Hydro-idiocy: Bringing the aquatic ‘unthought’ into the dried landscape of Palermo

In the Southern city of Palermo, water is not merely confined to the seascape. There is an internal hydrography of the city which has been indiscriminately dried, tamed and erased through the centuries to accommodate the cemental epidermis of the urban. Silently fermenting on the bed of ancient rivers and springs, the recalcitrant “aquacity” irrupts against the urban solidity through floods, leakages and jets. Dwellers’ responses to the epiphanies of water are however varied and unexpected: by surfing, fishing, and swimming the internal liquidity of the city, they dwell on a creative mocking of the urban overflow. Through such bizarre and eclectic behaviors flowing together in the speculative and playful notion of ‘hydro-idiocy’, I aim to explore the many urban infrastructures’ malfunctions, failures and uneven access that are quotidianly experienced in the city of Palermo and, more significantly, stage new creative acts that will help us to rethink the apparent disconnection between water and land in the city.