Daniel Castellanos Reyes, Uchronia 1990 / Stateless, Unidentified, Without a Past June 1, 2015 MFA Public Art and New Artistic Strategies Advisor: Prof

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Daniel Castellanos Reyes, Uchronia 1990 / Stateless, unidentified, without a past June 1, 2015 MFA Public Art and New Artistic Strategies Advisor: Prof. Danica Dakić Examiners: Dr. Boris Buden and Anke Hannemann

Becario de Colfuturo - Promoción 2013 Uchronia 1990 Stateless, unidentified, without a past

To the brother I supposedly killed

Daniel Castellanos Reyes Table of Contents

Introduction: What is Uchronia?...... 1 Why 1990?...... 5 Me and Football...... 8 FIRST HALF Framework: Reality check...... 13 Into the imagined other...... 16 Not here, not now...... 18 Goal assists...... 20 HALF TIME Strategy Board...... 25 SECOND HALF Dédoublement YUGOSLAVIA...... 29 WEST GERMANY...... 31 COLOMBIA...... 34 UNITED ARAB EMIRATES...... 36 After Match Final Score: Theory...... 39 Final Score: Practical & Art...... 41 Addendum Lichthaus Kino Intervention...... 45 Poster...... 47 REFERENCE LIST...... 51 Introduction: What is Uchronia?

Uchronia is a neologism derived from the word utopia. Here, the notion of place (topos) is replaced by the notion of time (chronos). The term is also related to notions of parallel or alternate storytell- ing; which is the strategy I use here to effectively travel through time in an attempt to re-enact the past and enact the future. This approach enables me to review the phases of childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age simultaneously within the “reality” of the human condition and also, to project my own life phases into the condition of nations after the dawn of globalization. A few centuries ago, when Thomas More coined the term utopia, he was imagining it as an ideal human society; a perfect world where Fig.1 justice reigned among the inhabitants: A state ruled by Ademo (no people), in the city of Amauroto (without walls), bathed by the river Anider (without water). The work was a critique of the society within which it was written; and from that moment on, its fiction influenced people around the world. Urbanists, writers, architects and kings all strived to achieve the ideal, and pursued the dream of creating perfect places to live, and perfect societal structures. Some examples are Lucio Costa’s – Brasilia; Baron Haussmann’s Paris; Adolf Hitler’s Germania; Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (novel) and Walt Disney’s Progress City.

Introduction: What is Uchronia? 1 These utopic visions and plans were either realized (Modern Par- is, Brasilia), or left unfinished (many Latin American capitals), and some plans were simply archived for future use, as was the case with Le Corbusier’s Voisin. Still other utopian plans created the opportunity to erase, or at least segregate, undesired populations in order to allow new men to develop themselves (i.e. Jew-free zones in Berlin). Uchronia, then, is a fictional deviation from historical events, and its connection with utopia should be kept in mind. In the framework of this project, Uchronia is the way to return to a point in time when a transformed or ideal society seemed to be within reach. It is the means of moving hypothetically through time to realize the possibilities for the “new man” that existed at a crucial moment: the year 1990. Preceding this transitional moment, a new world order (NWO) had been established in the 80s with the implementation of neoliberalism in world politics. This scheme was based on the development of free trade and the improvement of technologies, thus shifting authority and power towards private interests (mostly large multinationals), and moving towards savage capitalism. These developments accelerated the need for increased global interconnectedness. And by now (2015), this trend has evolved into a fast-paced system of story and image production, wherein individuals are constantly persuaded to become the “new man,” perpetually realizing and un- realizing himself – all the while being digitally monitored by market forces. Technological speed, trade policies and human migrations have caused a transference of symptoms like anguish, disorientation and the constant questioning of one’s place in the world onto the individual subject. These symptoms might them be understood in combination as forms of identity crisis, culture shock or even loss Figure 1. “Utopia Island“ Unknown - Rudi Palla – Die Kunst Kinder zu kneten, Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn Verlag 1997 P. 35 of memory. Uchronia makes me consider the role that artists have played in image production, and how image has been linked to the economic (neoliberal) policies that have affected both society and the forma-

2 Introduction: What is Uchronia? Introduction: What is Uchronia? 3 tion of the self in recent years. How is memory dealt with at critical moments, and what is its communication in the public arena?

“For the artist, the time of modernity is the time of permanent modernization, never really achieving its goals of becoming truly modern and never satisfying the desire that it has pro- voked. In this sense, the process of modernization begins as seen as wasted, excessive time that can and should be documented – precisely because it never led to any real result.” (Groys,2010, p.93) Why 1990?

