OSSIGENO

Index

Beneath our feet _ by George Monbiot

«Beneath our feet is a miracle», writes the award-winning Guardian columnist, essayist and environmental activist George Monbiot, for the opening act of Ossigeno 12. But if we cannot know the reasons for miracles for they are supernatural, nothing is more natural than the soil, which we do not know only because of our guilty neglect. Between data and enchantment, Monbiot tells us that miracle of life and vitality that is soil.

The soil that cultivates water. In conversation with Lorenzo Costa

Like his Renaissance namesake, a great artist at the court of the Este family, Lorenzo Costa paints new morphologies by shaping the soil with water. An Italian pioneer of permaculture, his practice responds to three imperatives – to slow down, to distribute, to infiltrate – by listening to and respecting the land of Chianti and cultivating, like his fellow countryman Leonardo, the spark of experimentation.

The immortality of the paradigm. Aztec chinampas, custodians of biodiversity

There are some founding myths that, though distant from us in time and latitude, are still able to point the way. The model of the chinampas descends from Mexica-Aztecan mythology, generating soil from water and, through the work of associations such as Arca Tierra, connecting the biblical narrative of the Promised Land to the rhizomatic reality of the urban jungle.

Land of Enough: soil and intergenerational justice. In conversation with Alberto Pirni

What does the philosophical principle of intergenerational justice mean? We asked one of its noble fathers, the philosopher and professor Alberto Pirni, to find out how it fertilely grafts not only onto the abstract concept of morale, but also onto the concrete reality of the soil, in terms of sustainability and responsibility in the consumption of resources. Revolutionizing the alibi of Enough.

Tomorrow. The answers are written in the ground

The 2015 documentary Tomorrow is the antidote to the apocalyptic, dead-end scenarios daily produced by the media as a conditioned reflex to the ringing of the environmental crisis bell. In a road movie that stops at virtuous examples discovered at every latitude of the planet, answers such as urban gardens, permaculture and composting are already here, germinating in the ground.

That spoon that ensures life (and heals the soil)

C’è più vita in un cucchiaio da tavola riempito di terra, che nella totalità di esseri umani che abitano il pianeta. Ossigeno 12 ospita Emanuele Isonio di Re Soil Foundation, ente scientifico no profit, per dare autorevole voce alla vastissima vitalità del suolo, violato nello strappo dall’agricoltura sostenibile all’agroindustria intensiva, perché ciò che accade di sopra cura la salute del mondo di sotto ma, soprattutto, viceversa.

Regenerating by idling

Regeneration as rebirth, where the added value lies in the absolute absence of fatigue required. Regenerative agriculture, which gives the soil total freedom to flourish again in accordance with its natural times and ways, thinks beyond the soil and embraces the entire ecosystem. After all, the foundation of its thinking lies right in the layers of the soil, called horizons; the sustainable horizon of our future lies, then, in fertile idleness.

From gratitude to Navdanya

Embodiment of the effort in the protection of biological and cultural diversity. Honoured in 1993 with the Right Livelihood Award, the Alternative Nobel Prize for Peace. Quantum physicist and economist, vice president of Slow Food International and founder of Navdanya: signing for Ossigeno #11 the opening text on the interrelation between water, soil and humanity, the global icon of activism Vandana Shiva.

Hydraulic diptych and other stories. Some conversations with Frank Westerman

The fluid and evocative poetics by Leonardo Merlini merges with the narrative intensity by the renowned Dutch writer Frank Westerman in a tale, that of their encounters, sailing on the waters of Venice and the Vajont, of Lake Nyos and the Ark of Noah. The large-scale hydraulic works as ports for sailing towards a narration of the contemporary, and of the human attempt to govern its flows.

