Words
Immediatism
Can we do art with media in a immediate way? What the hell are we looking for? Paradoxes? Are we maybe Volterians? Repulsed grand-grandchildren of the enlightenment? What is Immediatism and why we want to profess media art with complete disregard for “the MEDIA”?
Immediatism is a concept we got from Hakim Bey, at the time a very well hidden book would be sold in italian “social centers”, anarchist spots, somehow the equivalent of Squats. The Book was TAZ, Temporary Autonomous Zones. And on BBS you could find some very strange texts about “Ontological Terrorism” for example.
Fascinating reading. A somehow forbidden one. In the over-mediated Italy, were a station or a judge could be blown in the air just to enforce a government… and were the nihilist structure of mediated culture was already blatantly visible to few…
Real art is play, & play is one of the most immediate of all experiences. Those who have cultivated the pleasure of play cannot be expected to give it up simply to make a political point (as in an Art Strike,” or “the suppression without the realization” of art; etc.) Art will go on, in somewhat the same sense that breathing, eating, or fucking will go on.
Hakim Bey, Immediatist Manifesto
see the whole text here:http://www.left-bank.org/bey/hbconten.htm
Avantgarde
Futurism is my avant-garde of choice. Before pop-art any avant-garde is ok to me, but i strongly suspect that after DADA the possibility of being completely against a form of established art has disappeared. Marinetti accepts the role of Academic given to him by Mussolini in 1929. Majakovskij is “suicided” in 1930.
Dada goes to america and becomes “fashionable”. Cubism already is and Picasso continues to cash in. The Americans buy the futurists and make huge collections before and after WWII…
You can make your own mind about the futurist movement from the texts on line. But that is not enough, you should put them in historical perspective:
- Imperialism; colonial empire of England, France, Gewrmany, Japan and Russia
- Socialism: the century of attempted revolutions (XIX) was becoing the century in witch a revolution HAD to be made, yet was not there yet (1917 Russian Revolution)
- WWI had not yet happend, praise of war takes a different taste after that one…
You can start your reading on futurism from:
http://www.unknown.nu/futurism/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism_(art)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Futurism
To say why futurism is still important would take much too space. If you need to know why is still important to me then you can read here:Future (1999).
Strategy of Tension a.k.a. FEAR
In 1977 I was 8. The political scene in Italy was under controlled explosion. And it did explode in almost-uncontrolled way… A small explosion made with terrorism and bombs in trains, and a lot of heroin. Drugs of choice to kill another attempted revolt, according to a well known method. Read for example G. De Lutiis, “Storia dei Servizi Segreti D’Italia”, if you want to know more and know how to read italian… The book has never been translated to english (as far as I know) and in unavailable since long time so don’t look on amazon :) I have a copy.
So, look around yourself; see any scheme?
Avant-politique
Marinetti candidated the futurist mouvement to political elections in 1913 with an hyper progressist program. In 1919 gave the program to Mussolini that was beaten strongly to the elections and changed approach. In 1920 Marinetti abandoned politics and fascism was freed of his avant-garde anarchistic program, conserving only “the look”, copied from D’ Annunzio and Marinetti.
After the war Marinetti had to be forgotten. Also Mussolini had to be forgotten, and with him most of the “new” italian politicians and their past… So until 1990 the definition of “contemporary history” for Italian schools included the Vienna Congress 1815… Impossible in one year to get further than 1918… the italian trick. After 1990 History has been practically deleted by the “curricola”, and anyway, who cares about it anymore …
In 1977, after 9 years of sad attempts to modernize italian politics, some kids rediscovered the dadaists and went going in the marches as “Metropolitan Indians”. Dada was them. Listen the recordings remaining of “Radio Alice”, and put them together with the scripts of Hugo Ball…
In 1990 I was serving the country with military service, and a Panther was going around undisturbed in the country around rome. Many attempts to find her without result, the pather left no trace. The greatest occupation of schools and university from 68 took that name: “the Panther”, you cannot grub us…
- You can get a lot of material about Metropolitan Indians but is mainly in italian. For other languages you can try this google search and good luck.
- for the climate of ’77 a good film is “Lavorare con Lentezza” that i seem unable to find with subtitles, see the web site here:http://www.lavorareconlentezza.wumingfoundation.com/
- Another important film for me is “I 100 Passi” by Marco Tullio Giordana, that I really think you should see. Is somehow the difference about being a “indian” up north and down south: in Sicily the enemy is called “cosa nostra” and it kills you
Free-Radio
Free radio movement was an attempted revolution that, as many did in my country, was “deturnee” or stopped with the “minimum necessary dissuasion”. Some died, many went to jail for some years (you could serve 18 months of “preventive jail” without the need of a trial in those days). Many had their bones broken. Here in Holland recently some movies brought you these stories: “I cento passi”, were you can ear the voice of Pippo Impastato or “La Meglio Gioventu’”, rather melodramatic version of italian history still a good movie.We passed some materials from our archives, things I rediscovered growing up, like the last minutes of Radio Alice, the “closing of Radio GAP”, the shooting of the conductor in a radio program…
see here:http://www.radioalice.org/
The situation by then have some similarities with the one now? The way to access the “public space” changed radically. But not as radically changed the attitude towards mediated communication. You must accept the canons of mediation to be part of the system and speak your voice on the net for example. Every non mediated or less mediated activity is explicitly discouraged or forbidden… You should think about it, is called “virtualization”…
So, ticketing inside my head like a bomb were some words
I had to run away.
(fredd)
admin @ July 24, 2007
