Since my adolescent days, and more pronouncedly in my early teens I had real issues with fitting into the so-called norm of middle-class urban Italian culture. It could have been something that was due to my mixed cultural upbringing. Possibly it may have had something to do with some inscrutable and inherited information deeply buried into my DNA spiral. Or maybe, some other past life trait of that immortal part of me, we like to call soul. More likely, looking back it’s a combination of all these three aspects in unison. Yet that said, right from early on I just couldn’t help to resign myself to not conforming to the established normality. And believe me, I tried. Much to the detriment of my patient parents, especially my mother who had to endure all kinds of behavioural knick knacks from my part. I tried to fit in, in many ways. From wearing trendy clothes I felt uncomfortable in to following social circles that veered from left to right of the socio-political spectrum. Circles, which despite my initial excitement had not much to offer to my growing yet uncertain sense of self.
Despite my dabbling into both directions, I couldn’t help but find both realities short-sighted and deeply flawed, tainted with myopic historical insignificance, fanaticism and yes, violence. Both on the individual self and on to others. Neither had anything for me, except for a few adolescent and cynical laughs. More than anything else, they helped me to understand what does not work in our modern society, at least from a humanistic perspective.
I remember entering into my first and last electorate booth in late 1991, to vote for the Italian primaries and finding a poster-size electoral pamphlet with a list of over 15 parties to choose from. Up, down, left, right and center, with parties ranging from the obvious choices to the “Party of Love” whose testimonials at the time included Italian pornstar Moana Pozzi and the Hungarian-born and naturalized Italian pornstar: Ilona Staller, aka Cicciolina. Both of whom – if memory serves me right – even managed to get a couple of seats into Parliament that season. Such was the extent of the Italian political joke most people dared to call government. I still vividly remember leaving the electorate station based on the grounds of my former primary school in a fit of camouflaged laughter, whilst shaking my head in wonder and disbelief. This, just after having purposely voided my electoral slip with a huge and provocative marking of the Anarchy symbol followed by the text: “Anarchia, unica via” (Anarchy is the only way: a rough translation from Italian into English, alas without the clever rhyme that the Latin-based language provides). Now, I’m not going to get into what my definition of Anarchy is, as it would need much more pondering on in order to bring forth its virtues, especially in the formation of higher consciousness free individuals able to live collectively in peace and harmony.
But, isn’t it yet obvious that all of the hierarchical infrastructures we’ve been accustomed to support in order “to protect us from evil” are rapidly eroding all around us? Try and stay alive at least until 2027 and watch what in my subjective view shall inevitably happen. More detailed proof is available if one is keen to corroborate the evidence brought forth by some great mystics and foreseers of our human lineage, in regards to what is starting to manifest itself into the light. Check on the Hopi prophecies, the writings of George Orwell and Rudolf Steiner, Baba Vanga’s visions, a couple of lectures by Robert Alan Krakower (Ra Uru Hu) and many, many more. The list of awakened and awakeners goes on and on. Do your own research and see what you want to see, need to see, or don’t want to hear. Anyway, enough propaganda.
So, I made this digital print with all this preamble in mind and more. The rampant advance in technology brought forth with the discovery and implementation of the microchip from 1958 onward, has definitely had its impact on the “speeding” up of society. What I see is that it has also contributed to turning most human beings into walking devices, whose humanity is ever so being challenged. Our minds are getting lazy to the point that no one remembers each others’ names, to mark just one of the few attention-span deficits that are easily observable in most of us. Me included, for that matter. Yet, not many seem to mind, or so it appears. Transhumanism after all has its mass appeal. However, our individuality expressed through creative means is especially under duress. All music sounds the same. All artwork looks the same. Everything is homogenized. Automatized. Conforming ever so slightly, yet ever so surely to the one-track-mind, uniformed thought paradigm needed to feed this particular illusion of collectivism.
So, I guess that’s what these humanoid papillon-wearing, military-saluting figures with mobile phones heads stand for. Their conformed elegance indicates their superficiality, while their device heads are filled with the void – herein represented with the first if not only picture of a galactic black hole, I scrounged off the web. The sky is dark, yet light seeps through the cracks of obscurity. From these cracks, a solitary male figure is seen, standing alone off-centre in the foreseeable background. He is naked as he has nothing to hide, and firmly holding a red rose pointing straight up, a universal symbol for steady love, of the romantic kind. In the tradition of religious Islamic art and iconography, his facial features are hidden behind a fiery flame. The all-seeing eye as an additional reminder to his soul’s divinity and immortality. He is now, as the visual iconography as well as the digital print title implies: one in a million.
Yet, if my observations and intuition coupled with the array of mystical predictions I have gathered through the last 15 years serve me right, then undoubtedly that single digit is on the rise, to the point where hopefully by 200-300 years time, the title of this print will be meaninglessness. So, as the Delphi oracle suggests: “Know Thyself”, especially because as of now and more aptly going forward – though it has always been pertinent – it shall be your one and only reliable support, possibly more than ever before. So, be the one, two, three, four, five and so forth in that million. Be the most unadulterated, anarchic, individual version of yourself you can be, feel and muster. Be strong. Love yourself far beyond any other and in return that shall reverberate to all of those around you. Be light and walk head high, steady and courageously as the herd mentality vanishes around you. There is no other teacher except yourself and no better road than your path to walk on. You are and shall always be immortal. In the mean time stay safe and keep your eyes wide open.
Be the guru of your own culo | Stefano Lazzaro