The body and shelter: right to water and contemporary art. A conversation with Gian Maria Tosatti

We immerse ourselves in the aesthetics of water and its symbolic power through the meeting with Gian Maria Tosatti – to whom, in 2022, Italy has entrusted its largest artistic institutions, the Venice Biennale and the Rome Quadrennial – choosing him as a bright beacon to investigate the shelter that his art has offered to water as a universal right, and to culture as interdisciplinary fluidity.

Water in the desert

Water disinfection and recycling, desalination, drip irrigation: Israel, a nation whose morphology is 60% desert, has been able to make a virtue out of necessity, becoming a pioneer in the implementation of cutting-edge technologies to deal with the global problem of water scarcity. The report by Patricia Golan, member of the Israeli innovation community DeserTech.

FreeWater: the water revolution. A conversation with Albert Prewitt

The future of marketing goes through a free bottle of water. This is revealed to us by Albert Prewitt, founding partner of FreeWater, a US startup able to adopt the principle of opportunity cost by the Nobel Prize Milton Friedman not only to produce a fair and sustainable revenue, but above all in order to support a non-profit organization the likes of Save the Refugees, and in order to quench thirst in the world.

Veryverywhite: the water and mercury polyptych by Angelo Del Negro

The white surrounding the exterior of this Ossigeno issue also concludes its interior through the photographic series by Angelo Del Negro, immersed in the White Beaches of Rosignano, boldly renamed the Caribbean of Livorno. However, white sand and crystal clear water are nothing but the fake Paradise of the spill of bleaching agents by the nearby Solvay. Because appearances can sometimes be deceiving.

Morality knows, morality grows

If it is morality, it is ever-changing, in relation to the mutations of the planet and in mankind coming from contemporaneity. If it is morality, it knows how to modify itself in order to protect life, each and every form of life. If it is morality, its synonym is “therefore”.

Aestheticsanaesthetics. Tracklist of a pas de deux

To be outside, to be under, to be against, in order to give voice to the different. Ethics is the beating heart of aesthetics when it has the courage, freedom and power to be anarchist, neither indifferent nor complacent, becoming voice of the Third Landscape.

Ethics and competence: people turn to companies

Since 2001, the Edelman Trust Barometer is a compass in estimating a feature underlying any relationship: trust. In the pandemic of information hygiene tagged 2021, media, governments and NGOs give way to the positive path taken by companies. Our analysis.

From sicily to Hong Kong, no mafia is infallible.
an oxfordian conversation with Federico Varese

Mafia: gargantuan at the table, sovereign in its ideological framework, weakened by Amazon, Netflix and the revelation of its own fractures. An interview with Federico Varese, Professor of Criminology at Oxford, the most renowned expert in organized crime.

Estimable and inestimable. From company profit to company value

There is another side full of light, and it goes beyond profit. From the Renaissance to a historic sentence of the ‘900s, up to Tony’s Chocolonely and the Doughnut Economy, shining examples of companies united by the need for value, before than that for profit.

Revolutionary like beauty. Adriano Olivetti’s lesson

Beauty is an urge, but ≪aesthetics without ethics are cosmetics≫. Within the Artistic Capitalism, a man has been both Midas and Daedalus, turning art and culture into his greatest manifesto. Epitome of visionary capability, Adriano Olivetti’s lesson.

Interlude. A tale by Mustafa Sabbagh

Multilevel and the fable

The staircase of Network Marketing and its scattered squeaks. With the support of three experts – the Professor Carolina Guerini, the expert in NLP Marco Benassi and the community admin Alessandro Norcia – how to identify the step easy to stumble upon.

Carob: the measure of gold

A veteran autobiography of a fruit that once was measure of gold and diamond: ≪We all know how important family is; and ours has ruled since we arrived upon Greek vessels, when Christ had yet been born≫. Not to mention Judas…

Pear: a portrait of modesty

A huffy autobiography of a false fruit, cruel fate towards who dominates the Louvre too: ≪I hear them whispering behind my back: She will always be second to that other one. Mean, I’d say, if my motto were not: Let us not talk of them, but look and pass on≫.

