DIALOGOS SECONDO

dialogos secondo Enrico Boccioletti, Mario Casanova, Dustin Cauchi, Alessandro Castiglioni, Richard Clements, Ermanno Cristini, Vicky Falconer, Simone Frangi, Francesca Mangion, MickaĂŤl Marchand, Giancarlo Norese, Paolo Tognozzi, Alessandro Rolandi, Luca Scarabelli, Miki Tallone, Virginia Zanetti

Cahier d’Art #5, Dicembre 2013

a cura di Alessandro Castiglioni e Ermanno Cristini

DIALOGOS SECONDO Dialogos, da un’idea di Alessandro Castiglioni e Ermanno Cristini, è una ricerca nata senza specifico progetto e senza un disegno curatoriale ortodosso, focalizzata sulla possibilità di sviluppare una pratica artistica attorno a dei presupposti di continua negoziazione del sapere, delle scelte e delle sensibilità. Un’esperienza cresciuta tra artisti che si sono “scelti” per coincidenza, “affinità elettive”, o traiettorie che hanno incrociato il loro fare.

Questo Dialogos secondo sviluppa il lavoro realizzato con Dialogos primo, fatto con altri artisti, iniziato nel 2009 e che ha dato luogo nel maggio 2011 ad una mostra presso Assab One, a Milano.

Dialogos primo ha prodotto una pubblicazione che è consultabile online: http://issuu.com/ermannocristini/docs/dialogos_2011 Dialogos primo è stato realizzato con: Andy Boot (Vienna), Sergio Breviario (Milano), Alessandro Castiglioni (Milano), Antonio Catelani (Berlino), Ermanno Cristini (Varese), Giovanni Morbin (Vicenza), Giancarlo Norese (Milano), Goran Petercol (Zagabria), Fabio Sandri (Verona), Luca Scarabelli (Milano), Emily Speed (Liverpool), Alessandra Spranzi (Milano).

Dialogos secondo è iniziato a fine 2011 e ha coinvolto i seguenti artisti e curatori: Enrico Boccioletti (Milano), Mario Casanova (Bellinzona), Dustin Cauchi (Malta), Alessandro Castiglioni (Milano), Richard Clements (Vancouver), Ermanno Cristini (Varese), Vicky Falconer (Londra), Simone Frangi (Grenoble), Francesca Mangion (Malta), Mickaël Marchand (Berlino), Giancarlo Norese (Phoenix), Paolo Tognozzi (Bergamo), Alessandro Rolandi (Beijing), Luca Scarabelli (Milano), Miki Tallone (Locarno), Virginia Zanetti (Firenze).

Questa pubblicazione raccoglie il lavoro così come si è costruito in un documento di google rispettando esattamente la succesione temporale e le lingue utilizzate dagli artisti e costituisce parte integrante della mostra realizzata presso il MACT/CACT ARTE CONTEMPORANEA TICINO a Bellinzona, dal Novembre 2013 al Febbraio 2014.

DIALOGOS PART TWO Dialogos, from an idea by Alessandro Castiglioni and Ermanno Cristini, is a research born without a specific project and an orthodox curatorial scheme, focused on the possibility to develop an artistic practice on ideas that continuously negotiate knowledge, choices and sensitivity. An experience grown among artists who have chosen themselves for coincidence, elective affinities, or trajectories that have crossed their way of doing.

This Dialogos part two we can take some elements, ideas, suggestions, texts, images, from Dialogos part one, for a new path. Dialogos part one started in 2009 and has been realized at Assab One, Milan, May 2011 and it is online: http://issuu.com/ermannocristini/docs/ dialogos_2011.

Dialogos part two have been starting in 2011. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ERMANNO CRISTINI

Remembrance is on an inclined plane

Details of remembrances

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ALESSANDRO ROLANDI così giusto per buttarti lì un pensiero, mi piacerebbe inviarvi delle frasi molto corte scritte in linguaggio binario: volevo fare dei neon e poi semplicemente delle scritte sui muri di una galleria... scegliendo frasi semplici e dal contenuto sensoriale o emotivo, ti rendi conto come in linguaggio binario... ti amo e ti odio in fondo cambiano solo per un paio di combinazioni di zeri e uno... così inviare una frase corta binaria con un commento che magari lancia una risposta dall’altra parte... un po’ come nel mondo in cui viviamo e verso cui stiamo andando come non-futuro...

LUCA SCARABELLI Seconda stazione (o con questa definizione gli diamo un sentimento troppo messianico?).

Appunti: Incidere nel discorso in forma più emotiva e frammentaria (sarà ancora il senso postmoderno che ci informa).

Costruire un vocabolario di piccoli punti e spazi di apertura.

Costruire il paesaggio atomico del dialogo.

Luca Scarabelli 04-05-2012 ore 23.08 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ GIANCARLO NORESE

Voglio scrivere in Courier.

Ich möchte mit Courier schreiben.

Giancarlo Norese _____________________________________________________________ ALESSANDRO ROLANDI The difference between LOVE and HATE is symmetric, close, balanced and predictable

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love hate

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1 0

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amare 01100001 01101101 01100001 01110010 01100101 odiare 01101111 01100100 01101001 01100001 01110010 01100101

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PARADIGMA

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MODELLO ALTAMENTE COMPETITIVO E DERIVA

SIAM o PR onti a T U T T O ?

CRE d IA mo d I E sseR E PR ON TI A TU Tt o ?

VO lI AMO ess ERE PRo Nti a Tu TTo ?

E’ IMP ort ANte eSSE RE PR onT

i a T utT O ?

tu TTi i CO mp ONE nti sONO per FETTi TU ttI I Ri scHI sONo cALC olaTI T Utti i P

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O

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so no MOR TI

DIALOGOS SECONDO

RICHARD CLEMENTS

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As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.

-Helen Keller This quote from Helen Keller is like binary i think. All actual differences in the world are hidden but they bring forth (like covert binaric code) all objects, ones that are indifferent to their perceived differences. Binary is a symbol for order bringing forth content. We only experience day:

(An inversion of Gill’s 1903 work inspired by William Morris)

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Or as Wallace Stevens says: Day is desire and night is sleep.

There are no shadows anywhere.

The earth, for us, is flat and bare.

There are no shadows.

This perhaps is like “off-cells”, even darkness remains positive in form, there is no void, no zero, only work (punch cards.

Think of Zeno’s arrow paradox: If everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any moment, the flying arrow is therefore motionless.

This essentially let us know that there are no things as “moments in time” (this is why movement occurs), only a edgeless continuum of time. No darkness , no moments in time, no void: These are only abstractions;ideas, there is only day (and everything is accounted for):

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________ VICKY FALCONER

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A photograph, printed in positive but with its iridescent, inflated whites swimming and lightly bursting over its surface, somehow taking on the character of an image seen in negative. A motif that reminds me of the possibility (the need?) for things to reside between one state and another. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ LUCA SCARABELLI

X.London,2012.

MICKAﾃ記 MARCHAND (sorry i deleted one picture by accident) google document is definitely not my medium. mickael. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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Luca Scarabelli anonimo(documento) - Alice ma tu ogni tanto impari qualcosa dalle tue esperienze o cosa?

- Cosa.

Lewis Carrol,“Le avventure di Alice nel paese delle meraviglie”.

Vestito di A. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ MICKAËL MARCHAND “ And finally there is the Pinnacle Grouse, which had a single wing. This enabled it to fly in one direction only, circling the top of a conical hill. The colour of its plumage varied according to the season and according to the condition of the observer” Jorge Luis Borges, from “The Book of Imaginary Beings”

x. Istanbul, 2012.

