01/08/08
ARCHI APPEAL sad05eng01/08/2008
THE SAD SMOKY MOUNTAINS & skyscrapers
ignition, through the use of symbols and thoughts, of broken hearted mountains
and cities as well as broken hearts of those who go across them
«Man has lost control
of himself and of what he calls nature. The governors of the world nurture the
Olympic torch of hypocrisy. An uncontrollable multitude of men and mountains
kindle minds and hearts so as to trace the sky with a net of signals visible
from afar, a net of ungovernable indignation and outrage, sadness and rebellion
against the daily violation of fundamental rights. What remains of man, the
image of one who has no respect for what differs from himself may it be similar
in ways or of a beaten and bent nature without remedy, is but smoke. An
evanescent color of spilled blood, shame on those who have always remained in
silence. Food for those who resist.»
[narrative synthesis of the work of art, from the page SSM&S Project]
«The author tried to create a work of art in which everyone could express his discomfort about contemporary facts: the project is an individual, personal, action of dissent, that everyone can do, alone, in group, and that can become a collective, global signal of alarm».
18/04/2008 [from the presentation of a Radio inteview]
FINAL ACTION: APPEAL TO ARCHITECTS
architecture protagonist of a co-ordinated work-action of civil art
«Only a very small part of architecture belongs to art: the sepulchre and the monument».
(A.Loos)
What is a monument and what makes of an architecture a work of art?
Which is the link between the mountain, natural monumenti, and the city, monument as well, to which from time immemorial man entrusts the task to represent himself, in the place where energies, ideas and power flow togheter and accumulate?
Taking the cue from the “Spoken into the Void” by Adolf Loos, today we want to invite you, architect, to take part in the artwork Sad Smoky Mountains & Skyscraper , which foresees the intrusion of art in the city, through the non conventional form of the net and of the individual and co-ordinate action.
We believe that an architecture can't be called monument if it restrict itself to a celebration or repetition of an image of fast consumption; we're rather interested in it when we recognize in it, remembering the etymological origin of the word, the function of monition (from Latin monumentum), a warning to those who have forgotten what hides behind ancient architectures. We think that the city and its architectures can, in the context of an artistic action, once more play this role completely. We want these architectures to talk, as well as, in the previous action, realized on world scale the 11th May 2008, mobilizing the entire international alpinistic community, the mountains have spoken and dyed the sky red.
We ask you to consider carefully the meaning of the city as a monument and we invite you to light up its most representative buildings, or the ones which belong to your work, in the day in which the olympic torch, an ambivalent symbol, of peace and of hypocrisy, will light up the Olympic games in Beijing. At exactly sixty years from the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the repression of Tibet during an event of world-wide interest has become the symbol of failure and betrayal on behalf of international governments: the principles then ratified have been and are still, more or less diplomatically, denied.
On the 8th August, opening day of the Olympic Games, at 13 (local time) will be lighted up not only the mountains' peaks, but also the summits of palaces and monuments (skyscrapers). The red smokes will enter in urban contexts in order to re-establish simbolically «a necessary alliance of city and mountain, man and environment». Architecture, with its works of art, «like volcanoes previously at rest, awakened by the Earths’ pain», will return to «what they originally were meant to represent» so that “memory can speak again for good”, as recently said Alberto Peruffo explaining the leit-motiv of his last works, proper social (or, as in this last case, socio-ambiental) sculptures, a net of nets composed on purpose in order to create a new dialogue between man and environment.
For infos about procedures and contents of the final action:
http://www.antersass.it/sadsmokymountains/default_italiano_finale.htm
For subscriptions of monuments, buildings, cities, hills, mountains, write to:
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Architects Coordinator: arch. Lorenzo Menato
l.menato@yahoo.it cell ph 0039
3471220881 / 0031 6 50906856
Useful links:
http://www.mountwild.it/
http://www.italiatibet.org/
http://www.candle4tibet.org/
http://www.sadsmokymountains.net/
http://www.centrodirittiumani.unipd.it/
http://www.antersass.it/faa/
Press office “SadSmokyMountains”
Email: info@antersass.it
Cell ph: Giulio Todescan 3407749213