European Cultural Foundation

10 responses so far

• Markus Miessen // Jul 9, 2007 at 3:53 pm

  Malfunction as the Crucial Mode of Experiment

  Nightmare 1
  In his memoir, Hand to Mouth: A Chronicle of Early Failure, the American post-modern novelist Paul Auster clarifies his understanding of failure by stating that in his late twenties and early thirties, he went through a period of several years when everything he touched turned to failure .

  Temporary relief
  As Colin MacCabe noted at a conference titled “The Value of Failure” in June 2005, “success has become one of the key terms by which people evaluate their own and other lives”. When MacCabe refers to failure, he posits it as a crucial component of both the development of knowledge in science and of creative experimentation in the arts. He ends on the question to which degree contemporary society demands success and what happens when, in contemporary Britain (and indeed Europe), both public and private funding for projects in the cultural and educational sectors becomes increasingly success oriented.

  Nightmare 2
  Imagine one was to see the world through technocratic goggles of failure analysis. Backed up by the comforting environments of Structuralist certainty, this is actually pretty simple. One would start an analysis by determining both the mechanism and the root cause of failure in order to implement a corrective action. Therefore, one can proportionally raise the track-record of ‘success’ over time.

  The culture of success
  In contemporary social structures, we think of success as always good because it has become linked to prosperity. In MacCabe’s words “success dominates because of its part in the global evaluation of the good life in terms of money”. Hence, failure has become the unthinkable, the semantic confirmation of poverty.
  Looking at the current production of space and, indeed, the art world, one contentedly realises that creative production and failure come along as an inseparable couple. That might be true of almost any industry or economy, of course, but it seems that, at least in current cultural discourse, the value of failure is being put forward as an alternative idea of success. Now, within such regime of production, one might argue that the realisation of ‘failure as the fundamental condition of surprise’ is of course nothing new, but an interesting one to build upon. Today, the primary issue that needs to be stressed is the fact that we have moved away, at least in creative production, from the reference-model of the final product; fortunately, such notion is often replaced by cultural laboratories in which the proto-product–in other words the process towards X–and its failure is valued as knowledge production and embodies precisely the laboratory for experiment that provides challenging work. If one was to understand experiment as a vital ingredient that contributed to the cultural gravitas of spatial production, one has to coercively admit to the value of failure. Hence, the societal norm of success as the only way forward needs to be reviewed.

  The Violence of Participation
  Spatial planning is often considered as the management of spatial conflicts. Cities and institutions exist as social and spatial conflict zones, re-negotiating their limits through constant transformation. To deal with conflicts, critical decision-making must evolve. Such decision-making is often pre-supposed as a process whose ultimate goal is consensus. Instead, one could think of a model that fosters conflict and micro-political participation in the production of space and asks how one can contribute to fields of knowledge, professions or discourses from the point of view of “space”. Through cyclical specialisation, the future spatial practitioner could be understood as an outsider who–instead of trying to set up or sustain common denominators of consensus–enters existing situations or projects by instigating conflict-zones between often-delineated fields of knowledge.

  Think about Thinking
  Thinking about failure and conflict from the point of view of process, the most infertile situation that can occur is to let the fear of failure prevent one from ever doing anything. It is the act of production that allows us to revise, tweak, rethink and change. Along the lines of re-inventing oneself, it also opens a space of uncertainty that often produces knowledge and content by surprise. If one’s priority is to resist failure at all costs, the potential of surprise is never played out. This is why the results of certain investigations and inventions in many fields and disciplines have become predictable and the outcome of a vast majority of creative and artistic output is both conventional and mediocre. To take a risk means not being able to pre-empt the outcome of an investigation. Consciously allowing processing to fail will open up the window of surprise, the moment where conflictual involvement and non-loyal participation produce new knowledge and produce political politics.

• claudia zanfi // Jul 9, 2007 at 4:19 pm

  Reflecting on our seminar in Venice: it has been very interesting and dense.
  Talks, discussions, projects, video, visual materials, ideas, by people form Cyprus near ones form Turkey; from Maghreb with ones form Spain; form Israeli near people form Lebanon and Palestina, despite all wars and walls!

  A real “round table” for ideas and cultural exchanges. We really feel that we’ve reached there a kind of “free zone” of peace and dialogue.

