PRESS RELEASE FIRST EVENTS - MANIFESTA 7 INAUGURAL WEEKEND

Tabula Rasa: 30 events for 111 days on a long table

 

Ex- Alumix building

A project by Denis Isaia, in conversation with Raqs Media Collective.

 

For the Manifesta 7 opening weekend, Tabula Rasa proposes three events that explore in depth some of the key concepts addressed by the exhibition The Rest of Now.

 

On occasion of the press preview on Friday 18 July, from 5 pm will take place the conference/debate Alumix/ Ex-Alumix / Next Alumix: What’s the Future of the building?

David Adjaye, Nikolaus Hirsch and Michel Müller, Jorge Otero-Pailos, Reinhard Kropf and Siv Helene Stangeland propose a reflection on contemporary city-planning and public needs, starting from a study on the meaning of conservation and protection of the architectural heritage in contemporary societies. Main object of debate will be the ex-Alumix case, with an analysis of the project by John Norman and Leslie Oldridge, winner of the competition to transform the building into a state-of-the-art Institute for Innovative Technologies.

The industrial building ex-Alumix, and its surrounding area - important for its architecture as well as for the collective memory of the Bolzano / Bozen citizenship and history – will frame the debate, which will pose questions on the conservation and future of this icon of modernism.

David Ajaye (London): leading UK architect.

Nikolaus Hirsch and Michel Müller (Frankfurt): architects, designers for cultural spaces, and architecture theorists.

Jorge Otero-Pailos (New York): architect and theoretician specialized in experimental forms of conservation.

Reinhard Kropf and Siv Helene Stangeland (Stavanger): architects specialized in methods of alternative production, integrating local resources.

 

The Alumix Factory is closely linked to the history of Aluminium production in Italy, and to the imaginary connected to it. Saturday 19 July, at 5 pm, Tabula Rasa will host The Miracle Metal – Memories of Aluminium. Jeffrey T. Schnapp proposes an analysis of the political and cultural resonances of Aluminium, once considered the miracle metal of modern Italy. This miracle can be studied in the light of the fascist rhetoric of autarchy, which, conjugated with the futuristic and modernist ideas of functionality, speed and technics, finds an iconic example in the Moka Bialetti.

Jeffrey T. Schnapp (London / Milan): Historian and Theoretician of culture, translator and curator.

 

Sunday 20 and Monday 21 July, from 5 pm, Jan Gerber and Sebastian Lütgert will extend the analysis of media and knowledge distribution, proposed by The Rest of Now, through The Pirate as Archivist- Tools and Materials, a workshop reflecting on the liberalisation and distribution of culture through the web.

Today, the dream of cinema no longer consists purely of images, but of the abstract rights that it claims to these images: infinite intellectual properties and their universal protection. In consequence, the single, most interesting tendency in cinema today - and the only one that holds a future - is piracy: the digital reproduction and redistribution of the entire history of cinema. It is organised spontaneously and on a world-wide level. This workshop is not only an attempt to increase the number and quality of movies in circulation, but also to increase the amount and quality of self-esteem among the individuals and organisations participating in various ways in this circulation.