In the open public place on a small table a stenotype is placed, similar to the ones in use at the Hall of the Senate of the Republic for the purpose of recording the speeches of senators in the assembly. During this performance, the stenotypist will create a textual “panoramic” image that will record the rhythm and impulses of what vital and relational occurrences will take place around her. The result will be an imperfect testimony, a sketch of the anonymous and invisible words and actions of all those present - the individuals who, living in the same environment, construct and deconstruct the democratic order of their everyday life, motioned by the interests and disinterests they hold in common.
ROME, CIRCONVALLAZIONE CORNELIA Wednesday 19.04.2017 15:52 Circonvallazione Cornelia.
The place is crowded, a wide road with three lanes in each direction. The sun lights up the road surface and is reflected in the windows of the cars and on the motorcyclists’ helmets. A military vehicle also approaches, carrying soldiers deployed for street security because of the terrorism risk. It turns into a small street beside the Upim department store and disappears.On the pavement a young man walks along listening to music on earphones. The shoe shop is still closed, its window entirely green. A man strolls by with a briefcase in his hand. A queue of cars forms, about to cross the ring road. At the bus stop a red city bus pulls up, followed immediately by a light-blue regional bus, then two more red ones. A man gets off and comes over with a red trolley case to ask for directions.A motorbike pulls away and speeds into a side street. Another moped passes with a ladder on board. At the bus stop only 3 people are still waiting. The situation is calmer. In the distance there is a stall on the pavement with headless mannequins wearing clothes in red, blue, green, white. To one side a dilapidated green kiosk, closed: a failed business.A taxi comes out of Villa Benedetta, a private clinic with a hexagonal church inside, topped by a light-blue spire shaped like an inverted cone with a cross on it. The boundary wall is covered with unsightly, disorderly graffiti.The building above the Upim visibly needs renovation: a balcony full of flowers enlivens its greyish-white colour. On the pavement in front there is a stall full of colourful cushions and towels run by two young non-EU immigrants, in all likelihood of Indo-Pakistani origin. A man sitting inside the bus parked at the stop rubs his head, clearly feeling the heat.A yellow motorbike stands out in the queue among the many grey and black cars. The building above the shoe shop has its green plaster all cracked and crumbling. The window frames are mixed: natural wood, anodised aluminium and white-painted wood. Bus number 46, Monte Mario: on its side an advertisement for the Sala Umberto. A girl with a fluorescent yellow trolley case with fuchsia edging waits for the bus at the stop opposite. Space available, Tel.06.30.97.106: an advertising hoarding waiting to be filled. In the distance a burgundy rubbish truck approaches at a steady speed. On the corner a brick-faced building, part of a complex of three small blocks, with white metal-railing balconies. A blue van stops with its hazard lights on to signal the obstruction on the road, but moves off again almost immediately.A young East Asian girl in a red top crosses the pavement holding the hand of a child, probably around 5 years old, who reaches up to her elbow.The siren of an ambulance approaches in a great hurry and races down the road, with a red moped taking advantage of its slipstream to push through the vehicles. Sala Umberto again, Enrico Lo Verso, “Uno nessuno centomila”, adapted and directed by Alessandra Pizzi, 20 to 30 April: an advertisement on the side of another bus. A woman in a coat comes over and asks: “What’re you doin’ here, then?”.“I’m describing the surroundings and the actions taking place on this corner of Rome, on Circonvallazione Cornelia”.“Ah!…".A grey satellite dish juts out from a recessed balcony on a mustard-coloured building. A comical man in military camouflage trousers, on a bicycle, wears a red helmet and glides away over the asphalt, heedless of the traffic. 490, Atac 7527: another bus stops.In a shop window two mannequins stand out in sparkling wedding dresses with their rhinestone and silver sequin ornaments. The V-neck of the first is edged in silver and shows off the female décolleté. The second has strings of silver sequins running the whole length of the dress down to the feet. On the first floor, in contrast, is the balcony of the building that houses the shop window: a white Galaxy satellite dish, with an old-style grid antenna. A green net covering the whole balcony to stop pigeons from roosting inside it. A hole in the balcony glass is covered by another panel that glints in the sun. And a clothes airer struggles to stay upright in the wind, which sets the hanging laundry swaying. A huge advertising hoarding, on the pavement of the wedding dresses, in two shades of green, promotes an organic supermarket: “Natura sì, organic by vocation. Rome Via Tardini, 68, 400 m on the right opposite the bus terminus”, there is also a large vertical dark-green arrow pointing in the direction to find it. A man in a yellow sweater stands out as he crosses the road amid a fairly large crowd of people at the traffic light in the middle of the ring road. A rather stout woman with curly blonde hair holds a green rope bag painted with the Union Jack. A moped speeds past carrying a boy who shouts an incomprehensible word. A man comes over: “Is the metro this way? Is that the way down?”, meanwhile he points to the “mouth” of the metro near the boundary wall of the Villa Benedetta clinic. “Hello?”, a young woman in jeans and a black leather jacket waiting for the bus at the stop calls an acquaintance on her mobile, a friend perhaps: she laughs! A medical car passes with sirens blaring, heading towards San Pietro. Maritime pines sway in the wind on the side of the Villa Benedetta private clinic. A yellow piece of cardboard, torn and dirty, with an advertisement for Ceres beer on it, flies along the pavement.“Tac tac tac tac”… the wheels of a woman’s bicycle run alongside the kerb on the carriageway meant for motor vehicles.A plexiglass chair in a shop window, near the wedding dresses, together with other aluminium-framed chairs that glint in the afternoon sun. A young man dressed in denim yawns, leaning on the railing of the ramp down to the Cornelia car park. A horn pushes its way through the traffic. A solitary pine in the middle of Largo Giureconsulti: its branches sway as another medical car passes, for the transport of blood and organs. A man in a green sweatshirt, with dark-green zips, and Prince of Wales check trousers lights a cigarette and smokes it, relaxed, leaning on a barrier at the car-park ramp. When he has finished smoking, he leaves his soft brown leather briefcase on the ground, propped against the railing. “What am I supposed to do about it? Nothing,” says a woman walking arm in arm with her friend. A metallic noise comes from the signboards at the car-park ramp. Two old-fashioned rag dolls dressed in tulle tutus sit on a chair in the shop window: “Le piccole cose, Confetteria -Wedding -Regali”.An advertising hoarding near the junction for via Boccea towards the centre reads “Porte. Supermercato della porta, via di Brava 79. 0666418150”. A woman gets off the bus and speaks into her mobile in an Eastern European language. A man strolls slowly past the shop windows with a plastic bag containing two pears.Two women, standing in a small service lane, chat in a friendly way and exchange smiles: one wears a beige jacket and carries a bag with black straps on her shoulder, the other wears a black jacket, dark hair gathered in a ponytail.On Largo Giureconsulti a white building stands out on the corner between Circonvallazione Cornelia and via Boccea: on the top-floor terrace two small palms sway in the wind. Opposite, a little girl dressed in fuchsia pink with a white cap runs off along the pavement and her young mother chases after her. Two Asian men, with olive skin, talk as they walk: one lights a cigarette as he crosses the street. A woman with long curly hair, in a black padded jacket zipped right up to the throat, coughs, annoyed by the wind. Two more men, of Arab origin, come over. One stops and asks: “What is this?”. What does it mean?”. “I’m describing the surroundings and..”. “You write what I say too?”. “Yes”. “What’s happening? Aah! What I say, she writes! Well, look at that! She writes Arabic too? If I speak Arabic, she writes? Nice! Thank you”.At 16:5