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N°8 /April‘08 the finnish art review

In Need of Openness

ISSN 1459-6288 2 1 Framework The Finnish Art Review 8/April 08: In Need of Openness 2 Framework 8/April 08: In Need of Openness IC-98 In the Labyrinth

Previous page and below: IC-98, from the series Theses on the Body Politic (In the Labyrinth), 2008, pencil on paper/offset. Iconoclast Publications 10 (forthcoming). To constitute a labyrinth, the unit of each room may be cut off and combined with other rooms in infinite combinations. 3 Framework 8/April 08: In Need of Openness The Finnish Art Review Contents

framework contents 8/April 2008:

6 Editorial. Locating. In Need of Openness: David Elliott, Jyrki Siukonen on IC-98, Nicholas Brown & Imre Szeman, Chuck Dyke, Katariina Lillqvist, 30 Markku Kivinen, Yrjö Haila. Focus. Paths Not Taken: David Graeber; Brian Holmes; Heikki Patomäki; Teivo Teivainen; Chto delat/What is to be done? (Dmitr y Vilensky, Artemy Magun & Aleksandr Skidan) in Conversation; Artemy Magun; Andrei Khlobystin; An Interview with Viktor Misiano by Ivor Stodolsky, Marita Muukkonen & Aleksei Penzin; Joanna Myt- kowska in Conversation with Charles Esche; Ekaterina 80 Andreeva. Features: Helena Sederholm on Helena Hie- tanen, Lolita Jablonskienė on Anu Pennanen, Tomi Huttunen on Kimmo Sarje, Marina Koldobskaya on 106 Kimmo Sarje. Global Watch: Nomeda & Gedimi- nas Urbonas, Margaret Tali, Khaled Ramadan, RUK. 118 Reviews: Marina Vishmidt, Nikita Kadan, Annamari 126 Vänskä, Erika Nimis, Antti Kaski. Obituary: Erden Kosova on Hüseyin Alptekin. 4 Framework 8/April 08: In Need of Openness IC-98 In the Labyrinth 5 Framework 8/April 08: In Need of Openness Seppälä Editorial

Previous page: IC-98, from the series Theses on the Language editing by Susan Heiskanen. Body Politic (In the Labyrinth), 2008, pencil on pa- per/offset. Iconoclast Publications 10 (forthcom- ing). To constitute a labyrinth, the unit of each room may be cut off and combined with other rooms in infinite combinations.

The Russian term glasnost, meaning some the return of the distinctive marks literally “openness to public scrutiny” of the Soviet power, including the cult of or “the fact of being public”, became personality, has meant positive national a catchword in international politics self-esteem and stability, for others a loss almost overnight in the wake of the Marketta Right or of freedom of expression, human rights perestroika of the Gorbachev-era Soviet and centralisation of natural resources Union. Glasnost became to symbolise a Seppälä Wrong? to the hands of only few. new type of openness, in stark contrast The murdered journalist Anna to the secrecy of the closed, bureaucrat- Politkovskaya writes in her A Russian ic and authoritarian system of the pre- Diary, the posthumously published vious government. An allusion of this portrayal of Russian life during the Pu- way of talking was, albeit usually im- transition zone between East and West, has also other interests than mediat- tin era: “Our people have been exhaust- plicitly, that the system of government and throughout the country’s history ing news, and politics deviate from the ed by having political and economic in the western democracies has always – during its periods of autonomy and living conditions of ordinary people. experiments conducted on them. They been ”open to public scrutiny”. independence, especially after WW2 – How did such problems grow to get want very much to live better lives, but However, this cannot possibly be – this fact has set special requirements their current shape? do not want to have to fight for that. true. Every system of government has as regards the orientation towards Rus- These developments motivate the They expect everything to come down to keep some political issues secret. In sia, especially with respect to directness theme right or wrong and conduct to to them from above, and if what comes some cases there is no choice on that and openness. The decades after the ask: How genuine can glasnost possibly down from above is repression, they re- point. This situation has important war have been called Finlandizierung be even in the so-called ‘world’s leading sign themselves to it.” moral implications: What secrecy is (Finlandization) by others, while in democracies?’ The tensions between the need of right, what is wrong? Finland a certain acceptance for politi- An acute international example is openness and the need of secrecy create There can be several reasons for the cal compromises based on the famous the bundle of global problems caused by conflicts in modern societies. The ques- need of secrecy. To name some of the YYA Agreement (the Agreement of the ongoing war in Iraq, the brutal con- tion is, is the public always right when most obvious: The world is in the grip Friendship and Collaboration) between dition to which it has reduced the Iraqi demanding openness? In what situa- of rapid transformation, but the geog- Finland and the Soviet Union has been society and the consequences to which tions is the government right in deny- raphy does not change. Although the taken on as a poor necessity and thus as it has led in the rest of the Middle East: ing openness? There is no once and for era of the Cold War was supposed to self protection. the reasons offered for the war have been all solution to the situation. Watchdogs be over, there has been continuous ani- Paradoxically, also important as- proved false from the very beginning. are needed. mosity in international relations. States pects of economic policies must be kept Many commentators have expressed just cannot tell in advance to other momentarily secret from the public in the belief that the recent Russian politics * * * states what they are going to do next. order to protect the public. Tradition- under President Putin have been poorly Mikhail Gorbachev’s “basic theses” In fact, the tension between East and ally, this was the case with devalua- understood in the West. Thanks to oil, for perestroika, based on glasnost, were West seems to be a permanent condi- tion of national currencies. People are the Russian economy has been doing presented to the Central Committee of tion. Only its degree varies according far from equal in their ability to use well. There has been a general belief that the CPSU in 1987. Twenty years down to historical circumstances. The recent economic information for their own rising living standards and increasing that road, which led to the demise of an rush to the North Pole to secure the private benefit. Quite to the contrary, foreign investment will gradually bring entire way of life in Russia and Eastern natural resources available in the Arc- with advance knowledge of important forth a more liberal political order. Rus- Europe and the re-constellation of the tic, started last year by Russia and rap- economic decisions, those who have sia’s crucial role as an exporter of energy international system, the Aleksanteri idly joined by Canada, the US, Den- economic power can hoard profit by as well as its co-operation in the ‘war Institute of the University of Helsinki mark, and Norway, has been a kind of manipulating expectations. on terror’ and as an ally against nuclear organised the international conference breathtaking international theatre play Recent experience shows that eco- proliferation are significant factors that Revisiting Perestroika – Processes and Al- on national protectionism. At the same nomic problems and environmental lessen international pressure on the ternatives 29 November – 1 December, time Britain and Russia were dispelling catastrophes may have geographic and country’s internal politics. According to 2007. The conference aimed to create their diplomats home in the aftermath cultural backgrounds that extend back some commentators, the present stabil- a major intellectual forum to revisit of Andrei Litvinenko’s murder, the Eu- in time for centuries. The upsurge of ity of the Russian political system would this era of dramatic changes and offer a ropean University was closed in St. Pe- modern terrorism has also brought mu- have been threatened by genuinely free significant contribution to the reassess- tersburg due to reasons of “fire safety”, tual suspicions and contrasts concern- electoral competition and, hence, it ment of the epoch of perestroika and etc. At last the dispute after Kosova’s ing religions and world views between was safer to get a candidate promoted its relation to the collapse of the Soviet declaration of independence brought the West and the Islamic world into the by President Putin to be elected. What bloc, the end of the Cold War, as well literally back the juxtaposition of the international agenda. Global terrorism does it tell about the prospects of Rus- as its global repercussions. Cold War era in hardening rhetoric and has given rise to new restrictions and sia’s road toward democracy? In any The conference gave an inspiration international diplomacy. surveillance methods everywhere. In case, Russia is today completely dif- for this issue of Framework to analyse But there are also internal reasons. the increasingly cynical world which ferent than what is was eight years ago questions about the need of openness, Finland, for example, is located at a only seeks economic profit, the media when Putin was elected president. To against the dilemma of right or wrong. + 6 Framework 8 Locating Introduction

Locating: In Need of Openness

This issue of Framework takes up changes both in Russia and in the can be open to everything – but there ent perspectives. The critical potential the highly topical theme of open- world politics at large. are also limitations of a more principal of the arts gives assets for promoting ness – glasnost – in the sense it was FOCUS in this issue looks for kind. It is easy to name areas of public the need for openness at any given introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in “Paths Not Taken” in the perestroika life in which complete openness is im- time. Critical openness toward society the 1980’s as a third way for the then and current post-Soviet era – past dis- possible; economic policy and diploma- is a life-line of the arts. The same is Soviet Union to react to the necessity asters and new opportunities. cy come to mind as examples. In a world true of philosophy and science, by and of political transformation and new This section introduces the theme pervaded by inequalities of power, too large. As regards political life, historical challenges of meeting the West. The of openness on a more general level, early disclosure of governmental plans, experience gives guidelines. The recent inspiration for this theme was given by within a matrix defined by two mutual- for instance, would only benefit the Finnish history concerning relation- the international conference Revisiting ly opposed questions: When is openness stronger parties. But on the other hand, ships with Russia offers an example. Perestroika – Processes and Alternatives needed? / When is openness impossible? secrecy usually serves the purposes of the Finland as a sort of non-Eastern/non- that was organised by the Aleksanteri We would like to think of openness as stronger parties. In other words, open- Western country, known for its aim of Institute of the University of Helsinki something that is good always and eve- ness is necessary but not always possible remaining as neutral as possible, has in November 2007. The aim of the rywhere, but sometimes this cannot be – so, where do we draw the boundary? a role that gives an added value to an conference was to reassess twenty years the case. There are practical limitations The articles below address the need exploration of the consequences of the later the epoch that led to dramatic – no individual, institution or nation and possibility of openness from differ- collapse of the East-West dichotomy.

08 ------David Elliott Art and the Politics of Survival

12 ------Jyrki Siukonen on IC-98 Never Mess with an Old Librarian

16 ------Nicholas Brown and Imre Szeman Sufficient Involvement

18 ------Chuck Dyke A (Self)Portrait from the (Com)Promised Land

22 ------Katariina Lillqvist Tightly-laced Republic, or How the Gen- eral Seethed at the Centaur

24 ------Markku Kivinen Russia After the Cold War: Threat and Potential

26 ------Yrjö Haila Claiming a Space 7 Locating IC-98 In the Labyrinth

IC-98, from the series Theses on the Body Politic (In the Labyrinth), 2008, pencil on paper/offset. Iconoclast Publications 10 (forthcoming). To con- stitute a labyrinth, the unit of each room may be cut off and combined with other rooms in infinite combinations. 8 Locating Elliott Art and the Politics of Survival

The writer is a British-born curator, writer and museum director based in Istanbul. He has served as Director of the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford 1976-1996, Moderna Museet, Stockholm 1996- 2001, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo 2001-2006. In January 2007 he was appointed Director of Is- tanbul Modern, a post which he resigned from on October 16th, 2007.

David Elliott Art and the Politics of Survival(1)

The President and the Terrorist ternational capital.(2) Such an infelici- not, we languish in a netherworld be- bodies are still warm. While we might In both East and West the first eight tous expression of ideas stems perhaps tween Disney and Department Store. not be told the truth about the causes years of this new millennium have from a widespread disillusionment and At best we struggle to keep up, yet, feel- of such events, we can no longer claim seen a brutal and dramatic challenge failure to engage with our political situ- ing powerless, straggle far behind, at that we are unaware of their effects. to the post-Enlightenment settlement ation today. Instead we see too often a worst we pretend nothing is happening This information overload has created of the rights of individuals and nations naive escape to the safe, dead radicalism or use alienating art-speak to mask our a miasma of virtual realism. While see- by a quasi-revivalist religious funda- of the failed utopian experiments of the incomprehension. Paradoxically, with ing what has happened creates an illu- mentalism in which Presidents, Prime 1960s. But the world has changed ir- the rise in popularity of contemporary sion of involvement, it also engenders Ministers and Terrorists alike have in- revocably since then and with it the art, the infrastructure that supports it in the viewer a sense of helplessness in voked the authority of their different challenges we face. has become increasingly inflexible, self the face of the enormity of events that gods to justify their violence. How can Since the bomb was dropped on serving and closed. At times it seems easily downgrades to passivity. The de- this blurring of religion and state leave Hiroshima we have faced the possibil- as if the Market Place has taken over humanizing result is what charities call any hope for the flourishing of “good” ity of destruction on a previously in- the Forum as our whole idea of what “compassion fatigue” or, even more dis- art in an open society? conceivable scale, a reality with which, is public and private has been eroded quietingly, it may create an inhuman, Why is art important? It runs paral- both morally and practically, we have by a futile, fatal cocktail of continual video-game illusion of power based on lel to life, is of life and sometimes about struggled to come to terms. But any surveillance in the name of security and a lack of care about the difference be- life but it is not the same thing as life attempts at “balance” have not been the pseudo-freedoms still propagated tween truth and untruth, fantasy and itself. It is a laboratory, paradigm, feed- successful because they have been by neo-Liberalism. reality. Of course uncertainty in belief back system, and playground for life. dominated by world views that have You could say that this is a crisis can also have a reverse effect and trigger From this critical distance art derives confirmed us in the belief that we in of value at every level. But what do we a retreat into the safe world of funda- its power and meaning yet, over the the “West” have a God-given right to really mean? With regard to contem- mentalism. past twenty years, it has too often been decide for others. As a result we have porary art the situation is particularly How much “information” can we hijacked for other purposes. A dynamic continued to refine weaponry and murky because market value and cul- really absorb, and, more importantly, and questioning contemporary art is vi- squander resources exponentially. Now, tural value, although often confused, what can we then do with it? Why tal for maintaining civilized values but, when the dominance of the Developed are, in fact, two completely different should we assume that art incorporates sadly, most of the institutions that are World is challenged by the countries of things. The market is an unreflective good intention? supposed to care for it seem to put their the Pacific Rim and Third World, more mechanism that backs what it knows own interests first. honest and realistic attitudes towards and speculates on what it doesn’t. Let’s Go shopping.... Firstly the critical theorists tried to human rights, development, demo- Cultural value has a disinterested pub- Commenting on the contemporary art take it over to support their different graphics and environment need to be lic face that enshrines past ideals and scene from the perspective of a Southern academies and, more recently, curators envisaged that can be translated into hopes for the future and is the result Asian curator, Ade Damawan, Director have done little better, rarely referring objectives in national and international of negotiation over time between many of Ruangrupa, an artists’ collective in to the issues with which art is actu- politics. Failure will lead to the demise different parties. This is a necessary and Jakarta, recently wrote: ally concerned in their desire to create of us all. In the case of world disaster or noble form of value and, of course, is a world that is disconcertingly similar war, possible survival for some will be a vulnerable as a result. A huge amount of money has been spent to their own tunnel vision. The subtext hollow, if not meaningless, victory in a Part of this problem is the matter for big international art events as well as has veered between the authoritarian physical and a moral vacuum. of belief. The Info-Digital Revolution for running the system and subsidizing and the revolutionary: in Venice there Changing our ideas in line with our has transformed our perceptions but artists. This is because art and cultural was the “dictatorship” of both the cura- actual situation would affect all kinds we can no longer really trust what we activities are used as part of political and tor and the viewer and in Istanbul the of institutions, even those of art, and see. In the Developed World, we are economical strategies, implemented by the idea of art as Guerrilla Warfare waged create new opportunities, if we care to now able to survey the victims of a First World countries and then followed subversively against a spider’s web of in- see or take them. But, more often than massacre in our living rooms while the by Asia Pacific countries. They first build 9 Locating Elliott Art and the Politics of Survival

(1) Part of this essay is based on a lecture given in sion during the Cultural Revolution even though tain of the ship who had been put in post because love, and never talk to them of our own necessities New Delhi, Tokyo and Madrid in 2005. it was later used by the Democracy Movement. he was a staunch anti-Bonapartist and supporter of but of their advantages.” Wealth of Nations. Lon- (2) “Dreams and Conflicts – The Dictatorship of Documenta XII, “100 Days of Art in Kassel,” in the restored Bourbon monarchy. don, 1776. the Viewer” was actually the title given to the 50th the same year, also looked back rather wistfully (5) This idea was the basis ofHarmony , the fourth (7) Wilde, Oscar (1981). “The Picture of Dorian Venice Biennale in 2003. “Utopia Station” was a back to the radical utopian art movements of the and final section of “Happiness: a survival guide Gray”. London. section of the same event. “Not Only Possible But 1960s. for art and life,” the inaugural exhibition of the (8) Foucault, Michel (1961). “Madness and Civi- Also Necessary. Optimism in the Age of Global (3) Ade Damawan (2004). ”Have We Met?” (ex. Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, that I curated with Pier lization”. The Birth of the Asylum.London. War,” the Tenth International Istanbul Biennial cat.) Tokyo, Japan Foundation Asia Forum. Luigi Tazzi in 2003. (9) This slogan appeared all over the Soviet Union in 2007, tried to recuperate a certain tradition of (4) This vast painting now in the Louvre, show- (6) This is a far cry from Adam Smith’s famous il- but a good example can be seen in Lybov Popova’s modernity by suggesting a subversive “Guerrilla ing the desperate survivors of the French frigate lustration of self interest as an engine of economy: fragmentary “Trotsky” collage in the Costakis Col- Warfare” role for art. In its adoption of the Dazi- Medusa, caused a scandal when it was first exhib- “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the lection in Thessaloniki. bao {Chinese big character poster] as a metaphor ited at the Paris Salon in 1819. It made a political brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but (10) See, for example, Vasif Kortun and Charles for popular communication it was overlooked that statement based on a current news story about the from their regard to their own interest. We address Esche, “Istanbul”, catalogue for the Ninth Istanbul this was one of the main instruments of oppres- moral and professional incompetence of the Cap- ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self- Biennial, 2005, passim.

the structures and think about the con- protection and concealment have al- antidotes to mendaciousness, cyni- tion and a return to social values in tents last…..I hope I’m wrong….Don’t ways been the cure, particularly for the cism, stupidity and selfishness. This is “inter-relational art”. And what issues ask me whether art really has a social strong. Maybe we all secretly want to founded on the conviction that good will characterise the new millennium? function – in daily life or on a level of be like children with Father Company artists take total responsibility for their A fashionable blindness? Or, better, a discourse. At least many people get nice and Mother State taking control but, as work, see the world more clearly than tabula rasa from which we can begin to jobs from it and a lot of money is gener- we have seen so often in the past, un- many of us, and, while they provide no analyse and enjoy together what artists ated from all the consumption. Some big checked, Mama and Papa fighting only practical solutions or guidance, moral are really doing rather than our own art events/shows are now trapped in bor- makes things worse. Responsibility for or otherwise, in the process of making delirious curatorial fantasies or our self- ing themes and often end up with clichéd the future has to lie with us all. and showing their work, they assert the seeking careerist desires? displays of the same ‘big-star, globe trot- The Left-Right Conflict Politics of subtle power of art to show the world A commitment to openness during ting artists’. It’s like the top 40s chart on the 1960s or the Cold War are of no in previously inconceivable ways, per- a time of increasingly closed borders the radio. Let’s go shopping.(3) help to us now. We cannot avoid all haps reminding us in the process how may well seem unsettling but it is nec- being in the same boat and our fate surprising and wonderful it is to be essary if we want to be able to see the I don’t disagree with his general senti- is tied to that of each other – unless, alive. world around us in anything but the ment and notice that his ostensible that is, we wish to invoke the image of The approach to politics I am sug- terms of “Other”. passivity masks an ironic expression Théodore Géricault’s famous protest gesting here is not based on altruism But the first principle of any dis- of disappointment or anger. These are painting The Raft of the Méduse and cut but on enlightened self interest coming cussion should be whether art is im- the words of the disempowered, not so loose to leave the “weak” to their wa- out of the realisation that the disregard portant or necessary. And for this the much because of any overhang of colo- tery fate.(4) Of course we all want to be or subjection of others, ultimately re- chasm must be bridged between the nialism – that is, or should be, a dead happy but the first step towards this is sults in a threat to oneself.(6) You could materialistic view of art as an object issue for art by now – but because of a to ensure that we can survive – and not regard this as a pie-in-the-sky mutation – eternal, universal, hermetic – and widely spread perception of the failure in the Darwinian sense, at the expense of democracy for all, acted out on a the discursive idea that acknowledges of politics and perhaps a slowness to un- of someone else. Perhaps this is the world stage. But, if things really are that the object of art [if it exists] and its derstand that the making of art worth most radical form of politics there can interlinked in a continuing cycle of reception are both important, change- experiencing and thinking about is, in be at present – the idea that true happi- entropy, the self-serving, short-term able and intimately linked. Together itself, part of a belief system or ideology ness lies in the happiness of others.(5) strategies of professional politicians will these constitute part of a much broader which is intimately linked with nour- And art, with its capacity to encompass be unable to cope. What then are the discussion about freedom and quality ishing a respect for and experience of ambiguity and conflict, to prefigure, alternatives when we really are all in the in life. For many of us, art has become life. In our brave new world in which react to and envision the world, is one same boat? both a thing in itself and a paradigm everyone has rights yet few have the of the discourses in which such radical of other, sometimes conflicting, values. power to exercise them, the old politics views can be most clearly reflected. It’s Been Bad So Long, The mediation of this discourse within simply don’t work. Nature can no long- Contemporary art has been in- It Seems Like Good to Me.... a socially dynamic framework is surely er be thought of as “pure” or benign. creasingly adopting a vital discursive Looking back over the past three dec- one of the foremost tasks for any mu- The Utopias of the ‘60s were hit by a role that cannot fail to become more ades the temperature of the “interna- seum of modern or contemporary art. tsunami, their inhabitants beaten up important. This is derived from the tional” contemporary art world has Here the issue of quality is central. and raped by the Special Forces. Neo- empowering authenticity of individual changed in roughly ten year cycles. The This should not be based on whether Liberalism, with its self-serving lack of experience. Celebrating communal- seventies saw punk, dematerialisation something is contemporary or not. reflection, offers little solace other than ity and difference through its unique and the death of the avant-garde, the This is not important. The fundamen- a free-for-all battle for energy and re- prism, it foregrounds the individual re- eighties: a concern for history [for bet- tal question is whether a particular sources. sponsibilities of both artists and view- ter or worse], a neo-con espousal of tra- work is any good or not. This brings This is how things are. We can- ers, as well as the redolence of beauty, ditional media and a neo-punk reaction us back to politics because we have to not hide even if we would like to. Yet outrage, humour and the sublime, as to it; the nineties: media art, globaliza- establish who decides. Of course there 10 Locating Elliott Art and the Politics of Survival

Next page: IC-98, from the series Theses on the Body Politic (In the Labyrinth), 2008, detail, pencil on paper/offset. Iconoclast Publications 10 (forth- coming).

are certain gateways – artists, dealers, story of the liberation of the insane at called the shots had not. Before we suspicion is directed not only against curators, collectors, museums, galleries the asylum of Bicêtre at the time of the could say “UNESCO” we were again swarthy, turbaned “others,” but also – some of whom/which have a financial French Revolution. Investigator Cou- embroiled in local and neo-colonial against ourselves. We have nothing to interest in promoting particular work, thon visited the hospital to see whether wars. fear but fear and the choices should be others not. But quality, much in the any suspects were being hidden, Pinel So where does power really lie evident. Either we retreat into our sepa- same way as art itself, is in a state of the reformer went out to meet him: now that the nation state is in relative rate fortresses and let the others survive flux, developing, mutating according “’Now, citizen are you mad your- decline? Is it with the multinational as best they can, or we try to protect to circumstance. The discussion about self to seek to unchain such beasts?’ corporations with their Boards and the ideas and ideals that are important quality – in art or life – has to be a ne- [asked the Investigator]. Pinel replied shareholders, or with the public na- to us, to stand firm, to somehow make gotiation between experience and the calmly: ‘Citizen, I am convinced that tional conglomerates like the UN, EU, it together – in the right way. thing itself, taking into account knowl- these madmen are so intractable only NATO, ASEAN and other such bod- For me the potential of contem- edge, memory, pleasure, hope, love and because they have been deprived of air ies? We can see that in foreign policy porary art, and the values of freedom, pain. Art does not have to be intelligi- and liberty.’”(8) the US is still very powerful and the openness, humanity, creativity and in- ble in any literal sense, it should have The paternalistic afterglow of UK tags on behind. But whatever we dividuality it expresses, is very much many levels and meanings, and it only Colonialism may have largely faded think about the current world situa- part of this. becomes alive when these are acknowl- away, although in economic and trans- tion, a balance of one will never work edged and celebrated. port structures it is still all too present. and if we have to wait for Russia, India But There May Be But it is not yet clear what has replaced or China to step up so that two or more Some Limitations.... So What Values Does it. Comfortingly for some in the art can tango, will we not just slip back “We Are Building A New World” was “Good” Art Express? world, the old style of paternalism still into the old model of Superpower poli- one of the slogans popular in Soviet At this point, lest you anticipate I am, remains. True there are a few more ex- tics? But it’s so, so comforting to have Russia during the early 1920s, but we in neo-Victorian fashion, about to otic sounding names in the catalogue an enemy. must be wary of emulating this kind of suggest that art should be uplifting, lists of Biennales and big shows but, What are the alternatives? Here I orchestrated unanimity.(9) Art is not a I would like to remind you of Oscar as Ade Damawan pointed out, they return to the idea of enlightened self in- tool although some may wish to use it Wilde’s famous dictum in his preface tend to be taken from lists of “usual terest. The ideal of fundamental human as such.(10) Action is the responsibility to The Picture of Dorian :Gray “There suspects.” The question is: are we like rights – the brainchild of the European of us all; the biggest mistake would be is no such thing as a moral or immoral the madmen in Foucault’s asylum who Enlightenment and the fount from to leave the world just to the politicians. book. Books are well written or badly need to be liberated by others, or are which the idea of aesthetic autonomy These dinosaurs have had their day. written. That is all.”(7) Art does not we already free, but like victims of springs – has painted us into a corner. Intransigent and, at times, cynical have to be “good” in any moral sense, Stockholm Syndrome either hideously Originally limited to a few males in in our opposition to the ways in which the artist does not have to be “good,” grateful to our oppressors or unwilling, powerful countries, these ideals have, power and information have been dis- but art does, in some way, need to be or unable, to confront our new reality? rightly, spread across the world and pensed in the past, we will have to be about “goodness” either negatively or Rich or poor, it’s not easy to be free, when they are challenged it is usually both open and flexible in finding more positively because it is made in a moral but in any healthy society the freedom within the equally modern framework balanced forms of resolution and com- field. Here Immanuel Kant’s idea of of art is like a canary down a coalmine, of the right of peoples and individu- munication in the future. artistic autonomy is fundamental as the litmus paper in an experiment or als to self determination. So how do It’s just possible that art here can is the idea of beauty. Without these, the fishbone that sticks in the autocrat’s we now decide what really is “best”? play an exemplary role. It throws light individual expressions of art become throat. But when the bird stops sing- To which do we give pre-eminence; on our world and can make us feel bet- completely devoid of aesthetic or sense. ing, it’s time to get out. morality or self-interest? And the para- ter or worse about it. It’s disinterested, Beauty, with its terrible opposite, are And for a short time in the 1990s noia that has now made the Orwellian uncompromised, sometimes visionary, the ideals to which most artists aspire, we had cause to be optimistic. The old “Thought Crime” a reality in the US at other times brutally pragmatic and even though they may not care to use formulae based on balance of power in and UK is putting us in an even tighter our institutions for art should value these words. Aesthetics – the negotia- the First World and the exploitation of spot. Like the bully in the playground this more and work with it. Most im- tion of quality and cultural value – ena- the rest that had been the norm since we have trundled around the world, portantly, art is a stimulus and platform bles art to exist. the end of the eighteenth century no telling others how they should live, for reflection about ourselves and our longer added up and just maybe a new and seem prepared to bury every prin- relationship with the world – about And the World....? dawn was glimmering on the horizon. cipal of human rights that we have de- how things were, are, and also about In his seminal book Madness and Civi- But although the world had changed, veloped to make our lives better. And how much better we would like them lisation Michel Foucault recounts the the minds and ambitions of those who we should not forget that the fear and to be. + 11 Locating Elliott Art and the Politics of Survival 12 Locating Siukonen on IC-98 Never Mess with an Old Librarian

The writer is an artist, writer and Head of Depart- (1) In fact, Turku City Library placed both books Next page, top left: IC-98, Forays, 2005, free dis- ment and Professor at the Department of Sculp- in class 85.22 (Picture books) – technically putting tribution book, 12.5 x 17.5 cm, 104p.. Iconoclast ture at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts. Trans- them among children’s literature. (Ed.) Publications 6. lated by Susan Heiskanen. Next page, top right: IC-98, Foucault’s Sleep. Models for a Proposal, 2005/2006, free distribution book, 12.5 x 17.5 cm, 72p. Iconoclast Publications 8. Next page, bottom left: IC-98, A Monument for Moments of the Living Present (A Proposal), 2002, free distribution book, 15 x 21 cm, 48p. Iconoclast Publications 3/Pori Art Museum Publications 61. Next page, bottom right: IC-98, A Monument for Moments of the Living Present (A Proposal), 2002, spreads from free distribution book, 15 x 21 cm, 48p. Iconoclast Publications 3/Pori Art Museum Publications 61.

Jyrki Siukonen on IC-98 Never Mess with an Old Librarian

IC-98 (earlier Iconoclast) was founded by The artist group IC-98 (Patrik Söder- of both books is the publication number of a system of this kind. They seem to Patrik Söderlund (born 1974) and Visa lund & Visa Suonpää) has in recent (Iconoclast 6 and Iconoclast 8) and un- demand for a category that the system Suonpää (born 1968) in 1998. One of years carried out various art projects derneath it, the number series, 84.2. The cannot allow. The purpose of the clas- their major working methods has been to with the free distribution book as their number series refers to the Finnish Pub- sification is, after all, to point out one produce books for free distribution. central element. With this old user in- lic Libraries Classification System. Ac- and only one place for the book where However, IC-98 does not confine it- terface, which has been tried and tested cording to the system, the books should it can always and without exception be self to one medium. They always choose the in the course of centuries, IC-98 em- fall in the category “Narrative literature found. A book that moves around and medium with a strategic consideration of phatically creates conscious art from in Finnish”. I don’t believe that a mis- changes company would be a problem. the context, history and current situation, histories (actual and potential). In what take has occurred, but that the authors In their wish to be “Narrative literature as well as the objectives of the project at follows I will read two IC-98 works have deliberately wished to slip their in Finnish”, the Iconoclast books seem hand. In addition to publications, IC-98 and, through them, look for keys to the works and themselves in a specific, un- to be asking for trouble. has realized a number of social interven- group’s operating models. expected context. But why exactly “Nar- As artistic resistance, let alone as a tions and installations in public and gal- Iconoclast 6 and Iconoclast 8 are rative literature in Finnish”, which is political statement, the question of li- lery spaces as well as animations, post art books with a page size slightly larger better known for lingering realism than brary classification may appear rather projects and various collaborative projects than a postcard that contain both im- for experimental or boundary-breaking modest. It is however one thorn that with practitioners in other cultural fields. ages and text. In both books the read- approaches? An experienced librarian sticks out and prevents the works of Typically, an individual project combines ing experience is facilitated by a tradi- would unmistakably place the IC-98 IC-98 from being shelved in an explicit together multiple media to present a mul- tional title page and consecutive page works among art books, but I would compartment, not even one as broad as tifaceted whole. numbers. The former, which is titled also be willing to consider the classifica- “contemporary art”. It is easy to point Forays (Kävelyretkiä–Promenader), has tions 82.9 (“Poems in other languages”) out a kinship between the Iconoclast 104 pages. The latter is titled Foucault’s or 80.991 (“Fictional works of varied books and other books – illustrated Sleep (Foucalt’n uni) and it has 72 pages. contents, in artificial languages”).(1) fictional books, picture essays, exhibi- Both books thus have a beginning and The Public Libraries Classification tion catalogues, artists’ books, maybe an end, and their contents are located on System is one deep-seated way of out- even mail order catalogues – but they a segment of line proceeding from left to lining the world. It enables the evalua- do not function according to a specific right, as is customary of western books. tion and pigeonholing of information, boundary condition, except for the If the books are ‘toolboxes’, as the au- and the use of power that this task inte- mentioned logic of beginning and end. thors have termed them, then, at least in grally entails. Problematic cases, such as But how important are the books ex- outward appearance, they are certainly the publications of IC-98, do not flu- pressly, and in terms of their linking to kept in good order. Printed on the backs ently settle themselves in the framework different literary forms for IC-98 art? 13 Locating Siukonen on IC-98 Never Mess with an Old Librarian

It is good to remember that IC-98 mentalities of their hometown. In the museum reopened in 2005, celebrat- “Narrative literature in Finnish”, oper- proclaims that it was founded as a reac- end result, both these endeavors merge ing its 100th birthday. Gone are both ates with the already familiar multitude tion to the restrictions of academic writ- with a critical way of reading so that the the mainstays of a bourgeois world and of voices. This time the contents can be ing. Through this we can better under- book crosses beyond the institutional the foundation of the workers’ move- traced back to a group of literary top- stand the wish to become part of “Nar- and artistic limits of its original task ment that rose up against it. The stories ics, at least some of which are part of rative literature in Finnish”, a wish for assignment. By this I mean that Forays within the history have, at least in this the central and often repeated narra- an alternative mode of narration, and, grows, above all, into a unique-voiced respect, come to an end. For a work of tives of the western cultural tradition. through that, a transition from one field and beautiful work of art. It doesn’t ac- contemporary art, Iconoclast 6 is in an They are accompanied with news mate- of problems to another. Dissatisfac- tually explain anything, but it manages exceptional way complete and wistful. rial collected from different directions, tion with the restrictions of one world to propose very much, and it doesn’t The artists do not conclude the book which repeatedly contravenes with the doesn’t however mean that the possibil- topple under its burden of producing with any exploration of their own as to possibility of easy reading and throws a ity – or even wish – to fully detach from information. what direction the museum (and they new problem to the person tackling the it actually exists. Even if IC-98 may be Forays is a study of the will of ma- themselves as partaking in the launch) book. As if this wasn’t enough, added disobliging as to the requirements of jor capital in the city of Turku to create is looking at starting off on its second on is IC-98’s own imprint which opens academic writing, it has not disputed cultural capital by financing a national decennium, or what its new social en- up as even more intensive drawings the skills and practices of reading. temple of art in Finland in the early vironment could be like. Instead, the and redeals the deck once more. The The book Forays was prepared for 19th century, when it was a province book ends with a famous quotation result is something that cannot be ex- the exhibition Sediments at the Turku of the Russian Empire. IC-98 com- of Walter Benjamin describing Klee’s plained off as a mere documentary of Art Museum in spring 2005. The work piled the material for this work from painting, Angelus Novus. It almost ap- the authors’ literary knowledge. It is a centers on the story of the museum archives, but their way of organizing it pears as if IC-98 had, upon completing genuinely challenging jigsaw puzzle the which was built a hundred years be- was by no means one that followed the a great and skillful work, rummaged in piecing of which, in spite of the good fore. On the one hand, the work is a logic of archiving. The book’s argumen- its toolbox, to find it indeed used up. instructions, requires more than works mark of honor on an institution that tation is a mixture of image and word, As a work strongly tied into local of art generally do. acknowledged the worth of IC-98 as documented and invented. The story of history Forays may require some effort The Finnish-language title of the artists by making their free book avail- the birth of the art museum is twined to unravel, but Iconoclast 8, Foucault’s work, Foucault’n uni, deserves a small able to anyone who had bought a ticket into the rise and loss of the workers’ Sleep, which takes on as its landscape comment. The Finnish word uni holds to the exhibition. On the other hand, movement and the revolutionary ideal. a place that doesn’t exist, is an artistic both the meanings of ‘dream’ and the book is the artists’ independent Through historical sidetracks, the book project that challenges its recipient at ‘sleep’. In the postscript the authors deep dive into local history – in deal- also grows into a portrayal of the world a general level. The work, again a book speak of the dreams they have “seen” ing with the past (and in part present) of modern confusion in which the art which was wished to be included in themselves, but through the title they 14 Locating Siukonen on IC-98 Never Mess with an Old Librarian

IC-98, Forays, 2005, spreads from free distribution book, 12.5 x 17.5 cm, 104p.. Iconoclast Publica- tions 6.

imply that the actual sleeper is the late also be referring to the stories familiar ready in the late 1960s, when the origi- original, the “Proposal for a Monument French philosopher. The double mean- from older science fiction literature in nal conceptual art in turn was born and to the Societies of Control”, would lead ing allowed by the Finnish word is lost which the narrator is transported into – should I say – pottering at much to believe. in English translation; “narrative lit- future through falling asleep. There is of simpler philosophical stimuli. The IC-98 creates works that can be erature in Finnish” does not in every course also the possibility that Foucault question of the timing and timeliness characterized as tools for thought or respect converge with the international sleeps because an evil witch gave him of the work is thus rather curious. The more broadly, for political civil activ- lingua franca. Foucault and Deleuze, the a bad apple, and consequently, we all layers of literary references cumulate as ism. Because their messages are not principal characters in the work, were stand now as midgets before a giant’s irregular piles over Homer’s The Odyssey unambiguous in terms of their objec- not available to the Finnish readers un- coffin – but irony, according to IC-98’s and Thomas More’s Utopia. Much of tives and because, especially in the case til a long ways after their influence had declaration, is not among the utensils them are familiar, but when the readers of a work like Foucault’s Sleep, the other already reached a status of incontro- in their toolbox. come across a list of chemical weapons determining conditions for the work vertible in the English-speaking world. Foucault’s sleep is conceptual art of on Johnston Atoll and the account of (financing, circulation, organizing dis- By saying that Foucault sleeps (and isn’t the 21st century, as it operates with guano trade in the 19th century, they tribution) limit its possibilities to in- for example dead), IC-98 places itself fragments and citations, but it does will, by the latest, understand that they fluence to the normal art context, the in the continuum of readers who have this with somewhat paradoxical per- are holding in hand many more threads works are more about a gesture than been inspired by his work, but might spectives, which Foucault developed al- that the plan declared by the authors as intervention. In short, IC-98 does not 15 Locating Siukonen on IC-98 Never Mess with an Old Librarian

Next page, top right: IC-98, Foucault’s Sleep. Mod- els for a Proposal, 2005/2006, spreads from free distribution book, 12.5 x 17.5 cm, 72p. Iconoclast Publications 8.

operate in the sphere of art because it book, but its structure is similar to the can be read as part of the overall hu- purely commercial or aimed at com- is the most convenient or significant one applied by IC-98 , i.e. a combina- manistic ethos of the Swedish welfare municating proposals that call for a venue but because it probably is the tion of image and word, literature and state and an interpretation of history critical approach. The artistic strategy one place where it can operate. The documentary. The philosophical em- clearly mirroring the 20th century, of IC-98, including, for example, the question of alternative action is forced phasis and visual argumentation may IC-98 is facing slightly different ques- free distribution of printed matter, has to remain academic. be different – the Swedish work begins tions. Its audience could be presumed become possible not as much because As a prehistory for the Iconoclast from Levinas and ends at Buber – but (as a working hypothesis, at least) to be academic writing is restricted as for the book, with an edition of a couple of the subject matter is so general that a of a generation for whom the way of reason that nonacademic ways of read- thousand copies, freely distributed at chart on the chemical composition of perceiving the world suggested by the ing have conquered a large part of our an art exhibition, one might suggest the human body can be found in both Swedish book from the early 1990s is everyday life. We need, more and more, the Swedish work Lyckad nedfrysning av books. Lyckad nedfrysning av herr Moro already familiar as an artistic technique. toolboxes of various kind and many of herr Moro (The Successful Freezing of is, as I see it, a proposal for an artistic We need not limit this observation to us are putting them together ourselves. Mr. Moro), which was distributed free toolbox, for a work entity applying col- art, for in most media the collage com- In this situation IC-98 is producing of cost to all ninth-graders in the region lage technique, which sincerely strives bining fact and fiction has sometimes works the structure and contents of of Stockholm in 1992. The work bears a to provide matter for thought. even become the predominant “style”, which contain much that is familiar little more resemblance to a traditional Where the Swedish experiment regardless of whether the contents are and fascinating. + 16 Locating Brown & Szeman Sufficient Involvement

Nicholas Brown is Associate Professor in English and African American Studies at University of Illinois, Chicago. Imre Szeman is Senator William McMaster Chair of Globalization and Cultural Studies and from July 2008 Professor of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.

