FRANCO BIFO BERARDI: THE SECOND COMING

Friday, July 27
Cinema Square, 8 p.m.

FRANCO BIFO BERARDI: THE SECOND COMING

In the years following the immense devastation of the first world war, Yeats speaks of the painful blood-dimmed chaos that is loosed upon the world, and he sees signs of the second coming of Jesus Christ. “Surely the second coming is at hand.” The second coming of Jesus Christ was the expectation of Yeats.  However in the decade after 1919, Jesus Christ did not come. Hitler did. Now an apocalyptic model seems the best suited for describing the surrounding landscape, from many points of view. Let’s not forget that the apocalypse is an event that reveals the hidden rationale of the cosmos: chaos. But the apocalypse is also the moment in which a hidden possibility comes to be revealed. If we are unable to see and to actualize the hidden possibility, the descent into nothing will follow. Have we already lost the opportunity of actualizing the possibility, or the possibility is still alive?

FRANCO BIFO BERARDI is an Italian media theorist and media activist, born in 1948 in Bologna. He is the founder of the Altraverso magazine (1975-1981) and one of the founders of the first pirate radio station in Italy - the famous Alice, which was a voice for autonomous youth of Bologna by the end of 1970s. During that time, he moved to Paris, like so many members of the Autonomy movement. He collaborated with Felix Guattary in the field of schizoanalysis. He researched the role of media and information technology in postindustrial capitalism. With high level of bitterness he perceives the role of Europe in the current refugee crisis, which is why he doesn’t consider himself to be a European any more. He is currently collaborating with the Derive Aprodi magazine and teaches social history of communication at the Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. After the Future is the title of his book from 2011, where he writes: “The future has failed us. Our responsibility now is to decide what comes next.” 

Cinema Boka, 10 p.m.

FILM PROJECTION: CHILDREN OF MEN
(Director: Alfonso Cuaron, 2006)