Rituals and tradition

It is possible to associate the rite (which we consider as “a magic or religious technique to control natural forces which rational approach couldn’t afford” (from Nicola Abbagnano’s Dictionary of Philosophy) to the three phases of Matthew Barney’s weltanshauung: Situation, Condition and Production as we can track down in Drawing Restraint series.

The result of this treble process never reach balance because every state of Production leads automatically to a new Situation. It is a continuous circular process where every finishing line corresponds to a starting one. It is an endless process in which reality is create and dissolute continuously.

We decided to associate Situation, Condition and Production as postulated by Barney to other three phases which we name: Desire, Sacrifice and Result.

We consider Desire as primary state of human condition, a feeling of incompleteness and privation which leads human beings to the action. They have to resolve this primordial tribulation trying to fill up this ancestral lack. Only through Sacrifice (seen also as physical and/or mental effort) this primordial lack could be sort out. The Result of this tribulation is a new identity. Even if a new identity is reached, the state of desire recurs again and the rite restarts.

These three phases process underlines a strong analogy with religious rituality. Analyzing Barney’s production in its ritual aspects we would like to approach Christian Italian traditional rituals. We decided to focus on the Vattienti’s rite. Through this purification rite practiced on Holy Friday by the inhabitants of Nocera Terinese (a small village in South Italy) we would like to let emerge a fruitful dialogue. The treble scheme submitted to the ritual practices we described before could be retrieved in Vattienti’s run:

- Sense of lack towards divine perfection due to the desire of redemption.
- Bodily mortification to recreate the Christ suffering condition.
- Spiritual renaissance of the whole Nocera Terinese community.

Inspired by the Drawing Restraint series study and observation we decided to develop an interpretation of the work reasoning about some ritual process’ aspects and particularities. We would like to investigate the concept of restriction starting from the believes and the religious traditions which have characterized our country tradition continuing to exert influence on its development.