be objective magzine #2

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#2

Aura Hunters

Art ists for Dummies

Contemporary Art in Milan:A Hysterical View

Jeanne Susplugas

Addict ion in Science Fict ion

What 's Your Poison?

ADDICTION

FEBRUARY / M

ARCH

2010

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EDITORIAL TEAM

DIRECTOR Kiki Sideris

CHIEF EDITOR Alix Doran

ART, CULTURE EDITOR Sonia Fanoni

SCREAMING & SCREENING EDITOR

Livia Andrea PiazzaPHOTOSPECTIVES EDITOR

Stephanie SerraUPSIDE DOWN,

INTERACTION EDITORS Alexandra BodeStephanie Serra

COMMUNICATION Neri Bastiancich

Rosa PlijnaarRoberto ScalmanaLorenzo Tubertini

Konstantinos Vogiatzis by Sonia Fanoni

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ISSUE #2Addiction

People usually associate addiction with all sorts of destructive behaviours, images of people feeling a need, a lack. There's an infinite list of what people can be addicted to, and new objects of addiction are 'invented' every day. But what about the addic-tions that generate positive or creative outcomes? Drives that enable personal de-velopment, fun...? What about addictions to create art, the compulsion to consume art and culture? What about addiction to travelling and discovering new people and horizons? Surely these addictions are not all 'black'. Surely, somehow, we can under-stand, and perhaps forgive, certain addictions because they have provided and will keep on providing us with artworks to admire, songs to sing, travel journals to read, and pictures to make us dream about faraway destinations. Let's face it, without addictions we would not have a lot of Baudelaire's poems to read...

Our purpose was not to defend or criticise addiction, but to look at different forms of addiction, their relationship with the arts and culture, and the potential outcomes of these interactions. The articles we have selected for this issue revolve around addiction, science-fiction, travel, creation. And for those of you who want to take a more rational look at addic-tion, start reading from the end, with the Editor's choice article that gives a scientific approach to addiction. If you think you're not addicted to anything, you might just end up discovering that you are, in fact, an addict. But don't worry, rumour has it it's quite common.

Bob Magazine is still changing, and while two sections disappeared, a new one was created: 'Screaming and Screening' now replaces 'Media' and 'Entertainment'. This change enabled us to open up to every form of art and content which can be screamed or screened.

As this is only (or perhaps already!) our third issue, I would also like to thank every-one who has been contributing to Bob, who has supported and encouraged us, and thank you also to all the readers. Finally, a special thanks to the professional artists who have agreed to participate in this issue.

- Alix Doran CHIEF EDITOR

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SOUNDTRACK10+1

by Federica Taccari and Marco Esposito

ARTAura Huntersby Nicole Moserle

Guida per riconoscere un'artista(artists for dummies)

by Davide Allieri

OUR PHOTOSPECTIVESLight Addictions

by Stephanie Serra

CULTUREContemporary art in Milan:

A hysterical viewby Giovanni Saladino

Like Ulyssesby Mattia Tarizzo

CONTENTS

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10

12

14

38

40

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UPSIDE DOWNParis vs. Milanby Stephanie Serra andAlexandra Bode

INTERACTIONPills: An interview of Jeanne Susplugasby Stephanie Serratranslated by Alix Doran

YOUR PHOTOSPECTIVESby various contributors

SCREAMING & SCREENINGAddiction in Science Fiction by Giacomo Culotta

Hell, I don't knowby Andrea de Marinis

EDITOR'S CHOICEWhat's your poisonby Alicia Patterson

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50

64

66

68

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SOUNDTRACK 10 + 1

OutkastHey ya

Impossible not to hear it twice

RamonesI Wanna Be Sedated

Sometimes we should really be

sedated :)

INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE: Before reading this issue

1. Relax2. Read over the follow-ing 10+1 tracks3. Look for them at your nearest record store, favorite online music source or just go on BOB's YouTube channel and look for the 'addic-tion' playlist

4. Burn a CD or make a playlist on your media player5. Press play 6. Turn the page and7. Enjoy the newest issue of BOB accompanied by a addictive soundtrack

MadonnaMaterial girl

A conscious way of life

The Beatles

All You Need Is Love

The sweetest addiction

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1 4

3

7

10

7

CSS Music is my boyfriend

For our music addicted

The Beatles

All You Need Is Love

The sweetest addiction

The ClashLondon Calling

For London's lovers and not only...

Velvet UndergroundHeroin

Bad habits

Rita PavoneLa Partita

Addiction to foot-ball? Not suggested

Elvis Presley Jailhouse Rock

Back to our parents' rock n roll

addiction

Joe Squillo Violentami

Borderline addiction

The CureFriday i'm in love

dedicated to Plastic goers :)

by Federica Taccari & Marco Esposito

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ART

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ART

We are continuously being exposed to all kinds of art products; collections, exhibitions, fairs, biennials, conferenc-es, and the list goes on. But what do such experiences really give us? How can we avoid just being passive users and instead adopt a more inquisitive ap-proach? Books, academic journals, and university lectures can help, but ulti-mately the most powerful tool we hold, is our individual ability to process the images that invade our field of vision on a daily basis. In this issue we will first have a look at some of the contradictions of the con-temporary art market. We will then find out what it takes to be an artist today.

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HU

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SWho attends art fairs, sees dozens of

exhibitions, and enters auction houses?In the art market, especially the contem-

porary one, we find different roles. There-fore, this question could be answered by naming these actors, whose contribution is very complex, subtle and increasingly hybrid: merchants, galleries, museums, publishers, auction houses and collectors, curators, critics, art advisors, analysts, fi-nanciers as well as artists.

The most naive or simply the less expe-rienced, approaching this symbolic econ-omy can remain dazzled by the extended frenzy and eccentricity, and perhaps be fascinated by anecdotal books like Sarah Thornton's Seven Days in the Art World.

But the reality is far more intricate. As the anthropologist Daniel Miller said, "Culture has a contradictory nature, and its contradictions are insurmountable". Consequently, the economy around the visual arts and the intangible powers that motivate it, are essentially antitheti-cal; these elements have constituted the culture of all times and have always lived with their tangle. That’s why we shouldn’t believe that all players in the panorama of the arts are interested in art or are moved by passion.

