“We Are the Flood” — The book documenting Stefano Cagol latest project with a text by Timothy Morton, is out now
“We Are the Flood” is the newly released book published by Postmedia, documenting Stefano Cagol‘s latest project, supported by the Italian Council and completed in 2024.
Stefano Cagol moved in a shocking and wonderful nature, in extreme conditions, heat and frost, on the edge of crevasses, between meticulous care and recklessness, destruction and ecological love. The book captures the artist’s journey through awe-inspiring and extreme natural environments, exploring themes of decay, and resilience. At its heart is a magical and thought-provoking essay by renowned eco-philosopher Timothy Morton, titled “Above the Sea of Everything”. Together, the project and the essay offer a profound dialogue on the relationship between humanity and the environment, blending art, philosophy, and activism.
Stefano Cagol, talking about his encounter with Timothy Morton, asks himself: «What do Timothy Morton and I have in common? A very progressive eco-philosophy». And then explains: «The world-renowned Morton carries it forward with his visionary hyperobjects, asteroids and dark ecology, and I through rituals that are a little mystical and shamanic, a little punk and exorcising. We first met live at the launch of his book “Hell” at the University of Houston, followed by a party at the Avant Garden in the core of Houston —the Montrose neighbourhood!». Timothy Morton recalls the event on his blog ecologywithoutnature: «Club night was amazing. Stefano [Cagol] came FROM VENICE (he had invited me to give the first ever “HELL” lecture, in the Dolomites on Zoom, last year). Ed came from Syracuse (yes, that Ed[ward Morris], from that lecture! [I gave one at Syracuse in February]). Paul [Miller aka DJ Spooky] was so great not only behind the decks but as an amazing host».
Cagol unveils: «The day after, I was lost in contemplation in the Rothko Chapel for four hours; I could never imagine that, just a short time later, it would be damaged and long closed due to Hurricane Beryl. It was a mystical experience like Bjork did—Tim told me later. He joined me in front of the Chapel. We had catfish for dinner. Our thoughts and words ran, fluently converged. Our positions cross between Socrates and Caspar David Friedrich in my new book “We Are the Flood”, published just now by Postmedia, for which Tim wrote the unpublished essay “Above the Sea of Everything”. The book contains the extensive project of the same name, which I conducted to the four corners of the Earth, among deserts, primordial jungles, ancient rocks and thousand-year-old icebergs, in solitude reflecting on the multitude, looking at the long before us and thinking about the after».
Here a short abstract from Timothy Morton’s essay “Above the Sea of Everything”.
“We Are the Flood”. It sounds grand, sublime, awesome. Is it “bad”? We might even like that we are the flood. How many times have white Western humans imagined that they are the agents of God, or of history, the Other of the Other? How many regions of the world have not been marked by the results of this idea? So many, and none. One can justify anything if one is the agent of the Lord: torture, murder, mass destruction, genocide, rape. Why else would a fascist soldier be called a “stormtrooper”? God sends the Flood to destroy creation in the book of Genesis. Might it not be exhilarating to realize that one was the agent of destruction, even of one’s own destruction?
Something was sticking in my mind about how to write this essay. It was something about the disturbing exhilaration that “We Are the Flood” evokes. This worry persisted until I realized the genius with which Stefano Cagol fills out the aesthetic and political imaginary of this potent phrase. As Cagol employs it, “We Are the Flood” is anything but portentous and grand. Cagol dances around the manifold landscapes of the project like as if he is a man possessed. The word “imp” comes to mind. Cagol is the Devil, dancing a dance of death: a comical, grotesque parody of Friedrich.
For it is the seriousness of Friedrich’s wanderer that is in fact the most devilish thing about him. The very gaze of the Wanderer, his contemplative stance, his mastery at rest: all this is the flood
[…]
We Are the Flood is a living contradiction: an imitation whose sincerity or mockery is radically undecidable. Stefano Cagol’s work is dialogical mockery, mimicry and irony in its fully embodied sense. If only more ecological art was ironic and playful like this! What was sticking in my mind must be sticking in many people’s mind, because I credit myself with having extricated myself from a lot of ponderous, oppressive so-called ecological discourse. But apparently not enough. I needed Stefano Cagol to push me a little further.
Link to buy the book
“We Are the Flood”, Postmedia, December 2024.
The book includes texts by Timothy Morton, Stefano Cagol, Francesca Guerisoli, Andreas Hoffmann, Nur Hanim Mohamed Khairuddin, Shaarbek Amankul.
“We Are the Flood” is a project supported by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture under the Italian Council program. Leading institution: MAC Museum for Contemporary Art Lissone. Cultural partner & co-producer: MUSE Science museum. Project partners: Ilulissat Art Museum, Greenland; Darb 1718, Cairo; Port – People of Remarkable Talents, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia; B’Art Contemporary, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