Environmental method vs. parlour environmentalism: some necessary steps on the road to sustainability

Having a method means possessing the tools to obtain a complete reading of each phenomenon. Two case studies – solar panels and urban gardens – highlight how environmental sustainability also requires the rigor of an analytical method

The good inside. The excellence in prison work: stories of food, stories of men

a four-step dossier that, beyond the bars, investigates the microcosm of prison economy: behind walls as high as those of a castle, but with barbed wire, processed by invisible hands, a focus about the good inside.

Vices and virtues of a favorite: the apricot

the apricot and its self-showing flavored with hubris, haughty since childhood: the controversial fate of the favorite.

The pine nut at the time of the fall of the gods

a fruit and the strength of an icon: pine cone was pedigreed as superior, but now the future of the myth cannot be satisfied only with 16 mg of calcium.

On pulque, violence and redemption of the lasts

fermentation knows how to go beyond acid notes, and here it leads to violence: violence of sound, of message, of an urge.

Diary of an invisible (if necessary, break the media showcase)

becoming transparent as the most extreme act of rebellion that you can think of. To disappear, to leave room for emptiness, in order to increase the volume of the clash – as contemporary art teaches.

Philosophy has always been queer. An interview with Leonardo Caffo

life takes place in reasoning about other species and hybridization. An interview with Leonardo Caffo, eccentric and diagonal thoughts, and an irrevocable self-examination: we are the virus.

Cannibal brain

talking about coincidences: fire discovered, meat cooked, intestine decreased, brain increased. Evolutionism says that we think only once we have digested.

The surplus value of surpluses.
For an ecology of the debate about sustainability in architecture

ecology so as not to limit sustainability to the facade alone. Architectural solutions can go beyond materials, to meet truly sustainable needs.

Words mind-oxygenating

the chemistry of the words and why it is better to say are you free now? rather than do I bother you?. Linguistic intelligence and its effects on brain and emotions.

The post-pandemic care is doughnut-shaped.
The economic and bioethical model by Kate Raworth

we can change by giving a new meaning to things. Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economy convinces Amsterdam, that deals with the Covid healing the planet.

The exceptional feat is being normal. An interview with Gianluca Gorini

La Repubblica defines him «one of the strongest talents in the ranks of the second generation of New Italian Cuisine»: O6 meets Gianluca Gorini, whose taste experience turns past into future, and normality into exceptionality.

Standing point: mango

The poetic metaphor guarded by a fruit symbol of wisdom and perfection, from Kama’s amorous quiver to Ganesha’s wise hands.

Breaking point: the walnut

The blatant metaphor guarded by a fruit similar to a brain in form, and to the protection of self in substance.

Grand hotel Lanthimos

O6 meets the evocative dramaturgy of the Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, son of his time and of a land cradle of myth, imagining to materialize his powerful vision in a physical place like that of a hotel lobby, and traveling through the social experiment [#Sixdegrees, page 52], the music [#Solo, page 60] and the history of costume and architecture [#Habitus, page 62].

In the name of pasteur. New dialogues between science and fermentation

An excursus on contemporary scientific achievements in promoting the beneficial effects of fermentation: from Louis Pasteur to… Lisa Simpson.

What we are not eating is killing us. An interview with prof. Ashkan Afshin

From Bill Gates’ IHME headquarters in Seattle, O6 interviews Ashkan Afshin, signatory of a relevant study on Health effects of dietary risks on 195 Countries, whose rigorous revelations subvert Feuerbach’s famous maxim: we are not only what we eat, but also – and above all – what we don’t.

The most honest of deceptions. An interview with Francesco Tesei

Even to an inexperienced eye it is clear: in the masterpiece by Holbein The Ambassadors something does not seem right. It’s anamorphosis, a deception of human perception, like those told by Francesco Tesei, our personal guide through the art of mentalism of which he is one of international leading figures. Between pages, to be decrypted through a QR Code, an excerpt from Tesei’s performance exclusively held for O6.