• fundamental bibliography on the Mediterranean // Jul 10, 2007 at 2:43 pm

  Claudia invites me to participate to this blog. I ask to myself, do I have something interesting to say? The only think that come in to my mind as useful thing are some notes that I wrote about a fundamental bibliography on the Mediterranean: enjoy

  Luis Racionero Grau, El Mediterraneo y los barbaros del norte, la seo de urgel, 1940
  Fernad Braudel, La Mèditerranèen � l’èpoque de Philippe II, 1949, trad.ita. Civilt� e Imperi del mediterraneo all’et� di Filippo II, Einaudi 2002;
  il mediterrrano. Lo spazio, la storia, gli uomini, le tradizioni, bonpiani, Milano 1987;
  Il mediterraneo, Bonpiani 1985,
  Memoria del mediterraneo, Bompiani 1998…
  influenzato dalla storiografia della Ecole des annales di Marc Bloch e Lucine Febvre
  Jean Grenier, Gabriel Audisio e Paul Valèry (Projet d’organisation du centre universitaire Mediterranèeen (1933) “ annales de Cum”, 1-1946-1947 trad. ita. Sguardi sul mondo attuale, adelphi, Milano 1994,
  Ispirazioni mediterranee in La crisi del pensiero e altri saggi quasi politici, il mulino 1994:
  E’. Tèmime, un sogno mediterraneo, mesogea, Messina 2005;
  Albert Camus. L’estate e altri saggi solari, bompiani 2003; i catari e la civilt� mediteranea, marietti Genova 1997
  Peregrine Horden e Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: a study of Mediterranean History.
  R. Owen, State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East, Routledge 2004;
  stato, potere e politica nel formazione del Medio Oriente moderno, il Ponte, 2005.

  Enjoy

  Alessandro Petti - StatelessNation

• Valentina Moschini // Jul 10, 2007 at 8:30 pm

  The workshop “Atlante Mediterraneo. New City-Territories” has been a busy marathon of two days with very interesting and top-level participations. It has opened the reflection on the situation of six Mediterranean cities, their history, their present, their future and on the active role that creative and artistic thought can have in creating this future. A lively discussion which hopefully does not end with the workshop, but could continue to increase and extend; above all with the people who shared some very special days with us in Venice. In these days we were able to meet different people beyond geographical, political and ideological borders: a small model of Mediterranean union that is the objective to reach within the next few years, starting from meeting, communication and acknowledging what unites us. I will not forget the music, the dance, the good time we had the last night at the campo S. Margherita: in a few minutes our enthusiasm joined together people from different counties and ages. Wonderful!

• Tony Chakar // Jul 13, 2007 at 2:31 pm

  I will start from the end - but then again, don’t I always? - I left Venice and went to Florence. I wanted to see Brunelleschi’s Duomo. Florence is beautiful, like Venice… but unlike Venice, it is not picture-perfect, which made it even more charming. I arrive at Santa Maria del Fiore. I had to wait for almost one hour and a half to get in. Florence is packed with tourists, especially of the American breed, and yes, they are exactly as they are portrayed. After getting in i realize that the entrance to go up the Duomo is on the other side of the building. Fine. I wait for another hour. Just before the entrance there’s a sign warning the weak of heart not to climb the 467 stairs (almost 30 stories high)… nothing would deter me, of course. I go up. The task is exhausting: walking up narrow spiral stairs with crowds of tourists all around me. But then, I arrive to the belvedere, panting, out of breath and in sweat. Before I step out of the shadows and into the light, i wait for a few seconds, but I am inexorably drawn to the light. A couple of steps and there it was: the totality of the wonderful Tuscan landscape unfolds before my eyes; the olive groves, the vines, the hills and beyond… shades of wonderful green as far as the eye could see. It was then when a wave a sorrow swept me, and i realized that this is exactly how Lebanon could be, given the right circumstances that never seem to come… and it was then when I realized what we’ve been doing in Beirut for as long as I can remember: waiting. Waiting for the right circumstances, waiting for the promise of Beirut, for the promise of Lebanon to be fulfilled; “Beirut is a flower blooming before its time”, as the song says. It blooms, and it dies on the tree before a fruit can form, and we wait. We wait for the city that “smells like freedom”. We wait for the wine we were promised. And I wait with those who have been waiting, fully knowing that i have no other choice, fully knowing that I will never see this promise fulfilled in my lifetime, fully knowing, also, that I will never leave… not because i can’t or don’t want to, but because things are what things are.
  After Florence I go to one of the northern countries, and people ask me where I’ve been, and they talk to me of the necessity of a mediterranean unity… but all i could do was to shake my head and say yeah, while secretly wishing to be back, back there, to the olive oil, my olive oil where i found a country.

