2 Introduction....................................................................... 5 Politics of the Migratory ................................................. 9 Pedro A. Cruz-Sánchez Ob-Scenes. The Political Re-definition of Art........................ 16 Begüm Özden Fırat The Seventh Man: Migration, Politics and Aesthetics.......... 42 Sudeep Dasgupta Relational Thinking and Migrancy: Subjective Displacements and the Politics of Social Space..................... 70 Mireille Rosello Ismaël Ferroukhi's Le Grand Voyage: Successful Rudimentary Transactions and the Failure of Globalized Languages .............................................................. 82 Technologies of Migratory Culture.......................... 113 Miguel Á. Hernández-Navarro Second-Hand Technologies: Migratory Aesthetics / Politics Of Resistence .............................................................. 117 Sonja Neef Interstellar Hospitality: Missions of Star house Enterprise ................................................................................. 149 Deborah Cherry Sweet Memories: encountering the candy spills of Felix Gonzalez-Torres ...................................................................... 174 Migratory Temporalities............................................. 199 Mieke Bal Heterochrony in the Act: The Migratory Politics of Time . 203 Patricia Pisters The Mosaic Film - An Affaire of Everyone: Becoming- Minoritarian in Transnational Media Culture..................... 231 3 Astrid van Weyenberg “Rewrite this ancient end!” The Oresteia in post-TRC South Africa ............................................................................. 256 Art in Interculturality.................................................. 275 Noa Roei Moulding Resistance: Aesthetics and Politics in the Struggle of Bil’in Against the Wall........................................ 280 Jesús Carrillo On this side of Bollywood: the politics of cinema in the global arena.............................................................................. 304 Maaike Bleeker Limited Visibility..................................................................... 317 Joaquín Barriendos Rodríguez Global Art And Politics Of Mobility: (Trans)Cultural Shifts in the international contemporary art-system.......... 341 Doing It: Performance and Performativity.............. 383 Paulina Aroch Fugellie The Place of Metaphor in a Metonymic World: Of Homi Bhabha’s De-realizing Politics and Other Academic Events........................................................................................ 388 Cornelia Gräbner Immigrants and Castaways: Smuggling Discourses in Manuel Rivas’ La mano del emigrante................................. 410 Niamh Ann Kelly Transgressing Time and the Familiar Anonymous: Performance in the Work of Alanna O’Kelly and Phil Collins ....................................................................................... 430 Jill Bennett Migratory Aesthetics: art and politics beyond identity ..... 450 4 5 Introduction Mieke Bal Welcome to the second “Encuentro”, a workshop at ASCA in Amsterdam, co-organized by CENDEAC in Murcia, Spain. This Encuentro, to which everyone is welcome, is the fourth in a series of NWO-sponsored workshops on the combination of a keyword in the arts, “aesthetics,” and another keyword, describing the social makeup of the contemporary world, “migration.” Putting the two words together, a changing group of international scholars explores in an ongoing collaborative effort what can be defined and analyzed beyond the thematic link. The resulting term, “migratory aesthetics” explores the current cultural and artistic moment in view of the merging of cultures. The project began with two workshops, organized in collaboration with the CentreCath at the University of Leeds, in 2004 and 2005, and continued with a focus on Spain. In this second set of workshops, a video exhibition accompanies the academic discussions – or the other way around. In March 2006, the exhibition “2MOVE: movimiento doble, estéticas migratórias” opened in Murcia, in the South of Spain, and on September 19th, the exhibition opens in the Zuiderzeemuseum in Enkhuizen , with the support of, among others, the Mondrian Foundation. (www.zuiderzeemuseum.nl) March 12-14 we have held an Encuentro, or workshop in Murcia, Spain, titled “Movimiento Doble: pensar la movilidad en dos direcciones”, which accompanied the video exhibition: movimiento doble, estéticas migratórias” that both of us have curated there. This exhibition will travel, first to Enkhuizen, Netherlands and hopefully, more after that. 6 During the first days of the latter we hold the second Encuentro, September 19-21, 2007. The subject of the first of these two Encuentros was to reflect on what a “migratory aesthetics” could be; in other words, a reflection not on migration per se, but on the culture of mobility that the current state of the world has foregrounded, even if migration is of all times. Three topics that came out on top, so to speak, in the discussions in Murcia – time, technology, metaphor (including theatricality) – would offer good starting points for such ongoing focusing. An overall consideration that could be the general concept for this workshop would be art and politics in mobility. Hence, we proposed to title this second workshop “Migratory Politics.” What we hope to have is NOT a traditional conference. Instead, we will continue to experiment with a format that turns the usual parade of monologues with never- enough-discussion-time into a genuine discussion first and foremost. For this, we ask participants to read the papers before the encounter. Instead of reading these papers, then, each participant reframes her or his argument in relation to the other members of their session or “mesa”. This establishes common questions and concerns, and will lead up to an in- depth discussion, for which ample time is available. At the end of each day, a special event is scheduled. The first day, this will be the opening of a related exhibition. The second and third day, plenary lectures will be held to bring together a variety of issues discussed in the sessions. The five sessions are the following. The first, “Politics of the Migratory”. This is devoted to the politics – often called micro-politics or even nano-politics – of culture itself: the small gestures, facial expressions, imaginations and inventions that can do one of two things. Either it can stifle, oppress, separate people by interpellating them into separate 7 categories. Or, it can change a segregated, allegedly “multi- cultural” society into a truly intercultural one. Papers explore strategies and raise questions concerning the political efficacy of art. For the second session, Thursday, “Technologies of Migratory Culture”, several contributors have noticed the use if (citations of) older technologies as part of the aesthetics of the migratory. These usages and references contain a vindication of the ideology of development and progress, and promise new (rather than old!) forms of empowerment through a kind of technological hospitality. In session Three, “Migratory Temporalities”, participants reflect on the fact that time is experienced differently according to where one is in the world. Hence, in migratory culture, temporal experiences are inevitably heterogeneous, conflicting, and productive of new forms of co-existence. The study of such subtle phenomena allows insight into time’s function in and through history. This session is followed by a plenary lecture by Miguel-Ángel Hernandez-Navarro, director of the Center for postgraduate study in modern and contemporary art, CENDEAC in Murcia, co-curator of the exhibition, and co-convenor of the Encuentros. Friday begins with a session devoted to “Art in Interculturality”. The arts are a domain of experimentation and heightened sensitivity. Traditionally, art is considered politically indifferent, a position of “disinterested” distance from the turmoil of the political world. Much contemporary art belies this distancing. The discussions of this session focus on practices of art that are strongly and explicitly political, intervening in the ills of cultural defensiveness in the face of migration. In the afternoon, the fifth session, “Doing It: Performance and Performativity” considers the power of art. Cultural practices of a different kind are those that seek to influence culture without explicitly addressing politics. A 8 catalogue of such strategies is not the outcome of the papers. Rather, the close look at some strategies stimulates creative thinking about ways of acting in the world; indeed, of making our performances effective, hence, performative. The Encuentro closes with a plenary lecture by Salah Hassan, professor of African an African Diaspora art history and visual culture at Africana Studies at Cornell University and co- curator of the exhibition “Unpacking Europe” in 2001/ 2002 at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam. 9 Politics of the Migratory This first session is devoted to the politics – often called micro- politics or even nano-politics – of culture itself: the small gestures, facial expressions, imaginations and inventions that can do one of two things. Either it can stifle, oppress, separate people by interpellating them into separate categories. Or, it can change a segregated, allegedly “multi-cultural” society into a truly intercultural one. Papers explore strategies and raise questions concerning the political efficacy of art. Pedro A. Cruz-Sánchez