“The environment pays the highest price, but the outrageousness of this inefficiency also affects the citizen, who is forced daily to endure the visual defeat that reminds them of the devastation caused. Or maybe not. Just like the thousands of drivers who go through the Giunone roundabout without raising their eyes toward the temples, countless other indifferent spectators pretend that Italy is the corner of paradise they live in, training their eyes to the ugliness they no longer notice.”
Thus writes the preface author and publisher Franco Carlisi. This is exactly where the importance of this photo book by Massimo Cristaldi, son of the philosopher Rosario Vittorio, lies. He has the ability to pause—perhaps he would say “contemplate”—in front of these objects, whether beautiful or ugly, which nonetheless convey a sense of solitude or abandonment. They leave you with a feeling of discomfort. They spark indignation and rebellion.
The critical sense of his mind reminds me of the existential unease of his father, tormented by the condition of being “finite.” Therefore, I wouldn’t speak of “landscapes of the mind” but rather of a critical education of the mind. The result is a denunciation and a protest against the reality that surrounds us—one marked by indifference, neglect, and abandonment, by misery, even when the object itself is beautiful but lacking care and respect.
The photos are presented without any comment, citing only the city where the shot was taken. Suspended (or epoché, the suspension of judgment in phenomenology). I am not an expert in photography, but the message came through—just as I believe it reaches everyone. A punch in the stomach.
However, indifference is produced by the condition “in which all men become slaves to a system whose logic escapes their control; they may rediscover true community in the struggle for the meaning of being” (R. V. Cristaldi, Essays on the Philosophy of the Finite, Messina 1972, p.109).
There must emerge a reaction in defense of human dignity, which cannot remain passive in the face of such decay. It is a difficult historical moment, but rebellion is right and necessary. And we should also think of the many disasters that have occurred, such as the flood in Emilia-Romagna and the many landslides in recent years due to property speculation, deforestation, and pollution—the responsibility lies with society at large and with the passive individual.
A feeling of gratitude goes to the Author of this work, donated on July 9, 2023 (Massimo Cristaldi, Suspended, Palermo, 2021).