Urbanautica

THE WEIGHT OF THE CITY

by Steve Bisson

«The end of the “recognizable” city (distinguishable, identifiable, markable) opens up to a different vocabulary, establishes an alternative climate, determines a condition of instability that is still unresolved and only partially freed from a regime of transnational cultural osmosis. We are looking for a new orientation on a planetary scale that will replace a regional order castrated of its centuries-old raison d’etre.»

© Alessandro Zanoni from the series "The Post-war Dream"

Photography is a device that allows producing snapshots, “frozen” images of reality at a given time. That of Alessandro Zanoni invites us to reflect on the intensely urban characteristics of the Asian city. Whether in the metropolis of Wuhan or Shenzen, his travel reports in China document the resolute, gritty, energetic, sometimes dusty, or ruthless will expressed by the massive changes in the metropolitan skyline. Such determination appears more vigorous, almost surreal, when the gaze moves to Chinese Inner Mongolia’s remote lands. Among the “new towns” of Ordos, Hohhot, and Baoto. Here, the author, passionate about post-World War II Italian auteur cinema, does not escape the similarities with the building boom well documented by a memorable generation of directors. I mention above all: Pasolini, Rosi, Antonioni, Fellini.

© Book 'The Post-war Dream' by Alessandro Zanoni, Urbanautica Institute, 2018

Still from the film 'Le mani sulla città' by Francesco Rosi, 1963

© Alessandro Zanoni from the series "The Post-war Dream"

In “The Post-war Dream”, a book in which Zanoni reveals the similarity and therefore the no-border pervasiveness of the phenomenon, we recognize the mythical, transcendent dimension of the “building” dream. The city as a language that subjects and unites peoples’ destiny establishes their living conditions and mobility. The most recent series ‘Kuruma’ made in Japan, proves it again. Cars adapt to the shape of the city, denying the assumption that space reflects the human scale. A thesis that finds further confirmation in the most recent images of Hanoi, Vietnam, which show a lively ability to adapt to the most restricted environments. But let’s take a step back, to think about the reasons for photographing the city.

© Alessandro Zanoni from the series 'Après Minuit'

The city hasn’t always existed. It began in the Neolithic age, about 5,000 years ago. Egypt, Mesopotamia, China. A polycentric development argues scholars. The reasons trace back to a series of slow innovations in the Neolithic era. The domestication of plants and beasts and stone, to name a few of the most significant. Revolutionary thought is emerging in Neolithic man’s mind: that of being able to become the architect of his destiny, to be able to explore, shape, and tame the environment. An unprecedented and never interrupted ambition. The urban condition has its roots in this rebellious cognitive substrate. Thus, the city becomes the place/expression of civilizations, the set of characteristics distinguishing what is inside from what is outside human walls/possibilities. This model, built on a principle of otherness, on an idea of a circumscribed, protected, lasting, monumental, walkable, and recognizable space, has represented human well-known mental geography. A clear and defined map whose legend rests on the meaning of the limit. Not only that, the city is based on a written language, on a recognizable alphabet. “Our language can be seen as an ancient city,” Wittgenstein argued.

© Alessandro Zanoni from the series "Kuruma". Ichikawa, Chiba prefecture, the first light of dawn. Houses with parking spaces for cars and bicycles.

© Alessandro Zanoni from the series "Kuruma". Osaka, Tennoji ward: a kei car parked in front of a small, shuttered shop

© Alessandro Zanoni from the series "Kuruma". Tokyo, Edogawa ward, kei car parked in front of an independent home.

However, this millennial balance is now at risk. Is this the end of the shape of the city as historically known? The hierarchies are jumping. The city that becomes a territory; thus extended, inaccessible, distant, anonymous, precarious. It produces a “disorientation”, a state of existential restlessness that coincides with the loss of references or, better, the sense of belonging. As the fall of the Roman Empire proceeds with the regression of Latin, so the end of the “recognizable” city (distinguishable, identifiable, markable) opens up to a different vocabulary, establishes an alternative climate, determines a condition of instability that is still unresolved and only partially freed from a regime of transnational cultural osmosis. We are looking for a new orientation on a planetary scale that will replace a regional order castrated of its centuries-old raison d’etre.

Wolfgang Sauber, model of the neolithic settlement ( 7300 BC ) of Catal Höyük, Turkey. Museum for Prehistory in Thuringia

© Alessandro Zanoni, Guangzhou

The city becomes unknown, jungle, alienating, and increasingly distant from the Greek “poleis” community background. Mainly if the historical roots, a source of identity nourishment, are eradicated from it. Man thus begins to feel a need to observe the city otherwise, and no longer placing his back to the countryside to contemplate its finite condition of beauty as in an 18th century cartographic view. Fueled by the iconography of an increasingly frayed and irrepressible city, a different settlement rule steps in, fully investing the concept of living, subverting a consolidated order, impacting the role of politics, the geometry of power, the extent of private interests.

© The exhibition "Il Peso della città. Prospettive orientali", 2021 (The Weight of the City. Eastern Perspectives), collects a selection of urban views taken in Far East Asia over the last 5 years by Alessandro Zanoni. An opportunity to reflect on the hypertrophic nature of metropolitan transformations increasingly routed on speculative and off-scale processes. The initiative is promoted by CreativeLab Mantova an active incubator in the outskirts of Mantua interested in the dynamics of culture and living in the city.

In the city now the performance over identity wins. Competition is worth more than representation. And so also for mortals. The individual is such if he is a citizen. Aristotle already wrote in the Politics: «It is clear therefore that the state is also prior by nature to the individual; for if each individual when separate is not self-sufficient, he must be related to the whole state as other parts are to their whole, while a man who is incapable of entering into partnership, or who is so self-sufficing that he has no need to do so, is no part of a state, so that he must be either a lower animal or a god.» (Politics, 1253a). A dictation that interprets well the phenomenon that still pushes growing slices of the population towards megalopolises. The new promised land. In Western culture this vision settles in languages. In Italy, known for its ancient urban prominence, we talk about “citizenship” when it comes to being recognized by the State. Yet, access to the city is not taken for granted everywhere. Being a citizen is no longer enough to be subdued; it is necessary to be a consumer or holder of purchasing power. Otherwise, you end up on edge.

© Alessandro Zanoni from the series "Precarious Life", Baishizhou, Shenzhen, China

© Alessandro Zanoni from the series "Precarious Life", Gangxia, Shenzhen, China

With the expansion of the city beyond its borders, anthropomorphic colonization of the planet has begun. The actual fuel of progress has found a preferential path for an accelerated remuneration or a marked reproduction in that capital. One may wonder if the spread of this anthropization process requires new slaves or other forms of exploitation of labor. Will the city still be the primary source of inequality, as history shows from the pyramids of Cheops to Copacabana’s hotels?

In this rapid continuous construction scenario, in which there is no boundary or even certainty, man is prey to a new vast unknown. Therefore humans vacillate between the physical and the virtual city. There is splitting in progress in the individual. Men are weaving relationships and social connectivity within increasingly virtual maps with less certainty than in the past. We seem to abandon territoriality attracted by a widespread, and intangible spatiality that offers immediate comfort, an almost realistic possibility of aggregation. Or perhaps we seek traces of forgotten community well-being. We are at the Neolithic era’s return, an attentive historian of the city such as Luigi Benevolo supported. Are we at the end of cities or the beginning of a new civilization? We will understand if it is an urgency, while photography remains a good tool for engaging in a dialogue with what is left of reality.

Alessandro Zanoni

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ALESSANDRO ZANONI. THE POST-WAR DREAM