Reconstruction of the model of Vlamidir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International as an Instrument of Research for Domesticity
2009
Wood, acrylic, veneer, plywood, spray
30 x 30 x 110cm
Friday, November 20, 2009
Reconstruction of the model of Vlamidir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International as an Instrument of Research for Domesticity
Reconstruction of the model of Vlamidir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International as an Instrument of Research for Domesticity
2009
Wood, acrylic, veneer, plywood, spray
30 x 30 x 110cm
San Francisco Ferry Super-Structure
William Dassonville, San Francisco Ferry Super-Structure, ca.1920
Δύσκολες απαντήσεις
Σε άρθρο που δημοσιεύεται εδώ στην σελίδα του Κ.Κ.Ε, και υπογράφει η Ελένη Μπέλλου μέλος του ΠΓ της ΚΕ του ΚΚΕ, με τίτλο "Ο αντεπαναστατικός γιορτασμός για το γκρέμισμα του «Τείχους του Βερολίνου»" θέτει η Ε. Μπέλου, τα παρακάτω ερωτήματα. Πήρα το θάρρος να απαντήσω μιας και κανείς δεν ασχολείται πλέον στα σοβαρά ούτε με το ΠΓ ούτε με την ΚΕ ούτε με το ΚΚΕ, αλλά αυτός είναι και o λόγος που κάποιος πρέπει να το κάνει για να μην έχουμε "μελλοντικά κενά"
1.
Ε.Μ: Αφού δεν υπάρχει ιστορική αναγκαιότητα επαναστατικού περάσματος από τον καπιταλισμό στο σοσιαλισμό - κομμουνισμό, αφού ο καπιταλισμός δεν κινδυνεύει από τον κομμουνισμό που αποτελεί ιστορικό παρελθόν όπως η φεουδαρχία και το δουλοκτητικό σύστημα, γιατί τόσος ιδεολογικός μόχθος πάνω στο πτώμα του;
Γ.Ι: Για τους ίδιους ακριβώς λόγους που υπήρξε ιδεολογικός μόχθος πάνω στο “πτώμα” του φεουδαλισμού. Τα παραδείγματα πολλά. Να μην ξεχνάμε ότι η Ιστορία μας διδάσκει ότι επαναλαμβάνεται πολλές φορές ως φάρσα, αλλά δυστυχώς με καταστροφικά για την ανθρωπότητα αποτελέσματα. Σα να λέμε ότι το πτώμα τείνει να γίνει ζόμπι, και όλοι γνωρίζουμε ότι τα ζόμπι δεν είναι χορτοφάγα.
Για αυτό μοχθούμε ιδεολογικά. Για μια καθώς πρέπει ταφή.
Αυτό το σοσιαλισμός-κομμουνισμός μένει λιγάκι αίολο. Τι εννοείτε;
Κυρίως εξηγήστε την παύλα.
Επίσης η λέξη πτώμα χρειάζεται εισαγωγικά σύμφωνα με τα όσα υποστηρίζετε.
2.
Ε.Μ: Γιατί καταδιώκονται συμβολισμοί του κομμουνιστικού κινήματος, ιδιαίτερα στις χώρες της καπιταλιστικής παλινόρθωσης, αφού «οι ίδιες οι λαϊκές μάζες τον έχουν απορρίψει, τον έχουν ανατρέψει»; Γιατί διώκονται, μάλιστα πολύ περισσότερο από ό,τι φασιστικές - νεοναζιστικές κινήσεις, παρά το γεγονός ότι κομψά και άκομψα διοχετεύονται μύριοι ιδεολογικοί συνειρμοί περί «μαύρου» και «κόκκινου» ολοκληρωτισμού;
Γ.Ι: Μα γιατί στις «χώρες της καπιταλιστικής παλινόρθωσης» υπήρξαν και τα στρατόπεδα συγκέντρωσης τα διαβόητα γκούλαγκ, υπήρξαν οι περίφημες μυστικές υπηρεσίες η ασφάλεια και γενικότερα ένας ολόκληρος μηχανισμός καταπίεσης, κατίσχυσης, παρακολουθήσεων, συκοφαντιών βασανιστηρίων εξαφανίσεων εκτελέσεων δολοφονιών κτλ. Όλα αυτά τα οργάνωσαν κάποιοι που αυτοαποκαλούνταν κομμουνιστές και οι οποίοι έκαναν ευρύτατη χρήση αυτών των συμβόλων με σκοπό να καλύπτουν τα όσα ιδιοτελή και απάνθρωπα έπρατταν.Επομένως...
3.
Ε.Μ: Γιατί, παρά τη στοχοπροσήλωση και το συντονισμό στην απαξίωση των σοσιαλιστικών επιτευγμάτων για τη λαϊκή πλειοψηφία - την κατάργηση της ανεργίας, την πλήρη εξασφάλιση του δικαιώματος στην εργασία, στην εκπαίδευση, στη φροντίδα Υγείας-Πρόνοιας, στον Πολιτισμό-Αθλητισμό, στη στέγη - η λαϊκή μνήμη επιμένει να θεωρεί ότι ζούσε καλύτερα σε εκείνο το σοσιαλιστικό παρελθόν, τουλάχιστον από την άποψη των υλικών όρων;
Γ.Ι: Κατ’αρχήν είστε αόριστη λέγοντας ότι «...η λαϊκή μνήμη επιμένει να θεωρεί ότι ζούσε καλύτερα σε εκείνο το σοσιαλιστικό παρελθόν...» διότι η λαϊκή μνήμη λέει και πολλά άλλα, ας μην τα αναφέρουμε και χαλάμε επιπλέον τις καρδιές μας.
Και στην συνέχεια μιλάτε για επιτεύγματα του σοσιαλισμού όσον αφορά την λαϊκή πλειοψηφία την ίδια στιγμή που η Ιστορία έχει καταγράψει ότι η λαϊκή πλειοψηφία βρίσκονταν στα κάτεργα. Συμπεραίνω λοιπόν ότι οι μαρτυρίες στις οποίες βασίζεστε προέρχονται από ανθρώπους του καθεστώτος. Όπως και εδώ στην Ελλαδίτσα όπου τόσοι και τόσοι «λαϊκοί άνθρωποι» ταξιτζήδες ,περιπτεράδες, εργάτες ακόμη, υποστήριξαν και ακόμη υποστηρίζουν λίγο πολύ, το "καλό που έκανε στην χώρα ο Παπαδόπουλος"
4.
Ε.Μ:Γιατί, παρά τη συγκέντρωση τόσων δυνάμεων για την προετοιμασία των εκδηλώσεων, συμμετείχαν στην κεντρική εκδήλωση περίπου 100.000, σύμφωνα με πληροφορίες μας, όταν στην ανάλογη πρωτοχρονιάτικη συγκεντρώνονται 1.000.000;
Γ.Ι: Αυτή την ερώτηση σας την απαντώ χαριστικά φερόμενος ώς τζέντλεμαν.