The athletics of proprioception

Short history of stretching, perceived halfway between prodigy and damage – common destiny of those disciplines in which man stands at the center of an individual knowledge path.

Transcendental meditation®: the still waters of a great empire, the deep waters of David Lynch

The unified field, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and David Lynch: between the empire of chaos and the Inland Empire lies the distance of one thought.

Naples. Sense and sensibility [maria nazionale 1 – jane austen 0]

One of those rare cases in which surrendering to clichés is the best of choices, when clichés are so unrepeatable. For O6, art critic Anita Pepe ‘feels’ Naples.

In the mood. An interview with August Lill

In the mood, groovy and pleasant, like the 1939 jazz classic, with the raw twist of Nordic electro, as the land from whence he came: it’s the taste experience proposed by August Lill. Photographic portrait of the Chef realized for O5 by Mustafa Sabbagh.

Cashew nuts: the kidney before the heart, the hope before the joy

There is a connection between the cashew nuts, bossa nova and saudade, heart and kidneys, the Traditional Chinese Medicine: we’ll discover it between the lines of this article.

Strawberry on trial

Simultaneous symbol of amorous passion and unbridled innocence, the strawberry – guilty of being innocent – the strawberry is not even a fruit.

Pietro Sedda. Palimpsest [zapping in the night]

The story of a sweet shipwreck and of a sailor who has been able to sanctify his art: Pietro Sedda, one of the ten most important tattoo-artists in the world, but that’s not all. A tale of the artist by means of the social experiment [#Sixdegrees, page 52], the music [#Solo, page 60] and the history of costume and architecture [#Habitus, page 62]

How the kecap forgot himself

Rarely has a recipe so radically changed its connotations. A history of kecap – from its fermentation in Phu Quoc, to its version made in the USA.

Circadian rhythms and the art of motorcycle maintenance. An interview to Jeffrey Connor hall, nobel prize for medicine 2017

The Nobel Prize winner Jeffrey Connor Hall, worldrenowned geneticist and chronobiologist, for a science talk that, from fruit flies, goes through Sergio Leone’s westerns… and through the Abba.

Breath engineering

The lightest evidence of human life and the poetry of its uninterrupted mechanics: energy flows and emotional states of breathing.

From thinking to wrestling, and return

There is a before and an after, it is necessary to foresee and act accordingly. The wrestling and its mind training in the words of Giovanni Morsiani, president of Faenza Lotta, award-winning Olympic champion with a hundred years of history.

Gut microbiota: a commentary on the internal struggles of our second brain

The most complex and organized colony existing. Thirty-nine trillion immigrants who, under extreme conditions, work for our well-being. Its name is microbiota, and it represents our forgotten organ.

Álvaro Campo. Oporto notes

The travel journal of an author by profession, who experiences the city and captures its essence listening to the language of the body, plus a Google Maps itinerary not so easily traced by the tourist guides. For O5, the repentant architect – today part of the management board of the famous Casa da Música – Álvaro Campo ‘feels’ Oporto.

Brand new culture. An interview with Yoji Tokuyoshi

Interculturalism means different culture in its turn, enshrining world’s future. Here is Yoji Tokuyoshi’s interpretation of the encounter between Italy and Japan. Photographic portrait exclusively realized for O4 by Mustafa Sabbagh.

The dark side of the apple. Investigation on a fruit above suspicion

A journey in the middle where the worm dwells, where – in addition to the very famous nutrients – it is good to take into account man-made literary tampering.

More than a peanut. In arachis’ defence, from Schulz to Jankélévitch

The “spineless” fruit is much more worth than the reductive meanings attributed by common language. Organoleptic, but also epistemological, analysis: even Schulz would have changed his mind.