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x. works by Yala Juchmann, Berlin, 2012. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Giancarlo Norese, 2011-03-30 14.19.03, 2011

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VIRGINIA ZANETTI - La scelta del tempo - The choice of the time -

While Dialogos was growing, I was in an artist residency in Montemitro (CB), a small village clinging on rock, where people speak the ancient Croatian. I hadn’t read you yet but our extended fields were talking. In fact one of the work that I was developing for this place seems to be coincident to the discussion.

On the bell tower of S.Lucia Church, there is a six hours clock, no longer visible from the streets of the village, because of the successive buildings, only rising on feet, in a precise point of the road, we are able to glimpse a part.

The Choice of the Time Right in that point, the artist has created a circular ring in white travertine, the same size of the clock but void in the center and without hands and Roman numerals: in the absence of temporal scanning the past, the present and the future come together in one infinite dimension. An invitation to perceive the continuity with what has passed - first of all with the rural civilization, when it was the nature to regulate the day and life in the fields - so that the memory storage becomes practical help to live now. The right time is not related to the fact that people have developed sufficient capacity to understand, but to our understanding about the arrival of the right time for the change. Although the instant

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inevitably spend with the passage of time, life in each moment transcends the temporal structure containing the fundamental reality that remains unchanged through the past, present and future. In the circle you enter one at a time, introspection and concentration are necessary conditions to the intuition of the infinite potential of the present moment.

L’opera d’arte dipende dalle persone - The artwork depends from the people … something located at the bottom to look up ALESSANDRO CASTIGLIONI about. A Library.

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ALESSANDRO ROLANDI

THE BALANCE OF TERROR THE TERROR OF BALANCE

A-SIMMETRY

END IS NOT SIMMETRIC STILLNESS

IS NEEDED

NO-SIMMETRY IS NEEDED

BEGINNING IS NOT SIMMETRIC SIMMETRY IS NOT SIMMETRIC

password to watch: dongbudong

https://vimeo.com/46490023

MICKAËL MARCHAND And does “Balance is symmetric”, then?

no title at the moment, istanbul, 2012.

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Luca Scarabelli Parking Lost & Found The general problem.

ALESSANDRO ROLANDI The of The of

BALANCE TERROR TERROR BALANCE

In the following pages I re-consider this in a juxtaposition with Chinese Characters: although they only have horizontal real meaning, somehow the vertical reading intuitively suggests sense to Chinese People.

I’m actually thinking to have some underwear printed with both the English and the Chinese version Underwear Balance Terror Terror Balance Underwear some associations possible between the serious and the not-serious censorship deconstructed within the intimacy of our sexual organs

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____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Giancarlo Norese in response to Alessandro R

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

ERMANNO CRISTINI The body has found while it’s lost: memory is a dualism. Memory is symmetric.

(Walter Benjamin’s suitcase has never found)

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___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Mickaël Marchand homework

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ VIRGINIA ZANETTI - Infinite/ Two but not two -

Two but not two, from the Japanese principle esho funi, which places us as relationships of an infinite system. The first step towards the recognition of this condition is the reception: feeling the reality outside and therefore returning to ourselves. The starting point is the need of the absolute and the necessary dependency between each being and thing. The relationship between micro and macro cosmos are confirmed by quantum physics, all existence derives from the same matrix of matter and energy.

The circularity, with all its perfection and implications, is realized in two glass elements : the idea of unity and transparency.

The symbol of infinite is composed by two elements that become one: Two but not two. The two Felix Gonzalez Torres circles, close but separated entities are now interdependent.

In a fragment of Heraclitus we read that “Mutual beginning and end of the circle.” Here the symbol of infinite is composed by two elements that become one. A small glass horse that belonged to my grandfather looks at infinitive. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Luca Scarabelli . . .

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MICKAËL MARCHAND in reaction to alessandro: “Terror of balance and balance of terror”

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Ephemeral installation, Berlin / 2013 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ VIRGINIA ZANETTI - Infinite Present/Hula hoop ‌ About verticality and balance

The game of the hula hoop is never to let the circle fall to the ground, through the perpetual motion of the hips. The attempt of humanity to support the ring in the air, with eyes, breath, and its verticality, through points of tangency, leaving an empty space in the center, unfathomable which supports all.

It is based on the contingency and the impact of space and time, a hula hoop found in a park near a tree, while I was speaking to Remo Salvadori on my mobile.

Remo Salvadori, Continuo infinito presente, 2006 “Two but not two, from the Japanese principle esho funi, which places us as relationships of an infinite system. The first step towards the recognition of this condition is the reception: feeling the reality outside and therefore returning to ourselves. The starting point is the need of the absolute and the necessary dependency between each being and thing. The relationship between micro and macro cosmos are confirmed

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by quantum physics, all existence derives from the same matrix of matter and energy. The circularity, with all its perfection and implications materializes in a hula hoop with its need of movement. In a fragment of Heraclitus we read that “Mutual beginning and end of the circle.”

Matteo Innocenti & Virginia Zanetti

ALESSANDRO ROLANDI in dialogue with Mickael and Virginia THE MOMENT THE BALANCE IS SET IT IS ALREADY NOT BALANCE THE BALANCE THE MOMENT IS SET IT IS ALREADY NOT MOMENT exploring balance is exploring terror exercise n.1 “Standing, joint foot, lean your head forward until you are forced to make one step in order not to fall.

Repeat many times and explore the instant when you lose balance.

Become comfortable in that instant, feel good there, get to know it.” exercise n.2 “Standing, lean your head and body forward and simply fall to the ground: at a certain point your hands will move and prevent you from going face down; get to know that moment, delay it and anticipate it, play with it, feel comfortable there. expand it, constrain it In both exercises, deal with those instants of fear and terror, transform them make them yours “ La beauté est la fin de l’effroi” Heiner Müller bb ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ MICKAËL MARCHAND This exercises directly give me to think of Bas Jan Ader who said: “I do not make body sculptures, body art, or body works. When i fell off the roof of my house, or into a canal, it was because gravity made itself master over me”

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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Thoughts from Henri Bortoft: Let us think of this example: What is roundness? We might try to answer this by giving a number of instances, such as “the moon is round”, “the plate is round”, “the coin is round” and so on. Of course “round” is none of these things, but by adducing a number of such instances we may hope to provoke the recognition of roundness. This happens when perception of specific instances is re-organized, so that they now become like mirrors in which roundness is seen reflected. In spite of what many people might think, this process does not involve empirical generalization – i.e. abstracting what is common from a number of cases.

The belief that concepts are derived directly from sensory experience is like believing that conjurors really do produce rabbits out of hats. Just as the conjuror puts the rabbit into the hat before hand, so the attempt to deduce the concept by abstraction in an empirical fashion presupposes the very concept it pretends to produce!

-Henri Bortoft We see reality according to our thought, and it gives shape and form to ourselves and the whole of reality. But our thought doesn’t know it is doing this, thought is thinking that it isn’t doing anything; this is the problem: that we think we are thinking about reality, but in fact we are thinking it.

-David Bohm

For example, we can only “see” a table because we have the organizing principle of the “table-idea” within us. It is looking in a “tabley” way that creates a boundary in the perceptual field so that a table can be distinguished and can be pointed to. -Henri Bortoft As i look at any circle, i can’t help but realize that the centre is always missing. If it is a spun ceramic vessel the circle is missing; the hands of the maker now absent. The potter’s wheel too is missing its centre; left back in the factory that made it. If it is a circular piece of paper the compass point is gone. When making a circle i give more attention to the spinning of the lathe or the turning of the compass, when it is finished the lathe is turned off and the compass is put down.

I have learnt to draw everyshape from a compass; using the equidistant rules of angles and trajectories; circles seem to be everywhere and nowhere. I can’t help but think the circle and it’s metaphor of holism is a phantom.