Ούτε τόσοι δεν ήταν, αλλά όπως και να το κάνεις η Πρωτοχρονιά είναι κομμάτι παλαιότερη γιορτή με μεγάλη παράδοση και "πολυδιαφημισμένη" σε χώρες όπως η Γερμανία δεν είναι κριτήριο αυτό για να πλησιάσει κανείς στην αλήθεια. Να με συγχωρείτε αλλά απλά εκθέτει αυτόν που ρωτά.
Ελπίζοντας ότι θα πάψετε να ρεζιλεύεστε και να επιδεικνύεται την ιδεολογική σας απελπισία, να ρωτήσω κι εγώ κάτι που σας έχουν ρωτήσει μάλλον και άλλοι «αντικομουνιστές» «δωσίλογοι» «πράκτορες» "ρουφιάνοι" και «νεοφιλελεύθερα καθάρματα» πριν από μένα.
Το διάβασα στον τοίχο τις προάλλες,
“ΤΟ ΚΚΕ δεν κάνει δήλωση”.
Εννοείτε στην εφορία?
υ.γ μας άρεσε το "χώρες της καπιταλιστικής παλινόρθωσης"
Επίσης το "γιορτασμός" εκπληκτικό
Σχόλιο του Γιάννη Ισιδώρου απο το blog http://dangerfew.blogspot.com
1.
Ε.Μ: Αφού δεν υπάρχει ιστορική αναγκαιότητα επαναστατικού περάσματος από τον καπιταλισμό στο σοσιαλισμό - κομμουνισμό, αφού ο καπιταλισμός δεν κινδυνεύει από τον κομμουνισμό που αποτελεί ιστορικό παρελθόν όπως η φεουδαρχία και το δουλοκτητικό σύστημα, γιατί τόσος ιδεολογικός μόχθος πάνω στο πτώμα του;
Γ.Ι: Για τους ίδιους ακριβώς λόγους που υπήρξε ιδεολογικός μόχθος πάνω στο “πτώμα” του φεουδαλισμού. Τα παραδείγματα πολλά. Να μην ξεχνάμε ότι η Ιστορία μας διδάσκει ότι επαναλαμβάνεται πολλές φορές ως φάρσα, αλλά δυστυχώς με καταστροφικά για την ανθρωπότητα αποτελέσματα. Σα να λέμε ότι το πτώμα τείνει να γίνει ζόμπι, και όλοι γνωρίζουμε ότι τα ζόμπι δεν είναι χορτοφάγα.
Για αυτό μοχθούμε ιδεολογικά. Για μια καθώς πρέπει ταφή.
Αυτό το σοσιαλισμός-κομμουνισμός μένει λιγάκι αίολο. Τι εννοείτε;
Κυρίως εξηγήστε την παύλα.
Επίσης η λέξη πτώμα χρειάζεται εισαγωγικά σύμφωνα με τα όσα υποστηρίζετε.
2.
Ε.Μ: Γιατί καταδιώκονται συμβολισμοί του κομμουνιστικού κινήματος, ιδιαίτερα στις χώρες της καπιταλιστικής παλινόρθωσης, αφού «οι ίδιες οι λαϊκές μάζες τον έχουν απορρίψει, τον έχουν ανατρέψει»; Γιατί διώκονται, μάλιστα πολύ περισσότερο από ό,τι φασιστικές - νεοναζιστικές κινήσεις, παρά το γεγονός ότι κομψά και άκομψα διοχετεύονται μύριοι ιδεολογικοί συνειρμοί περί «μαύρου» και «κόκκινου» ολοκληρωτισμού;
Γ.Ι: Μα γιατί στις «χώρες της καπιταλιστικής παλινόρθωσης» υπήρξαν και τα στρατόπεδα συγκέντρωσης τα διαβόητα γκούλαγκ, υπήρξαν οι περίφημες μυστικές υπηρεσίες η ασφάλεια και γενικότερα ένας ολόκληρος μηχανισμός καταπίεσης, κατίσχυσης, παρακολουθήσεων, συκοφαντιών βασανιστηρίων εξαφανίσεων εκτελέσεων δολοφονιών κτλ. Όλα αυτά τα οργάνωσαν κάποιοι που αυτοαποκαλούνταν κομμουνιστές και οι οποίοι έκαναν ευρύτατη χρήση αυτών των συμβόλων με σκοπό να καλύπτουν τα όσα ιδιοτελή και απάνθρωπα έπρατταν.Επομένως...
3.
Ε.Μ: Γιατί, παρά τη στοχοπροσήλωση και το συντονισμό στην απαξίωση των σοσιαλιστικών επιτευγμάτων για τη λαϊκή πλειοψηφία - την κατάργηση της ανεργίας, την πλήρη εξασφάλιση του δικαιώματος στην εργασία, στην εκπαίδευση, στη φροντίδα Υγείας-Πρόνοιας, στον Πολιτισμό-Αθλητισμό, στη στέγη - η λαϊκή μνήμη επιμένει να θεωρεί ότι ζούσε καλύτερα σε εκείνο το σοσιαλιστικό παρελθόν, τουλάχιστον από την άποψη των υλικών όρων;
Γ.Ι: Κατ’αρχήν είστε αόριστη λέγοντας ότι «...η λαϊκή μνήμη επιμένει να θεωρεί ότι ζούσε καλύτερα σε εκείνο το σοσιαλιστικό παρελθόν...» διότι η λαϊκή μνήμη λέει και πολλά άλλα, ας μην τα αναφέρουμε και χαλάμε επιπλέον τις καρδιές μας.
Και στην συνέχεια μιλάτε για επιτεύγματα του σοσιαλισμού όσον αφορά την λαϊκή πλειοψηφία την ίδια στιγμή που η Ιστορία έχει καταγράψει ότι η λαϊκή πλειοψηφία βρίσκονταν στα κάτεργα. Συμπεραίνω λοιπόν ότι οι μαρτυρίες στις οποίες βασίζεστε προέρχονται από ανθρώπους του καθεστώτος. Όπως και εδώ στην Ελλαδίτσα όπου τόσοι και τόσοι «λαϊκοί άνθρωποι» ταξιτζήδες ,περιπτεράδες, εργάτες ακόμη, υποστήριξαν και ακόμη υποστηρίζουν λίγο πολύ, το "καλό που έκανε στην χώρα ο Παπαδόπουλος"
4.
Ε.Μ:Γιατί, παρά τη συγκέντρωση τόσων δυνάμεων για την προετοιμασία των εκδηλώσεων, συμμετείχαν στην κεντρική εκδήλωση περίπου 100.000, σύμφωνα με πληροφορίες μας, όταν στην ανάλογη πρωτοχρονιάτικη συγκεντρώνονται 1.000.000;
Γ.Ι: Αυτή την ερώτηση σας την απαντώ χαριστικά φερόμενος ώς τζέντλεμαν.
