BOB - Lonely?

#1 Soundtrack 10+1 Dallas vs. Milan Headphones Wild Things The Melancholy of Modernity Pills of Wisdom

DECEMBER'09/JANUARY'10

L O NELY? 1

EDITORIAL TEAM

DIRECTOR Kiki Sideris CHIEF EDITOR Alix Doran ART, CULTURE, INTERACTION EDITORS Neri Bastiancich Camilla Pietrabissa Giovanni Saladino MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT EDITORS Livia Andrea Piazza Filippo Nava PHOTOSPECTIVES EDITOR Stephanie Serra UPSIDE DOWN EDITOR Sonia Fanoni BLOG Rosa Plijnaar COMMUNICATION Matteo Zanetti Julia Westermann Valia Xanthopoulou-Tsitsoni Lorenzo Tubertini FINANCES Sofia Adamantopoulou

2 © Sonia Fanoni

ISSUE #1 Alone in the dark Loneliness can be interpreted in so many ways that, as a theme, it might scare for different reasons. It may seem like such a broad term that one should narrow it down before even thinking about dealing with it, or it might simply seem so vast and common to all of us that it is better left alone, a theme to be dealt with privately. It is a both an extremely personal theme (the things that make us feel lonely are deeply connected to who we are and what we expect from, or want to share with, others), but it simultaneously touches every single one of us (who can honestly say they have never felt lonely?).

Precisely because it is personal but also common to all of us, what better way to talk about loneliness than through articles related to a variety of themes, and involving the reader in different worlds and 'minds'? These articles will give us the opportunity to reflect on other ways of interpreting loneliness, or other people's way of dealing with it.

But reading is also a moment for each and every one of us to be alone, to take the time to lock ourselves in our own 'bubble', and read about others. Our own loneliness becomes less present when we ourselves feel the presence, even only on paper, of others feeling the same way we do. By retrieving ourselves from the surrounding agitation and letting ourselves be absorbed by others' stories and adventures, we decide to be alone so we can think about how not to be lonely.

Loneliness means different things to each of us, and also changes meaning over time. But as it is generally accepted as a rather sad feeling, perhaps what matters more to us is how to deal with loneliness: the one that enables an artist to create, the need to be alone to appreciate company, or even simply things that we would otherwise not appreciate as much, loneliness that therefore also teaches us to appreciate what surrounds us... Loneliness may emerge as a feeling that is not all negative and potentially destructive.

As we were preparing this issue, and as I was reading the articles published in the following pages, loneliness was in fact not the feeling I felt. On the contrary. Even though it was the theme we were focusing on, I only witnessed a willingness to get involved, to share, to communicate. And sharing with you what we have selected as lonely themes and diverse approaches to deal with being lonely is perhaps, for us, our own way of dealing with our occasional loneliness, and turn it into a productive process.

As loneliness is a universal feeling interpreted and dealt with in a variety of ways, the variety of articles included in Issue#1 of BOB Magazine will I hope illustrate the different ways in which loneliness was interpreted by the authors of the articles. This issue brings together diverse themes such as difficult break-ups, empty worlds and places, isolated people and objects, but also hope. Hope that by expressing loneliness and accepting it, we can use lonely moments to grow and find solutions.

BOB Issue#1 Alone In The Dark is not meant to be depressing for the reader! I personally even believe that you will find energy and life in the articles published in the following pages.

As a last point before letting you read Alone In The Dark, I would simply like to introduce the new sections of BOB Magazine. After Issue#0, so many ideas came to our minds that it was difficult to keep exactly the same sections that had been created for the very first issue of BOB Magazine. Issue#1 therefore includes new sections that I hope you will enjoy: Interaction is our new interview section, designed to let people express themselves freely; 10+1 invites you to sit down and listen to music while reading BOB Magazine; Editor's Choice offers space for an extra article I will let you discover in your own time. And after all this, if you feel like reading more, we will not let you down and feel lonely without BOB Magazine: We will regularly publish articles on the BOB Magazine blog!

And now... time to read!

-Alix Doran CHIEF EDITOR 3

CONTENTS SOUNDTRACK 10+1

by Niccolò Bonazzon and Filippo Nava

6

ART The melancholy of modernity

10

It's Sophie Calle: Prenez soin de vous

12

by Julia Westermann

by Giulia Rosso

OUR PHOTOSPECTIVES Time just does not exist...

by Stephanie Serra

14

CULTURE Artifacts: Lonely pieces or parts of a whole?

26

Elle Muliarchyk: Alone in a dressing room

28

by Sofia Adamantopoulou

by Francesca D'Ambrogio

UPSIDE DOWN Dallas vs. Milan

by Sonia Fanoni

4

30

MEDIA 34

The names of things following those things into oblivion

by Andrea Parapini

36

Wild Things

38

YOUR PHOTOSPECTIVES

by Marzia De Clercq

by various contributors

ENTERTAINMENT 50

Headphones

52

Punks Wear Prada

by Gabriele Marino

by Alexandra Bode

INTERACTION 56

Several mistakes, some solutions

58

Pills of wisdom

interview of Pesce Khete by Giovanni Saladino

interview of Stefania Gerevini by Giovanni Saladino

EDITOR'S CHOICE 60

The Traveler: A lonely wanderer

by Gabriele Erba

5

SOUNDTRACK 10 + 1

INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE: Before reading this issue 1. Relax 2. Read over the following 10+1 tracks 3. Look for them at your nearest record store or favorite online music source 4. Burn a CD or make a playlist on your media player 5. Press play 6. Turn the page and 7. Enjoy the newest issue of BOB accompanied by a lonely soundtrack

6

by Niccolò Bonazzon & Filippo Nava 7

8

ART

We are continuously being exposed to all kinds of art products; collections, exhibitions, fairs, biennials, conferences, and the list goes on. But what do such experiences really give us?

How can we avoid just being passive users and instead adopt a more inquisitive approach? Books, academic journals, and university lectures can help, but ultimately the most powerful tool we hold, is our individual ability to process the images that invade our field of vision on a daily basis.

In this issue we will first 'Hopper' between Milan and Rotterdam. Then we will see how Sophie Calle dealt with a tough break-up.

9

THE MELANCHOLY OF MODERNITY

by Julia Westermann

Edward Hopper, Self Portrait, 1925-1930. Öl auf Leinwand 64,1 x 52,4cm Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Vermächtnis Josephine N. Hopper

10

He is probably the most well-known American artist of the beginning of the 20th century – Edward Hopper. Two big European exhibitions are currently dedicated to him: “Modern Life. Edward Hopper and his Time”, hosted at the Kunsthal Rotterdam, Netherlands, and the Milanese exhibition “Edward Hopper”, at Palazzo Reale.

Two very different exhibitions: the former putting the mature Hopper in the context of the diverse and controversial tendencies of American Art of the early 20th century. The latter focusing on the development of Hopper's incomparable personal artistic style. But both portraying an artist, who lived through the troublesome decades of the beginning of the century, and who painted a significant portrait of his time. Taking them together, they give a complementary overview about Hopper and his contemporaries.