The current project aims to establish a strategy for addressing a culturally heterogeneous public (a global spectator) and to propose a public artistic approach, based on the medium of video/film, that 1990 is the moment that I would like to bring into play. This key year comments on reality, identity, and memory, and their construction was a period of profound and permanent change. The fall of the Iron and destruction in the individual subject and in the collective. Curtain left capitalism without a meaningful economic or political These problems will be discussed within the framework of four adversary. And so, it was only after 1989 that the biggest shift in short stories developed in this paper and in the practical work. Each world politics took place. Back then, this turn was a symbol of better of these stories presents a different form of crisis, type of transfor- times to come; a NWO could be established and western countries mation or approach for dealing with the constantly changing present could lead the world. in a never-ending process of identity construction. Finally, I will Free trade policies, and the image of freedom, overlapped with a also be discussing the relevance of cinema as part of public art logic. major advances in telecommunication; live-broadcast world events, such as the fall of Berlin Wall, the Balkan Wars, the first Gulf War and the Drug Wars, invaded millions of households thanks to sat- ellite transmissions, and inventions such as the computer and the cellphone appeared on the scene to change our lives forever. Neoliberalism in the 90s became the tool that led the alleged development and progress of the new Free World. This political approach paved the way for more privatized governments, as the presence and power of the state became diminished via privatiza- tion, deregulations, the establishment of property rights, and the dismounting the social welfare state in many nations. The state of reality will be mentioned over and over again in the context of this project. Uchronia 1990 is to be approached consider-

4 Introduction: What is Uchronia? Why 1990? 5 ing the Byzantine meaning of economy, which, according to Marie- facts. This approach will help me examine, in a somewhat quixotic José Mondzain, was: way, the significant world events that were taking place when I was 7 to 8 years old. “the concept of management and administration of temporal At the time, as a young boy, I had no real concept of what was realities, whether they be spiritual, intellectual or material.” happening on a broad scale, not even what was happening on the (Mondzain,2005, p.22) other side of town My world pretty much consisted of going to school, playing with my neighborhood friends, visiting my grand- It is important to bring up Mondzain’s approach, since her work parents, and being in the car experiencing the city or visiting my deals with the image and its relations, and provides precise tools great uncle in the countryside. For me, 1990 was rich in memories for studying the ubiquity of the image and how it influences events and images; but none of them seem to have been linked to the mas- on the world stage, being used strategically, pedagogically and po- sive changes that where happening on the world stage. The world litically by ruling powers. She tracks the use of the image back to event that I paid attention to, and that was my main access point Byzantine times and explains how, even then, image had a strong to the bigger picture, was the FIFA World Cup: Italy 1990; and in connection with the issue of economy. At that time the church was particular, Group D: a primary management structure, administering emotions, perceptions and souls. The focus was on preventing the devil from occupy- ing them, and on allowing the supposed message of God to guide one’s actions. She describes her approach, drawing on an early Greek system of thought, following the formula that:

“an economic conception of the natural image founds the artifi- Figure 2. Group D Table - FIFA World cup Italy 1990. cial image, and an economic conception of the artificial image, in turn, founds temporal power.” Considering this, her study is relevant to Uchronia, since she deals with the interplay of image, time, power and artificiality. She states that the image is a mystery and that it has eternal similitude; while on the other hand the icon is an enigma that has only temporal resem- blance. (Mondzain,2005, pp.2,3)

Economy, or in this case neoliberalism, has been proved to be linked with the production of images and the construction of realities. I will deal with the selected time period (1990) by bringing my personal memories into play, and extending them into the historical

6 Introduction: What is Uchronia? Why 1990? 7 between taking care of his family and following his dream of having a sports career. He rejected the scholarship and stayed in Colombia, but his interest in football never diminished. My father played football in my school every Saturday with parents from other schools in the district. I watched him play, and eventually made it into the junior league from my school. When he traveled to Germany on business, he would bring me gifts of football shoes, balls, and sports gear. I began to have an enviable collection of sports gear from abroad, which made me proud and made all my Me and Football little school friends jealous. I started to enjoy being associated with foreign brands, since it was very difficult to find fancy sports -gar ments in Colombia at the time; probably because the country was a closed market and foreign brands were heavily taxed. Being so young and unaware of the world’s true dimensions, football We used to go to the stadium together to see Millonarios F.C., allowed me to experience and imagine the world as a small and joy- the local Bogotá team, who were always decked out in their blue ful sphere, rather than as the complex and disturbing thing that it jerseys and white shorts. Unfortunately for my father, I chose to sup- really is. port his rival team from the city of Medellin, Atlético Nacional, who Italy 1990 was perhaps the first time when I felt any significant wore green jerseys and white shorts. This is perhaps the moment connection to the world. 24 nations competed in the tournament, when I consciously began to create some distance from my father’s battling for the glory of claiming the cup. In Bogotá, dozens of peo- influence. Supporting the rival team was a way of showing that I had ple would gather together to watch the matches, and in these mo- decided something on my own, and that I wanted to follow a differ- ments, it became clear to me that I was part of a much more broader ent path. We would go one to argue about this choice of football club community. I became interested not only in Colombian matches, for ten long years. but also in those of other countries; and it was then that I started Apart from my personal and family connection with football, to dream about the possibility of having being born in other places. the sport also has a broader symbolic value when it comes to major Could I have been a Czechoslovakian, like Tomáš Skuhravý? Or a world events. In 1914, for example, there was a truce during the First Yugoslavian, like Davor Jozić? World War when German and English soldiers played a Christmas My father had played football as a young man, and he transmitted match, which was won 3 to 2 by Germany. Pelé, one of the most Fig.3 his passion onto me when I was still very young. He had wanted to famous football players in history, was the leading cause for a truce be a professional player, but as is the case for many football hopefuls, being declared in Nigeria during the Biafran War in 1969. And foot- life had other plans for him. In 1976, he was offered a scholarship to ball events also have triggered wars of their own, or predicted future play football in the US, and to study at the University of Florida. At ethnic and social tensions, as was the case with the “soccer war” be- the same time, my mother was pregnant with my older brother and tween El Salvador and Honduras for the 1970 qualifiers, and the riot my grandmother had recently become a widow. It became a choice during a match between Dynamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade in

