Paesaggi minerari in Sicilia: da residuo a risorsa. Strategie e progetto di recupero per il parco minerario Floristella-Grottacalda.

La tesi indaga, attraverso una serie di riflessioni critiche e progettuali, il ruolo che le aree minerarie possono avere nella definizione di nuovi paesaggi. Lo studio si concentra sull'industria dello zolfo in Sicilia, sviluppatasi dalla fine del Settecento e definitivamente dismessa negli anni Ottanta del secolo scorso, con ripercussioni negative sul fronte economico, sociale, ambientale e paesaggistico. La trasformazione delle aree minerarie siciliane richiede una cultura progettuale tale da mettere in relazione architettura, ingegneria, infrastrutture, comunità locali e modelli socio-economici, nel tentativo di esplorare le profonde trasformazioni che questi paesaggi hanno attraversato. Al centro dello studio si pone il Parco Minerario Floristella Grottacalda, tra Enna e Piazza Armerina. Il complesso produttivo, attivo dai primi anni dell’Ottocento, restò in attività fino alla chiusura definitiva avvenuta negli anni Ottanta del secolo scorso, a seguito della L.R. n.34/88 che imponeva la chiusura di tutte le miniere ancora in esercizio. Nel parco, la cui configurazione riassume tutte le questioni connesse ai siti minerari siciliani, le infrastrutture, le attrezzature industriali, i segni delle attività estrattive si fondono con un paesaggio poco antropizzato e si articolano in forme dettate dall'impervia topografia dei luoghi, rimodellandone i suoli e definendone il carattere. Un progetto “documentato” riflette sui diversi modi con cui si può agire sul patrimonio esistente, attraverso una visione olistica e sistemica dell’architettura del paesaggio. La ricerca ricostruisce, mediante l’ausilio di materiale d’archivio (grafico, cartografico e fotografico), le principali vicende e trasformazioni che hanno investito il parco, mentre la proposta progettuale sonda un processo in grado di mettere insieme gli aspetti storici, fisici e identitari del sito per un recupero complessivo del parco e del territorio. La proposizione di visioni e scenari di sviluppo, alternativi alle soluzioni finora espresse dai processi e dalle scelte politiche, mira a immaginare uno spettro di possibilità che possa alimentare un dibattito (politico, culturale, progettuale) sulle sue vocazioni turistiche e sulle prospettive future, nel tentativo di superare le condizioni che attualmente frenano il processo di rigenerazione

Theatre and Impegno: Commitment, Struggle and Resistance on the Italian Stage

This thesis examines the development of Italian political theatre between 1968 and 2010. It analyses the relationship between political theatre during the 1970s and politically engaged practice in the following decades in terms of continuity rather than rupture, thereby challenging recent theatre historiography and criticism which interpreted the two periods as diametrically opposite: one characterised by profound political engagement and the other by a widespread retreat from the political (riflusso). The analysis of the case studies is grounded on a rigorous contextual approach which places theatre practice in relation to its social and cultural context. Chapter One reviews the current debate on theatre and politics, reassessing the terms of its discourse and evaluating their potential and shortcomings. Chapter Two introduces two examples of engagement before 1968, namely the birth of teatri stabili and the linguistic research of the theatrical neo-avant-garde. Chapters Three, Four, and Five are dedicated to the analysis of the case studies. They are structured as a comparative analysis of significant examples of politically engaged theatre practice between 1968 and 2010 and include the work of Dario Fo, Marco Baliani, Marco Paolini, Giuliano Scabia, Franca Rame, Laura Curino, and Compagnia della Fortezza. The analysis highlights how Italian practitioners moved beyond modernist forms of political performance and restructured their political and aesthetic strategies in response to changing political, economic, and cultural contexts. The findings point to an original approach to political engagement on stage which articulates itself around two main elements: on the one hand the interconnectedness of the ethical and the political, and on the other an understanding of political resistance no longer as the fight for a working-class cultural hegemony but rather at the creation of a post-hegemonic cultural landscape open to multiplicity and difference

Rewind Italia: Early Video Art in Italy

Published in association with AHRC funded research projects REWIND–Italia Artists Video in Italy in 70s and 80s. "Italy was a vibrant center of video art production and experimentation throughout the 1970s and 1980s, attracting artists from all over the world and laying the foundation for video art as a concept in the global art and film communities. With vibrant illustrations, compelling interviews, and essays by leading scholars in the field, this collection highlights Italy's key place in the history of video as an art form.

Cumuli, Panorama, and Vanguard - Project Overview

. This overview summarizes the goals of the European projects Cumuli, Panorama,andVanguard and references the various contributions in this volume. There are several overlaps between the projects which all evolve around the geometric analysis of scenes from multiple images. All projects attempt to reconstruct the geometry and visual appearance of complex 3D scenes that may be static or dynamic. While Cumuli and Vanguard deal with images from uncalibrated cameras and unrestricted camera position for general scenes, Panorama focusses on a highly calibrated setup used to capture 3D person models. Cumuli and Vanguard developed techniques for handling multiview relations, object tracking and camera calibration, image and geometry based view synthesis, and 3D model generation. Interaction with the modeled scene and mixing of virtual and real objects leads to Virtual /Augmented Reality applications in Vanguard and Cumuli, while the Panorama approach is tuned to fully automatic ..

