a r C h e o l o g y
o F T h e F u T u r e o F
s T e F a n o s e r r e T T a
“Il faut confronter les idées vagues avec des
images claires” reads an inscription on the
wall at the bottom of a frame in the film La
Chinois (1967) by Jean-Luc Godard. In same
period a German filmmaker, Harun Farocki,
in his Inextinguishable Fire (1969), tries in
turn to make the cinematic image less opa-
que. The protagonist and author of an expe-
rimental documentary, imitating the mono-
tonous tone of media language, reads a
discordant piece of news: “When we show
you pictures of napalm victims, you'll shut
your eyes. You'll close your eyes to the pictu-
res. Then you'll close them to the memory.
And then you'll close your eyes to the facts.”
Finally, he performs a self-destructive gesture
by putting a cigarette out on his hand, dryly
adding that burning Napalm produces the
same heat, only many times stronger. Both
Godard and Farocki insert in their work the
gap produced by the collision of two orders –
the linguistic and the aesthetic. The under-
lying logic is inverted, as well as the alleged
neutrality of media messages. Thus these se-
quences acquire the character of the images
defined in Walter Benjamin’s Dialectics.
In a disciplinary society, these images served
as apt examples of a negative dialectic capa-
ble of making visible the elusive strands in
the fabric of power, which spread widely
through its institutions and imperatives. But
if the actual regime rules out any negativity
from the outset, what strategies are still pos-
sible?
In our time, there are very different disorders,
compared to those of discipline – clinical de-
pression, dyslexia, and symptoms of attention
deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), to
name a few. This paradigm shift to a society
of control is what Byung-Chul Han defines
as the society of fatigue, displaying a chronic
lack of concentration except for those events
that belong to the logic of the spectacle. Like
a widespread form of fretful autism, which
makes all actions seem sterile and insignifi-
cant, devoid of life and history, it paralyzes
reflection, relationship, and communion. Eve-
ryone becomes the lone protagonist in the
battle for survival under the positivist slo-
gan – You can do it – where you no longer
know the meaning of not doing.
Where does Stefano Serretta fit into this frag-
mented and schizophrenic aesthetic para-
digm of images produced by young Italian
artist of the class of ‘87?
These also have disturbing signs, but using
different methods. They transcend the simple
process of sabotage or camouflage. They bor-
row from the media, from advertising, and
from art for their formal and neutral appea-
rance. Those who are presented with this
work however are confronted with a reflexive
act. The works seduce formally, but demand
attention. They cause a short-circuit between
the significance and the signifier, even if brie-
fly observed. They create an after-image, to
take away. They reanimate the ghosts distur-
bing contemporary art, without having to re-
sort to easy populism. They blend together
fact and fiction, history and memory, the pre-
sent, the past, and the future in a clear nar-
rative. Serretta never resorts to mystification.
On the contrary, his works are always a pro-
cess of demystification. The images are shown
in their simplest and most skeletal state and,
and in their ruins a level of original intention
becomes legible.
In recent years, Serretta has refined the lan-
guage and archaeology of his images. He
knows grammar, syntax, and semantics. He
knows how to unearth the forgotten morpho-
logical aspects. He knows how to be pragma-
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