Between Realism and Abstraction In order to understand his work and the recurring theme of loneliness, it is crucial to consider it against the background of his time. In the United States, the 20th century was welcomed with great confidence. People believed a new world was coming, and that anything was possible. Social, cultural, and economic changes occurred. The modern American art, with its differing tendencies, became a mirror image of the new era. Hopper’s view of everyday life is based on the Urban Realism of the beginning of the century, a movement created and centred around Robert Henri, Hopper’s teacher. The Urban Realists were also called Ashcan School for their inclination towards painting everyday life scenes, areas with immigrants, public spaces. They refused the aestheticism and representative painting of the Gilded Age and strived for a new form of Art. On the other extreme there were the modernists revolving around Alfred Stieglitz. They avoided realism and preferred abstract depictions of nature and architecture. Even though controversial, both currents had the same aim of renewing American art.

Hopper assumed his own position. He was not outside but in-between these two poles. It is the effects of modernity that led him to putting the experience of alienation and loneliness, the inability of individuals to get in contact and the melancholy of existence at the center of his work. Hopper was aware of the fundamental loneliness of human beings. He did not care about describing the surface and the obvious but rather the existence of a deep, inner world and the profound nature of thoughts.

It was the relationship between things and ideas which was at the basis of his paintings.

The view of the city Hopper’s paintings of cities are, today, still considered

as symbols of large city life. They create enormous spatial and psychological distances on a limited space. Hopper shows the inhabitants of cities mainly in depressing and run-down areas. In contrast to the Ashcan School, which considered the cities as dynamic places, full of interaction and curiosities, for Hopper cities were timeless, cold zones devoid of communication. From this perception, he developed his own, distinctive style, different from all other tendencies of his age.

But – regardless of the beauty of his paintings – is this negative perception of the city not limited? Does Hopper not forget the fact that cities can also bring people together, as pointed out by the Urban Realists? Do his paintings of men and women in anonymous spaces not neglect the positive impacts of the encounter of different classes and cultures?

Paintings of alienation Only in the 40s, art historians started to interpret Hopper’s art as an art of alienation, made manifest in his paintings of cities. It became epitome of independence, despair and existential loneliness, of sorrow for a lost lifestyle. His figures in abandoned spaces seem to stand their situation, but without any strength and goal. Hopper himself considered the “thing about loneliness” as exaggerated. Instead, he deemed longing and melancholy as a normal circumstance of living in a community.

He considered it as necessary, even as positive and he himself searched for loneliness. That is why he turned away from the world and the art world, leading a secluded life, even though for 54 years he resided in the center of New York’s Artist quarter – Washington Square.

Hopper accepted the natural isolation surrounding human beings. What he did not want to tolerate though is the luxury of being unhappy. He was always searching for new ways and solutions. And in the end, this is also what happens to his characters. They face the twist of fate with calmness. It is not the fateful but the individually chosen loneliness speaking from his paintings.

The two exhibitions are special in their own way. Neither of them is the typical Hopper exhibition revolving merely around his theme of loneliness and surreal light.

Nevertheless, they both give a crucial contribution to recall a subject that is as valid today as it was a century ago: the feeling of loneliness in human beings. And it is this that makes the exhibitions particularly suitable for cities such as Milan and Rotterdam.

Edward Hopper, South Carolina Morning, 1955. Öl auf Leinwand 77.63 x 102.24cm Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Edward Hopper, Morning Sun , 1952. Olio su tela, 71,44x101,93 cm, Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; acquisizione dal Howald Fund,

Modern Life. Edward Hopper and his Time.

Kunsthal Rotterdam, 26.9.09-17.01.10 Edward Hopper, Palazzo Reale Milano, 14.10.09-31.01.10 Edward Hopper, Seven A. M., 1948. Öl auf Leinwand, 76.68 x 101.92cm, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

11

IT'S SOPHIE CALLE: PRENEZ SOIN DE VOUS*

by Giulia Rosso

Sophie Calle is French, born in 1953, and in recent years has been the artist who has most marked conceptual and narrative arts. Her work wasn’t yet a structured artistic project when she started stopping people on the street, asking them to sleep in her bed in order to always keep it alive, “comme ces usines où on ne met jamais la clé sous la porte.” ** It was after some time, that the artist got to know that one of those people she had invited was the wife of the

12

gallerist Bernard La Marche-Vadel, who, after sleeping eight hours in Calle’s bed, had asked her to participate in the XIth Biennale de Paris.

First of all, I would like to specify that this is not meant to be a review, but the experiential diary of my first contact with Sophie Calle’s works of art. To write about arts one needs a really thorough knowledge of the subject and, in my case, this would flow into an unintentionally arrogant piece of writing.

Sophie Calle’s work is made of lonelinesses.

I discovered the artist’s work during the “Prenez soin de vous” exhibition at the Whitechapel gallery. With this same installation, she represented France at the Venice Biennale in 2007.

This is how it all started.

Calle receives an email from her boyfriend who, by using a cynical language for a bewilderingly seductive speech, informs her that they will not be seeing each other anymore.

She doesn’t answer to this piece of writing but she decides to take care of herself by thinking about the artistic potential of the circumstances. She asks 107 women, chosen depending on their jobs, to understand it for her. Imagine the email being dissected by anthropologists, proofreaders, primary school children, Indian dancers, social workers, philosophers, forensic psychologists, intelligence officers, target practice champions, accountants and nursery school teachers. They analysed, parsed, translated until exhausting that letter, then returning their own interpretations.

The outcome is very intense. The room is full of voices, songs, stories and whisperings of pages being flicked through. The letter was dissected, emptied out and reassembled with its double and triple meanings. Each one of the consulted women brought her taks to a close and

the artist shows the 'researchers' result' beside a video of each of them reading the email.

One can catch Calle’s imprint through the composition of the exhibition, characterised by the heterogeneity of the media (texts, videos, photos), and by the complexity of the materials, which works, as always with the artist, as one of the distinctive features.

To assimilate this tangle of responses I started investigating the rooms, trying to reconstruct the identity of each consulted actor, but most of all the integrity of the

letter and the face of the man who sent it. I got completely involved quickly, seduced by the invitation to enter in this stranger's most private sphere. The short-circuit, triggered between the artist and the spectator, now makes all these women cheer me up, and I find myself accompanied: there is no loneliness anymore.

In the letter, the sender asks the artist to agree on the fact that the need to break up is no more than the mathematical result of a set of rules settled at the very beginning of their relationship. By reading a few lines we can imagine that the two lovers had been distant and lonely for quite some time, although they were still maintaining the relationship. But, as a paradox, the addressee was lonely before the letter was written, more than she became subsequently, after having twisted the rules and unchained so many different reactions, after having shifted roles and identities and unveiled her life.

'Walking through' the voices I felt this work of art as a salvation effort, even if unusual, and I thought that the entire puzzle prevents the woman from feeling guilty and abandoned.

As for the mere theoretical side (more linked to the conceptual dimension), Sophie Calle renews, in this work, the central theme of her artistic operations through the complexity of the collection of information about intimacy, and by unveiling herself through the most private desires and fears, in a continuous narrative research.

