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Rapporteurs 1. Block

Knowledge and its application

Rapporteurs participating in the area: Knowledge. Ethics and Aesthetics


Franco Berardi
He joined the 1968 Movement in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Bologna  where he studied Aesthetics  with Luciano Anceschi and adhered to the extra-parliamentary group, Workers' Power, where he became a lead national figure.
In 1970 he published his first book, Contro il lavoro (published by Feltrinelli). In 1975 he founded the magazine A/traverso, the creative movement publication of Bologna in 1977. In 1976 he co-founded the free radio station, Radio Alice. He was arrested during the investigation against Workers Autonomy and to request for his release, Radio Alice organized a festival in Piazza Maggiore where over ten thousand people participated. Bifo was released shortly after and became the leader of the “creative wing” of the 1977 student protest in Bologna.
After the closure of the radio station by the police, a warrant was issued against Bifo for "incitement of class hatred through the radio”, and he escaped arrest by fleeing Bologna. He fled to Paris where he frequented with Felix Guattari and Michel Foucault and published the book Enfin le ciel est grave sur la terre (Published by Seuil).
In the eighties he came back briefly to Italy  and then moved to New York where he worked with magazines Semiotext and Musica 80. He traveled widely in Mexico, India, China and Nepal. In that period, he dedicated himself to the growth of computer networks and predicted  the future explosion of the net as  a vast social and cultural phenomenon. In the late eighties he  moved to California where he published several essays on cyberpunk. In 2000 he founded L’Ambiente di Rete" Rekombinant (The Net Environment” Rekombinant) together with Matteo Pasquinelli. .
In 2002 he founded Orfeo TV, the first Italian street television. In 2005 his pamphlet that railed against the social policies of the new Mayor of Bologna, Sergio Cofferati, was given emphasis in the headlines of national newspapers. He currently works as a teacher at the Istituto Tecnico Industriale Aldini Valeriani in Bologna. He writes regularly to the daily newspaper Liberazione and the e-group Rekombinant.

 

Simone Casu
Studies creative art processes and master of learning techniques based on self-education.  Co-author of several books about the basic methodology of VE.RA.DI (See, Think, Draw: www.veradi.eu).  Author of the basic method SE.VE.PI (Feel, See, Paint), and the more advanced method ES.TE.TRA (Expression, Technique, Transcendence; www.estetra.org).  For more than twenty years he has endeavoured to spread, internally and socially, the New Universalist Humanism.  Member of the Salvatore Puledda Centre of Humanist Studies in Rome.

TITLE OF THE INTERVENTION
Insights on Future Developments of the Aesthetics of the New Spirituality.

ABSTRACT
To imagine the art of a new civilization is to imagine what could be the sensitivity that could give a psychosocial unity to the future generations. We must observe the seeds, which today are only trends, that may give rise to a different civilization in the future. Observing these trends may lead us to discover some features of the past and perhaps lead us to discover that an ancient proposal unites mankind to a universalist aesthetic ideal, wherein there would be no difference between ethics and aesthetics. This intention which transcends various eras as a profound necessity, can be felt in the hearts of men and women whose direction is to build a Universal Human Nation.
But how can this fragile voice make itself heard and touch the great soul of the world?
This signal, before being translated into new economic, social, political or cohabitation models, will certainly dance the way a dancer dances, will rhyme like a poet’s verse, will move people like in theatre performances, and will radiate in music and colours.  Who knows if the arts will, in this era, collect and sow the seeds for the New Civilisation?


Rapporteurs participating in the area: Science and Technology

Angelo Barracca
Nuclear Physicist. He is a professor of physics at the University of Florence and has published several of books and has conducted researches in several areas of Physics and History and Criticisms of Science. For several years, he has dealt with the problems of nuclear arms and international relations, participating actively in the Movement for Peace and Disarmament. He writes regularly in magazines engaged in this front. He has written several books on the nuclear issue including: “A volte ritornano: il nucleare. La proliferazione nucleare, Ieri oggi e soprattutto domani.” He is a member of the panel “Scientists Against War”. He supported for the campaign against the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in Europe and adhered to the World March for Peace and Non-Violence.

TOPIC:
Constructing Together the Bases and Method of a New Science for Global and Environmental Justice