I don’t think the centre of the circle is unfathomable at all. It is seen in the making of the circle, only forgotten when looking at it. Every made circle once had a physical center. Planets seem to be a rare exception, and even gravity confused Newton: I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses.

A circle to me is either the experience of spinning, or the dead result of that spinning. Which is why, i guess, spinning a hula hoop feels good, because it’s both an appeared circle and it’s spinning, but the hoop and the hips are making different orbits. I like spinning things because they aren’t so stubborn in their form, they just describe peripheries. That’s how i sculpt the figure too, rotating around it, looking at perihperies, where edges meet the world.

Also a circle is infinitely round. For me this means that a sphere or a cylinder’s curved side (wha-

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tever manifestation of circleness) can never be placed on a flat surface because in its infinite roundness it will never meet the table, it will infinitely receded from any contact with the table.

No matter how much you “zoom” in on the supposed point of contact there will be none.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Mickaël Marchand My own experiences and observations with Roundness happen when i was working in the streets, looking for furnitures and objects. Each time i founded something round i was tug between happiness and worrying what i could do with it. A round is in one hand a security of Harmony in a composition. It can stand alone and your eyes would be satisfy

”Ederstrasse 18” / “Berlin 2009”, in the other hand it’s a closed form that doesn’t accept easily other objects. It’s a form i would never think to “destroy” or transform into a square for example.

Later i met a friend of mine. He shows me some new sculptures he has done. Somehow his sculptures always look chaotic and use a lot of straight thin lines of wood crossing each other and seems to have no logical development. For some of them he included a round in the middle and suddenly it became harmonic to me. I realize that i always prefer the sculptures he did with a circle in it.

After that i always just enjoyed to found round objects hopping that it could bring my sculptures to an other level of matters.

“NYC 2012”, “18 Herkimer place”, n°2+5+8/12 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ VICKY FALCONER

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VICKY FALCONER Untitled, 2012 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Luca Scarabelli

VICKY FALCONER

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Luca Scarabelli

Love me not.

Ieri.

Yesterday.

Love me.

2013

DUSTIN CAUCHI BEM: BAM: BEM: BAM: BEM: BAM: (BAM

What must I confess?

That he said where to you.

Is that all?

Yes. Then stop?

Yes. Come. exits at w followed by BEM.)

v: Good It is winter.

Time passes.

In the end I appear.

Reappear.

(BAM enters at w, halts at 3 head bowed.) v: Good.

I am alone.

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In the present as were I still.

It is winter.

Without journey.

Time passes.

That is all.

Make sense who may.

I switch off.

(Lights off p.

Pause.

Lights off v.) * Beckett, Samuel, What Where, 1983. “ Yet one cannot maintain that the sensible is injected by me into things like some sort of perpetual and arbitrary hallucination.

For there is indeed a constant link between real things and their sensations: if there were no thing capable of giving rise to the sensation of redness, there would be no perception of a red thing; if there were no real fire, there would be no sensation of burning.

But it makes no sense to say that the redness or the heat can exist as qualities just as well without me as with me: without the perception of redness, there is no red thing; without the sensation of heat, there is no heat. Whether it be affective or perceptual, the sensible only exists as a relation: a relation between the world and the living creature I am. In actuality, the sensible is neither simply ‘in me’ in the manner of a dream, nor simply ‘in the thing’ in the manner of an intrinsic property: it is the very relation between the thing and I. These sensible qualities, which are not in the things themselves but in my subjective relation to the latter - these qualities correspond to what were traditionally called secondary qualities.” * Meillassoux, Quentin, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency, Continuum, 2008

con-tin-gen-cy Noun 1. A future event or circumstance that is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty.

2. A provision for such an event or circumstance.

Synonyms chance - accident - eventuality - fortuity - possibility.

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________________________________________________________________________________________________ ALESSANDRO CASTIGLIONI:

I’ve noticed, in the last messages, this recurring image: the circle.

I’m trying to think to a possible translation of this archetype in our DIALOGOS. The circle. Maybe it is an objective correlative of the dialogue itself.

Talking and continue to talk or maybe discuss later…

The dialogue is always a contemporary practice because in itself it needs the state of being contemporary.

Dustin Cauchi & Paolo Tognozzi, On a sculpture, video still, 2013. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Dustin Cauchi: ‘PERIPHERAL DIALECTICS’ , CONTEMPORARY HERMENEUTICS & CONTINGENCY A CONTEXT PRECEDING A CONTEXT (always … circular, I agree Alessandro Castiglioni) BASIC OUTLINE FOR ON A SCULPTURE (2013) A PROJECT BY DUSTIN CAUCHI & PAOLO TOGNOZZI Contemporary dialogue necessitates an ‘appendix’, intended as a form of supplementarity to the common idea of technological exchanges that have been with us since the turn-of-the century. In this context, supplementarity is hereby characterized by the inclusion of multimedia elements within the common or ‘primitive’ use of spoken language or written text. This ‘new’ form of dialogue is therefore preceded, accompanied or followed by related or foreign multimedia narratives. It is this multilayering of text, image and sound that prevalently characterizes contemporary communication.

This seems to imply that contemporary dialogue has already developed particular structural and formal mechanisms that in a sense double ‘traditional’ linguistic parameters whilst necessarily operating in relation to them. This new form gives rise to a system that elaborates the rigidity of linguistic structures into an arbitrary yet codified ‘meta-language’, consequently delineating new spatial parameters within which contemporary dialogue can take place. An immediate manifestation of this new space is easily perceived through an observation of email and social media communication, whereby the ‘appendix’ i.e. multimedia attachment, gradually replaces the ‘traditional’ linguistic content of a particular message, email or post.

Dustin Cauchi’s & Paolo Tognozzi’s project ON A SCULPTURE sets itself the task of inhabiting this space, through an exchange that takes place within the parameters of contemporary communication. The dialogue between Cauchi & Tognozzi inhabits these meta-linguistic parameters first of all due to the geographical distances that define their exchange: BERGAMO-MILAN-GZIRA-PARIS, and secondly because the exchange itself is defined by the mechanisms dictated by the space that they inhabit. Thus, ON A SCULPTURE can be regarded on the one hand as a ‘site-adaptable’ micro intervention within the larger mechanism of contemporary communication, whilst, on the other hand retaining the characteristics of a private correspondence. The dialectic developed by Cauchi & Tognozzi revolves around the creation of a work-object: a sculpture. Consequently, the multimedia material born out of this exchange can be regarded as a form of preparatory work for the creation of this hypothetical work-object whilst simultaneously becoming a work-object in itself.

The series of still images, video and text, comprising the first phase of research, were presented chronologically (MEDITERRANEA 16

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ERRORS ALLOWED, ANCONA, JUNE 2013) in order to preserve the structural dynamics of the email and skype exchanges between Cauchi & Tognozzi during the period April-June 2013. Apart from its archival function, the presented material confronts itself with the spatial restrictions or possibilities of an ‘imposed’ physical space. Thus creating a tension between the virtual space that incubated them during the period of documentation and the physical space that they inhabit. Once again, replicating and shedding light on the duality of the virtual and physical dynamics of ‘peripheral dialectics’ and ‘micro-interventions’ within centralized networks and power structures. http://www.dustincauchi.com/on-a-sculpture

CIRCULAR contra CYCLICAL

* Michelangelo Antonioni, Blow Up, production still, 1966. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ ERMANNO CRISTINI

breathe in-breathe out breathe [breeth] Show IPA verb, breathed [breethd] Show IPA , breath·ing. verb (used without object) 1. to take air, oxygen, etc., into the lungs and expel it; inhale and exhale; respire.

2. (in speech) to control the outgoing breath in producing voice and speech sounds.

3. to pause, as for breath; take rest: How about giving me a chance to breathe?

4. to move gently or blow lightly, as air.

