Pad (Dec 2019)
Towards a possible “liquid mapping”
Abstract
Like the sailors, who for centuries have crossed their ways and their destinies plowing through the Mediterranean, this editorial marks a possible route between the different reflections proposed by the authors. Their essays are dedicated to the closed sea in all its complexity of the landscape with fluid borders, which has always been a space for sharing and exchanges, as well as a place of subtle dividing lines and dramatic human movements. Herein, the topic is investigated according to extremely varied critical approaches between art and design. Therefore, what brings together the authors is the attention to the complex and delicate space of the border and crossing, metaphorically furrowed in the essays from the points of view of authors, as contemporary Ulysses with skills and practices that were not easy to gather and at the same time distribute in chapters. Sometimes, unexpected analogies and comparisons between different methodological approaches intertwine and manifest. It allows us to reflect also on the theme of the similarities between the sphere of design and that of the arts. The prismatic and abstract texture that fills all this #17 cover space refers to these intertwining lines that confirm the labile and fluid boundaries between design and art. At the same time the texture, as its blue chromatic reflections, simulates the liquid Mediterranean surfaces inspired by the flooring designs by Gio Ponti, the creative architect who in the early twentieth century perhaps has more than any other included the close relationship between the arts and space design. Follow our personal historical and phenomenological reflection on Art, three chapters are proposed. The first brings together methodological reflections and design practices related to the creation of new cartographies to envisioning the complex cultural and human landscape stratifications of the identities that inhabit the Mediterranean. The second chapter gives voice to concrete experiences, in which the intertwining of artistic methods and design skills act together on the territory; at last but not least some significant actions give back all their complexity, thanks to the voice of the actors, artists, and protagonists after which we insert our reflections.