8 Introduction: What is Uchronia? Me and Football 9 May, 1990. this documentary, Zidane, the football icon of the late 90s and early 2000s, is shot for one entire football match by 17 cameras simultaneously. Onscreen we see subtitles telling us Zidane's thoughts about his childhood, his memories and the game of life. During the Fig.4 half-time break, his voice is subtitled on footage of floods in Serbia and Montenegro, Elian Gonzales’ speech on Cuban television, a car bomb in Najaf, Iraq, etc. Now, in 2015, as private and corporate interests prevail over public ones, I am compelled to study the effects of economy, or more precisely neoliberalism and globalization, on visual culture, and to consider how biopolitics has influenced our societies and our perceptions of memory. My approach to this is to look at this issues Fig. 3 Christmas truce, PA (1914) First world war soldiers playing football. through the lens of what was once my connection to the world stage: Group D of the 1990 World Cup. What is the result when multiple It wasn’t until 15 years ago, when I signed up to study arts and possible identities and self-constructions are projected into different design at the Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano that I started to lose countries and global scenarios? interest in football. I had lost the disposition and discipline to practice every week, and I became more immersed in arts, and introspection. When a football fan approached me, my knowledge of the sport was frozen in the 90s. I still remembered key matches and players, but had no idea about recent developments or upsets. The interest in introspection and discovering or modifying myself through art has become a core element in my life and career since that first shift of focus. Through this project, I aim somehow to live simultaneously in the moments before and after that shift, and to create a sort of film-based delirium that interweaves the world of Figure 4. Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait Directed by: Gordon, Douglas & Parreno, the moving image with the world of politics and history, and with Philippe [Film Still] 2008. my own world of individual selfhood. I attempt make sense of my past and of world events that passed The present has ceased to be a point of transition from the past me by. And by doing this, I can develop a more informed and active to the future, becoming instead a site of the permanent rewrit- position for the future, and to contribute alternative modes of image ing of both past and future.(Groys,2010) production. One interesting filmic example of football and memory being blended is Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (Gordon et al.,2008). In

10 Introduction: What is Uchronia? Me and Football 11 FIRST HALF

Framework: Reality check

What does uchronia do to a person? How can a person manifest in a past or future time? Is it possible to manipulate an imagined past in order to affect your present reality? These are complicated hypothetical processes that can involve time bending, mind bending or even out-of-body experiences. To understand these potential processes, I turned to the philosophical studies of Barry Dainton, who approaches the makeup and nature of a person and the relationship with reality in today’s technological world, as it becomes and easier to detach from one’s “real” self. In his work, he deals with the possibilities of: teleporta- tion, mind zap, experience games, and, in short, how technological developments can impact our lives and perceptions. My interest in Dainton was initially piqued by a passage in which he discusses British philosopher Derek Parfit’s work about identity and mental continuity after a self-fission. This type of situation, he says, would only be survivable if the person splitting is considered to be a species rather than an individual. The species of (me) can then appear to be multiple different individuals because they may live in multiple environments and have multiple experiences of the world. It is through this “possibility” that Barry Dainton then compares it with quantum mechanics; using the theory that the universe is

