No need to read sci-fi novels to travel in time. No need for a time machine to bring you from our blackberry obsessed, technologically exhausted times to a world of medieval achitecture, traditional cuisine, and remarkable costumes. The annual Venetian carnaval offers all that. A carnaval worthy of its name, it is not merely a combustion of colourful costumes worn by an alcohol infused crowd, but more like a theater, a conversation between the present and the past. A conversation that to me looked like one which could take place between a renaissance artist and a cubist - what I would tend to qualify as a misunderstanding. Renaissance Venice meeting cubist, simplistic modernity where we are all dressed in the same made in China GAP or H&M or something of the like outfits, where the art of conversation is no longer 'art', and where simplicity has definitely won the war over complexity.

Welcome to Place St. Mark, the epicenter of Venice, the nexus of the routes of the gondolas and the vaporetti, offering an unparalleled setting for the carnaval - a perimeter so frozen in time that even the French architecture in comparison shocks the eye as a modern construction. More like a piece of theatre, during the Venice carnaval the locals masquerade in mediaval costumes, in couples constituted as much of traditional as of gay couples or singles: posing, parading, whispering to each other, throwing mysterious glances around the crowd. Welcome to the Venice of the 17th, 18th or 19th centuries. On these grey, otherwise unremarkable February days, I felt to be a part of history. Not of the history that our generation has created for the next, but that of the last thankfully preserved for us.

The spirit of the event is nothing like North American carnavals which typically end with (at least one) post-mortem in the local paper explaining that the police is on the hunt for a representative of the gang x who shot a representative of gang y. In Venice, the only guns are costume props and the only 'gangs' the myriad of paparazzi-acting tourists chasing after the personified history. At Cafe Florian, built in the early 18th century, the corseted mesdames were sipping tea next to very gay and proudly posing gentlemen drinking the best hot chocolate of the city, if not Italy. Across the place, a local was posing as a Van Gogh. Two maters away, in front of the St Marc basilica, a play was unfolding, which, due to my rather inexistent Italian, I must confess not to have followed.

Reminiscing back at the Carnaval, I cannot help but feel exactly the same way as looking at a recent exhibit of Phoenician civilisation in Paris. How is that what we call 'progress' does not seem to find an echo in the reality of modernity? And secondly, how is that 'progress' has so quickly retreated from the civilisations so historically advanced? Is it really the mass manufactured textiles that no matter where in the world one finds them, say 'made in China', that our generation will be remembered for? Will we be remembered for the electronic tools and gadgets that allow us to communicate with everyone at the same time without saying anything to anyone? Or better even, without saying something to those we should? Will we be remembered for the cubist paintings some of which one passes in Tate Modern without having any idea as to where even begin to appreciate this kind of art? Or better even, pretending to appreciate it because it is 'in'?

Of course I am aware that in saying so I am failing to appreciate all the inventions and architectural innovation, the new artistic directions and the amazing advances in some areas such as cinematography. It just looks like these advances have somehow come at a cost of 'high art', of uniqueness, of the very idea of suffering for beauty. Now, no one needs to suffer for 'beauty' as has been deconstructed by the modern art movement which teaches us to appreciate the 'simplicity of modern' lines (i.e. 5 year old colouring skills). No one needs to appreciate elaborate clothing designs since the former have been mimicked to death and over-reproduced by the influx of cheap exports. Too tempting is the example a louis vitton bag outside selling of that same place St. Mark on the magic carpet of an African immigrant for 20 euros.

I suppose we can be thankful that in spite all the wars which have engulfed Europe and its various kingdoms and clans, destroyed its cities and replaced entire civilisations, certain traditions remain constant. Amid the constantness of certain cities: Pizzas, gondolas, biscotti, and last but not least, the grumpy Italians that are more fed up with their beloved city being drowned by a wave of tourists than by those real waves of the sea. I suppose they are paying the price of remaining an archipelago of tradition in our otherwise modernity obsessed word. Little do they realise how much of an endangered species they are. For who really knows when the traditional costumes be replaced by above touched up images of something far more perfect but far less historic? And if you believe that might be a threat, I just have one question. See you at place St. Marc next February? Rain or sun.