——

illywords (and Ariella) will be at Squisito, the major food fair organized annually by the 1500 youths of the community of San Patrignano (Rimini)*, inaugurated today Friday April 30th. Ariella’s excited because in the area called Blog Cafe it will be possible to talk about illywords and the latest issue #28 on the theme of Conviviality (not to mention to pick up your free copy). And there will be people there who are really knowledgeable on the topic of both food and blogging… so it’ll be a learning experiences.

*San Patrignano is a community for young men and women with serious drug problems.

Squisito is on Until May 3 2010

Personality is a big thing with Aldo Cibic. A type of design which is studied with a highly personal imprint, found in all of his works.
Not exactly an architect, not exactly a town planner. Is this an anti-conformist approach, a way of breaking free, or a way of creating differences between the many standardisations of this type of expression?
Actually, I consider myself to be a curious observer of the reality I find myself in, and that my job is to transform into planning what I believe to be pressing issues in terms of social relations and the places in which these relations are played out.

Biennale Architecture is an important event because it is visited not only by architects but also the public at large, and families who perhaps don’t stop to think about the shape of the objects or spaces they see in their everyday lives. The theme is large cities and everything that goes with them (density, mobility, living…). Is there an educational aspect that needs to be transmitted to the public at large?
And what is an architect’s normal role, culturally speaking?
The thing that I like most about the project we’re working on is the fascinating quantity of information we have access to, which, along with the curator, we try to give back in the exhibition, in a way that is understandable and stimulating for the public as well.
It’s about getting to know the world around us, and the world we want.
This is why I think it will give everyone a great deal to think about.

A literary, musical or film recommendation. What would you give us, on the theme of our magazine, “Food for the mind”?
At the moment, the food for the mind which I need has to do with all the literature that helps me to understand and see things I don’t know about future scenarios and innovative, alternative ways to produce new projects.

* Architect and town planner in London, Richard Burdett is a professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the London School of Economics (LSE) and an architectural consultant to the Mayor of London.

Which forces have you galvanised in a large, complex city like Rome, which now make it Italy’s cultural capital 365 days a year?
Everything we do is designed to keep economic growth and social cohesion together, and at the heart of our decisions there’s always a way of working, collaborating and “consulting”, moving forward together: the Executive Council, the Municipal Council in tandem with the business world, trade associations, social forces and various civil organisations. No single project could have the desired effect unless it was included in a context in which the top priority is the shared vision of a city, a strong sense of community, a path to development which becomes reality because it increases the level of social cohesion. What we want is to create a “system”. We have a broad concept of what an executive class should be. In terms of economic growth, the results are plain to see. Rome, it has often been stressed, is a city that generates wealth. And it does so at a pace that is much, much faster than the national average.

How is it possible to create culture “for everyone” when unfortunately we tend to think that culture belongs to an élite?

By keeping in mind the sweeping changes that are going on. Rome is a city that has changed radically, just as people’s needs and desires have changed. These are the reasons why Rome has managed to stage those large-scale events that make it famous internationally: New Year’s Eve in the city’s squares, the huge concerts at the Colosseum and Piazza di Siena, where the musical experience and scenic backdrop each add their own magic to the event, or the highly successful Opera in Piazza del Popolo, which had the important benefit of revealing an exciting, popular form of entertainment to the general public. Then there’s Estate Romana, which this year will include large concerts by Madonna and Bob Dylan, and first and foremost La Notte Bianca. Next September 8th and 9th, this event will double in size due to the huge success of previous years, and the demand not only of native Romans but also the multitude of tourists who come to Rome to experience this kind of event. This is another reason why Rome has transformed itself into an enormous stage all year round, a place where events are also an opportunity to meet different types of audience and different age groups, while keeping in mind the need to broaden our outlook towards those members of society who are often excluded from producing culture or sharing leisure experiences. As I said, the idea is to make culture available for all, as a condition of social growth and therefore economic development. The efforts made by the city council increased cultural consumption by 10% in the decade between 1990-2000 alone, an absolute record in cultural tourism, now more than one-third of the whole tourist industry.

Can culture really help the economic growth of a city by having an impact on the use of services like public transport, bars and restaurants…?
There’s no doubt about it. We should never forget that there has been an enormous promotion and increase in production, to the benefit of the policy of social inclusion, in terms of the economy and tourism, not just the specific increase linked to showbusiness. Let’s take the figures from the Italian Exchange Office, on expenditure by foreign tourists in the first three months of 2006, which was 948 million euros in the province of Rome compared to 800 million euros for the same period last year, an increase of 18.5%. In the same period at national level, there was a slight drop, 4,983 million euros compared to 5,021 euros for the first quarter of last year. This is just one of many examples we can give.