Piroschka Dossi discussed in her book Art Mania how the emerging contempo-rary art is conquering the world and why.

Here, there are plenty of ideas on how to raise the quality of the artistic level and therefore the collectors', obviously hoping that this develop-ment will come along with the evolution of a very young market, if the current boom does not blow up in a crisis bringing, consequently, a stagnation of culture.

At this point, if you have not given up reading, I suggest that the solution might lie in the "aura hunters”. Before explaining who these "knights" of the new millennium are, some words about postmodern-ism must be spoken.

In the postmodern era, many artists created their works based on works that already existed, as the focus was on working with already circulating objects. Thus, to be an expert in contemporary art it is es-sential to have a deep knowledge of art history and to be constantly updated. That being said, words such as fair value, fundamental true value and investment value have started to be common language; one should not forget to take as valid Umberto Eco's definition of a work of art as "an object produced by an author organizing a network of com-munication effects in a way that any user may cover (through games of responses to the configuration of effects experienced as a sense of sensitivity and intelligence) the work itself, the form imagined by the author ".

AURA

© Agne Raceviciute Il Piacere 2007

by Nicole Moserle

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HU

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S Indeed, in current terminology of financial markets intersecting art, the real value can undeniably be deter-mined; it implicitly asserts that an independent assess-ment may exist, that can be called intangible value or aura, as suggested by Walter Benjamin.

In very simple words, we are talking about something that makes people who can perceive it, become more and more addicted to it; when even the followers can grasp it, only the pioneers have the opportunity to achieve eco-nomic benefits as well as cultural ones.

In fact, taking into consideration Andy Warhol's words, it is possible to realize the opposite to what Benjamin had announced;

“Some company recently was interested in buying my “aura”. They didn’t want my product. They kept say-ing, ‘We want your aura’. I never figured out what they wanted. But they were willing to pay a lot for it. So then I thought that if somebody was willing to pay that much for it, I should try to figure out what it is. I think ‘aura’ is something that only somebody else can see, and they only see as much of it as they want to. It’s all in the other person’s eyes”.

Aura expresses things related to the shimmer and the charisma of an object or an individual.

The Aura is something constructed in society. Within a culture, there are certain areas that evolve producing more aura than others (Maquet, 1979). Today, in our western society, the aura is usually connected to an indi-vidual and to certain kinds of cultural forms.

In primitive societies aura was fetishism: the belief that everything in nature could have a soul. The concept

© Agne Raceviciute Il Piacere 2007

of Aura is not new. What is new is the role it plays in our society.

As for contemporary art, nowadays more and more people collect works of young artists, there are even art-ist-collectors (Maurizio Cattelan) or artists that use the act of collecting as an artistic work (Michael Johansson).

In the new private social network of independent-collec-tors there are hundreds of interested people all around the world. What is appealing is how such a melting pot interacts on variegate art’s themes; what is peculiar is that there are moderators who guide every discussions in an appropriate way, ethically and professionally.

Concluding, what comes out is an artistic scenario where we can observe art works which own, from their creation, a particular “original aura” (arising from the “in-tellectual taste”). Once the work is introduced into the market, further kinds of aura value can be added: the “artist aura”, the “status aura”, values influenced by pric-es and led by personal gaze. People who can distinguish these shades are few, the aura hunters.

They have the gift and feel the necessity (nearly an addiction) of identifying what is the expression and the creative power of an individual. They are in this light able to recognize the “objects” that will satisfy the pri-mordial need and the powerful imagination of whom-ever will own them.

Giorgio Agamben observed, in a lecture following his essay What is the contemporary?, that “the contempo-rary is not only the one who, perceiving the darkness of the present, grasps a light that can never reach its destiny; he is also the one who, diving and interpolating time, is capable of dividing it and interpolating time. He is able to read history in unforeseen ways, to “cite it” according to a necessity that does not arise in any way from his will, but from an exigency to which he cannot not respond”.

Aura hunters are contemporary. The final result (suc-cessful or unsuccessful) of our seminar depends on our ability to listen and follow the vision of these hunters, instead of considering them dangerous sharks or hyp-notic vipers.

Nicole Moserle has a Bachelors in Economics for Arts and Culture from Bocconi University. She is currently a student of visual arts at IUAV in Venice. She is a contemporary art fanatic and has very curly hair.

© Barbara Kruger Untitled (I shop therefore I am) 1987

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GUIDA PER RICONOSCERE UN' ARTISTA (artists for dummies)

by Davide Allieri

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How could an artist not be addicted to his art? Art is his favorite and strongest drug: an artist must be a chronic drug addict. A “healthy” addiction in terms of pure productive obsession.

The artist, who is proud and stubborn, will never com-promise because he’s addicted to himself and to his ar-tistic production; he just can’t stop “making” and he will hardly commit to something which is different from art. For this very reason you will have a tough time looking for a real artist who decides to give up on his work com-pletely to do something else, maybe a “regular” job. He would probably do it for a short period, just the time to gather some money to invest in his artistic projects.

A big art master of the past used to say: “if there’s no obsession, there’s no art”. We could properly interpret his words in this sense: if the artist wasn’t totally lost in himself, like a tramp wandering

in a world in which precariousness is the only certainty known, and if he wasn’t totally dependent to his produc-tivity, then it would be impossible to find that creative ecstasy, necessary condition to create masterpieces, consequence of an obsessive commitment.

Problems emerge when you have to deal with reality.As a young artist, I can say that it's really hard to be

understood, because there are very few people who are willing to comprehend the artist’s, or the creative, life condition. Pretty much everything I do, such as watch-ing a movie, reading a book, listening to a song, or go-ing anywhere, is done to enrich my personal artistic re-search.

There is no intellectual vacation in an artist’s life, he never stops thinking about new projects and works.

The artist, who is the perfect example of a fully self-centered person, can’t accept any wastes of time, any-thing that would distract him or create a psychological or physical damage that would stop him from his com-pulsive production of art.

It would be so hard to even think about separating his creative life from his working one.

