The small band was then supposed to have made its way to Ethiopia. Nonetheless, the real aims of the German mission were covered up by the Italian authorities and the secret agents were hurried out of the colony. Eritrea, if we set these clumsy propagandistic efforts aside, was not directly involved in military operations. All the same, the instability of the Libyan context had a significant impact upon the little colony in the Horn of Africa, forced as it was to send thousands of men to try to stem in vain the revolt that had broken out in Libya. The enrolment of native soldiers had the effect of withdrawing manpower, creating an imbalance in the local labour market, due to the resulting rise in wages.
The involvement of the little colony facing the Red Sea was not limited, however, to the sending of battalions into Libya but not into the European theatre of war. Indeed, Eritrea specialised in the production of certain products that were necessary to the Italian army: Involvement in production gave rise to a rapid impoverishment of the colony, in particular the decimation of its livestock. It therefore became necessary to import raw materials from abroad, notwithstanding the general context of the war and the partial commercial blockade imposed by the British in the Red Sea.
The strict limitations imposed by London on Italian shipments led to the open expression of disagreements between the two allies, linked to the reinforcing of the British presence on the Arabian peninsula. Relations between Rome and Paris in the Horn of Africa would prove to be still more problematic. For the Italian government viewed the French presence in Djibouti as a grave threat, especially in relation to the trade in arms that the French conducted with Ethiopia.
This was without taking into account the fact that in May the Djibouti government had banned all exports to Massawa: In the military context of the period Eritrea had functioned as a territory dedicated to the production of goods useful to the war effort, along with the sending of thousands of askari into Libya. The risks as regards the security of the colony arose from Ethiopia, from Turco-German propaganda, but also, as we have seen, from the conflicting interests of the three allies, Italy, France and Great Britain. As regards the colonial territories, the Italian balance sheet was somewhat unsatisfactory: Libya had been lost, Eritrea had been impoverished through the exploitation of its scarce resources, in Somalia the socio-economic context was in a state of collapse, and finally the Dodecanese was riven by tensions between its various ethnic communities.
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Colonies Italy , in: International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. This text is licensed under: Storia dell'espansione coloniale italiana, Bologna , p. La politica estera italiana dal al , Rome , pp. L'Italia e la politica internazionale dal al L'ultima fra le grandi potenze, Milan , p. Gli italiani in Libia. Tripoli bel suol d'amore , Rome , pp. La guerra italiana per la Libia , Bologna , pp.
The Ottoman Empire and Germany's bid for world power , London Libya between ottomanism and nationalism. The Ottoman involvement in Libya during the war with Italy , Berlin The Sanusi of Cyrenaica, Oxford , pp. Safahat khalida min jihad, vol I and II, in: Sceikh Mohammed Sof al-Mahmudi, Tripoli Notabili libici e funzionari italiani: Al-batl al-libi al-shahid bi-kifahihi lil-tiliyan, Tripoli L'esercito italiano nel Dodecaneso Una faccia, una razza. Le colonie italiane nell'Egeo, Bologna , pp. Gli italiani in Africa orientale. The End of the Reign of Menelik, in: The mad mullah of Somaliland, London Italian colonialism in Somalia, Chicago et al.
La missione Frobenius in Eritrea, in: Direzione generale degli affari politici e dei servizi relativi alle truppe coloniali, Affrica italiana. Programma massimo e programma minimo di sistemazione dei possedimenti italiani nell 'Affrica orientale e settentrionale, Rome, Tipografia del Senato, Il diario di Gaspare Colosimo ministro delle Colonie , Rome , p. Diario , edited by G. De Rosa, Milan , p. Selected Bibliography al-Baruni, S. Bush, they are above all men who take decisions. And these 'information processing algorithms' allow me to sense what the near future may hold for us.
When you say 'information processing algorithms', is that some kind of metaphor for the way you think? Today we know, that if the oil price gets to dollars a barrel, there will be ruptures in the system, exploitation lines, profound modifications, for example climatic changes. We also know that a number of wars will become possible, because beyond dollars a barrel, war would become the cheaper option. This premonition is based on an anticipation that is itself based on information that the 'other' does not have.
We inevitably get back to the same starting point: In sum, you have to go find the information in its primary sources, and then cross it and intersect it with other info. And with Internet, amongst other tools, we can 'capilliarise' and conduct a deep ' data mining ' of the information.
