Christian Caliandro's Cyberpunk Mediterranean: Taranto and San Vito

Christian Caliandro reflects on the urban and cultural landscape of Taranto and San Vito dei Normanni, blending personal anecdotes with observations on decay, memory, and regeneration. In Taranto, he visits Antonio Mariano's workshop, a space filled with paintings of seascapes and model warships, where Mariano recounts meeting Elvis Presley at Malpensa Airport in 1964. Caliandro describes Taranto as an "indecipherable stain" on a blue tie, its buildings eroding yet inhabited, embodying a compressed stratification of history. In San Vito dei Normanni, he attends a workshop on urban regeneration at Barberia De Siati, where Roberto discusses the need for community involvement and a "choral dimension" to overcome distrust. Caliandro coins the term "cyberpunk Mediterranean" to describe the luminous, vernacular, and archaic fusion of elements he encounters.