Archivio Attivo Arte Contemporanea
http://www.caldarelli.it
Art - Architecture - Design - Photography
Proposals and documentation for contemporary art in Italy
Since 1965 Art Gallery "Il Salotto"
Piazza Croggi 4 - via Crespi 15 - 22100 Como Italia tel. 031/303670
Summer gallery: piazza Vittorio Emanuele 8 - 22030 Caglio (Como) Italia tel. 031/667321
Art director: Dott. Michele Caldarelli
Co-director: Arch. Mario Caldarelli

FLATLAND

works, interventions, documentation for an interdisciplinary meeting.

ART GALLERY IL SALOTTO - COMO (7 OCTOBER - 11 NOVEMBER 1984)

Classified by its author as a "romance of many dimensions", the text referred to consists of a curious story anonymously published by Edwin A. Abbott in 1882. Well-known for his enlightened sense of didatics (he was rector between 1865 and 1889 of the City of London School, thus turning it into one of the best schools in England of that period), Abbott composed more than forty works quite different from the aforementioned text in content and style but, even if (as observed by M. D'Amico in his introduction to the Italian translation edited by Adelphi) R.L. Farrel, the known Oxonian Hellenist has failed to insert it under the headword Abbott in the "Dictionary of National Biography", for a pure mathematician such as J. Newman "Flatland" remains instead the only standing defence of Abbott against oblivion (cf. "The World of Mathematics", New York, 1956). Abbott's intention, even if the story half results in an elegant satire of customs (which reminds one, although very diverse in style, of the writings of Swift or Butler), it has been such to indicate a path leading to the intuition of physics dimensions ulterior to the three Euclids, well exceeding the didatics to its own end. The introductive dedication well depicts in a concise manner the content and purpose of the work:

...

FLATLAND

To the

Inhabitants of the SPACE IN GENERAL

AND to H.C. IN PARTICULAR

This Work is Dedicated

By a Humble Native of Flatland

In the Hope that

As he was Initiated to the Mysteries

Of The Three Dimensions

Having until then known

ONLY TWO

Thereby also the Cltizens of that Celestial Region

Can aspire higher and higher

Towards the Secrets of the FOUR FIVE OR EVEN

SIX Dimensions

In that way contributing

to the Enrichment of the IMAGINATION

AND to the possible Development

Of Modesty, a very rare and excellent quality

Amongst the Superior Races

Of SOLID HUMANITY

Flatland, as its name explains, is a bidimensional world inhabited by polygons organised socially according to a hierarchy strictly dictated by the regularity and number of the sides possessed by each individual. The author of the dedication and protagonist of the adventure is, in this particular instance, a square forming part, due to its actual configuration (here is a word-play on the English assonance of "square" and "squire") of the class of gentlemen. In the second half of the book, it (the square) is the center of the story: a short while before the year 2000 of the Flatland Era, its life becomes unsettled by an apparition which opens up the way to his extradimensional experiences, a sphere appertaining to the three-dimensional world shows itself by physically passing through the flat world in which it lives in, thus initiating the most significant part of Abbott's narrative artifice. It is in order to demonstrate the possibility of the existence of other worlds, characterized by dimensions which are ulterior to the three classics of the Euclidean space, that he has invented this amusing parable succeeding so excellently, through a transition in levels, of rendering credible his petitions. By being amused at the evident blindness of the inhabitants of this world (limited to only two dimensions) in comparison with the three-dimensional space well-known and customary to us, we will perhaps succeed in the best way, of guessing how much there is in the unknown which can be captured by our senses. The reading of this fascinating romance rich in ideas, which I can recommend to everyone as regards its charm, has been the stimulation both as to gathering together in one exhibition the testimonies of artists and researchers of other schools who already were familier with the subject and had produced works or carried out studies in relation to it, and of suggesting the partecipation of those who, although leaving aside Abbott's story, have tackled themes relative to extra Euclidian dimensions. So in this way an occasion was brought about for an approach of an inter-disciplinary level towards a theme which due to its nature is capable of combining artistic imagination and scientific intuition.

(Michele Caldarelli)

WORKS AND/OR INTERVENTIONS

presented on the occasion by:

RODOLFO ARICÒ, MARIO BALLOCCO, THOMAS BANCHOFF, EUGENIO BATTISTI
MIGUEL BERROCAL, REMO BIANCO, DAVIDE BORIANI, GIANLUIGI BURAGGI
GIUSEPPE CAGLIOTI, CARMELO CAPPELLO, ALIK CAVALIERE
GIOVANNI D'AGOSTINO, BRUNO ERNST, MICHELE EMMER, SHIGEO FUKUDA
FRANCO GRIGNANI, JAN KUBASIEWICZ, ZENON KULPA, JOHN LOCKE
ATTILIO MARCOLLI, MARIO MARÈ, BRUNO MUNARI, MARIO NIGRO
FUJO NISHIDA, FILIPPO PANSECA, HERMANN PAULSEN, ACHILLE PERILLI
ATTILIO PIERELLI, GIÒ POMODORO , SALVADOR PRESTA, AMILCARE RAMBELLI
PIERRE RESTANY, OSCAR REUTERSVÄRD, HORACIO GARCIA ROSSI
LINO SALTINI, CLARA SCARAMPELLA, HARRY TURNER, NANDA VIGO
VANNI VIVIANI, JOSÉ MARIA YTURRALDE.

FILM:

"DIMENSIONS"
from the series ART AND MATHEMATICS
(subject and production: Michele EMMER - 1982).

"FLATLAND"
animated film
(subject, set design and production: Michele EMMER - animation: Roberto BIANCHI - 1981).

"HYPERCUBE"
computer animation
(by Thomas BANCHOFF - 1980).

CORRELATED TOPICS

"The Impossible Figures"
"Space"

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