Nicholas Brown Sufficient and Imre Szeman Involvement

Repudiation of the present cultural balization. On the one hand, there is capital. From any human perspective, presuppose a ground. If hybridity really morass presupposes sufficient involve- a sense that globalization institutes an Capital is always encroaching. The pri- went “all the way down,” it would an- ment in it to feel itching in one’s finger era in which, belatedly, mass culture vatization of government, the “corpo- nihilate itself as a concept. This is not tips, so to speak, but at the same time critiques hit their mark. Now that glo- ratization” of the arts, of higher educa- to argue for authenticity; indeed, if by the strength, drawn from this involve- bal media monopolies have anxiously tion, of sports, of heretofore un-ration- “hybridity” one means simply “lack ment, to dismiss it.(1) consolidated their hold on every aspect alized industries like cattle ranching, of essence,” it does indeed go “all the We present here a set of theses that of leisure, we can safely skip over the continues in the dominant countries way down.” But, in order to maintain might help to imagine the role and more optimistic pronouncements of today a process that has gone by many its distinctness as a concept, hybrid- scope of theory in the age of finance some theorists of mass culture and go names, among them colonialism yes- ity must also mean a “combination of capitalism. The sources of these theses straight to Horkheimer and Adorno: terday, and enclosure before that. essences.” There is no way out of this are as eclectic as a music collection: they “Fun is a medicinal bath”.(3) On the contradiction except to return the word bear with them the traces of broken re- other hand, globalization is also the Capitalism is Indigenous Everywhere to its origins in a class distinction. In lationships, misdirected enthusiasms, era of the end of ideology and of the Marx’s pages in the Grundrisse on “pre- Latin, hibrida refers to the child of the inevitable, short-lived fascination universality of cynical reason (in Zizek’s capitalist” modes of production, prob- slave and freeborn. “Hybridity,” then, with new, the enduring influence of famous formulation, “they know what lematic though they are in so many would come to refer to something like old favorites that one cannot get past they are doing but they are doing it respects, are important for suggesting the complicity of homologous class (about a final category – ”things that anyway”). What philosophy in the age that every social formation tends to fractions in dominant and dominated sounded good drunk” – we’ll say no of finance capitalism needs to explain produce inequalities that can easily give regions of the globe. But no doubt we more). These theses should not be tak- is how both of these phenomena can rise to a pool of free labor – a sugges- have better words for this. en as prescriptive. They might be read not only occur together, but are in fact tion, it should be noted, which is cor- in the light of Friedrich Schlegel’s con- produced out of the same historical roborated by any number of fictional Same Difference ception of his philosophical fragments, conditions of possibility (and contra- narratives of the colonial encounter. It is becoming clear that the hegemonic as scraps or remnants of a total system diction). Elsewhere Zizek writes that Capitalism is not simply another, par- concept of Difference is at one and that could never really exist. “a direct reference to extra-ideological ticularly voracious, social formation, the same time the most universal and Fredric Jameson has described his coercion (of the market, for example) but rather, as Deleuze and Guattari (therefore) the most empty concept, own critical practice as a “translation is an ideological gesture par excellence: claimed in Anti-Oedipus (7) the specific virtually synonymous with Being since mechanism,” a theoretical machine that the market and (mass) media are dia- nightmare of every social formation, both name the very medium of experi- makes it possible to convert other dis- lectically interconnected”.(4) In other the secret possibility, always repressed, ence. In fact it is Difference (as slogan courses into the central political prob- words, whatever explanation one pro- of recoding existing social inequalities and as concept), not Totality, that re- lematic that animates Marxism.(2) We duces must come from the inside rather as the capital-labor relation. duces the complexity of the world to conceive these theses in much the same than the outside. It is not only, as Hardt To confuse “Capitalism” with the the monotonous Same, since the truly spirit: as grasping towards a mediating and Negri(5) suggest, that the outside “West” is to elevate the latter, a merely different (i.e. what refuses to be seen as code rather than presenting a set of has disappeared: for philosophy, it was heuristic category, to a causal level merely different – what goes, for exam- truth-claims. The utility of these theses always a mistake to conceive of an out- where it has no place. ple, by the ideological names of “totali- will thus be determined by their ability side. But that’s history for you. tarianism,” “fundamentalism,” “com- to help produce a form of philosophy Ex hybridis, libertinis munism,” and “tribalism,” to name that are politically rather than concep- Capitalism Always Comes servisque conscripserat just a few examples) is excluded from tually adequate to finance capitalism from Elsewhere It is finally recognized that hybridity, the field of difference. The primacy of – a philosophy takes up the political It is well known that the disequilibrium one of the dominant terms of the last “difference” in fact outlines an identity challenge of the present without there- intrinsic to the function of capital can decade, presupposed its opposite. This – the unacknowledged frame of the by failing to become anything more be kept under control only by the ex- incoherence cannot be removed sim- monoculture, global capitalism. than an expression of (an adequation pansion of capital itself: as Marx put it ply by asserting, as the most advanced of) the dynamism of finance capitalism in the Grundrisse, “the tendency to cre- thinkers of hybridity did, that hybrid- The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; itself. ate the world market is directly given in ity goes “all the way down,” that the es- or, the Baby and the Bathwater the concept of capital itself. Every limit sence which inheres in the concept can It has been said that the essence of Nobody Knows, appears as a barrier to be overcome”(6). be deferred infinitely – any more than liberalism is a facile separation of the Everyone Is in the Know This is from the perspective of Capital. the fable to which this phrase refers can good from the bad, as though systems Simultaneously, two contradictory the- But it should not be thought that any explain the suspension of the Earth in – economic, philosophical, what- ses about that most alien of creatures, place is originally capitalist and there- space by resting it on an infinite series ever – could be simply carved up and the mass, have been emerging in glo- fore free from the encroachment of of turtles. At some point both theories the undesirable elements discarded: 17 Locating Brown & Szeman Sufficient Involvement

(1) Adorno, Theodor (1974). Minima Moralia: (4) Zizek, Slavoj ed. (1994). “Introduction: The Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Real. New York: Verso. Reflections from Damaged Life. Trans. E.F.N. Spectre of Ideology.” Mapping Ideology. New Robert Hurley et al. Minneapolis: University of (11) Badiou, Alain (2001). Ethics: An Essay on Jephcott. London: New Left Books. York: Verso, 15. Minnesota Press. the Understanding of Evil. Trans. Peter Hallward. (2) Zhang, Xudong (1998) “Marxism and the (5) Hardt, Michael & Negri, Antonio (2000). (8) Id. (1994). What is Philosophy? Trans. Hugh London: Verso. Historicity of Theory: An Interview with Fredric Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Tomlinson and Graham Burchill. New York: (12) Hardt & Negri (2004). Multitude: War Jameson.” New Literary History 29 (3), 365-66. Press. Verso, 9. and Democracy in the Age of Empire. New York: (3) Horkheimer, Max & Adorno, Theodor (6) Marx, Karl (1973). Grundrisse. Trans. Martin (9) Hardt & Negri (2000). Penguin. (1998). Dialectic of the Enlightenment. Trans. John Nicolaus. New York: Vintage, 408. (10) Zizek, Slavoj (2002). Revolution at the Gates. (13) Jameson, Fredric (2000). “Globalization and Cumming. New York: Continuum, 140. (7) Deleuze, Gilles & Guattari, Felix (1983). New York: Verso and Welcome to the Desert of the Political Strategy.” New Left Review 4, 62.

Competition is good but poverty description of this ceaseless activity of least its vestige) disappears as Capital’s get too carried away, it’s worth asking is bad, so let’s just get rid of poverty invention called philosophy can’t help threat and horizon, the desire of the what it is. How can it both resolutely (while retaining the dynamic that sus- but send the wrong message in an age multitude has no recourse. And surely refuse being reduced to a unity and at tains it); Marx is good but revolution that has grown accustomed to lan- we do not need to be reminded that in the same time explode in a political is bad, so let’s forget about revolution guage of invention – inventing com- the wrong circumstances the Utopian project? Isn’t a positive political project (while educating undergraduates in the munities, inventing identities, invent- desire of the multitude can be chan- – as opposed to political drift, the aver- poetry of Capital). Totality, incidental- ing ideas... hey, no problem! But the neled towards the most obscene ends. age of all political projects, or to “the ly, is the name for the rejection of this generation of concepts does not occur The other position might be called the multitude against,” a unity imposed tendency, which is as common as ever willy-nilly. If philosophy’s truth origi- politics of transcendence; or better yet negatively from without – a concrete – it is virtually the editorial policy of nates outside itself (as Lenin taught Slavoj Zizek(10) and Alain Badiou(11). unity? Hardt and Negri(12) invoke the New York Times – but a seemingly us), so does it finally reside. The real There is to be a revolution, even a revo- neuroscience to explain the apparent contrary tendency is equally insidious. truth of all thinking, its effective truth, lutionary party, but revolution is fun- contradiction. The brain doesn’t have a This is to conflate a philosophical con- is of a fundamentally different order damentally a decision, a risky experi- center of command, but it manages to cept not with its dialectically necessary than the truth it claims for itself. In ment never guaranteed to succeed, and make “decisions” without ever being a other but with an ideological cognate. Christian allegory, the anagogic Truth therefore an untheorizable particular- real unity. What feels in our daily life Utopia is a case in point: the construc- that it seeks is only an alibi for its real ity. Yes, yes, yes – and a resounding no. like a subjective decision is just the out- tion of Utopias is a transparently ideo- truth, which is the production of faith Lenin had a theory of revolution, a very come of innumerable parallel processes. logical operation, but the notion of and a community of believers. So too precise understanding of the historical So far so good: in some sense this is no Utopia – that is, the reservation within with thought. If the intellectual wants conjuncture in which revolution was more than obvious. But allow us to ask thought of an horizon that is not to change the world, so much the bet- a possible decision. But our situation, the dialectical question of the “reality merely the present – is essential to any ter. But here there are no shortcuts; in which no merely national revolu- of the appearance”: What if the illusion genuine politics. Indeed, the failure to St. Augustine could not just order his tion will have much significance (the were taken away? Isn’t the illusion of think Utopia in the strong sense leads congregation to believe. There are oth- dilemmas faced by the few national a subject itself a necessary part of the directly to Utopia in the first sense – in er, perhaps better, ways to change the governments genuinely on the Left are functioning of this decentered system particular, to the Utopia (never called world. But for the intellectual, how- evidence enough of this), is immeasur- that is not a subject? But in this case, that) of a market without poverty. This ever naïve it may seem, the only path ably more complex than Lenin’s. We the “illusion” is not simply an illusion corresponds to Hegel’s “bad infinity” is responsibility to Truth. remember Lenin because his revolu- but also real. Can we then read Hardt of infinite approximation as opposed tion succeeded. How many failed? The and Negri’s analogy back again into to the properly infinite judgment. The What Is to Be Done? potential cost of not asking “What is political subjecthood? Is the illusion same goes for Totality – the denigra- This is the question that is not being to be done?” is a period of bloody and of transcendent unity essential to the tion of which in current thought serves asked today. Let us call one possible ineffective rebellions, some of them functioning of a real immanent mul- to discredit the dialectic by associating position the politics of immanence. deeply reactionary. Neither is invok- tiplicity? Does someone have to come it with the thematics of the eradication Better yet, let us call it Michael Hardt ing “Seattle” much help; the protests up with a project and sell everyone else of difference, with which it has nothing and Antonio Negri(9). There is to be against our current mode of globaliza- on it? Does the political subjectivity of in common. no revolution, certainly no Party; the tion are a sign and a slogan, but not an the multitude require – gasp! – a po- world to come will arrive through a organizing principle. And waiting for litical vanguard to bring it into being? And the Truth Shall Set You Free plurality of struggles which, taken as a a Messiah will only waste time. What Somehow, we’re not too keen on that “In any case, the death of metaphys- whole, express the desire of the multi- we face instead is the hard work, the idea, either. ics or the overcoming of philosophy tude. What desire? The desire that was collective work, of theorizing the pos- has never been a problem for us: it is so effortlessly coopted during the Cold sibilities that inhere in our current con- Project(ions) just tiresome, idle chatter. Today it is War by high wages in the first world juncture and possible ways to proceed. Writing theory in the age of finance said that systems are bankrupt, but it and (relatively) generous development The only thing worse than picking the capitalism is neither the most self-in- is only the concept of system that has aid in the third? Or the desire which, wrong moment would be missing the dulgent (and thus useless) practice pos- changed. So long as there is a time and after the disintegration of actually exist- right one, and it may come sooner than sible, nor is it the sole space in which a place for creating concepts, the op- ing socialism, exists only to be brutally we think. it is possible to fan the flames of aes- eration that undertakes this will always crushed in the name of the Market? thetico-utopian imaginings. As Fredric be called philosophy, or will be indis- For the secret of the story of the im- What Is the Multitude? Jameson reminds us, “Capitalism itself tinguishable from philosophy, even if manent desire of the multitude is that Since the moment of its appearance, has no social goals”(13). It is through it is called something else”.(8) This is it quietly relied on a prior transcendent we have been enchanted with the po- philosophy that such goals can be im- true, and yet Deleuze and Guattari’s revolution. Once the revolution (or at etry of the multitude. But before we agined. + 18 Locating Dyke A (Self)Portrait from the (Com)Promised Land

The writer is Professor of Philosophy at Temple University, Philadelphia.

Chuck Dyke A (Self)Portrait from the (Com)Promised Land

I’m proud to be an American; and You’ll be wanting to ask me “Don’t keep track of my retirement portfolio; It’s hard to emphasize this sense of I hope that my fellow Americans in you have a tradition of free speech?” live through my grandchildren; take entitlement too much. It’s the direct Moose Jaw, Caracas, Guadalajara, Ha- Yes, we do; and it’s amazingly real, a security wrapped package tour to a descendent of the image of the “land of vana, and Sao Paulo feel the same. for all the beating it continually takes. new place every year; take pills for high opportunity;” the invitation to take in Wait a minute. That can’t be right. There are some things to be proud of blood pressure, bad cholesterol, and “your tired and your poor.” The prom- It may sneak by a largely European here. But that’s a freedom to say; and (these days) erectile dysfunction; read ise of prosperity lives on in the promise readership, but when Americans read not a freedom to mean. For example, brochures for retirement communities of governmental policy protecting and it, they’ll know me right away as un- any of “us” can say “fellow Americans.” (for when I get really decrepit); watch a promoting the conditions for prosper- American. Hold it. We have to tread In fact, on ceremonial occasions, it’s lot of TV soaps and sitcoms. All of this ity. The image of endless abundance delicately here. What I mean is that virtually mandatory to do so. What you is obvious because I’m white and well over the vast continent-wide land has when those in the US who have arro- can mean when you say it is squeezed off – superficial because white and well subtly morphed into the image of the gated the term American to themselves through a very tight sphincter. In a off are skin deep. abundance in a world-wide economy, read it, they’ll question my patriotism. post-Foucauldian world, this can hard- Mind now, I wouldn’t have to be and national policy insuring that the Why worry about them? Well, they’re ly come as a surprise. The conversation rich to do all these things, just moder- abundance is available throughout a the ones who have control of the words is strained. Openness is what we want, ately well off. These days I’d get a lot of long geriatric idyll.(7) I’m trying to use to try to say what I but openness to one another isn’t a help from the government. I get rich re- want to say. That is,I can’t say the whole matter of language used, it’s a matter of wards for being old. I get enormous tax Interlude I: Adam Smith Bites Back of that first sentence, and mean, in the the possibility of language meant and breaks. I get all the medical support I I seem to be painting a pretty ugly context of US public discourse, what I understood. In other words, what can I need to keep my geriatric clock ticking picture here, so it’s important to real- want to mean, or feel, or urge when I mean to you; what can you mean to me – support far greater than what’s avail- ize that it needn’t be a picture of ugly say it. Instead, I have to say something as we try to understand each other? The able for infant and child health care. I people in order to be an ugly picture. In else. But, then, talk is cheap, and the tangled reciprocity of mutually mean- get to ride public transport almost for fact, I’d describe it as a picture of per- real problem is what I can be. Realisti- ingful understanding is what’s at stake; free. And on it goes. So I don’t have to fectly ordinary people doing perfectly cally, there’s only one thing I can be: not the freedom to mumble words into be rich: just white; moderately well off; ordinary things and having perfectly what I am, a marginalized academic, the void.(3) and old. In return, I’m expected to do ordinary attitudes. The ugliness lies slotted into a sterilized niche.(1) So the problem to be dealt with is my part by sustaining the profit mar- elsewhere. You who aren’t Americans1 have it this: I want to say what it is to be an gins of the pharmaceutical companies This is not, the story goes, to the a lot easier than I do: a bigger meaning American in the way I want to be an for as long in the future as I can man- benevolence of the butcher and the space to work in. For instance, when American. But that’s un-American.(4) age to draw breath.(5) But, much more baker that I owe my daily sustenance, the US President gets up in front of a I want a language of Americanism as important even than that, to be a good but from their self-interest that they clumsily orchestrated “climate confer- it might enter productively into world American I have to believe that I deserve bring to the market just as I bring mine. ence” and makes a complete ass out conversation. In other words, when all this largesse. I have to be convinced And in that market we trade. The result of himself, you can just say “What an you deal with Americans, who are you that I’m entitled to it, and that it’s my is that all of us, as if by the action of an asshole!” or something else colorful in dealing with? I don’t have time to tell duty to preserve the conditions sup- invisible hand, become better off. your own language and idiom. At least the whole tangled story, so I’ll focus on porting the entitlement. In fact, I have I don’t think that there’s any doubt you can say it if you’re below diplomat- what I know best. to believe that this entitlement over- that under conditions of moderate ic rank.(2) I, on the other hand, have The one trying to be an Ameri- rides any other possible consideration abundance, and in the presence of ap- embarrassment for my chief of state to can is me; and I’m old. Lots and lots that might arise. Those less fortunate, propriate habits, traditions, and other deal with, my neighbors to live with, of Americans are old; and I’m one of especially those who don’t live in the boundary conditions, the market actu- my country and its politics to take as them. So what do I have to be to be US, may be worthy of charity, most ally does its magic – probably better seriously as I can manage, and the urge one of them? We can quickly sum- usually in the form of “foreign aid” than any other distributive scheme. to apologize to my European friends marize the superficial and obvious: – especially when aiding them contrib- This, at least, I share with my fellow for the whole lot. Only after all that I’d have to wear plaid slacks; watch utes to the security of the conditions of white well-off Americans. What I don’t housekeeping can I start to think about (American) football on Sunday; go to entitlement. Otherwise, they have no share, especially at the moment, is the what I really want to say. church on Sunday (before football); claim to share the entitlements.(6) faith that “nature” is of divine bounty, 19 Locating Dyke A (Self)Portrait from the (Com)Promised Land

(1) SHIT! Or are Americans in the sense I wanted (6) This is one of the key places where the implicit web page in the philosophy department at Temple ceticism, with an understanding of social justice in to mean in the first sentence, but couldn’t, but Christianity of the US has powerful consequences. University. its terms, would allow the spread of social justice aren’t citizens of the US. Charity, to the extent to which one is able, suf- (10) And, if we need the reminder, it’s trying hard perhaps even with economic contraction (from the (2) Actually, the UK representative was clever enough fices to discharge obligation. In particular, there once again to be the face of the Cold War. current point of view). Of course from the current to find a way to say it at diplomatic rank. The image is no obligation to understand the horrendous (11) Christianity, for example is a solid majority, point of view it would look like radical redistribu- of voluntary speed limits was a brilliant analogy – all scale mismatch between what Christian charity but race, gender, class, and its own internal sectari- tion. Until someone comes up with a clue about the more so since it’s so simple and obvious. can provide, and what’s needed. Nor do we need anism are enough to dissipate its impact. how to get there from here, we can leave this alterna- (3) As a teacher, I’ve been intrigued by these tan- to understand the nature of the capacity of Gates (12) One wonders about the cost/benefit ratios tive aside, though within the environmental move- gles for as long as I can remember: at least since and Buffet to out-muscle the scale gap. Charity is a involved. ment there surely are folks who nurture this dream. “Freedom, Consent, and the Costs of Interaction”. matter of the heart; not the mind. (13) There are issues of long standing at and be- (15) So study after study indicates that serious im- Rostow, Eugene V. ed. (1971). Is Law Dead? New (7) In fact, Federal Reserve policy of recent years tween all levels. At the national level, the jealous provement of inner city schools would pay, by reduc- York: Simon and Shuster. has been designed to protect just those aspects of protection of national sovereignty; at the state ing the cost of the consequences of miserable school- (4) In fact, Microsoft Word won’t even let me the economy important to geriatric prosperity: level, the long-standing issue of states rights; and ing; but only where there is extraordinary pressure spell “un-American” the way I want to. “fixed incomes,” the paper wealth of the stock at the local level, the issue of “home rule.” from recent immigrants do schools improve. (5) Of course, given my privileged position in the market, etc. (14) Or the radical transvaluation of values that (16) We’re certain we won the Cold War; and welfare system, those profits will accrue to them (8) Pace Al Gore. used to be talked about in the old days. That is, confident we can win the next one – whatever that via the mediation of the federal welfare system. (9) In Life in a Horse Opera, to be found on my for (extreme) example, conversion to a serious as- could possibly mean.

and will eternally provide the condi- at the ballot box, they have the power tion of immigrants, each wave of whom of the world. Similarly, of course, for tions of moderate abundance. What to enforce this desire. There’s no end of has had to win its terms of belonging. the generations after us, the Korean I think is that perfectly ordinary peo- candidates eager to satisfy them in this Our immigrants were inevitably un- War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, ple, with perfectly ordinary aspirations regard. The capacity for denial we see in American when they came, and patri- the Gulf War, the Afghan War, and the for themselves (and even others), and the Bush White House is amply spread otism, especially as proven through the Iraq War have contributed strongly to with perfectly innocent self interests, across the nation. privilege of dying in war, was (and is) a both American and un-American iden- will bring those qualities to the mar- We can’t underestimate the impor- common way to fix that problem. Fi- tity. But the two World Wars are spe- ket where they’ll trade. Then, as if by tance of the success of my generation nally, patriotism easily melds seamlessly cial, for in them, we all believe, we were an invisible hand, their activity ends – in the mythic terms. All their expe- within outright chauvinism. “Security” supremely in the right. Arguably we up destroying the conditions of mod- rience makes it seem inconceivable to is the operative word here. “Danger” is were; unarguably they’re the paradigm erate abundance. The configuration of them that they could be on a lethal exclusively understood as “danger-to- wars to which all others are compared. the earth’s bio-sphere that provides for path. At the moment, they’re perfectly Americans-on American-soil.” So we We still live in their discursive space. – rather, allows for – moderate abun- willing to base their lives, and the lives have here another highly constrained Those old wars have to be rhetorically dance turn out to be very fragile, and of their children and grandchildren, on meaning space. It is, for example, un- reincarnated in every new one. You’ve in grave danger of collapse. Amazingly the myths. We’ve lived a charmed life: thinkable that the US might be the probably noticed. (or tragically) how this will happen, so charmed that the nearly constant loss most dangerous nation on the planet. You may also have noticed that and, in fact, is happening, is a matter of children and grandchildren in nearly Indeed, it seems quite obvious to my whenever we have a “domestic” prob- of public record. But there’s no place constant wars can be assimilated to the generation that we are virtually all that lem that can be solved only if we can in the politics of eternal abundance for myths. A pantheon is created within stands between the world as a whole cooperate, come together about it, we the knowledge to do us any good. My which the heroes can lie. Call it paying and the dangers that threaten it. The can only do so by declaring war on it. convictions about this are grossly un- the overhead, but it also creates a link of ability to shift from this perspective is So, for example, we declare war on pov- American.(8) sacrifice. Their sons’ loss of life is their effectively denied even to those recently erty and pollution. We mobilize to fight nostalgic gain of saints and demi-gods, arrived from somewhere else on the them (more or less successfully). Mobi- To Pick up the Brush generation after generation. That, after globe. In fact, such a perspective shift lization is very nearly the only form of Saying that there’s no place in US poli- all, is what patriotism is all about. would be un-American, and particu- cooperation our meaning space allows. tics for this or that is just another way Patriotism. We didn’t invent it. We larly dangerous for the newer arrivals. Similarly, space, disease, and even aging of pointing to the poverty of meaning inherited it. But we’ve put our special Well, so much is largely generic, have to be conquered. Enemies have to available in American public space. In- virulent spin on it to make it fit us. and probably familiar – at least in the be identified and defeated. There’s just voking the Adam Smithian image is just There are several roots for our special course of speculating how we can pos- no other way to conceptualize matters. another way of pointing to the force of style of patriotism, all of them well sibly be what we are. We need to look This makes it especially difficult for us the “American dream.” As I said, my fel- discussed. I’ll add some for my particu- now at the particulars of the generation to confront the issues of global climate low geriatrics, who want, and, in many lar generation. First, patriotism is just I belong, or don’t belong, to. Or, rather, change, for in our own terms we’d have ways, require me to be like them aren’t, about all we have in the way of glue. we have to look at the geriatric genera- to identify ourselves as the enemy and by and large, evil people. They’re selec- As I’ve said elsewhere,(9) we really don’t tions in general. Thanks to the miracles figure out, I suppose, how to conquer tively ignorant, and convinced that they like each other much, beyond extended of modern medicine, the geriatric en- ourselves. (One can think of more pro- not only have the right to be ignorant, family and a small circle of friends. As semble of the US is rich and extensive. ductive conceptualizations). As it is, but the moral duty to be so. As a bizarre long as we prosper, we suffer each oth- All ages from, say, ninety to sixty five this time around the war to protect our artifact of genuine democracy, they also er. When prosperity wavers, the cracks are abundantly represented, both in the accustomed prosperity puts us tauto- resent the possibility that their elected re-appear. Second, we are, and always general population and in high office. If logically on the side of the enemy. officials may not be as ignorant as they have been, a nation at war. We began you’re ninety years old, you were born We’re not left to make war alone. are – while at the same time, of course, in revolution, then in the militancy of during World War I. If you’re sixty five, We have plenty of allies, and, more depending on them for superior exper- genocide, and one thing and another you were born during World War II. decisively, plenty of accomplices in the tise. They want the traditional myths has kept us constantly armed ever since. In between the two was the Great De- project of totalizing war as the discourse and visions to constitute the boundaries So our patriotism quite naturally has a pression. That defines for us geriatrics, of meaning. For example, we synergize of possible meaning. Later we’ll see how gun on its shoulder. Third, we’re a na- American or un-American, our version with “terrorism” in a symbiotic life his- 20 Locating Dyke A (Self)Portrait from the (Com)Promised Land

tory. They need us; we need them. In equilibrium triggers a process to restore alition with attitudes and policies they now swathed in environmental piety. fact, this synergy, and parallel synergies the equilibrium. Living things do have oppose. This is a result of the dynamics So at the very local scale, the im- afforded by ancient animosity, domi- some of these negative feedback loops of majority formation in the two party perative of growth competes with other nate the dynamics of world politics at in their repertoire of stability, but, more democracy that’s evolved to operate on imperatives felt deeply by the old and the moment, just as colonialism domi- characteristically, their stability depends the municipal, state, and local levels. rich. This spreads in two directions. The nated it for the previous three centuries on positive feedbacks to sustain life and Opponents on any one issue can hold first is the repetition of the competition or so. But while we’re not alone, we’re growth. Life processes create the condi- them hostage on the basis of other is- of values at every scale.(13) The second powerful, and our face to the world is tions for other life processes. Enhanced sues: usually issues at another level. is that the competition of values faced the face of Bush and Cheney. It’s defi- capacities create the conditions for oth- As an illustration, let’s look at pop- by the old and rich is exactly mirrored nitely not the face of Glasnost.(10) er capacities to be enhanced. Internal ulation growth. In the old days – the by a competition of values felt by “lib- processes turn each other on, not off, 19th Century US, for example – popu- eral” supporters of welfare and “social Interlude II: When Democracy and create stability far from equilibrium. lation growth meant the manpower justice”. The expansion of social wel- Doesn’t Add up; and Adam Smith Living things depend on that. When the to exploit the potential of expansion. fare obviously requires either growth or Bites His Own Tail system of positive feedbacks starts to Now, in the age of consumerism, ex- redistribution.(14) Redistribution has Now, I hope the above sketch is a good fail, the road to death becomes short. panded population means expanded always been one of the main objects of enough likeness to be recognizable. But Economies tend to work like that markets, and demand driven growth of anger. It’s conceptually indistinguisha- it immediately raises the question of as well. Since in our time economies manufacturing and trade. Walmart can ble from theft. Income tax is but barely other possible sketches of other possible are national economies, nations too thrive and spread, etc.. The demand for tolerated, and is arranged so as to mini- faces. After all, if I can claim that the depend on creating positive feedbacks housing ought also to increase, and the mize redistribution. So the presence of face isn’t mine, then my face seems to be – positive returns ratchets – to pro- construction trades expand. Investment welfare liberalism in US society, from a offered as a possible alternative. But my mote growth. Growth ratchets literally opportunities ought to appear, fatten- dynamical point of view, assumes the claim isn’t just that it isn’t my face, but become a way of life. Success breeds ing the geriatric portfolios. Population role of a constant reinforcement of the that the constraints on “American” faces success. Systems chew on their tails, growth should also mean growth in the dominant ethos of growth. Each peri- are tight enough so that there really isn’t feeding off themselves while, of course, production of infrastructure: new roads odic ascendancy of the welfare move- room for mine. Why, in other words, is drawing sustenance in from their sur- to be built; new sewers to be laid, and ment produces a reaction, ratcheted the face of war the de facto default face? rounds. They become habituated to so forth. to new heights, and hardened. So, in This is a particularly puzzling ques- this behavior, and learn to be angry at However, expanding population the medium run, in the US, it’s always tion, since the US is a democracy; and, anything that restricts their feeding. generates expanding overhead costs, war that pays for welfare. There is no I would say, a real democracy. Shouldn’t and, of course, despite the presumed stable longer vision available to sustain that imply a plurality of faces, identi- Back to the Brush Again contribution of the expanding popula- the effort for social justice. Here again, ties, and meanings? And isn’t the US, If we convert the impersonality of the tion to the geriatric portfolio, the geri- the old and rich (joined of course by in fact, conspicuous for the plurality of systems talk to the personality of my atrics don’t want to pay the overhead. more recent generations – but we’re not its faces, and diversity in nearly every generation of Americans, what this They’re electorally powerful, and, in the focused on them here) are more will- respect? Yes, but remember that you comes to is a lot of people trying to upper echelons of wealth, are willing to ing to pay the enormous overhead of have to become an American: adopt a maintain an investment portfolio suf- invest in political patronage instead of the military and the “criminal justice face. It transpires that even when the ficient to provide for the comfort of an paying the overhead.(12) The fully ex- system” than they are to modify funda- face has an ethnic identity, it becomes extended longevity. They understand, pectable result is a shift of the tax bur- mental social circumstances.(15) a face of war. There are strict limits to at varying levels of sophistication, that den away from the old and rich: a social The upshot of all this is that we as the spheres of life within which diver- succeeding in this requires continued entitlement that would have completely a nation are far worse citizens of the sity can be expressed; then dominance economic growth. Thus anything that confounded the old lefty socialists. world than a lot of us are as individu- of the one face takes over. impedes economic growth is something In addition, population growth als. We’re hostage to our history, and Are we dealing with what old theo- to get angry at: something that restricts reduces elbow room. This is particu- especially the history of our success as rists like Madison would have called their feeding. larly evident in the context of spreading a modern economic machine.(16) We “the tyranny of the majority?” No. There are lots of things to get angry suburbs; and acute beyond the suburbs don’t dare, in any way that can be stably Even in this day and age, it would be at these days. Taxes are an old classic, into the land of the horsy set. Here, the maintained, to make any of the con- impossible to identify such a majority joined these days by outsourcing, free political tables don’t just turn. They cessions and compromises that would with any accuracy. For any pair of traits trade agreements, the price of oil, credit spin. For advocates of housing for an genuinely facilitate international coop- you please, there’s always a majority crunches, the high cost of health care, expanded middle class supporting de- eration in an international society of having one rather than the other; but terrorism and the instabilities all along velopment, a growing economy means equals. The thought of scaling back our that’s seldom the route to tyranny. In the border with Islam, and, suddenly, new housing tracts, convenient shop- profligate economy so as to realistically any case, there are lots of pairs of traits, local radical shortages of water – just to ping, and all the rest that goes with confront the adaptation imperatives of and they’re mixed together thoroughly name a few. All become, sooner or later, urban sprawl. At the same time, the climate change, or to head off the worst, enough to confound serious broad the subject of legislation, or the object geriatric entrenched are keen to restrict is virtually unthinkable for us. As such based solidarities.(11) The reasons for of war. They also become elements in a land use. The somewhat paradoxical re- matters work their way through our the dominance and persistence of the strange dynamic. The short way to put sult is that the Green movements find politics, they work their way toward bellicose face lie elsewhere: in the dy- it is that everyone, no matter what their one of the few sites of influence they the traditional defaults. Our optimism namics of our democracy itself, under ideological views might be, ends up have among the affluent rural gentry. isn’t the optimism that we can success- its particular set of conditions. I’ll try with an important stake in maintaining For, the restriction strategies are carried fully deal with the environmental crisis, to make a long story short. the positive returns ratchet. They very out within the rhetoric of preservation but the optimism that we can continue A natural way to think of stability often oppose some element in the proc- of open space, preservation of historical American business as usual. It would is in terms of equilibrium, and equilib- ess. For example, they may have genuine heritage, conservation, and so on. Aes- be un-American to think otherwise. Of rium in terms of self-regulating, nega- conservational concerns. Yet, because of thetic distinction has always been the course, my fellow Americans in Moose tive, feedbacks. Thermostats are always their dependency on the ratchet in other major sign of success, and lives on in Jaw, Caracas, Havana, and São Paulo the ready example. A change away from dimensions, they find themselves in co- the preservation of the quaint and rural, might well not agree. + 21 Locating IC-98 The Peculiar and Accidental Situation ...

IC-98, from the series Theses on the Body Politic (The Peculiar And Accidental Situation In Which Providence Has Placed The Americans), 2006, free distribution poster, 35,5x26 cm. 22 Locating Lillqvist Tightly-laced Republic

Translated by Susan Heiskanen

Katariina Tightly-laced Republic, or How the Lillqvist General Seethed at the Centaur

Katariina Lillqvist (born 1963) has In the Finnish art world a heated de- head is held by General Gustav Häg- ing its mental landscape to Bertolucci’s worked as a film editor, scriptwriter, bate has surfaced during the past six glund, whose peace of mind is greatly famed film, 1900. producer and director for about 15 months on the limits of freedom of disturbed by the animation’s images of Does this mean that radio has spe- years. She has studied film both in Fin- speech. Kristian Smed’s theatrical play Mannerheim, leader of the White forces cial liberties in Finnish democracy or land and in Czech Republic, where she Tuntematon sotilas (The Unknown Sol- in the Finnish civil war, in Limbo and is it a question of an almost magical has also worked with well known Czech dier), Ulla Karttunen’s installation Nei- on a divan in a Samarkandian tearoom. belief of our visually overloaded world animation artists. In addition to puppet tsythuorakirkko (Virgin-Whore Church) The most absurd part of this war is the in the power of image? Do the puppets animations, her work also includes docu- and our newly completed puppet very fact that a heavy-weight hawk rep- have voodoo powers that scare hardy mentaries and features for TV and radio. animation Uralin Perhonen (Far Away resenting the highest of national author- Finnish soldiers out of their wits to the Katariina Lillqvist’s films have won sev- from Ural) have each in their own way ities has seriously launched an attack on extent that there has even been talk of eral international prizes and awards (e.g. ruffled the dusty skeleton closets of our a 30-centimeter-tall surrealistic puppet court action? Rulers on every continent Silver Bear in Berlin 1996). homey consensus so forcefully that the made or iron and papier mache... have undoubtedly always gnashed their dust is threatening to rise into a mush- Supra-patriotic fundamentalists teeth at political puppet art and thea- room cloud.(1) are demanding for the animation to tre, which is well exemplified in the fol- The moral watchmen of our pseu- be removed from the YLE National lowing case from Medieval Prague: do-liberal era trash the creators with all Broadcasting Company’s program- It so happened once that the stu- their might, Internet discussions break ming, and all sort of fatwas have been dents at the Charles University in a lance for and against them with the passed against the filmmakers, but the Prague became so angered with the wildest of grounds; but what is delight- real side-cracker is that the story itself Pope and the whole decayed domi- ful in terms of our own production is is by no means new. It was broadcast nance of the Catholic Church that they the intensity with which both its exist- for the first time as a radio play in 2004 assembled a sizeable carnival proces- ence and freedom of speech as an es- as part of the Yle 1 channel’s Todel- sion at Shrovetide. The students carried sence of art are defended. lisia tarinoita series, and in 2005 it at the head of the procession a large, The paradoxical thing is, however, represented Finland in the Prix Italia papier mache pig wearing a papal hat. that the war of censorship around Far competition in Milan. Italian and in- The clergy were not amused by the al- Away from Ural started on the basis of ternational radio audiences welcomed legory, and in the evening of that day, one photograph and a few puff inter- the old legends of the town district of the youths could be seen swaying life- views before the opposition had even Pispala with open ears, and the work less in the backyard gallows of the Old seen the film. The position of top hot- was praised, for example, by compar- Town Hall. + 23 Locating Lillqvist Tightly-laced Republic

(1) Kristian Smed’s play is based on Väinö Lin- within the Internet supply of unprotected pages. Katariina Lillqvist, Far away from Ural, 2008, pup- na’s book The Unknown Soldier from 1954, a story She regards the confiscation and consequent pet animation, 26 minutes. about the Continuation War between Finland and charges as “a police stand against the potential of the Soviet Union in 1941-1944. It is one of the critical art”. best-known Finnish novels of all time and many of Katariina Lillqvist’s latest adult puppet anima- its characters have attained a status of archetype in tion Far Away from Ural (2008) has proved its Finnish culture. Two films have been made of the power and aroused a cultural debate in Finland. It book, as well as numerous stage adaptations. traces events during the Finnish Civil War (1918) In February 2008 police confiscated from Ulla in which fellow citizens were slaughtered without Karttunen’s exhibition her work titled Virgin- trial. What is more scandalous, the film hints that Whore Church. The artist will be charged with the holy man of Finnish history – one of the re- possession and distribution of child pornography. sponsibles in the war – Marshal C.G. Mannerheim According to artist and art scholar Ulla Kart- (1867-1951) was possibly gay. The reactions show tunen, the work aims to criticize a system that that the wounds of the war are still there, and that enables unrestricted access to child pornography the taboos shouldn’t be touched. (Ed.) 24 Locating Kivinen Russia After the Cold War

The writer is Director of the Aleksanteri Institute, Finnish Centre for Russian and Eastern European Studies, the University of Helsinki.

Markku Russia After the Cold War: Kivinen Threat and Potential

In the West the dissolution of the nificance of military alliances, and their nuclear war. Russia has also tactical gas pipeline to be built to Germany Soviet Union was declared a victory in terminal point is not yet in sight. In nuclear weapons, with a considerably as a new Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. I the Cold War. Some even spoke of an fact, I suggest that in the post-Cold War lower threshold of use than for strate- recently took part in an international end of history and of Russia becom- world, Russia is seen on occasion as an gic atomic weapons. Threatening with seminar where a top-level Estonian ing “like everyone else”. The Russians enemy, on occasion as an opponent, on tactical nuclear weapons or limited nu- politician drew an analogy between themselves had for some time already occasion as a competitor, on occasion clear war in Europe is a more probable Stalin and Putin. lost the ball. At the outset it was be- as a partner. Thus there is good reason situation than a full-scale nuclear war Is there any point in this? Where are lieved that Russia would soon become to examine the processes of interest for- with the United States. For Finland, the prison camps and death sentences? a member of westerns organizations, mation from all these perspectives, also the avoidance of this alternative should Where is the demand for ideological or- such as the European Union or NATO. when it comes to Finland. be a primary basis of national security. thodoxy? Even though Russia’s political But this did not indeed happen, in- We must not harbor illusions as culture is authoritarian and not inter- stead, in a rather short time, Russia Russia as Enemy to how Russia feels about NATO. In est group politics in a Nordic sense, the started to develop a new foreign policy One thing is clear. Russia still possesses Russia’s military political doctrine, institutions of its political system are approach around the core of reinforc- strategic nuclear weapons with which NATO still remains the greatest threat quite democratic. There are elections, a ing the country’s own position as a su- it has the capacity to destroy not only to security. It is also obvious that the multiparty system, freedom of religion, perpower. every one of us, but also George W. enlargement of NATO is linked to its NGOs. It is true that the forces oppos- How the nature of foreign and se- Bush and the entire human civilization. traditional role as a military alliance. ing the ruling elite are fairly weak and curity policy conflicts should actually In this respect, nothing has changed Russia has for its own part strength- the security organs play a major role, be understood in a post-Cold War real- since the days of the Cold War. Russia ened the conditions for creating an but today’s Russia is in this regard no ity? The old juxtaposed world was in a is still a superpower which will always alternative military alliance by devel- different than, say, the United States in way very simple. That which benefited sit at the same tables with the United oping its Shanghai Cooperation with the 1960s or today’s Japan. Why should the Soviet Union divested from the States. And there are no options to this. China and creating a new CIS-based Russia be considered a somehow singu- West and vice versa. In what respect is No one could ever endure a full-blown mutual security alliance. China and lar counterforce to the European Union present-day Russia a contender of the armed conflict with Russia. Russia have, in fact, found a common or western pursuits in general? Perhaps West, when the ideological collocation Russia’s conventional arms industry ground in the demand for diversified the underscoring of the transatlantic no longer exists? Is the post-Cold War is, on the other hand, now only a frac- balance of world power – in what is relationship should be seen as an effort world returning to a simple power poli- tion of what it used to be, at its weak- called multipolar politics. of the Estonians and the Polish to raise tics of national interest? What is the est amounting to only a tenth of its their own profile in the EU context. role of international organizations and magnitude in Soviet times. Then again, Russia as Opponent On the other hand, there undeni- agreements? Are new common interests with energy money the military budget If Russia must never become a real en- ably are political forces in Russia that born in combating new security threats is already growing at such a pace that emy, to what extent and in what ways would like to see the former soviet re- – such as terrorism? Recently there has it will outstrip the entire EU military can present-day Russia be seen as an publics more strongly back in Russia’s been increasing discussion on geopoli- budget by 2020. This entails a rather opponent of the West or the European sphere of influence. The color revolu- tics. This is one shortcut to understand- spine-chilling scenario that the whole Union? Eastern Central European tions in Ukraine and Georgia have in ing national interests. But what if the diversification of the Russian economy countries and the Baltic states have grim Russia largely been felt to be against its interests are, rather than geographically might start to build itself on military historical experiences of Russia. Upon own interests, or even a threat to po- or historically given, still in the proc- industry. becoming members of the European litical stability. There is no doubt that ess of evolving? There are many paths The worst alternative from Finland’s Union, some of these countries have the CIS area will still long be a play- of development that are taking effect, standpoint would be if we were cast quite actively built a distance to their field of different political and economic for example, energy policies or the sig- into the frontline of a sort of limited old oppressor. The Polish speak of the interests. But Russia is certainly not 25 Locating Kivinen Russia After the Cold War

the only player there. These countries At any rate, Russia’s economic de- ments, will Russian companies be seen precisely speaking matters of foreign themselves are also playing all the cards velopment offers significant potential as competitors or as partners? These policy. Despite all the critique, the at their disposal. The greatest challenge to foreign enterprises. Russia is one questions are for the companies to relations of the European Union and for the West and for Russia is to create of Finland’s most important countries decide for themselves. The risks con- Finland to Russia have at general level common interests as regards the devel- of export and Finnish companies have nected with Russia should certainly not been positive and the aim has been to opment of the CIS-countries. At best, succeeded exceedingly well in many be underrated, especially when deal- develop partnership in many different a starting point for this kind of think- sectors in Russia. International busi- ing in investments of billions of euros. dimensions. ing could be a common endeavor to ness in general sees Russia at present in Yet again, we should also bear in mind This doesn’t mean that questions of avoid risks. At worst, we will end up a notably more positive light than do Stefan Widomsky’s summation: “It is a fundamental human rights are unim- in a power political battle of interests, European politicians or media. risk not to invest in Russia”. In terms of portant. On the contrary, the credibili- which in the long term is not likely to The game rules of business in the competitiveness of Finnish manu- ty of the European Union in relation to be to anyone’s advantage. Russia could probably currently be de- facturing industries, Russian operations human rights issues must be increased In terms of Finland’s national se- scribed as a rather complex combina- may even hold a key position. by focusing on the essential. curity, the instability and NATO rela- tion of official and unofficial norms. It Be it as it may, the strengthening of Actually, the European Union suf- tionship of the CIS countries are hardly would however be simplistic to claim economic interdependency is basically a fers at the moment from a power deficit inconsequential matters. If, for exam- that the rules haven’t become in any positive thing with reference to security in relation to Russia. European politi- ple, a crisis leading to armed conflicts way less ambiguous in recent years. politics. It is, after all, what started off cal culture should be effectually con- breaks out in the Caucasus between Different sectors are still treated in dif- European integration after the Second cretized in Russian policy. Cooperation Georgia and Russia, how can we avoid ferent ways, and the different regions World War, in a wish to conciliate goals expressed at general level have in its effects towards Finland? have their own ways of implementing Germany. Today nobody in Europe is practice led to bureaucratic dawdling tax laws or relating to investments. any longer afraid of Germany, no mat- with different cooperation areas and Russia as Competitor Russia will no doubt pursue its own in- ter how successful its businesses may road maps. Not to disregard the slow Russia is one of the world’s fastest terests also through international trade be. We have all reason to hope that the administrative processes involved, the growing economies today. Its state fi- organizations. It is today essential for same development will be repeated in European Union needs more than any- nances are also in many ways at an out- foreign companies to ensure that their the near decades in Russia. thing political views on Russia. If the standing level. Russian corporations in expectations are as realistic as possible EU doesn’t have a practical and realistic the energy sector and metal industries as to potentials and risks. The role of Russia as Partner approach to developing its relationship are major players in a global context. the state in, for example, the energy In Europe and in the United States to Russia as a partner and an economic That is to say, the Russians have joined sector has grown stronger, but this is public discussion has in recent years actor, there is a danger of falling into the international economy in their own by no means unique from an inter- started to address Russia in an increas- a cycle of juxtaposition and negative competitive areas. On the other hand, national viewpoint. Such countries as ingly critical tone. From the perspec- interaction with resemblance to the Russia’s economy still rests rather one- Norway, Kuwait or France are also ap- tive of Russia, this is somewhat para- Cold War. Common interests should sidedly on energy and raw materials. A plying state-led energy policies. There doxical. When the nation was falling be actively sought in such areas as, for natural goal of Russia’s economic poli- is definitely no return of socialism to be apart in the 1990s and the society sunk example, risk avoidance, extended se- cies is to deconcentrate the economy to expected in Russia. into exceptional distress, critical voices curity and economic interdependency. new, competitive areas. Whether it will It is of course the companies’ own from the West were few and far be- These matters call for political initia- succeed in this is still an open question. business to decide what kind of strate- tween. Moreover, the current discourse tive. Finland could have an active role The principal actors in this develop- gies they assume towards Russia. Will is for the most part linked to matters here. This is one of the wider contexts ment can either be the major corpora- they exports products for store shelves, that are almost impossible to influence in which Finland’s NATO relationship tions or the state. or will they make production invest- from the outside. They have not been should also be viewed. + 26 Locating Haila Claiming a Space