It would be impossible to come to an agreement be-tween these two separate spheres: a boring and monot-onous job and the excitement after every “overdose” of art.

The artist, notwithstanding the euphoria generated by the art, will act exactly like the most unhopeful drug ad-dict: he will have to cope with withdrawal. The seventh heaven of artistic production, the energy, and that divine thrill after the conclusion of a work, will rapidly be trans-formed into a desolated land of despair. In some way, though, this new existential condition could lead the art-ist, oppressed by indescribable feelings of angst, to a new artistic resurrection: what could seem a pre-suicidal moment becomes catharsis, and consequently a new sprint to work again. The withdrawal symptoms don’t last long, they quickly turn into new artistic lifeblood.

The vicious (virtuous?) circle of addiction is now closed. New work=energy=dose, end of the work=depression=withdrawal symptoms.

It is extremely hard to try to pursue artistic ambitions and, at the same time, to try and survive in a world that won't always let you achieve your goals. Dreams don't always come true.

For aspiring artists, many doors are shut, and only the strongest motivation will help not to give up before one actually starts trying.

To succeed as an artist, art has to be the priority, even if this means continuously dealing with unfairness. The art world is a field of uncertainty, those who keep that in mind will be prepared.

by Davide Allieri

Davide Allieri is a 27 year old artist who lives between Ber-gamo and Milan. He has a degree from Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera.

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PHOTOSPECTIVES

This is not a professional photographical output, but a

place to merge subjective points of view to build a more

objective one. So Be Objective! Look around. Images ev-

erywhere. We take pictures, we share them, exchange

them, stock them, look at them, forget about them and

pull them out of an old drawer to reminisce. In the era

of digitalization, photography has become a new game

where the objective can be pointed at anything, from the

most serious to the most futile subject. The freedom of a

quick “click” is sometimes abused so choices have to be

made in order for the images to start interacting and, by

speaking a common language, build a common sense.

First, in OUR PHOTOSPECTIVES, we will have a look at this

issue's theme through the lense of BOB's photo editor.

Then (pgs 50-61) we will experience the theme through

a selection of images submitted by YOU, the readers...

16© Stephanie Serra

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LIGHT AD-DIC-TIONS

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CU

L-TU

RE

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CU

L-TU

RE Sometimes we take culture for

granted. People, history, tradi-tions, dialogues, heritage. Oth-er times, instead, an analytical thought crosses our minds and we stop and reflect. Be Objective magazine offers this particular space to just such reflections; entering our everyday lives in order to offer a glimpse into some common cultural encoun-ters: trips we went on, food we ate, urban centers we visited, old traditions we rediscovered, senses of fashion we express, and so on. So let’s get started with a con-temporary art overdose fol-lowed by a journey into the great abyss.

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Well, I finally have an entire week-end free from any engagement, so I'm going to realize one of my dreams: spend three days fully following the amazing world of contemporary art in Milan! Let's consume some culture, I'm so excited! First of all I have to make a plan; a sched-ule to maximize my time. My desk is overflowing with art magazines, free press full of very interesting articles that nobody reads, so let's see what is going on. After three hours of looking for nice exhibitions I notice that half of them have already ended... anyway, today there is an important opening at La Fabbrica del Vapore, it is always full of appealing people, kind of artists I think, or maybe curators. I just have to catch one of them and fol-low him around the glittered contemporary art circuit.

Riding my Vespa I'm there in just 15 minutes. The front of the entrance is crowded with people smoking

by Giovanni Saladino

and drinking beers; the inside is dark and almost empty, with just some video installations, drawings on the wall and Milovan wandering around in his tunic that makes him look like a glamorous shaman.

After 20 minutes and three beers I accidentally un-derstand that this exhibition is aimed at presenting the work of the artists in residence in via Farini, while upstairs there is a round table about the role of public spaces for art and the construction of identities... I try to mix with the people taking part in the round table, but all this rhetoric is annoying me, and I also forgot my favorite papillon...! Time to move away. I heard from someone that there is a vernissage at the brand new gal-lery Cardi Black Box, how could I miss it?!?!

I get there just to realize that there is quite a long queue and two bouncers at the door. Maybe I'm wrong.

Contemporary Art in

Milan: A Hysteric

al V

iew

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Giovanni Saladino is completing his MSc in Arts Management at Boc-coni University. He is a regular contributor and a former editor of BOB. He is currently on exchange at the IUAV in Venice. He has collaborated on various contemporary art projects in Milan, Palermo and Venice. His most recent endeavor (in collaboration with Camilla Pietrabissa and Sonia Fanoni) is called Granaio (http://granaioamilano.blogspot.com/).

'Is it a gallery or a club?' I ask a couple of people but they can't answer me, they are just models for the fashion week... ok, considering the red All Stars sneakers I'm wearing, I don't think I have any chance of getting in, I'm a bit discouraged! But a flash comes up in my mind, yesterday I saw on facebook an invitation for a party or-ganized by Brown. Come on, it's going to be cool!

Once again, people are outside smoking and drink-ing, some of them wearing just a t-shirt even though it’s freezing! I just see tattoos and strange hairdos around me. Inside there is a strange performance nobody cares about; Luca, the habitué, shows red teeth and his usual tuft of hair. I need 15 minutes to cross the two rooms, greeting some friends, giving a glance at the papers on the table, but in the end I get to the little lobby at the back. “Wine is over”, someone screams, almost drunk. F***, what could I do now?

I go outside, I jump on my Vespa yet again and go back home, just in time to see the tenant of the first floor throwing down a bucket of water; “Part of the per-formance?” -someone asks- “no, just a fed up neighbor!”- answers someone else...

The balance of the first day is very bad, but tomorrow will be better. I have noticed things around, and I will work more on my outfit...

Alarm rings: it’s 11.00am. After a shower I wear my new Wok cardigan. The sky is grey, but I can't renounce my Ray Ban sunglasses. I head out to a brunch in Tri-ennale, the exhibitions are the same as three months ago, but the cafè is so cool that I can't resist, and the garden outside is lovely too! There, I meet a friend who is now working in for an art magazine. She talks about the prices of advertising inside the magazine and how exhausting it is to deal with art galleries, my head starts aching...

