ORIZZONTALE, ATTO, VUOTO 1 / VERTIGO, 2020

VUOTO is a transmedial public space created to host: collective surveys on the city as an unstable system; public reflections on unpredictability as a paradigm; physical and cognitive production of landscapes based on the idea of unexpected; research in non-deterministic modes of intervention on the urban fabric.

Vuoto is the absence of matter. It is also the condition for something to move. The emptiness attracts: Vertigo and vacuum cleaner have the same operational principle. From March the 9th to May the 4th 2020, life was sucked out of the cities we inhabit. The streets, empty. The squares, empty. The stations, empty. The parks, empty. Pedestrians, cars, bicycles, buses, trams, all gone. Fifty-six days in our cockpits, as astronauts, as divers. We have observed our absence through digital periscopes. We waited with bated breath. We wrote, drew, photographed, rambled. We were impatient, bored, restless. Frightened, lost, alienated. Serene, excited, enthusiastic. We phoned, messaged, video-called, released interviews. We celebrated birthdays and anniversaries. We felt what we missed, and what we didn’t miss at all. We have known a city without public space. We felt distrust in the eyes of the strangers. Suffocated by emptiness, we reflected on our lives, our ambitions, our hopes. We questioned everything, and then we rehabilitated it. Then all this ended, as suddenly as it started. While what we believed it was an unforgettable time, it quickly faded into memory leaving only a vague sense of nostalgia.

We have collected texts, interviews, photographs, drawings, collages. VERTIGO is the story/diary of these weeks, as we lived them, individually and collectively.

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