Oliver Ressler Instytut sztuki Wyspa/Fundacja Wyspa Progress Wyspa Institute of Art/Wyspa Progress Foundation Gdańsk, 2007 2 inroduction The installation “Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies” was realized within the following exhibitions: Galerija Škuc | Ljubljana (SI), 2003 Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center (“Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies”) | Istanbul (TR), 2005 (“An Ideal Society Creates Itself”) Espace Forde | Genève (CH), 2003 (“There is no Alternative”) kuda.org – New Media Center / Museum of Contemporary Art | Novi Sad (SCG), 2005 Kunstraum der Universität Lüneburg (D), 2004 (“Alternativne Ekonomije, Alternativna Društva”) (“Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies”) Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, Salon Transmediale.04 | Berlin (D), 2004 | Belgrade (SCG), 2005 (“fly utopia!”) (“Alternativne Ekonomije, Alternativna Društva”) O.K – Center for Contemporary Art | Linz (A), Badischer Kunstverein | Karlsruhe (D), 2005 2004 (“Open House”) (“Critical Societies”) Kunsthalle Exnergasse | Vienna (A), 2004 Miroquesada Garland Gallery | Lima (PE), 2005 (“permanent produktiv”) (“9th International Festival of Video/Arte/ Electrónica”) Itaucultural Institute | São Paulo (BR), 2004 (“Emoção Art.ficial II – Divergências Kunstihoone | Tallinn (EST), 2006 Tecnológicas”) (“Capital (It Fails Us Now)”) Sorlandets Kunstmuseum | Kristiansand (N), Second International Biennial of Contemporary 2004 (“Detox 04. Crossover Jam Culture”) Art | Seville (E), 2006 (“The Unhomely: Phantom Scenes in Global Wyspa Institute of Art | Gdańsk (PL), 2004 Society”) (“Health and Safety”) Stroom | The Hague (NL), 2007 (“After Neurath: Centro Cultural Conde Duque, MediaLabMadrid Like Sailors on the Open Sea”) | Madrid (E), 2004 (“Economía alternativa, sociedades alternativas”) Forum Stadtpark | Graz (A), Steirischer Herbst, 2004 (“There Must Be an Alternative”) Main Trend Gallery | Taipei (RC), 2005 (“Wayward Economy”) Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Mali Salon | Rijeka (HR), 2005 Information on upcoming exhibitions (“Alternativne Ekonomije, Alternativna Društva”) at www.ressler.at Contents | Spis treści introduction | 6 The Subsistence Perspective | 141 wstęp | 8 Perspektywa naturalna | 146 A���� S����� M���� M��� Questions from an Artist Who Speaks Caring Labor | 151 (and Reads, Writes, Thinks, and Acts) | 11 Praca opiekuńcza | 155 Pytania od artysty który przemawia N���� F����� (a także czyta, pisze myśli i działa) | 21 G������ S������� Free Cooperation | 160 Wolna Współpraca | 166 �������������� C�������� S���� Libertarian Municipalism | 33 Change the World Without Taking Power | 172 Komunalizm Libertariański | 41 Zmieniaj świat bez przejmowania władzy | 176 C���� H����� J��� H������� Inclusive Democracy | 48 The Zapatista Good Government | 180 Demokracja inkluzywna | 57 Dobry Rząd Zapatystów | 186 T���� F��������� Yugoslavia’s Workers Self-Management | 192 Participatory Economics | 65 Samozarządzanie robotników w Jugosławii Ekonomia uczestnicząca | 75 | 195 M������ A����� T���� K����� The Socialism of the 21st Century | 86 Workers’ Collectives during the Spanish Socjalizm 21. wieku | 92 Revolution | 198 H���� D�������� Kolektywy robotnicze podczas rewolucji hiszpańskiej | 202 Towards a New Socialism | 98 S����� M���� W kierunku Nowego Socjalizmu | 104 P��� C�������� The Paris Commune 1871 | 206 Komuna Paryska 1871 roku | 211 bolo’bolo | 110 | 115 A���� D������ �.�. exhibitions Utopian Feminist Visions | 120 wystawy | 216 Utopijne idee feministyczne | 124 M���� P����� bio | 237 Anarchist Consensual Democracy | 129 Anarchistyczna Demokracja Konsensualna | 135 R��� B������� 6 inroduction Aneta Szyłak Deleuze and Guattari, in their remarks on Economics, Alternative Societies. Health and transcripts to the broader public is both linguistics as a vehicle for a normative thus Safety was the project starting Wyspa’s a symbolic act and an actual statement. a dominant or a major language, state, activities in the declining shipbuilding space It blows up to the sky of cultural practice the “There is a universal figure of minoritarian of Gdansk Shipyard which was at the same fuel of minoritarian ways of thinking, gives consciousness as the becoming of everybody, time one of the most mythic Central European visibility to little known theories and and that becoming is creation. One does not political spots, namely the cradle of the specifically localized practices. It brings attain it by acquiring the majority. The figure “Solidarnosc” movement. The reasons for the attention to the notion of society and to which we are referring is continuous inclusion of Ressler’s work were produced economy as a specific practice that might be variation, as an amplitude that continually by