piano la città tutta rosa, irreale e piano piano ne fa una città reale (119) NEPAL 1966: Siamo arrivato a Kathmandu alle due del pomeriggio, ma il tramonto è arrivato rapido e freddo con il sole precipitato dietro le creste dell’Himalaia… rovine e roghi che bruciano adagio; fiumi di piombo e cadaveri grigi messi da parte sul bordo della strada; scimmie aggressive; impolverate statue di Buddha, di Avalokiteshvara, di Uma-Maheshvara, di Lakshmi-Narayana spruzzate di minio; boschi trasparenti di faggi dove le tibetane con fiori nei capelli e orecchini di turchese fanno il picnic; sbiadite antiche bandiere sacre e fumetti pornografici scolpiti nei legni delle pagode; falchi precipitati sulle carogne intoccabili e fontane dove gli uomini si lavano nudi; idoli infernali dipinti di blu da drogheria e del sacro zafferano; vergini

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bambine dee dagli occhi bistrati e sassi idolatrati affondati per terra… (166) LA METROPOLI DEGLI UMANI La città oggi è fatta dai corpi degli umani, il paesaggio è fatto dalla massa degli umani, e tutti noi componiamo un landscape. Questo landscape è fatto di noi con su i nostri vestiti che sono le trame, i colori, le forme, e non a caso oggi la più grande forma di espressione è la moda. La moda oggi costruisce la forma della città; se voi andate in Oriente dove gli umani sono molto più numerosi che qui, vedete solo umani.

Sappiamo anche che dopo le grandi distruzioni delle città sono gli umani che rimangono e le loro relazioni; dopo Hiroshyma, non è stata l’architettura a ricostruire e continuare e ricordare ma sono stati gli umani, intendo che sono i nostri corpi.

I corpi oggi sono la dimensione più straordinaria che potete usare per vivere insieme, perché tutti noi siamo diversi (Italo Rota) COSTA AZZURRA 1953 : La gente si mette scarpe di corda e vestiti qualunque, si veste e si spoglia dietro a un asciugamano, si siede sulle pietre e sull’erba sotto gli alberi, mangia per strada, si lava nei fiumi. Gli uni con gli altri si guardano e non si guardano, si salutano e non si salutano e tutto questo vuol dire che la gente di tutto il mondo è terribilmente sociale, così sociale che tutti possono fare i loro comodi senza isterismi e sciolti come se tutti i gesti e tutti i movimenti fossero snodati, smontabili e rimontabili come le tende bianche, gialle e verdi che riempiono la Costa (61) CALCUTTA 1962: Per due ore abbiamo attraversato la città di non so quanti milioni di abitanti e poi periferie senza fine, viaggiando nella nebbia e nel fumo di sterco di vacca bruciato per scaldare milioni di scodelle di latte per quei milioni di fantasmi indiani che cominciavano la giornata.

Muovevano adagio lunghe tibie e femori marrone, costole e scapole e mani con le palme bianche.

Dalla nebbia, come vascelli, ci venivano addosso giganteschi autobus azzurri straboccanti di fantasmi.

PARIGI 1964: È stato a Parigi l’altro giorno che mi sono

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trovato al primo piano di Vog a guardare centinaia di ragazzine che salivano la scala stretta spingendosi indaffarate per arrivare in tempo a comprarsi magliette, giacchette, pelliccette, pulloverini, berretti, gonne, calze, calzette e cose da vestire… si stavano vestendo di pezzi di vestito messi insieme come si mettono insieme i pezzi di un meccanismo o i pezzi di una carrozzeria, in rapporti da choc, senza più le gradazioni, i pendant, il colore che va con questo colore che va con quello e la borsetta che combina e quelle storie normali eccetera…. Vestite come erano dalla testa ai piedi – senza testa, senza braccia, senza piedi – sembravano segnali o segnalazioni… se le donne si convinceranno che braccia, gambe, seni, piedi e testa possono anche rientrare in un gioco semantico d’altro genere, nel quale il sesso quasi quasi sia dato per scontato…i colori erano come di gesso o vernici di automobili… i vestiti erano come imballaggi, industrial design per corpi di ragazze.

