The Absolute Report Time

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The Absolute Report time

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The Absolute Report

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ISBN 3-86588-288-9 memory The Absolute Report time

012 Time Out 012 Geert Lovink 014 Beograd 00.04 Mapping the Limits of New Media 020 Absolutely Temporary 014 Dejan Sretenović 032 Good Evening The Absolute Time Machine

038 TYME TRYETH TROTH 020 Stephen Kovats Apsolutno Report – The Utopia 044 Serbeiko Transcripts

032 C5 String (2000) space

048 News 049 Konrad Becker 054 Prelom Info Body Cult 054 Marina Gržinić 062 Azbuka Absolut in Wien Absolute Notingness 068 Press Actions 070 Inke Arns Dead Before Arrival 070 Absolutely Dead 076 Aleksandar Bošković Virtual Balkans 076 HUMAN 089 Florian Schneider 101 The Absolute Sale NO BORDER!

105 Medienfassade 101 Rossitza Daskalova Apsolutno Absolute Sale 1997 105 LeE Montgomery Apsolut Associations 110 Platform 1995-2000 and on... code

130 Warning! 131 Rtmark 132 UA!US Tactical Embarrassment

134 The Semiotics 143 Vuk Ćosić of Confusion A Generous Contribution

147 Instrumental 150 jodi ae-1,2 / bcd-1,2 154 Voyager 0004 155 Nina Czegledy 156 The Greatest Hits Connections: The Power of Convergence 166 In The Balkans 166 Lev Manovich 191 Pyrus Communis Generation Flash

181 Gebhard Sengmüller gebseng - tvpoetry - vergessen - vinylvideo - vsstv memory

194 198 Minja Smajić 196 Le Quattro Stagioni At the ruins of a Trademark

206 Intermezzo 201 Darko Fritz End Of The Message-Total 211 Chess.net Archives

213 We Must Accept 205 Andreas Broeckmann The Unacceptable Syndicate Album

214 a.trophy 211 Ken Goldberg Blindfold Chess and the War 217 Fuit hic in Serbia

Contributors

220 Authors 226 Association APSOLUTNO The late 1990s were a time of intense within which the production of the activity, networking and East -West col- association was created. laboration in contemporary arts in the former Eastern Europe. Discovery of This book is an Absolute Report of the last new fields of art practice, redefinition five years of the 20. century from the of one’s position as an artist in a climate perspective of a specific artistic net- of changing social, political and cultural work that was active at that time. We contexts, the establishment of new sys- present the projects that APSOLUTNO tems of communication and collabora- created in that period as well as reports tion, and the emergence of new tech- by various artists, media thinkers and nologies in art practices all marked that other important personalities that period. Association APSOLUTNO was APSOLUTNO met within the same part of that wider scene, which was in East -West network in the sphere of stark contrast to the claustrophobic new art & media practices. In this book context of Serbia within which the we find parallels between our own members of APSOLUTNO lived and projects and those of others, by identi- introduction

fying four important themes that run interventions, we turned the familiar, through the work created at that time: usual, or even marginal, which is often time, space, code, and memory. no longer even perceived, into something unusual, out of the ordinary, and These themes arose in the work of worth further exploration. APSOLUTNO as a response to the immediate social surroundings in which Time, space, code and memory are also APSOLUTNO lived and worked. The present in the works by other partici- guiding principle of APSOLUTNO was pants represented in this book. Inspite search for the sites and situations with a of the variety of approaches, it is symbolic or metaphorical potential in evident that this activity, taken as relation to a wider social context. a whole, reflects the existence of a We refer to these found situations as specific epistemological community. absolutely real facts because of their hidden interpretive quality. Taking absolute- association APSOLUTNO ly real facts as a starting point for our spring 2006 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___INTRODUCTION I AM ABSOLUTELY EVERY MOMENT ABSOLUTELY HERE

elements connected by intrinsic non-local ties. I AM ABSOLUTELY Einstein did not accept this theory; he carried EVERY MOMENT out conceptually the EPR (Einstein-Podolsky- Rosen) experiment in order to prove that non- ABSOLUTELY local ties did not exist and that there were hidden variables which humankind was still not HERE capable of discovering. However, he proved precisely the opposite, paradoxically shaking This project was inspired by the theory of a his own understanding of quantum physics. group of physicists active at the beginning of The result of this experiment - which was later the 20th century which believed that compre- carried out by Bell - proved that two electrons hensive reality consisted of spatially discrete rotating in opposite directions present an indi-

8 The Absolute Report I AM ABSOLUTELY EVERY MOMENT ABSOLUTELY HERE visible whole connected by interdependent * Revised from Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics links into an absolute unity regardless of how distant they are from each other. The sculptur- al nature of such a system cannot be compre- hended in terms of discrete elements. Both Sad and so completed a circle functioning as a particles of the rotating electron connect by synonym of the absolute. By its cyclical form momentary non-local ties which surpass our and its contents this project, in a simple way, civilizational mental patterns*. formed the territory of the absolute constructed space and the absolute temporal span. The sentence - ‘I am absolutely every moment absolutely here’ - was sent from Sombor to The project was carried out in 1995 at the end Horn, thence to Vienna, and then on to Novi of November through to early December.

The Absolute Report 9 time THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME TIME OUT

1997 APSOLUTNO 0003 TIME OUT

Place: Trinity Church, Sombor, Yugoslavia The inscription on the wall painting: One of these (hours) is your final one!

APSOLUTNO responded to this warning by installing an awning above the sundial and eliminating time.

culture was the early mid nineties, MAPPING THE before the rise of the World Wide Web. Theorists and artists jumped with great eagerness on the still non-existent and LIMITS OF inaccessible technologies such as virtual reality. Cyberspace generated a rich col- NEW MEDIA lection of mythologies. Issues of embodiment and identity were fiercely debat- Geert Lovink ed. Only five years later, while Internet stocks were going through the roof, not To what extend have the ‘tech wreck’ much was left of the initial excitement and following scandals affected our in intellectual and artistic circles. understanding of new media? No doubt Experimental techno culture missed out there will also be cultural fall-out. on the funny money. Over the last few Critical new-media practices have been years there has been a steady stagnation slow to respond to both the rise and fall of new-media cultures, both in terms of of dot-com mania. The world of IT concepts and funding. With hundreds of firms and their volatile valuations on the millions of new users flocking onto the world’s stock markets seemed light-years Net, the arts could no longer keep up away from the new-media arts galaxy. and withdrew into their own little world The speculative heyday of new-media of festivals, mailing lists and workshops.

12 The Absolute Report MAPPING THE LIMITS OF NEW MEDIA GEERT LOVINK

Whereas new-media arts institutions, A critical reassessment of the role of begging for goodwill, still portray artists arts and culture within today’s network as working at forefront of technological society seems necessary. Let’s go developments, collaborating with state- beyond the ‘tactical’ intentions of the of-the-art scientists, the reality is a dif- players involved. This is not a blame ferent one. Multi-disciplinary goodwill game. The artist-engineer, tinkering is at an all-time low. At best, the artistic with alternative human-machine inter- new media products are ‘demo design’, faces, social software, digital aesthetics as described by Peter Lunenfeld in Snap and more, has effectively been operat- to Grid. Often they do not even reach ing in a self-imposed vacuum. Over the that level. New-media arts, as defined last few decades both science and by the few institutions devoted to them, business have successfully ignored the rarely reach audiences outside of their creative community. Even worse, artists own subculture. What in positive terms have actively been sidelined in the could be described as the heroic fight name of ‘usability’. The backlash for the establishment of a self-referential movement against Web design, lead ‘new-media arts system’ through a fran- by IT-guru Jakob Nielsen, is a good tic differentiation of works, concepts example of this trend. Other contribut- and traditions may as well be classified ing factors may have been the corpo- as a dead-end street. The acceptance rate dominance of AOL and Microsoft. of new media by leading museums and Lawrence Lessig argues that innovation collectors will simply not happen. of the Internet as such is in danger. Why wait a few decades, anyway? In the meanwhile the younger The majority of the new-media art generation is turning its back on the works on display in ZKM, the Ars new-media arts questions and operates Electronica Center, ICC or Cinemedia as anti-corporate activists, if it gets are hopeless in their innocence, being involved at all. After the dot-com neither critical nor radically utopian in crash the Internet has rapidly lost its their approach. It is for this reason that imaginative attraction. File swapping the new-media arts sector, despite its and cell phones can only temporarily steady growth, is becoming increasingly fill up the vacuum. New media have isolated, incapable of addressing the lost their magic. It would be foolish to issues of today’s globalized world. It ignore this. The once so glamorous is therefore understandable that the gadgets are becoming part of everyday contemporary (visual) arts world is con- life. This long-term tendency, now in a tinuing its decade-old boycott of (inter- phase of acceleration, seriously under- active) new-media works in galleries, mines the future claim of new media biennials and shows such as Documenta. altogether.

The Absolute Report 13 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME BEOGRAD 00.04

Another issue is generationalism. With 1996 APSOLUTNO 0004 video and expensive interactive installations being the domain of the ‘68 baby boomers, the generation of ‘89 has BEOGRAD 00.04 embraced the free Internet. But the Time: October 1996; 0004 years until the end Net turned out to be a trap for them. of the century and millennium Whereas real assets, positions and Place: Belgrade power remain in the hands of the age- ing baby boomers, the gamble of its Text on display: Citizens of Belgrade, if you want predecessors on the rise of new media to see all your fellow citizens in a day you need did not materialize. With venture capi- absolutely 00.004 seconds per person. tal having melted away, there is still no sustainable revenue system in place for The number was calculated by dividing the the Internet. The slow-working bureau- number of citizens by the number of seconds cracies within the educational sector in a day. have not yet grasped the new-media malaise. Universities are still in the process of establishing new-media departments. But that will come to a halt at some point. The fifty-something THE tenured chairs and vice-chancellors must feel good about their persistent sabotage. What’s so new about new ABSOLUTE media anyway? Technology was hype after all, promoted by the criminals of Enron and WorldCom. It is sufficient TIME MACHINE for students to do a bit of e-mail and Dejan Sretenović web surfing, safeguarded within a filtered and controlled intranet. It is because of this cynical reasoning that Imagine a glass full of water which falls from we urgently need to analyze the ideolo- the table and shatters on the floor. If you were gy of the greedy nineties and its tech- to film it you could easily say whether the film no-libertarianism. If we don’t disassoci- was running backwards or forwards. If you ate new media quickly from the previ- were to run it backwards, you would see the ous decade, and continue with the same rhetoric, the isolation of the new-media fragments suddenly gathering from the floor sector will sooner or later result in its and forming into a whole glass, which would death. Let’s transform the new-media then jump to the tabletop. buzz into something more interesting altogether—before others do it for us. S. Hawking, Brief History of Time

14 The Absolute Report THE ABSOLUTE TIME MACHINE DEJAN SRETENOVIĆ

Levy (Becoming Virtual), realization means the incarnation of what is possible, that which exists latently as an idea or notion and which should be given a real existence, which would mean that the fall of a glass from the table is a logical transformation from one state to another. If realization has the value of reproduction, then actualization has the value of creation, since we are now talking about the production of new qualities and about “the creation of radically new kinds of information” (P. Levy), as in the example of the glass jumping back on the table, of the return to the primary state of order. However, Levy Hawking’s visual illustration of the claims, actualization can only be under- workings of “the thermodynamic arrow stood in its relation to virtualization, of time” tells us a lot more than the which can be defined as the opposite Second Law of Thermodynamics, dynamic movement of actualization, as which says that in every closed system the displacement of the center of onto- there is always an increase in disorder, logical gravity. As opposed to the entropy. The quote actually demon- possible, which is static and already strates the capacity of the cinemato- fully constructed, the virtual represents graphic apparatus to transform an irre- “the knot of tendencies or forces that versible event – the fall of a glass from accompany a situation, event, object or a table – into a reversible event by the entity”, thereby invoking a process of mechanical change in the direction of resolution – actualization. That is why the flow of information. We’re not Deleuze, in his study on film, also uses talking here about whether an event is the metaphor of the crystal when he possible or impossible in accordance speaks of uniting actual and virtual with the laws of thermodynamics, but images to the point that they can about whether there is a difference no longer be differentiated, and of between realization and actualization in Moebius’ effect of film image, which in the field of the event’s morphogenesis. the whirl of the forces of actualization According to French theoretician Pierre and virtualization both is and is not real.

The Absolute Report 15 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME

Time and Mediation machine which does not recognize discontinuity in its punctual mecha- This aspect of the work of the cine- nism, a mechanism made up of points matographic apparatus is also intrinsic representing seconds, minutes, hours... to the other media of moving images, Yet, moving-images media, and espe- that is, to the representational appara- cially film and video, shuffle the cards tuses which operate images whose of the chronometric coordinates of time interrelationships are determined by through the aforementioned reassembly some sort of regime of time. Although of recorded time, making obvious the these regimes today are intertwined discontinuity between its various due to inter-media dialogues and bor- intervals, something which can have a rowings, the following generalization greater or lesser effect on the psycho- can be made: film and video operate logical experience of time. From all of through the editing of time (the this, it turns out that the media reassembling of recorded time), while machine is the best illustration of the television operates in real time. The well-known scientific hypothesis that three of them share the mechanical all time is an artificial construction or, time of movement (projection, transmis- more precisely, the function of the state sion) and the psychological time of of information within a particular sys- observation, or that which Augustine tem. In other words, time is the onto- called “active passage” coordinated by logical category of mediation, and not “persistent attention” of the observer. its raw material as people generally Augustine is actually trying to solve the think. aporia of the immeasurability of the present time, which, since it is located Time Mode 1 at “a punctual moment”, remains outside the precise chronometric coordinates of However, what happens when the time the past and future. Augustine actual- machine of moving images manipulates izes the immobility of the present by time as if it were data inscribed in an using a metaphor from geometry: a image, as is the case with the video punctual moment is the equivalent to works of the Apsolutno Association, the geometric notion of a point, but where the countdown of years remain- “persistent attention” lengthens that ing to the beginning of the third mil- point into “a punctual line” whose lennium precedes the opening titles in length coincides with the lasting of the the form of a digital counter? What attention. This moving immobility of happens when the time interval of one the present demonstrates the work of year is represented in the time interval the entire chronometric, linear time of one second in a sort of inverse, fast-

16 The Absolute Report THE ABSOLUTE TIME MACHINE DEJAN SRETENOVIĆ forward condensation? As if we are ic, social and political location”. The being confronted by what Baudrillard, text which explains where and how the when speaking of the euphoria of the message was recorded moves across the countdown to the beginning of the screen in the form of a crawl, increasing third millennium, called “a time-delayed its speed to an unreadable ultra-speed. bomb”, which warns us that everything Voyager thus confronts two modalities is programmed ahead of time and that of time: the empty cave is a metaphor we should not wait for the proclaimed for empty, “fossilized” time which end of history, because it has actually stretches forth ad infinitum, while the already happened. In other words, the crawl represents global currents of the Apsolutno-counter semanticizes time digital acceleration of the information by placing it in the function of the flow which constantly actualize time in work of a popular narrative of “the the information space. Symbolically, eschatological zero moment” which has the crawl is a sort of signal which is try- already downloaded the moment of the ing to find a corresponding frequency, arrival of the third millennium. Just as and its acceleration, which turns the science-fiction projections often use the text in the end into an unreadable future as an observatory for researching cryptic code, is a sign of the entropy of the present, so the Association, accord- information, its plummet into the black ing to a statement written for the entire hole of the information time-space. project 2000:1995, is exploring “the absolute here and the absolute now”, Time Mode 3 asking questions, creating metaphors and highlighting the absurd situations On the other hand, the video Good and paradoxes brought about by the Evening is an amusing montage of the time in which we live. opening seconds of the TV news recorded from channels all over the Time Mode 2 world, which the talking heads begin with the same greeting in different lan- The video Voyager, recorded in a cave guages. The real time of transmission is in eastern Serbia according to the deactualized and virtualized by its Association, is a message which is being transformation into edited time or, as sent to the outside world from the cave: Deleuze would say, it is “counter-creat- that is, it is a visual metaphor which ed”, which in this concrete situation refers to the isolation of Serbia from means that it ceases to function the rest of the world and to the through telepresence. The code of (im)possibility of establishing commu- multiplicity (language, the physical nication from that “particular geograph- appearance of the talking heads, mise-

The Absolute Report 17 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME

en-scène) is ironically used to indicate object, in which they blend into an the unified ideological code in the organic whole that produces the bore- domain of the TV distribution of infor- dom of the slow-motion time of non- mation, and thus the piece functions as happening in the observer. As in the meta-information, saying that information case with Good Evening, we are seeing itself is vulnerable and subject to the procedure of “counter-creation” manipulation. Finally, the greeting here, the transformation of a micro- “Good evening”, appropriate to the process into a macro-process in which so-called “prime time” of the evening “virtualization moves ahead of time in news, reminds us of the hierarchical order to reach eternity” (Levy). character of time slots within the TV information space, and also of the vary- The Light of Screen ing value parameters of the organization of TV and, therefore, social time. In astrophysics we find a marvellous picture of time observation: we can, for Time Mode 4 example, look back in time and see the light of stars which have long since The video installation (a)trophy is an disappeared. Likewise, on the screen of extensive slow-motion (55 minute) moving images, with the aid of light, sequence (which lasts only a few sec- we can see events which happened in onds) taken from the documentary film some other system in the past, in some The Last Oasis by Petar Laloviæ, and thus other space-time continuum, and which indicates the problems of the relation- are then made actual through represen- ship between the abstract punctual tation. What we see on the screen moment and the imaginary punctual was already explained by Hawking, line of the ongoing present. To put it illustrating the Second Law of another way, the piece represents the Thermodynamics, with the addition infinite dissolution of the event into a that entropy, understood as noise in series of points-events where nothing is the field of information delivery, is an happening and everything is changing integral part of all systems of represen- and coming into existence, and where tation, which always, even in their hardly-seen movements pass through hyper-realistic resolutions, produce an the punctual points – static images. ontological difference in relation to the (a)trophy demonstrates the operation of referent, including the temporal one. If two different regimes of time: one we watch an unedited recording of an regime is fixed to the mechanical move- event at which we were present, we ment of the tape, while the other is tied have the illusion that the recorded time to the movement of the represented exactly reproduces the time of the

18 The Absolute Report THE ABSOLUTE TIME MACHINE DEJAN SRETENOVIĆ action, which is testified to by the through mediation: an event becomes counter which confirms that the a representation, a representation recording lasted, let’s say, two hours, becomes an idea, and the idea becomes as did the time of the action. However, communicative in time. That is why the there is a difference in the relation of Apsolutno Report is simultaneously a the time flow in physical space and the new instance in the activity of the time flow in the media because the Apsolutno time machine and a testimo- state of the information is completely ny to its own experience of time, which different within the referential frame- means that the redesign of existing work of physical reality and the image information presents information in on the screen, and also because the itself which has the value of feedback in observer processes the information dif- relation to the existing state within the ferently in these divergent visual sys- machine. The Association, therefore, tems. The event is made actual in reali- is making a report in the form of a ty but, as Levy says, it is virtualized by dynamic “block universe” of time within the production and distribution of the which we notice a dynamic fluctuation information, and it is thus divorced of the correspondence between the from the specific time and place and is realization of an event, registered exposed to heterogenesis. Therefore, coordinates of its space-time, and information which virtualizes an event the sequences of its actualization and becomes an integral part of it, a virtualization. Similar to Hawking’s sequence in its development and glass, which potentially falls from the articulation. table and jumps back up onto it, the Apsolute Report acts in both directions The Apsolutno Report of the tape’s movement or of leafing through a book where, however, each A report is, usually, a mnemo-technical direction is equally accurate. machine which operates with what could be called memorial time – time in which memory is made present and accessible through a given media. The memorial time of a report is simultaneously territorialized and de-territorialized: it indicates the space-time locality of the event (which presupposes being at a certain place and time) but, as we have already established, exposes it to the heterogenesis of virtualization

The Absolute Report 19 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME ABSOLUTELY TEMPORARY

1996 APSOLUTNO 0004 as a temporary solution and ‘a new, bigger and more beautiful’ one was planned to be built in ABSOLUTELY its place. However, various circumstances got in the way and prolonged its temporary char- TEMPORARY acter for years. Finally, by placing the memorial plaque in 1987, 42 years later, the bridge Place: “The Old bridge”, Novi Sad was inaugurated in the “Marshal Tito’s Bridge” and transformed into an object of permanent Is it possible to determine the borderline historical value. However, the plaque disap- between the temporary and the permanent? peared two years afterwards and, although it This question instigated this project. In the was later found in a nearby park, it was never center of it is the bridge on the 1261 kilometer re-installed. The pillar on which the plaque had downstream the Danube, which connects stood was not removed either. Petrovaradin and Novi Sad (Vojvodina, Yugoslavia). The bridge was built in 1945

projections have played an intrinsic role APSOLUTNO in artistic and architectonic projects for centuries. The Futurists belief in utopia as a social elixir mixing technology REPORT – with the rapid pace of early 20th Century development laid the ground- THE UTOPIA work for the project of Utopia as being a media and technology based state attainable through humanity’s now TRANSCRIPTS irrevocable interaction with the machine. The machine will save us Stephen Kovats from our own pre-modern evil and this marriage between humanity and The notion of Utopia has often been technology will be sealed during the embedded in the belief that a future era 20th Century, clearing the way for the or frame of time will bring an eradica- Utopia that the 21st century was sure to tion of the evils and dilemmas of the bring. The political experiments of the present. As an abstract of an unattain- twentieth century had placed a similar able state of being in which perfect cataract of hope upon society while social, spatial and political means will reducing Utopia to a mere simplifica- collude in perfect harmony, utopian tion of its own dogma.

20 The Absolute Report APSOLUTNO REPORT – THE UTOPIA TRANSCRIPTS STEPHEN KOVATS

The association APSOLUTNO responded to this situation by creating a new plaque for the bridge, naming it Absolutely temporary. As part of the project, ceremonious unveiling of the new plaque was performed parallel to the one in 1987.

Three years later, in 1999, the bridge was destroyed during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. After all, it was temporary indeed.

This Apsolutno Report attempts to cap- time-controlled conditions, which ture the moment of time when the have been meticulously documented twentieth century gives way to the and declared works of art upon their much storied 21st Century of techno- completion. Whether punching a logical harmony and societal freedom. time-clock each and every hour over The report is a series of discussions the period of one year, locking himself with artists who, through their work, into his studio and not speaking for one thematised a specific year in this period year, or chaining himself to a fellow of chronological transformation by artist whom he could not touch for examining their conceptual attitude and one year Tehching has, in a unique reasoning for focussing on this particu- and excruciatingly intense way, probed lar period. They are journeys in time, the very structure of time itself. The ’13 tangentially scouring the utopian inter- year’ project discussed in the course of face between the change of millennia. the interview exposed the artist to the immanence of time with respect to the Tehching Hsieh, a naturalised American structure of the century and what lies citizen of Taiwanese origin, discusses beyond. Upon completion of the his motivation to end the 20th Century project, on January 1st, 2000, Tehching as an artistic act after having completed Hsieh ceased to be an artist. He was, a series of ‘one year’ performances. Each however, still alive. piece exposed the artist to extreme

The Absolute Report 21 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME ABSOLUTELY TEMPORARY

2000 has played a pivotal role in defin- Kubrick’s 1968 epic ‘2001 A Space ing the spatial frame within which the Odyssey’. The film’s attempt to explore artistic association Apsolutno has been humanity’s desire to define itself in operating. Based originally in Novi Sad, terms of its future being, set a standard Yugoslavia, but acting and moving not only in the sci-fi genre but globally, Apsolutno delineates the fault succinctly wrapped the notion of a lines at the close of the 20th Century future Utopia in the distopic mantle by working in the context of its immi- of humanity’s own intrinsic failings. nent passing. Beyond 2000 Apsolutno continues its collective work, devoid of The discussions were all recorded in geographic space and chronological New York City during mid-February abstracts of time. Yugoslavia, as a politi- 2001. cal construct also no longer exists. All things must pass. 1999 – Tehching Hsieh Jennifer and Kevin McCoy are I was born in Taiwan and I jumped ship American media artists based in New illegally into the U.S. in 1974. At that York. Their web-based work ‘201 a time the Kuomintag didn’t allow young space algorithm’ shakes down and re- people to leave the country, unless examines one of the classic artistic doc- maybe you were studying somewhere. uments of the 20th Century, Stanley If you didn’t have a reason, you didn’t

22 The Absolute Report APSOLUTNO REPORT – THE UTOPIA TRANSCRIPTS STEPHEN KOVATS

get out. I knew that New York is one hours going to New York, I still didn’t good place for art in the world, so that’s know I would reach the place I want to why I came here. It was the fastest, but be. From the New Jersey side I see the most difficult way to get in! view, it was so incredible, such a huge city, I’ve never seen before. Then we How was that moment of time when you set entered the city, and the taxi driver foot in this country? did you feel you were doesn’t know where to go, where I’m running away from something or running to going – in the beginning he drives all something? over, asking where is my sister, where It was a total plan for me. I escaped at she lives? I spoke almost no English, the Delaware river in Philadelphia, and and I’m sure the taxi driver is thinking told the taxi driver to hurry – I was all along that there’s something wrong afraid of getting caught by the immi- with this guy because I paid him $150 gration police. I didn’t know anything, at the Philadelphia bus station, and he this land was something new for me- goes to his home to change to his regu- like another planet, and saw the car, it lar car and drives me to the city. And was like a spaceship. I jumped in and before, all the way up to the tunnel then the highway! ... the car sped – under the Hudson River, he says ”no, I I saw the landscape, it was all so new, only drive you to the tunnel! To go into so fresh. But I knew I was still in the the city is another $20!” So I had to pay escape process – the time, the four, five him another $20 and he drives me in

The Absolute Report 23 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME

through the Holland tunnel into New end of the century. So I picked out York ... numbers like my birthday, the end of the century, the millennium, it’s all Was this journey for you some kind of artistic about a philosophical look at the life of act in itself? time – you spend it, you kill it – and This in itself I don’t call art – but for all then ... you’re still alive. That’s the way the actions I take in my life I still use I experience time, how I feel it – the big words ‘modern art’ – every strongly. It doesn’t mean I do some- action is related to each other. thing with meaning or no meaning. In the worst of times there’s nothing to do, or Since so much of your work is time based and thinking about what it is to die. process conceptual in nature, were you thinking about these things back then? Of course, whether the project started a year Because now the time has passed so the earlier or later is somewhat irrelevant, but at a thing I was thinking about at the time certain time you decided you were going to was total reality, but of course an action focus on the end of the century. is an act! My whole life is art in differ- That’s exactly the point because my last ent ways – even now, even after that ‘one year’ project was in 1986, and then I’m not an artist anymore. you want to reach the end of century, it doesn’t matter which year, but of course So then you found your sister, you settled in – that period of time must be longer –not so to speak – and you embarked on a series of just 2 or 3 or 4 years – I must try to ‘one year’ performances... make it longer. One person said to me, Yes, 5 one year pieces, and one 13 year ”13 years, that’s wasted, it’s quite long”, piece. but to me it becomes 100 years or longer. That’s the way I tried to keep I’m particularly interested in the ‘13 year’ my work focussed. After the ‘one year’ piece ... performances, I didn’t want to go back. Yes, it started on December 31st – my birthday – 1986, I was 36 years old, Do you look at that ‘13 year’ performance as a and it went until December 31st 1999, type of container for your other performances, ”do art – nothing public”. or as a time border for the other projects? It feels like the old work doesn’t matter, What is the significance of the date? I just do more, or I do less - it’s just I picked up the date of my birthday to time passing, past time. But I have four try to use the century in its form – not of five previous works, the old ones, so much because of the 13 years. But 13 which form a structure. The time pass- is also a nice number, and 1999 is the ing is the form of expression. That’s me,

24 The Absolute Report APSOLUTNO REPORT – THE UTOPIA TRANSCRIPTS STEPHEN KOVATS

I’ve done something. When you stretch ber 31st, 11:59:59 p.m. became the whole time, you make marks, like it’s some time-space of your 13 year project? body. In human history it’s just a frac- The moment of January 1st, 2000, tion. Did you see the movie 2001 by meant that I had to publish my report Stanley Kubrick? It’s a sculpture of time for my piece, for what I had been doing marking history. for the past 13 years! It was a collage which read ”I kept myself alive. I passed When you embarked on your 13 years of sur- the De. 31, 1999. Tehching Hsieh, vival project there is some kind of mathemati- January 1, 2001.” And so that day, cal phenomenon, that as you get closer to that I actually had something to do! January moment when it ends, time gets compressed 1st, 2000 was a very big day for me! psychologically ... At that point everybody nears the end of the century, but for my person, it is 2000 – Apsolutno my project, it is a human being issue What was - or is - the significance of this and its universal. The century is artifi- temporal boundary to your work? cial. The earth moves around the sun, its universal, one circle makes a year At one point, we were thinking of th and there’s a rhythm with which we dealing with the last 5 years of the 20 calculate time. But for a century, based century, but indeed we dealt with 5+1 on 100, it’s an abstraction. It doesn’t years! Since the very beginning of our matter if tomorrow is another century, collaboration, we understood that the there’s no difference. Utopia is the freedom to express my own will. For me time is my freedom, this is what I choose – this is a utopia.

In the moment of a transfer, in the moment that the approach to a ‘change-over’ has past - this is a bit like the impossibility of photography. How is it really possible to fix movement on say, a piece of paper? When you cut time year 2000 is actually a part of the 20th into ever smaller pieces, there’s still move- century, hence 1995:2000 project and ment. Time is always a continuum – but then characteristic annual signatures 1995 there’s a certain point when things flip and APSOLUTNO 0005 through 2000 there’s an incredible energy in that moment. APSOLUTNO 0000. This was some How did you feel about that moment when kind of rebellion attitude towards the suddenly it was 2000, the moment as Decem- establishment yet acceptance of

The Absolute Report 25 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME

absolutely real facts as a backbone of our production. Parallels between 1995:2000 and 5-year plans, a governing conception on socialistic economic and political agenda, were drawn. Then, we realised that this doesn’t make much sense since our project contains 6 years. Ooops!

Had it (does it) had an impact in establishing any strategy with respect to the delivery of your artistic expression? The production became way more complex. Everything was taken in con- Has the approach to 2000 had the effect of sideration. The project turned into an compressing any aspect of your work? inventory of the reality. Yet, APSO- No. Lets look at 1995:2000 rather as a LUTNO never developed a ”shtick” in documentary, not a feature. terms of aesthetic appearance. As every day brings new challenges, meanings, Did you have any expectations for 2000? dramas, excitements, etc., we tried to That Jörg Haider (leader of the populist stay as open to all of these influences far right Austrian People’s Party) doesn’t and respond to them sincerely in the shut down t0, our ISP in Vienna! It carefully selected or the most appropri- would be the greatest irony, given that ated media. 1995:2000 is extremely Milosevic previously shut down open- eclectic in this regard. The end of the net in Belgrade, which was our local century was very rich in technological host. terms and we were vehemently experi- menting and expressing our concerns, Was the fact, that 2000 ended with a complete ideas, and beliefs in video, web, and shakedown of the political context within which CD-Rom. At the same time, we felt you were working, part of your strategy? quite comfortable within realm of more That would be a far fetch. We were not traditional media, like print, photogra- anticipating anything. APSOLUTNO phy, and sculpture. Text, in many forms was pointing at some of the important and languages, played a pivotal role in facts in the world around us. During conveying the messages of our projects. the period, Yugoslavia experienced a Despite this pile of artefacts, we kept it total crash down in every sense. Since very very simple – minimal in a way. the end of the millennium is a period of

26 The Absolute Report APSOLUTNO REPORT – THE UTOPIA TRANSCRIPTS STEPHEN KOVATS highly developed telecommunications and multinational corporations, events in Yugoslavia were reflected in the global political and economical arena and vice versa, which was certainly mirrored onto our themes and interests as well. Everything is political, our work too.

Is there any irony in this situation with respect to your work? The main attributes of our work were irony and paradox. Irony was following us as we were trying to point at it. A kind of ”perpetuum mobile” of irony. One night in 1995, we watched 7:30 Budapest, Novi Sad, and San Francisco TV news where an interview with the via the most utopian medium of all - the CEO of the Novi Sad shipyard was Internet. If it weren’t for utopian beliefs, broadcast. A gentleman in a suit was APSOLUTNO wouldn’t be. talking about the great potential and progress of this firm in front of two Will you continue with any artistic expression giant transoceanic liners, rusting in the beyond 2000, and if so, in what way will it be shipyard for years due to the UN sanc- referential to 2000? tions and total collapse of the local We are definitely continuing our every- infrastructure. Coincidentally, a day day lives, therefore our artistic activi- before APSOLUTNO para-legally ties. The entire year 2000 was consid- intervened in the shipyard, surrounding ered 0000 year of our 1995:2000 proj- both ships with the police yellow ect. All the projects originated between ribbon that had imprinted text midnight of 12/31/99 and 00:00 hours ”ABSOLUTELY DEAD – KEEP OFF”! 12/31/00 were signed with 2000 Needless to say that the ribbon was in APSOLUTNO 0000. As mentioned the picture, hovering between the CEO before, APSOLUTNO agrees with the and the ships. scientific approach to the year 2000 as the last year of the 20th century. Let’s Have there been any utopic chasms opened say that 1995:2000 was a very site-spe- with the step beyond 2000? cific undertaking in global terms. After 1995:2000 was quite utopian idea to 12/31/00 we made a number of pieces begin with. Presently, we are continuing that do not belong to a larger cluster of our collaboration between Ann Arbor, projects with an anticipated time limit.

The Absolute Report 27 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME

As we produce new work in regards to (K.M.) We wrote the software from the specific times and locations we current- ground up. We digitised the film, ly live in, we’ll continue to show and 2hours and 24 minutes and we broke it lecture about 1995:2000. Y2K was an up into individual shot sequences. It overblown moment in our history with turns out there are 607 shots in 2001, a number of political and economical and that was our database, and we had consequences, and some insignificant to write software which allowed us to technological defects. If we discontinue pull it out shot by shot. Then once we keeping this phenomenon as a pivotal had the shots and compressed them for reference on the horizon of our collab- internet streaming, like this hyper orative production and research, we super-low compression that we did, we certainly won’t ignore its role in kept the original aspect ratio for the contemporary culture. film which is 2.2:1 - really wide - and then we wrote an application which the viewer can then use to create these 2001 – Jennifer and Kevin McCoy reconfigurations. There are no juicy parts to the project. (K.M.) ‘201 a space algorithm’ is a web based project we completed in February What is about the project that makes it rele- 2001. It is based on a program which vant for this year other than the fact that it’s allows you to construct various remixes 2001? of the film ‘2001’ by Stanley Kubrick. (K.M.) Well that was part of it – in the The interface gives you the possibility end we thought we better do it now – to intervene in the movie’s structure. because we’re not going to do it next year! You could, but it would be kind of (J.M.) It’s not exactly remixes in the weird. In the end we realised we need- sense that you can manipulate the ed to tap into the time, but really what images from the film but the basic unit we thought was that the main idea for of operation that we were looking at in the project - beyond anything about the project is on the level of the shot, the shots and all the subsequent discov- but you can reorder the shots from eries - was the realisation that the title beginning to end, for example playing itself was an algorithm. That 2001 was the film backwards in reverse shot this kind of equation that could be order or there’s various algorithms that reconfigured with different kinds of let you recombine the shot lengths by control data sent to it and that it could expanding and repeating to construct change – so that 2001 could be 1002. new time frames for the film that are And what’s 1002? It’s the film in reverse shorter or longer. order. It could be 2 000 001, and what’s

28 The Absolute Report APSOLUTNO REPORT – THE UTOPIA TRANSCRIPTS STEPHEN KOVATS

2 000 001, well it’s the film really really approach – its own kind of hypermodu- long, so we made this conceptual con- lar approach because each shot is nection between the title and the shots designed in a stand alone kind of way. as a kind of equation that we can There are these fixed tableaus in it. manipulate. That was the original idea which came about through discussion. We were chopping up that film after having done all this ‘Starskey and Is there a kind of relevance in the film which Hutch’ stuff, so we had seen thousands lends itself to this kind of re-interpretation of shots of ‘Starskey and Hutch’ and in especially when you’re dealing with the com- a 45 minute episode of ‘Starskey and pression and extraction or a decompression of Hutch’ there’s about 520 shots in this time? 1970’s TV program. So when we sat (K.M.) Yes, the basic mechanism of the down to sequence 2001 and there’s only project is this shuffling of sequences. 607 shots in this 2 and a half hour film Each individual unit -whatever that unit - whoa! – that was the first revelation! may be – was in this case shot from 2001. It could also be some other mate- (J.M.) Also the fact that if you edit the rial that we might make for some other beginning of most films together with project, whatever. But the basic idea is the end you’ll see similar characters, your not really controlling which piece similar locations and a similar sensibility of media can connect up to the other but with this film if you edit the begin- piece of media. You have to assume ning with the end you get monkeys each individual unit you are dealing with pre-man earth and you get space with is infinitely connectable with any on Jupiter. There’s a different kind of other piece of media in an arbitrary visual juxtaposition you couldn’t get in way. Each piece has to be stand alone any other film, especially in traditional on the one hand and connectable on narrative films. It makes massive leaps the other in this kind of weird relation- and the software can make those leaps ship. So the choice with 2001 is that even more massive, or shrink them. there are several things going for it The expansion and compression of time already. There’s a film that’s already in that film is so incredible that the designed to move from shot to shot in amount of time that the film covers is its continuity editing, so you can chal- extraordinary. lenge that, but you’re still operating from a position of the shots having (K.M.) Our software institutionalises gone together in a certain way already. that famous jump cut in the film – the It turns out that there are a lot of things arbitrariness of one shot to another that in the film that lend itself to that opens up a space for the audience to

The Absolute Report 29 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME

make their own connections – the kind tweak that in some way and the shots of conceptual juxtapositions that he oscillate, for example, towards the made with the bone and the spaceship, centre of the film – a kind of flash-for- ours is an expansion of that idea. ward/flash-back kind of psychosis that’s happening. The stutter mode is then The way you approached making this project, the neurosis kind of selection where it’ll using the film you chose, seemed to make it be constantly cycling around a certain the ultimate film to have if you were a passen- set of shots. Basically how the algo- ger on that spaceship itself because there are rithm works is that it will arbitrarily such weird time problems going on during that switch from forward to reverse mode, journey. There are scenes which cover incredi- so you’re basically constantly playing bly long periods of time – they may be only 5 through a set of 20 or 30 shots in this seconds, but they may feel like 5 minutes. eternal kind of neurotic spinning Were you thinking about the kind of narrative around – and both of these things that that film actually has in your project, depend on a narrative structure being since your work also contains a parody of there. what is happening within the original film itself? The film illustrates one of humanity’s great (K.M.) Our software works through a struggles with its destiny. How do you read number of presets – from a practical that film knowing its context in the sixties viewpoint there’s always a trade-off before the moon landing, compared to today between total flexibility and total pre- being the year 2001? You’ve given the movie a determination so our software is in this new form, a new spin, it’s been re-produced, middle ground where there’s a lot of re-presented. How does that work in terms of permutations that the users can do but this original idea of destiny? Is there a differ- it’s all operating within a set of preset ence in the meaning? Has it been altered by templates. From our perspective we he way we ‘call up’ the film – now that we’re thought about each of the templates doing this via modem? really carefully. In the sequencing of (J.M.) Certain things about the film are the shots where there’s a traditional underlined in certain algorithms, others order – first shot is first, last shot is last are de-emphasised in those same algo- which is a basic idea – and there’s a ran- rithms. Most of the algorithms empha- dom one where the shots are in what- sise the mystery of the destiny of the ever order, but then there’s these other process and that’s what most of the two – an interlaced mode and a stutter viewers of the film walk way with – mode – which play on the narrative and with this initial sense of ‘oh my! did depend on the idea of a predetermined I really understand it?’ because it can knowledge of narrative where they be read so many different ways. In one

30 The Absolute Report APSOLUTNO REPORT – THE UTOPIA TRANSCRIPTS STEPHEN KOVATS way this unseen race is controlling kids on their birthdays but this whole man’s destiny and introducing him to technological structure is supporting things that aren’t always terribly pleas- that over a much greater distance in the ant. Like when the apes at the begin- way that the web has taken the same ning end up discovering technology old drives and this other transition. they’ll use it to subjugate other animals, other species. By extending and raster- (K.M.) Another reason for having done ising the time frame and showing all the project in 2001 is that the film now, these artefacts of the visual image it today, reflects current state of the art underlines that mystery – you get this technology – this whole internet, inter- beautiful 2 minute long shot with this active TV kind of thing - we’re using Ligeti soundtrack just looping and this actual state of the art of this 2001 to looping and looping and looping. It revisit the fictitious 2001which showed slows down the whole time frame and us this technology back then! you get into this more meditative space Cinerama! and when the next shot comes – its this shock you feel in the movie, but even Of course there are things which are more so when you expand the time totally antiquated in the film as well, frame like that. The film really can like the Pan Am flight they come in on, function as a loop – the process of the and the airline’s out of business today, star child coming back to earth is really (J.M.) the gender relationships from the a beginning, but it’s also an ending so if 60’s, (K.M.) and the typical Bell tele- you see those things in a different order phone from the ‘pre-Bell-telephone- it draws parasitically on the experience monopoly break-up’ he uses. There’s of having seen the film already. this retro-ism built into the film like when HAL – the distopian foil – is on The conceptual drive to transform one his last breath and says ”Hello gentle- medium into an other is seen to be a men! I was ‘born’ in Urbana Illinois in utopian gesture. the film plays with this 1992 ... ” So already in the film now constantly, certain relationships in the there’s this look back 10 years to 1992 film are reproduced with technology – and you think – 1992? – that seems emphasising the utopian nature of a like decades ago! clean technological age - for example New York, February 2002 the shot where the doctor on board the space ship calls his daughter on the videophone, and kubrick says, oh hey! People in the future are just like us today (1968), they have to call their

The Absolute Report 31 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME GOOD EVENING

1996 APSOLUTNO 0004 The video (duration 8 minutes) questions the way the media present information as fact. It adopts the recognisable framework of TV news GOOD EVENING by utilising the first two words news presen- This project refers to the ‘evening’ of the mil- ters utter when addressing viewers. Transmis- lennium and the impact of the media on the sions from the TV channels of various coun- experience of reality. It was realized as video tries, involving numerous languages, were appropriated. and a booklet thus making reference to both television and the press. The link between the In the booklet, the sentence is written using two parts is established by the use of the the logos of the main daily newspapers in the same sentence “Good evening” - the standard corresponding languages. The pagination uses way tv news readers address their viewers at symbols signifying moves in chess instead of the beginning of the news. The sentence also numerals. After 32 moves this game of chess implies the ‘evening’ of the century and millen- ends in checkmate, a situation from which nium. escape is impossible.