ABSTRACT
Modern science is a product of Western society and has introjected the logic of exploitation of resources and human labor for profit. This logic is perpetrating the destruction of the environment and its resources, and promoting a kind of development which exacerbates social injustice, the oppression of man by another, damages, diseases and wars.
A science that can reverse these paradigms and these methods cannot be the result of a work of a community of experts detached from the human society. Certainly the current scientific community is not capable of being such, but the fact is, a great majority has subsumed to the interests of the ruling classes  and its logic of domination and exploitation. If this logic will not change, the future of mankind, the natural environment and the planet are seriously at risk.
What remains is a way to reverse the trend, as long as we are in time. It is more necessary than ever that individuals held in the social fabric - above and beyond geographical boundaries and differences of all kinds - are able to portray the collective needs based on equality, justice and balance with the environment;  and are able to build amongst them a new order, culture, knowledge and new practices.
It is difficult to predict what will be the bases and contents of a new science based on these foundations  since in the entire past history, the needs of the masses such as the people's fundamental rights and the balance of nature, have been denied, subdued, physically or surreptitiously distorted by the global elite that holds power. Humanity must acquire the knowledge and power to impose as founding principles - respect and individual development, its health and equilibrium, and the recovery of a balanced relationship with nature and its resources. The knowledge and methods of new science must first adapt to the mechanisms and processes of nature, and not forcing them with the presumption of sorcerer's apprentices (and not eventually becoming Dr. Strangelove) who believe to be better than nature while causing more severe and irreparable reactions inevitably.
The challenge is enormous because the Moloch that dominates the world has gained unprecedented strength, and looks determined to continue to be such by all means. The only force we have is that of reason, and the fact is, there is no other way!

 

Pietro Chistolini
Physicist. He is a researcher of the Instituto Superiore della Sanità di Roma. He is an author of numerous papers on physics and biomechanics in magazines, specialized publications and international conferences. He co-authored "Anthropic Principle" together with Prof. Salvatore Puledda.

TOPIC:
Euclid and the Amoeba:  Improbable dialogue about the foundations of geometry and space in the Western culture.

ABSTRACT
Taking into consideration the Euclidean geometry as a pretext, a quick roundup on some aspects that have strongly influenced Western civilization was undertaken.
Euclidean axioms and theorems are  considered almost like sacred texts in the Western thought. The whole history of the West,  particularly science, can be viewed as an attempt to geometrize and to mathematize the world. But perhaps what is even more interesting and, in some respect, surprising, may be the realization surrounding this millennia of history, that based on observation, tell us of a simple unicellular organism, the amoeba.

 

Federico Pistono
Director, Blogger and IT Expert. In 2002, at age 16, he won a scholarship to UWCAD International College  where he received an education aimed on the sharing of ideas amongst different cultures, living away from home along with 200 students from 82 countries.
In 2007 he founded the "Grilli Biella (http://grillibiellesi.org), an non-profit volunteer association with  civic engagement and the protection of the rights of citizens whose topics of interest are energy, information, waste, connectivity and protection of water as a right to life.
Since 2008 he works in a media firm in Verona, as director and web programmer, focusing on new media and the role of technology in the society.
In 2009 he received his degree in computer science from the University of Verona, Department of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences, with a thesis on "Open Source Implementations of Encoding Algorithms for Video Distribution in the HTML5 Era”.
In 2009 he also won an international competition for blogging and journalism organized by the European Centre for Journalism and was sent to the COP15 in Copenhagen to cover the events on the conference on climate (http://federicopistono.org).
Since May 2009, he is the Italian coordinator of the Zeitgeist Movement (http://zeitgeistitalia.org), an international movement that defines itself as the "activist arm" of the Venus Project. The Venus Project is a non-profit organization that offers a feasible plan of action for social change which seeks a peaceful and sustainable civilization through the conscious use of the technology, calling for a complete redesign of our culture, where the old problems of war, poverty, hunger, debt and unnecessary human suffering are viewed not only as avoidable, but as totally unacceptable. In July 2010, just over a year after its foundation, the Zeitgeist Movement has over 420 thousand members worldwide.

 

Daniele Mancinelli (supporting Federico Pistono)
Graduate of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology in Camerino. He worked on his masters degree  in Molecular Biology within the Svein Valla (NTNU, Norway) team for engineering and development of "gene cloning vectors" which can be integrated into an organism and whose activity can be regulated by the concentration of chemical  substances such as benzoic acid and its derivatives. This genetic structure can be used for industrial production of biological substances or future gene therapies. Later on, he worked for some  years as a researcher in  the research and development sector of a company  active in the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical field specializing in engineering technologies of lipids, particularly those based in omega-3 and used in food production.
He is currently the research manager of the research and devopment department of Natural Nutrition Development, a core researcher sector of Corporation Aker, a company which currently has a leading position in technology that deals with the  production of phospholipids high in omega-3 extracted from krill and  omega-3 oils with high purity levels.
His role in the company is to design and to optimize industrial processes in the pharmaceutical (GMP) and nutraceutical (Food Grade) fields. He is a holder of several patents developed during his industrial activities in these fields. About two years ago he joined the Zeitgeist Movement and remains an activist in the Italian Chapter to date.

ABSTRACT
Technology is advancing at an exponential rate.  Yet our living conditions do not seem to be improving at the same rate.  Society seems paralyzed by something curbing or impeding it.  What opportunity do people have to contribute to an improvement in life for everyone?  How can the problems that affect the human race be resolved?  A brief analysis of the future of the species and how you can change it.