SoPra ReCa

Social practice works…

Across time…

Interactive Integrative Actions

This was my argument long ago–long long ago, what is now called interactive art participatory art, engagement art: why would this be called art…

Such as… a bassadiga

Bassadiga

A bassadiga is a short interventionist interlude with minimal props meant to present inroads into artistic and/or literary innovations and alternatives. The bassadiga consists of readings, oral expressions and, occasionally, brief mini-lectures and minimalistically performative interactions engaging SAs (sudden actors) or IAs (immediate agents), as well as a rotating ensemble of ‘players’ into the fabric of its unfolding. The bassadiga remains constantly open to the expansion of its own boundaries, and the revision of its own tenets and aesthetics.

Bassadigas are born of despair and laughter, firmly implanted in the necessity of—or the illusory conviction of the need for—continuation and overcoming.  Because? Because. Because there are few resources and there is no time. Few allies and little recourses. No end in sight. Because one must incite and enlighten and provoke and survive and do it in playful manners and in provocative manners and in ways that bring lightness, joy, reflection. Because people want to gather and listen and feel. Because they want to grow and get together and go on. Because that’s enough, always enough: of the tales and the choking and the naming and the tolls. Always enough, that the cry. Because it’s always possible, since so minimal, and because it’s part of traditions, and their extensions: street theatre and communal gatherings and vaudeville and rituals since the dawns. Doing with what you have. Because it’s necessary. Because you want to go, on: and must, but also know there is no real consequence, no victory, no result. Maybe not even euphoria. The condition, of us all. The cry: enough already! To what? Maybe to particular events and situations, but really, to it all: it all it all it all, multiplied by infinity. Bassadiga. Because? Because.

Or even the Open Epic…

Okay, I put this reluctantly and I’ma be quick. This is literary work, I repeat, literary work. But… since it brings into its realm mediums (what people call video, photo, hangings, installations etc…) and takes place in spaces usually associated with what many call art (namely galleries, but also public spaces of various sorts, and under the aegis of stuff called ‘art festivals), I put it here, as a link: presence and absence, simultaneously, well-served by the semiotics of the internet. Once (actually, many times), people told me I’m unnecessarily complicating, and that they just called it all ‘art’. Well, sorry, I don’t. I make a clear, clear, clear distinction between literary works and other artworks. Yeah? Yeah… Let’s debate…