FUN of FUN
First Universal Nexus of the FUNtastic United Nation September 18-19 2004 Casier Italy
Vittore Baroni

As a logic development of the FUN project that Piermario Ciani and yours truly started in 2001 to promote and connect an utopian network of imaginary nations, the first meeting of delegates from various funtastic countries took place in two warm and sunny days of September 2004 on the tiny „island“ of the Parco Foundation: a patch of land in the middle of the river Sile, connected to the by a small path and located in the village of Casier, not far from treviso in Nothern Italy. While a proper catalogue of the fun-fes is in the making, this is just a brief accont of my participation to two intense days of art, performances and musik.
I left Viareggio by car early in the morning on Sept. 18th, together with Antonino Bove and some of his oneiric „brain-sculptures“, while another local friends, Carlo Battisti with his carload of playful and musical bicycles, had already left on the previous day. We arrived before noon, dropped our bags at the hotel wer most of the guests were lodged and reached the island, a beautiful greeny spot wer a dozen of local artists have built their studios, kindly opened once a year for collective events. The studios, arranged in a peculiar circular building, had already been filled with amazing exhibitions by italian and international artists, too many to even mention. I´ll just remember the Funtastic Universal Food Shop
by Alessandra Carraro and Piergiorgio Saccomano (yoni shaped in different media), the neat mail art installation of Susanna Lakner from Planet Susannia,
the „Apataphysique“ group show coordinated by Tania Lorandi, the „supercriticart“ collective (artworks inspired by critics´reviews, instead of the other way round!) Allegra Corbo´s powerfull neo-pop iconology, Carlo Vidoni´s humanized electric houshold appliances... In the middle of the building there is a round corridor and a small garden, where Tiziana Baracchi and Giancarlo Da Lio had prepared The Poetry Tree with poems hanging as leaves, and where most of the readings and performances took place.
Art festivala are great fun, but everything happens so quickly and often at the same time, that you do not even have a chance to shake hands with all the participants, let alone to deepen any acquaintance. Taking a short break from hard job, I was enjoing the feeling of regained freedom, but I was also frustrated by the strict time limits. It was nice to meet again Ryosuke Cohen from Japan, who draw some of his Brain Cell portraits, and Coco Gordon (who built two miniature Twin Towers in butter and left them to melt next to pics of blood-paintings), plus all the italian mail art friends (the Stradas, Pucci, Silvi, De Michele, Sassu, Pasian, Baroncinij, Scala etc.) Peter Netmail (Küstermann), the Guinness recordsman of postal art, honked me on the street, gave me a lift and placed in my hands a copy of his book Mail Art Has Changes Our Lives. He also gave me a dvd of the Congress he curated in Germany and a blue towel sporting a classy DNCM04 logo (so that´s were the obscure actions took place, in Minden bathrooms!) Peter dressed as a cirkus clown and offered a performance involving
a postman and some cds being cut to the size of a trading card.
On the second day I recognized a tall youngman arriving on foot as long thime correspondent Geert De Decker, fresh from the organization of his yearly Independent Music & Arts Festival: unfortunately, again, I was only able to exchange a few words. The rythm of performances and meeting was so hectic that i could not even pause to give a name to all those who were there. In fact, I have been able recognize some artists only thanks to the sketch-book that Karl-Friedrich Hacker (of „el mail Tao“), whom I also „ideintified“ only a last day, mailed me after the event.
After reuniting on the Saturday for a late lunch and a night walk with Manitù und Alda, and also meeting the new recruit Daniele for the first time, on Sunday Sept 19th I had to oversee the performance of my band Le Forbici di Manitù, consisting of a small preview of our next recording project L´Ísola (The Island), based on a short story written for us by notorious horror-noir novellist Alda Teodorani: a couple in sentimental crisis rents for a week a villa on a small island, but the romantic holiday soon takes a turn for the worse...
So Manitù Rossi (bass, tapes) and Daniele Carretti (guitar) accompanied a reading of the giveb by Alda (we must thank Vittorio Vella, who also played at Casier, for lending us part of the instrumentation). I videotaped the performance after having „hidden“ in the three location of the island, as part of the Obscure Actions project, three stacks of diaristic pages connected to the storyline (while the main text is written from the female character point of view, I added fragment from the male character eyes). Visitors who found the pages could pick them up to read, getting a new perspektive of the plot. Included in some copies of this bulletin is the original FUN of FUN programme with samples of the diary pages, that I retrieved just before leaving the festival:only a few sheets were missing, but this had to be an obscure action, after all.. The FUN Nexus gave out a prevailing positive vibe and was conducted in a very friendly and relaxed way. Taken all together, it was a strangely cohesive mix of professional, outsider and networking arts, in a event completely self-financed and selfproduced. With no fixed time-schedules, even the programme was flexibly self-regulated by the participants, but everything run smoothly. Some performances involved „creative food“, so we often did not even have to bother getting to a restaurant to eat (carried with me typical caces and „vinsnato“ from my province, much appereciated). Our hosts from Casier were very happy with the artistic standards of the festival and the high number of authors and visitors involved, so they already invited us to repeat the event next year. See you at FUN of FUN II?