the tension between the idea of the produced locally. It also vibrates the visual oversteps the representative threshold of the alternativity and fictionality of an art and textual presence of the unknown impact majoritarian standard, by excess or default. In institution, which was the concept of Wyspa, on more systematic forms of organization or erecting the figure of a universal minoritarian and how the cultural formation of this social and economic conditions. To which consciousness, one addresses powers post-industrial site can be thought through extent its seepage2 can be considered as (puissances) of becoming that belong to without the simple vocalization of a conflict. a practical effect is hard to foresee. But a different realm from that of Power (Pouvoir) How can criticality be applied to the reality certainly, the collection of minoritarian voices and Domination. Continuous variation that surrounds us and become an engine of for economic and social organization has constitutes the becoming-minoritarian of a constant re-evaluation of the institutional a productive impact on broadening and everybody, as opposed to the majoritarian framework? How can we consider today the deepening visions of locality and specificity in Fact of Nobody. Becoming-minoritarian as the position of the artist, looking towards other the field, which can be personalized and universal figure of consciousness is called disciplines to establish the ethics of his/her embodied and produced in a graspable and autonomy. It is certainly not by using a minor practice? The fundamental decision for the accessible form. language as a dialect, by regionalizing or show was a placement of particular artistic ghettoizing, that one becomes revolutionary; positions and strategies to create a field of rather, by using the number of minority multidisciplinary tensions intended to grasp elements, by connecting, conjugating them, the complexity of the incredibly loaded one invents a specific, unforeseen, autonomous local surroundings. becoming.”1 The matter we are approaching Today, when the shipyard is facing its fate, here is the same notion applied to the way owing to the collapse of heavy industry, the society can be organized and to which extent remains of state capitalism of the Communist minoritarian economic strategies and forms of times, tough �� regulations and governmental social life can influence the dominant system. maneuvers around its cry for stability, the To which extent is the personalized social need for alternative economic thinking is both and/or economic fantasy becoming being and urgent and emergent. Three years after its leaving its trace, like a virus in the predominant first appearance in Gdansk, Ressler’s work organizational structure? Does the application appears to be the most emblematic and of those languages have the ability to trigger symptomatic for how Wyspa is seeking its change or at least soften the demands of the local role and how its small strategies can primary one? leak through the whole system of neo-liberal When in the autumn of 2004 Wyspa Institute development strategies and the post-indus- 1) Gilles Deleuze, Fèlix Guattari, Language: Major and of Art was launching its first exhibition, trial condition in our immediate surroundings. Minor, in: A Thousand Plateaus, p. 151, 1980 entitled Health and Safety, Oliver Ressler Giving an updated, bilingual version of 2) I am indebted for the term to Raqs Media Collective. presented within its framework Alternative Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies www.raqsmediacollective.net 8 wstęp Aneta Szyłak Deleuze i Guattari w swoich uwagach na temat tytułem „���”, Oliver Ressler prezentował Podanie szerszej publiczności uaktual- lingwistyki jako wehikułu normatywnego, w niej „Alternatywną Ekonomię, Alternatywne nionej, dwujęzycznej wersji zapisów „Alter- a więc zarazem dominującego stanu języka Społeczeństwa”. „���” był projektem inicju- natywnej Ekonomii, Alternatywnych piszą: „występuje tu figura mniejszościowej jącym Wyspę w tym upadającym zakładzie Społeczeństw” jest zarówno aktem symbo- świadomości jako stawania się każdym produkcji statków, a jednocześnie najbardziej licznym jak i rzeczywistą deklaracją. Jest i stawania się kreacją. Nie osiąga się tego mitycznym miejscu politycznym w Europie wpompowaniem drobinek mniejszościowych poprzez pozostawania z większością. Postać, Środkowej, kolebce Solidarności. Powody sposobów myślenia w powietrze praktyk do której się odwołujemy jest ciągłą wariacją, ujęcia pracy Resslera w jej ramy wynikały kulturowych i podarunkiem widzialności dla amplitudą która nieustająco przekracza próg z napięcia pomiędzy ideą alternatywności mniej znanych teorii i specyficznie ulokowa- reprezentacji większościowego standardu, i fikcjonalności instytucji sztuki, które należą