Page 69 - The MoMA/ Guggenheim issue of World of Art magazine (2001)

eLiTe UMbeRTO Eco
Travels in Hyperreality (1990). The limits of interpretation (1990). foucault’s in the Middle ages (1988). leonardo cremonini: Paintings and Watercolors
Pendulum (1989). On the Medieval Theory of Signs (1989). The aesthetics of 1976-1986 (1987). Semiotics and the Philosophy of language (1984). The Sign
chaomos: The Middle ages of James Joyce (1989). The Open Work (1989). The of Three: dupin, Holmes, Peirce (1984). Postscript to The name of the Rose
bomb and the general (1989). The Three astronauts (1989). Meaning and Mental (1983). The name of the Rose (1983). The Role of the Reader: explorations in
Representations (1988). The aesthetics of Thomas aquinas (1988). art and beauty the Semiotics of Text (1979). The Theory of Semiotics (1976)

ecO’S HOMe, MilanO (lefT: UMbeRTO ecO, RigHT: PeTRU RUSSU)

Yes, even corresponding to, let’s say, my ideology. Once, when i was younger, more flexible and they are more independent of past experience. They do not
i said that after 50 a critic or a scholar mustn’t be concerned any longer with risk repeating the same schemes; interpretative schemes. So why should i make
avant-garde movements, but to write only about analyses of programs when they are able to do it better?
elizabethan poets. “Professor eco, you are an academic; you’re a scholar. You also write popular
“...writing about the past?” books. You are writing, very successfully, for two entirely different audiences. do
Yes, now why? because novelty is coming so quickly these days that only a you experience any difficulty withstanding tabloidisation of your work, where the
younger person is able to swallow and digest it, while an older person is slower tabloid media and the Tv conform to certain genres and norms which may be
in doing that. Why? an older person has a lot of experience, knows a lot of things uncharacteristic of scholarly
and can very well work on more established problems than the young people work?”
who do not know enough to do that. The problem is triple. There is not a single problem, there are three problems.
“Well, no, they don’t have enough insight of course...” first, a statement: i write academic stuff. i write in the newspapers - call it tabloid
This is a general rule; it’s not by chance that my last scholarly book was on or popular journalism. i write my novels that by a mysterious chance have a
the search for a perfect language and not on the last trends in informatics and mass success, but which i personally consider academic novels; and they are
semantics. because younger people are very fresh and able to see what happens not easy novels. They are not love stories or things like that. So, there are three
in these domains. i personally have more experience and am better able to work different problems.
out from classical material. in a way i think i have followed this principle. Obviously, Secondly, the problem can be considered from the point of view of the
i keep my eyes open; i am still very curious about all this. Really though, i don’t producer and the point of view of the receiver. as a producer i do not feel i have
try at any cost to try to understand and write about post-rap music. i am more a split personality. all my life, the fact of studying something helped me to write
able to make a good analysis of the beatles, if not, of Johann Sebastian bach. more popular articles in order to explain the phenomena of the mass-media. The
and that’s what happens with all those new technologies. it is the same as what fact of being obliged to do this made me make weekly reflections - i would say
happens to a sportsman. You are a football player until the age of thirty. after irresponsible reflections - cooked-and-eaten or wash-and-wear reflections on
30 you become a coach. what happened day by day helped me to collect experiences; to be attentive to
“Yes, exactly. but the coach of course has the responsibility of keeping what happened, and then to use the same material in a more organic and more
himself oriented about what is going on...? profound, or more articulated and more critical way in my academic books.
Oh yes, keeping informed, but he is not obliged to try to kick the ball every So, for me, it was a sort of mutual help: the academic activity helped me
morning. to have instruments to understand the actualities; the continual attention to day
“and also there’s this idea of being a facilitator, rather than a user in a by day events helped me to have material for reflection for my academic work.
conventional way: one sees the possibilities that are available, and makes them The story of the novel is another one, but equally i don’t feel a split here either
available for the other people and just says Ok...? in my personality. i feel that what i do on the left side helps what i am doing on
Yes, but it is younger people who must make the new analyses. They are the right side.
(to be continued in the next number)
WORLD of ART 67