We go to the opening of the new exhibition organized by the Trussardi Foundation. I guess it is a duo of Ger-man artists, I'm not sure... “Oh, Max Gioni is so brilliant, and he is cute too”- this is what I hear from a group of girls sitting behind me during the conference, so I lose the thread of the discussion...but it doesn't matter.

The conference is over and there is nothing to drink, what a swindle! I lose my friend but re-catch the group of girls I saw before, they know about a party organized by Mousse-or Kaleidoscope- (but aren't they the same? What the hell happened? We need more gossip...). Ok let's go there together! The party is at the Swiss insti-tute for culture; once there, there are “nastro azzurro per tutti”, people take pictures around, there's also an exhibition inside, a collective one I guess. The music is alternative, people make efforts to meet. I start a conver-sation with a young artist, a guy from Paris, who after 45 minutes tries to kiss me... thanks but no thanks! I notice winking faces around me, like a sort of “eyes wide shut”, the kitsch version...

Once again I have to go back home definitely not satis-fied...

Last day, last opportunity to enjoy the amazing world of contemporary art. But today I'm sure about the result: there is the vernissage in Via Ventura! It's surprising, once every two months all the people linked to contem-porary art in Milan meet in a secluded street close to Lambrate. It is a sort of urban desert, but for a few days during the year it's the place where you have to be. I dress up my radical chic camouflage, and I'm there in just an hour and half! There is low quality wine every-where, people oscillate between De Carlo and Zero…, promising artists and popular curators are all there, chatting about art... I meet a friend who works as an assistant in a gallery: “How is life Jeps?” I ask him “Well, I work every afternoon for free, then I study for exams at night, I haven't slept in five days, but maybe I will go with the gallery to the next art fair in Bologna!”- “ok Jeps, enjoy the fair, if you survive…”

I walk in search of the new Lambretto Project, I'm lost around the suburbs, then I meet some girl called Gea. She is going, with a group of artists from Iceland, to the after party at Hangar Bicocca, so let's go all together! Once there, I see the DJ putting on trash music; peo-ple are freezing inside the huge warehouse, but there is vodka for free, and so after 20 minutes my memory becomes defective... I come to my senses at 4.00am, when I find myself outside the hangar, completely alone. There is no public transport, no taxis, no one around, it is a f***ing cathedral in the desert!

I need 2 hours to walk back home, and while the sun is rising, I think about the project for the new contempo-rary art museum in Milano, a container for exhibitions, conferences, parties...will they ever do it?

Anyway, maybe it is too hard for me to follow the as-tounding world of contemporary art...

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In 1271, Marco Polo, together with his father Nicolò and his uncle Matteo, engaged in a journey that lasted 24 years and covered 24,140 kilometres. Even if he was the youngest of the expedition – he was only seventeen when they left Venice – he is the most acknowledged, due to the fact that he decided to record his Asian expe-riences in a book entitled The travel of Marco Polo – in Italian named Il milione. About the content of the book, Marco Polo is supposed to have said I have not told half of what I saw.

Some 2,000 years before, the great Greek poet Homer had sung in the Odyssey – one of the main pillars of Western Literature and Culture – the adventures that the

hero Ulysses lived in a ten-year travel to reach Ithaca – his home – after the Trojan War, that he had helped win. Inspired by the history of Ulysses, Kostantin Kavafis wrote in 1911 a poem titled Ithaca, whose main passage is: Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage. Without her you would have never set out on the road. She has nothing more to give you.

What exactly is the essence of travel and how does travelling enrich us are some of the questions that ac-company mankind since the very beginning. Of course, travel is much more widespread today than it has ever been. Improvements in communication and transporta-tion technologies have played a key role in this regard.

LIKE ULYSSESby Mattia Tarizzo

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Mattia Tarizzo has a BSc in Arts, Culture and Communication Man-agement and is currently getting his MSc in International Management through a Double Degree program between Shanghai's Fudan Univer-sity and Bocconi University in Milan.

This point raises a third and more relevant question, that is whether today’s travellers can be considered on the same edge of figures such as Marco Polo and Ulysses.

Anyone can reply to this last question in the way he/she prefers. Staying to the facts, it is evident that there are some differences as well as some commonalities among today’s and yesterday’s travellers. Differences can be seen both as an advantage and a disadvantage. Let’s take the example of airplanes: if on one side they make it easier and cheaper to move from one place to another, on the other they shorten the road that is the essence and the real gift of travel. About the commonali-ties, I believe that a certain type of physical travel – the one of the traveller and not that of the tourist – has al-ways been and always will be accompanied by an inner travel.

Physical travel changes people because it forces them to challenge their deeper beliefs and accelerates the pro-cess of inner change that is life. Some great examples in literature of inner travel are Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. In fact, both the protagonists of the two works – Dante himself and captain Marlow – are different men at the end of their adventures. The subordination of physical travel to the inner one is particularly evident in Conrad’s novel, where the name of the river where the story takes place is never mentioned.

Getting to the end of this brief overview on the theme of travel, it is worth asking ourselves one last question: is travel an addiction? Once again there might be dif-ferent replies. My own opinion is that it is so. Once a person starts travelling around the World and exploring other cultures and habits, he/she cannot stop. He/she can return home – Ithaca – for some time but in the back of his/her mind will always think about the next stage of the exploration.

While we are on journey, contacts and possessions do not matter. The only thing that matters is who we are. While we are on journey, we cannot take refuge in our routines and external certainties, but we have to take risks and find new certainties inside ourselves. What we remember more about a travel are the unforeseen events we had to face on the road. They are the ones that cause us the stronger emotions, make us fear but eventually make us feel stronger. They are the reason why, once we start travelling, we cannot stop.

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Cultural exchange is such an abused concept in our globalized age - We read, study and hear about it, often in very theoretical ways. However, our personal experiences, those small episodes of exchange, of-ten go unnoticed. This section is dedicated to those who left, and those who came, those who turned their worlds upside down and agreed to tell us how they did it. This section is also an excuse to bring a little lightness to everyday life - We ask for your favourites, the best, the superlatives - never ask for less!

