Bari port east, notes for a review (1) - Luca Basso Paragraph 1: For an archeology
feelings
is difficult to explain precisely so that 'was the trip to Bari to Isolario.
In many phone calls before the Biennale di Bari, Donatello had tried to explain the project, but with little luck, everything seemed very hazy, vague, very often, the calls ended, I was left with the feeling that Francesca Donatello and the first not to know where it is going.
And even after the beginning of their exploration Bari continued to find the mysterious motives of their operation. I remember once, at the port, which Donatello himself wondering how to specify the nature of the project: "No, maybe not a workshop (which horrible word!), maybe it's quite a happening ... "
short, even when we parted at the end of the Biennale, the mystery was thick and the question" What Isolario? "still had no answer.
Only a few days ago, thinking about what I said during the presentation in Milan of the project, I've come up with the answer: In those days, Frank Bari, and Donatello made an excavation. They were human archeology, archeology or better feelings.
The most important part of their work and their field research, in fact, has been that sentimental, built searching into the hearts of the people I met.
Archaeology of feelings: to go places, meet the faces and voices, asking strangers what they had to show more intimate.
This was the work of these wretches: to return lost feelings from the past, seek them out, dust them, collect them and present them. With indecent assault. Is not that what archaeologists do?
Their goal was reached when the respondent spoke a sentence like: "... and that I never, never tell anyone ..." "That's not I'll never forget," "me that I almost forgot" I was sure that sooner or later someone would ask me these things ...
Accompanying them in their explorations I've seen some amazing things: I knew the heroism and pride of the professional drivers of buses, I heard the story of a man who died of a broken heart, I saw an experienced musician and prim as excited as a kid as he spoke of his passion for the old AM radio, I imagined the work of men living in far away places every day launch sounds in places unknown.
I imagined a message, news, music, travel transported by the sunlight, become birds over the sea, and eventually return message, news, song for thousands of miles away there is someone who collects them with patience. How do you explain
all this? The most important thing of this work has not impressed any film, and did not stop on any pixel, the most important thing is completely invisible, intangible, intangible, inaudible except with a sixth sense.
Which can be a treasure chest of old transistor radio, we who spend their days in front of the computer not even imagine, and the journey is more fruitful when parties without an idea to pack too light.
(Continued)
