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88 artmargins 1:1 © 2012 ARTMargins and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology© 2012ARTMargins andthe MassachusettsInstitute of 2 1 ists had hoped to create a panic among the population through their their through population the among toapanic create hoped had ists opportun thatseveral was story official The coup areal attempt. been not had there that public the assuring announcement an broadcast Khachatryan, and executed by the politician. the by executed and Khachatryan, Grigor , in artists conceptual prominent onemost by of the conceived performance moreover, artistic an it was spectacle; vised atele was control. This his under fallen already had bodies mental govern most out acoup that and carrying he was that announced Hayrikyan Paruyr dissident political Soviet leaderformer and tional opposi nationalist religious chair, Varoujan to his sat tied Olqinyan anchor news well-known the While coup-d’état. atelevised witnessed sets Year New television the front of in their who greeted Armenia Year, lateNew In 1991, before the minutes afew only in people of aPureRevolutionary Action Reality VERSUSepresentation: TheA TV T ment of independent Armenia. govern newly formed the coup order areal into in toformed overthrow trans at being aimed eventwas the gesture, aconceptual as artist an conceived by action or apolitical action, apolitical as action artistic an he R he , V Armenia gainedindependence fromtheSovietUniononSeptember 21,1991. remains unclear. artist wasinvolvedin choreographingtheact.However, theextentofhis involvementinit Art criticNazarethKaroyanandKhachatryan himselfindependentlyconfirmedthatthe i d eo, an eal an eal Contemporary A d Contemporary d /as R 2 Shortly afterward, the government government the afterward, Shortly epresentation 1 uthentic Reality As a unique instance of instance aunique As rt in A in rt A ng e la rmenia H arutyunyan ------

provocative television appearance. However, no one actually panicked. I argue that one of the reasons why the televised coup attempt—a political-aesthetic performance conceived by the artist and the politi- cian in collaboration with Armenian Public TV’s news section—did not succeed was because society in Armenia of the early 1990s was not yet postmodern media society, and for that reason media representa- tion did not have a truth function. Taking this instance of a televised coup attempt as a starting point, I argue in this essay that in the mid- and late 1990s a paradigm shift from to postmodernism occurred in post-Soviet Armenia, signaled by a shift from a belief in authentic reality to a belief in the promised “real” of the media images of global consumerism. When used without quotation marks the terms “real” and “reality” denote material social conditions, while with quotation marks the term “the real” is used in a Lacanian sense to indicate that which is neither symbolic nor imaginary, always inaccessible to the analytic experi- ence and never possible to grasp, but which nevertheless structures the symbolic and can return only as a trauma.3 Referring to a selected body of contemporary Armenian artistic production, I argue that these works challenge dominant interpretations of video art that are promi- nent within Euro-American academic discourse and, specifically, in Rosalind Krauss’s conceptualization of video as a narcissistic medium.4 Even though the late Soviet policy of —a part of ’s program of 1985–89—advocated free speech and media transparency, late Soviet Armenian society of the 1980s and early 1990s mistrusted everything shown on TV, or at least accepted it with deep skepticism. Relying on personal memory, I can attest that many viewers conceived of the staged televised coup as a deception by the government-run television station. They thought of it as theater, a Bakhtinesque carnival, after which life would return to its normal pace. The event in question took place only a few months after the suc- cess of the mass movement against Soviet domination, which culmi- nated in the collapse of the and resulted in Armenia’s independence in 1991. The success of the mass demonstrations created the conviction that revolution was possible on the ground if the masses

3 Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, ed. Alain Miller, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Norton, 1978), 60.

4 Rosalind Krauss, “Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism,” (1976): 50–64. R epresentation | Th e R eal and/as Harutyunyan

