THE 1992 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

VOYAGE IN THE PLANET OF ART

To continue the Plexus art journey, from a controversial story of Christopher Columbus,
in his early experiences as captain, about a “route correction” made by altereting the
compass of his ship, in front of the Island of San Pietro, off Sardinia, Sandro Dernini got
the idea to organize there an event in 1992, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of
Columbus’s landing in the Americas. Therefore, on March 10 of 1989, in New York, at
the Anderson Room of New York University, it was establish The 1992 Christopher
Columbus Consortium, made up by a group of universities, community organizations
and individuals with the purpose to develop a variety of projects of voyages of cultural
navigation, within the global vision of the living planet.
The 1992 Christopher Columbus Anniversary : A Cultural Navigation

Artworks by Ivan Dalla Tana, New York 1989

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Christopher Columbus Consortium’s Report N.1 to the Community

Joanee Freedom and Sandro Dernini, CUANDO, New York 1989

Arturo Lindsay and Sandro Dernini

Miguel Algarin and Mickey Pinero’s father, Juma Santos, CUANDO, New York 1989

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Christopher Columbus Consortium Report N.2 to the Community

Rivington School, 172 Forsythe Street, New York 1989

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 Rivington School

Tovey Halleck

Rivington School, 172 Forsythe Street, New York 1989

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 The Departure of the 1992 Christopher Columbus Cultural Navigation

S. Di Lauro, Shock Troop Theatre, S. Dernini, G. Chaikin, Institute of Computer Art, New York 1989
The Departure from the Albert Einstein's House

George Chaikin and Sandro Dernini, at Albert Einstein's House, Princeton 1989
The Landing at the Physics Dept. of the University of Cagliari

Willem Brugman, S. Jackson S. Di Lauro, A. Caboni, David Boyle, Franco Meloni, Sandro Dernini
Physics Dept, University of Cagliari, 1989

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 The 1992 Christopher Columbus Cultural Navigation

Elisabeth boat, Carloforte, Sardinia 1989

Antonio Caboni, Willem Brugman, Tanya Gerstle, Monte Liuru, Sardinia 1989

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Christopher Columbus Voyage in the Art Planet

Poster by Micaela Serino, Metateatro, Rome 1989

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 Christopher Columbus Voyage in the Art Planet

M. Pia Marsala, M. Schwartz, Antonio Caboni, Willem Brugman, David Boyle, Tanya Gerstle, Luisa
Taravella, Micaela Serino, Loreto Pappadia, A. Ducrot, Sara Jackson, Stephen Di Lauro,
Roberto Federici, Sandro Dernini, Fabrizio Bertuccioli

Stephen DiLauro, Willem Brugman, Sara Jackson, David Boyle

Metateatro, Rome 1989, photos by Beppe Forli

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 Christopher Columbus Voyage in the Art Planet

Fabrizio Bertuccioli Sara Jackson

M.Pia Marsala, David Boyle, Willem Brugman, Tanya Gerstle, Fabrizio Bertuccioli, Michela Serino,
Annetta Ducrot, Metateatro, Rome 1989, photo by Beppe Forli

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Christopher Columbus Voyage in the Art Planet

Antonio Caboni, Metateatro, Rome 1989

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PLEXUS BLACK BOX
At the end of the art opera 1992 Christopher Columbus Voyage in the Planet of Art,
Plexus was conceptually closed in a black box . The idea was metaphorically to "freeze”
Plexus and its activities within a "black box" to be preserved for contemporary art
history. It was a conscious act made for the historical survival of Plexus, in order to
bypass internal artists conflicts raised by the participation of Plexus into the C.Columbus
Consortium and to gain time towards a new art strategy for the survival of Plexus.
Therefore, Plexus Black Box was identified by Sandro Dernini as the subject of his
Ph.D. dissertation in art education at the New York University.

The Closing of Plexus into a Black Box to Be Delivered to Art History

Roberto Federici , Sandro Dernini, Fabrizio Bertuccioli, Metatetro, Rome 1989, photo by Beppe Forli

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 The Closing of Plexus into a Black Box to Be Delivered to Art History

