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We Are the PrimitivesAuthor(s): Andrea BranziSource: Design Issues, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring, 1986), pp. 23-27Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1571638.

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Andrea

Branzi

We

Are the

Primitives

This

articlewas

originally ublished

in

Italian

n

Modo,

une

1985.

We

are

the

primitives

in two

ways

at least:

analogically

and

linguis-

tically.

We are

analogically primitive

because

our condition

is that

of

those

who,

having

fallen from an

airplane

nto the middle of

the

Amazon territory, find themselves operatingwith technologically

advanced

elements still on

board,

as

well

as

with natural materials

of the forest.

The

ideological parachute

no

longer

works,

and the

transformationswe

accomplish

n

that

jungle

are

meant to

realize an

accelerated enewalcircuit rather han a

design

for

global

progress.

Culture

and

design

no

longer

are forces that

slowly

but heroi-

cally

move the world toward salvation

through logical

and ethical

radicalism.

They

are

mechanisms

of emotions and

adaptations

of

changes

that fail to

drag

the world toward

a

horizon;

they only

transform it into

many

diffuse

diversities.

Progress

no

longer

seems to be

valued; instead,

the

unexpected

is valued. The

grand

unitarian theorems no

longer

exist,

nor do the

leading

models of

the

rational

theologies.

What exists

is a

modernity

without

illuminism.

We

are

witnessing

a definitive and

extreme

seculariza-

tion of

design,

within which

design represents

itself and no

longer

is

a

metaphor

for a

possible

unity

of

technologies

and

languages.

Human

nature and the artificialnature

of

mechanisms,

informa-

tion,

and

the

metropolis

cohabit

in

sensorial

identification,

just

as

the Indian

who identifies with the

forest. That

neoprimitive

con-

dition is not a design in the sense that it does not wish to be the

latest trend of

avant-garde

fashions;

but it is

precisely

a condition

into

which various

languages

and

already

diffuse attitudes fuse. To

perceive

that condition

helps

move

postmodernism

out of

reaction-

ary

equivocations

and,

probably, gives

greater

freedom and

awareness to our mode

of

designing.

The

communication of the

primitive,

indeed,

achieves its maximum

efficiency

inside

a

closed

system:

It

operates

by

archetypes

and

myths,

working

inside

a

cir-

cuit

of

users

capable

of

perceiving

ts

metaphorical

keys

and

subject

to its

specific energy.

Outside those

conditions,

the culture of

the

primitive

is

nothing

but a

formal

repertory

that

currently

is heeded

and used

by

a

large

number of

operators,

artists,

and

designers.

A

password

has not

yet

become

effective,

and

already

we detect

the

symptoms

of a

great

attention

paid

to

neoprimitive

languages,

Design

Issues:

Vol.

III,

No.

1

23

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universe

apable

f

integrating

arious

nstitutional

nvironments

and

the

individuals

n

them.

Symbolic

worlds

proliferate

and

become

differentiated.

he

very

process

hat

multiplies

he

codes

and he

symbolic

resources f

the

individual,

nd hatweakens

he

integrity

and

the

plausibility

f that

person's

amiliar

world,

also

enormouslywidens thefieldof variouspossibilitiesperceivedby

individuals.

The

range

of

choices

becomes

wider

and more fluid.

There

occursnot

only

the

disintegration

f the

strong ype

of

identity,

but

alsothe

development

f

a

new

weak

dentity,

which

s

flexible,

open

to

change,

ntimately

differentiated,

ndreflexive.

The

weak

identity

considers

every

choice as

temporary

nd

reversible

nd

becomes he

object

of different

biographies,

t

the

border,

but

only

at

the

border,

of

pathological

issociation.

Simultaneously,

n

extremely

refined

and

receptive

new

sen-

sitivity makesits way in. It is basedon a kind of zero-degree

rational

hought

anda

new definition

and

nterpretation

f

magic.

That s what

we could

defineas

neoprimitivism

nd,

even

better,

using

an aberrant

neologism,

as ultimatism.

The

recovery

of

magic,

of

ritual,

of

the

mysterious

even

though

n

a

certain

ense

secularized)

derives

ndeed

from an

extreme

and

last

condition

that

significantly

pposes

tself

to the

originating

ondition

of

the

primitive.

The

complete

ullness

(religious)

of

the latter

s

made

vain

by

the

complete

vacuum

ethical

and

philosophical)

f

the

postmodern ondition.

It is the

disintegration

f

the

legitimatizing

Great

Tales

that

brings

us

back o a

common

ground

on

which

there

s

played

he

new

(and

as old as

the

world)

game

of

identity.

In the

swollen

hyperspace

f

the

postmodern,

t

is

possible

to

reach

numerous

opposite

poles:

from the

ironic

lightness

of

detachment

o

the

appealing

nvolvement

with

the

archetype,

with

the

ancestral

form,

with

the

totemized

object.

Complexitymay

also

lead

(as

the last

shore

or

as

the

firstof

the

last

solutions)

o

the

mystery

and

the

alchemy

of

encounters,

o

the uncontrolled nduncontrollableruthof thechance

god.

In a

word,

it is

the advent

of

magic

as the

first

of the

last

pos-

sibilities,

as

a

dimension

to be

completely

relived and

reinter-

preted,

and

that

may

arise

rom

our

relation

with

ourselves

and

with

others,

objects,

and the

world.

This

magic

s

closer to

the

inexpressible

ndividual

phere

than to

its

collective

rationaliza-

tion

(as

n

primitive

ocieties).

Within

hat

dimension,

an

essential

part

s

played

by

the

rediscovered

centrality

f the

body.

During

the

1980s,

indeed,

the

body

invaded

ocial

experience.

Love

for

one's

body grows exponentially,and interest n one's physical

well-being

ncreases.

The

neoprimitive

ody,

a

new

magic

object,

is a

phenomenon

resulting

from

an

emancipation

rocess

that

plants

ts

own

roots

into the

innovative

erments f

the

1970s.

The

past

of

our

societies

s

marked

by

a

principle

of

transcen-

Design

Issues:

Vol.

III,

No.

1

25


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From he series Animali

Domestici,

y

AndreaBranzi.

dence,

God or the laws of

history,

located

n

either

case

beyond

daily

social

relations.

n the

face of that

principle,

he

body

could

not but be

lived as a

limit,

as

the

product

of a

fall,

as a

degraded

nature

o

be

opposed

o the

spirit.

Toward he end of

the

1970s,

with the failureof

global

horizons

and

designs,

a new turn

occurred

n connectionwith our bodies.

In

today's history, having

abandoned he

hope

of

improving

ife

and the

world in

a

complex

manner,

we

are

becoming

convinced

that the

important hing

s to betterour own

psychophysical

on-

dition.

The

body

becomesone of the constructive lementsof

identity,

which

escapes

he

uncertainty

nd the

fragmentation

f the con-

temporary

niverse. n

addition,

he crisis n the relations f social

and

secular

ntegration

of

identity

implies

the

increased

mpor-

tance of the

body,

that

is,

of the

spatial perception

of

oneself,

as if

the

certainty

regarding

our

being

here were to be reinforced

by

a

body

that is

healthy,

protected,

and cared for.

And

through

the

body

the

tendency

to

a new ritualism starts.

The ritualism is a sort of

neoprimitivism

in

which it becomes

sur-

face to be

decorated,

a

symbolic

point

of

communication,

an

object

to be cared

for,

a

pretext

for small

but fundamental

daily

rites,

and an instrument

of seduction for ourselves even before

being

so for others. This new

way

in

which the

body

is lived

26


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