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90 artmargins 1:1 6 5 informed. being empowered by was that subject notion of afree-speaking liberal on the itever relied wher ideological itself was ideology overcome Brezhnevian-Stalinist to striving that to recognize failed protestors nevertheless perestroika and revolutionaries active concerns, ecological and social, political, to voice pressing glasnost by were encouraged they While framework. ideological residues Stalinist of the Brezhnevian the with contrasted that ideology Leninist authentic an recovering by and informed, being through deception, of layers ideological the beneath hidden truth, thesupposed to find attempt an was Glasnost deceptiveness. logical ideo of their mechanisms the revealing by structures political ing exist of transformation the at aimed it Therefore, power. of seclusion the and decisions) political secret KGB, (the archives, closed of secrecy the opposite as defined 1980s, was of the second half the in declared years ofthe perestroika. during even Armenia in persisted television toward mistrust deep the speech, free advocated which mid-1980s, sincethe of glasnost policy Gorbachev’s other. Despite on the of television, regime representational the deceptive and the hand, one on operation, field for revolutionary conceived reality, apure as between of rupture asense created This victory. revolutionary a of moment the defer to and stagnation, political and quo,to social to contribute status the to protect was whose function misinformation charged ideologically loaded with being as regarded were media state-controlled the responsible by citizens, action direct through transformations revolutionary of possibility the in belief the nurtured this If will. out their act to collectively persistence enough had ment of which the central government in was highly critical. Moscow highly in was government central the ment of which move and foremostnationalist a first latement 1980sbeen had of the move liberation the that fact due to the largely was society and media Socialist Republicand itsunificationwiththeArmenianSoviet SocialistRepublic. demanded theseparation oftheNagorno-Karabakhregionfrom theAzerbaijaniSoviet In February 1988anationalistmovementled by theKarabaghCommitteewasformed and Horschelmann, andMalcolm Miles(Bristol:Intellect Books,2008),119–26. Armenian TVSurfing,” inPublic Spheresafter Socialism,ed.AngelaHarutyunyan, Kathrin tion oftruth)andasaninversionreality. Vahram Martirosyan, “DangersandDelightsof and 1980s,thepopularsaying“itwassaid onTV”servedasanunquestionableaffirma- both as an abstract source of trustworthy information (in the Soviet Union during the 1970s Vahram Martirosyan discussestheambivalentreceptionoftelevisioninSovietArmenia At its very basis, Gorbachev’s program of glasnost, which was was which of glasnost, Gorbachev’s program basis, very At its 5 This antagonism between the state-controlled state-controlled the between antagonism This - - - - 6 - Perestroika offered a unique synthesis of liberalism and Leninism. It was not accidental that the economic policies of perestroika were largely a resurrection of Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) of 1921–28.7 While free speech was licensed by the communist state, it was suppressed at the same time; language functioned both as a medium for state repression (in that ideology is always already embedded in language) and as a medium for opposition and resistance. As Boris Groys writes,

The power and its opposition both acted on a discursive ter- rain—on the ground of ideological legitimization. . . . There were significant achievements in this struggle. The society was being emancipated from the power discourse. But at the same time it was emancipated from discourse altogether. It turned into a post-discur- sive society where was no longer implemented through the medium of language [but through the monetary medium].8

Therefore, however paradoxical, glasnost (“voicedness” in Russian) cre- ated a fear of any discourse as potentially totalitarian. On the level of grassroots activism within the context of per- estroika politics, the emancipation from discourse, the sovereignty of silence, was perceived as an accomplishment. This was arguably an out- come of the perestroika protestors’ total identification of discourse with ideology. Nevertheless, glasnost also created a rupture between the metapolitics of the one-party state apparatus and the social base upon which its power was exercised, introducing an element of intrigue between society and political power. This brought a certain level of drama that turned the streets into theatrical stages for manifestations of dissent. Whereas the media (and by extension, discourse) were perceived as a means to freeze and cancel revolutionary action, public spaces such as squares, parks, and streets acquired a performative and

7 NEP (the New Economic Policy) was an economic program sanctioned by V. I. Lenin that approved the coexistence of public and private sectors in commerce, industry, and agricul- ture. It was abandoned in 1928 when Stalin launched his first five-year plan of economic centralization. 8 Boris Groys, “Capital. Isskusstvo. Spravedlivost” [Capital. Art. Justice], Xudojestvennyi Journal 60 (2005), http://xz.gif.ru/numbers/60/kapital-iskusstvo-spravedlivost/. In this essay Groys does not imply that discourse ceases to exist in postdiscursive conditions. Borrowing from Baudrillard, he argues instead that in high capitalism discourse functions as a commodity among other commodities and that for this reason it is no longer discourse that legitimizes or delegitimizes capitalism, but capitalism that (de)legitimizes discourse,

including critical discourse. R epresentation | Th e R eal and/as Harutyunyan

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92 artmargins 1:1 The 3rdFloorinParis,1989.Courtesy ofNazarethKaroyan. traditional representational content of the union exhibitions with its its with exhibitions union the of content representational traditional the challenged artists The space but aconference hall. exhibition not adesignated was Union, which Painters’ state-administered of the floor third the event on first their opened glasnost, and of perestroika Gorbachev’s by promises who were inspired artists, group of young this Union’s halls, Painters’ or the exhibition main Art, of Modern Museum the Gallery, the National as such spaces of representation official in to exhibit opportunity an lateWithout 1980s. the in Armenia in formed ideology. by contaminated and imbued being as seen was which to discourse, opposed as reality in belief the words, other or, in action, revolutionary and authenticity, immediacy, in belief by marked is which paradigm, independence early and estroika per the 3rd epitomizes Floor The 1987 1994. and between Armenia in active was 3rd that Floor the movement called artists’ of an practices the in evident is This anti-Soviet. being as protestors, artists dents, and of dissi community the were by perceived signs these By extension, West.” “the denoted that values and symbols, of signs, imagery ticized pickets. sit-ins, round-the-clock and strikes, hunger demonstrations, mass in materialized that subject revolutionary acting notion of afreely on the based of activism on forms public relied sion of society reality, media’s mass to the inver opposed of “changes.” As epoch of the jects sub social new the accommodated they that in dimension theatrical The 3rd Floor was the first major contemporary art movement art major contemporary first the 3rd was Floor The roman for the in searched often was reality lines, same the Along - - - - - The 3rd Floor. The Official Art Has Died: Hail to the Union of Artists from the Netherworld, happening, , Armenia, 1988. Courtesy of Nazareth Karoyan.