UPSIDE DOWN

Fiammetta GriccioliItalyParis/New York exchange with Science Po4 monthsThailand, US, Brazil, Morocco, France, Croatia, Turkey

Curiosity, always wanting to understand every-thing and everyone (too much).

Everytime you travel you know something new is going to happen, new people, new places, it's always a discovery.

my moleskine (with the map of paris)

It's so diverse.

I have no idea.

Kir and entrecote!

The easy way of life you get in Italy.

I got to futher understand the french mentality.

The top of Montmarte at six o clock in the morning (very cheesy thing to say but true!)

Pariscope (very useful).

Crystalized- The xx

Eating crepes at Saint Michel with friends, after a good night out.

Do you feel that you have integrated the culture of the place where you are living?

Full name:Surname:

Country of origin:Current location:Reason for trip:

Duration of stay:Countries visited in the past two

years:

What is the most....

…secret addiction of yours?

…addictive thing about traveling?

…important item in your luggage for Paris?

…addictive thing about Paris?

…fashionable must-have in Paris at the moment:

...addictive food or drink:

Anything you are missing from back home?

Anything you discovered?

Special bar or spot in Paris:

Important newspaper/magazine in Paris:

Memorable song of 2009/2010:

Memorable moment:

What would you like to know about the next upside down couple?

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2

3

43UPSIDE DOWN

AntoineArelFranceMilanparticipation in a double-degree program1 yearFinland, Estonia, Russia, Austria, Serbia, Turkey, Morocco, USA (not the whole tree, only the big apple)

Surfing the wikipedia

Finding a little paradise in an unexpected place. / Tasting deli-cious local food after an exhausting day. / Making the greatest time out of a "galère" (a hellish situation).

A wooden pocket chess-board from Morocco and a bottle of wine.

l'Aperitivo of course, best symbol of the student Dolce Vità

An iphone. But it's so 2009, and so not specific to Milan. Global-ization I guess...

Slow food, fast food, there is a time for everything. Special men-tion to the sunday family lunch (rather slow-food).

The sunday family lunch.

Sicilian pesto, it's great. Milan charming streets.

Le Bici

The one that gives me the result of the last calcio game and an idea of movie/museum to see.

Love Song, Amanda Blank / Ma Quale idea, Pino d'Angio

In the train to Vicenza, friday evening, with Etienne, Alexandre and Juliette.

Would you like to settle in xxx or Milan?Do you support il Milan or l'Inter?Where do you first go when a friend comes to visit?

Cultural exchange is such an abused concept in our globalized age - We read, study and hear about it, often in very theoretical ways. However, our personal experiences, those small episodes of exchange, of-ten go unnoticed. This section is dedicated to those who left, and those who came, those who turned their worlds upside down and agreed to tell us how they did it. This section is also an excuse to bring a little lightness to everyday life - We ask for your favourites, the best, the superlatives - never ask for less!

Full name:Surname:

Country of origin:Current location:Reason for trip:

Duration of stay:Countries visited in the

past two years:

What is the most....

…secret addiction of yours?

…addictive thing about traveling?

…important item in your luggage for Milan?

…addictive thing about Milan?

…fashionable must-have in Milan at the

moment:

...addictive food or drink:

Anything you are miss-ing from back home?

Anything you discovered:

Special bar or spot in Paris?

Important newspaper/magazine in Paris?

Memorable song of 2009/2010:

Memorable moment:

What would you like to know about the next upside down couple?

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- Writing an article is surely a demanding task and an intriguing challenge for every writer out there. However, composing a well structured and fascinating poetry of words is not the only way to approach a story; it is not necessarily suited for ev-ery situation. Sometimes another mode, a different tool, a more peculiar medium is needed. An interview perhaps? This section is a space that will house our cu-riosities by allowing us to ask questions. The aim is to go in depth and gain a bet-ter understanding through a constant quest for answers.In this issue we are going to come into contact with French artist Jeanne Susplu-gas and try to understand her take on this issue's theme, addiction.

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Stephanie Serra: How important is your work on addiction in your artistic research?Jeanne Susplugas: Addiction is central to my work. I observe how the world alienates us a bit more every day, and ties us to ever new desires, triggered by the Internet, the 'Fat free' dictator-ship -title of one of my works (2005)- and other imposed criteria of beauty. This everyday alienation is present in some of my works in which the cosmetic obsession be-comes a source of laughter once its absurdity is revealed (What is it that makes today's people so different, so at-tractive?, 2003). In different pieces I also look at the alienation of the Internet, especially in a particularly obvious and funny one called Boîte de Déception (2005). I took the Hotmail icon 'Boîte de réception' (Inbox), and turned it into 'Boîte de déception' (Deception box). Internet connects us to the world, but if you don't receive emails, you feel even more lonely. I try to represent an occidental society suffering from information bulimia, sick of its surproduction, satiated and about to suffocate – when elsewhere, there is a lack of access to health services (Série Sales Woman, 2006-2007).

S.S: The series 'Addicted' is from 2003, do you think this work is still as important today, and why? J.S:Yes of course, this series is still very topical! It deals with medications, but addictions have always existed and will always exist. Medications play a major role in our pre-scription societies! Today, the traffic of fake medication is becoming the first one in the world! That's the reason why, for the past few years, I have been developing a bunch of works about this phenomenon. Lucrative traf-fic – from the discreet 'street' deal (Speedy Deal, 2008) to the large import-export traffic. Between the 'magic' pow-der conditioned in regenerating capsules – in fact sugar or flower, when it is not crushed glass! - and the real medicine diverted from the factory and re-packed to be sent on who-knows-what market in Africa or elsewhere... (Série Sales Woman, 2006-09; Pharmacie Gazon, 2008). Fake, real-fakes, fake-reals have already caused a lot of damage in developing countries, and are reaching the rest of the world little by little. We can actually measure the extent of the phenomenon by looking at the mas-sive and spectacular destructions it causes (Mass De-struction, 2008). The huge machine crushes thousands of tablets (or boxes) in the same way counterfeits are

PILLSADDICTION AND ART ACCORDING TO FRENCH ARTIST JEANNE SUSPLUGAS

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destroyed in mass in the fashion industry. If everything goes well – depending on safety standards required, I should be setting up this installation/performance again in the Domaine de Chamarande in June.