Give us an example of accessible culture: a book, film or piece of music that you were particularly struck by.
Recently, I was very impressed by a book written by Javier Cercas, “La velocità della luce” (“The speed of light”), a book that deals with delicate and dramatically relevant issues such as war and the search for memories. The book tells the story of a friendship between the narrator – a young Catalan who works in an American university – and his colleague Rodney Falk, a taciturn Vietnam veteran, a cultured man with secrets he cannot reveal. Rodney suddenly disappears, and then the young Catalan begins a search that leads him to discover the letters from Vietnam, given to him by Rodney’s father. Those letters explain the full drama of Rodney’s experience in the army, first the horror and then the absorption of horror, even the sense of power that killing gives him. But this book is not just a war story, although war obviously takes up a lot of space. It’s the story of a man thrown into battle at the age of twenty. He sees the horrors of war, experiences the trauma of coming home only to discover that “nobody ever comes back from Vietnam”, the trauma of having wasted his life. This journey into the past, into memories, leads to a discovery of the more dramatic side of a life ruined by war. So that we never forget.

The megalopolis to end all megalopolises, Tokyo, is also the most efficient. Out of 35 million inhabitants, 80% use public transport (trains) to go to work. In Los Angeles, it’s the complete opposite. They are different models, and this has an impact on the landscape, but it also affects people’s sense of social cohesion. If you spend four hours in a car to get to work, as happens in Mexico City, Bangkok or Los Angeles, you’re not spending time with your family. You feel isolated, you’re totally dependent on a system which is not a public club… and I think this has a negative impact. It is important to stress that for the first time, the ecological equation goes hand in hand with social integration, and also with the large-scale architecture that brings people into the city squares and streets. Architects create the scenario, then authors write poems, whether it’s Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities, comparing the horrors of Paris and London in the 19th century, or the great contemporary novels like Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam which speaks of integrated life… you can’t see the difference between architecture and people’s lives.

I don’t think we could put it so bluntly as to say that there’s a one-to-one relationship between architecture and a literary vocation. A city is a wonderful thing, because it changes completely in twenty-four hours: it isn’t unique, it has many temporal dimensions. I think that great authors and writers manage to capture this complexity, which is fascinating. The big problem for us as architects is to create cities of the future without this complexity. It is a real problem, which should be debated at this event and elsewhere: the problem of how to create the cities of the future, not like Pudong in Shanghai, where you go to work and then go to bed, but where you can do a thousand different things in the evening, in public or in private.

I realise that an institution like the Biennale, visited by thousands of people, is a remarkable opportunity for communication. If there’s one thing we want to start doing with this event, it’s to move the debate towards three or four major issues. One is the problem of the rapport between the shape of buildings and their democratic potential. Is it possible to create a fairer society by constructing buildings of a certain type? It’s an ambition. The second thing is the relationship between transport, or the world of mobility, to use a rather boring technical term, and social justice. We’ve already mentioned the third issue, that is, the importance of a city’s shape with regard to sustainability, i.e. a one-to-one relationship. The fourth issue is highly complex and delicate, one that is widely perceived in Italy today. In other words, the higher the immigration of foreigners from different races and religions, the higher the probability that the public spaces in cities become the scene of conflict, not tolerance. Just think of what happened in Paris or Marseilles a few months ago. The last thing is a very old story for Italy: good government. Without a good government, we can forget about everything we have said up to now. Without a good government, great architects and engineers can no longer do anything. These are the five key themes of the agenda we are setting up: architecture and democracy, transport and justice, sustainability, tolerance and good government.

