Massimo Cartaginese
As a ship sails it follows either a loxodromic or an orthodromic route.
The first, very long, always forms the same angle with the meridians it crosses. The second, usually shorter, do not care for angles but simply join two points in a straight line.
In the short extended Adriatic Sea anyone navigating inevitably follows an orthodromic course, short and safe.
I thought about how the straight line is a representation of "security" or, in fact coincides with it. And also how security, one of the watchwords of the West (which is already dead of its own volition) has become, before our very eyes, a kind of straight line " obsession or a lust that pretends to be achieved by following the shortest path.
It is furthermore evident that this claim of a straight line, or rather the primacy of securityover freedom, is not shareable full stop. I do not share it and I prefer, puffing and panting against the current, to deny the evidence of the straight way. (It will it be right for me later?)
And since I am dealing with a little sea, two cities on opposite shores, and a boat, I try to make explicit my statement, overcoming the ramdomness and in-permanence of words.
If the straight line is a very simple graphic sign, the curved or broken lines are complex identities originating from an infinite number of pretexts.
It is clear that a nautical route of this type, completely non-functional and insecure on the level of navigation, properly belongs to the sphere of art, since it is property of art, to experience the uncertain, not to possess any tangible function and to enjoy the freedom of the result so obtained.
The operation was conducted in three phases: 1) drawn on the chart the art course calculating its compass bearings, latitude and longitude of each significant vertex, length in miles of each stretch. 2) the route was partially executed by navigating it at sea, providing the helmsman all the necessary data and integrated them into the onboard GPS, satellite navigation tool.
(The helmsman contempalted the quantity of fuel tha had gone up in smoke and calculeted the hours lost in doodles)
3) The "memory" of the track has been entrusted to that of a computer which displayed the course as it was being travelled, storing it on some files at the same time.
the yacht Aline partial course in the sea area between Ancona e Split, recorded in real time by satellite on july the 20, 2003