Section II
City Life
II.I Premise
This section is an artistic elaboration of social objects, focused on the paradoxes and the distopias of contemporary Western society. Specifically, it contains examples of the art-tool technique being put into practice. The visual compositions presented are the result of an extensive participatory research in the cities of Palermo (Italy), Siena (Italy), Edinburgh (Scotland) and Adelaide (South Australia). In particular, between these cities some common elements emerged. These include an observed dualism between self-identity and collectivity, a sense of loneliness within the urban context, and the activities of buying and consuming. Here the theoretic expression can be given to the reader-observer without the mediation of descriptive or explicative verbal language. This does not mean excluding the use of language, but instead using it in another way in order to unite theory and practice. This poetical use of writing is a technique with which I am experimenting for expressing insights from anthropological research.
II.II The city, the crowd
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In the cities the buildings are square, the streets full of people following compulsory paths. Those who take public transport dissapear like a paper boat closed in a glass bottle floating out with tide. The bus seems a can on wheels and the trees are sparse and stunted.
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The city is a barren landscape compared to that which has not been touched by man. This is a "cultural" landscape within which nature is banished: permitted only to show itself in a well regulated manner.The streets, sidewalks and squares made of concrete, asphalt and bricks isolate feet from the ground.
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Seeing the world through a window, searching for the sky. Privacy is essential within the interior of the car that functions to distinguish the individual from the mass of identical cars. The driver does not feel closed in but rather an important cog in the illusive society that he observes from his window to the world.
