Basic Zone

Basic Zone at Casa Madre, Naples.

“Basic is the forgotten debris of the collective effort towards individualism, the unconscious substratum of daily experience, a banal spontaneous product of economical and cultural forces, changing radically with every generation. Basic is not simple, and is not obtained through reduction, it is more a universal grey, a state of mind which most people try to escape. But this greyness is actually a precious existential experience, a joyful misery that allows us to be united in difference, to abandon the tiring quest for uniqueness in favour of a relaxed banality. Basic Zone is a safe haven to explore various aspects of this subversive banality, which is reflected in the experience of moving through a city, in managing our domestic space, and in social dynamics at large. The city has become a basic canvas, retaining only a disembodied sense of the “urban” as codified roughness, countered by the ever-slicker interface of the devices that allow us to navigate through it. Street tags are the desperate attempt to establish continuity between the universe of sprawling feelings and opinions, which constitutes our existence online, and the collective urban space which has become purely infrastructural and utilitarian or falsely romantic. Since the exceptional is the food for real estate speculation, the basis of successful branding and what constitute the tyranny of the popular, a Basic Zone is a place of resistance, a way out from the slavery of creativity, a place for happy mediocrity” – Allesandro Bava, Casa Madre