It’s an intense work, which changes something in the visitor's self, and forces him or her to reflect on this artist’s work. If you still don’t know her, my advice to you is to speed things up. * take care of yourself ** Like one of those factories where one never switches the light off

images: © Patrícia Soley-Beltran 2009' http://agendadecor.wordpress.com

13

PHOTOSPECTIVES This is not a professional photographical output, but a place to merge subjective points of view to build a more objective one. So Be Objective! Look around. Images everywhere. We take pictures, we share them, exchange them, stock them, look at them, forget about them and pull them out of an old drawer to reminisce. In the era of digitalization, photography has become a new game where the objective can be pointed at anything, from the most serious to the most futile subject. The freedom of a quick “click� is sometimes abused so choices have to be made in order for the images to start interacting and, by speaking a common language, build a common sense.

First, in OUR PHOTOSPECTIVES, we will have a look at this issue's theme through the lense of BOB's photo editor.

Then (pgs 38-47) we will experience the theme through a selection of images submitted by YOU, the readers...

14

OUR PHOTOSPECTIVES Time just does not exist...

15

16

17 Š Stephanie Serra

18

19

20

21

Artwork by Rachel Labastie, Ailes, 2008

22

23

24

CULTURE

Sometimes we take culture for granted. People, history, traditions, dialogues, heritage. Other times, instead, an analytical thought crosses our minds and we stop and reflect. Be Objective magazine offers this particular space to just such reflections; entering our everyday lives in order to offer a glimpse into some common cultural encounters: trips we went on, food we ate, urban centers we visited, old traditions we rediscovered, senses of fashion we express, and so on.

So let’s get started with a long awaited visit to the new Acropolis Museum and then have a look at a high-fashion model who does it all.

25

ARTIFACTS: "lonely" pieces or parts of a whole?

by Sofia Adamantopoulou

It was on the 20th June of 2009 that I watched through web-broadcasting the official inauguration ceremony of the New Acropolis Museum in Athens. But it was not until the end of July that I had the opportunity to visit the museum. My intention is not to get into details or make any comments concerning either the opening ceremony or the museum itself. I believe that the beauty and the value of the monument are unquestionable. The fact that the Acropolis is considered as one of the world’s most important monuments, with a significant impact on the cultural evolution of the human kind and on the perception of western world’s identity, is indisputable.

The issue, therefore, that I want to raise, concerns my thoughts that were triggered by this visit.

Immediately, the display of mutilated sculptures next to the real antiquities, whose other halves are at the British Museum in London, became food for my thought.

White-coloured plaster replicas depict the missing friezes in the New Acropolis Museum. My impression was that the way in which the artifacts were exhibited touched upon the issue of the return of the Parthenon Marbles by stressing their absence.

It was then that a series of questions developed in my mind. Will the New Acropolis Museum mark the “reverse

countdown” for the long-sought return of the Parthenon Marbles? As a Greek, I wish to see the monument finally unified in its original territory, since those marbles are an integral part of the supreme monument of Classical civilisation. At the same time though, a flurry of related issues started to circulate in my head. Is the return of the marbles of the same importance for the entire world? What would be difference in displaying the real antiquities in their original place? Why not place the replicas in the British Museum and bring the real antiquities to Athens? Had they not been taken away from their territory, what would have been the evolution of the marbles in terms of preservation? What kind of contribution to the marbles as significant monument does the British museum bring? What will be the future of the British museum, if the marbles are finally returned to Greece? And if they are returned to Greece, will other major museums around the globe follow the pattern of returning artifacts to their “original” place? Then, what will be the picture of the world’s museum map? What will be the implications for the museum system?

The issue is obviously complicated, broad, and philosophical with ethical, legal, and political aspects.

The arts network is full of strands. Museums are places

Caryatids Erechtheion © Nikos Daniilidis

Night view of the Parthenon Gallery

26

to educate, inform and entertain the public, while at the same time preserve artifacts for coming generations. On the one hand monuments are embedded in the history, culture, identity, and evolution of a nation or civilisation. It is also expected that a nation wants to preserve the right to control the objects and benefit from their monetary, cultural, and historical value.

Consciously or unconsciously, both the interpretation and display of artifacts are used to support or empower modern nation-states. On the other hand, there is the artifact’s history itself. Can this displacement be considered part of the history and identity of the artifact, as its historical evolution? Or is an artifact necessarily embedded in a territory? And, more generally speaking, who actually owns the Art, the Culture, and the History? Who owns the Past? Is it the nation where the artifact was created or is it mankind in general? Therefore, should art be treated as a public good or a root-identity issue? Finally, a controversial point came to my mind. Why does this issue seem so problematic for the archaeological monuments, but does not strike so badly when contemporary art is placed elsewhere than in its production territory? Is it at last because in the past the borders, both geographical and theoretical, were strictly limited, while nowadays globalization has erased national borders and unified the world?

In the end, perhaps, it is all about where and how we place ourselves on the cultural map of our souls and of the world‌ alone, and isolated, or as parts of a whole.

The Archaic Gallery ŠNikos Daniilidis

27

ELLE MULIARCHYK: ALONE IN A DRESSING ROOM

by Francesca D'Ambrogio

28

Discovered by the legendary French photographer Patrick Demarchelier, Elle Muliarchyk is now one of the most popular models all over the world. This gorgeous strawberry blond girl, though, is not just a model: she is also an incredible artist. She has made a name for herself with her guerrilla-style self-portraits taken in high-fashion dressing rooms without the permission of the boutiques. Actually her first face-to-face with her art was very unusual. Everything started up when she first photographed herself in a changing room of a nice boutique in London. She was trying on a beautiful designer dress that she couldn’t afford and she had her camera with her. She decided to take a photo, because, as she says in many interviews, “taking a photograph is like owning the dress.” From that moment on, she has kept on taking pictures in dressing rooms all over the world. The decision of having her pictures taken exclusively in changing rooms is brought by the nature of this space, it is something that is not public but not exactly private either, where everyone can strip both physically and emotionally, trying on clothes as well as personae; stepping into a dressing room is like stepping into different dimensions.

So what she does is walk in some of the most glamorous boutiques, take photographs of herself wearing a selection of expensive clothes, posing for the shots, adding props and lights to compose her pictures, and then walk out of the store without buying anything. She incorporates funny and bizarre objects in her pictures, such as potted orchids, World War II gas masks, oversized teddy bears, including also naked dummies she

brings in the dressing rooms without being seen. Her artistic work is for these reasons very “dangerous”, but Elle is fearless. She usually has only minutes to manage this normally long act before getting caught by the store attendants and getting kicked out of the store or arrested by the police.

In “Alone Hermès” for instance, she lies on the floor in a foetal position, wearing thousands-of-dollar worth of silk rushed. Just seconds after capturing this image, a sales assistant opens the door and Elle manages to quickly hide her digital camera and tripod, explaining her suspicious position to the speechless saleswoman by saying that she had lost a contact.

Once she got arrested while trying on clothes in Gucci.

The sale assistants thought she was taking drugs, because each time they would walk into the dressing room, she would be in different corners and in funny positions hiding something, which was her camera.

