Detournement, Drifting & Resistance

A British comedian recently offered the throwaway gag that when she used her GPS she found herself ‘gaming the road’.

Here is Veronesi on fighting back:

To amuse ourselves, Claudia and I played ‘What a pity!’ with the GPS. We had put in the school address as the destination then we’d systematically disobeyed the orders given by the female voice (cold, peremptory and pretty unsympathetic) that told us the shortest route. ‘Turn to the right NOW!’ said the voice. But I replied, ‘What a pity! That doesn’t suit,’ and I kept straight on. The GPS got confused. It started recalculating the route and Claudia laughed. Then once it had got things sorted out the female voice began again: ‘After 100 yards turn left.’ And I replied, ‘What a pity! That could be tricky.’ The voice was insistent: ‘Turn left NOW!’ And it was Claudia, whilst I turned instead to the right, who told the GPS, ‘What a pity! We’ve gone right.’
(Sandro Veronesi: Caos calmo)

Dario Fo at 85

‘It will be a ghastly birthday. For years I’ve waited for an ending not exactly happy but hopeful at least, informing me that I can go away in peace. Instead once again there’ll be no party, given current conditions that can only make us weep. [We’re] surrounded by people ready to throw their crooked cards on the table and each time they find some idiot who comes along and gets himself robbed senseless. It’s like the three card trick […]

‘So what’s happened to people? I would say that their sense of themselves as moral entities has fallen asleep and that television bears a great responsibility. [It’s] a Nirvana: the more Life disappoints it becomes like those prize competitions where if it goes well for you you don’t need effort or intelligence, just some stroke of luck, and off you go with a nice big pot of money.’
(Dario Fo: 85 anni, compleanno orribile)

Imprisonment

‘Is it preferable to be free and harmless or to be dangerous and in prison?
[…]
‘I prefer to be in prison because I’ve set free one of my dreams than to be free because I have put it in prison.’
(Isabella Santacroce: Lulù Delacroix)

‘… it’s a prison. But to get out of it you first have to find yourself in prison. It’s necessary that prison should contain and incarcerate virtual beings, since only because that’s what they are can they really find the capacity and really decide to escape.’
(Giorgio Cesarano: Manuale di sopravvivenza)

(Re)production

 

‘He indicated a little television on a shelf. He said, “I just need 30 seconds of advertising (any kind will do) to make me lose the will to write. The cynical and cowardly game that’s played upon the instincts of anyone who’s watching, the false and studied sentiments coming from murderers sitting at their agency drawing boards. The little smiling families out in their gardens used to peddle detergents to those who are prisoners of cities poisoned by the detergent industries. And they go to Ireland or into the Sahara to film cars, after cars have destroyed this country to the point where there isn’t even a corner where you can find a car that can drive along unimpeded.”’

‘Even I had to make an effort to keep on track. I tried to go very slowly. I checked up on him using the rear view mirror: he wasn’t sleeping. At one point he said to me, “One needn’t ever imagine anything in much detail, because the imagination ends up gobbling up the entire terrain upon which something might yet happen.”’

(Andrea De Carlo: Due di due)