Magazine

In this number

The Unbearable Need for Creativity
Natalia Encolpio

Fashion & Human Rights
Silvia Meneghetti

New Publications

The Power of Images
Jewels in Ontoart
Umbria Man's Land

A.I.A. Courses

Women's Agenda

THE UNBEARABLE NEED FOR CREATIVITY
Natalia Encolpio

Creativity--a fascination that makes us feel the desire, the need, the urgency to change, renew, do something different; a voice that is born in silence and often remains mute, not finding the appropriate channel for expression.
Creativity--a pressing need for the human being. Thus, we also feel compelled to present these ideas, actions, voices that speak, recount, indicate, that propose something different.
Creativity for female protagonists in a changing world--intuitions that become concrete in books, in undertakings, in professional activities, in clothing and in jewelry.

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FASHION & HUMAN RIGHTS
Silvia Meneghetti

Fashion and human rights -- they seem to be opposites, different worlds. One is frivolous, made up of images based exclusively on vanity. The other is important, concrete, almost epistemic and includes people with democratic and perhaps deeper values. Can these two areas ever have anything in common? And most of all, can fashion be a factor for promoting human rights?
Following is an example. Several months ago, the message expressed by publicity images was debated in which the clothes of famous stylists were worn by "toxic models" and photographed with a flow technique
that rendered perfectly the reality of the effects of drugs. At times photographers who, together with the models shared the problem and the same reality, carried out the work. For a year we were bombarded by
these disturbing images. And these images "created" an idea of woman: an image of the "chic and modern" girl. They even spoke of "heroin chic". This is enough to make us understand how fashion, a publicity image, is able to condition and provoke the desire to imitate and repeat the model, even if she is a drug addict, and even if she is killing herself. Therefore, why not use fashion in order to promote change and the rights of man? Through this image, which has an immense following, people could be touched much more directly and rapidly.
And, by means of clothes, attention to human values could also be awakened.

I am a young high fashion designer and in my most recent fashion show I presented my Psyche collection. These are clothes for strong women who are sure of themselves and also very feminine. This collection presents women who live in a futuristic, but ordered and perfect, environment, so perfect that it creates a little nostalgia in them for their chaotic past. The name "Psyche" also indicates the style of my fashion, aimed at unveiling the beauty that exists in every woman and making it unrepeatable, just as in any society the individuality of each person is the highest value to respect.

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NEW PUBLICATIONS

The Power of Images
Natalia Encolpio
Il Cenacolo Publ. House,
Roma, 1998

This is a brief survey to show how the Iso Ontist methodology can be applied both in the reading of a work of art and in the analysis of artistic communication.
In 1993, at the  International Association of Applied Psychology Congress in Madrid, I investigated so-called "aggressions"  on works of art.  In fact, at that time Michelangelo's "David" had just been attacked in Florence.
This phenomenon, unexplainable for historians, can be explained easily and without any difficulty by means of the semantic field.  The semantic field is an informational transducer that transfers information from a broadcaster to a receiver.  There is no passage of energy but only of images that mould and give shape to the energy of the receiver who will then act as a result of the message received.
In the case of aggressions, I have noted that only some artists are victims and that the aggressors all have great artistic sensitivity.
Further, their destructive fury is not by chance.  They want to strike that work and that artist-and no other. Michelangelo Buonarroti is the most attacked artist in Italy.
Biographers note that Michelangelo was his own first aggressor.  In fact, he struck with a hammer one of hi last works, the Piet� of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, which was recomposed later  by a friend.  The unresolved drama of Michelangelo has dialogued over the centuries with those who were able (through thematic selection) to receive that message and carry it out.  The semantic field transfers this unconscious information from the work to the public.
This shows that the artist expresses himself in his work-the conscious part of himself but also the complex repressed part.  The public reads and decodes using logic but dialogues and interacts directly at the
unconscious level.
Artistic communication was the subject of  a subsequent study which, in part, constituted my specialization thesis, presented in 1993 at the University of Siena.
The topic of the investigation  was Stendhal's Syndrome, which strikes some tourists after intensive tours in museums and overexposure to works of art.  The phenomenon, the subject of psychiatric studies, was read, explained and defined using the Iso Ontist method.  Also in this case, the  exact, unconscious (and complexed) correspondence between patient and artist that provoked the syndrome was identified.
However, the passage to contemporary art was still lacking and divided art, pathological art remained to  be analyzed.  The latter  is created when an artist makes a mark that has no coincidence with his intentions.
In order to analyze this phenomenon, I carried out an experimental study based on the study of two artists (both informal): two of their works were compared before a "public" that was neutral and without cultural super-ego,  comprised of middle school students.
My most recent works have been dedicated to  the criterion to apply in decoding artistic images.  By applying the principles of decoding images defined by the Iso Ontism I was able to show with exactness the images that mark Vincent Van Gogh's psychic disgregation.    There is an exact correspondence between marks and pathology right up to Van Gogh's total consumption and suicide.  This study was based on the new
interpretative model, originating from knowledge of Iso Ontism, which adopts the in self  as criterion.  It was the subject of a presentation  at the World Conference on Literacy in Philadelphia (March, 1996), organized through the patronage of Unesco, and at the Conference of Women in Psychology in Portland (March, 1996).
In 1997 I've applied the Iso Ontist  method to analyze the work of another twentieth century artist:   Pablo Picasso brilliant Artist or brilliant destroyer?