SAN FRANCISCO 1966: …la vita quotidiana non è un mito, non si svolge mai per strade mitiche… Quello che so è che quando siamo stati l’ultima volta a San Francisco e siamo andati in giro di qua e di là di notte nelle case di amici degli amici e amici degli amici degli amici, una specie di fiumana notturna di ragazzi e ragazze, studenti, poeti, pittori, omosessuali, drogati, cantanti, impiegati, operai delle stazioni di benzina, amici degli amici dei quali non sapevamo né nome, né cognome, né origini, né futuro, né fedina penale, né camicia, né portafoglio, né amante né niente e siamo passati in case di cui non sapevamo né indirizzo, né entrata, né uscita, né proprietario e nessuno sapeva niente di noi che venivamo da un altro continente… (158) Le case degli amici degli amici degli amici della West Coast non sono proprio altro che bucce. Poi si buttano.

La casa è diventata non altro che un packaging per i gesti della vita quotidiana.

FLUSSO ININTERROTTO DELLE DIFFERENZE Nelle nostre città si è formato una sorta di filtro attivo, una cortina dinamica costituita dai corpi di centinaia di migliaia di persone, che formano un vero e proprio paesaggio di presenze espressive, che invade ogni spazio e

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ogni luogo… Ciò che fa la differenza tra una città e un’altra, tra una strada e un’altra, tra un territorio e un altro, non è più l’architettura e i suoi simboli formali, rigidi, immobili e lontani, ma le presenze umane, invadenti, viventi, varianti; uniche cellule portatrici di vere diversità, di eccezione, di informazioni culturali profonde; terminali di memorie viventi di storie diverse. È la qualità delle persone, dei loro gesti, del loro abbigliamento, della loro fisionomia, che fa la differenza evidente tra Dehli e Milano, tra Parigi e Napoli... Sei miliardi e mezzo di persone stanno costituendo in tutto il mondo una sorta di plancton orizzontale avvolgente, che invade lo spazio e crea una esperienza visiva e relazionale del tutto nuova (Andrea Branzi)

Francesca La Rocca Roberto Terraciano

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Hey I’m Here

Dear You, I know that it is very weird that I’m writing you a letter, but I have to tell you a secret.

I felt too silly and insecure writing it, so I rolled my letter into a paper ball and threw it out of the window of the classroom.

Outside the window a kid came by singing a song that was made up as it passed by: “Lalalal la la I like to kick to things when I walk in the city la la lalala or by the sea la lalala or on the country side.

Lalalala la I just like to kick whatever is in front of my foot when I walk. Not if I run only when I walk. Lalalal la lalala Like this ball of paper.” The kid kicked the ball of paper down the hill.

Down the hill someone got excited by the rolling paper ball and whispered: “I’m so lucky now I have a paper to write where I buried my stuff, I can hide it in the hole in the oak over there.”

I hide my favourite leisure in a box called treasure if you want to let it free come and search under the tree.

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“Who dirties my home?” the squirrel said, when the someone put the paper ball in its home on the hole in the oak. “I hate this paper. It is messy. I will throw it away” And out went the paper ball, back out onto the street.

The paper ball was alone on the street, in the grass, at the foot of the tree for a while. Then a group of friends came by the oak.

“We will forget all the things for the party, unless we write it down. But where? Look there is a paper in the grass, next to the tree. Okay, we will need:” Balloons, Confetti, Plastic cups, Human size paper, scissors, make up in all imaginary colours, sequins, glitter, glue, sewing thread, tomatoes, sparkle water x10, fresh spinach, flour, strawberries, cream.

After the friends had been out collecting the things they needed, they forgot about the paper ball and left it all straightened out in a shopping trolley, but it didn’t last long before a small person with a big beard came by and found it there in the trolley: “YAY!” the person screamed. “I love it when people forget their shopping list in the trolley and how beautiful things they needed on this list. It is a beautiful list. I will fold it into a paper plane so that it can fly away in the sky.”

And so the person did. The paper ball that had been straightened out was now folded into a paper plane and went around led by the wind. Until it was stopped on its route by the head of a sailor, who was dipping her feet in the sea.

“Look at what the wind brought to me to this sunny beach: a paper plane. I will write down my wishes and i offer them to the sea, in the shape of a boat this paper plane will be”.