Ούτε τόσοι δεν ήταν, αλλά όπως και να το κάνεις η Πρωτοχρονιά είναι κομμάτι παλαιότερη γιορτή με μεγάλη παράδοση και "πολυδιαφημισμένη" σε χώρες όπως η Γερμανία δεν είναι κριτήριο αυτό για να πλησιάσει κανείς στην αλήθεια. Να με συγχωρείτε αλλά απλά εκθέτει αυτόν που ρωτά.
Ελπίζοντας ότι θα πάψετε να ρεζιλεύεστε και να επιδεικνύεται την ιδεολογική σας απελπισία, να ρωτήσω κι εγώ κάτι που σας έχουν ρωτήσει μάλλον και άλλοι «αντικομουνιστές» «δωσίλογοι» «πράκτορες» "ρουφιάνοι" και «νεοφιλελεύθερα καθάρματα» πριν από μένα.
Το διάβασα στον τοίχο τις προάλλες,
“ΤΟ ΚΚΕ δεν κάνει δήλωση”.
Εννοείτε στην εφορία?
υ.γ μας άρεσε το "χώρες της καπιταλιστικής παλινόρθωσης"
Επίσης το "γιορτασμός" εκπληκτικό
Σχόλιο του Γιάννη Ισιδώρου απο το blog http://dangerfew.blogspot.com
Political Act in Contemporary : Drawing Borders
A sentence, coined by the artist Šejla Kamerić, from Bosnia and Herzegovina:
“There is no border, there is no border, there is no border,
no border, no border, no border,
I wish.”
as an art work (recently quoted in the magazine Kontakt, of the ERSTE BANK GROUP, as part of an interview with Kamerić under the title “Freedom Comes”) posits the “border” as a disruptive and imposed regulative force within the different social, territorial, and artistic conditions of contemporary global capitalism. Therefore, the disappearance of borders, as it is also precisely captured by the title “Freedom Comes” of this recent interview with Kamerić in Kontakt, is to be seen as a wish that would definitely bring freedom.
The disappearance of borders seems to be the last point in the success story of the constitution of the present world. This is the point at which its whole history, in relation to the WALL that once divided East and West (Berlin) Europe, is constructed as well. But the wish put forward by Šejla Kamerić is already operative as the logic of the historization of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Am I right? In the August 2008 issue of the Lufthansa onboard magazine, a full-page ad (page 6) by the German National Tourist Board announces the year 2009. It is presented as the forthcoming 20th jubilee, as a celebration of 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, with the following slogan: “Welcome to a land without borders.” The announcement goes on to say that the Berlin Wall symbolized the Cold War and the division of Germany and Europe into East and West (until 1989) for 28 years. But in the coming year of 2009, representing 20 years since the reunification of Germany, it will be possible to visit in Germany only some remainders of that time in Europe (and I would add, before they vanish completely). In this announcement, it is stated that the revolution for a better world in East Germany started in Leipzig at the St. Nicholas Church, etc. There is a very clear parallel process going on in Europe with regard to the overtaking of the communist revolutionary past of the “East“ of Europe by Christianity. It will be necessary to undertake a very precise analysis in order to identify the circulation of capital and the hegemonization of Europe by Christianity as two parallel and interrelated processes that go hand in hand both historically and currently!
I will take the border as a point of departure in order to propose the following thesis. I can claim that although we have the feeling that invisible borders prevent the space of the world, to be precise, that of the First capitalist neoliberal global world, from being open and mobile, we nevertheless have to think differently. On one hand, we see the process of the unbelievable circulation of positions that prevents us from fully accepting thinking of the space of contemporary art and culture, the social and economical, as being foreclosed by borders, and on the other, we see the disappearance of the borders that firmly installed a clear division of the world in the past, as was the case in the time of imperialist capitalism. Actually what we see is a process of the disintegration of borders, at least as part of an ideological, discursive process of the reorganization of the new Europe and the world. What is presented by Kamerić as a wish is already operative so to speak, it is already working throughout the new Europe. This is the slogan of Germany today with which it will celebrate 20 years of its reunification (which took place in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall). Therefore, there is an obvious logic organizing the whole space of the new Europe, and this means it is necessary to push a very precise analysis. Even more so, it is precisely necessary in relation to such a background, which is so cheerful in celebrating a world without borders, to push forward another thesis or logic: we need borders more than ever. How is this possible? The answer is very simple: to establish a border – to draw a line of division that would re-articulate this new world that seems to be without borders and where the only thing that seems impossible is impossibility as such – means to present, to take a clear political stance, to ask for a political act. This political act means pointing a finger against the situation that claims that today the only thing that is impossible is impossibility as such. Whose im/possibility?
But let’s proceed step by step. What is the phenomenon that can be seen if one looks attentively at the different logics of functioning within the space of politics, but even more so within the art and culture of the new Europe nowadays? We see a disinterest in the art, culture, etc., coming from the region of former Eastern Europe. This is not about being romantic or sad; this disinterest must clearly be connected with the escalation of all major exhibitions and biennials that show a special appetite for the positions of Third World artists, mostly Asian and Latin American. The past divisions and ideologies of difference within Europe are seen as an obstacle to the process of capital circulation. This means, to the circulation of financial capital as the major form of global capital today, or, to say it simply, these divisions are seen as an obstacle to the circulation of money. Behaving as though this is already one space (Europe), it is not necessary to push any inclusion through exclusion, it is enough to behave as if no differences any longer exist (China proved this with the Olympic Games as well!). We are all identical through a process of “evacuation” that David Harvey in A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005) defines as “accumulation by dispossession.” Accumulation by dispossession is a process of expulsion from the possession of any possible difference; when it is necessary, a law is used (just think of the unbelievable legislative policy of the EU, which only specialists can follow nowadays) or there is a whole set of institutional, legislative, bureaucratic, infrastructural, theoretical, and cultural processes which are abruptly or “gently” installed. The Bologna process of reformulating the European Higher Education Area is an excellent example of this tearing down of borders in Europe. The process of “accumulation by dispossession” is perhaps no longer effective in Europe, as it is supposedly completed here (with the German slogan for 2009, it is cemented as a process that is finally realized, so to speak), but think of its workings elsewhere, in the Third World, for example.
The process of the disappearance of borders, as I try to conceptualize here, and my thesis is that the wish is almost completed (just lets think of the Wall Street collapse and the world that is falling down as a domino effect) is in fact connected to the processes of the accumulation of capital. One is surely accumulation by dispossession, meaning getting rid of, being robbed of, any difference. The second process is what we are facing today, and is called the imperialism of circulation. Michael Hudson in his Super Imperialism, from 1972 (recently republished), says that instead of there being a crisis as regards gaps in distribution, today we are witnessing a process contrary to it, which is “the imperialism of circulation.” But to come to the imperialism of circulation today, you have to be dispossessed. In 1972, Hudson already announced that the borders which were preventing distribution, forming gaps in distribution, would be removed by the imperialism of circulation. I can state that both processes – accumulation by dispossession and the imperialism of circulation – have to be seen not as a simple cut between the modes of the accumulation of capital (sending the accumulation by dispossession to retirement), but that one constituted the parameters (through dispossession) of the other in order to dominate at the present moment.