It is with slight consternation that one enters Haim Steinbach’s studio. On the identical baby shoes, stuffed owls and yet more masks, carnival prostheses, bells, dolls, cans and boxes of washing powder decorated with commercial graphic designs, fake skulls, containers with unquestionably phallus-shaped handles. A collection of kitsch items, as it were, and yet, at a closer look, that’s not what it is: Steinbach is attracted neither by bad taste nor by common taste. It is the world of objects, shapes, languages through which one speaks without uttering.
As a matter of fact, sometimes he even likes words: YO!, for instance, the slang-like greeting kids exchange in the streets. Or the slogans used in advertising and the new entries in current jargon, idioms raised to the status of objects in our minds: preconstructed vehicles into which we project our identity and by means of which we like to communicate it.
It is also more or less the same thing happening with wallpaper, one of the first elements Steinbach employed to speak to the public: layers of flowery paper which must have touched upon someone’s emotional chords, which families or ladies adopted as outfits for their homes and as a way of connecting to the world.
For this reason, taking a walk in Steinbach’s company is one of the funniest experiences you could ever have: he looks at everything. He stops in front of every single shop window. He is intrigued by a case. In another shop, he studies the cut of a shirt as intently as a tailor wishing to copy it. He analyses the way in which famous brands launch their latest products. He judges advertising campaigns, accepts to be seduced by them, only to move away with an ironic comment that is always there, as is proper for a Jewish New Yorker.
What does he do with this heap of objects which he owns but also only looks at? He normally puts them on shelves. He chooses them according to their shapes and types of relations (in any case, never venture with him into a discussion about the reasons underlying any work: he will cram it with a form of intellectualism which is not naturally his and he knows it). When he cannot place an object on a shelf, because it is a poster or wallpaper, then he will stick it to the wall; if it is women, as in 1996 when he was choreographer for Strenesse’s fashion show, he will make them glide down a runway under a beating rhythm of pouring showers.
In every case, he will always raise what he is exhibiting both as an object and metaphorically. Indeed, he will exalt it, isolating it from its context and proposing it to us as an object deserving attention and not merely an object to be used or idly looked at. He will place the object within a composition that is governed by visual rules of its own but also by operational rules: no object is ever fixed onto a stand, even when the distance required between the objects is accurately measured out. The public may hold what it sees, move it, break it. It may do anything, as long as it looks at it.
As a rule and in his most famous works, Steinbach displays the fruit of his collecting habit, like junk-men on accurately-crafted wooden shelves that a carpenter manufactured for him. They all have the same hanging angle even though they are different in size. They are varnished in one or two colours with maniac precision. After all, equally maniacal is also the booklet containing the assembly instructions one has to follow after removing them from their boxes which are even more beautiful than the objects themselves. The pamphlet reads as follows: point one, wash your hands with soap. Point two, don a pair of white cotton gloves. Point three, make sure you have a firm grip on the object to avoid dropping it while removing it from its box. And so on for at least fifty pages.
The shelves may also be made of glass, supported by Innocenti metal pipes (an unexpectedly elegant combination), or they can be in the form of a proper wardrobe with outfits on hangers inside.
Invited to participate in Kassel’s Documenta in 1992, Steinbach enhanced the round turreted shelf on which he had arranged objects taken from director Jan Hoet’s office – also a collector – by hiding it behind an enormous wooden panel: the visitor’s gaze could penetrate only through a window and the feeling of becoming a voyeur was enough to enhance what you saw, mixed objects which otherwise would have appeared meaningless. At another exhibition in Gent, in 2000, he filled the music school building with metal protrusions: the final result was that the building looked like a surreal, polyphonic organ, while the gas vent pipes, used as flues, looked like a constellation of silvery organ-pipes.
Nothing is meaningless, that’s the whole issue. Every shape we place around us, especially in the whirl of producing objects, images, shapes, characterises the Western world. But never have objects been meaningless: indeed, in an old installation in Naples at the Lia Rumma gallery, Steinbach included various archaeological items. On another occasion, he invented a casing for art jewellery, as if to deny that he is driven solely by the taste for mass culture.
You need to remember more than one of his works, to become familiar with his way of arranging real objects by bestowing upon them a new identity, to witness the calm but strict scenes he puts up to demand the uniform varnishing of a frame, the only proper way to frame a photograph. Only then can we reflect upon the limit between that which lies on his floor in Brooklyn and the reason for its lying there, waiting for an idea of composition and the occasion of an exhibition to retrieve something from the deposit. Everything in there looks sinister, even the newspaper clippings of a banal slogan: waiting for a car to take us back to Manhattan, we feel like we’ve just been at a fetishist’s place. But when we come across those same objects at an exhibition, we realise that they are part of an epic poem: like only few other works of art do, they tell us how much objects speak for us and about the secret code binding them: the desire, memory, pulsation, impulse, history flowing through the days.
This sentence would make him smile and would remain unwritten: Steinbach would mock himself and also us, for we are willing to believe in such things. But then, thinking back to his far from easy life, from his childhood in Tel Aviv to his arrival in the United States, from his difficult self-made career (which not all Americans have experienced) to his success which came quite late, only after the Neo-Expressionist fashion was over, thinking back to his soon sixty years of life and to the pride of having been a master of objectsculpture; then, perhaps, just before correcting us with a sagacious comment, his gaze would curl into mild gratification.

Inspired by the lively and changing atmosphere of Place Djemaa El-Fna in Marrakech, it is a space in perpetual motion, its mobility responding first and foremost to the desires of artists. An evolving work site where nothing is definitive, neither the place nor the exhibitions. A mouldable and flexible structure adjusting to the everyone’s lifestyle. A place you can take possession of for an hour, a day, or forever. A lively organism, the Palais de Tokyo discloses its strength and weakness, its beauty and wounds. A place that is true to life, in the image of today’s and yesterday’s art. A transit area, a thoroughfare. Exhibitions are prepared and dismantled openly, with work areas kept constantly in view, not in the aim of turning work into a performance, but in the aim of bringing the public nearer to the art of its time.