1445 STRING (2000) - János Hunyadi, Governor of Transylvania, is elected Regent of Hungary for the C5 infant king Ladislas V. - Johannes Gutenberg adapts the winepress and develops a press for printing. Triangle [5] crystalline [3, 7] (5) 1995 (55) 1945 (333) 1667 (555) 1445 (337) 1663 (373) 1627 1995 (377) 1623 - Sun develops Java. (733) 1267 - The Prince Gustav Ice Shelf and the (737) 1263 Northern Ice Shelf in Antarctica begin to (773) 1227 disintegrate. (777) 1223

1945 1667 - Trinity is exploded near Alamogordo, NM. - Jan Vermeer paints The Painter in his studio. - Adolf Hitler marries Eva Braun in Berlin. - John Milton publishes Paradise Lost. - Coke becomes a registered trademark. - Jean-Baptiste Denys, physician to Louis

32 The Absolute Report STRING (2000) C5

XIV, treats a boy bled too many times for - Blair Pascal is born in Clermont-Ferrand, fever by a transfusion of lamb’s blood. The France. boy recovers but later patients die and the - Galileo Galilei publishes The Assayer. practice is banned. 1267 1663 - Ivan Rzhevsky sees a huge flaming sphere, - The first toll road is introduced in bluish smoke pouring out from its sides, England. hover over Robozero Lake. - Present Portugal is united. - The first Bible is printed in the Americas. - The Aztecs arrive in the valley of Mexico. It was called The Apostle to the Indians and was written in the Algonquian language. 1263 - The first Turnpike act is passed in Britain. - Astronomers Jehuda Cohen and Issac ben Sid of Toledo begin work on compiling 1627 The Alfonsine Tables. The tables include - The last Aurochs (Bos taurus primigenius) accurate calculations of planetary motions. dies in the Jaktorowski forest, Poland. - Shinran, founder of Jodo Shinshu, dies in - Johannes Kepler completes the Rudolphine Kyoto, Japan, at the age of 89. Tables and gives accurate positions of 1,005 fixed stars. 1227 1623 - Mongol emperor Genghis Khan dies. - German inventor William Schicklard of - Dogo introduces the Soto sect of Zen Tübingen builds an early adding machine. Buddhism from China to Japan.

The Absolute Report 33 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME GOOD EVENING

1223 1959 - Alfonso II the Fat, the excommunicated - First weather satellite launched: Vanguard king of Portugal, dies. 2, 9.8 kg. - Snorri Sturluson writes The Prose Edda. - Vatican edict forbids Roman Catholics to vote for communists. ascension - Monkeys Able and Baker zoom 500 km into space on Jupiter missile, becoming the [0+1+4] first animals retrieved from a space mission.

(014) 1986 1896 (041) 1959 - Wilhelm Röntgen announces his discovery (104) 1896 of x-rays. (140) 1860 - First car accident occurs; Henry Wells hits (401) 1599 a bicyclist in New York City. (410) 1590 1860 - Britain formally returns the Mosquito 1986 Coast to Nicaragua. - Spain recognizes Israel. - Pony Express begins between St Joseph, - 25th Space Shuttle (51L)-Challenger 10 Missouri and Sacramento, California. explodes 73 seconds after liftoff; Christa McAuliffe is the first teacher lost in space. 1599 - Geraldo Rivera opens Al Capone’s vault on - Jacob van Necks’ fleet leaves Bantam Java TV and finds nothing. with pepper, clove and nutmeg.

34 The Absolute Report STRING (2000) C5

1590 1977 - Mauritius of Nassau’s ship reaches Breda. - World’s largest crowd - 12.7 million - for - The unexplained word, Croatoan, is found an Indian religious festival. carved on a tree on Roanoke Island off - First CRAY 1 supercomputer shipped, North Carolina by Governor John White, to Los Alamos Laboratories, NM. when he returned to the colony from England and discovered the colonists 1968 gone. White took the letters to mean that - Christian Barnard performs 2nd heart the settlers had gone to Croatoan Island transplant. some 80 km away, but no trace of them - First pulsar discovered (CP 1919 by Jocelyn Burnell at Cambridge). was ever found. - Clandestine Radio Voice of Iraqi People broadcasts its final transmission. metaphor [0+2+3] 1797 - First top hat worn (John Etherington of (023) 1977 London). (032) 1968 - Bank of England issues first £1-note. (203) 1797 (230) 1770 1770 (302) 1698 - Marie Antoinette, aged 14, marries future (320) 1680 King Louis XVI of France, aged 15.

The Absolute Report 35 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME GOOD EVENING

1698 1869 - Early atmospheric steam engine patented - R Luther discovers asteroid #108 Hecuba. by Thomas Savery. - Steam power brake patented (George Westinghouse). 1680 - No entry 1689 - Scotland dismisses Willem III and Mary Stuart as king and queen. matador [1+1+3] 1687 - King James II orders his declaration of (113) 1887 indulgence read in church. (131) 1869 (311) 1689 (313) 1687 mean [6-1-0] 1887 - Anne Sullivan teaches the word water to (016) 1984 Helen Keller. (061) 1939 - Harvey Wilcox of Kansas subdivides 120 (106) 1894 acres he owned in Southern California and (160) 1840 starts selling it off as a real estate develop- (601) 1399 ment (Hollywood). (610) 1390

36 The Absolute Report STRING (2000) C5

1984 1390 - Apple Computer Inc. unveils its Macintosh - Scottish nobleman, Alexander Stewart, personal computer. earl of Buchan, burns the town of Forres - USSR announces it will not participate in and the cathedral at Elgin, enraged by the the Los Angeles Summer Olympics. bishops who censured him for repudiating his wife. 1939 variable - Hitler and Mussolini sign Pact of Steel. [7-2-0]

1894 (027) 1973 - Motion picture experiment of comedian (072) 1928 Fred Ott filmed sneezing. (207) 1793 (270) 1730 1840 (702) 1298 - Draper takes first successful photo of the (720) 1280 Moon (daguerrotype). 1973 - First adhesive postage stamps (Penny Blacks - West African Economic Community from England) issued. formed (Benin, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Upper Volta). 1399 - President Nixon signs Endangered Species Act - Henry IV, king of England, usurps the into law. throne from King Richard II. - Japan allows its citizens to own gold.

The Absolute Report 37 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME TYME TRYETH TROTH

1997 APSOLUTNO 0003 landscape to suit the aesthetic needs of the landowner. Using citations from various TYME sources and placing the bulldog sign as part of the views photographed, APSOLUTNO creates TRYETH ‘landscape packages’, in which landscape is presented as a product. APSOLUTNO thus relates the antropocentric attitude towards TROTH nature with domination in other spheres. Project for the Improvement of the English Landscape Value

Date: August 1997 Place: Shavefarm, Nettlecombe, England The starting point for this site-specific project was questioning the idea of improving the

Justification Nicholas Pearson Associates LTD “Venerable trees should give an air Environmental Planners Landscape of dignity and continuity to a Architects August 1992, p. 19/26 Gentleman’s Seat.” Veitch, cited in: Rackham, O. (1986) “Dense weed growth, dead bamboo and The History of the Countryside. overhanging trees reduce appreciation Aims of the orchard pond, which is also sub- “...(to) enhance the exhisting landscape ject to siltation. Dense laurel precludes by judicious ... alterations.” enjoyable access to the north corner of ibid. the pleasure grounds.” ibid. p. 19/26 Present condition and guidelines for improvement “The high banks on which the hedges “Most of the oldest trees show are planted form the next characteristic significant crown dieback or other of these counties, rendering it difficult damage, and could be aesthetically to see the adjoining fields or country improved by restrained tree surgery.” from the road, and being really a great Nettlecombe Park and Pleasure Grounds. nuisance to a stranger. We have also to Historic survey and restoration plan. complain of the narrowness and depth

38 The Absolute Report TYME TRYETH TROTH

of the lanes, or parish roads and the Outcome of general want of guide-posts.” the project “... the effect ... is romantic in a very John Claudius Loudon (1842) “Travels in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset” in: In Search high degree.” of English Gardens. National Trust Classics John Claudius Loudon (1842) “Travels in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset” Possible in: In Search of English Gardens. National additional Trust Classics costs Special thanks to Tom Wolsely “... compensation for lost grazing to the agricultural tenant would be required.” Nettlecombe Park and Pleasure Grounds. Historic survey and restoration plan. Nicholas Pearson Associates LTD Environmental Planners Landscape Architects August 1992, p. 23/26

The Absolute Report 39 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME TYME TRYETH TROTH

1928 1280 - First U.S. air-conditioned office building - Kublai Khan is formally recognized as opens, San Antonio, Texas. Emperor of China – the beginning of the - Soviet Union orders exile of Leon Trotsky. Yuan dynasty which lasted until 1368. - Scotch tape first marketed by 3-M Company. target [8-3-0] 1793 - Jean Pierre Blanchard makes first balloon (038) 1962 flight in North America, Philadelphia. (083) 1917 - U.S. President Washington’s 2nd inaugura- (308) 1692 tion, shortest speech (133 words). (380) 1620 (803) 1197 1730 - First Jewish congregation in the U.S. (830) 1170 consecrates a synagogue, New York City. 1962 1298 - U.S. first lady Jacqueline Kennedy - The first battle of Falkirk, said to be the conducts White House tour on TV. first military engagement in which the - 5 research groups announce simultaneous- longbow was decisive. Edward I and the ly the discovery of anti-matter. English defeated the Scots led by Sir - Laser beam successfully bounced off the William Wallace. Moon for the first time.

40 The Absolute Report STRING (2000) C5

1917 descension - Lenin returns to Russia to start Bolshevik [9-4-0] Revolution. - First appearance of Mary to three shep- (049) 1951 herd children in Fatima, Portugal. (094) 1906 (409) 1591 1692 (490) 1510 - Salem witch hunt begins. (904) 1096 (940) 1060 1620 1951 - First merry-go-round seen at a fair, - Shigeki Tanaka, survivor of Hiroshima Philippapolis, Turkey. A-bomb, wins the Boston Marathon. - Thought extinct since 1615, a Cahow is 1197 rediscovered in Bermuda. - The Château Gaillard is built by Richard I - First jet passenger trip made. of England. 1906 1170 - Census of the British Empire shows England - Dublin, Ireland captured by the English. rules 1/5 of the world. - Knights of Henry II, King of England, - Wright Brothers patent an aeroplane. murder Saint Thomas Becket, archbishop - First time Dow Jones closes above 100 of Canterbury. (100.26).

The Absolute Report 41 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME

1591 - The Rialto Bridge, spanning Venice’s Grand Canal and connecting Rialto and San Marco islands, is completed.

1510 - Pope Julius II excommunicates the republic of Venice. 5x0=0 2000-0= 2000 1096 5x50=250 2000-250= 1750 - The First Crusade begins, spurred on by 5x125=625 2000-625= 1375 Pope Urban II, who urged Christendom to 5x150=750 2000-750= 1250 go to war for the Sepulcher, promising 5x175=875 2000-875= 1125 that the journey would count as full penance. 2000 - No entry 1060 - Start of the Norman conquest of Sicily. 1990 - More than 1,400 Muslim pilgrims are token crushed to death in Saudi Arabia in a [0, 2, 5, 6, 7] single stampede in an overcrowded tunnel leading from Mecca to the hill outside. 1x2x3x4x5=120 120+0=120 120x5=600 - A four-year-old girl has the gene for 1x2x3x4=24 120+24=144 144x5=720 adenosine deaminise inserted into her 1x2x3=6 144+6=150 150x5=750 DNA, becoming the first human to receive 1x2=2 150+2=152 152x5=760 gene therapy. 1x1=1 152+1=153 153x5=765 - McDonald’s opens its first branch in the USSR, in Pushkin Square, Moscow. seed integer identification: 5x0=0 2000-0= 2000 1975 5x2=10 2000-10= 1990 - At age 19 Bill Gates founds Microsoft. 5x5=25 2000-25= 1975 - South Vietnam surrenders the capital of 5x6=30 2000-30= 1970 Saigon to the North Vietnamese. 5x7=35 2000-35= 1965 - Michel Foucault publishes Surveiller et punir/Discipline and Punishment. 5x0=0 2000-0= 2000 5x10=50 2000-50= 1950 1970 5x25=125 2000-125= 1875 - Ann Summers launches her chain of sex 5x30=150 2000-150= 1850 stores with the opening of the Ann Summers 5x35=175 2000-175= 1825 Sex Supermarket in London.

42 The Absolute Report STRING (2000) C5

- Queen Elizabeth II of England, accompa- - British anthropologist E.R. Jones identifies nied by Prince Philip and Princess Anne, tiny cuts in bones, used by Neolithic conducts the first royal walkabout in New cultures, as tallies for a counting game. Zealand. - French artist Gustave Moreau paints Jupiter - The Scottish psychologist R.D. Laing and Semele. publishes his collection of poems, Knots. 1850 1965 - Gutta-percha (rubber) hoses begin to - Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov leaves replace watering cans. spacecraft Voskhod 2 and floats in space - Russian mathematician Pafnuty Lvovich for 12 minutes in the first human space Chebyslaev publishes On Primary Numbers, walk. in which he further develops the theory of - The last section of the Trans-Canada prime numbers. Highway is completed. - German inventor Sebastian Bauer builds Le - The lava-lamp is marketed. Plonguer-Marin, one of the first submarines.

1950 1825 - The first embryos are transplanted in - Austrian composer Franz Schubert com- cattle. pletes his Symphony No. 9 in C major. - Mathematician Jon von Neuman makes - The Stockton to Darlington railroad in the first 24-hour weather forecast using a England opens, becoming the world’s first computer. public railway. - Fuel injection is introduced by Mercedes - English scientist Michael Faraday isolates Benz. benzene by distilling whale oil.

1875 1750 - Physiologist Leonard Landuis demon- - The Benedictines of St. Maur, France pub- strates the danger of transfusions using lish Dictionaire de l’art de verifer les dates des faits animal blood by showing that red blood historiques/A Dictionary of the Art of Verifying cells from one species clump together or Historical Dates and Facts. burst when mixed with serum from - The first British soft-paste porcelain facto- another species. ry opens at Stratford-le-Bow, England.

The Absolute Report 43 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___TIME SERBEIKO

2000 APSOLUTNO 0000 SERBEIKO Video installation

In this installation, APSOLUTNO uses computer animation of an image taken, as an absolutely real fact, from the Serbian state television news programme. SERBEIKO presents the absolutely exact (Serbian) time: constantly just before the main news.

SERBEIKO was first shown at the exhibition “INSOMNIA” in January 2000 in Belgrade.

- The Celsius Scale is created by 1375 Scandinavian physicist Martin Stromer; it - As a gift from Pedro of Aragon to French inverts the temperature scale devised by King Charles V, Abraham Cresques, a his mentor, astronomer Anders Celsius, Jewish mapmaker from Majorca, makes the and sets the freezing point as 0 degrees C Catalan Atlas, the first world map showing and boiling point as 100 degrees C. Marco Polo’s travels. - French bishop and astronomer Nichole d’Oresme translates the works of Aristotle for French King Charles V. - William Benkelsoor, a Dutch fisherman, develops a technique for salting and storing gutted herring on board ship.

44 The Absolute Report STRING (2000) C5

1250 1125 - Norwegian settlers in Greenland reinvent - Tidal mills are built near the mouth of the under-floor central heating, last used by River Adour, France, to take advantage of the Romans. the flow of water constantly changing - The Dominicans found the first school of with the tides. oriental studies at Toledo, Spain.

The Absolute Report 45 space THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___SPACE NEWS

1995 APSOLUTNO 0005 as the kiosk was being turned into a more stable structure. This form of “remodeling” NEWS(PAPERS) was a common technique used to avoid paying building permits and taxes. Date: July, 1995 Place: Fish Market in Novi Sad APSOLUTNO intervention: the sign NEWS(PAPERS) was placed on the door of the Background: war on the territory of kiosk. The original function of the kiosk was ex-Yugoslavia; sanctions and media blockade; thus reactivated though with an important absolute control of the media by the political difference: newspapers were replaced by a regime in Belgrade wall of bricks. The photograph of the kiosk was accompanied with the following text. Situation: A newspaper kiosk out of function at the Fish Market in Novi Sad. Through the glass panes of the kiosk one could see a brick wall

On Censorship during the first years of the Revolution. However, Napoleon’s regime sup- Newspapers have always been pressed press freedom and permitted subjugated by the authority in power only semi-official papers to circulate in (unless, of course, the paper in question the areas under rule. The restoration of is the mouthpiece of the authorities); the ‘legitimate’ monarchy and the Holy the Establishment jealously guards the Alliance did not herald the reinstate- privilege of controlling and censoring ment of press freedom: newspapers what is printed or published. One of were prohibited from addressing North America’s greatest journalists, political issues candidly. Benjamin Franklin, had to cease publication of his newspapers several times Taken from: The Encyclopedia of the Lexicographic under the coersion of royal censorship. Institute, Zagreb MCMLXIII (revised)

The French Revolution gave powerful impetus to the development of journal- ism; revolutionary ideas and social upheaval provoked the interest of the masses. Newspapers became a weapon in the struggle against the ancien régime and their number significantly increased

48 The Absolute Report INFO BODY CULT KONRAD BECKER

longstanding tradition. The social INFO BODY memory of pre-modern societies was largely based on oral transmission and visually coded information, a situation CULT that is reflected in the popular multi- Konrad Becker media landscape of the present. Artifi- cial remembrance is formed by places Culture and communication as and images of a virtual, synreal psycho- instruments of social control geography. Maps of the world have always been a tool of power politics Culture is not merely the expression that marks “ways of life” with an aura of individual interests and orientations, of objectivity. Images of the world as manifested in groups according to simulation or maps of reality are highly certain rules and habits; it also holds inductive, which is why, traditionally, the possibility of identification with no means are spared when it comes to a system of values. measures of cultural representation. Whoever controls the metaphors The construction of a cultural memory controls thought. with a view to setting up mental and ideological spaces and thereby The diffusion of conceptions by establishing a symbolic order has a “infection” and the proliferation of the

The Absolute Report 49 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___SPACE

expression of culturally based convic- ly demonstrated to what extent cultural tions in the form of attitudes often propaganda and historical disinforma- takes on the form of an offer of a ges- tion is contained in the work of Euro- ture, a position that can be mimetically pean scholars. On the basis of racist appropriated in a more or less con- ideas and political motivations, histori- scious fashion. These scenarios mediate cal facts were distorted in order to an implicitly political narrative logic. support the ideological hegemony of From historiography to education, a white, male elite. perception is influenced by establishing mental scenarios that establish the During the so-called Cold War, too, symbolic order. According to Edward issues of cultural hegemony were of L. Bernays, one of the fathers of public importance. In publications such as relations: “The only difference between “The Cultural Cold War” and “How propaganda and education is the point America stole the Avantgarde”, Frances of view. The advocacy of what we Stonor Saunders and Serge Guilbaud believe in is education. The advocacy offer a behind-the-scenes view of the of what we don’t believe is propaganda.” cultural propaganda machine and provide a sense of the extravagance with Evidence of examples of fictitious cul- which this mission was carried out. tural reconstruction can be found Interestingly, there were also efforts to in the Middle Ages. Recently, the mag- support progressive and liberal posi- nitude that the faking of genealogies, tions as a bridgehead against the “com- official documents and codices had munist threat”. If one believes contem- acquired in the Middle Ages caught the porary historical analyses, there was no attention of the media. In 12th century major progressive art magazine in the Europe in particular, pseudo-historical fifties and sixties that was not founded documents were widely employed as by a cover organisation of the CIA or tools of political legitimacy and psy- was not supported or infiltrated by such chological manipulation. According to organisations. In the light of this fact, conservative estimates, the majority of the claim made by Cuba at the all documents of this period was forged. UNESCO World Conference in With hindsight, whole empires could Havana - that culture was the “weapon turn out to be products of cultural of the 21st century” - does not seem “engineering”. unfounded.

Moreover, writers such as Martin The construction of myths with the Bernal, author of “The Fabrication of intention of harmonising subjective Ancient Greece 1785-1985”, have clear- experience of the environment is also

50 The Absolute Report INFO BODY CULT KONRAD BECKER used for integration and motivation in The present flow of information is too conflict management. “Information fast for people to be able to absorb it peacekeeping”, the control of the psy- or to acquire the additional information cho-cultural parameters through the necessary to influence outcomes. This subliminal power of definition in inter- situation provides the ground for mediation and interpretation, is consid- electronic warfare, tactical deception ered as the most modern form of war- and psychological operations. The fare, while “intelligence” passes as the developments in electronic media allow virtual substitute for violence in the for a global tele-presence of values and information society. behavioural norms. There are increasing possibilities of controlling public For a long time, information control opinion by accelerating the flow of has made itself felt by the profound persuasive communication, and the penetration of the media landscape by difference between information and agents of influence. Large-scale opera- propaganda - “the manipulation of tions that modify public opinion, create symbols as a means of influencing atti- social consensus and influence policy- tudes (Harold Lasswell) – is dwindling. making have not been exclusive to the 20th century. The increasing informatisation of society and the economy results in a grow- However, the late 20th century was ing culturalisation of politics. The use a heyday for intelligence agencies. of information technology for the Not only governmental and security- deterrence of civilian dissent opens up a relevant data have acquired great new dimension of political and cultural importance: private and business control. There is a great interest in con- intelligence services, global surveillance structing an in-formed opinion and to systems, dataveillance and information shape public opinion as a whole using a processing have grown into a hypnotic network of “facts” – even if monstrous global industry. these have no relation to reality. The art of the economy of attention consists The communication technologies of in directing perception to a certain the information age attack the informa- area, evoking psychological guiding tion body: the individual and collective motivations and shedding light on cer- info body is defined by the totality of tain aspects in order to leave others in its patterns of interaction and commu- the dark. The increasing concentration nication, such as those that are increas- of all attention on the spectacle makes ingly digitally recorded and processed everything disappear that is not within as so-called electronic footprints. the predefined horizon of experience.

The Absolute Report 51 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___SPACE

This is done by utilising the functional of private capital interests and a gaping mode of the brain, which filters out all absence of public interests. Political but a few million signals that then are participation must not be reduced to called “reality”. electronic polling and must instead be viewed as a structural challenge that Psychological warfare targets the mind affects standards and basic conditions in order to reach the will, where desires for everything from education to indus- and fears are addressed as control try. It is therefore necessary to create mechanisms of an economy of imagina- the conditions for a discussion of the tion. Whereas covert propaganda aims democratic and political implications of to strengthen the credibility of a news ICTs on a broad basis. item by making it seem as if it came from among the midst of the target Any democratic society depends on an population, deep propaganda aims at informed public that is in a position to habits and traditions, at the norms and take political decisions. Historically, the the values of life. Normative empathic development of a public sphere” was warfare evaluates the value systems of the precondition for the advent of the target in order to then create situa- democracy. tions in which the victim chooses a pattern of behaviour that brings him/her Democracy requires places and fora under total control or at least into a where the issues of the political com- restricted position. munity are discussed and debated and where basic information for the partici- “An ill-informed person is a subject, pation in a democratic society is pre- a well-informed person is a citizen.” sented.

The democratic and participatory The logic of the control over the media potential of new communication market is strongly opposed to the culti- technologies has been increasingly vation and formation of a “public forced out of the public debates, and sphere”, and the dysfunctionality of a the hope for a emancipatory cultural media market generates a crucial defi- practice is seeming to turn into its own ciency of participatory media culture. opposite, while the potential for con- The public sphere can best be devel- trol and repression through the use of oped independently from the state ICTs is becoming increasingly apparent. and from dominant business interests. A society shaped by technological sys- The development in new media is char- tems and digital communication should acterised by a dramatic concentration open a life perspective in which use and

52 The Absolute Report INFO BODY CULT KONRAD BECKER value are not exclusively determined by in the conquest of a participatory material criteria and where cultural free- territory in electronic information dom can be actively pursued. technologies.

Just as the technocrats highlight the The work of artists and of independent efficiency of technology and cloud its cultural producers and their contribu- social effects, any purely political or tion to the shaping of a sustainable and economic critique is insufficient and emancipatory communication environ- unable to develop sound counter-mod- ment can not be overestimated. Only els for social participation. Behind the the promotion of a wide range of het- machines that surround us, there is a erogeneous and experimental approach- technology of know-how, a way of es that do not just serve short-term pri- looking a the world and dealing with it vate profit interests can make it possi- – integrated definitions and information ble to live up to the positive cultural models. Experimental cultural practice potential of new media. has a particularly important role to play

The Absolute Report 53 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___SPACE PRElom___BREAKing

1995 APSOLUTNO 0005 separation, implying an abrupt and irrecover- able change. The installation consists of two PRElom elements: two shotguns in a broken position, one ready to be reloaded and used again, the other completely broken and unfit for usage; BREAKing and sawdust covering the floor. The installation Installation thus brings together two associations: military Time: 25 May 1995, the date which was a pub- insignia and the circus. lic holiday in the ex-Yugoslavia as President Tito’s birthday, on which occasion a central cel- The installation was realized for the second time ebration was organised every year at a stadi- at Kwangju Biennial in 1997, with important al- um in Belgrade terations: the shotguns in the installation, which were taken from the Kwangju police archive, had Place: Zlatno oko Gallery, Novi Sad been used in the government’s retaliation The title of the installation, BREAKing, refers to against the citizens who had taken part in the discontinuity, interruption, splitting, division or uprising in South Korea in the eighties.

from 15 years of video and film produc- ABSOLUTE tion by Gržinić and Šmid and of theoretical work by Gržinić. All visual and textual productions were generated in NOTHINGNESS the period between 1982-1997, and are now classified on four levels ranging 4 THESIS from - - to -+ and from +- to ++. The Marina Gržinić images and interactions express function and redundancy on the one hand, 1. and meaning, nonsense, chance, destiny and void on the other. It is not possible The interactive CD-ROM Troubles with to travel through the four structures Sex, Theory and History by Marina without changing them in accordance Gržinić and Aina Šmid (produced by with our particular histories, intimacies, ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1997/98) prejudices and stereotypes. starts with pure chance or contingency. The user is the agent that chooses The CD-ROM displays the end of between the numbers 1 or 2. The user psychology: against the background of is a gambler. The numbers 1 or 2 are the ideology of psychology that reigns connectors that link up with different today, Gržinić and Šmid use a proce- images, texts and interactions derived dure of common clichés. Each sentence

54 The Absolute Report ABSOLUTE NOTHINGNESS MARINA GRŽINIĆ

in the CD-ROM is a cliché from a questions about originality and repeti- B-movie, yet somehow the trivial tion, about reality and media simula- dimension of these clichés is lost and tion. The overall effect of this return to subdued into a metaphysical depth. cliché is that people are strangely de- Identity is represented not through the realized or, rather, de-psychologized. psychology of an individual, but The same can be said of the procedure through the formation of a new visual in the video work entitled Hysteria and cultural space, via the recycling of (made in 1984 by Marina Gržinić and stereotypes. What we are witnessing is Dušan Mandić (IRWIN)), which pres- the act of taking possession of docu- ents the work of Cindy Sherman. In ments, photographs, images, faces and this work, the video reconstruction of bodies, which are constantly produced Cindy Sherman’s photographs consisted as types, stereotypes and prototypes. of recycling scenic and stylistic ele- Consequently, there is (contrary to the ments and details, as well as performing anticipation of the realist doctrine) no poses from Sherman’s photographs in psychology, except when it is a con- front of the video camera. This act of stituent part of a ‘quotation’ or ‘stereo- taking into possession the photographs type’; the psychological unity of a per- which Cindy Sherman herself utilized son disintegrates into a series of clichés in the production of female types, and ritualized behavior. The use of quo- stereotypes and prototypes is a kind of tations and recycling methods suggests double twist. The images of women,

The Absolute Report 55 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___SPACE PRElom___BREAKing

the many faces and identities, which socialist visualization of the subject and had already been ‘stolen’ by Sherman of her/his body in the media underlines from film and mass media, are taken this artificial, mediatized, constructed one step further. The video work is thus and unnatural human body, and her/his a kind of double negation of identity— thoughts and emotions. a negation of the already recycled images of Cindy Sherman. It can be One possible way of reading this is that regarded as the return of the repressed, the effect of de-realization is an effect which pushes back: returning the of juxtaposing reality and its phantas- photo-images to the place from which matic supplement face to face, parallel they were taken or borrowed from the to each other. The idea is to put ‘empire of the moving image’. The together the aseptic, quotidian social methods described result in a video reality (formed through stereotypical image which exposes a never-ending questioning) and to parallel it (the display, insertion and rearrangement. questions) with its phantasmatic supple- The body is an artifact cobbled from ment. We can observe a similar process other artifacts, rather than from a pro- in the exhibition in Paris on Eastern found life experience. By contrast with European Art (2000), where the Russian the mass-media-produced idea that the artist Kabakov displayed the recon- body connected with new media struction of the Soviet kitchen. achieves a natural totality, the post- Through the window of this recon-

56 The Absolute Report ABSOLUTE NOTHINGNESS MARINA GRŽINIĆ structed kitchen it was possible to memory, to start over, to try a different watch delirious films from the golden resolution. In such works of hypertext Soviet era, full of bright future and form or of rhizome fiction, we get a smiling faces eager to work, to fight. vision of mistakes that can always be The Soviet kitchen was placed parallel corrected. The rhizomatic, hypertext to its phantasmatic counterpart, observ- form refers to the trauma of some able through films and visual ideology. impossible Real which forever resists By using such a procedure, which symbolization. In Troubles with Sex, Theo- allows us to externalize our innermost ry and History we have at our disposal fantasies in all their inconsistency, the only a limited power of intervention artistic practice stages a unique possibil- over the story. ity of acting out the phantasmatic support of our existence. In cyberspace I stated: in cyberspace these traumatic these traumatic scenes, which not only scenes, which not only never took never took place in life but were never place in life, but were never even con- even consciously fantasized, have an sciously fantasized, have an even more even more important role, showing important role, showing clearly that the clearly that the real is a purely virtual real is a pure virtual entity, an entity entity, an entity which has no positive which has no positive ontological con- ontological consistency. sistency. But this is only one level of rethinking the situation. The CD-ROM Troubles with Sex, Theory and History signifies an interface between Visualization(s) with film and imaging at least two force fields, between a form technologies clearly show ideologically of content that is pure contingency, and engendered boundaries, and constitute a form of expression that is attached to safe distance-proximity relations in the the interactive user responses (this is a real world and its phantasmatic film process of translating a general order of scenarios. taste, knowledge, obsessions and ethical viewpoints into a personal order). If we recall, the chief military commander Ripley from the blockbuster Unlike with most CD-ROM structures, film Alien 4 needed a lot of strength to after choosing between 1 and 2 the user get rid of the too-loving alien creature. cannot change the path of events by The creature recognized that Ripley leaping backwards and forwards. The was its biological mother, and this was user either proceeds to the end, or has possible solely because in Alien 4 Rip- to quit. This differs from other CD- ley, in contrast to the previous three ROMs, where it is possible to erase films in the series, was a clone, i.e., an

The Absolute Report 57 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___SPACE

artificially procreated human entity, and both almost, but not quite, identical to not a true human woman, as was the human beings). case in all previous films. This same biological mother had to destroy the Alien The logic of the sex(ual relation) is as through its total dematerialization into follows: love and sex in the exchange of the extraterrestrial world. Despite this, empathy between the mucus microor- the love gesture of the Alien was some- ganism and the human being that for now were not yet consumed always thing morbid and extremely romantic come to the point of a strategic dis- and emphatic. We can confirm, with S. tance. This is the distance necessary to Stensly, that in the world of high tech- keep the hygienic border relationship nology, cloning and bio-chips, the between us and the formless other con- empathic relation between two mon- forming to the ideology. We can pro- sters (or a cloned cyborg) human and duce all the other live entities, but we the monster tell us more about social will not have sex and empathy with relations, social interactions and the them. Is not such a safe, remote rela- politics of love in the real world, than tionship similar to the one proposed by any other type of sexual relationship the conscious middle class with the so- between any humans of whatever sexual called Third World? Through UNICEF orientation and preferences. and similar organizations, they send one US dollar a month for an African Ripley, despite being cloned, was still child, thus allowing the children to sur- too human, and therefore ideologically vive - although the question is whether still too problematic to fit the science- they can really live as well as just sur- fiction story. In the industry of the viving. The relationship is externally moving image and its ideological sup- empathic, to judge from the affection- port, a relationship between something ate, grateful letters written by the that is semi-human and the mucus sub- African children. But this relationship is stance is allowed. Empathy and sexual absolutely abstract; it does not require relationships between humans is a for- any kind of real contact, and is devoid bidden territory. This is true of the first of the possibility that such a contact cyber-cloning film saga, Bladerunner, as will transmit contagious illness or some- well. The relationship between Harri- thing similar. It is the same with the son Ford and the film heroine Rachel Alien in Alien 4: the search for love and functions smoothly as they are both tenderness is from a safe distance: the replicas, and not a male who is copulat- distance teaches us, who are the moth- ing with a female cloned entity. This is ers of the monsters, how the real chil- why they are a perfect realization of dren have to look and what the borders the phantasmatic love couple (being of our sexual-paternal-maternal lust are.

58 The Absolute Report ABSOLUTE NOTHINGNESS MARINA GRŽINIĆ

2. oration functions as a protective barrier (that in the end protects only the insti- Multiculturalism is the cultural logic of tution itself) and erases all traces of dif- global capitalism, in the same way that ference, (a-historical) positioning, etc. the new spiritualism is its ideology; The art institution’s defense against the multiculturalism is not about leveling, true threat is actually to stage a bloody, but abstract multiplication. This is why aggressive, destructive threat in order global capitalism needs particular iden- to protect the abstract, sanitized situa- tities. In this triangle of global-multicul- tion. This is also what demonstrates the tural-spiritual, the post-political must be absolute inconsistency of the phantas- seen not as the conflict between global matic support. Instead of the talk of and national ideological visions that are multiple reality, as Slavoj Žižek would represented by competitive parties, but say, one should emphasize a different as abstract collaboration. As Jacques aspect—the fact that the phantasmatic Rancière states in his theory of the support of the reality of the art institu- post-political, it is about the collaboration is in itself multiple and inconsistent! tion of enlightened technocrats (econo- mists, lawyers, public opinion experts) We have a triangle of global-multicul- and liberal multiculturalists. This tural-spiritual, and, on the other side, absolutely abstracted version of the capital-democracy-ethics. functioning of art institutions is at the same time the international legitimation Absolute profanation and secularization of the enlightened technocrats of post- are important processes. They are initi- socialism by international multicultural- ated by capital itself. This logical inver- ists. This abstract collaboration shows a sion may be summarized in the words radical discord between the effects of of Baudrillard: “After all, it was capital resistance and the institutions and which, throughout history, fed on the mechanisms of power that provoke destruction of every reference, every them, and the complicity of power, pri- human objective, which completely vate capital and thought with mastery. loosened every differentiation between false and real, good and evil, in order to The true horror today is not horrifying introduce a radical law of equivalence projects in art: these function, paradoxi- and exchange, the iron law of its power. cally, as protective shields that protect- Capital was the first to perform intimi- ing us from the true horror—the horror dation, abstraction, de-territorialization, of the abstract positioning of East and non-connectedness, etc. Nowadays this West. The psychosis-generating experi- logic is turning against it. And when it ence in itself is that this abstract collab- tries to fight against this spiraling catas-

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trophe, by concealing the last gleam of acting today. And here is a place where reality in which it was supposed to be ethics enters the arena of the world. the last thunder of power, it only multi- Here we can see the importance of the plies the signs and accelerates the play law of total de-sacralization fostered by of simulation.” (Baudrillard, The Proces- capital. The process is questioning this sion of Simulacra, in Art and Text, counting for the One is a process of Spring 1983, p. 28) producing the inconsistency of the One. The inconsistency here can be Alain Badiou argues that it does not seen as a parallel process to what I was matter if this disintegration is going on referring to above, in relation to Slavoj in an almost barbaric way; it still has, as Žižek, as the inconsistency of the real Baudrillard was already implying in the world and its phantasmatic scenarios. eighties, something of an ontological value. The processes of disintegration Capital has destroyed and de-fragment- question the mythos of presence and ed the structure of the institution of the the fetish of the absolute ONE. The One, in theory and philosophy as well, machine of capital is showing that the and philosophy is now, as in Hegel’s essence of presence is multi-layered, is story of the owl of Minerva, trying to multitude. It is necessary to take the give a rational outline to this total inconsistency produced by capital as an process of fragmentation in order not inconsistency of the multitude itself. to have to get rid of the historical On the other hand, democracy is, structure and the philosophical edifice according to Badiou, just an economic that was grounded in this One. democracy, connected with nothing else but bureaucracy and totalitarian- 3. ism. Democracy is a norm inscribed in the relation of the subjects to the state. I would like to start with a theoretical- It is always a situation or a code of nor- political positioning of feminist theory matively imposing regulations about and practice and subsequently with the what multitude is. Badiou calls this relation between philosophy and cyber- process of establishing and perpetuating feminism. The idea of this positioning the norm counting for the One, which or of taking a (conceptual) specific is always a result and not a process. ground is to philosophically denote and articulate a proper Eastern European The cut of the counting for the One is, position. This idea is not grounded in therefore, the most important process the simple game of identity politics, in the space of art and politics, one that where specific women search for their is a process of invention, a new way of rights to colonize cyberspace; it is

60 The Absolute Report ABSOLUTE NOTHINGNESS MARINA GRŽINIĆ rather a militant response to this con- Europe is to be seen as a woman stant process of fragmentation and par- paradigm or as the female side in the ticularization. Even more, I insist on the process of sexual difference and re-politicization of the cyberworld by grounding ourselves in the real world taking a ground that is not a geographi- or cyberworld. It is rooted in a much cal space or a location on the geo- deeper universal demand for identity, graphical map of the “New Europe” but politics, strategy and tactics of action, as E. Said would say, a ground that is a theorization, emancipation and useless- concept. ness. It can be perceived as the militant theorization of a particular position in My rethinking of the position of (post) the crucial debate concerning the ways feminism and gender theories today is and modes and protocols for entering also a direct answer to the often pop- the (cyber)space of hopes, uselessness, ulist remarks that today is not the time theory and terror. to divide East and West (Europe), and that due to the ideology of globaliza- Generally speaking, I identified two tion it is only home that matters: “No broad lines of critical thought which East, no West, home is the best!” form positioning matrices in this Despite the ideological blindness of debate. The first emphasizes the indi- such a sentence, which forgets to take viduals or groups, acting as a kind of into account the claustrophobic ten- entity that has neither a fixed historical dency and totalitarian flavor intrinsic to nor a geographical position, while con- every ideology of intimacy, again we sciously taking the position of a count- have to ask “Where is this home?” In er-culture. This position I call “The which spiritual and conceptual context Scum of Society Matrix”. However, this is it situated, if we have one? “Scum of Society Matrix” refers princi- pally to the positioning of the so-called Instead of reflecting myself as a gen- critical Western European and North dered, academically positioned woman, American participants, users and online and therefore as a (cyber)feminist from community circuits on the WWW who Eastern Europe, I propose a radical form a kind of parasitic body trying to reversal of a possible interpretation of get everything possible from the social this Eastern European position. I would structures that have already been estab- like to propose to articulate my proper lished. “The Scum of Society Matrix” Eastern European position (or if you proposes a new autonomous economy prefer, in Lyotard’s term: my Eastern and new structures developed from the European condition) as a (post) feminist appropriation and restructuring of the - as a cyberfeminist paradigm. Eastern so-called old ones.

The Absolute Report 61 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___SPACE AZBUKA ABSOLUT IN WIEN

1995 APSOLUTNO 0005 for the creation of the Serbian Cyrillic Alphabet - the AZBUKA, which is still used as one of the two official alphabets in Yugoslavia. Vuk Ste- AZBUKA absolut fanovic Karadzic (1787-1864), “the creator of the standard Serbian language and literature” in Wien (as stated on the memorial plaque in Site specific project Marokkanergasse 3, where he died), published the first Dictionary of the Serbian language Place: streets of Vienna using the AZBUKA in 1818. The Dictionary was printed in the Mechitharisten Monastery print- This project emphasises cultural communica- ing house in Vienna (Mechitaristengasse 4). tion between Vienna and Serbia. Serbian culture is connected to Vienna in a unique way. Starting with these facts, APSOLUTNO first Among the many events that occurred in Vien- found the shapes of all the thirty letters of the na which have had a significant impact on Ser- AZBUKA on the map of Vienna, formed by the bian culture is the publication of a book crucial streets. This was followed by an action in

As Peter Lamborn Wilson, alias Hakim articulate and interpret or, rather, to Bey, stated in the lecture at the Nettime construct a proper position in this meeting Beauty and the East in Ljubljana changed constellation. in 1997, it seems that the Second World is erased and that what is left is “The Monsters” insist on difference - a the First and Third World. Instead of critical difference within and not a spe- the Second World, Bey argued, there is cial classification method marking the a big hole from which one jumps into process of grounding differences, such the Third. I will call this hole and the as apartheid, as Trinh T. Minh-ha sug- second line of thought “The Matrix of gests. The question of who is allowed Monsters”, as a travesty of the general to write about the history of art, culture title of the Nettime conference Beauty and politics in the area once known as and the East (which was already a para- Eastern Europe has to be posed along phrase of the fairy-tale title, Beauty and with the questions of how and when the Beast). When it comes to the differ- these events are marked. The following ences between East and West, it has to questions or synthetic moments are cru- be made clear that the actors from the cial, as formulated by Yvonne Volkart: black hole, the so-called Eastern Euro- “Which spaces do subjects and agents pean critical WWW users, do not sim- cross when they communicate? What ply want to mirror the First World, “the do they call themselves? Are they sub- developed capitalist societies”, but to jects, cyborgs, monsters, nomads or

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simply hackers?” (Yvonne Volkart, digm”, it is exactly because of this pro- “Stubborn Practices,” in the Age of posed changed position of the Other. If Information and Biotechnology, written we think of a woman as the Other it is as a part of her curatorial project, because we have to count from now Tenacity: Cultural Practices in the Age one from two. That means that in the process of a philosophical rethinking of of Information and Biotechnology, pre- the Western tradition, due to the total sented at the Swiss Institute, New York, fragmentation of any monolithic edi- 2000 and at the Stedhale, Zurich, fice, there is now a chance for Eastern 2000) We have to ask ourselves what Europe to be understood as Two. space, which actors, whose agents and what subjects? To discuss the theory of the Other as Two means also to constitute a possible 4. radical positioning for other worlds, paradigms of thinking, etc., out of the In this final part of the essay I would Western capitalist worlds. That means like to connect the two poles: Alain that these others, the Other, is not sim- Badiou’s proposal to end with counting for the One, and the idea that instead ply to be seen as a couple or a twin (in of thinking of the Other in relation to the same way that the dominant inter- the One, we have to operate with the pretation understood woman to be the Other as Two. If we see the Eastern other part of the male-female couple or European paradigm as a “woman para- the twin soul of man, and Eastern

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which APSOLUTNO, with the permission and published by Jovan Kangrga in 1928. In this assistence of the Viennese police, blocked the Dictionary, all words have been erased; only traffic in these streets. At the same time, each the punctuation marks remained, in their origi- house or building in the streets comprising the nal positions. Five copies of the dictionary letters was marked with a label with the follow- were made. ing text in German: “This house absolutely lives in the letter ...”. The labels had the same This project was conducted at a time when layout as the street-name plates in Vienna and communication between Austria and Serbia were printed using the same letter font. Final- became extremely difficult. By blocking the ly, a brochure about the action was printed in traffic in the streets of Vienna and erasing the the Mechitharisten Monastery, in the same words from the official dictionary, APSOLUTNO printing house were Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic’s referred to the block in communications Dictionary was printed in 1818. between Austria and Serbia, in spite of the long An integral part of the project is a specific tradition of strong cultural links between the replica of the first German - Serbian Dictionary two countries.

