from the left: Massimo Gerardo Carrese
(fantasiologist), Letizia Casuccio (General Manager of Coop Culture), Paolo Giulierini
(Director of MANN, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples),
Paolo Chiarolanza (Co-founder of SlideWorld and Director of the European Human Development Council)
«I am a scholar of
the scientific, humanistic, ludic and artistic aspects of imagination, imagery and
creativity. My field of research is fantasiology (or phantasiology). I have been
working on imagination, imagery and
creativity since 2001. I'm a fantasiologist, that's my full time job. I work with
universities, schools, associations, training institutes, bookshops, libraries,
prisons, museums....Among the fantasiologist's tasks, there is one that
most stimulates me and torments me at the same time: that of explaining that
imagination and imagery are not activities related to the escape from reality
(i.e. reverie, daydream), but faculties with historical and scientific
characteristics that must be studied if we want to understand these faculties
and their way of becoming concrete in the reality we live in.
Unfortunately,
many
people improvise on these subjects, but we cannot talk about
imagination, imagery
and creativity just from personal opinion or personal experience or
just because you have
read this or that book on the subject. There is an interdisciplinary
study to be done, technical information to be unravelled and the study of
imagination is a
complex and contradictory study that begins in the fifth century BCE
and involves authors from all places and disciplines, not just philosophers and artists.
Imagination,
like imagery
and creativity, is not a word to be filled with content at will but is
a
faculty with specific technical information. Its history is -
wrongly - never taken into account by those who teach courses on
imagination. I am not referring, of course, to the scrupulous
scholar or to those who carry out meticulous bibliographical research
before writing or speaking publicly about imagination.
It
is this superficial writing or speaking
that continues to reduce imagination, once again, to the mere moment
of break, identifying it with the escape from reality, with
daydreaming, with the construction of imaginary worlds,
with mental appearance and abstraction,
whereas it is a faculty linked to rationality, logic,
concreteness,
demonstration with a complex history and scientific characteristics
on which we cannot improvise except at the cost of communicating
inaccuracies.
This is the point: who will notice if a statement about imagination is
wrong? We can easily understand that the statement "William
Shakespeare wrote Pride and
Prejudice" is false, and we can prove it, but on what documentation can
we
affirm the inconsistency of the statement "Imagination is a human faculty
that creates imaginary worlds and it is the freest faculty of all"?
Imagination
is
competence and not improvisation. We can understand
imagination not only from experience
but also from its history. Both history and experience. Therefore we
must also analyse
imagination from an interdisciplinary point of view, first of all by deepening
the technical
differences between imagery, creativity and daydreaming. Like
imagination, these abilities have their own characteristics. The work
of the fantasiologist and of
fantasiology consists in this critical study of imagination and imagery, daydreaming
and creativity.»
Massimo Gerardo Carrese
(2021)
**
WHO IS THE PHANTASIOLOGIST?
M. G. C. [Massimo Gerardo Carrese, ed.] has a typical name of expert and scholar name (thanks to the suffix -logo, of Greek origin), which concerns him directly. He defines himself as a phantasiologist, "scholar of stories and of the characteristics of imagination and imagery". It is a nice name, it has to be said [...] Since the activity of the phantasiologist is related to the idea of the game and, in particular, of the linguistic game, we can say that the name and the activity represent an amusing and intelligent glimmer in times of talkative and of often fatal actions. [...]
From the online Treccani Encyclopedia, by
the lexicographer Silverio Novelli
©2016 "Amare enigmi" - fantasiologic postcard by Massimo Gerardo Carrese
"Fantasiologist (or phantasiologist)": is this a word invented by Massimo Gerardo Carrese? No, but Massimo Gerardo Carrese conceived the professional figure of the phantasiologist: the scholar who analyses and studies the scientific, humanistic, playful and artistic aspects of imagination, imagery and creativity.
A little history
As early as 1987 the word "phantasiologist" had appeared in an interview
in the Italian magazine "Panorama": «[...] edited by Gianni
Guadalupi, a 'phantasiologist', as he has defined himself since he invented
his speciality, that of the modern discoverer of exotic
journeys [...] How did your passion for 'phantasiologist' begin?
[...]."
A splendid activity, that of Guadalupi as a "modern discoverer of
exotic journeys", but as Carrese later understood it, the figure
of "the phantasiologist" is linked to that of the scholar who
analyses the characteristics of imagination, imagery and
creativity.
And
today?
Today, the word "phantasiologist/fantasiologist" (many of the results refer to
the Italian word "fantasiologo") appears on the Internet and in newspapers to indicate, in 99% of searches, the work of Massimo
Gerardo Carrese.
What
does a phantasiologist do?
Massimo Gerardo Carrese works in the field of phantasiology,
the study of the scientific, humanistic, playful
and artistic aspects of imagination (possibilities), imagery (mental images) and creativity (techniques and originality) [click here to learn more].
As
a
phantasiologist, he advises companies
and promotes meetings, lessons and training courses for adults and
children, in the social, university and school sectors. He publishes works
on phantasiology and invents phantasiological games (linguistic, numeric, artistic).
Who is a phantasiologist useful to?
The
professional figure of the phantasiologist is useful for everyone. As
practised by Massimo Gerardo Carrese, it's a profession that focuses on the
critical knowledge of imagination, imagery and creativity.
Three faculties often degraded to mental activities close to
vagueness, abstraction, unreasonableness, childish circumstances or
exclusive practices of artists and "geniuses". In fact, there
is much more to them than one might think. Unusual as it may
seem, imagination, imagery and creativity have long been studied, from Plato to Bruno Munari, from Aristotle to Anna Abraham and beyond.
How to become a phantasiologist?
Fantasiology
Massimo Gerardo Carrese -meeting/workshop on phantasiology (2016)
to find out more