One summer evening seven years ago, in one of Mantova’s most charming squares, Festivaletteratura was born.
That evening, the eight of us (those who later set up the organising committee) informed the town about our plan.
A dream plan that we had been studying and comparing for a long time and that we had redesigned to link it to our town.
An extraordinary town, a location that is perfectly suited to welcome whoever wishes to listen, see and think.
A town that, in the past, was able to produce culture, research and experimentation in its squares and buildings, just as we wanted for it to do
today.
That evening, people came in great numbers (much to our surprise), they listened to us and shared our idea: 4 days dedicated to literature that were rich in meetings with writers and artists speaking directly to an audience who wanted to listen to them in the many extraordinary corners in town, creating a highly favourable and uniting atmosphere.
A common bet shared and rooted among the thousands of fellow citizens working with us as volunteers, as sponsors, supporting us by offering hospitality in their homes, welcoming the authors, and by doing so much more… or, more simply, by being a friendly audience.
The writers and artists, from the more famous ones to the younger ones, also soon agreed to our plan, probably enticed by our stories and especially by those of the many friends helping us right from the start.
Enthusiasm has the ability of being contagious and this is the only reason that can explain the formidable network of contacts, common experiences and work that immediately came into being.
Along with us, hundreds of volunteers very slowly started believing in this festival and joined in to plan it in a festive atmosphere.
Simply, ruling out all distances and formalities, organisers-volunteersaudience- authors-the town followed our lead, instilling life (and they still do) into this festival that, according to what many say, is shrouded in “inexplicable magic”.
The wish of many – perhaps not always assessed and understood – to know, meet, be involved, came true here, where the Festivaletteratura tried – and still does – to offer stimuli to each individual’s curiosity. For six years now, the town has been pleasantly and peacefully invaded by a careful audience that is loyal to its yearly September appointment.
For the past six years, September in Mantova has been a different one, almost as if time were suspended in an ideal location (everybody’s town), where the very many events allow to build up personal and pondered experiences next to the hectic desire to see and listen to something different, something new (unknown) that is shared with others. Festivaletteratura is an “other time” for me too (and for all of us), a different time, almost stolen from the habitual time of our everyday life, a time used to work at a common plan through fun (and trying not to take ourselves too seriously).

VOLUNTEERS ARE THE VITAL LYMPH FROM WHICH THE FESTIVALETTERATURA IN MANTOVA DRAWS ENERGY. THEY ARE YOUNG PEOPLE COMING FROM VARIOUS PARTS OF THE WORLD TO OFFER THEIR HELP IN ORGANIZING THE FESTIVAL DAYS. THEIR CONTRIBUTION IS ENTHUSIASM, GOOD WILL, POSITIVENESS. IN RETURN THEY RECEIVE A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE. HERE ARE A FEW PERSONAL STATEMENTS BY THEM.

Patrizia Longo, Genoa:
“In waiting rooms one flicks through magazines almost without reading them but sometimes a page chooses you. Festival d’Italia: why not? It’s always nice to go on a brief holiday! It was back in 1997 and the adventure was starting in Mantova. That year I was nothing more than a curious visitor mesmerized by the unusual atmosphere. A very mild climate and splendid architecture embraced the Festival where international authors and common people, street artists and students, scientists and journalists were being drawn closer together. Among all these people, one can easily spot young boys and girls in their blue T-shirts, they’re very busy, loaded with bundles and packs, tired, sometimes they are unyielding but always polite and smiling: they are the volunteers. For the past five years I’ve been recovering the girl that is asleep in me: I slip my blue Tshirt on, hang my pass around my neck and treat myself to that magical event.
Quite often, I end up skipping meals and tiring my legs out to fulfil all the many chores but it is difficult not to respond to the intellectual stimuli I draw from all of this and which, during the rest of the year, I am often surprised to see blooming in my artistic activity.”

Benedetta Zecchini, Mantova:
“Festival volunteer: a volunteer and her camera. It was the 1998 edition of the Festivaletteratura, I’d been working as a photographer for 4 years, someone contacted me: would you like to take pictures of the authors in town during the festival days? So I’m there, with a group of other photographers who undoubtedly outdo me in terms of experience; we sort out the meetings, the job doesn’t seem to be difficult, but I’m nervous, I’m responsible for taking pictures at the children’s events and at several theater performances: it’s difficult to get the right light and to keep out of the way, I try blend into the environment. It’s fun and I manage to snap pictures that I like, so I do it again, 1999, 2000, a break, and again today, 2002. The job is more complicated now, as the festival itself has grown bigger, but also thanks to this experience, my way of being a photographer has changed: in the past, I used to enjoy looking for shapes and objects but now I find different images, I can broaden my search to include people, the people in a space, I try to grasp happy and lighthearted faces, funny or grave expressions, sentiments, sensations, not only mere shapes.”

Saniye Yilmaz, Germania:
“Being a small part of the festival, better still, being at the festival was already the most I could ask from this experience. I have never seen a whole town so involved in the materialization of an idea, working with enthusiasm for the success of the festival, so full of energy in those few days. Every step I made took me to places already imbued with history and becoming once again the background for new historical events. Indeed, the meeting with Mario Vargas Llosa was an historical one – at least for the simple reader. And, I’m sure there will be many other meetings that will be remembered in this way by readers like myself. I can’t wait to renew this experience.”