5. to live; exist: Hardly a man breathes who has not known great sorrow.

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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DUSTIN CAUCHI: IN RELATION TO THE CIRCULARITY OF BREATH ... “ The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings. From any of the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper and lower floors. The distribution of the galleries is invariable. Twenty shelves, five long shelves per side, cover all the sides except two; their height, which is the distance from floor to ceiling, scarcely exceeds that of a normal bookcase. One of the free sides leads to a narrow hallway which opens onto another gallery, identical to the first and to all the rest. To the left and right of the hallway there are two very small closets.

In the first, one may sleep standing up; in the other, satisfy one’s fecal necessities. Also through here passes a spiral stairway, which sinks abysmally and soars upwards to remote distances. In the hallway there is a mirror which faithfully duplicates all appearances. Men usually infer from this mirror that the Library is not infinite (if it were, why this illusory duplication?); I prefer to dream that its polished surfaces represent and promise the infinite ... Light is provided by some spherical fruit which bear the name of lamps. There are two, transversally placed, in each hexagon.

The light they emit is insufficient, incessant.”

From: Borges, Jorge Luis, The Library of Babel ________________________________________________________________________________________________ ALESSANDRO CASTIGLIONI: R.E.M. Perfect Circle, 1983 Put your hair back, we get to leave Eleven gallows on your sleeve Shallow figure, winner’s paid Eleven shadows way out of place Standing too soon, shoulders high in the room Standing too soon, shoulders high in the room Standing too soon, shoulders high in the room Pull your dress on and stay real close Who might leave you where I left off?

A perfect circle of acquaintances and friends Drink another, coin a phrase Heaven assumed, shoulders high in the room Heaven assumed, shoulders high in the room Heaven assumed, shoulders high in the room Try to win and suit your needs Speak out sometimes but try to Standing too soon, shoulders high in the room Standing too soon, shoulders high in the room Standing too soon, shoulders high in the Standing too soon, shoulders high in the room Standing too soon, shoulders high in the room

R.E.M. playing Perfect Circle, 1989, still from youtube - to me this is also a homage to The Ophidian Twin - that is circular too... -

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Dustin Cauchi: RE: THE OPHIDIAN TWIN

Jody Fiteni, Pieta cemetery, Malta, Archive still, photographer unknown, 1987.

Jody Fiteni, Tigne Military Battery, Malta, Archive still, photographer unknown, 1986.

ERMANNO CRISTINI

breathe in-breathe out, 2013

VICKY FALCONER

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“double, blind///”

VIRGINIA ZANETTI -The drop digs the stone, the ring is consumed with use“In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn’t matter, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!”

Rilke’s Letters To A Young Poet

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«Gutta cavat lapidem, consumitur anulus usu» the sentence is from Ovid (Epistles from Pontus, IV, 10, 5), occur commonly in other Latin authors in several variations, with pedagogic value of exhortation as a reminder that through an iron will, a strong intensity and perseverance you can achieve goals otherwise be impossible. My assistance is to take the water as a center of meaning, both in the use of travertine stone that is formed by the deposition of sweet and calcarifere waters, which in the reversal of the position of the artist as a shaper of matter of a contemplator element in order to learn teachings. Let the water from falling drop by drop over a circle stone: the action includes both the expansion surface and the vertical movement towards the depth.

Depth for an artist is to see in reality and things, to maintain a constant reflection on the sense of doing, the meaning of the linguistic choices and their role. On a formal level is the choice to remove anything that is extra, smooth the superfluous, the essential look beyond appearances.

The ring was abandoned at the strength of the elements that consume dissolves the idea of the artist “creator” - an idea that refers to an illusory power. Both round-shaped stones that recall the continuity between past, present and future, are devices to learn patience and perseverance of the water. The only way to achieve the impossible: as a drop that constantly digs into the rock to puncture. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ ERMANNO CRISTINI

The circle is an inclined memory ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ DUSTIN CAUCHI: 1] APPENDIX A REFLECTION ON THE DYNAMICS OF TRANSLATION

a) IDEOLOGY - ARCHITECTURE

PIER PAOLO PASOLINI SABAUDIA E LA CIVILTA’ DEI CONSUMI [1974]

31

b) TEXT - IMAGE MOVEMENT JEAN LUC GODARD AUTOPORTRAIT DE DÉCEMBRE [1994]

c) TEXT - SPACE DUSTIN CAUCHI NIGHT BECOMING DAY SUBSIDING [2013]

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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ERMANNO CRISTINI

breathe in-breathe out, 2013

DUSTIN CAUCHI: CIRCULAR

C O N T R A CYCLICAL

BEUYS --33

FASS -- BINDER

DIALOGUE --NATURE AS CONTINGENCY

DUSTIN CAUCHI - ROMA - still, 2013

CONTINGENCY AS NATURE

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IL MISTERO DI OBERWALD, from Dustin Cauchi & Paolo Tognozzi, On a sculpture, video still, 2013 ________________________________________________________________________________________________ GIANCARLO NORESE

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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

VIRGINIA ZANETTI - Who finds a friend finds a treasure Because love that doesn’t aim at the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth seeking for what is just vain.

From The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

In every relationship we open ourselves to lose a while of our attachment to the self-defined and closed ego and giving something of ourselves.

When the gift is sincere the other gives you back what you had lost with something more, so you become a better person, richer and more evolved.

The first night I arrived in Momiano I “lost” my personal effects in a football field. In the days after I asked artists and curators in Vizura Aperta, myself included to participate in a collective action: looking for the objects I lost in the football field.

A slow and seemingly impossible action, that prompts you of “self-giving” without reserve, looking carefully and patiently without the certainty of finding something.

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Loss, offer, gift, search, discovery, union growth.

They entered one at a time, they tryed to be present in their own verticality, listen to the earth and grass that they were trampling, walk slowly and carefully until they came to a stop because they chosed their own space.

They searched in their own way, expressing their personality.

People disseminated in a vast football field looking for something small and precious in the grass, in the search for something seemingly impossible to find, however, focused and determined to make an unsuccessful action.

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LUCA SCARABELLI

The visitors. 2013 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ FRANCESCA MANGION: He recalls in what circumstances the circle was traced as though around him – a circle: rather, the absence of a circle, the rupture of that vast circumference from which come the days and nights.

Of this other circle, he knows only that he is not enclosed within it, and, in any case, that he is not enclosed in it with himself. On the contrary, the circle being traced – he forgets to say that the line is only beginning – does not allow him to include himself within it. it is an uninterrupted line that inscribes itself while interrupting itself.

Let him admit for an instant this trace traced as though in chalk and certainly by himself - by whom otherwise? – or else by a man like him, he does not differentiate. Let him know that it disturbs nothing in the order of things. Let him sense, nevertheless, that it represents an event of a particular kind - of what kind he does not know, again perhaps. Let him remain motionless, called upon by the game to be the partner of someone who is not playing . . .

And sometimes addressing himself to the circle, saying to it: Try once, indifferent circle, if only for an instant, to close up again, so that I know where you begin, where you end.

Be this circle – the absence of a circle – traced by writing or by weariness; weariness will not permit him to decide, even if it is only through writing that he discovers himself weary, entering the circle of weariness – entering, as in a circle, into weariness.

Maurice Blanchot, The Infinite Conversation, 1969

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LUCA SCARABELLI

Mark Manders artworks (Head study and Girl with yellow vertical) and me, 55th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, 2013.

VICKY FALCONER imprint, of one ///

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DUSTIN CAUCHI:

FORMULAIC DIALOGUE AND THE THIRD FORM C. PAVESE (Dialoghi con Leucò) + B. BRECHT

( STRAUB + HUILLET ) = Quei Loro Incontri

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiJ3oxgmVIw POINT FOR DISCUSSION

“ONE CANNOT HAVE AN IDEA IN GENERAL” G I L L E S What space do we claim to reclaim here?

