Anche se non posso focalizzarti - sie nel mio sguardo, first part: A study of the probability of an encounter in an urban setting

Petra Elena Köhle and Nicolas Vermot Petit-Outhenin (*1977/1977, live and work in Zürich) have been working for some time on joint projects. In the spring of last year, within the framework of a test set-up designed for this purpose, they traveled separately for 21 days to Palermo where they recorded their respective routes and activities in detail, given that they had to be able to verify later where they were located at every moment of their stay. Supplied with GPS and dictaphone, with camera and note pad, the two of them wandered through the Sicilian city with the goal of determining if two people who want to encounter each other actually meet somewhere, sometime in a metropolitan setting with an area of 22,000 soccer fields – even if the rules of the game forbid the systematic search for the other person. A wealth of documents consequently accumulated (diary entries, photographs, recordings, videos), which collectively yield a portrait of the city of Palermo contrasting sharply to a tourist’s view. At the same time they also document the moods and thoughts of the two protagonists moving around in this foreign city alone, but always having in mind a possible encounter with the other. Consequently the soberly established rules produce a situation where they both have to come to terms with their foreignness, loneliness and longing; a situation that provokes inner monologues about accidental or fateful encounters, about searching and hunting, about rules and the breaking of them.