Elle Muliarchyk came to NYC to become a supermodel and is now an artist, who realised that modelling didn’t allow her to express her own creativity and sense of beauty. She was able to mix different kinds of arts, such as fashion and photography, to create something totally new. She is her own photographer, model, art director, make-up artist and hair stylist. She can decide to be whoever she desires at every moment and own those outrageously unaffordable clothes, never having to pay for them. She works by herself, for herself, but at the same time she embodies the fantasy that everybody has, making other people part of her work.

images: © Elle Muliarchyk

29

UPSIDE DOWN

Cutural exchange is such an abused concept in our globalized age. We read, study and hear about it, often in very theoretical ways, but before all that, which is nevertheless of extreme importance, sometimes we should just notice the small episodes of exchange that are constantly occuring before our eyes.

The “exchange programs” in universities and schools are one such instance. So, this section is dedicated to those who left, and those who came, those who turned their worlds upside down and agreed to tell us how they did it. Chiara from Milan in currently in Dallas and Bart from Dallas is now in Milan.

1 Name: Barton Surname: Peters Country of origin: United States Current location: Milan Italy Reason of trip: Exchange student at Bocconi as part of the ACME program Duration of stay: 4 months August-December Countries visited in the past two years: Greece, China, France, Monaco, Italy 2 How do you recognize another I normally hear them before I see them, American in Italy? normally it's them in a hurry or just recognizing a voice when I'm not expecting to hear English What is one Italian word that It's not really the words that can't be translated, you cannot translate into its more like the ones that have multiple meanings English, but use all the time? like "Die" (dai) What have you learned from I enjoy being able to walk all over the city, Dallas is not (or appreciated in) a walking city and you have to drive everywhere, Italian “culture”? so its been nice to walk and use the public transportation.

It"s a nice change of pace and different lifestyle than Texas.

What makes you feel I've enjoyed eating Mexican food at Joe Pena's on via Savona. at home in Italy? Gives me a little taste like the Tex/Mex food back in Dallas, especially the guacamole.

For you, what does Memories. loneliness go with? When I get lonely just think about friends and family and good memories.

3 Please list a song, song- "I won't back down" Johnny Cash a movie and a book movie- Big Fish or quote that represent book- Ender's Game loneliness to you.

30

PSIDE DOWN ,ti tuoba raeh dna yduts ,daer eW .ega dezilabolg ruo ni tpecnoc desuba na hcus si egnahcxe larutuC -emos ,ecnatropmi emertxe fo sselehtreven si hcihw ,taht lla erofeb tub ,syaw laciteroeht yrev ni netfo .seye ruo erofeb gnirucco yltnatsnoc era taht egnahcxe fo sedosipe llams eht eciton tsuj dluohs ew semit -ided si noitces siht ,oS .ecnatsni hcus eno era sloohcs dna seitisrevinu ni ”smargorp egnahcxe“ ehT eerga dna nwod edispu sdlrow rieht denrut ohw esoht ,emac ohw esoht dna ,tfel ohw esoht ot detac .naliM ni won si sallaD morf traB dna sallaD ni yltnerruc ni naliM morf araihC .ti did yeht woh su llet ot

1 Name: Chiara Surname: Mammarella Country of origin: Italy Current location: Dallas Reason of trip: Exchange Program Duration of stay: 4 Months Countries visited Australia (I lived there for 6 months), in the past two years: Spain, Germany and Switzerland 2 How do you recognize another I would recognize them because they probably Italian in America? wouldn't be wearing a T-shirt or shorts with the logo of the university or of the fraternity/sorority!!!

What is one American word that you cannot translate into AWESOME!!!

Italian, but use all the time?

What have you learned from Sometimes people bring cookies to class for everybody. (or appreciated in) They do that often actually, and because I am allergic to gluten American “culture”? they started bringing gluten free cookies and brownies...so lovely!!!

They make an enjoyable moment of the lesson.

What makes you feel I felt at home when in a house party some American guys put a song of at home in America? Donatella Rettore A more recurrent feeling of home is when in the supermarket I pass through the section of Italian wines.

There is a huge section dedicated to Italian brands!

For you, what does Museums (the majority of the times that I visit museums loneliness go with? I am alone, but I like it that way, no pressure) 3 Please list a song, song- 'Sad sad city' Ghostland Observatory a movie and a book movie- Catch Me If You Can or quote that represent book- Mr. Wilson's Cabinet Of Wonder loneliness to you.

31

32

MEDIA

Media is a pivotal term in our contemporary reality. From private relationships to public power, from production to marketing, from cultural production to cultural consumption, media is constantly evolving and modifying our behaviours, perceptions, lifestyles and expectations.

Appropriate reflections are necessary. Through the eyes of its writers, this section will follow the evolution of media such as cinema, internet, radio and publications.

First, Good will overcome Evil in Cormac McCarthy's book 'The Road'. Then the theme of loneliness is approached by two very different films.

33

"THE NAMES OF THINGS FOLLOWING THOSE THINGS INTO OBLIVION": lone wanderings of father and son

by Andrea Parapini

Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy (All The Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Pain) is all about relationships: man to man relationships sometimes, but more often between man and environment; a wild, hard, and lifeless environment, where man is left alone with himself and his thoughts. McCarthy’s characters are usually defined by how they relate to what surrounds them, rather than by the way they relate to others or the things they do. Their approach to loneliness is their main feature that we, as readers, can know. The only one McCarthy gives us to try and understand each of them. Their feelings are described not by words, but by the landscape and the surroundings, not unlike many classic western movies, like for example John Ford’s The Searchers(1956).

McCarthy de-constructs this Western pre-concept; a deconstruction already operated by Sergio Leone in the 60s in his movies. McCarthy’s deconstruction is deeper and more radical than Leone’s: there are no heroes, no money to be made, no treasures to be found. But not unlike Leone’s heroes, McCarthy’s characters are alone, have few human contacts and, even when meeting someone, speak as little as possible.

The great difference between the two is the peculiar kinds of loneliness and their causes. Western heroes are alone for a specific reason: they were outlaws, lost someone, or are looking for something they are not willing to share with others, but ultimately they all want to escape loneliness and re-join the community.

The characters of the Border Trilogy are alone by choice and, even when mingling with others, remain distant from the world that reminds of the ancient contemptu mundi. They wander around the West in search of something, but their searches and wanderings have a

34

still from the film 'The Road'

meaning well beyond their real goal. They know where they want to go, but it is usually clear that they can never get there because their real aim is more metaphysical than concrete.

The Road, published years after the Border Trilogy, is the final destination of the author's exploration of loneliness: the trip of the two protagonists has no real goal; they both just go 'South' to survive. Their trip is more like an ideal, but they are McCarthy’s only two characters able to reach their goal because it is the most metaphysical, the need to save Good from Evil, but also the most physical, the characters' own survival. Their loneliness is not their choice, or a real necessity: there is simply no other way to live for them. You either accept your loneliness and just keep walking or die silently, as the wife and mother do. Every possibility of human contact is rejected, simply because every other human being is a cause of fear and threatens the others. Everyone has to

darkest, is a book about catastrophe where the goal is reached simply by having the Good, the Fire, inside oneself. Good is the only thing that allows one to escape from loneliness and to be an existing and conscious part of the world.

“We're going to be okay, aren’t we Papa?