S.S: How do you explain your choice of letters and writing to define addiction? J.S: To be addicted is something painful. It is often some-thing we are ashamed of, and that we keep quiet. Here, addiction becomes a neon signboard. The person who looks is seduced by the attractive light of the letters but the words he can read make that person shift towards anxiety, a danger.

S.S: Can you explain how the environment in which you grew up influenced your work? J.S: Artists often talk about their personal story to reach a so-cial story. I have the impression that it is also what gives it its authenticity. It is always difficult to know in which way things influence work. My memories from when I was growing up are still very vivid. I used to love going to the pharmacy school and walk around while I waited for my parents. I played with the microscopes or visited the little museum in my parents' department. I especially remember the smell of all the plants and products there. It was really fascinating. When I started working with a camera, I started with macro-photography, and I sup-pose that's an example of direct influence. When I was a child, I didn't see the word in a rational way, but rather like a mysterious and fascinating world. My grandfather had also worked in the place, and so it was also a place loaded with my family story.

S.S: 'The pills progressively appear in her eyes as objects of desire'. This sentence comes from the art critic L. Nu-ridsnay's comment on your work at the Galerie Olivier Houg, in Lyon, in 2003. How does this sentence talk to you? J.S: I love to play with the idea that medications look like sweets. I deliberately try to make them look even more attractive because there is something magic about them. This little thing that you can so easily swallow and that can have such an impact on our bodies. It is amazing! On one side I highlight the manipulations, including the packaging itself and the shape of the medicines, operated by the laboratories and the pharmaceutical in-

dustry. On the other side, whoever has been sick and has needed medication to be cured knows the role that medication can have in our lives. People always tell me that there is something very unsettling/disturbing in my work. The visitors understand that there is a form of de-nunciation of a social phenomenon with respect to the significant place taken by medicines in our society. But at the same time, they perceive a form of fascination and an attraction that are probably related to my personal experience. I love to work on limits, and cause certain confusion for the spectator. Most of the time, people are immediately attracted by the seducing aspect of my pieces, and per-ceive their disturbing or frightening dimension only af-terwards.

S.S: Your work is heading towards a research linking video, installation and drawing. Which tool or material have you decided to start working with, and what was the evolution of that tool or material? J.S: I have a way of working that does not involve a deter-mined medium. The choice is made depending on the necessity that emerges after reflection. I go from video to photography, from the intimacy of a drawing to the gigantism of an installation. For example, when I started being interested in fake medicines, traffic, complexity, the danger represented by these millions of medicines sold 'wildly' (or on the contrary on very well organised markets) in the Third World or on specialised websites, I discovered a very large field of investigation. I got absorbed in a daily re-search – in the studio – rather introspective and silent that gave birth to a lot of drawings and sketches... but also ideas much more spectacular such as 'Mass destruc-tion'. I can afford to explore these different aspects because I have a variety of fields of action: from the gallery to the public space... I don't really favour one medium over another one. For some time now I have been developing the 'perfor-mative' aspect of my work. In 2007, I made an acous-tic piece called Iatrogène for the Centre d'Art Passages (Troyes, France). For this piece, I asked the writer Marie Darrieussecq for a text in relation to my work. Iatrogène was presented as a dialogue with three voices (Marie Dar-rieussecq, Eric Pajot et Jeanne Susplugas). In November 2009, at the Maison Rouge-Fondation Antoine Galbert (Paris), Iatrogène became a performance played by three actors. I'm now going to present this performance at the Grand Palais (Paris) in March during Art Paris, as a guest of Vanessa Suchar.I was also invited by the Générateur (Gentilly, France)

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where, following the same principle, I had a text played. The text was writ-ten for me by Basile Panurgias on the theme of a distressing and repetitive gesture, a kind of absurd obsessional behaviour disorder (Le haut de mon crâne).

S.S: You've had exhibitions in France, Belgium, Spain, Japan, in the US... Did you feel a different interpretation was made of your works depending on the country? J.S: Behaviours vary in different countries and places, but I don't think it would be fair to draw conclusions because we would need to take into consider-ation a lot of parameters. Part of my work relies on collecting. It is also a way to anchor an exhibition, a piece in a particular context. For instance, during my last exhibition at the Maison des Arts in Malakoff (France), the inhabitants brought me their prescriptions, and that started a process of identification with the visitors. Another example, in Tokyo, a kind of secret association/club had organised a secret evening in my installation La Maison malade (1999, Mizuma art gallery). It gave place to incredible scenes. But the context was very particu-lar! If you look at the visitors' reactions when they stay there, play, start a dialogue, this installation, inspired by padded rooms in psychiatric hospi-tals, appears to be very fun for people. At the moment I am showing an installation called Peeping Tom's House (2007). It's located at the end of the pool of the Musée de la Piscine (Rou-baix, France). It is an installation that invites the visitors to look through holes to be able to watch little videos on daily rituals. The visitors are not meant to touch the piece, and yet, they are like leeches, stuck to the little house! It is really amusing to observe their lively reactions! This same piece had been displayed at my gallery in Brussels (Think.21) where there was a certain distance because of the gallery itself – the gallery impresses because of the proximity of the people who work there, and can create a discomfort.

S.S: Is there a message you would like to transmit to our readers? J.S: No, no message in particular! I would rather invite them in France to the Wharf-Centre d'Art Contemporain in Hérouville Saint Clair (House to house, personal exhibition, from the 20th of April, to the 29th of May), or to the museum in Beauvais (Vive l'intime, opening on the 19th of June). Or abroad to the gallery Morten Poulesen in Copenhaguen (Surrounded, personal ex-hibition opening on the 9th of April), or to Melbourne at the gallery Marga-ret Lawrence (from the 20th of June to the 25th of April).