convenient marriage of “national art” with its folkloric elements, on the one hand, and Socialist Realism, on the other. This amalgamation had been customary since the years of the Khrushchevian Thaw (from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s).9 Opposing the exclusivist representa- tional policies of the state-administered art institutions, in 1987 artists Arman Grigoryan, Nazareth Karoyan, Kiki, Sev, Karineh Matsakian, and others organized a ten-day process-based event whereby “everyone and everybody could present themselves or be presented as artists,

9 This is not the same as the Stalinist slogan “national in form, socialist in content” from the 1920s and 1930s. The revival of folkloristic elements in art and literature in question here was triggered by Khrushchev’s relatively liberal policies, which allowed national problems to be voiced. In the aesthetic field, a revival of nationalism emerged in the combination of a conservative comeback of traditional ethnic representation, on the one hand, with some of the formal principles of Socialist Realism that referred to the classicist tradition of composi-

tional organization in painting and sculpture, on the other. R epresentation | Th e R eal and/as Harutyunyan

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94 artmargins 1:1 11 10 the themomentseemingly was when This officials. high-ranking other andthe six house, of thespeaker minister, the prime killing fire, opened and Armenian the entered gunmen several culture, its of commercialization thorough the and economy its of formation trans neoliberal the toward path on the was when Armenia attempt, coup failed televised the 27, after years October 1999, eight On “The Real” as Representation Vision.” “New the argue, later would Grigoryan, movement, Arman oneleaders of and the ofideologue the or, the as art, of alternative birth the birth, own artists’ celebrate the out. walked and photographs of themselves took action, of their character historical the acknowledging and, ings, Netherworld the from Artists of Union the to Died/Hail Has Art Official The titled ing, happen this In art. of official death the Union declared Painters’ and the at halls exhibition oneofficial into of the regime)—walked the by suppressed of them homeless and (all people soldiers, aristocrats, Kiss, and Sabbath groups Black from the heroes metal heavy their including reality.” and art between resolved only be can which of communication urgency the stressing filled with virtually endless new possibilities. new endless virtually with filled to be rasa atabula as present imagined is the while past of the gage bag ideological of the stripped is future the avision, such In utopia. ideology-free embrace and an ideology possibleit to transcend be may that illusion or collective subjective the Imean ideology of point By zero of layers ideology. to overcome contaminating the managed had that subject individualized of aradically freedom unconditioned socially ideology of point zero the call what we as might functioning netherworld metaphor of the Armenia inthelate 1980s. the metaphorofdeath in3rdFloor’s happeningandthepolitical socialclimatein (Bristol: IntellectBooks,2008),43–54,Vardan Azatyanelaboratesontherelationbetween Contemporary,” inArtandTheoryafter Socialism , ed.Mel JordanandMalcolm Miles In hispaper“Art Communities,Public Spaces,andCollectiveActions inArmenian 1995 (Moscow: np,1995). Arman Grigoryan, “NewVision: Reality andArt,”inContemporaryArtofArmenia,1980– The sentencing to death of official art was aprecondition was to art of official to death sentencing The ghosts— up resurrected as dressed 3rd artists, Floor 1988,In the , they silently walked through the hall, viewed the paint the viewed hall, the through walked silently , they , the 3rd Floor artists strove to discover the pure, pure, the to discover strove 3rd artists Floor , the 10 11 In the 1988 happening, with the the with 1988 happening, the In

- - - - immaterial political bodies that exercised their power of regulation through mostly invisible mechanisms were suddenly exposed as being composed of human flesh and blood. Remarkably, all this became visible on live television since public television happened to be broad- casting the parliamentary session before the events began to unfold. Many of those who happened to be on , where the Armenian parliament was located, immediately rushed to their homes to watch the event unfold live on TV. Unlike the televised coup attempt of 1991, the current massacre, staged to look like a coup attempt, had to be seen on TV to be believed to be true. A comparison between the two events in 1991 and 1999 crystal- lizes the shift from a common belief in reality to that of media repre- sentation in Armenia. Arguably, it was not the degree of freedom of speech that made the media images more credible than ever before. I argue that this shift was instead largely due to the dissemination of global, consumer-oriented media imagery through the increasing num- ber of satellite dishes and the translated foreign programs that domi- nated most local channels through the 1990s, which realized the 3rd Floor’s collective dreamworld constituted by Western consumer signs and symbols on the television screen. These programs, which included bodybuilding shows, commercials, Discovery Channel shows, and so on, were designed to appeal to ever-expanding consumer desires. More importantly, the late 1990s greeted the first translated and rebroad- cast reality shows as well as the production of their local adaptations.12 Ironically, the October 27 massacres, by virtue of their being broadcast live on television, belonged to the structure of reality shows in which reality is enacted as fiction. I argue that the spread of the values of capitalist consumer culture through the penetration of global images into Armenian society rein- forced a complete trust in media imagery. In the face of economic hard- ship, political and social disillusionment from earlier thwarted political aspirations that in the early 1990s had sought to construct a new society in independent Armenia, and economic inability to indulge in consumption, the media promised to deliver a consumer dreamworld. The consumer imagery disseminated by the mass media provided a dreamworld for escape in the face of a disenchanting social world.