I roughly sketched out some of the most interesting moments that are part of the important debate regarding the question of the accumulation and redistribution of financial capital, which has to be seen as the logic for any serious debate of what is to be done at the present moment, regarding questions of agency for a possible emancipatory politics within/against global capitalism. It is also not necessary to repeat that this background is part of the new way that is imposed and made operative in order to think differently about borders as well. The borders are gone, and the price to be paid is the total dispossession of all our ideas, stances, and specificities. Capital has only one agenda, though – surplus value – and this is more than a program or a Hollywood film conspiracy. It is a drive; human desire against this mad drive is not an equal opponent. The imperialism of circulation without differences, as the primal logic of the condition of the production of global financial capitalism implies that what is produced is money. But as the crisis implies, this bubble will explode sooner or later as well. Last, but not least, the recent capitalist economic crisis which can be described as a process of stagflation, i.e. of differential inflation amid stagnation, is not only a sign, but also the realization of new processes of the capitalization of financial capital in connection with new modes of capital accumulation. Individually and institutionally, we can all detect the rising prices of different goods and services, which are processes of differential inflation in the middle of what experts in numerous articles in newspapers depict as the present capitalist stagnation for us laics in the field of economics (after more than a decade of prosperity and deflation!). The consequences of the crisis are still not predictable and will escalate further.
But what is important for us now is the subsequent or parallel process that is equivalent to Hudson’s “imperialism of endless circulation” and which I can simply describe, making reference to Jelica Šumič-Riha’s article “Prisoners of the Inexistent Other,” by stating that what is impossible in the world of capitalism today is impossibility as such. They work together: on one side the imperialism of circulation, and on the other, the impossibility of something being impossible. The imperialism of circulation, in its frenetic processes, prevents the subversion, the attack of any master entity. Everything circulates, is exchanged, clearly dispossessed of any difference, and no obstacles are to be seen in the network that structures reality for us. Those once perceived as enemies, from individuals to institutions, behave as if we were all in the same “merde” (to use this juicy French word for “shit”), as if we were all together, and if we all had to find the remedy to our problems and needs, obstacles, etc. (while those who generate expropriation and dispossession have to be forgotten immediately). It is almost impossible to say that something is impossible today.
Or to put this differently, in the past a subversive act was possible as it was subversion against the clear foreclosure and division in society. We had the borders. The big Other, the virtual symbolic order, the network that structures/d reality for us, was the thing giving “consistency”, so to speak. It was almost a guarantee of an intervention against it. The world today presents itself in an endless circulation (imperialism is an excellent concept capturing this drive) that is seen as “friendly” and endless exchange, and therefore in order to solve expropriation, enslavement, and neocolonial interventions by capital, only one measure is proposed, and this is called coordination. I recently found a completely serious political proposal that stated that the only thing to be done to solve our problems is an effective “coordination.” My question is, can we really be dumb enough to stick to such theories? Of course they all have an ace hidden in their pocket or up their sleeve in order for things to circulate smoothly. It is necessary to successfully coordinate the process of getting rid of a small number of those who still bother us with social antagonisms and class struggle. I am not saying, though, that there is not a need, as in the case of accumulation, for a new conceptualization and historization of the class struggle!
Perhaps on my way to Damascus with this text, I can give an answer to what was seen as a purely rhetorical question when formulated by Jon McKenzie in 2001. His book is entitled Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance, where this else floated in the air, unanswered. Or else what? I will propose the following answer or command: Circulate (but just without differences)! So we have to draw a line in space, a border. To show a border within the inconsistency of the big Other, means to act. To act politically. The act changes the very coordinates of this impossibility. It is only through an act that I effectively assume the big Other’s nonexistence. This implies not only that s/he has to take the politics of representation into her/his hands, and set the border within the cynical situation that the only thing which is impossible is impossibility as such, but, as is argued by Šumič-Riha, it is necessary to build the framework as well, the foreclosure that would set the new parameters, giving the new coordinates to the political act. (Something we did when we started to publish Reartikulacija!) Within such a context, I can claim that what is necessary, in fact, is a precise, new conceptual and paradigmatic political act, which implies the setting of a new framework.
The political act is a division, the setting of a border within a space. It reconfigures, closes, or stops, if you will, the imperialism of the circulation without differences by establishing new parameters within the space. It establishes a new structure to which to relate (de-coloniality of knowledge, de-coloniality of power, lesbian and queer political platform, etc). An act is always performed through enunciation and it not only sets the parameters that initiate the act itself, but the parameters in relation to the Other to whom it is addressed, as well. What is important is the establishment of the structure to which this line(s) of division will relate. In the case of Germany and in the case of the story of a non-existent past division in Europe, it is necessary to state that the biggest profit from the disappearance of borders in Europe is to be gained by financial capital. The point is that in order to push such logic, it was necessary to imply a ferocious process of equalization and leveling of all of the strata of the different European and World societies, from the social to the educational and cultural. It was necessary to install one of the most ferocious politics in the whole space as well – the politics of dispossession – or to put it differently, local specificities were changed into ethnic/ethnographical ones, and one general path of history and genealogy from art to culture, science, and the social, was established as the only valid one: the First Capitalist World history that completely (de)regulates the history, present, and the future of the world.
Therefore, the question is always to which histories we attach our representational politics and how we resituate our position ourselves within a certain social, economic, and political territory.
The declaration of existence is the first step, as argued by Šumič-Riha, but what follows afterwards is the rigorous practices of consequences, the logics of consequences (of the declaration), where the impossibility of the foreclosure of the capitalist discourse turns into the condition of a new possibility. Therefore, in rearticulating a certain history of global capitalism and borders, I can state that the so-called 1990s multicultural ideology of global neoliberal capitalism was the declaration of the existence of other worlds, but only and solely for the installment of a second step, which is the iron logic of the imperialism of circulation. In order to do this, an accelerated process of dispossession was put to work, which cleaned and evacuated each and every difference. These two stages are excellently captured in the field of contemporary art by a project I already mentioned several times and undertook an analysis of in the past. In the 1990s, Mladen Stilinović declared that “An artist who can not speak English is NO artist.” This sentence, as an art work, depicted the initial multicultural logic of the neoliberal global capitalism of the 1990s excellently. It was an interest in a specificity that had to use the “common language” of translation regardless, and at that time it seemed that it did not matter how good it was. A decade afterwards, in 2007, I proposed a correction of this sentence as an art work: “An artist who can not speak English WELL is NO artist.” This is the new process of dispossession and difference, and the process of emptying the world of any content and political action. It is a formalization and equalization of positions that allows easy circulation.
A political act is that which interrupts a situation where the only impossible thing in the world today is impossibility as such.
Text by Marina Gržinić
References:
Marina Gržinić, Re-Politicizing art, Theory, Representation and New Media Technology, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, Schlebrügge.Editor, Vienna 2008.