Prof. Bagnara, are we simply fated, then, to commit errors?
It’s part of our nature, aright. Actually, if we stop and think of the number of actions we manage to perform correctly each day, then I’d say we could be fairly satisfied; we don’t really make all that many mistakes. In absolute terms, of course, they’re a lot. Luckily, ninety-nine times out of a hundred we discover them before it’s too late and manage to straighten them out without too much trouble.

Why do we make mistakes in the first place?
There’s really no one, single reason for it. Repetitiveness, though, is one of the more frequent causes. Boredom is our brain’s worst enemy and after awhile it automatically reacts to dullness and tedium, disrupting any routine pattern by switching over to some variant behaviour. It happens especially when we’re tired or engaged in two or three different chores at the same time. The sorts of errors that may be made under these conditions are generally minor – like when we confuse salt and sugar.

Is it true that we learn from our mistakes?
There’s a special kind of error that’s very important because it provides us with an insight into how we reason, and such understanding can help us improve our reasoning. I’m referring to incorrect hypotheses: we make them whenever we’re confronted with a new problem to be solved or unfamiliar circumstances. We try to guess at the solution or outcome, and very often our guess is wrong. Explaining where and how we tripped up sheds light on our cognitive processes.

When is it that blunders can really get out of hand?
When a mistake is made despite knowing that it’s a mistake. That is, deliberately going against the rules and obstinately trying to make a situation fit one’s desires. Errors born of a blatant disregard of prevailing rules can be fatal. Take for instance Chernobyl: here was a team of experimentallyminded scientists keen to try out some risky procedure to see if it could be kept under control. And yet they knew perfectly well that when you’re dealing with a nuclear power reactor, safety, and not a desire for experimentation, comes first. We all know the outcome.

The philosopher Ernst Mach once said that knowledge and errors spring from the same mental processes, and it’s only the success of one and failure of the other that makes the difference.
True. An error and a correct performance are practically two sides of the same coin. Errors that don’t result in accidents, so-called “near miss events”, deserve to be closely considered. Analysing them yields much information, helping us to understand how we think and act.

What’s the state-of-the-art in our understanding of why we make mistakes?
The theory has made great strides since the late seventies when errors in high-risk situations, such as in nuclear power stations, airports and chemical factories, began to be investigated. Already from the first studies it became apparent that operators were practically “obliged” to make mistakes because of badly designed systems. That’s where James Reason’s error theory comes from. It practically says that you mightn’t be able to change human beings but you can change their work conditions, which are a major source of errors. Culturally, though, there’s still a lot of work to be done.

What do you mean?
We’re still permeated by a culture of “culpability”. Whenever something goes wrong, the accusing finger immediately lifts up, and it’s always pointing to some individual, usually the last link in the chain, the person responsible for the final material act before the accident. It’s the typical way an organisation has of holding itself harmless. Generally, any organisation is strongly opposed to change, as its greatest concern is to maintain the status quo. What’s worse is that this attitude deters the discovery of the real causes of an accident.

What’s the solution, then?
Well, first of all it’s essential to ensure a certain degree of impunity. That way, whoever’s made the mistake can own up to it, and the process of analysing and comprehending where things went wrong and finding remedies to avoid it happening again can get under way, openly and seriously.

Are there cultural differences in the way errors are interpreted?
Big differences. Compare, let’s say, American and Japanese business executives and how they’ve reacted to the recent crash. In the United States a failure is seen as an experience-enriching occurrence, indeed an opportunity for growth, both personal and professional. In fact, most executives who’ve been laid off will tell you they’re eager to kick off again with some new job, and this attitude is reinforced thanks to general public approval. On the other side of the Pacific Rim, where one’s personal reputation is next to sacred, the reaction has been one of public contrition and mourning, with people almost ready to throw themselves live on the funeral pyre.

And what about social relationships?
The sort of mistakes made during courtship or those that can spoil a friendship afford a formidable learning opportunity, indeed perhaps the best. Various experimental studies have shown that we learn most from our mistakes when they’re made in public. That’s because when we’re alone we’re less likely to come to terms with the cognitive and emotional complexity of our actions. In public we’re more than ever motivated to want to polish up our behaviour, so to speak, to avoid making the same mistake and cutting a poor figure in the future.

Interview by Mauro Scanu

In fact, perhaps because I am vaguely enthusiastic about DIY, I’ve always been rather independent in my career as well.
As a photographer, in order to fully identify with the final picture, I immediately learned that my black and white photos should be developed and printed in the darkroom. Today, I am pleased that the digital revolution has also allowed me to develop giant photographs covering several square metres “at home” – pictures that I once had to have printed in a laboratory. Most importantly, while I never got exactly what I wanted even though I worked with excellent printers, I can now get much closer to achieving the targets I set for myself because I can control the production process right through to the end.