Framework: Reality check 13 constantly branching into different copies of itself. According to this an alter ego. It is by shifting and blurring myself through these iden- conception, we are all involved in this process of splitting/multipli- tities and subjectivities that I am able to access and play with other cation without being aware of our other manifestations in other uni- cultures. So, by grasping at a universal idea of dédoublement, and verses. Dainton states: blending myself into the otherness, I am able to study myself as a subject. Through this method of alienation from my self and body, I “Now, a case of personal fission which involves just a single in- can potentially explore or reveal the ideologies that govern it. dividual does not cause branching of an entire universe. But it My main formal inspiration for the development of Uchronia can be regarded as involving a branching in that individual’s 1990 has come from cinema. For almost 150 years, cinema’s mov- personal time [author’s italics]. Personal time, roughly speaking images have infiltrated popular culture, and shaped popular ing, is the order in which events occur from the perspective of thought. The multiple and mas production possibilities of the cin- a given individual. Personal times do not usually diverge from ema allow its messages to move relatively freely across space. And the time of the world as a whole (i.e. objective time) but, under I am particularly interested in the experience of the cinema-going special circumstances, such divergences can occur. If we inter- public: they buy the tickets, maybe buy food, move into the theater pret fission in this way, the dividing person does not die; they space, sit down, get quiet, and then are individually and collectively continue to exist but their lives unfold in the different ‘limbs’ transported into the world of the film. of their branching personal time.” (Dainton,2014, pp.153-154) It terms of practical production and initial distribution/social- ization of my Uchronia work, I plan to initially screen or show the This notion of personal time represents the basis for the “time first video iterations of the stories to the public in small or special- travel” element of the Uchronia project. Discussing Parfit once again, ized venues, perhaps in a more traditional “artist screening” format, Dainton concludes that: in conjunction with lectures or discussions. In the future, however, when the project and research has matured slightly, I intend to ex- “personal identity and what matters in life can come apart pand into the more industrial logic of cinema distribution and pro- [and that] our identity […] does not have the importance we duction (integrated or selective). I have not contemplated other naturally assume.”(Dainton,2014, p.155) screening possibilities as yet, but video and film provide many possible channels for presenting the work. This philosophical and metaphysical approach creates a real- world (though still hypothetical) basis for my artistic strategy of de- veloping alter egos, second lives, avatars or other bodies. From this point forward, I will be dealing with this notion of personal fission as doubling or dédoublement. Dédoublement takes place in each instance that I interchange my identity with that of the “other”: the other “Yugoslavian,” the other “German,” the other “Emi- rati,” the other “Colombian.” For each one, there is another supposed body, another voice and another language appearing on screen; like

14 First half Framework: Reality check 15 of less privileged persons has actually resulted (in many cases) in increasing or reinforcing the oppression of the group spoken for.”(Alcoff,1991, p.7)

She questions the authority that philosophers and social theo- rists claim when speaking about “the other,” and this has led me to consider my own criteria in the development of Uchronia. As I have made clear above, I attempt only to speak for myself and have no intention of realizing a total truth or a revealing another’s reality. I Into the imagined other attempt only to become the “other” in a dream-like, or even childish way. It is a game of self-doubling and imagination or game where I end up imagining being born in other place, or having another name. In this way I believe that by creating an artificial image, I will From a critical point of view, to speak for the other is a gesture instead reveal power structures of the time. of disempowerment. I want to frame my work definitively in the In Season In Hell, Rimbaud writes: monologue-style approach. The fictional realities and selves are a means of understanding my own place in the world and imagining “To every being, I felt, several other lives seemed due.” other possible bodies; they are not anthropological studies or means (Rimbaud and Sarno,2009) of making judgments about the other. It is through projections into another that ultimately I am able to speak for myself. This approach Although I consider that I perhaps have some privilege, as Alcoff of blurring boundaries doesn’t seem unreasonable today, in our in- would say, speaking as an artist; but I consider that rather than creasingly interconnected and globalized world. speaking on behalf of another, I am instead just projecting myself Linda Alcoff discusses the problem of speaking for others as into the imagined other. coming from two sources:

“First, there is a growing recognition that where one speaks from affects the meaning and truth of what one says, and thus that one cannot assume an ability to transcend one’s location. In other words, a speaker’s location (which I take here to refer to their social location, or social identity) has an epistemically significant impact on that speaker’s claims and can serve either to authorize or disauthorize one’s speech. […] Second […] certain privileged locations are discursively dangerous. In particular, the practice of privileged persons speaking for or on behalf

16 First half Framework: Reality check 17 become the norm, and one has to decide whether to stay home and be affected by external invisible forces, or to migrate and integrate into a world of mobilization and movement. In this context, it is possible to consider the ongoing autobiographical construction as a type of quilt or patchwork, relying on appropriation. Blurring boundaries, the moving self and appropriation or modi- fication of identities is a representative issue of our time, and Uchro- nia is a manifestation of my response to these problems, rather than an attempt to solve them or to speak for the other. Not here, not now

I have now been living in Germany for over 20 months, and have had to learn so much about the culture, the history and the local ways. Speaking hardly any German, I have somehow managed to survive here. Once upon a time, modernity was about cleaning and structur- ing everything from national identity to race to urban development. In many cases, as we now, this type of project ended badly. Now, to adapt to present model of “global citizenship” what must one do?

