To accept the invitation to say ‘I prefer not to’ and to continue not working is to accept the invitation to refuse. And now picture this: to accept the invitation to ‘ … to say “I prefer not to” (and continue working)’ (and to continue not working) is freedom. There is only one option of freedom: to refuse the invitation to ‘ … to say “I prefer not to” (and continue working)’ (and continue working). He did so.
La scuola senza fine
16 mm, black and white film
40 minutes
Production: Adriana Monti and the teachers from the '150 hours'
Operator: Angelo Cordini
Concept and realisation : Adriana Monti
In collaboration with Lea Melandri, Amalia Molinelli, Ada Flaminio, Antonia Daddato, Teresa Paset, Rina Aprile, Micci Toniolo, Paola Mattioli et Maria Martinotti.
After I had been working with a particular group of housewives for a year, we started shooting the film Scuola senza fine (literally, ‘School without end’) almost casually, in 1979. I was able to get equipment free of charge and money to pay for the film was made available. The women had taken the ‘150 Hours’ course and had been awarded the completion of secondary school diploma in 1976.
But they were reluctant to go back to spending their afternoons ironing or playing cards. So first we devised new seminars on literature, the body and the image.
Rediscovering the pleasure of reading and studying was like reliving their adolescence. It was important for them to have a teacher to whom they could tell in writing what they had done and thought, their past history and plans for the future. The teacher of the diploma course was someone who listened to them and made them think: Lea Melandri, who came from the Women’s Movement where she was considered a fine theorist and had been a promoter firstly of the “Gruppo dell’inconscio” (see p.7) and then of the “Sexuality and Writing group”. She was consequently familiar with issues related to the unconscious, to women’s relationships with each other, and to the individual’s relationship with culture and knowledge. She was able to strengthen the women’s expressive potential and transformed the adult education course into a study and research group which was later joined by more teachers and new students.
Watching the project develop was like uncorking a champagne bottle. The women’s writing matured and began to flow and sparkle while Lea, whose book L’infamia originaria was about to be published, did not write anything else for several years. The women students, encouraged first by Lea and the discovery of Freud, then by the other teachers and by science, philosophy, and linguistic analysis (visual, written, and body languages), filled page after page of their writing pads and exercise books ( or in Amalia’s case, loose sheets), with personal reflections on culture, themselves, their families, nature, and feelings.
Extract from website : http://www.universitadelledonne.it/english/scuola%20senza%20fine.htm
Kierkegaard. To tremble: as in muscle strain. To tremble as in realising that you found something magical.
When did it end? When did Art end? There is no Art. When did it end? When it started to be contemporary. Who cares.
I believe I trust in Love. Trust in love rather than believe in it. Do the work you want to do. Eros. Ethos. Unconditional sanctuary. Context of discovery.
Can you remember what was in the room? From the ladder perspective: bodies in different coloured clothes.
Julie Harboe, Ronny Hardliz, Petra Köhle, Camille Dumond - during the screening of LA SCUOLA SENZA FINE by Adrianna Monti.
Table set for the dinner, in front of the house outside, on the public place of the surrounding buildings..
[ah yes! That is where the pillows went when Sat they graced the floor and Sunday moved to the chair with one remaining on the floor].
Miriam Sturzenegger's collected materials from the close-by channels and grounds of the area of the research pavilion
Very fine boned handles on the chair. I like that chair. The chair liked me. We bonded. Small table the third. Actually a foot rest.