12 Hrach Bayadyan, “New Social Order and Change in Media Landscape,” in Harutyunyan,

Horschelmann, and Miles, Public Spheres after Socialism. R epresentation | Th e R eal and/as Harutyunyan

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96 artmargins 1:1 retreat into the private space of isolated creation, as well as provided a provided as well as space of creation, isolated private the into retreat artists’ the and disenchantment of state the general reflected best term, Krauss’s Rosalind to medium,” borrow “a as narcissistic understood video, time in point particular At that popularity. conditioned this that reasons psychological as well as werehistorical deeply 1990s, there late sincethe Armenia in art of video popularity the fostering played in ACCEA the role that instrumental the Besides performances. theatrical multimedia spectacular staged, highly and installations video than other anything display to it made difficult technologies) other and ers, DVD projectors, play acquired previously had (they facilities technical advanced relatively context, Armenian the in space and, gigantic ACCEA’s The art. video displayed ACCEA), exclusively (henceforth Art Experimental for Contemporary Centre Armenian the by nized orga pavilion, Armenian the event, representative For 2001. in this 49th the Biennale in artists Armenian of sixteen participation the in culminated to produce trend video late 1990s. The the during Armenia in production for art amedium as of video popularity edented unprec the paralleled media consumer other and cable television production. for artistic medium a as of video interpretations academic dominant challenges condition, media of acontemporary part but as medium artistic aprivileged as not art considers video which reading, acontextualized Such mations. transfor conditionsof postperestroika cultural and social the within Armenia in art video contemporary it possible to is contextualize tions, transforma these of context the within considered Moreover, real.” “the as representations media in to abelief shift social the interpret us help may 2000s lateearly 1990s and the in Armenia in popularity its real.” “the to deliver promised that amedium as video fetishizing started artists contemporary prominent many events, these with late 1990s, parallel other. the In on the of simulacra, society ernist postmod to the one onhand, the representation, deceptive perceived its and reality authentic splitbetween modernist from the shift, perceptual of aparadigmatic metaphoric as coup attempts televised of the examples cited the late 1990s. Itake the in Armenia in boom art video edented unprec agency, the and or at participatory least arevolutionary toward skepticism paralleled real,” the “the delivering as representation media The dissemination of global media imagery through satellite and and satellite through imagery media of global dissemination The conditionsof the and production art of video reading A selective to credibility attributing among aprofound is connection There ------protective screen from the diseased social body with which the artists refused to identify. It is remarkable that, unlike in Western and North America, in Armenia there were almost no (live) performances where viewers would directly confront an artist’s naked and eroticized body. Such a body image was available only through the medium of video, from behind the protective façade of the screen or monitor. Amelia Jones argues that in terms of (not) having unmediated access to the truth in body art practice, the status of a witness is no more privileged than that of the retroactive analyst of the same practice.13 The only dif- ference between them, according to Jones, is that the witness has the phenomenological experience of being present at the live performance, while the analyst views a video or photo documentation. While I am not arguing that the live body, performed in close proximity to the viewer, provides more direct access to the body of the artist (thus, to his or her intentions), the fact that there was such a small number of body art performances in Armenia is directly connected to the country’s social and historical circumstances during the late 1990s: it is related to the artists’ refusal to open themselves up to the surrounding world. This drastically contrasts with most body art practices in Western Europe and North America since the 1960s, in which artists, using their own bodies, were not merely offering a critique of formalism or deconstructing the myth of the artist-demiurge deeply rooted within modernism but were also participating in civil rights movements. As opposed to the socially and intersubjectively communicative potential of body art practices in Western Europe and North America during the 1960s and 1970s,14 the emergence of body art (mainly artic- ulated through video) in the late 1990s in Armenia ran parallel to the refusal to participate in social and political discourses. Similarly, while the performances of Carolee Schneemann, Vito Acconci, Hannah Wilke, Paul McCarthy, and others opened up the phenomenological “body as flesh to the world as flesh,”15 in the Armenian contemporary art scene the body provided on the contrary a safe haven for closing oneself against the world. Through body art practices artists estab-

13 Amelia Jones, “‘Presence’ in Absentia: Experiencing Performance as Documentation,” Art Journal 56, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 11–18. 14 Amelia Jones, Body Art: Performing the Subject (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 168.