What space - tradition - history - are we inhabiting?

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DELEUZE

DIALOGOS SECONDO

APPENDIX; ON SPACES HISTORIES AND HAIR http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ALESSANDRO ROLANDI

Stanislav Evgrafovic Petrov AD MEMORIAM IN PRAISE OF DOUBT

IN PRAISE OF HESITATION IN PRAISE CONTRADICTION

…

VIRGINIA ZANETTI - Gli occhi del mondo - The eyes of the world -

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DUSTIN CAUCHI:

FG TORRES

LUCA SCARABELLI

Phobia, 2012-2013.

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VIRGINIA ZANETTI - The eyes of the world -

When the beauty of nature imposes itself art can only dialogue with it in order to amplify her splendor. Hence the idea of an earthly work that had the power of the sky , choosing 12 geographical points where embed circular mirrors of multiple dimensions - special places to which entrust hopes and desires - in relation to listened or communicated stories in Latronico. The mirror for its dual characteristics, is a way to evoke alternative universes, while the human being , with his “vertical� presence and his eyes, makes possible the connection between the earth and the sky.

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The streets and squares , where the circles are positioned, relate to each other through invisible connections , and the village, in the encounter between energy past, present and potential, becomes a living entity.

The project remains open because the various points , as well as becoming a characteristic feature of the village- in which each attributing a specific meaning in relation to own personal history - may be increased in number by residents and visitors who will contribute to the expansion of this particular energetic cartography. The inhabitants were invited to contribute to the realization of the exhibition in the Space Cantisani, writing behind the maps of the points the story of a memory, a personal or imaginary story linked to the sites chosen, giving mirroring circles their own name or of a dear person , outlining an individual way that will be intersected with the other inhabitants’ones.

Helping to build a collective and emotional memory of the place .

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ LUCA SCARABELLI when we collide, 2013 in giro con AWV.

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_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ MICKAËL MARCHAND “writing behind the maps of the points the story of a memory, a personal (or imaginary) story linked to the sites chosen”.

July 2012. Kaptan Sokagi 32a, Istanbul early in the morning.

The sun started to rise even when i could see clear for a long time already. I found just enough materials to work: a broken chair, a furnituredoor and a crimpy piece of plastic. I disposed them on the shadow, just under the balconies where the stairs to the cellar were together with the garage door and the downspout. Then i crossed the street and went next to a pile of sand and couple of big stones. I installed my tripod with the camera, and sat on one of the stone. I started to work. A few sculptures later, i noticed a family having breakfast on the first floor balcony. Grandparents had their little children with them. The grandfather was quite and seems to be wise with a fine and dry wrinkled face and white hair. Of course, he also observed me. Suddenly he ask me something in Turkish. I answered the few sentences i learned in his language: “i don’t speak Turkish. I’m an artist. I’m french but i leave in Berlin”. He shows me a glas and said : “chaï?”. I accepted. His wife went downstair with a golden-shelf.

Sitting on my improvised chair, the sun on my left was caressing my face, drinking my tee i tried to profit as much as possible about this suspended-moment when i could observe my work in such a good situation. I thought then that i was happy so.

My work was finish when i wanted to give the glas back to the old men. He proposed me an other one. I refused politely. From his balcony he lowered a bucket by means of a rope. I disposed the empty-glas in and said “tesekkür ederim. Iyi günler”.

ERMANNO CRISTINI

45

breathe in-breathe out, 2013

FRANCESCA MANGION: Cerchiamo dapertutto l’incondizionato e troviamo sempre soltanto cose.

Novalis, Polline, Athenaeum, 1798 Thus, modernity has triumphed, and we did not know it.

Quentin Meillassoux, The Number and the Siren, 2011

VIRGINIA ZANETTI

and the my/our attempts to reach the ecstasy…

“It would be a comfort, she felt, to lean; to sit down; yes, to lie down; never, never, never to get up again.” “...It’s something useless, sudden, violent; something that costs a life; red, blue, purple; a spirit; a splash [...] free from taint, dependence, soilure of humanity or care for one’s kind; something rash, ridiculousecstasy [...] it’s ecstasy that matters.”

Virginia Woolf, Orlando MICKAËL MARCHAND

July 2012. Istanbul in the afternoon.

I was already far from where i started to walk. Tired to carry my tripod and my middle-format camera, the straps formed a black X on my chest. I was sweating like hell even i tried to stay on the shadow. I arrived down the Alaz sokagi. It was a very steep street. On my left was a ruin.

In the mess i could see a lot of dirty objects, it was the first time i found a door in Istanbul.

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I first installed my tripod like to mark my territory. Then i removed the objects to the most interesting area i’ve notice: the entrance house number 40.

I could shoot my first photographs from the side-walk but it was already obvious that at some point i would have to stand in the middle of the road. At the same time, kids started a soccer game above my position. The ball was dangerously coming to my sculptures or my tripod. When i started my last sculpture they were finish with them match, so i became visible. They started naturally to hang around. They became more and more invasive. Without success, they tried to remember some english words. I was very concentrated as i was about to shoot my last picture and tried to ignore them.

When i came down the street. The kids were yelling at me the few words they could finally remember : “fuck you”, “mother fucker”...

______________________________________________________________________________

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MIKI TALLONE

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mai 2013, reykjavic miki tallone

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______________________________________________________________________________ GIANCARLO NORESE

Giancarlo Norese, Grand Nothing, 2012 (Grand Canyon)

Giancarlo Norese, Classroom, 2013 (Cremona)

Giancarlo Norese, Investigations for the Celebration of the Living, 2013 (Phoenix)

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Giancarlo Norese, Balance Between, 2013 (Los Angeles) Giancarlo Norese, Camelback, 2013 (Phoenix) ____________ LUCA SCARABELLI

Un essere in situazione ma sempre desituato (dopo Jaspers).

2 am, da qualche parte.

Quindi non ci sarò.

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____________________________________________________________________________________________________ SIMONE FRANGI

Pas de dialogue possible

« Le silence, c’est la meilleure production qu’on puisse faire, parce qu’il se propage : on ne le signe pas et tout le monde en profite » (Marcel Duchamp) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUzBCl6iVoc Profitez!

FRANCESCA MANGION: The community that becomes a single thing (body, mind, fatherland, Leader...) ...necessarily loses the in of being-in-common. Or, it loses the with or the together that defines it. It yields its beingtogether to a being of togetherness. The truth of community, on the contrary, resides in the retreat of such a being.

Jean-Luc Nancy, The Inoperative Community, 1986 VIRGINIA ZANETTI - Studio primo per l’estasi nel paesaggio/ Dispositivo a terra First Study for the ecstasy in the landscape

Six feathers had she picked from the grass and drawn between her fingers and pressed to her lips to feel their smooth, glinting plumage, when she saw, gleaming on the hill-side, a silver pool, mysterious as the lake into which Sir Bedivere flung the sword of Arthur. A single feather quivered in the air and fell into the middle of it. Then, some strange ecstasy came over her. Some wild notion she had of following the birds to the rim of the world and flinging herself on the spongy turf and there drinking forgetfulness, while the rooks’ hoarse laughter sounded over her. She quickened her pace; she ran; she tripped; the tough heather roots flung her to the ground. Her ankle was broken. She could not rise. But there she lay content. The scent of the bog myrtle and the meadow-sweet was in her nostrils. The rooks’ hoarse laughter was in her ears. “I have found my mate,” she murmured. “It is the moor. I am nature’s bride,” she whispered, giving herself in rapture to the cold embraces of the grass as she lay folded in her cloak in the hollow by the pool. “Here will I lie. (A feather fell upon her brow.) I have found a greener laurel than the bay. My forehead will be cool always. These are wild birds’ feathers - the owl’s, the nightjar’s. I shall dream wild dreams. My hands shall wear no wedding ring,” she continued, slipping it from her finger. “The roots shall twine about them. Ah!” she sighed, pressing her head luxuriously on its spongy pillow, “I have sought happiness through many ages and not found it; fame and missed it; love and not known it; life - and behold, death is better.