The writer is Professor of Environmental Policy at (1) Pierre Vidal-Naquet, “Epaminondas the Py- versity Press, 2007) is a good introduction to the the University of Tampere, Finland. Language edit- thagorean” in his: The Black Hunter. Forms of Thought organization of physiologies in organisms. ing Mike Garner. and Forms of Society in the Greek World (The Johns (5) “Prediction is the ultimate function of the Hopkins University Press, 1986). brain” (Llinás, Chapter 2). (2) Marcel Detienne, The Masters of Truth in Ar- (6) Active and directional movement brings about chaic Greece (Zone Books, 1996), citation on p. an increasing capacity to manipulate particular ele- 27. The proliferation of writing from strictly ad- ments of the environment, and eventually ends up ministrative and religious contexts to widespread in “animal architecture,” the intricate structures that use in secular situations was an important corol- a whole range of animal species are able to create. lary. On Cleistehens, see Pierre Lévêque & Pierre The Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa has analyzed Vidal-Naquet, Cleisthenes the Athenian. An Essay this topic in a series of exhibitions and articles. on the Representation of Space and Time in Greek (7) Lynn Margulis has been the main proponent Political Thought from the End of the Sixth Century of this view since the 1970s, her views are sum- to the Death of Plato (Humanities Press, 1996). marized, for instance, in Lynn Margulis & Dorion (3) Rodolfo Llinás, I of the Vortex. From Neurons to Sagan, Slanted Truths. Essays on Gaia, Symbiosis and Self (MIT Press, 2001). “Motricity” is a neologism Evolution (Copernicus, Springer-Verlag, 1997). that places the emphasis on the automatic propen- She has particularly emphasized the abundance sity of free-living organisms to move, based on the and functional importance of “protoctists” in the properties of so-called motor proteins. Much of biosphere. Protoctists comprise a vast “super-tax- what follows in this section derives from Llinás. on” of single-celled organisms that have a separate (4) On the cellular memory of the common in- nucleus and differentiated cell organelles. Protoc- testinal bacterium Escherichia coli, see Franklin M. tists are neither plants, animals, fungi, nor bacte- Harold, The Way of the Cell. Molecules, Organisms ria; they are protoctists. and the Order of Life (Oxford University Press, (8) In fact, the number of bacteria living in and 2001). J. Scott Turner, The Tinkerer’s Accomplice. on a human body is larger than the number of cells How Design Emerges from Life Itself (Harvard Uni- in the body. Turner (note 4) gives a fascinating ac- Yrjö Haila Claiming a Space

In an essay on military tactics in ancient mythical significance of the opposi- a new cultural invention. ment, as has been the case with abstract Greece, the French historian Pierre tion between right and left in ancient The shift occurred in step with the geometry from the very beginning. Ex- Vidal-Naquet makes the remark that Greek thinking. The mythico-religious birth and maturation of the Greek city cept for the world of artifacts, however, space is “a social construct if there ever Pythagorean sect particularly kept alive state, the polis. An important stage in there is preciously little that is Euclid- was one.”(1) The claim seems incom- the idea that binary oppositions define this process was the reform of Athenian ian in the world that we can experience. prehensible at the outset: Isn’t space the an inherent order in the world. Epami- democracy by Cleisthenes in around Every location is different from every tangible reality that we humans experi- nondas was able to liberate his tactical 510 B.C. By organizing their relation- other location, on both the small and ence in a straightforward fashion all the imagination from such fixed polarities. ships with one another within the po- large scale, and our sensory experience time? However, with further thought In other words, he was able to con- lis in a new way, the Greeks created a of the world changes from one second his remark begins to make sense. It struct a new kind of battle space for his new position for people to reflect upon to the next, from one day to the next, points to a basic dilemma as to how troops, one to which the Spartans were their relationship with the rest of the and so on, ad infinitum. human life is situated in the world. The unable to adapt. The ancients could not world. In other words, the idea of ab- In other words, Euclidean abstract space we live in is shaped by tangible choose the spatial configuration of their stract space came about in the context space is situated on and in a material objects and entities, but there is no way battle troops at will; this is the main ar- of a political process. The birth of a po- space that has a different topology. This we could be aware of everything that gument that Vidal-Naquet defends in litical community within the polis re- contrast gives rise to an important ques- happens all the time. Instead, space for the essay. Space as understood by the quired new communicative habits and tion: Perhaps the Euclidean space of us is simplified and ordered, and the ancients was not a neutral, homogene- skills, and the use of language became human artifacts is not as well insulated question is: What happens when we ous background in which all kinds of secularized, as Marcel Detienne has from the underlying topologies of the create an ordered “space” out of the in- actions are, in principle, equally fea- noted. Pre-ordained mythico-religious material world as we tend to assume. I numerable and ever-changing objects sible. Space was a priori structured by truth was gradually replaced by a view think this is the case. Thus, we ought to and entities in our surroundings? What contrasting pairs that constrained the of truth as something achieved through pay more attention to the principles of do we include, what do we exclude, modes of action available to human continuous reasoned argumentation organization of the underlying spaces. and does it matter? beings. and rhetoric. Thinking became a com- For this purpose, it is useful to make But let us first clarify the context The tactical genius of Epaminon- munal and secular activity, too: “to a digression to our biological heritage of Vidal-Naquet’s remark. The focus das bears testimony to the more gen- think it was necessary to debate and which extends back to the constitution of his essay is on the victories of the eral shift in worldview that gradually argue.”(2) of a space for life on Earth. Theban forces, led by Epaminondas, took place in ancient Greece between Overall, new degrees of freedom over the Spartans at the battles of Leuc- the seventh and fourth centuries B.C. appeared in the way that the Greeks The Origin: Motricity tra (371 B.C.) and Mantinea (362 B. To put it somewhat bluntly: the human could themselves shape the space they In the beginning was the organism: C.). These were famous battles often position in the world was from that lived in. Their space of action opened a droplet of ‘irritable’ organic matter commented upon by later historians. time on assessed on the basis of experi- up to the experiential world. closed in upon itself inside a biologi- Epaminondas’ victories were due to ence, without resort to a pre-ordained, Euclid codified the new geometri- cal membrane and maintaining itself the new tactics that he adopted for divine blueprint provided by mytholo- cal view of the world in his famous through the acquisition of energy from the troops under his command: “The gy. The shift marked a new order in the axiomatic system around 300 B.C. The the outside. Every organism lives in a Theban owed his success to a twinned material relationships between humans Euclidian image of uniform space cre- world constituted by the material ele- revolution in tactics: adoption of the and the world that surrounded them. ates order in the world, and increasing ments in its surroundings, but not oblique battle formation (loxē pha- The environment took on a neutral order means increasing control. We everything in those surroundings is of lanx) and attack by the left wing of the geometrical shape in which human ac- modern humans have Euclid’s success equal relevance for any given organism. line.” Until then, the elite troops of the tions could be performed. Geometry as to thank for the fact that we have a hard Organisms maintain themselves by ac- phalange were always on the right wing a practical skill necessary for construc- time envisaging space as anything other tive metabolism. The critical elements of the attack line. tion and land surveying, of course, pre- than neutral, uniform and symmetric. are those that either constrain or enable This shift was a significant nov- ceded this shift by a couple of millen- This is, of course, supported by sym- vital aspects of the metabolism, every- elty as it contrasted starkly with the nia, but geometrical, neutral space was metries in the human-built environ- thing else is irrelevant. As the organism 27 Locating Haila Claiming a Space

count of the role of intestinal bacteria in digestion. (14) Bryan Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the (9) The literature on evolutionary novelties is End of Civilization (Oxford University Press, 2005). vast; a good naturalistically oriented introduction (15) Two recent important works on the collapse is John Tyler Bonner, The Evolution of Complexity of complex societies are Joseph A. Tainter, The Col- by Means of Natural Selection (Princeton University lapse of Complex Societies (Cambridge University Press, 1988). Press, 1988) and Jared Diamond, Collapse. How (10) Free oxygen in the atmosphere is a key: it is a Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (Viking, 2005). side-product of photosynthesis. Diamond is very sensitive to the type of processes (11) E.O. Wilson, The Insect Societies (Harvard I call eco-social collapse. University Press, 1971); Sociobiology. The New (16) The term sustainability has been in common Synthesis (Harvard University Press, 1975). A good use in a similar context since the 1980s, of course, evolutionary introduction to the theme is John but it has the unfortunate connotation of stable Tyler Bonner, The Evolution of Culture in Animals and unchanging conditions. My thoughts on this (Princeton University Press, 1980). point have been clarified by correspondence with (12) If you want to protect the red and black Chuck Dyke. currants you are growing in your garden against (17) See the first book of Aristotle’s Politics. That thrushes that love to eat them, try to get a pair of this aspect of Aristotle’s political thinking has been sparrow hawks to nest nearby. largely forgotten in later times is another matter. (13) See Clive Gamble, The Palaeolithic Societies (18) Incidentally, Vidal-Naquet (note 1) remarks of Europe (Cambridge University Press, 1999); and that in the classical world, military tactics were Origins and Revolutions. Human Identity in Earli- much more flexible at sea than on the dry land. est Prehistory (Cambridge University Press, 2007). This difference was due to the nature of the me- It is good to keep in mind that artifacts such as dium: it is impossible to maintain a strict phalange “animal architecture” have an analogous role in formation at sea. In other words, the topology of structuring the ecological space of a whole range the sea imposed its own reality on the geometrical of other animals, too. imagination of the marine tactician.

is the active party in the relationship, ing, for instance. To fulfil this function, vironment relationship means that engine. Third, the biosphere covers it has to monitor environmental condi- the coordination of movements has to the organism acquires the capacity to the whole planet. There is no way that tions and make choices among the al- be predictive. The organism needs to be “categorize,” to couple several types non-equilibrium conditions could be ternatives that are within reach. Motil- aware in advance of what will happen of situations and conditions together maintained in only a part of a planetary ity, the ability to move about, is a char- in the immediate future. The vital need and to act in the same way in a range sphere. In other words, the biosphere is acteristic of all free-living organisms, no of mobile organisms to predict what is of different situations. This enormously everywhere. For instance, the bacterial matter how tiny. The neurophysiologist ahead is underpins the evolution of sen- increases the efficiency of the environ- ecosystem that lives in our alimentary Rodolfo Llinás uses the term motricity sory organs and a nervous system.(5) mental modifications made by organ- canals and plays a critical role in diges- for this inherent capacity in living cells. An organism that actively moves isms, but this has a downside: some tion is both a part of our body and a Living cells are irritable by their very about and is able to monitor its posi- aspects are necessarily neglected or mis- part of the biosphere.(8) nature, and motricity ensues.(3) tion and movements in a predictive represented. The complete openness of The complex organization of or- But the environment never stays fashion becomes a subject relative to its any organism to everything that hap- ganisms has originated from merg- constant. A mobile way of life in a environment. Something in front be- pens in its surroundings is out of the ers between earlier life forms. Such variable, ever-changing environment comes an object that the organism tries question. Every organism constructs a strengthening of the ties between dif- requires that the organism be able to to become aware of. As Rodolfo Llinás space to live in, semi-isolated from its ferent organisms has been a basic proc- record the kinds of changes that occur notes, the centralization of prediction surroundings, and different types of ess in the evolution of life.(9) Protoc- in its position as a consequence of its creates a “self.” The stabilization of the organisms construct different types of tists originated from symbiosis between own movements. Free-living bacteria organism as a “self” has further conse- spaces. bacteria. What could be called organ- are capable of this feat: a bacterium has quences. Organisms that have acquired ized individuality originated from the the ability to identify directions in its a “self” get the capacity to exert an in- Ties and Networks joining together of eukaryotic protoc- surroundings along critical chemical creasingly powerful influence on their The lonely bacterium is a cruel fable. tists. Symbiosis has been an important gradients and to memorize the situ- environment and to extend further Bacterial life is possible only in an en- phenomenon all along. In fact, most of ation long enough to ensure that it is both in space and in time.(6) vironment maintained by the metabo- the organisms that we see around us are moving in the right direction relative The increase in predictive capacity lism of zillions and zillions of bacteria, maintained by symbiosis of one sort or to the gradient in question. Through places heavy requirements on the effi- as well as of other micro-organisms another. Trees and other woody plants such actions, a bacterium constructs for ciency of the nervous system. This sys- (“protoctists”). In other words, bacte- offer a pertinent example. Their lives are itself a ‘space of living’. We might call tem cannot possible record everything rial life requires a biosphere.(7) The maintained by symbiotic ties with fungi this physiological space. As the physio- in real time. The result is simplification, biosphere is an essential background through so-called mycorrhizal associa- logical space is created and maintained an important principle in organism- prerequisite that has to be taken into tion. It is also good to remember that through active metabolism, it extends environment relationships. Rodolfo account when contemplating the spa- when multicellular species appeared on into the immediate surroundings of Llinás notes that every organism nec- tio-temporal topology of life. To begin Earth, the biosphere was already there. the organism in qualitatively specific essarily has to monitor such universals with, let us note three basic facts about And multicellular organisms live in ways.(4) as are everywhere present, for instance, the biosphere: First, the biosphere symbiosis with the biosphere.(10) Motility presents bigger challenges temperature, moisture, and its own po- means that conditions in the ambient Sociality is another important form for larger organisms. Coordinated sition in the gravitational field. Other environment of the surface of Earth are of tie between organisms. E.O. Wilson movement requires that the organ- characteristics that the organism has to very far from thermodynamic equilib- demonstrated the broad range of mani- ism be able to monitor its own inter- record are more context and organism- rium. The biosphere is maintained by festations of sociality among animals in nal state, for instance the positions of dependent. Simplification is particular- a thermodynamic engine that upholds his Sociobiology (and in the preceding different body parts in relation to one ly important for animals that actively the non-equilibrium conditions. Sec- The Insect Societies).(11) Sociality means another, and to integrate this awareness modify their environments. Simplifica- ond, the metabolic activity of all organ- that organisms live and act together and with the awareness of its position in the tion is expressed as an ability to focus isms on Earth combined constitutes a form collectivities that create a shared environment. This is an operation that on what matters and to ignore the rest. thermodynamic engine. Bacteria and space to live in. The genealogy of so- we perform continuously while walk- Simplification of the organism-en- protoctists are the main cogs in the ciality goes back to animal movement. 28 Locating Haila Claiming a Space

Sociality is ubiquitous among motile role in our pre-history. He is certain- between human communities and their The Roman Empire attained its great- organisms because they cannot manage ly right. In the distant past, ecofacts environments played an absolutely cen- est geographical extension in the first active relations with their environment merged together with human-manu- tral role. The story of Epaminondas and century A.D., which also saw the onset on their own. Social insects, of course, factured artifacts to create a network the revolution in Greek military tactics of what is somewhat euphemistically exert a particularly strong and overtly of relationships between early humans in the fourth century B.C. is testimony known as the “pax romana.” There was visible organizing influence on the sur- and their vital needs. Those networks to this role. a sort of peace lasting for a few centu- roundings of their nests. extended amorphously over space and ries in the central parts of the empire, The strengthening of ties between changed shape over time, for instance, Expansion – Implosion but wars were continuously raging organisms marked an expansion from in the course of the annual cycle.(13) No space is eternal. The largest space on the peripheries. These border wars physiological space outwards to what Humans have acquired more effi- we know, the space of the universe in intensified after the onset of attacks could be called ecological space. The dif- cient mechanisms for creating ties and which we live, took shape in the after- by northern tribes on their southern ference between physiological and eco- forming networks among themselves math of the big bang some 15 billion neighbours in subsequent centuries. logical space is not, however, dramatic. than any other species. Simplification years ago. The universe and its space ex- Rome was sacked in A.D. 410. Eventu- First of all, ecology has a distinctly of our relationship with the environ- ist as an historical, time-bound entity. ally, Western Rome collapsed after the physiological flavour. In fact, as we ment has been a crucial process. As a We need not worry about the universe Vandals had conquered northern Africa have already noted, the bacterial com- first step, early humans learned to sys- in this context, however. We have to and the flow of taxes and agricultural munities of the early biosphere formed tematically recruit material elements focus on the biosphere, the ultimate products to Rome from northern Af- an interconnected physiological ecol- from their surroundings to help in constraint on and enabler of all life on rica died away.(14) ogy on a global scale. Furthermore, simplifying the environment. This is Earth, including us humans. The bio- Western Rome has been well- the principle of organization of biotic what stone tools, for instance, mean: sphere is a unified entity, but it is also known as an example of the collapse of communities formed by multicellular they allow directed, purposeful, con- internally structured. Different types a complex society since the monumen- organisms resembles the physiology sistent action directed to the outside of organisms inhabit different parts of tal work of Edward Gibbon in the 18th of organisms. Functions are differen- world, which is the definition of sim- the biosphere and have carved out dif- century. There has been a disconcert- tiated and performed by specialized plification. Clive Gamble’s thesis is that ferent types of spaces for themselves to ing number of other cases, as several “member species” of the community. tools gained symbolic force when hu- live in. recent reviews show. However, its not For instance, predator-prey relation- mans learned to manufacture them in Humans stand out in their greater only whole societies that collapse. Our ships create structure in the ecological a systematic fashion. Tools have never ability than other species to expand perspective can be broadened by con- space by constraining the dimensions functioned merely as equipment used their influence across the Earth. In sidering the possibility of eco-social col- of the space in which particular spe- for specific purposes in an atomistic the case of humans simplification and lapse. Eco-social collapse happens when cies are active. A sparrow hawk, say, is fashion, as it were. Rather, tools have the concomitant intensification of the a local or regional human community continually potentially present all over moulded their users. organism-environment relationship loses its livelihood as a consequence of its home range, and the songbirds that The purposeful manufacture, ex- have been the key to this success. The the destruction of vital ecological pro- it preys upon neglect this fact at their change and use of tools and other systematic, logically coherent image of ductive potential. With such a re-focus- peril.(12) artifacts, are social processes. Conse- the world that we have formed and also ing on ecosocial systems, examples of As biological organisms, we hu- quently, such activities strengthened materialized in our efficient use of arti- collapse multiply. For instance, fish- mans have molded an ecological space the social ties between early humans. A facts represents an enormous simplifi- eries offer copious examples from all for ourselves, too. The archaeologist new type of social dynamics gathered cation on a massive scale. over the world. In an ecosocial sense, Clive Gamble uses the ingenious ne- force. Eventually, permanent commu- The origins of the Western herit- all cases of mismanagement of natural ologism ecofact to refer to such features nities were established with hierarchical age lie in ancient Greece. The west- resources represent collapse. Misman- of the environment that make up the social structures and division of labour. ern world has, in a sense, tested out agement is often expressed as an asyn- ecological space. Gamble focuses on We cannot delve into this convoluted the potential created by the Greeks. chrony of rhythms between natural the environmental relationships of history in any detail in this context, But the Greeks were followed by the change and change driven by human early humans, and argues that ecofacts but there is one more thing to note: ab- Romans, and Rome offers us another modification. Waterway regulation of- played an extraordinarily important stractions that simplified the relations testing ground: the enigma of collapse. fers particularly good examples of such 29 Locating Haila Claiming a Space

IC-98, from the series Theses on the Body Politic (Vicious Circles 1), 2007, still images, digital anima- tion, 1920x1200pix (HD), 35’10’’, loop, silent.

asynchrony: more often than not, in- organism, and we have to respect that The question is: How to improve our vessel is a three-dimensional entity tensive construction work to control fact. In ecological contexts, the precise ability to anticipate the things that need constructed in as regular a shape as floods has resulted in more devastating meaning of temporal dynamics is not to be anticipated? If we adopt an eco- the space inside will allow. The shape floods.(15) so clear, but basically we have to note social perspective on this question, the of a small boat (an Inuit kayak, say) is In concrete situations such as floods that temporal changes necessarily take experience of past societies can teach us very far from rectangular. Its shape is caused by flood control, intensive sim- place in all ecological systems. Viability a lot. The main requirement is to show dictated by the topology of the wavy plification of the society-environment means dynamic stability under con- respect for the basic means of subsist- sea. In larger vessels, however, it is pos- relationship ends up in a collision with tinuously changing conditions. It does ence that our society has at its disposal. sible to design the internal space in a the dynamic topology of the local en- not mean perpetuation of the current The failure to do so hovers in the back- rectangular configuration and to enable vironment. The difference between the conditions. ground of past collapses, and success in similar kinds of activities to those per- simplified human world and the under- If we want to be serious about doing so has supported the viability of formed in rectangular buildings on dry lying topology clearly does matter. We our own future, we have to extend the many a local community in the past. In land. The use of weaponry, for instance, do not know what the situation is on term viability to eco-social systems as fact, the ancient Greeks could teach us places demands on the shape of a ves- the global scale, but we should be able well.(16) We should start by assessing a lot in this respect. Aristotle regarded sel. Cannons have to be mounted on to learn from specific historical experi- the threats. History offers the only em- the livelihood of the polis as an integral board in fixed positions and fed with ence. In fact, that is all we have in this pirical evidence that we have. The his- element of its political community.(17) ammunition from stores below deck, regard. torical fact of the collapse of complex so- He also emphasized the ethical sig- while aircraft carriers need landing cieties offers an apt warning. No Greek nificance of practical activities such as strips. And yet, no matter what the size Viability polis remained viable for very long, and medicine, agriculture, seafaring, and so of the vessel (and there is, in fact, an The term viability has a clear meaning Rome, the inheritor of the Greek nov- on – that is, the communal activities upper limit), it floats on the water, and when it refers to an individual organ- elties, also collapsed in due course. It is, that he described with his term ‘practi- its movements are dictated by the dy- ism: a functioning physiology is a con- however, questionable whether we will cal reason’ (phronesis). namic topology of the ocean.(18) ditio sine qua non for the viability of an find any useful guidelines on the level The secularization of language, in How can we prevent the techno- organism. Viability is also used nowa- of whole societies. Better to ask more both oral and written form, was a ma- scientific simplification of the world days as a standard in nature conserva- specific questions about the ways eco- jor achievement of the ancient Greeks. of human artifacts from going awry tion. The viability of an endangered social systems have succeeded or failed We have written language to thank for with fatal consequences That we have population is assessed by estimating the in carving out a space to live in. our capacity to accumulate experience the potential for this cannot be in any probable future status of the popula- Modern society has much more ef- across generations. However, written doubt. This is not a philosophical ques- tion, starting from its current condi- ficient means for anticipating the future language in itself also creates a new tion. This is a practical and empirical tions of life. This use of the term has a than have been available in the past. space, a linguistically articulated se- question. When we investigate the his- strong normative connotation. We do Without modern science we wouldn’t mantic space. The need to preserve past torical record, we encounter illusions not do our job in the case of an endan- know anything about the prospect of experience in a written form means and failures on a massive scale, one after gered population if we do not assess the climate change, for instance. But this that the semantic space gains perma- another. On the other hand, we could threats that it is subjected to and figure assessment entails a paradox. We could nence in its own right. The good news also learn that major re-orientations of out ways to curb those threats. with equal justification claim that, with- is that this allows organized, systematic social development have happened be- But the situation is not quite that out modern technoscience, humanity learning from past experience. But the fore. Here, I think, lies the ultimate sig- simple. Viability is tied to temporal dy- would not be facing the threat of cli- bad news is that written language may nificance of the Greek experience. The namics, to the fact that all living enti- mate change. Blind faith in material end up in scriptures that remain sacred re-orientation that the Greeks managed ties are subject to changing conditions progress has driven the technological no matter what. to bring about spanned all aspects of for both external and internal reasons. and economic development of modern The basic demand is not to over- their social life, from the most mun- In the case of organisms, including society. This point has been made in- write critical dynamic features of the dane practical actions to the symbolic humans, the temporal dynamics are numerable times in recent years, but it world with schematic imaginings and worlds of the arts. We cannot imitate straightforward. Death is an integral is worth repeating. arrangements. Seafaring provides an the Greeks, but perhaps we could learn part of the life-cycle of every individual It is, however, time to go further. analogue model of this demand. A from them. + 30 Framework 8 Focus Introduction Focus: Paths Not Taken Guest Editor Ivor Stodolsky

We live in an age of low, indeed hellish, of a humane and democratic society, a pealing historical precedents for alter- How can art help re-write misguided expectations. The common sense of our “New Thinking” in international rela- natives – paths away from big-power histories, re-engage the mind in free- day tells us that people are ego-driven, tions and a fresh approach to the prob- geopolitics, cultural and political bond- dom’s movements? Where can one find strategically dishonest and combative lems of the age. A “common humanity” age and undemocratic economic ideol- those paths not taken today? consumer-individuals. Role models was hailed in both East and West. ogies? What is the legacy of the socialist The series of events which set us abound to prove it – in politics, in Yet today, again, with another ideals discarded with the freezing bath- on the path to the fiery articles found pop culture and also in the arts. Like arms-race in the making, animosity be- water of the Cold War? What relevance on these pages was the The Aleksanteri Malthus’ horrific theory of biological tween resource hungry blocs is on the to a redefinition of freedom does the Cultural Fora, a wide-ranging umbrella fratricide – the theory that inspired a rise. Full-fledged asymmetric warfare still practically unknown philosophy project which we curated and co-or- corrupt social Darwinism which lay is already everyday reality. How could of anarchism have today? What are the ganized in parallel to the international the foundations for two world-wide this happen? Is this a deja-vu of the era realistic prospects for alternative forms conference Revisiting Perestroika – Proc- wars – we are assumed to be fighting of nineteenth-century imperialist Great of globalisation based on new forms of esses and Alternatives (1). Both provide for limited resources and a monopoly Game, or perhaps the globalised return redistribution (global taxes) and repre- material for this section. The core event of power: all of us, always. of the crusading Middle Ages? For even sentation (global assemblies)? Haven’t of The Aleksanteri Cultural Fora was Visions have not always been so during the Cold War it was outer space there been viable models of strong The Raw, The Cooked and The Pack- dire. There have been epochs of en- and the moon that formed the imagina- open civilizations as opposed to manip- aged – The Archive of Perestroika , Art lightenment, epochs of revolutionary tion of the “final frontier”: the sciences, ulative, self-enclosed fortresses? These a multi-part exhibition process at the liberation. The era of Perestroika is a discovery, welfare, enlightenment and optimistic questions combined with Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma case in point. After nearly five decades freedom symbolized the future. Now the sense of regression, degradation and (2). A small selection of visual materi- of Cold War, with nuclear-bomb in- we are back on earth, busy with the un- reaction in “advanced” as much as in als from the exhibition’s “Laboratory of spired fear and “Evil Empire” rhetoric predictable gods of the climate, volatile other countries of the world motivate Re-Writing History”, aka the “Archival on both sides, the world breathed a markets, diseases, martyrdom, land- the core topics of this section. Room”, illustrates FOCUS. massive sigh of relief. Humanity had grabs, bomb-fire and mutually assured How is it that we find ourselves escaped a nuclear doomsday scenario fundamentalisms. on this path so reminiscent of the his- which had haunted the nightmares of Are there not other paths to be torical dead-ends which have been con- Ivor Stodolsky and three generations. The prospect opened taken? Are there not realistic and ap- demned so universally by humankind? Marita Muukkonen

32 ------David Graeber The Conflict between Political Ontologies of Vi- olence and Political Ontologies of Imagination

38 ------Brian Holmes Future Map, or, How the Cyborgs Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Surveillance

48 ------Heikki Patomäki The Tobin-Tax: Collective Global Action Against Economic Injustice and Unreason

54 ------Teivo Teivainen Paths Beyond Economisn

60 ------Chto delat/What is to be done? (Dmitry When the Masses Can’t and the Leaders Vilensky, Artemy Magun and Aleksandr Won’t Skidan) in Conversation about Perestroika

62 ------Artemy Magun The Closure of the European University, or Firing on your Own Headquarters

65 ------Andrei Khlobystin An Experiment in Total Archivization

68 ------An Interview with Viktor Misiano by Progressive Nostalgia. Contemporary Art (1) 7th Annual Aleksanteri Confrence Revisiting Perestroika – Processes and Alternatives, Aleksanteri Ivor Stodolsky, Marita Muukkonen from the Former USSR Institute of the University of Helsinki November and Aleksei Penzin 22 – 23, 2007. http://www.helsinki.fi/aleksanteri/ conference 2007 (2) Kiasma’s Studio K and the adjacent Archival Room, the Foyer Balcony and the Window Gallery, 72 ------Joanna Mytkowska in Conversation Art is the Mirror and the Light November 30, 2007 – January 6, 2008. http:// with Charles Esche www.perpetualmobile.org Ivor Stodolsky is Researcher of Russian culture and theory at the Aleksanteri Institute of the 76 ------Ekaterina Andreeva The Raw, the Cooked and the Packaged: University of Helsinki, an occasional curator and writer. Marita Muukkonen is Curator at FRAME The Archive of Perestroika Art The Finnish Fund for Art Exchange. 31 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Case No. 14 of the Leningrad Archive of Conceptual Art, 1987, Courtesy of Vladimir Semenov. 32 Focus Graeber The Conflict between Political Ontologies of...

The writer is a senior lecturer in anthropology at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

purely political space; it had no con- group receiving funds, or dealing with have the power to raise armies, launch David crete resources, not even a significant the government, must be organized invasions, bomb cities, and can other- treasury, to administer. Then one day (again, not as an egalitarian collective). wise threaten the use of organized vio- Graeber someone gave DAN a car. It caused a All these regulations are enforced by lence in the name of what they describe minor, but ongoing, crisis. We soon violence. True, in ordinary life, police as their “national interests” – and that The Conflict discovered that legally, it is impossible rarely come in swinging billy-clubs to it would be foolish to ignore that pos- for a decentralized network to own a enforce building code regulations, but, sibility. National interests are real be- car. Cars can be owned by individu- as anarchists often discover, if one sim- cause they can kill you. between als, or they can be owned by corpo- ply pretends they don’t exist, that will, The critical term here is “force”, rations, which are fictive individuals. eventually, happen. The rarity with as in “the state’s monopoly of the use Political They cannot be owned by networks. which the nightsticks actually appear of coercive force”. Whenever we hear Unless we were willing to incorporate just helps to make the violence harder this word invoked, we find ourselves Ontologies ourselves as a nonprofit corporation to see. This in turn makes the effects of in the presence of a political ontology (which would have required a com- all these regulations – regulations that in which the power to destroy, to cause of Violence plete reorganization and abandoning almost always assume that normal rela- others pain or to threaten to break, most of our egalitarian principles) the tions between individuals are mediated damage, or mangle their bodies (or just and Political only expedient was to find a volunteer by the market, and that normal groups lock them in a tiny room for the rest of willing to claim to be the owner for are organized hierarchically – seem to their lives) is treated as the social equiv- Ontologies of legal purposes. But then that person emanate not from the government’s alent of the very energy that drives the was expected to pay all outstanding monopoly of the use of force, but from cosmos. Contemplate, for instance, Imagination fines, insurance fees, provide written the largeness, solidity, and heaviness of the metaphors and displacements that permission to allow others to drive out the objects themselves. make it possible to construct the fol- of state, and, of course, only he could When one is asked to be “realistic” lowing two sentences: “All power to the imagination.” retrieve the car if it were impounded. then, the reality one is normally being “Be realistic, demand the impossible…” Before long the DAN car had become asked to recognize is not one of natu- Scientists investigate the nature of physi- such a perennial problem that we sim- ral, material facts; neither is it really cal laws so as to understand the forces that These expressions usually charm and ex- ply abandoned it. some supposed ugly truth about hu- govern the universe. cite the first time one encounters them, It struck me there was something man nature. Normally it’s a recognition then eventually become so familiar as important here. Why is it that projects of the effects of the systematic threat Police are experts in the scientific ap- to seem hackneyed, or just disappear like DAN’s – projects of democratiz- of violence. It even threads our lan- plication of physical force in order to into the ambient background noise of ing society – are so often perceived as guage. Why, for example, is a building enforce the laws that govern society. life. Rarely if ever are they the object of idle dreams that melt away as soon as referred to as “real property”, or “real serious theoretical reflection. they encounter anything that seems estate”? The “real” in this usage is not These phrases reflect a political ontol- It seems to me that at the current like hard material reality? In our case derived from Latin res, or “thing”: it’s ogy that through such subtle means, historical juncture, some such reflec- it had nothing to do with inefficiency: from the Spanish real, meaning, “roy- allows violence to define the very pa- tion wouldn’t be a bad idea. This essay police chiefs across the country had al”, “belonging to the king.” All land rameters of social existence and com- is the product of a sustained effort to called us the best organized force within a sovereign territory ultimately mon sense. try to rethink terms like realism, im- they’d ever had to deal with. It seems belongs to the sovereign; legally this is The Left, on the other hand, has al- agination, alienation, bureaucracy, and to me the reality effect (if one may still the case. This is why the state has ways been founded on a different set of revolution itself, once one no longer call it that) comes rather from the fact the right to impose its regulations. But assumptions about what is ultimately expects a single, cataclysmic break with that radical projects tend to founder, sovereignty ultimately comes down to real, about the very grounds of political past structures of oppression. We are or at least become endlessly difficult, a monopoly of what is euphemistically being. Obviously Leftists don’t deny the at a moment, after all, when received the moment they enter into the world referred to as “force” – that is, violence. reality of violence. Many Leftist theo- definitions have been thrown into dis- of large, heavy objects: buildings, cars, Just as Giorgio Agamben famously ar- rists have thought about it quite a lot. array. Consider it a kind of preliminary tractors, boats, industrial machinery. gued that from the perspective of sover- But they don’t tend to give it the same theoretical report. This in turn is not because these ob- eign power, something is alive because foundational status. Instead, I would jects are somehow intrinsically diffi- you can kill it, so property is “real” be- argue that Leftist thought is founded “be realistic…” cult to administer democratically; it’s cause the state can seize or destroy it. In on what I will call a “political ontology From early 2000 to late 2002 I was because, like the DAN car, they are the same way, when one takes a “realist” of the imagination”. Utopian socialists working with the Direct Action Net- surrounded by endless government position in International Relations, one like St. Simon were arguing that artists work in New York – the principal regulation, and effectively impossible assumes that states will use whatever needed to become the avant garde or group responsible for organizing mass to hide from the government’s armed capacities they have at their disposal, “vanguard”, as he put it, of a new social actions as part of the global justice representatives. including force of arms, to pursue their order, providing the grand visions that movement in that city at that time. In America, I’ve seen endless ex- national interests. industry now had the power to bring Actually, DAN was not, technically, amples. A squat is legalized after a long What “reality” is one recognizing? into being. What at the time might a group, but a decentralized network, struggle; suddenly, building inspectors Certainly not material reality. The idea have seemed the fantasy of an eccentric operating on principles of direct de- arrive to announce it will take ten thou- that nations are human-like entities pamphleteer soon became the charter mocracy according to an elaborate, sand dollars worth of repairs to bring it with purposes and interests is an en- for a sporadic, uncertain, but appar- but strikingly effective, form of con- up to code; organizers are forced spend tirely metaphysical notion. The King ently permanent alliance that endures sensus process. It played a central the next several years organizing bake of France had purposes and interests. to this day. If artistic avant gardes and role in ongoing efforts to create new sales and soliciting contributions. This “France” does not. What makes it seem social revolutionaries have felt a pecu- organizational forms that I have writ- means setting up bank accounts, and “realistic” to suggest it does is simply liar affinity for one another ever since, ten about before. DAN existed in a legal regulations then specify how a that those in control of nation-states borrowing each other’s languages and 33 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Top: Case from the Leningrad Archive of Concep- Bottom: Case No. 14 of the Leningrad Archive of tual Art, 1987, Courtesy of Vladimir Semenov. Conceptual Art, 1987. Courtesy of Vladimir Se- menov. 34 Focus Graeber The Conflict between Political Ontologies of...

ideas, it appears to have been insofar really important about violence is that indeed a very good idea to understand But generations of female novelists as both have remained committed it is perhaps the only form of human as much as possible about them. A – Virginia Woolf comes immediately to the idea that the ultimate, hidden action that holds out the possibility of military commander will obviously try to mind – have also documented the truth of the world is that it is some- operating on others without being com- to get inside his opponent’s mind. It’s other side of this: the constant work thing that we make, and, could just as municative. Or let me put this more really only when one side has an over- women perform in managing, main- easily make differently. In this sense, a precisely. Violence may well be the whelming advantage in their capacity taining, and adjusting the egos of ap- phrase like “all power to the imagina- only way in which it is possible for one to cause physical harm that this is no parently oblivious men – involving an tion” expresses the very quintessence of human being to have relatively predict- longer the case. Of course, when one endless work of imaginative identifica- the Left. able effects on the actions of another side has an overwhelming advantage, tion and what I’ve called interpretive To this emphasis on forces of crea- without understanding anything about they rarely have to resort to actually labor. This carries over on every level. tivity and production of course the them. Pretty much any other way one shooting, beating, or blowing people Women are always imagining what Right tends to reply that revolutionar- might try to influence another’s actions, up. The threat will usually suffice. This things look like from a male point of ies systematically neglect the social and one at least has to have some idea who has a curious effect. It means that the view. Men almost never do the same historical importance of the “means of they think they are, who they think you most characteristic quality of violence for women. This is presumably the destruction”: states, armies, execution- are, what they might want out of the – its capacity to impose very simple so- reason why in so many societies with ers, barbarian invasions, criminals, un- situation, and a host of similar consid- cial relations that involve little or no a pronounced gendered division of ruly mobs, and so on. Pretending such erations. Hit them over the head hard imaginative identification – becomes labor (that is, most societies), women things are not there, or can simply be enough, all this becomes irrelevant. It’s most salient in situations where actual, know a great deal about what men wished away, they argue, has the re- true that the effects one can have by physical violence is likely to be least do every day, and men have next to sult of ensuring that left-wing regimes hitting them are quite limited. But they present. no idea about women’s occupations. will in fact create far more death and are real enough, and the fact remains We can speak here (as many do) of Faced with the prospect of even try- destruction than those that have the that any alternative form of action can- structural violence: that systematic in- ing to imagine a women’s perspective, wisdom to take a more “realistic” ap- not, without some sort of appeal to equalities that are ultimately backed up many men recoil in horror. In the US, proach. shared meanings or understandings, by the threat of force can be seen as a one popular trick among High School Obviously, this dichotomy is very have any sort of effect at all. form of violence in themselves. Systems creative writing teachers is to assign much a simplification. One could level What’s more, even attempts to influ- of structural violence invariably seem students to write an essay imagining endless qualifications. Nonetheless, I ence another by the threat of violence, to produce extremely lopsided struc- that they were to switch genders, and think these are useful terms because which clearly does require some level of tures of imaginative identification. It’s describe what it would be like to live even if one treats “imagination” and shared understanding (at the very least, not that interpretive work isn’t carried for one day as a member of the oppo- “violence” not as the single hidden the other party must understand they out. Society, in any recognizable form, site sex. The results are almost always truth of the world but as immanent are being threatened, and what is being could not operate without it. Rather, exactly the same: all the girls in class principles, as equal constituents of any demanded of them), requires much less the overwhelming burden of the labor write long and detailed essays demon- social reality, they can reveal a great deal than any alternative. Most human rela- is relegated to its victims. strating that they have spent a great one would not be able to see otherwise. tions – particularly ongoing ones, such Let me start with the household. A deal of time thinking about such ques- For one thing, everywhere, imagination as those between longstanding friends constant staple of 1950s situation com- tions; roughly half the boys refuse to and violence seem to interact in pre- or longstanding enemies – are extreme- edies, in America, were jokes about the write the essay entirely. Almost invari- dictable, and quite significant, ways. ly complicated, endlessly dense with impossibility of understanding women. ably they express profound resentment Let me start with a few words on experience and meaning. They require The jokes of course were always told by about having to imagine what it might violence, providing a very schematic a continual and often subtle work of men. Women’s logic was always being be like to be a woman. overview of arguments that I have de- interpretation; everyone involved must treated as alien and incomprehensible. It should be easy enough to multi- veloped in somewhat greater detail put constant energy into imagining the One never had the impression, on the ply parallel examples. When something elsewhere. other’s point of view. Threatening oth- other hand, that women had much goes wrong in a restaurant kitchen, ers with physical harm on the other trouble understanding the men. That’s and the boss appears to size things up, On Violence and Imaginative hand allows the possibility of cutting because the women had no choice but he is unlikely to pay much attention to Displacement through all this. It makes possible rela- to understand men: this was the hey- a collection of workers all scrambling I’m an anthropologist by profession tions of a far more schematic kind: i.e., day of the American patriarchal family, to explain their version of the story. and anthropological discussions of ‘cross this line and I will shoot you and and women with no access to their own Likely as not he’ll tell them all to shut violence are almost always prefaced otherwise I really don’t care who you are income or resources had little choice up and just arbitrarily decide what by statements that violent acts are acts or what you want’. This is, for instance, but to spend a fair amount of time and he thinks is likely to have happened: of communication, that they are in- why violence is so often the preferred energy understanding what the relevant “you’re the new guy, you must have herently meaningful, and that this is weapon of the stupid: one could almost men thought was going on. messed up – if you do it again, you’re what is truly important about them. In say, the trump card of the stupid, since Actually, this sort of rhetoric about fired.” It’s those who do not have the other words, violence operates largely it is the form of stupidity to which it the mysteries of womankind is a per- power to fire arbitrarily who have to do through the imagination. is most difficult to come up with any ennial feature of patriarchal families: the work of figuring out what actually All of this is true. I would hardly intelligent response. structures that can, indeed, be consid- happened. want to discount the importance of fear There is, however, one crucial ered forms of structural violence inso- What occurs on the most petty or and terror in human life. Acts of vio- qualification to be made. The more far as the power of men over women intimate level also occurs on the level lence can be – indeed often are – acts evenly matched two parties are in their within them is, as generations of of society as a whole. Curiously enough of communication. But the same could capacity for violence, the less all this feminists have pointed out, ultimately it was Adam Smith, in his Theory of be said of any other form of human tends to be true. If one is involved in a backed up, if often in indirect and hid- Moral Sentiments (written in 1761), action, too. It strikes me that what is relatively equal contest of violence, it is den ways, by all sorts of coercive force. who first made notice of what’s nowa- 35 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Top: Photograph of a Pop Mechanics concert from Bottom: Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, Untitled the exhibition catalogue Den Nya från Leningrad (Vladik does “Some like it Hot”), early 1990s, (i.e. “The New-s from Leningrad”), Kulturhuset, painted photo collage, 24 x 30.5 cm. Courtesy of Stockholm, 1988. Andrei Medvedev. 36 Focus Graeber The Conflict between Political Ontologies of...

