Massimo Furlan / Numero23Prod.

Tunnel (2015)

A project by Massimo Furlan, Numero23Prod.
Performance created on March 4 2015, Tunnel du Grand St-Bernard (CH-I)

Trans Project, Via Vai, within the framework Festival Uovo (Milan, I).
Swiss-Italian cultural exchange initiated by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.
Italian partner: Uovo – Swiss partner: Numero23Prod.

Shooting of the performance on 4 March 2015 at 2 a.m.
Festival from 25 to 29 March 2015 (Milan)

Massimo Furlan was called upon by Festival Uovo (Milan, 25-29 March 2015) to take part in the Via Vai competition – a cultural exchange programme between Switzerland and Italy – and his project was selected. In this project, he engaged himself physically by basing his work inside the Gran San Bernardo tunnel, which goes through the mountain, joining not only the two countries but also the two facets of Furlan’s identity.

‘I remember, as a kid, driving to Trieste with my parents to visit my grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. My memory of going through the tunnel half-way through a journey that lasted almost the whole day, was an intensely exciting moment. It symbolically and quite concretely represented the act of going from one country to the other. We were aware that we had crossed a line, that there was one side and then the other. And it seemed we could see it in the landscape and the sky. The tunnel was inaugurated 50 years ago, a year before I was born, so for me it’s always existed; it’s part of my world, it’s very familiar.’

‘As raw material for the Via Vai project, I would like to suggest running the seven-kilometre length of the tunnel, alone, in order to physically experience the crossing. The tunnel is usually driven through quickly and I would like to focus on the opposite experience: being alone in the tunnel to simply experience it. The action would give rise to a video work. This project, which focuses on the issue of the crossing and of childhood, is reminiscent of the International Airport (2004) performance and installation, when I ran four kilometres on the runway of Geneva Airport. Like International Airport, this project might seem unrealistic and it requires negotiation and a series of meetings with officials in order to convince them to agree to make it possible.
I would like to stop in the tunnel, in the exact place where the border lies – something that is impossible when you’re in a car, to get a measure of its point on the map, of the squiggly line that weaves through mountains that, once crossed, takes you to the other side. I would also like to get a measure of duration, of the real time it takes for a person, not a machine, to go through the tunnel .’

‘Through negotiating with the authorities to realise the project, it may be interesting to work with different protagonists whose lives revolve around the tunnel. I’m thinking of the workers and engineers who built it, as well as those who live close to it – customs officials, cashiers and security officers. Their stories and accounts could tie in with a more philosophical thought process on the following issues: What does digging mean? What can one do with that action, that gesture that refers to the animal kingdom, to burrows and lairs, to small animals that hide and move under ground? This thought process refers to the field of ethology. And also, what does crossing mean, on a philosophical level? Going from one place to another? Crossing a border? The idea is to build a thought process by entering into a dialogue with a philosopher, a researcher in ethology or an anthropologist.’

‘It may also be interesting to imagine a performance that could happen on the pass and that would focus on the question of limits and identity. Members of the audience would leave by bus from Milan and Lausanne and meet at the col to share their experiences of the journey. We could imagine a series of stories to share during an event that remains yet to be defined, a meal, a walk or something else.’

‘Another way – a little more burlesque – of considering the tunnel and going through it would be for me to dress as a Swiss and then as an Italian Customs Official and to be there to let the cars pass, as officials usually are, standing motionless, waving the cars through. Customs Officials: threatening and recurring figures of our own crossings, immutable and imperturbable since childhood.’

Scenario:

The performance is a powerful symbolic act, based on the poetic experience of crossing a border between two countries, two cultures and two histories. The aim is for the artist to experience the journey, the road that workers dug through the mountain in the 1960s and that is now nothing more than a fast and practical route for thousands of cars. The meaning of the action is striking, but its realisation and the result of the performance are very simple and devoid of theatricality.

A video team will follow the artist in a car and film him going from one side of the tunnel to the other. He will be dressed as a civilian, in everyday clothes, and will run on the road, as he did on the runway of Geneva Airport in International Airport in 2004.

The result of the performance is a video that lasts as long as the crossing.