> Baroni, Vittore (Italy) /

Vittore Baroni (17 January 1956) - Mail-artist, musician, musical critic, publisher - is one of the most active and respected frequenters of the Mail-Art circuit since the late seventies. He collaborated with several international magazines and fanzines, wrote books on experimental music and Mail-Art, and participate annually in several dozens of international projects.

As a seven year old boy his creative activities start by cutting up his comics with a pair of scissors which gives him the possibility to create new stories. When he enters high school in 1969 he discovers Edgar Allan Poe, symbolist poetry and beat poetry. A year later he start to write poems and musical essays himself, some became published in small Italian underground magazines. In 1975 he starts a series of private happenings and multimedia assemblages.

Vittore Baroni came in contact with Mail-Art in 1977 after a full page ad in an issue of the art magazine Flash Art attracted his attention. It was an ad from the artist Guglielmo Achille Cavellini (Italy) sitting on a bizarre bicycle who offered free books to anyone who was interested. Vittore wrote him and started a correspondence with Cavellini soon followed with Anna Banana (Canada), Bill Gaglione (U.S.A.), Buster Cleveland (U.S.A.), Jerry Dreva (U.S.A.), Michael Scott (U.K.), Paul Carter (U.K.), Genesis P. Orridge (U.K.), … and many more late seventies Mail-artists. He organised his first Mail-Art exhibition in 1979 in the 'Forte dei Marmi' town library, in October of the same year he published also the first issue of his magazine Arte Postale!. The magazine started when he reached a point of increasing number of contacts with the difficulty to send an original answer and single mailing to his contacts. The creation of the magazine gave him the possibility to send something personal to trade with other networkers their correspondence. Till today Arte Postale! is a significant publication dedicated to the aesthetics and philosophies of Mail-Art.

Long before Arte Postale! Vittore was known as a journalist when he started around 1972 to write about music for small alternative magazines. At those days even the word "fanzine" was not coined, he mixed drawings, fiction and musical criticism in crazy pages for some hippie papers. He kept on writing articles and reviews for several small magazines such as Carta Stampata, Rock Zero, and several others including some issues of his own Lt.Murnau zine. In 1981 he was invited to become a staff writer for the national rock monthly Rockerilla.

He worked for Rockerilla from January 1981 till March 1992. After a split in the magazine staff, Vittore and the co-director Claudio Sorge (Italy) together with a few others, left to create a whole new magazine called Rumore which in a few months reached a larger circulation than Rockerilla. Still today Rumore is a leading publication among Italian musical magazines. Meanwhile he also contributed temporarily to several other music magazines such as Velvet, a rock monthly competitor to Rockerilla for which he assumed the pen name of 'Mr. Bizarro!'. From 1989 on, Baroni published also several books about contemporary musical culture and bands as 'The Residents' and 'Psychic TV' from former Mail-artist Genesis P. Orridge and took part in the development of the Enciclopedia Rock Anni '80 from Arcana Editrice (Italy).

Writing and research has been always of great interest for Baroni. In 1984 for example he graduated in foreign languages and literatures from the 'University of Pisa' (Italy), with a thesis on the writing techniques of William S. Burroughs.

While he was writing about industrial music he understood that maybe here was something he could try to do himself. He always loved experimental music anyway, and that is how his own musical activities started in 1980. He started to release several "plagiarist" cassettes and records as the "multiple name" band 'Lieutenant Murnau', a project that ended in 1984. Before this project he recorded mostly sound-poetry under his own name or with different pseudonyms (Abstemious Youth, Kibbo Kift, ...) starting in 1978 for some compilations done in the early eighties. In 1992 he joins the musical project 'Le Forbici di Manitù' of Enrico Marani (Italy) and the mysterious "Manitù Rossi" whose name and dream provides the group name. 'Le Forbici di Manitù' which translates as Manitou's Scissors has released several albums such as: (1995). Quadrielogue [CD]. Trabi, Italy: Disturbance/Minus Habens., (1996). Trivelogue [CD]. Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Staalplaat., (1999). Le Forbici di Manitù play & remix Lt. Murnau. [CD]. Portland, U.S.A.: Soleilmoon/Earthly Delights., ...

