In ‘Cities & Desire 3’, Marco Polo describes the city of Despina presenting two “faces” to travellers who arrive by land and sea. Each sees the city as an embodiment of the other. The camel driver sees a ship, and the sailor sees a camel as Calvino plays with the idea of multiple ways of seeing when confronted with the same materiality. More than being merely a representation of what the camel driver and sailor lack (and therefore desire), it actually provides some of these things for the two travellers- the city is opportunity. It is an idea also alluded to in ‘Cities & Desire 1’. Here, the city of Dorothea (which, interestingly, there is also only “two ways of describing”) opens paths and possibilities for visitors. Despina is the city as possibility, but these possibilities are dependent on which face of the city you see. If your ways of seeing enable you subtly shift your perspective, you can cross the border between two deserts, and see the other face of the city and the opportunities it provides.
A similar experience occurs with illusionistic images, and so they have been used in the re-presentation of the city. They were not chosen because they trick and deceive the eye, but because they allow for multiple ways of seeing. They do not dictate how the viewer sees what is before them. With the father/son, duck/rabbit, and face/countryside images, Calvino’s description of “two faces” is taken literally. The idea of “faces” is also presented literally by using the faces of a cube. The cube was originally chosen for the parallel between a city and a box that can be opened- the second literal interpretation of “faces” was unintentional.
Each of the three images mentioned above can be seen in two ways. The use of dualities continues with the palindrome, ‘civic’. Thematically appropriate, it is a word that seems like it should be different when viewed from one end or the other. In fact, it reads the same, much as a city may appear different from various perspectives and yet is the same.
The image of a city reflected in the mirror-like ground is a photograph. It was turned upside down to force the viewer to look at the image in another way, however the on the cube the viewer can choose which way to look at it. Moving the cube to gain a different perspective is also important for the anamorphic skull in Hans Holbein the Younger’s ‘The Ambassadors’ (1533). It challenges the viewer to physically change their relationship to the image to see the skull.
Upon handling and turning the cube the viewer will eventually discover one of the faces opens up to reveal one rough visualisation of possibility. The cube re-presents the way in which material components remain the same whilst the people’s relationships to them change. The people are the ones who move around and through cities and in doing so create different perspectives for themselves. Thus, from one desert Despina appears as a camel; from the other, a ship.
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