What we consider to be our best very rarely coincides with what is acceptable to other people. Inevitably, if you believe in what you do, you’ll do it in your own way, and risk getting it wrong.

Like the old saying goes, very often it really is true that if you do things by yourself, you do the work of three people. Not only do you check each stage of the process yourself, stopping only when you are really satisfied with the end result, but above all, you usually spend less.
Obviously, if you do things by yourself, you risk – something that has already happened to me – being treated as a presumptuous one man band, who is convinced he can control things that are not his responsibility. The fact remains that a contemporary artist, in any discipline, usually has (or, I believe, should have) a fairly clear idea about his own work. For example, when I set up a project, I already imagine how I’d like the book, the format, the graphics, the frames of the exhibition… I have a vision, and I follow it through to the end.
My personal modus operandi is this: 1) I research every possible source of information and ideas from every angle, for a certain period of time; 2) I shut myself up in my room and try to get a result from everything I’ve gathered.

The only people I have to listen to are the maestros and the fanatical specialists. The maestros (everyone has his own list) can provide a mine of advice and information that we need to take note of. Obviously, they are the best yardstick. Advice from fanatical specialists, on the other hand (hackers, scanner enthusiasts, printing experts) allow you to keep your own know-how up to date with changing technologies and techniques.

As I do a creative job, my ideal public are the people with an interdisciplinary approach to art and culture. After all, an intellectual, like a good psychotherapist, can always see things from angles that we do not understand, or cannot reach. What gives me the most satisfaction is producing an articulated work that will be recognised by a multi-faceted public, made up of people from different cultural and educational backgrounds.

The theme of this edition of illywords is “La cultura dell’ascolto” (or “the Culture of Listening”). Did this lead to the idea of choosing “Accecare l’ascolto” (“Blocking the ears”) as the title for the section on theatre and the role of theatrical performance in the modern art of Artissima?
A.B. The title, “Blocking the ears” was inspired by the theatre of Carmelo Bene, a great Italian actor who battled against the modern tradition of bourgeois theatre and script-led theatre with his naturalist approach. Bene rejected what is known as “director-led theatre” in order to restore the actor to his role as the ultimate protagonist of the theatre. Theatre is “made” by the actor and his “scenic” script rather than a script he has to recite from memory as a mere “entertainer” or “persuader”. In some ways the script is considered secondary, because a theatrical performance should be seen and experienced to the full. The word became enhanced and uncoupled from its meaning, no longer with the hitherto purely communicative function but taking on a meaning of its own, leaving traces of a sound interpreted as oblivion. In this sense, Bene speaks of “blocked ears”. We have dedicated this five-day event in Turin to this idea of a theatre as a “non-place” or a “universal place”, theatre as an “act”.

Is “Blocking the ears” intended to highlight the fact that the cognitive process depends on interdependence between the senses – or is it just a good title?
A.B. There is no need to highlight the fact that the cognitive process depends on interdependence between the senses, this concept is already very clear. As I said, “Blocking the ears” refers to a new way of experiencing the theatre. I have to admit that sometimes (but not always) I think it is also a good title!

What role has listening played in modern art, and how much has it changed during the past 30 years?
A.B. If by listening you mean the approach to listening and understanding, I’d say that this attitude has always played a fundamental role in art. You cannot see a work if you don’t understand it. If you mean listening in the strict sense of the word – with your ears – I’d say that from the early 1900s, hearing became just as important as sight. Think of the futuristic and Dadaist avant garde theatre, the work of John Cage, or the culture of “happenings”, performance and video art, for example.

What is left of the artist who used to closet himself in his studio or head off to far-flung locations in order to express his creativity?
A.B. Nothing.

Does the modern spectator want to listen, to get involved, or does he prefer a passive role, judging the work from the outside, perhaps guided by a critical framework that will help him to understand it?
A.B. There are many types of spectator, all very different. Everyone confronts a work of art as he thinks best, or perhaps to the best of his ability. A passive attitude should always be countered: to realise its potential a work of art always needs someone who can receive it and knows how to “listen”, in other words art needs us in order to exist.

Can art shows, rather than museums and biennial exhibitions, be seen as a kind of crossroads for thoughts and encounters, and therefore also opportunities for listening?
A.B. Art shows (the good ones) are effectively places where people meet and thoughts come together, so they can be seen as opportunities for listening. In the art world, biennale events and museums have a different role – obviously just as important – so it would be better not to mix up these different levels and confuse the public in the process.