David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005.
Michael Hudson, Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire, Austin, Texas, Holt Rinehart 1972.
Jelica Šumič-Riha, “Jetniki Drugega, ki ne obstaja” (Prisoners of the Inexistent Other), in Filozofski vestnik/Acta Philosophica, journal, published by the Institute of Philosophy ZRC SAZU, Ljubljana 2007.
Source : REARTIKULACIJA no. 5 - 2008
“There is no border, there is no border, there is no border,
no border, no border, no border,
I wish.”
as an art work (recently quoted in the magazine Kontakt, of the ERSTE BANK GROUP, as part of an interview with Kamerić under the title “Freedom Comes”) posits the “border” as a disruptive and imposed regulative force within the different social, territorial, and artistic conditions of contemporary global capitalism. Therefore, the disappearance of borders, as it is also precisely captured by the title “Freedom Comes” of this recent interview with Kamerić in Kontakt, is to be seen as a wish that would definitely bring freedom.
The disappearance of borders seems to be the last point in the success story of the constitution of the present world. This is the point at which its whole history, in relation to the WALL that once divided East and West (Berlin) Europe, is constructed as well. But the wish put forward by Šejla Kamerić is already operative as the logic of the historization of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Am I right? In the August 2008 issue of the Lufthansa onboard magazine, a full-page ad (page 6) by the German National Tourist Board announces the year 2009. It is presented as the forthcoming 20th jubilee, as a celebration of 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, with the following slogan: “Welcome to a land without borders.” The announcement goes on to say that the Berlin Wall symbolized the Cold War and the division of Germany and Europe into East and West (until 1989) for 28 years. But in the coming year of 2009, representing 20 years since the reunification of Germany, it will be possible to visit in Germany only some remainders of that time in Europe (and I would add, before they vanish completely). In this announcement, it is stated that the revolution for a better world in East Germany started in Leipzig at the St. Nicholas Church, etc. There is a very clear parallel process going on in Europe with regard to the overtaking of the communist revolutionary past of the “East“ of Europe by Christianity. It will be necessary to undertake a very precise analysis in order to identify the circulation of capital and the hegemonization of Europe by Christianity as two parallel and interrelated processes that go hand in hand both historically and currently!
I will take the border as a point of departure in order to propose the following thesis. I can claim that although we have the feeling that invisible borders prevent the space of the world, to be precise, that of the First capitalist neoliberal global world, from being open and mobile, we nevertheless have to think differently. On one hand, we see the process of the unbelievable circulation of positions that prevents us from fully accepting thinking of the space of contemporary art and culture, the social and economical, as being foreclosed by borders, and on the other, we see the disappearance of the borders that firmly installed a clear division of the world in the past, as was the case in the time of imperialist capitalism. Actually what we see is a process of the disintegration of borders, at least as part of an ideological, discursive process of the reorganization of the new Europe and the world. What is presented by Kamerić as a wish is already operative so to speak, it is already working throughout the new Europe. This is the slogan of Germany today with which it will celebrate 20 years of its reunification (which took place in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall). Therefore, there is an obvious logic organizing the whole space of the new Europe, and this means it is necessary to push a very precise analysis. Even more so, it is precisely necessary in relation to such a background, which is so cheerful in celebrating a world without borders, to push forward another thesis or logic: we need borders more than ever. How is this possible? The answer is very simple: to establish a border – to draw a line of division that would re-articulate this new world that seems to be without borders and where the only thing that seems impossible is impossibility as such – means to present, to take a clear political stance, to ask for a political act. This political act means pointing a finger against the situation that claims that today the only thing that is impossible is impossibility as such. Whose im/possibility?
But let’s proceed step by step. What is the phenomenon that can be seen if one looks attentively at the different logics of functioning within the space of politics, but even more so within the art and culture of the new Europe nowadays? We see a disinterest in the art, culture, etc., coming from the region of former Eastern Europe. This is not about being romantic or sad; this disinterest must clearly be connected with the escalation of all major exhibitions and biennials that show a special appetite for the positions of Third World artists, mostly Asian and Latin American. The past divisions and ideologies of difference within Europe are seen as an obstacle to the process of capital circulation. This means, to the circulation of financial capital as the major form of global capital today, or, to say it simply, these divisions are seen as an obstacle to the circulation of money. Behaving as though this is already one space (Europe), it is not necessary to push any inclusion through exclusion, it is enough to behave as if no differences any longer exist (China proved this with the Olympic Games as well!). We are all identical through a process of “evacuation” that David Harvey in A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005) defines as “accumulation by dispossession.” Accumulation by dispossession is a process of expulsion from the possession of any possible difference; when it is necessary, a law is used (just think of the unbelievable legislative policy of the EU, which only specialists can follow nowadays) or there is a whole set of institutional, legislative, bureaucratic, infrastructural, theoretical, and cultural processes which are abruptly or “gently” installed. The Bologna process of reformulating the European Higher Education Area is an excellent example of this tearing down of borders in Europe. The process of “accumulation by dispossession” is perhaps no longer effective in Europe, as it is supposedly completed here (with the German slogan for 2009, it is cemented as a process that is finally realized, so to speak), but think of its workings elsewhere, in the Third World, for example.
The process of the disappearance of borders, as I try to conceptualize here, and my thesis is that the wish is almost completed (just lets think of the Wall Street collapse and the world that is falling down as a domino effect) is in fact connected to the processes of the accumulation of capital. One is surely accumulation by dispossession, meaning getting rid of, being robbed of, any difference. The second process is what we are facing today, and is called the imperialism of circulation. Michael Hudson in his Super Imperialism, from 1972 (recently republished), says that instead of there being a crisis as regards gaps in distribution, today we are witnessing a process contrary to it, which is “the imperialism of circulation.” But to come to the imperialism of circulation today, you have to be dispossessed. In 1972, Hudson already announced that the borders which were preventing distribution, forming gaps in distribution, would be removed by the imperialism of circulation. I can state that both processes – accumulation by dispossession and the imperialism of circulation – have to be seen not as a simple cut between the modes of the accumulation of capital (sending the accumulation by dispossession to retirement), but that one constituted the parameters (through dispossession) of the other in order to dominate at the present moment.
I roughly sketched out some of the most interesting moments that are part of the important debate regarding the question of the accumulation and redistribution of financial capital, which has to be seen as the logic for any serious debate of what is to be done at the present moment, regarding questions of agency for a possible emancipatory politics within/against global capitalism. It is also not necessary to repeat that this background is part of the new way that is imposed and made operative in order to think differently about borders as well. The borders are gone, and the price to be paid is the total dispossession of all our ideas, stances, and specificities. Capital has only one agenda, though – surplus value – and this is more than a program or a Hollywood film conspiracy. It is a drive; human desire against this mad drive is not an equal opponent. The imperialism of circulation without differences, as the primal logic of the condition of the production of global financial capitalism implies that what is produced is money. But as the crisis implies, this bubble will explode sooner or later as well. Last, but not least, the recent capitalist economic crisis which can be described as a process of stagflation, i.e. of differential inflation amid stagnation, is not only a sign, but also the realization of new processes of the capitalization of financial capital in connection with new modes of capital accumulation. Individually and institutionally, we can all detect the rising prices of different goods and services, which are processes of differential inflation in the middle of what experts in numerous articles in newspapers depict as the present capitalist stagnation for us laics in the field of economics (after more than a decade of prosperity and deflation!). The consequences of the crisis are still not predictable and will escalate further.