- Yes. We are.

- And nothing bad is going to happen to us.

- That's right.

- Because we're carrying the fire.

- Yes. Because we're carrying the fire.”

The Road, published in 2006, is a novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy. It is a post-apocalyptic tale of a journey taken by a father and his young son over a period of several months, across a landscape blasted by an unnamed cataclysm that destroyed all civilization and, apparently, almost all life on earth. The novel was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55357773@N00/2697400659

fight for his life and therefore has to stand alone to survive. Having grown in a lifeless world with no history and no trustworthy human being, the boy has no knowledge of Good and Evil. He, nonetheless, instinctively refuses Evil, which is the only evidence that, on a sub-conscious level, he distinguishes Evil from Good.

Their loneliness is more than an existential loneliness: the world is a world with no past and no future, with no hope or any opportunity of change. Only them, alone in the middle of history, living in a non-existent world.

For the child there is no actual difference between what has never been and what will never be. Both characters, alone in the middle of time, of nowhere, without knowing what day and what year it is. But knowing all this would be pointless for them as their relation to time is just cold-hot, day-night and summer-winter. They can’t see the sun, but only a pale ash-filtered post-nuclear light. They are alone in the world: only them, their trip and their struggle for survival.

Eventually, their trip reaches its goal: the most unexpected triumph of Good over Evil. How did they do it?

Why did they reach their goal while others have died or lost brothers and friends? The Road, perhaps McCarthy's

35

WILD THINGS

By Marzia De Clercq

“You don't need human relationships to be happy, God has placed it all around us.” As Christopher McCandless, protagonist of Into the Wild(2007) -a movie based on a true story- wrote this statement in his diary, he was already escaping from his ordinary life. With it, he thought he had found the perfect remedy to his loneliness, a loneliness generated not only by staying -or rather the non-staying- with others, but mainly by all the things that surrounded him.

Society for example, and all other kinds of human relationships were perceived by Chris as simply boring coercions.

Books, music and nature were the only things that could answer his lonesome, existential questions. These were things that satisfied his individual thirst of contact

to the world, without, however, Chris ever perceiving the need of dialoguing with the world.

Chris had just found his personal solution to the problem of human communication.

Living in this chaotic world, where interpersonal relationships seem to be complex and the contemporary annihilates the uniqueness of all single individuals: people find themselves not only lonely and separated from the others but also isolated when staying together with them. They do not even find in the community itself an appropriate interlocutor that actually cares about their personal needs.

“Society, you're a crazy breed. I hope you’re not lonely without me.”, sings Eddie Vedder in the soundtrack of the movie, giving voice to Chris' inner feelings towards a

still from the film 'Into the Wild'

36

society that has to be alone without him. Sometimes, to run away from solitude, we tend to hide in places where we are enabled to better comprehend the world we are living in: these could be parts of the world itself -even if they are undefined and far away- or these can be part of a certain parallel universe created specifically by people looking for it in order to contrast it with their personal, violent and wild emotions.

This is the case of the brand new movie of Spike Jonze, Where the wild things are (2009), based on the homonym children’s book by Maurice Sendak. Its protagonist, Max, a ten year old boy, lives together with his mom and his older sister. Like all children, he needs to be understood, but Max's questions remain unanswered and therefore stir up chaotic behaviors to attract the attention of his non-present family. Here, communication seems to be, if not absent, ineffective and all the interpersonal relationships constituting Max’s entire personal universe are supported by messages, emotions, which instead of reaching the other, remain unexpressed or, better, repressed.

The feeling of solitude that touches Max is different from the one bringing Christopher McCandless to flee to the wild lands. Max’s concerns of loneliness are due to his constrained childhood, during which he, however, thinks he is being strong and wears his wild wolf dress; a sort of imaginative refuge able to give him comfort when he is faced with the far and distressing perspective of a dying sun.

Max's emotions are as wild as his actions: he runs, jumps and fights against fuzzy creatures- the Things.

His emotions find space and expression in the community of gigantic and anthropomorphic Things, considered unconscious projections of all the unexpressed feelings Max doesn’t want to hide within himself, but wants to scream. The Things are therefore creatures Max fights, but are a representation of his emotions and get expressed through the boy's actions.

These creatures or, better to say, these emotions perceived a lack of something, needed a guide, someone who would be able to scream out all those misunderstood thoughts and feelings, a king- as they say when they encounter Max- and therefore immediately crown him.

This former lack will later on be clarified by a clear, immediate, and sincere howl that Carol, Max's monstrous antagonist, addresses to the child. Carol understands, through his simple gesture, his complete inability to speak about the primary need for a voice, a presence able to express those repressed feelings, the need for Max's presence as king. After the howling, however, all seems to result in a failure for social beings, because of the natural difficulty of communication.

But in the end, when Max’s mother embraces her son, the child feels understood and that his mother is per-

still from the film 'Where the Wild Things Are'

fectly aware of all of his needs. This will confirm the happy ending as Max's feelings of incomprehension finally succeed in being both perceived and expressed.

Two movies, two different ways of approaching loneliness, even if this loneliness results from a similar choice of escape. Nevertheless, in every case, if this feeling is attributable to too many badly-said words or to the complete absence of communication, the result will not change: the ultimate freedom means finding yourself without anything, no limits or boundaries intended as people, objects and yes, also adversity. Extreme liberty corresponds to an absolute ease, that is not able to bring anywhere but to “a speeding up of times, of breaths, and of the natural beats of every single creature.” An authentic happiness, where real freedom is such only by sharing all those limits with someone else.

In the end, Christopher McCandless, writing in his personal copy of Leo Tolstoy's Family Happiness (1859), will recognize the same idea that happiness is only real when it is shared.

37

YOUR PHOTOSPECTIVES

© Karolina Klonaridou

38

39

Š JÜrg Tillmann

Leaving behind a city as vibrant and alive as Paris, one is caught by a different kind of Loneliness. Far too soon, good times become old stories. Friends become distant memories. And Loneliness is the fear of never seeing them again.

-JĂśrg Tillmann

40

41

42 Š Claudia Sabbatini

When the morning shine comes inside your bedroom to wake you up, you take a look around, see the place you used to share with someone and you just realize that now you're alone.

-Claudia Sabbatini

43

Back terrasse of the Taj Mahal.

Solitude is necessary to understand beauty.

-LĂŠonard NoĂŤl du Payrat

44

Š Leonard Noel Du Payrat

45

Š Silas Shabelewska

The moon has always been for me a symbol of solitude, of reflection...a silver disk that brings light in darkness... that brings out the inner soul...

-Silas Shabelewska 46

Antoine Martineau

Alessandro Adorini

Antoine Martineau

Marta Parmigiani

Ingrid Melano

Alessandro Adorini

Alessandro Adorini

Philipp Ewerling

Sonia Fanoni

47

48

ENTER TAINMENT

Performing arts are about stories. Big stories of small characters and little stories of big characters. Some of these stories are hidden within music tunes while others live just for a few hours on a stage.

Their collective nature, is made up of a complicated texture of creative individuals, people who enjoy mixing and molding different artistic genres into one work.

