manuale distruzione

Manuale distruzione, an editorial project born within the course of Writing Techniques for the Media, aims to be a “tale of the Antifragile”, starting from the instances of Nassim Taleb in his essay Antifragile – Prosperare nel disorder (Il Saggiatore) and develops them in the context of narration.

Thus Manuale distruzione appears as the narration of the events of seven characters who, each drawing inspiration and reflection from the depth of their own existence, understand how the only creative energy is born from destruction. A destruction that breaks into every aspect of life: in the immateriality of clichés and stereotypes and in the concreteness of conventions, conveniences, opportunisms and economic rationalities. But is it really so? We asked prof. Massimo Alvito, teacher of the course of Writing Techniques for Media at ISIA Florence and curator of the publishing project.

How was this project born?

It all stems from some fundamental questions: what is it that distinguishes a thought from an idea? an intention from a gesture? a project from an object? a tale from a story?

It is precisely in this gap, in the gap between a programmed narrative and its performance in the space-time of a book, of an exhibition, of 7 symbiotic objects told by the stories of 7+ characters, that the very idea of manual destruction arises. Indeed, not the idea but the very core of the original insight, that intuition that has thrown a team of designers made up of 7 NU – the Narrative Units in charge of unraveling the fibers of as many recombinant isotopies – to build an unprecedented path: let 7+ characters embody and traverse their own stories at the intersections between the various selves. Furthermore, it must be specified that manual destruction is a project within the project, that is, it is the writing design part that accompanies the Post-global Village – Design Antifragile project by Prof. Mirko Tattarini at Fuorisalone 2022.

Why the absence of an apostrophe in the title (in Italian, “Manuale d’istruzione” means “instruction manual”, while “Manuale distruzione” means “hand-made destruction”)? Why “destruction manual” and not “instruction manual”?

In the constant loss of orientation generously offered to the reader, pursued with stubborn determination by the Narrative Units, this vision on Antifragile was forged, bending creativity and project to a single goal: to write this manual. Which, losing the apostrophe, transforms the book into a brick ready to explode on the reader’s head, a detonating verbal device that marks the power of post-Ouplipian writing, possible and due, urgent to be alive.

What is the interpretation of this work? What makes it special and fascinating, making it creative to the point of being innovative?

Here error triumphed as a method, taking over the program. But not only this: the obscurity of clarity, the chaos of order, the case of determination, the inexplicable on the perspicuous, the invisible on the poster, the uncertainty on the evidence, the volatility on the stability.

Choosing to fragment and disfigure the Antifragile narrative in a multi-pov story (but absolutely not collective or choral), where the scraps and grafts are more relevant than the single narrative arcs, has given rise to a surprising result because it is impossible to foresee. . It is appropriate to say it clearly: here the paginated word triumphs over the imagined one and its output is an unpublished case of Writing Design, where there is the only category – the most powerful – escaped the sharp gaze of Nassim Nicholas Taleb: narration and his weapon, writing.