15 Ibid. R epresentation | Th e R eal and/as Harutyunyan

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98 artmargins 1:1 18 17 16 video insert one way essay, only can later, the another in makes that she argument for said the be can same The position. a conservative Self.” the in invests and Other the from “diverts situation, psychological video,as a reflexiveness, through time historical discovers real one qualities) formal their by defined media (other project analytical the in to Krauss, according While, present collapses.” “where the subject of the image mirror the by substituted is medium the video in that argues she others, and Naumann, Bruce Benglis, works of Vito Acconci,Linda of the adiscussion In narcissism. state: apsychological is medium the video case of the in characteristics, by formal its defined material the is medium the representation of plastic means traditional other and ture, Simonian, and Sona Abgarian. Harutyun Matsakyan, Karineh degree, to alesser and, Balassania Sonia and iconography Kareyan propagatorswere David of this main late 1990s, the the Throughout suffering. ritualized through expressed were traumas political solely which aspace in was video and video), through only video iconographyavailable image (an specifically subject). upon power the exercises which outside (that contemplation) space for subjective and aprotective (providing inside between separation binary reinforced the actively they way body. this In control over constant the exercised that instrument immaterial an as the outside worldand mere as flesh body of the dichotomy the lished and the future. The result is result The future. the and past to the relation in only exist sinceit can vanishes present itself the that extent an presence present and to such own its up within caught Ibid., 56. Ibid., 56–57. Krauss, “Video,” 50–64. Krauss’s endeavor to salvage art’s material, formal definition is definition formal material, Krauss’s art’s endeavor to salvage sculp of painting, case the in while that argues Krauss Rosalind as seen to be came iconography body tormented of the This erasing thedifference betweensubjectandobject. agency ofreflectionisamodeappropriation,illusionistically and itsreflectedimageare,ofcourse,literallyseparate. But the reflection .applies avanquishingofseparateness.Theself the presentationofselfunderstoodtohavenopast.Mirror 18 16 For Krauss, video art is is art video For Krauss, 17 - art into the extended canon of is through having a temporal historical distance from it.19 However, Krauss’s notion of video as a narcissistic medium deals with specific modes of artistic subjectiviza- tion within the hyperindividualistic New York art scene of the 1970s and is not universally applicable. Thus, in , narcissism functioned within a different context, one in which the Euro-American notion of liberal individualism was highly desired but still unachieved. In a society like Armenia where access to the body was denied in public discourses and where the idea of equating the personal with the political was rejected, narcissism as a purely subjective psychologi- cal condition had a status of an alternative and marginal discourse. Nevertheless, Krauss’s notion of “video as a narcissistic medium,” if we go beyond this concept’s original theoretical framework, can serve as a conceptual tool for discussing the popularity of the medium within the state of disillusionment and narcissism that was typical of the artistic community in Armenia at the time. Contrary to Krauss’s formalist-structuralist argument, which maintains that narcissism (with its negative connotations as the self absorbing the Other for its realization) is intrinsic to video, unless the medium is critically turned back upon itself, I maintain that in late- 1990s Armenia narcissism was a psychological condition within the subject, while video (not an inherently narcissistic medium in itself) provided a protective screen for the enclosure of the subject within itself. By embracing video art, video artists in Armenia were not simply choosing an easier path for art production and representation, although that was one aspect of their choice to use video.20 Neither were they try- ing to gain easy access to the international art market by appealing to the ACCEA’s representational strategies (viz., the Armenian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, which ACCEA has been organizing single-handedly from 1995 to 2011); instead, they were reflecting the psychological dimensions of the collapse of illusions.

19 Rosalind Krauss, A Voyage on the North Sea: Art in the Age of the Post-medium Condition (, 2000). For Krauss, as an art historian who has a vested interest in the formal- ism/informe debate, it is very important to separate the physicality of the medium from its status as a set of conventions. Her vision of the threat of video art is that it dissolves the specificity of the medium. According to Krauss, the medium can be reinvented only once it has become obsolete. 20 Since it can be easily transported and exhibited in any part of the world without the artist having to travel to the exhibition venue, video is a practical solution for Armenian artists who are unable to travel to Europe, the , and most other countries of the world