Why is it that such work is so rare and that these predictions are never used for the common good of the people? Because information is the key to power. States possess this type of information.
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In reality they possess enormous quantities of information. But the 'common good' does not coincide with the interests of the ruling classes and therefore the divergence from the common good arises from the captivity of this information. Why Kubrick on the Abode of Chaos and not another film producer? I suppose that this is no coincidence. But it's true, Kubrick had a true vision.
I appreciate the vision of exceptional beings in the evening of their lives. We were talking the other night about Warhol and his mysticism. Andy Warhol used to go to prey every morning. He was totally absorbed into an extraordinary liturgy. Kubrick, on the other hand, developed a totally paranoid vision of the world. An acute conspiracy theory vision. He got to such a level of deciphering that he decided to close himself off from the outside world. Some Kubrick fans actually believe that he is still alive and that he orchestrated his own burial.
What is your analysis of his film Eyes Wide Shut? A denunciation of a Victorian era - translated to the end of the 20th century. Kubrick's believed that class struggle was a key societal paradigm. He was obsessed with it. And in this film - beyond the sex which remains totally superficial - he introduced a 'third degree', that of the Victorian saga that he rejects, but which he realises is gradually coming back. Polygamy constitutes a sort of matriarchal society within which woman have a certain power. At the beginning of the 21st century, women have more and more power.
In economics, the notion of physical strength is disappearing. In our family, it all happened very naturally. Not by assertion, sexual or otherwise; it's more a way of thinking and a method of organisation. This sort of clan that we constitute is interesting because the distribution of information between each of the individuals is different. We are also very free in our ways, but that comes to anyone who is accustomed to an Epicurean milieu, which we were - long before Michel Houellebecq made it his business to write a book about it.
We analysed the exchange clubs milieu, the sexual minorities, homosexuals, transsexuals, etc. The partner swapping milieu is very particular. It used to have a genuinely 'revolutionary' side to it. Back in the 70s and 80s, fifty people from completely different backgrounds used to fuck all together in the same room, whereas in any other kind of public meeting, they would have 'killed' each other. The abolition of social classes via an orgy, via a sexual party, certainly deserves codification.
As the years went by, we discovered that others were also studying the milieu in Germany, Italy, Spain and North America. A kind of sociological analysis was applied to how sex creates a social bridge across which people very quickly get to the essential. That's what is so astonishing about an orgy. Whoever you are fucking, once the sex is over, the following conversation always goes straight to the point with questions that would otherwise take friends or acquaintances ten or fifteen years to get around to discussing.
These are phenomena that have been described hundreds if not thousands of times. In every case, it requires a lot of construction, a lot of mutual concession. It's substantially more complicated that a monogamous relationship. In fact, I totally understand why the Republican marriage contract outlaws polygamy.
For many people it would be a source of very serious problems. Was it a deliberate decision? I had a little head start over my contemporaries. My relations with the media having taught me that latter has no limits, the best solution to obtain some form of social peace was to generate a massive "noise" attack. There is nothing kept secret that will not come to light ". Speaking of Christianity, your father was, I believe, close to Opus Dei. Can you tell me something about your childhood and your adolescence? He was born in Having attended Ecole Polytechnique and obtaining a Ph. D in Law, he travelled throughout Europe with the Vatican II council which observed the ostentatious wealth of the Church.
At the time, the world had an interesting cartography of powers and influences. Opus Dei brought together business men and Church men in a form of Christian Masonry which set up a very particular distribution of power and knowledge. This of course allowed me to get a very early understanding of networks of influence.
Here, we have a perfect example of this analysis. I think the Vatican is still the most powerful State in the world. By its very nature, it is a State that has no frontiers and it has a massive number of followers. It has both temporal and spiritual power. What is very interesting, however, is that the Vatican is the most computer savvy State in the world. The structuring of its database is quite exceptional. Opus Dei is fairly politically coloured is it not? In reality, it's actually quite complicated. But it goes much further. In any case, it pushed me towards a certain conclusion: To use a phrase one encounters in masonry, I am an eternal visitor.
After my long Dry Path, I am what one might call a " multi-cardholder ", i. Again, it's the idea of the Japanese Ronin I mentioned earlier. For the free-masons, the Dry Path is the equivalent of the Ronin's path in life.
