Italo Calvino - Six Memos of the New Millennium

this is my response to calvino's lecture on lightness. i did it in like, an hour and my thesis has changed since, but it gives the idea of what this class is about.

Calvino states that we - designers, poets, artists - are continually on a search for lightness. Our search is a reaction to the weight of living. We incessantly seek to lighten the load the world has put on us.

This weight is intensified by both the weight of our physical being and our interactions with the substances around us. Although we – and everything around us – is made of tiny invisible particles that are seemingly weightless, all of this weightlessness added up can seem unbearable. It seems that these weightless entities and particles are carrying a weight that is not their own. The poet Cavalcanti succeeds in realizing poems whose main subjects cease to be human, are broken down into invisible parts, and carry a weight that is unseen – “sighs, rays of light, optical images, and above all … nonmaterial impulses…” (12). These impulses carry sensations, hopes, sufferings, and information, but remain unseen. In this sense, particles carry two types of weight, their own physical weight, and the weight of the objects they combine to form; and the invisible weights of emotion, time, culture, memories, etc.

Invisible particles are also combined to form continuities in space. Two places or nodes, distanced by space, may be joined together, united as one, through the use of light, nonmaterial particles or forms. These forms bridge gaps in space by allowing the weight of living to expand from one essence to another. They have the dual purpose of carrying physical beings from one place to another, and transmitting emotions, senses, and images. These connections are able to transmit the feelings of one place, to another, the comfort of home, the culture of a region, the artwork of the central city, the scent of cool air, the heavy passing of time, the reminder of something lost, the bustling of a marketplace, etc, to another by means of an invisible connection. For instance, music is invisible, yet the moment our senses recognize it, it can evoke in our beings a plethora of emotions.

Although these tiny invisible particles that exist in all things and seem to be placed at random, they are in fact, perfectly aligned and the object or being would not exist if one particle in this intricate puzzle were out of alignment. Perfect combinations of invisible entities exist throughout our world. The combination of high and low pressures in the atmosphere creates an instantaneous bolt of light that rips through the sky and is followed by a deafening roar, reaching not only our senses, but our innermost being. The build up of electrons on a surface in dry air produces an electric shock and tiny sparks of light. The magical tinkling of snow falling in the dead of winter is not produced by the imagination, but is produced by electrons being discharged into the air. Calvino quotes Paul Valery in saying, “one should be light like a bird, and not like a feather.” The placement of each particle is meticulously, intentionally selected and is essential to its existence. Without this intent, the particles and their placement would be meaningless and cease to exist altogether. All emotions, thoughts, impulses require a medium through which to travel and will create its own medium if necessary.

The secret of a poet-philosopher is his ability to lift himself, as if weightless, out of this world. This ability must also be understood by one creating space. It is our function as designers to develop mediums through which emotions, ideas, images, and time may travel. The question is, is one able to create a space that is made of the invisible, yet reveals it? Is one able to create such a space or vector that transmits weighty ideas, emotions, and feelings yet in itself is weightless?