On the paper, the sailor wrote: These are the things I want to give you, my presents full of hope. With you I can travel far even if I don’t have to row. Take me to faraway shores where wild things are.

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Then the paper got shaped as a boat and gently put out on the sea and the sailor waved good bye as the paper boat disappeared in the horizon. Out on the sea a dolphin swimming by, pushed the boat further out on top on freshly made waves. There was an octopus who picked up the boat and joggled it with its eight arms until a big but nervous whale blew the dolphin, the octopus, and the paper boat up in the sky. The dolphin and the octopus quickly went back into the water, but the wind took the paper boat and dropped it on a big ship. On the ship a pirate found it an got very confused.

“What is this thing that landed on my ship? I have always been a pirate and I have sailed the seven seas, but never have I seen something like this: boat of paper. Hm, i guess it is perfect as a log for my journey until I reach the secret island”.

The pirate wrote: I’ll follow the path of the rising moon, and then i stir to the eastern star. I’ll turn the helm thrice until i found the milky way, and then where the waters get calm, here we reach the island where all dreams come true.

But earlier the same day the pirate had made an enemy, when a seagull was pushed away from the pirates precious dinner on the ship.

“Squak Squak” the seagull screamed “I hate you pirate and I will eat your precious paper boat now”. The seagull grabbed the paper boat and flew away. On its way it pooed on the pirate, who was jumping up and down of anger.

But the seagull quickly discovered that the paper boat was not a delicious meal, so it dropped the paper boat as it passed over a small island. That was very lucky because on the small island was someone who exactly needed a paper.

“What a blessed castaway am I! The seagull dropped a paper for me to write a letter for someone to rescue me.

Inside this bottle, on the gentle waves, my SOS will flow”.

The SOS letter said:

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If you are reading this letter, this means that you can take care of me. Take me to the places that I love. Pizza and Ice creams, a comfortable bed and cuddles are for sure waiting for me. Give me a sign scream out ‘Hey I’m here!!!’.

The letter in the bottle went on a journey back into the sea. On its way it went by the dolphin swimming by, and once again the dolphin pushed the letter further out on top on freshly made waves. Also the octopus came by again, it was now joggling the big whale so it didn’t have time to play with the letter. Instead the whale and the octopus waves at the bottled letter as it drifted on. After days and days something caught the neck of the bottle. It was the string from a fishing rod.

“A whole day sitting on the dock waiting to catch a fish and what do I get: the strangest transparent beast! No wait, what is this? I have fetched a bottle with a letter inside. I will read the letter later, but the bottle is beautiful and shine I will keep that” The letter was forgotten on the dock, but a pretty chubby bird came flew by the dock and recognised the doodles in one of the corners of the letter, and knew who needed it back. The bird went back to the class room.

“Tweet tweet, teacher” the bird sang “I’ve found a piece of paper that I know for sure belongs to one of your kids”.

“Thank you for bringing it back, bird. Let me see” The teacher started reading it, first inside but then decided to read aloud, so everyone could hear it: “ Dear You, I know that it is very weird that I’m writing you a letter, but I have to tell you a secret.

I hide my favourite leisure in a box called treasure if you want to let it free come and search under the tree.

Balloons, Confetti, Plastic cups, Human size paper, scissors, make up in all imaginary colours, sequins, glitter, glue,

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sewing thread, tomatoes, sparkle water x10, fresh spinach, flour, strawberries, cream.

I’ll follow the path of the rising moon, and then i stir to the eastern star. I’ll turn the helm thrice until i found the milky way, and then where the waters get calm, here we reach the island where all dreams come true.

If you are reading this letter, this means that you can take care of me. Take me to the places that i love. Pizza and Ice creams, a comfortable bed and cuddles are for sure waiting for me. Give me a sign scream out ‘Hey I’m here!!!’.

In the classroom they felt as if someone had written a letter for them and stood up, jumped, twisted, danced and yelled “Hey I’m here, Hey I’m here, Hey I’m here.”

“I’m still wondering if that was my letter, i thought that I was going to be alone with my secret but now that everyone know I have one, I think: WOW the tale is getting so much better!”

Nina Ferrante Max Andersen Roberto Terracciano

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Le due Dee. Chi da il cibo da le regole.