I have known many men and many women,” she continued; “none have I understood. It is better that I should lie at peace here with only the sky above me - as the gipsy told me years ago. That was in Turkey.”

Virginia Woolf, Orlando, 1928

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______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ERMANNO CRISTINI ore 24 del 30 ottobre 2013

________________________________________________________________________________

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PAOLO TOGNOZZI

Index by surname B Boccioletti Enrico

57, 58, 59

C Castiglioni, Alessandro Cauchi, Dustin Clements, Richard Cristini, Ermanno

2, 3, 4, 15, 29, 31, 32 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 43, 44, 45 8, 9, 10 3, 4, 5, 18, 19, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 49, 56

F Falconer, Vicky Frangi, Simone

11, 26, 27, 33, 42 55

M Mangion, Francesca Marchand, Mickael

41, 49, 55 11, 12, 13, 16, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 48, 49, 50

N Norese, Giancarlo

6, 13, 18, 38, 39, 53, 54

R Rolandi, Alessandro

6, 7, 16, 17, 23, 44

S Scarabelli, Luca

3, 5, 6, 11, 12, 17, 21, 26, 27, 41, 42, 45, 47, 54

T Tallone, Miki Tognozzi, Paolo

51, 52 57

Z Zanetti, Virginia

14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, 33, 34, 39, 40, 44, 46, 47, 49, 55, 56

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

ENRICO BOCCIOLETTI Softest Hard A thing is a hole in a thing it is not. ( ) Negative space. To hold your breath until you faint as a means to reaffirm you being alive and present. In utter silence sounds burst into music, gaps between words determine the substance thereof and the possibility of meaning; repetition sets the scenario for difference to be recognized. Intrusive evidence of what is missing, which is always present. The more I know you, the less I am myself. It’s like throwing stones in a lake, an endless drain. When you throw stones in a river they get to a sea, carried by the water flow, sometimes. Throwing a stone in the lake, short is the reverb. And it sinks to the bottom. I am drained.

You should find the trick otherwise the trick is going to find you. I always reconnect art work to the idea of fitness; to ease your mind in running, gathering mind flow in endurance, isn’t it concerning the spiritual in art? Melt fat, burn calories. It has something of Giacometti, and taking the fat off space. Sleep is lifetime in reverse, a space where lifestream both rejuvenates and interrupts, the negative which daytime action develops from. In your absence you are everywhere. Sleeping with somebody else has become a way to sharpen the pain for the lack of you body; to wake up with somebody else a remark of the lack of your presence. Failure is a way to reaffirm your narcissism. Talking to yourself in the boring soliloquy that you can admit things went wrong but you can somehow do better – while in the end you knew from the beginning it’s just another well-framed excuse. I don’t believe in anything. I just used to ask you for your presence to compensate for the void I felt, but the void ate the whole court in the end. The urge to workout I push my untrained body to, as a reassurance I still have one and I can feel it – something I used to get from the warm presence of your body next to mine at night, in a different space and time. The smooth rhythm of your breath, the soft movement of your unconscious body. The magnetism of your skin. I keep an intolerable journal of this absence, a memory of nights spent apart in the form of readable data I get from the Sleep Cycle app for iPhone, a bio-alarm clock that analyzes your sleep patterns and wakes you when you are in the lightest sleep phase. “Since you move differently in bed during the different phases, Sleep Cycle uses the accelerometer in your iPhone to monitor your movement to determine which sleep phase you are in. Waking up in the lightest sleep phase feels like waking without an alarm clock – it is a natural way to wake up where you feel rested and relaxed.” – as the application is described on the app store. Never have I woke up like that – but al least it gives me back a detailed analysis of every night spent sleeping alone. When I am happy I won’t have time to make this anymore. Yes Alejandro Cesarco I guess you’re right. I hate it hearing the echo of your own words when you are speaking to yourself,

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DIALOGOS SECONDO

in a way that muteness resembles deafness. Higher the cliff, more painful the fall. Higher expectations correspond to more frustrating disappointments. The point you go to bed every night tired to the extent that rest is not really possible.

What most people want is to escape themselves in the end – for everybody’s hustle is about the labour of being present. I set my ambition so high that every unproductive circumstance can become a wellspring of anxiety, and non-productivity automatically sense of guilt. Every hour the eleventh-hour. Sleeping alone has come to represent a waste of possibilities, that set of possibilities at your fingertips if you’d been sleeping with somebody on the other hand. Unconscious activity as spam. Having a job as waste of energy.

How are you performing in life? I mean, tangible outcome, countable results. You are always at work when you become the work.

Set up the business of your own self-centeredness: sensitivity as both source and target market. How do you deal with the constant need to generate a narrative, when the hiss has come to cover any intelligible idea? The hustle of being always present. This is why perhaps negative space is so necessary, the negative space spawn by the presence of the other, in which dissolve self in something else, turn here into elsewhere. To miss somebody like I miss you is writing statements in white ink. It is about having pushed myself so self-convinced of this absence. Lack of enthusiasm. Lack of trust. Me as an emptied-out heart shaped box. Time is the most precious thing in the world for time has the value of possibility. Time for yourself, time together, time apart. Which health based on disease?

Which relationship on performance anxiety? Which gain based on debt? The more I lost you, the less I’ve come to appreciate myself.

Permanent daylight. That missing cannot be comprehended. This missing cannot be measured. A missing cannot be regulated. That missing is a vacuum to be experienced, which can be only penetrated but not contained. You’re on earth, there’s no cure for that! As an artist, I keep this work of journaling your absence in an effort to make it less intolerable – at least I can assure myself this is usable material. I hope I quit this work as soon as possible. * The Softest Hard is a song by Berlin based duo Easter, a narrative about nightmares, lack of self-esteem and the terrifying power of the unconscious.

2013 http://thesoftesthard.tumblr.com

Enrico Boccioletti, Softest Hard, 2013

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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

APPARATI

DIALOGOS. CINQUE IDEE Alessandro Castiglioni

“La Nube: C’è una legge, Issione, cui bisogna ubbidire.

Issione: Quassù la legge non arriva, Nefele.

Qui la legge è il nevaio, la bufera, la tenebra.

E quando viene il giorno chiaro e tu ti accosti leggera alla rupe,

è troppo bello per pensarci ancora”

Dialoghi con Leucò, Cesare Pavese I – Dialogo come pratica estetica Dialogos è un progetto espositivo disposto tra dinamica performativa e intervento installativo.

Nasce dalla possibilità di pensare lo spazio come una formula di tempo, cioè un quando prima che un dove, nel momento in cui esso viene negoziato e trasformato da una relazione. Il dialogo si pone dunque come pratica estetica poiché esso stesso è l’elemento che modula e struttura un tempo e poi uno spazio.

II – La storia Non per caso questo progetto nasce da un percorso comune che Ermanno Cristini, Luca Scarabelli e io stiamo portando avanti dal 2008. Dialogos è infatti figlio di altri due importanti progetti: il primo Roaming[1], si basa su mostre che durano l’effimero tempo di un’inaugurazione per poi fluttuare nell’inconsistenza della propria documentazione, l’altro L’ospite e L’intruso[2] che ha poi dato luogo a riss(e),è pensato come una serie di mostre ed incontri presso lo studio di Ermanno.