Europe was understood as the mirror unity will not give us any third possibil- image of Western Europe or as its pure ity. This is why in such a relation the symptom), but as Two. Other is just a negative of the One. But But let us go step by step, to explain in we can give another interpretation: the detail the process described above. Other is not to be perceived as one of While doing so, I will make extensive the One, but as Two. Two at the same reference to Alenka Zupančič’s text time. That means we do not have a “Nietzsche and Nothingness.” dialectic of affirmation and negation, but two parallel dialectics that do not The result of the theorization above is come one from the other, but are both that the One is in a disproportionate present at the same time! In such a con- relation to the Other. When we put the stellation the history of the world is not One against the Other it is obvious the history of the lost mythical One, that the One needs the Other, but only but the history of the double source. In because it needs to establish a demarca- this way Eastern Europe, perceived as tion in the field; otherwise there is no Two, could be seen as one of the relation between them. Truth functions sources. To make a reference to the first in relation to semblance in a similar part of this essay, I would like to way. Truth is all that is not semblance, remind you that to be present at the and vice versa. When we put them same time, not to become one from the together they form a unity, but this other, is also one of the artistic strate-

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gies possible today, one that has the It is thus an inherent auto-referential effect of radical de-realization: juxta- moment in the Other that makes it a posing reality and its phantasmatic sup- non-whole. This is why woman, truth plement face to face; one parallel to the and Eastern Europe are perceived as the other. The idea is to put together the Other, as the non-whole. Not because aseptic, quotidian social reality and par- there is some lie, some element of non- allel it with its phantasmatic supplement. truth, or because something is missing in woman, but because when the truth is What is more: to say that the Other is telling the truth, or the woman is telling two does not mean explaining the dif- that she is not a whole, then they are at ference between the One and the the same time both telling the truth Other, but to point to the difference inherent in them: that is, as already part immanent in the Other. The third pos- of their performativity. Not being a sibility is the Other of the Other; that whole, not being a totality, is produced means that the surplus of two is not the exactly by this auto-referential moment, third, but that this surplus stays, is and not because something is really already inherent in the Other; the two missing in the woman, or because in of the Other stays for its most internal Eastern Europe people are really not at obstacle. The Other of the Other the level of those in the West. It is not a means that the Other is not the double real failure that is a part of the condition or the repetition of the One. and positioning as a non-whole.

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The inclusion of the third possibility is same for woman. She can be a symp- not the third possibility at all, as maybe tom of man but, according to Zupančič, you think I would like to propose this is not what defines her ontological something like the famous third way of status! Eastern Europe as the symptom socialism. The third possibility is the of the West is also not what defines the Other of the Other, is the auto-referen- ontological status of this paradigm. tial moment already generated through language. This is what constitutes the Moreover, if woman or Eastern Europe guarantee of truth, of woman, of were only this, it would be possible to Eastern Europe. state that a sexual relationship exists. Instead we have a phantasmatic sce- The homophony between Eastern Euro- nario exactly in the place of the sexual pean space, truth and woman means relationship and in the place that is that woman is not the symptom of covered by Eastern Europe as well. We man, that Eastern Europe is not simply have to rid ourselves of the temptation the distorted mirror or the symptom of to define woman on the basis of what, the West. Although it can be a symp- for man, cannot be included in dis- tom: as far as the West wants to see it course. Woman perceived as a symptom as a symptom, and as far as Eastern and Eastern Europe perceived as a Europe functions as the Western phan- symptom allow both to be described as tasmatic desire. It is possible to say the silent, mute territories in which loud

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discussions and desires of man and stated elsewhere, Eastern Europe is Westerners are going on. Perceived as a today in the position of a piece of shit, symptom, woman is seen (as with but being in the position of piece of Badiou) as a fixed silence which har- shit is not bad at all. Eastern Europe is bors, until infinity, the process of the forced to take the position of an excre- articulation of phallic enjoyment. It is mental remainder. “I am a piece of shit” also possible to say the same of the way is actually the first condition required Badiou rethinks Eastern Europe. The for Eastern Europe to take upon itself Eastern European revolution in the all the characteristics of a modern sub- 1990s was/is perceived by him and oth- jectivity. It is from this inherently ers as a failure, although the revolution- excremental position that Eastern Europe can finally be perceived as a ary process in Eastern Europe was car- subject. Still, it seems we have a para- ried on in civil society and not through dox: how the status of woman and of state apparatuses. Eastern Europe can be seen as an absolutely Hollywood success story of But, as you know, I stated that the logic affirmation, and not one of negativity. of the non-whole, being the Other per- You can say this is not true, that it is an ceived as Two, is actually the third pos- error! Or maybe not! sibility; and, according to Zupančič, it is possible to see this third possibility as The Other is not something that exists, the affirmation of the Other. As I have that simply is! The Other is, according

The Absolute Report 67 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___SPACE PRESS ACTIONS

APSOLUTNO PRESS ACTIONS Newspaper ads as a form of APSOLUTNO communication

At different points from 1995 to 2000 APSOLUTNO placed ads in newspapers for various purposes: to announce its presence in a city where APSOLUTNO spent a period of time, to express its support of the anti- Milošević protests in Serbia, and a series of ads announcing the number of days left until the end of the millenium.

to Zupančič, something that is becom- becoming; the One receives power ing! This is why is possible to say from the signifier that affirms itself in woman does not exist. This is the cru- the process of naming. The genesis or cial difference between the One and the becoming of the One does not the Other, between woman and man, exist. The One exists, so to speak, with between the East and the West. What is a dictate. The One exists because of a more: the Other is just the name for decree, because of an order. As becoming Two! Zupančič stated: the One exists with a punch, the One exists on blow. And A. Badiou makes an error because he reads the non -whole in the opposite This means that with counting (and this way: that the Other is the name for is where Badiou is absolutely right) the becoming One of the One. He claims One we will never get to two. that the Other’s enjoyment is a silence within which the articulation Counting as a method of arriving at the of phallic enjoyment is going on. The Other is a male way, or a Western Other is becoming the one of the One. European way. It counts, one, two, The Other is this negativity that serves three, states will be part of the “whole” to articulate the One. But this is of Western Europe. The counted states absolutely different from what Lacan are just the object of Western Europe’s said: the One has nothing to do with phantasm. But from our point of view,

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the Other is defined by the fact that we pp. 41-51 (German translation), and pp.60- start to count at two; two is the first 70 (English). number. And this is where Lacan and Donna Haraway, The Promises of Monsters: Badiou come very close to each other. A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Two is not 1+1; this is why, instead of Others; in: Cultural Studies, Eds. Lawrence saying it is the other, Lacan says it is Grossberg, Cary Nelson and Paula A. Treich- two. And exactly here we can see the ler, Routledge, New York and London 1992. possibility for a different articulation of Jacques Lacan, Television (translated by. J. Eastern Europe and of woman as well. Mehlmann), Norton & Co., New York 1990. Gender and Capital, ed. Suzana Milevska, Skop- REFERENCES: je 2001 (in print).

Alain Badiou, Abrégé de métapolitique, Seuil, Paris Slavoj Žižek, The Plague of Fantasies, London: 1998. Verso, 1997. Marina Gržinić, Fiction reconstructed: Eastern Slavoj Žižek, The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: Europe, Post-socialism and the Retro-avant-garde, On David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Seattle: The Vienna: Edition selene in collaboration with Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Springerin, 2000. Humanities, 2000. Marina Gržinić, text in the book of the Alenka Zupančič, “Nietzsche in nič” Artintact 4 CD-Rom edition series by the (Nietzsche and Nothingness) in Filozofski ZKM, Karlsruhe, 1997, Kantz Verlag 1997, vestnik, Ljubljana, No.3. 2000.

The Absolute Report 69 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___SPACE ABSOLUTELY DEAD

1995 APSOLUTNO 0005 ABSOLUTELY DEAD

Video Duration: 8 minutes

The association has conducted an investigation of a death of two transoceanic liners under suspicious circumstances. They are found in Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Yugoslavia, between the 1,258 and 1,259th kilometre of the Danube. The ships lie parralel to each other with their bows turned towards the south- west. The ships are 105 metres long and 16.2 DEAD BEFORE ARRIVAL. ABSOLUTELY DEAD (1995) ASSOCIATION APSOLUTNO AS ARCHEOLOGISTS And God said unto Noah, [...] Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, OF THE PRESENT and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion thou shalt make it of: The Inke Arns length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty

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cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the earth shall die. (Passages of the Bible, Chosen the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, for their Literary Beauty and Interest. second and third stories shalt thou make it. And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon By J.G. Frazer, M.A., Fellow of Trinity the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath College, Cambridge. London 1895, p. 6)

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metres wide. The main deck is 9 metres high on both ships. Their cargo capacity is 5,700 tons.

There are no visible traces or signs on the spot which undoubtedly indicate a certain cause of death. The position of the ships, as well as the place and time they were found in, indicate an ABSOLUTE DEATH.

The investigation was conducted on 21 September 1995, from 6 pm to 9.30 pm.

In the 1970s, when I was still a child, persons in this room were involved in I loved browsing through the German some 1970s fertility rituals (the toilet version of Reader’s Digest (symptoms of seat around the skeletons neck having an early Californication if you will). some special meaning concerning fertil- I remember that in one of the issues a ity). Others defended the “king adorn- black-and-white drawing caught my ment” or “crowning ritual” theory. This attention. It depicted two skeletons in a theory described the toilet as a throne, 1970s bathroom, one lying in the bath- and the skeleton seated on the toilet as tub with the toilet seat around its neck, a king, with the toilet brush as the and the other sitting on the WC, hold- [German: Szepter] in his hand. The bath- ing a toilet brush in its hand. There was tub skeleton apparently performed of course a story accompanying this some ritual of submittal. Others said drawing. Archeologists had found these that it was depicting the scene in a mar- two skeletons on an archeological digital chamber and described the bathtub ging site in the year 2100, or 2300. as the bridal bed. Still others thought it Somehow, all the information about simply to be the scene of a crime. earlier civilisations had been lost. So, As a child I found this story incredibly the archeologists dig up that bathroom funny and intriguing. It made me laugh from the 1970s with the two skeletons when I read all these wild theories and develop all kinds of theories about about my time, what later generations the situation. For example, the “fertility would think about my present when ritual” theory which says that these two they considered the remains of our

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time. What if this was the way archeol- their bows turned towards the south- ogists of “our” time were looking at west. archeological findings as well? For sure! How funny, and how shockingly wrong Only slowly would our archeologist they were. find out that these two immense objects had formerly been ships. Studying old But some things are just difficult to books (other data carriers like floppy make sense of. Especially if there is a disks, CD-ROMs, tapes, hard drives, great time gap between the archeologi- EPROMs, etc. will have fallen prey to cal finding and the archeologist. Try to bitrot) s/he would perhaps find out that imagine an archeologist who excavates these objects formerly had been two in the year 3670 in the region formerly large transoceanic liners, each with a known as the Danube river (region of cargo capacity of 5.700 tons. Vojvodina) near the ruins of a 17th-21th century city called Novi Sad (between Not only would their geographic posi- the 1.258 and the 1.259th kilometre of tion (far from any ocean) and their par- the former Danube) the remains of two allel position towards the south-west large apparently man-made objects in remain a source of irritation. The fact the middle of an immense desert. Each that these two transoceanic liners had of the longish metal entities is 105 been entirely new, even still under con- meters long and 16.2 meters wide. struction, when they were abandoned, They lie parallel to each other, with and thus never had been used, would

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add to the mystery, and certainly to the the rusty, but new ships, apsolutno’s diversity of scientific theories about the conclusion was that the “position of the two abandoned new ships. For which ships as well as the place and the time kind of passengers had the ships origi- they were found in indicates an nally been intended? What if they had- absolute death.” There were, however, n’t really been abandoned? And what if “no visible traces or signs on the spot a future usage was still to come, what if which undoubtedly indicate a certain their current situation represented cause of death”. Apsolutno therefore merely some kind of hibernation? put a thin line of red and white isolation tape [German: Absperrband] around In 1995 a similar archeological research the two transoceanic liners. The words was conducted by the association apsolutno in the Novi Sad dockyard. On 21 printed on the tape read “Keep off! — September four members of the associa- absolutely dead”. The red-and-white tion conducted their investigation tape seemed to indicate danger, possi- inside the two transoceanic liners from bly the scene of a crime. Plus, there 6 to 9.30 pm. Association apsolutno’s seemed to be also a feeling of [German: idea was, in their own words, to investi- Mitleid mit den Dingen], of sadness and gate “the death of two transoceanic lin- sorrow for these two twin sisters who ers under suspicious circumstances”. never saw the ocean because they were After the inspection which extracted an dead before arrival, dead before depar- amazing amount of details from inside ture even.

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1 The ships were abandoned due to the economic sanctions on Yugoslavia which were installed by [UNO? EC?] in 1991. Due to a halt of import and export the sanctions radically effected/affected the economic situation of Yugoslavia. In apsolutno’s work the two ships become mind-blowing metaphors for Yugoslavia’s desperate economic, social and cultural situation in 1995.

dead – apsolutno 1995 - 005” (1995) apsolutno spares us the answer.1 Their field of work is not formulating answers; it lies rather in directing the spectators’ view towards the strangeness of everyday life, in making the viewers become aware of the paradoxalities of the everyday, and encouraging them to formulate their own answers. For sure the red-and-white tape empha- The concept of ‘ostranenie’, a Russian sized the paradoxical situation on the literary term meaning ‘estrangement’, Novi Sad dockyard. Two brand new, was first formulated in the 20th century certainly incredibly expensive by literary theorist and founder of Russ- transoceanic liners, commissioned by ian Formalism Victor Shklovskij. In his some Nordic country, never used, far famous 1916 essay “Art as Process” away from any ocean, now rusty, filled (Iskusstvo kak priem) Shklovskij writes: with rainwater and on the inside cov- “And precisely in order to restore the sensation ered with drawings of the shipyard of life, to make things feelable, to make stone workers. Two irritatingly shaped para- stony, that which is called art exists. The aim of doxical objects, intensified and accentu- art is to convey a sense of the object, to make us ated by the red-and-white tape, isolated see it, not recognize it [...]” – in order to from their surrounding. Through apso- make one ‘truly’ see an object, to break lutno’s investigation these objects up automated patterns of perception became more and more strange, and to overcome a loss of reality he increasingly phantasmatic, almost like suggests an estrangement of one’s gaze those mystical unidentified flying through a prolongement of perception. objects supposedly kept in Area 51. Concerning the estrangement of the “A certain cause of death”. What could gaze a parallel can be found in the fun- have been the reason for the sudden damental change within the field of ships’ death in the Novi Sad dockyard? ethnology in the 1960s. While “classi- In the documentary video “absolutely cal” (colonial) ethnology directed its

The Absolute Report 75 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___SPACE HUMAN

gaze upon supposedly “exotic” “foreign” 1996 APSOLUTNO 0004 cultures, scientists like the French Marc Augé developed a new kind of “Euro- pean ethnology”, or “social anthropolo- HUMAN gy” (German: Kulturanthropologie, or “cul- By marking the borderline which divides tural anthropology”) which directed its Europe into East and West, the project HUMAN gaze no longer onto “other” cultures, focuses on an important European issue. This but which applied the methods of eth- borderline has had a long history during which nology to its own culture. This not its form has undergone some changes, but its only implied a change in the direction meaning has nevertheless survived. The bor- of the gaze, but also led to an estrange- der figures as an invisible curtain which either ment of one’s view onto the supposedly tolerates or prevents communication on vari- (kn)own culture. Ethnologists started ous levels. In the course of the project HUMAN looking for the “exotic Other” within the art association APSOLUTNO marked this borderline by installing a traffic sign with the the nearby everyday.

Apsolutno certainly is in a better position than our future archeologist mentioned above: the association luckily VIRTUAL doesn’t have to deal with the time gap. apsolutno is researching the here and now, usually called present, while BALKANS: retaining the strangeness of the gaze/view/perspective of an archeolo- IMAGINED gist. It is the strangeness of the everyday object that is being emphasized BOUNDARIES, through their work. While the strangeness of the gaze is something that HYPERREALITY cannot be avoided in archeology, formalism consciously has turned it AND PLAYING into an artistic device, while cultural 1 anthropology developed it into a scien- ROOMS tific device. By conducting “research Aleksandar Bošković into reality” apsolutno act as archeologists of the present, and as social (for Marija) anthropologists not of the most remote, but of the nearest in time and space. Berlin, May 2001

76 The Absolute Report VIRTUAL BALKANS ALEKSANDAR BOŠKOVIĆ inscription “HUMAN” on the no-man’s-land between the countries situated along this line. The official languages of the neighbouring countries were used. Invisible borders As part of the HUMAN project, APSOLUTNO marked the “invisible” lines dividing a geographical whole or an urban entity, which were caused by war, or political, cultural or legal disputes. Unlike official borders, these borders have no visible barriers nor signs but have a psychological weight, being part of the tacit knowledge that members of the divided community share.

Introduction: From hyperreality to VR 1 Acknowledgements: This is a revised version of the paper presented Borders and boundaries continue to on 25 May 2000 at the Department of Anthropology, fascinate people. Sometimes it is for University of Parana (Curitiba, Brazil). Another ver- purely practical reasons (being on the sion of this article was published in CTheory in wrong side of one), sometimes for 1997(http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=97). academic ones. The “Borders” project Most of the ideas were presented in late July 1999 at the Image of the Other Summer School in Skopje, of the collective Apsolutno opened some Macedonia, as well as during 2000 at seminars at of these issues in the most direct way. the University of Ljubljana and The Peace Institute What does it mean to cross a border? (Slovenia), and in the Department of Media and How does one construct any boundary? Communications, Goldsmiths College (London, UK). In this paper, I want to deal with some With many thanks to Igor Markovic (Arkzin and Intelektualna kooperativa Bastard, Zagreb), and acknowl- of the connections that boundary-con- edging my debt to Vuk Cosic (Literal, formerly of the structing, hyperreality and virtual reali- Ljubljana Digital Media Lab), and CTheory (Arthur and ty establish among themselves, as well Marylouise Kroker, editors). The idea of a virus was as with some of their practical conse- suggested by Glenn Bowman (Department of Social quences. Anthropology, University of Kent at Canterbury) in Skopje in 1999.

It is quite often remarked that the con- not open to debate. As a matter of fact, struction of ethnic or cultural bound- contemporary anthropologists regard aries is arbitrary. This arbitrariness is the concept of a “nation” as something

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In 1996, APSOLUTNO performed an action of marking the invisible border in Mostar, Bosnia and Hercegovina.

Armin (18), division line between east and west Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina

similar to the concept of “race” — 2 Virilio argues that we are witnessing not the end of namely, it is a concept with which history, but the end of geography. VR has entered some people do operate, but “in reali- homes of millions of viewers of CBS, CNN, BBC and ty,” it has no “objective” meaning. This, other major news networks with the latest NATO of course, does not invalidate the fact intervention in Yugoslavia. Paul Virilio, Un monde surexposé, Le Monde Diplomatique, August 1997. that people do act based on their pre- (www.mondediplomatique.fr/1997/08/VIRILIO/8948. suppositions and preconceptions, html). which include ideas derived from this On a similar note, one could regard the crashing of concept. Thus, even something that the airplanes into the WTC buildings in New York on does not exist “in reality” can produce 11 September 2001 as one superpower’s exit from the very serious and real consequences.2 sphere of the virtual – cf. Slavoj Žižek’s “Welcome to the Desert of the Real” This positioning on either side of what (www.lacan.com/desertsym.htm). 3 some (or many) people regard as real is For example, Jean Baudrillard, Le crime parfait. (Paris: sometimes regarded by contemporary Gallimard, 1995.); and Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyper- reality, translated by William Weaver (San Diego and theorists as something that has to do New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovic, 1986). with hyperreality.3 Hyperreality is a constructed and artificial reality— but with the full awareness of the participants in denying) other realities, but the fact this reality. It is a reality that exists while that the participants (and creators) are at the same time negating (or even conscious of its artificiality opens up

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numerous possibilities for paradoxes. 4 For the paradoxes related to space and time, see Virilio Hyperreality is a place (or area, O Espaço Crítico e as Perspectivas do Tempo Real, translated domain, field, etc.) where all the para- by Paulo Roberto Pires (S o Paulo: Editora 34, 1993.). doxes meet and co-exist, side by side. 5 The term was coined in 1986 by Jaron Lanier, and, The paradoxes are made obvious despite all the objections from grammarians and “hard (apparent) through the media — and scientists,” persisted and entered popular usage. this is something that clearly distin- 6 Of course, “the Balkans” is also a construct – used guishes the hyperreal of the end of the especially in the last decade to construct, deconstruct and reconstruct different identities (“us” from “the 20th century from the surreal or any Balkans” vs. “them” from “the West”), as well as to put similar concept. The media input forward an interesting hypothesis by some scholars enables people to see (and become from the region (especially some from Serbia now liv- aware of) themselves as others. The ing in the US) that “the great powers” are the source nature of contemporary technology of all the evil, and that it was always their actions that (Netscape, film, TV, video, CD-ROM, shaped the Balkan politics. various forms of electronic art) makes this imagery extremely widespread Both Virtual Reality (VR) and certain (especially in the “West”). It also makes concepts (especially when it comes to all the paradoxes of the contemporary boundaries, traditions, or naming) con- world more apparent.4 Hyperreality is nected with Balkan6 politics present in some accounts closely related to vir- interesting examples of hyperreal con- tual reality (VR)5 or cyberspace. structions. VR is also known as “artifi-

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cial reality,” “virtual worlds,” and is also 7 “Following Sterling (1990), cyberspace is best consid- taken to represent “a visual form of ered as a generic term which refers to a cluster of dif- cyberspace.”7 It has also been defined as ferent technologies, some familiar, some only recently “a real or simulated environment in available, some being developed and some still fic- which the perceiver experiences telep- tional, all of which have in common the ability to simulate environments within which humans can resence” (Steur 1992; quoted in Feather- interact. Other authors prefer the term computer- stone and Burrows 1995: 5). “It is a sys- mediated communication (CMC) (Jones 1994) to tem which provides a realistic sense of refer to much the same set of phenomena” (Mike being immersed in an environment” Feathersone and Roger Burrows, “Cultures of Techno- (Featherstone and Burrows 1995: 5-6). logical Embodiment: An Introduction,” According to Howard Rheingold, Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Virtual reality is the revolutionary tech- Embodiment, Featherstone and Burrows (eds.), (London: Sage, 1995.), p. 5. The same authors make a distinc- nology that immerses you in a comput- tion between “Barlovian cyberspace,”“Virtual Reality,” er-generated world of your own making and “Gibsonian cyberspace.” — a room, a city, an entire solar system, S. Jones(ed.), Cybersociety (london: Sage, 1994.); Bruce the interior of a human body. With the Sterling, “Cyberspace (™)”, Interzone 41, 1990; aid of computer gloves, a Star Wars hel- J. Steur, “Defining Virtual Reality: Dimensions Deter- met and some super-sophisticated soft- mining Telepresence”, Journal of Communications 42(4), ware, you can now explore the unchart- 1991. ed territory of the human imagination 8 Howard Rheingold, Virtual Reality (London: Mandarin, with all your senses intact.8 1991.).

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It is also seen as “a way for humans to 9 Quoted in: Jerry Isdale, “What is Virtual Reality?”, visualize, manipulate and interact with MS, Online, 1993. computers and extremely complex data.”9 It is my belief that delineating places in south-eastern Europe can be Albania claims (although unofficially) related to this, insofar as it presents a that the western part of the country way of visualizing, manipulating, and (where the majority of ethnic Albanians interacting with certain highly ritual- live) should be given huge autonomy ized notions (such as “nation,” “history,” and probably eventually should be “tradition,” etc.) and extremely complex annexed to Albania itself. Serbia and data. The trick is that these complex Macedonia have some unresolved terri- data are made to look simple and torial disputes, and the majority of straightforward. To give three examples: Serbs believe that Macedonians are just “Southern Serbs” (a term used during 1. The Republic of Macedonia. For the Serbian occupation between 1912 some quite extraordinary political rea- and 1941). Bulgaria claims that, while sons (some of which look as if they Macedonia as a country exists, Slav have been taken from Ionesco’s Macedonians do not, and that they are, “Theater of the Absurd”), Macedonia is basically, just Bulgarians who have not faced with very specific problems: their yet realized their “true” (that is to say, neighbors claim that it doesn’t exist. Bulgarian) identity. More recently, the

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Bulgarian government has determined 10Bulgaria and Turkey were the first two countries to that there is actually a Bulgarian (and recognize Macedonia under her constitutional name. not Macedonian) ethnic minority in 11Human Rights Watch and other NGOs put the num- northern Albania. Finally, Greece ber of Slav Macedonians in this area at between believes that Macedonia’s close rela- 15,000 and 50,000. tions with Turkey10 pose a threat to 12These issues are very much present in contemporary Greece. This attitude is connected with anthropology. A great controversy arose in 1995 the Greek denial of the existence of a when the Cambridge University Press (at a very late stage, and bypassing its own anthropology editorial Slav Macedonian minority11 in its board) refused to publish a book by Greek anthropol- northern province and the refusal to ogist Anastasia Karakasidou, dealing (mostly) with the grant to this minority such basic rights Slav Macedonian minority in northern Greece. as the use of its own (Macedonian) Apparently, the publisher was afraid that this book language.12 might irritate Greeks. The controversy produced an outrage and caused the resignation from the CUP of The Macedonian language is recog- two of the best and most respected world anthropologists, Professors Jack Goody (Cambridge) and nized as a distinctive South Slavic lan- Michael Herzfeld (Harvard). (The book was eventual- guage by all the countries in the world ly published by the University of Chicago Press.) with the exception of its neighbors Greece and Bulgaria. Because of Greek pressure (the northern Greek province is also called Macedonia), Macedonia was, in April

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1993, admitted to the UN (and after- 2. The Republic of Slovenia. A sense wards to other world organizations) of hyperreality exists for Slovenia as only under a temporary (and it is still in well, for it was throughout its history use now, in July 2002!) name: The Former a country so thoroughly suspended Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. It is still between East and West, for so many being referred to by this temporary centuries, that it actually disappeared. name (or by the acronym FYROM) in Or, to be more precise, it didn’t appear official communications from the UN, at all — until the spring of 1991, that EU, US, and other world organizations is. Slovenia’s limbo within this East- West “twilight zone” — most recently, — but almost all Macedonians find this between the great Orwellian blocks of term (and being referred to by it) very the century’s second half — did noth- offensive. ing to lessen the struggles fought on her soil. (Hemingway’s First World War So Macedonia is a new country that novel A Farewell to Arms, which chroni- perhaps exists and it is inhabited by cles the carnage of the Socha Front, people claimed, and at the same time never once mentions Slovenia — denied, by their neighbors. Macedonia despite being set almost entirely within not only provides some interesting the borders of the present-day repub- examples for the concept of hyperreali- lic.) Slovenia’s obscurity on the global ty — it is hyperreal itself! stage, the concomitant inconsequential-

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ity of her fate, have made the Slovenes 13Michael Benson, “The Future is Now,” in: How the East unconsciously attuned to historical and Sees the East, (Piran, Slovenia: Obalne Galerije, 1995), ideological pressure changes.13 p. 83. 14Cf. Aleksandar Boskovic, “Hyperreal Serbia”, in Of course, the attunement to changes Arthur and Marylouise Kroker (eds.), Digital Delirium (Montréal: New World Perspectives, 1997); has its limits. They become most obvi- also at CTheory online: ous in the communication with their http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=172. neighbors on the political plane. Although most Slovenians would con- mer) SFR Yugoslavia. The main prob- sider themselves as “civilized,” this is lem of the present Yugoslavia is that it not a view shared by their northern is founded on a constitution that was neighbors in the Republic of Austria. (on 27 April 1992) voted for by the Thus, as Slovenian cultural critic/ideol- Parliament representatives of the former ogist/philosopher/psychoanalyst Slavoj Yugoslavia. They had no legal authority Žižek claimed in The Guardian in 1992, to vote for this constitution, but they some European nations tend to regard nevertheless did, and a strange new their southern border as the border entity (a federation of Serbia and Mon- between “civilization” and “savagery.” tenegro) was born.14 By creating this The southern border represents “the new entity, Serb politicians (who domi- end of the world as we know it” — it is nate Yugoslavia) tried to establish a link where the “civilization” ends and where with the mythical era of Serb history, the “savagery” begins. This is the case while at the same time preserving what with Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, and many people in Belgrade now remem- Serbia. ber as “the good old days” of communist Yugoslavia, when everyone (who Obviously, no one denies that Slovenia did not go looking for work abroad) exists (although there seem to be some was employed and everyone had rea- problems with the existence of ethnic sonable amounts of money. Slovenians in south-western Austria), but it is quite interesting to see some- The attitude of the international com- thing (a country, a nation) arising out munity towards this entity might be of nowhere. Creatio ex nihilo at its best. described as hyperreal as well – after 1995, all European countries established 3. The Federal Republic of their embassies in Belgrade, but without Yugoslavia. Another good example of formally recognizing this new state hyperreality is the present state of FR (which is not a member of any of the Yugoslavia, which until very recently international institutions – like the UN, claimed direct continuity with the (for- IMF, World Bank, etc.).

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More recently, negotiations started on 15 That is to say, it has to be programmed first. the re-defining of the union of Serbia 16 Quoted in Isdale 1993. and Montenegro, under the watchful 17 Adam Heilbrun, “Jaron Lanier: A Vintage Virtual eye of the European Union. Montene- Reality Interview,” 1988, available at: gro does not consider itself to be a part http://www.advanced.org/~jaron/vrint.html. of the federal country, but it is regarded as such by the EU and the “internation- Edinburgh (Department of Psychology, al community”. Kosovo is perhaps an Edinburgh Virtual Environment Lab) on integral part of it (according to the UN the eye-strain effects of the use of the Security Council Resolution 1244), and HMD. perhaps not c. So maybe Yugoslavia exists, maybe not – it all depends on The basic test was to put 20 young the circumstances. adults on stationary bicycles and let them cycle around a virtual rural road VR in the Balkans setting using a HMD (...) After 10 minutes of light exercise, the subjects were The software and specialized tested... equipment for the VR (including image generators, manipulation and control “The results were alarming: measures of devices, Data Gloves and Head Mount- distance vision, binocular fusion and ed Display [HMD]) help create an environment where almost15 everything convergence displayed clear signs of is possible. In the VR world, an individ- binocular stress in a significant number ual is fully immersed into a world of the subjects. Over half of the sub- which he/she feels and experiences as real or jects also reported symptoms of such 16 objective. All the senses adjust to this. stress, such as blurred vision.” The feeling of “belonging” to a VR environment is complete. A user adjusts Some stress symptoms can also include herself/himself to a different rate of falling on/tripping over real-world motion (slower than “outside” the VR objects, simulator sickness (disorienta- environment), since sudden moves can tion due to conflicting motion signals create a sense of nausea and great dis- from eyes and inner ear), eye strain, comfort. However, there are some etc. (according to John Nagle in Isdale problems and possible health risks. 1993). It seems that the adjustment to the VR is not very compatible with liv- In 1993, the CyberEdge Journal # 17 ing in (and experiencing) the actual (or published a summary of the findings physical — a term used by Jaron of a study done at the University of Lanier17) reality.

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I believe that this is an important point 18 I should add here that I do not regard politicians or to be taken into consideration when theorists as acting by and for themselves, they come from discussing the matters of south-eastern the people, frequently have huge popular support for European and Balkan politics. In their their actions, so it can also be said that they act in the own particular ways, politicians and name of people. 19 theorists18 from this part of Europe I would like to add that both the official representa- tend to construct their own VR envi- tives of the Balkan nation-states and most “ordinary people” see their being “at the crossroads of the East ronments, creating (and re-creating) and the West” as the main cause of their troubles — their countries as Virtual Places. These both past and present. However, many other parts of Virtual Places exist in both time and Europe were at this crossroads at some points in their space, and their presence can be fully history, like Russia, Finland, or Spain. This is perhaps experienced by their virtual citizens. a remnant of the belief (quite often found in some “traditional cultures”) that a specific ethnic group is located in the very center of the universe, along the For example, some of the leading Serb axis mundi, so that anything happening to an ethnic th historians regard the 13 century as group affects the universe as a whole. the beginning of Serb “statehood.” It is perfectly useless to try to explain to them that the notions of “state,” mately 1,000 years before Slavs even came “nation,” or “statehood” (as they are to the Balkans. This strange construct used today) originated in post-Renais- would include what is today the Repub- sance Europe (from the 17th century lic of Macedonia, as well as parts of onwards). For most Serbs, the battle of Greece, Bulgaria, and Albania. As such, Kosovo that allegedly took place in in the virtual space, it overlaps with 1389 is seen as the defense of Europe other Greater constructs: Greater Ser- against the Ottoman (or Muslim, Islam- bia (which should, apart from Serbia ic, etc.) threat. The collapse of the Serb and Montenegro, also include parts of medieval state that followed (in the Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, mid-15th century) is seen as the ulti- and the whole of Republic of Macedo- mate price paid for the free (that is to say, nia), Greater Bulgaria (Bulgaria, Mace- Christian) Europe.19 Thus, Europe owes to donia, parts of Greece and Albania), the Serbs its understanding, recogni- and Greater Albania (Albania, parts of tion, financial assistance, etc. Greece, Macedonia, and Serbia). As already noted above, the very existence In another example of a Virtual Place of some countries (like the Republic of positioned in time, Slav Macedonian Macedonia) is incomprehensible for nationalists claim their right to a some others (in various aspects, for Greater Macedonia, based on the con- Serbia or FR Yugoslavia, Greece, and quests of Alexander the Great, approxi- Bulgaria). From the official Greek

86 The Absolute Report VIRTUAL BALKANS ALEKSANDAR BOŠKOVIĆ standpoint, for example, its northern 20 Critical Art Ensemble, “Posthuman Development in neighbor is totally “virtual.” the Age of Pancapitalism,” in ZKP 3.2.1 (Ljubljana: Ljubljana Digital Media Lab, 1996.). While these constructs are logically 21 Arthur and Marylouise Kroker, “Fast War/Slow incoherent, inconsistent and mutually Motion,” CTheory, 1999 (http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=209). incompatible, they function quite well in virtual space. They also feed each (“datasuit”) and turns on her/his com- other and are in a sense dependent on puter. Hence, it is both impractical and each other. The problems of (possible) impossible to argue with the propo- communication are solved in an elegant nents or creators of Virtual Places — manner: there is no communication; they are always right, since they are chosen representatives of “the people” forever locked in their own virtual envi- usually just repeat what they are told to ronment. say and what they always believed they should say: that their nation is the old- In an example that was very relevant est, the best, and always right, and that between late March and early June of they have suffered the most. Thus, they 1999, the NATO bombing of should be granted all the privileges for Yugoslavia was presented to the “their” version of these Virtual Places. Western viewers as something purely They are supposed to blend with and virtual21 – it was the war that was not eventually supersede real places. really a war, bombing to save the Albanians, even though NATO planes Virtual Exits? occasionally hit and killed dozens of Albanians – but it was for their own An important thing to be noted here is good! The bombing was also not aimed that any or all versions of these Virtual at civilians, but most of the civilian Places cannot be regarded as either true infrastructure was destroyed, hospitals, or false. They are all true — within residential areas, buses and passenger their respective historical/cultural/eth- trains hit – but, again, nothing nic/traditional premises. Within a VR personal, it was for the good and reality, a Virtual Environment simply ultimate enjoyment of the people of exists. As put by the Critical Art Ensem- Serbia. It was the war to end all Balkan ble in their VIPER Lecture: “VR’s pri- wars. (It still remains to be seen mary value to spectacle is not as tech- whether it will succeed in this.) nology at all, but as a myth.”20 It is put to (practical) use only when a user puts In the Serb official discourse the bomb- on Data Gloves, HMD, stereo head- ing was a living proof that the whole phones and computerized clothing world is and always has been against

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the Serbs, and that is just another rea- 22Paul Virilio, “Speed and Information: Cyberspace son why people should retreat to their Alarm!”, translated by Patrice Riemens, CTheory, 1995 virtual shelters, protected from any silly http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=72. ideas like “democratization,” “freedom of thought,” or “freedom of expression.” When the survival of the nation is at Accordingly, I do not see any point in stake, all its members must stand as one expecting that ideologists, theorists, and bravely face up to the wrath of the politicians or advocates of Virtual world powers. Their death would be Places should act or behave in a manner just a re-enactment of the heroic Battle more in tune with what is sometimes of Kosovo of 1389, another proof that regarded as a “proper behavior” (that is even in death and destruction, the to say, to use rational arguments, to be defeated ones tower over their oppres- able to discuss points of views of other sors. It is only fitting that, in a strange participants in a discussion, to accept twist of fate, the people who once that they can sometimes be wrong, saved (Christian) Europe from the etc.). One should always bear in mind (Muslim) Turks should fall as victims of the particular environment which they that very same Europe (in reality, just see and feel as theirs, in which they feel Britain – along with the US). comfortable, and act accordingly. One way of coping with them would be to One of the most obvious effects of the always include qualified psychologists prolonged use of VR is that a user feels and computer experts familiar with VR a little dizzy afterwards and moves a lit- in all the negotiating teams and inter- tle slower than “normal” — adjustment mediary missions dealing with south- to a different environment takes some eastern Europe. I believe that this could time (this is sometimes referred to as a greatly enhance mutual understanding “VR lag”). It would be unproductive and probably ensure much better com- (except, perhaps, to make fun of such a munication. The other way would be person) to ask a person who has just quicker and more efficient, but perhaps taken off his/her HMD to perform too abrupt and not very diplomatic: to some strenuous physical task, to jump just switch off the computer. Of course, or run, etc. A “fundamental loss of there is also a possibility of introducing orientation” occurs (as Virilio would a virus – a virus of democratization, say22), a feeling of dizziness which, in which has to be introduced from out- case of ex-Yugoslav nations and Serbs side the region, since the local popula- in particular, prevents people from tions have neither strength nor will to making any distinctions between the try it. But then, are the countries that real and the imagined. condone mass killing of civilians in

88 The Absolute Report VIRTUAL BALKANS___ALEKSANDAR BOŠKOVIĆ NO BORDER!___FLORIAN SCHNEIDER order to stop mass killing of civilians morally capable of proposing it? Or is NO BORDER! their ultimate answer just more violence to end violence? A SHORT HISTORY Taking all of that into consideration, OF NETWORKING one might wonder why any of the Balkan nations should exit their Virtual FOR THE FREEDOM Worlds, when that is where the things, concepts, places, people and (most OF MOVEMENT important for the national unity) ene- mies that they know so well, know how Florian Schneider to deal with and how to feel are. There are even small NGOs that can function It wasn't exactly the right place or real- providing a simulation of democratiza- ly the right time to launch a political tion, while in effect nothing ever campaign which publicly called for a changes. Any change would just plunge series of offences against the law; yet them into chaos – which is the last when the call "No one is illegal" went thing that global policy-makers want in out exactly five years ago at the docu- the Balkans. In the end, it seems that mentaX, the usual reservations counted both peoples from this part of the little. In the Orangerie, which had been world and their well-wishers, critics and temporarily arranged as a media labora- occasional bombers will agree that tory at the end of the visitors' circuit of some people should never leave their the well-known Kassler art exhibition, a playing rooms, and should have their dozen political and media activists from data gloves on. At least for now. all Germany's bigger cities met up at the end of June 1997 in order to adopt a common text. The expressed aim was to issue a public call for the provision of accommodation to illegal migrants, help with their entry into the country and their onward journeys, work pro- curement, the organization of health care, and for their children to have easi- er access to schooling. This was more than just mere provocation; it concerned the propagation, preparation and implementation of practical and

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political support for people without reg- and late capitalist exploitation - crea- ular papers, a kind of support that had in tures who can, at most, beg for a little fact already existed for years, although sympathy. There was no lack of con- mostly in secret. Public opinion in Ger- crete approaches, ranging from unspec- many seemed almost to forbid talking tacular attempts at self-organisation in about refugees and migrants in any other communities and lodgings and every- terms than as swindlers, cut-rate workers day resistance at the work-place or in or criminals. In the nineties in Germany, deportation detention centres to spon- six months seldom went by without fur- taneous protest actions. However, there ther serious legal restrictions being intro- existed no political framework of refer- duced: employment and occupational ence or efficient structures that could bans, reductions in maintenance costs, actually question the political asylum procedural and constitutional changes, discourse of clemency rights. not to mention the insidious rearmament of the eastern German border in the bat- A few months previously in Paris, hun- tle against illegal immigration and the dreds of undocumented immigrants, so- so-called "Schlepperbanden" (bands of called "sans papiers", had occupied two people smugglers). churches in short succession, initiating one of the most important movements "No one is illegal" chose a fundamental- of the close of the 20th century. Led by ly different perspective: the discussion charismatic speakers, the "sans papiers" here was not about illegal immigrants dared to step out of the shadows - out and their supposed motivation, but of insecure, disenfranchised working about people who were systematically conditions, but also out of the dubious denied civil rights and, above all, the protection of the village structures in right to have rights at all. There was no the hostels - into the light to face a bandying-about of numbers and statis- public that, in the middle of the sum- tics; rather, a response was called for mer holidays, evidently had no other that is normally a matter of course, but topic of discussion. The "sans papiers" has now been declared a criminal movement had ignited like a straw fire, offence: aiding and abetting illegal and the experiences from the battles in entry and residence. France spread quickly to the whole of Europe. The strength and the astonish- But the offence of not possessing ing self-confidence of the "sans papiers" regular documents does not turn the expressed itself in their insistence on migrants into compliant creatures strict autonomy: these people, who did- delivered up unresistingly to the rapidly n't even exist in the eyes of the state, expanded apparatus of state repression who weren't represented by any party

90 The Absolute Report NO BORDER! FLORIAN SCHNEIDER or association, and who could not claim reunification, most of the young any common identity took their fate autonomous left concerned themselves into their own hands and themselves in detail with options of political decided what further steps were to be protest and the postulates of anti-racist taken. The exploding self-confidence of and anti-fascist counterculture. But from the "sans papiers" was coupled with a the mid-'90s at the latest, these battle great preparedness to discuss problems fronts threatened to become buried and an enormous willingness to co- under biographical fragments, growing operate with other social movements: specialization, clandestine, isolated the trade unions, fortified after the work and political lethargy. The deci- December strikes of '95, the emerging mated energies had exhausted them- movement of the unemployed, intellec- selves by a fatal fixation on the state tuals, and a radicalizing young support apparatus and its procedural methods. scene all alternately took part as reli- In this situation, "No one is illegal" sug- able partners in the multi-layered dis- gested a kind of "legalization from cussions. At the time, any reasonable below" which was decisively influenced assessment of the situation seemed to by the events in Paris. The idea was to preclude even the dream of similar take the strategies and tactics used in developments taking place in Germany. the struggles of the "sans papiers", to It is true that, as in the USA, there were transpose them, more or less intact, relatively well developed support struc- into the local context in this country, tures for illegal refugees, inspired by and to generate as many new approach- the crisis of freedom struggles in the es for action as possible from the pecu- Third World and the onset of the liarities of the German situation. The migration movement towards the north; concept, at first hesitantly articulated, and these structures continued to exist, worked surprisingly well: often with not drawing on the tradition and motiva- much more than a common slogan, the tion left over from the militant move- widely varying approaches worked ments of the '80s. It is true that, since hand in hand, without entering into the the mid-'80s, starting with the asylum- competition that was otherwise habitu- seekers' campaign run by the revolu- al. The actions ranged from individual tionary cells, the theoretical and practi- struggles for residency rights to supra- cal implications of a new solidarity regional anti-deportation campaigns; movement had already been thought from supporting the political self- out in many fragments, and attempts organization of the refugees to practical had been made to anticipate violence. criticism of the border regimes. Even if It is true that, owing to the wave of most of the forms of action hardly left racist attacks in the wake of German the framework of the familiar, the