A long time ago, in a luxuriant land surrounded by the sea, there used to be a powerful goddess with gold hair and several names.

One of her names was Demeter : she was the goddess of fertility and vegetation.

At that time, men were nomads who lived on tubers, plants and fruits. There were no peasants tilling the soil and the ground spontaneously yielded whatever needed.

Demeter had a daughter called Persephone who also had many names.

They were both called the two goddesses: the Mother goddess, Earth, and the Daughter goddess, Korè.

One day Persephone was playing with her friends and picking up flowers in a field when the earth opened up under her feet: Ade, the Lord of the Underworld, suddenly showed up and forced her to get on his chariot.

He kidnapped her with the help of her father Zeus in order to make her his wife as well as the queen of the underworld.

Demeter heard her daughter screaming but she was too far away to help her out.

Demeter’s heart broke up just like the earth cut open under her feet.

Demeter desperately started to look for her daughter.

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After nine days, her search proved to be vain but she met with the old goddess, Ecate.

Ecate had managed to hear Persephone screaming although she didn’t see anything. Therefore, she suggested Demeter to turn to Helios, the sun, the only one that could have seen from above what had really happened.

Helios told Demeter the whole truth. Furious and sad, Demeter left the Olympus with no care either for men or gods.

The earth became barren and both men and animals started to die of hunger.

The dreadful plague of famine arrived which caused great suffering to mankind and lack of sacrifices offered to the gods.

Demeter, wearing a gloomy mantel over her shoulders, dashed towards the earth just like a bird.

She crossed towns and fields holding burning torches.

With her heart made hard by a deep sorrow, she disguised herself so that no human being could recognize her.

She was welcomed by the daughters of Celeo, king of Eleusi. None of them recognized Demeter who, once her life and soul were left to the harshness of her heart, hid herself in Eleusi.

Therefore, Zeus talked to his brother Ade who settled to let Persefone go back to her Mother. However, before setting her free, Ade made Persefone eat the seeds of a magic pomegranate which would have forced her to go back to him over the year.

Whoever doesn’t eat the products of his land, he can’t belong to it.

I eat what offered by my land, therefore I belong to it.

At last, the Daughter meet the Mother again.

The Mother went back to the Olympus and men managed to receive food, the Goddess’ fruits.

Men resumed the sacrifices, nourishment for the Gods.

With Persefone close to her, Demeter was able to make the earth bloom with flowers, plants and fruit. However, every time Persefone was leaving to go back to the underworld, Demeter’s pain dried up the soil.

As a consequence, the Mother revealed to Celeo, who had previously welcomed her, the secret of the pomegranate seed and gave to Trittolemo, Celeo’s son, the duty of teaching it to men.

Three times returned to life

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Three times passed away In the earth In the fire In the stomach It eats everything and everything is eaten up Life exists because it devours life.

The earth, just like the seeds in the soil or the vegetation blooming and withering on the ground, spends some of the year in the nether world and the remaining months in the kingdom of the living beings.

Whoever gives food is the giver of rules.

This was also the inmost precept of recurrence When there was lack of fruits and greens from the woods there were no hunger and death.

Living creatures are bred by food They all exist thanks to it and, in the end, they turn into it.

Agriculture made men free from wandering in search of nourishment : they settled down, they shared out lands, they started to cultivate the grounds and they founded the first villages.

The very first town represented the place where those men had spread their seeds while sharing fields, experiences and the knowledge of agriculture, Demeter’s gift to them.

I was born in my land, I’m nourished by my land, I die in my land.

Close to the fields, men built up their houses and a place where to worship the two Goddesses who, every year, managed to meet again in that specific dwelling.

Since then, marvelous ceremonies were held in the Goddesses’ dwelling to honor them and their gifts : every year, men met again to recall and whisper to their sons the secret of the two gifts.

Ancient people used to bury their dead inside terracotta vases.

Ancient people used to keep seeds in terracotta vases.

Some ancient people used to eat their dead.

Alessandra Cianelli

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itroduction

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White Between Blackness

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Octopus and the Thin Tellin or The Eternal Return of the Nascent Estate

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The eternal Nexus, and the scar of the missed encounter

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A paper puddle

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Hey I’m Here

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Le due Dee. Chi da il cibo da le regole

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