But what is important for us now is the subsequent or parallel process that is equivalent to Hudson’s “imperialism of endless circulation” and which I can simply describe, making reference to Jelica Šumič-Riha’s article “Prisoners of the Inexistent Other,” by stating that what is impossible in the world of capitalism today is impossibility as such. They work together: on one side the imperialism of circulation, and on the other, the impossibility of something being impossible. The imperialism of circulation, in its frenetic processes, prevents the subversion, the attack of any master entity. Everything circulates, is exchanged, clearly dispossessed of any difference, and no obstacles are to be seen in the network that structures reality for us. Those once perceived as enemies, from individuals to institutions, behave as if we were all in the same “merde” (to use this juicy French word for “shit”), as if we were all together, and if we all had to find the remedy to our problems and needs, obstacles, etc. (while those who generate expropriation and dispossession have to be forgotten immediately). It is almost impossible to say that something is impossible today.
Or to put this differently, in the past a subversive act was possible as it was subversion against the clear foreclosure and division in society. We had the borders. The big Other, the virtual symbolic order, the network that structures/d reality for us, was the thing giving “consistency”, so to speak. It was almost a guarantee of an intervention against it. The world today presents itself in an endless circulation (imperialism is an excellent concept capturing this drive) that is seen as “friendly” and endless exchange, and therefore in order to solve expropriation, enslavement, and neocolonial interventions by capital, only one measure is proposed, and this is called coordination. I recently found a completely serious political proposal that stated that the only thing to be done to solve our problems is an effective “coordination.” My question is, can we really be dumb enough to stick to such theories? Of course they all have an ace hidden in their pocket or up their sleeve in order for things to circulate smoothly. It is necessary to successfully coordinate the process of getting rid of a small number of those who still bother us with social antagonisms and class struggle. I am not saying, though, that there is not a need, as in the case of accumulation, for a new conceptualization and historization of the class struggle!
Perhaps on my way to Damascus with this text, I can give an answer to what was seen as a purely rhetorical question when formulated by Jon McKenzie in 2001. His book is entitled Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance, where this else floated in the air, unanswered. Or else what? I will propose the following answer or command: Circulate (but just without differences)! So we have to draw a line in space, a border. To show a border within the inconsistency of the big Other, means to act. To act politically. The act changes the very coordinates of this impossibility. It is only through an act that I effectively assume the big Other’s nonexistence. This implies not only that s/he has to take the politics of representation into her/his hands, and set the border within the cynical situation that the only thing which is impossible is impossibility as such, but, as is argued by Šumič-Riha, it is necessary to build the framework as well, the foreclosure that would set the new parameters, giving the new coordinates to the political act. (Something we did when we started to publish Reartikulacija!) Within such a context, I can claim that what is necessary, in fact, is a precise, new conceptual and paradigmatic political act, which implies the setting of a new framework.
The political act is a division, the setting of a border within a space. It reconfigures, closes, or stops, if you will, the imperialism of the circulation without differences by establishing new parameters within the space. It establishes a new structure to which to relate (de-coloniality of knowledge, de-coloniality of power, lesbian and queer political platform, etc). An act is always performed through enunciation and it not only sets the parameters that initiate the act itself, but the parameters in relation to the Other to whom it is addressed, as well. What is important is the establishment of the structure to which this line(s) of division will relate. In the case of Germany and in the case of the story of a non-existent past division in Europe, it is necessary to state that the biggest profit from the disappearance of borders in Europe is to be gained by financial capital. The point is that in order to push such logic, it was necessary to imply a ferocious process of equalization and leveling of all of the strata of the different European and World societies, from the social to the educational and cultural. It was necessary to install one of the most ferocious politics in the whole space as well – the politics of dispossession – or to put it differently, local specificities were changed into ethnic/ethnographical ones, and one general path of history and genealogy from art to culture, science, and the social, was established as the only valid one: the First Capitalist World history that completely (de)regulates the history, present, and the future of the world.
Therefore, the question is always to which histories we attach our representational politics and how we resituate our position ourselves within a certain social, economic, and political territory.
The declaration of existence is the first step, as argued by Šumič-Riha, but what follows afterwards is the rigorous practices of consequences, the logics of consequences (of the declaration), where the impossibility of the foreclosure of the capitalist discourse turns into the condition of a new possibility. Therefore, in rearticulating a certain history of global capitalism and borders, I can state that the so-called 1990s multicultural ideology of global neoliberal capitalism was the declaration of the existence of other worlds, but only and solely for the installment of a second step, which is the iron logic of the imperialism of circulation. In order to do this, an accelerated process of dispossession was put to work, which cleaned and evacuated each and every difference. These two stages are excellently captured in the field of contemporary art by a project I already mentioned several times and undertook an analysis of in the past. In the 1990s, Mladen Stilinović declared that “An artist who can not speak English is NO artist.” This sentence, as an art work, depicted the initial multicultural logic of the neoliberal global capitalism of the 1990s excellently. It was an interest in a specificity that had to use the “common language” of translation regardless, and at that time it seemed that it did not matter how good it was. A decade afterwards, in 2007, I proposed a correction of this sentence as an art work: “An artist who can not speak English WELL is NO artist.” This is the new process of dispossession and difference, and the process of emptying the world of any content and political action. It is a formalization and equalization of positions that allows easy circulation.
A political act is that which interrupts a situation where the only impossible thing in the world today is impossibility as such.
Text by Marina Gržinić
References:
Marina Gržinić, Re-Politicizing art, Theory, Representation and New Media Technology, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, Schlebrügge.Editor, Vienna 2008.
David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005.
Michael Hudson, Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire, Austin, Texas, Holt Rinehart 1972.
Jelica Šumič-Riha, “Jetniki Drugega, ki ne obstaja” (Prisoners of the Inexistent Other), in Filozofski vestnik/Acta Philosophica, journal, published by the Institute of Philosophy ZRC SAZU, Ljubljana 2007.
Source : REARTIKULACIJA no. 5 - 2008
Monday, November 16, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Masculine Style Dinning Room
Masculine style dinning room from "Our Homes and How to Beautify Them", H.J Jennings, 1892.
