{"id":28450,"date":"2014-07-09T23:15:32","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T21:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/la-verita-del-falso-2\/"},"modified":"2016-06-07T17:06:01","modified_gmt":"2016-06-07T15:06:01","slug":"la-verita-del-falso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/en\/la-verita-del-falso\/","title":{"rendered":"la verit\u00e0 del falso"},"content":{"rendered":"

The adjective \u201cartificial\u201d is normally used to indicate something negative. Its semantic area is vast and complex, with countless meanings that may however be retraced to the fundamental sense of the un-true. One only needs to consider that \u201cartifice\u201d is synonymous with \u201cdeceit\u201d or \u201csubterfuge\u201d. But to use the term in this sense, we must enjoy the unchallengeable possession of the sense of truth. We take for granted that we know what is \u201ctrue\u201d and that there is something definitely \u201ctrue\u201d which the \u201cartificial\u201d is inspired by, and of which it represents a \u201csimulacrum\u201d or \u201ccopy\u201d or \u201csurrogate\u201d or \u201cadulteration\u201d or \u201csimulation\u201d…
\nOn the other hand, \u201clandscape\u201d essentially means something non-artificial. And not in the sense that the landscape is something completely \u201cnatural\u201d or in other words extraneous and independent of our productive activities, but in the sense that even though it may be partially or even completely the result of human action, it is not pre-determined by this action. The concept of \u201clandscape\u201d refers to a non-intentional creation, or something that is, in other words, not entirely dominated by a single human design, an un-intentional creation caused by single, intentional projects, each of which has created, more or less consciously, various degrees and manners of action with the natural becoming, or in other words with the becoming that is independent of our will. As the landscape may appear to be something \u201cforegone\u201d, \u201cobjective\u201d, \u201ctrue\u201d, essentially \u201creal,\u201d, \u201coriginal\u201d, \u201cgenuine\u201d, authentic\u201d…
\nSomething that exists in its own right, and that does not necessarily need \u201cart\u201d to live, or that incorporates and conditions it rather than depending on it, unlike the artificial, which must refer to something else of which it is, precisely, \u201cartifice\u201d, in the different senses in which the latter term may be understood.
\nNow, if it may appear that the contemporary reality sees a great number of scenarios that are increasingly vast and permeated by artificiality, to the point of inverting the traditional relationship between the sense of the \u201clandscape\u201d and that of the \u201cartificial\u201d, and if the \u201cartificial\u201d, the \u201cartificially made\u201d entity, is still understood in a negative sense, we would be heading in a dangerous direction, towards a predominance of everything that is non-true, \u201cfalse\u201d, the \u201csimulation\u201d, the \u201csurrogate\u201d and the \u201cadulterated\u201d\u2026 It has in fact become quite commonplace, today, to think and say \u2013 and more frequently to imply \u2013 that \u201ctruth does not exist\u201d. And this is considered both a mere statement of a salient trait of the contemporary reality, and as a criticism of the predominance of an attitude that one believes is and must be opposed, due to its dangerous effects. But since the Greeks\u00a0 \u2013 and Greek thought is the sphere within also our time moves –\u00a0 it has been known that the simple and banal denial of truth is inconsistent, precisely because it deprives itself of the truth; in other words this assertion or denial does not realize that it is denying itself, and that it therefore cannot, \u201cin truth\u201d, represent denial because it inevitably also denies the truth of itself. And this is precisely the significance which has sustained truth since then: that is to say, its negation is self-denial, and that it is therefore impossible to deny (neither men nor gods can ever disprove it).
\nStill, rather than solving the problem, this principle leads us to the great quandary of truth and truthfulness: how can this principle be retraced to the scenario of becoming, to that surfacing from and returning to the nothingness of the indistinct mass of things, of the incessant process of generation and corruption, of construction and destruction? Where the existence of everything is constantly denied, where everything is a becoming of something else, or in other words is what it is, and is at the same time willing to be something else. Where things are, therefore, torn between being and non-being. And so, what is the sense of truth in relation to practical knowledge, technique, art, which would be inconceivable without becoming?
\nThe solution to the problem (in the millenary history of its ever greater coherence which, as we will explain, has brought contemporary thought to its denial) emerges in the very same Greek thought which has been the first to rigorously formulate it, which poses, above the perceptible and becoming world, an eternal, ingenerated, incorruptible dimension that is only intelligible and of which knowledge therefore cannot be disproved or denied. A knowledge which philosophers call epist\u00e9me, remaining (st\u00e9me) above (ep\u00ec); in other words, something that is above everything that would like to move it, precisely because it is knowledge of that which does not change, or in other words knowledge of the eternal dimension of reality.