without a visa. R epresentation | Th e R eal and/as Harutyunyan

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100 artmargins 1:1 Information Monsters from Rationality,” “Every Small Mistake Can Can Mistake Small from“Every Monsters Rationality,” Information Systems,” in the “World “Interventions Integration,”ing “Expel includ English, and Armenian in slogans with banners carried people twenty Approximately Art. of Modern Museum the and Saryan painter Martiros modernist Armenian of early-twentieth-century the statue the Yerevan’s between area along the avenue, covering main marched artists, other several with ACT, together constitution, first Armenia’s in resulted referendum constitutional a after week one Art. Yerevan of Modern Museum at the Ark of the Question Yerevan-Moscow: The exhibition larger the of part as Demonstration Art group ACT—conceived of organized and artists’ of amember the was 1995 In Kareyan—who 2000s. early and late 1990s of the performances works and video later to the group ACT) artists’ conceptual the (within mid-1990s the in actions cal/aesthetic politi from text-based of Kareyan’s art transformation the in evident is shift real.” This “the delivering as representation to media action political of direct reality authentic the in belief from aparadigmatic outside world. the with to communicate desire community’s artistic from its separated be cannot Armenia in art of video popularity the outside world. Hence, the with of communication up abridge opening as were viewed production for art technologies of media, new terms in defined largely was community artistic Armenian for the art rary contempo that fact due to but, the freedom of total ideal the denoted desires and phantasms onto commodities. phantasms and desires subject’s of the projections images, Walteras Benjamin’s dialectical a dreamworld became technologies these Perceived signs, “Western” consumption. as and “Western”liberalism of signifier another just became they that adegree to such were romanticized video as such technologies style, life bourgeois capitalist, of a Union areflection as condemned and Soviet the in use from Prohibited everyday itself. end in an as medium choicethe the of in reflected often was which technology, “Western” a as of video fetishization to the linked be could Armenia tography in 21 (Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press,1999),462–63. Walter Benjamin,TheArcadesProject , trans.HowardEiland andKevin McLaughlin On July 12, during the opening of the exhibition and exactly exactly and exhibition of the opening the during July 12, On shift drastic the epitomizes Kareyan’s work particular David in At the same time, the popularity of video as well as digital pho digital as well as of video popularity the time, same At the : they possessed the same phantasmagorical qualities qualities phantasmagorical same the possessed : they 21 These signs not only signs These - - - - - ACT. Art Demonstration, public action, Yerevan, Armenia, 1995. Courtesy of Hrach Armenakyanís Archive.

Result in Big Catastrophes,” “Creativity Will Save Humanity,” “Polit- Art,” “Realization,” “No Art,” “New State, New Art, New Culture,” and “Demythologization.” After reaching their final destination, the artists hung the banners on the museum wall as part of the Yerevan-Moscow group exhibition. Utilizing a form of political participation that is common in democracies, the artists stressed the affirmative character of their demonstration. This was not an act of nonconformity, disobedience, or protest against existing power structures and life conditions. Instead, the public march was organized in support of the newly formed con- stitutional state. That is why it was important for the group to receive formal legal permission from the to hold the dem- onstration. Moreover, in their application for such a license, the group’s

members stated that “contemporary art is not dangerous” and “we are R epresentation | Th e R eal and/as Harutyunyan

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102 artmargins 1:1 nurtured during the early to mid-1990s. early the during nurtured artists that hopes political and social of failed dystopia ofashes the from the arose romanticism individualistic new unity—a national as such values to conservative areturn and nationalism were resurgent by they as late 1990s, marked of the constellations political new to the act. apolitical as intervention ofzation artistic legitimi of the part important an became action ofstate’s the licensing Hence, the formation. its say in who their had agents civic as state new of the part were aconstituent artists the that represented aguarantee the new constitutional state; it was strictly legal. strictly it was state; constitutional new the of requirements legal the with complied event, fully for the vehicles emergency dispatched and escort apolice demonstration gave the also 25 24 23 22 the and body naked the between it as mediates gaze cultural from the screen aprotective as here Blood emergence acts of society. the anew for and projects, utopian earlier and of hope for death democracy the marks symbolically Kareyan repetition, motion through of this effect psychological the intensifying by and body of his surface the across blood violence. Bysmearing and asite as of pain body that exploring body, upper ontonaked blood as perceived his what meantto be is rubs repetitively artist the video single-channel violence. this In social and asite as for body political to the related issues to address video Kareyan’s in process.”already is what affirming only then articulated through the body politics of suffering and violence.” and of suffering politics body the through articulated then and internalized traumatically was political “the put it, has Azatyan as these works, In Vardan representation. artistic field of the into lated trans literally was media, mass the through public to the proximity close very into body human mortal the brought which parliament, Armenia’s in killing violent the 2000s, lateearly 1990s and of the eos above Kareyan’s In vid it. morally stands but who nonetheless society by who rejected is artist suffering of the image to an retreated Kareyan, David some of ACT’s which in way particularly members, the in itself tion flier)(Yerevan, Armenia,2003). Vardan Azatyan,“DavidKareyan: AreThereInvisibleThingsImpossible toShow?”(exhibi- Azatyan, “Art Communities,”50. Christineh Ter-Sargsyan (unpublishedmanuscript,HrachArmenakyanarchive,1995). recording). Hrach Armenakyan,interviewedbyV. Azatyan,January 23,2008,Yerevan, Armenia (tape After the collapse of ACT in 1996—in large measure a reaction areaction measure large 1996—in of collapse ACT in the After Dead Democracy (1999) use works to one first is of his 24 This romanticism showed romanticism This 22 The issued license, which which license, issued The 23 The stamped license license stamped The - 25 - - gaze of the beholder. The artist is protected by the medium of video art as well, which, unlike performance, does not expose the subject to a direct confrontation with the beholder, who here epitomizes the threat- ening and disempowering cultural gaze. Paralleling the popularity of German psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich’s works, and the first transla- tions of Theodor Adorno’s texts into Armenian and Russian in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Kareyan utilizes art’s painful existence against the forces hostile to it. In The World Without You (1999), the search for wholeness, viewed as something prenatal and outside of language, is expressed through the metaphorical unification of the subject with the earth. The work is a multimedia installation composed of three small monitors display- ing the same sequence of the artist’s fragmented body wriggling in mud. The monitors are located among tall domestic plants, stressing the artificiality and decadence of the environment. Here, mud becomes a metaphor for both this primordial existence and the impossibility of going back to it. The artist’s uncomfortable, awkward, yet at the same time lustful motions to become one with the mud through a loss of subjectivity also remind us of desperate attempts to simulate sexual pleasure and to regain a former identity: these do not result in ultimate satisfaction because of the absence of the Other. What Kareyan strives to retrieve here is the body/existence as such, without the forms of its appearance. Paradoxically, for the artist video delivers the promise of an unmediated experience and that of “the real” stripped of repre- sentation. This can be explained by the fact that, culturally, video in Armenia has been the space of “sexually explicit content,” as Azatyan has argued.26 In Kareyan’s work, the instrumentalized view of the body within the dominant cultural discourses propagated by the state and the church is considered the core problem behind the political and social discontents and dilemmas that confront post-Soviet Armenian society. Kareyan’s rituals are supposed to grant a voice to the body as such, marking the artist’s retreat as a social/political subject from his ACT activism into a subjective interiority, which, however, is now made public and which functions as an act of resistance.