(1) While I am drawing on a broad range of femi- (2) But the result is that “postmodern” alienation the winners do not really win, because the system is speaking of political ontologies, as I have been, nist theory here, perhaps the most important is called theory sees alienation simply as the subjective ex- itself is ultimately incapable of producing a truly then politics is precisely the domain where it is “standpoint theory”: the key notes to consult here are perience of those who are somehow oppressed, or unalienated life for anyone. most difficult to make such distinctions. Anyway, Patricia Hill Collins, Donna Haraway, Sandra Hard- excluded, whose own self-definition clashes with (3) Perhaps from a Critical Realist perspective one could well argue that if there is any human ing, and Nancy Harstock. Some of the thoughts on the definitions imposed by society. For me, this one could argue that “reality” is precisely that essence, it is precisely our capacity to imagine that imagination are also inspired by observations by Bell deprives the concept of much of its power: which which can be entirely encompassed in our im- we have one. Hooks about folk knowledge about white people in is to say that the ultimate problem with the system aginative constructions; however, this is pretty (4) I have already made this case in a book called Southern African-American communities. is not that some are excluded from it, but that even clearly not what they have in mind; anyway, if one Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value, 2001.

days labeled “compassion fatigue”. of the state’s monopoly of violence, ienation in revolutionary circles, even theorists saying? They are saying that Human beings, he observed, appear those who step in to actively simplify when the academic Left has long since the ideas of a unitary subject, a whole to have a natural tendency not only to situations (for example, were someone abandoned them. If one enters an anar- society, a natural order, are unreal. That imaginatively identify with their fel- to actively challenge some bureaucratic chist Infoshop, almost anywhere in the all these things are simply figments of lows, but also, as a result, to actually definition). Simultaneously the police world, the French authors one is likely our imagination. True enough. But feel one another’s joys and pains. The has become in contemporary industrial to encounter will still largely consist then: what else could they be? And why poor, however, are just too consistently democracies, America in particular, of Situationists like Guy Debord and is that a problem?(3) If imagination miserable: observers, for their own the almost obsessive objects of popular Raoul Vaneigem, the great theorists of is indeed a constituent element in the self-protection, tend to simply blot imaginative identification. In fact, the alienation (alongside theorists of the process of how we produce our social them out. The result is that those on public is constantly invited, in a thou- imagination like Cornelius Castori- and material realities, there is every rea- the bottom spend a great deal of time sand TV shows and movies, to see the adis). For a long time I was genuinely son to believe that it proceeds through imagining the perspectives of, and ac- world from a police officer’s perspec- puzzled as to how so many suburban producing images of totality.(4) That’s tually caring about, those on the top. tive, even if it is always the perspec- American teenagers could be entranced, simply how the imagination works. It almost never happens the other way tive of imaginary police officers, the for instance, by Raoul Vaneigem’s The One must be able to imagine oneself around. That is my real point. Whatev- kind who actually do spend their time Revolution in Everyday Life – a book, and others as integrated subjects in or- er the mechanisms, something like this fighting crime rather than concerning after all, written in Paris almost forty der to be able to produce beings that always seems to occur: whether one is themselves with broken tail lights or years ago. In the end I decided it must are in fact endlessly multiple, imagine dealing with masters and servants, men checking you have car insurance. be because Vaneigem’s book was, in its some sort of coherent, bounded “soci- and women, bosses and workers, rich own way, the highest theoretical expres- ety” in order to produce that chaotic and poor. Structural inequality – struc- On Alienation sion of the feelings of rage, boredom, open-ended network of social relations tural violence – invariably creates the In the twentieth century, death terrifies and revulsion that almost any adoles- that actually exists, and so forth. Nor- same lopsided structures of the imagi- men less than the absence of real life. All cent at some point feels when confront- mally, people seem able to live with the nation. And since, as Smith correctly these dead, mechanized, specialized ac- ed with the middle class existence. The disparity. The question, it seems to me, observed, imagination tends to bring tions, stealing a little bit of life a thou- sense of a life broken into fragments, is why in certain times and places, the with it sympathy, the victims of struc- sand times a day until the mind and body with no ultimate meaning or integrity; recognition of it instead tends to spark tural violence tend to care about those are exhausted, until that death which is of a cynical market system taking sell- rage and despair, feelings that the social that gain from it; or at least, to care not the end of life but the final saturation ing its victims commodities and specta- world is a hollow travesty or malicious far more about them than those ben- with absence. – Raoul Vaneigem, The cles that themselves represent tiny false joke. This, I would argue, is the result eficiaries care about them. In fact, this Revolution in Everyday Life images of the very sense of totality and of that warping and shattering of the might well be (aside from the violence pleasure and community the market imagination that is the inevitable effect itself) the single most powerful force Creativity and desire – what we often has in fact destroyed; the tendency to of structural violence. preserving such relations.(1) reduce, in political economy terms, to turn every relation into a form of ex- It is easy to see bureaucratic proce- “production” and “consumption” – are change, to sacrifice life for “survival”, On Imaginative Revolution dures as an extension of this phenom- essentially vehicles of the imagination. pleasure for renunciation, creativity The Situationists, like many ‘60s radi- enon. One might say they are not so Structures of inequality and domina- for hollow homogenous units of power cals, wished to strike back through much themselves forms of stupidity tion, structural violence if you will, or “dead time” – on some level all this a strategy of direct action: creating and ignorance as modes of organizing tend to skew the imagination. They clearly still rings true. “situations” by creative acts of subver- situations already marked by stupidity might create situations where laborers The question though is why. Con- sion that undermined the logic of the and ignorance owing to the existence are relegated to mind-numbing, bor- temporary social theory offers little Spectacle and allowed actors to at least of structural violence. True, bureau- ing, mechanical jobs and only a small explanation. Poststructuralism, which momentarily recapture their imagina- cratic procedure operates as if it were elite is allowed to indulge in imagina- emerged in the immediate aftermath tive powers. At the same time, they a form of stupidity, in that it invari- tive labor, leading to the feeling, on of ‘68, was largely born of the rejection also felt all this was inevitably leading ably means ignoring all the subtleties the part of the workers, that they are of this sort of analysis. It is now simple up to a great insurrectionary moment of real human existence and reducing alienated from their own labor, that common sense among social theorists – “the” revolution, properly speaking. everything to simple pre-established their very deeds belong to someone that one cannot define a society as “un- If the events of May ‘68 showed any- mechanical or statistical formulae. else. It might also create social situa- natural” unless one assumes that there thing, it was that if one does not aim Whether it’s a matter of forms, rules, tions where kings, politicians, celebri- is some natural way for society to be, to seize state power, there can be no statistics, or questionnaires, bureauc- ties or CEOs prance about oblivious “inhuman” unless there is some authen- such fundamental, one-time break. The racy is always about simplification. to almost everything around them tic human essence, that one cannot say main difference between the Situation- Ultimately the effect is not so different while their wives, servants, staff, and that the self is “fragmented” unless it ists and their most avid current read- than the boss who walks in to make an handlers spend all their time engaged would be possible to have a unified self, ers is that the millenarian element has arbitrary snap decision as to what went in the imaginative work of maintain- and so on. Since these positions are un- almost completely fallen away. No one wrong: it’s a matter of applying very ing them in their fantasies. Most situ- tenable – since there is no natural con- thinks the skies are about to open any simple schemas to complex, ambigu- ations of inequality I suspect combine dition for society, no authentic human time soon. ous situations. elements of both. essence, no unitary self – theories of There is a consolation though: that The same goes, in fact, for police, The subjective experience of living alienation have no basis. Taken purely as a result, as close as one can come to who are after all simply low-level ad- inside such lopsided structures of imag- as arguments, these seem difficult to experiencing genuine revolutionary ministrators with guns. Police sociolo- ination is what we are referring to when refute.(2) But how then do we account freedom, one can begin to experience gists have long since demonstrated that we talk about “alienation”. for the experience? it immediately. It seems to me that if only a tiny fraction of police work has It strikes me that if nothing else, If one really thinks about it, though, we are to have any chance of grasping anything to do with crime. Police are, this perspective would help explain the argument is much less powerful than the new, emerging conception of revo- rather, the immediate representatives the lingering appeal of theories of al- it seems. After all, what are academic lution, we need to begin by thinking 37 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Top: Oleg Kotelnikov, Red Rot, late 1980s, felt Bottom: Membership-card of the Secretary of the pen on paper, 30 x 29.5 cm. Courtesy of Andrei Council of the artist-commune NCh/VCh (i.e. Medvedev. See Ekaterina Andreeva’s article in this “AC/DC”), Courtesy of its bearer, Ivetta Pomer- issue of Framework for a discussion of this art- antseva. work. 38 Focus Graeber/Holmes The Conflict/Future Map

Brian Homes is a writer and researcher, a mem- ber of Tangent University and an initiator of the networked seminar Continental Drift. A longer version of Holmes’ essay can be found at his site: http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/

again about the quality of these insur- to as “the workforce”. When buying or human history where something like rectionary moments. using goods and services privately sup- that has begun to happen. Brian In retrospect, what seems strikingly plied, the same collection of individuals As conservative critics have always naïve is the old assumption that a single become something else, “consumers”, been quick to point out, such sponta- Holmes uprising or successful civil war could, as just as in other contexts of action they neous creations always seems to end be- it were, neutralize the entire apparatus are relabeled a “nation”, “electorate”, or ing subsumed within some new form Future Map, of structural violence, at least within a “population”. of violent bureaucracy. As I’ve noted, particular national territory: that with- All these entities are the product of this is more or less inevitable since bu- in that territory, right-wing realities institutions and institutional practices reaucracy, however much it serves as or, How the could be simply swept away, to leave that, in turn, define certain horizons the immediate organizer of situations the field open for an untrammeled out- of possibility. Hence when voting in of power and structural blindness, Cyborgs pouring of revolutionary creativity. But parliamentary elections one might feel does not create them. Mainly, it simply if so, the truly puzzling thing is that, obliged to make a “realistic” choice; evolves to manage them. Learned at certain moments of human history, in a situation of radical change, in a This is one reason direct action that appeared to be exactly what was revolutionary time, suddenly anything proceeds in the opposite direction. The to Stop happening – although for a very lim- seems possible. When the bureaucratic invention of collectives, of fora, of lib- ited time. It seems to me that if we are apparatus ceases to operate, it has the erating processes is the beginning, the Worrying to have any chance of grasping the new, effect of throwing horizons of pos- means and also the goal of the “move- emerging conception of revolution, we sibility wide open. This is only to be ment of movements”. The organization and Love need to begin by thinking again about expected if one of the main things that of mass actions themselves – festivals of the quality of these insurrectionary mo- apparatus normally does is to enforce resistance, as they are often called – can Surveillance ments. extremely limited horizons. This is be considered pragmatic experiments One of the most remarkable things probably why, as Rebecca Solnit has in whether it is indeed possible to insti- about such moments is how they can observed, people often experience tutionalize the experience of liberation, We are living through a movement from an seem to burst out of nowhere – and something very similar during natural the giddy realignment of imaginative organic industrial society to a polymorphous then, often, dissolve away just as quick- disasters. powers, everything that is most pow- information system – from all work to all ly. How is it that the same “public” This would explain why revolu- erful in the experience of a successful play, a deadly game. –Donna Haraway, that two months before say, the Paris tionary moments always seem to be spontaneous insurrection. Or if not to The Cyborg Manifesto Commune, or Spanish Civil War, had followed by an outpouring of social, institutionalize it, perhaps, to produce voted in a fairly moderate social demo- artistic, and intellectual creativity. Nor- it on call. The effect for those involved In his final book, published in 1964 cratic regime will suddenly find itself mally unequal structures of imaginative is as if everything were happening in at the height of the postwar industrial willing to risk their lives for the same identification are disrupted; everyone is reverse. Actions begin with the crea- boom under the title of God & Go- ultra-radicals who received a fraction of experimenting with trying to see the tion of new forms of collective deci- lem, Inc., the scientist Norbert Wiener the actual vote? Or, to return to May world from unfamiliar points of view. sion-making: councils, assemblies, the asked a question: “Can God play a sig- ‘68, how is it that the same public Normally unequal structures of crea- endless attention to ‘process’ – and uses nificant game with his own creature? that seemed to support or at least feel tivity are disrupted; everyone feels not those forms to plan the street actions Can any creator, even a limited one, strongly sympathetic toward the stu- only the right, but usually the immedi- and popular festivities. These serve as play a significant game with his own dent/worker uprising could almost im- ate practical need to recreate and reim- foretastes – experiences of visionary creature?”(1) The example he used was mediately afterwards return to the polls agine everything around them. inspiration – for a much slower, pains- trivial: a computer program for playing and elect a right-wing government? Hence the ambivalence of the taking struggle of creating alternative checkers, written by A.L. Samuel of the The most common historical ex- process of renaming. Subjects (publics, institutions. IBM corporation. As for the definition planations – that the revolutionaries peoples, workforces…) are created by of “significant,” it’s not very clear: but didn’t really represent the public or its specific institutional structures that are Conclusion Wiener does observe that just as in the interests, but that elements of the pub- essentially frameworks for action. They Far from being put in temporary abey- contest between God and Lucifer, the lic perhaps became caught up in some are what they do. What revolutionar- ance, state power (in many parts of the programmer may well lose the game. sort of irrational effervescence – seem ies – and revolutionary artists – do is globe at least) so suffuses every aspect He had reason to be nervous. Dur- obviously inadequate. First of all, to break existing frames to create new of daily existence that its armed rep- ing the war he had worked on electronic they assume that ‘the public’ is an en- horizons of possibility, an act that then resentatives intervene to regulate the targeting mechanisms and had come to tity with opinions, interests, and alle- allows a radical restructuring of the so- internal organizational structure of conceive the feedback loop as a model giances that can be treated as relatively cial imagination groups allowed to cash checks or own for every kind of purpose, whether of consistent over time. In fact what we and operate motor vehicles. One of the animals or machines. In December of call “the public” is created, produced, Alter-Globalisation or, remarkable things about the current, 1944, acting jointly with his colleagues through specific institutions that allow Revolution in Reverse neoliberal age is that bureaucracy has Howard Aiken and John von Neumann, specific forms of action – taking polls, In previous set-piece visions of revolu- come to be so all-encompassing – we he invited a select group of researchers watching television, voting, signing tion, an uprising begins with battles in have the first effective global adminis- to join a “Teleological Society” to study petitions or writing letters to elected the streets, and if successful, proceeds trative system in human history – that the conjunction of neurology and en- officials or attending public hearings to outpourings of popular effervescence we don’t even see it any more. gineering.(2) The name made use of a – and not others. In fact the entire an- and festivity. There follows the sober How to create alliances between dif- term that had previously been reserved archist project of reinventing direct de- business of creating new institutions, ferent zones of possibility – from those for the final causes of speculative phi- mocracy is premised on assuming this councils, decision-making processes, of festivals of resistance which open our losophers and theologians. Soon after is the case. and ultimately the reinvention of eve- imagination on new horizons, to more its first meeting, the Teleological Soci- People referred to in one context as ryday life. Such at least is the ideal, and traditional movements, is the funda- ety transformed into the famous Macy “the public” can in another be referred certainly there have been moments in mental problem for our future. + Conferences on “Circular Causal and 39 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Three invitations to events at the NCh/Vch (i.e. “AC/DC”) squat, late 1980s. The text of the red stamp reads “Alternating Current / Direct Cur- rent”. 40 Focus Holmes Future Map

(1) Norbert Wiener, God & Golem, Inc.: A Com- bert Wiener, the Father of Cybernetics (Cambridge, The Manichaean devil is playing a game of poker (4) Cf. William Poundstone, Prisoner’s Dilemma: ment on Certain Points where Cybernetics Im- MA: Basic Books, 2005). against us and will readily resort to bluffing; which; John von Neuman, Game Theory, and the Puzzle pinges on Religion (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, (3) Cf. Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Hu- as von Neumann explains in his Theory of Games, is of the Bomb (New York: Anchor Books, 1992), 1966/1st ed. 1964), p. 17. man Beings (New York: Da Capo, 1954/1st ed. intended not merely to enable us to win on a bluff, p. 190, n. 3. But there are other models: Edward (2) On the Teleological Society, and on Wiener 1950), pp. 34-35: “The scientist is always working but also to prevent the other side from winning on Teller, Werner von Braun, the game theorist Her- generally, see Steve Heims, John von Neumann to discover the order and organization of the uni- the basis of a certainty that we will not bluff. Com- man Kahn, Henry Kissinger… and Norbert Weiner: From Mathematics to the Tech- verse, and is thus playing a game against the arch pared to this Manichaean being of refined malice, (5) Norbert Wiener, I Am a Mathematician (Cam- nologies of Life and Death (Cambridge, Mass: MIT enemy, disorganization. Is this devil Manichaean the Augustinian devil is stupid. He plays a difficult bridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1956), pp. 251-52. Press, 1980), and Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman, or Augustinian? Is it a contrary force opposed to game, but he may be defeated by our intelligence (6) Peter Galison, “The Ontology of the Enemy: Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Nor- order or is it the very absence of order itself?… as thoroughly as by a sprinkle of holy water.” Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision,” in

Feedback Mechanisms in Biological based on its past behavior; and convey machines. Where did this uncanniness I would like to introduce four charac- and Social Systems” – a title summed this information to a servomechanism come from? Galison’s insight was to re- teristic technological systems, which up as “Cybernetics,” after Wiener had that would correct the firing of the gun alize that the closed-loop information together trace out the contours of our coined the word in 1947. – an operation to be repeated in a con- machine, in its circular, self-correcting society. These systems are all of North In the course of that year he pub- tinuous, circular fashion. Yet more was unity, was ultimately defined by the American origin, and they illustrate licly renounced any direct collabora- at stake here than a sensor, a calculator opaque, dissimulating maneuvers of the how the hegemonic power spends its tion with the military brass and the and a servomotor: because the gun, like dodging pilot, whenever he was sought immense defense budgets on “dual-use” giant corporations. He was repelled by the enemy airplane, was also connected out by the aggressive eye of the gunner. technologies, both civil and military, his wartime experience and wanted to to a human being. And this, for Wien- In other words, cybernetics itself was a which continually intertwine with each exercise his mind against nature alone, er, was fundamental: Manichean science, permeated by what other even as they reshape the emerg- against a passive, transparent, Augus- Galison calls “the ontology of the en- ing global order.(8) You might think of tinian nature harboring no hidden in- It does not seem even remotely possible to emy.” these four systems as cardinal points, or tentions, unlike a Manichean universe eliminate the human element as far as it The systemic unity of man and ma- mapping instruments: they exemplify full of opaque bluffs, evil designs and shows itself in enemy behavior. Therefore, chine, split at its heart by an ontology the way that concentrated computing dissimulations.(3) This anti-militarist in order to obtain as complete a math- of the enemy, is what I will explore in power charts out the present, in order stance placed him at odds with Von ematical treatment as possible of the over- these pages, in order to gain a new un- to wipe the slates of the past and colo- Neumann, a mathematical genius and all control problem, it is necessary to as- derstanding of surveillance. Here is the nize the future. a central figure in the creation of the similate the different parts of the system to thesis in a nutshell: the automated in- atom bomb. Von Neumann, who at- a single basis, either human or mechani- spection of personal data can no longer 1. The Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing tended Atomic Energy Commission cal. Since our understanding of the me- simply be conceived as an all-seeing System is a semi-opaque visor set into meetings on a wheelchair, is thought chanical aspects of gun pointing appeared eye, a hidden ear, a baleful presence be- a magnetic helmet that tracks where to have been among the models for to us far ahead of our psychological un- hind the scenes. The myriad forms of the pilot’s head is pointing.(9) It func- Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove.(4) derstanding, we chose to try and find a contemporary electronic surveillance tions as a display surface, replacing the One of his theories, developed exten- mechanical analogue of the gun pointer now constitute the irremediably multi- traditional control panel and allowing sively by the mathematicians at the and the airplane pilot. In both cases, the ple feedback loops of a cybernetic soci- the pilot to read aircraft performance, RAND corporation, sought to identify operators seemed to regulate their conduct ety, devoted to controlling the future. targeting information, weaponry status the most rational strategies for any two- by observing the errors committed in a Conflict lodges within these cybernetic and threat predictions from the green- person game, by relentlessly calculating certain pattern of behavior and by op- circles. They knit together the actors of ish letters of a computational scrim all the possible moves of each player. posing these errors by actions deliberately transnational state capitalism, in all its that remains constantly within his field Wiener saw Von Neumann’s game tending to reduce them…. We call this cultural and commercial complexity; of vision. At the same time, he is able theory as deterministic and scientifical- negative feedback.(5) but their distant model is Wiener’s an- to lock on a Sidewinder missile by just ly outdated. He preferred the statistical tiaircraft predictor, which programs the looking at its target. The helmets are analysis of stochastic processes, and a The upshot of Wiener’s prediction re- antagonistic eye into a docile and effi- made by Vision Systems International, policy of continuous error-correction search was a double inscription of the cient machine. Under the auspices of a a joint venture between Rockwell Col- rather than any quest for absolute cer- “human element” into the system: on lowly servomechanism coupled into an lins and Elbit Systems of Israel. The tainty. By the 1960s he was increasingly the one hand, as a servomechanism, informational loop, we glimpse the ear- fighter-plane cockpit places the human concerned that decision-making might pointing the gun or steering the plane, liest stirrings of the Golem that matters being at the junction between infor- be taken over by game-theoretical ro- and on the other, as a source of in- to us today, in the age of data-mining mation-delivery systems and a whole bots, capable of learning checkers and formation for the feedback loop. The and neuromarketing. And this Golem battery of controls and launch mecha- many other things – until one day, historian of technology, Peter Gali- is ourselves, the cyborg populations of nisms. It is the ultimate man-machine like the Golem, they would run amok, son, stresses the mechanical side of the the computerized democracies. interface, something like the cyborg’s and unleash some kind of the Dooms- equation: “The core lesson that Wiener Our movements, our speech, our natural home. It is here that new an- day Machine. In the face of that “final drew from his antiaircraft work was emotions and even our dreams have swers are constantly found to the ques- cause,” every human game would be- that the conceptualization of the pilot become the informational message that tion raised by military psychologist come insignificant. and gunner as servomechanisms within is incessantly decoded, probed, and John Stroud at the Sixth Macy Confer- a single system was essential and ir- reconfigured into statistical silhouettes, ence in 1949, way back at the dawn of * * * reducible.”(6) Philip Mirowski, in his serving as targets for products, services, cybernetics: “So we have the human Today, Dr. Strangelove has receded into history of cyborg economics, lays the political slogans or interventions of operator surrounded on both sides by the never-never lands of science fiction, emphasis on the informational side: the police. Each of us, paradoxically, very precisely known mechanisms and and game theory no longer disquiets the “The physical and the human both had is at once the promise and the threat the question comes up, ‘What kind of general public. But for an understand- to undergo ontological metamorphosis of the future, which itself is our Telos, a machine have we placed in the mid- ing of the God and Golem equation into ‘messages with noise’ in order to our God, our Creator. And so, under dle?’”(10). in the post-industrial information age, be combined into a new synthesis.”(7) the incessant scrutiny of today’s sur- one need only look closer into the na- But Galison and Mirowski are speaking veillance technologies, Wiener’s philo- 2. InferX privacy preserving real-time ture of Wiener’s research during WWII. of the same thing: the infomechanical sophical question returns in an inverse analytics is a data-mining tool based Beginning in 1940, he set to work on a being that emerged from the Second form. Can a creature play a significant on previous research carried out by closed-loop information system called World War. Its double constitution game with her creator? Can we play a the parent company, Datamat, for the an antiaircraft predictor. This was a could be felt in the uncanny aspect of significant game with the cybernetic targeting of missile interceptors.(11) three-part problem: use radar to record the strange new creatures that fired the society that has created us? It works by inserting an “InferAgent” the zigzagging path of an airplane per- guns and piloted the planes: something program into an entire range of com- forming evasive maneuvers; calculate between machinelike, implacable hu- Cardinal Points puter systems – banks, airports, tick- the probabilities of its future course mans and and intelligent, humanlike To set up the context of this question, eting agencies, harbor authorities, etc. 41 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

O. Maslov, V. Kuznetsov, S. Kozak, A. Menus, A. Ventslova etc, The Friends of Mayakovsky Club: From a series of 32 b/w photographs in which the heroes of Mayakovsky’s circle of the 1920s were re-enacted by artists of the early 1990s. Courtesy of the Archive of Svetlana Kozak. 42 Focus Holmes Future Map

Critical Inquiry 21/1 (Fall 1994), p. 238. (10) John Stroud, “Psychological Moment in Per- bclid1111449543/bctid1125950390. (15) Terry McAulife, quoted in the PBS documen- (7) Philip Mirowski, Machine Dreams: Economics ception,” in Heinz von Foerster, ed., Cybernetics: (13) See the TANGRAM Proposer’s Informa- tary by Douglas Rushkoff,The Persuaders, 2004; the Becomes a Cyborg Science (Cambridge University Circular Causal, and Feedback Mechanisms in Bio- tion Packet, at www.fbo.gov/spg/USAF/AFMC/ transcript can be accessed at www.pbs.org/wgbh/ Press, 2001), p. 61. logical and Social Systems, Transcriptions of the Sixth AFRLRRS/Reference-Number-BAA-06-04- pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/etc/script.html. (8) For an excellent discussion of dual-use tech- Conference (New York: Josiah Macy Foundation, IFKA/SynopsisP.html; and the White Paper by (16) Oscar H. Gandy, The Panoptic Sort: A Po- nologies, see Jonathan D. Moreno, “DARPA 1950), pp. 27-28. Jesus Mena, “Modernizing the National Targeting litical Economy of Personal Information (Boulder: on Your Mind,” in Mind Wars: Brain Research (11) Corporate homepage at www.inferx.com. System,” available in the “Expert Insight” section Westview, 1993). and National Defense (New York: Dana, 2006). (12) From a video interview with Brown on Dan of the InferX site. (17) Corporate homepage at www.shoppertrak.com. (9) See the product page at www.vsi-hmcs.com/ Vernton’s Homeland Defense Week, at http://link. (14) Acxiom corporate homepage at (18) Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transforma- pages_hmcs/02_jhm.html. brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1078673197/ www.acxiom.com. tion of the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT

– and then using encrypted transmis- background, lifestyle, hobbies and aspi- of the labor force, by means of an ap- extensive development of flight-simula- sions to perform real-time pattern- rations of each cluster, and it also tracks plication called ESP, or “Easy Staffing tion devices for both testing and train- recognition analysis on their data. them through life-stage changes, allow- Planner.” In this way, businesses are ing.(19) The software is promoted by Michael ing for what Acxiom calls “preemp- expected to move toward “customer ex- But the more widespread case Brown, the disgraced former head of tive marketing,” or the chance to be- perience management,” which consists emerges from the relation between mo- the Federal Emergency Management gin pitching products and services to of an ability to shape both the built bile consumers and what the architec- Agency (FEMA): “What these algo- households shortly before they enter a environment and the human element, tural critic Sze Tsung Leong calls “con- rithms do is they look at what’s the new phase. in order to more efficiently capture the trol space,” i.e. an urban design shaped normal pattern for any given set of data The resources of companies like client’s desire and convert it into sales. by real-time information on the aggre- points, and if those veer off by any fash- Acxiom are increasingly used by politi- The ideal seems to be a situation where gate behavior of individuals.(20) The ion, then the protocol says you need to cians. As Democratic campaigner Terry a single look inevitably leads to a pur- word “control” has a precise meaning look at that.”(12) InferX is designed to McAuliffe said: “If I want to sit at my chase. here: it refers to the continuous adjust- hunt around the world for “unknown desk, pull up on the screen the state of ment of an apparatus, or in this case, unknowns”: those things that “we Ohio, and say, ‘Who in Ohio says that Each of these four technologies repre- an environment, according to feedback don’t know we don’t know,” as Don- education is going to be the number sents a major innovation in its genre. data on its human variables. This no- ald Rumsfeld put it. Because the data one issue they’re going to vote on,’ six But at the same time, they are only tion of adjustments to an environment is not physically warehoused, it escapes seconds later, 1.2 million names will a tiny part of a vastly wider range of is the key, if we want to understand the the restrictions placed by Congress on pop up. I then have the ability to hit surveillance techniques, all integrated pervasiveness of surveillance in today’s DARPA’s Total Information Awareness buttons and do telemarketing to them to larger control systems which tend societies – a pervasiveness that goes well program. Indeed, the company has ac- immediately, or to send emails to them increasingly to rely on predictive algo- beyond military, police and secret-serv- tively marketed its system for the US immediately, send direct mail to them rithms. When surveillance develops to ice functions. To understand it, howev- military’s TANGRAM project, which immediately, or actually send someone this degree you can say goodbye not only er, requires abandoning two commonly effectively replaces TIA.(13) And In- to their door to talk to them.”(15) The to privacy, but to the entire public/pri- held ideas: the literary image of Big ferX is a dual-use technology, including technology of the “panoptic sort,” stud- vate divide on which individual choice Brother peering out from a screen, and a marketing application: “InferCluster ied in the early 1990s by Oscar Gandy, in a democracy was founded. Today, the more complex architectural image uses the same distributed architecture (16) has taken a quantum leap forward what Habermas called the “structural of the Panopticon. as InferAgent to send agents over net- – and it will take another one very transformation of the public sphere” What’s interesting is that both these works for the clustering of groups of soon, when the lifestyle information has crossed another threshold.(18) In images correspond to comprehensive objects with similar features from mul- offered by social-networking sites like the twentieth century, it was a mat- understandings of society and subjec- tiple data sources. InferCluster can be MySpace starts being exploited by the ter of large-scale news and advertising tivity. The world of Orwell’s 1984 is used to group customers with similar data-miners. companies distorting the public sphere not only defined by a camera hidden purchasing behavior, or to even discov- in which ideas are exchanged. Now we in a telescreen, manned by secret police er patterns of who is not buying and 4. Orbit Traffic Management Technol- are heading toward an entirely different watching out for crimethink. It’s also a why.” In that last phrase, one begins to ogy, sold by the ShopperTrak corpo- kind of society, based not on informed regime of absolute identification with sense the disquieting pervasiveness of ration,(17) is the last point on the debate and democratic decision, but the dark-haired, mustachioed image what Peter Galison calls “the ontology quadrant. It consists of an unobtrusive rather on electronic identification, sta- of Big Brother, and absolute rejection of the enemy.” ceiling-mounted video camera that tistical prediction and environmental and hatred of the Jewish traitor Gold- compiles records of customer move- seduction. And in this society, the ci- stein. 1984 depicts a totalitarian state, 3. Personicx customer relationship man- ment through the store and correlates phers of opportunity presented by mar- regulated by arbitrary trials, torture and agement system, developed by the Acx- them with both sales figures and la- keting data are never very far from the spectacular executions, and articulated iom corporation, divides the entire bor-force data. Up to 254 units can targeting information thrown off by an by the language of Newspeak that al- US population into 70 demographic be networked to cover large areas, and evasive enemy. lows for no internal contradictions, clusters, according to “age, estimated cameras can also be installed outside The four examples I’ve presented indeed, no difference whatsoever in household income, presence and age to compare how many people pass by take us from looks that kill, with the society or the inmost conscience of range of children, marital status, home and how many actually enter. The data helmet-mounted cueing system, all the individual. But in that respect it’s ownership status, estimated net worth is transmitted to ShopperTrak’s treat- the way to looks that consume, with an archaic image, one that corresponds and population density.”(14) The sys- ment center, where it is processed and customer experience management. In very little to the world in which we tem is built on Acxiom’s InfoBase, presented on a web-platform for re- between, they show how data-mining live, even if there are thousands of NSA which is the largest continuously up- mote access by management. The point provides the power to identify prob- operatives devoting all their time to dated consumer database in the United is to use the information as a guide for able criminals or terrorists, but also spying on specific persons, and even if States, containing public tax and cen- adjusting in-store traffic flow, product probable buyers of products or voters there are orange-suited prisoners held sus information as well as innumerable placement, signage and advertising. for a candidate. This kind of “future in the spectacular torture centers of bits of data culled from the records of The effectiveness of the design changes mapping” via the combination of data Guantánamo. corporate clients. The database covers can then be checked against the hard collection, predictive analysis and envi- Similarly, the Panopticon is not some 110 million households – basi- data of sales. The results of individual ronmental simulation could be found just a circular building with windowed cally the entire marketing universe of stores can also be compared with mac- in dozens of other realms, from finance cells and a central tower outfitted with the United States – and, unlike the ro-trends at the regional and national to traffic control. In every case, the venetian blinds, where a functionary geodemographic systems of rival com- levels, allowing for performance bench- tracking and analysis of human beings can watch a prisoner’s every move with- panies like Claritas, it provides direct- marking. Even more crucially, real-time helps to configure a man-machine in- out himself being seen. It’s also a world mail, telephone and email access to data on regional and national sales of terface. The classical example is the ex- of proliferating files, dossiers and case individual households, and not just a given product line can be used for plicitly cyborg form of the pilot inside histories, each administered by profes- zipcode groups. It profiles the cultural hour-by-hour adjustments in the size his molded cockpit, which has led to sionals who seek to reform and retrain 43 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Evgenij Kozlov (E-E), Untitled (AR series), 1985, 35mm b/w negative film, scratched, 31.7 x 25.6 cm. Courtesy of Evgenij Kozlov. 44 Focus Holmes Future Map

Press, 1991/1st German ed. 1962). veillant-Simulation: New Technologies, Digital port new types of social practices, organisational grave Macmillan, 2007/1st French ed. 2004). (19) For an insightful study of how the cockpit Representations, and Material Geographies,” in change, and urban and regional restructuring.” (22) Michel Foucault, Naissance de la Biopolitique: model has served for the retooling of public educa- Environment and Planning D: Society and Space (21) The French phrase dispositifs de sécurité Cours au Collège de France, 1978-1979 (Paris: Gal- tion in the US, see Douglas D. Noble, “Cockpit 16 (1998). Graham writes: “Computerised simu- could equally well be translated as “safety de- limard, 2004), p. 48. Cognition: Education, the Military and Cognitive lation and modelling systems now allow the vast vices,” or perhaps (catching the ambiguity that (23) The perfect way to chart this transition Engineering,” in AI & Society 3 (1989). quantities of data captured by automated sur- I will explore later on) as “safety-and-security is offered by the historian Otto Mayr, who has (20) Sze Tsung Leong, “Ulterior Spaces,” in Chui- veillance systems to be fed directly into dynamic devices.” The official translation speaks of“se- documented the pervasiveness of simple feedback hua Judy Chung et. al., eds., The Harvard Design facsimiles of the time-space ‘reality’ of geographic curity apparatuses.” See the opening chapters of mechanisms (thermostats, governors) in liberal School Guide to Shopping (Cologne: Taschen, territories (neighbourhoods, cities, regions, na- Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Britain during the eighteenth century, at a time 2001). Also see Stephen Graham, “Spaces of Sur- tions etc), which can then, in turn, be fed into sup- Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-78 (Pal- when they remained extremely rare among the

the individual, to ingrain a discipline tion networks; and the surveillance of paratuses of security.” Developing that tors continually attempt to manipulate into his mind, emotions and reflexes, traffic in an urban environment that is same idea a year later, he declares with a the environments in which individuals a discipline that will operate even with- no longer walled or subject to curfew. certain irony that the liberal art of gov- freely take their decisions; and to see out the all-seeing eye. Panoptic society The keyword here is circulation. ernment “consumes freedom” – “free- in turn how state power intervenes at is a bureaucracy that individualizes its Instead of developing closed, precisely dom of the market, freedom of buyers the highest level, with attempts to re- subjects through the imposition of defined spaces for exclusive uses, as in a and sellers, free exercise of property adjust the concrete “security devices” of a regular and codified system of dif- disciplinary regime, the plan creates an rights, freedom of discussion, eventu- the corporations and the police, along ferences, creating functional catego- open series of multifunctional devices ally even freedom of expression” – and with the broader and more abstract ries of able-bodied men and women that can expand in various directions, therefore, “it must produce it, it must rules of economic governance. The whose actions and gestures can be ar- according to patterns of future growth organize it.”(22) It must provide the in- difficulty, in short, is to create the im- ticulated into a productive whole, and that only be foreseen as probabilities. stitutional environment for the exercise age or the metaphor of a deeply Man- whose truth can be distilled into the Further examples include the treatment of certain freedoms, including the con- ichean society where, as Daniel Bell discourses of specialists. Despite their of the plague by an identification of its ditions under which one person’s free- observed, “games between persons” inexorably ramifying knowledge, these transmission vectors, or the mitigation dom can be prevented from limiting have definitively replaced any kind of specialists always retain something of of famine by economic adjustments another’s, or indeed, from threatening collective struggle against nature.(25) the warden, the doctor, the educator, that discourage the hoarding of grain. the entire mechanism of economic ex- This society, which displaces so much shaping pliable personalities within In each case, the nature of an existing changes. The liberal art of government, of its conflict into the future, is none- the stable framework of all-encompass- phenomenon and its effects on the for Foucault, consists in intervening theless the present framework in which ing institutions. But as we know, such population are carefully analyzed be- “not on the players, but on the rules of individuals, groups and populations all clearly defined institutions with their fore any measures are taken. The aim of the game.” become cyborgs, that is, people bound carefully molded subjects are increas- the liberal art of government is never to From here it would have taken just inseparably to machines, struggling to ingly hard to find in present-day soci- punish, transform or even save individ- one more step to see how the statistical make sense and to achieve purposes ety, even if we do not lack schoolmas- uals, as in a disciplinary architecture, interpretation of computerized surveil- within mediated environments that are ters, sergeants and psychiatrists in the but instead to arrive at the optimal lance data would open up entirely new expressly designed to manipulate them. pay of the state. distribution of certain phenomena in feedback possibilities for the govern- But this is also the liberal framework It’s obvious that both Big Brother society, “to reduce the most unfavora- ance of mobile populations.(23) Cy- that a resurgent state power seeks to and the Panopticon are outdated, ble, deviant normalities in relation to bernetics – whose etymology means restructure, by reinforcing the earlier though they have not entirely disap- the normal, general curve.” both “steersman” and “governor” – has paradigms of military discipline and peared. The question, then, is how do All of this is quite unlike a sover- in effect become the applied social sci- sovereign law. Very few people have we characterize a surveillance regime eign upholding an arbitrary and ter- ence of control at a distance, a necessary sought to theorize this highly unstable that is neither totalitarian nor disci- rifying law (which was the role of the correlate of the American aspiration to condition of governance; but has any- plinary, but depends primarily on the ancient kings, or of Big Brother). But global empire. However, Foucault was one managed to crystallize it in an im- statistical treatment of aggregate data in it is equally distinct from an adminis- not a social forecaster, as the sociolo- age? And has anyone managed to op- order to shape environments in which tration imposing disciplinary routines gist Daniel Bell had claimed to be a few pose it with what Foucault would have populations of mobile individuals can on an individual (which is the effect of years earlier. He was a genealogist, ex- called “counter-behaviors”? be channeled and controlled? How, panoptic surveillance, whether in pris- amining the successive historical strata in other words, do we understand the on or on the factory floor). It is now that combine in the present. There- God Machines political economy of surveillance in a a matter of political economists adjust- fore he conceives the security devices At this point I want to quote from the cybernetic society? ing the parameters of an open environ- as an eighteenth-century addition to mission statement of the Total Infor- ment so as to stimulate and channel the disciplinary procedures of the six- mation Awareness program (TIA), be- Security Devices the probable behaviors of a population, teenth century, just as those procedures cause it exemplifies the military inter- It’s surprising to see how Foucault, in his and to manage the risks entailed by its had been superimposed on the juridi- pretation of the kinds of feedback loops 1978 lectures at the Collège de France, free and natural mobility, or indeed, by cal forms of medieval sovereignty. He that I have been discussing throughout immediately begins to distance himself the expression of its desire. The prob- puts it this way: “There is not a series this paper: “The DARPA Information from the image of the Panopticon and lem of governments under this liberal of successive elements, the appearance Awareness Office will imagine, develop, the concept of a disciplinary society, paradigm, Foucault explains, “is how of the new causing the earlier ones to apply, integrate, demonstrate and tran- which he had advanced only two years they can say yes; it is how to say yes to disappear. There is not the legal age, the sition information technologies, com- before in his book Discipline and Pun- this desire.” disciplinary age, the security age… In ponents, and prototype closed-loop ish. The lectures are entitled Security, What’s impressive here is the reality you have a series of complex edi- information systems that will counter Territory, Population. They deal with about-face in Foucault’s theory of the fices… in which what above all changes asymmetric threats by achieving to- what he calls “security devices,” or the panoptic order – a transformation mo- is the dominant characteristic, or more tal information awareness useful for mechanisms whereby the economic ac- tivated by the rise of neoliberalism, exactly, the system of correlation be- preemption, national security warning, tivity of a population is both optimized amidst the shift to a post-industrial tween juridico-legal mechanisms, disci- and national security decision mak- and protected against disruption.(21) society. He goes so far as to say he was plinary mechanisms, and mechanisms ing.”(26) The Policy Analysis Market, The first example is a mid 18th-cen- wrong when he claimed in his work on of security.”(24) proposed a part of TIA, was supposed tury redevelopment plan for the city the prison that the disciplines were the It is this complex edifice that we to mobilize the predictive capacities of of Nantes, which involves cutting out coercive “dark side” of Enlightenment must take into account, if we want to investors, by getting them to bet their new streets to serve four overlapping liberties, the fundamental mechanism develop an image of surveillance within money on civil, economic and military functions: the aeration of unhygienic of power beneath the formal surface of the wider panorama of the corporate trends in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jor- neighborhoods; the facilitation of trade liberal theory. Instead, he now main- and military order. The difficulty, in dan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey. It inside the city; the direct connection of tains, “freedom is nothing else but the a fully fledged neoliberal society, is to would be sensing device in such a self- the streets to long-distance transporta- correlative of the deployment of ap- see how a wide range of different ac- regulating, closed-loop system – like 45 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Vadim Ovchinnikov, Letters, mock-official, stam- ped documents, second half of the 1980s, 21 x 21.9 cm. Courtesy of the Archive of Andrei Khlo- bystin. 46 Focus Holmes Future Map

authoritarian societies of the Continent. What explicit comparative study only came later, after Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting (New York: (27) Jeremy Rifkin, Time Wars: The Primary Con- is more, he shows that these mechanical devices Foucault’s death: Otto Mayr, Authority, Liberty and Basic Books, 1999/1st ed. 1973. Bell writes: “The flict in Human History (New York: Holt, 1987). were commonly used as metaphors for such char- Automatic Machinery in Early Modern Europe (Bal- ‘design’ of a post-industrial society is a ‘game be- (28) Maurizio Lazzarato, Les révolutions du capi- acteristic political-economy notions as supply- timore: John Hopkins University Press, 1986). tween persons’ in which an ‘intellectual technol- talisme (Paris: Les empêcheurs de penser en rond, and-demand, checks-and-balances and self-regu- Also see Galison’s discussion in “The Ontology of ogy,’ based on information, arises alongside of 2004), p. 101. lation. However, Foucault does not seem to have the Enemy,” op. cit. pp. 262-63. machine technology” (p. 116). (29) See, among others, David Lyon, Surveillance been aware of Mayr’s technical book, The Origins (24) Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Popula- (26) From the reconstruction of the original Society: Monitoring Everyday Life (Buckingham: of Feedback Control (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), tion, op. cit. TIA website at http://infowar.net/tia/www.darpa. Open University Press, 2001); Surveillance Studies: which might have provided a clue. The more (25) Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial mil/iao. An Overview (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007).