In The Radicant, Nicolas Borriaud references a biological structure that fits well into this discussion. (Bourriaud,2009, p.51) Radi- cant plants are those that creep along surfaces attaching, moving and adapting rather than placing deep roots in any one location. Bourriaud then talks about this radicant quality in the context of an individual or an artist. This person can move easily through new environmental, architectural or sociological systems. The radicant in human form can be seen represented in the figure of the wanderer. This concept is one that applies to the Uchronia project as well – that of the individual without ties to a single location, but able to realize himself in multiple locations. Today, more and more people are on the move: Students, busi- nessmen, laborers, political refugees, etc. Migrations seem to have

18 First half Framework: Reality check 19 contexts, to acknowledge those manifestations, and to look forward to what comes next. Every day we are faced with the type of loss that Frampton’s work exposes. Uchronia 1990 is another artistic method for dealing with the mystery of advancing time, of some realization that is constantly being postponed, and which will continue to be postponed until my time has come.

“I made this photograph in March 11th 1959. The face is my own, or rather, it was my own. As you see, I was thoroughly Goal assists pleased with myself at that time, presumably for having sur- vived to such ripeness and wisdom since it was my 23rd birth- day. […] This photograph was made in the studio where I worked. It belonged to the wife of a friend. I dare say they are Hollis Frampton’s work Nostalgia is a strong artistic reference for my still married, but he has not been my friend for nearly ten years. approach to memory and the passage of time. In this work, Framp- We became estranged on the account of an obscure mutual em- ton’s voice accompanies images of photographs as they are burned barrassment that involved a third party and three dozen eggs. I one-by-one on a small grill. As each photo burns, we realize that take some comfort in realizing that my entire physical body has Frampton is not describing the current photo, but instead the next been replaced more than once since it made this portrait of its Fig.5 photo in the series. By the time the image corresponding to the de- face.”(Frampton,2012) scription appears on-screen, is passed and the image is then burnt while we hear a description of another subsequent image. And so it continues with a dozen photographs, until we develop a process of waiting to see the image that is being described, while the previous one burns and disappears. There is a sense of inevitably and a cer- tainty of loss that arises in watching the piece.

“The film conceptualizes cinema. Its entire content is the per- sistence of what is not there (not being looked at, not being heard), the opposite of ‘life itself’, in fact.” (Comer,2009, p.24)

The passage of time is a frightening thing. I have reached a moment in life when I have lived long enough to reflect on my past, to see and understand what happened, and how I behaved in different Figure 5. Nostalgia – Directed by: Frampton, Hollis [Film Still], 1971.

20 First half Framework: Reality check 21 Fiction and reality merge together in Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil, Meanwhile, Harun Farocki with Deep play, which shows the which combines a fictional voice-over narration with real docu- 2006 World Cup final, as captured in official FIFA footage, Farocki’s mentary images. The movie shows images from around the world, own footage, animated sequences, surveillance footage and statisti- Fig.7 Fig.6 and the accompanying script takes the form of a correspondence cal information. This work presents another approach to the ideas of between the narrator and an unknown traveller showing. Rich imag- visuality, subjectivity and representation. ery is combines with comments about traveling, films, video games, tribal rituals, and showing industrialization as a depersonalization of ourselves.

Figure 7 Farocki, Harum - Deep play - ©DHC Art 2011, Photo by Richard Max Trembly Figure 6 Sans Soleil, Directed by: Marker, Chris [Film still] 1983. Re-enactments exhibition. Montreal, Canada “The first image he told me about was of three children on a road in Iceland, in 1965. He said that for him it was the image of happiness and also that he had tried several times to link it to other images, but it never worked. He wrote me: one day I’ll have to put it all alone at the beginning of a film with a long piece of black leader; if they don’t see happiness in the picture, at least they’ll see the black.” (Marker,2007)

As global histories struggle against personal memory, the film turns into a nomadic quest to return “home,” a home devoid of any family or nation, and where memory ends up being trapped in an event of forgetting.

22 First half Framework: Reality check 23 HALF TIME

Strategy Board

In History in motion, Sven Lütticken states that contemporary art practices deal with the past by reenacting it. (Lütticken,2011) The proposed outcome of Uchronia 1990 is a short film, compiling four videos in movie-trailer format, which question the possibilities of Fig.8 creating or embodying alternate cultural identities. These cinematic trailers are in discussion to be presented publicly as part of the stan- dard previews selection at a local cinema (Lichthaus Kino) in Wei- mar, Germany. As an artistic strategy, story creation allows for the exploration of issues on the borderline between reality and fiction. For many years as an independent artist I have dealt with issues of biographical myth construction, and of the subject within society. At this point, I am interested in researching and dealing with how society influences the construction, and therefore, I’ve incorporated themes of history building, and the intertwining of sociopolitical issues within a subject, in a global social space. As a time-based artist I have opted to use the medium of film and video as the primary means to give voice to this project. Film is the appropriate medium, since here, as with story creation, one can work and play with the collision of fiction and reality. It is also a medium that moves across borders, and in between cultures. This

24 Half Time Strategy Board 25 is a way to connect the theoretical contents of the issues developed Fig.9 in the masters and my art practice. My aim is then to develop an approach to unconventional publics by inserting my work into the movie theater. Practically, in the development of this master project, I have incorporated archive footage, video data bank images, family archives, and newly filmed material. Voice and sound recording have also been considered and incorporated in the Uchronia trailers. It is important to mention that the overall concept of memory and identity-building in this work is both connected to Colombia and my experience being a Colombian national. The country has being haunted and damaged by civil war for over 50 years. Forced dis- placements and major human rights violations used to be everyday occurrences; and it is only recently that the country and its citizens have had a moment to stop and reflect on the past and it the conse- Figure 8. Intervention Site, Lichthaus Kino Weimar. quences. It has become a greater priority to highlight the memories of what victims of conflict suffered at the hands of guerrilla, para- militaries, drug cartels, and the army.