To quote from one of your statements: “If consideration is given to where a work is sited then the work cannot be moved elsewhere but must necessarily perish once the exhibit is over”. Does this mean that “place” itself becomes the work of art?
Not precisely. What I meant to say is that a work is made to fit into a given context. The work and its location come to be tightly bound one to the other and do not brook being separated. A work may of course be taken down and away. But it cannot be set up elsewhere, for it simply wouldn’t belong, while the place where it stood will revert 
to what it was. Essentially, the idea is that the presence of a work of art in any location changes the setting and once it has changed what caused it to change becomes part and parcel of that setting. Whether the work be left in place for decades, as in the case of a public monument, or for a month or for whatever the short time of an exhibition may be, once the objects, forms and signs that go to make up the new setting are taken down they simply cannot be set up elsewhere. The kind of works I’m talking about are those I generally call in situ.

Are there settings that you find stimulating and others not? What is it in a setting that elicits your creative powers?
Your question calls for an answer that may be interpreted in two different ways. Like anyone else, there are places I like and others I don’t. But I may be called on to work in either. In most cases the proposal is put forward by an individual, regardless of whether the proposed space be a public or private venue, a museum or a collector’s premises. What really interests me is the challenge that a place totally foreign to me affords. When I accept a commission it isn’t necessarily because I like the place where I’m to work. Some I do and I feel them stimulating and inviting. Others are refractory, uninteresting, dull. Be it as it may, when I set to work in them I leave whatever mood they may elicit out of my work. If the idea I’m working on proves unsuitable to the setting, or unfeasible in the context, or a 
potential hindrance to those who have to occupy the space where the work is to be located, then I may reject it. In any case, with regards the place itself in which I’m called to operate, I concentrate on what can actually be done in it, regardless of whether the location be prestigious, anonymous, lack-lustre, or even repellent. My feelings for the place don’t make myself accepting or refusing it. It is clear on the other hand that the place will affect what I will do in it.

People conduct their lives within given settings, at work, at home, at school. Can there be a form of art suitable for everyday living, capable of fitting in with routine and commonplace activities?
As far as I’m concerned that’s precisely one of the motives inspiring my work, and it’s been that way for more than thirty-five years now. My first concern when I undertake a new job is to prove to myself as much as to others the viability of artistic endeavour in a non-artistic context; that’s definitely what interests me most. 
I feel there’s greater general awareness on these issues now than twenty-five years ago, so there are far more opportunities today for the artist to work in the urban landscape for example. 
I think, or at least I hope, that this trend is bound to continue to growe. There are several reasons, I believe, for which this is the best way for an artist to work today. In the first place, it obliges the artist to think of artistic endeavour in a different way, outside the context of a museum. It will be interesting to watch developments. Not that the museum doesn’t interest me. Indeed, it interests me a great deal, but it currently has severe limitations, especially as far as continual public involvement is concerned. The best opportunity for the artist to relate to the public is afforded by those places that are commonly shared by all, such as the city in general, or even other venues such as offices and the like. But that’s another story. Anyway, to stick to the city at large and those places in it where people dwell, meet, work, and, when possible, dream even, the work of art in such contexts takes on a new meaning. Actually, it recovers a dimension it still had up to a century and a half ago, not to speak of five centuries ago. It’s a dimension that’s been overlooked in the last hundred years or so but that’s at last become viable again. Personally, what fascinates me aside from the opportunity of working in a public square and being amidst the public as such is the fact that the whole idea of artistic production gets submitted to radical revision. The street doesn’t allow for the same kind of freedom as the museum. It entails another kind of artistic freedom whose potential still needs to be fully disclosed. Easy or difficult as it may be, it’s without a doubt a fascinating challenge.

Interview by Ariella Risch

Until a few years ago there were standard venues in which our day to day lives were played out, such as the home, the shop floor or office, the pub, and so on. What’s the current scenario like?
There’s always been a classification of spaces and uses for which they are intended, especially in Western civilisations. The requirements of living in society have not however always coincided with such classifications. It’s not only in the last ten years that people have been eating in public venues and delivering talks in private places.

Defining a space by what it contains is difficult then, is it?
In recent years, a bit behind other European countries, large containers with prevalently commercial functions have sprung up all over Italy as well. These omnivorous spaces are outlets for all sorts of products and full of attractions and amusements. With their controlled environments and artificial climates, entrances and exits they seem to function as a world apart. But when everyday life breaks into these worlds apart new ways of relating to and using them unexpectedly emerge. The shopping itch may combine with a desire for other leisure activities or for entertainment even so that the boundaries between these functions tend to shift in a process of continual reshuffling.

How would you define “nonplace”?
I feel the concept’s misplaced. There are really no such things as “non-places”. The nature of any place depends on the relationships among its occupants. A place is established as such wherever people interact with one another.
Its meaning changes according to how it is used by its occupants as well as by how their moods change.

Do you feel that the architectural features of these places and the designer objects with which they are fitted out affect the quality of these relationships?
What we’re attempting to do through Domus is to put all facets of everyday living firmly back into architecture. As we’re all well aware, there’s some architecture that manages to condition what occurs within its bounds, while there’s other architecture that works like a sort of a platform wholly detached from what goes on about it, a neutral setting open to any use or event.