Iris van Herpen. The techno-appeal of the inorganic

Iris van Herpen’s creations – compendiums of high tailoring, contemporary art and scientific testing – are pure Gesamtkunstwerk with a fetish techno-appeal. A tale of the Dutch designer by means of social experiment [#Sixdegrees, page 59], music [#Solo, page 66], history of costume and architecture [#Habitus, page 68] and history of art [#Lavoisier Reloaded, page 74]

About norse alchemies and taste transmutations. The scandinavian trilogy of fish fermentation

Extreme in food and how to bend it to one’s own will. Fish fermentation in Northern Europe, alchemical path in three steps, and acquired taste as a social construct.

All that glitters. Commodification of childhood through the 4p of marketing

Risk shelves. Focus groups and trendspotters to study children and adolescents’ behavior from the inside, insidiously, chasing them “from the cradle to the grave” through food neuromarketing.

Tale of the ego and the troublemaker āsana

Self-centered yoga: almost an automatism, the search for inner peace exalts Ego. The tangible risk of ruining everything by  approaching āsanas through the wrong question.

The emerodrome and the art of running. An interview with Stefano Baldini

Mind and body: running and learning how to do it. On O4 pages the Olympic gold medalist Stefano Baldini, at the wire to win the 2004 Athens Marathon, on Pheidippides’ road.

Music makes tomatoes grow. An interview with maestro Giuseppe Vessicchio

The Mozart-Effect and music able to give wellbeing, to plants too. Maestro Giuseppe Vessicchio’s field research, in a journey through matter elasticity and its ability to vibrate.

Enrica Camporesi: performing Antwerp. A six-act opera

The travel journal of an author by profession, who experiences the city and captures its essence listening to the language of the body, plus a Google Maps itinerary not so easily traced by the tourist guides. For O4, the curator and dramaturge Enrica Camporesi ‘feels’ Antwerp.

Unknown pleasures. An interview with valeria margherita mosca

Wild paths and unknown pleasures in Valeria Margherita Mosca’s culinary research: the contact with nature, its relationship with the human… and the post-punk inspiration. Photographic portrait exclusively realized for O3 by Mustafa Sabbagh.

Tasting the landscape: the art of foraging

From the verb ‘to research in nature’: declination of discovery with an urban spirit, of natural and multifaceted nourishment for the body as for the soul.

An introduction to the green gem from Persia: the pistachio

Precious gift for biblical pharaohs and legendary queens: the Pistachio, mythology and organoleptics of the Persian gem.

From the hesperides to humankind, golden history of a herculean theft: the orange

Nymphs protect its tree, while zagare magnify its branch. The orange, literary synthesis of flowers and splendor.

CollettivO CineticO. Just push play

Dance + theatre, Foucault + Warhol: CollettivO CineticO, performing arts ensemble who’s conquering the whole world stages, narrated as a role-playing game whose coordinates are the social experiment [Sixdegrees, page 55], the music [Solo, page 62], the history of costume and architecture [Habitus, page 64] and a social network interview [PrO+ust breathing, page 74].

Kombucha. When ‘immortal’ is the elixir

The tea of the Emperor that unified China while looking for the long life elixir. Sparkling and acidulous, as precious as champagne. In the photographic tables ‘Fermento Morandi’ – artworks in exclusive by Mustafa Sabbagh – the collaboration between Ossigeno and the young sculptors from Faenza’s ITS, creators of fermenters designed and dedicated to O3.

Media power on under 12s: the influence of television on children’s food choices

The holistic approach of the infant neuropsychiatry in investigating the invisible, yet devious, line between media neuromarketing and children’s eating behaviors, with an in-depth analysis of the role of violence in tv fictions aimed at minors.

Samadhi. The world as súmbolon

From the yogic asanas to the Temple of Delphi, ‘know yourself’ as the reappropriation of that unitary conciliation that binds the individual to the world.

The body is trustful above all things: antigym

The body is abode. Sometimes uninhabited. The ‘anti’ version of the kinesiotherapist Thérèse Bertherat.