a human thermostat connected to the closets of useless circuitry and the fevers modernization, but with veritable cy- communities of deviant subjectivity, inferno of American economic, diplo- of our theoretical dreams. The sleep of borgs that articulate the most ancient forming at the site of the eviscerated matic and military power. A mockup reason under informatic surveillance and most modern.”(28) private/public divide, are not some of the trading interface, prepared by gives birth to God machines. Yet every In 1964, the year of Dr. Strangelove, subcultural frivolity, but attempts to the Net Exchange company, shows new claim to “shock and awe” or “full- Norbert Wiener tried to conjure away reinvent the political at its very basis. “special event contracts” concerning spectrum dominance” is ill-conceived, the threat of deterministic game theo- What’s at stake is the elaboration of such eventualities as “Jordanian mon- illusory, useless. ry, which he saw as a sure-fire path to different functional rules for our col- archy overthrown in 4th [quarter] Our society’s obsession with con- “push-button war.” He thought that by lective games, which in today’s society 2004,” or “Arafat assassinated in 4th trolling the future – and with insuring placing flawless Augustinian reason on cannot be put into effect without the 2004”; while a “global contracts” sec- accumulation – has at least two major a single continuum with the imperfect language of technology. Distributed tion includes “terror deaths” and “US consequences. The first is the organiza- human mind and the limited electronic infrastructure exists for such projects, military deaths.” The trading function tion of a consumer environment for the computer – or in other words, by un- in the form of open-source software. are overlaid on a map of the Mid- immediate satisfaction of anticipated derstanding both God and Golem to And laboratories for this kind of ex- dle East, like windows of geopolitical desires, with the effect of eliminating be “incorporated” within human ex- perimentation have been built ad hoc, opportunity. This interface, and the desire as such, and creating an atmos- perience – he could help to open up a by people like Jaromil, Konrad Becker, lure of profit it offered, would be the phere of suspended disbelief where en- more flexible ethical space, unbound Laurence Rassel, Natalie Jeremijenko, electrodes attached to the precognitive tire populations move zombie-like and to any ideology, whether of religion or Critical Art Ensemble, the Institute for lobes of the investors. If they produced intellectually silent beneath exaggerated science. Yet today it is precisely within Applied Autonomy, Marko Peljhan or striking images, then preemptive poli- images of their unconscious drives. The this flexible interface of God, man and probably a hundred other artists. But cies would follow. second consequence, as we have seen machine that the Manichean games what you don’t have is any sustained The PAM trading interface is liter- with such violence in recent years, is of corporate and military strategy are institutional commitment, any gov- ally a “future map.” It is also a perfect the simple removal of those who might played out, with very few significant ernmental Golems who are willing to example of what Foucault calls a “se- trouble this forcibly tranquilized land- questions as to the rules, the stakes wake up from their waking dreams. curity device,” and it offers precise in- scape with any kind of disturbing pres- or the final causes. The cyborgs, like And that makes it very difficult to sight into the dynamics of surveillance ence or political speech. What results in Kubrick’s strategic air commanders, bring together, over the middle and under cybernetic capitalism. It is not a both cases is a dampening of voice, a have learned to stop worrying and love long term, the diverse range of people police program, but a market instituted muffling of desire, an insignificance of surveillance. But through the magic who are needed to help change the cul- in such a way as to precisely condition critique, reaching a paroxysm in the na- of computer media, their strange love ture of the present. the free behavior of its participants. It tional consensus surrounding American is now distributed much more widely Social interaction is always a game produces information, while turning security fever and military intervention through the population. The telos of of control, as all of David Lyon’s work human actors into functional relays, after September 11. humanity – its future map – once again on surveillance has shown.(29) But or indeed, into servomechanisms; and In the face of these trends, which looks like a bull’s eye of blind self-de- everything depends on who writes it “consumes freedom” for a purpose. have been gathering since at least the struction. the rules, and even more, on how you Like all security devices, it serves two 1980s, large swathes of the world’s pop- play the game. To find a better way, functions. One is to optimize eco- ulation have reacted to the colonization Conclusions or even to help raise the problem in nomic development: in this case, the of the future by seeking refuge in the The question isn’t one of dodging the its urgency and complexity, we would development of financial speculation. distant past of revealed religion, giving magic bullet, or of constructing some have to invent new kinds of cultural But the other function is to produce rise to fundamentalisms, both Chris- fantasy space where you could survive institutions, able to take on more dif- information that will help to eliminate tian and Muslim, whose archaic vision unsurveilled. The question for artists, ficult and more divisive issues – exactly deviant behavior, of the kind that can’t of better days to come can only trans- intellectuals and technologists is how the ones that the Manichean sciences be brought into line with any “normal” late as a violent desire for apocalypse. to play a significant game, instead of of the postwar era succeeded in auto- curve. This is the double teleology of Any number of national militaries or reclining and declining in a gilded mating and hiding from view. Until closed-loop information systems in cy- terrorist groups or guerrilla armies are cage, as the PR and development wing artists, hackers and cultural critics are bercapitalism. The map of the future is willing to oblige, particularly in the his- for yet more corporate spin-offs of the joined by scientists, sociologists, econo- always a promised land to come. But torical lands of the Sacred Books, but mainline military devices. The question mists and philosophers with a purpose, there are always a few enemy targets on also in places of deadly emptiness like is how to engage in counter-behaviors, there will be no deep and distributed the way to get there. The question is, do Waco, Texas. The thing to realize is that able to subvert the effects of cybernetic critique of military neoliberalism, and you hold the gun? Do you just watch as the prophets of past and future go hand governance. One thing we could do is of the surveillance that articulates it. the others take aim? Or do you try to in hand. The computerized trader, the to create more precise images and more Which means that the ontology of the dodge the magic bullet? religious zealot, the military pilot and evocative metaphors of the neoliberal enemy will keep coming back to haunt The heraldic emblem of Total the suicidal terrorist are all protagonists art of government, in order to heighten us, like some undead ghost of the Cold Information Awareness – a sky-blue in the “time wars” of the 21st century, awareness of the ways that intimate de- War that never dissolved in the sun. sphere encompassing an earthly globe whose coming Jeremy Rifkin predicted sire is predicted and manipulated. Such That might even be the significance of caught in the gaze of a radiant eye de- two decades ago, without being able to images and metaphors are desperately the hilarious and supremely subversive tached from the summit of a Masonic foresee the dramatis personae.(27) As lacking, along with a Karl Marx of cy- ending that Kubrick gave to his film, pyramid – is surely the purest expres- Maurizio Lazzarato has written more bercapitalism. But another, more im- when he has Vera Lynn’s optimistic, sion of the exorbitant will to power un- recently: “The West is horrified by the portant thing we can do is to dig into sentimental forties-era lyric billowing leashed on the twenty-first century. But new Islamic subjectivities. But it helped the existential present and transform up out of the mushroom clouds: all around the planet, complex systems to create this monster, using its most the everyday machines, by hacking are striving to realize the goals of Wien- peaceful and seductive techniques. We them into unexpected shapes and con- We’ll meet again / Don’t know where, er’s original predictor, which itself had are not confronted with remnants of figurations that can provide collabora- don’t know when / But I know we´ll meet been a practical failure, destined for the traditional societies in need of further tive answers to control space. Critical again some sunny day… + 47 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Vadim Ovchinnikov, Letters, mock-official, stamped documents, second half of the 1980s, 21 x 21.9 cm. Courtesy of the Archive of Andrei Khlobystin and the Archive of Svetlana Kozak. 48 Focus Patomäki The Tobin Tax

The writer is Professor of International Relations at the (1) Tobin originally proposed the system in a single-authored and co-authored publications (e.g. marchés”, Le Monde Diplomatique, Décembre University of Helsinki, Finland, and an Innovation 1972 lecture and developed it more fully some Tobin et al., 1996; Tobin 1997). In 1999, he noted 1997. Professor of Globalization and Global Institutions at years later (Tobin, 1978). In 1981, Tobin was that “the Tobin Tax – I didn’t give it that name, (3) See e.g. Lawson, Tony (1997). Economics and the RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. This awarded the Nobel Prize for reasons not related to and I wish nobody had – has of course even more Reality. London: Routledge. piece is based on “The Tobin Tax: A New Phase in this proposal, namely for “his most outstanding justification now than it did in 1972” (personal (4) See e.g. Palan, Ronen (1998). “Trying to Have the Politics of Globalization?” (Patomäki, 2000) and and significant research contribution to the theory communication). Perhaps the reason for Tobin’s Your Cake and Eating It: How and Why the State “Global Tax Initiatives: The Movement for the Cur- of financial markets and their relation to con- hesitancy is not only his modesty, but also worry System Has Created Offshore”, International rency Transaction Tax” (Patomäki, 2007). Edited and sumption and investment decisions, production, about the wider political significance given to his Studies Quarterly, Vol. 42, 4. abridged for this journal by James O’ Connor, revised by employment and prices”. Tobin has continued to idea; it is not only about economics any more. (5) Bhaskar, Roy (1994). Plato Etc. The Problems of Ivor Stodolsky in coordination with the author. advocate the currency transaction tax in numerous (2) Ramonet, Ignacio (1997). “Désarmer les Philosophy and Their Resolution, London: Verso, 253.

classical effects of laissez-faire capital- real-life consequences (1978; 1996). and in many cases poverty, illness and Heikki ism writ large: homogenising westerni- Such a tax would make many specula- hunger. sation, social and cultural destruction tive movements unprofitable and the Patomäki and global exploitation. financial system less volatile and sen- Genealogy: A History of Critics of globalization, or some sitive to, for instance, daily political Financial Crises The Tobin at least, believe it could make real news or the anticipation of economic Until the Asian crisis in the late 1990s, the darkest modern sketches of the policy changes. interest in the CTT was usually trig- European Middle Ages. In these fore- Consequently, the tax would create gered by major financial crises, and Tax: casts, the future is characterised by cha- space for more autonomous economic then died out when the crises passed. otic episodes, deepening inequalities, policies of states, and, as a by-product, However, of the almost 200 financial Collective ecological catastrophes and ubiquitous also generate revenues for use by the crises – covering more than 80 cur- violence. Little or no real democracy international community. More recent rency crises that have taken place since Global Action will be left in this future world, even advocates of a CTT have tended to em- the late 1970s – the farthest-reaching if the formal institution of regular elec- phasise the importance of the revenues, ones have occurred since 1990. After Against tions within states remains in place. which, on comprehensive implementa- the Mexican crisis (1994–1995) and Too rarely, however, do such at- tion by a sizeable group of countries its repercussions and the Asian crisis Economic tempts at prediction translate into con- might yield upwards on USD100 bil- (1997), which spread to Brazil and the structive social criticism. Even many of lion a year for the states and the glo- Russian Federation (1998), the world Unreason those academics apparently despairing bal community. Equally importantly, was alarmed. In reaction to this dis- of these nightmare scenarios for glo- many others have pointed out that the quieting situation, a more systematic and Injustice balization have remained satisfied with power of global financial markets, and and organized global campaign for the a positive sociological approach. Their the current (and growing) ability of the CTT finally emerged. armchair stance is that we should de- players in these markets to avoid taxa- Since the early 1990s, the Tobin tax The prospect of a Currency Transaction scribe and understand, but not con- tion on the national level, is a threat to has also been discussed within the con- Tax – known popularly as the Tobin demn or search for alternatives. democracy.(2) text of trying to find alternative sources Tax – is emancipatory in its implica- Yet there are also other possible fu- James Tobin proposed his system of funding for the United Nations tions. Through minimal intervention tures. Concrete reform initiatives, such in opposition to the prevailing ortho- (UN) system and, more generally, for in speculative transactions, this tax as the Tobin tax, seem to promise a new dox or neo-classical, laissez-faire eco- the global efforts to reduce absolute would enhance the autonomy of states phase in the politics of globalization. nomic theories such as rational expec- poverty. Indeed, with the exponential vis-à-vis volatile financial markets while tations theory and monetarism. These growth of foreign exchange markets generating large funds for the solution What Is the Tobin Tax? theories claim that the current state of (the daily foreign exchange, or forex, of global problems. The Tobin Tax an The Tobin tax is a low-rate tax on all affairs of free convertibility and float- volume is now more than 100 times instrument which goes well beyond currency transactions – an essential ing exchange rates, which they strenu- that of the early to mid-1970s), the the realm of the political economy in component of most activities in glo- ously advocated in the 1960s and early CTT suddenly appears to be a very sig- its effects, and could give rise to new bal financial markets. Such a currency 1970s, make for the best of all possible nificant potential source of revenue for institutions of democratic politics on a transaction tax (CTT) would defend economic worlds. But these orthodox various global purposes. Even a small global level. and develop the autonomy of states, in assumptions are explicitly non-realist slice of a trillion US dollars or more particular the room for manoeuvre of and instrumentalist, and imply the de- a day could, it was argued by many, Globalization versus the State their economic policies. Including act- nial of the existence of social beings and make a huge difference in funding At least since the fall of the Berlin Wall, ing as a buffer against global financial relations(3). Moreover, they abstract UN activities and other global com- globalization has been the major and shake-ups, it would fund the global de- away such crucial features of the real mon goods. The CTT was discussed persistent theme underlying political velopment goals and provide significant world as radical uncertainty in the face in this light, for instance, at the World discussion. Whether used by business funds for new forms of global demo- of openness and unpredictability of the Summit for Social Development held analysts or social theorists, the term car- cratic institutions and governance. future. It also ignores the fact that all in Copenhagen in 1995. Both the reac- ries the promise of a new era. For one In the wake of the partial collapse supposed “laws of economics” depend tions to financial crises and the proac- side it is the promise of the global free of the original Bretton Woods system upon unique, transitory, institutional tive need for global funds pushed the flow of capital, producing ever greater in the 1970s, James Tobin proposed arrangements. Tobin tax to become a key point in the choice and opportunity. For the other, a stabilising, low-rate tax on financial It is therefore not surprising that struggle over globalization. in its neoliberal form it can cause great transactions of currencies.(1) He ar- the real-world historical processes have damage, but globalisation bears also the gued that the real problem of the glo- not supported the monetarist hypoth- The Emergence of ATTAC promise of a possible reorganization of bal economy is the volatility of these esis that freely convertible and floating and the World Social Forum the world with broadened ethical and markets. The unnecessary, often drastic exchange rates will lead to global ef- The Asian crisis was more severe than socio-political horizons. In both cases, fluctuations that are experience could ficiency gains, enhanced stability and any other financial crisis since the Great the presumption is that state sovereign- be curbed with a small transaction tax. greater freedom of action for the states. Depression of the 1930s. By 2000, the ty will eventually fade away. The shorter-term the investments, the As the post-1997 series of crises have 1997–1998 crisis had caused a short- In the eyes of very different mind- stronger the impact of the tax, encour- demonstrated, the socio-economic term loss of 10–20 per cent of gross do- sets and opinions – including con- aging longer-term thinking. consequences of orthodox economic mestic product (GDP) for Indonesia, servatives and spiritualists, nationalists The Tobin tax or CCT is mainly “laws” is volatility. This has often dras- Malaysia, the Republic of Korea and and greens, socialists and libertarians aimed at regulating and curtailing the tic effects for hundreds of millions of Thailand, assuming that the growth in – contemporary globalization seems power of speculative financial mar- people all over the world, bringing with 1996–1997 would have continued oth- to combine the overpowering and un- kets, “throwing sand in the wheels of it a decline of real wages and income, erwise. The long-term cumulative loss precedented hegemony of the US and the financial markets” in an effort to unemployment, marginalisation, grow- is much larger. Some 50 million people its “Washington consensus” with the prevent or lessen their most damaging ing lack of access to social resources in Asia alone fell below the poverty line, 49 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Rühm T – Group T, I Have Never Been to New York, 1989, catalogue/manifesto of the eponymous exhibition. Courtesy of Raoul Kurvitz. 50 Focus Patomäki The Tobin Tax

and the emergence of malnutrition and took the Tobin tax as a key campaigning process, and was the biggest forum in called network society would allow hunger was a direct result. tool and a priority in the mid-1990s, or terms of numbers. In 2005, the WSF for. Simply put, the Tobin tax is based The crisis spread elsewhere: Brazil, in the wake of the Asian crisis. Dozens returned, successfully, to Porto Alegre; on the assumption that the emergent the Russian Federation and South of other national and transnational and in 2006, the WSF was organized “space of global flows” is a product of Africa. In the Russian Federation due organizations have included the Tobin simultaneously in Bamako, Caracas, human actions. This means that it can to the crisis of August 1998 and there- tax in their platforms, including the and Karachi. In 2007 the Forum was in also be transformed, and in particu- after, most salaries rapidly fell below Parliamentarians for Global Action and Nairobi, Kenya, while in January 2008 lar, it can be transformed to better fit the absolute minimum cost of living the Commission on Global Governance. it was substituted with a Global Action with morally, economically and politi- after a 40–50 per cent drop in real in- Moreover, there have also been civic Day. In 2009, the WSF will return to cally desirable aims, as judged within a come. In other words, tens of millions actors in Asia struggling for the Tobin Brazil, and will be held in the city of democratic dialogue. By emancipatory, of Russians suffered acutely from the tax, in particular the Third World Belém. I mean that the Tobin tax provides pos- collapse of the economy, which was Network based in Malaysia, and Focus Thus far, the WSF has remained an sibilities for “the transition from an reinforced by the financial crisis. Many on the Global South based in Thailand open space and it has not adopted any unwanted, unnecessary and oppressive more people in Asia, Brazil, the Russian (working also in the Philippines and campaigns in its own name, although situation to a wanted and/or needed Federation and South Africa have been the Republic of Korea). it has precipitated campaigning on and empowering or more flourishing facing the long-term effects of declin- various financial issues, including the situation”(5). This implies new global ing, or simply disappearing, public Global Civil Society CTT. Meanwhile, the transnational responsibilities and institutional ar- health care, education, pensions and The campaign for the CTT is also campaign for the CTT succeeded in rangements. social benefits. closely associated with the develop- raising the issue on the agenda of many Given the current global financial ment of a general global civil society. national parliaments, as well as the Problems of Sovereignty, system and the principles governing In January 1999, various organizations European Parliament and a number of Governance and Democracy it, those who suffer the most typically started preparing a counter-event to the international organizations, including Taxation is a social institution with a have the least to do with producing World Economic Forum (WEF) under the United Nations. The parliaments of long history. It is a deeply political issue the crisis. ATTAC (Association pour la the banners of “another Davos” and both Canada (1999) and France (2001) which cuts across a number of jurisdic- Taxation des Transactions pour l’Aide “anti-Davos”. These included both Le have adopted motions supportive to the tions, so to speak: state sovereignty, sur- aux Citoyens), founded in Paris 1998, Monde Diplomatique and ATTAC. At implementation of the tax, and in July veillance, governance and democracy. Is is perhaps the most important building the first anti-Davos event, which took 2004 a law was passed in the Belgian this a problem for the Tobin tax? block of the movement that emerged place in parallel to the WEF 2000, var- parliament. This enthusiasm notwith- The development of the capitalist from the crisis of 1997–1998. In the ious groups held a seminar in Zurich standing, the CTT is still far from be- money economy, a modern bureauc- context of widespread disillusionment and then marched to Davos. The diffi- ing realized. racy and the development of sovereign among the supporters of traditional cult geographical conditions and heavy nation-states provided the precondi- Leftist parties in France, the Asian cri- police presence convinced some of the Global Taxation: Towards a New tions of modern forms of taxation. In sis triggered a strong reaction. Ignacio key organizers that it would be difficult Politics of Globalization? 17th and 18th century Europe, taxa- Ramonet, editor of the Le Monde to take this route in subsequent years. Over the past years, there have been tion became fiscal in the proper sense Diplomatique, published an article in A concrete initiative for a worldwide many studies that describe the cur- of the term, as a recognised public December 1997 entitled “Disarm the forum emerged in early 2000, in Brazil. rent situation as a re-emergence of the domain of finance and expenditure Markets”. He stated that there are two Calling itself the World Social Forum 1920s-style global financial markets emerged. Moreover, a separate and closely related problems: the volatil- (WSF), it changed only one key word (and perhaps we need no reminder autonomous field of economy – sup- ity and magnitude of global financial from its adversary’s name. It was decid- of the global disasters of that epoch). posedly following its own laws – was markets that “is causing universal in- ed to be organized on the same dates as Others document and explain the constructed, based on the institution security”; and the threat to democracy the WEF, partially because this symbol- rapid development of unregulated of private ownership. On the other posed by global finance. Consequently, ism would be attractive to the media. offshore markets and tax havens. It is hand, taxation was the means to un- he proposed three measures: (i) closing The first WSF was held in Porto Alegre, clear that these processes would not derwrite the state’s expenses. However, down tax havens; (ii) increasing taxes a municipality with an interesting his- have happened without state action as Giddens correctly observes, with on unearned income; and (iii) levying tory of participatory budget practices, – particularly by the US and the UK. modernisation: a tax on currency transactions. which backed the WSF movement. In These deregulatory measures opened Ramonet also suggested the es- January 2001, more than about 5,000 the way, and sometimes explicitly en- … taxation also becomes closely bound tablishment of a new organization participants from 117 countries and couraged, new financial innovations. up with the surveillance operations of the advocating the Tobin tax. As an im- thousands of Brazilian activists attend- The IMF and many central banks have state. Tax policies come to be used both to mediate result of the proposal in Le ed the events. The figures from the sec- played an important role in pressing for monitor and to regulate the distribution Monde Diplomatique, which provoked ond forum show momentous growth, further financial market liberalisation. and the activities of the population, and unheard of resonance from the reader- rising to over 12,000 official delegates Once having become material, and of participate in the burgeoning of surveil- ship, ATTAC France was founded on from 123 countries and tens of thou- increasing tangible effects, the financial lance operations as a whole. Taxes, it has 3 June 1998. International ATTAC sands of participants, mostly from markets themselves steadily accumu- been said, ‘are used as tools to increase was founded two months later, and Brazil. The third forum in January lated strong influence and an expansive population (tax burden on bachelors; tax by summer 2000, a large number of 2003 attracted over 20,000 official range of interests(4). reduction for children), to reduce laziness associations were formed in Europe, delegates and approximately 100,000 With this historical perspective in and to force people to work, to check cer- Latin America, North America, North participants in total. The global media mind, and the state’s role in it, Tobin’s tain human vices, to influence consump- Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. Quite impact of the second and third forums idea seems to be much more emanci- tion patterns (particularly conspicuous independently from the establishment was significantly stronger than the first patory than what many of the recent consumption) and so forth. The education of ATTAC, a number of developmen- year. The WSF 2004 in Mumbai, India, accounts of globalization, postmod- or social goals of such taxes characteristi- tal and/or cosmopolitical NGOs either made the social forum a worldwide ernisation and development of a so- cally prevail over the fiscal goals.(6) 51 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Oleg Kotelnikov, Untitled, late 1980s – early 1990s, felt pen on page of West German magazine, 22 x 29.5 cm. Courtesy of Andrei Medvedev. 52 Focus Patomäki The Tobin Tax

(6) Giddens, Anthony (1985). The Nation-State 1/2002, Helsinki & Nottingham; available also Other Bibliography: Markets, Zed Books: London, pp. 215-238. and Violence. Volume Two of a Contemporary in six languages at http://www.nigd.org/ctt. Also Lawson, Tony (1997). Economics and Reality. Tobin, James (1978). “A Proposal for International Critique of Historical Materialism. Cambridge: published in Bart de Schutter & Johan Pas (eds): London: Routledge. Monetary Reform”, The Eastern Economic Polity Press, 157. About Globalisation. Views on the Trajectory of Patomäki, Heikki (2001): Democratising Journal, Vol. 4, 3-4. (7) “Draft Treaty of Global Currency Transactions Mondialisation, VUB Brussels University Press: Globalisation. The Leverage of the Tobin, Tax Zed (1996). “Prologue”, pp .ix-xviii in M. ul Haq Tax”, with L.A.Denys, NIGD Discussion Paper, Brussels, 2004, pp.185-203. Books: London & New York. et.al. (ed.) The Tobin Tax. Coping with Financial Schmidt, Rodney (2000): “A Feasible Foreign Volatility. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Exchange Transactions Tax”, in W.Bello, Tobin, James (1996): “A Currency Transactions N.Bullard & K.Malhotra (eds.): Global Finance. Tax, Why and How?”, Open Economies Review, New Thinking on Regulating Speculative Financial (7), pp. 493-499.

There are in fact three noteworthy In order to regain some control consensus where required to imple- concrete initiative: the so-called Lula- developments here. Firstly, state sov- over these forces, it would seem the ment it, as many assumed, the US and Chirac Initiative by the presidents of ereignty was taken to imply exclusive best way for most states – and for many the UK in particular would be able to Brazil and France, which was joined by control (analogical to ownership) over other political actors as well – is to veto the system in its early phases. the presidents of Chile and Spain and a territory. In this way, modern states organise collective actions globally. The The Draft Treaty on Global Currency the UN Secretary-General. It includes have come to assume monopoly over Tobin tax regime represents an attempt Transaction Tax(7) is a suggestion for the Tobin tax/CTT as a key measure taxation within their territory. The at such collective action. Although an overcoming this problem. We proposed in the fight against poverty. The report US government cannot impose a tax international body is needed to set the that the Tobin tax regime be realized in produced by the Technical Group on on the Japanese, European or even rate of taxation, define taxable transac- two phases, initiated by any grouping of Innovative Financing Mechanisms en- Nicaraguan individuals or firms, how- tions, determine exemptions from the countries at any time. In its first phase, titled Action against Hunger and Poverty ever much it would like to, unless they tax and undertake monitoring and au- a grouping consisting of the Eurozone (Technical Group 2004), and the re- operate within its territory. Secondly, diting tasks, as well as collect the rev- countries, or, alternatively, any bigger lated summit in New York at the end the de facto revenues of the states are enues from national authorities – the group of countries, establishes an open of September 2004 (at the time of the dependent on taxation, and we may ultimate control and practical imple- agreement which any state can join in General Assembly meeting) appear to assume that they will jealously guard mentation would still be in the hands at any time. According to this agree- many to be the biggest steps, thus far, their rights in this regard. As pointed of state governments. The states would ment, a supranational body is institut- toward the adoption of the CTT. out, thirdly, taxation has also been asso- ultimately collect and also get their ed coordinating the tax and collecting The hope of those involved with ciated with the governance of society, for share of the revenues. the revenues. some of these initiatives is that if the it has been used to achieving moral and At the same time, by creating the The basic tax rate will be fixed at CTT is made compatible with gen- socio-political purposes. Furthermore, first ever international regime of taxa- 0.1% (or as agreed by the contracting eral neoliberalism mechanisms, its since the development of parliamen- tion, the states would also open up a parties), which will be applied during chance for success improves. As men- tarianism (in the late 17th century) new transnational political arena. In it- normal currency transactions. When tioned above, one European country and the advent of the notion of peo- self, of course, the tax constitutes a form the effective exchange rate transgresses has already started implementation ple’s sovereignty (in the late 18th cen- of social control and regulation, in this the agreed band, the exchange rate – Belgium in 2004. It stipulates that tury), more democratic procedures for case of currency transactions. The rev- will trigger a surcharge at a high pro- the tax will come into effect once all determining the ends the taxes are put enues, too, would be put in the service portional rate of 80% (or as agreed). members of the eurozone introduce a to themselves have been established. of governance, and this in turn would The threshold itself is determined by a similar law. Finally, the 20th century welfare state certainly demand democratic means of crawling peg, based on a moving aver- However, in many countries, the emerged with new ways of spending accountability. Hence, the Tobin tax re- age of currency in relation to a weighed CTT no longer attracts media atten- the revenues on social, egalitarian and gime would have deep political impli- basket of four most relevant currencies tion the same way it did in 1998–2001 democratic purposes. cations vis-à-vis authority, surveillance, for that country. This Two-Tier System, in the aftermath of the Asian crisis, So would the institution of state governance and democracy. will aim to confiscate windfall gains and the momentum towards imple- sovereignty allow or be opposed to the On the other hand, it may not be from over-speculation through the mentation has slowed. In the medium development of an international and immediately clear, but the Tobin tax/ trigger of a higher tax during times of term at least, the Asian crisis has not global system of taxation? Prima face, CTT regime would not be that dif- exchange-rate turbulence. As a system, lead to a global shift towards the CTT. a currency transactions tax appears to ferent from some of the existing and the tax would not be implemented be- Instead, the so-called New International be global. It also creates global revenues planned institutional arrangements. fore a 20% share of the global financial Financial Architecture (NIFA) has been likely to be used for global purposes. Like the IMF, the World Bank and the markets is covered. This arrangement put forward – the neoliberal and of- On the other hand, states continue to WTO now, the body that implements would solve the tax evasion problem ficial response to the crisis. NIFA is be sovereign, at least in principle, with and looks after the Tobin tax will be and is economically sound. not an attempt to reverse or transform exclusive control over defining their empowered with surveillance capabili- This arrangement is politically processes of neoliberal deregulation or own ends, and setting the level, means ties and sanctions. With the founda- more realistic than any previous one, their guiding principles, but instead, to and targets of taxation accordingly. Is tion of a new institution to administer we believe, and would make it possible strengthen them by making them more there not a contradiction here? Let us it – the CTT Organisation or CTTO for the countries involved to proceed stable and legitimate. In fact, the Asian broaden the picture. – it would thereby revive also the seri- quickly without the consent of every crises provided an opportunity for the Globalization, not least the glo- ously damaged commitments to justice player, including the US or the IMF, US, the IMF, and advocates of the balization of financial markets, has cre- and democracy in a new, global con- yet it would not compromise the aim Washington Consensus to impose their ated and empowered new actors and text. It would endow them with a new of a universal tax. Indeed, it could be preferred model on the Asian tigers. given rise to new structures. For Robert legitimacy. devised in such a manner that it would The fact that there were no acute Latham and many others, these new build up pressure for the outsiders to crises since the financial collapse of structures – new financial entities and Hurdles to Implementation join. This has been highly successful Argentina in 2001–2002 meant no instruments, such as derivatives and The main problem for a regulatory sys- in other cases of international agree- commercially, or journalistically inter- the complex investment strategies built tem such as the Tobin tax has always ments, such as the Kyoto Protocol on esting drama in global finance. There upon them, which empower banks and been the dearth of real political will. At Climate Change. The CTT has already was also a lack of tangible achievements. corporations in novel ways – appear to the outset, the proposal was naturally passed the modelling phase. There are Internal quarrels have also played a role be as sovereign and exclusive as states rejected by orthodox market-econo- now various – more or less fully fledged in different settings. Moreover, the at- themselves. The difference is, that they mists. Although it has taken time, it – competing models. tempt to turn the European Monetary are non-territorial. Add to this, that in has become recognized as a serious in- Union (EMU) into a CTT zone is be- our time governments often seem to ternational proposal in the face of con- Implementing the CTT sieged with practical and political dif- be more forcefully and immediately tinuous and persevering opposition. In the early 2000s, the governments of ficulties. The European Commission accountable to markets than to their Getting the process of implementation Brazil, India and South Africa seemed and the European Central Bank (ECB) parliaments. What, then, has become started has been difficult. One of the to be in favour of implementing the are likely to continue their resistance of state sovereignty? known problems is that, if it blanket tax. In Brazil’s case, it has led to a against the CTT. 53 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Vadim Ovchinnikov, mail art, late 1980s, post- cards, envelopes, 15 x 10 cm. Courtesy of the Archive of Andrei Khlobystin and the Archive of Svetlana Kozak. 54 Focus Patomäki/Teivainen The Tobin Tax/Paths beyond Economism

The writer is Professor of World Politics and Head of the Political Science Department at the University of Helsinki, Finland.

Apart from the small opportunity Transnational Politics of of the capitalist world-system, the idea of succeeding with a proactive sequence Teivo Economism of the “economic” needs to be decon- under the present world historical con- Towards the end of the 20th Century, structed. juncture, I can foresee at least two Teivainen an increasing amount of politically Over the past decades economistic possibilities for a change that would crucial issues were transformed into norms have expanded into many social make the CTT possible, even likely, Paths beyond “economic” ones. For the radical relations previously defined in mostly as a democratically organised, global transformative strategies of the 21st non-economistic terms. Privatization of and redistributive tax. While the first Century, the resulting situation may state enterprises and the introduction major possibility for a change in the Economism seem grim. Despite some democratic of business-like administrative practic- world political context stems from a advances during the so-called third es within formally public institutions potential transformation of Europe, In our efforts to reflect on paths of wave of democratization of the 1970s are examples of these processes. The the second follows the logic of the re- global development, one of the most and 1980s, the validity sphere for late-20th-century “structural reforms”, active sequence of global regulatory common concepts is “neoliberalism”. It democratic norms has been reduced. guided by the Bretton Woods organiza- change. A new worldwide financial dis- is often assumed that at some point a Assuming that democratic norms have tions and institutional investors, greatly aster – possibly leading even to a new neoliberal path based on free markets been considered valid within and only contributed to the expansion of the Great Depression – and the consequent was taken, and the paths based on bu- within the political sphere, the situa- economic throughout the world. media attention would make the mass reaucratic planning or other non-free- tion demands an urgent rethinking of Whereas the politics of economism publics around the world want regula- market alternatives were rejected all the boundaries of the political. works through social construction of tory innovation and change. This time over the world (give or take a few excep- New possibilities for democratic the boundary between the “economic” a mere NIFA would not be enough. tions). In this story, both the critiques transformations can be opened. I shall and the “political”, the politics of (na- New ATTACs would emerge and de- and defenders of the path that has been argue that in order to build radically tional) sovereignty works through the mand a much more thorough change. taken generally seem to take for granted democratic alternatives to the capitalist social construction of the boundary be- Unfortunately, the global dialectic of that we live in a world dominated by a world-system, we need to take seriously tween what is considered internal and control may also take rather different “neo” version of liberal ideas. various claims generally associated both what is considered external to a sover- forms than what the reformists might In this article, I start from the sus- with proponents of “economic democ- eign community. In practice, “politics” wish. picion that it can be both analytically racy” and with proponents of “cosmo- has in recent decades by and large re- and politically problematic to define politan democracy”. I shall also argue ferred to the public administration of a In Conclusion: Global Democracy/ the power relations of the existing capi- that constitutionalism is an issue that single nation-state. Democratic norms Global Depression talist world-system as (neo-)liberal. I needs to be taken into account both in have generally not been considered The argument in this article has been write this text from the perspective of the analyses of the existing limits to de- valid within the economic sphere, nor that the best way for states to regain someone interested in exploring radical mocracy as well as in any strategies that in international or transnational rela- some real autonomy vis-à-vis increas- democratic alternatives to authoritar- aim at post-capitalist social systems. tions that transgress state boundaries. ingly powerful and unbridled financial ian institutions (that can range from The problem in many accounts In other words, both the politics of markets is to collaborate and create patriarchal families to global monetary of “economic democracy” is that they economism and politics of sovereignty new collective forms of organisation. arrangements). have mainly focused on transforma- have affected the sphere of validity for With increasingly volatility in the glo- Attributing elements of liberalism, tions within nation-states. The problem democratic norms. bal financial system of a scale unseen it with its connotations of individual in many accounts of “cosmopolitan de- The sphere of the economic, both seems advisable to develop instruments freedom and emancipation, as intrinsic mocracy” is that they have not paid domestic and foreign, is growing, and for “tapping on the brakes” of irrational to capitalist systems that are in many enough attention to the ways econo- taking over social relations that were global flows. ways based on authoritarian power hi- mism places restrictions on democracy. previously under the control of institu- The Tobin tax, through the rev- erarchies, may have unfortunate conse- A critical articulation between the two tions of the political. At the same time, enues accumulated, would furthermore quences. Alternatives to capitalism, for democratic traditions, including their processes that have been considered ex- generate a global fund with resources example, are as a consequence misguid- constitutional implications, is needed. ternal to the sphere of sovereignty, both for addressing urgent world problems, edly dismissed as something opposed For such an articulation to be possible, economic and political, are taking over the Millennium Development Goals to commonsensical ideals of freedom we first need to understand how the functions previously belonging exclu- in particular. This would lead to the and individual liberty. limits to democracy in under globaliz- sively to the sovereign inside of the state. foundation of institutions requiring One must distinguish between ing capitalism are constructed. A cen- To the extent that these two claims are international oversight, and likely the various traditions of liberalism. It is of- tral element in this process is what I call true, the domestic, political sphere is traditional pressure demanding “no ten claimed that neoliberalism is really transnational politics of economism. losing importance. If sovereign politics, taxation without representation”. In the a version of economic liberalism than The politics of economism is a strat- as we have understood it, is partially long run, administrating the transna- needs to be distinguished from politi- egy of defining certain institutions and shrinking away, we need to “unthink” tional revenue would result in strong cal or social liberalism. These kinds of issues as “economic” and using the doc- old norms, and take up the question of demands for democratic accountability distinctions are certainly a helpful cor- trine of economic neutrality to produce expanding democratic imagination and on a global level. rective against simplistic uses of the L- a boundary between the “economic” institutionality to the spheres that are In these ways the Tobin tax could world. I would like to suggest, however, and “political” spheres. With the doc- taking its place. play a crucial role in furthering stable, that a focus on economism could pro- trine of economic neutrality I refer to a democratising global transformations. vide us with more accurate descriptions discourse according to which economic Constitutionalism and We have again seen major signs of in- of the really-existing capitalist world- issues are somehow apolitical, beyond Restrictions to Democracy stability threatening the global econo- system. At the same time, it could help political power struggles. Yet the econ- Constitutionalism, as an institution, my in 2008. Let us hope it doesn’t take us search for paths toward such post- omy is a social and historical construc- implies imposing limits on majority human disasters of catastrophic pro- capitalist alternatives that do not reject tion, based on the belief its participants decisions. Apart from protecting indi- portions – as it did in the 20th century the emancipatory dimensions of liberal in its functioning. In order to open up vidual rights, constitutions form obsta- – to “disarm the markets”. + traditions. spaces for democratic transformations cles to changes called for by majorities. 55 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Top: Vladimir Shinkarev (text), Alexander Flo- Bottom: Mitki Group of Artists 1988, b/w photo- rensky (illustrations), Mitki, first printed edition graph, Leningrad, 1988. of the book in Flemish and Russian, Flanders, Belgium, 1989. Original copy, signed by Dmitry Shagin. 56 Focus Teivainen Paths beyond Economism

(1) For a more detailed analysis of transnational Davis, J. Ronnie (1990). ‘Adam Smith on the (5) Smith, Anna Marie (1998). Laclau and Mouffe Avebury, 31-44. Cf. also Mouffe, Chantal (1992). politics of economism, see Teivainen, Teivo (2002). Providential Reconciliation of Individual and The Radical Democratic Imaginary. London: ’Democratic Politics Today’, in Chantal Mouffe Enter Economism, Exit Politics. Experts, Economic Social Interests: Is Man Led by an Invisible Routledge, 122-123. (ed.) Dimensions of Radical Democracy. Pluralism, Policy and Damage to Democracy. London and New Hand or Misled by a Sleight of Hand’, History (6) If one maintains that the negotiation of the Citizenship, Community. London: Verso, 1-14. York: Zed Books. of Political Economy, Vol. 22, No 2, 341-352. public/private boundary is always context-sensi- Mouffe provides various arguments for redefining (2) On the danger of unlimited government, see See also Evensky, Jerry (1992). ‘Ethics and the tive and therefore political, liberal arguments the nature of the private and public, rather than Hayek, F. A. (1978). New Studies in Philosophy, Classical Liberal Tradition in Economics’, History based on rights claims should be seen as politi- rejecting the distinction as such. Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas. London: of Political Economy, Vol. 24, No 1, 61-77 and cally useful heuristics rather than based on any (7) Bowles, Samuel and Herbert Gintis (1986). Routledge & Kegan Paul, 107-109. See, however, Brown, Vivienne (1991). ‘Signifying Voices. natural grounding of rights. One can thereby Democracy & Capitalism: Property, Community, and also Friedman, Milton (1962). ‘Should There Be Reading the “Adam Smith Problem” ‘, Economics ask whether this kind of heuristic liberalism is the Contradictions of Modern Social Thought. USA: an Independent Monetary Authority?’, in L. B. and Philosophy, Vol 7, 187-220. “really” liberalism. Cf. Kingdom’s analysis of Basic Books, 66-67. See also Laclau, Ernesto and Yeager (ed.) In Search of a Monetary Constitution. (4) Teivainen, Teivo (1999). ‘Globalization rights as heuristics. Kingdom, Elizabeth (1996). Chantal Mouffe (1985). Hegemony and Socialist Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 219-243. of Economic Surveillance: The International ‘Rights Discourse, New Social Movements and Strategy. Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. Friedman has skeptical notes on the desirability of Monetary Fund as Modern Priest’. Passages: New Political Subjects’, in Richard Bellamy (ed.) London: Verso, 76-77 for discussion concerning independent central banks. Journal of Transnational and Transcultural Studies Constitutionalism, Democracy, and Sovereignty: the space of economy structured as a political (3) On the concept of the invisible hand, see Vol 1, No 1, 84-116. American and European Perspectives. Aldershot: space; and Cutler 1995.

