Mariano TOMATIS

Farewell (30 of 30)

In the 19th century magicians made rabbits and doves disappear. In 1918 Harry Houdini performed his “Vanishing Elephant” illusion. At the end of the 20th century David Copperfield made a Ferrari (1980), a jet (1981) and the Statue of Liberty (1983) disappear in that order. On September 11, 2001, the world changed and that kind of magic and grandeur ceased. This triggered a return to more intimate and minimal forms of magic, focused more on stories and meaning than increasingly large visual stimuli.
This exhibition displays a extraordinary variety of engineering solutions: those who want to hack a book have many opportunities; a perspective is what often we miss. The problem is no longer “how” to create a deviant book, but “why”.
The disenchantment of our age forces us to rethink magic along new directions. Charting new roads demands the visionary energy stimulated by the doubts expressed by Wu Ming: “If magic distinguishes itself from the quotidian to foster wonder and curiosity about the habits of ordinary daily life, why is it so rare to find magic associated with critical thinking about the world and its practices to abolish the state of things?”
Trimming pages, adding paper and metallic elements, breaking the structure of the text, removing bindings, creating pocket versions of a cinema… Far from destroying a book, every sabotage widens new and exciting perspectives, symbolically celebrating disobedience and the rejection of the status quo.
Tiny universe whose laws can be challenged to release latent potentials, the book is a laboratory to cultivate revolutionary ideas: the perfect gym combining amazement and subversion; at whose exit I would like to see - written at the top - the program of St. Augustine:

Liber Tibi Sit Orbis Terrarum
Now, may the World be your book.

Download

Facebook