The a-place of mediation as a catalyst in-Absence

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE DIFFERENT EXPRESSIONS OF THE ASYSTEM IN-ABSENCE

The field of research Paolo Ferrari and his group have been investigating for over thirty years at Centro Studi Assenza, covers a range of areas of study: medicine, art, music and architecture as well as those expressions that characterise, under different forms, the cultural, political and social issues we come across.

 

In the creation and implementation of this site, special attention was given to the complex interaction taking place between a subject and an observed object, between one subject and another one on-line, in the direction of a dematerialization of the relationships and their constant capacity for change; it also applies to a few properties of the asystem in-Absence, which is still more complex and more abstract in the direction of an asystem capable of successive states that do not take concrete matter. All this makes of the present website an interesting place of mediation, a bridge and catalyst of events the are mid-way between the concrete reality of the current system and the abstract, de-dematerialised reality of the asystem rich in a fruitful void that generate information open to a developing reality set in an asystemic change.

This site is thus a virtual place of processes further in-becoming; it changes by its own nature and, as far as its conceptual structure with several (non-occupying) layers is concerned, it is a-place in-becoming, where the different expressive components of the asystem are invited to constantly interweave a higly complex network, beyond the edge of ordinary reason and emotion.

The many expressions of this site in-progress offer not only a comprehensive view of the asystem in-Absence but also give a picture of the activity (passivity) of thinking in-absence in many areas that mutually interact on different levels. One can also find a few writings where the Author and the components of the group introduce and investigate the following areas of study: science, clinics, art, music, architecture, poetry and literature ...A series of works (canvasses and plotter paintings) by Paolo Ferrari, real and true "traps for humans", are also on display here......

 

 

 

As an introduction to the asystem in-Absence and its expressions, we are quoting part of Art. 4 of the regulations of Centro Studi Assenza - architectural place housing the homonimous cultural and scientific association which has been operative in Milan since 1994.

Art.4:"The Association, which is non-profit, is engaged in the study and investigation of an activity (passivity) of thought which has so far never existed, at least if related to the fundamental characteristics discovered by us that constitute the scope of the association. Such an activity (passivity) is called Absence. It consists in a new condition of Homo Sapiens s. whereby an improved, more comprehensive capacity of thought and its higher elaborating system to abstract and establish relational bonds (within and outside the self) bringing about a new way or 'substance' which we have defined 'emptiness' or 'detachment' (...) . To promote the study and teaching of this new condition of the species and to foster an in-depth knowledge and diffusion of it, the Association is entitled to hold lectures, meetings, courses, cultural events and, in general, to promote all those initiatives that, related to music and art, have a special meaning as far as reason and affect are concerned and also give further significant contribution to this new level of the conscious thinking activity. (...)

 

 

In the section of Literature in-Absence (only in Italian) you can find some fiction and poetry written by Paolo Ferrari. Here you can read a range of short novels and tales, a Novel in progress "Pari all'assimmetria del niente", a poem"Europa o l'Assenza" adopting new forms and contents: it evokes the path undertaken by the human race and takes care of it . The old way of writing poems and even giving names(to objects) is overcome; at each step, the old meaning of the word opens to a level further-in-becoming, capable of its own organisation, within a complex difference, acquiring different meaning and form through which establishing a generating relationship. The poem was written after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The whole work is available on line.

 

The Music of Absence, or through Absence, is that music - a complex absent whole of relationships - intervals between sounds - through which the response - the involvement - of the listener turns out to be "empty", that is "absent". The Music of Absence composed by Paolo Ferrari can either be listened to at certain points during the visit or through the selection of CDs presented here. Some of the pieces were created through cooperation with the pianist Carlo Balzaretti and the music composer Vittorio Zago. The genesis of this music and the musical gesture involved are described in the theoretical writings available in the section "Music of Absence".


Art in-Absence not only permeates the whole site with its signs and colours, but it also has a specific role of its own, where the works of Paolo Ferrari, elaborated with different media (acrylics, drawing, photography, analogical and digital elaboration on different supports, Plotter painting) are the crucial points of a complex asystemic web within difference, also described in the writings and in the aphorisms on Art in-Absence.


Theatre in-Absence presents new expressions of the theatrical gesture, namely through a research in-progress of a group of non-actors of Centro Studi Assenza who have been studying Paolo Ferrari"Astratta Commedia" (Ed. Campanotto) over the last four years. This play was also staged for the first time at Teatro OutOff, 3-23 December 2001 Milano with the direction of Corrado Accordino. In this section is available a range of theoretical writings inherent to this area of study and its relevant expression within and beyond the human.


This section presents all the aphorisms written by Paolo Ferrari on art, science, photography, architecture, music, i.e. the areas investigated by the artist-scientist through which the complexity within difference of in-Absence thinking emerges. The aphorisms have been divided into areas that are also linked to the corresponding section, for further in-depth study of the modes and properties of the asystem in-Absence.


Factory in-Absence (catalogue Skira) is one of the most rapresentative external operations of Centro Studi Assenza. It is the first operation of the type in Europe and all over the world. It consists in the project and realisation of a highly complex structural and symbolic operation (Doubling in-Absence) meant to take care of work space with poor form and relational capacity in an advanced continuous shift factory in Piedmont. An interweaving network constituted by digital panels (Plotter paintings) of large dimensions (see the map showing the detailed location of the plotter paintings and canvasses in the factory) doubles the work space (about 45,000 sqm) so as to suspend or at least reduce a fixed repetitiveness of every day work and provide workers with emotional and artistic-cultural stimuli.


Science and Theorems in-Absence present the activity of research in the scientific field through different issues inherent to the theoretical study of the a-system: the Essays, the Aphorimsms, Care, the Seminars.
The selected writings let the reader go in-depth into the properties emerging within the new evolutionary stage of a thinking activity called in-Absence.

Among the many initiatives, whover interested, can read the Seminars that, open to the public, have been carried out on a yearly basis since 1991 at Centro Studi Assenza. Accomplished through the intervention of a few people belonging to the group of research, the Seminars constitute an upbringing stage of the theoretical and clinical method investigating changes that might ensue from this new process in-Absence.


Centro Studi Assenza is the architectural place where the group of research operates to investigate the asystem in-Absence. Here the many different activities in contact with Homo's culture take place.


Given the constant flow of information pouring from research as well as from very many external connections, we also have a News area, concerning exhibitions, recent writings, cultural meetings and so on, related to the many activities of Centro Studi Assenza.