26 Vardan Azatyan, Image-ining Politics (unpublished lectures delivered at the Utopiana

Cultural Association in Yerevan, Armenia, DVD recording, 2007). R epresentation | Th e R eal and/as Harutyunyan

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104 artmargins 1:1 Courtesy ofDavidKareyan. Centre forContemporary ExperimentalArt,Yerevan, Armenia. David Kareyan.DeadDemocracy,1999.Stillfromvideoinstallation.Armenian 27 technologies. of such potential subversive the from exploring artists Armenian prevented have so far representation with real” “the to reconcile failure the as well as tions adreamworld as particular, a specific field of artistic representation and as privileged representa privileged as and representation artistic field of a specific works as video viewing than rather Methodologically, of interpretation. paradigms mainstream these challenge we must then Armenia, in tury cen last end of produced atthe the art video with to comeare to terms we If Armenia? as such context, to anon-Euro-American medium” tic a“narcissis as art of video to applyrelevant Krauss’s conceptualization terms outlinedinEuro-American scholarship. If wearetoconceptualize subversionaswell“videoanarcissistic medium” inthe One could argue that the perception of new media, and video in in video and of media, new perception the that argue could One serving to transcend existing social condi social existing to transcend serving 27 Or, should we ask whether it is even it even is Or, whether we ask should - - - - David Kareyan, The World Without You, 1999. Still from video installation. Arme- nian Centre for Contemporary Experimental Art, Yerevan, Armenia. Courtesy of David Kareyan.

tional objects, I have attempted to consider them as cultural represen- tations that both reflect and participate in the larger production and consumption of images. Even if Kareyan’s work offers an articulation of a narcissistically closed and socially alienated subject, this articulation itself can never be separated from larger social conditions and cultural discourses. Indeed perhaps the production of an isolated and apolitical artistic subjectivity constitutes a political decision in itself. Body/video art practices in Armenia, as exemplified by Kareyan’s work, can never be considered by overlooking the technological aspects of these works, and, particularly, some of the cultural, historical, and other contextual dimensions of utilizing video. Then, within a context in which narcis- sism as a psychological condition triggered by a dystopian social and political world offers a desirable escape from society, Krauss’s interpre-

tation, which attributes narcissism to the medium itself, collapses. R epresentation | Th e R eal and/as Harutyunyan