Baroni is most known within the Mail-Art network for the several creative projects he made with his close friend Piermario Ciani (Italy). He came in contact with him through the post somewhere at the end of 1979, while exchanging fanzines. After a personal contact they started their partnership in several projects, even when they live about 400 kilometers apart, and meet each other only personally twice a year. The first project started in 1981 when they founded the international multimedia group 'Trax' together with Massimo Giacon (Italy), in which they wanted to be creative in a different way. In their own words 'Trax' is a new entity that would permit them to integrate the most varied interests and to collaborate, preserving a total freedom of action resulting in a piece of artwork. This artwork could be music, Mail-Art, copy art, visual or sound poetry, performance, etc … The project ended in 1987, a catalogue called Last Trax, with a registration of all artworks and activities made by 'Trax' was published in 1987. In 1992 they establish 'The Stickerman Museum' as a part of Ciani's 'Stickerman Project', dedicated to all forms of adhesive art. For years stickers where very visible in their mail. The project was never ended officially but became sleeping after several years. In 2002 they launched the 'F.U.N. (Funtastic United Nations)' project, with a publication of the multimedia box Mail 4 FUN and a series of exhibitions called 'Philatic FUN'. In the 'F.U.N.' project they dispose their technical skills to give artists the possibility to create items such as postcards, artistamps, artists banknotes, … from imaginary and virtual countries. The result of this project are several publications but also might to turn out into a book, a meeting, a show or other kind of events or products.

"AAA Editions wants to create a bridge between "funtastic", creative and imaginary geographical entities, placing their skills and energies at your disposal to produce and circulate fabulous informative materials about the virtual countries that make our life and everybody's life richer. F.U.N. is the logic evolution of over twenty years of networking activities in the fields of mail art (Arte Postale!, various shows and publications), of independent music (Great Complotto, Forbici di Manitù), of collective multimedia researches (Trax), of multiple names (Lieutenant Murnau, Mind Invaders, Luther Blissett), of imaginary worlds and characters (Stickerman-Stickerland), of counter-cultural documentation (fanzines, AAA Editions)." (V. Baroni, personal interview, March, 2003)

The foundation of their publishing house 'AAA Editions' or 'AAA Edizioni' in 1996, has improved the technical possibilities to produce the artworks for their projects and provides their projects with well prepared flyers, stickers, and other items. It is typical for all their projects that it is always accompanied with several kinds of artworks, such as books, tapes, records, stickers, artistamps, rubberstamps, … And that several Mail-Art projects and collaborations with other Mail-artists are attached to the projects.

The publishing house itself is specialised in publications about music (from ambient-industrial and techno-symphonic towards classical trends), fine art and Mail-Art. The publishing house was launched on April first with the publication of the book Tot?, Peppino a la guerra psichica by 'Luther Blissett' followed by many other publications.

For his own personal Mail-Art publications such as Arte Postale! and other materials related to his Mail-Art activities, he created in 1978 'Near the Edge Editions'. 'Near the edge' is a sort of anagram of "renegade". Another name you might encounter in his mailings is 'Ethereal Open Network' or 'E.O.N.', a name he gave to his Mail-Art archive, which has become through the years rather a disordered archive, stored in two rooms and several boxes.

Baroni was also directly involved in the several congress years which took place in the Mail-Art network. In the 'Decentralised Network Congress' year of 1992 he helped the organiser Hans Reudi Fricker (Switzerland) to formulate the world wide call. He travelled to Switzerland to take part in the congress at Fricker's home and several within Italy itself. His involvement in congresses became complete in 1998 when he organised the network project 'Incongruous Meeting 98' (IM98). He invited Mail-artists to organise a meeting and to send a documentation of the meeting to Baroni. He collected all material into a Conclusive IM98 Calendar catalogue. This congress year resulted into about 151 meetings in 28 countries and between 500 and 3000 participants.