The first text from the “… to say, I prefer not to (and continue working)“
Radical Matter. Peregrine. Inventing the is. Present tense. Pluperfect Present tense. Subjunctive present tense. Radical Matter. Horse sense. Gallop. Snow. Learn how to observe. Attunement. Can you remember what was in the room? From the ladder perspective: bodies in different coloured clothes. And black. Scattered pillow(s). actually only one. Tremble. To tremble as in fear and trembling. Kierkegaard. To tremble: as in muscle strain. To tremble as in realising that you found something magical. Like a magic garden, sitting off to the left. Gorgeous paint drops on a white sheet. Tiny tiny layers of salt. Gently dabbed onto surface white. Radical matter. Several neatly laid in perfect different sizes of water: berlin, venice, bottled water. Invisible layers writ large tiny. Tiny large. A desk. A wooden writing desk with chair. Abandoned while I’m on the ladder. Peregrine. Did anyone notice the little book laying on the floor? Peregrine by j.a. baker. Herzog’s favourite book of observation. Table the second. A second table. Flowing black velvet rock held in place. With white tape, but not on the walls! No not on the walls. Tape would ruin the paint work done to make the walls look like stone. Concrete. Plaster. Find the four screws to hold the monitor in place. Materials room kitchen hidden room with a thousand screws and bolts. Manhattan. Bold. Friendship. The courage of friendship. Courage to befriend. Learning how to friend. Queer. Queer that it is queer these days, this courage to befriend. A lost art need to be found. Founded. Midnight runs. And the open window! Saturday opened; Sunday closed! What is this about? Chair. Heavy brown clothed pillowed chair. [ah yes! That is where the pillows went when Sat they graced the floor and Sunday moved to the chair with one remaining on the floor]. Very fine boned handles on the chair. I like that chair. The chair liked me. We bonded. Small table the third. Actually a foot rest. No, a bench. Suitcase. Lots of wires!! Table the fourth. Computer mac apple repeating big brother sister other screen behind. No one sees this repeat, thinks I. Observation. No one but me and the chair see this repeat. A burp. Maybe just a fart. Wooden floor. Blonde wood. Cherished for the dancers’ foot. Ballet bars dot the perimeter! With mirrors! Light! Blonde wood floor gives way to earthy brown mottled floor. Small and smaller and smallest piles of brick. Dust brick dust. I wonder about the dust of dust. Adore the fingers of the artist petting the smallest piles of the brick dust. Memory. Memories. And as I walk the streets the dark streets at night winding my way home from canal vap to second canal vap and then to a third, I remember that dust of the piled brick and think: ah yes! and here are the dust memories writ large on the buildings flanking either side of my shoulders. Crucifixes adorning deserted monasteries. How did that happen? The ghosts of Venice. The ghosts of memory. Washed. Cleaned. Brick work. From my peregrine height of an aluminium ladder made to fold away or opened to reach the heights! How I soar! (says Nietzsche). Bench. She sits on a bench folded neatly against her legs, toes holding her firm to the floor. And now to the repeated video, rotating. Rotate. Matrix. Repeat. Mix. Sway. This way, then that. But the three columned moving image. So fine. Funny. Serious. Buster Keaton like. Wild, quietly doing its thing in the background now foreground now no ground. Mask. Masks of the outside world linked to the venice world worn to find memories on a beach that would not yield its secrets. Or would not yield its secrets yet. The drop. The DNA-less drop. Bloody hell that was a new one! A living wall. A chewy wall. A soft technology. A soft ecology technology ology. Radical matter. Flight to the upstairs. Fly my pretty fly! Up I go! Up I go! Hawkeye [sounds better than Peregrine Eye!] Light changing. Feeling light. Feeling light headed. Will I fall? Move the ladder. No. Move the body. No fear. Friendship to the steps! Encounter the steps! Large speakers. Small speakers. Micro phone taped to ladder. Feel the sun on my body. Laugh. Laughter. Story telling. Wisdom. Take courage. Drink courage. Bloods to be taken on Thursday. Water for me. Water water everywhere and ne’er a drop to drink, Melville proclaims! And I laugh! Yes! and I search for food, company. Radical matter re-search the search again. And again. Re-search the search. No goal [but I am not lost]. No cogito, but I do have logic, just not of the sterile kind. And now the back wall. Dotted with a sea of listeners. Attuned. Asleep. Bored. Energised. Rhythm of the breath. Collective breath. Collaborative breath. Brat breath. Evil breath. Joyous breath. Bored breath. We breathe. Encounter. Exchange. Colour. Touch and be touched. Listen!
Sent with love. Out of love. In love.
Johnny
I liked her long sentences. Logic of sense. Endless conversations. It is better to sleep than to write.
Miriam Sturzenegger presenting her research around the gathered materials from the surroundings of the research pavilion
