In Constant Dullaart’s manifesto on Balconism, he calls for “a private veranda above ground, a place for a breath of fresh air, out of sight for the casual onlooker” in the modern, digital age. The fourteenth issue of Italian magazine E Il Topo applies this image of the balcony to the context of Venice, Italy. Artists and architects, including Carlos Agaicoa, Jota Castro, Christoph Radl, Oxana Maleeva, Francesco Bonami, Barnaba Fornasetti, Valeria Manzi, Steve Piccolo, Gabriele Di Matteo Francesco Dal Co, Tadao Ando and Marc V. Kalinka, depict this public yet private space. Photographs of balconies as viewed from below, “calle level,” lay interspersed between pieces of text. Alongside photos, Christoph Radl takes a real account of a woman falling off a balcony in the Ukraine, and replaces certain words so that it appears to take place in Venice. Another section comes in the form of an apology letter for all the pollution in Venice’s canals that lay below the balconies. The longest piece of text describes a bandaged man who throws messages in a bottle into the canal, containing criticisms and prophecies of the modern world, echoing sentiments from Dullaart’s manifesto. A Google map opens and closes this publication, showing the locations of various balconies along Venetian canals. Interestingly, the release event for this issue took place on a galleon that sailed to the spots on the map. In or away from Venice, this issue reveals the porch as a destination for the future.