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tremendous potential of a movement in ty arose for a common, everyday prac- which different starting points, different tice that went beyond the mostly very approaches and contrasting positions narrowly defined limits of the local were no longer shortcomings, but actions: all at once, the Internet facili- rather the basis of a new form of politi- tated an exchange of experience that cal organization seemed, for a brief was as uncomplicated as it was discrete, time at least, to reveal itself. Although numerous forms of direct and indirect actions like the "migrating-church asy- collaboration on projects which were lum" in Cologne, where up to 600 ille- no longer limited spatially or temporal- gal migrants fought for papers for over ly, and a form of continuous, self- a year, were by no means as spectacular defined communication that did not as the occupation of the churches in require people to be always at the same Paris, they achieved considerable partial place at the same time. success, which has now led to the legalization of almost all the participant Soon there was no question that, with refugees. And, despite all difficulties, the Internet, a European-wide commu- they have proven that to stand up for nication network could be set up on a one's rights is more beneficial than broad foundation. Up until then, it had sitting still. only been possible to maintain international contacts by dint of great personal A campaign like "No one is illegal" engagement and effort, be it through could not have been carried out with- individual acquaintances, extensive out the use of new media and network travel or written correspondence; alter- technologies. Immediately after the call natively, contacts arose purely by was adopted, it was disseminated on chance. Systematic networking was websites and through mailing-lists on a seen mostly as a privilege of non-gov- scale and at a speed that would have ernmental organisations, which were as otherwise only been possible with an well-equipped as they were lacking in immense organizational apparatus. The ambition, and for whom it was princi- Internet not only promised new and pally a question of the legitimation and efficient publication strategies, but also perpetuation of their own hierarchies. opened a realm of communication that held immense possibilities for a decen- It all began with a meeting in Amster- tralized campaign without material dam on the fringes of a big demonstra- resources or its own apparatus of organ- tion against the EU summit in 1997, ization. Shortly before the commercial where about forty activists from anti- boom in the Net, for the first time and racist groups, some immigrant initia- at many different levels, the opportuni- tives and refugee support initiatives

92 The Absolute Report NO BORDER! FLORIAN SCHNEIDER from central and northern Europe gath- any European dimension of resistance ered. The priorities and also the objec- leaving the realm of pure rhetoric to tives of the political work in each coun- become a practicality. This was, howev- try differed greatly. But what the groups er, about to change: in 1999 the net- had in common was the demand for work was renamed practical, political intervention at the base, i.e., grassroots politics. The new "Noborder" and relaunched with a network, with the title "admission free", European-wide protest action to mark was, as they stated, not concerned with the occasion of the EU's special summit adopting a common political pro- "Justice and the Interior" in Tampere, gramme or even with representing a which was expressly dedicated to stan- movement, but with systematically cre- dardizing policies on asylum and migra- ating the preconditions for a European- tion in a European context. In the run- wide collaboration whose principal pur- up to the summit, some Noborder pose was to enrich everyday activities groups had managed to connect up in the individual countries. with promising contacts in France and, above all, Italy. On this basis, a com- Yet, although a regular exchange of mon European "day of action" was information was arranged amongst the arranged that took the EU migration participants of the first network-meet- summit in the Finnish town of Tampere ing, the initial zest soon died away. The as an opportunity to protest in a decen- practical demands were too abstract, tralized but coordinated manner against the criteria for the admission of new a new chapter in the politics of separa- groups into the network and mailing tion: "the gradual establishment of an lists were too rigorous, and the commu- area of freedom, security and of justice" nication amongst the participant - the formulation of the Amsterdam groups, who had already known each treaty, in force since May 1 1999, was other for years through successful as flowery as this. In reality this meant: cross-border co-operation outside the more exclusion, more control, more Net, was too hermetic. The alliance's deportation. On 15 and 16 October, in actual potential at first remained hidden France, Belgium, Italy, Denmark, the behind a certain formalism which, in Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Ger- spite of growing confidence, still many and, naturally, Finland, numerous revealed little understanding for the actions, small and large, spontaneous necessities and possibilities of Euro- and spectacular, were initiated. The pean-wide co-operation. Opportunities direct exchange of information and the such as the journey of the 'Tute co-ordination of the actions over the bianche' to Valona passed by without period of the EU summit was the task

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of a temporary media laboratory in deportation machinery. The campaign Kiasma, Helsinki's museum for contem- concentrated on soiling the airlines' porary art. As in the early days of "No reputations with few, but well thought- one is illegal" at the documentaX, the out, virtual attacks. The airlines, whose terrain of contemporary art seemed to prestige was inseparable from the myth be a suitable operation basis for an of global mobility and invented figures internationally constituted team of such as the businessman-nomad roam- media activists, who, with the help of ing freely without borders, were sys- mailing lists and websites, sought to tematically confronted with the shock- cover, network and reinforce the differ- ing reality of violent deportation. The ent actions in front of the conference cynical practices of a deportation busi- centre in Tampere and everywhere in ness that left dead bodies in its wake Europe. What today seems a matter of were exposed using guerrilla communi- course was at the time still a small sen- cation methods and activism on the sation: the successful co-ordination and Net. Fake brochures in the usual trade synchronization of reports and materi- jargon publicizing preferential treat- als from the various countries laid the ment in a special "Deportation Class", foundations for the new start of the hidden theatre and performances, end- Noborder network, which from here on less, deceptively authentic-looking aimed to put much more emphasis on advertising material, interventions at actions that were interconnected at a shareholders' meetings and press con- European level. ferences on company performance, and a large-scale online demonstration in One year before, shortly after the death which over ten thousand Net activists of the asylum seeker Semira Adamou in paralyzed the online flight reservation Belgium, there had been protest actions server for almost two hours had been in many countries which were heard of putting pressure on the German well beyond the respective national Lufthansa GmbH since the spring of borders. When, in the following 1999. But other airlines were also being months, so-called "deportees" in Aus- punished: from "Brutish Airways" to tria, Switzerland and Germany also met KLM, from "Siberia" to the Rumanian violent deaths in the course of their TAROM, who threw in the towel after deportation, the Noborder activists ini- the first protest action and cancelled tiated joint European-wide operations. their business with the deportation "Deportation-alliance" was the provoca- charters. With the "deportation- tive title of a campaign targeting the alliance" campaign, it became possible airlines that offered their services as not only to cleverly avoid direct con- willing henchmen to the European frontation with the national govern-

94 The Absolute Report NO BORDER! FLORIAN SCHNEIDER ments - which in many countries was a political education in remote areas, and lost cause - and to prevent sudden direct actions aimed at disrupting the deportations not only at an individual smooth running of the border regime. level and literally at the last moment, Following the first two camps on the but in fact to impede deportation pro- German-Polish border, offshoots sprang ceedings on a large scale. In a refreshing up along the Polish-Ukrainian, Polish- manner it also became clear how experi- Belo-Russian and Slovenian-Croatian ences and successful methods could be borders, which quickly led to an inde- transferred to different countries and pendent networking of Noborder contexts. Networking took place on a activists in Eastern Europe. The primary new level: actions and activities were discussion theme here was the conse- developed, planned and executed across quences of borders' being advanced in national borders. The campaign met the course of the European Union's with great resonance, despite coming expansion into the East. Particular atten- from a position which at first sight did- tion was focused on the role of the n't stand a chance, and had growing International Organisation of Migration success in harnessing very different (IOM), which, contrary to the humani- experiences, contacts, knowledge, tarian aims of the UNHCR, had crystal- resources and creative abilities in the lized into a transnational agency for the battle against the mighty corporations, worldwide expansion of repressive and above all in coping with the conse- migration management. quent pressure. The collaboration on the second project which the Noborder But soon there were also Noborder network set to work on was similarly camps on the Strait of Gibraltar, the promising. Since July 1998, when a few beach of Tijuana on the US-Mexican hundred activists set up their tents for a border, and in Woomera in the middle ten-day stay only a few metres away of the Australian desert. Although the from the border river, the Neisse, this situations were totally different, with example had set a precedent; in the fol- each camp setting different priorities, lowing years, the summer camps along all the actions took place within the the outer borders of the European loose context of the Noborder camps, Union had multiplied. But they weren't which were visibly expanding. One cli- about campfire romanticism. Instead of max was reached in summer 2001 in "back to nature", the motto was: "Hack- connection with the G-8 summit in ing the borderline!" A main characteris- Geneva, when five camps took place on tic of the border camps was a multiple the European borders and networked strategy consisting in the exchange of not only by using live streams in the experience and political debate, classical Internet, but also by means of a large-

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scale media project which later diplomacy. On this basis it then acquired particular fame: the People's became possible for varied and differen- Theatre Caravan was an attempt to get tiated forms of action to complement border camps and the so-called anti- one another without needing to be globalisation movement to relate more planned and agreed upon in advance, as closely to one another and, in so doing, long as the common intention was to not to trust so much in ideological pref- systematically expand the scope for erences as in practical exchange and action and not to narrow it. contemporary means of media communication. The manifold experiences of "Borders are there to be crossed". The the summer of 2001 peaked for the first sentence from the call to the Ger- Noborder activists in the fourth Ger- man border camp in 1999 probably clar- man border camp, which was organized ified best what the actions in the no- in the shadow of the international man's-land at the other end of the Rhine-Main Airport in Frankfurt only nation state were all about: the demand one week after the protests surrounding for unrestricted freedom of movement the G-8 meeting in Geneva. By merely as a basic right for all the people of this announcing forthcoming protest world, the mobilization of all possible actions, the activists managed to lead available forms of resistance against the the police to cordon off the airport degrading, inhuman border regime, the with several task-force squadrons for development of a form of global com- almost a whole week. This blockade, munication marked by the free and live- which led at times to chaotic condi- ly exchange of ideas, experiences and tions in the middle of the holiday sea- abilities in their respective uniqueness. son, did not have a solely metaphorical This demand and the resulting debates meaning; with the role exchange the are not abstract text-components in an supposed guardians of the law were in ideological ivory tower, but are experi- the end landed with an enormous prob- enced day to day when people, for lem of co-ordination that left them whatever reasons, go over the borders with no alternative but to demonize the which the arbitrariness of the imperial activists as even bigger Chaoten (chaot- command forbids them to cross. ic person, but also a slang name for left- wing anarchists). However, instead of Neither false labelling - when, in the emerging as a black bloc whose sole context of the ruling world order, an aim was the demolition of the airport, alleged "globalization" is proclaimed - the Noborder camp triumphed with nor sentimental nostalgia over the classical music concerts, radical cheer- traceless disappearance of the national leading and all the methods of refined welfare state even approach the current

96 The Absolute Report NO BORDER! FLORIAN SCHNEIDER political challenges. On the contrary, used the media festival "Make World" by sticking to trusted interpretational in Munich to debate the current situa- patterns and traditional recipes, a pre- tion of international networking. dominant tendency in some of the Artists, trade unionists, media activists globalization criticism after Seattle, one and political activists from all over can't but systematically fail to recog- Europe and many parts of the world nize the actual potential of both the met up only a few weeks after the new migration movements as well as events in Geneva and a few days after transnational networking. Reduced to the attacks of September 11. Basically, purely humanitarian aspects or sense- the festival focused on bringing togeth- lessly combined with the long obsolete er the different experiences had in con- idea of national independence, the nection with two key themes of the migration question continues to exist, nineties: digital media, new networking rather sadly, as a sideline contradiction, technology and the resulting labour cri- only as a low-priority consequence of sis on the one hand and, on the other, the excesses of world-wide capitalism. the issue of freedom of movement, the It's no coincidence that this ignorance current struggle of an international and often goes hand in hand with a Bieder- multi-ethnically constituted working meier-like attitude to the new commu- class, and the insidious change of para- nication technologies, which, once it digm in the ruling politics of migration. has misjudged their potential, sees them The results of the conference were as at best as a necessary evil. It is thus no varied as the participants: From the wonder that, instead of delivering a Munich Volksbad declaration to the matrix for a form of "globalization from first public presentation of plans for a below" that goes beyond a mere rhetor- common European- wide Noborder- ical form, the agendas of the numerous camp in Strasbourg, from the presenta- congresses, counter-conferences and tion of the data-base project "Everyone counter-demonstrations of the anti- is an expert" to a spontaneous tour tak- globalisation movement explicitly ing in several German towns, which include neither migration nor new was organised by two groups from the media. The big Thursday demonstra- US - the American Trade Union and tion in Geneva made it clear that tack- migrant movements. ling globalization was not possible without the express acknowledgement These two last approaches also deliv- of the world-wide migration movement. ered the basis for the attempt to define How can this, however, become more anew the previous politics of refugee than a symbolic gesture? A large part of support: more than ever, it was a matter the group of the Noborder network of no longer seeing migrants as victims

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and simple objects of state repression or under precarious conditions. In any political functionalism, acts of charity case, the database project or demographic statistics, but rather as "expertbase.net", which was publicized political subjects with a variety of moti- in a first test version at the "Make vations, experiences and abilities that, World" conference, is a provocative however, are generally demolished the attempt to counteract the realities of an moment the border is crossed to create unofficial labour market by means of a the pre-conditions for exploitation in virtual job-mediating machine, which an informal working market. doesn't ask for papers and where those interested can present themselves Against this background, reports on the anonymously and define their abilities current struggles of the textile workers and skills as they wish. But there is in the sweatshops of downtown Los more: over and above the actual finding Angeles and the cleaning people from of jobs, the forum offers an excellent the "Justice for Janitors" campaign were chance to determine the new composi- assigned a key role in the same way as tion of the migrant working class, the "sans papiers" in Paris five years pre- above all at the lower wage levels of viously. On the other hand, the chal- the new "affect labour". As a virtual, lenge was to adapt the practical experi- militant investigation, certain informa- ence of multi-ethnic organization in the tion could be acquired, under various workplace to conditions in this country. different focuses, on the subjectivity of the hired house-helps, care workers, In June 2002 the temporary network cleaning personnel and programmers „every person is an expert" (called into who are currently hired in masses and being by some activists from the border come primarily from Eastern Europe. camps and "No one is illegal") started the next attempt to gauge the potential The prevailing migration discourse has for concrete co-operation with trade long since shifted from the wholesale unionists and the initiators of a new hermetic isolation of the national legalization campaign based around the labour market to a highly efficient project "Kanak attack". But in spite of process of filtering out the exact work the promising contact and the exciting force needed on an only temporary new insights gained, for example, dur- basis. This change of paradigm funda- ing the builders' strike in early summer, mentally transforms the special role and in which many workers, especially ille- function of the borders: as in many gal workers, participated, it remains to other areas, networking technologies be seen how serious the intentions are replacing the banal methods of visa within the German trade union appara- endorsement and face checks that were tus are to truly represent the interests of previously common. Borders are no illegal workers and those employed longer material lines of fortification

98 The Absolute Report NO BORDER! FLORIAN SCHNEIDER made clearly identifiable by barbed nalized; where neighbours are turned wire or highly developed surveillance into voluntary informers in the service instruments. The border regime, often of the border patrol; when to stand by still played down by using the well- others and grant support is no longer meant metaphor "the fortress of the most normal thing in the world, but Europe", is becoming omnipresent. has been turned into a serious crime. Under the pressure of increasing mobility and in view of the autonomy of The new borders are virtual not only massive immigration, the drawing-up of because an inspection must be antici- borders is becoming virtual, and one pated at practically any time, but can scarcely generalize any more about because the physical realm is short-cir- its repressive character: it could just was cuited with databases and data-currents well happen here as there, for this rea- from which the corresponding access son or another, and with a series of dif- rights are drawn. In almost all areas of ferent consequences. Borders fold and digitalized life information is checked, shift inwards or outwards, they are which in real time is degenerated and advanced into safe third states and regenerated into innumerable data. It's expanded into the hinterland. For some a question of collecting indicators of time now, controls have not just been habits, preferences and convictions, limited to nation states, and now cover which are as easily evaluated as they are the inner cities' traffic junctions and arbitrarily interpreted. User profiles supraregional traffic routes to the same give information about one thing above extent as they do half- or non-public all: who or what is useful right now and spheres, the most prominent of these who or what isn't. This has long been being the workplace. about much more than a mere proof of identity. Borders are inverted and priva- The post-modern control society, tized, and not only because it is now which is becoming a reality in the most not so much the state that monitors internalized border, tends to individual- personnel, passengers, couples and ize power and to anchor itself in the passers-by but enterprises and private process of subjectification instead of people. What once were purely private getting rid of less pleasant subjects by matters are now exposed to the merci- means of inclusion and exclusion, as less eye of a general public and what was previously the case. 'Border' today was previously publicly accessible is is everywhere where people who want suddenly, and without further ado, or have to spend an uncertain length of restricted. The creeping inversion of time in another country are turned into public and private spheres, territory and illegal immigrants; where people who hyperspace has progressed to the extent do not have the privilege of a regular where communication, not private wage are not ashamed to be thus crimi- property, has become the determining

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production factor and where people no capacity to act which goes beyond bor- longer own anything but their informa- ders and innumerable differences, or tion value. Traditional basic rights such even thrives on them. At first sight, the as freedom of movement are becoming experiences from Strasbourg were, for increasingly linked with the question of many, quite shocking: a striking inabili- informational self-determination. The ty to communicate, inwardly or out- Noborder camp in Strasbourg in July wardly, and a incapacity to take and 2002 was not only an attempt to criti- democratically legitimate decisions; cize, with a joint Europe-wide action, these abilities are all the more necessary the border and migration regimes of in situations like this, where communi- the countries that are party to the cation takes place in different lan- Schengen convention, but also, by putting the political focus on the Schengen guages, where ideas come from count- information system (SIS), to highlight less contexts, and where action occurs restrictions on freedom of movement against widely varying backgrounds. and information. Personal information However, the Noborder camp could about illegal migrants has been collect- quickly prove itself as a extraordinary ed for years in huge data banks in order case which illustrates all too clearly to bring under the greatly expanded how a political and practical fixation on jurisdiction of state control those very the apparatus of state repression can people who have been robbed of all only mislead, and how long overdue a possible rights. collective of movements is that adds up to more than the sum of individual ges- Despite, or perhaps because of, the tures. A modern concept of militancy numerous participants, the Noborder must above all be creative and produce camps managed to communicate this new forms of resistance that proceed new dimension of migration control at from the flexibilization and deregula- a European level in a rudimentary man- tion of the conditions governing the ner at best, let alone being able to production of subjectivity and that translate it into action. During the ten operate, experiment and intervene at days in Strasbourg, the two to three precisely this level. In the end, nothing thousand participants from over twenty and no one can tell what people might countries in Europe were predominant- make of themselves if they were only ly concerned with themselves and their allowed to. own differences, and from the start did not manage to shift the focus; i.e., to abandon the attempt to level out these differences and to use them instead as the starting point for a new political

100 The Absolute Report APSOLUTNO ABSOLUTE SALE ROSSITZA DASKALOVA

association APSOLUTNO reflects the style of auction houses’ promo- THE ABSOLUTE tional catalogues. However, at this auction of East European art, SALE the lots on offer are not works of art, but artists from the East European region, who The Absolute Sale is a web project based on were born on 1 January 2001, at the beginning an ironic view on the position of the East of the new millenium. The prospective buyers European artist in relation to the Western art can, therefore, only make reservations for the market. The piece simulates an auction, in artist(s) they are interested in. Although the which viewers play the role of prospective destiny of these East European artists is buyers. They are presented with detailed already determined and stated in the data- information on the process of buying at this base, buying at this auction is nevertheless a auction, as well as on the lots offered for sale. risky business and the prospective buyer is The description of the process of auctioning constantly reminded of this fact. Any of the

mostly artists from this region. The sale APSOLUTNO of being is indeed an “absolute” one... Once, a street sign with the word ABSOLUTE HUMAN (in English and in the language of the country from which the SALE “lot” comes from) written on it appears in the middle of the screen, and then 1997 there is the map of Europe always present as a big reality full of questions. Rossitza Daskalova The silent, unchangeable, expression- less image of the map acts as a sponge, With dark humour and an unbearable silently absorbing the information lightness, Apsolutno launches a virtual about the lots and other sales details auction of lots from the former Eastern from a separate window in which the bloc countries. It all seems to go fine as auction is taking place. As the informa- we read the rules of the auction, which tion in the auction window accumu- are plain and clear, follow the instruc- lates, the map invisibly turns from a tions, choose a method of payment. At receiver into a transmitter, confronting one point, however, we find out that the us by simply being there, sending items for sale are human individuals, unwritten questions and messages

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lots can be withdrawn at any moment without notice, and, what is more, the buyer is informed that the information in the database is not to be relied upon. The organ- izers of the sale insist that they do not take any responsibility for the transactions. Furthermore, the sale is constantly postponed, as is the integration of Eastern European countries into the European Union.

toward us. The map, motionless, hangs including in the identifications/descrip- onto the screen as a constant, pending tions of the lots. With the presence of reality and becomes imbued with mean- only two visual signs (the map and the ings. Its initial weightlessness trans- street sign), this overall controlled ren- forms into a significant weight thrown dering prevents the project from falling into the hands of the viewer. Its silence into a higher dose of dramatization, becomes a wake-up call. Viewed in the something to which the idea of the context of Absolute Sale, the words project is susceptible. Furthermore, the “I’ve never seen the face and that’s what “lots” are semi-fictitious characters who I have always wanted. I’ve never seen are artists from the former Eastern bloc. the face and that’s what I fear the most” Buyers need not worry, as they will not (found in the About section for the have to face their purchase until in Apsolutno collective) sound like an twenty years’ time, because most of the alarming signal pointing to the Internet “lots” were born in 2001 and will not be as a yet unexplored magnifying glass available until they reach the age of through which we can view reality in eighteen. The clever net.art kind of new, revealing ways that can find us shift in handling this identity/non-iden- unprepared. tity saves the project from sinking into self-indulgence and cynicism. The use of cold, to-the-point words is Absolute Sale revolves around the kept throughout the whole project, issues of divided/united Europe, and

102 The Absolute Report APSOLUTNO ABSOLUTE SALE ROSSITZA DASKALOVA

points critically at ideas, ideologies and which is embodied in an identity geopolitical and economic aspirations anchored in life. which are taken as absolutes and leave no room for human identity. From a Within the framework of the “auction”, post-totalitarian, post-communist, ex- there is also a post-net.art, ex-Eastern- Eastern bloc perspective, the artists are European vision to the work. As Lev questioning not only absolutes but also Manovich brilliantly points out in Art- the sales activities spread over the margins, “Roundtable Ten Years After”: Internet space. A particular battle- “As it turned out, these countries have ground of interests and beliefs, the something to contribute to this global Internet is revealed in this project as a society in a few areas: new consumer critical tool and as a mediator, balanc- markets, cheap labour, superbly trained ing between destructive tendencies of musicians and sportsmen (in the case of globalization on the one hand and eth- Russia), and millions of “Internet brides” nocentrism on the other. The destruc- who would marry anybody just to leave tive tendencies are those which discon- the East. nect the individual from his humanity,

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However, in the area of the arts, the of net art in the West, which will prob- long-term isolation of the East from the ably marginalize the players from the West has had a negative effect. As a East once again.” result, its art turned out to be by and large excluded from a global cultural marketplace. One exemption to this general inability to compete in a global art culture in the 1990s was the new area of net art, where, owing to the lack of an established institutional Mafia in the West, and to the financial support from the Soros Foundation, a number of artists from the East were able to quickly become brand-name international players. However, today, we are witnessing the rapid institutionalization

104 The Absolute Report APSOLUT ASSOCIATIONS LEE MONTGOMERY

1999 aA 0001 This idea is developed in the installation through a number of complementary ele- MEDIENFASSADE ments: human - machine, black - white, letter - number, sound - movement. The idea can also Date: Berlin 27 August 1999 be seen at the level of the realization of the Place: The VEAG media facade, video sequence, which includes computer Chausseestrasse 23, Berlin animation on the one hand and footage with an actor on the other. The starting idea for the installation on the media facade was the notion of energy, the The installation is clearly divided into two com- main product of the VEAG company. In the plementary sets of screens: horizontal and ver- installation association APSOLUTNO aims to tical, taking into account the architecture of point out both the energy produced, controlled the building and the position of the screens. and used by humankind, and also the energy While each set has its independent existence of a human being and its creative potential. as a visual whole, together they represent a

bridge, now there is a “morally superi- APSOLUT or” pontoon bridge. Where once there was Yugoslavia there are so many smaller places. Suddenly, a land of psycho- ASSOCIATIONS logical geography. A land where my LeE Montgomery avoidance of maps might actually serve me well c might serve us all well. Asso- ciation Apsolutno reminds us that it is As an American whose sense of geogra- all “Absolutely Temporary”. phy swirls ever so politically, it would do me some good to look at a map When I arrived in Budapest and was to once in a while. I might then under- meet with two members of Apsolutno stand where the USSR was and where that I had heard much about but never the Balkans are. Instead I am left to see seen, I found myself in an interesting “the Balkans” as a roughly shifting and gradual position of discovery of motion blur of conceptual borders in two individuals. Two individual parts of the middle of the European continent. a larger collective. Later, I would tell Formerly Eastern Europe, then Central them that I had for a long time mistak- Europe. Where once there were bridges en one quarter of the association for of glory there are bridges no more. the whole thing. Only after seeing the Where once there was a pontoon enduring bond formed by a true psy-

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dynamic composition with a specific rhythm of will see the video wall as an animation both synchronised and separate sections. As sequence at different speeds. the architecture of the VEAG building gives an impression of solidity and stability, with its The installation is realized in three colours emphasized vertical elements, our idea is for only: black, white and red; black and white as the installation to create an effect of the build- two opposite poles, and red as energy. ing in movement: at one moment in the horizontal screens the ‘generators’ start moving faster and faster, which will create an illusion that the building is moving on its “wheels”.

Taking into account that the installation will be viewed from various distances and perspectives, a passer-by walking on the pavement, a driver in a passing car or a passenger on a bus

chological geography stretching from life in California were subjugated in my Budapest to San Francisco was I able to mind to the nationalistic expressions of truly understand the larger entity which Balkanized license plate and automobile is Apsolutno and which is perhaps not decoration. Thoughts of nations con- so temporary as their 5-year plan might tained in private spaces scattered suggest. throughout c. mobile, private spaces, crossing borders and boundaries. The Of two weeks spent in Budapest I spent art of this association reminded me of one in the “apsolutno base” apartment. where I was while tugging me back Some e-mails had been exchanged, but home to images of a slide show with I had no idea what to expect. I arrived very different implications in a very dif- in the night with little sleep on the ferent context. In California, these mov- flight. With help, I found my way to ing borders and nations swirled and the apartment. Sparsely decorated, but blurred with all of the conceptual beau- somewhat revealing. Ice-cream in the ty of anti-Oedipal schizophrenia. In refrigerator can Ost/West anthology to Budapest, there were nations whose bor- read. In it an essay whose ideas I had ders had shifted more recently than the seen presented a year or more before in last time I had changed the furniture in San Francisco in the form of a slide my apartment, and just a train ride show. It was a discussion of automobiles away; the essence of real-world schizo- and license plates. The vanity plates of phrenia. The substance that this associa-

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tion used was not film or language or them happy. Pick someone at random & the Internet. “Apsolutno views the use convince them they’re the heir to an of these technologies as a natural enormous, useless & amazing fortune— process, which has its positive as well as say 5000 square miles of Antarctica, or its negative sides. The use of this medi- an aging circus elephant, or an orphan- um will not in itself bring a unique qual- age in Bombay, or a collection of ity to a piece of work. ... The choice of alchemical mass. Later they will come a particular medium is an important ele- to realize that for a few moments they ment of any project.” It may seem believed in something extraordinary, clichéd, but Apsolutno’s medium and & will perhaps be driven as a result to materials are the world around them. seek out some more intense mode of Apsolutno are masters of reality. existence.

“Weird dancing in all-night computer- Bolt up brass commemorative banking lobbies. Unauthorized plaques in places (public or pyrotechnic displays. Land-art, earth- private) where you have experienced a revelation or works as bizarre alien artifacts strewn in had a particularly fulfilling State Parks. Burglarize houses but sexual experience, etc.” instead of stealing, leave Poetic-Terror- -Hakim Bey, “Chaos: The Broad- ist objects. Kidnap someone & make sheets of Ontological Anarchism”

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Sell the myths that have been built this piece was about so much more around you. Shape the commodifica- than the technology. This “Absolute tion of your being. Get rid of the mid- Sale” was a comment on and engage- dle man. Sell artists instead of art. As ment with the anonymity and crass the borders of Eastern Europe become commercialism of the Internet, while the borders of Central Europe, Apsolut- simultaneously standing in critical no trawls the countryside for future engagement with the idea of an exoti- artists and holds an “Absolute Sale”. cized artist or community of artists by These artists from the countries of Mid- the surrounding (i.e. Western) world. dle Europe or perhaps Deep Europe in Firing broad shots at the concept of a 1997 were not yet born. Buyers could work of art purchased because of the be in on the cultural boom ahead of the celebrity value of its producer, we are curve purchasing photographers, video forced to decide: are we appreciative of artists, and more for discount prices. the art or the artist, and even then, Choose a country first, and see what’s what are we appreciating about the available. Presented to a room full of artist? bewildered non-tech savvy artists this internet piece was doomed before it Apsolutno is not about the artist. started, as those assembled felt their Apsolutno is not about celebrity. distance from the piece by virtue of the It took some time for me to learn it, technology. Little did they know that but the association is the important

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part. I would see one quarter of the of a national figure? When the bridge association negotiating shows and was once again destroyed, did the demanding the work be presented as plaque become an oracle in retrospect? the work of Apsolutno. The curators When walking through Budapest with always wanted a star. Apsolutno would one half of the association, they not give them one. showed me photographs of the bombed bridge and the rebuilt bridge posted in Terrorists we know in America as myth- front of the Yugoslav embassy. Miloše- ical figures. Celebrities in their way. vić had made declarations of glory for Celebrities are heroes that can be torn the new (temporary in its very con- down. Figures to whom we can attrib- struction) bridge. This new bridge was ute habits and evil deeds. Saddam Hus- by virtue of Milošević’s words “a moral- sein, Osama Bin Laden, Momar Qadaf- ly superior” bridge. What causes one fi, Yassir Arafat for a time; but what proclamation to trump another? Is it about Poetic Terrorists from a more only political power? Is there a place European “Middle-East”? One wonders for cummm ccultural capital? when looking at the “Absolutely Tem- porary” plaque: which came first, reve- morally superior ...... absolutely lation or the plaque? Did the plaque temporary ... you be the judge change the bridge’s importance any more or less than the pronouncements

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Reviewing this period has been quite a 1995 - 2000 tumultuous experience for me. I hope I’ve managed to transmit this in what AND ON... follows. In 1995, Great Britain was entering its For Apsolutno from PLATFORM sixteenth year of Conservative Party with love and respect rule, a period of an immense shift in values tantamount to a cultural revolu- PLATFORM is an interdisciplinary tion. The Thatcher years brought with group of artists, campaigners, educators them a wholesale attack on the notion and activists who, since 1983, have of the Welfare State (state-subsidised been creating projects, interventions, mass education, health, and essential debates and change at the interface services) moving towards a US-style between ecology and democracy. In ‘safety-net-for-the-very-fewest’ model 1989, PLATFORM based itself in the and placing hospitals and the medical metropolis of London and made this profession under tremendous ethical city the subject of its study and the and practical strain. The very concept object for change. The group operates of trade unionism was assaulted as between activism, campaigning and art union after union, strike after strike was strategies, and seeks its economic sta- ignored or violated by the government, bility from these fields, bidding for and scabs encouraged. Privatisation of funding from the state and charitable nationalised industries and services foundations and trusts, and also from meant that, one by one, telecommuni- earned income. cations, water, gas, coal, oil, electricity, rail, bus...became part of a scramble for Our contribution discusses how the profit in a so-called egalitarian move period in question impacted on that made the person in the street a PLATFORM’s three core members potential stock marketeer. Council individually and collectively, politically, house building programmes were environmentally, artistically, and above slashed, and mass home-ownership was all in terms of imagining possible encouraged, promising false dawns for futures. many who attempted to buy their previously low-rented homes, only to find 26th March 2001 they could not keep up the mortgage payments. Thousands found themselves Jane Trowell, art history teacher, musician, and being repossessed, and even homeless. PLATFORM member. Government-led waves of xenophobia

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‘Image created for 90% Crude project, 1998’

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were also part of this period : fear of and Kosovo, possibly now the struggles the immigrant, fear of the refugee, fear in Macedonia. Yes, Britain still likes to of the asylum seeker. The island that is see itself as the world’s policeman, issu- Britain indeed can access its isolationist ing punishments and wagging fingers psychogeography at the drop of an disapprovingly, disastrously. If it has to ideological hat... be the yes-man to the USA, that seems to be second best... The 80s were a period of rampant capitalism in our country, led by our We voted in this set of values four city and a electorate that was dazzled times. I say ‘we’ voted, yet the fact that by all that glitters. The ‘Big Bang’ of our electoral system does not represent 1986 deregulated the City - the finan- the true feelings of the electorate - cial heart of London - and the era of average 40% turnout for a limited selec- big bets, big rewards, and big bonuses tion of candidates with a ‘first past the became a cultural obsession. To work in post’ method of ‘winning’ which ignores finance became sexy. To make millions the diverse wishes of the populace - with the click of a mouse became the coupled with the extraordinary charis- ultimate high. ma of Thatcher in the popular imagination, meant that for those of us com- Nationalism was also on the rise, mitted to the development of democra- demonstrated graphically by govern- cy and social justice, those of us comment and tabloid media rhetoric around mited to ecological issues, to anti-cor- the Malvinas (Falklands) War (1982), porate futures...these years were bleak, the Gulf War (1991 - )... Our ‘special if defiant. relationship’ with the US government was cemented by the Thatcher-Reagan By the time Thatcher was ousted by her years and attitudes to Iraq : the legacy own party, the damage was done. The of which can be illustrated well by the country of consensus, where Left and fact the Britain and the USA together Right celebrated the establishment of have been dropping bombs on this the Welfare State (whilst of course dif- country on a regular basis for ten whole fering on detail), was gone. Our coun- years. Maybe tonight again? or tomor- try is now nakedly capitalistic, and big row? This is on top of punitive sanc- business - profit - has a hand in almost tions, and coercive ‘food for oil’ tactics. every branch of former public life. But This alliance further manifested itself Britain has also had its shocks - and years later in the confused, alternately some of them good. One of the incom- passive and bloody military reaction of ing Labour Party’s first acts was to bring Britain to the wars in Croatia, Bosnia about a referendum for devolution of

112 The Absolute Report 1995 - 2000 AND ON... PLATFORM power : a vote for an independent Scot- car-share schemes, renewable energy tish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. schemes in the form of photo-voltaic Despite the much-criticised tokenism of panels and wind turbines found com- the Welsh Assembly (not a full parlia- monly in the Netherlands, Germany, ment), this has been a radical step Belgium... towards decentralisation and a much needed recognition of difference within As for London, well, the city has never these islands. The uneasy peace in the been dirtier or more disastrously served North of Ireland achieved by John by ‘public’ transport (the buses are Major’s government has largely been owned and run by private companies, maintained, with of course many diffi- while the Underground totters along culties and, indeed, continuing out- under financially deprived state-owner- breaks of sickening violence. ship). The average speed on London’s roads is the same as in the days of the Environmentally, Britain saw an horse and carriage - 8 miles per hour. explosion of activism in the 90s. The momentum of the anti-roads movement Yet there is a glimmer of hope. London ‘Reclaim the Streets’ and the land-squat- has, for the first time in 14 years, an ter grouping ‘The Land is Ours’ snow- elected body to oversee it. In 1986, balled into a mass network of activists Thatcher achieved one of her most bru- partying against car culture and the tal domestic aims : to disempower the increasing domination of the world by left-wing Greater London Council and transnational corporations. The sudden six other metropolitan authorities. She and very dramatic flooding that hit Bri- did this quite simply by abolishing tain in autumn 2000 has awakened them. Between then and 2000, London- many people for whom the changing ers had no elected body to represent climate due to the burning of fossil them, to look after their interests. Lon- fuels was not an issue. Britain has been don was run by non-elected bodies seemingly under an endless grey cloud directly responsible to central govern- of rain for the past five months : the ment : in other words, the capital and warmer wetter winters and drier sum- the other major cities were run along mers predicted for Britain by climate party political lines. In 1997, the experts are indeed becoming a threat- incoming Labour Party proposed an ening reality. Britain seems miles Assembly with a mayor, and this was behind its northern European neigh- approved by Londoners, even thought bours - a trip across the Channel can be many of us felt that it was a poor shad- both inspiring and depressing, as one ow of a properly representative local witnesses immaculate public transport, government. Interestingly, the Labour

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Party wanted to block the former leader renewable energy and the seductive of the Greater London Council - left- nature of big business have been wing Ken Livingstone - from standing explored through performance, public- for Mayor, in favour of a more moder- space activism, discussion events, mass ate Labour candidate. They failed in publishing and art interventions. This their attempt, due to high-profile popu- long-term project will run for at least lar revolt, but forced him to resign from ten years, and to date has comprised the Party in order to stand as an inde- nine sub-projects (see chart). pendent. Ken Livingstone - at a four- teen-year interval - was elected back to PLATFORM is artist-led, but works his former role as leader of London’s interdisciplinarily, believing that government. (The new Assembly build- through such collaborations solutions ing - a glass egg - is going up only 300 and possible futures can be arrived at metres from where I sit in PLATFORM, with more imagination, more veracity, in the shadow of Tower Bridge on the more depth and - through consensus - Thames.) Through the re-election of more chance of taking authentic root. ‘Red Ken’, Londoners gave the Labour and Conservative Parties the finger. Jus- We have an increasing network of col- tice can happen. leagues and associates internationally, although the focus of our work remains And what of PLATFORM in this turbu- on how to understand and influence our lent period? Our work as artists, own situation here in England. Between activists and campaigners has been inti- 1995 and 2000, PLATFORM forged mately bound up with all these issues especially strong links to radical pro- and more. In the period in question, we democracy artists working in Yugoslavia initiated our most ambitious production (Vojvodina and Serbia) and also in Ger- to date, called 90% Crude (1996 - ). many. It is interesting to us that our 90% Crude focuses on the impact and strongest connections should be with implications of the increasing grip of artists in these countries. Is it that there globalised capitalism, specifically exam- is common ground? Britain is a former ining London and Londoners’ role in Empire, and white English people this. We are looking deeply at one of remain in a deep struggle with an out- its most powerful instruments, one that dated superiority complex. Britain’s has perhaps the most devastating imperial legacy reverberates on through impact on the planet and its peoples : the dominance of Anglophone culture the oil industry. To date, issues such as in the world, on the internet, and the human rights, ecology, land rights, cli- legacy of war and internal strife that mate change, sustainable development, Britain engendered on its withdrawal

114 The Absolute Report 1995 - 2000 AND ON... PLATFORM from its former colonies in Africa and when it does this, and, that amongst the Indian sub-continent. At home, Bri- these people such art sometimes runs tain struggles with ‘Little Englander’ like a rumour and a legend because it racism on a profound and disturbing makes sense of what life’s brutalities level - sometimes, despite extraordinary cannot, a sense that unites us, for it is work by extraordinary people, there inseparable from a justice at last. Art, seems no end to the institutional and when it functions like this, becomes a internalised disdain of centuries. It meeting place - of the invisible, the seems to us that on some level irreducible, the enduring, guts, and PLATFORM has instinctively been honour.’ drawn to artists and activists from (from ‘Keeping a Rendez-vous’). countries with historical problems related to our own. Indeed, one of our 90% 11th March 2001 Crude projects, ‘killing us softly’, examines ‘white-collar’ perpetrator psycholo- James Marriott, sculptor, naturalist, gy, with relation to the administrative and co-founder of PLATFORM bureaucracies underpinning Nazi Ger- many, the British Empire and contem- Foreword porary corporate culture. I wrote the following text ‘Seven Perhaps one of the most radical acts of Thoughts...’ on 1st October 1995, those born in former imperial or impe- right in the opening moments of rially-minded countries is to work on PLATFORM`s current project 90% that legacy as it manifests itself within Crude - nearly five and a half years oneself and in others : to work at dis- ago. Reading back over it I realise how mantling the mindset which keeps sur- much, and how little has changed. facing and perpetrating, way beyond the proclaimed official end. A mere forty days after the essay was written, on 10th November 1995, Ogoni writer and environmental Author John Berger has said: activist Ken Saro -Wiwa was executed ‘I can’t tell you what art does and how by the Nigerian military along with it does it, but I know that often art has eight other pro-democracy activists on judged the judges, pleaded revenge to trumped-up charges which disguised the innocent and shown to the future the military’s blatant aim of silencing what the past suffered so that it has mass protest against the polluting abuse never been forgotten. I know too that of oil companies in the Niger Delta. the powerful fear art, whatever its form, Royal Dutch/Shell is an oil company

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jointly owned by Dutch and British ry and the natonal psyche. Only by interests, and has been heavily involved staring it in the face can lasting change in oil extraction in the ‘bread basket’ of take place. the delta area since the ‘60s, when Nigeria was still a British colony. Shell’s Since October 1995, much else has relationship to these murders came changed. Scotland has achieved devolu- under close scrutiny, and since that tion, it has its own parliament for the time there have been sporadic but high- first time since 1707. However, the oil profile demonstrations against Shell - in the North Sea remains very much pickets of AGM`s, occupations of U.K. oil, and has not `become` Scottish offices, boycotts of petrol stations. oil. Further South, London has arguably Shell has responded, contrite words and become more of an oil city than ever the annual publication of its ‘Profits and before. Over the last five years there Principles’ reports since 1997 have gone have been significant changes in the some way to dampen criticism in its structures of the oil industry: whereas `home countries` - the U.K., the U.S.A. there were seven `oil majors` known as and the Netherlands. However, the the Seven Sisters, there are now just most effective weapon this century-old Three Sisters - BP Amoco, Royal company has employed is time itself - Dutch/Shell and ExxonMobil. Two of just surviving the fierce heat of interna- the Seven Sisters were based in Lon- tional criticism and waiting for it to fiz- don, now two of the Three Sisters are zle out. Largely this has been the case based in our home city. The importance in Europe and America, but in Ogoni- of London to the oil industry has land resistance continues. Shell is still grown significantly, although the rank- barred from entering Ogoniland, and ing of oil corporations in the `Worlds` despite the murder of leaders and Largest’ listings has shifted : Shell is repeated harassment of activists, the now the worlds 21st largest company, Movement for the Survival of the dropping from number four; BP Amoco Ogoni Peoples (MOSOP) has retained has risen from number 27 to number its strength. At PLATFORM the story 14. These two giants still dominate the of Ogoniland has not faded, but seems U.K., and indeed European economy. to return ever stronger - in performanc- They form the subject of PLATFORM`s es such as ‘killing us softly’, and ‘Carbon ongoing performance work ‘Gog and Generations’; in exhibitions such as Magog’. ‘Water, Land, Fire’ and publications such as ‘From Delta to Delta’. This Finally, over this period the perception story - seemingly distant - we believe is of Climate Change has shifted dramati- intimately bound up with British histo- cally. In 1995 it was, tellingly, referred