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YOUR PHOTOSPECTIVES

These are the remains of my daily existence, my daily refuse, this is the “stuff” that “fuels” my life.These elements are witnesses to my periodic engagement in a soci-ety based on mass consumption.Without these unnoticed elements I would not exist, I would not be able to function in this world. They are an attempt to create or-der out of our chaotic way of being.They stand as proof of XXI Cen-tury living.

- Remy Amezcua

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YOUR PHOTOSPECTIVES

Remy Amezcua ”Kingfisher” From Aaeeuy C. Mmrz / Evidence Collages Series.

2004 - 2009 40 x 40 inches

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© Giovanni Saladino

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pistils' poetry landscape... i just

can't resist, i abbandon myself,

everything vanishes, and i don't care

anymore.

-Giovanni Saladino

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silas shabelewska (b.1963)

Title: LOVE 1 (2007) c-rpint on diasec

face50 x 50 inches

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"I am addicted to LOVE..."-Silas Shabelewska

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This photo is part of a project called “Addic-tion”, where the word ad-diction presents in it-self the component “add” which indicates that we are the sum of several parts forming an ensam-ble. The addiction is part of this sum: it is part of our broken-into-pieces completeness. All the photos have the same title to underline the equal importance of each component and also of each main character of the ad-diction. In fact, we are all protagonists with our own personal addiction.

- Ila Covolan

© Ila Covolan

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"why live in the world when you can live in your head?" The Pulp, Monday Morning

-friederike kosche

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Odore di olio bruciato, di gomma, di foglie; rumori di officina, motori, brusio del pubblico; lo speaker che an-nuncia i corridori. Non è detto che si vada alle corse per sapere come andrà a finire.

-Giovanni divincenzo

SCR

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SCREENING

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This section is about all music, theater, readings that

make us think by screaming something new. It is about

all the stories we come across in our cultural lives. Big

stories of small characters and little stories of big char-

acters. Some of these stories are hidden within music

tunes while others live just for a few hours on a stage.

Some of them remain forever living inside novels and

movies, others are meteors on the internet.

In fact, all the images we see every day screened through

media are the other important part of this section. From

private relationships to public power, from production

marketing, from cultural consumption, media are con-

stantly evolving and modifying our behaviours, percep-

tions, lifestyles, and expectations.

In this issue, we first have a look at the imaginary world

of science fiction, which needs to create other imagi-

nary worlds within itself through addiction and then

we discover what addictions can be hidden in a context

of war, thanks to the film Hurt Locker by Kathryn Big-

elow.

SCREENING

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ADDIC-TION IN SCIENCE FICTION

By Giacomo Culotta

The Can-D, the Neuroin, the Nuke, the Spice Melange, the Bugpowder, plastic surgery, technology. Addiction and science fiction. Binomial. Living matter. Classic but always searching for new settings. The sci-fi authors have always tried to predict, to make plausible forecasts based on the present. That’s why the binomial is a clas-sic and it’s inevitable. As in real life and in the present time (the non-fiction), addiction is everywhere, Philip K. Dick or William Burroughs, just to name a few, couldn’t avoid creating possible evolutions for the man-addiction relation. And so Dick created his Can-D (in The three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch) and his Substance D (in A Scanner Darkly) and Burroughs explored the reactions of a powerful bugpowder on humans.

A Scanner Darkly is a good example of Dick’s main topic; the book explores the lives of a group of addicted people in a not-so-far future. Dick himself had to fight every day with his addiction to amphetamine, and some-one says that all his masterpieces were written under the effect hallucinogens.

William Burroughs approached the topic of addiction from a very interesting point of view. The main charac-ter of Naked Lunch is William Lee, a writer addicted to a drug used to kill bugs and who, at the same time, lives his life with a terrible addiction: the addiction to the lit-

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Giacomo Culotta is a 26 year old sci-fi addict. He is a former general management student at Boc-coni. By night he lives on metal music, sci-fi and videogames. By day he works for the dark side of investment banking ( they have cookies!).

erature itself.Taking no notice of the muffled sci-fi adventures (the

Lucas one, enlightened by light sabers in a war between good and evil), the real sci-fi literature, the one that is generally called “social”, is full of inventions about ad-dictions, new kinds of drugs, manias or types of depen-dence on technology itself. In the grim darkness of the future there are streets full of drug-addicted hobos or stoned crazy heads. However, we can’t forget that in literature drugs are not always 100% negative and of-ten the main characters fight between the addiction and the advantages of using drugs: they are destructive but mind openers.

Addiction is not only a matter of drugs. In this case there are two excellent examples in American literature: the addiction to plastic surgery or genetic manipula-tions in Dan Simmons’ Hyperion, and the addiction to “doll houses” in Dick’s The days of Perky Pat. In the first one, set in a very far future, human kind is addicted to body modifications and keeps altering its original shape (something that does not sound so unfamiliar nowa-days). The second one talks about a strange kind of addiction in a colony on Mars. The colonists can’t stop playing with a doll, named Perky Pat and her perfect doll world, forgetting about the real life and the real human

relationships.And now, get ready to enter imaginary worlds,

which can do nothing but create other imagi-nary worlds within them. Enter a reality from which its characters try to escape by creating other realities through addictions. I include this list for you to open the doors of these worlds. Enjoy and get addicted!

Philip K. Dick – A scanner darklyPhilip K. Dick – The days of Perky Pat and other storiesPhilip K. Dick – The three stigmata of Plamer EldritchWilliam S. Burroghs – Naked LunchWilliam S. Burroghs – Junkie: confession of an unredeemed drug addictedJ.C. Ballard – CrashDan Simmons – HyperionAldous Huxley – Brave new WorldFrank Herbert – Dune

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by Andrea de Marinis

“The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addic-tion, for war is a drug”. Chris Hedges

It is unusual for a movie with nine Oscar nominations to be almost unknown in Italy, but it seems that really few Italians ever heard about it. Neither is it the common case of a movie that is distributed only in the US. In fact, the movie I am talking about was officially presented at the Venice Festival. Obviously, I’m not talking about Avatar (“the other” film nominated for nine Oscar), I’m talking about The Hurt Locker, the last work by the Cali-fornian director Kathryn Bigelow, which went unnoticed in Italy: there was little talk about it and almost no one saw it. It is worth spending two words on the plot.