Paola Muzzi and Sandro Dernini Antonio Caboni

The Black Box (La Scatola Nera)
At the finish of July we commence a
comforting phase of auto-analysis that is
made possible by the relative confinement
of the Plexus movement within the scattola
nera (black box). The confinement is
accomplished by utilizing the material
residue of the movement that we call
documentation in a ritual manner. Until this
decisive moment/action the Plexus
movement was following the traditional
path into history, but by this action which
constitutes an intervention in the process,
we choose our point from which to address
history. The traditional path included a
gradual abandonment of active interest in
the movement. By utilizing the metaphor
of planetary mass we could understand the
evacuation of the most heavy elements
from the core of the body (mass) results in
an instability that necessitates a collapse
of the body to re-establish the core mass.
Rather than to wrack the body of this
movement with such a change of structure,
we have intervened to freeze the
movement in time through the use of ritual
documentation. The core group is
stabilized by this action. Founding
members of the movement cited
dissatisfaction with the shift within the
movement away from new ideas. The
action taken by the remaining elements of
the movement to place the movement in a
sort of stasis to facilitate analysis
represents a sort of retrospective
consensus.
S. Dernini, Metateatro, Rome 1989, photos by B. Forli David Boyle, New York 1989

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 Open The Door of Your Heart to Go into the Future

Installation by Fabrizio Bertuccioli, Metateatro, Rome 1989, photos by Beppe Forli

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 PLEXUS BLACK BOX OPEN CALL
1982 1989
BRING YOUR IDEAS FOR A GENERAL DISCUSSION ON

PUT INTO A BLACK BOX

YOUR CONTRIBUTION FOR AN ACTUAL DEFINITION OF WHAT
PLEXUS HAS BEEN, WHAT IT SHOULD BE, AND WHAT IT COULD BE.
The data collected until next September will be analysed by an
international board of referees after the public opening of the BLACK BOX
in Holland
Franco Meloni, Dept. of Physics, University of Cagliari, Italy, July 4th, 1989

Paradox
Any serious consideration of PLEXUS must take into account the distinction between
the objective reality, which is independent of any theory, and the physical concepts
with which the theory operates.” Why to use a fundamental article at the basis of the
unsolved questionable dispute between the probabilistic exponents of the
Copenaghen School, and the deterministic scientists, Einstein et al., to introduce a
discussion concerning PLEXUS? To gain credibility, for example. And because of the
intimate fashion that I see looking to problems involving few definite positions and
many possible developments able to augment our desire to implement connections
between different domains of knowledge. The most exciting and sometime appealing
question I have ever heard in these two years of activity in PLEXUS concerns my
position as scientific entity in the not-ever-clear artistic movement. Generally, - What
is PLEXUS? and what is your position in it? - is a very intriguing statement, mainly
because of the complexity of the answer. I have tried many times to avoid a clear
definition, but a night, forced by Sandro, a kind of equation came out in the form:
PLEXUS = kB ln Ω. There is a strong influence in this late-night output due to my old
love for Boltzmann and for the implication that the true formula, where PLEXUS = S,
the entropy of the system, had for the developments of Physics in many directions. It
is very easy to connect the statement to many concepts in some way related to
PLEXUS: i) there is the sense of the whole system as composed by separate but
important parts: the artist in the first person; ii) there is the answer concerning the
system as open or not, and the consequent entropy increment, with or without critical
filters; iii) there is the close connection with the freedom of and in communication,
Shannon relations of 1948 defining information as the difference of entropy before
and after a message, and PLEXUS concerns also information; iv) there is in general
the relationship between order and disorder; v) there is something of artistic in the
definition of non-deterministic entities, in a sense exciting as von Neuman said on the
term entropy related to information: "...no one knows what entropy really is, so in a
debate you will always have the advantage" ...

Franco Meloni, Department of Physics, University of Cagliari

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Plexus Black Box
In all computers programs what they do not understand goes in a black box.
Plexus Black Box project is basically a container for all miscellanies archetypes of art
which are not explainable, when they not fit in the existing stereotypes of artworlds of
music, theatre, visual art, etc. Plexus every two - three years goes into a reborn
phase, redefining what is going to do and Plexus Black Box serves for it. The big
problem that Plexus is facing is money. A community-based urban intelligentsia,
placed in different cities in the world, is the today core of Plexus and each has
theoretically pieces of the original archetype of Plexus Black Box turned into a
metaphor. None knows what it is and what they are doing with it. But it allow all
Plexus people to feel part of that culture and to make their own definition of it, which is
fine because more information goes into and more information has to be defined.
Plexus Black Box is an artform of artificial intelligence which about nobody knows in
advance because it is made as an happening with no money. In the end, the
methodology of the conceptual “Plexus Black Box” may be considered as the
methodology of the construction of a Faustian toy, in which more non useful
information goes in there. In turn, in the Plexus Black Box, more metamorphosis will
come out.
Mitch Ross, New York

Artwork by Mitch Ross, New York 1989

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