“A personal myth is an act of imagination that is patterned integration of our remembered past, perceived present and an- ticipated future” (McAdams,1996)

Figure 9. Uchronia 1990 - Short feature film insertion in a movie theater. [view from Panorama Berlin March 25th-29th, 2015 - Kino Babylon Berlin]

26 Half Time Strategy Board 27 SECOND HALF Dédoublement

Yugoslavia

I started to approach Uchronia 1990 from a practical perspective one year ago. During a field trip to Sarajevo with the MFA Program, I immersed myself in the multi-faceted history of the city, which has been so visibly shaped by conflict. I decided to actually disappear into it – to recreate myself with the city, to become re-formed by its history, landscape, and architecture. Along with students from the Academy of Performing Arts Sarajevo/Film Academy of the Univer- sity of Sarajevo, I began working, collaborating and finally creating a short story on video. In My Name is Danijel Ćosić, I reconstructed my identity as if I had been born in Yugoslavia in 1982 (my real birth year). In order to do this authentically, I searched for a solid starting point – somewhere to break with my real self and construct the cross-cultural Fig.10 other self. This was the moment when I recalled Group D of the 1990 World Cup, and in particular, the match between Yugoslavia and Colombia. I decided to change my name to a Balkan name, immediately creating an identifiable second self or alter ego, and calling into question my real identity. With the help of a local Bosnian writer, Adi Lučić, I worked to combine elements of my real Colombian childhood, with that of my alter ego. Lučić’s knowledge helped to

Dédoublement 29 provide the construction with a “true” Sarajevo tone. The final video is a five-minute short story, documenting Ćosić’s return to visit his childhood home, after more than 20 years abroad in Colombia. Here, I place real childhood memories in another cultural context, fictionalizing them in the process. By juxtaposing these two elements (memory and context), I am able to make further comments on socioeconomic circumstances and the past; here, the Child State becomes a metaphor for the behavior of the State. In a child, behavior is conducted and manipulated by institutions such as school and family, whereas for a nation, sovereignty its manipulated by the UN, by other states, powers or institutions. In the film, I deal with West Germany memories of school. Most school systems do not differentiate between students, rather they serve to organize society, or to reproduce or reinforce existing hierarchical models. (Touraine,2007) The End of the Work was initially developed in the third semester My Name is Danijel Ćosić will be the first trailer in the series of the master’s program. With this piece, I emphasize how going to screened in the Lichthaus Kino. Transitions between the individual work can have elements of the theatrical. Here, the return home af- videos will use TV footage of the Group D goals. ter work is practiced or, better yet, performed. The video deals with a new form of labor, based on the notion of lifestyle performance. Fig.11 It takes as its subject a work-obsessed and overly image-conscious individual, who is on the brink of self-destruction. The video has a dream-like quality, and the text is written in second person, blending between an internal monologue and an address to the audience. The subject of the film is driving home, and may or may not be involved in a car accident on the highway during the trip. The audience follows the subject on this car journey, then home into his house, where he wrestles with his issues of self-conception and plays out his daily habit of consuming media and advertising images. This progression is somehow hallucinatory onscreen, and combines fact and fiction yet again, since it revolves around how I dealt with and perceived the 2008 economic crisis as a working man. At the time, I was saving money to have what seemed like the components of the Figure 10. My Name is Danijel Ćosić. Prod. Kerim Mašović. By Adi Lučić. Perf. complete life: a home, a nice car, a family, and I was pretty much Daniel Castellanos Reyes, Amar Čustović and Emin Canović. [Film Still] 2014 building my reality around economy. This video clip segment deals with the life phase of adulthood, and it was shot in former West Ber-

30 Second Half Dédoublement 31 lin between 2012 and 2014. In the progression of the video clips, one after the other becomes a series of creation. The multiple successive parallel identities bring up issues of anonymity, statelessness, appropriation and the hybrid- ity of the modern human. Here I am conscious of how I work with my own identity, which I turn into a product of representation. There is an interesting development in the modern world of travel. In my case, although I am on the move right now, I still feel like I am part of a community of people that are out there somewhere, struc- turing a new social sculpture of wanderers in the world.