21st International Congress of Aesthetics, Possible Worlds of Contemporary Aesthetics Aesthetics Between History, Geography and Media, Book of Abstracts

The Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade and the Society for Aesthetics of Architecture and Visual Arts of Serbia (DEAVUS) are proud to be able to organize the 21st ICA Congress on “Possible Worlds of Contemporary Aesthetics: Aesthetics Between History, Geography and Media”. We are proud to announce that we received over 500 submissions from 56 countries, which makes this Congress the greatest gathering of aestheticians in this region in the last 40 years. The ICA 2019 Belgrade aims to map out contemporary aesthetics practices in a vivid dialogue of aestheticians, philosophers, art theorists, architecture theorists, culture theorists, media theorists, artists, media entrepreneurs, architects, cultural activists and researchers in the fields of humanities and social sciences. More precisely, the goal is to map the possible worlds of contemporary aesthetics in Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa and Australia. The idea is to show, interpret and map the unity and diverseness in aesthetic thought, expression, research, and philosophies on our shared planet. Our goal is to promote a dialogue concerning aesthetics in those parts of the world that have not been involved with the work of the International Association for Aesthetics to this day. Global dialogue, understanding and cooperation are what we aim to achieve. That said, the 21st ICA is the first Congress to highlight the aesthetic issues of marginalised regions that have not been fully involved in the work of the IAA. This will be accomplished, among others, via thematic round tables discussing contemporary aesthetics in East Africa and South America. Today, aesthetics is recognized as an important philosophical, theoretical and even scientific discipline that aims at interpreting the complexity of phenomena in our contemporary world. People rather talk about possible worlds or possible aesthetic regimes rather than a unique and consistent philosophical, scientific or theoretical discipline

Etre et écrire (de) Los Angeles : Wanda Coleman

This study aims at shedding some new light upon the many correlations existing between the Los Angeles cityspace and Wanda Coleman’s writings. As an African American woman born in Watts, Los Angeles in 1946, Coleman is the author of a significant literary oeuvre. Whether regarding the urban evolution and construction of the city, its ethnic composition, its socioeconomic conditions or its cultural development, the megalopolis can be read explicitly and implicitly throughout the author’s work, which started in 1979 and ended with the posthumous co-publication of The Love Project in 2014.Post World War II Los Angeles and the great mutations that the territory has been undergoing are, for Coleman, an unending source of material that are both motivating her writing and influencing her craft. The privileged witness of a city under the firm grasp of postmodern ideology of which Los Angeles seems to be the epicenter, Coleman’s work shows the ever-growing gap between an everyday life that is getting more and more brutal and an idealized imagery of the city that imposes itself as the American Way of Life par excellence. That unreachable goal for a disadvantaged and disenfranchised portion of society (about to become the majority of the Los Angeles population), is projected in a perpetual renewal of the American Dream, maintained within reaching distance, as an obscene strategy serving social appeasement. Wanda Coleman thus intends to unsettle an illusion that has been perpetrated and widely distributed through and by Hollywood whose influences, in a mass-media transmission era, cannot be under-estimated. Because she has been able to consider and apprehend the overall dehumanizing process for as long as she can remember, that Coleman is able to assess the import of her art and thus sets its objectives: to rehumanize the dehumanized.L'étude se propose de mettre en évidence les nombreuses corrélations existant entre l'espace urbain de la ville de los angeles et le travail d'écriture de wanda coleman, femme noire-américaine originaire du quartier des watts à la carrière littéraire conséquente. l'essentiel de la matière littéraire de coleman se focalise et trouve son point d'ancrage dans la ville en elle-même et pour elle-même. ainsi, en considérant la production poétique de l'auteur dans sa globalité, qu'il s'agisse de recueils, d'ouvrages photographiques ou de supports audio, il s'agira de voir en quoi l'œuvre de coleman ayant pour point de départ un los angeles des années 70 a su retracer, au sein de la matrice poétique qu'elle met en place, l'évolution d'une mégalopole hors normes. qu'en advient-il alors de la totalité de la création littéraire de coleman, et comment peut-elle être considérée ? en effet, ayant fait le choix de cibler sa poésie sur un espace commun en perpétuelle évolution, ne deviendrait-elle pas par conséquent un moyen jusque là peu envisagé de créer un archivage social, culturel et historique d'une ville dont les mutations et développements fascinent. c'est cette fonction d'œuvre-mémoire d'un lieu duquel elle s'inspire associée à un processus de création littéraire que la ville semble elle-même motiver qui sera également un point central de cette étude. quels desseins le projet poétique sert-il alors ? cette union implicite, sorte d'entente cordiale entre la ville et l'auteur qu'elle abrite/ qui l'abrite, manifeste une interdépendance entre deux entités tangibles dans un réel que le mot poétique semble vouloir tantôt dénoncer, tantôt réaffirmer. ce réel sectoriel et imparfait avec lequel coleman fait office de lien, d'interprétateur et juge entre l'espace et les hommes, entre l'espace et sa mémoire deviendrait-il ainsi un objet poétique de l'intangible se servant de lieux communs afin de dénoncer une déshumanisation de la ville, un hyperréalisme, un simulacre que s'évertuait déjà à démontrer jean baudrillard. effigie poétique imprégnée d'un los angeles qu'elle comprend au regard d'une vie passée dans ses dédales, coleman est-elle la figure mémorielle presque prophétique porteuse d'une parole rédemptrice d'une ville infernale. dénonçant ainsi les maux de la ville comme pour en aspirer le venin, coleman de par ses mots serait alors détentrice d'une alliance poétique consubstantielle, servant un projet allant bien au-delà de la simple écriture poétique, comme si l'acte poétique renouvelé dans son aspect le plus primaire permettait de projeter les mots sur les maux passés et présents d'un espace urbain parcellaire, de servir une mémoire essentielle à la survie du réel dans une cité chaotique se tenant au bord du gouffre