In a capitalist context, constitutional- Whether the limits to democracy that in practice, however, what is generally public and the private sphere. I would ism helps to construct the boundaries result from these mechanisms are in- called neoliberalism is often character- even argue that the economistic defini- of an economic sphere within which herently positive or negative is some- ized by relatively strong and extensive tion of the economic/political boundary property rights are more valid than thing one can then argue about on the state machinery. is in a fundamental contradiction with democratic rights. basis of underlying values. The validity and implications of democratic liberalism. The economistic The notion of a “new constitu- These “mechanisms of restraint” economic liberalism, often understood solution to the dilemma of democratic tionalism”, employed by Stephen Gill - introduced during the structural re- to form the theoretical basis of econo- liberalism does away with the demo- (2002), refers to a manner of restrain- forms of the 1990s - may be positive mism, can be criticized from a view- cratic element. If the liberal-democratic ing democratic control of public and from a perspective that strongly values point of democratic politics, as above. question is “when does one cause such private organizations that are defined as investor confidence. Separating ques- But it does not necessarily follow that significant harm to others that the ac- economic. It is used especially to insu- tions of economic rule from democratic a consistent liberal vision is thoroughly tivity should be democratically decided late institutions from popular scrutiny politics is in many ways crucial for sta- undemocratic. Certain forms of liberal- upon”, what is most problematic about or democratic accountability. Through bilizing private forms of authority un- ism contain a fruitful basis for radical “neoliberalism” is therefore its econo- this, the right of representation is regres- der capitalism. For “economic liberals” expansions of democratic politics. One mism, not its liberalism. sively linked to the possession of prop- like F. A. Hayek and Milton Friedman, can make a distinction between, on True, liberal democratic theories erty, even if citizenship rights are not this kind of separation of the political one hand, the economistic project that as we know them have generally sup- formally premised on private property. and the economic is a highly desirable works to shield the socially constituted ported the application of both liberal The idea behind new constitution- feature of capitalism. For example, “economic sphere” from democratic and democratic principles to the state, alism is similar to my argument above from their perspective a rational mon- politics and, on the other hand, the but only the principle of liberty to what in using the doctrine of economic neu- etary policy is difficult to execute if par- liberal project. True, the latter may also is defined as economy. There is no co- trality to produce a dichotomy between liaments and other political institutions be criticized for its individualist con- herent justification for this asymmetric the economic and the political spheres. can modify it at will.(2) Whereas Hayek ception of asocial self (5). Nevertheless, treatment of the state and the economy. Examples of new constitutionalism and Friedman emphasize the tyrannical the connection between the basic lib- A liberal democratic standpoint should may include central-bank independ- possibilities of political intervention in eral ideals about rights and the politics be based on the idea that democratic ence, balanced budget amendments, the sacred sphere of the “economic”, of economism is a relatively contingent claims need to be valid in such ar- exchange-rate rules as well as commit- from a democratic standpoint it is pos- and contradictory one. rangements that have significant social ment to specific policy rules associated sible to regard the politicization of the According to a somewhat simpli- importance. Restrictions to democracy with trade and investment through “economic” as a necessary condition for fied, but useful, understanding of liber- within, for example, capitalist business international or regional institutions, the deepening of democracy. The im- alism, one can do whatever one pleases corporations are socially significant re- such as the International Monetary plications of this standpoint are, how- as long as it causes no significant harm strictions that should not simply be as- Fund or North American Free Trade ever, not always taken into account in to others. For the activities that may sumed irrelevant for liberal democratic Agreement (NAFTA). Many of these theories of democracy. cause such harm, we need common theory. The praxis of capitalist corpo- institutions cover areas larger than a rules, and I shall assume these activities rations disguised under the discourse nation-state, and insulated from the Overcoming can be called political in the broader of economic neutrality needs to be reaches of domestic democratic con- Economism in Liberalism sense of the term. According to what analyzed as political praxis(8). In order trol. This is compounded by the weak- According to economic, or bet- we may call democratic liberalism, the to think constructively about possible ness of democratic norms in the global ter, “economistic” orthodoxy, Adam best way to define these rules is through futures we should therefore not reject and transnational spheres. Smith’s “invisible hand”, conceived of democratic procedures. This general lib- the powerful insights of democratic In studies of international political more than two hundred years ago, still eral-democratic standpoint should not liberalism, but rather overcome the economy, such constitutional or quasi- ensures that people work for the com- be confused with the practices of his- economistic ideology that has confus- constitutional aspects have traditionally mon good while pursuing their private torically existing “liberal democracies”. ingly been attached to general under- been neglected. Even within critical ap- interests.(3) The metaphysical elements There are no easy solutions to the standings of liberalism. proaches to economic policy-making, surrounding the notion of the invis- democratic liberal dilemma of decid- there has been much more attention ible hand have led some Liberation ing when one is engaged in a public or Constitutional Utopistics to the de facto pressures exercised by Theologians, among others, to ap- political activity that should be demo- Constitutionalism is an issue that transnational capital than to the de jure proach modern economics as religion. cratically controlled, and when one is should be tackled explicitly in our changes in policy frameworks. Most im- The notion of the invisible hand does within a private sphere that should be thinking on possible futures. Even if portantly, new constitutionalism helps indeed have powerful implications in shielded from majority rule through post-capitalist social systems cannot be to explain and understand the “locking- the political workings of metaphysics, constitutional constraints. I believe it constructed solely through legislated re- in” of reforms, their long-term entrench- and elsewhere I have analyzed its dif- is important to maintain this kind of forms, the conceptual resources of con- ment across political jurisdictions. fusers as “modern priests”.(4) If within distinction between political (public) stitutional rights can be helpful both in In the context of the dominant the economic sphere it is assumed that and private spheres, even if the bound- criticizing capitalism and in building structural reforms of the 1990s, gen- the pursuit of private interests “natu- ary between them is very context-sensi- alternatives to it. If “utopistics” is “the erally referred to as neoliberalism, the rally” leads to public good, this consti- tive.(6) In this sense, what is “public” is serious assessment of historical alter- insulation of the economic has helped tutes a case for not regulating activities synonymous with “political.” “Private” natives(9),” 1) this kind of reasoning to produce mechanisms that assum- defined as private and economic. The and “economic,” on the other hand, could be called constitutional utopis- edly give guarantees against sudden interference of public institutions, es- should not be regarded as synonymous. tics. As Wallerstein argues, we should changes in economic policies as a result pecially the state, should therefore in Therefore the economic/political base our utopistics on the inherent lack of elections or other political processes. principle be very restricted. Note that boundary should not be confused the of long-term equilibria in any phenom- 57 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Top: Archival photograph of Starik Bukashkin with Bottom: Odov Antip, The clouds and windows, por- Screens, 1987. Photograph by Tamara Galeeva. trait of light-winged B. U. Kashkin, 1988, tempera on fibreboard, 56 x 52 cm. 58 Focus Teivainen Paths beyond Economism

(8) Teivainen, Teivo (2000). ‘Towards a Democratic to them, Marxist criticisms of the liberal public- (16) Wallerstein, Immanuel (1998). Utopistics. Language and New Paradigms´, in Majid Rahnema Theory of the World-System: Democracy, private division have failed to provide a coherent Or, Historical Choices of the Twenty-first Century. with Victoria Bawtree The Post-Development Territoriality and Transnationalization’. Journal of alternative concept of the private. New York: The New Press, 1. Reader. London: Zed Books, 377-403. World-Systems Research Vol VI, Winter, 706-725. (13) In fact, I would claim that abolishing the (17) Holmes, Stephen (1988). ’Precommitment (21) See Wallerstein (1998), 67-90. (9) Wallerstein, Immanuel (1998). Utopistics. Or, idea of a specifically “economic” sphere is neces- and the Paradox of Democracy’, in Jon Elster (22) On extending democracy to the “point of Historical Choices of the Twenty-first Century. New sary in order to expand the idea of a private and and Rune Slagstad (eds.) Constitutionalism and production,” see Wood, Ellen Meiksins (1995). York: The New Press. personal freedom. Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Democracy Against Capitalism. Renewing Historical (10) Wallerstein, Immanuel (1991). Geopolitics (14) Mouffe, Chantal (1992). ’Democratic Politics Press, 197 Materialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University and Geoculture. Essays on the Changing World- Today’, in Chantal Mouffe (ed.) Dimensions (18) Ibid, 231 Press, 47. System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, of Radical Democracy. Pluralism, Citizenship, (19) See Holmes (1988, 197) also for the argu- (23) For other problems in Held’s vision of cos- 198. Community. London: Verso, 13 ment that “[t]he overall power of voters is en- mopolitan democracy, see Patomäki, Heikki and (11) Ibid, 198 (15) See Lukes, Steven (1983). ’Emancipation’, hanced when the electorate limits the authority of Teivo Teivainen (2002). ’Critical Responses to (12) Bowles and Gintis (1986: 18) have pointed in Tom Bottomore (ed.) A Dictionary of Marxist its own elected officials over basic governmental Neoliberal Globalisation in the Mercosur Region. out that one of the main weaknesses of Marxist Thought. Oxford. Basil Blackwell,146-147. He has processes.” Roads to Cosmopolitan Democracy?’, Review of theories has been to treat distinct spheres of so- argued, there is no essential link between liberal (20) Rahnema, Majid (1997). ’Towards Post- International Political Economy Vol 9. No 1. cial life as passive reflections of others. According freedom and private property. Development: Searching for Signposts, a New (24) Wilkin, Peter (2000). Solidarity in Global

ena, and therefore we should not think of property rights.(14) In the construc- correlation between the two, the capi- talist enterprises, especially those that that our possible futures could ever be tion of guarantees for personal free- talist logic and the democratic logic because of their size or functions have perfectly stable and harmonious(10). dom, some constitution-like rules need have fundamental differences and are significant effects on people’s lives.(22) Even in a radically libertarian, egalitar- to be agreed on. I would claim that an in contradiction with each other. Even In addition to “politicizing the eco- ian and democratic social system there accommodation between constitution- if, in the ideal of a clearly demarcated nomic,” another option of expanding will be political struggles and differ- like rules and the democratic principle and self-governing nation-state, the the democratic imagination is to take ences of opinion. of “one person, one vote” needs to be capitalist decision-making principle seriously the claims generally covered When constructing concrete maintained both in democratic strug- “one dollar, one vote” could somehow by the concepts of “cosmopolitan” or projects for radical transformations, gles within the existing regimes as well be nicely juxtaposed with the demo- “global” democracy. This tendency has one of the main dilemmas is that even as in any possible alternatives. cratic principle “one person, one vote,” been getting increased attention in aca- though the expansion of the political A radical conception of democracy in reality this does not happen. demic circles and among some social vis-à-vis the economic may be consid- postulates the very impossibility of a An example of an apparently radi- movements since the second half of the ered a necessary condition for the deep- complete realization of democratic uto- cal alternative to the existing political 1990s. Especially the emergence of the ening of democracy, it is by no means pias(15). In this sense, it is not difficult arrangements is provided by Majid World Social Forum in 2001 and its a sufficient one. When governments to agree with Wallerstein’s(16) notion Rahnema. From his “post-develop- worldwide expansion has been an im- have attempted to expand the limits that “the last thing that we need is still ment” perspective, he argues that the portant moment for global democratic of the political through increased state more utopian visions.” A final recon- typical emphasis on voting processes claims. The globalization protest move- intervention, the result has all too often ciliation of all value claims is neither tends to “valorize an idea of freedom ments of the late 1990s have to a certain been an increase in red tape and cor- possible nor desirable. Procedures both that is purely quantitative”. Rahnema extent become global democratization ruption with no significant democratic for an effective majority rule and for a seems to prefer a system - “not blink- movements of the new millennium. deepening. Even if it certainly offers no protection of personal rights need to be ered by the myth of equality”- but One of the limitations of the de- panacea for any of these problems, I defended today and tomorrow. rather, one where people “believed that bates on the issue has been their con- would claim that one part of the prob- In theoretical discussions on con- the good of the community was bet- stant reference to the European Union lem in both radically anti-capitalist and stitutionalism, one can sometimes find ter served by those of its members it as a model for cosmopolitan institu- moderately reformist expansions of a quarrel between “democrats who find considered to be the wisest, the most tionality. The important tradition of the political has been the lack of suf- constitutions a nuisance” and “consti- virtuous, and hence the most ‘authori- Latin American continentalism, for ficient attention to the constitutional tutionalists who perceive democracy tative’ and experienced persons”(20). example, should also be used to pro- guarantees of personal rights. If in as a threat.” One should avoid overly The resulting hierarchies “did not nec- duce more pluralist cosmopolitan ideas Wallerstein’s(11) “vision of the best fu- dichotomous theorizing on this issue. essarily result in discrimination against for alternatives. A case in point is when ture” there exists “a place, and a perma- According to Stephen Holmes(17), the the ‘lower’ persons” but, instead, they in 2007, various Latin American gov- nent place, for cultural resistance,” the existence of an irreconcilable tension “imposed special and additional obliga- ernments started constructing Bank vision should include a constitutional between constitutionalism and democ- tions on those persons at the top”. Even of the South in an attempt to create a or quasi-constitutional mechanisms for racy is one of the core myths of modern if economism often uses quantitative financial mechanism that could pro- creating this place. political thought(18). He argues that arguments to mystify social relations, it vide countries of the Global South As noted above, abolishing the constitutionally guaranteed rights can is a grave mistake to reject the principle with more possibilities for autonomous current political/economic dichotomy, enable majorities to make decisions. of “one person, one vote” because of politics. A Eurocentric cosmopolitan- and thereby the idea of a specifically It is difficult to conceive democratic its quantitative nature. Instead of such ism, on the other hand, could lead to economic sphere, does not need to procedures without guarantees for a communitarian criticism of bourgeois a situation where culturally dominant imply a simplistic interpretation of the legal framework that, in the words of democracy that disregards democratic groups of the world-system can impose fact that “everything is political.” The Holmes(19), enables the electorate to procedures altogether, we should radi- too strictly their interpretations of how political/economic dichotomy is gener- have a coherent will. Even though his cally expand democratic claims to new the others could qualify for inclusion in ally assumed to be similar to the public/ arguments have been conservatively areas. democratic decision-making. private dichotomy. For example, from a formulated in the context of a really In this context, we should take Apart from its Eurocentrism, con- perspective that for the sake of an ar- existing and restricted “liberal democ- seriously the claims generally covered temporary cosmopolitan democratic gument could be called traditionally racy,” they could in principle be applied by the term “economic democracy.” theory tends to have some other limi- Marxist, doing away with the econom- to various kinds of contexts where the Unfortunately, most visions of eco- tations. In many of its formulations, ic/political boundary may imply doing principle “one person, one vote” is to nomic democracy are formulated in a especially by its most famous expo- away with the public/private bound- be applied, including post-capitalist context where transnational and global nent David Held, expanding demo- ary.(12) I would like to suggest that the futures. factors are given little attention.(21) cratic politics to the transnational public/private boundary has certain in- One interpretation of these claims and global spaces is generally analyzed herent values for personal freedom that Expanding the Limits would imply expanding democratic within a framework that does not suf- need to be maintained, even if the eco- of the Possible demands into such institutions as the ficiently question the validity of the nomic/political boundary as we now Especially after the changes in the au- IMF and national central banks, which political/economic boundary discussed know it were to disappear.(13) Bringing thoritarian regimes of Eastern Europe, are clearly “public”, even though they above.(23) socially significant “economic” institu- it has become a commonplace to regard rely on the discourse of economic neu- We need to advance simultane- tions under democratic rule does not in the consolidation of capitalism and de- trality to isolate themselves from dem- ously along the two paths of radicalized principle need to be accompanied with mocratization to be mutually reinforc- ocratic accountability. A more radical democratic imagination if intellectually measures that violate basic “liberal” ing, if not almost identical processes. interpretation would extend democrat- consistent and politically penetrating rights, except for the absolutist versions While in some cases there may exist a ic demands into formally private capi- initiatives are to be found. The out- 59 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Photograph of Villu Tamme of the J.M.K.E. punk- rock group, late 1980s. Courtesy of Villu Tamme. 60 Focus Teivainen/Chto delat? (Vilensky&Magun&Skidan) Paths beyond/When the Masses Can’t

Age. Seattle and Beyond. Paper presented in The participants in the conversation are members the International Studies Association Annual of Chto delat/What is to be done? that was founded Convention on 16.3, in Los Angeles. in early 2003 in St. Petersburg by a workgroup of (25) Chase-Dunn, Christopher and Terry Boswell artists, critics, philosophers, and writers from St. (2000). The Spiral of Capitalism and Socialism. Petersburg, Moscow, and Nizhny Novgorod with the Toward Global Democracy. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. goal of merging political theory, art, and activism.

line for a world government provided transformations of transnational finan- able to articulate their discontent, but by Terry Boswell and Christopher cial structures. Especially in Brazil, de- Dmitry beneath the surface are already ques- Chase-Dunn (2000) is one of concrete mands for a more democratic control tioning the situation in Russia. That academic initiatives in this regard(24). of transnational investments and cur- Vilensky, was the dialectic between leaders and Heikki Patomäki’s idea of a democrati- rency speculations have been growing masses in the Perestroika era, too. It is cally constituted Currency Transactions in recent years. Artemy by nature a very Russian kind of dialec- Tax Organization (CTTO), that would This leads back to the question of tic and, it seems to me, one in need of administer a tax on speculative cur- institutionalising global democratic detailed analysis. rency transactions, is another concrete principles. A formal establishment of a Magun and proposal for a radicalized cosmopolitan global parliament or other institutional Artem Magun: You’re right, some time democracy [see Patomäki’s article in forms of world government would be a Aleksandr before 1988 Gorbachev controlled the this issue of Framework, ed.]. large-scale undertaking. Nevertheless, I situation and radicalized it. But starting Even if I have emphasized that the would argue that this would not neces- Skidan in with the Congress of People’s Deputies sphere of validity for democratic norms sarily lead to more global bureaucracy in 1989, we have the reverse dynamic: is being isolated from many of the most – a common fear – than there exists Conversation Gorbachev follows the will of the larger important decision-making bodies both today. One of the most common objec- society, even to the point of changing globally and nationally, I would like to tions to the desirability of building rel- about Article 6, but at a certain point he sees suggest that these processes may at the atively democratic global institutions, the threat of collapse facing the Soviet same time force new possibilities for is that they may imply an unbearably Perestroika Union and at this point his agenda democratic changes. Let us assume that totalitarian bureaucracy. However, an changes dramatically. Starting from the late-20th-century trend of privatiz- advantage of overcoming economistic When the the end of 1990, a conservative reversal ing public activities continues, and at modes of thinking is that once we start takes place; he forms an alliance with the same time, even within the public analyzing transnational corporations Masses Can’t, the right wing of the Politburo, ap- sphere, key decisions are increasingly and global “economic” organizations as points Pavlov prime minister, approves made in bodies whose accountability inherently political institutions (rather and the the army’s entry into Vilnius and makes to the electorate is rather indirect or than expressions of “liberal econom- a series of decisions which, on the one almost none. ics”), the extent to which there already Leaders hand, discredit him, and on the other To the extent this process contin- exists a global political bureaucracy hand, prepare the way for the August ues, the theoretical and practical need with inter-governmental bodies and Won’t putsch of 1991. During this period the for non-state definitions of the political corporate departments of strategic initiative is taken by society, already grows. When politically crucial deci- planning becomes more obvious. roused to action by Gorbachev. That sions are transferred to the “economic” In order to avoid globalist and bu- Dmitry Vilensky: In our previous dia- is to say that, in fact, the revolution sphere in the globalization process, the reaucratic excesses, a necessary element logue we touched on the question of from above led to the revolution from inherently political nature of the “eco- in any democratized world-system is being faithful(1) to the phenomenon below. nomic” should, in principle, become a constitutional agreement that es- of Perestroika. But today in Russia, the more transparent. In the increasingly tablishes various rights for individuals range of possibilities for action which Aleksandr Skidan: We shouldn’t for- globalized world, the cosmopolitan idea and communities within the system. goes against the policies of the govern- get about the speed with which these that the corporate, global and the tran- These rights should be guaranteed both ment is increasingly shrinking, which events occurred. In 1986 Gorbachev, snational should be open to democratic against the decision-making bodies inevitably leads to the question – which under pressure from Reagan, who claims may have better possibilities to controlled by democratic majorities also arose during Perestroika – of how was threatening to develop a mis- prosper than many of us used to think and any such accumulation of property dependent the masses who demand sile defense system in space, brought before the World Trade Organization that may result in negative consequenc- change are on the strategy of those in Sakharov out of exile. Dissidents be- (WTO) meeting in 1999. The WTO es as regards the fundamental rights of power. With all of our sympathy for gan to be released from prisons and demonstrations in Seattle provided a others. Democratic rules need to be es- grassroots activism in the Perestroika mental hospitals, which created a “snapshot of the possibility of global tablished but civilizational, cultural and period, it’s impossible to consider it completely new situation: this pro- solidarity”(24). Even though many of personal differences cannot be assumed separately from decisions made by the vided the preconditions for a different the people on the streets of Seattle em- to disappear. A radically democratized Politburo. At a certain moment the type of social mobilization. In some- phasized “anti-globalization” themes, world-system should therefore avoid leaders’ agenda clearly were ahead of thing like a chain reaction, different in the global campaigns there exists such global institutions that strongly the national mood. How should we kinds of grassroots organizations and an increasing amount of people and impose and universalize parochial no- see this dialectic of opposition? I ask movements began to appear which, movements that focus on “alternative tions of the good life. this question because now, on the one perhaps, although they didn’t put for- globalization”. Given constitutional checks one is hand, there is a real danger of sliding ward political demands immediately, Among various Latin American lead to the realization that a rational into the dead-end Soviet situation of turned out to be the seeds of that civil organizations that campaign around and democratic organization of world the “chill” after the Thaw of the early society which transformed the country themes of financial globalization, political society would delegate fewer 1960s. On the other hand, it’s possi- in the end. Corresponding to this, the there has been a similar shift. During issues to be decided in global and tran- ble that we’ll pass through a new ex- balance of power inside the Politburo the 1980s, the campaigns were often snational bureaucracies than what hap- perience of mass mobilization against kept changing depending on pressure formulated in terms of defending na- pens in today’s capitalist world. Instead, the discredited authorities, who, as is from the West, and what concessions tional sovereignty against neo-colonial there could and should be an effect of now obvious, after the pre-election had to be made, and at the same time, or imperialist aggressions related to the decentralization through the democrat- hysteria, no longer fulfill the hopes not on processes in society. And those foreign debt. In the beginning of the ic distribution of economic power and only of the active and educated part of processes were moving fast. new millennium, demands are more therewith, the democratization of the the population, but of the people as I remember that as late as 1986 no- often formulated in terms of radical definition of the good life. + a whole. The latter have not yet been body believed there was any substance 61 Focus Chto delat? (Vilensky&Magun&Skidan) When the Masses Can’t, and the Leaders Won’t

(1) Here, we rely on Alain Badiou’s notion of “fidel- l’événement, Paris: Seuil, 1988. [The authors] reactionary Russian politicians and generals in the 5000 Danes going to the USSR on more than 100 ity to an event” as a procedure which jointly consti- (2) The Russian Constituent Assembly, called for by attempted coup d’état of 19-21 August, 1991. different projects. There was, for example, a big cul- tutes the free subject and the historical event that revolutionary parties since before 1905, and which (4) The “Next Stop Soviet” movement was a ture festival in Gorkij Park, Moscow; a long march s/he is faithful to. The event, which consists in the was to be the highest representative authority in the Scandinavian initiative that organized a visit of from Kiev to Chernobyl in Ukraine; and a windmill emergence of the earlier unrecognized truth, cannot country, was finally convoked, and then dissolved in thousands of young Scandinavians to the Soviet project in Kazakhstan. The Danes lived in the homes be considered to exist without the subject’s interven- 1918 by the Bolshevik government, due to the fact Union in 1988. The idea was to continue to break of young people with the same interests or occupa- tion and his/her further “fidelity”, which must be that they did not have a controlling majority. the isolation of the USSR through manifold human tion as their guests. Among those participating, constantly singled out and distinguish situations that (3) GKChP is the Russian acronym for the and cultural exchanges. 7500 young people joined there were also members of the Chto Delat? group, are connected with the event. See A. Badiou, L’être et “Emergency Committee” which was formed by the campaign in Denmark, and the outcome was for whom it was their first contact with foreigners.

to glasnost or perestroika. They thought privilege into money. That is, the higher That is the conclusion that these people modernizing Western Europe cost the they were just the latest in a series of bureaucracy and elite intelligentsia en- drew from the derailment of socialist US several times more. short-lived campaigns. But already the joyed power and symbolic capital, but ideology. It was not, of course, the only following year it was impossible not to they weren’t satisfied with not having possible conclusion to be drawn. It was AS: Here I would disagree with you. notice the changes. Novyi Mir printed and not being able to freely demand possible to draw another conclusion: yes, The money of Western foundations Brodsky. Ogonek exposed Stalinist re- stability where their property was con- the ideology collapsed, so there’s a need played a negative role in the 1990s. pressions every other day. It wasn’t cerned, since state-owned dachas are to return to some kind of inner moral It helped buffer the economic crisis, long before universal human values something the state can take away from awareness. But the choice in favour of which could have led to some deeper would be declared to be higher than you. That’s why the upheaval that took cynicism was simpler and clearer. transformations, and at the same time those of class, and communist ideol- place was completely, in this sense, ra- helped to crystallize the new elite, ogy to be totalitarian and criminal. The tional: they actually were given stability AS: We’re talking as if this disintegra- which got along just fine and couldn’t Congress of People’s Deputies in 1989 in relation to their property, and that tion had just begun with Perestroika. be bothered to think about how to rev- was the culmination of this process and property was multiplied many times Yet, already in the 1970s, Komsomol olutionize state institutions... at the same time a point of no return over. Political scientists are correct in members and Party workers were op- – in terms of the discrediting of social- saying that Perestroika was the rise of erating on purely careerist motives. DV: So it seems, that against the back- ism, and also in terms of the national the bureaucracy’s second echelon. The Already then, nobody particularly be- ground of a powerful mobilization in elites’ path to independence. The “na- first echelon – or layer – left or was lieved in socialist ideals. It’s not surpris- society there was a complete paralysis tionalities question” turned out to be deposed, but the second, armed with ing that these same conformists – and of professional structures. This stands impossible for Gorbachev to solve. liberal rhetoric, took over all positions conformists of the next conscription in contrast to the mobilization in The Baltic republics demanded seces- of leadership in the society. That’s not – used the break which Perestroika of- France in 1968, when leftists seized the sion, and in Fergana and Baku ethnic the whole story, of course, but it’s the fered for strictly career-oriented ends. centres of intellectual production, such confrontations and pogroms started. objectively determined part. as university departments, etc. Isn’t The Union was crumbling. And most For the intelligentsia, however, this DV: Well, OK, but what happened in that the source of today’s crisis? If the importantly, the lines of division along was a miscalculation: their high status academia? Why, in contrast to the other wave of Perestroika had led to a radical national boundaries failed to coincide was conditional upon the ideocratic countries of the former socialist bloc transformation of institutions of higher with the distribution of class forces in character of Soviet society, and was – where many of the people who came learning in our country, the system cities, where the pro-Western liberal doomed to disappear as a result of the to power were former dissidents – did would have had to reckon with that. intelligentsia, which took a guiding capitalist privatization and pluralization no institutional changes take place here This makes me doubt the authentic- role in the process of emancipation, of the cultural sphere. The houses and in Russia? Where did the generation of ity of the mobilization and leads back had at the same time a nationalistic cars of Western teachers, it should be the Conceptualists go? They were prac- to the question, with which we began: orientation and was conservative in noted, are a product of the social char- tically forced to leave the country. Not what, exactly, are we supposed to be this respect... acter of Western governments, or at because they were greedy or self-inter- faithful to here? least of their heightened sense of social ested, but simply because none of them AM: But after all, an analogous proc- responsibility, and the feeling of “guilt” were offered positions – say, of taking up AS: For me the experience of ess took place within the Russian felt by business executives in face of so- academic posts or running museums... Perestroika is a contradictory, paradoxi- Federation (or RSFSR, as it was called ciety. How these social elements were At the same time, as far as I recall, they cal one. Both my grandfathers were during the Soviet times)! The liberal in- to be emulated in a situation of total themselves were not ready to fight se- victims of repressions, one in 1941 telligentsia took resolutely pro-capital- privatization – that was something very rious battles or put forward demands. (for bearing the surname Shtoltz) and ist positions, and contrasted the Soviet few people thought about at the time. Perestroika led to a full break with the the other in 1952, Aleksandr Markuse, system with a “natural” order of things: tradition of underground Soviet art, yet whom I was named after, and who aspirations to luxury, women’s tenden- DV: Incidentally, I’ve been concerned while the new boom in Perestroika art helped suppress the Kronstadt rebel- cy to value home and comfort, etc. In for some time about the second, suc- grew, it was not in any real way reflected lion, was one of the founders of the other words, both in the national re- cessful category of the bureaucracy. in the institutional situation... Academy of the Red Professors, and publics and in the centre of the Soviet How did these people from privileged who taught Marxism-Leninism. I only Union the emancipatory form came up Soviet families, accustomed to comfort, AM: Well, the same thing happened discovered the peripeteia of my fami- against rightist, conservative content. relieved of army duty, etc... how did in culture, as happened throughout ly’s history during Perestroika, when they come to feel such criminal despair the country. In contrast with Eastern my family started to talk openly about AS: But back then these ideas were and reach the point of crying, “We will Europe, there was no revolution of the these things; until then they could perceived as progressive. That was the make money at any price!”? How do we cadres. We weren’t able to change the only drop vague hints. But the vague paradox of the moment. Beneath the explain that psychologically? management of large enterprises (the hints were enough to make me qui- calls for democracy and freedom, class “Red directors”, by and large, became etly anti-Soviet. And Perestroika gave interests were hidden. The intelligentsia AM: That cynicism, in my view, comes the owners). Gaidar and Chubais de- those feelings a charge: I went to pro- wanted to become men and women of from the complete disintegration of cided to trade ownership for power, a tests in front of Kazan Cathedral, read property, even if only of the petty bour- Communist ideology. There was a vac- major compromise. In order to avoid the poetry and literature of the White geois kind. Journalists dreamed of be- uum, out of which this despair arose. civil war, to avoid the collapse of the émigrés, and myself wrote about the coming shareholders in the newspaper Yes, these people had no experience of system, they systematically bet an al- Constituent Assembly dispersed by the or TV channel that they worked for, military combat, but in their moral and liance with the nomenklatura. This Bolsheviks.(2) teachers of having their own house and social formation they were prepared for was the way it was done in the econ- So where is the paradox for me? In car. All in all, to live the way they imag- crisis and catastrophe. Because they rea- omy, and it was done the same way in the fact that, in August 1991, distrib- ined the Western middle class lived. soned that everyone around them was academia. To some degree, the reason uting flyers calling against submitting lying, that any ideology is by definition for this was the rather too scant infu- to the GKChP(3) and spending three AM: Yes, that is the traditional con- a lie, and serves the interests of power. sion of Western funds for a country the days and nights on the barricades at the cept of Perestroika: the conversion of Each person must survive as he can. size of Russia. The Marshall Plan for Mariinsky palace, I experienced an in- 62 Focus Chto delat? (Vilensky&Magun&Skidan)/Magun When the Masses Can’t/The Closure of...

The writer, a philosopher and political theorist, is Associate Professor at the European University at St. Petersburg and the Smolny Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He is a member of Chto delat/ What is to be done?.

credible feeling of solidarity and revo- post-revolutionary. A lot of things were our creative work, when it seems that lutionary exhilaration. It was a unique happening for the first time, a lot was we can turn mountains upside-down; Artemy experience of collective resistance, changing, and this gave rise to a strange but the limit of what is physically pos- when a crowd is transformed before feeling of euphoria. So it’s no accident sible always closes in on us. Magun your very eyes into a people. The hor- that we’re now sitting in this kitchen, According to Badiou an event is ror lies in the fact that this revolution- although all three of us have wonder- closed when you betray it. To the extent The Closure ary brotherhood and truly democratic, ful opportunities to leave. Because we that we – and not only we – remember public exhilaration led to the restora- are holding out for this experience. It this event and keep faith with it. Not tion of capitalism. That is where the, hardly has to do with patriotism – it’s in the sense that we should worship it, of the to say the least, ambivalent attitude rather about the fact that this particular but in the sense that, in our everyday to Perestroika in leftist circles comes type of society, post-Perestroika – is, life we keep going back to the possi- European from. And to those who weren’t there basically, lovable. It’s another matter bilities and discoveries of the event. In and didn’t experience that exhilaration, that society is now, of course, changing, this sense, it seems to me, the event of University, Perestroika is unambiguously perceived and not for the better. In the 1990s it Perestroika has not ended, it ended as as a counter-revolution. seemed that the blast of negativity, lib- a mass public phenomenon, because it or Firing on ertinism and anarchy, even though it doesn’t fit the structures of mass culture AM: Yes, but one can ask, does it ever wasn’t really pouring into civic activ- or civil society – but it didn’t close for your Own happen any other way? Is there ever a ism, would somehow nonetheless keep our generation. revolution which doesn’t go through society immune to an authoritarian Headquarters a tragic turnaround? And in that case, “intra-structure”. Now it’s obvious that DV: If we want and are ready to follow what is the world-historical significance anarchy is a bad foundation for resist- up on the event that was Perestroika, of Perestroika? And in that sense, what ance. Hedonistic individualists who then we have to rethink it as a story of On 8 February, following an order by kind of period are we going through don’t believe in anything are ready to convictions, as a struggle for the actual- the state fire inspector and a decision now, what possibilities for revolution, cautiously make their peace with any ization of Soviet potential, repressed in by the Dzerzhinsky municipal court, all for mobilization are there in the present kind of authoritarian reality, because Soviet history. Without this paradoxi- educational activity in St. Petersburg’s day, considering that they also will end they are already sure that any authority cal gesture, we can hardly draw any- European University was shut down for up being tragic and contradictory, just is evil. And from this mentality, mean- thing from this frightening experience ninety days. On 18 February, the courts like then? ness and cowardice grow. of the failure of revolution and popular confirmed this decision. The university power. is closed, no classes are being held. The DV: Conducting research with mem- AS: I still harbour hopes for a dialectic university board has taken an extremely bers of the “Next Stop Soviet” move- of conservatism and revolution: pre- AM: We now keep faith with two cautious position, avoiding any politi- ment from Denmark – this was the first cisely due to the fact that institutions emancipatory epochs – the revolutions cal interpretation of what has occurred, mass assault of its kind, arriving in the and administrative mechanisms were of 1917 and Perestroika. And we must although it did hold a press conference Perestroika-era Soviet Union in 1988 – not only not reformed, but are rooted draw lessons from both. In the first, on 19 February, in which it accused un- I understood that for them Perestroika in the days of the old regime, and even the authoritarianism of the Party led known forces hostile to the candidacy didn’t just mean the end of the Cold deeper, in the “feeding” system. Our to its isolation from society and brutal of Medvedev for president of trying to War, it was a new burst of hope for the society is pregnant with new upheavals. repression, motivated by ideology and create a scandal before the elections. Left. (4) More than that, many in the Everything is stirred up – minds, lan- the technocratic authority of experts. The background of these events West perceived Perestroika as the last guage – the situation is blurred. And In the second, the reluctance of work- is as follows. In 2007 the university hope of European Communism. Only if we try to sum it up, I would say that ers and the intelligentsia to join with received a grant from the European later was it surprisingly quickly co-opt- Perestroika teaches us an unbelievable the authorities, their assumption of the Union for monitoring the upcoming ed by the forces of capital, which suc- historical dynamism. A dynamism in indubitable corruption of institutions elections and educating observers. Not ceeded in “tempting” people with an which, in one year, everything can be- of any kind, led to the accession of cyn- long afterwards, one of the deputies of image of a new, Utopian capitalism: the gin to change places. ics and bandits. the State Duma raised a question about throwing off of all class antagonisms, The next revolution (and it isin- the university’s right to do this under the end of history, the opening up of AM: It’s understood that for our gen- evitable) demands insistence on the its license. Later, S.Yastrzhembsky and borders and other ideological nonsense. eration the constitutive “event” was Utopian image of another possible Russian President, V. Putin referred to The most surprising thing is that the precisely Perestroika and what followed world, as well as the construction of in- the university as an example of med- majority of people who lost the most upon it. Our generation saw Perestroika stitutions, and the involvement of broad dling by the EU in internal Russian af- as a result of these processes, welcomed as a chance, an opening, and at the masses in their construction. Grassroots fairs and suggested symmetrical meas- them. The failure of Perestroika for a same time, as the realization and ac- activism – without the revolt of the dis- ures (a Russian organization monitor- long time seemed the failure of the Left tualization of long-cherished hopes. possessed, bereft workers and servants, ing elections in Europe). After some as a whole. Catherine David, in her And those are just the two aspects of without “realistic” and comic exposure time, the leaders of the project and the well-known essay for the Documenta the event – the impulse from the past of the prose of life – nothing will come university were summoned by the pros- X catalogue, quite rightly blames the and the flight to the future. What is an of it. But the efforts of leaders – the ecutor’s office, which was apparently Soviet and Eastern European intelli- event after all? It opens up infinity, in- critical social reflection of experts, the considering the option of opening a gentsia for this defeat. finite possibilities, infinite power. And seizure of political power – will also be criminal case. This option did not turn the paradox lies in the fact that the necessary. But neither one nor the other out to be viable, so they decided to take AM: The hidden catastrophe, as power is infinite, but infinite for a day, will succeed if the West remains, as be- a different course of action. Badiou says. But he doesn’t appreci- for a year. And afterward this infinity fore, either indifferent or rightist-impe- Commissions from the Federal ate the entire contradictoriness of is gone, and we say: “How is that pos- rialist. Aside from masses and leaders, in Registration Service, the Academic Perestroika. In the 1990s, Russian soci- sible, that was infinity! How could it Russia a third condition is needed – an Committee of the Government of St. ety still preserved its dynamism, it was end?” We all know this experience from international liberation movement. + Petersburg, and the fire inspector vis- 63 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Protocol of House Search of Vladimir Yaremenko’s apartment by the Ministry of the Interior of the USSR, 1988. Produced as ceiling-corner light-box in The Raw, The Cooked and The Packaged exhibi- tion, 120 x 80 cm, Kiasma 2007. Protocol cour- tesy of Vladimir Yaremenko. 64 Focus Magun The Closure of the European University

(1) Following the Russian presidential election, and after a wave of Russian and international peti- tions, the EUSP was reopened. [ed.]

ited the university. Despite the fact that that for the most part practiced highly eral regime, frightened by the ideologi- being destroyed, naturally not through the university board had canceled the professional, objectivist social science cal influence of its mighty neighbor, such barbaric methods as here, but elections monitoring project in January with a liberal orientation, the university has fired a cannon shot into this staff through the technocratic reformatting 2008, one of these commissions – the saw itself as part of a certain system of headquarters. In perspective, this means of the universities, reorienting them fire inspector – decided to close down expert technocrats necessary to the neo- that the autonomy of intellectuals will towards independent earnings, obliga- the university. It presented a list of fif- liberal power structure – both Western be destroyed, and academic education- tory positivist-objectivist methodolo- ty-two fire safety code violations. The and Russian. In most cases, this is the al institutions will be placed under the gies and so on. In other words, in our university subsequently made all the kind of social science that abandons ideological control of the state. But the context, the autonomy of the social repairs that could be done quickly, but the study of class antagonisms in favor irony is that, in the first place, the cur- sciences is being destroyed through to no avail. On 18 February the courts of analyzing individual strategies, sup- rent government does not even have a the closure of the European University, upheld the decision until all remain- posed to build on the “rational” (i.e. serious, that is, a universalist ideology while in the West it is being destroyed ing repairs were made. However, the adaptive) economic calculation, and (its nationalism can be reduced to find- through the transformation of tradi- remaining violations can only be ad- understands democratic politics as a ing only the good in itself and the bad tional universities into institutions like dressed slowly and at a high cost; indeed competition among elites. in others), and, in the second place, in the European University (only without sometimes the necessary repairs cannot The objectivism of such research state institutions of higher learning, its autonomous position with regard to be done at all (due to the historical sta- not only makes it possible to make because of the absence of any Western its sponsors). It’s like a mirror working tus of the building). It is worth noting short term prognoses, but, important- organizational structures, there reigns by “phase displacement”. that a year ago, a routine fire inspection ly, it also means inscribing the Russian a terrible decline in both the level of It’s obvious that the technocratic did not find the university guilty of any situation into a global context, and discipline and scholarship. One can see orientation in the human and social code violations. In many St. Petersburg thus normalizing it, whether intended evidence of this if only in the story of sciences will be fatal. It will inevita- educational institutions, the fire safety or not. However, because of its ob- the Moscow State University sociology bly lead to increased social anomie, conditions are as bad or worse than jectivism and its focus on local situa- department, where the authorities have to the collapse of institutions, and to those in the European University. tions, the European University did not resolutely refused to replace a dean who the emergence of sharp social conflicts Thus, we are dealing with a “raid”, often generate new critical theories of was exposed for plagiarism (!). for whatever reason available (ethnic, typical of Russia in the 2000s, which the world historical whole. The rea- In other words, what we are talking economic, etc). We don’t need the in this case has come down from the son for this lies in objective conditions about is not the forcing of an ideology European University to predict that. very top of the “vertical” or “verticals” – first of all, in the neocolonial logic of on intellectuals. We are talking about Now onto the current situation. of power. The only thing new here is Western academic funds and journals, the destruction of educational institu- Despite its elitist, technocratic tenden- that the target is an educational insti- which commission studies of countries tions and the rejection of social reflec- cies, the European University, as an tution, moreover, an institution that from the periphery and semi-periphery tion as such. After all, positivist objec- enclave that was not entirely control- is oriented on international academic by scholars from that same periphery tivism does provide firm knowledge led either by the Russian state or by the life and which, from the moment of its and semi-periphery; and, secondly, in of society, even if it is somewhat shal- West, formed an autonomous zone for creation, has adopted a Western educa- the general logic of Western social sci- low. But sociology that uses statistics Saint-Petersburg and for all of Russia. tional model (academic graduate pro- ence institutions, which demand strict, called in from the Kremlin or teaches There were legends about the univer- grams, a credits system, the American empirico-objectivist research criteria. about the Orthodox spirituality of the sity; the bestselling novelist Pelevin grading system, interactive teaching, an This means, on the one hand, that un- Russian people is not capable of offer- referred to it as a fashionable place for emphasis on written work, and so on). founded, purely ideological materials ing any knowledge about society what- young people. Conferences, presenta- So, it is quite plain that the clo- are excluded from the mass of academic soever. Institutions where students pay tions, and seminars took place here that sure of the university is part of a trend projects, but, on the other hand, it also bribes to be accepted, to pass exams, brought together the most progressive, which has developed over the past year means that social reality becomes frag- and where teachers steal other people’s nonconformist, and creatively minded in Russian politics, struggling in various mented and reified. textbooks cannot transmit any ideol- people from the intelligentsia, from ways against Western influence: the clo- Of course, like any serious intel- ogy, but they are capable of nurturing a among students, and from other social sure of the British Council, the conflict lectual community, the European cynical, corrupt individual, well-suited sectors. with European election observers, the University does not take an entirely for work in the state apparatus. On the one hand, the university accusation that human rights activists conformist position but is a place For the first time in the history of made it possible for intellectuals with and other liberals “scrounge like jack- where, along with expert analysis, there modern Russia, say, since the time of an international academic career to live als outside foreign embassies”, and so is also critical discussion and theoreti- Nicholas I, the government has com- in Russia (albeit with a salary five times on. Of course, the regime cannot allow cal generalization. But these come only pletely rejected support from the in- lower than in the West), and it inspired itself to be truly isolated from the West, as a kind of free, supplemental poten- telligentsia and is replacing it with a the entire academic and student com- and there are two reasons why. First, it tiality that reflects the unrealized am- semi-educated bureaucracy and culture munity to pursue such careers. On the depends on the West as a consumer of bitions of the participating scholars, industry trash. They have decided that other hand, it was also an extremely its oil and gas, as a reliable place to de- and even of the institution as a whole, they can do without social reflection important source of social mobility for posit Russian funds, as an investor, and to escape the limits of its niche in the and the development of high culture less advantaged students from the prov- as a comfortable place to have a luxuri- international academic community as long as the businessmen are keep- inces. In other words, this strike has ous holiday. Second, the regime is still and within the state, and to make an ing corporate culture in step, and the come both against the intellectual elite, engaged in the ongoing process of the attempt at grasping the whole, that is, PR men are doing the same for mass which patriotically accepted its meager country’s electoral “modernization”, achieving hegemony. In this way, in the culture. Anything left over can always lot, as well as against poor young peo- retrofitting it with neoliberal, techno- case of the European University, we are be bought with the oil surplus. It’s in- ple from the provinces who set high cratic methods of government (city- dealing with the classic case of a semi- teresting that for all the anti-Western goals for themselves. The state, in ef- managers instead of mayors, task-based autonomous intellectual institution, a orientation of these kinds of measures, fect, has organized a lockout against management, financial discipline, etc). staff headquarters of the cosmopolitan they are quite similar to current ten- the unwanted. This is why the European University intelligentsia. dencies in many Western countries, So, it is strike against the intelli- thought it was safe. As an institution And so, the authoritarian, neolib- where the autonomy of education is gentsia and the students of the coun- 65 Focus Magun/Khlobystin The Closure of.../An Experiment in...