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106 artmargins 1:1 28 massacre 1st March The of people. ten death the causing and protests of these day eleventh on the demonstrators peaceful upon the them setting , the and army deployed the Kotcharyan president Robert quo, outgoing status to the threat imminent an as protests the-clock round- the latePerceiving 1980s. the in demonstrations perestroika site of the the crowd Freedoma huge of Square, protestors occupied to power, candidate party’s governing the brought which 19, 2008, future. at place: anew abetter order in to arrive return 1990s), early the but in a nation-state new the moment of forming historical (or to the rather to history to return acall was platform cal politi of his message Moreover, underlying the activist. a dissident as led had he himself 1990s, early which late 1980s and the in rule from Soviet break Armenia’s staged had movement that liberation the by used elements rhetorical and aural, to visual, referring campaign president’s entire former his the legacy. Ter-Petrossian constructed deployed had to discredit party ruling the references resourcesthat and same very of the use making by parties of oppositional coalition a large to However,forge regime. he soon managed existing to the opposition astrong to form support popular Ter-Petrossian enough gain would that expected few light, this In market. free economy to acapitalist Soviet from acentralized transformed was when Armenia period the 1990s, early of the chaos economic social and the with dent’s legacy presi former the to associate effort an in dissemination ideological Ter-Petrossian’s of apparatus its mobilized successor, successfully had who was (1998–2008), Kotcharyan of Robert government nationalist new the Meanwhile, historian. and amedievalist as research scholarly on his solely focusing adecade, for almost outside of scrutiny public Ter-Petrossian that fact been had the given news, unexpected was This election. presidential 2008 the in to run decision his announced Ter-Petrossian Levon independence, publicly (1991–98), gained try the coun after Armenia president of first of 2007, the fall the In Postscriptum to theEnd!”weredirectly borrowedfromtheearlieranti-Soviet ralliesledbyTer-Petrossian. “Unification” (oftheregionofNagorno- withArmenia),and“Struggle, Struggle tunes usedduringthelate-Sovietperestroika protests.Sloganssuchas“Independence,” then president.Even thetunesplayedatTer-Petrossian’s ralliesconsisted oftheiconichorn didate, referringtotheearlymid-1990s whenTer-Petrossian wasfirstadissidentactivist, A leafletfrom Ter-Petrossian’s election campaignshowsamuchyoungerimageofthecan- Boycotting the results of the presidential elections of February of February elections presidential of the results the Boycotting 28 28

- - - Mass demonstration, Yerevan, Armenia, February 2008. Courtesy of Onnik Krikorian. Photograph by Onnik Krikorian.

Mass demonstration, Yerevan, Armenia, February 2008. Courtesy of Onnik Krikorian. Photograph by Onnik Krikorian.

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108 artmargins 1:1 more real by virtue of providing adreamworld of providing more virtue by real being wereas perceived representations media 2000s—when early and late 1990s to the opposed as that, Ihave argued Armenia. post-Soviet of in representation status the affected that transformations historical the with changed reality and real” “the between relationship of the media, it distributed free DVDs to communicate with the voters. voters. the with DVDs to communicate free it distributed media, broadcast public access to the limited very had opposition the crisis tion postelec the throughout and campaign election the sinceduring sage: of mes its dissemination for the media mass to the alternative means mobilized opposition how to see the it interesting protests, is political of these context the in representation and real” “the between relationship of the terms In performers. apolitical seemingly these who arrested police the rope but rather who skipping were seen retirees and sionals, profes middle-aged groups of were children, not grotesque the looking who up ended Those performance. its to halt attempted desperately be that powers the which in way the through but also itself act performative of the not means by only quo. Subversion apossibility here became status to the toorder suppress strove in to return state the which ment, ele performative their was games of these subversive aspect The protest. of asign rope as skip collectively or even games, play political Yerevan’s walks, in gathered ages center to conduct political city various of activists oppositional altogether, illegal declared been had tions Since spaces. public controlled demonstra tightly within state police of power the political the to subvert tools aesthetic utilized Begun”), Hima as such initiatives activist by led camp, oppositional the assembly, and groups within different speech of freedom concerning restrictions extreme of conditions the Under to people’sassembly. right law limiting emergency followed an by was already the case with the perestroika protests of the late 1980s and late 1980s and of the protests perestroika the with case the already was as 2008, and of 2007 protests political The her television. became square public the that remarked explicitly demonstrators ofOne the to deliver. refused myopic media the ideologically that truth the find aspace where but one also could activism not aplace only for political was square space the asymbolic as replaced television: demonstrators control, for Freedom government many Square under media broadcast of the all almost With evolved. reality which in adomain participation, and action aspace for direct it became reality: with imbued once again Ter-Petrossian’s was life—with politics comeback, of everyday ditions As I have indicated throughout this article, the conceptualization conceptualization the article, this throughout Ihave indicated As Sksel a(“It has Sksel and (“Now!”) that transcended the con the transcended that

------Political Prisoner’s Football, Hima!, April 2008. Courtesy of Hima.

early 1990s, turned public places into theatrical spaces where politics was enacted as a reality show (ironically, Freedom Square was formerly called Theater Square). However, it is precisely in the theatrical (perfor- mative) aspects of politics that reality and representation lose their dis- tinct boundaries since politics exposes its own aesthetics. As Azatyan has argued, politics at this point reveals itself not as a reality production , but as an apparatus that imagines reality: it constructs its own reality as imagination, thus rendering the very separation between reality and representation obsolete.29

29 Azatyan, Image-ining Politics.

I am indebted to Vardan Azatyan, Eric Goodfield, Mel Jordan, Malcolm Miles, and Amelia Jones

for insightful comments and valuable suggestions that helped to improve and enrich this article. R epresentation | Th e R eal and/as Harutyunyan

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