Aesthetics of Resistance

The representations of the tensions induced by forms of resistance can transform solicitations, constraints, oppositions and limitations into occasions of emancipation and opening towards new forms of awareness. Can real aesthetics of resistance be identified? Photography, dance, art and architecture provide examples in this sense and suggest, with different forms but sometimes with similar purposes, different ways to interpret some manifestations of physical and social resistance. Resistance to gravity, considered as a natural condition at the origin of the development of architectural forms, represents a challenge also taken up by other artistic expressions that have always interacted with architecture. The mise-en-scene of the stresses induced by gravitational force can then create spaces for creativity and amplify the perception of the tensions that we unconsciously experience in everyday life. In this sense we speak of "fatal attractions”. Resistance can also be interpreted as a form of political and social opposition. The opposition of the individual or the community can counteract both the inexorable dynamics of urban transformation and the violence of political repression. This type of resistance manifests itself in the form of actions and forms of communication in which the resulting images become social acts. These are images that circulate in different media, images that speak to us from the walls of our streets, images that struggle to become architectural bodies but also ‘disobedient objects’. In some forms of resistance one can also recognize in the opposition the desire for self-determination of the individual and of the peoples. As expressions of the 'positive freedom of man', self-determination manifests itself through actions and artifacts that speak of the aspirations of peoples and their willingness to participate in the transformation of the places they inhabit. Between the plots of the informal city and the constantly adapting housing structures even in the consolidated city, both the artist and the architect can recognize forms of self-determination in which improvisation becomes an aesthetic category and a compositional strategy. In satisfying a condition of necessity, the individual always finds the opportunity to affirm his individuality as well, giving shape and image to his inhabiting. Only an accomplice look can recognize in the forms of resistance, often ‘weak’, all the strength they contain in their most intimate substance.