Wu Ming

Wu Ming.

Wu Ming (extended name: Wu Ming Foundation) is a pseudonym for a group of Italian authors formed in 2000 from a subset of the Luther Blissett community in Bologna.

In their pre-Wu Ming days, the group wrote the novel Q (first edition 1999).

Meaning of the name

In Chinese, "wu ming" means either "anonymous" (simplified Chinese: 无名; traditional Chinese: 無名; pinyin: wú míng) or "five names" (Chinese: 五名; pinyin: wǔ míng), depending on how the first syllable is pronounced. The name of the band is meant both as a tribute to dissidents ("Wu Ming" is a common byline among Chinese citizens demanding democracy and freedom of speech) and as a refusal of the celebrity-making machine which turns the author into a star. "Wu Ming" is also a reference to the third sentence in the Dàodéjīng (Tao Te Ching): "Wu ming tian di zhi shi"（無名天地之始）, "Nameless is Heaven's and Earth's Origin". "Wu Ming" (唔明) may also mean "Don't understand" in Cantonese.

Members and public personae

The members of Wu Ming are typically known as "Wu Ming 1", "Wu Ming 2", "Wu Ming 3", "Wu Ming 4", and "Wu Ming 5". Real names are not secret though:

• Roberto Bui (Wu Ming 1)
• Giovanni Cattabriga (Wu Ming 2)
• Luca Di Meo (Wu Ming 3)
• Federico Guglielmi (Wu Ming 4)
• Riccardo Pedrini (Wu Ming 5)

The five authors do extensive book tours (which they describe as "almost gratefuldeadesque" ) and frequently appear in public. However, they refuse to be photographed or filmed by the media. Even on their official website, they do not provide any pictures of themselves. Here is how Wu Ming 1 explained the group's stance in a 2007 interview:

'Once the writer becomes a face... it's a cannibalistic jumble: that face appears everywhere, almost always out of context. A photo is witness to my absence; it's a banner of distance and solitude. A photo paralyses me, it freezes my life into an instant, it negates my ability to transform into something else. I become a "character", a stopgap to hurriedly fill a page layout, an instrument that amplifies banality. On the other hand my voice - with its grain, with its accents, with its imprecise diction, its tonalities, rhythms, pauses and vacillations - is witness to a presence even when I'm not there; it brings me close to people and doesn't negate my transformative capacity because its presence is dynamic, alive and trembling even when seemingly still.'

In Wu Ming's official biographical page (Italian version), the collective denies rumors they once beat up a press photographer:

"The dates and places vary, but the core of all versions stays the same. Well, it never ever happened, but it's true that, like Auda Ibu Tay in Lawrence of Arabia or King Kong in the famous gala opening scene, we're no camera-mongers. We don't go on TV either. We're timid people."

54

Main article: 54 (novel)

54 is the most representative amongst the books written by the collective in its early years. It is deemed as an extremely complex novel about popular culture, the shattered dreams of the Italian Resistance, and the relationship between Europe and America.

Background research began in 1999, after the publication of the group's previous novel Q. Plots were outlined in the aftermath of the Kosovo War. Actual writing work ended ten days after S11, in the eve of the war in Afghanistan. These two wars are explicitly referred to in the novel's End Titles: "Begun in May 1999, during the Nato bombings of Belgrade. Delivered to the Italian publishers on 21 September 2001, awaiting the escalation". The events leading to (and following) S11 are also allegorically described in the book's forenote.

54 was published in Italy in the springtime of 2002. In the following months, Wu Ming collaborated with Italian folk-rock band Yo Yo Mundi, whose ensuing concept album 54 (2004) was directly inspired from the novel.

Radio Alice / Working Slowly

Wu Ming is also credited as co-writers for the Italian film Lavorare con lentezza (aka Radio Alice), directed by Guido Chiesa, released in Italy in 2004.

The original title means "Working slowly" and cites a protest song, a popular leftist anthem in the 1970's: "Work slowly / And effortlessly / Work may hurt you / And send you to the hospital / Where there's no bed left / And you may even die. / Work slowly / And effortlessly / Health is priceless." (Translated by Wu Ming)

The film is set during an actual student uprising that paralysed Bologna for several days in March 1977. Several narrative threads are woven around Radio Alice, the station run by the "creative wing" (the so-called "Mao-Dadaists") of the radical Autonomia movement. In the morning of March 11 a brawl involving radical and catholic students escalated to a full-scale riot in the university district. The Carabinieri riot squad attacked and shot down a 25-year-old student called Francesco Lorusso. As a result, thousands of students and activists stormed the centre of the town, clashing with the police and throwing molotov cocktails. On March 13 the premises of Radio Alice were invaded and vandalised by the police, the station was shut down and every member of the staff was arrested. The film tells the story mixing real anecdotes with semi-fictional characters.

Radio Alice has won several awards and prizes at movie festivals all over Europe, including the Marcello Mastroianni Award for the Best Young Actors at the 2004 Venice Film Festival and the First Prize at the 2005 Festival de Cinema Politic in Barcelona, Spain.

Bibliography

The group has published several novels in print and online, released under a Creative Commons license, and they are available for download on the group's website. As of December 2007, only Q and 54 have been translated into English, whereas most books are available in several European languages.

• Q (originally written as Luther Blissett, 1999)
• Hatchets of War (with Vitaliano Ravagli, 2000)
• Havana Glam (by Wu Ming 5, 2001)
• 54 (2002). Translated into English, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazilian), and Dutch
• This Revolution Has No Face (2002). A Spanish anthology of articles and short stories
• Giap! (2003). An Italian anthology of articles and short stories
• War on the Humans (by Wu Ming 2, 2004). Translated into Dutch and French
• New Thing (by Wu Ming 1, 2004). Translated into Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish and French
• Hatchets of War 2.0 (with Vitaliano Ravagli, 2005)
• Free Karma Food (by Wu Ming 5, 2006)
• Manituana (2007, under translation in French and Spanish)
• Weather Reports (2008)

See also

• Luther Blissett
• Q (novel)
• 54 (novel)
• Manituana (novel)

External links

• Official site - biographical page in English
• A very extensive and detailed interview with the Wu Ming Foundation, conducted by professor Henry Jenkins and published on his blog in two installments, 1 and 2.
• Wu Ming 1 talks on the New Italian Epic at Middlebury College, VT, March 31st, 2008
• 2003/2005 interviews
• Lavorare Con Lentezza at IMDb
• In 2006 Chicago Review published two stories ("In Like Flynn" and "The Emperor's Three Hundred Woodcutters") by and an interview with Wu Ming.