The writer is an artist, writer and “archivarius” (1) Andreeva, Ekaterina (2004). Vse i nichto. SPb. (4) Deleuze would call this an “Event”. based in St. Petersburg. Translated by J Platt. (2) The Russian acronym PAiBNI sounds funny, (5) It is interesting that at the beginning of the recalling a kind of rude word. [transl.] 1990s, reality TV conquered the world, although (3) Before this I worked in different St. Peters- its appearance can be traced back almost as far as burg museums and in the library of the State the end of the 1940s. Hermitage. (6) The New Artists’ most important members,

try, a strike that serves as a signal for at the 10 Pushkin Street Cultural out a trace”. Bekhterov believed that a hairdresser, and so on. There was no others to submit. A wider wave of Center, attempted to develop this tra- the transmission of energy occurs in art object, no author, no viewer, but the Gleichschaltung will follow, bringing dition, which emerges from the deepest communication, passing directly from “work” (that is, the condition) was cre- all academic and educational institu- foundations of the Russian Orthodox one person to another. Academician ated by everyone together, right there, tions in step. This is why the “What is worldview. In contrast to Boltansky’s Vernadsky, further, wrote Stalin a letter in front of one’s eyes. to be done?” group is calling on all of ideologically sterile, material remains in which he explained that the Second But the most essential part of the its readers to protest and put up civil and Kabakov’s fake junk, here we are World War, which had just begun, was project suffered from a stroke of bad resistance against these measures. We dealing with an “energy-carrier” of a part of a geological process. Further, he luck: I realized that video is a very may not have much power now, but different character. This is not a form argued that the actions man commits weak means of recording the energy our power will grow in proportion to styob [a form of straight-faced parody, in isolation, and even his thoughts and of events, while communication and the authorities’ increasing madness and ed.]. Nor is it statistics or a post-struc- dreams, form part of the noosphere. interactivity(5) reveal the gigantic en- stupidity.(1) + turalist manoeuvre. In the curent state, The noosphere is the sphere of human ergetic crisis in the Western world. when art has become a hope and a de- culture, a new stage in the develop- New prostheses are being invented all sire, it returns to archaic models, and ment of the geosphere and biosphere of the time for communication and its its archivization becomes a means of Earth. Thus, we can draw the conclu- recording, but this communication has “gaining divine grace”, collecting testi- sion that in collecting materials for a become a form of theft, and its archivi- Andrei monial evidence of miracles. museum or an archive, we are actualiz- zation falsified – who saves sms’s and The tradition itself can be seen ing these themes, seeing and attending e-mails? The documentation and con- Khlobystin to go back to the figure of John Mos- to phenomena, objects and, in general, firmation of facts constitutes the most chus, a Byzantine writer of the turn of to energies, which can “connect” us to serious problem for “the history of con- An the seventh century. Travelling around the “database” and the sources of en- temporary art”. In Russia the situation the Orthodox world not long before ergy in our planet and Cosmos. has come down to the retelling of jokes Experiment the beginning of the Arab conquest, My personal experience of archivi- and koans, returning the science of art he compiled a collection of miracle zation began in the mid 1990s,(3) to the age of Vasari. in Total testimonies which is usually titled The when I began to feel that contempo- Spiritual Meadow (gk. Λειμών), and rary art, like contemporary man, had * * * Archivization is called the Limonar or the Sinai pa- ceased to be something substantive. Art I have known since I was child, when I tericon in the lists of ancient Russian became obshchenie (“communication”) participated in my parents’ archaeologi- translations. This monument of world- for me, a word which in Russian ech- cal digs that the richest sites for material Go to the place, I don’t know where, and historical heritage was popular in oes the words for “general” (obshchee) are located beyond the defensive walls, find the thing, I don’t know what. Slavic countries and inspired the work and “message” (soobshchenie). Creative in the ditch that in ancient times usual- – Russian fairy-tale introduction of many Russian writers. Once again work, unlike art, has no temporal or ly served as a trash dump. The futurists, deeply Orthodox in essence, if not in spatial boundaries. It is a “sublime con- who were the first media-artists, were Today, when the very existence of art necessarily in substance, was the devel- dition” not to be demonstrated, but to the first to expand the sphere of art in is in doubt, and it has been almost ten opment of the ideas on energy, immor- be dissolved into everyday life. I began unheard of ways, incorporating all sorts years since anything significant has tality, and the noosphere of the Russian collecting communication in 1995, us- of contemporary anthropological junk. been acheived, the collection and ar- scientists Alexander Alexanderovich ing a video camera to record my meet- Mikhail Larionov and Ilya Zdanevich, chivization of works of cultural value Bogdanov (1873-1928), Vladimir ings with various leading figures of who, among other things, began show- is becoming a complex problem. As Mikhailovich Bekhterev (1857-1927), local culture – weirdoes and originals ing street signs at exhibitions, advanced Ekaterina Yurevna Andreeva wittily Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863- – trying to catch the moments of the the idea of “everythingness”, which im- observed, contemporary art is striv- 1945) and Lev Nikolaevich Gumiliev “miracle”.(4) A miracle is your own plied that the entire world was mate- ing to become “everything” while si- (1911-1992). condition, and it is never clear where it rial for art. This current was picked up multaneously hinting pointedly at its Bolshevik, science-fiction writer, will “come out”. in the Leningrad/St. Petersburg tradi- own “nothingness”.(1) What and how naturalist, and inventor of the science That same year I was also surprised tion in the 1960s and 1970s by Valery should one archive in these circum- of “tectology” (which anticipated cyber- and pleased when my project, amount- Cherkasov (1946-1984) and Boris stances? netics and systems theory), Bodganov ing to two or three lines about wanting Nikolaevich Koshelokhov (born 1942), There are many well-known ex- was a remarkable man. Before their to live in Berlin and record my every- and later propagandised by Timur amples of times when archivization split, Lenin was a close companion, but day communication with people who Petrovich Novikov (1958-2002) and has become a form of art; and art a Bogdanov was attacked by him in the interest me, was chosen as the best of other participants in the New Artists form of archivization. There is a whole work Imperialism and Empiriocriticism 700 applications, and I was given a group that he founded in the begin- group of artists, whose very works and of 1909 for his acceptance of the most studio in the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien ning of the 1980s.(6) In studying this installations look like different com- recent scientific discoveries, which saw for a year and a grant from the Philip tradition, I found confirmation of my binations of old, archival objects, of- the world as a confluence of energies. Morris Kunstforderung. In the end previous art historical ideas about the ten mere trash. In the West, the work The neurophysiologist Bekhterev, in the project resulted in many hours of need to revise the accepted versions of of Christian Boltansky is an excellent his 1916 speech The Immortality of recordings of my meetings with diverse the history of Russian art.(7) example of “reformatting” old ob- the Human Personality as a Scientific people in Russia and Europe, who I Valery Cherkasov created unique jects. In the art of our country, Ilya Problem maintained that, “energy must tried to divide into psychological types, assemblages from everyday objects and Iosifovich Kabakov has aestheticized be recognized as a unified essence in survival strategies and so on: freaks and could make an installation from trash the trash of Soviet communal life. St. the Universe” and that it ”serves as the monsters, geniuses and saints, magi at a street dump. In life he was distin- Petersburg has its own tradition of beginning of both the material and the and scholars... In the end there was an guished by his exceptional eccentricity. “artistic archivization”. The Petersburg spiritual world”. He continued, affirm- “exhibit”, where along with the many It is enough to recall his suicide attempt, Archive and Library of Independent Art ing: “there is not one sigh, not one smile video recordings there was also a con- in which he impaled himself, eyes first, (PALIA)(2) which I founded in 1999 that disappears from the earth with- fessional, a shower, a telephone booth, on specially arranged scalpels. One 66 Focus Khlobystin An Experiment in Total Archivization

aside from Novikov, included Oleg Evgenevich in the samizdat publication Mitin Zhurnal (No. 20). this effaces the apparent “interruptedness” and con- (see “Nozdrev and Pluishkin”, A-Ya Journal No. Kotelnikov (born 1958), Vadim Evgenevich Here we emphasized the obvious but often neglect- tradictoriness of its history, and on the other hand 7), and the leader of Moscow Conceptualism him- Ovchinnikov (1951-1996) and others. [See Ekat- ed fact that Russia did not participate in the genesis demands the establishment of new hierarchies and self later began making installations that organized erina Andreevna’s contribution in this issue. ed.] of the forms of Western European art, but received accents, different from those accepted in Western space in ways that recalled Cherkasov’s museum. (7) Already in 1988 Alla Mitrofanova and I pub- them only in the eighteenth century. In our national European scholarship. (9) An extensive description of some of these ex- lished the article, “The Russian Feeling for Form in art, the spiritual or ideological aspects always took (8) It very interesting that Pliushkin is the char- hibitions can be found in the web-version of this the Art of the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Centuries” precedence over material form. One the one hand, acter of one of Ilya Kabakov’s programmatic texts article at: www.framework.fi.

might also recall the times he walked the very fabric of existence, and it thus narrative, but attention to the new in- times met by the nonconformists with to Finland. Each time, the KGB would placed functional and effective values tonation, fabric, and feeling of life. as much hostility as that of official cul- catch him at the border and take him before symbolic ones. This approach to We were not only interested in ture. Bearded political preachers who back to an insane asylum. Cherkasov art emerges from the purely practical paintings and other works, but also thought that they were good artists turned his own apartment into what need for a precise, singularly accurate, objects that were marginally related because they were fighting for freedom he called the Plyushkin Museum(8) economical, and therefore beautiful in themselves – “products and mate- were faced with a new type of behav- named after the character in Gogol’s gesture. rial remains from the course of life”, iour, a wave of anti-art. Later, especially novel Dead Souls, who engages in the Collecting testimonial records of “smells”, old clothes of underground when declaring “victory” and taking totalist accumulation of meaningless these conditions required a similarly figures.. it was even suggested that we control of their territory, the noncom- objects. All the objects in this house broad and unusual approach to things. organize a sperm bank of Russian art formists “became the dragon they slew”. were in some way made by Cherkassov PALIA immediately began publishing at 10 Pushkin Street (in case of its rep- They took the path of conservation and and, starting with matches and packs of and exhibiting work along with collect- resentatives’ annihilation). We had to regularization – the “vertical of power” cigarettes, they were arranged in ingen- ing it. Located in a small cupboard-room reject this idea because of the expen- in Putin’s language – echoing processes ious compositions. At first one could little larger than Rodion Raskolnikov’s sive equipment required. There were taking place in the country at large. move about the room using specially in Crime and Punishment, our exhibi- also all sorts of phenomena, groups, Museification, mummification, the spaced stools, but later the “museum” tions opened every month, financed by and people, either unknown, under- mausoleum, solidity, being “real”, and a grew up to the ceiling and the visitor nothing more than the works gifted. We appreciated, or completely forgotten. touch of oppositional spirit to preserve could only squeeze into the corridor held Books and documents for Beer events The exhibition at PALIA are difficult to one’s image – these are the principles and talk to the owner who was perched that touched the hearts of many artists. systematize, but all in all, since the fall they adopted to survive in the contem- invisibly in his “nest” somewhere in the Many cultural figures brought in large of 2000 until the spring of 2007, we porary political situation. The Archive, centre of the space. After Cherkasov’s boxes filled with superfluous rubbish, organized 88 exhibitions, including 75 which for all of its cheerful, apolitical mysterious death, the “museum” was among which real gems could be found. in the space of the archive itself.(9) existence, recalling a club with music, returned to the trash dump in natural We published the Vestnik PAiBNI (“The dances, provocations, interest in youth fashion, seeing his relatives had no idea PALIA Herald”), the Susanin dazibao- * * * culture, represented “the enemy image” that they were dealing with art. newspaper (also at www.susanin.zara- In 2007, PALIA was closed down from the very beginning. It is natural One of Koshelokhov’s principal zum.ru), which responded satirically to by the administration of 10 Pushkin that this hearth of anarchy, which made slogans was “we paint the soul with the artistic life of St. Petersburg , and Street “lack of seriousness”. All rubbish life complicated for a slowly deadening, whatever we want, and on whatever we the Genius journal. Students and schol- – such as the artists’ clothes (“the ar- fossilizing structure, had to be squashed want!” He came to painting only after ars, from St. Petersburg and abroad, chive of smells”) – was to be removed. sooner or later. + creating his “concepts” – among which used PALIA to write theses, course pa- A “real” archive was to be opened in one can consider his Trash of Nevsky pers, and scholarly works. the same space. Instead, the space was Prospect, which were objects found dur- First and foremost, the collection soon given over to a publishing house. ing walks along the city’s main avenue, focused on material with which I was What happened? Why did the veterans which were then arranged on flat sur- directly familiar: the 1980s and 1990s. of nonconformist art decide to strangle faces. This highly skilled artist can be The turn of the decade was one of the experimentation? considered one of the few direct teach- most interesting periods of contempo- From 1989 to 1998, 10 Pushkin ers of the New Artists group, for whom rary Russian culture. This transitional Street was the biggest artists’ squat in distinction between genres and types of dynamism and incredibly rich flow of Russia. After 1998, a peaceful agree- art did not exist, in principle. A single events which made up the epoch of ment was reached with the city govern- artist could be a painter, a musician, a Perestroika call up associations with ment and part of the renovated build- director, a designer, a poet, etc, since what is called schizo-revolution in con- ing was given to artists on a long-term the most important thing was a certain temporary French philosophy: the old rental contract. The fact that the art “detachment” and the ability to sustain Soviet monolithic culture collapsed, community was able to prevail in this a sublime creative condition. the ideology disappeared, and empti- struggle was to a large degree due to the All of this work differed from that ness was laid bare, producing euphoria, work of artist/art-administrators who produced by Western artists – workers semiotic catastrophe, a total identity appeared in the underground scene in of the art industry; or graduates of of- crisis, anarchy, panic, and finally the the beginning of the 1980s. In oppos- ficially-sanctioned Arts Academies, en- arrival in the second half of the 1990s, ing officialdom, however, they in fact able to grasp the connection between of a new ideology of greed. After the began to mirror it in their alternative art and life; or the masters of Moscow far-flung travels, and fun and games of structures. Their ideology – the idea Conceptualism, who, in the words of Perestroika, there was another fisure: that art is a weapon in the struggle for one of their representatives, were send- a new ideology was firmly deline- social justice – was similarly like a car- ing ethnographic accounts from the ated, crushing people as cruelly as the bon copy of official ideology with “all wild, exotic periphery to the West. The previous one had, and the myth of a pluses turned to minuses”. artists of the Leningrad underground creative paradise in the West was lost. Any artist who did not fall within didn’t have the opportunity (nor of- Perestroika was a late initiation for the monolithic discourse of power was ten the desire) to exhibit or sell their us. On the one hand, we were nostal- accepted into the ranks. It mattered lit- works. They created art because they gic for the time of Perestroika, on the tle whether their work was in the style didn’t want to do anything else, and other hand we needed to gather up the of abstraction or of the salon – as long in some cases (such as Cherkasov’s) scattered world somehow, to resist the as their position was “on this side of the never even thought about how their newly crystallizing ideology. Thus, the barricades”. The art of young members activities should be defined. This was a function of the PALIA archive was not of the “New Wave”, to which many “vitally necessary art”, interwoven with the creation of a new ideology, text, or artists discussed above belonged, was at 67 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Top: Valery Cherkasov, Untitled, late 1970s – early 1980s, close-up of postcard-size paintings on pa- per. Courtesy of the Archive of Timur Novikov. Bottom: Valery Cherkasov, Paper Paintings Ar- chive, late 1970s – early 1980s, series of thousands of often numbered paper paintings collected in cigarette boxes, Soviet paper-wrappers, etc. Cour- tesy of the Archive of Timur Novikov. 68 Focus An Interview with Viktor Misiano Progressive Nostalgia

Viktor Misiano was Director of the Contemporary Progressive Nostalgia. Contemporary Art from the Former USSR. Centro per l’arte contemporanea Art Center (CAC) in Moscow. He also was a cura- Former USSR. A multi-exhibition project curated Luigi Pecci, Prato, Italy, May 27 – August 26 2007. tor at The Pushkin State Museum for ten years. by Viktor Misiano. On Geekdom. Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece, Misiano is editor-in-chief of the Moscow Art June 2 – 2 August 2007. Magazine. Ivor Stodolsky is a researcher in Russian Return of the Memory. New Art from Russia. Kumu culture and social theory, curator and writer, and Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia, May 12 – July 29 Time of the Storytellers. Narrative and Distant Gaze the guest editor of this issue. Marita Muukkonen 2007. in Post-Soviet Art. Museum of Contemporary Art currently works as a Curator at FRAME, Finnish Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland, June 26 – September Fund for Art Exchange. She worked as a project Progressive Nostalgia. Contemporary Art from the 30 2007. adviser and project coordinator at NIFCA, Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art in 2001-2005. Aleksei Penzin, PhD, is Research Associate at Institute of Philosophy (Moscow). Penzin contrib- utes regularly to journals in philosophy and the humanities. He is a member of the interdiscipli- nary group Chto Delat/What is to be done?.

nostalgia of today is a form of reflection the willingness of a significant portion resources” is perceived today as a flaw An Interview on contemporary life, it is a means of oc- of society to conform and refrain from in the present, fuelling the critical ap- cupying a position in the present and tak- critical judgement. Any critical evalua- proach to it. However, the past still with Viktor ing up the challenge of the futur”. How is tion of what was happening was both remains something newly discovered, one meant to decode this? Is nostalgia involuntarily perceived and intention- by which I mean something that still Misiano about the utopianism of the past in the ally reduced to a love of the passé, that hasn’t assumed a stable form. If it does service of a utopianism of the present? is, to nostalgia for the Soviet past. And dazzle our retrospective vision, then Wouldn’t then pre-existing forms in this way it was disavowed. it is only with the spectacle of its ir- by Ivor threaten to swallow up and enchain My project, which took shape in a reconcilable complexity. This is the the contemporary means of imagining new decade and aims at a description source of those idiosyncratic reactions Stodolsky, the future? Even if the present state of and summation of this, was born as a to the stable, officially utopianised im- things is characterized by a shortage of response to this change of intellectual ages from the past – the list of military Marita “utopian resources”, how do we avoid mentality in post-Soviet countries. One victories, founding fathers, liberal re- the false utopias of the past? aspect of this new mentality, born of formers, wise tsars and Genghis Khans Muukkonen Or, from another perspective, what the unsatisfactory state of affairs that that post-Soviet regimes dump on the does the term “progressive” mean aside prevails today, is the return to a more political market. The openness of the and Aleksei from the old, quite amorphous idea of complex and critical view of things. It newly discovered past is the present’s progress? Is this the idea of progress springs from a recognition of the com- most positive resource: this is where Penzin in the liberal, Victorian sense of the plex system of relations lying behind its potential for the present and for the nineteenth century, or do you in fact the present. These relations inevitably future lies. Progressive relate to the ideas of progress and pro- began to root us in the past, and the This process of historicisation de- gressiveness that were present in Soviet dissatisfaction with the present has scribed corresponds quite adequately Nostalgia. culture? Or is this perhaps a reference brought us to recognize the possibilities to an understanding of nostalgia. Of to the gradual unfolding of your cu- of alternative futures. This is how a dis- course, we are not talking about the Contemporary ratorial project? Which artists will be cursive interconnection was developed blind rehabilitation of the past exem- working on the next “step” of progres- between the critical view of the present, plified by such philistine statements as Art from the sive nostalgia? the new awareness of the subject’s ac- ”things were better under Brezhnev”. tive role in the construction of a per- But I also don’t depart too significantly Former USSR Viktor Misiano (VM): An appeal to spective, and the revelation of the past’s from this, since the past that we are the past is the prime condition of this ambiguity. In this way, my remark – the talking about is our own past. It is im- project. It is the past – the Soviet past nostalgia of today is a form of reflection on possible to feel nostalgic about a past Ivor Stodolsky (IS), Marita Muukkonen – that unites all the artists participating contemporary life, it is a means of occupy- you did not know or experience. After (MM) and Aleksei Penzin (AP): Your in the exhibit and the intellectuals par- ing a position in the present and taking all, every participant in the project was Progressive Nostalgia project brought ticipating in the publication. For they up the challenge of the future – emerged alive “under Brezhnev”. These were the together a large number of interesting all share a common past, in contrast to not from a desire to repeat the banal years when they were young, even when artists from the post-Soviet space as well their present in such different countries idea that ”the past is constructed by the their parents were young, and now as a whole collection of critical com- as, for example, today’s Kyrgyzstan and present as the basis of its claims upon these are years we were told didn’t exist. mentary on the concepts of nostalgia, Estonia, Armenia and Ukraine, Russia the future”, but from what I observed Susan Buck-Morss was correct when “Sovietness”, and the politics of memo- and Moldova! At the same time, anoth- to be the real genesis of post-Soviet so- she wrote that the very prefix “neo” ry. It follows a perhaps paradoxical vec- er one of our tasks is to deconstruct the cieties. The objective reality of the situ- in the term “neoliberal” assumes an tor of the “back to the future” variety in idea of these countries’ difference, since ation today is such that taking a critical erasure of experience in order institute its investigations. There is no question this is what the dominant mentality and position in the present leads us to reject a closure of the past, to which it actu- that critically examining nostalgia in the new state ideology in these countries ”historical amnesia” and to recognize it ally returns in the present. This is why space of its aesthetic representation, and emphasised most of all in the first post- as a product of vested interests and the nostalgia, bringing layers of forbidden not simply giving in to it, means pos- Soviet decade. The Soviet experience relations of power. It leads us to recog- personal experience up to the surface, ing a serious challenge to the prevailing was understood then as an inconven- nize that the past is important first of is both existential and political. attitudes to the past being projected by ience, as a deviation from some kind of all simply because it happened! Nostalgia’s progressiveness is also power and the media today. normal development. This is why the It is important that this newly dis- rooted in its inevitable critical politi- But, nevertheless, what, if any- post-Soviet era was understood as start- covered past – and not a distant past, cization in contemporary conditions. thing, has ever been progressive about ing with a clean page, or more precisely but one close at hand, which you ex- Stuart Hall called neoliberal ideology nostalgia? Is not nostalgia that sweet as the reduction of seventy or forty perience existentially as your own – is a “regressive modernization”, using an forgetfulness of the rough reality of years of social development, bringing difficult to render utopian. It cannot oxymoron by the way, just as I did with the past, and a dream-like pseudo- the reality of the preceding experience be transformed into a neo-classicist my “progressive nostalgia”. The natu- recollection of its idealisation? How is of communism to a close. This was pre- Arcadia because almost all the gen- ral openness and potentiality of post- nostalgia critical? In what way is it a determined by what, in one of the texts erations currently alive can remember Soviet nostalgia makes it both progres- form of resistance? After all, although associated with the project, I call post- their personal experience of being part sive and not regressive. it does take on mass forms, isn’t its Soviet “historical amnesia”, which also of it. The fact that the past epoch was atmosphere more subjective, interior, predetermined the unquestioned trust interested in utopia, was coloured by AP: It seems we should be talking not passive, oneiric? In your catalogue essay either consciously or unconsciously it, is sufficiently obvious, as is the fact only about nostalgia for the past and for Progressive Nostalgia, you write: The given to neoliberal reforms. That is, to that precisely the shortage of “utopian the vanished common motherland- 69 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Andrei Medvedev, Maquette of Gagarin Party Pos- ter, 1991, collage on cardboard, 44.5 x 62 cm. Courtesy of the Archive of Andrei Medvedev. 70 Focus An Interview with Viktor Misiano Progressive Nostalgia

USSR here, but also about the collec- There are several points that this this logic, room is being found for the modernization in fact sanctions regres- tive experience of the recent present immediately raises. In the first place, repressed experience of many moderni- sive local politics. And state-sponsored which is shared by all post-Soviet nostalgia returns the lived experi- ties – alternatives that challenged and nationalism of the post-Soviet era is countries. That which became to be ence of communism to us – a society vied with the dominant model. There clearly a regression when compared to known as “the transition period” was that did not know the universal rule is a big debate about this problem right Soviet internationalism. The fact that the second attempt to institute a “mar- of money. In this way memory can now. Critics of the idea of multiple the local and global regimes were able ket society“, only in this case the model thwart the capitalist aspirations to modernities, such as Frederic Jameson, to broker a tacit agreement, merely re- was imposed forcibly. Now, more and totality and a the lack of alternatives, for example, say that the supposed produces the tacit agreement between more, we are observing the clear and asserting that “another world is pos- multiplicity of modernity masks the East and West that existed behind the institutionalized entrenchment of social sible”. In the second place, nostalgia universality of capitalist processes of façade of the Cold War. All this merely inequality and the rapid appearance of returns to us the memory of a soci- modernization. confirms Jameson’s thesis that we must a “consumer society” in large cities, as ety where resistance to the prevailing One way or the other, it is difficult insist on the global character of mod- well as the formation of the machinery order was rooted in the everyday. The to escape the impression that Soviet ernization, on the fact that the experi- of the Kulturindustrie, and the ubiq- everyday dissatisfaction with the un- “modernity” was something exception- ence of Soviet modernity was truly an uitous rule of commodification. The pleasant ways of society and dreams of al, in all its progressive and regressive inseparable part of the experience of historical experience of resisting these an alternative (which at that time was manifestations. Especially when you the twentieth century and continues to new types of inequality and reification found in Western democracy), as well live amongst its ruins. One can find determine much of what occurs today. is also included in the rhythm of the as constant, refined forms of resistance evidence for this, for example, in Boris In this way, the impulse of the Russian past – relating to both pre-revolution- – albeit not so much in the political as Groys’ paradoxical reflection in the Revolution, which in Alain Badiou’s ary Russian processes as well as global much as in the social sphere – this is book, Communist Postscriptum. What philosophy appears as an example of ones: the critical public grows bigger what united masses of Soviet people. was “Soviet modernity”, and what does a genuine event, affected not only the and bigger, groups of activists appear, We might have been anybody, but we this question mean in the context of communist world, but the western the trade union movement is vitalized. were not loyal subjects and conform- your project? world as well. The specificity of the post-Soviet ex- ists. And this is precisely why, in the That is why, if it is right to say that perience lies most likely in the fact that, third place, our nostalgia is inseparable VM: The beginning of Soviet mo- Soviet modernization was a part of the as collective subjects, we are capable of from a critical approach not only to the dernity came with the October global modernizing process, then the registering the differences between the present, but also to the past for which Revolution, which nationalized the end of the Soviet Union makes “post- historical “before” and ”after”, endur- we feel nostalgic. Following Gramsci, means of production and launched the Soviet” every part of the world that ing a strange experience of ”repetition” we not only resist and expose the injus- democratic project of social self-rule has participated in modernization. By (let’s say, at times a literal embodiment tice of the prevailing order, but we also and self-administration. Soviet moder- the way, this is exactly what Jameson of the clichés of Soviet propaganda unearth the foundations of the consent nity remained true to these principles and his colleague, Susan Buck-Morss, about “rotting capitalism” in our own found for it. Even if we recognize that and ideals until the very end. During argue. But there is something else one reality). At the same time, we (some neoliberal revanchism is regressive, we the course of its existence, the Soviet can argue as well. Perhaps we were too of us) still remember what yesterday’s need to take into account the fact it model exhibited both incredible ef- hasty in our burial of the Soviet sys- social collectivity looked like, and we has proposed a modernization which fectiveness as well as inertia, examples tem? Perhaps Groys is right when he have a fresher perspective on the reality the Soviet order failed to deal with. If of both genuine participatoriness and notes that the Soviet Union ceased to of a “market society”. And isn’t nostal- nostalgia does not come to terms with emasculation by the nomenklatura exist not because of defeat in the Cold gia here not only about concrete images this fact, then it ceases to be progres- system. As Groys correctly noted, the War, but because of the inner logic of the past, but, perhaps, also the reten- sive and becomes simply nostalgia. The Western liberals’ criticism of commu- of its own development. Perhaps the tion of this historical distinction, the multi-faceted character of both our ex- nism was just as fair as the communist Soviet system continues to live today “before” and “after”, whose separation perience and our progressive nostalgia criticism of capitalism. All criticism is as part of the contemporary global unites all those living in the post-Soviet is truly unique and truly does bring at least partly true. world? Perhaps it has simply moved space, regardless of their local stories homo post-Sovieticus [postsovetskogo The Soviet experience was truly ex- into the background and hid itself be- and images? chelovechestvo in Russian original, ed.] ceptional and in many ways it remains hind a cover of neocapitalist rhetoric, together more and more. We truly do to be fully described and conceptual- but is gradually showing itself more VM: In actual fact, that is exactly what have something to say to one another, ized. However, in our project, we were and more on the surface? Perhaps even drove post-Soviet consciousness to re- something no one else will say, and we not occupied with the problem of ana- this is the reason we are nostalgic for it? turn to the past: the sudden discovery truly do have something to say to the lysing the specifics of Soviet modernity And perhaps this is the reason why it’s that many of the arguments that had rest of the world together. Paraphrasing as such. Rather, we sought simply to not regressive, but progressive? By the seemed artificial and ideological were a Soviet ideological argument: we truly state the fact that it existed. For it is way, a young Polish researcher, Lukasz in fact confirmed by real experience in are “a new collectivity of individuals precisely this – the fact of the moderni- Stanek, who has written on social proc- post-Soviet times. The concepts of im- – the Post-Soviet people”. zation of Soviet space and the entire esses in the post-communist world as perialism, alienation, capitalist preda- communist world – that the self-pro- exhibited in art and architecture, has tion, social inequality, etc, all became AP: As you know, contemporary the- claimed victors in the Cold War are at- introduced a useful term – trans-so- saturated with real content. This is why ory is beginning to move away from tempting to suppress. While legitimiz- cialism. Could it turn out that what the accumulating energies of resist- the idea of modernity as a monolithic, ing the nationalistic course taken by we thought was an end was just a kind ance today are turning to the values Eurocentric model of development. the new post-Soviet regimes, and thus of turn, a temporary retreat, a diagonal of solidarity, non-compliance or “exo- It speaks now of multiple moderni- ensuring popular support, at the same move? dus”, disobedience – values that the ties instead of reducing everything to time this legitimises the ethnicisation post-Soviet man can also derive from a final opposition between modernity of the territory and the right to colo- IS&MM: What general strategies of the Soviet past. and postmodernity. So, according to nise it. In this way, regressive neoliberal speaking about the past exist in con- 71 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Letter enacting the powers, and in defence of, the so-called Noll Object, signed by numerous lumi- naries of the Leningrad underground, 1982. 72 Focus Misiano & al./Mytkowska & Esche Progressive Nostalgia/Art is the Mirror...

Charles Esche is Director of Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and Co-Editor of Afterall Journal and Afterall Books. Joann Mytkowska is Director of the new Warsaw Museum of Modern Art and Curator at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. The interview was conducted in Warsaw October 8, 2007.

temporary Russian artistic practice? search orientations. The return to epic is that this will emerge in the states Are there any general categories for the narratives, in which the Soviet past is Joanna around Israel or in response to events different approaches? How do these harnessed not so much to the present there. Thus, it seems important to col- means of representing the past relate as to other periods and epochs, i.e. to Mytkowska lect works that reflect on this transi- to existing Russian state-nationalist History, has also been characteristic in tional moment, so we can understand tendencies, nostalgia for past greatness? the post-1990s (this was also widely on in Conversation it better now and in the future. In the 1990s it seemed that there was display in Helsinki). Finally, the cur- The area that we could also refer to a kind of ideological “soup”, when the rent decade has been marked by the as the former Ottoman Empire is itself Communist Party of Russia was con- emergence of direct forms of protest with Charles quite big and obviously full of differ- nected with the Orthodox church and in art. Artist-activists are appealing di- ences. One focus of building our col- “democracy” was associated with “klep- rectly to the constituent revolutionary Esche lection has been the Palestinian-Israeli tocracy”. To what degree has the situa- legacy, looking to it for experience of question; another is Istanbul as an art tion changed in your opinion? direct disobedience, while at the same Art is the scene, although there are other regions time other artists have turned to de- such as Lebanon, Egypt and Syria that VM: I have divided the book – cur- constructive analysis, working on the Mirror and will come into view. One of the most rently in press – which should conclude language of art, re-establishing a con- successful ways of understanding the my work on this project, uniting the nection with the tradition of Moscow the Light importance of this place at this mo- materials from all four of my exhib- Conceptualism and its experience of ment is to see if we can use the collec- its into fifteen sections. Each section “exodus”. Joanna Mytkowska: I would like to tion, which goes back to 1909, through presents, essentially, one of the ways ask you to describe how you see the moments when Western Europe was post-Soviet artists have found to speak IS&MM: What is a curator of a project place of art of the Middle East in your in lethal armed conflict, to understand about the past. which concerns the past and history? A museum. the response and trajectory of art- One of the conditions for the very scholar-observer? A polemicist? Or per- ists working with war or dealing with possibility of a retrospective gaze has haps an interpreter? Charles Esche: What I am doing at trauma and trying to come to terms been the re-appearence in the post- the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven with what has happened in the politi- 1990s of the possibility for artists to VM: In the 1990s, when I was theo- goes back to a tradition that was es- cal world. This is an important role that take a distanced view of things. This rizing my curatorial position, I defined tablished after the Second World War. a historic collection can play, and in a in particular was the focus of the ex- it as curator-moderator. Then I was ex- Eddie de Wilde first went to Paris to way in which contemporary issues can hibition which was organised at the tremely preoccupied with process and build the collection, afterwards Jean be understood more readily. Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma interdisciplinary projects that are or- Leering went to New York, Rudi Fuchs The ways in which mass destruc- in Helsinki. The attention to analytic ganized through direct dialogue among to Cologne and finally Jan Debbaut, tion is being represented in different and poetic documentation, which has artists, intellectuals, and the curator. In after a diversion to Brussels, chose ways in the East Mediterranean now, come very late to post-Soviet art in this case, the curator turned out to be a Los Angeles as the basis for the col- reflects previous mass destructions comparison with Western countries, direct intermediary for the participants lection. Of course, there were many that we have witnessed in Eindhoven, has been a genuine turning-point. It in the project, that is, a moderator, other works collected along the way, for instance. This is a kind of relativ- marked a rupture in artistic conscious- even in the direct sense of the word. In but the geographic shift of each collec- ist’s position, which has its problems ness, which, no was longer sunk in the the new decade – in the epoch of “the tor is clear. When I came in, it made as well. But I think it is at least more convulsive reality of the transition pe- return of memory” – I turned to more sense for many reasons to choose interesting than avoiding the Second riod, and broke through the previously stationary and classical forms of cura- Istanbul as the next step, followed by World War, or telling a history of con- dominant discourse that had attributed torial practice. Thus, for several years a wider look at work from Eastern tinuous progress, or even repetition of to reality an aesthetic power whose vis- I worked on a big historical museum Europe and the Middle East or the formal developments. Art and artists ual resources seemed to exceed the ca- exhibit called Moscow-Berlin, which “East Mediterranean”, which is maybe changed because the world around pabilities of art. The distanced view has encompassed material from European a less problematic term. This will con- them changed, and this relationship restored artists’ pre-eminent position art of the second half of the twentieth tinue the particular history of the Van continues today. with regard, not only to the aesthetic, century. However, I wouldn’t begin to Abbemuseum, whose collection is not but also the critical evaluation of real- disavow my self-definition of fifteen encyclopaedic, but very strong in cer- JM: It seems that one can pretty easily ity. It is this searching critical gaze that years ago. For me an exhibition, and tain areas such as Minimalism, and represent local conflicts in the global has managed to demonstrate the extent this includes Progressive Nostalgia, is an completely excludes others such as museums (Pompidou or Eindhoven). to which the supposed break with the experience of collective dialogic work. Fluxus or Abstract Expressionism. Since It’s much more difficult to represent past has not actually occurred. Thus, a Its themes and problems are a part of I arrived, I have also chosen to concen- them locally. There is a tension here. whole array of artists have begun the- my intellectual endeavours, something trate on art that engages with the rep- You cannot produce a show on the matizing in their works the existence lived and essentially meaningful. I can resentation of contemporary society, Middle East conflict in Tel Aviv or of a post-Soviet consciousness between only share this work with those people its conflicts and difficulties in this time Ramallah, for example; or, it would be epochs, showing what at times freak- whom I see as fellows, whom I value of so-called “globalisation”. It therefore impossible to show Lebanese artists in ish and absurd forms this amalgamtion not only professionally, but primarily makes sense to direct our attention, in Tel Aviv. of the present and the past has taken. ethically. Most likely, this type of cura- part, at the East Mediterranean, where The next step was a programmatic “re- tor will recognize himself in the figure the future of our planet is largely being CE: Galit Eilat from the Israeli Centre turn of memory” (this was the name of the intellectual as conceptualized by decided. This comes from my position for Digital Art in Holon is doing this of my exhibit in Kumu in Tallinn), Gramsci and Sartre, i.e. a figure who that the changes in 1989 represent a already, isn’t she? And our attempt with which has also followed a variety of was buried in the 1990s just as shame- major and critical shift in world events, the Be(com)ing Dutch project is precise- tendencies. Here one can speak of the fully and unceremoniously as the So- equivalent to those of 1789. The end of ly to address the antagonisms driven by neo-humanist existential intonation, viet past. But perhaps this burial was that two-hundred year-old dream will the development of global capitalism at as well as colder, archaeological and re- also too hasty? + be replaced by another, and my guess the local level. What does it mean to be 73 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Evgenij Kozlov, Again 25. Akhtung, Akhtung! N.S.L.R.D.P. German soldatn, 1986, collage on cardboard, 29.4 x 20.9 cm. Courtesy of Evgenij Kozlov. 74 Focus Mytkowska & Esche in Conversation Art is the Mirror and the Light

or become Dutch at this moment? Is will never happen again, but precisely different aesthetics or narratives next But, at this moment of transition, they it possible to return to a vision of the that it might happen again and that to each other. To do this, we have de- need to be involved in the issues that world from the 1980s, when the Dutch it has already happened. While it was volved certain curatorial powers, invit- they are caught up with. That’s why, in could play tolerant; or, are there differ- unprecedented in terms of numbers, I ing artists, theorists and the public itself part, there is a strong return to realism ent demands which arise from different would dare to suggest that it was not to make selections. In one case we have and documentary, although specula- patterns – of movements and break- unprecedented in terms of attitude. invited the artist Lily van der Stokker tion (the light, if you want) is abso- downs in the social democratic consen- Of course, this will anger Zionists to make a room in which she can invite lutely crucial. The light and the mirror sus model – the poldermodel, as they say who believe nothing can be likened to other artists to show. The work of these combined is what is called for – which in Dutch? These are two angles from the Holocaust and I understand them artists is then, wherever possible, added doesn’t mean to say it is easy. which one can raise the question of the emotionally. But if we make this catas- to the museum collection, eventually local in the international museum, or trophe stand outside history and we, making a small sub-collection of work JM: So how are you introducing these art centre, I think. in a way, shut it out from our everyday chosen by one artist. This was our way ideas into the museum? thoughts and perceptions of what is of trying partially to address the enor- JM: Yes, you are right, but it takes happening now, my worry is that then mous gender gap in the collection that CE: Well I’ve talked about the collec- enormous effort. For example, in Israel, you can have a return. A return, as we I inherited. This is one example of what tion strategy, but on a content level, it is dangerous for Lebanese artists, be- already see in some ways, to a kind of we call the “plug-in principle”, where we are concentrating on certain issues cause they cannot officially show their moderate National Socialist ideology each room is its own microcosm, and and geographic areas. A key concern work. that might again end up building the brushes against its neighbours in a way is the East Mediterranean, as I said, barbed-wire camps for undesirables, as that could be described as both “strange and initially Israel and Palestine. But CE: I am not sure that is true, but nev- we are already doing now, without hav- and close”, to quote Homi Bhabha. also to put that in a context. Recently, er mind. In the end, I can only speak ing to answer to the collective memory This augments the feeling of fragmen- we did three solo exhibitions next to from the locality of the Netherlands. of Auschwitz. You have to integrate the tation, while allowing viewers hope- each other – of Pavel Büchler, Avi Here I see that the perception that the dangers of that sort of thinking into fully to ponder on the relationships of Mograbi and Frances Stark. Formally, end of Socialism in 1989 meant noth- the contemporary moment – and art their own making. or in terms of an art history, they had ing at all has gradually lessened. At last has some role in ensuring this happens Secondly, we opened up the ar- nothing in common, but I think their its consequences are becoming clear. If – so that art history, as all history, needs chives of the museum to view. We cre- subject matter crossed over in complex it is, as I believe, art’s job to represent to be run through with the Holocaust ated rooms called Living Archives in ways. The legal and socialist tradition the world, then it should be a picture and its copies. which first the archive of the museum, inherited from central Europe and that takes account of the local only in- with its fascinating details of artist pro- from the kibbutz creates the condi- sofar as it is an example of what is hap- JM: To which kind of written art his- posals, negotiations about purchases tions for someone like the film maker pening at a more general level. I am not tory are you referring – to the academic and more, can be shown. We will Avi Mograbi to operate in Israel. The interested in a picture of Eindhoven kind? supplement this gradually with other dark picture he conjures up when he because it shows Eindhoven – a histori- archives, both personal archives of speaks on the phone to a Palestinian cal museum. Rather, I am interested in CE: I am referring to the history of art artists and institutional ones that can friend whose home is being invaded by a picture of Eindhoven that reflects the as told in the major museums, rather tell different stories. I don’t think art IDF soldiers at that moment is horri- way that the local is subject to constant than the much more nuanced and ex- is only about the object and I don’t see ble, but it is also allowed to be told in internally and externally driven change, citing developments that are taking art only as a separate category. It is not a way that wouldn’t have been possi- that it is connected and dependent as place in the universities. The latter are, a choice between the mirror and the ble in the Prague of ’68. Frances Stark, much on events in Ramallah as on de- I feel, much closer to what I am saying light, to use a classical analogy. Rather living in Los Angeles, in conditions cisions being made in Amsterdam. That than museums, that write the history it has to be both at the same time, or of “freedom”, also reflects on her own is interesting. of art’s development from Picasso to somewhere in between – conscious of limitations and possibilities. This time, Installation Art with occasional inclu- its position, as making a choice about reflecting her own relationships with JM: There are different histories now sions of other voices or cultures, but what it wants to show, while trying to others, being quite solipsistic, or diaris- of course. It seems that without the with little attention to social and politi- reveal something of the world outside tic at least, but relating to the feminist Holocaust we do not have a history of cal change. Thus, realism is presented of itself. tradition of Virginia Woolf or Hilda art, or at least not in Poland. It seems without the most general reference to Doolittle. She provides a poetic retreat that, at least for a large part of European the Paris Commune, Constructivism JM: So how do you see representation? from the speed of the market, and at history, and for the history of avant- without Lenin, Abstract Expressionism the same time a social space which is garde art, the Holocaust is central. or Minimalism without the Cold War CE: The mirror is the possibility of so capitalised and privatised that it no – all of which would be unimaginable representation, but it needs a subject longer allows for slow encounters. In CE: Well, maybe the Holocaust has in good university courses. to reflect. At this historical moment, a sense she tries to make a “room of to be the starting point. That history something reflecting only itself or on one’s own”, as much as Mograbi tries is more apparent here in Poland; but JM: Is what you are doing in Van its own condition is simply not inter- to construct a political space of his of course the Dutch miss the Jews as Abbemuseum an attempt to counter esting to me. We live at a moment of own. So she has videos of cats, which well, you could say! What I intend this tradition? transition, and at such moments art seems completely depoliticised, but in to say now is probably dangerous, has a particularly active role to create the context of a woman artist in the but I will say it anyway. Treating the CE: Initially, I think we are fragment- the conditions for the world to be re- United States, with the kind of ex- Holocaust as a single absolute excep- ing the collection and breaking down imagined. Of course, imagination is posure that life implies, it is another tion is not such a good thing for us of the old narratives. By viewing each not enough to change the world, and form of resistant behaviour – not go- the second and third generations since room within the labyrinthine new ar- artistic movements should not reduce ing with the flow. Pavel Büchler’s re- 1945. We have to imagine not that it chitecture as a unit, we can put very themselves to political instruments. lationship to his personal history in 75 Focus Mytkowska & Esche in Conversation Art is the Mirror and the Light

