Sunday, June 12: the square in front of the Cusano Milanino Town Hall. A non-competitive cycling rally is scheduled, drawing numerous participants: young environmentalists, families dragged out of bed by small and overly early-rising children. It's 8 a.m., the air is still chilly, and the sky is reluctant to clear.

Amid the festive cries of children, everyone prepares to take part in a ceremony exorcising the slavery of the automobile... Yet not all of the group sets off.

Once most of the cyclists and their companions have left the square, Giuntini’s paper bicycles remain—immobile. Next to two of De Rosa’s ultra-sophisticated, high-tech bicycle-jewels rest four pseudo-velocipedes, each in silent waiting, poised calmly on its pedestal—so similar and yet so far from that well-known everyday object.

Now the difference between the two kinds of “departures” becomes clearer. The “human” one was like a gust of wind: a small crowd slowly gathered, peaked, then quickly dissipated.

Almost only the memory remains—a fleeting thought. Giuntini’s bicycles, instead, are still there, immobilized by their own lightness, completely defunctionalized, and yet still entirely meaningful, especially here on this square, in the lingering chill of a summer reluctant to begin.

Gian Piero Vincenzo