The Italian Elections: Part I
The Abode of Chaos is a material incarnation of the temporal order. And then there is a spiritual dimension with the Salamander Spirit which is more related to the spiritual and to alchemy. Basically it's a double-headed work. I read somewhere that you establish a link between baptismal fonts and the media. The baptism is accepting an individual who does not belong to the "common good" and who via a church liturgy, becomes an "apparent" member of a community.
Today, the media act as baptismal fonts, legitimising individuals in the community. Today people are given a score and the only trace they leave is that left by the media which manages the evolution of their success rating. And as far as material wealth is concerned, what is you relationship to money? We were among the major fortunes in France. We have gone bankrupt several times, followed by extraordinary successes. We already know how to start again with just a few euros in our pockets and how to live simply. Money does not bring either happiness or health. I will always remember what a top management banker said to me one day.
For me, money is the sinews of war, because I am a warrior. Money is a fundamental resource in warfare. Apart from that, if you have a car crash, the emergency medical services give you the same treatment whether you are driving a Ford Cortina or a Rolls Royce. And that's why arrogance is punished. I am always surprised when I meet people fascinated by money. They do not realise that money gives very little. Of course, on a daily basis, it removes a lot of hassle Realities with which I am perfectly acquainted because I have found myself unable to pay on numerous occasions.
But, contrary to popular belief, it doesn't bring anything extraordinary. That's why my relationship to money is very German Protestant - very " Rhine Capitalist ". If money is just a means to an end for you, what is the end? What is your Great Work? It's Fulcanelli whose disciple found him in Seville aged A religion always starts in the catacombs.
The best buzz - you have to admit - is Christ on the cross. And it's been going on for 20 centuries.
A guy who gets crucified, with 12 other guys around him at the beginning. Of course, at the beginning there are three versions of chaos: Alchemical chaos, scientific chaos and chaos in the sociological sense. Scientific chaos is very interesting. The theory of chaos raises questions about our pride when everything seems completely disorderly and incomprehensible. This makes us say that these models are chaotic but in reality there is an underlying "intelligent" model. But, we don't have the capacity to evolve equally. That said, when we make an effort, we can. And that's how all the major theories appeared in the random fuzziness of the last two decades, using super-calculators that helped us to determine the murky zones.
Which takes me to the definition of Chaos in the illustrated Petit Larousse that you often quote: Another important aspect of your work seems to be topography of places. There is the Abode, the Bunker, the containers, the dissemination of the containers and of the bunkers. I am always looking for private atmospheres. Do you remember the last days of Hitler in The Fall. Almost the entire film takes place in a bunker. The bunker is a truly organic closed space in which everything is reflected. It has an extraordinary dimension.
The container, is the weapon of mass destruction. In a refitted oil tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston. The rise in the number of containers in the world since then corresponds to the growth in world trade. It must be able to resist a fall of seven metres without the slightest problem. When you look at the statistics, it's incredible. And China produces between 8 and 9 hundred new containers every day. And a new standard container produced by the Chinese costs to dollars, which is incredible considering the cost of steel by weight.
The price I pay for containers today is below the price I would get for the equivalent amount of steel from a scrap metal dealer. It's pure accounting sorcery when they produce balance sheets without adjusting the figures to account for raw material costs. I would get to dollars from a breaker! A truly universal object. In your work there are frequent references to war and to the warrior.
In another text, you mention a state of permanent war. There's a whole current of thought about a state of permanent war. War is an inherent part of our biology. Metastasis starts as soon as you stop fighting with your body. For me, war is indicative of strong life.
There are no suicides in countries that are at war. There are no more anti-depressants. Everything is linked to war. The war against yourself. When you're an artist, you fight against inanimate form. It's also fighting against fucking nuisances.
Everything is always in a state of war. It's a state of vigilance. Ad what's more, it has a certain sense: Since the beginning of time, men have fought for territories, both material and immaterial. Just last night I said to Jo at 3 or 4 in the morning that the guys who teach that we can do "peaceful business" in the major universities make me laugh. War is not omnipresent in business, but as soon as it becomes international business, it's very present indeed.
That is what Clausewitz said: Everything is war, and today more than ever with the lawyers. These are horrible wars. It's a constant battle You can't get a good night's sleep without being interrupted by some problem. So war comes in ritualised forms. In the first place, you have to struggle against your own foolishness, against your own nonchalance. Even if you don't suffer the events, you are still in a state of war against them.