“The disappearance of the individual subject, along with its formal consequence, the increasing unavailability of the personal style, engender the well-nigh universal practice today of what […] Still with your hands on the steer- may be called pastiche.” (Jameson,2001) ing wheel, you see how your environment starts to blur into your dreams. At the moment when it becomes unclear whether the subject of The End of the Work has had a car accident, the following text is read: You enter into a state somewhere between reality and fantasy,

where you mix all your obligations with the comforts that surround you

You arrive home and all this builds into shame, it’s a nightmare:

- It’s your daily life

Figure 11. The End of the Work – Dir. Castellanos, Daniel [Film Still and Subtitle excerpts] 2014

32 Second Half Dédoublement 33 straight for the adjoining lands, knocking down fences and de- stroying ranches with his cattle, until he forcefully took pos- session of the best pieces of the area’s land. As for the farmers who were not stripped of their lands because their lands were of no interest to him, every Saturday he demanded that they pay him an amount and went accompanied by bulldogs and a double-barreled shotgun. He didn’t deny it. He based his right to do so under the premise that the seized lands had been distributed by José Arcadio Buendía during the times of the Colombia foundation.”(García Márquez and Rabassa,2006)

The narrator does not understand what it says, throws the book to the trash bin and leaves to board the plane. Adopting this dis- At the time of writing this paper, my Colombian video clip is in its sociative state for the Fugue State is a critical representation of my developmental stages. The video will be titled Fugue State, and will own experience of the Colombian war. I experienced the war from a follow after a transitional clip of the Germany-Colombia World Cup zone of relative comfort, and, as was the case for many others in Co- 1990 goals. lombia, receiving ongoing information and new reports about the The story begins with the narrator being unable to recall the past conflict eventually led to a certain indifference or detachment from after an apparent dissociative disorder event, the details of which are the reality of the violence taking place elsewhere in the country. unknown to the audience. He is worried and confused about how he I decided to place this part in the present time, but with the in- came to be in what seems to be an airport. Seeing a date on a news- tention of reflecting on one of the most critical phases in life: ado- paper, questions fill his head: What happened in the last 25 years? lescence. The quote above, as mentioned, is drawn from from Gar- Where do I come from? Who am I? cía Márquez’s novel, which obeys a circular temporal reality. In the He finds himself thinking in English, but is somehow sure that book, characters and different generations of Buendía’s family live he comes from Colombia. The video will further delve into the mo- in a constant state of oblivion in Macondo, a fictional, dreamy land ment of recognition and disassociation, and will end when he real- (perhaps even a utopia?). The quote also connects with the strug- izes that he is booked on a flight – destination Dubai. Finally, the gle that has been raging in the Colombian countryside for over 100 man looks in his briefcase and finds a Spanish-language copy of “100 years, in which territory has been under constant dispute between Years of Solitude,” which he opens. He reads from one page, which is landlords, farmers, indigenous groups, multinationals, paramilitar- voiced over in poor Spanish: ies, military, guerrilla, and so on.

“Only when they had coffee did Arcadio reveal the purpose of his visit: He had received a complaint against José Arcadio. It was said that he began plowing his patio and had continued

34 Second Half Dédoublement 35 where West Germany is listed as the champion. This segment shows an imaginary 2090, from which we see a tourist advertisement, offering visitors to see “old Dubai” (depicted in images as present Dubai). This tourist video celebrates the 100- year anniversary of the first stages of Dubai’s urban landscape. We travel back in time, seeing the flat deserted Dubai like a tabula rasa: with just a few highways and high-rises, then continue on and see what we consider to be present Dubai, but which is, in the context of this fictional ad, really the past. This segment of Uchronia uses United Arab Emirates the concept of a sort of willful amnesia, as the UAE has completely restructured and reconceived itself since 1990, without reference to its past.

This video element is still in development. Once again, I will transition between the main video clips using footage from the World Cup. This time, we join the same narrator from Fugue State again. He is on the plane thinking about the future that awaits him in Dubai. The title of this final segment is 2090 Al-Manākh. During the film, the following excerpt from Kurt Vonnegut is read, using the tone of a tourist advertisement, and images of Dubai are displayed.

‘There are no telegrams on Tralfamadore. But you’re right: each clump of-symbols is a brief, urgent message describing a situation, a scene. We Tralfamadorians read them all at once, not one after the other. There isn’t any particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.’(Vonnegut,1969, p.88)

Finally, after this last component is complete, a screen is shown with statistics from the Group D games at the World Cup 1990,

36 Second Half Dédoublement 37 After Match

Final Score: Theory

The development of the theory used for this project came from various sources, including the theoretical contents developed in the master’s, personal experiences and even personal memories. I wanted to pose the questions that would allow me to grasp or understand a present that I find overwhelming, and to envision what seems to be an uncertain future with more clarity. The main goal was to understand and critically question the events that surrounded the fall of the Berlin Wall and to place them within an international perspective of a global citizen but also a sen- sitive, responsive human subject. The use of the Uchronia concept enabled me to be more flexible in the treatment of time, which explains why 1990 is only shown in the soccer match as a connecting metaphor between places and characters. Mondzain’s concept of temporal realities enabled me to add a dimension where the economy of the body, and its control, is shown through ideological structures or symptoms that impact one’s body in one way or another. In the case of The End of the Work, the narrator seems to describe a highly developed idea of labor (the worka- holic approach) within the framework of a visually-realized event that may or may not have actually happened. Rather than bringing the same old images of the reunification in dealing with the German