Ingestion / Anti-pasta
Here is a photo of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti eating a plate of spaghetti in 1930. What looks like an anodyne photograph was in fact a highly loaded image, for this was the man who, together with his younger colleague Fillia (the pseudonym of Luiggi Colombo), had just published the "Manifesto of Futurist Cookery" (1930), which dared declare anathema Italy's sacrosanct pasta. Marinetti saw the Italian table as weighted down by heavy traditional food. The English might be content with their dried cod, roast beef, and pudding, the Germans with their sauerkraut, smoked bacon, and sausages, but for the Italians pasta would no longer do. Marinetti wanted to reverse the best-known chapter of the history of Italian cuisine. In the 17th century, the city of Naples had initiated a gastronomic revolution whereby its inhabitants, until then known as mangiabroccoli and mangiafoglie, now became mangiamaccheroni. The pasta eater, holding the spaghetti in his hands above his mouth, became a stock figure, like the characters of Commedia dell'Arte, disseminated in prints all over Europe. Now the Futurists were calling for the abolition of what they deemed an absurd Italian gastronomic religion. Marshalling the opinions of doctors, professors, hygienists, and impostors, Marinetti claimed that pasta induced lethargy, pessimism, nostalgia, and neutralism. In short, pasta stood behind everything the Futurists had been battling ever since the appearance of their initial manifesto in 1909.
They lamented that pastasciutta—dried pasta of the sort we all eat—was 40 percent less nutritious than meat, fish, and vegetables. Mixing scientific data with poetic flights of eloquence, Marinetti held that pasta ensnared Italians within the slow looms of Penelope and bound them to the sailing ships somnolently awaiting a gust of wind on a sleepy Mediterranean. Being anti-pasta meant being antipassatista, i.e., against the past.
Predictably, upon its publication in the Turin daily Gazetta del Popolo on 28 December 1930, and its translation in the Parisian daily Comoedia a few months later, the manifesto provoked an uproar. Delighted to have finally managed to write a manifesto that, in line with Futurism's intent to transform every aspect of life, had finally hit on the one realm of the quotidian that affected every single Italian, Marinetti and Fillia gleefully devoted a whole section of their 1932 Futurist Cookbook to recording the blistering effects of the initial cooking manifesto. In typical Futurist fashion, the section containing the polemic preceded the section with the actual recipes. Marinetti and Fillia claimed, in equally characteristic Futurist inflationary style, that the pros and cons of pasta were endlessly debated in the Italian press in hundreds of articles by writers, politicians, chemists, and famous cooks, not to mention innumerable cartoons. Meanwhile, foreign publications from London to Budapest, from Tunis to Tokyo, and all the way to Sydney had announced somewhat incredulously that Italy was about to abandon spaghetti. In the city of l'Aquila (a few hours from the Italian capital) women had taken the situation into their own hands by signing a collective letter of indignation, addressed to Marinetti, in favor of pasta. In Genoa, an association called P.I.P.A., an acronym for International Association Against Pasta, was formed. Thousands of miles away in San Francisco, a fight had erupted between two Italian restaurants situated on different floors of the same building. While the head cook of the Savoia, Italy's royal family, actually came out against pasta, the mayor of Naples professed that vermicelli with tomato sauce was the food of the angels. To which Marinetti responded that if that were the case, it simply served to confirm the boredom of life in paradise.
Ultimately, Marinetti believed, modern science would allow us to replace food with free, state-sponsored pills composed of albumins, synthetic fats, and vitamins that would lower prices for the consumer and lessen the toll of labor on the worker. Ultraviolet lamps could be used to electrify and thus dynamize food staples. Eventually, a totally mechanized production would relieve humankind of labor altogether, allowing man to be at leisure to pursue nobler activities. Dining could thus become a purely aesthetic enterprise. On this premise, Marinetti and Fillia's proposals for the new Italian cuisine constitute one of the most inspired chapters in the annals of Futurism. The cookbook gave a new infusion of giovinezza—a favorite Fascist word, meaning "youth"—to the slightly tired antics of a movement now known as Secondo Futurismo. While the spectator could already expect, by the 1930s, to be abused by the Futurist text, the Futurist painting, the Futurist polimaterico (multimedia sculpture), and the Futurist performance, here the abuse went not to the head, but straight to the stomach.
The polemics in The Futurist Cookbook were followed by an elaborate account of some Futurist banquets. One of the more memorable of these Aeropranzi futuristi was a banquet for 300 people held on 18 December 1931 at the Hotel Negrino in Chiavari. Guests were delighted and terrified as they braced themselves to ingest dishes prepared by the famous cook Bulgheroni, who had come especially from Milan to this small Ligurian town to preside in the kitchen over the burial of pastasciutta. Although the Futurists had advocated the abolition of eloquence and politics around the table, the guests nevertheless first had to sit through a lecture by Marinetti on the state of world Futurism. Afterward, the meal began with a flan of calf's head seated on a bed of pineapple, nuts, and dates, stuffed—oh, surprise!—with anchovies. Then, to cleanse the palate, Bulgheroni served a decollapalato (a pun on decollare, meaning "to get off the ground"), a lyrical concoction of meat broth sprinkled with champagne and liquor and decorated with rose petals. The main dish was beef in carlinga (another aeronautic term, probably referring to a kind of Dutch oven), meatballs—whose composition was best left uninvestigated—placed over airplanes made out of bread crumbs. After a few more dishes the dessert, named eletricita atmosferische candite, arrived, consisting of colorful little cubes made of fake marble crowned with cotton candy that enclosed a sweetish paste containing ingredients only a long chemical analysis could disclose. Not everybody made it to the end of the dinner.
Most memorable among other Futurist recipes was the carneplastico: a synthetic sculptural interpretation of Futurist aeropittura referring to the much-beloved Italian landscape. In honor of the beacon of Italian industry, one could taste the pollo Fiat, a stuffed chicken placed on puffy pillows of whipped cream. On a more pornographic note, one could also have a porco eccittato, a cooked salami placed vertically on the plate with coffee sauce mixed with eau de cologne.
Whatever Marinetti might have thought about his capacities for perennial transgression, such conceits of dishes as "divine surprises" had a long historical lineage. They went back to the most extraordinary passages in Petronius Arbitrius's Satiricon, thus reviving an aspect of Romanita that the Fascists, in their eagerness to revive Roman glories, would have been all too happy to endorse. Indeed, many of the ingredients were coded so that the exotic fruits that appear in so many Futurist dishes were meant to evoke Italy's hope for a firmer grip on North Africa in fulfillment of its imperial ambitions as master of the Mediterranean. There was, it turns out, some disagreement during the Fascist ventennio as to the uer-history of pasta. According to the story presently told in Rome's Museo Nazionale della Pasta Alimentare (the only such museum in the world, founded in the 1990s), traces of early pasta implements were found in the archeological remains of the Etruscan town of Cerveteri, near Rome, dating to the 4th century BC. Pasta was also identified in low reliefs of the 12th century. And yet the writer Paolo Buzzi, in an article printed in 1930 in the much-venerated journal La Cucina Italiana, pointed to the fact that no mention of pasta by the ancient Romans could be found in the history of Italian cooking by d'Apico, the Homer of cooking. This might sound strange, he added, if one thinks of the thousand stories one was told as a child about the catastrophic volcanic eruption of Pompeii, one of which told of plates, still filled with maccheroni, thrown into the lava.