116 The Absolute Report 1995 - 2000 AND ON... PLATFORM to as Global Warming - now the talk is SEVEN THOUGHTS ON 90% CRUDE of Climate Change, or Climate Chaos. In November 1997, the Kyoto Confer- 1 ence took place and targets for the “A shared expression of feeling is the foundation reduction of CO2 emissions were laid of any change. down; they were to be ratified at the Is it possible to create such a `shared feeling`, not Hague Conference in November 2000. just within a town or a city, but across vast However this latter gathering collapsed international trade systems? What is the con- without agreement. Some have argued nection between our Home and other people`s convincingly that it collapsed because Land? Whose lands do we depend upon for our several parties had come to recognise needs to be met? To what extent do we as citi- that the issue is too serious for the zens of London feel any link with those thou- agreement to be a fudge. Certainly the sands, millions of people in other cities and U.K. government`s statements on Cli- countries across the world who are mining and mate Change have shifted dramatically manufacturing and producing materials that we over the last few years, particularly in consume? And if the answer is ‘none at all’, then the midst of the substantial flooding in clearly the social and ecological implications are England in the autumn of 2000, when extremely serious.“ the Prime Minister spoke of these disas- PLATFORM, ‘Homeland’, 1995 ters being attributable to Climate Change and of the need to make sub- Seated at this word processor I am stantial alterations in our energy sys- aware, just the same as anyone in this tems. Blair`s pronouncements were position, that the activity I am engaged fuelled by the reports produced by the in depends upon some far distant International Panel on Climate Change source of fuel - fuel to make the plastics (IPCC), a world body of top climate for this keyboard, fuel to make the scientists, who in February 2001 semi-conductor chip that runs this announced that their predictions about machine, fuel to generate the electricity climate change that had informed the that lights the screen before me. What Kyoto Conference were inaccurate - is the origin of this fuel? What of the the situation is far worse than they had social and ecological impacts of the outlined in their report of 1995, the means by which this fuel comes within planet is heating up at a faster rate than my control, comes to assist the move- they had previously thought. ment of my hand and the amplification of my thoughts? PLATFORM has been What does all this mean for the coming trying to explore these questions on century? And what can art do in the and off for the past six years; our last face of it all? journey being Homeland, created as

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UK Meteorological Office Climate Model

118 The Absolute Report 1995 - 2000 AND ON... PLATFORM part of London International Festival of of gas and oil. Without the ability to Theatre 1993. We are presently prepar- draw on secure resources of fossil fuels ing for a new journey; this time with a we will not be able to satisfy the insa- particular focus upon Oil - what follow tiable appetite of our metropolitan are some pointers on the direction of culture. Without these secure resources travel. the contours of our urban life would be unrecognisable. 2 3 “In the decades following World War II ... oil emerged triumphant, the undisputed King, a “For the past two hundred years, since the monarch garbed in a dazzling array of plastics ... `Wealth of Nations`, we have known that the Total world energy consumption more than tripled cities we happen to be born in depend for the between 1949 and 1972. Yet that growth paled satisfaction of their needs on the labour and beside the rise in oil demand, which in the same resources of strangers.” years increased more than five and a half times.” Michael Ignatieff, The Needs of Strangers, 1992. Daniel Yergin, ‘The Prize’, 1991 I am writing this in the valley of the Oil runs through the bloodstream of Tidal Thames, dwelling place of this metropolis, flows beneath the sur- approximately eight million people; face of everything from a biro to the together we consume 200,000 tonnes of key commodity in the City, from the fuel per week - equivalent to two super lubricant of a bicycle chain to the third tanker loads. There are a few oil rigs on largest company in the world Royal the mainland of England, in Yorkshire Dutch/Shell. Oil, along with coal and and in Dorset, but there is no oil to be gas, provides the very substance of this found in this valley and the size of the city. From the eighteenth century, Lon- demand for oil that I make with my fel- don began to grow exponentially, mak- low citizens has to be met from beyond ing itself into the largest city since the the confines of my home and my biore- fall of Rome, a Megacity that became a gion. For the current metabolism of model for the forty megacities that now London to maintained it has to make dominate the planet and provide an impact on upon the ecological and `home` for over half of humanity. Key social resources of other places, of to London`s growth was its control, and distant elsewheres. The accumulated use, of a fossil fuel - coal - and key to impact of all (not just energy) of my its continued survival, in its present city`s demands on all those distant else- form, is the maintenance of its power wheres is London`s `Ecological Foot- over sources of not only coal, but also print`. The surface area of London is

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15,980 hectares; the ecological foot- Throughout the twentieth century, print of London has been assessed at London`s desire to keep control of 19,668,000 hectares; therefore the land places of oil production - to feel that area that London needs to survive is the means of satisfying the metropoli- 1,230 times its own metropolitan size. tan appetite are secure - has been inter- woven with the defence of the British 4 Empire. The colonies of Burma, Brunei, Papua New Guinea, Malaya, Aden, “In order that England may live in comparative Nigeria, the protectorates of Kuwait comfort a hundred million Indians must live on and Iraq attempted to ensure that the the verge of starvation, an evil state of affairs Empire had a `British` source of oil and but you acquiesce in it every time you step in a that British companies, notably Shell taxi or eat a plate of strawberries and cream. and BP, had a secure foundation from The alternative is to throw the Empire overboard which to build their global position. and reduce England to a cold and unimportant little island where we should have to work very Last week the U.K. and Argentina hard and live mainly on herrings and potatoes.” signed an agreement providing for a George Orwell, ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’, 1937. joint approach towards offshore oil The United Kingdom is self-sufficient in exploration around the Falkland Islands. oil. Ours is an oil exporting nation; in Next week oil companies will bid for 1994 we produced 130 million tonnes licences to carry out this exploration in of crude oil and exported 80 million an area which has long been thought to tonnes. Yet this production takes place hold vast reserves. All this seems to far from this city, indeed takes place in make it more explicable why the U.K.`s another country, in another sea - five government chose to fight a war to miles deep in oil fields with names like defend one of its last nineteen colonies, Brent and Ninnian. All, except for a tiny the fragments of the British Empire. fraction, of the U.K.`s oil production Perhaps the Falklands War should be takes place in the northern North Sea, added to the list of oil wars that have in territorial waters of Scotland. The punctuated my lifespan? Scottish National Party holds that this oil is Scots Oil and will belong solely to 5 an independent Scotland. Intriguingly, under the devolutionary plans of the “Despite the worldwide process of decolonisation, Labour Party and the Liberal Democ- there is today many times more land being used rats, the oil will continue to be British in the Developing World to meet the food and oil. other biomass needs of the Western Countries

120 The Absolute Report 1995 - 2000 AND ON... PLATFORM than in the 1940`s before the process of Ogoniland protesting at 30 years of decolonisation began.” pollution caused by Shell and its joint Anil Agarwal, Centre for Science and Environment, venture partners. After their demands 1994. for environmental compensation and oil royalties were ignored, tension rose in Nigeria gained its independence from the area. Shell closed down their opera- Britain in 1960, three years after oil tions in Ogoniland after a worker was drilling began in the Niger Delta attacked. Fearing that other oil-produc- region. Today, petroleum and its deriva- ing areas might follow suit, the Niger- tives dominate the country`s economy, ian government used covert military forming 98% of exports. Nigeria is the operations to break the Ogoni commu- fourth biggest oil producer in O.P.E.C.. nity`s resistance. By autumn 1993, ten Shell produces 50% of Nigeria`s oil and villages had been anonymously attack- this accounts for almost 14% of the ed, leaving 750 dead and 3,000 homeless. company`s global production. Between 1976 and 1991 official figures quote Ken Saro-Wiwa is President of the 2,976 oil spills in the Delta region as a Movement for the Survival of Ogoni whole, which averages at almost four People (MOSOP) and a leading figure every week, amounting to 2.1 million in the nationwide pro-democracy barrels. Combined with atmospheric movement. An internationally hydrocarbon pollution, the damage to acclaimed novelist, he has been actively their staple agriculture and fishing has involved in promoting the cause of his meant that the Delta peoples face a people for more than thirty years. stark choice between starvation or This culminated in the setting up of resistance, which incurs the wrath of MOSOP with other leaders in 1990. the repressive Nigerian regime. Saro-Wiwa was arrested in May 1994 and held without charge for nine Shell and BP working together in a months. He is currently on trial before joint venture discovered oil in Ogoni- a military-appointed tribunal, accused land, part of the Delta region, in 1958 of the murder of four Ogoni leaders in and an estimated 30 billion dollars of early 1994. He faces the death penalty. oil revenue have flowed from the area over the past 35 years. Ogoniland 6 remains poor - the average life expectancy is 51 and only about 20% “And that earth that is within this creation, of the population is literate. Ogoni Day made common storehouse for all, is brought and in early 1993 saw 300,000 people par- sold, and kept in the hands of a few, whereby ticipate in peaceful marches throughout the great creator is mightily dishonoured.”

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Gerrard Winstanley, ‘The True Levellers Standard al reduction from now until 2040 ... What does Advanced’, 1649. this mean for a typical household with its current annual emissions of over 25 tonnes? Each If, as it appears, the peoples of Scotland household`s share of power station and refinery and Ogoniland - as in many other oil emissions is about 11 tonnes, industry 5.5 producing areas of the world - are tonnes, domestic heating etc 3.5 tonnes, and denied control over what is rightfully transport 4.5 tonnes. A `ration` of 2.5 tonnes their common wealth, it is we in the would only stretch to the most essential activi- metropolis who are the beneficiaries. ties. Flying across the Atlantic once would use After all, not only are we guaranteed a up a large part of this.” resource, and at a remarkably cheap Dr Mayer Hillman, Policy Studies Institute, 1995. price, but we gain from the taxes that two of the three largest British compa- We are all aware that the most dramatic nies, B. P. and Shell, pay into the form of air pollution that derives from national coffers. the burning of fossil fuels is Global Warming and that to prevent likely Our position is not entirely one of gain, catastrophe we need to reduce as quick- for what is imported into the city is ly as we can the amount of fossil fuels used in the city and a quarter of Lon- we use. Over a third of the fuel that we don`s fuel is burnt in the combustion use in London comes from oil and in engines of the cars, lorries and buses on this, as in all fossil fuel types, we need its streets. Winstanley would have to make a cut as dramatic as Hillman found it remarkable that today, in the suggests, a cut of 90%. From this valley that he knew, not only is the PLATFORM derives the title of its cur- earth controlled by the few, but so too rent project, 90% Crude. is the air. Only 41% of Londoners own cars, but all the two and a half million What effect would such a dramatic cut inhabitants of the Inner City have to have on the nature of our city? Sure, we breath the air and suffer the conse- can make progress towards this cut quences. According to Greenwich through energy conservation and a Action to Stop Pollution, four out of greater use of renewable energy every ten boys in the borough has asth- resources; perhaps even half the reduc- ma caused by air pollution. tion can be met in this way. But clearly we will have to make changes in our 7 lifestyles; the amount we travel, the number of objects we possess, the range “On a per capita basis the U.K. needs to cut its of appliances we regularly use. What carbon emissions by over 90%, i.e. a 5% annu- will it do to the way our hospitals run?

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The shape of our schools and welfare 21st February 2001 system? The pattern of our democracy? Dan Gretton, writer, teacher and founder member of PLATFORM Standing on the banks of the Thames at night, looking out at the oil refineries of Coryton and Shellhaven, the power LONDON-MADRID-SANTIAGO: stations of Tilbury and Northfleet and SANTIAGO-MADRID-LONDON the glow of London`s lights beyond, I 7 DAYS IN A JOURNEY OF HOPE am wondering what this valley will look like when it no longer draws in the oil 1st May 1997: General Election in wealth of the world? Britain. I have waited 18 years for this day. The end of a terrible period in the * history of my country when greed In this project, 90% Crude, became established as a justifiable, PLATFORM is beginning research on almost necessary, attribute; when capi- how the life-blood of oil flows through talism lost any pretence at being ‘car- the body of our industrial society, is ing’; when it became normal to see my beginning to design a vessel to facilitate fellow citizens sleeping on the streets; it in this exploration and beginning to when teachers and those working in delineate the artistic media and scientif- education became despised. From ic practices that can enable and express the time I was a not-very-politicised this journey. We are also looking at the 14-year-old at school to being a inextricable link to globalised corpo- 32-year- old man I had to witness these rate-dominated culture, business, and changes. In many ways who I am today, finance that depends so heavily on oil the work I do, grew out of the darkness to continue its work. of those 18 years, helped to shape my politics and my life. On the night of We would like to hear from people who 30th April 1997 at 2.28 a.m., I wrote are similarly interested in these matters, this in my journal: and particularly from anyone who would like to collaborate in this inter- ‘A strange calm has descended. A disciplinary project. windless night. Only the occasional (written 1st October 1995) whisper of a distant car. I look out over darkened trees; houses sleep. And in 4 * hours, 32 minutes, the first cross will be made on the first paper. An action so simple yet so beautiful - an action repeated 30 million times that will

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release a country’s spirit again. That will dictator who has neither been deposed let humanity breathe again. And a rage nor disgraced. His 82nd birthday this within me, burning for most of these week was a landmark in Chile’s political 18 years, will begin to soften. Six evolution - his last birthday as army thousand, four hundred and fifty days - commander-in-chief... In March he will I was a boy then, curious but unruffled retire to become senator-for-life, a job by the world. Now I am a man. Some- he created for himself.” times in a tube window I catch my [‘The Guardian’ newspaper] unsmiling face, reflecting the aches of an often desperate world. But today that face will crack into a smile unseen 16th October 1998: before. In 4 hours, 28 minutes. I switch In response to a request from a Madrid the light off again - I want my eyes to judge investigating Spanish nationals rest for the last time on this darkened killed and tortured in Chile, Pinochet is and mean-spirited country. I want to arrested at the London Clinic, Harley distil this moment, this essence of Street, London while recovering from a change, the soft calm before the storm back operation. For all Home Secretary of hope. I will wake to a new place that Jack Straw’s talk that “this is not a polit- I will not recognise, but I have helped ical act, purely a judicial one”, everyone to form. In my own way. It feels that in Britain knows that this could not we can breathe again. It feels that a have happened under a Conservative suffocating blockage is over.’ Government. For one of the few times in my adult life I feel unambiguously 29th November 1997: proud to be British - that this extraordinary event demanding world attention “In ‘The Autumn of the Patriarch’, happened in my country, in my city, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel under a Government I helped to elect. about a seemingly immortal Latin For the next days and weeks I find American dictator, the fictional tyrant myself smiling at strangers in the street, shelters deposed military rulers from often breaking into song. We could be other countries in a house by the sea. entering a new era of global human The general visits his disgraced cronies rights, where finally tyranny will be to ‘look at himself in the instructive held to account, wherever and mirror of their misery’. whenever it has happened. As the autumn of Chile’s real-life patriarch slips into winter, General Augusto Pinochet sees in the mirror a former

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11th December 1998: Pinochet is ordered to appear at Bel- marsh High Security Court in South- East London on a cold, grey winter’s afternoon. PLATFORM, in conjunction with the artist Peter Kennard, create 3 huge posters ‘The Struggle of Humani- ty Against Power is the Struggle of Memory Against Forgetting’. Today I am singing again: “Oh wicked man, in Britain. The authorities in Chile say where you gonna run? You can’t hide that he may face justice there; many on the Judgement Day!” It is a day of Europeans are sceptical this will ever extraordinarily raw emotions - as the happen. green van carrying Pinochet arrives at the court at 2.10 p.m, there is a 8th August 2000: crescendo of whistling and screaming ‘A-SE-SINO!! A-SE-SINO!!’. As the van The Supreme Court in Santiago strips leaves after an hour with the old tyrant Pinochet of his immunity as a ‘senator- covered in a blanket, the fury of chanti- for life’. President Lagos urges the ng dies away and many of the hundreds country to respect the decision. of people around us are crying and holding each other, in elation but also suddenly and keenly remembering their 29th January 2001: losses. This is a day that the people Pinochet is placed under house arrest in here can hardly believe they are seeing. Santiago after Judge Juan Guzman When the man responsible for the charges him with direct responsibility death and disappearance of their for 57 murders and 18 kidnappings. husbands, wives, brothers, sisters and Responding to doctors’ reports Guzman friends is finally facing judgement. declares Pinochet to be “extraordinarily A day when you expected the angels normal”, meaning that he will finally to break through the clouds and start face a trial in Chile. As the political singing. landscape changes with bewildering speed so do the words spoken. Only a 2nd March 2000: short while earlier President Ricardo Lagos had broken with the language Pinochet flies back to Chile after 17 of the past (which treated the ‘disap- months of detention under house arrest peared’ as ‘unfortunate victims’ of a ‘civil

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war’) when in an emotional national introverted and isolationist thinking - broadcast he referred to those Pinochet is arrested by his own people first, had killed as “our fellow countrymen, regardless of others’ desire to punish children of the nation”. him? Surely this is a better way to lasting change, if it is at all possible? To “This is a great victory for Pinochet’s face and stop the rot from within. To thousands of victims, for the rule of law take responsibility. This is what needs and for the principle that the perpetra- to happen in our own country, so tors of atrocities should be brought to credibly cloaked to the outside world justice,” said Reed Brody, advocacy in gentlemanly decency...the skull director for Human Rights Watch. beneath the skin. “None of this would have happened had Pinochet not been arrested in Eng- All power and deep respect to cultural land. That arrest broke the spell of his and political activists and international- impunity.” ists in Yugoslavia - from the bold Inter- national Festival of Alternative and [‘The Guardian’ 30.1.01] New Theatre (INFANT) in Novi Sad, It feels that Chile can breathe again. It to Apsolutno, to Belgrade Women feels that a suffocating blockage is mov- In Black, who have shown us all a ing. And all over the world tyrants have tremendous light in the darkness. started to shift uneasily in their sleep. For more information on PLATFORM, contact 7 Horselydown Lane, London SE1 2LN, England. POSTSCRIPT Tel/Fax : 00 44 (0) 20 7403 3738 1st April 2001 e-mail : [email protected] Former President of Yugoslavia Slobo- dan Milošević is successfully arrested by Yugoslav Special Police at his Belgrade villa on criminal charges of embezzlement and corruption, after an armed stand-off lasting 36 hours. There are no plans as yet to hand him over to the Hague International War Crimes Tribunal.

What does it mean that such a man - the inciter of so much violence, hate

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c o d e THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___CODE WARNING!

1996 APSOLUTNO 0004 UPOZORENJE! WARNING!

Date: April 1996 Place: Andrićev venac Gallery, Belgrade

“Warning! You are entering the gallery on absolutely your own responsibility.”

This text, printed on a notice card placed at the entrance to the gallery, was part of an APSOLUTNO piece created as a response to the understanding of the gallery as an autonomous space, insulated from the social realities of the 1990s in Serbia.

130 The Absolute Report HOW IT WORKS RTMARK

The Absolute Report 131 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___CODE UA!US U A ! U S United Artists Under Sanctions

United Artists Under Sanctions is an sises the importance and responsibility association which aims at gathering of the artist’s critical attitude towards artists from the countries punished by that society. the international community by being put in “quarantine”. UA!US deals with the phenomenon of excluding whole communities from UA!US encourages the exchange of the global flow, at the end of the artistic ideas and various experiences millenium, when the world has truly from the life with sanctioned opportu- become a global village. In such nities, in real reality (RR). communities and systems sanctions become a reality, a way of life, which UA!US is not limited to promoting in turn shapes the art production in the artistic production which directly specific ways. Currently there is a large relates to the political, economic and number of countries in the world which cultural sanctions imposed by the inter- are punished in this way, with different national community. It also deals with levels of sanctions depending on the the position of the artist within the gravity of the offence (eg. economic, sanctioned society, since in such a political and/or cultural sanctions, society there are sanctions from within ‘outer vs inner wall’ of sanctions etc.), in addition to those from the outside. such as Cuba, Iraq, Lybia, India, Therefore UA!US particularly empha- Pakistan, Yugoslavia. However, even

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in the countries which do not belong to frame for artistic practice. The aim this group, there are invisible sanctions of UA!US is to explore the specific towards certain groups of artists, based characteristics of the artistic production on political, racial, gender, class and and ways of thinking in such condi- other criteria. The common denomina- tions, as well as the ways in which such tor for all artists under sanctions is dis- artistic production is able to communi- crimination, which is essential, real and cate with the outside world. inevitable. Sanctions are meant to punish a community by blocking its com- UA!US was founded by art associations munication with the rest of the world APSOLUTNO and p.RT in Novi Sad, on political, economic or cultural levels. Yugoslavia in 1998. By various measures, the flow of information, goods, money, traffic or people is made more difficult or completely stopped and the community is ‘sealed’. This creates an apathic atmosphere within the community and causes a regression into a tribal form of culture and an invisibility of those who oppose this trend. At the same time, such a form of pressure creates an authentic

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1999 APSOLUTNO 0001 THE SEMIOTICS OF CONFUSION

Introduction The aim of this action of documenting was to record a phenomenon in our The idea for this piece of writing arose immediate surroundings by collecting from the visual research association absolutely real facts here and now. It is APSOLUTNO conducted from 1995 important to note that the absolutely to 1998. The research was focused on real facts are arbitrary to a certain the national symbols in official use in extent, determined by the time and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia place where they were collected (on during that time. APSOLUTNO various irregular occasions from 1995 documented flags, border-markers, to 1998, in Novi Sad and Belgrade, coats-of-arms and other national and Yugoslavia). They nevertheless illustrate state symbols, banknotes, passports and the variety of semiotic activities, both other official documents issued by the official and individual, which in an authorities, as well as various public interesting way reflect (sometimes individual responses to these. In addi- follow, sometimes anticipate) events tion to this visual material, other sym- in the social and political sphere. bols and reactions to them were documented as well (e.g., the reactions of The reason why this text has no the audience to the national anthem conclusion is very simple: the state played at international sport events). of affairs in this area is still in flux and This text will be based on a segment as we are writing, the confusion is only of the visual part of the documentation. being multiplied.

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I seen as an important vehicle of political change, as communication via symbols Since 1991 five new states have was a language that people understood emerged on the territory of ex- and to which they responded. Yugoslavia, and it is very likely that this process has still not been completed. The urgency and importance of the On the semiotic level, this process of introduction of new national symbols disintegration and formation has been are easy to illustrate if the dates when followed and in some cases preceded laws regulating the use of national sym- by feverish symbol-engineering: old bols were passed are compared with the national and state symbols have been dates when the new states were official- discarded, ancient ones revived or ly established. In Croatia, for example, recycled and completely new ones the constitution of the Socialist Repub- designed. New authorities attached lic of Croatia was amended in July enormous significance to the introduc- 1990, when the word socialist was tion of new symbols, as through these dropped from the name of the country, it was possible to create a new sense of the red star removed from the country’s national identity, national pride and a national flag and the socialist coat-of- new political and ideological framework arms replaced by Croatia’s historical for future orientation. In other words, coat-of-arms. Law on the Coat-of- the change on the symbolic level was Arms, the Flag, and the National

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Anthem of the Republic of Croatia was 1 for more information, see the official site of the adopted in Parliament on 21 December Croatian government: http://www.vlada.hr 1990. A day later, on 22 December, 2 for more information, see the official site of the Croatia passed a new constitution, Slovenian government: http://www.sigov.si which allowed for secession from the former Yugoslav Federation.1 some cases it meandered, touching The process was similar in Slovenia, upon various issues and sometimes which declared itself a sovereign state coming across unexpected reactions on 25 June 1991 and, at the same time, internally or externally. Problems in introduced a new flag and coat-of-arms. the semiotic area only reflected either On that day the new flag was hoisted external pressures (as in Macedonia), officially for the first time in front of or the unresolved issues within the state the Slovenian Parliament, and beside itself (Bosnia), or they indicated a basic it, the old flag with the red star was lack of a clear idea about the future lowered, in a symbolic gesture of direction (FRY). We shall briefly give replacement.2 an overview of some of the related issues, focusing on the flag as one of However, this process of changing the central national and state symbols, national and state symbols was not and excluding for the moment the always clear and straightforward. In Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

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As already mentioned, in Slovenia and 3 Article 7, Paragraph 2 of the agreement states: Croatia, the national flags used in those Upon entry into force of this Interim Accord, the countries while they were part of the Party of the Second Part (Macedonia) shall cease to Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia use in any way the symbol in all its forms displayed on its national flag prior to such entry into force. (tricolours with the red star) continued to be used after the removal of the red star. However, in Macedonia and of the new state. The dispute was Bosnia completely new flags had to be resolved in 1995 by a UN agreement3, designed. according to which Macedonia was recognised as “The Former Yugoslav In Macedonia, a new flag was adopted Republic of Macedonia” and was at independence in August 1992. The required to design a new flag within 30 design was selected from more than a days. The present flag of Macedonia, hundred proposals which entered an proposed by a group of Members of open competition. The flag immediate- Parliament, was finally adopted in ly came under attack from Greece, 1995, three years after independence. which maintained that the Vergina Nevertheless, the name of the country Sun, the central symbol on the flag, remains temporary. belonged to Greek cultural heritage. Greece also protested against the use of In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the current the word Macedonia as the official name flag was adopted in February 1998 by

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UN High Representative Carlos Wes- 4 for more details and images, see The Flags of the World: tendorp. Prior to this, there had been a http://fotw.digibel.be/flags/ long process of designing and selecting 5 http://fotw.digibel.be/flags/ an appropriate flag. The first flag, adopted in 1992, before the war in Bos- nia broke out, bore a fleur-de-lis as the the High Representative selected a flag central symbol, a symbol associated for Bosnia and Herzegovina himself. with the Muslim tradition in Bosnia, The flag bears the colours of the Euro- and was therefore to be replaced fol- pean Union, without any national sym- lowing the Dayton Peace Accord and bols, since, as explained by Duncan the recognition of Bosnia and Herze- Bullivant, Office of the High Represen- govina as a tripartite state (1995). After tative (at the press conference at which several years and numerous proposals4, the new flag was presented): “This flag the Bosnian Parliament still could not is a flag of the future. It represents reach agreement on a solution that unity not division; it is the flag that would be acceptable to all three nation- belongs in Europe”.5 The inability of al entities. Finally, in 1998, UN High the Parliament to find common ground Representative Westendorp appointed and the imposition of the solution by an expert commission which designed external authorities only emphasised three proposals. After the Parliament the fragility of Dayton Bosnia and ques- failed once again to adopt any of these, tioned the possibilities of its existence.

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As this brief overview shows, the estab- 6 After several unsuccessful attempts to start discussion lishment of new national symbols in about the division of assets belonging to the former the countries formed on the territory Yugoslavia, the matter has remained unresolved of the former Yugoslavia reflected the between its former republics until today. 7 political processes in these countries. On several occasions at international sport events, supporters from Yugoslavia boycotted the Yugoslav Periods of confusion in politics were anthem, whistling and booing while it was played. mirrored by periods of semiotic confusion; likewise, political solutions that were initially considered final were supposedly responding to the general succeeded by final decisions about the public’s dissatisfaction with the old design of national symbols. system. This tension between the intention to be regarded as a continua- II tion of the old and, at the same time, as the bearer of the new is also visible on If we look at the national symbols of the semiotic level. the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, or Serbia-Montenegro, (since the domes- Although the red star was removed tic official title has not received wide- from the national flag, it remained in spread recognition), the first point to use much longer, even up to today, on note is that the authorities have been most official documents, as well as on extremely hesitant in replacing the public buildings. For example, the red national symbols of the Socialist star on the City Hall in Belgrade was Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Unlike removed only in 1997, when the oppo- the other states in the Balkans, FRY sition parties came to power after the did not regard it as important to invest local elections. Similarly, passports of much effort or resources into creating the former Yugoslavia are still in official a new semiotic reality for its citizens. use in 1999, together with the new ones, which were introduced as late as The new constitution, which marked in 1997. ID cards still bear the former the beginning of the ‘third’ Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia’s coat-of-arms, with the red was adopted in April 1992. The Federal star and six torches representing the six Republic of Yugoslavia clearly demon- republics of the former federation, strated an aspiration to represent a although the new coat-of-arms was continuation as the sole successor to introduced in 1994. The national the Socialist Federal Republic of anthem of the former Yugoslavia is still Yugoslavia.6 At the same time, changes used as the national anthem of today’s were to be introduced in the political, Yugoslavia, to which certain parts of ideological and national domain, the society are strongly opposed.7 As

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for national holidays, although new sion in the minds of the people? What ones have been introduced, the holi- does the political establishment com- days of the former Yugoslavia are still municate to the nation through these officially celebrated, including the Day symbols? Does it convey the message of the Republic, the day when the that FRY is a new country or a continu- Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ation of the SFRY? And consequently, was formed (29 November 1943). are people living in that country now a different nation? To sum up, at first glance, it would appear that there have been two oppos- Rather than analyzing the deeper ing directions during the last ten years meanings behind these semiotic activi- in FRY as far as the national symbols ties, we shall now turn to examples of are concerned: one towards change; the semiotic actions by citizens, or politi- other towards maintaining the existing cally aware visual activism by individu- symbolic structure of the SFRY. Howev- als who have felt the need to express er, if we look closer into the symbols their views in a specific form – through that have been changed, it is not diffi- interventions on the license plates on cult to notice that the change referred their cars. These gestures, which range mostly to the removal of the red star. from anger to humour, some creative This gesture was in accordance with and some stereotypical, illustrate the the general atmosphere in the whole of pragmatic force of symbols, i.e., the Eastern Europe, a gesture which could power of symbols to trigger actual, not provoke public dissent. It was an concrete, physical responses. Through expected change, and therefore neutral, these responses, it is perhaps possible insignificant, a change on the surface to gain an insight into some answers to without any real consequences – in the the questions above, namely, how these same way as the ruling Communist people respond to what they interpret Party changed its name to the Socialist that the semiotic reality imposed by the Party, while its protagonists have establishment communicates to them. remained the same. Nevertheless, in terms of changes which would indicate III a possible future direction, or which would give a new identity to the License plates on vehicles in the former nation, little has been done. The rea- Yugoslavia contained three elements: sons certainly lie in the lack of a clear a letter code for the town where the political vision, or more precisely lack vehicle was registered, the red star, and of any vision whatsoever. Or is it a ploy the registration number. New license to deliberately create a state of confu- plates differ from the old ones only in

140 The Absolute Report THE SEMIOTICS OF CONFUSION that the red star is replaced by theYu- wishful thinking, or a humorous goslav flag (blue-white-red tricolour). response to the general situation in the Although the new plates were intro- country – Yugoslavia as a member of duced in 1998, the old ones are still in the European Union. use, and since the new plates were still a novelty at the time when this material The third group of reactions offers was being collected, no cases of inter- ideas for alternatives to the red star. vention on them were recorded. Not a great variety of solutions has been found. Picture 6 shows a Serbian To start with the most common type tricolour in the place of the red star, of intervention: denial of the red star. while picture 7 is even more explicit in Numerous examples show license plates that direction, featuring both the flag of with the red star erased, destroyed or Serbia and the Serbian historical coat- covered with adhesive tape (see pic- of-arms. What is particularly interesting tures 1, 2). in this example is that the car was not registered in Serbia, but in Montene- Another group of examples shows gro, whose capital, Podgorica, was license plates in which the red star previously called Titograd (Tito City), remains, but the stickers on the car hence TG. Finally, we present a reveal the person’s view on what the response which is neither nationally nor orientation of the country should be. territorially based (picture 8), where the It is important to note that the only red star is replaced by the red heart. official sticker for FRY is YU. In the first example (picture 3), the person It would be simplistic to say that these would obviously like to live in a coun- responses are based on interpretations try whose name would be Serbia, rather of the meaning of the red star. The than Yugoslavia (sticker SER, plus the meaning of a symbol is not a precisely colours of the flag of Serbia: red-blue- defined category; its boundaries are white). The second example (picture 4) fuzzy and in constant flux, depending shows a case of a local patriot within upon the context and paradigmatic the old boundaries – the sticker V, and syntagmatic relations of the symbol which stands for Vojvodina, the north- with other symbols and the interpreter ern province of Serbia, is accompanied her/himself. It would be more precise by the sticker YU, unlike the example to say that these reactions are based on in picture 1, where the province is the the interpretation of the meaning of preference for identification (an inde- the fact that the red star was still the pendent Vojvodina?). The third plate in official mark on license plates in FRY this group (picture 5) is an example of in the late 1990s.

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The red star was a dominant symbol identity is still non-existent. Some of in Eastern Europe for fifty years; it not these gestures are personal statements only represented a vehicle of expression of a particular national or territorial of the dominant ideology, but also identity and, though na ve and politi- marked both the official and the dissi- cally inarticulate, they indicate a need dent culture of the whole period. That and search for a new sense of direction. period ended in Eastern Europe with The crisis of identity and the lack of a the events which commenced with the sense of direction, which have persisted fall of the Berlin Wall, and FRY was no for nearly a decade in FRY, have caused exception to the general feeling that a semiotic and various other confusions. change had occurred: the mere fact that these individuals felt they could dese- As this text is being written, it seems crate the red star, once a sacred symbol, that new flags are being designed in meant that there was a general implicit the Balkans. It remains to be seen what consensus in the society that the era absolutely real facts with their changing of the red star (in the sense of what it meanings will emerge. meant in Eastern Europe) was over. This is why these semiotic actions do not represent a serious violation of the Reprinted with permission from: Kovats, S. order nor an act of rebellion, and for (Ed.). Media Revolution. Electronic Media in the the same reason, they were not treated Transformation Process of Eastern and Central as instances of punishable offence, Europe. Edition Bauhaus – Band 6. though in fact, that is what they would Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag, 1999. have been under ‘regular’ circumstances. Rather, these semiotic gestures can be regarded as a specific form of communication in which symbols have a central place, in a society where forms of political dialogue have ceased to function or have become distorted. They represent a sort of a public act, directed not to a specified address, but to anyone who happens to see them. They express disagreement with the social identity that belongs to the former period but is still maintained, and dissatisfaction with the fact that a new

142 The Absolute Report A GENEROUS CONTRIBUTION VUK ĆOSIĆ

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144 The Absolute Report A GENEROUS CONTRIBUTION VUK ĆOSIĆ

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146 The Absolute Report INSTRUMENTAL

1997 APSOLUTNO 0003 INSTRUMENTAL

1. a musical composition played by an instrument or a group of instruments 2. serving as an instrument or means 3. Gram. (in certain inflected langugages, as Old English and Russian) noting or pertaining to a case having as its distinctive function the indication of means or agency (Random House Dictionary)

In the sound installation instrumental common ground for these two the art association APSOLUTNO uses antipodes was found in Morse code. In two instruments, the letter and the bul- Morse code, each letter is represented let. The two notions are generally by a sign made up of one or more short regarded as antipodes; the letter signi- signals (dots) and long signals (dashes) fying cultural values, literacy, transmis- in sound. In instrumental, sion of knowledge and communication, APSOLUTNO replaced short signals and the bullet standing for destruction, by the sound of shots (1 shot = 1 dot), devastation, communication break- and long signals by machinegun fire (1 down. However, language as a powerful burst = 1 dash). weapon has always been misused and abused. In order to emphasise this, the Instrumental is a message encoded in art association APSOLUTNO equates Morse code. It is accessible by tele- the letter with the bullet, two instru- phone, from an answering machine ments which are too often used for the installed on a telephone line. In this same purpose. way, the message is presented just like any other information given by public The letter and the bullet in instrumen- services. tal are not used as visual symbols, but rather, as the title of the work suggests, The information about the telephone as instrumental (aural) elements. The number where the message is installed

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is printed on cards, which are distrib- Lilli Marleen in the film: “Aber das ist uted in the exhibition space. The sym- nur ein Lied!” (“But this is just a song!”). bols of the Morse code are also printed on the cards, so that the audience can Lilli Marleen features in instrumental as decipher the message. a frame of reference to regimes, both historic and present, in which the letter The message begins with the is given the role of the bullet. announcement of a song - Lilli Marleen. The song is played in its instrumental Lili Marleen version, in which the lyrics are convert- (Lieb eines jungen Wachtpostens) ed into the sounds of shots and Vor der Kaserne vor dem grossen Tor, machinegun fire used as signs of Morse ...- —- .-. / -.. . .-. / -.- .- ... . .-. -. . / ...- —- .-. / code. The radio announcement at the -.. . — / —. .-. —- ...... -. / - —- .-. / Stand eine Laterne und steht sie noch davor, beginning of the message is taken from ... - .- -. -.. / . .. -. . / .-.. .- - . .-. -. . / ..- -. -.. / ... the soundtrack of Fasbinder’s film “Lilli - . .... - / ...... / -. —- -.-. .... / -.. .- ...- —- .-. / Marleen”. It refers to the historical fact So woll’n wir da uns wiederseh’n, ... —- / .— —- .-.. .-.. -./.— .. .-./-.. .- / ..- -. ... / that this song was broadcast for the .— .. . -.. . .-...... -. / first time by Radio Belgrad, in 1941. Bei der Laterne woll’n wir steh’n, At the end of the ‘song’ there is a quo- -...... -.. . .-. / .-.. .- - . .-. -. . / .— —- .-.. .-.. - ./.— .. .-./ ... - . .... -. / tation from Fasbinder’s film, a sentence Wie einst Lili Marleen, wie einst Lili Marleen. spoken by Hanna Schigula, who plays .— .. . / . .. -. ... - / .-.. .. .-.. .. / — .- .-. .-.. . . -. /

148 The Absolute Report INSTRUMENTAL

.— .. . / . .. -. ... - / .-.. .. .-.. .. / — .- .-. .-.. . -. / Wer wird bei der Laterne stehn, .— . .-. / .— .. .-. -.. / -...... / -.. . .-. / .-.. .- - . .- Unsre beiden Schatten sah’n wie einer aus, . -. . / ... - . .... -. / ..- -. ... .-. . / -...... -.. . -. / ... -.-...... - - - . -. / ... Mit Dir, Lili Marleen, mit Dir, Lili Marleen? .- .... -. / .— .. . / . .. -. . .-. / .- ..- ... / — .. - / -.. .. .-. / .-.. .. .-.. .. / — .- .-. .-.. . . -. / Dass wir so lieb uns hatten, das sah man gleich — .. - / -.. .. .-./.-.. .. .-.. ../ — .- .-. .-.. . -. / daraus. -.. .- ...... /.— .. .-. / ... —- /.-.. .. . -.../..- -. .../.... Aus dem stillen Raume, aus der Erde Grund, .- - - . -. / -.. .- ... / ... .- .... / — .- -. / —. .-.. . .. - .- ..- .../ -.. . — / ... - .. .-.. .-.. . -./.-. .- ..- — ./ .- .-. .... / -.. .- .-. .- ..- ... / ..- .../ -.. . .-. / . .-. -.. . / —. .-. ..- -. -.. / Und alle Leute soll’n es seh’n, Hebt mich wie im Traume Dein verliebter ..- -. -.. / .- .-.. .-.. . /.-.. . ..- - ./... —- .-.. .-.. -. /. Mund. ... / ...... -. / .... . -... - / — .. -.-. .... / .— .. . / .. — / - .-. .- ..- Wenn wir bei der Laterne steh’n, — . / -.. . .. -. / ...- . .-. .-.. .. . -... - . .-. / — ..- -. .— . -. -. / .— .. .-./ -...... / -.. . .-. / .-.. .- - . .-. - -.. / . . / ... - . .... -. / Wenn sich die spaten Nebel dreh’n, Wie einst Lili Marleen, wie einst Lili Marleen. .— . -. -. / ... .. -.-. .... / -.. .. . / ... .—. .- - . -. / -. .— .. . /. .. -. ... - / .-.. .. .-.. .. / — .- .-. .-.. . . -. / . -... . .-.. / -.. .-...... -. / .— .. . / . .. -. ... - / .-.. .. .-.. .. / — .- .-. .-.. . . -. / Werd’ich bei der Laterne steh’n, .— . .-. -.. .. -.-. .... / -...... / -.. . .-. / .-.. .-. - . .-. Schon rief der Posten, sie blasen Zapfenstreich, -. . / ... - . .... -. / ... -.-. .... —- -. / .-...... -. / -.. . .-. / .—. —- ... - Wie einst Lili Marleen, wie einst Lili Marleen. . -. / ...... / -... .-.. .- ... . -./ —.. .- .—. ..-. . -. ... .— .. . / . .. -. ... - / .-.. .. .-.. .. / — .- .-. .-.. . -. / - .-. . .. -.-...... — .. . / . .. -. ... - / .-.. .. .-.. .. / — .- .-. .-.. . . -. /

Es kann drei Tage kosten Kamarad ich komm’- Morse code alphabet: sogleich. A . - . ... / -.- .- -. -. / -.. .-. . .. / - .- —. . / -.- —- ... - . B - ... -. / -.- .- — .- .-. .- -.. / .. -.-. .... / -.- —- — — ... C -.-. —- —. .-.. . .. -.-. .... / D -.. Da sagten wir auf Wiederseh’n, E . -.. .- / ... .- —. - . -. / .— .. .-. / .- ..- ..-. / .— .. . F ..-. -.. . .-...... -. / G —. Wie gerne wollt’ich mit Dirgeh’n, H .... .— .. . / —. . .-. -. . / .— —- .-.. .-.. - .. -.-. I ...... /— .. - / -.. .. .-. —...... -. / J .—- Mit Dir, Lili Marleen, mit Dir Lili Marleen. K -.- — .. - / -.. .. .-./.-.. .. .-.. ../ — .- .-. .-.. . . -. / — L .-.. .. - / -.. .. .-./ .-.. .. .-.. ../ — .- .-. .-.. . -. / M — N -. Deine Schritte kennt sie, Deinen zieren Gang, O —- P .—. -.. . .. -. . / ... -.-...... -. .. - - . / -.- . -. -. - / ...... Q —.- / -.. . .. -. . -. / —...... -. . -. / —. .- -. —. / R .-. Alle abend brennt sie, doch mich vergass sie S ... lang. T - .- .-.. .-.. . / .- -... . -. -../ -... .-. . -. -. - /...... /-.. U ..- —- -.-. .... / — ..-.-. .... / ...- . .-. —. .- ...... /... .. V ...- ./.-.. .- -. —./ W .— Und sollte mir ein Leids gescheh’n, X -..- ..- -. -.. / ... —- .-.. .-.. - . /— .. .-. / . .. -. / .-.. . .. Y -.— -.. .../—. . ... -.-...... -. / Z —..

The Absolute Report 149 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___CODE JODI___ae-1

150 The Absolute Report JODI ae-2

The Absolute Report 151 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___CODE JODI___bcd-1

152 The Absolute Report JODI bcd-2

The Absolute Report 153 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___CODE VOYAGER 0004

1996 APSOLUTNO 0004 VOYAGER 0004

Duration: 9 minutes

This video has been made as a message sent to the outer world from a cave. There are three elements of the video structure: the message, consisting of the images and sounds produced in the cave; the text tracking across the screen, which explains how and where the The video questions the possibilities for message was recorded; and the real time communication from a cave, i.e., a particular information, showing there is less and less geographic, social and political point such as time for the message to be received. Serbia in 1996.