Final Score 39 component, I chose to incorporate the 2008 economic crisis, which affected me personally. In this way, the film is inspired by the conse- quences of the turn towards savage capitalism, rather than dealing with the moment of reunification directly. In the case of Yugoslavia I question my national identity with My Name is Danijel Ćosić. Thinking about neoliberal economic practices before the breakup of Yugoslavia led me to think that most of the things that happened in the region might have been connected to the influence of external debt and international politics.O nce cold war is over, how to were they to justify the military arsenal left over Final Score: Practical & Art for a preventive war. The development of the theory contents mentioned above enabled me to form the creative foundations for the Uchronia 1990 video. Without the development of the theory and my research investi- Uchronia 1990 has enabled me to explore the medium of film as a gations, it would have been an empty exercise. The life phases that tool for connecting with a new public. I consider this first attempt as are described in the different teasers were inspired by my research a strong step towards an interdisciplinary correspondence between in combination with my own memories and subjective experiences. video art and film. So far, I am satisfied with this first phase, but I The lines of questioning that emerged during the process have been think I should consider establishing a film production and distri- dealt with in each of the videos in an aesthetic or conceptual way. bution system where artistic works on video can be delivered to a This does not mean that the research and theoretical support will broader audience. In today’s growing culture industry, video art still be directly socialized and circulated with the final videos, rather it is not as significant as it could be. Perhaps this is because it is still con- simply what fed the entire concept and the individual stories. sidered a more personal and subjective approach. However, I believe that this is a beginning phase, and from the perspective of curators or cultural managers it is a market that can be developed and guided, to stimulate a workable economic flow, and to encourage independent artistic image production. In 2014 I had my first experience with curatorship. I developed a show for La Decanatura called LA QUEMA DEL TIEMPO (which translates to “Burning Times”), in which I compiled videos to be displayed in the exhibition space. During the organization process, I Fig.12 came upon a video art distributor VTAPE (Canada), who managed the videos of a few of the artists that I had chosen for the exhibition. It was valuable and interesting for me that on one hand I had a segment of artists who were happy about their work being displayed in

40 After Match Final Score 41 an international exhibition abroad, and others who had more official term Uchronia project of extended videos is funded and further Fig.13 and organized representation. In the end I showed the videos in the developed, then I plan on extending the project further with other exhibition space, and the installation was highly successful, with its publics. Let’s see what has the future to offer to Uchronia 1990. engagement being extended to a full month. But I felt embarrassed that I could not pay the selected artists at least a fee for the loan of the video.

Figure 13. Festival participations with The End of the Work teaser. [Festival Images]

Figure 12. LA QUEMA DEL TIEMPO – La Decanatura – Plataforma (Laboratorio Interactivo de Arte, Ciencia y Tecnología), Bogotá, D.C, Colombia, March 2014 (exhibition view)

After this experience is that I decided to build up more of a film profile for myself in order to understand the art film production- distribution dynamic. I still have not accomplished this task, but I think that the experience of the teasers will at least open the door to this phase of learning and career-building, enabling me to ask for funding, to develop the Uchronia format further. I think project has proved itself to be a strong starting point that will need a good deal more work, but I hope that this investment of time and effort will pay off in the future. The works that I create, I hope will be able to survive equally in public and private screening spaces. Initially I can circulate and show these finished teasers at screen- ings and galleries, as well as perhaps in festivals. Once the longer-

42 After Match Final Score 43 Addendum

Lichthaus Kino Intervention

On June 22nd 2015 the Uchronia 1990 trailer was inserted into the regular movie trailer program. The strategy of the trailer insertion obeys to my interest of circulating my artworks into unconventional art spaces and to adapt my work as a videographer into the dynamics of the public in a movie theater. Also, the trailer was an invitation to participate of the public screening and the Master Thesis Defense. The event was socialized as well with a movie poster. I have found this experience revealing and motivates me to expand this practice into other venues such as installation in a gallery, insertion in TV programs, and depending on how is managed maybe expand it into a long feature film. To explore the performativity of the defense will be interesting since this public screening and talk can transform into a discussion, a panel, or a talk.

Lichthaus Kino Intervention 45 Figure 14. View of the trailer screening at Lichthaus Kino.

46 Addendum Lichthaus Kino Intervention 47 “A new partnership of nations has begun, and we stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective—a new world order—can emerge: A new era— freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, east and west, north and south, can prosper and live in harmony.” A Speech by George H. W. Bush, President of the U.S.A. Given to a joint session of the United States Congress, Washington D.C. on 11 September 1990. Reference List

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