When SFC William James (Jeremy Brenner) joins Bravo Company in Iraq, they have a month or so left in their tour of duty. He's a bomb disposal expert and he is re-placing Sgt Matt Thompson, a long-standing member of the team who was recently killed disposing of an impro-vised explosive device. To say that James loves what he does doesn't quite capture the emotional high he experi-ences when he gets to do what he does best. His fellow squad members however, including Sgt JT Sanborn (An-thony Mackie) and SPC Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), just want to survive the few days of duty they have left. James' risk-taking behaviour however drives them all to the edge.

The movie location might lead the public to think, er-roneously, that the main theme is the Iraq war, and that it focuses the spectators’ attention on the possible inter-pretations of something which is still happening. Howev-er, Iraq remains in the background; the director doesn’t express a specific opinion and draws the attention to her protagonists first, and then to the dynamics which are triggered restlessly in the action scenes. The movie, in the end, is not about war but about the inner conflicts that every war implies. The quotation by Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer prize winner journalist of New York Times, opens

the movie and works as an interpretation tool for the follow-ing images. The prey of addiction is the protagonist, William, who lives every day in the Bravo Company, defusing handmade bombs manufactured by an entire popula-tion that hates and observes him contin-uously. They film him from windows, spy-ing on him while he is dealing with his daily interaction with dan-ger. He has a relation-ship of love with the bomb, which seems to be the only reason why he goes on. This relationship is strong enough to lead him to keep under his bed, in a box, all the detonators which should have killed him. A disruptive routine in which William drags his mates and intoxicates his veins with adrenaline, the only thing that perhaps makes him feel alive in an environment full of death. He develops an addiction to sorrow and danger which forces him to always go in one direction, even as far as wearing his bomb suit as if it were a fancy party suit to be worn on a catwalk where the best possible public is in fact a bunch of snipers.

The addiction becomes even more excessive when Wil-liam goes back home to his family and realises that his

HELL, I DON'T KNOW

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Andrea de Marinis (hurt locker) is 24 years old. He is a for-mer theatre and cinema student at Università Statale di Milano. He loves basketball, music, travel and cinema. He wants to work in movie production. He is really into cakes and he is moving to Sydney but the two are not related as someone may expect.

only desire is to go back to do what he does best, feeling more danger in the cereals section of the supermarket than surrounded by bombs. His life, his addictions are well expressed by the final thoughts he shares with Sgt Sanborn:

Sanborn: Why do you do it? Take the risks?James: Hell, I don’t know.S: But you know what I’m talking about, right? Every time we go out, you throw the dice. Live or die, you just throw’em down. You admit that, right?

J: Yeah. (softly) I do. But I don’t know why. Do you know why I am the way I am?

S: No, Will, I don’t.

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WHAT'S YOUR POISON?

Addiction… what is it? Whether it's to chocolate, video games, drugs, or TV, everyone has experienced addiction. So, where does addiction come from? Be-lieve it or not, addiction actually came about as a way to help different species survive. Your body releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine when you do cer-tain activities, and this dopamine release makes you feel good. Sex is a great example. Orgasms release Dopamine and other neurotransmitters that make ani-mals feel good so that they want to have more sex and therefore create more offspring. It's called the Dop-amine hypothesis of addiction. Cats are another exam-ple - most cats love to play with moving things. Why? Because it helps them practice their hunting skills so they can get food and survive, and playing and hunt-ing very likely activates the same dopamine pathway as sex does. Food actually activates this same pathway. Eating makes you feel good, and eating is how we keep up our energy and immune systems to survive. Fortu-nately we have other enzymes in our bodies that keep us from overeating, but sometimes the balance can get a little messed up and addiction is the result.

Drugs activate the same Dopamine pathway, or the "pleasure pathway," that sex does, but often drugs activate that pathway to a greater intensity than nor-mal activities would. There was actually an experiment done with mice a few years back testing out this plea-sure center hypothesis. The mice had two peddles they could push - one would give them food, and the other would electronically stimulate the pleasure pathway in their brain. These mice enjoyed the electronic stimula-tion of their pleasure pathway so much more than food that they actually starved to death because they would rather push that button than the food button! Because of this drastic result, scientists often say that drugs "hijack" the pleasure pathway. Drugs create a way to activate this pathway to a greater extent than other things - additionally, it takes a lot less effort to swallow a pill than it does to exercise or do many of the other things that cause dopamine release.

However, it is clear that some people have a genetic disposition to be more addiction prone than their peers.

Alcoholism has recently become acknowledged as an addiction with a clear genetic predisposition. People with alcoholic parents are more likely to become alco-holics themselves. It is unclear though if this addiction is learned behavior or is actually a genetic predisposi-tion. When you look at children who were adopted they show an increased propensity to be alcoholics even if their adoptive parents abstain from alcohol! There is also the theory that people become addicted to cer-tain substances to counter something stressful in their lives. Many alcoholics or opioid abusers have anxiety issues and use a depressant to counter their natural propensity to be high-strung and worrisome. So is it the anxiety that is genetic and leads to depressant abuse? Or is it just the addiction that is passed down? By the same token, those individuals that crave excite-ment may be more prone to try stimulants.

So if addiction is partly genetic, and anxiety or crav-ing excitement is genetic then are those individuals doomed to become addicts? Definitely not! There are other ways to naturally feed these desires. In a healthi-er way, the high-stress individual may become a mara-thon runner to expel some of that excess energy and anxiety. Someone who craves excitement may become a rock climber or a racecar driver. Some people just choose a healthier addiction, and some people are more prone to addiction in general. How to beat ad-diction? If you know anyone who has successfully com-pleted a rehab program, you might have noticed that they have become deeply spiritual or have begun to exercise much more. In other words, people who suc-cessfully quit an addiction actually just replace it with a new, healthier addiction. Addiction is only a problem if it disrupts your life or your health.

So, basically, addiction is addiction whatever way you paint it. Choose your own poison.

Alicia Patterson has a degree in chemical engineering from MIT and is currently studying medicine at the Uni-versity of Texas in Galveston.

by Alicia Patterson

EDITOR'S CHOICE

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