\nIt is in this reality that we find the principle, the everlasting law of the production of the becoming multiplicity. Consequently, practical knowledge and technique produce in \u201ctruth\u201d in that they follow this law, in that their work con-forms with that eternal dimension of reality. In Platonic language, for instance, this means that every building produced by masons is made \u201cwell\u201d, essentially true and real, if it con-forms to the eternal \u201cidea\u201d of building. The common denominator of a great variety of buildings is the \u201cidea of building\u201d. This is the identity, which cannot be changed and disproved, of many different buildings. Any given building is a \u201ccopy\u201d, inevitably imperfect and doomed to perish, of the everlasting idea. It is due to this idea that a building, even if subject to construction and destruction, is truly, substantially (sub-stantia, \u201cfoundations\u201d) a building for the amount of time in which it is allowed to exist.
\nIt follows, in this traditional configuration of the sense of the truth, that the more human creation acts in the ignorance of the eternal dimension of reality, the more it departs from it in any way, the more will it be in error. The productive act that fails to follow the law of production of the variegated becoming, comes within the different senses of non-truth. Thus, for instance, specifically in Platonic thought, the action of the painter who paints a building comes within the sphere of non-truth. The building of a mason, if done \u201cwell\u201d, is a copy that con-forms to the original, it corresponds to the principle of \u201cidea of building\u201d, while that of the painter is a copy of a copy, or simulation. The painter produces simulated buildings, creating a simulation of things, and this is not right, it is not \u201cgood\u201d. From this point of view, certain forms of art appear as socially dangerous.
\nBut the grandiose Greek construction of truth, or of non-disprovable truth has, in its progressive diffusion, by virtue of its power, and at the same time of its growing coherence, eventually come to reveal an intrinsic contradiction. On the one side there is the becoming, the surfacing from and returning to nothingness of things, as supreme evidence and thus truth, that cannot be disproved. On the other the becoming is dominated by an immutable dimension of reality which, predetermining the immortal law of production, in actual fact thwarts it. The immutable dimension already has all becoming in it, and thus every form of production is a simulation, is only apparent creation, whereas that very same thought on the contrary recognizes that the becoming is supreme evidence. The nothing from which things origin and to which they return (without which there would be no creation), in an attempt to dominate the becoming and to be safe from its unpredictability, is permeated by the immutable which already contains everything that might come to appear. The entire tradition therefore asserts, in various ways, the reality of becoming, and at the same time it denies it. This contradiction is revealed by Nietzsche: \u00abif there were gods, how could I endure not to be a god! Hence there are no gods\u00bb (where \u201cgods\u201d indicates any immutable that has been conceived), in fact \u00abwhatever would there be left to create, if the gods \u2013 were to exist!\u00bb [Thus spake Zarathustra, \u201cOn the Fortunate Islands\u201d].
\nContemporary thought, with philosophic thought as its highest expression, is not a relativism or ingenuous scepticism, it does not banally say that \u201ctruth does not exist\u201d. On the contrary, it says: the supreme evidence is the becoming, thus any immutable is impossible. Becoming is undeniable, and so it is necessary to deny every immutable. Becoming makes it possible to falsify every practical knowledge, and to make every action with a purpose unpredictable. The thought of our time is becoming more and more coherent with the truth of becoming.\u00a0 There is no denial of truth, but necessary, inevitable denial of the sense of truth, as it is contradictorily configured by a millenary tradition which, while inexorably declining, has not yet become a consciously accomplished past. The liberation of becoming from the thought of immutables, is the underlying cause of every form of liberation of our time, including every kind of \u201ccreative freedom\u201d.
\nIt is certainly impossible to investigate, on this occasion, the enormous practical consequences of this liberation. However, it is important to remember that philosophical thought, now as in the past, is not something that remains detached from everyday actions, but that permeates it with its essence, more than one is usually willing to admit. In fact, philosophy is not, in the strict sense, a discipline among others, even if it is presented as one today, but the context of all thought and action. Limiting ourselves to examine \u201cartificial landscapes\u201d, without any claim to investigate the theme in all its amplitude and depth, we may attempt to suggest some consequences of the decline of the immutables and the growing coherence of the thought of becoming. Let us ask ourselves how, in the contemporary reality, what we habitually tend to consider \u201cfalse\u201d relates to \u201dtruth\u201d. Let us assume, as paradigm, what is most likely to appear as having the sense of \u201cfalse\u201d: the architectural construction of copies of Venice. What is the \u201ctruth\u201d of the \u201cartificial landscapes\u201d of this well-known city?
\nThe image and history of Venice are among the most celebrated. It is a mythical, world-famous city. But in this story, or in other words in the \u201ctruth\u201d of its becoming, today we see, more often than not, a city that is dying while it is generating the simulacrum of itself, subject of exploitation and touristic consumption. That work of art which is the copy, or in other words the \u201cartificial landscape\u201d which reproduces it, what is it telling us if not the \u201ctruth\u201d of its having become a simulacrum? The \u201cfalse\u201d Venice reveals the existence of its current becoming something else than the original. A revelation that has never been more vivid, as the essence, in the original, that is to say in Venice as it has been produced by its history, is veiled by the vestige of the city which we consider, by tradition, to be \u201cauthentic\u201d. A complete and immediate unveiling of the truth of becoming of Venice, that no other form of art could achieve, as it is the work of the self-same art of architecture \u2013 even if the techniques of today are much more powerful \u2013 by means of which the original has been created over the centuries.