As always with Futurism, Marinetti's ottimismo della tavola had its darker side in the realm of realpolitik. Not by chance, as he himself acknowledged in the manifesto, Marinetti launched his attack against pasta just when Italy, hit hard by the Depression, was struggling to achieve one of Mussolini's great dreams: autarchy, or the elimination of Italy's economic dependence on foreign markets. Pasta, quintessentially Italian as it was, depended on expensive imports of wheat. The regime thus launched a campaign in favor of home-grown rice as a better substitute. Rice, we are told, was more virile, more patriotic, and more suitable for fighters and heroes. Rice also had its part in the history of Italian cooking as the great rival of pasta; it came from the Po valley in the industrial North, while pasta, with its hypothetical birthplace in Etruria and its triumph in Naples, was identified with the center, and even more with the agrarian and backward South. This was a battle that could thus be waged on familiar Futurist geopolitical territory.
And so the Futurists offered tuttoriso: new dishes to replace the traditional Northern risotto. More sinister is the fact that among the doctors summoned by Marinetti was the eugenicist Nicola Pende, the man behind the new Instituto di Biotipologia in Rome. Marinetti's attacks against pasta coincided, significantly I think, with the first wave of Taylorization of pasta production. On display in the Museo della Pasta in Rome are vintage photographs of women (almost never men) at work in front of vertical hydraulic presses, grinders, cutters, and blenders that look no less impressive, no less daunting, and no less alienating, than the assembly line at Fiat's famous Turin factory known as the Lingotto, a Futurist favorite back in the teens. By the 1930s, the institution of biotypes as substitutes for Taylorism to attain maximal efficiency in the working place and the provision of a master race had taken hold of the Fascist imagination. Thus the New Futurist Man, the man without pasta, the homo ludens who might eventually replace homo edens, the man whom one may be tempted to theorize as the postmodern "desiring machine" of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in Anti-Oedipus, was, then, first and foremost, the New Fascist Man.
Fine. But what is one to make of our Marinetti snapshot? The staple photograph we see reproduced shows Marinetti instructing a female cook on how to concoct one of his recipes, both of them standing in front of a 1913 Muscular Dynamism painted by Umberto Boccioni. So is our photograph here of Marinetti caught red-handed in the act of eating the infamous dish? A good Italian who just couldn't resist? And this taking place at Biffi, if one is to believe the caption, one of the best-known Milanese establishments (still in existence) and a favorite haunt of the Futurists? Or is it a clever maneuver by Marinetti intended to bamboozle the viewer, leave him or her guessing, spinning yet still more controversy? About to send off my text and still wavering between these two interpretations of this piece of photographic evidence, I stumbled on one little paragraph of The Futurist Cookbook. There, entry number 7 in a short section on apocryphal anecdotes provided a possible answer: "Photographs of Marinetti in the act of eating pasta appeared in a few mass-circulation magazines: they were photographic montages carried out by experts hostile to Futurist cuisine, who were trying to discredit the campaign for a new way of eating."1 There could, however, be another reading: the photo is real and Marinetti, whatever he might have claimed in his cookbook, was simply lying about the montage. There must have been moments when, even for Marinetti, the desires of the everyman vanquished those of the Futurist and the Fascist in him.
1 — Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, The Futurist Cookbook, trans. Suzanne Brill (San Francisco: Bedford Arts, 1989), p. 99.
Text by Romy Golan
Source: Cabinet magazine, Issue 10, Spring 2003
Monday, November 2, 2009
M'Zab Valley
A traditional human habitat, created in the 10th century by the Ibadites around their five ksour (fortified cities), has been preserved intact in the M’Zab valley. Simple, functional and perfectly adapted to the environment, the architecture of M’Zab was designed for community living,while respecting the structure of the family.
Algeria, 4000.0000 haWilaya (province) of Ghardaia
After a Death
Once there was a shock
that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.
It keeps us inside. It makes the TV pictures snowy.
It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.
One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun
through brush where a few leaves hang on.
They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.
Names swallowed by the cold.
It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat
but often the shadow seems more real than the body.
The samurai looks insignificant
beside his armor of black dragon scales.
Tomas Tranströmer
Translated by Robert Bly
that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.
It keeps us inside. It makes the TV pictures snowy.
It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.
One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun
through brush where a few leaves hang on.
They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.
Names swallowed by the cold.
It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat
but often the shadow seems more real than the body.
The samurai looks insignificant
beside his armor of black dragon scales.
Tomas Tranströmer
Translated by Robert Bly
Central Hotel in Uriage-Les-Bains
Pierre Bonnard in his Room at the Central Hotel in Uriage-Les-Bains, photography by George Besson, 1918
The World as Stage
Streets, squares, parks, supermarkets, Internet portals, and other sites have become stages of urban life that allow us to display our everyday actions and behaviors. Many artists today work with the theatrical aspect of staging the self in everyday life. The question of the theatrical has taken on a new relevance due to the multiple forms of self-staging and lifestyle. If everyone plays the main role in his or her own lifestyle film, what is the role of art? The exhibition Die Welt als Bühne (The World as Stage) uses the increasing trend towards lifestyle theater as an opportunity to confront ourselves with alternative life models and to show how existing forms of self-staging can be reinterpreted in an emancipatory fashion.
In their work, the participating artists mediate among art, media staging, and real life. In the exhibition, stages are created (Tilman Wendland) to show collective forms of acting (Mads Lynnerup, Jan Northoff), or interaction takes place with already exiting platforms for performance (Jan Mančuška, Carey Young). The exhibition is a combination of performance, video, photography, as well as the stagings of virtual and architectural platforms that challenge in performative terms existing conventions of the theatrical.
Curated by Solvej Helweg Ovesen (Kopenhagen/Berlin)
Artists: Tamy Ben-Tor, Claus Carstensen/Peter Bonde/Thomas Andersen, Mads Lynnerup, Jan Mančuška, HuskMitNavn, Jan Northoff, Tilman Wendland, Carey Young
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein n.b.k.
November 21, 2009 - January 10, 2010
In their work, the participating artists mediate among art, media staging, and real life. In the exhibition, stages are created (Tilman Wendland) to show collective forms of acting (Mads Lynnerup, Jan Northoff), or interaction takes place with already exiting platforms for performance (Jan Mančuška, Carey Young). The exhibition is a combination of performance, video, photography, as well as the stagings of virtual and architectural platforms that challenge in performative terms existing conventions of the theatrical.
Curated by Solvej Helweg Ovesen (Kopenhagen/Berlin)
Artists: Tamy Ben-Tor, Claus Carstensen/Peter Bonde/Thomas Andersen, Mads Lynnerup, Jan Mančuška, HuskMitNavn, Jan Northoff, Tilman Wendland, Carey Young
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein n.b.k.
November 21, 2009 - January 10, 2010
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