The only surviving instruments will be oil lamps and all the old primary analogue systems that do not contain conductors or semiconductors. How does the I-Bomb function? We already have nuclear bombs capable of blocking all IT systems. The good old principle of the electrode between the anode and the cathode which means that the shockwave will destroy all computer circuitry. The only things left working will be appliances from the pre-computer era. We are currently spending a fortune buying up certain old analogical equipment. I am proud to have one of the last entirely analogical electricity generators that is in perfect working order.
All the modern models are equipped with digital circuit boards. Today, practically all cars use some form of digital technology? Uninterruptible power supplies - normally used to save lives and regulate currents - are full of computer technology. Before, when a UPS started to whine, it was bypassed, we plugged it into the mains and it worked.
This is no longer the case because there is an application mapping that says "stop, danger, switch everything off". We can't even backbone the thing on the mains, which is a pain. So we end up without UPS and without mains return. There's nothing like good old analogical equipment. By comparison, digital stuff is always telling us what we can and can't do. It leaves traces whereas analogical stuff doesn't. In Matrix, Morpheus' phantom ship is analogical. When they are spotted by the robotic viral octopuses, they cut off all their digital equipment and just keep on with their good old analogical systems.
This is becoming a reality today. We are conducting experiments at the Abode of Chaos to figure out how we could carry on with only analogue equipment. With analogical equipment, there is an enormous distribution of the frequency spectrum. Therefore I leave no trace. In the digital world, there is a binary coding, which is memorisable and interpolable.
For the policing of digital devices, there is also the example of GSM which works on the triangulation principle. In a Reuters photographer was fired for having used Photoshop to exaggerate the smoke after an Israeli attack on a Hezbollah controlled Shiite suburb of Beirut. After that, a computer technician developed a programme that can instantly recognise any digital modifications of any photograph.
Because to rework a photo, one has to use raster mode which involves interpolating the adjacent pixels. It's an interpolation in the algorithm that will search for the adjacent pixel, and therefore it automatically detects it. Would you describe yourself as Utopian? I am a great believer in the self-fulfilling prophecy, hence my distopia. What's amusing about this kind of prophecy is that it's bound to work. The Jews have done a lot of work on this idea in the Cabala.
Is it the event that creates the individual?
Do you create the event or does the event create you? Of course it's a splendid philosophical debate, but anyway, I am a firm believer in self-fulfilling prophecies. I believe in the strength of word, in the strength of embodiment. And the current forsaking of the word? The strength of the word has always been that. Wake-up you dead people! Then the guys get pulled out of the lecture hall. I find that incredible. I am actually banned from lecturing in certain places.
They no longer have the means to employ security personnel and there is a refusal to talk. You only have to look at the situation in France. We are in a period where we are losing our identity and losing our direction. Even if it's totally banal, the politically correct dominates. And nobody dares to do or say anything. Because people no longer dare to stand up for what they stand for.
One day a major French politician - who died recently - was asked: At that moment the " father of science " paused before answering: He had to give a definition. Old Raymond Barre was quite a character. And people are no longer free. I recently came across the following information: We are facing a form of degenerated capitalism. Twenty years ago roughly 15 billion dollars changed hands on financial markets. Today, the figure is more than billion dollars per day. We have created fictive issues which means we are currently creating phoney money with a totally phoney level of GDP growth.
It doesn't make any sense anymore. That's why I say that we are at the Gates of Hell in the allegorical and magnificent sense of the term. The West, including Japan and the whole of Asia in its modernity, is really like an old man. A dead man, worn out and corrupted at all levels and particularly in his capitalistic organs. All the indicators are in the red. None of these tools will stop the rot. Everything can be bought.
Everything has a price, including pollution. The dematerialisation of the financial sphere and the capacity of men to imagine financial instruments like futures i. As though we had arrived at the end of the runway.
EmpireSit Caos (Italian Edition) eBook: Elisa Ragugini: theranchhands.com: Kindle Store
That's why we need to reinvent. Personally, I believe in a Renaissance. That is precisely the theme of my next question! Let's indulge in a little forecasting It contains a very strong "transversal" quality. You define it a hundred times better than anyone else. Indeed that's how I met you. It's in sub-cultures and trans-cultures. There are loads of adjectives to describe this form of activity Fortunately a small network already exists which carries within it the genomes necessary for the apparition of a new genome, an additional genome in fact. How would you define art?