\nAnd it is inevitable that, to those who are convinced that Venice is in agony and who suffer with it, the crude \u201ctruth\u201d, namely that the \u201cfalse\u201d can flaunt without veils, without modesty and without hope for redemption, is terrifying: who is not terrified by death? And death is the underlying sense of becoming.\u00a0 Becoming is fear of the sudden arrival of the unwanted. The fear for which traditional thought believed it had found a cure, with the epist\u00e9me of truth.
\nBut the copy of Venice is not just a work of art that stages the truth of becoming a simulacrum of the original city. The architectural copy is, at the same time, a productive economic investment. An activity that is, more often than not, inspired by the predominant purpose of profit. The decline of the undying law of production no longer allows one to base actions on goals. The intelligible principle no longer exists. The laws one may invoke in order to attain goals are hypothetical, probabilistic. One interprets the phenomena, when certain processes and a certain arrangement of means seem to lead to a desirable end,\u00a0 then one reproduces, on the basis of the theory that the desired result will be repeated, entirely or partially. And so, in the eyes of an investor, the phenomenon consisting of the transformation of the city of Venice in a profitable simulacrum of itself may represent a valid principle \u2013 until the opposite is proved –\u00a0 to pursue profit, seeking to trigger, as in a research lab, the same phenomenon. In the same way one also builds shopping malls and outlets which imitate traditional spatial arrangements, where ample historiography tells about the mercantile creation of cities and villages and where old towns, or in other words the traces of the ancient cities, tend to become immense shopping malls.
\nThe intention to reproduce artificially, to provoke, affects the aesthetic, historic and environmental values we attribute to the territory when we interpret it as \u201clandscape\u201d. This leads to the concretization of the disciplinary specialization which we call \u201clandscape architecture\u201d: an unlimited desire for technical-artistic dominion of the entire environment, in which the borderline between natural and artificial disappears.
\nThe truth of our time lies in the progressive filling, with the action of technique, of the void created by the withdrawal of the gods. The arrival of the landscape culture, which leads to a desire to design the landscape, is paradigmatic of the truth of the artifice. The cult, born in a modern epoch, is already an artifice as such: it is that theoretical construction aimed at interpreting the interaction between the history of culture and the becoming of nature as cause, which gives a landscape form to the environment.
\nEven if this cult is introduced and presented as a chiefly aesthetic contemplation and enjoyment. it is \u201cin truth\u201d the artifice formed of the production of the tale, of the structuring and representation of the myth, to which various arts (literature, poetry, painting) and fields of knowledge (historiographies and natural sciences) are dedicated. It is within the context of this cult that the projects inspired by a desire to preserve the landscape as \u201cmemory\u201d are conceived. The places which the myth of the landscape is making famous are presented as \u201ccultural heritages\u201d worthy of a protection not unlike that of the heritage of works of art and monuments from the past. The preservation is presented as a desire to restrict the use of powerful modern techniques. The increasing potential of technique to produce transformations\u00a0 is considered as a destructive threat to the landscape. But the project aimed at preservation needs, \u201cin truth\u201d, to invent, produce and develop its technical activities, its potential to produce an effect. An action inspired by a wish to repeat, in the future, a certain spatial configuration which myth has celebrated as landscape. The preservation here focuses on a landscape understood as an accomplished work of art, from which nothing may be removed, added or modified without disfiguring it; it is thus a matter of keeping this perfection alive, with suitable techniques, including regulations.
\nBut in this project aimed at preservation we often recognize a specific incoherence with the truth of becoming. Regardless of how much the landscape is likened to a work of art or in other words to its accomplished form, it remains a living, changeable entity. The essence of the form-landscape, unlike that of the artistic object, is the non-accomplishment, or an incessant development. What surfaces is therefore a project aimed at the preservation, not of a certain form-landscape but of that certain material culture and that specific ethics of nature, which the historical interpretation sees as motive for the constant production of the form of the landscape. And it is along this path that landscapism is subject to superimpositions, interactions and integrations with ecologisms, environmentalisms, territorialisms.
\nAnd nevertheless, also this other preservation project, while believing to have given coherence to the primitive sense of the preservation of the landscape, comes up against another and in some aspects greater incoherence with the truth of becoming. To preserve a culture, create an ethics, establish a cause implies to enthrone an immutable, an everlasting principle dominating the becoming, or in other words re-propose, in new forms, its denial: the denial of the undeniable.
\nA more coherent \u201clandscape architecture\u201d is thus taking form: its essence is creative freedom, the invention of ever-new landscapes, the production of authentic \u201cartificial landscapes\u201d. It is a matter of a true reinstatement of the connection with the original sense of the landscape. That landscape, as we said, created in the celebrative artifice rendered by painting, by poetry, by literature, by natural sciences, now acquires substance in the art of the configuration of space characteristic of architecture. Architecture is able to fully reveal the authentic dimension of the existence of the landscape, that of the design action, and it has the power to translate it, as the case may be, into unusual and surprising places for living, into amazing \u201cparadises\u201d on earth.<\/p>\n