III – Circolo Ermeneutico Dialogos è dunque una sorta di partita a scacchi. Dove però l’operazione artistica e la sua traccia, l’oggetto, si caricano di una comunicabilità reversibile, tra artista e artista, artista e opera, opera e spazio, spazio e spettatore, spettatore e spazio, spazio e opera, opera e artista, artista e artista. È per questo motivo che il dispositivo predisposto dal progetto è fatto di azioni, risposte e di risposte a queste risposte.

IV – Il mito è nello stesso tempo qualcosa di necessario e di impossibile Parlare di “dialogo” ha poi strettissime relazioni con il mondo classico. La dialettica sofista, la maieutica socratica, gli scritti di Platone.

Anche lo stesso termine greco, dia – logos, attraverso le parole, amplifica questa dimensione. Ma, come scriveva Pavese “il mito è nello stesso tempo qualcosa d necessario e di impossibile”, e nel suo libro Dialoghi con Leucò l’infanzia, il fato, l’amore, la sconfitta e l’eternità si mescolano, ricordandoci la parzialità del detto.

V - Archeologia In questa parzialità fluida e, come il mito, necessaria ed impossibile, si nasconde la natura più profonda di Dialogos. Infatti le tracce visibili di questo scambio, i resti, gli oggetti in mostra, sono solo l’immagine falsata di una pratica distante nel tempo. Del dialogo stesso non vi sono documenti, poiché, citando ancora Platone, è tra le pieghe dell’irripetibilità del detto, che si nasconde la possibilità di conoscere.

[1] Roaming dal 2008 ha realizzato 21 mostre in altrettante città europee ed ha coinvolto oltre 100 artisti di diverse nazionalità. I contenuti del progetto e le mostre realizzate sono “raccontate” in due libri: Roaming. Sull’intermittenza dell’opera d’arte. Postmedia Book, 2013 e Roaming, images, riss(e) edizioni, 2013. http://www.roaming-art.it/ [2] Finora i progetti presentati hanno coinvolto Sergio Breviario e Roberto Pugina, Kristine Alksne e Microcollection, Umberto Cavenago e Giancarlo Norese, Giovanni Morbin e Luca Scarabelli, Lidia Sanvito e Michele Lombardelli, Giada Pucci e Barbara Fässler, Oppy De Bernardo e Al Fadhil, Miki Tallone e Elisa Vladilo, Nina Danino e Gianni Caravaggio, Vincenzo Cabiati e Andrea Nacciarriti.

DIALOGOS

Ermanno Cristini “È quindi la fedeltà al principio del dialogo che fa accettare a Socrate persino la morte.”

Il dialogo per un verso, com’è riportato dal giovane discepolo Platone, è sempre “inconcludente”; non porta mai a termine ciò di cui si sta discutendo, non chiude, non definisce la verità una volta per tutte: la verità va sempre rimessa in discussione. Ma per un altro verso è proprio con il metodo socratico delle “brevi domande e risposte” che l’interlocutore, rispettato nel suo diritto di capire e fare obiezioni, è costretto a confessare la sua “ignoranza”, capisce finalmente di “sapere di non sapere”.

Dunque il dialogo che in quanto palestra del linguaggio esalta la parola, pratica un silenzio e così facendo consente al linguaggio di rivelarsi nella sua essenza: “un’aspirazione silenziosa”. “… noi stiamo in molte cose indipendentemente dal linguaggio: per esempio quando saliamo le scale di corsa; e poi stiamo anche

57

nel linguaggio, per esempio quando diciamo: – Che corsa! –. Il punto infatti non è questo, ma quest’altro: che proprio nello stare nel linguaggio non vi stiamo e che, così non standovi, vi stiamo (…) È questo paradosso che ti chiedo di vedere. Esso allude appunto al silenzio che il linguaggio, pur evocandolo e nominandolo, pur -rompendolo- non può dire e neppure propriamente concepire, sebbene lo frequenti.” (Carlo Sini, Il gioco del silenzio) Un pensiero Zen molto noto dice: “Nell’istante in cui parli di una cosa, essa ti sfugge”. Non è molto lontano dal filosofo di Merleau Ponty: “… tutto avviene come se egli volesse tradurre in parole un certo silenzio che è in lui e che egli ascolta. La sua intera opera è questo sforzo assurdo. Il filosofo scriveva per dire il suo contatto con l’Essere: ma non l’ha detto, e non potrebbe dirlo, giacché questo contatto è tacito. Allora egli ricomincia…” (Carlo Sini, cit.)

Allora egli ricomincia… Il filosofo, come l’artista, se non ricominciassero a parlare, se non stessero dentro questo paradosso, non frequenterebbero il silenzio, che è essenza del linguaggio in quanto luogo di contatto con l’essenza della vita.

Quindi un dialogo per frequentare il silenzio.

Due o più artisti; uno spazio. La messa in mostra normalmente è un affiancamento o un’integrazione di voci in un tempo congelato. Un allineamento di monologhi che si danno nella ricerca di un rapporto con un luogo.

Mi incuriosisce invece l’esperienza di Palinsesti in Strutture precarie[3] che introduce il concetto di messa in mostra come negoziazione: un artista si sovrappone a un altro, introducendo inevitabilmente il fattore tempo, “…l’autore è obbligato a rinegoziare la sua opera”.

Questo concetto di negoziazione rimanda al dialogo. Ma allora se fosse apertamente “inconcludente” ?

Penso ad una messa in mostra che si dia nel tempo, come dialogo, e che non si staticizzi mai in un allestimento definitivo. Anzi, ciò che appare nell’allestimento, la “mostra”, in realtà “espone” quello che non si vede; il suo buio; il silenzio che prende senso tra le parole.

Dietro ai manufatti visibili si possono inferire delle storie. E ciò che è assente ha più peso di quello che viene messo in scena.

“I suoni se ne stanno nella musica per rendersi conto del silenzio che li separa.” (John Cage) Le riflessioni sul linguaggio e il silenzio, inteso derridianamente non come il fuori della parola, bensì come un principio attivo, non privativo, riportato alle pratiche della visione rimandano alle osservazioni di Agamben sulle Off Cells: “Il buio non è, pertanto, un concetto privativo, la semplice assenza della luce, qualcosa come una non-visione, ma il risultato dell’attività delle off-cells, un prodotto della nostra retina. Ciò significa, se torniamo ora alla nostra tesi sul buio della contemporaneità, che percepire questo buio non è una forma di inerzia o di passività, ma implica un’attività e un’abilità particolare, che, nel nostro caso, equivalgono a neutralizzare le luci che provengono dall’epoca per scoprire la sua tenebra, il suo buio speciale, che non è, però, separabile da quelle luci.

Può dirsi contemporaneo soltanto chi non si lascia accecare dalle luci del secolo e riesce a scorgere in esse la parte dell’ombra, la loro intima oscurità.” (Giorgio Agamben, Che cos’è il contemporaneo) Che è come dire che può dirsi contemporaneo solo chi dentro le parole del secolo riesce a cogliere il suono del silenzio, perché in fondo il buio è il silenzio dell’immagine.

[3] Strutture precarie, Ex Essicatoi, San Vito al Tagliamento, a cura di Denis Viva, Settembre-Ottobre 2009.

Contributo di Luca Scarabelli: In mezzo ci sta praticamente il logos, che è un logo-fra è qualcosa che lega, che mette insieme la realtà.

Il dialogo comporta anche la costruzione di un ponte, un confronto e una distanza da mantenere. Leggo che si chiama medietà, la capacità di mediazione. È partecipazione, come cantava Gaber. Un ponte fra parti. Nell’assemblea omerica, il discorso è in mezzo, nel cerchio, al centro, in cui c’è la preda che gli eroi si dividono, anzi che condividono. Il dialogo per sua natura non è un discorso compiuto, è in fieri, proprio per questo è condiviso, c’è una asimmetria nella partecipazione al dialogo, una tensione. Perché io so di me cose che gli altri non conoscono, e con questo le condivido (a volte).