Radiesthesia and radionics. On the body’s playing field

A matter of frequencies and resonances, new units of measurement and relationship between bodies. Radionics and radiesthesia:

quantum physics translates ancient dialogues.

Paola Nicita & Palermo: l’aleph

The travel journal of an author by profession, who experiences the city and captures its essence listening to the language of the body, plus a Google Maps itinerary not so easily traced by the tourist guides. For O3, the art critic Paola Nicita ‘feels’ Palermo, Italian Capital of Culture for 2018.

Entry for the verb “to ferment”

From Sandor Ellix Katz to Daniela Cicioni: the antique technique of fermentation through the contemporary and cosmopolitan application of the guest-chef of O2.

Iridescent child of the rain and the thunder. The maca root

From the ancient legends of the high plains of Peru to us, the gift of a nutraceutical with multiple properties.

Hermes’ caduceus. The hazelnut

The mythology and organoleptics of a nut with strong powers, as symbolically evocative as it is beneficial for the organism.

Vanessa Beecroft vb01 _ 00 _ 100.000

Vanessa Beecroft and her bio-aesthetics- splendid, lyric, disruptive- taken on as fil rouge for a jaunt into the social experiment [Seigradi, 53], music [Solo, 61], the history of costume and architecture [Habitus, 62].

Myod moon

Myod as a drink of solemn occasions, the Russian experience of mead, fermented nectar among the oldest in the world.

Eating disorders in children: the challenge for early prevention

The holistic approach of the infant neuropsychiatry in treating issues such as responsive feeding and the affective bond between mother and child, within the context of the most recent developments of WHO.

Hatha Yoga. The sacred nature of the body

The Yoga of the Sun and the Moon to overcome polarity and reach, reappropriating the sacred nature of the

body, a state of Oneness.

Feldenkrais, psycho-physical polyphony

From the elasticity of the body to the flexibility of the mind: an interview with Nancy Haller, President of the Feldenkrais Guild – North America.

From chaos to concert. The electromagnetic fields of water

The state-of-the-art of memory of water – the piano that with its accompaniment organises the notes of the single molecules in the right arrangement.

Stefano and Berlin

The most authentic knowledge is the one experienced by senses: the travel journal, subjective and so authentic, of a man – author by profession – who experiences the capital and captures its essence listening to the language of the body, and a Google Maps itinerary not easily traced by the tourist guides. For O2, the art historian Stefano Santangelo feels Berlin.

Açai

The thousand and one qualities of this fruit which, according to the legend, came from weeping tears turned into wonderful berries.

Almonds

The symbolic strength in connecting spaces, eras and cultures, of this fruit with highly beneficial properties.

Carlo Pastore

Portrait of the illustrator, who has signed his unpublished panels for Ossigeno: Carlo Pastore, artist, explorer and art patron.

Mustafa Sabbagh

The analysis of the real through the artistic visions of one of the protagonists of contemporary art photography in the world, as the fil rouge to trespass into social experimentation (Seigradi, 58), into music (Assolo, 65), into fashion and architecture (Habitus, 66).

The aesthetics of a ritual: Korea on the table

A journey of the senses into the Hansik; an ancient Korean culinary philosophy, which bonds food culture to the beauty of the ritual.

How a bee became a queen bee

The food that cures: the new fontiers of nutriepigenetic.

Yoga, “the eternal present”

The ancient discipline that awakens and balance body, mind and soul.

Nordic walking

From Northern Europe: walk and be reborn.

The Tui Na massage

From Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), between Yin and Yang, this massage can reassess a perfect body energy balance.

Madrid & Simona

The truest knowledge comes from that of our senses: the diary of a journey, intimate, thus authentic, of someone – a professional writer – who experiences the Capital city and catches its essence by listening to the language of the body and a Google Maps itinerary, which would be impossible to find in any field guide.

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