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Al Margolis
Aldo Roda
Ana Montez
António Cerveira Pinto
Augusto de Campos
Cid Campos
Beto Palaio
Betty Leirner
Carla della Beffa
Carlos Zíngaro
C. B. Aragão
Christophe Charles
Cildo Oliveira
Claude Ber
Cynthia Karalla
Didier Feldman
Dino Viani
Dove Bradshaw
Emanuel Pimenta
Estela Guedes
Ferruccio Maria Fatta
Francesca Arianna Fatta
Filippo Rolla
Francesco Cuoghi
Frédérique Wolf-Michaux
Godfried-Willem Raes
Irene Buarque
Isabel Nunes
Jerome Joy
João Castro Pinto
John Doing
Jon Rappoport
José Aloise Bahia
Josephine Coy
Katy Martin
Laura Pimenta
Leonel Moura
Leonello Tarabella
Lorenzo Bianda
Lucrezia De Domizio
Marcelo Buainain
Márcia Grostein
Marco Bagnoli
Marco Cardini
Maria Bonomi
Marta Alvim
Massimo Pistone
Maurizio Barbetti
Maurizio Russo
Michel Collet
Michel Kharaoubi
MiguelRibeiro
Mônica Horta
Nuno Júdice
Paul Amlehn
Ariel Lorca
Pedro Gaspar
Renzo Tieri
Reto Rigassi
Rosemarie Castoro
Roy Ascott
Ruben Verdadeiro
Sasha Meret
Sebastian Bradt
Sérgio Vilafranca
Mauro Muszkat
Stefano Odoardi
Tamara Lai
Valentine Verhaeghe
Vanderlei Lucentini
William Anastasi |
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In the last days
of October, 2012, I was in New York City with my dear friend
Nina Colosi - founder and curator of the Streaming Museum - when,
suddenly, I had the idea to make a new project together. It should
be something in a planetary scale, joining artists, photographers,
musicians, filmmakers, poets and philosophers from all over the
world.
Immediately The End of the World appeared in my mind.
It is possible that in the future this idea will be understood
as something absurd. The truth is that the environment of a worldwide
depression, repeatedly denied by various governments, of the
shadows of war, of the anti-Semitism, of all kinds of prejudices,
of the fact that often we have watched ignorance and superficiality
elevated to the standard of "good behavior", and the
hyper continuous consumption and entertainment of all kinds,
created an almost mystical sensation about a possible end of
the world.
To this we could add the Mayan Calendar that set the 21st of
December of 2012 as the fateful date of a certain type of civilization
or, accordingly to the most pessimistic, of everything that is
human.
Such zeitgeist could be easily identified on the Internet and
even in newspapers or magazines. In December 2012 a quick Google
search on the expression "End of the World 2012" generated
two and half billion references in 0.36 seconds.
Nina Colosi, many people we know and I are not interested on
judgment of values.
But, the simple phrase The End of the World could unchain all
kinds of reactions by creative personalities worldwide.
The project should be launched on December 21, 2012.
Therefore, there was very little time for preparations.
I sent invitations to more than one hundred artists, photographers,
musicians, filmmakers, poets and philosophers in different countries.
The fundamental condition was that of complete freedom. I did
not know what they would send me, and I did not say a single
word about what The End of the World could be.
After all, The End of the World could be a place, a purpose,
a transformation, the denial of any transformation, the Mayan
prophecy among other ones, or anything else.
Quickly, I received the enthusiastic response of seventy-one
personalities from eleven countries: Belgium, Brazil, England,
France, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Portugal, Romania, Switzerland
and the United States.
Initially, the idea was to assemble all received material using
stochastic principles, without any intention of content. Then
I decided to also make, separately, something like an individual
presentation of the works.
Before I started receiving the collaborations, I composed a concert
that I titled The End of the World. Operating, in some sense,
like the ancient Roman god Janus, the musical piece has two parts
that can be performed simultaneously or not.
The first part operates several television sets with randomly
selected channels. The path between the various channels follows
a diagram drawn on a map of satellite and objects in orbit of
planet Earth.
The second part of the concert operates selections of the most
popular music hits over the last ten years - between 2002 and
2012 - in many countries, like the United States, Italy, Brazil,
Israel, South Korea, Japan, Russia, France, Germany and Australia
among others. The path between these selections, like what happens
in the first part of the piece, also follows a diagram drawn
on the same map of elements floating in Earth orbit.
The assembly of all material received obeyed to some principles:
firstly, the alphabetical order of the authors and, then, a distribution
according to the vigesimal numeral principle that characterized
the formulation of the Mayan calendar. From there, random elements
enabled the overlap of all materials, constituting, in its complex,
a stochastic project.
There is not, in the edition of all these works, any personal
or intentional interference. So, it is very curious - to say
the least - to observe its construction: it was made by everybody.
On this way, this project also is a celebration of all who participated
in it - a trace of diverse worlds interacting, in a certain sense
like the fabulous Musicircus by John Cage, from 1967. After all,
The End of the World happens exactly 45 years after John's Musicircus.
The End of the World starts on the 21st of December, in 2012,
by the Streaming Museum in New York. Later, other developments
may happen. But everything will be a surprise for all of us. |