Il dialogo si svolge in un luogo pubblico. Fuori, dentro di noi, anzi con noi.

Ogni mossa ha una funzione strategica, argomentativa, è una partita a scacchi (si può truccare la partita?) dove le regole si autogenerano, e quindi ci si apre alla possibilità di cambiare idea, perché ci si sorprende e ci si arricchisce nella sorpresa. Noi ne siamo responsabili. Ogni mossa argomentativa può modificare il nostro punto di vista, modificarci; é la possibilità di essere influenzati. Avrò bisogno del dialogo? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

DIALOGOS. FIVE IDEAS Alessandro Castiglioni

I – Dialogue as an aesthetic practice Dialogos is a project of an exhibition arranged between a performative dynamics and an installation’s intervention. It was born from the possibility of thinking about the space as a time’s formula, or to put it better, the “when” before the “where”, the very moment when it has been discussed and transformed by a relation. Therefore, the dialogue is intended an aesthetic practice, because itself is the element that modulates and structures a time and, then, a space.

II – The story It’s no accident that this project was born from a common path that Ermanno Cristini, Luca Scarabelli and I are carrying out since 2008.

Dialogos is, in fact, connected to two others important projects: the first one, Roaming[1], is based on exhibitions that last the ephemeral time of an opening, in order to fluctuate, later on, in the flimsiness of its own documentation, the second one, The Guest and the Intruder[2] and riss(e), they have been thought as a series of exhibitions and meetings at the Ermanno’s studio.

III – Hermeneutical circle Dialogos is, therefore, kind of a chess game. But, where the artistic act and its trace, the object, burden themselves with a reversible communicability, between artist and artist, artist and artwork, artwork and space, space and spectator, spectator and space, space and artwork, artwork and artist, artist and artist. It is because of this reason that the mechanism made for the project is made of actions, answers, and of the aswers to these answers.

IV – The myths is at the same time something necessary and impossibile Talking about the “dialogue” has very close relations to the classic world. The sophist dialectics, the Socratic maieutics, the writings of Plato. Also the greek word, dia – logos, through the words, amplifies this dymension. However, as Pavese wrote, “the myths is at the same time something that is necessary and impossibile”, and in his book, Dialogues with Leucò, childhood, destiny, love, defeat and

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eternity mix themselves, by reminding us the partiality of the saying.

V – Archaeology The deeper nature of Dialogos is hidden in this fluid partiality and, like the myth, necessary and impossibile. In fact, the visible traces of this exchange, the remains, the exhibited objects, are only the distorted image of a practice far away in the time. There are not documents about the dialogue itself, as, quoting Plato again, this is among the folds of the unrepeatability of the saying that the possibility of the knowledge hides itself.

[1] Roaming is a project that has realized 21 exhibitions in many european cities. Roaming. Sull’intermittenza dell’opera d’arte. Postmedia Book, 2013 and Roaming, images, riss(e) edizioni, 2013. http://www.roaming-art.it/ [2] Giulia Brivio and Federica Boragina, Interno domestico, Fortino edizioni, 2013. http://risse-art.blogspot.it/

DIALOGOS

Ermanno Cristini “It is therefore the faithfulness to the principle of the dialogue that let Socrates accept even the death.”

The dialogue, on the one hand, as the young disciple Plato said, is always “inconclusive”, does not ever bring to an end what is being discussed, does not close, does not define the truth once and for all: the truth is continuously put in discussion. On the other hand, it is by the Socratic method made of “short questions and answers” that the interlocutor, respected in his right to understand and object, is forced to confess his “ignorance”, he finally understands “to know of not knowing”.

Therefore, the dialogue that, as gym of the language, exalts the word, practices a silence and, by doing that, allows the language to reveal in its essence: “a silent aspiration”.

A well-known Zen saying says: “At the same instant you talk about something, this runs away.”

Nevertheless, it is necessary to talk about it, because if one would not do it, if he would be within this paradox, he would not experience the silence, which is essence of the language, as space of contact to the essence of the life.

Then, a dialogue to experience the silence.

Two or more artists; a space. The exhibition usually puts side by side or mixes voices within a frozen time. An alignment of monologues that exist by searching a relation to a space. Whereas if one would introduce the concept of the exhibition as negotiation, an artist would overlap with another one involving necessarily the “time” factor: the author would be forced to renegotiate his own artwork.

This concept of renegotiation refers to the dialogue. But then if it would be openly “inconclusive”?

I think of an exhibition that makes itself in the course of time, as dialogue, and that it does not ever stabilize in a definitive display. On the contrary, what you see in the display, the “exhibition”, actually shows what you do not see; its darkness; the silence that has sense among the words.

Behind the visibile manufactured products one may infer stories. And what is absent weighs more than what is exhibited.

“Sounds stay in the music in order to become aware of the silence that separates them.” (John Cage) The observations about language and silence, intended, in a Derrida’s way, not as “the” outside of the word, but as an active principle, not privative, brought back to the practices of the vision refer to the observation of Agamben about off-cells: “Darkness is not, therefore, a privative notion, the simple absence of light, or something like nonvision, but rather the result of the activity of the “off-cells”, a product of our own retina. This means, if we now return to our thesis of the darkness of contemporariness, that to perceive this darkness is not a form of inertia or of passivity, but rather implies an activity and a singular ability. In our case, this ability amounts to a neutralization of the lights that come from the epoch in order to discover its obscurity, its special darkness, which is not, however, separable from those lights.

The ones who can call themselves contemporary are only those who do not allow themselves to be blinded by the lights of the century and so manage to get a glimpse of the shadows in those lights, of their intimate obscurity.” (Giorgio Agamben, What is the Contemporary?)

This is, as you say, that the ones who can call themselves contemporary are only those who, within the words of the century, manages to get the sound of the silence, because, after all, the darkness is the silence of the image.

Contribution of Luca Scarabelli: In the middle is the logos, that is a logo-between, is something that ties, that put together the reality.

Dialogue implies also a crossover, a comparison and a distance to mantain. It is called “mediety”, the ability of mediation, that is, somehow, participation. Therefore, a production among parts. In the Homer’s assembly, the discourse is in the middle, en meso, in the circle, in the centre, where the prey, that the heroes divide among themselves, or better, share out, is located.

The dialogue is not a completed discourse, is ongoing, because of that it is shared, there is an asymmetric tension, between me and the other and between the others and me. That is why I know about me things that the others don’t know, and by this I share with them. The dialogue takes place in a public place.

Each movement has a strategic function, therefore it opens up the possibility of changing idea, because it surprises and enriches us.

Each movement may modify our point of view and the possibility of being influenced. (translated by Cecilia Guida)

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Questo numero di Cahiers d’Art è stato pubblicato in occasione della mostra DIALOGOS SECONDO, Novembre 2013 - Gennaio 2014 A cura di Aessandro Castiglioni e Ermanno Cristini Pubblicato da MACT/CACT Pubblicazioni per MACT/CACT Arte Contemporanea Ticino Cahiers d’Art 2013 In 2° di copertina: Mickaël Marchand, #18 Herkimer place NYC, 2012.

Copyright Mickaël Marchand.

In 3° di copertina: Richard Clements. Copyright Richard Clements.

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Con il sostegno di Repubblica e Cantone del Ticino / Swisslos MIGROS percento culturale Amici del MACT/CACT Anke Sybille Hagemann Alfred Richterich Stiftung Kastanienbaum Città di Bellinzona In collaborazione con riss(e), Varese Si ringrazia Edda Casanova Salvioni, Nowhere Gallery Milano, gli artisti Graphic design, editing and layout Ermanno Cristini Stampa pixartprinting.com