What’s your definition of an “imitation”?
Making a replica of something is part of the designer’s task. Actually, all our work is based on imitating. We always start out from semi-processed items and work on them in a sort of hobby-work, do-ityourself- like way. It’s a very difficult job, because we have to be able to recognise the intrinsic originality of all the parts and components making up the final product. It’s not merely a miscellaneous concoction but a contrived combination of designermade products.

So, are you saying there’s no way to avoid ending up being glutted by more and more “copies”?
Conveying an image, a piece of information, or a style motif even entails such a vastly intricate process that any production project that aims to be original is necessarily the outcome of a work of assembly. After all, what’s not a copy of something else? What’s important is not to limit oneself to making a plain and straight copy of something that already exists but to give it added value by making a creative quantum leap.
What’s to be avoided is mere duplication without anything on top of what’s already there, or worse still a depreciation of meaning. That would be copying in a more superficial and less appreciative sense.

Interview by Fabio Pornaro

Ana Mendieta bends backwards over a table, naked, covered in blood and mute. She’s enacting the rape suffered by a friend the setting: a –  student’s room in an American college; the time: the early stages of the feminist movement. The artist was searching for a powerful way of exposing the violence endured by women. As it turned out, that pain-laden performance secreted away in a closed-off corridor and only intended for the few game enough to make the effort to go and see it was the harbinger of a radical and sensational art form gory, splattery and shocking – very much in vogue today. By the Nineties it was perhaps less polished but far more effective. No longer the preserve of a select few, it was now open to general fruition. The time was then ripe for such visual hot stuff to break out and reach a wider public, a public which proved to be as much shocked as complacent by what it saw.

One starts out with a given destination in mind but ends up somewhere else. The fact is that history’s workshop is here and now; there’s no way of recreating the conditions extant at the time of an event. Of course, what gets foregrounded in any occurrence is what strikes us most at the time, and any proposition may start out with a clear-cut purpose in mind but turn out differently. It’s a kind of distortion that goes on all the time.

Computer-art practitioners, for instance, have strived to achieve works of art through a collective effort. Starting from an individually fired blog, they have attempted to kindle the interest of authors and users in a seminal idea to be then carried forward by the virtual community thus formed in an unending work of art in progress.

What’s happened, though, after almost fifteen years of attempts at practicing art on the web, is that rather than forming a community, art practitioners who endorse this medium have ended up using it in very much a personal way. The positive side of this experience has been to teach people how to cope with the web on their own, how to best exploit this essentially solitary medium by making it work positively for themselves, while one’s body silently sits before the animated display.

One sows to the right and reaps on the left. But if one fails to sow one will fail to reap, be it left or right. What really matters is being committed to one’s propositions and purposes, exploring their potential and implications, and sticking to them. What the objective is and how hard one pursues it isn’t all that relevant. That’s because a sidelong glance can often be more insightful than staring a purpose or proposition squarely in the face. Our capacity for setting ourselves objectives and working out rational schemes probably sparks off operational strategies for putting them into effect, but such a process depends largely on the input of fixed and pre-determined notions and data, which are not at all innovative.

The sharpest and most analytical side of our intellect is hence always one step behind the intuitive magma that makes us search for and take new directions when pursuing an objective. It’s collateral thinking that leads to adopting new approaches to a given subject, which are subsequently acknowledged as having yielded the most daring and innovative results.

Did Andrea Zittel, for instance, realise, when he exhibited several extravagantly and ironically decorated mini-caravans at the 1997 edition of Documenta, that he wasn’t only extolling the nomadic way of life but also opening the way for all lifestyles to be acknowledged as deserving equal dignity? And what about Joseph Beuys: could he have foreseen that rather than the defence of humankind and its habitat, his legacy would have been the rebirth of the artist as hero and the turning of the artist into an overpaid media star? When Gordon Matta-Clark started shooting up houses intended for demolition to make gaping holes in the walls, he wanted to catch a glimpse, from the residual traces inside, of the lives the people they had sheltered lead. Could he have then remotely envisaged that he was probably the forerunner of today’s voyeuristic craze that makes us want to see what’s going on in someone else’s home through the television-aided peep-hole?

Not that there’s anything wrong in any of this. Indeed, it’s what serendipity is all about. Who’s to say, for instance, that to misunderstand something mightn’t be a way for gaining a better understanding of it? Whoever sets out to interpret the work of others should feel free to inquire into the actual results achieved beyond the purposes and propositions stated by the practitioners. Alberto Burri was adamant about his work not having anything to do with death or injury. To him it was simply a matter of forms crossing and overlapping each other, as he keenly pointed out while laying down his “Cretto” su Ghibellina. But the outcome is a cement blanket reminiscent of a shroud, a white pall beneath which lies the memory of a city whose ancient roads are hinted at by creases in the overlaying mantle. Welcome, then, to misunderstandings, to sidelong glances at truths which can’t bear staring at directly.