By writing about entertainment, we hope to recreate the moments of interraction and exchange, that occur before a concert, during a festival, or after a performance; those short encounters in public spaces, that leave us with long lasting memories.

In this issue we will first try to understand music as loneliness. We will then see why fashion punks are never lonely on a Saturday night.

49

HEADPHONES

Bethany Maxfield, Bears on the B-Line (2009; sepia ink, black ink and white acrylic on the back of a drawing pad)

50

By Gabriele Marino

Indie guy on the NY tube: beard, check shirt, eyes shut, sound-deadening headphones. He doesn’t realize he’s surrounded by a bunch of bears having a party (Martini – apparently – not included). It’s a surreal dreamlike drawing entitled Bears on the B-Line, by Pratt student Bethany Maxfield, available on the web. Not the greatest piece of art, a chance meeting too, but a good visual starting point to understand what we talk about when we talk about music and loneliness. Music as loneliness?

“If you feel lonely and want to turn it off, put a sunnyfunny song on. If you want to pump it up, put a minor-chord or a foggy minimaltronica something”. Smart folks already got it: it doesn’t work that easily. Let’s go back and dig into this music as a social or as a personal affair.

Up to the Baroque era, music was something tightly tied to pragmatic requirements, even a servile activity.

Musicians were craftsmen: Mozart was employed to compose music, and he was paid to produce hi-q entertainment. Only after Baumgarten, philosophical thought was brought to an aesthetic of music, to the idea of a practice centered on self-expression and requiring (and giving) reflections. The highest peak of this concept was the romantic myth of the “lonely genius”, incarnated by Beethoven, heroic figure. This ideology (and rhetoric) of an uncompromising – and perhaps sweetly suffering – ego still survives nowadays: with the difference that now we perfectly know that even the freakiest and the most misunderstood genius is, one way or another, the product of his times, culture, society. Even if – and especially if – he transcends them.

No more do we live the radical opposition between nature and culture: culture is our natural habitat. So that any music-related practice is a cultural practice, it has got sense not by itself but through centuries of codified meaning. Any attempt to not-communicate through music is already a communicative (or at least, expressive) attempt. Yet this consciousness is not enough to work the question out.

Just like for everything else, and especially for that evasive mysterious phenomenon called music, nothing is something, because everything is anything. Music will be for you what music has to be for you. It’s not merely a matter of relativism (“we are postmodern”; in fact, we are post-postmodern): the dialectic between music as a social and as a personal affaire is an aporia.

This peculiarity possibly comes directly from its origins: music always seems to move between two extremities. It was born as a part of collective (social religious) rituals. But, at the same time, it was a way to get an inti-

mate contact with the divine, to escape from visible reality: Paleolithic buzzy rave parties. The two things were embraced. And still are. We get confirmation everyday, facing a wide range of cases.

Music is an ephemeral performance (public but elitist) and medium of fixation (massive but private), isolation (and even subjugation or destruction) and joining (and even healing), public affaire (and just a meeting occasion) and personal obsession (up to isolationism), credo (a way of thinking and living) and stylistic repertoire (nerdy postmodernism). And much more.

Headphones are a powerful symbol for this music-asan-aporia (“undefined”, “unsolvable”): a blind alley that paradoxically leads to an opening. Headphones mean freedom of choice, possibility, both black and white, A and B: they synthesize loneliness and sociality, isolation and connection, both voluntary and suffered. Headphones are a powerful symbol of what we are (and of what we are not, so of what we might be) now, even outside proper musical range. Take a look at Botto & Bruno’s Think Of My Future Now I: look at that postbombing soldier-like nerdy child “praying” his own stereo.

You listen to music when you go to work, because it’s part of your life and because you just “don’t want to think of it”: you want to stay on your own. And you put your headphones on, because you don’t want other people to be disturbed by your 220 bpm gas techno music. Or maybe because you don’t want them to know you listen to Britney Spears even if you are a bearded middle-aged father of a family. At the same time, you wear the t-shirt of your favorite grindcore metal band, to make people aware you like that stuff. Maybe, you also desperately look forward to meeting a chick with a “Steely Dan t-shirt”. You wear those headphones to isolate yourself from the outer world, when you’re pressed down in a bus amongst strangers: but you are the same guy who uses internet connection to discover new music, and who chats with unknown people living all over the world, just because of their musical tastes.

Nowadays, more than ever, music is just what the hell you want it to be.

Post-scriptum Christmas is coming and it’ll be intensely lonely, just as usual. 'Holidays' rhymes with 'lonely days': out of phylogeny, out of basic primitive struggles, it’s just when you feel totally depressed. Loneliness is a tendency of the soul. Anyway, merry Christmas. Homework: listen to Bobby Helms’ Jingle Bells Rock and try not to feel lonely.

51

PUNKS WEAR PRADA

by Alexandra Bode Saturday 00.30 in an alley off Duomo: A small night club entrance, a sprawling queue dressed up to the max, and a strict door policy. So far, nothing unusual for a fancy Milanese night out.

However, “dressed to the max” might not mean always a logo-laden clone-like style, and, here at Café Santa Tecla, it actually comes with a slightly different interpretation. In many of the other night clubs in Milan a theme night like “logomania” might have prompted a myriad of Louis Vuitton bags no real Milanese girl seems to be able to survive without, combined with virtually everything that has the ability to sport a big logo and spur envious looks.

At 'Punks wear Prada' club nights, however, subversively giant Chanel C's are painted on ripped shirts (together with an equally giant mention “fake”, to make it perfectly clear) and girls come wearing grunge looks, after having tattooed Louis Vuitton logos on their arms with ball pens for a whole afternoon – that's the minimum time spent by 'Punks wear Prada' addicts on outfits for the weekly changing theme nights. Starting from Thursday, when the theme for the following Saturday night is usually announced, closets are raided, costumes designed and accessories dug out all over town in order to make it a night to remember.

-a fashion frenzy fairy tale on how to escape everyday life by entering a club night that is a world of its own-

52

But what might sound like an even more strict perversion of the dress code policy one needs to obey to go out in Milan actually follows a completely opposite philosophy: “ 'Punks wear Prada' is not just a club, it's a place where people can meet, a hub for all creatives and internationals in Milan. When you come to a new city, you don't really have attachments and you have to build your own roots in order not to be lonely. A place to do that, a truly open club night didn't really exist in the city, so I created it.”, says British born Natasha Slater who started out 'Punks wear Prada' as an aperitivo two years ago.

Since then, it has turned into one of the most colourful club nights of the city, attracting “creatives and those interested in creative business, foreigners or travellers and of course people who love to dress up!”.

So what about the famous 'Punks wear Prada' style and dress code policy then? Strict as they are, Natasha and her partner at the door, the marvellous May Day, don't despise a particular style or look, but rather an attitude: “I let people in who are interesting in one way or the other, people I would like to know myself – what we don't want are lazy people. We want people who make an effort in their styling, who have an individual style and to whom we can give a platform to show off their design – people who like the extraordinary and who stimulate each other.” Indeed, the number of compliments given from strangers to strangers dressed in “dizzy Disney” or graffiti style is certainly higher than in other clubs, the atmosphere is a mix of underground fairy tale and pure party hunger – especially when Natasha, queen of this little fairy tale kingdom descends the spiral staircase of Café Santa Tecla to give her stylish subjects what they have been waiting for: Music to let their hair down and dance. “ Punks wear Prada is more unserious than the other clubs in Milan”, Natasha says, “ it's about having a good night” - soundtracked with fine electro music and songs she describes as no cheese, but true classics people can relate to.

