Franco “Bifo” Berardi
For the exhibition in Komiža (October 4-10)
I’m not a painter.
I cannot deny that sometimes I paint, but I do it in a state of separation from myself.
By the way, it is difficult to say what is myself, where is it, and what it wants.
Therefore, separation from myself is enigmatic.
Istubalz is the name of this separation of the self from the self. Call it schizo-something, if you want. ISTUBALZ means Istituto di studi balzanici, but this expression is impossible to translate, because the word: “balzanici” does not exist. “Balcanici” yes, it exists, and in English it translates by the word: Balkan. Also, the word: “balsamici” exists, and you translate it in English by the word: “balsamic”. And the word: “balzani” exists, and you translate it in English by the words: “queer”, “strange”, “weird”.
But the mix of these three existing words is a non-existing word that means nothing, but also means much more.
Balsamic weirdness for Balkan friends.
The fault, according to Vidokle, resides with the sun.
These days the sun shines horribly all day long, all week long. Night is hot and humid here.
And there, as far as I know.
People die under the sun. I’m not joking like in ancient times, those who are not part of the chosen people are obliged to work under the sun and many of them die.
The chosen people have the right to submit other people to slavery. The chosen people have the right to torture men, to kill babies, to steal dolls, to bomb schools and hospitals. As they have been chosen (by god, of course, by who else?), they can do whatever they want.
They have been chosen by god, so you should not object. They have the right to kill a hundred thousand persons.
This is called democracy, the chosen people are the only democratic country in the Middle East, right?
Democratic persons have the right to burn non-democratic persons alive.
Democratic persons have the right to stir up dogs against the cradle of non-democratic babies.
This is happening under the sun.
Migrant people, coming from Asia and from Africa have dangerously traversed the Mediterranean Sea.
They decided to come to Europe because they trust advertising.
They wanted to live in a democratic country. They did not know that democratic countries are routinely drowning people coming from non-democratic places. So many have been drowned.
Lured by democratic propaganda. Europe is the land of democracy and wellbeing. So, Europeans have the (sacrosanct) right to drown anyone they don’t like.
Many of those that Europeans have drowned in the Mediterranean have left their village and the land parched by draught.
Because of the sun, and because of the tons of carbon dioxide emitted by the Europeans. Millions of tons, by the way.
So, they have been obliged to leave their villages, they have been obliged to dare the waves, and many have drowned because the Italian Government has prohibited saving drowning people.
However, many have survived, and disembarked on the Southern Italian coast. They were happy to be survivors, and they were happy to be at last in a democratic country, but they knew nothing about massive slavery in southern Italian agriculture. They learned this the hard way.
Because democracy means that I can vote and elect the members of Parliament, but you have to work under the sun ten hours per day for a few euros.
This is why Prometheus is repenting: he realizes that his gift has turned into a curse. Civilization is the name of the curse. And slavery is part of our civilization.
When I understand that slavery is back all around the globe, I get nervous. When I understand that there is nothing I can do except collaborate with fire – I get nervous.
I have been nervous for many years now.
Nervousness has much to do with visual art.
When it comes to visual art, I’m stuck in the ‘80s.
In that decade, for the first time, I had a glimpse of what panic means. For the first time I heard someone yelling in the street: Don’t panic.
This was the signal that panic had begun.
Since then, Visual culture has become part of the self-inflicted torment that is aggressing the collective sensorium.
I was impressed by the proliferation of Keith Haring’s viruses and Rammellzee’s insults on the walls of the Lower East Side.
That pictorial frenzy met the electronic proliferation of wires and airwaves.
At that point visual culture went beyond the limits of speed and started invading attention.
At a certain point I got aware of this: attention is under siege.
When I came to realize the danger of proliferation it was already too late.
When it’s too late, I get nervous, and I need painting, I need to take part in the proliferation of chaos.
This is why and when I started painting, feeling some shame for wasting time in such a useless activity, I realized that it was too late.
This was the only thing I could do: run along the dynamics of disaster.
The act of painting is a contradiction, because you are collaborating with the visual overload. Nevertheless, I cannot refrain from taking part in the chaotic proliferation. I feel compelled to collaborate with fire.
It is a way to ease the pain.
I am a writer, you know. This is what they say about me, and I cannot deny that I write, I do it all the time, sometimes it helps me to make ends meet, and gives me the possibility to address a (not so) large audience, and to exchange some bits of reasoning with them.
But it’s getting boring, I guess. Not for me, I mean, but for those who insist to read my books.
I have been writing too much. Not my fault, aging is to blame. As I have been around for so many years, I have accumulated an indecent number of pages, and I’m ashamed of that.
Hypersemioisis is chaogenic.
The hypersemiotic agent is an accomplice of chaos: chaotic emanator.
When I realized that it was too late, I started taking part in the malicious activity of overwhelming your senses. Too much stimulation, too much.
Those who denounce overload are overloading attention, and this is causing some tension to me.
When I want to relax this inner tension, I take part in the visual aggression against your senses, and against your ability to find a way out.
I multiply the signs that lead astray, the visual stimulations that give me a thrill of perverse pleasure.
Can I say that the cognitive conditions for emotionality have changed up to the point that the cycle desire-pleasure unfolds entirely in the space of neuro-semiotic stimulation?
There is no way to stop the chaotic machine, there is no way to slow down the ride.
So why not march on the side of chaos?
Franco “Bifo” Berardi (Bologna, 1949) is one of leading contemporary philosophers. He was the founder of the famous “Radio Alice” in Bologna and an important figure of the Italian Autonomia Movement. He worked with the French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari and since then published over two dozen books such as After the Future, Heroes: Mass Murder and Suicide, Breathing: Chaos and Poetry, The Uprising: On Poetry and Finance, The Second Coming, The Third Unconscious, Precarious Rhapsody and many others. As one of its conspirators, Bifo was actively involved in setting up ISSA since the very beginning. This is his first exhibition of paintings.
