Draft for San Michele

Here is a first draft for the latest version of 'L'entremet'. We will try to update and blog with a new address etc. soon.

About the island
The project will take place on Capri in Axel Munthe's villa in January or February 2012.
The villa is called Villa San Michele. It was built at the end of the 19th century in front of the sea at the top of Phenician's stairs. There is a beautiful garden with ancient Egypt and other antiquity sculptures. The villa is open to the public and organizes music festival and residency for researchers. But Capri is not Boipeba. It's not a wild island even if I read Axel Munthe hosted a monkey once.

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The idea is to imagine a way of working on the island that would act upon the writing of the recipe and the form of the tablecloth. For example : each participant could come a couple of days on the island, working, cooking, making a recipe. The next participant could follow his or her traces and pursue the process. In all cases I personally think it would be great to try collective collaborations as I invited each one of you according to your different backgrounds and I believe that it is already quite a good recipe.

About the recipe
Recipe is both an ending and a starting point
Recipe is not only documentation but action itself
Recipe is a way of rewinding time back to the moment when it was written
Recipe is an anachronism
Recipe is a restitution of past experiences and a projection of future actions


About the tablecloth
The tablecloth will host our recipe conceived during the stay on the island. It will take the form of a folded sheet of paper. The tablecloth will be unfolded to organize events as an activation of its contents.

We could imagine a limited edition of 10 tablecloths for example, on sale in bookshops. The tablecloth, wrapped in a plastic bag, could then be opened once the buyer decides to organize its event. It could be the only reason to open it. And we could mention that it should only be opened for its activation. Its interpretation would be free even if we know it could be miss-interpreted.

Maybe we should organize its first activation ourselves, to experiment what we propose to interpretation, even though this could also imply inviting other persons to join. We have the possibility to run it at Le Convent des Recollets inside the chapel and/or at the Swedish Institue in Paris.

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We have to think of the tablecloth's form from the very beginning of the process. As a flower for example. But how could we transmit something that we still don't know? We can't fix the form before being on the island. So let's go to the island first.
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I looked on wikipedia to the biography of Axel Munthe. He hosted a monkey in the villa : "He was a tireless advocate of animal rights, purchasing land to create a bird sanctuary near his home in Italy, advocating bans on painful traps, and keeping pets as diverse as an owl and a baboon, and many different kinds of dogs."

Have a look at the link, it's quite interesting, and also the one about the villa:
The Villa was built on the ruins of the Roman Emperor Tiberius's villa.