A place where total transgression can take place, because from a purely legal standpoint, art is the only area that still enjoys impunity. Take Lukas's performances for example. Art allows him to explore areas that would get him locked up immediately if he didn't have an "artistic" attitude in the meaning attributed by Marcel Duchamp.
What is the difference between Lukas and a psychopath? He ritualises, codifies, installs, writes and questions. He always locates himself within an art historical perspective. If that were not the case, we would be "guilty" of committing acts that may or may not be reprehensible? This is not the same as someone who works directly on himself without thinking. In the latter case, we would no longer be in the field of art and the authorities would be justified in taking an interest.
I think it is easier to say what isn't art than what is. Attempts to define art result in a reduction to archetypes. But lots of things get labelled or are produced as art that are not. In that case what is not art? Art must be something that has an impact on consensus views. For me art must have a liturgical side to it. I have seen this numerous times in the legal battle over the Abode of Chaos. What is a work of art? The authorities are grappling with this question. It's a doctrinal state. In the case of the Abode of Chaos, I have "removed" entire sections of the private and professional quarters.
Which means that the works are more important than the well-being of the people in the house. In the Abode the works have primacy over what exists, over the consensus, over comfort. Whereas someone who builds a palace or an extension, even if talented artists are involved, would be outside the field of art. The artistic element would just be a pretext for achieving the ultimate aim of adding comfort.
For me, an art work must be in some way utopian, but not necessarily in the Cartesian or materialist sense. The work takes priority over everything, whatever the difficulties, whatever the conduction. By its very nature, the work of art collides with or questions assumptions. It establishes a footing and resists - in theory - the passage of time. I think that if art only procures well-being at a personal level, then it is pretty useless. Art takes place elsewhere, in the conception, in the idea and, once again, in a utopian mindset. I think that art is a "no concession" activity.
The more I advance in my sculptural creations, the more I think art is a like a knife slash. As time goes by, one becomes less professorial and more instinctive. There are really things that emerge from art. It's perhaps the lawyer in me that is talking, but some things are really nothing more than travesty. Art is something that emerges from nothing. That's the difference between an author and a creator. What we were saying just a little earlier.
It's a question of conceiving and creating "ex-nihilo", of giving birth to something that takes shape from nothing at all. So from that observation, it's a logical step to the idea of transcendence? As we said earlier round the table, art is kind of a 'happy accident'. A work constitutes a link between yourself and the divine. In the work there is an element that escapes the eye, which escapes everything in fact and which leaves you with eyes turned to heaven.
Luxury never turns eyes to heaven, but rather towards carnal desire. So art is a link to heaven. Art as a link between the oneself and Heaven, that seems a good definition. And how would you define yourself from a religious point of view? For me an atheist is a profoundly dangerous person. In Italy , the car manufacture Fiat is haemorrhaging sales while Po Valley parts suppliers keep Germany's BMW fully stocked with brake pads and door panels. Likewise, Japanese electronics firm Sharp has become more dependent on making iPad screens for Apple than TVs or mini hi-fi systems under its own brand name and for its trouble has become persistently loss-making.
Japan's newest tactic has grabbed the headlines in the last week. An increase in VAT is supposed to keep a lid on the budget deficit. Charles Dumas, the eminent boss of economic analysts Lombard Street Research, describes in his latest monthly review how Japan's refusal to adapt has cost its citizens dearly. Such is the loss of export competitiveness that per capita incomes are now around half that of the US.
Deflation, in the form of persistently falling prices, has deterred consumer spending why spend when prices will be lower in six months or a year? Dumas recommends Tokyo scrap its VAT rise for the time being and instead tax dead money lying around the Japanese economy doing nothing. His target is retained corporate profits, which are not invested or disbursed to shareholders. The goal is to get cash out into the economy. Not the stuff created by the central bank and spent on other financial instruments in the hope that it will filter down into consumers pockets.
While there is every reason to tax the wealth and savings of individuals, especially the super rich, attacking corporates, which in Japan combine wealth and caution in equal measure, is more politically acceptable. The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said last week that the splurge in quantitative easing by the Bank of Japan will achieve the same end painlessly. Dubbed Abenomics, the policy aims to devalue the currency and push up inflation via more costly imported goods.
Rising prices will persuade consumers to spend now, not later. The trouble with this argument, apart from the obvious environmental impacts, is that a cheaper currency raises the cost of the chief import, gas and oil, and everyone's heating, lighting and transport costs. Pushing up inflation while cutting living standards could be self-defeating.