There is a beautiful text by Julio Cortázar, ‘Some Aspects of the Short Story,’ which, in defining what a short story is, explains exactly what a photograph is. For Cortázar, a short story is a condensation of emotions contained in a few pages. There is no room for gratuitous elements. A short story writer must ensure that all the events present have a precise meaning, that they all contribute to stimulating the rea

The aim of the journal Contesto is to make theoretical dissemination on two main topics that in the last decades, contrary to popular opinion, are showing a vitality and interest that we consider worthy of attention and in-depth study for students, scholars and simple enthusiasts. On the one hand the phenomenon of independent publishing in all its forms, contemporary and otherwise, on the other the sociology of texts and more generally the book sciences, in

There was once the easel painting with a solid frame and a complete perspective system in which a illusion of reality was embedded. Then the Impressionist landscapes appeared on the horizon and began to give instructions to viewers as to where they must stand, the right distance for observation and the attitude to be adopted. But this was not the end. The huge canvases of the Abstract Expressionists, fraught with vital tension, expanded still fur

Self-management, understood as an organizational practice characterized by forms of non-hierarchical cooperation, is a transformation of the socio-economic fabric immediately applicable in all times and spaces. Intertwining different disciplines, an economist and a historian demonstrate - also using experimental tests based on game theory - how it is not only possible but even convenient to replace the prevailing I-rationality, based on competition and personal interest, with an emerging we-rationality, based on solidarity and mutual help. Thus an unprecedente

The work of art and the space around it exist in a relationship of close interdependence: this essay looks at this symbiotic relationship by means of an extensive and detailed account of the major avant-garde installational and environmental experiments right up to the present. It traces the evolution of the art system and the itinerary that led to the post-modern paradox whereby the placing of any artefact in a particular context is, on its own