Angelic Upstarts

Early last year I was invited to join Fabrica - Futuro Presente, 'the arts and communication research centre of the Benetton group'. Although funded entirely by Benetton, Fabrica did not work directly for them, but was established to 'foster a new vision of today's world', 'to read or smell the future'. I left in November, after six months of frustration, just as they were working on a series of advertisements for Mild Seven, the Japanese tobacco company which also sponsors Benetton's Formula One team.

I met Michel Serres, philosopher and member of the Academie Française, in December to talk about his new book, Angels - A Modern Myth. Although it was a dark, late afternoon, the fog made the air thick with light. We talked.

'It seems a little uncertain.'

'It certainly was. As a centre for communication, communication itself seemed strangely peripheral. Primarily, it couldn't communicate what it wanted to be, either to the people outside its walls or those within them. It was a peculiarly Utopian exercise.'

'But do you know of any single important change in history which was not initially derided by some people as Utopian, while at the same time celebrated by others?'

'I certainly had great hopes for Fabrica. Architecturally at least their utopianism was successful in that Fabrica was built in the middle of "Nowhere". But our questions were not simply "Why here?" but "Why anywhere?"'

'Nowadays, we live not so much in houses as in a state of communication.'

'Yet the building was seen as being all-important, something which would remain amidst the flux and uncertainties. But like the conceptual foundations for the school, it was back to front and incomplete. Cracks and leaks soon appeared in its polished facades, while the atmosphere itself was often stifling. Instead it was the gypsies - often from Bosnia - who, parked next to the grounds, were the true messengers, bringing us world events, and perhaps this explains Benetton's uneasiness towards them. They may have needed water to drink but laced with fungicide, ours was only for show.'

'In travelling, leaving barely a trace, the gypsies confirmed that the messenger must disappear in order that their message remains.'

'Perhaps this is what they were trying to tell us.'

(Fade)

'You were the first student to arrive?'

'We began in May, in order that we may begin to announce the birth of Fabrica.'

'The Annunciation is the perfect message, the transformation of the Word into that which is living and thinking.'

'Yet for archangel Oliviero, there is no transformation and, if you remember his famous baby billboard, then the message is simply the presentation of the flesh. It is revealing that this image appeared on the reverse of Oliviero's business cards as, like the billboards themselves, they simply announce the arrival of his presence.'

'And the Fabrica announcement?'

'The Annunciation was aborted. There was nothing to announce but the announcement itself, although for many of the world's messengers, that was enough, the telling being more important than the tale.'

'Fallen angels. When the messenger takes on too much importance, he diverts the channel of transmission to his own ends. This is the fall of angels.'

'That they become so aware of their own gravity that they succumb to it?'

'In a sense, yes. Their position is a difficult one. If they become too obvious they may conceal the message, but if they are too discrete, then it may go unnoticed.'

'Oliviero rarely passes unnoticed...'

'...and hence his fall. This is not to highlight an individual perversity or shortcoming, but to recognise more fully the functioning of the message system. Take a look at this world of ours, overflowing with messages, and the people that bring them. They may introduce us to science, or art...'

'As we do...'

'...Of course, or it may be religion or news, our new religion. Very quickly, and nearly always without intent, but by the very fact of their position...'

'...or our position...'

'...within the system, they take on more importance than the news, whether good or bad, which they are presenting. They become more insightful than the scientific discoveries which they are popularising, more creative than the art which they display...'

'...Their politics more radical than those which they set out to expose. I'm beginning to recognise these actions more clearly. During my time at Fabrica, the French resumed nuclear testing in the Pacific. The next day, Oliviero had the front page of Libération: Chirac's face disfigured with poorly Photoshopped keloid scars. The day after, it was this image which became the news, on the front of all the other newspapers, effectively replacing the issue which it had sought to raise. There was a curious self-satisfaction in Oliviero's later telling of the story, one which, surprisingly, only one student remarked upon...'

'And?'

'She has also since left, along with members of staff, although their choices were more clearly defined.'

'I see: the worst angels are the ones which are seen; the best disappear.'

(Fade)

'As you can see, in becoming visible the messenger may attempt to feed off their message, to derive a sense of importance from it - a parasitic enterprise.'

'It is telling that one of Fabrica's channels of communication was to be called "The Parasite Press". Thinking about it, the process was virtually institutionalised: the second director had only recently exhibited Oliviero's photographs in the Museum where she previously worked. It seems that the rewards spread. Wouldn't it be possible to propose a code of practice for messengers, to control, in some way, this dark accumulation?'

'Unfortunately, while it is easy to recognise the problem, it is virtually impossible to halt the practice. When a channel of communication becomes congested, it is the parasite blocking it that assumes an enormous amount of control. Good angels pass in silence and we forget them. The others become visible, and they become our gods. In this sense, also, they become all-conquering. The producers may stake the content but as the parasites stake the position, they always win.'

'It seems that if just as much contemporary art is simply a regurgitation of signs, an illustration of that to which it aspires - whether it is the sublime or the shocking - then this form of intellectual adoption is also occurring throughout our wider culture. Even here, now, with me. At what point did these messengers take over from the angels? Have we only kept the fallen ones?'

'It is true, although as often with that which is true, it is difficult to confirm it as such. We are talking of the most powerful messengers in the world - how can we see them as fallen when they appear to climb from triumph to triumph?'