Citta’Sociale wants to address social topics by reflecting both on the communication and euristics deriving from a possible complementariety between visual and figurative language and verbal communication,on one side, and between arts and science on the other.
The magazine aims to be a social communication instrument to focus the readers’attention around those issues that require new thinking, a new thoretical and clinical perspective and a greater sense of awareness. This new approach will create a critical reflection milieu vis-à-vis the cognitive development that will be offered by the documents and essays that will be published.
What new conditions relating to the giving of new meaning are produced through a combination ofverbal and iconic communication? Is it true that the acquisition process of artistic and scientific knowledge present opposing specificities? What advantage can be derived by a social communication campaign that utilizes different language applications together with different knowledge methods.
The analysis of some of the most significant milestones of the history of art and science reveals that many of the demarcation lines used in the description of the knowledge acquisition process are often, but a reflection of scientistic needs rather than realistic needs.
It suffices to reflect on the auto-reflexivity that has epitomised the arts, that since the romanticim, has become increasingly a reciprocal metalanguage (a poem about a poem), the mathematical world (D.Hilbert), the world of biology and bio-physics) (H. von Foerster, H. Maturana, F. Varela) and of sociology(N. Luhmann). By the utilisation of concepts like autology, that is, the study of oneself,autopoiesis and theory of recurrent functions, these latter disciplines have sought to explain the origin of language, the quantic aspects of reality, the organisation of living systems and the functioning of social systems.
It may suffice to think about Michealngelo,who whilst moving away from the sole artist’s pespective anticipated Copernicus attack against the ptoleamic conception; or Picasso who was able to represent thoughts that went beyond what one was accustomed to think (cfr. Demoiselles d’Avignon).perceiving the innovations of Einstein’s theory of relativity (time as a fourth dimension).
It is on this ability to go beyond, that we want to reflect. It is the ability that Plato (Timeo) thought derived from the fact that as humans we reside in the heavens (unlike the plants) that shapes our ideas as images or visions.Interestingly the root of idea, id, is common to both idea and video.
Paul Cézanne reminds us of the principle that vision is a knowing activity. “I agree, I see, but how do I see?”
Magritte reiterates the concept that our eyes see,yet they think. As a matter of fact, seeing and thinking involve our entire body: H. Poincaré e J. Piaget completing the platonic conception discover, respectively, that the perception of a tridemensional space is due to our motion and that the idea of reality is inherently linked to the sensomotory activity.
Social sciences have adopted a scientific theory of the iconic production. Anthropology definitvely fits amonsts these sciences, having continously proposed the visual mean as a discovery instrument.
From the days of G. Simmel to the current sociological visual research, the eye, within the five senses, fulfills a fundamental social analitical function.
The semiotic analyses of J.Dewey and Ch Morris have, since their presentation, stimulated us to conceive the arts as a language. More recently,E.Goffman and M.Foucault have, through the bodyre-evaluatin, proposed a rethinking of the visual and verbal relationship as a topic of social studies.
The bond between arts and communication has alaways been very close: Sociological Esthetics contends that historical changes in style are never coincidental (e.g. formalism versus naturalism in ancient Egypt) and are often marked by religious or political communication needs.
But it is with the arrival of the capitalistc industrial age that the fusion of arts and communication becomes a self-proclaimed popular program; when the commercial elite intercepts due to its commercial needs, some of the more talented artists of that time (Magritte, Toulouse-Lautrec, etc).
Issues like perceptions, attention, persuasion and reproductions become the object of analyses by social sciences scholars. From the 1970s onward pubblicity is utilised for purposes other than commercial promotion, to influence the target audience so as to promote specific social causes.
Distance education with regards to new comprehension theories is a challenge tackled by sociologists and psychologists. When there can be no interaction with the receiver the risk exists that the selections made by the broadcaster may be rejected.
The Citta’Sociale wants to add value to the resources already available so as to ameliorate specific messages.It aims to refocus attention towards hot contemporary issues whilst at the same time it seeks to stimulate new and broad cognitive interruptions, which may often flatten social awareness.
The need to re-learn to view the world has been clearly stated by impressionists; science invites us to constantly think laterally; the unstoppable technological development forces us to focus our perceptive efforts.
Yet, as Z.Bauman states,post modern society forces usto adopt self defence schemes that lead towards inward rather than outward behaviours. And on these beahviours we want to concentrate.
Each issue will focus on a specific topic to reflect on. In this first issue we have tackled issues like immigration and inter culture. In the next issue we will concentrate on urban rehabilitation.
The semiosis of this communication medium will be realised by the descriptive fusion (hopefully synergistic) of the different types of languages (and therefore the different knowledge blocks); the language of social scientists and of the art critics, the clinical and empirical language of social operators and of the artists.
The Citta’ Sociale is a multi-disciplinary research project; the cognitive and communicative implications and the experiments that may derive are there to be discovered.
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