Text of subtitles in the video VELBON PX 704 tripod. Light: artifi- VOYAGER 0004: cial; KOBOLD 1000 VL, 220 V, 1000 W, F6,3A NACH DIN 41660. The The art association APSOLUTNO has message carried by the VOYAGER launched the VOYAGER 0004. The 0004 was edited by non-linear editing message carried by the VOYAGER system based on PC computer with 0004 is available in the following Pentium processor working on 200 formats: CD ROM, BETA SP, S-VHS MHz, 256 KB Cache memory, hard and VHS. The message carried by the disc digital recorder from digital pro- VOYAGER 0004 was recorded in cessing system with 64 MB of memory Rajko’s Cave, 2.5 km from Majdanpek, and 6.5 GB hard disc capacity. The East Serbia, Europe. Rajko’s Cave is message carried by the VOYAGER between 469,81 and 427,58 m of height 0004 contains authentic sounds from above sea level. the cave. Sound editing: triple DAT sound card with 32 KHz, 44,1 KHz Length: 2,380 m. Total surface: 12,803 and 48 KHz sampling frequency. The m2. Volume: c. 100,000 m3. Tempera- message carried by the VOYAGER ture: constant; 8C. Humidity: constant; 0004 was recorded on 29 and 30 July 100%. The message carried by the 1996. The message carried by the VOYAGER 0004 was recorded by the VOYAGER 0004 was realized by Sony DCR VX 1000E camera with the APSOLUTNO art association.

154 The Absolute Report CONNECTIONS: THE POWER OF CONVERGENCE NINA CZEGLEDY

included. The main purpose of most CONNECTIONS: networks is channelling information. Networks generally operate on the model of a cell or unit system, within THE POWER which the tracing of the whole structure - as well as the exact nature of the OF CONVER- operation- is intentionally or uninten- tionally difficult for the individual member or unit. At the same time, the GENCE. effectiveness of a network is highly Nina Czegledy dependent on its interconnectedness. Network functions and networking patterns operate on a far wider base than Imagine a network that knows who you surveillance and retribution, and while are, where you are, and can reach you snooping is a most intriguing topic, this whether you’re on your mobile phone brief analysis attempts to present some or at your desktop. Even better, imag- concepts and examine a few network ine that, instead of finding your Web models, looking for universal character- content, it finds you. Sounds personal. istics, commonalities, which are rele- Exactly. vant to sustainable networks and equally meaningful for scientists or cultural Nortel Networks (1) activists. Despite its captivating style, for this These days, the expression “network” is writer the Nortel advertisement quoted widely used - often within an advertis- above evokes chilling recollections of ing frame of reference- as a topical surveillance and spyworks, recalling the buzzword for public-access information dichotomies and double-talk tradition and communication purposes. of iron-curtained Hungary. What is a network? As defined by the Standard Dictionary (2), “network” is a While the Iron Curtain crumbled a system of interlacing lines, tracks or decade ago, in the aftermath of channels - in other words, an intercon- September11 the “network word” nected system of mutually influential gained fresh significance and yet anoth- variables and their casual relationships. er implication. Bizarre as it sounds, Beyond this dictionary definition, one remarkable similarities can be traced finds a bewildering variety of arche- between all networks - terrorist, finan- types ranging from electrical system cial, biological and espionage networks structures to commercially networked

The Absolute Report 155 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___CODE THE GREATEST HITS

1998 APSOLUTNO 0002 human achievement, digital technology on the one hand and medicine on the other, using the THE GREATEST notion of a virus. Both computer and human viruses are elements which disturb the bal- ance in the system, computer or human, how- HITS BY ever sophisticated and protected the system may be. The emergence of a greater and ASSOCIATION greater number of both types of viruses at the end of the millennium indicates the APSOLUTNO boomerang effect, i.e. the vulnerability of man and technology despite the progress achieved. The Greatest Hits (TGH) is a CD Rom project which in an ironic way deals with the The Greatest Hits (TGH) contains two TOP TEN idea of progress at the end of the millennium. lists of these two types of viruses, composed This concept is developed in two fields of according to the statistical data about their

alliances. What, then, are the common of reference, general interest has shifted features between these diverse (and from considerations of mechanical or often informal) network systems? How biological structures to communication do physical, biological, cultural and networks, including commercially social factors of the environment influ- viable configurations. Consider the ence these structures? What is the rela- currently fashionable terminology: tionship between network structure and “network hardware”, “network business individual personality? What can we solutions”, “network protocols”, “net- learn in our networked media practice work security” and, of course, “network from other paradigms? While a brief consultants”. Arguably, Nortel’s person- outline of general principles combined al internet network “revolutionizing the with practical examples might be of use way users and content come together”, to all, the lack of interdisciplinary stud- with its special reference to the Inter- ies, not to mention the great diversity net, serves as a contemporary example of network models, regrettably frustrate of this trend. The Nortel advertisement concise answers at this date. thus conforms with our present-day usage, when, due to the ubiquity of Networking and the examination of technologies and subliminal promotion- network-like forms have found new cur- al influence, established terms such as rency in our present technology-driven “networks” immediately invoke topical information society. Within this frame applications of connectedness. In reali-

156 The Absolute Report CONNECTIONS: THE POWER OF CONVERGENCE NINA CZEGLEDY harmful effects (hits, or blows which ‘hit’ the mankind).

The project itself is conceived as a kind of a virus, which plays a game with the viewer, and is, as any other virus, completely user-unfriendly.

ty, from time immemorial a diverse produce compensating changes in the variety of network models have been others that will maintain the total characteristic features of natural and system in good condition. In short, man-made structures, including discrete networks are systems that constantly interrelated arrangements. re-create themselves.

Prior to any consideration of network Cybernetics as a specific discipline characteristics, it is necessary briefly to emerged in the 1940s. The investiga- evaluate cybernetics or systems science. tions in the early years considered Cybernetics, according to the Encyclope- mostly inanimate structures. Since the dia of Anthropology, is a scientific para- 1970s, cybernetics has increasingly digm originating from electronic engi- focused on living systems such as neering and now widely applied to the neurophysiological interrelations and analysis of an expanded range of sys- the biological basis of perception and tems (3).The key principles of cyber- knowledge-acquisition processes. Some netics are first, that any system has one of the main concepts of current (or or more goals or conditions that it more precisely “second-order”) cyber- strives to maintain, and secondly, that netics studies include principles of self- the components of the system are organization, self-reference, and self- linked through feedback mechanisms so steering. Recent studies have progres- that a change in one component will sively centered on the sciences of com-

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plexity, including neural networks, mode. Typically, networks function for chaos, artificial intelligence (AI) and the exchange of information and goods the analysis of interacting processes (4). as well as to protect the common (or It is in view of these principles that, fol- individual) interest of its members lowing a description of additional net- and/or elements. Among the few critical work features, three models will be pre- characteristics common to most net- sented. works is size, which has important functional implications contributing Networks as a rule consist of individual greatly to the net’s effectiveness. The components, bonded together by a value of a network service for its mem- mutually accepted purpose and often bers increases as a network expands. forming a subculture or a subset. In Since large network size is desirable, most cases networks are ‘bottom-up’, smaller networks are motivated to inter- non-hierarchical systems. Configura- connect and form a larger network of tions of networks are seldom static; networks. Multinational franchises, kin- more often they operate in a dynamic ship structures, immune systems, ecolo-

158 The Absolute Report CONNECTIONS: THE POWER OF CONVERGENCE NINA CZEGLEDY gies, and especially the Internet are 1. Biological networks: The synapse. good examples of comprehensive networks made of sub-networks. A conti- Nature is often considered a “whole nuity in structure is characteristic of all organic system”, and, as such, offers networks, even though individual com- abundant examples of network struc- ponents might be randomly or system- tures. The multitude of biological net- atically changing. The interaction works comprised of components linked between these components is often as a rule by a common aim are perhaps controlled by norms, rules or patterns, the most precisely operating interlaced yet, in contrast to formal organizational systems in evidence. While the human systems, many networks operate with body is thoroughly mapped by such various degrees of flexibility. Economic, interconnected systems, the brain’s social and environmental factors greatly synaptic connections arguably serve as influence and periodically modify the one of the most elegant of network components, operation and the aims of examples. Synaptic connections repre- various network systems. sent a point-to-point information flow, one which is greatly enhanced by Three entirely different network models mutual interconnectedness; consequent- will be briefly considered in the follow- ly these network connections and their ing. These include a biological, a social supporting structures present intriguing and a commercial model. The synaptic metaphors and eminent symbolic para- connections in the human brain, our digms for network analysis. biological example, represent an individually based, bodily localized arche- What is a synapse? The grey matter of type. Kinship studies, the second exam- the brain consists of a dense network of ple, extends the network parameters to synaptic connections and contains close genealogically linked family groups. to 10 billion neurones. A synapse is The historical model of the protection- defined in medical literature as the ist Hanseatic League expands the net- junction point between neurones where work boundaries even further to include nerve impulses and information from unrelated strangers linked by common one neurone flow to another (5). Look- goals and interests. Such diverse models ing at it from another point of view, the have been deliberately presented, as the synapse indicates a small gap separating intent of this text is precisely to recog- (or connecting) two neurones. The nize the variety of patterns within word “synapse” comes from the Greek: different systems. “syn” meaning “together” and “haptein” meaning “to clasp.” The term “synapse” was first used in a neuroscientific con-

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text by Michael Foster in his medical of kinship extends beyond family ties, textbook published in 1897. The goal and may include various forms of social of all synaptic processes is to cause an adoption, even fictive relations (7). effect on intracellular mechanisms, Kinship, due to its elaborate and specif- especially the post-synaptic neurones. ic patterns, has been an important focus Although a neurone is a simple element of anthropological study. The system of with little information-processing influ- genealogical family relationships is not ence, the mutual interconnectedness of itself a kinship system, but it provides the neurones results in a network of the foundation subnet for the net of highly effective processing power, not kith and kin networks. Kinship presents only because of the complicated struc- us with multifunctional networks, each ture, but also because of the neurones’ incorporating the capacity - often ability to work simultaneously. This is through effective channelling of infor- one of the reasons our brains are emi- mation flows – to shape other domains nently able to process extremely com- such as politics or economics. The plex information with seemingly little communication and exchange content, effort. Synapses and associated as well as the pattern of how the infor- organelles only became visible in the mation passes through the networks, eyes of medicine after the invention of modifies the information accordingly. the electron microscope in 1932. Con- Other factors such as stability and considerable progress has been made since tinuity of relationships affect connect- and today a wealth of information on edness by limiting and shaping the this subject is publicly available even decisions that groups/ families make. for children on the Neuroscience for Definition of the nature of the multi- Kids website including references such functionality of the networks has been as Michael Foster’s historical publica- made difficult by the fact that there tion on the topic. (6). seems to be considerable variation in the very “connectedness” of the kinship 2. Kinship networks. structures. Kinship is considered one of the most In kinship studies, the concept of net- distinct network structures in all realms work as part of an examination of the of human experience, especially as, in social process has been significant in one way or another, all societies are determining whether or not it keeps organized on the basis of kinship . Kin- groups going in their current state or ship refers to a social relationship link- leads to the emergence of new social ing people through genealogical lines. forms and the decay of old ones In many societies, however, the concept through the manoeuvring of interacting

160 The Absolute Report CONNECTIONS: THE POWER OF CONVERGENCE NINA CZEGLEDY individuals. Some, but not all, kinship groupings, there exists a larger societal ties are substantially economic in structure bound by rituals and mytholo- nature. The connectedness of a given gy. The survival over the centuries of kinship network is always enhanced if clan-based family structures has been relatives hold property rights in com- recognized as a key validation of net- mon enterprises. Kinship also defines works, and the analysis of kinship has extra-territorial loyalties which tran- greatly contributed to our understand- scend boundaries and survive migra- ing of human social processes in gener- tions. Partly for this reason, the kinship al and networking practices in particu- structure of Australian tribes has been lar. The recently developed Linkage studied extensively by anthropologists. Projects, the assembly of a large data- Radcliffe-Brown, in his pioneering base containing kinship data sets and study of kinship systems of the Aus- genealogies, is a contemporary effort to tralian aborigines, defines tribes as terri- further analyze and evaluate the opera- torial units consisting of persons speak- tion and functionality of kinship. (9) ing the same (one) language or dialects of one language (8). The name of the 3. A medieval commerce network. tribe and the name of the language are usually the same. Radcliffe-Brown notes Social network analysis focuses on pat- that, in addition to a linguistic connec- terns of relationship among people and tion, there exists also a unity of customs organizations. While the cutting-edge throughout the tribe. These customs examples of multinational business serve as further signifiers to differenti- alliances might be considered the ate between various tribes. Over the Appropriate contemporary commerce centuries, the tribes developed an intri- network model, the historical Hanseatic cate (initially self-organized) classifica- League was chosen on purpose, partly tion system that defines kinship rela- for its classical (initially) self-organized, tions and regulates marriages. There is protectionist, merchandizing network no central authority for the tribe as a properties (10) and partly as a nearly whole; however, in terms of function, it eight-hundred-year-old reminder of a has been found that a certain pattern of globalized commerce network model. behaviour exists to which individuals Spanning the years from 1241 to 1608, are expected to conform. Beyond mar- the power of the League in its heyday riages and family alliances, the kinship extended from London to Novgorod. system regulates and influences the The Hanseatic League has been gener- whole operation of social life. It is ally considered an alliance of cities; important to note that, augmenting the however, it was primarily a league of kinship structure of formal genealogical merchants and merchants associations

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in the Baltic region and the cities of increased the League’s power and inter- northern Germany. The origin of the state status. Thus, gradually, by com- “Hansa” name is shrouded in mystery. merce and coercion, the League grew Regular communication and commerce until it became an independent force, a between nations hardly existed in the network of networks, a state within Middle Ages, yet medieval trade was far states. At the height of their power, more complex than we suppose. Teu- merchants from seventy-seven Hanseat- tonic merchants, adventurers and ic cities dictated their own terms in the vagabonds traversed many regions in realm of commercial and inter-state Europe on horseback or in ships taking relations. Nevertheless, the drawn-out various goods to markets. As the num- miseries of the Thirty Years’ War, which ber of traders increased, they began to ended in 1648 with the Treaty of West- meet each other at various foreign phalia, also marked the demise of the ports, exchange wares and news and League. It is of interest to note that slowly form alliances both at home and lately (both figuratively and literally) abroad. We still have no accurate the Hanseatic ethos has been revived. knowledge of the real origin of this In 1997, nearly seven hundred and fifty international confederation of com- years after the historical League was merce and intelligence. We do know, formed, a move towards establishing a however, that the traders formed guilds New Hanseatic League was discussed and built storehouses clustered around within the framework of a Baltic Con- churches far away from their original ference in Helsinki. The purpose of this homes. The Hanseatic settlements were conference was to explore the possibili- populated by a fluid, ever-changing ty of economic integration, forming the population, whose inner affairs were basis of new economic and political decided not by a general council but by structures. The initiative was built on the burghers. The flag under which the hope that a New League, by operat- they grouped themselves bore the slo- ing as a network, would contribute to gan “Freedom for the common mer- the transformation of the Baltic Sea chant at home and abroad”. The economies into a coherent economic League’s very flexibility (especially in region characterized by the prosperity the beginning) contributed to its reminiscent of one of the world’s earli- strength, and provided it with the facil- est free-trade zones, the medieval ity of further expansion. In the middle Hanseatic League (11). of the 14th century, the League became involved in military actions, declaring Consideration of these extremely war on Denmark in 1362. The victori- diverse network systems leads us back ous end of this war tremendously to systems theory. How do the cited

162 The Absolute Report CONNECTIONS: THE POWER OF CONVERGENCE NINA CZEGLEDY models compare? They present several most, if not all, living systems contain analogous features on a different scale. an element of self-steering, which Norman Wiener, the father of cyber- makes it difficult if not impossible to netics, was convinced that the behav- forecast their operations. Further to the iour of humans, animals and machines notion of control, steering is strongly could be explained by making use of connected to planning. While hierar- cybernetic principles. He predicted that chical large-scale economic planning in the cybernetic world the information efforts have been attempted (see the exchanged between man and machines, example of the colossal economic “five- between machines and men and year plans” of the Soviet Union and the between machine and machine was des- Socialist bloc), the futility of these has tined to play an ever-increasing part in led to the increasing realization that the future (12). More recently it has individuals, some organizations and been suggested by Niklas Luhmann networks are to a large extent self- (13) that the flow of communication organizing. Recent developments in between units (rather than individuals) biology, especially in cognitive science, defines the operative structure of self- demonstrate the emergence of self- organizing and self-reproducing sys- organization as a core concept in living tems. Biological systems, like social net- structures. For example, neural compo- works, are characterized by goal-orien- nents of synaptic connections operate tation, self-organization, self-reproduc- locally but since they are part of a net- tion and adaptation. However, only work, cooperation develops when all social systems possess the ability to participating neurones reach a mutually reflect on their own environment, struc- satisfactory state. This path from local ture and operations by means of experi- (individual) to universal is the essence ment and deliberation. “The effective- of self-organization and is valid for all ness of the Network is generated by the network dynamics, whether they be Network’s self-description,” wrote complex systems of such synaptic con- Annelise Riles in “The Network Inside nections, the historical Hanseatic Out”, her penetrating analysis on the Alliance or Australian kinship networks. subject (14). Indeed, instead of considering system and network operation in an isolated Ever since Wiener introduced the term manner, a trend seems to be emerging cybernetics, derived from the Greek for towards a convergence of paradigms, steersman (kybernetes), the concept of towards the science of complexity. As control or steering has been a funda- noted by systems theorists as well as mental consideration of systems theory. scholars from a wide variety of scientif- Systems have steering properties and ic disciplines, this approach is in align-

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ment with current rapid technological constitute a new system.”(17) Network and social changes, diversity and non- features and, by extension, international linear relationships between open sys- networking activities have therefore tems. Complexity in social systems become the subject of renewed interest seems to be generated as a bottom-up and fascination. Recently, a growing process, reinforced by the interactivity number of interdisciplinary research of local units or components; it seems projects have featured the investigation that the growing rate of interdepend- of working patterns, flexibility and the ence in all manner of networks con- dynamic exchange of information prop- tributes to increased cybernetic com- erties of complex networks. Network munication. With such developments in analyses have provided a tool for mind, it is not surprising that the com- explaining structures and procedures of plexity of cybernetics has been revived information flow which are difficult to lately by theorists of the post-modern comprehend in a more formal, commer- world such as Bruno Latour(15) and cial relationship. Partly as a result of Donna Harraway (16). these findings, networks are increasingly valued by political, social and cultur- In conclusion, most complex adaptive al scientists as well as international rela- systems and networks share certain tions theorists. characteristics. The often numerous, constantly rearranged network units - It is of special concern to emphasize regardless of the diverse archetypes - that the notion of complexity and inter- operate on several levels of intercon- related activity has developed well nectedness, contributing to continuous beyond the role of traditional para- transition and new levels of complexity. digms and become part and parcel of Examining the individual’s position in a many disciplines, including the practice network, it has been shown that the of media art. The self-referential and effectiveness of a network structure is self-organizational features of sustain- directly related to integrated activity able networks have been especially val- rather than solo performance. Networks ued by media artists and activists. create the effects of their own reality Recent studies confirm the longstand- by self-reflection, which in turn induces ing preference of artists for more flexi- operational processes. Each network ble, more progressive and more effec- transaction allows for system transfor- tive structures than formal organiza- mation. The “self-referential circles (of tions or communication systems. While the network) loop together,” argues the state intelligence and spy nets, even legal scholar Gunther Teubner, “in such Nortel, might provide successful mod- a way as to form new elements which els at one end of the network spectrum,

164 The Absolute Report CONNECTIONS: THE POWER OF CONVERGENCE NINA CZEGLEDY

Riles provides a more ambitious com- 8. Radcliffe-Brown, The Social Organiza- ment on the future of networks: tion of Australian Tribes, The Social Anthropology of Radcliffe-Brown, ed. Adam “For those concerned with the intersec- Kuper, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Lon- tion of modernist epistemologies and don, pp. 131-173. liberal political philosophies, the “net- 9. http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/linkages/ work” offers a poignant case study of linkages.html institutionalized utopianism, an ambi- 10. Helen Zimmern, The Hansa Towns, tion for political change, of universal- T.S.Unwin, London, 1901. ism after cultural relativism and the 11. http://www.usembassy.fi/whatshap/ incredulity toward a metanarrative.” nhl.htm (18) 12. Wiener, Norman, The Human Use of Human Beings, Avon Book, New York, 1967, p. 25. 13. Niklas Luhmann and John Bernarz, References Social Systems (Writing Science), Stanford U. Press, 1995. 1. http://www.nortelnetworks.com/corporate/leadership/personal/ 14. Annelise Riles, The Network Inside Out, The University of Michigan Press, 2000, 2. Funk & Wagnalls Standard Desk Dictionary, p. 172. Funk &Wagnalls Inc., New York, 1977, p. 437. 15. Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, trans. Catherine Porter, Harvard Univer- 3. David E. Hunter and Phillip Whitten, sity Press, Cambridge, 1993. Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Harper& Row, New York, 1976, p. 113. 16. Donna Harraway, Cyborg and Sym- bionts. Living Together in a New World 4. Felix Geyer, The Challenge of Sociocybernet- Order, The Cyborg Handbook, ed. Chris ics, 1994. ftp://ftp.vub.ac.be/pub/proj- Haldes Gray, Routledge, New York and ects/Principia_Cybernetica/Papers_Othe London, 1995, p. xiii. rs/Geyer-SocioCybernetics.html 17. Gunther Teubner, The Many-Headed 5. http://synapses.bu.edu/ Hydra: Networks as Higher Order Col- 6. http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/ lective Actors, Corporate control and synapse.html accountability, ed. Joseph McCahery, Sol Piciotto and Colin Scott, Clarendon, 7. Andre P. Czegledy, Voluntary and Fic- Oxford, 1993, p. 43. tive Repatriation among Executives in Eastern Europe from an Ethnographic 18. Annelise Riles, The Network Inside Out, Perspective, Journal of Refugee Studies, The University of Michigan Press, 2000, 1997, 10: 476-494. p. 3.

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1998 APSOLUTNO 0002 incompatible source. The NTSC master copy was then transferred into PAL and brought IN THE BALKANS back to the Balkans. Video, Duration: 2,5 minutes In this work, association APSOLUTNO uses the technical incompatibility of different video This video presents a view of the Balkans standards to emphasise the differences in the from the outside of this region. ways reality is perceived. The material for this video was shot at the Black Sea, in Bulgaria, using the SECAM In this video association APSOLUTNO presents system. It was then edited on the NTSC based the view of the Balkans from the outside as a AVID system in the U.S. without being actually view which is not direct, but rather mediated transferred into NTSC. The result is a black and through a filter of technology, and media white stretched image, rich in glitches and representations based on apriori assumptions. noise caused by the manipulation of the Through these filters the Balkans is presented

1 This article is about “Flash Generation” and not about GENERATION the Web sites made with Flash software. Many of the sites which inspired me to think of “Flash esthetics” are not necessaraly made with Flash; they use Shock- FLASH wave, DHTML, Quicktime and other Web multimedia formats. Thus the qualities I describe below as Lev Manovich specefic to “Flash esthetics” are not unique to Flash sites. This essay, consisting of a number of 2 For instance, the work of Lisa Jevbratt, John Simon, self-contained segments, looks at the and Golan Levin. phenomenon of Flash graphics on the Web, which has attracted a lot of cre- preoccupied media artists of the last ative energy in the last few years. More two decades; instead it is engaged in than being just the result of a particular software critique. This generation software / hardware situation (low writes its own software code to create bandwidth leading to the use of vector its own cultural systems, instead of graphics), Flash esthetics exemplify using samples of commercial media.2 the cultural sensibility of a new genera- The result is the new modernism of tion.1 This generation does not care data visualizations, vector nets, pixel- whether their work is called art or thin grids, and arrows: Bauhaus design design. This generation is no longer in the service of information design. As interested in the “media critique” which opposed to the baroque assault of com-

166 The Absolute Report GENERATION FLASH LEV MANOVICH as something IN BULK, a distant black and white mass, without structure or organization. The image is hardly readable as it lacks clarity. The only sound is silence juxtaposed to an overwhelming noise arriving from this region that could be neither documented nor understood.

The author of this video is Svetla Angelova (Bulgaria), one of the virtual artists from “The Absolute Sale”, a web project by association APSOLUTNO. In this video she collaborated with a sound artist Zbigniew Majchrak (Poland), also a virtual artist from the same web project.

mercial media, Flash generation offers 3 “Generation Flash” incorporates revised versions of us the modernist esthetics and rational- the texts comissioned for www.whitneybiennial.com ity of software. Information design is and http://www.electronicorphanage.com/biennale. used as tool to make sense of reality, Both exibitions were organised by Miltos Manetas / Electronic Orphanage. “On UTOPIA” was commis- while programming becomes a tool of sioned by Futurefarmers. empowerment.3 mations by the same artists while others Turntable and Flash Remixing used animations by different artists.] [for www.whitneybiennial.com ] It has become a cliché to announce that [Turntable is a web-based software that “we live in a remix culture.” Yes, we do. allows the user to mix up to 6 different But is it possible to go beyond this sim- Flash animations in real-time, in addi- ple statement of fact? For instance, can tion to manipulating the color palette, we distinguish between different kinds the size of individual animations , and of remix esthetics? What is the relation- other parameters. For www.whitneybi- ship between our remixes made using ennial.com, the participating artists electronic and computer tools, and were asked to submit short Flash anima- earlier forms such as collage and tions that were exhibited on the site montage? What are the similarities both separately and as part of Turntable and differences between audio remixes remixes. Some remixes consisted of ani- and visual remixes?

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Think loop. The basic building block 4 See http://www.potatoland.org/landfill/ of electronic soundtracks, the loop has also taken a surprisingly strong position etc.; modify them, and then paste the in contemporary visual culture. Left to new works online - send them into cir- their own devices, Flash animations, culation. (Note: with the Internet, the QuickTime movies, and the characters always-existing loop of cultural produc- in computer games loop endlessly - tion runs much faster: a new trend or until the human user intervenes by style may spread overnight like a clicking. As I have shown elsewhere, all plague.) When I ask my students to cre- nineteenth-century pre-cinematic visual ate their own images by taking photo- devices also relied on loops. Through- graphs or by shooting videos, they out the nineteenth century, these loops have a revelation: images do not have kept getting longer and longer - even- to come from the Internet! Should I tually turning into a feature narra- also reveal to them that images do not tive ...Today, we are witnessing the have to come from a technological opposite movement – artists sampling device that records reality – that short segments of feature films or TV instead they can be drawn or painted? shows, arranging them as loops, and exhibiting these loops as “video installa- Think image. Compare it to sound. It tions.” The loop has thus become the seems possible to layer many sounds new default method to “critique” media and tracks while maintaining legibility. culture, replacing the still photograph The results just keep getting more com- of the post-modern critique of the plex, more interesting. Vision seems to 1980s. At the same time, it has also work differently. Of course, the com- replaced the still photograph as the mercial images we see everyday on TV new index of the real: since everybody and in cinema are often made from lay- knows that a still photograph can be ers as well, sometimes thousands of digitally manipulated, a short moving them – but these layers work together sequence arranged in a loop has to create a single illusionistic (or super- become a better way to represent reali- illusionistic) space. In other words, they ty - for the time being. are not being heard as separate sounds. When we start mixing arbitrary images Think Internet. What was referred to in together, we quickly destroy any mean- post-modern times as quoting, appro- ing. (If you need proof, just go and play priation, and pastiche no longer needs with the classic “The Digital Landfill”4) any special name. Now this is simply How many separate image tracks can the basic logic of cultural production: be mixed together before the compos- download images, code, shapes, scripts, ite becomes nothing but noise? Six

168 The Absolute Report GENERATION FLASH LEV MANOVICH seems to be a good number – which is Lingo, Perl, MAX, JavaScript, Java, exactly the number of image tracks one C++, and other programming and can load onto Turntable. scripting languages are the medium of choice for a steadily increasing number Think sample versus the whole work. If of young artists. Thematically, software we are indeed living in a remix culture, art often deals with data visualization; does it still make sense to create whole other areas of creative activity include works – if these works will be taken the tools for online collaborative per- apart and turned into samples by others formance / composition (Keystroke), anyway? Indeed, why painstakingly DJ/VJ software, and alternatives to / adjust separate tracks of a Director critiques of commercial software (Auto- movie or an After Effects composition, Illustrator), especially the browsers getting it just right, if the “public” is (early classics like Netomat, Web Stalk- going to “open source” them into their er, and many others since then). Often, individual tracks for its own use using artists create not single works but soft- free software? Of course, the answer is ware environments open for others to yes: we still need art. We still want to use (such as Alex Galloway’s Carni- say something about the world and our vore.) Stylistically, many works implic- lives in it; we still need our own “mirror itly reference visual modernism (John standing in the middle of a dirty road”, Simon seems to be the only one so far as Stendal called art in the nineteenth to explicitly weave modernist refer- century. Yet we also need to accept ences into his works). that, for others, our work will be just a set of samples, or maybe just one sam- Suddenly, programming is cool. Sud- ple. Turntable is the visual software that denly, the techniques and imagery that makes this new aesthetic condition for two decades were associated with painfully obvious. It invites us to play SIGGRAPH geek-ness and considered with the dialectic of the sample and the bad taste – visual output of mathemati- composite, of our own works and the cal functions, particle systems, RGB works of others. Welcome to visual color palette – are welcomed on the remixing Flash style. plasma screens of the gallery walls. Think Turntable. It is no longer October and Wallpaper but Flash and Director manuals that are Art, Media Art, and Software Art required reading for any serious young artist. Recently “software art” has emerged as the new dynamic area of new media Of course, from the early days of the arts. Flash’s ActionScript, Director’s computer in the 1960s, computer artists

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have always written their own software. 5 After GUI-based applications such as Hypercard, In fact, until the middle of the 1980s, Director, Photoshop and others became common- writing one’s own software or at least place, many computer artists continued to do their using special, very high-end program- own programming: writing custom code to control an interactive installation, programming in LINGO an ming languages designed by others interactive multimedia work, etc. This was not refered (such as Zgrass) was the only way to to as software art; it was taken for granted that even do computer art.5 So what is new in the age of GUI-based applications a really serious about the phenomenon of software artistic engagment with computers requires getting ones hands dirty in code. art that has recently emerged? Is it necessary? as tools, but they also use the content Let’s distinguish between three figures: of commercial media. A typical strategy the artist; the media artist; and the of a media artist is to re-photograph a software artist. newspaper photograph, or to re-edit a segment of TV show, or to isolate a A romantic/modernist artist (the nine- scene from a Hollywood film / TV teenth century and the first half of the show and turn it into a loop (from Nam twentieth century) is a genius who cre- June Paik and Dara Birnbaum to Dou- ates from scratch, imposing the phan- glas Gordon, Paul Pffefer, Jennifer and toms of his imagination on the world. Kevin McCoy) Of course, a media artist does not have to use commercial Next, we have the new figure of the media technologies (photography, film, media artist (the 1960s – the 1980s), video, new media) –s/he can also use which corresponds to the period of other media, from oil paint to printing post-modernism. Of course, modernist to sculpture. artists also used media-recording technologies such as photography and film, The media artist is a parasite who lives but they treated these technologies in a at the expense of the commercial media similar way to other artistic tools: as a – the result of the collective craftsman- means to create an original and subjec- ship of highly skilled people. In addi- tive view of the world. In contrast, tion, an artist who samples from / sub- post-modern media artists accept the verts / pokes fun at commercial media impossibility of an original, unmediated can ultimately never compete with it. vision of reality; their subject matter is Instead of a feature film, we get a single not reality itself, but representation of scene; instead of a complex computer reality by media, and the world of game with playability, narrative, AI, media itself. Therefore these media etc. we just get a critique of its artists not only use media technologies iconography.

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Thirty years of media art and post- ilar reason may be behind the recent modernism have inevitably led to a popularity of “sound art.” While com- reaction. We are tired of always taking mercial media now uses every possible existing media as a starting point. We visual style, commercial sound environ- are tired of always being secondary, ments still have not appropriated all of always reacting to what already exists. sound space. While rock and roll, hip- Enter the software artist – the new hop, and techno have already become romantic. Instead of working exclusive- standard elevator music (at least in ly with commercial media – and instead more hip elevators such as the Hudson of using commercial software – the Hotel in NYC), it seems that the software artist marks his/her mark on rhythm-less regions of sound space are the world by writing the original code. still untouched – at least for now. This act of code writing itself is very important, regardless of what this code actually does at the end. UTOPIA in Shockwave [UTOPIA is a Shockwave project by Futurefarmers A software artist re-uses the language for the Tirana Biennale 01 Internet section.] of modernist abstraction and design – [Futurefarmers : Amy Franceschini and Sascha lines and geometric shapes, mathemati- Merg] URL: http://nutrishnia.org/level/ cally generated curves, and outlined color fields – to get away from figura- UTOPIA is playful and deceitful - tion in general, and the cinematograph- because it pretends to be more inno- ic language of commercial media in par- cent, more simple, and lighter than it ticular. Instead of photographs and clips actually is. At first glance it can be of films and TV, we get lines and taken for something made for children - abstract compositions. In short, instead or for adults whose references are not of QuickTime, we use Flash. Instead of Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Rem Kool- the computer as a media machine – a haas, and Philip Stark, but text messag- vision that is being heavily promoted ing, gnuttela, retro Atari graphics, and by the computer industry (and most nettime. This is the new generation clearly articulated by Apple, which that emerged in the 1990s. In contrast promotes a MAC as a “digital hub” to the visual and media artists of the for other media recording / playing 1960s-1980s, whose main target was devices), we go back to the computer media - ads, cinema, television - the as a programming machine. new generation does not waste its energy on media critique. Instead of bash- Programming liberates art from being ing the commercial media environment, secondary to commercial media. A sim- it creates its own: Web sites, mixes,

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software tools, furniture, cloves, digital convinced not by listening / watching a video, Flash / Shockwave animations, prepared message but by actively work- and interactives. ing with the data: reorganizing it, uncovering the connections, becoming The new sensibility, which Utopia aware of correlations. exemplifies so well, is soft, elegant, restrained, and smart. This is the new UTOPIA does not have explicit politi- software intelligentsia. Look at the thin cal content; instead it presents its mes- low-contrast lines of UTOPIA, praysta- sage through a visual allegory. Like tion.com, and so many Flash projects SimCity and similar sims, the program included in the Tirana Biennale 01. If presents us with a whole miniature images of the previous generations of world which runs according to its own media artists, from Nam June Paik to system of rules. (All the animation in Barbara Krueger, were screaming, trying UTOPIA is the result of code execution to compete with the intensity of the – nothing is hand-animated.) The cos- commercial media, the new data artists mogony of this world reflects our new such as Franceschini/Merg whisper in understanding of our own planet – our ears. In contrast to media’s arro- post-Cold War, Internet, ecology, Gaia, gance, they offer us intelligence. In and globalization. Notice the thin bare- contrast to the media stream of endless ly visible lines that connect the actors repeated icons and soundbites, they and the blocks. (This is the same device offer us small and economical systems: used in theyrule.net.) In the universe of stylized nature, ecology, or the game / UTOPIA, everything is interconnected, music generator / Lego-like parade in and each action of an individual actor UTOPIA. affects the system as a whole. Intellec- tually, we know that this is how our Futurefarmers are among the few Earth functions ecologically and Flash/Schockwave masters who use economically - but UTOPIA represents their skills for social rather than simply this on a scale we can grasp perceptual- formal ends. Their project theyrule.net ly. is a great example of how smart programming and smart graphics can be The lines also serve another purpose. used politically. Instead of presenting a Despite CNN, Greenpeace, the glass packaged political message, it gives us roof of Berlin’s Reichstag, and other data and the tools to analyze it. It institutions and devices working to knows that we are intelligent enough to make the functioning of modern soci- draw the right conclusion. This is the eties transparent to their citizens, most new rhetoric of interactivity: we are of it is not visible. This is not only

172 The Absolute Report GENERATION FLASH LEV MANOVICH because we don’t know the motives The Unbearable Lightness of FLASH behind this or that Government policy or because advertising and PR constant- [Tirana Biennale 01 Internet section ly work to make things appear different (www.electronicorphanage.com/bien- from what they really are – the func- nale) was organized by Miltos Manetas tioning of societies is not visible in a / Electronic Orphanage. The exhibition literal sense. For instance, we don’t consisted from a few dozen projects by know where the cells are which make Web designers and artists, many of our cell phones work; we don’t know whom work in Flash or Schockwave. the layout of private financial network Manetas commissioned me, Peter that circles the Earth; we don’t know Lunenfeld, and Norman Klein to write what companies are located in a build- the analysis of the show. This text is ing we pass every day on the way to my contribution; many ideas in it work; and so on. But in UTOPIA, we developed out of the conversations the do know – because the links are made three of us had about the works in the visible. UTOPIA is Utopia because it is show. The names in brackets below a society where cause-and-effect con- refer to the artists in the show; go to nections are rendered visible and com- the show site to see their projects.] prehensible. The program re-writes Marxism as vector graphics; it substi- Biology. tutes the figure of “connections” for the old figure of “unveiling.” Flash artists are big on biological references. Abstract plants, minimalist crea- Behind its playful façade, UTOPIA is tures, or simply clouds of pixels dance serious business– but it is not all busi- in patterns which to a human eye signal ness. Drawing on our current fascina- “life’” (Geoff Stearns: deconcept.com, tion with computer games and interac- Vitaly Leokumovich: unclickable.com, tive image-sound software, UTOPIA is Danny Hobart: dannyhobart.com; a visual and intellectual delight. It is uncontrol.com) Often we see self- Tetris meets Marx meets data mining regenerating systems. But this is not life meets the club dance floor. It is a game as it naturally developed on Earth; for the new generation that knows that rather, it looks like something we are the world is a network, that the media likely to witness in some biotech labo- is not worth taking very seriously, and ratory where biology is put in the that programming can be used as a service of industrial production. We political tool. see hyper-accelerated regeneration and evolution. We see complex systems emerging before our eyes: millions of

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years of evolution are compressed into amplifies our single action, expanding it a few seconds. into a narrative sequence.

There is another feature that distin- Historically, computer games were guishes life la Flash from real life: the always a step ahead from the general non-existence of death. Biological human computer interface. In the 1960s organisms and systems are born, they and 1970s users communicated with a develop, and eventually they die. In computer using non-graphical inter- short, they have teleology. But in Flash faces: entering the program onto a projects, life works differently: since stack of punch cards, typing in a com- these projects are loops, there is no mand line, and so on. In contrast, com- death. Life just keeps running forever – puter games have used interactive more precisely, as long as your comput- graphical interfaces ever since they er maintains a Net connection. emerged in the late 1950s – something that only came to personal computers Amplification: Flash Esthetics and Computer in the 1980s. Games. Similarly, today’s games already use Abstract ecosystems in Flash projects what many computer scientists think have another characteristic that makes will be the next paradigm in HCI: the playing so pleasurable (Joel Fox). They active amplification of users’ actions. In brilliantly use the power of the comput- the future, we are told, agent programs er to amplify users’ actions. This power will watch our interactions with a com- puts a computer in line with other mag- puter, notice the patterns, and then ical devices; not coincidentally, the automate many tasks we do regularly, most obvious place to see it is in games, from backing up the data at regular although it is also at work in all of our intervals to filtering and answering our interactions with a computer. For e-mail. The computer will also monitor instance, when you tell Mario to step to our behavior and attention level, adjust- the left by moving a joystick, this initi- ing its behavior accordingly: speeding ates a small, delightful narrative: Mario up, slowing down, and so on. In some comes across a hill; he starts climbing ways this new paradigm is already at the hill; the hill turns out to be too work in some applications: for instance, steep; Mario slides back onto the an Internet browser offers us the list of ground; Mario gets up, all shaky. None sites relevant to the topic we are of these actions required anything from researching; Microsoft Office Assistant us; all we had to do is move the joy- tries to guess when we need help. stick once. The computer program However, there is a crucial problem

174 The Absolute Report GENERATION FLASH LEV MANOVICH with moving to such active amplifica- malist creatures. The user as a god con- tion across the whole of HCI. The trolling the universe is something we more power we delegate to a computer, also often encounter in computer the more we lose control over what it is games; but Flash projects also give us doing. How do we know that the agent the pleasure of creating the universe program identified a correct pattern in from scratch. our daily use of e-mail? How do we know that a commerce agent we send Active amplification is not the only onto the Web to negotiate the lowest feature Flash projects share with games. price for a product with other agents More generally, as Peter Lunefeld sug- was not corrupted by them? In short, gested, computer games are to the Flash how do we know if a computer ampli- generation what movies were to fied our actions correctly? Warhol. Cinema and TV colonized the unconscious of the previous generations Computer games are games, and the of media artists who continue to use the worst that can happen is that we lose. gallery as their therapy coach, spilling Therefore active amplification is pres- bits and pieces of their childhood ent in practically every game: Mario media archives in public (for instance, embarking on mini-narratives of its own Douglas Gordon). Flash artists are less with a single move of a joystick; troops obsessed with commercial time-based conducting complex military maneuvers media. Instead, their iconography, tem- while you directly control only their poral rhythms, and interaction esthetics leader in Rainbow Six; Lora Craft exe- come from games (Mike Clavert: mike- cuting whole acrobatic sequences at the clavert.com). Sometimes the user par- press of a keyboard key. (Note that in ticipation is needed for the Flash game “normal” games this amplification does to work; sometimes the game just plays not exist: when you move a single fig- itself (UTOPIA by futurefarmers.com; ure on a chessboard, this is all that hap- dextro.org). pens; your move does not initiate a sequence of steps.) Flash versus Net Art. Flash projects make extensive use of Tirana Biennale 01 Internet exhibition: active amplification. It gives many proj- this title is deeply ironic. The exhibi- ects their magical feeling. Often we are tion did not include any projects from confronted with an empty screen, but a Albania, or any other post-communist single click brings to life a whole uni- East European country for that matter. verse: abstract particle systems, plant- This was quite different from many like outlines, or a population of mini- early net-art exhibitions of the middle

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of the 1990s, whose stars came from is over; welcome to the Empire. the East: Vuk Ćosić, Alexei Shulgin, (The Tirana Biennale 01 did include Olga Lialina. 1990s net art was the first one artist from China who contributed international art movement since the a beautiful animation of martial arts 1960s that included East Europe in a fighters. But we never found who he big way. Prague, Ljubljana, Riga, and was. All we knew about him was his Moscow counted as much as Amster- email address: [email protected]. dam, Berlin, and New York. Including Maybe he did not even live in China.) artists from the West and the East on an equal basis, net art perfectly corre- Generation FLASH: FAQ sponded to the economic and social utopia of a new post-Cold-War world After I posted the preceding segments of the 1990s. on popular mailing lists dealing with new media art and cyberculture (rhi- Now this utopia is over. The power zome.org and nettime.org), I received structure of the global empire has lots of responses. Here are my answers become clear, and the demographics of to the two most common questions the Tirana Biennale 01 Internet section which appeared in a number of responses. reflected this perfectly. Many artists included in the Tirana Biennale 01 Question: Internet exhibition work in key IT regions of the world: San Francisco Isn’t the “soft modernism” you describe (Silicon Valley), New York (Silicon simply a result of particular technologi- Alley), and Northern Europe. cal limitations of multimedia on the Net? You seem to mistake the particular What happened? In the mid 1990s, net features of Flash designed to deliver art relied on simple HTML that ran animation over the narrow bandwidth well on both fast and slow connections for a larger zeitgeist. – and this is enabled the active participation of artists from the East. But the Answer: subsequent colonization of the Web by multimedia formats – Flash, Shockwave, Now that the new release of Flash QuickTime, and so on – restored the (Flash MX) allows the import and traditional West/East power structure. streaming of video, it is possible that Now Web art requires fast Internet con- soon “Flash generation” / “soft mod- nections for both the artist and the ernism” esthetics will leave Flash sites. audiences. With its slow connections, This is fine. My concern in this essay is the East is out of the game. The Utopia not with Flash software and its limita-

176 The Absolute Report GENERATION FLASH LEV MANOVICH tions/capabilities per se, but with the ventional” form or media. It was no new sensibility that was manifested in coincidence that, soon after his arrival many Flash projects during the last cou- at Xerox PARC in the 1970s, Alan Kay ple of years. In other words, I am inter- and his associates created a paint pro- ested in a “generation Flash” that is gram and an animation program, quite different from the Flash alongside overlapping windows, icons, software/format. Smalltalk, and other principles of modern interactive graphical computing. Therefore the many people who after The abilities to manipulate and gener- reading my text accused me of confus- ate media are not after-thoughts for a ing a technical standard with esthetics modern computer - they are central to missed my argument. The vector-ori- its identity as a “personal dynamic ented look of “soft modernism” is not medium” (Alan Kay.) To put this differ- simply a result of narrow bandwidth or ently: the computer is a simulation a nostalgia for 1960s design - it always machine, and as such it can and should happens when people begin to generate be used to simulate other media. graphics through programming and discover that they can use simple equa- So I have nothing against software tions, etc. This is also why the “soft artists using/creating media, but I hope modernism” of Flash projects and other that the “Flash generation” will extend software artists replays, sometimes in its programming work to representa- amazing detail, the esthetics of early tional media! In other words, if in the computer art (1950s-1970s), when early 1970s the paint program and the people were only able to create images animation program were revolutionary and animations through programming. in changing people’s ideas about a computer away from computation and Question: towards a (creative) medium, after almost two decades of menu-based There is no reason why software art media- manipulation programs and the cannot use representational images or use of computers as media-distribution any other form. Why do you associate machines (greatly accelerated by the software art with non-representational, World Wide Web), a little program- abstract, vector-based graphics? ming can be quite revolutionary! In short, we have now are so used to Answer: thinking of a computer as a “personal dynamic medium” that we need to Of course software artists can use repre- remind ourselves and others that it is sentational images or any other “con- also a programmable machine.

