bogusman

PRATO, JUNE 10 - Cruelty on stage in Prato: during a theatrical performance, a lobster was tortured, with its heartbeat amplified for the audience to hear, and then it was killed with a cleaver. The violence against the crustacean led the Digos of the Prato police headquarters to file charges against the actor and the director of the show, as well as the artistic director of the 'Contemporanea festival.' The accusations are of mistreatment and killing of animals. The measures were taken following an inspection prompted by a report from the Sos maltrattamenti Lav association in Rome. The performance was aptly titled 'Astice' and took place at the Pecci contemporary art museum. The Digos reported 46-year-old Spanish actor Juan Loriente for mistreatment and killing of animals, while 41-year-old Argentine director Rodrigo Garcia and 45-year-old festival artistic director Edoardo Donatini were reported for violations of public entertainment regulations.

In fact, kosmo, their emulsion of contradictory and sarcastic images from their live shows perfectly aligns with their poetics. Their most brilliant insight, in my opinion, was being "postmodern" even before politics became so with the fall of walls and ideologies. After all, the whole epic of cccp is one big funeral for the Soviet spirit.

Again on the philosophical-soviet aesthetic and on the "secularity" of art: it must be emphasized, especially in these alarming times of neo-obscurantism like the current ones, the freedom of the jester-artist to display any symbols they want, to mock whomever they wish (the audience included, because, excuse me, what was the punk of the Sex Pistols?). After all, those 80s weren't so terrible... can you imagine an album like Affinità Divergenze in 2005? They would censor it even before reaching 80% of the cover visual.

"Upon a second visual examination, at first you only read 'CCCP' in parallelepiped letters :)" I thought that here on Debaser we also seek to understand what’s behind the covers, right?

Let me explain better: he would be completely right, caz, if behind the cover of this record there were a "convincing" and 1968-style celebration of Eastern Europe. But given the destabilizing, ironic, and mocking content of the album, it becomes clear that the symbol on the cover takes on completely different meanings, in stark contrast to those who go to peace rallies wearing Che shirts.

I'm sorry, it must be due to my awful visual education, but in the cover of Affinità-Divergenze, I see more of a reference to certain Pop Art (therefore an additional mockery of any anti-consumerist fundamentalism). Maybe it’s because I see ambiguity as almost an added value in a work that has nothing "propagandistic": the imaginary Soviet union visualized by Ferretti and co is a barren wasteland populated by mutants, alienated individuals, walls to smash your head against, far from the shining suns of the future!

I referenced free jazz because there's a very free and acid sax in the Contortions. I don't know how to explain it to you... try to imagine the Talking Heads of "Psycho Killer" a thousand times more dissonant and frantic.

By the way, about those filthy and bloodstained symbols, damn, can you explain to me how to "converse" with individuals hiding behind a nickname like "SANTA INQUISIZIONE"???? LOYAL TO THE LINE EVEN WHEN THERE IS NONE!!!

The problem, enea, is not how much more or less communist they are than others: what I have tried to explain in my posts is that their poetics do not include didactic intentions, their music is not engaged (in the sense of the area, and also of the cantautori de Andrè - despite its complexity - included). The spirit of their celebration of the Soviet world is more like a psychiatric hospital than a leftist collective; more of a delirious masquerade party than a true rally. I invite you to reread my posts, enea, if it’s not too much trouble...

I Contortions were part of that sub(non)genre charmingly coined No-Wave, and their sound borrowed from both the wildest James Brown funk and the most spirited free jazz, as well as punk rock. I highly recommend "Buy," their first (and actually only) album.