• Nadim Karam // Aug 2, 2007 at 10:43 am

  I closed my eyes: It’s dark out there. I cannot see much! But when I open my eyes, I see that Beirut will have to survive its own catastrophy. I am working from here & educating my kids in this city, because I believe in its regeneration. Beirut is a fantastic city full of energy. A unique power emanating from its proximity to three continents, its openness to the Mediterranean Sea & its will to survive.

  Lots of dormant projects will soon awake to bring it back as the capital of the Orient.

• 100%pubblica // Aug 18, 2007 at 12:05 pm

  It was possibile for us to take part in “Atlante Mediterraneo” only shortly. Still, what we saw was enough to understand how important it is to create such occasions of meeting. In the world of Internet, the continuous exchange of information is really handy for everybody. What lacks is “human “ exchange: since ever the most fertile contaminations among artists have come from contacts, chats, friendships. In other words, I think that sharing is an essential experience especially now that the role of the artist is undergoing a process of re-definition. As it emerged from/in the participants’ proposals, now more than ever, art is penetrating reality, becoming a “hybrid” and using new techniques taken from other fields. Moving into the real world and involving people and territory, the artist gets charged with more responsibility, and for this reason he/she needs to exchange news and experience, although in different situations, with whom is going to the same direction. I do hope that “Atlante Mediterraneo” is only at the beginning and, thanks to Internet which makes contacts quicker and easier, it will be able to organize other opportunities of meeting and exchanging views because that is fundamental for the artists’ improvement, if they want to be active part of society.

  Giulia Gabrielli, Lorenza Cossutta, Isabella Sannipoli - IUAV Students

• sigal barnir // Oct 1, 2007 at 10:05 pm

  Thank you very much for inviting us to join the Atlante Mediterraneaneo seminar. It felt like the Mediterranean Sea shrank for three days and one could feel the waves and winds around the table. What is so interesting in the med sea is his medium size - not as huge as the ocean but not small as a lake/ that allows a very interesting distance between those who live around it: and creates the mixture of similarity and difference. So it was a very interesting opportunity to listen to the different talks and very inspiring to look at Tel Aviv’s reflection through the mirror that Atlante Mediterraneo project presented to us in Venice. In our research we were trying to look at Tel Aviv through the eyes of Kafka: his famous story “Metamorphosis” opens at the moment of awakening, when traveling salesman Gregor Samsa discovers that he has transformed from man into insect. At that moment, he asks himself reflectively , “What has happened to me? … This is no dream.”

  Sigal Barnir - bar_nir@netvision.net.il

• Enrico Natale // Oct 2, 2007 at 4:32 pm

  Hi all,

  Lucky you all who spent 2 days in Venice to share experience about intercultural dialogue in the Mediterranean. I wish I was there ! I share with this project - that I just discovered though the Bijem newsletter - a strong support for Mediterranean exchanges initiatives and integration processes and an interest for urban / territorial art.
  For me the biggest problem is how to find partners interested in the same topics and ready to do some collective projects. We are many trying to promote a mediterranean identity, but very few big networks.
  Anyway I would like to see videos and photos of your works. How this is possible ?

  Ciao ciao

• Valentina Briguglio // Oct 4, 2007 at 2:19 pm

  The roundtable held in Venice has been a wonderful and profitable occasion by which we had had the opportunity to exchange cultures and points of view.
  The roundtable has not been only a two-day cultural events, but also an outstanding human experience. For a week long, we have lived very close each other in a strange city. Thanks to the excitement and the will to share our cultural heritage, no one had been feeling foreign. A multiracial, multi-religion, multi-language Mediterranean Atlas environment composed by us came out. Nevertheless the differences were many, hopes, dreams and expectations in our eyes were the same.
  Once again Arts help to think and use mind, to look through us, and overall to meet up many different cultures.
  Thanks to everybody.

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