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Now, think about how programming characters, camera movement, and has been used so far to create/use still other characteristics of the game world images, animation, and film/video. - all in real time. Unfortunately, as we There are three trajectories that can all know, esthetically revolutionary be traced historically. One trajectory computer- and player-driven game extends from the earliest works of com- worlds feature formula-driven content puter art - the films by the Whitneys that makes even a bad Hollywood film (who were the students of Oscar appear original and inspiring by com- Fishinger and thus represent a direct parison. (Grand Theft Auto 3 is no excep- link with early twentieth century mod- tion here - despite its breakthroughs in ernism) made with an analog computer simulating a more compelling open uni- as early as the mid-1950s - to today’s verse.) “soft modernism” of Flash projects and data-visualization artworks. In other I think this brief survey shows that words, this is the use of programming there is still an untouched space com- to generate and control abstract images. pletely open for experimentation and creative research - using programming The second trajectory begins in the to generate and/or control 1980s, when Hollywood and TV figurative/fictional media. For instance, designers started to use computer-gen- in the case of a movie, programming erated imagery (CGI). Now program- can be used to generate characters on ming was put in the service of tradition- the fly, to composite in real-time char- al cinematic realism. Particle systems, acters shot against a blue screen with formal grammars, AI and other software backgrounds, to control the sequence techniques became the means to gener- of scenes, to apply filters to any scene ate flying bats, hilly landscapes, ocean in real-time, to combine pre-recorded waves, explosions, alien creatures, and scenes with imagery generated on the other figurative elements integrated fly, to have characters interact with the into the photorealistic universe of a viewer, etc, etc. In short, programming narrative film. can be used to control any aspect of a fictional media work. What about using algorithms not simply to generate figurative elements of a Of course, once in a while one encoun- narrative but to control the whole fic- ters projects moving in this direction at tional universe? This is the third trajec- places like SIGGRAPH or ISEA, but tory: programming in computer games they are typically research demos creat- (1960-). Here, algorithms may control ed in universities that do not reach cul- the narrative events, the behavior of ture at large. Of course, you can object

178 The Absolute Report GENERATION FLASH LEV MANOVICH that having an algorithmically contrast with the screaming graphics of trolled complex fictional universe commercial media and the media art of requires the kind of programming the previous generations is obvious. investment only possible in a commercial game company or at a university. The lightness of Flash can be thought After all, this is not the same as writing of as the visual equivalent of electronic a script that draws a few lines that keep ambient music. Every line and every moving in response to user input...yes, pixel counts. Flash appeals to our visual but why do our fictional/figurative intelligence - and cognitive intelli- works have to follow the formulas of gence. After the century of RGB color commercial media? If one accepts that which begun with Matisse and ended the characters do not have to be “pho- with the aggressive spreads of Wired, torealistic,” that the fictional world we are asked to start over, to begin does not have to be exclusively three- from scratch. The Flash generation dimensional, that chance and random- invites us to undergo a visual cleansing ness can co-exist with narrative logic, – this is why we see a monochrome or that stick figures can co-exist with 3- palette, white and light gray. It uses D characters and video footage, etc., neo-minimalism as a pill to cure us from programming figuration / fiction post-modernism. In Flash, the rationali- becomes less formidable. In short, while ty of modernism is combined with the I welcome programming Flash, I think rationality of programming and the it is much more challenging to program affect of computer games to create the QuickTime. new esthetics of lightness, curiosity and intelligence. Make sure your browser Postscript: On The Lightness of Flash has the right plug-in: welcome to generation Flash. When I first visited the most famous Flash site – praystation.net – I was I am not advocating a revival of mod- struck by the lightness of its graphics. ernism. Of course we don’t want to sim- Quieter than a whisper, more elegant ply replay Mondrian and Klee on com- than Door or Channel, more minimal puter screens. The task of the new gen- than the 1960s minimalist sculptures of eration is to integrate the two key aes- Judd, more subdued than awinter land- thetic paradigms of the twentieth cen- scape in heavy fog, the site pushed the tury: (1) belief in science and rationali- contrast scale to the limits of legibility. ty, emphasis on efficiency and basic The similar lightness and restraint can forms, the idealism and heroic spirit of be found in many projects included in modernism; (2) skepticism, interest in the Biennale 01 show. Again, the con- “marginality” and “complexity,” decon-

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structive strategies, the baroque musicians, theatre groups, dancers, opaqueness and excess of post-mod- designers, architects, and so on. ernism (1960s-). At this point all the Nobody knows what will emerge from features of the second paradigm became this global cultural laboratory – and tired clichés. A partial return to mod- this is what makes our times so interest- ernism is therefore not a bad first step, ing. as long as it is just a first step towards developing the new esthetics for the Although most of my arguments in this new age. book are about visual culture and visual esthetics, it is relevant at this point to Of course these esthetics should also evoke a different practice. Music has fully engage with the difficult questions historically always been the artistic of globalization. The remix culture we are field that was ahead of other fields in living in now is not only engaged in using computers to enable new aesthet- remixing all previous cultural forms and ic paradigms. The whole practice of texts, but also in remixing various fea- popular electronic music in the last tures which come from what used to be three decades is a testimony to how call national cultures as well as from empowering new technologies are in already existing remixes between immi- welding new, complex and rich remixes grant populations and their “host” cul- between different cultures, styles, and tures. The solution offered by multina- sensibilities. Without electronic and tional conglomerates – a composite computing technologies – from a which takes certain signifiers from a turntable and a tape recorder to peer- few national cultures (for instance, the to-peer file sharing networks and French idea of elegance, Japanese music-synthesis software running on a Manga iconography, “cool Britannia” regular laptop, most of this culture references, and so on) and integrates it would never have come to be. The field all into a rather bland and monolithic of electronic sound (which pretty much text which is then sent back to all the means most sounds today) with its mul- places around the world – is obviously titude voices and a real bottom-up, not a satisfactory solution. (It reminds “emergent” logic, is a powerful alterna- me of the Soviet-style centralized econ- tive to the “top-down” cultural compos- omy, in which all the output of collec- ites sold by global media conglomerates tive farms was sent to the center where around the world. Let us hope that it was decided how it was to be distrib- other artists and designers in other uted nationally.) Luckily, numerous fields will follow music’s lead in using a remixes following different logics are computer to enable similarly rich remix being explored around the world by cultures.

180 The Absolute Report GEBSENG - TVPOETRY - VERGESSEN - VINYLVIDEO - VSSTV GEBHARD SENGMÜLLER

“TV POETRY” is an experimental set- GEBSENG - up which can be put together at any location. Combined with precisely adjusted receiving equipment, it rapidly TVPOETRY - scans the various television transmis- sions it receives (commercials, news, VERGESSEN - quiz shows, etc.) for text passages visible on the screen. In an ongoing, real- time process, the text is recognised, fil- VINYLVIDEO - tered out, processed, and output as an endless stream of text, generated by TV programs and CPU programming. VSSTV Through imponderability, inaccuracy, Gebhard Sengmüller video noise and misinterpretation within the system, the source text is radical- In the following, I talk about four proj- ly transformed, giving rise to new ects that I worked on between 1992 meanings. Very powerful content and 2002. Obviously, all of them are (headlines, slogans, ...) “shines through” about television. In some sense, they and tends to remain intact. also deal with putting things into order and trying to preserve them for eternity. Signal processing takes place in parallel process on seperate machines and only TV POETRY, 1992-96 comes together in the final stage. The quality of the results in terms of densi- (http://www.itsallartipromise.com/tvpoetry/) ty, continuity and recognisable content is in a direct proportional relationship has been shown first at ars electronica to the available power and capacity of 1992, later in different settings at the the equipment (number of TV chan- Medienbiennale Leipzig, St. Gervais in nels, number and operating frequency Geneva and V_2 in Rotterdam. A self- of the CPUs, bus width of the connec- constructed and invented network of tions). satellite dishes, tv-sets and computers that all have one goal: to creat poems TV POETRY 2/94 works entirely from television. decentralised. An arbitrary number of “TV POETRY - Set-Up for Experimen- field agencies/points of support located tation 2/94, Medienbiennale Leipzig all over Europe (in this case: artists “The Faster the Machines - the Better appartments and studios in Rotterdam, the Poetry” Lüneburg and Vienna) gather tv signals

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TV Poetry - functional diagram

via cable television or satellite receivers, process this raw information automati- cally and send resulting poetry to the central computer placed in Leipzig.

This unique design (externalisation and compression to only one CPU per field agency) relying heavily on the existing tele communications infrastructure offers the opportunity of cheaply incorporating even distant locations into a an open network .Compared to previous set-ups this decentralized version results in an increase of channels and TV Poetry - outdoors installation view, available raw information. At the same ars electronica Linz time, as no expensive and sophisticated online connections are necessary to In the Leipzig exhibition hall a monitor transfer the data, costs will be reduced continiously displays the gathered text. significantly. The gathered information Except from 3 photographs of the field is to be sent to the Leipzig central sta- agencies, the observer will not be aware tion at scheduled times via telephone. of the poems distant origin.

182 The Absolute Report GEBSENG - TVPOETRY - VERGESSEN - VINYLVIDEO - VSSTV GEBHARD SENGMÜLLER

Furthermore the system spreads towards a higher degree of virtuality as the text is fed to the Unitn - room in M.I.T.s MediaMOO. Internet users have access to this virtual reality, where TV POETRY will be available in a ver- bal/virtual “room”. Using an internet terminal in the Leipzig exhibition hall, real visitors can experience and perceive this level.

Vergessen© erasure coils - ORF regional studio Vergessen© - Erasure Coils, 1997-1998 Innsbruck, type Weircliff model 8 (http://www.itsallartipromise.com/vergessen/era- sure_coils/)

Produced for the Vergessen© Project, initiated by Herwig Turk - a collaboration of about 20 artists and art theoriti- cians, working on the topic of forgetting in different ways, trying to cope with a phenomenon which seems inaccessible to known methods of episte- mology.

“The project is an attempt to actively Vergessen© erasure coils - ORF television studio embrace one aspect of life which is Wien-Küniglberg, type Garner Eliminator 4000 almost entirely ignored by our usual machines of knowledge. forgetting is ing with various aspects of forgetting usually mentioned in relation to dis- and its limitations, projects which eases, mistakes, trouble of all kind. we should move forgetting into the realm forget history. is there a pattern to it? a of our experience, that we might better system? is it possible to talk about it, is see and hear it.”, as Herwig Turk writes. it possible to work with it, is it possible (please also see to become aware of it? Do we want to http://www.vergessen.com) know more about forgetting? is it even possible to know more about forget- I travelled to all regional studios of the ting? we are working on projects deal- ORF (austrian public broadcasting cor-

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VinylVideo™ - viewing a Picture Disk on the VinylVideo™ System poration) and made photos of so-called “erasure coils”: huge electromagnetic devices, designed for the purpose of instantly erasing the content of magnet- ic audio- and videotapes. I see those machines as an industrial/mechanical form of “forgetting”.

VinylVideo™, 1998-2002 VinylVideo™ - still from the infomercial (http://www.vinylvideo.com)

My main work for the last years, exist- Apart from the obvious aspects of ing in many different settings and still media-archeology, timetravel etc., it is growing. also about artists that create their own

184 The Absolute Report GEBSENG - TVPOETRY - VERGESSEN - VINYLVIDEO - VSSTV GEBHARD SENGMÜLLER tools and environments instead of using DJ-ing and VJ-ing. For further information the ones provided by the industry. please also visit our website: http://www.vinylvideo.com “ From the press release: “VinylVideo™ - an invention by Gebhard Sengmüller, in cooperation with Martin Dia- VSSTV - Very Slow Scan Television, mant, Günter Erhart and Best Before. since 2002 (http://www.vsstv.com) VinylVideo™ is a new, wonderous and fascinating development in the history My recent project, still under develop- of audio-visual media. For the first time ment. in the history of technological invention, VinylVideo™ makes possible the 1) VSSTV - Very Slow Scan Television storage of video (moving image plus sound) on analog long-play records. VSSTV - Very Slow Scan Television - is Playback from the VinylVideo™ pic- a new television format. ture disk is made possible with the VinylVideo™ Unit which consists of a It builds upon SSTV, an image trans- normal turntable, a special conversion mission system developed and used in box (aka the VinylVideo™ Home Kit) the parallel universe of Ham Radio and a television. amateurs. Remarkably, this SSTV standard (see section 2) has been available In it’s combination of analog and digital for decades. In contrast to regular TV, elements VinylVideo™ is a relic of fake SSTV runs on a dramatically reduced media archeology. At the same time, frame rate. VinylVideo™ is a vision of new live video mixing possibilities. By simply VSSTV uses broadcasts from this his- placing the tone arm at different points toric public domain television system - on the record, VinylVideo™ makes available anytime over freely accessible possible a random access manipulation frequencies - to construct an analogy: it of the time axis. With the extremely recreates a cathode ray tube (CRT) reduced picture and sound quality, a with regular bubble wrap taking the new mode of audio-visual perception role of the aperture mask. Just as a CRT evolves. In this way, VinylVideo™ mixes the three primary colors to create reconstructs a home movie medium as a various hues, VSSTV will use the sur- missing link in the history of recorded prisingly similar yet magnified structure moving images while simultaneously of bubble wrap (see section 3), com- encompassing contemporary forms of monly used as a packing material.

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We will develop a device to receive back to 1957). A world of public images and output those images onto domain television, accessible even with a new visual medium. A plotter-like simple technology, independent of the machine will fill the individual bubbles commercial or monopolized television with one of the three primary CRT networks prevalent in Europe and the colors (red, green, and blue), turning US. them into pixels on the VSSTV screen. Observed from a distance, the clusters At the same time, VSSTV adds an iron- of pixels/bubbles will merge into the ic twist to the use of a material familiar original image. to every artist. Bubble wrap, normally used to wrap and protect art, becomes a Large and permanent television images medium and an artwork in itself. will be the result, images that take the idea of slow scan to the extreme: due to 2) SSTV our process, the frame rate decreases to only one frame per day, down from one Slow Scan Television (SSTV), frame in 8 seconds possible with the developed in 1957, uses the shortwave underlying SSTV format! radio band (Ham Radio) to transmit television images. The combination of Ham Radio SSTV television and the new output medium’s Ham Radio not only broadcasts extremely reduced frame rate suggests information (going back to Marconi’s the name for this system: VSSTV - 1895 invention of the radio), but also Very Slow Scan Television. uses the radio spectrum for personal communications, usually on a point to A few further remarks: point basis over a previously negotiated The VSSTV device incorporates analo- frequency. In contrast to telephone gies on many levels: the transmission of conversations, this communication is images vs. the transmission of sound; open and can be listened to by anyone digital vs. analog technology (in a who happens to be tuned into the same sense, VSSTV employs analog tech- frequency. nologies to result in digital images); CRT screen vs. bubble wrap. The Ham Radio band was reserved for the purpose of voice transmission, VSSTV makes us recall the elements therefore using only a small bandwidth. present in every television image. Broadcasting images within this narrow VSSTV reveals a hidden universe of bandwidth requires reducing their amateur television broadcasting (going quality and rules out transmitting

186 The Absolute Report GEBSENG - TVPOETRY - VERGESSEN - VINYLVIDEO - VSSTV GEBHARD SENGMÜLLER moving images. Furthermore, the visual information has to be converted into an audio signal.

Martin Diamant, co-author of VinylVideo™ (see www.vinylvideo.com) remarks: “For the technician it’s quite simple: if he listens to [the signal], it Ls audio, if he synchronizes, decodes and watches it, it’s video.”

Still valid today, the SSTV standard was formulated and realized by Copthorne Macdonald in the late 1950s.

British Ham Radio operator Guy Clark (N4BM) writes: “SSTV was originally VSSTV - close-up view of bubble wrap, filled with invented by Copthorne Macdonald and ink first used by Radio Amateurs. The original idea was to find a method of transmitting a television picture over a single speech channel. This meant that a typical (at that time) 3MHz wide television picture had to be reduced to around 3kHz (1000:1 reduction). It was decided at the outset that the scanning rates must be very slow, which precludes the use of moving pictures. The choice of time base for synchronizing was the readily available domestic power supply VinylVideo™ - still from the infomercial at 50 or 60 Hz (depending on the country of origin). This gave a line speed of 16.6Hz and 120 or 128 lines SSTV line to the original specification per frame (against the then UK stan- of 8 sec is as follows: The maximum dard of 405 lines (now 625) per frame), bandwidth is 3kHz, therefore the SSTV giving a new picture frame every 7.2 or signal’s bandwidth is restricted to 8 seconds. The composition of a single 2.3kHz; Black is represented by a

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1500Hz tone and white by a 2300 Hz ian Space Station MIR has been trans- tone together with a sync pulse at mitting SSTV pictures recently!” 1200Hz (well below the black level so that it is invisible). The Sync pulses are We might see SSTV as a parallel TV sent at the end of each line. These are universe, dating back to an era of tele- 5ms in length, and 30ms at the end of vision monopolies. But it also shows each frame. The original SSTV systems similarities to current streaming and were based on ex-government Radar netcasting technologies (in a sense, screens and long persistence cathode internet chat rooms today resemble the ray tubes. SSTV started out with sur- role of Ham Radio in previous decades). plus radar display tubes with very long persistence (“P7”) phosphors. This 3) Bubble Wrap allowed an image to be painted on the screen over a period of a few seconds.” Bubble wrap is a common material used to pack fragile goods. Obviously The modulation technique often trans- VSSTV is a variation on bubble wrap’s mits defective images, evident in trape- usual role in the art world. (There are zoid distortions in the image caused by perhaps only two ways to turn a profit time synchronisation problems. in the arts: running an art shipping company and manufacturing bubble The images (see figures 1-9) have a wrap.) very personal flair. Texts and pictures refer to the location of the sender and Bubble wrap consists of small transpar- his or her identifier. Self-referential fea- ent plastic bubbles, filled with air, tures dominate. Guy Clark (N4BM) arranged in a honeycomb pattern on writes: “What kinds of pictures are sent? transparent plastic sheeting. Reviewing pictures saved during the last few weeks I found: Hams in their The aperture mask-like structure of shacks, lots of pet dogs, a frog, kanga- bubble wrap and its similarity to a cath- roo, astronauts in the Space Shuttle ode ray tube constitutes an important (SSTV has been transmitted from some basis for VSSTV (see figure). missions!!!), bridges, birds, Elvis Presley, rock formations, an old fashioned 4) Implementation microphone, antique cars, flowers, children, Jupiter, a cow, someone playing The technical implementation of bagpipes, a UFO, many colorful butter- VSSTV and the construction of the flies, boats, and cartoon characters with actual device poses challenges in the personalized messages. Even the Russ- areas of telecommunication, computer

188 The Absolute Report GEBSENG - TVPOETRY - VERGESSEN - VINYLVIDEO - VSSTV GEBHARD SENGMÜLLER technology, control engineering and 5) Shows electromechanics. The VSSTV machine is the main focus Starting with the assembly of a short of the exhibition: as with an oversized wave radio receiver station, the images plotter, bubble wrap will unroll, moni- must be transferred to the computer via tored by sensors controlling vertical an SSTV converter. Furthermore, a and horizontal positioning. The observ- computer program (to be written) has er can witness the extremely slow trans- to parse the incoming images into lines, formation of the “blank” bubble wrap pixels, and hues, corresponding to the into an image within 20 hours. “resolution” of bubble wrap. Several audiovisual elements parallel The greatest effort will go into the this process: speakers play back the assembly of a machine to deliver the original radio signal (a peculiar chirping correct amounts of ink from the appro- sound that represents and transmits the priate color tanks to the individual bub- SSTV image); at the same time, a video bles via tiny nozzles. This process will monitor displays the current SSTV result in groupings of three bubbles/pix- image while an oscilloscope renders els (red, green, and blue) that merge individual scanlines. Additionally, a into one shade of color when observed miniature camera mounted on the print from a distance. Three full bubbles cor- head observes the filling of the bubbles. respond to “black”; three empty ones Magnified, the images of this camera (illuminated from behind) correspond will be visible on a second monitor. to “white.” A growing collection of VSSTV displays (1.5 by 2 meters in size) will We will develop methods and sensors accumulate during the exhibition. Each for the precise vertical and horizontal image is mounted between glass plates alignment of the sheeting. Furthermore, and backlit by fluorescent light. it will be necessary to select an appropriate, lightfast dye. For manufacturing 6) VSSTV - Functional Diagram of the planned of parts, programming and electro- device mechanical assembly, we will cooperate with partners in technology. Step 1: SSTV (Slow Scan Televison) signals are continuously broadcast by We plan to have the project up and Ham Radio operators around the world running within one year, with a fully on several short wave bands used for functional prototype to be exhibited in voice communications (e.g. 3.845 May of 2003. MHz, 7.171 MHz, 21.340 MHZ).

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Step 2: An open air antenna, together green and blue ink. Controlled by the with a short wave radio receiver, tunes PC, these needles inject the bubbles into the SSTV band and receives the with the exact amount of colored ink Ham Radio signals. Speakers play back corresponding to the brightness and the sound signals to illustrate the hue of the pixel. A miniature, closed- process. circuit video camera mounted on the print head captures the process and the Step 3: An SSTV scan-converter recog- resulting image is displayed on a video nizes and decodes the images carried monitor. by the sound signal. A monitor displays the images while an oscilloscope ren- Step 8: Pixel by pixel, line by line, the ders individual scanlines, making visible bubble wrap is colored in accordance the gradual flow of the image (X-reso- with the underlying SSTV image. lution: amplitude, Y-resolution: time). Assuming 10 seconds per pixel, this Step 4: The image processing PC will result in a new VSSTV display selects a random sequence of individual every 20 hours (75 lines per image). pictures from the SSTV converter. A Viewed from an appropriate distance program rasterizes these images into (approx. 5 meters), the individual dots pixels and breaks them down into their of ink resolve into distinct colors. An RGB components. The same PC also overall image emerges and becomes takes on the role of process controller visible: Very Slow Scan Television. in the following steps.

Step 5: The mechanics: Bubble wrap sheeting (width: 2 m, in bulk from roll) is fed between two cylinders for horizontal transport. A photo sensor, together with the PC controlling the process, manages the exact, real-time positioning of the sheeting via a feedback loop.

Step 6: The mechanics: a carriage (also controlled by the PC) vertically positions the print head.

Step 7: The print head consists of three needles fed by three tanks holding red,

190 The Absolute Report PYRUS COMMUNIS

1996 APSOLUTNO 0004 PYRUS COMMUNIS

Place: Belgrade, Yugoslavia Time: December 1996

The election fraud in the 1997 election in Serbia resulted in massive protests, during which protest marches were organised for 109 days, from December 21, 1996 till March 20, 1997. In Belgrade, around 300,000 citizens took part in the protests daily.

Association APSOLUTNO performed a street action during which the members were giving out pears to the protesters. The pears were accompanied with tags containing the following: the Latin name and chemical composition of pears, and the formula for free fall. The combination of the reference to a well-known expression in Serbian (‘to fall as a pear’, i.e., when it is ripe, meaning it’s time for change) and the use of the scientific language points to the proven inevitability of the regime’s fall. With this gesture aA joined the efforts of the protesters to bring down the regime.

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1996 APSOLUTNO 0004

Date: January 1, 1996 Place: Athens, the four remaining buildings on the Acropolis

The Acropolis, one of the most signifi- constantly covered cant monuments of European civiliza- by constructions tion and one of the most frequented of ‘temporary tourist sights in the world, has often architecture’. In been seriously damaged throughout its the process, the history. If in the past the monument conservation is was threatened by numerous attempts conducted as to conquer Athens, today it is the plagiarism, since harmful effects of pollution that entire objects are endanger it. For example, the damage re-made in modern caused to the monument in the past and more resilient two decades by acid rains has been materials. As a result, the largest part greater than in the last 2500 years. of the complex is artificial. It is well The alarming state of the monument known, for example, that the Caryatids has led to significant investments into on Erechtheum, the friezes on the its conservation. Teams of archeologists Temple of Athena Nike, as well as and conservation experts from all over most of the large stone blocks are not the world are working on maintaining original. Thus protected from further the monument in a pseudo-original damage, monuments are subject to condition and the buildings are new readings and interpretations.

194 The Absolute Report At the moment when the four remain- Such projects are presented to the ing buildings at the Acropolis remind us public as technological achievements, of the four remaining years until the and the artificial ambients produced end of the century and millenium, the in this way as historical artifacts. The association APSOLUTNO has chosen desire for contact with spiritual sites the Acropolis as a clear example of the of the past is thus readily met with process of transforming monuments of carefully prepared mis-en-scene with culture and spirituality into monuments a clear message: the absolute victory of progress. of capital.

The Absolute Report 195 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___MEMORY LE QUATRO STAGONI

1997 APSOLUTNO 0003 LE QUATTRO STAGIONI

“Association Apsolutno’s Le Quattro Stagioni project, with its immediate associations of the most delicious pizza, takes into consideration that reality is always perceived from our definitive temporal point of view; this is why the memebers of Apsolutno can incorporate different his- Le Quattro Stagioni is a project realised torical situations. Apsolutno points in a during the four seasons of 1996. It distinctive way to the fact that we must consists of four parts, each of which is dismiss (as an erroneous point of view, named after the season in which it was an epistemological mistake) the notion realised. Each part features a member of that we have a possibilityto perceive the association APSOLUTNO wearing reality as a totality; this error is, in fact, a period costume. The site chosen for already included in a positive ontologi- this photo-action is the memorial ceme- cal presupposition of reality in itself.” tery in Sombor dedicated to partisans Marina Gržinić, ZERO_ABSOLUTE_THE REAL who fought in the WWII. The ceme- (text from catalogue), tery, with its central monument bearing Gallery Marino Cettina, Umag, Croatia, 2001. a pentagram, is located on the estate

196 The Absolute Report LE QUATRO STAGONI

belonging to the Orthodox church, next to a chapel built in the imitation of the Serbian-Moravian style.

The project was re-done in 2002 in the neo-Gobelin (petit point) technique.

The Absolute Report 197 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___MEMORY AT THE RUINS OF A TRADE- MARK Minja Smajić

For many of us that grew up in a socialist country, the term Bauhaus meant something special, and the Bauhaus group mark. The “Bauhaus” style and school has, as a left-wing movement and a were created by a group of strong per- style widely accepted by the state, left sonalities. By people who had already many traces around us. And now some created their own professional styles, of my friends and I were on our way to who were already established as archi- the roots with invitations to the Ostra- tects, artists or designers. They already nenie forum at the Bauhaus School in had their own studios, staff and letter- Dessau in our hands. Expectations were heads. To use the language of the mar- high. So I wandered around the school ket, they already had their own trade- for five days trying to find the spirit of marks. For Walter Gropius, the main the Bauhaus by testing Marcel Breuer’s creator of the Bauhaus, trademark window mechanism, sitting in his Wass- thinking was nothing new. Between ily armchair in a corridor, trying out 1908 and 1910, while he was working how well the knobs on the assembly at Peter Behrens’s architecture studio, hall doors fitted the concave holes in he was already involved in a project for the wall or admiring the design of the the German electrical combine AEG tiny ceiling lamps in the assembly hall that was soon to be recognized as the itself. Then by taking a walk around first application of comprehensive the building and back in. But all that design as a part of company policy. I found were traces of a former trade- The project included publicity material,

198 The Absolute Report AT THE RUINS OF A TRADEMARK MINJA SMAJIĆ

its parts. Such a trademark could give them a better position in their attempt to get German industrialists to take them more seriously and develop the technologies that would meet their needs. Today we would call it a merger. Each merger situation is different, but they all have one thing in common: you give something to get something more back. So you create a substance as a sum of intentions, organization, ideas, individual skills and future potentials. The idea of the Bauhaus logos, company buildings and product proved to be strong enough to keep design. He learned how important it many skilled artists and craftsmen in was to use company thinking to make work for shorter or longer periods of the Bauhaus idea work. Gathering time under the Bauhaus hat. It was they around one idea is never a risk-free who created the substance behind the business. But it is often the only way Bauhaus trademark. By doing so, they to create a good basis for big business. added value to both the “Bauhaus” Today we are used to seeing the trademark and their own, and ensured Bauhaus movement as left-wing orient- the future of the Bauhaus ideas through ed (what was not left when fascists the talents of Herbert Beyer, Marianne were on the right?), but its members Brandt, Marcel Breuer, Gunta Stölzl and were completely conscious of the mar- many others. The old masters created ket situation and the need for money new ones. And the Bauhaus trademark and technologies that could make their became more and more valuable. The ideas come to life. Spreading the spirit power of intentions with which the of the “Bauhaus” philosophy required a trademark of Bauhaus was loaded was certain momentum, and the only way very unusual for that time. The Bauhaus to create this was to integrate their own School was thought as the Mercedes of trademarks into one that had the poten- arts and design schools and their prod- tial to become stronger than the sum of ucts as a milestone of human achieve-

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ment: artefacts the like of which had that say “We made it and we are bigger never been seen. They also understood than that.” To me and my friends on that just creating a trademark was not the spot in Dessau, this was in a way a enough. It was necessary to make it unique opportunity to reach the top known to as many people as possible. and pin our own flag there. But the So there were postcards, posters, prod- only way to get close to the spirit of ucts with the Bauhaus logotype on the Bauhaus was to stick to the myth. them, buildings as a part of the state- To take up the same poses in the same ment, exhibitions, theatre plays, etc.. location and take a similar snapshot. The momentum was there and every The place where we were does not feel single artefact was loaded with a mes- like Mount Everest anymore. It is more sage that had a certain power of the like Delphi after the Christian destruc- new. Everything, even down to the tion, like Pompei or Machu Pichu. The level of a simple snapshot of the school monument is there but the energy and teachers, had become a part of the people that created it are gone forever. Bauhaus myth. But when one actor on The trademarks that they had invested the market makes big steps forward, in their common vision were too strong the competition sees him as a threat to be replaceable. And after that, we and starts using all possible methods went straight to one of the few still and means to fight back. No wonder living forms of the Bauhaus trademark that the school was brutally closed at “Kebab am Bauhaus” on Walter down by the fascists, who by then were Gropius Allee, where we could have a acting on the same market: the idea meal and watch the school building market. The ideas of the Bauhaus just slowly disappear in the dusk. did not fit the fascist ideas and were a serious threat to their own trademark - Sources the swastika. I remember that the picture shown here of Wassily and Richard Hollis, Graphic Design, Thames and Nina Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Georg Hudson, 1994. Muche and Walter Gropius standing Magdalena Droste, Bauhaus, Benedikt in a corridor of the Bauhaus School in Taschen Verlag, 1991. Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, Dessau had a very strong effect on me Bauhaus, Könemann, 1999. the first time I saw it. There was a certain power in their body languages. They were obviously very proud of their own creation. It seemed to me like a picture taken on the top of Mount Everest, with their facial expressions

200 The Absolute Report END OF THE MESSAGE - TOTAL ARCHIVES DARKO FRITZ

termined by the system of values estab- END OF THE lished throughout art history. There are two parameters: that the artifacts are produced in the last decade of each MESSAGE - respective century and that they deal with the most typical motifs of the end TOTAL of each century. By means of communication media ARCHIVES I try to renegotiate value programming. project by Darko Fritz. 1995 > 2000 There are fax-machines which print-out computer graphics three meters long. These typographic images are record- ‘End of the Message’ will start in 1995 ings of a pre-programmed fax-modem and it will be realized in seven phases transmission which reads: ‘NO VALUE’, over a period of five years. For this ‘VALUE ON’ and ‘END OF THE project I will deploy different technolo- MESSAGE’. The thermal fax-paper gies of vision, communication and and thus the image is affected by the archivizing. The images you are about quantity of light and the gallery to see come from my total archive. temperature. The messages fade during the exhibition. [ phase 1 ] The first two elements of the installa- End of the Message tion are contained in a third element - site-specific installation a close-circuit video-link which means that the gallery is under constant sur- The entire installation space is veillance. The recorded events are dis- enveloped in a convex mirror mounted played simultaneously on the monitor. on the ceiling. Within this setting This set up is used for a period of one I engage the communication media month which is the duration of the of the 20th century. exhibition. During this time the surveillance system will act as an archive. In juxtaposition to electronic media ‘Obsessions: From Wunderkammer to Cyberspace’ there is a selection of paintings, sculp- exhibition, Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede, tures and drawings from the Rijksmuse- Netherlands, 1995 um Twenthe collection, which mark the end of the 16th, 17h, 18h and 19h cen- turys. My choice of art works is prede-

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[ phase 2 ] ‘Radical Images’ exhibition, Szombathelyi museum, Hungary, 1996 End of the Message - Security Camera ‘Europe > Humanisme’ exhibition, Sélestat, France, 1997 video - TV programme ‘Electronic Landscape’, Drewen, Germany, 1997 These are the same images but this time they don’t depict live action. Recorded events create electronic paths which in [ phase 4 ] turn create a memory of the installation. The installation has thus become End of the Message - sigurnosna an archive which can also be used for kamera snima! (Security Camera is anthropometric research. I have in fact Recording Now!) used sevenhundredandtwenty hours of video installation in public space surveillance to make a one hour art video. In keeping with conventional Vesta, the Roman goddess of the video surveillance devices, I use a single hearth, or Vestalinka as she was named camera angle, time-code display and by her sculptor Ivan Meštrović in 1917, various time compression methods. is guarding my video monitor as well as Beta SP, 60 min. / PARK 4DTV, Netherlands, 1996 the bank in Zagreb, Croatia. PARK 4DTV, New York, 2000 The art video which emerged from the staging of the surveillance process in [ phase 3 ] the Rijksmuseum Twenthe is now put on display for the actual surveillance End of the Message (archives) system of the bank. series of photographs- video-stills The title of the installation ‘End of the This series of photographs reveal a new Message - Sigurnosna kamera snima! level of the surveillance process. They (Security Camera Is Recording Now!) is enable us to see that which escapes our not displayed as the title of the site. perception due to the persistence of Instead, I have designed a warning sign vision. This new archive of selected to inform the bank clients that they are portraits is based on thirty minutes of under video surveillance. the surveillance video, compressed into one minute. Each one of the visitors The bank surveillance video is not can be traced through his or her time- exhibited at the installation site. Never- code of the recording. theless, the zone of the visible is ‘Radical Images’ exhibition, Neue Galerie, Austria, defined by the surveillance system. 1996 Unlike the museum visitors who could

202 The Absolute Report END OF THE MESSAGE - TOTAL ARCHIVES DARKO FRITZ

phase 6, End of the Message (archives - live!) [ phase 6 ] installation view at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 2005 End of the Message (archives - live!) photo: Sarah Cook video and sound installation This triple video-projection includes both the museum and the bank surveil- take part in the act of surveillance the lance videos. In addition, a still video is bank clients are denied this possibility. introduced in this phase. Time delay Bank office Oktogon - Privredna banka, ‘T.EST’ caused by the absence of motion, is exhibition, Zagreb, Croatia, 1996 complemented by projections of images on a large screen. The twelve by three [ phase 5 ] meter screen cannot be taken in from a single focal point. End of the Message (Bank’s Security Camera) The last intervention is the process of video - TV programme the sound being doubly displaced from the image: in the first instance it is The video editing, which restores con- simultaneously broadcast via the radio, tinuity to the multimonitored and and secondly there is an audio CD. hence, fragmented space of the bank is ‘Drive-in’ Planet Art, Hengelo / radio, performed by the security officers as Netherlands, 1996 part of their daily routine. Kapelica gallery, Ljubljana / radio Študent, Slovenia, 1996 Here, I provide the possibility of pre- ‘Who by Fire’, Institut of Contemporary Art, senting these monitored images to an Dunajvaros, Hungary, 1997 audience. This electronic archive draws Berlage Institute Amsterdam gallery / 20 hours upon a found, ready made system of broadcast by Radio Patapoe, Netherlands, 1999 domination imposed through vision. ‘Images’ - ‘Argos’ project. Vevey, Swiss, 2000 Miroslav Kraljevi Gallery / radio Student [10 Beta SP, 60 min., Art Film hours ambient remix by Wave FM] / Gjuro 2 club

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[drum’n’bass remix by DJ Markan], Zagreb, Croatia, 2000 Audio CD ‘End of the Message (archives - live!)’ 60 min. / .rm at the internet

[ phase 7 ] End of the Message (Edit Value) installation

This installation consists of the three End of the Message (Edit Value) newly designed fax works which quote installation with 21 fax prints Installation view at Nova Gallery, Zagreb, 1997 the messages from the first phase of the photo: Ozren Drobnjak project: NO VALUE, VALUE ON, END OF THE MESSAGE. In the first phase I question the programmed value The time of the archive, of its filtered of the cultural institutions by staging a production, reception and recollection value programming system. In the last is now. As I have demonstrated, these phase, this programming system is sources for preprogramming and repro- decontextualized from its previous site. gramming the archive are open. It folds onto itself infinitely. I have no reccolaction of this not bee- Nova Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia, 1997 ing the end of the message? Interstanding 4, Tallin, Estonia, 2001 exhibition: Brotfabrik Galerie, Berlin, Germany, 1996 [ total ] Berlage Institute Amsterdam Gallery, Netherlands, 1999 End of the Message - total archives publication ‘Darko Fritz: End of the Message’: 32 pages, texts by Darko Fritz, Leonida Kovač and presentation project Inka Schube, 1996 internet document (from 1996): You have just seen the seven phases of http://members.ams.chello.nl/fritzd/projects/enden- the ‘End of the Message’ project col- dopen lected in my total archive. The internet document is constantly upgraded and The total archive is a project consisting now including audio and video as well. By the way, the subject of an achives was probably the most of a touring exhibition, a printed cata- unpopular subject among net.art community at the logue, an internet document, a thirteen time being. minute video and finally the text you video ‘End of the Message - Total Archives’: are reading now. Beta SP, 13 min. / .rm at the internet

204 The Absolute Report SYNDICATE ALBUM ANDREAS BROECKMANN

This photo selection comes from a very SYNDICATE limited stock of images. Some Syndi- cate-related events remained undocumented, while there are probably many ALBUM photographs in private collections like mine, which would make a proper fami- SAMPLES FROM ly album only when taken as a whole. At some point, a historian is going to THE PHOTO have a hell of a job trying to construct this album, which - in addition to the COLLECTION events mentioned here - will have to Andreas Broeckmann include the meetings in Rotterdam, Liverpool, Stockholm and Venice, the On the following pages I want to pres- Net.Shops in Linz and Karlsruhe and ent some photographs from the incom- the Balkania workshop in Helsinki, not plete album of the Syndicate network. to mention Syndicate-related events The Syndicate was a network of people like Beauty and the East, Virtual Revo- working in the arts that was created in lutions, Polar Circuit, WRO, 1996 to facilitate communication and VideoMedeja, and many others. cooperation between East and West Europe. From the beginning, it was The story of the Syndicate from 1996 clear that this initiative would be suc- to 2001 forms part of the backdrop and cessful when it had made itself obso- cultural context of the work of the asso- lete. In this sense, the demise of the ciation Apsolutno during these years, Syndicate in 2001 was a timely event, and the work of aA no doubt con- marking the end of the post-Cold War tributed to the temporary cultural for- period. Most importantly, the Syndicate mation that the Syndicate was. organised meetings and stayed in touch through a mailing list on the Internet. 1. This is in Budapest in a park close to (The archive of the list remains online the Art Academy, where Metaforum 3 at www.v2.nl/syndicate and offers a was organised in October 1996. From detailed chronology of the now defunct left to right you see Vuk Ćosić, Luka network.) Since then, the Syndicate list Frelih, my back, Igor Marković, Pit has been replaced by a mailing list Schultz, Benjamin Perasović, Geert called ‘Spectre’, which continues to Lovink, Tom Bass and Marjan Kokot. operate as an information and commu- Metaforum was much more a Nettime- nication channel for art and digital cul- related event than a Syndicate event ture in Europe. [www.nettime.org]. After the founding

The Absolute Report 205 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___MEMORY INTERMEZZO

1999 APSOLUTNO 0001 ing each week, followed by information about INTERMEZZO the time and place of the recording. The locations selected for this audio documen- THE DIARY OF A TOWN tary represent various aspects of the public space of the town, from more traditional social Intermezzo is a collection of sounds recorded sites (the town beach, open-air market), to on various locations in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, at communication hubs (a corner of two streets, regular intervals between May 1998 and April a bus stop), social events (the New Year’s Eve, 1999. The aim of the project was to capture an a wedding) or events that association authentic yet invisible reality of the life in Novi APSOLUTNO accidentally witnessed (a car Sad during one year and to create a specific accident, a conversation in a store). sound map of the town. In this project, association APSOLUTNO collaborated with Radio 021 The project was interrupted by the beginning (Novi Sad), which broadcast one sound record- of the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia in March

I also had the idea for the ‘Refresh’ net- art performance, which we then coordinated for the online event on 6 Octo- ber. A week later, Vuk brought floppy disks with the first Refresh loop to Budapest. For some metaphysical reason, Kathy Rae Huffman is in none of these photographs, although she was seminal, together with Geert, in creating many of the first nodes in the net- of the Syndicate in Rotterdam in Jan- work that the Syndicate would become. uary 1996 at the end of the Next 5 Minutes Tactical Media conference, 2. In the summer of 1997 we had an Inke Arns and I had organised the first opportunity to organise a workshop at big Syndicate meeting, again in Rotter- the Hybrid WorkSpace of the docu- dam, in the context of the DEAF 96 menta X in Kassel. Under the title festival. Forty people came from all ‘Deep Europe’ we discussed, for 10 over Europe for presentations of media days, the geography and topology of art from Eastern Europe and for a dis- identities in Europe and how artists deal cussion about archives for media art. In with them. Most memorable was the Rotterdam, Vuk, Alexej Shulgin and Deep Europe Visa Department perform-

206 The Absolute Report SYNDICATE ALBUM ANDREAS BROECKMANN

1999, two months before its planned completion. Thus, truly important moments in the life of the town were recorded in this Diary.

va (Illie had organised another big Syn- dicate meeting in Liverpool in April that year); and I think, in the background, there is Thorsten Schilling with the glasses, and Lisa Haskell.