Seeing 100 graffiti-covered girls, and girls wearing all colours of the world going wild on “girls just wanna have fun”, you cannot help but think Milan's #1 Prada-wearing punk has a point here.

Punks wear Prada takes place with a different theme every Saturday night at Café Santa Tecla

53

54

INTERACTION

Writing an article is surely a demanding task and an intriguing challenge for every writer out there. However, composing a well structured and fascinating poetry of words is not the only way to approach a story; it is not necessarily suited for every situation. Sometimes another mode, a different tool, a more peculiar medium is needed. An interview perhaps? This section is a space that will house our curiosities by allowing us to ask questions.

The aim is to go in depth and gain a better understanding through a constant quest for answers.

In this issue we are going to come into contact with a young artist and try to understand his creative process. Then, we will have a tête-à-tête with an ex-student, who will give us some “pills of wisdom”.

55

SEVERAL MISTAKES, SOME SOLUTIONS

© Abel Llavall-Ubach

Giovanni Saladino: Hello Pesce Khete. I would like to start this interview from the picture that appears on your website (www. pescekhete.com); it is one of your works, entitled “it is my fault”. What do you mean exactly? Is it a way to confess (to yourself and to the others) the responsibilities of what you are doing? Do you feel like doing something wrong, or at least not totally right?

G.S: You started to paint on canvas, but than you changed and actually the peculiarity of your works is the material. Today you use to paint on different pieces of paper joined through cello-tape. This way, you don't have any a-priori spatial limits, and could chose the size and shape of the artwork. Can you explain us how does this creative process works?

Pesce Khete: It is interesting that you thought “it' my fault” was linked to the concept of responsibility, actually I had not thought about it in this way. I have to say I do not think a lot, even if I'm always brooding. I was in my studio when I painted “it's my fault”, and while I was taking pictures of it, and tidying the paints before leaving, I kept on repeating myself “it's is my fault Pesce Khete”. I don't know why, I guess it was a mental association. Every single one of my paintings is full of mistakes, in fact, they are all lists of mistakes, and some solutions. When I came back home I uploaded the pictures and wrote the sentence. I don't really know why I did it, but it was right.

P.K: Yes it's true: the canvas already has a shape, and a prefixed shape led me to paint only when I have an idea.

Instead, my creative process naturally evolved years ago, when I realized that I instinctively cut out or added pieces of paper to little graphite draws. I did it for the composition, to find the right spaces. Later, I just reversed the sequence: I start with a single piece of paper, and I enlarge the space while I'm painting, adding other sheets with the paper cello-tape. This way, I can start without knowing what to do, and the space of the painting will grow up in the direction I prefer.

56

G.S: Irony is part of your work, together with a strong dramatic force. Some of your works seem so introspective, other looks more offish. Where do you find inspirations?

G.S: Your last production is a little bit ambiguous, I didn't get if you try to hide or to reveal something covering part of your paintings.

P.K: I find inspiration from several sources. but what seems “spontaneous” in what I do, on the opposite is often so suffered. There are period in which I don't know how to start a drawing, so I don't draw. Often it is fear, is not easy to challenge yourself this much. the best ones emerge from defeats. To be honest, almost all the paintings I have done hides several failures. You should accept mistakes, and try to take advantage of theme.

Lately, I have decided to make just one painting per day when I'm in the studio, because after the first I warm up, as a motor, and sometimes I might become “too good” for what I'm trying to do. It is frustrating to feel unable, but when I'm cool I'm able to be less “myself”, in the superficial sense of the word: in some way, I'm not able to use my certainties, my experiences. The “quality”, or the success of a single painting comes exactly form all the events as a whole, random or not, that make you victorious from all the failures you have been met with the creation process. It is like a war against Defeat.

For me it's so ironic to see how my works transmit spontaneity to some people: in reality, spontaneity had to fight several battles before the end of the painting!

P.K: It is exactly as I was saying before, to cover or to hide part of my paintings for me it's like saying: “it is not all as it looks” (I like this dark echo), or as this expression that I like a lot: “not everything that glitter is gold” Interposing an obstacle to the frontal view of the paint, using curtains, or putting white sheets of paper on the painting helps to make it an object, an object in the space.

It's like putting a question mark. It's like trying to momentarily affect the certainties of the viewer, who is used to glance at thousand of images.

It is also a way to ban expressivity, or better, the expressionism of what I do sometimes. I'm not talking about painting as an expression of myself. I mean painting as painting. I try to reveal it as a process, and subject of the design is only a pretext.

I like not having a method or a single style, and I guess this is going to be clearer in future. For me it is all true: I love painting, and often I hate it; sometimes I need to reason in term of installation, other time I believe on the magic power of a single painting. Any precise path of maturity doesn't belong to me, or at least it does not produce on me any certainties to use in discussing with other people. I rather prefer to stay on uncertainty, so I like Willem De Kooning, but also William Bouguereau. A proud childlike uncertainty.

G.S: You also like to produce installations, as the one you did at the The Flat gallery in Milan. How do you perceive the relation with the space?

P.K: Everything you produce has a space. The space is the spatial dimension of the idea. I use sounds, painting on paper, and arrangement of exhibition spaces in the same way. I simply dispose, looking for the effect that I would like to reach.

G.S: The theme of this issue is Loneliness, how do you perceive it? Would you like to report an anecdote or short story linked to this feeling?

P.K: I love loneliness. I like to get bored. Sometimes I get bored of being bored. So I try to do something.

I gave tender answers to this interview, I would like to all it “I am a violent person”.

57

PILLS OF WISDOM

This section will interact with ex-students. The aim is to provide a source for all those who are reflecting on the meaning of a particular course of study and on the opportunities that it gives. The interview is shaped in the form of very open questions, in order to give the speaker enough freedom to emphasize what is most relevant from their point of view. For this first interview, our guest is Stefania Gerevini, who attended the first edition of the CLEACC course at Bocconi University in 1999.

Giovanni Saladino: Hello Stefania, first of all I want to thank you for accepting to do this interview.

Could you please resume your path after obtaining your degree (work experiences, additional studies, special projects, etc)? Please try to focus on the elements that influenced your decisions, and on the pivotal moments of your career route up until now.

Stefania Gerevini: Ciao Giovanni. It feels a bit odd to be asked these questions, you know? As if alumni were already fully formed professionals with some arcane wisdom to pass on... I

58

am happy to say that I still share many of the questions that the cleacchini have, and I hope to share them for a long time.