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Jewels in Ontoart
Il Cenacolo Publ. House,
Roma, 1998

The jeweler's art has always been expressed in accordance with the major arts and dominant ideologies in different historical periods.
Languages, transferred into metals and precious stones, are the same.
As a result also the module according to which artistic marks are placed to express beauty is the same. OntoArt is truly art of the real, the art of being. Thus, it is not a trend, nor does it specify a technique, but it is the formal way of beauty through which the human being finds and realizes himself. In all times and in all languages, it is the formalization of the passage to true beauty.

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Umbria: Man's Country
Stefano Serafini and Loretta Lorenzini
Il Cenacolo Publ. House,
Roma, 1998

This book is not intended to propose the usual, commercial travel itinerary aimed at mass tourism. It originated from the intense emotions experienced by a group of international scholars, artists and researchers who, in an apparently trite game - a culinary competition between Italian regions created to lighten up a summer study session - to their surprise, touched the living essence of Umbria. It is not easy to explain what happened, above all to those who have never had the fortune to experience, even for a short time, the emotional lyricism of this land. Already in the last century, Paul Sabatier had affirmed the existence of a natural relationship between the charm of the Umbrian landscape and its destiny as a mystical region, and it is not limited to this. The participants and guests that evening, among whom the reader is now being welcomed, experienced the revelation of the one, live intelligent force in all that is authentically Umbrian: in the nature of the place, from the woods to the wind; in its traditions refined through the centuries, from agriculture and skilled craftsmanship to its cuisine, where the environment encounters and is assimilated almost becoming infused in man; in its unique art; in its historical sensitivity to the sacred so often incarnated here, even outside the Christian tradition (for example, the intense pre-Roman religious activity). This work was born to make this extraordinary, convivial evening come alive for others and to portray the real inner meaning of Umbria. Attached to this work is an appendix which offers a very new look at the museum jewelry of this region, still mostly unknown. The history, traditions, nature, typical products, streets and cities of the region run through this account, going beyond any stereotyped, superficial or partisan theses. The former comprise the symbols that testify to the essence of the whole. Brought together here, they provide an itinerary, which is both old and new, for understanding and experiencing deeply the authenticity of the heart of Italy.

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A.I.A. COURSES
LEARNING AND ENTERING THE PLEASURE OF ART
Loretta Lorenzini
Not as the body touches but as the psyche  intends

The approach proposed by A.I.A. is to enter into the pleasure of art, to discover the manuality and the different artistic tecniques combining the theory to the practical living experience shown through artisan masters.
A.I.A. proposes the Art Convivio to offer the possibility of a complete approach.
Il Cenacolo organizes, in an elegant Villa in the countryside near Rome, one-day meeting totally focused on pleasure of art-making.
Selected groups alternate theory to practice counterpointing the day with moments of Convivio. Glass-working, creative writing, music, ceramics and cartap�este, introduction to Italian Art and to Ontoart, art of iron and metal, furnishing and interior design, Movie Therapy, acting, stylist and  photography, the art of  picture post-card, Living Italian Cooking: after the theory-lessons, organized in different spaces of Villa, practical lessons will be done . An artist-artisan master will show how to realize 'concretely' what explained before and will introduce the partecipants into the living experience of homo faber.

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WOMEN'S AGENDA

Il Cenacolo - Italy:

Europe Day
May 9, 1998: 4:00 P.M., Scandriglia.
To celebrate Europe Day, il Cenacolo is organizing an encounter-debate on "Women, young people and employment: new professions for a changing market".
New forms for starting to say something different. In a world that repeats, where affirmation is the constant (already seen as optimal dimension), existence often drags on from script to refrain, always marking the same time.
Instead, life is new, unrepeatable and different, and just like a problem, a crisis and a difficulty it forces us to change, shift, innovate and to resolve. And from here we can go beyond.
Creativity-- silent and unarrestable revolution and new frontier of human intelligence; a voyage that fascinates us and which we propose to those who wish to follow us.

Inauguration -Courses in Iso Ontism
May 9, 1998, 11:00 A.M., Scandriglia.
Inauguration of the 1998-1999 academic year of courses in Iso Ontism.
Lessons will be held in the center of Terni.
In Umbria, the training course is aimed at professionals and persons already involved in the work world . It is expected that study grants will be available from banks and local boards.

Ineva - Sweden:
www.ineva.se.
We want to get into touch with women innovators and inventors in Europe who like to develop their ideas (products or serviceideas).
Please send a note to us.
In mars the projectleader Ir�ne Jansson met the president of the IFIA, International Federation of Inventors Associations, in Geneva. We discussed the situation for the women inventors. He recommended us to take part in an exhibition in Germany next year.
Next month we will take part in a national exhibition in Norrk�ping, Sweden called "Kvinnor Kan". We will show products made by women and also the networkbuilding.
There has been an EU-conference were the Swedish EU-office and representants from Swedish Employment project were invited. Susanne Seeland from Europs informed about the EU-perpective. She invited us to arrange a meeting in Bryssel at the Amasonas.