3. This is outside the National Gallery in Tirana/Albania during the ‘Piramedia’ trip undertaken by a group of Syndical- ists in April 1998 - among them ance, in which we turned the work- Stephen Kovats, Melentie Pandilovski, space into a fictional consulate where people could apply for a futile visa by following a long, incomprehensible and irrational bureaucratic process - the queue was long and the whole thing a big success. In the photo you see me with the ‘Apsardze’ (Albanian for ‘guard’) badge and the ‘d/e’ (Deep Europe) logo that Kit Blake designed; Luchezar Boyadjiev and Iliyana Nedko-

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Eric Kluitenberg, Yukiko Shikata, Adele Eisenstein, Diana McCarty, and again Geert, Igor and I. Most of us had first met Edi Muka - the guy in the light blue shirt standing in the middle - at the Syndicate meeting in Rotterdam in September 96, and since then we had been toying with the idea of going to Tirana, one of the few capital cities none of us had ever visited. 1997 was a picture). It is not easy to believe that bad year in Tirana, but things calmed this photo was taken in the middle of down and we spent a wonderful week the war - but it does show that even with Edi and his friends and students, under such difficult external circum- the group that will probably never be stances it was possible to maintain called the VHS - Video Heroi Shkip- friendships and keep the lines open. tari. - In the summer of 2001, Edi curated an exhibition of contemporary Albanian art in Berlin which opened on the night the Syndicate list ‘went down’. Edi said he would not have got- ten there if it hadn’t been for the Syndi- cate, but maybe the fact that he did get there proved the point of the initiative’s obsoleteness in its old form.

4. In the spring of 1999, NATO bombed Serbia and Kosovo in order to 5. Half a year later, we met at the drive Yugoslav forces out of Kosovo. Ostranenie ‘finissage’ in Dessau/Ger- We had been making plans for a Syndi- many for the presentation of the book cate meeting in Belgrade since the pre- ‘MediaRevolution’, which summarised vious autumn, and CyberRex had actu- and documented the whole Ostranenie ally applied for the travel funding from process. In 1993, 1995 and 1997, APEXchanges. This meeting was, under Stephen Kovats and his team had the circumstances, organised instead at organised the media forums that, for C3 in Budapest in April and brought many, were a first-time opportunity to together all these people for a long encounter media art from different East weekend of discussion (only Melentie, European countries. The Syndicate who had to leave early, is missing in the meeting at Ostranenie 3 was not very

208 The Absolute Report SYNDICATE ALBUM ANDREAS BROECKMANN memorable, just like the one we held at Next 5 Minutes 3 in Amsterdam in February 99, probably because there were many non-Syndicate-members present who felt alienated by the in- crowd of people belonging to the network; the mix between internal discussion and external information just was- n’t right. The meetings always worked best in small groups of people who to continue our journey to Belgrade - knew one another and each other’s for me the fulfillment of the old prom- work. Good presentations and perform- ise which had been prevented by the ances could arise from that, like in Kas- bombings of the previous year. sel or the ‘Partnership for Culture (trademark)’, with which we irritated a Stockholm conference on cultural cooperation in the Baltic region early in 1998. - The Ostranenie ‘finissage’ ended with a big breakfast during which Stephen must have made hundreds of pancakes. At this breakfast table, Bojana Petric and Zoran Pantelic are talking to Wolf Kahlen, and to the left you see Inke Arns (still smoking at that time) and Sandra Kuttner. 7. In my story of the Syndicate, this 6. This is in a bar in Novi Sad where table in the courtyard of the Mexican Lisa Haskell (left) and I went with House in Plovdiv/Bulgaria is the last Larisa Blazic, Branka Milicic and - I real-life location. There had been some think he is called Vlad (right) - during a discussions on the list about the quality stay in February 2000. You can see us and style of discourse; many felt that it drinking some dangerous local liquor. I was deteriorating. This was a discussion flew from Berlin to Budapest and then that we had had before - there was took the train to Novi Sad where I met always some notorious lurker who up with Lisa, who had been doing a would demand that the list should be workshop with people in Novi Sad. more like a discussion forum -, but the Because bridges over the Danube had founders and the administrators had been destroyed, we had to take the bus never been as critical about the state of

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the list as they were now. During the Communication Front workshop in June 2001, we took the opportunity given by the presence of some Syndi- calists to discuss the future of the list. At the table, there were only one or two people who had ever been at another Syndicate meeting before; the others were more or less active members of the list. Maybe it was the final 8. The picture show ends with this de-masking of a myth that we had idyllic shot of two sleeping beauties maintained in self-defence: the Syndi- (Stephen Kovats and Geert Lovink) and cate had stopped being a definable net- my wife Sandra armed with her video work of people and had become a mail- camera in a park on the outskirts of ing list, so that it was no longer guided Tirana where, in April 1998, we were all by the rules of empathy and mutual lost in time and space. interest, but by the strange communication laws of the Internjet [sic]. No final decision was taken at the time, but only a few weeks later the list blew up in a flame war and remains online in a form that is only a shadow of what it used to be. Anyway, here we have Alexander Gubas (sitting, left), Dimos Dimitriou (sitting, right) and Igor Stepančič (standing, right) on the scene.

210 The Absolute Report BLINDFOLD CHESS AND THE WAR IN SERBIA KEN GOLDBERG BLINDFOLD CHESS AND THE WAR IN SERBIA Ken Goldberg Post-office servers and EUnet continued working during the war, so Dragan I first came into contact with Absolutno was able to upload Absolutno’s web site in January 1999. I was teaching a grad- piece by piece over a phone connection uate seminar at the San Francisco Art and to establish a mirror site in Vienna under Public Netbase (www.t0.or.at). Institute entitled: “Is Net Art a Legiti- mate Art Form?” Dragan Miletic signed up for the class. We analyzed a number of key works from that period, in particular work from Olia Lialina and Jodi, who visited from Barcelona during the semester.

The invasion of Kosovo occurred early in the semester, followed by the NATO bombing of Serbia. We talked at length about it in class. Dragan was in regular contact with his colleagues at Absolut- no and B92. When Milošević shut down the radio station, we discussed the idea that the Internet link was still active and that xs4all was broadcasting The situation for Dragan, no admirer of B92’s radio feed from Holland: Miloše- Milosovic but increasingly agog at US vić could not shut down the Internet. rhetoric, was complex. For the class, it But the following week Milošević shut put everything else into context. It was down all Internet servers at B92, at the during this period that Dragan present- time the only independent IP in Serbia. ed the Absolutno net work, C-h-e-s-s.net.

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On the screen, a viewer is presented with an empty chessboard. The familiar game pieces can be located and identified only by clicking on the empty squares to reveal hidden hyperlinks. Thus the structure of the game must be built up from memory.

This project is rich in associations. I have always been fascinated by the image of the blindfolded chess master, George Koltanowski, playing 56 simultaneous games by calling out moves to his invisible opponents (he won 50 of the games). rematch with Boris Spassky. The U.S. Of course Absolutno is well aware of Treasury Department warned him that recent developments in computers and he would be violating U.N. sanctions if networks. In May 1997, IBM’s network he played chess in Yugoslavia. Fischer of computers called Deep Blue defeated Gary Kasparov with a dramatic victory in Game 6. What is at stake when a computer beats the best human in the game that symbolizes intelligence and strategy?

Any juxtaposition of art and chess brings to mind Marcel Duchamp, who said that “while not all artists are chess players, all chess players are artists.” In 1967, Duchamp took the American chess genius Bobby Fischer to a major played anyway. He beat Spassky but tournament in Monte Carlo. now faces 10 years in prison if he returns to the U.S.. Chess has a rich history in Eastern Orthodox countries and in Yugoslavia Absolutno weaves such associations in particular. In 1992, Fischer came out brilliantly to warn of abstraction and its of his 20-year retirement to play a dangers.

212 The Absolute Report WE MUST ACCEPT THE UNACCEPTABLE

2000 APSOLUTNO 0000 WE MUST ACCEPT THE UNACCEPTABLE installation Date: 6 August 2000 Place: Hiroshima, three military warehouses that survived the atom bomb explosion in 1945

Apsolutno marked the buildings as museum objects by installing brass plaques with the following text:

“We must accept the unacceptable” Absolutely real facts; series 0000.

The sentence is taken from Emperor Hirohito’s address to the nation upon Japan’s surrender.

The Absolute Report 213 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___MEMORY A.TROPHY

1999 APSOLUTNO 2002 A.TROPHY

The idea for this piece originated during the 78 days of the NATO operation “Allied Forces ” in Yugoslavia in 1999. It features a sequence from Petar Lalovic’s documentary “The Last Oasis”1, which was shot in the early 80s, in the Baranya County of the former Yugoslavia, now the Republic of Croatia.

1 Produced by Dunav Film Beograd in 1984.

The film reveals the beauty and diversi- Let us consider the events in the Last ty in one of the largest wildlife refuges Oasis when the film was made and the on the Balkan Peninsula, which is more recent developments. The early endangered by industrial and agricultur- 1980s in the Yugoslav political arena al development, as well as human disre- were very dynamic and occasionally spect for nature in general. Situated very eruptive. In May 1980 Marshal between the rivers Danube and Drava, Tito died. From today’s perspective his the Oasis’ marshes attract a variety of death can be seen as a turning point: after years of a relatively comfortable species, some extinct in the rest of the socialist era, Tito’s death accelerated the European Continent. The area, known separation of the six Yugoslav republics as Kopacki rit, covering 17,770 into five new states. Many see Marshal hectares, was declared a Nature Park in Tito as the single authority figure that 1967, with an area of 6,234 hectares kept post WWII Yugoslavia together. declared a Special Zoological Reserve Coincidentally, Tito was an avid hunter in 1969. With great admiration for this who enjoyed this activity in the region small but vibrant ecosystem, director where “The Last Oasis” was filmed. Petar Lalovic explores the Oasis and reminds us of the times when wildlife Positioned in the middle of the Balkan was thriving in a much larger area of Peninsula, on the outskirts of the Iron this part of Europe. Curtain, between the communist East

214 The Absolute Report A.TROPHY

and the capitalist West, Tito’s The film-sequence chosen for this piece Yugoslavia had a unique position in the shows a scene with deer shedding its global community, a virtual Oasis with antlers. This process occurs when the its own guiding principle of self-man- animal is aged and represents a turning agement. Yugoslavia was part neither of point in the animal’s life. The animal’s the Warsaw Pact nor of NATO. pride and symbol of power is about to Instead, together with India and Egypt, vanish. At the same time, the animal’s Yugoslavia initiated the Non Aligned life becomes much safer. This event Movement, at a summit in Belgrade, also redefines the value of the antlers. After they are shed, neither hunters nor September 1-6, 1961. Thirty-one years collectors value them as highly as when later, at the meeting of Ministers of taken with the animal’s skull. Only a Non-Aligned Countries held in New killed animal is potentially a trophy. York on 30 September 1992, it was decided that Yugoslavia cannot partici- A deer hunt may last for days, and we pate in the activities of the Movement can imagine the hunter’s frustration at any longer. Yugoslavia, one of the ini- the sight of deer shedding its antlers. tiators of the Non Aligned Movement, But for the camera and the director, this ended up expelled from the organisa- moment is a real trophy, since it cap- tion it had founded. In a radical politi- tures an event extremely rarely seen in cal shift, a socio-political trophy turned nature, a moment when everything into atrophy. turns into its opposite.

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Obviously, the event itself carries certain questions arise: what is a trophy antipodal meanings and the interpreta- and what is atrophy in a wider socio- tion depends on one’s point of view and political sense? The variety of possible the given context. In this sense, the interpretations of the image are paral- title of the installation, a·trophy, sug- leled by a variety of possible answers to gests certain readings of the image by these questions. It is certain, however, emphasizing the binary nature of the that the author of “The Last Oasis” event beheld in the image (a trophy vs. could not predict that this sequence atrophy). In a specific political and would gain such a rich metaphorical military context, such as the one we significance and become a trophy of an started working in on this project, atrophy.

216 The Absolute Report APSOLUTNO FUIT HIC

The Absolute Report 217 contributors THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___CONTRIBUTORS AUTHORS

Andreas Broeckmann / Berlin the translocal Syndicate network (*1996) Studied art history, sociology and media and of the studies and worked as a project manager at Berlin-based „mikro” association for the V2_Organisation Rotterdam, Institute for the advancement of media cultures (*1998) Unstable Media, from 1995-2000. Since the . She has published autumn of 2000 he has been the Artistic widely on issues of media culture and art in Director of transmediale - International media international magazines and books. Her book art festival Berlin. He is a member of the “Net Cultures” (Rotbuch Verlag) was published Berlin-based media association mikro, and in spring 2001. of the European Cultural Backbone, a network Her PhD dissertation, titled “Objects in the of media centres. In texts and lectures he deals Mirror may be Closer Than They Appear: with post-medial practices and the possibilities The Avant-garde in the Rear View Mirror”, for a ‘machinic’ aesthetics of media art. researches a paradigmatic shift in the way artists reflect the historical avant-garde in visual and media art projects of the 1980s and 1990s C5 / San Francisco in (ex-)Yugoslavia and Russia. Currently she is An ensemble of artists and academics personi- the art director of Hartware, Dortmund. fied in a corporate identity-body enabling valued signification of experimental research and jodi / Barcelona development endeavors. C5 is a Limited Liabili- ty Company as artwork. C5 devises theoretical Pioneers of net.art models, analysis and tactical implementations of Theory as Product. Experiments, analysis Ken Goldberg / San Francisco models, prototypes and simulations serve to Artist, Associate Professor of Engineering, and define C5 theory as an information commodity. founder of the Art, Technology, and Culture C5 projects have been presented at Siggraph, Colloquium at UC Berkeley. He is editor of The the Technology Museum of Innovation in San Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepis- Jose, the San Jose Museum of Art, The Walker temology in the Age of the Internet (MIT Press, Art Center in Minneapolis, New Langton Arts in 2000). San Francisco, Transmediale in Berlin, The Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria, etc. Konrad Becker / Vienna Hypermedia researcher/developer, interdiscipli- Inke Arns / Berlin nary event and content designer. He was chair- Independent media art curator. Since October man of the Institute for New Culture Technolo- 2000 she is a lecturer at the Institute of Slavic gies, Director of Public Netbase/ t0, a Culture Literatures and Cultures at the Humboldt and Youth oriented Center for New Communi- University, Berlin, Germany. Her curatorial work cation Technologies and founder of World- includes exhibitions, festivals and conferences Information.Org, a cultural intelligence provider. on international media art and culture, like Konrad Becker has been active in electronic OSTranenie 93 at the Bauhaus Dessau; Minima media as artist, curator, organiser and producer. Media: Medienbiennale Leipzig 1994, Leipzig; Numerous intermedia productions, exhibitions, discord. sabotage of realities, Hamburg and eventdesigns for international festivals and 1996/97; body of the message, Berlin 1998; institutions, TV-stations,museums and galleries and update 2.0, ZKM Karlsruhe for the Goethe- since 1979. Publication of mediaworks, elec- Institute, 2000. She is a founding member of tronic audiovisual products and theoretical

220 The Absolute Report AUTHORS texts. He is member of various boards and committees on Information- and Communica- tion Technologies and culture.

R. LeE Montgomery / Oakland Received a filmmaking degree from Bard College in 1991. Since then he has occupied himself as a commercial video editor, effects supervisor, game designer, web designer, 3D sound designer for a location based digital entertain- ment platform, artist and teacher. In 1999 Lee received an MFA degree from the San Francis- co Art Institute where he began work on the web site www.norwoodfunk.com. R. Lee Montgomery continues his involvement with the www.norwoodfunk.com web site, and also contributes to the sites www.conceptualart.org and www.lee-web.net. Most recently, R. Lee Montgomery has lectured in the art department at UC Santa Cruz, and currently serves as the lead multimedia instructor at Diablo Valley College in Northern California. Currently he is working on a project NPR- Neighborhood Public Radio is an independent, artist-run radio project committed to providing an alternative media platform for artists, activists, musicians, and community members.

Marina Gržinić Mauhler / Ljubljana is doctor of philosophy and works as researcher at the Institute of Philosophy at the ZRC SAZU (Scientific and Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Science and Art) in Ljubljana. She also works as a freelance media theorist, art critic and curator. Marina Grzinic has been involved with video art since 1982. In collabo- books. Her last book is FICTION ration with Aina Šmid she has produced more RECONSTRUCTED EASTERN EUROPE, than 30 video art projects, a short film, numer- POST-SOCIALISM and THE RETRO-AVANT- ous video and media installations, Internet GARDE (Vienna: Edition SELENE in collabora- websites and an interactive CD-ROM (ZKM, tion with Springerin, Vienna, 2000; www.ama- Karlsruhe, Germany). Marina Grzinic has pub- zon.de). Currently she teaches at the Academy lished hundreds of articles and essays and 7 of Fine Arts in Vienna.

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Nina Czegledy / Toronto / Budapest In 1992 PLATFORM won the Time Out Award An independent media artist, curator and for ‘Still Waters’ which proposed as common writer, Nina Czegledy divides her time between sense the recovery of the buried rivers of Canada and Europe. Digitized Bodies, Virtual London. Growing out of the success of ‘Still Spectacles is the most recent collaborative Waters’ the ‘Delta’ project, involved sculpture, project conceptualized and developed by music, performance and the installation of a Czegledy, presents a series of on-line and micro-hydro turbine in London’s river Wandle, on-site events. The Aurora Universalis and has in turn led to the creation of the largest collaboration with Stephen Kovats initiated in community renewable energy scheme in an 1997, is in progress. The Crossing Over Work- urban context in the UK - RENUE. Another shop/Media Residency project co-curated with strand of PLATFORM’s work began in 1993 Iliyana Nedkova has been realized in Sofia with ‘Homeland’, a commission from London (Bulgaria96 and 97), Novi Sad (Yugoslavia98), International Festival of Theatre, which investi- Ljubljana (Slovenia99), Colombus, Ohio (2000) gated Londoners’ links to producers through and Liverpool, UK (2001). international trade systems. Since 1996 it has Interactive digital works: Aurora, Aurora CD been working on its most ambitious, multi- ROM (Virtual Revolutions project),the Digitized faceted project to date - ‘90% CRUDE’ - a Bodies CD ROM (in collaboration with C3 and ten-year process focussing on the culture Ars Wonderland Studio, Budapest), Triptych and impact of Transnational Corporations and (in progress) and theY2KMonsters interactive specifically their dependency on oil, with installation. particular reference to London and Londoners. Czegledy has published both internationally PLATFORM are: Dan Gretton (writer, activist), and in her native Hungary. James Marriott (sculptor, naturalist) and Jane Most recent publications in: Reframing Trowell (art teacher, musician). Consciousness ed. R. Ascott (1999 and 2000), Mediated Bodies with Andre P.Czegledy In: RTMark / United States / Paris The body caught in the computer intestines and beyond. Ed.Marina Grzinic and Adele Began as a funding system for the creative Eisenstein (2000), Digitized Bodies Virtual subversion of corporate culture. Its core is a Spectacles with Andre P.Czegledy (2000, Web-based database of aesthetic and social Futures, UK). Transcribing the Body, with interventions in public spaces. These projects Andre P. Czegledy (Anomalies, in press), are displayed at http://rtmark.com/funds.html Media Revolution ed. Stephen Kovats (1999) in hopes of soliciting funding that will allow or reward their accomplishment. RTMark uses corporate public relations PLATFORM / London techniques to publicize its successful projects Since 1984 PLATFORM has established itself to millions of people. RTMark-sponsored as one of Europe’s leading exponents of social projects containing alternative and blacklisted practice art, combining the talents of artists, content regularly receive widespread media scientists, activists and ecologists to work coverage and attention in numerous main- across disciplines on issues of social and stream newspapers and magazines, and on environmental justice. PLATFORM works in mainstream television and radio stations, and about London and the tidal Thames Valley, both in the United States and abroad. but its methodologies and strategies travel A constantly updated archive is located at far beyond Britain’s capital. http://rtmark.com/allpress.html.

222 The Absolute Report AUTHORS

The core aim of RTMark is to call attention to the iniquity of the legal rights that corporations have arrogated over the years in the United States and (now increasingly) around the world. RTMark’s charter is to popularize these problems and their innumerable ramifications, and, especially, to focus anti-corporate senti- ment and activism. We do this both directly— by discussing the issues—and indirectly—by embodying corporate behavior in many of its manifestations. For the most part, we do this because it is effective—corporations use the publicity techniques that they do because they work—but at the same time, we hope to draw attention to the way corporations act within our society... and outside it.

Stephen Kovats / Rotterdam Canadian architect, lived and worked primarily in Dessau, and Berlin, Germany from October 3, 1990, the day of German unification, until Y2K. There he established the Studio Electronic Media Interpretation at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, where he initiated and ran numerous international projects in the fields of architecture and electronic media arts including the OSTRANENIE Electronic Media Arts Forum, and the ARCHITONOMY architectural media nationally. Co founder of Nettime, Syndicate, seminars. He recently produced the publication 7-11 and Ljubljana Digital Media Lab. MEDIA · REVOLUTION and the CD ROM Most notable venues include: ostranenie 93 95 97, which examine the role Venice Bienale, Walker Center, Minneapolis; played by electronic media art and culture upon Postmasters, NYC; Kunsthalle, Vienna; Stedelijk, the societal transformation process in Central Amsterdam; LAMoCA, LA; ICA, London; ZKM, and Eastern Europe. Currently Kovats is interna- Karlsruhe; Beaubourg, Paris; tional programs developer at V2_Institute for the Unstable Media in Rotterdam. Geert Lovink / Amsterdam Media theorist, net critic and activist. Vuk Ćosić / Ljubljana Studied political science at the University of Retired net.artist and ascii artist. Born in Amsterdam. Member of Adilkno, the Founda- Belgrade, Yugoslavia. tion for the Advancement of Illegal Knowledge, Currently lives in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Best a free association of media-related intellectuals known as internet art pioneer and author of established in 1983 (Agentur Bilwet auf numerous net.art projects. Lecturer, writer and Deutsch). Most of the texts of Adilkno in curator, exhibited, published and curated inter- Dutch, German and English can be found at

The Absolute Report 223 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___CONTRIBUTORS AUTHORS

http://thing.desk.nl/bilwet. He was the co- er, and programmer since since 1984. His art organizer of conferences such as Wetware projects include little movies, the first digital (1991), Next Five Minutes 1-3 (93-96-99) film project designed for the Web (1994-) http://www.n5m.org, Metaforum 1-3 and Freud-Lissitzky Navigator (1999-), a (Budapest 94-96) http://www.mrf.hu, Ars conceptual software for navigating twentieth Electronica (Linz, 1996/98) http://www.aec.at century history. and Interface 3 (Hamburg 95). In 1995, He has been teaching digital art and theory together with Pit Schultz, he founded the of new media since 1992 at a number of international ‘nettime’ circle http://www.net- Universities in the U.S. and Europe. Currently time.org which is both a mailinglist (in English, he teaches at the Visual Arts Department, Dutch, French, Spanish/Portuguese, Romanian University of California, San Diego. and Chinese), a series of meetings and publications such as zkp 1-4, ‘Netzkritik ‘ (ID-Archiv, Minja Smajić / Stockholm 1997, in German) and ‘Readme!’ (Autonome- dia, 1998). A recent conference he organized Art Director. Studied economy, graphic design was Tulipomania Dotcom conference, which and visual communication. His field is branding took place in Amsterdam, June 2000, and corporate identity. He is running Jobbajob- focussing on a critique of the New Economy ba design agency and teaches at Berhgs School www.balie.nl/tulipomania. In early 2001 he of Communication in Stockholm. His work can co-founded www.fibreculture.org, a forum for be seen at www.jobbajobba.com Australian Internet research and culture which has its first publication out, launched at the Darko Fritz / Amsterdam / Zagreb first fibreculture meeting in Melbourne Media artist, curator and graphic designer. (December 2001). Studied architecture and art media. He works with reproductive media and technology in Lev Manovich / San Diego artistic and cultural contexts. He has been an artist, a theorist and a critic of new media. working with video since 1988 (as tv virus). He is the author of The Language of New First computer- generated environment in Media (The MIT Press, 2000), Tekstura: 1988. Digital photography since 1990. First Russian Essays on Visual Culture (Chicago attempt to webcast 1994. Founding member of University Press, 1993) as well as over fifty (all) artist groups cathedral (1988), the imitation articles which have been translated into many of life studio (1987 - 1990), young Croatian languages and published in 20 countries. electronic films (1991) and the future state of Manovich was born in Moscow, where he Balkania (1998). Involved in syndycate network. studied fine arts, architecture and computer He curated exhibitions ‘Culture of graphic science. He moved to New York in 1981, design in the Netherlands’ (1999), ‘I am still receiving an M.A. in Cognitive Science (NYU, alive’ (Internet art and computer art from the 1988)] and a Ph.D. in Visual and Cultural sixties, 2000), club.nl (art and art networks Studies from University of Rochester [1993]. from the Netherlands, 2000) and ‘lights from His Ph.D. dissertation The Engineering of Vision Zagreb’ (interactive light installations, 2001). from Constructivism to Computers traces the origins of computer media, relating it to the avant-garde of the 1920s. Gebhard Sengmüller / Vienna Manovich has been working with computer Artist who is working with electronic media, media as an artist, computer animator, design- video, computer. He is a founding member of

224 The Absolute Report AUTHORS media artgroup Pyramedia from Vienna, Schneider is one of the initiators of the No One member of hilus intermediale projektforschung is Illegal campaign and one of the founders of and inventor of Vinylvideo. the noborder network and the Europe-wide internet platform, D-A-S-H. In 2001 he designed and directed the make world festival Dejan Sretenović / Belgrade in Munich, and organised metabolics, a series Art theoretician and chief curator of the Muse- of lectures on net art and net culture. He has um of Contemporary Arts in Belgrade, associate also worked on several documentaries for the of the School of History and Theory of Arts of German-French television station, Arte, the Centre of Contemporary Arts in Belgrade including What’s to be done? which looks and editor-in-chief of the Virco library. Curated at contemporary activism. He also writes for a number of exhibitions in Yugoslavia. Pub- major German newspapers, magazines, journals lished ‘Art in Yugoslavia 1992 – 1995’. and handbooks. Currently teaches theory at the art academy in Trondheim. Aleksandar Bošković / Belgrade has degrees from the university of Belgrade and Rossitza Daskalova / 1967 - 2003 Tulane university. ph.d. in social anthropology (university of st. andrews, st. andrews, scot- Bulgarian and Canadian art historian, journalist land, uk, 1997). ph.d. thesis topic: “construct- and writer. Born in Sofia in 1967, died in ing gender in contemporary anthropology”. Montreal in 2003. Was an art and film critic He taught at the universities of st andrews in Montreal since 1990. She contributed to (scotland), belgrade (yugoslavia), ljubljana journals such as Parachute, C-Magazine, ETC (slovenia) and brasilia (brazil), before embarking Montréal, Vie des arts, Espace and E-Magazine for the university of the witwatersrand in of the International Center for Contemporary johannesburg (south africa), where he is Arts(CAC). For three years she produced a currently a visiting research fellow. being a TV program “Window on Bulgaria” for the multiple personality (gemini), aleksandar is also CJNT-TV, Montreal multilingual tv station. a visiting professor in the post-graduate (ma) program in anthropology at the faculty for social sciences (fdv), university of ljubljana, slovenia. his most recent book project is a collection of the cae texts (digitalni partizani), published in belgrade in early october 2000. other book projects in work include a textbook on the anthropology of religion, a book on cyber theory (co-edited, with Igor Marković), writings on blade runner and an edited volume about paul virilio.

Florian Schneider / Munich Writer, filmmaker and net activist. He concen- trates on how new communication and migration regimes are being attacked and under- mined by critics of borders and networks.

The Absolute Report 225 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___CONTRIBUTORS ASSOCIATION APSOLUTNO ASSOCIATION APSOLUTNO The association APSOLUTNO was founded in 1993 in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, as a collective of four members (Zoran Pantelić, Dragan Rakić, Bojana Petrić and Dragan Miletić (from 1995 till 2001)). The works of the association are 2005 he is teaching Media communication at signed APSOLUTNO, without any reference the Academy of Fine Arts in Novi Sad. to personal names.

The production of APSOLUTNO started in the Dragan Rakić field of fine arts. Gradually, it has developed to Artist and art educator. Studied at the School include cultural, social and political aspects. for painting and icon conservation in Belgrade Today APSOLUTNO is a conceptual collective, and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Novi Sad, dealing with interdisciplinary research into where he now teaches. Solo exhibitions of reality and media pluralism. In the last few installations and paintings. Consultant for years, APSOLUTNO focuses on re-conceptualis- computer graphic design. ing its earlier works in new contexts and in different media. Bojana Petrić http://www.apsolutno.org Researcher and educator in the field of [email protected] linguistics. She earned her Ph.D. degree in applied linguistics from ELTE University in Zoran Pantelić Budapest. She is a contributing editor of “Misao”, an educational journal in Novi Sad. In Artist, producer, and media activist. He holds 2005 she edited a special issue titled “History BA and MA degrees from the Academy of Fine teaching in transition”. She publishes on issues Arts Novi Sad as well as a certificate from the such as writer identity, interdisciplinarity, and School of Media Education 2001, Ljubljana, citation practices in writing. She has taught in Slovenia. educational programmes in Russia, Turkey, In 2000 he founded kuda.org – new media Hungary and Serbia. Currently she is writing center, in Novi Sad, which is the first of its kind a book about educational reform. in Serbia and Montenegro . He curated (2001) the new media section of Belgrade October Exhibition, and co-curated Dragan Miletić New Media Festival in Belgrade. In 2003 he Artist. Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in co-produced the World-Information.Org Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. Dragan was a member of exhibition www.world-information.org, an the art association Apsolutno between 1995 – international project by Public Netbase, 2000. From 1998 he lives in San Francisco, Vienna, in Novi Sad and Belgrade. In 2004 he California. Dragan works as a Web Coordinator organized Trans European Picnic in Novi Sad, at the San Francisco Art Institute, where he www.transeuropicnic.org, which was co-pro- received his MFA in 2000. He now works as a duced with V2 Institute from Rotterdam. Since member of the artistic collective Bull.Miletic.

226 The Absolute Report ASSOCIATION APSOLUTNO

PRESENTATIONS / EXHIBITIONS / LECTURES (SELECTION): 1996 Belgrade, Cinema Rex, production B92, Yu Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, “Zlatno oko” Gallery Belgrade, SKC, production SKC Novi Sad Schrattenberg, Austria, Art Symposium Mostar, BH , 4.LUR, production Fund for an Open Society Belgrade, Yugoslavia, OFF BITEF, Belgrade International Teatre Festival Budapest, Hungary, C3, Center for Culture and Communication Belgrade, Yugoslavia, Cinema Rex, production B92

1997 Belgrade, Yu , Centre for Contemporary Art-Bgd, Anual Exhibition, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 44th Festival of short and documentary film Gent, Belgium, Experimental Intermedia Dortmund, Germany, MeX, Kunstlerhaus Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 5.LUR, production Fund for an Open Society Schrattenberg, Austria, Art Symposium, Flaschenpost Dortmund, Germany, DASA, Short Cuts: Links to the Body Somerset, UK, Nettlecombe Studios, Shave Farm ‘97 Kwangju, South Korea, ‘97 Kwangju Biennale Graz, Austria, Steirischen Herbst ‘97, Neue Galerie Graz: 2000 minus 3, ArtSpace plus Interface Cape Town, South Africa, Michaelis Art Galery 1998 Belgrade, Cinema Rex, 21. oktobar, The Belgrade, Yugoslavia, Galerija kulturnog centra Absolute Sale, presentation and talk, Yu Beograda Sombor, Yu, Gallery “Laza Kostić” Culture Budapest, Hungary , Film Center “Balazs Bela Centre, 25. oktobar Studio”- Cinema Toldi Ljubljana, Slovenia, S.O.U., Gallery Kapelica Graz, Austria, “Flaschenpost”, Forum Stadtpark Dessau, Germany, Bauhaus, The International Sofia, Bulgaria, Presentation and talk,Gallery of Electronic Media Forum OSTranenie 97 Foreign Arts

The Absolute Report 227 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___CONTRIBUTORS ASSOCIATION APSOLUTNO

Varna, Bulgaria, Presentation of selected Belgrade, Reality Check, CCA Belgrade & Free projects, TED Gallery B92 Seattle, USA, “Independent Exposure”, Seattle San Francisco, New Langton Arts, CA, USA Independent Film & Video Consortium Berlin, Germany, VEAG Medien Facade, Plovdiv, Bulgaria , VodeoArt, 11-17 May Video installation Schrattenberg, Austria, Intermedia Symposium, Sofia, Bulgaria, Video Festival „Videoarcheology“ “2000” Helsinki, Finland, Kiasma Museum, presenta- London, England, UK, Backspace tion and talk Liverpool - Manchester, UK, ISEA98, Dessau, Germany, Bauhaus Dessau, „Apsolutno Revolution98 - Interventions In The Urban Space“ Berlin, Germany , Galeria i.f.a., “Focus Belgrad” Dessau, Germany, Bauhaus Dessau, London, UK, Pandaemonium Festival, London’s „The Semiotics of Confusion“ Festival of the Moving Image,16 -23 Oct. Berlin, Germany, Mikro.lounge #19, WMF Club Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, VideoMedeja Summit, video festival Rotterdam, Netherlands, WHIPPET - Deunde Pula, Croatia, INK Theater, Presentation of Fudation selected projects (slides and video) Maastricht, Netherlands, Jan van Eyck St. Petersburg, Russia, “Balkan answer”, Academie - “en/passant 99” programme The festival of video art from former Yu Vienna , Austria, “Aspect - Positions” Palais Liechtenstein, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, Center for Contemporary 1999 Arts - Belgrade, Video Art in Serbia Berlin, Germany, “Transmediale 99”, international media festival 2000 Belgrade, Yugoslavia, TGH, CD Rom project presentation, Cinema Rex, B92 Belgrade, Yugoslavia, “Insomnia” Gallery Paris, France, VIA #5, Art Festival SULUJ, Center for Contemporary Arts Barcelona, Spain, MECAD, 2nd International Berlin, Germany, “Transmediale 2000”, Show of Art in CD-ROM international media festival Budapest, Hungary, Cinema Toldi, ex-YU video Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 47th Festival of short and Wroclaw, Poland, WRO99 - Media Art documentary film, Serbeiko, video Biennale, Presentation, Enschede, The Netherlands, Dutch Art Institute Graz, Austria, Raum fur Kunst, “Stop the War” Oberhausen, Germany, 46. International Short Paris, France, “Off Tracks International Film Festival Meetings”(Berlin-Paris) Video festival Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Montevideo - Berlin, Germany, Shift Gallery – ”shift-tage” Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst, Graz, Austria, Forum Stadtpark – exhibition/ Media Art in Serbia symposium ”Stirring,streaming,dreaming” London, UK, The Lux Gallery, “Tech_nicks” Vienna, Austria, Basis Wien [POST_WAR_POST_CARDS] yugoslav new Vienna, Austria, Stop the Violence, Akademie media der bildenden Kunste / MAK, Austria Ljubljana, Slovenia, Skuc Gallery, “MSE - Munich, MEDIENFORUM, Literaturhaus, Salva- Project” [ Meaddle-South-East Project, torplatz 1, Germany Rotor-Graz]

228 The Absolute Report ASSOCIATION APSOLUTNO

Hiroshima, Japan, Creative Union Hiroshima, 2002 “Hiroshima Art Document 2000” Herceg Novi, Montenegro, Salon 2002 San Francisco, CA, USA, New Fangle 2000, Torino, Italia, BigTorino 2002, Biennale Herbst International Exhibition Hall Frankfurt, Germany, Manifesta 4, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, School for theory and Zagreb, Croatia, Urbani Festival, BLOK history of art, CCAB Chicago, IL, US, LIPA - Links For International Warsaw, Poland, Zacheta Gallery, “Inside/Out- Promotion of the Arts side” Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Champ Libre - Basel, Switzerland, VIPER - International Cite des Ondes Festival for Film Video and New Media Novi Sad, Serbia, MSLU, ‘Centralnoevropski Vienna, Austria, Technical Museum, aspekti vojvodjanskih avangardi 1920-2000’ “Dialogführung”, World-Information.Org, Belgrade, Serbia, ‘Absolute Report’, Museum Public Netbase of Contemporary Art, Belgrade Tirana, Albania, Piramyde and ICC, In/Out Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia, PolyScreen, Media- ArtLab-Moskva, CCA Nizhniy Novgorod 2001 2003 Munich, Germany, ‘inSITEout’ lothringer 13/ halle Gallery, Skopje, Macedonia, Center for Contemporary Pluschow / Rostock, Germany, ‘Willing Art Refugees’ Schloss Pluschow / Kunsthalle Novi Sad / Beograd, Serbia, Word-Informa- Rostock tion.Org, Public Netbase t0 Umag, Croatia, ‘Zero_Absolute_The Real’, Vienna, Austria, Attack! Art and War in the Gallery Marino Cettina, Curated by Marina Media Age, Kunsthalle Wien Gržinić Roma, Italy, Tribu’ dell’arte, Galleria Comunale 2004 d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Roma Novi Sad, Serbia, Zlatno Oko Gallery Belgrade, Yugoslavia, BELEF, DYSFUNCTIONAL Belgrade, Belgrade, Academy of Fine Arts PLACES / DISPLACED FUNCTIONALITIES Vienna, Austria, Secession, Belgrade Art Inc./ Barcelona, Spain, Macba, Museum of Contem- kuda.org porary Art of Barcelona New York, US, Artist Speace Graz, Forum Stadtpark Gallery, Steirische herbst: The Real, the desperate, the absolute Vienna, Austria, TELE[VISIONS], Kunsthalle 2005 Wien, October 2001 - January 2002 Amsterdam, Netherlands, “Radio Days”, Munich, Germany, Make-World Festival, Gallery De Appel Muffat Halle Dortmund, Germany, Phoenix Halle Dortmund Skopje, Macedonia, UNDERSTANDING THE Beograd, Serbia, Muzej savremene umetnosti BALKANS, Center for Contemporary Art Beograd

The Absolute Report 229 THE ABSOLUTE REPORT___CONTRIBUTORS URLs URLs http://www.artmagazin.co.yu/portfolio/apsolutno.htm

http://www.artmagazin.co.yu/intervju/apsolutno1.htm

http://www.world-information.org/wio/program/participants/992283000

http://www.conceptualart.org/artists/artists/apsolutno.html

http://www.contrast.org/borders/tampere/apsolutno/Apsolutno1.html

http://www.v2.nl/~arns/Texts/apsolutno.html

http://www.hartware-projekte.de/archiv/inhalt/apsolutno.htm

http://www.house-salon.net/verlag/jugo/set/apsolutno.htm

http://www.aspectspositions.org/bios/FRYugoslavia-Serbia/apsolutno.html

http://www.dijafragma.com/freeb92/apsolutno.htm

http://www.digimatter.com/greatest.html

http://www.medienfassade.veag.de/Kuenstler/apsolutno.htm

http://www.kapelica.org/explosions/apsolutno.htm

http://www.art-action.org/site/fr/catalog/98_99/auteurs/apsolut.htm

http://www.kultur.at/3house/verlag/jugo/set/stir07.htm

http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors/apsolutnobio.html

http://www.stmk.gv.at/verwaltung/lmj-ng/97/2000/artists/apsolutno_e.html

http://www.world-information.org/wio/program/events/992899905/992958923/992959034

http://www.medienforum.org/veranstaltung/1999/vortrag.html

http://www.art-action.org/site/fr/catalog/98_99/video/absolutn.htm

http://www.stunned.org/arthouse/exhibitions/Intermezzo/intermezzo.htm

http://www.ciac.ca/magazine/archives/no_12/en/oeuvres.html

http://www.c3.hu/events/96/video/

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230 The Absolute Report URLs http://www.urbanfestival.hr/lijevi/02projapsolutno.htm http://www.ifa.de/a/a2/da2belbi.htm http://www.v2.nl/~arns/Texts/Media/ost97.htm http://mikro.org/Events/19991103.html http://www.contrast.org/borders/tampere/photopages/photos1.html http://www.dnp.co.jp/museum/nmp/nmp_i/articles/asia/hybrid/apsolutno.html http://www.kcb.org.yu/srpski/likovni/42/008.html http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/park/park6-5-02.asp http://www2.inet.co.yu/kultura/jezik/a/apsolutno.html http://www.hr-online.de/fs/hauptsachekultur/themen/250502thema3.html https://my.avantgo.com/browse/880/2052/ http://www.ifa.de/a/a2/da2belg.htm http://www.dnp.co.jp/museum/nmp/nmp_i/articles/artist/diary4_0925.html http://midihy.mur.at/projekte/ncc/neighbournet.shtml http://www.umu.se/art/linksannat/lankar/links2.html http://free.netbase.org/deutsch/texts/about/t0_arbeitsbericht.pdf http://temp.kiasma.fi/tampere/news/content.html http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/sa/7674/1.html http://www.kultur.at/archiv2/aviso02/w3401.htm http://inje.iskon.hr/pipermail/attack/2002-August/004501.html http://www.cecip.org/text/artslink/ipawards.html http://www.sanfranciscoart.edu/database/alumni.asp http://www.remont.co.yu/artzine/activepassive.htm http://periodafter.t0.or.at/equi/layout01/lay01/c_plakate/c_pl_solo_03.htm http://www.kcb.org.yu/srpski/likovni/42/ http://www.galerija.skuc-drustvo.si/psychedel.html

The Absolute Report 231 The Absolute Report

A springerin book Published by Revolver Edited by association Apsolutno Archiv für aktuelle Kunst Fahrgasse 23 Proofreading: D - 60311 Frankfurt am Main Tim Jones Germany Tel.: +49 (0)69 44 63 62 Design and Cover: Fax: +49 (0)69 94 41 24 51 Irena Woelle www.revolver-books.de

Photos: We gratefully acknowledge the financial Apsolutno archive and authors archive support of KulturKontakt Wien and the help of Annemarie Türk Print: Stane Peklaj, Ljubljana, SI Printed in the EU © 2006 the authors, springerin, Apsolutno ISBN 3-86588-288-9 and Revolver http://www.apsolutno.org/TheAbsoluteReport.pdf

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