scrivere grande
installation, Goethe Institute Rome, 2008
Around 1501, in Rome, one of the earliest platforms for freedom of opinion started establishing itself.
Statues began to talk with each other. This happened by means of anonymously composed political satires secretly attached to them. In spite of draconic punishment, statues in other Italian towns started talking, too.
As so-called Pasquinades, this kind of satirical pamphlets spread throughout Europe.
Rome also has a big typewriter – la grande macchina da scrivere, as Romans call their National Monument.
Can this typewriter, with the handed-down Pasquinades, write urban history at grass-root level?
This plan was presented in an installation at Goethe Institute, Rome.
All further details on the project are in the project paper.
I GIORNALI DELLE STATUE PARLANTE
newspaper rack with the ’talking statues newspapers’ from the 19th century, 1,80m x 2m
CONGRESSO
light box with Abate Luigi, Madama Lucrezia, Babuino, Pasquino, Marforio and Faccino,
with representations of the moon from about 1500, 1800 and the 21st century
175cm x 115cm x 25cm, without substructure
I would like to give this work to the people of Rome. Please contact me if you know of some suitable public space for it in Rome.
SCRIVERE GRANDE
montage of 340 pages of paper with authentic Pasquinades within the silhouettes of the talking statues on the Vittoriano, 6m x 4m
keyboard of fabric, metal and flex pipe mounted on a wooden substructure , 6m x 120cm x 3m
the video shows a simulation of the Vittoriano as a typewriter
The Remington Standard Typewriter Nr. 6 was a typewriter produced in the period that, simultaneously, saw the erection of the Italian National Monument.
Typewriters of this period had a vertical type lever mechanism. This mechanism resembles the colonnade of the Vittoriano and was the probable reason for its being dubbed
„La grande macchina da scrivere“.
MODEL OF THE LARGE TIYPEWRITER
The letter stand-ins are standing on the stairs of the Vittoriano. When his letter is typed, the letter stand-in bends his knees.
As with an automatic piano, the texts are written by lowering the keys.
Using a beamer, the typed text is projected onto a screen stretched out behind the Vittoriano like a page of paper.
A COME ARCHIVIO
Letter „A“, consisting of photos of current Pasquinades; a suggestion for a contemporary archive which, for example, Roman daily newspapers might establish.