So, about myself: my first work experience was during my second year of university, when I worked as an intern for the auction house Sotheby’s, in Milan. Following this experience, I had the opportunity to help as a research assistant with the organisation of an exhibition on the modern history of Milan held at Palazzo Reale, and co-curated by prof. Stefano Baia Curioni, the director of ACME. Through these experiences, I began to realise that I wished to be directly involved in research. This awareness became more precise towards the end of my

studies, when I developed a thesis on the artistic thought of Pavel Florenskij, a Russian thinker fallen under the Stalinist Great Purges in 1938. Florenskij’s activity as a philosopher included the writing of a seminal treatise on the theology of icons, a peculiar form of art rediscovered

by Russian avant-gardes in the twentieth century.

I grew passionate of the research questions opened by my BA dissertation, and so it seemed natural to me to pursue that alley of research with a Phd. However, as I came to these studies from an unconventional background, I was not sure about how and where to continue my studies. Among others, I sought the advice of Prof.

Stefano Baia Curioni and Prof. Gino Zaccaria, who understood my choice and encouraged me to apply for a master in history of art in London. I did so, and never really stopped studying: I now conduct research and teach between Italy and London.

G.S: In your opinion, what really matters when you have to make choices about your future?

S.G: Blunt honesty in searching, recognising and accepting what one’s real vocation, talents and limits are; and a flexible attitude, in order to strike the balance between pursuing one’s vocation and accepting with gratitude the opportunities that may come up on the way.

G.S: Could you please try to make some remarks on the CLEACC-ACME course and its peculiarities, considering its meaning and its objectives.

S.G: I am a great fan of Cleacc-Acme: it is a serious educational project, which equips students with the basic skills and the correct attitude to work in a unique, diverse, and ever-changing field, that of arts and culture. It prepares students to become planners and managers of the arts, culture and communication; professionals with a great flexibility of mind and imaginativeness, potentially able to work successfully in the public and private sector in different positions and with various tasks; and, most importantly, it is a course that poses seriously and innovatively important questions about the relation between arts and society; about the role of creative industries in the development of contemporary urban centres; and about the directions and objectives of cultural policies.

The course does not, however, aim to form art critics, or designers, or journalists or writers (although some Cleacc alumni have pursued these careers successfully): those who wish to pursue these careers should consider their university choice carefully, and bear in mind that other courses of studies exist which would perhaps fulfil

their expectations and talents better.

G.S: What could you say to someone that is attending this courses today? Feel free to give advice for the freshmen.

S.G: So this is really the time for the “pills of wisdom”! … Let me put on my Harry Potter’s glasses, and give you three pieces of advice. :) The first suggestion I have is to appreciate the intellectual diversity that this course of studies offers, because it is perhaps its greatest quality. The second is to study seriously, but without falling victims of the exam-obsession: it is important to do well at exams, but it is far more important to understand and actively question the crucial issues raised during each course. Finally, and more ambitiously: during your studies, and after universities, fall in love with what you do, and do not be afraid of difficulty – the most beautiful things, I find every day, are often the most difficult.

G.S: The last question is linked to the theme of the issue.

Would you like to make a reflection on “loneliness”?

S.G: I would rather reflect on a specific kind of loneliness: solitude. The former may indeed at times carry with it a sense of lack, or loss: one feels lonely when he or she is missing something or someone, and looks forward to filling that void. Solitude has to me a more specific meaning, one that has, if we want to put it this way, a positive connotation: it is a condition of silence and listening, a sort of empty space inside that allows questions, experiences and even relationships to resonate and become fruitful. The custody and preservation of this space of silence and questioning is vital: to use E. Dickinson’s words, in this sense, “It might be lonelier/ without the loneliness” – not any loneliness, but this particular, precious form.

59

EDITOR'S CHOICE

THE TRAVELER: A LONELY WONDERER These few lines aim to be a black and white picture of what I feel when travelling.

These are just a few words to paint my idea of the traveller; who I believe is a lonely wanderer.

by Gabriele Erba Once the traveller tastes the sweet bitterness of his journey, once he deeply touches the essence of wandering, once he understands the true meaning of his loneliness, he will never be able to rest in peace. He will always hear that solitary call from the unknown that needs to be discovered, as much as he himself needs to encounter it in order to really feel alive.

When the traveller starts his trip he perceives a sense of excitement which might be close to the birth of a new being. The newborn comes alone to the world to see and feel what he has forgotten, to go beyond that limit which prevented him from reaching the truth. In the same way our wanderer gets on his ship like an angel coming down from the sky. He forgets everything he knew of his world, and during the crossing toward the lands untouched, he eventually becomes a new being with little resemblance to his past self. He is ready to absorb the treasures that will find him on his way through his refreshed life.

It is peculiar how little one can realise the uniqueness of the gifts one receives while travelling, all the moments that give meaning to the wanderer’s new life flee so fast that he cannot deeply comprehend what they really signify. Later, in the solitude of his room, staring into space, he appreciates that what he lives becomes a memory. In that precise moment, all the previous instants become enriched with an army of emotions whose potential flows down from his brain, to his heart, making his past acquire an infinite strength. Only then is he able to make one step forward in his quest for his own essential truth.

What is almost paradoxical is that the solitude in which the traveller finds himself makes him meet with souls he would have never met if he was accompanied.

These lone wondering spirits hear the mutual calls that come from one another, congregate and exchange their emotions so as to accumulate the most precious of the treasure, that which was already conquered by their companion, which will make them closer to their supreme goal of truly knowing. Ultimately, the wanderer has an unconscious desire to stop his rebirth cycle, to gain that quiet peace which is like a new pair of glasses, with which he will be able to travel and discover, while staying in the place where he feels deeply at home.

The relation our wanderer has with this home place (which sometimes collides with his first birth place) is weird, contradictory and during his first journeys can make him suffer a lot. Usually the traveller’s first home-related thought is of rejection. He feels homeless. He does not want one and he hates the idea of having any kind of mind forged manacles which would prevent him from totally enjoying his freedom, his divine power of creating a new life when he wishes. With time moving on, with many lives helping the traveller to get closer to his goal, he realises how foolish his perception of home was. He suddenly understands that all the incredible people and the experiences that are happening to him are nothing but empowered by the

60

thin thread that links him to his mother place and to the people who love him. These people actually give meaning to his freedom, aid his discovery and help him go further on toward his goal. Once more, it is in the loneliness of his room facing the harbour, that he starts seeing those who have love ties with him as the authentic guardians of his wonderful quest.

At the end of each voyage, the wanderer watches his new image in the mirror finding out the beautiful differences that appear on his face. He falls in love with them, remembering the origin of each and every one of his wrinkles. Therefore he begins to fear departure as every being fears death. A deep sentiment of attachment hugs him, making him unwilling

to leave that place, which is so beautiful precisely because it has to be left. The solitary wanderer starts walking with the same pace of a prisoner on death row. Now loneliness really makes him feel its weight, some tears mix in with the thin air of the harbour while the final step brings his body onto that uncomfortable ship.

On the other side of his Sea, the traveller reaches the climax of sadness. But finally when he turns to a new mirror he sees his meaningful wrinkles exactly where they were. He smiles. The wanderer smiles out the luminous light of a person who reached something which will never be lost; and he cannot wait to born once more.

"The traveller wanders around.

He doesn't want to stop, nor could he if he wished to."

61

BOB DOESN'T END HERE CHECK THE BLOG FOR NEW ARTICLES EVERY WEEK