An island is any piece of land surrounded by water. An island is an object lost in an endless extension of a uniform element. As such, the island is isolated. The island is by definition remote, separated, intimately alternative.

The island is elsewhere. Islands can be naural or artificial: atolls, rocks, volcanos, oases, spaceships, oil rigs, carriers. In his L'iile déserte, Giles Deleuze divides island into the oceanic and the continental. Oceanic ones are „originary, essential island“. San Rocco 1 will try to use oceanic and continental islands, either literally or by analogy. Oceanic island are the radical islands, truly isolated, not only in space, but also in time. Oceanic island have no past. Oceanic island are immediately a „new world“, a reconstruction, a miniature, a utopia. Oceanic islands need to contain everything, because they cannot rely on anything else. Oceanic islands are „a world“, one that appeared all of a sudden. Oceanic islands are fortresses (and fortresses are always doomed to surrender). Contrary to an archipelago, which is a project of a civilization, an oceanic island is a project of a world (and a project of escape). Continental islands, on the contrary are the product of an erosion of a continent. Continental islands are linked to something that exsists close by or that existed sometime before. Like icebergs, they are ruins of what previosly contained them. Continental island are fragments. They presuppose a totality (either lost or promised) to which they belong. Continental islands can be part of a larger ensamble: a continent, an archipelago, a city. Continental islands are „urban“ islands. They host the domesticated heterotopias that are necessary in a city: prsons, zoos, hospitals, theme parks.

Language: English