Very vague is Vittore Baroni when we ask about his role in 'Luther Blissett'. This fictitious person is a so called "multiple name", a virtual identity who everybody can use for his/her own activities. 'Luther Blissett' is mostly used within literature circles but has also been used for several pranks and cultural jamming.

Sander Donkers (the Netherlands) wrote in his book Luther Blissett, cultureel terrorist about a radio broadcasting in which reveiled that he and some four other unnamed persons from a meeting in Bologna have started this "multiple name" in around 1994. Yet, asking for more information, Baroni did not confirm this story.

"I do not consider myself an "inventor" of Luther Blissett, that was more of a collective creation in which I had little part in. I only joined the "multiple name" project a few months after its start, my friend Piermario Ciani was much more central to the birth of the myth (surely from a visual side, since he created the best known Luther Blissett face). There are many different and contrasting version of the LB story so you just have to read a few (just type the words "Luther Blissett" in a good search engine like Google and you will discover a lot of interesting sites and materials in various languages!) and believe the one you like best or make up your own. LB is mostly interested in media pranks and information guerrilla, he likes to expose the web of lies of the media by demonstrating how easy it is to fool those who control information." (V. Baroni, personal interview, November, 2002)

Works and publications from Vittore Baroni have found their way towards numerous private and public archives whole around the world, such as the 'Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry' in Miami (U.S.A.).

Related Topics:
[01] Magazine
[02] Fanzine
[03] Book
[04] Music
[05] Project
[06] Happening
[07] Assemblage
[08] Cavellini, Guglielmo Achille
[09] Banana, Anna
[10] Gaglione, Bill
[11] Cleveland, Buster
[12] Dreva, Jerry
[13] Scott, Michael
[14] Carter, Paul
[15] Orridge, Genesis P.
[16] Arte Postale!
[17] Zine
[18] Plagiarism
[19] Multiple name
[20] Lieutenant Murnau
[21] Ciani, Piermario
[22] TRAX
[23] Copy art
[24] Visual poetry
[25] Sound poetry
[26] Performance
[27] Catalogue
[28] Stickerman project
[29] Adhesive art
[30] F.U.N.
[31] Postcard
[32] Artistamp
[33] Artists banknote
[34] Imaginary countries
[35] AAA Editions
[36] Flyer
[37] Sticker
[38] Tape
[39] Record
[40] Rubberstamp
[41] Collaboration
[42] Luther Blissett
[43] Mailing
[44] Archive
[45] Congress
[46] Decentralised Network Congress
[47] Fricker, Hans Reudi
[48] Incongruous Meetings
[49] Identity
[50] Prank
[51] Cultural jamming
[52] Radio
[53] Meeting
[54] Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry

References:
[01] (V. Baroni, personal interview, November, 2002)
[02] (V. Baroni, personal interview, March, 2003)
[03] De Decker, G. (2001). [Interview with Vittore Baroni] [WWW page]. URL http://www.sztuka-fabryka.be
[04] Janssen, R. (1995). [Interview with Vittore Baroni]. TAM Mail-Interview Project [WWW page]. URL http://www.iuoma.org/ 
[05] Bulatov, D. (n.d.) . GLUKHOMANIA.RU, An Electronic Museum of Lingua-Acoustic Space [WWW page] . URL http://ncca.smufsa.nu/pr_sonorus.php3 
[06] Principi, U. (1996) . MAGAM, Mail Art Gallery And Museum [WWW page] . URL http://www.sapienza.it/magam/inglese/home_intro.html 
[07] Baroni, V. & Ciani, P. (n.d.). AAA Edizioni [WWW page]. URL http://www.aaa-edizioni.it/ 
[08] Donkers, S. (n.d.). Luther Blissett, cultureel terrorist. Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek.

Date last update: 25 May 2003