Prague is what I think his work is all of Pompidou, and Pontus Hultén is The second thing was that we did an ing visitors to get lost to some extent. about, even though he has lived for described as a father of the museum. exhibition Eindhoven Istanbul in the For me, it is still the best project I have many years in England and Scotland. The failure of some of his ideas has Van Abbemuseum, where this juxta- done up to now. His work also reflects a certain resist- been erased from the history of the position and pluralism between here ance to social control, an experience museum. and there happened. So there are direct JM: What is the context for the Riwaq that addresses both the socialist and connections between both strategies, at Biennale in Ramallah? capitalist parts of his life. All three use CE: Maybe it would be interesting least you can see the connection with patterns of behaviour that make sense to tell that story in the same room. the museum’s policy now – in terms CE: Riwaq is an architectural preser- for an artist, and make sense in terms Somehow I think that this juxtaposi- of multiple curatorial voices and the vation group, and Khalil Rabah, who of the history of avant-garde art, even tion is the only way we can deal with collection of works of artists from the works there, asked me to help with the if it doesn’t look like that. It may be such histories at the moment – in frag- Istanbul Biennial itself. second Ramallah Biennale. This was that this means a film maker like Avi ments. There are no clean narratives But the Biennale was an independ- a difficult decision for me, because I Mograbi gets drawn into an art tradi- from the so-called “third world” that ent project. The Van Abbemuseum’s needed to find a way in which it would tion, for good and bad perhaps, but by we can tell simply and incorporate engagement with it only becomes make sense for me as an outsider to do setting different positions in parallel I into the dominant narrative. It is the legitimate when one recognises that it. I thought about it for some time hope you can broaden the possibilities latter that needs to be destabilised. I Istanbul is the biggest city in Europe but agreed because I felt I could lend of that tradition. I am only for “inclu- think Documenta 12 should get more and should be reflected in our collec- support and perspectives that other- sion” – of ideas, of works – if it changes credit for trying to do that, trying to tion on its own terms. It is probably the wise might be missed. I suppose, if you what was there before; otherwise it is indicate that there isn’t a dominant nar- most important city in Europe in some believe that art is both a mirror and a simply an incorporation, in which the rative now, but that what we have are ways, at least in terms of the Europe lamp, then you it is worthwhile bring it rules of artistic practice remain the episodes and juxtapositions. When you that I would like to live in… and so to bear on certain extreme situations as same. So, the presence of artists from put Nasreen Mohamedi next to Agnes the Biennale also had to deal with that well. Artists are creative people, whose the East Mediterranean or elsewhere Martin, and you realise that Nasreen fact, and measure how much art could exposure to a situation, and their com- must change the way we view Picasso, Mohamedi is a much better artist than say something about this reality. Of prehension of it, may allow us to see Delauney or Lissitzky. They might be- Agnes Martin on any terms – aestheti- course, I know the answer to this ques- it from a different perspective, a dif- come less or more important than they cally, but also in the way she addresses tion in general, but Istanbul seems to ferent set of references. The hope is are today. the world and what informs her art be one of the most important places to that this can re-frame the discussion, – then you are making a very valu- test out my preconception. We tried to changing it from all that which exists JM: This seems to be a problem for able point. You are not just adding to, move away from the idea of a sort of in the media, and which is seen in very big global museums like the Centre but also subtracting from the “canon”. Ottoman exoticism, which had been ideologically propagandist terms from Pompidou, I have to say. This new kind Mohamedi’s incorporation is at the in evidence in the previous exhibition all sides: the divisions good/evil; ter- of art historical analysis might under- expense of someone else to a degree, by Dan Cameron, which was a real rorism/non-terrorism; one state/two mine their authority in some way. For which means she cannot fall under a “American-in-Paris” kind of show. It state/non-state. I was always struck by instance, for the Les Inquiets show I little Indian subheading. You have to was very clear that we had to make a what Jack Persekian was doing in Al- only have a limited space. I cannot take change the whole story. That juxtapo- significant break, and one of the most Ma’mal and his way of bringing artists up the challenge of confronting the sition really reveals the inadequacies of obvious ways was not to use any of the into East Jerusalem to get them to work history of this institution with the idea the hegemony of the collection of the spaces that were occupied previously, with communities. This worked well, of the openness of the seventies, inter- Museum of Modern Art in New York but to try and shift the location of the and it of course reflected what we had disciplinarity and so on. The Centre and Alfred Barr’s story of development Biennale. After a lot of discussion about done in Istanbul. In fact I was origi- Pompidou has now completely changed – which is not a surprise given that it where we should move it, we shifted it nally invited together with Vasif, so in into a classical museum, where a linear dates from before Auschwitz. This calls across the Golden Horn to Beyoğlu, this project I am somehow missing half history of art is told, while maybe try- for different art histories in different which is the working and shopping of my brain, but he gave me permission ing to add new faces. It is very difficult circumstances, and probably demands area on the European side. We chose to call him up in emergencies! Anyway, to confront this with the practice of that global institutions address their simple buildings, such as an apartment the idea of making an exhibition there, artists of the Middle East, that come own tendency toward monoculture block from the 19th century, or a bank and who you are making it for, is in- from a different tradition, but which and become plural. building, or an old tobacco warehouse credibly loaded and difficult to see now finds itself in the same space, al- from the early 20th century. They were clearly. From the first, I didn’t want to beit to one side. We are closed off in the JM: Let us talk for a while about the ‘themselves’, so they weren’t in any sense do an exhibition like in Istanbul – try project room, which is seen as the place Istanbul Biennial, which you curated in neutral, but they weren’t representative and generate residencies, and then after for conflict and war. And that is why I 2005. What was your strategy there? of a type of architecture or a particular that produce a Biennale. This seemed have a lot of doubts. ideological position encoded in archi- too much like a prefabricated solution, CE: It is difficult to separate things tecture. That allowed us then to address and money for production was not CE: It would be quite provocative out for me because they are part of my the city as a lived experience with its available. So all those things, pragmatic and, I don’t know if you could do it, biography and it is a fairly continuous tumultuous life on the street. We asked as well as ideological, ruled out an ex- but to juxtapose your project with the development. If we take the Istanbul artists to come and work directly in the hibition. What seemed to be the most whole history of Pontus Hultén’s failure Biennial, there are maybe two particu- city for periods of up to 6 months, and worthwhile thing was to try and use would make for an interesting discus- lar comments to make. One is that I out of that experience see if they could the period of two years represented by sion about what went wrong then, and worked with Vasif Kortun and it was produce something that felt relevant a biennial as a basis for seeing whether how it could it go right in the future. very much about an inside and outside or made a comment on this place. We work could be produced over the long- view. I wouldn’t have agreed to do it if then tried to provide good information er term, and whether exposure to the JM: It is now the thirtieth anniversary Vasif hadn’t agreed to do it with me. and a sense of orientation, while invit- conditions in Palestine and occupied 76 Focus Mytkowska & Esche/Andreeva Art is the Mirro.../The Raw, the Cooked and...

The writer is a critic and curator based inSt. A multi-part exhibition in the Museum of Petersburg. Translated by David Riff, revised by IS. Contemporary Art KIASMA curated by Ivor Stodolsky and Marita Muukkonen. November 30, 2007 – January 6, 2008.

territories might produce some points Counts, at which pop singers performed a word, something alive. In just such of inspiration or departure for a limited Ekaterina old Soviet songs with an unprecedent- a way, the beginning of the 20th cen- number of invited artists. On that ba- ed degree of cynicism. Five years later, tury was opened by Boris Pasternak’s sis, we organised a field trip or site visit Andreeva in December 2000, the Soviet hymn revolutionary book of poems Over the for a limited number of people, includ- that had been banned under Yeltsin Barriers. Instantly, through its very ing yourself, for five days, and with a The Raw, was reinstated as the national anthem name, this book illuminates the en- possible extension to the Liminal Spaces by presidential decree. It was around tire experience of the avant-garde. At project in Israel. the same time that the Presidential the end of the 20th century, only the The Cooked Administration founded the first of the New Artists strike me as equal to their JM: That is important – this juxtaposi- new youth movements, which prompt- appellation: their name rings true to tion... and the ly proceeded to publicly burn the books avant-garde renewal, to free movement of Vladimir Sorokin, a leading light of above and beyond all barriers erected CE: Well, yes and no. There is no col- Packaged: non-conformist literature. by a corrupt social system. In them is laboration, but the two events are sim- Against this backdrop, the exhi- the truth of a world that any real art- ply put next to each other, and move- The Archive bition at Kiasma is a unique cultural ist must always reinvent from the be- ment between them is allowed for those event – despite the fact that it was ginning. A true world such as this will that can move. Galit Eilat from Holon of Perestroika genuinely put together in haste, with always stay alive, no matter how it is has made incredible efforts to get people scant regard for academic and museum packaged. The achievement of this ef- to be able to travel, which is the great- Art niceties (it included a number of artists fect, or if you like, miracle, constitutes est difficulty for people there. I invited and works unrelated to the perestroika the highest meaning of artistic creativ- quite a mixed group of people: Lida period, which became known only ity. It is no coincidence that in Russian, Abdul, the Otolith Group, Olaf Nicolai There are different ways of reading The later).(1) Under normal conditions, an the word chudo (miracle) is always and Sanja Ivekovic, Erinc Seyman and Raw, the Cooked, and the Packaged: The exhibition the likes of this should have linked to the sonorous verb tvorit’ (to you. There were also Liminal Spaces Archive of Perestroika Art, the exhibi- opened at the Tretyakov Gallery first, or create), a word otherwise reserved for people, such as Simon Wachsmuth, tion recently shown at the Museum better, at at the Russian Museum in St. what artists do – revealing this profes- Erden Kosova, Solmaz Shahbazi and of Contemporary Art Kiasma. One of Petersburg – if only because a sizeable sion’s magical roots, as it were. Miracles others, and we met up with artists from its strongest points, however, was that portion of the show at Kiasma was con- cannot be “constructed,” “organized,” Palestine and travelled to areas I would it provoked a reconsideration of the stituted by the work of the Leningrad or “discovered”; they can only be cre- rather not specify publicly. 1980s and their historical significance. New Artists, who are in fact very well- ated or made. The central idea is that Riwaq is interesting because they Clearly, the era of perestroika in represented in the collection of the a miracle is an image which has long are investing in architecture as a po- the Soviet Union brought a great many Russian Museum (thanks to gifts from been with us, whose spirit has not litical move. In Palestinian culture, positive changes to Western and Eastern Timur Novikov, the group’s found- grown stale. And, while we’re at it, an- where people have learnt to be mobile Europe. Not many would dispute er and leader). Vladimir Shinkarev, other linguistic digression: the Russian because of forced evacuations and regu- the positive impact of the European the chief ideologue of the famed St. word dukh (spirit) has two, opposite, lar destruction of housing and public Union, for example, whose enlarge- Petersburg group Mitki was among meanings. On the one hand, it is the spaces, the idea of investing in bricks ment only became possible when the the perestroika-era artists physically immortal spirit, the soul. On the other and mortar is necessarily political. So, Soviet bloc disappeared. In Russia present at the opening of the show. He hand, it is a synonym for “smell”, as in, while the idea of a historical preserva- today, however, attitudes toward the stated that, The Raw, the Cooked, and “rotten smell”. There are plenty of dank tion group in a stable society is perhaps events of the 1980s is far more ambiva- the Package: The Archive of Perestroika odors in Russian 20th century art; but quite conservative, in the context of a lent. It is not only fashionable to criti- Art was the best exhibition of its kind, a century after its birth, it is clear that state that does not exist and a border cize the dissolution of the Soviet Union since perestroika itself. the spirit of the Russian avant-garde is that is constantly moving, it becomes as a direct, though perhaps unintended What was it which made me also very much alive. much more radical. More generally, result of Gorbachev’s policies, but it is like the exhibition at Kiasma so much? In their time, Russian avant-garde this idea of the transitional moment, I also completely normal to lay a veil of Like Shinkarev, I found it very con- artists called themselves Predsedateli think, defines my sense of the state of silence over political events of the 20th vincing and relevant, particularly in the Zemshara (literally, Chairmen of the the world. I cannot believe that a single century, that could have led to freedom light of the situation in Russia described World-Globe). In the early 1980s, world capitalist paradigm has brought or democracy in Russia. Thus, in 2005, above. It also made me wonder how the through the efforts of Pontus Hultén, an end to the force of historical change. the Russian mass media did not even so art exhibited in Kiasma – much of it an excellent connoisseur of the avant- We are just taking a pause for breath much as mention the centenary of the by Leningrad’s New Artists, including garde, the exhibition Moscow-Paris maybe, and the transitional moment first Russian revolution of 1905, and Timur Novikov, Oleg Kotelnikov, Inal opened in Moscow’s Pushkin Museum, does offer a way of understanding why preferred not to mark the birth of par- Savchenkov, Vadim Ovchinikov, Sergei and the paintings of Malevich and art and its institutions have a value to- liamentary democracy in the Russian Bugaev, and Ivan Sotnikov – seems so Tatlin were shown for the first time in day. They can provide the basis for new Empire. Likewise in 2007, Gorbachev fresh and relevant twenty or twenty five more than fifty years. Russia was still speculations through trying to speak in and other architects of perestroika were years later, when the winds of change deep in the Brezhnev-Andropov era, different and often ambiguous forms hardly mentioned in the news. that filled its sails have long since faded, and Hultén told me that he had a taxi and languages. That is what makes On the whole, perestroika has been and the situation today is nothing like on standby during the opening, ready them difficult and somehow hermetic out of style in Russia for quite some it was back then? to rush him to the airport if anything for many people spoon-fed on con- time. A pop cultural re-Sovietization I’ll put it this way. When you see the went wrong. Timur Novikov also came sumerism, but it seems to me the only started as early as December 1995. In works of the New Artists – which today to this exciting opening, broadening option is to go on slowly, despite this that year, the Communists won the par- have a substantial price tag and already his knowledge of the relics of the avant- difficulty. This is what, in the end, gives liamentary elections and Russian state have been “packaged” by history, as it garde; and when he founded the “New me the motivation to continue with the television Channel One aired a gala con- were – you get the unforgettable taste Artists” group in 1982, one of the “liv- Van Abbemuseum. + cert called Old Songs about What Really of something raw, something fresh – in ing fossils” of the avant-garde, Maria 77 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations p. 79

Sergei Chernov, Red NEfertiti, recreated costume from Pop Mechanics performances of the late 1980s, installation with mannequin and music in Studio K Kiasma, dimensions variable. Photograph by IS. 78 Focus Andreeva The Raw, the Cooked and the Packaged

(1) The author of this review suggested publish- not recognised or even known at the time – e.g. a Leningrad artist’s private collection) amongst a (2) The concept of vsyochestvo, which can be ing the editor’s and co-curators’ response: “We Oleg Yanushevsky or Vladimir Semenov – which wider “archive of Soviet tins” (tooth-powder tins, said to anticipate dada, was a key word in the defined our period in our catalogue editorial and nevertheless were active during this period. This caviar tins, a tin commemorating the 22nd anni- early avante-garde movement led by Larionov elsewhere as ranging from 1980-1993, for rea- juxtaposition of canonized artists with the unknown versary of the Communist Party, etc). The story of and Goncharova. It was rediscovered and sons explained there. More importantly, we made was intentional, as could be seen in our practice how we managed to do the exhibition at all de- redeployed by the New Artists in the 1980s. an explicit point of including artists which were of exhibiting Warhol’s Campbell Soup Can (from serves a novel in itself.” [ed.]

Spendiarova, the widow of Sergei time. Kotelnikov is an artist and a poet, Kotelnikov did, that the living force of Novikov was the spiritual heir to Romanovich, who, in turn had been a recognized master of the khlebniko- creativity can triumph over the living two heroes of the Russian Revolution Mikhail Larionov’s closest student, vian Zemshar school. The measles is a force of destruction, and that anarchy of the early 20th century: the art- and her companion Maria Sinyakova- dangerous and highly contagious ill- and destruction are not necessary for ist Mikhail Larionov, the inventor of Urechina, a friend of the futurist poet ness; its symptoms fever and a red rash their own sake, but in order to give en- rayonism and everythingness, one of the Velimir Khlebnikov, bestowed upon on the chest and back. Kotelnikov’s Red ergy to new images. That the ideologi- authors of the “Yes-Manifesto”, who him the title “Chairman of the World- Rot is a drawing of a person, quickly cal “red rot” is a robe covering a body opened art to all areas of life; and the Globe”. sketched with a felt pen, all covered that can free itself, become whatever it anarchist Pyotr Alexeevich Kropotkin. Of course, the art of perestroika with German measles in the shape of chooses. Kropotkin understood anarchism as was political art. The title “Chairman tiny hammers and sickles. It is executed On the third and final day of the ac- the highest form of freedom, unlike of the World-Globe”, among other schematically, like a draft for a comic companying academic conference, at a Mikhail Bakunin who was deeply em- things, contains a political subtext in book or a computer game, in what discussion of the exhibition in Kiasma’s broiled in political intrigue, and the its claim to global leadership. Beyond must be one of the most laconic por- theatre, a symptomatic exchange took deconstruction of political barriers. politics – which always limits and de- traits ever made of the Soviet power. place. Kimmo Sarje claimed that the Kropotkin argued for a more funda- limits, that is, institutes barriers in one In terms of its historical accuracy and New Artists did not represent the art mental reappraisal of the general rules way or another – we feel there is some- artistic clearness, I would put it up in of perestroika at all, unlike the Moscow of not only society, but the entire world. thing far more important: we absorb first place next to the world-famous Conceptualists and Sots Artists, who were Kropotkin proved that life goes on not the boundless freedom of Khlebnikov’s Worker and Kolkhos Farmer (1937) by shown more than once in Finland dur- because of the struggle of species and neologism. The instant, round clarity Vera Mukhina. ing the late 1980s and the 1990s. I had the survival of the fittest, but through of this “World-Globe” opens, irrevoca- Most importantly: both Kotelnikov no choice but to publicly refute this acts of mutual assistance in extreme bly calling us to new horizons of crea- and Mukhina see the Soviet as some- position, and I based my argument on situations. “All for all”, not “everyone tivity, like the formula E=MC2. This thing living, crude, and frightening, a the work of the German critic and cu- against everyone”. Maybe Kropotkin’s poetic word Zemshar, is in and of itself mighty and virulent force of history. In rator Kathrin Becker. In her analysis of version of “everythingness” was wrong an Einsteinian “unit of action” (which Moscow, the artists of the perestroika, Timur Novikov’s work, Becker says that in relation to Darwin’s theory, but it is is what the painter Pavel Filonov called many of them either adherents of Sots- the New Artists constituted one of two truly one of the rare golden pages in the point, his main graphical weapon Art or Moscow Conceptualism, tended types of Soviet cultural export to the the book of the human spirit. Avant- in creating the revolutionary image). to emphasize the deadness of the West. TheNew Artists were imported to garde examples of such utopian hero- The World-Globe is greater than poli- Soviet (an exception can be found in Europe and America precisely because ism – including the works of the New tics, greater than all great events whose the sculptures of Leonid Sokov). Sots- the latter were looking for a new vital- Artists – contain a similar charge of meaning has already faded, because it Art was a critique of the moribund ity, the expressiveness and revolution- inspiration and spiritual vitality. This is an imperishable artistic organism. political speculation of Soviet power. ary spirit of free artistic images. This is why the art of the New Artists (and This is how political globalism under- Ilya Kabakov called the Soviet Union constituted a recurrence of the Western especially the figure of the rock sing- goes a qualitative transformation and the place in which everything living pilgrimage to the East in search of fresh er Viktor Tsoi, a friend of Novikov) becomes the fullness of being, created had died, and said of his colleague Erik ideas and experience. The other type of graced the banners of perestroika: on and preserved by art. Bulatov, that his painting broadcast the cultural export epitomized by Moscow cinema screens, posters, magazine cov- What I especially liked about the radio-active contamination of Soviet Conceptualism and Sots Art was received ers and in the radio. There can be little exhibition at Kiasma was its very instal- ideology. Today, the New Artists are very differently: namely, as a delivery doubt that perestroika, as a mass so- lation. On the one hand, it had an an- half-forgotten, Mukhina’s masterpiece of a convincing portrait of the enemy cial movement, was a revolution of the archic quality that perfectly conveyed has been dismantled, but there is great – the image of death. Every curator spirit, a new breath of life. Of course, a the spirit of the New Artists – there were demand for neo-sots-art projects. The has the right to chose: does he or she special branch of the New Artists – the paintings all over a giant window, and Blues Noses group, Dubosarsky and want to give the audience a glimpse Necrorealists – showed that corpses and plastered all across the walls, even over- Vinogradov, and many others specu- of Soviet communal apartment-hell; vampires are teeming with life as well. flowing the drawers of archival cabi- late in their works on the breakdown or to show the anarchic spirit of “eve- In the 1990s and 2000s, Russian his- nets. At the same time, the artworks of Soviet consciousness, parodying a rythingness”(2) of the New Artists tory has not yet given a clear answer – so many artistic organisms – had simulation of vitality. In short, they from Leningrad – the unruly spirit to perestroika’s version of the ques- enough room to breathe. One of these reproduce the function of late-Soviet of Novikov, Mamyshev-Monroe and tion “to be or not to be”. And even if was a drawing by Oleg Kotelnikov Red and neo-Soviet propaganda. The real Yuris Lesnik seen in Pirate Television, many people think that this question Rot (i.e. the German measles or roseo- vitality of the New Artists is not popular represented in the extensive “Moving is dead, this is, of course, simply not la), which I saw in Kiasma for the first today, because they demonstrated, like Images” section of the exhibition. the case. + 79 Focus Paths Not Taken Perestroika Archive Images – Annotations

Page 31: Case No. 14 of the Leningrad Archive of ess we see the “raw” beginnings of what were to The photograph shows Bukashkin at the first sanc- Conceptual Art, 1987, Courtesy of Vladimir Se- become more complex works – “the cooked”. A tioned exhibition of nonofficial art in Sverdlovsk, menov. The text on the cover reads: considerable part of the 33 photos of this series the so-called “Surikov 31” show in 1987. (Curators ------were used for graphic works and large paintings, of the wider Sverdlovsk-Ekaterinburg section of the The Leningrad Archive of Conceptual Art such as Terror to the Enemies, When you start feeling exhibition: Alisa Prudnikova and Tamara Galeeva.) Case No. 14 muscles and Timur on Horseback. Later, they were “Art by Touch” reworked as catalogue covers, posters and invita- Page 59: Villu Tamme, Estonia’s best known punk, “Invisible Still Life..” tion cards, that is, “the packaged”. was known internationally for the song he wrote 1987 called “Tere Perestroika”, which means “Hello ------Pages 45 and 47: The missives of Vadim Ovchin- Perestroika”. In a note for the exhibition Tamme nikov are close to “koans”. Any one of them may wrote, “On a summer morning after a sleepless Page 33, top: Case from the Leningrad Archive of simultaneously contain elements of provocation, night in 1987 I played the bass section of Pelle Mil- Conceptual Art, 1987, Courtesy of Vladimir Se- an invitation to a game, an exhortation or judge- joona’s song “The Highway is Hot” and all of a sud- menov. The text reads: ment, a solution to some sort of situation, and so den a funny text popped into my mind. In the next ------on. Vadim’s companions communicated through couple of hours this text morphed into a song that V. Semenov certain ‘avatars’, and Ovchinnikov’s correspond- was called “Tere perestroika”. The song was meant A. Naryshkin. ents received mail from a certain Senior Clerk, the to be played at one or two gigs, solo with a guitar, Director of the Regional Army Recruitment Of- but surprisingly it became very popular and started THE “ AQUARIUM ” ACTION. fice, Mr. Breastful, Collegium DP and others. The a chain of events that eventually led to the breaking On 1 April 1987 at 20.00, an aquarium was passage of material – be it elements of the absurd, of the USSR! For the Soviet Union never to return, installed in the middle of the platform of the rubbish or objects of art – through an idiotic bu- it’s important to sing it even in these days!” “Ploshad’ Muzhestvo” metro station bearing reaucratic machinery carried a certain fascination the inscription: “A gift to the Leningrad Metro- in Soviet times. The text on page 45 reads: Page 63: In 1988 Vladimir Yaremenko published politan Railway from artists-conceptualists”. ------an article called “The Name of the Corpse” in the The viewers were given envelopes which Dear comrade V.I. Koshelokhov! journal Democratic Opposition, calling for the re- functioned as certificates and included texts naming of Leningrad to St. Petersburg. Very soon with drawings. We were sitting here and didn’t know how to thereafter, the police came with a warrant for a ------look so fucking cool. house search, and a case was opened at the Interior So we decided to send you a letter. Ministry which was later transferred to the KGB. Page 33, bottom: A file from theLeningrad Archive Called in for interrogation, Yaremenko fled to Vi- of Conceptual Art, 1987. Courtesy of Vladimir Se- Collegium D. P. enna. The name of the city was changed, but none menov. The text reads: M.P. Stamp Here [red stamp, ed.] of the confiscated items were ever returned. ------This protocol – produced as a lightbox for the A. Naryshkin The handwritten document on page 47 reads: “Archival Room” of the exhibition – documents Art by Touch: the items found by the police and confiscated from ”Invisible Still Life with Absent Content“ Decree No 18-016 the artist and activist of the “Democratic Opposi- tion” Party. They included “a type-written sheet” The objects of the still life are located within a The extraction of teeth from members of TEII found “on the toilet wall”, with “the underlined plywood construction. Hidden from view, they [the at times despised semi-official Association of words, ‘Lenin is a cannibal’”. can only be found by reaching through two Experimental Fine Arts, ed.] will take place on holes and touching them. 28 March 1987 at 5.00 in the morning at the Page 67: There are literally thousands of paintings The Archive The artist introduces the objects to the Kirovsky Zavod Metro station. Take with you: in these series by the unique eccentric Valery Cher- viewer, while he reads a “DESCRIPTION OF an umbrella, 2 (two) pairs of clean foot wraps kasov (1946–1984). Many of them were painted COW’S MILK” out loud. and food for 6 (six) days. in meticulously numbered sequences. See Andrei Khlobystin’s article in this issue for some bizarre of Perestroika OBJECTS: a ceramic jug (pot), [official stamp in black ink, ed.] and horrific stories and legends surrounding this a glass milk bottle, Collegium D.P. figure. The photograph at the bottom of the page is a triangular milk carton. 16.02.87 from the CD Khlobystin produced together with ------Oleg Kotelnikov, with the support of the State Art The piece can be considered a form of process The text on page 47, top right reads: Centre for Contemporary Art, St. Petersburg: art, as the artists offers the viewer to acquaint Pioneer – In Memory of Valery Cherkasov (Pervo- himself with the objects by touch, which con- C O P Y prokhodets – Pamyati Valeriya Cherkasova, 2003). Annotations tains movements of the viewer to comprehend the objects. In other words, the work contains Happy New Year, Comrades. Page 69: Russian rave, techno and club culture elements of performance. sprang into being in the young bohemian circles of Senior Clerk [signature, ed.] Leningrad during the late 1980s and early 1990s, to the Images This piece was first exhibited at the FIRST MP in particular at the so-called Tants-Pol in an oc- “ART – ELI” SHOW, from 16 May to 8 July Stamp Here [red stamp, ed.] cupied house on the Fontanka Canal. Soon this The Raw, The Cooked and The Packaged - The Ar- 1987 (40 Kuznetsovkaya St). Collegium DP subculture was brought to Moscow, where it was chive of Perestroika Art (Kiasma 2007) is reviewed ------Administration commercialized. Party organizers would hire entire by Ekaterina Andreeva p. 76 and Elina Viljanen at City of Leningrad trains to transport dancers to Moscow, where the www.framework.fi, Framework 8. Page 35, top: The Popular Mechanics was one of the ------locals still didn’t know how to comport themselves most important cultural phenomena in the interna- The text on page 47, bottom left reads: – that is, dance and move their body – at the new- tional postmodern aesthetics of the 1980s. The cre- model parties. The first big Moscow rave was the ator of Pop Mechanics, composer Sergei Kuryokhin, SHUSH! legendary Gagarin Party (12 December 1991, was well-known among contemporary musicians in Cosmos Pavilion, Exhibition of National Econom- the US and Europe. His “Gesamtkunstwerk” was Collegium D. P. ic Achievements). The massive dances took place an avant-garde combination of music, theatre, vis- M.P. [red stamp, ed.] amongst rockets, satellites, real live cosmonauts, ual art, fashion and stage-show. Musicians gathered ------and the artworks of Timur Novikov. together by the dozens to play: chamber orchestras, The text on page 47, bottom right reads: choirs, the rock group “Kino”, jazz stars and un- Page 71: The so-called Noll Object (Timur No- derground ensembles. Kuryokhin conducted this The creation of the universe is finished. vikov and Ivan Sotnikov, Kirov House of Culture, spontaneous world-circus and played the piano. 1982) was created with the spontaneous Ducham- Senior Clerk [signature, ed.] pian declaration that an empty and unused square Page 35, bottom: Vladik Mamyshev was the first [red stamp, ed.] aperture in a moveable exhibition-wall at the Kirov drag queen in Soviet culture. Among his numerous 19 Nov 1987 House of Culture was a work of art – the Noll i.e. incarnations, he best known is as Marilyn Monroe, ------Zero Object. The ensuing public scandal resulted in whose name he adopted. Monroe ended up in the an absurdist and precarious drama, a conflict with merry circles of the Leningrad bohemia after mili- Page 49: Rühm T (Group T) was a group of young the exhibition organisers – the KGB-monitored tary service at the Baikonur Space Center. He be- Estonian artists, architects, poets, photographers, unofficial artists association TEII (Association gan his stage career as a model during performanc- actors, musicians, and philosophers. While they of Experimental Visual Arts). A “Noll Culture” es of Sergei Kuryokhin’s Pop Mechanics orchestra, remained faithful to their model of “anarchist dis- sprang into creation to defend and promote the and under the influence of Timur Novikov became cipline” of the early period, the group later defined Noll Object, forming its own pseudo-bureaucratic an artist and the face of the first video-art project their role as “new classics”. Group members in- committees. It issued mock-Soviet statements, in Russia, Pirate TV. (Andrei Khlobystin) cluded Raoul Kurvitz, Urmas Muru (both found- such as the “Deed” or “Act” displayed here: ers), Peeter Pere, Hasso Krull and Ariel Lagle. ------Page 37, bottom: TheNCh/VCh Club was the first Group T set great store by manifestos: they issued THE CENTRAL COMMISSION FOR THE major young artists’ squat in Leningrad, starting six such collective statements. DIRECTION OF NOLL CULTURE in 1986,and located almost across from the “Big Building”, as the KGB headquarters was known. Page 53: Vadim Ovchinnikov’s postcards and en- A C T The organisation was headed by the elderly Oleg velopes, similar to his letters, often included covert Mikhailovich Sumarokov (1929-2000), and and overt elements of mock-bureacratic nonsense THE NOLL OBJECT FULLY SATISFIES named after the Leningrad band of the same name, and mischief. A postcard ostensibly from Rio, for ALL NOLL REQUIREMENTS OF THE i.e. “AC/DC” in Russian. The squat had no run- example, would conveniently be delivered by the HIGH COMMISSION. ALRIGHT. ning water or heating, but the multiple galleries postal service to a next-door neighbour. EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED. and studio spaces presented the latest “wild paint- ing” and also produced a journal by the name of Page 55: The name of the Mitki group stems from 14 OCTOBER, 1982 Svet (“light”). A large number of artists, filmmak- Vladimir Shinkarev’s text of 1985 which derived Chair: V. Kilunovsky [signed] ers and rock groups filled the staircases and adja- it from the plural form of Mityok, a droll and en- O. Grigoriev [signed] cent courtyards, which later moved to the famed dearing diminutive of Mitya, the most common T. Korneeva [signed] “Egyptian House”. (Andrei Khlobystin) short name for Dmitri Shagin. Shagin, Shinkarev The Secretary of the Commission V. Konovalov Aside from her role as “Secretary of the Coun- and Alexander Florensky, who illustrated the book, [signed and dated] cil”, Ivetta Pomerantseva was the first female “paral- were no doubt real and imaginary companions in ------lel film” maker in Leningrad. She continues to be many an adventure. This first printed edition of active today, and was editor of the Moving Images the cult (and previously samizdat) edition was a Page 73: Kozlov (b. 1955) was a member of the section of The Raw, The Cooked and The Packagedex - newspaper which needed to be folded and then cut New Artists group from 1982. In a combination hibition, Kiasma, 2007. The text of the card reads: to be read in Flemish and Russian (a uniquely ob- of frottage and collage techniques, this work con------scure flop), and came out during one of their first trasts love and aggression with German – Russian Musical-Artistic Creative Union trips to western Europe in 1989. The photograph relations. The painted photograph was the basis “NCh / Vch” shows the wider circle of artists which had gath- for a large “follow up” work Terror to the Enemies, Member card No: 078 ered as the Mitki group, around the same time. whereas the lower part gave rise to two works fea- Pomerantseva turing dreams of love in war, with German texts. Ivetta Eduardovna Page 57, top: Starik Bukashkin (Old-Man Bug) Secretary of the Council a.k.a. B.U.Kashkin (Second-hand Kashkin), a.k.a. Page 77: Sergei Chernov was one of many mu- Club NCh/VCh K. Kashkin (K. Crapper / Mr. Ka-ka), a.k.a. Zhenia sicians, showmen and avant-garde artists who ------Malakhin was called Evgeniy Mikhaylovich Mala- worked with the Popular Mechanics, a carni- Back Cover: During an intense period of activity in khin at birth in 1938 in Irkutsk. He died in Ekater- vallesque “Gesamtkunstwerk” of unpredictable 1988, Vladimir Semenov carried out this art-experi- Page 43: Evgenj Kozlov’s work often goes through inburg in 2005. This artist, poet, “punk-jester” and and weird combinations of music, theatre, visual ment with other members of the group Babylon. As several stages of development, which integrate self-proclaimed “National Yardkeeper of Russia” art, fashion and stage-show. Musicians gathered is documented on this silent 8mm film, they formed with some aspects of the Kiasma exhibition con- was one of the key persons in nonofficial art of the together by the dozens to play: chamber orches- a cue in front of a former Romanian shoe shop on cept. In the first instance, the negatives of these perestroika period in Sverdlovsk-Ekaterinburg. He tras, choirs, the rock group “Kino”, jazz stars a busy street in Leningrad. Gradually the cue grew photographs were scratched with a needle while began with experiments in photo in the 1970s, and and underground freaks. It was the brainchild of to a count of dozens, if not a hundred people or still wet. Later, many of them were used for small busied himself with sculpture, abstracts and poetry composer Sergei Kuryokhin, who was well-known more. When the artists inconspicuously dispersed, photo-collages which, with regard to the photo- in the 1980s. In the 1990s he worked as a caretaker- among musicians in the US and Europe as a lead- the public was left to find out what they had been graphs, can be considered as the “next step” in the yardkeeper and attracted voluntary helpers to paint ing contemporary. The installation uses Kury- cuing for: a sign saying “Closed for Repairs”. development of the compositions. In this proc- refuse bins, fences and garages in Ekaterinburg. okhin’s music by courtesy of his estate. 80 Framework 8 Features Introduction

Features

Features presents three Finnish artists them. Recently she has taken an active in montages that are literally juxtapos- who explore with their work trends of stand on the issue of artists’ social secu- ing and cutting in order to construct the current world, albeit from very dif- rity, using her own serious illness as her meanings as well as to call them into ferent perspectives. starting point. question. The themes of Helena Hietanen’s Kimmo Sarje (born 1951) has in his Anu Pennanen’s (born 1975) work (born 1963) sculptures and installa- many roles – as a researcher, cultural focuses on the influence of spatial or- tions grow from her personal life ex- critic, curator and artist - constantly ganization, urban architecture and periences and cover life and death, the dealt with themes around modernism, modernization on human behavior. human lifecycle as well as handicraft socialism and totalitarianism. He has She works collaboratively and site-spe- traditions and traditional working been interested in both Leninism and cifically with people, who in her works methods. She has a special interest in the Russian avant-garde as well as Alvar are mirrors and investigators of built combining natural and artificial light Aalto’s organic designs. The inquisitive environments. She also frequently col- and exploring shadows, changes of nat- philosophical viewpoint brings unity to laborates with experimental musicians. ural light and the ways materials reflect the plurality of his artistic approaches – MS

082 ------Helena Sederholm on Helena Bright Noise – From Light Sculpture to Hietanen Political Activism

090 ------Lolita Jablonskienė on Anu Pennanen Political Refractions: Cities, Societies, and Spectacles

098 ------Tomi Huttunen on Kimmo Sarje Towards Montage that Eludes Synthesis

102 ------Marina Koldobskaya on Kimmo Sarje Like Neigbors... 81 Features Hietanen Technolace

Helena Hietanen, Technolace (detail), 1997, instal- lation, dimensions 3 x 2 x 1m. 82 Features Sederholm on Hietanen Bright Noise

The writer is Professor of Art Education at the University of Art and Design Helsinki and special- ised in research of contemporary art. Translated by Tomi Snellman.

Helena Sederholm on Helena Hietanen Bright Noise – From Light Sculpture to Political Activism

Helena Hietanen has sculpted both too began with traditional materials, the loss of hair is also a sign of illness. disappeared. So I began making rubber time and light, and her works show how but soon discovered that they were too Then it grows back...” Using hair to lace and imitating real lace, because I things can be experienced, felt and seen taxing for her. The heavier materials make art meant new techniques, which didn’t know how to crochet. I wanted – without any words. That, after all, is demand the entire body. According to connected Hietanen’s practice with the to comment on and continue the tradi- what visual art is all about: showing Hietanen her thinking starts from the continuum of women’s work: to make tion in my own way.” how thoughts come about. The word is hands and the feel of the material. She the painterly, abstract Spread (2000) she Hietanen makes lace similar to the imbued with a material form for a mo- therefore began to look for and to work carded hair of different colours. In an way in which she would draw. She cre- ment before it turns into meaning. with materials that were suitable for her exhibition at Galerie Anhava in 1996, ated her lace patterns by extruding sili- According to Hietanen, sculp- physique. In her practice, a new work Hietanen made installations of hair she con. The technique has the rhythm of a ture arises from physical structures of is always a form of experimentation, had collected, and wig sculptures of skill, and as such it imitates handicraft. thought that are based on sensory ex- studying and learning, because tech- silk thread in the style of 18th-century In both handicraft and sculpture the periences: “It doesn’t really make any niques develop along with ideas. fashion. Wigs of the period seem com- work is dictated by the material. But difference whether you think a thought If the direction of the process is of- plex constructions, pompous and vain; where modernist sculpture has been a or make a sculpture or if you organise a ten from the concrete to the abstract, in their historicity speaks of the past, yet struggle to overcome the opposition demonstration: it all begins with some Hietanen’s case the direction could be Hietanen has also provided hints of presented by the material, Hietanen has idea of a structure, which then serves characterised as being from experimen- continuity: bird’s eggs were balanced clearly enjoyed working with rubber. as the foundation for all subsequent ac- tal materials towards immateriality. on top of the wigs. Something old can She has enjoyed the activity itself, ex- tion. Often I begin by imagining the Paradoxically the things she has proc- serve as a nest for something that is be- perimenting and searching without any work as a mental structure that is as- essed in her art have become increas- ing born. Or as Hietanen once put it: limitations imposed by some canon. sociated with some feeling or image ingly physical, more real and lucid. our time is in our hair. Lace is usually regarded as a woman’s before I start thinking about how it can When Hietanen’s sister became se- In her earlier experiments with craft and thus part of the private sphere. be done physically,” Hietanen describes riously ill in the beginning of the 1990s, silicone rubber in the early 1990s, However, the old patterns Hietanen the process. Hietanen created countless babies from Hietanen had been intrigued by the recreated in rubber were ‘public’ and Sculpture is also about the feel and black rubber, which she then tucked modifiability and translucency of the the shared property of the community, touch of the material, and about power. into beds of white gauze. Repetition material: light has been present in her since they were often copied, the pat- Working with the materials of sculp- made for continuity; the title of the work from the very start. She made terns passing from friend to friend. It is ture has traditionally required strength piece is Hoitaa (Caring). The same pos- lace. “Barbies, playing house, doll’s seldom known who first came up with – it’s a man’s job. When she was study- sibility of continuity born out of rep- houses, crocheting and needlework, a pattern. The repetition inherent in ing art education at the University of etition is present in most of Hietanen’s those were the closest connection with lace makes lacework also highly disci- Art and Design in Helsinki, Hietanen work. Her sister died of breast cancer materiality I had as a child,” she says. plined – but in a different way than less (born 1963) learned to know the media in 1994 and Hietanen began working As an adult, it felt natural to search decorative masculine shapes. of art. She chose the tangible medium on hair. “I became fascinated with the for her roots and seek starting points The shadows cast on a wall hint at of sculpture, because ”what’s essential symbolism of hair as a consequence of for her work as close to her own life as the other side of the slippery smooth in sculpture is the goal, where you want dreams about hair I had for many years possible: “My granny and my mother sinfulness of black rubber lace: light to go, and it’s great to discover a techni- when my sister was ill. On the one hand, both crocheted lace, but I found that was already present in the works, as cal solution to that problem.” Hietanen hair grows and represents health, but I couldn’t. The skill of generations had shadows. The works made of transpar- 83 Features Sederholm on Hietanen Bright Noise

Helena Hietanen, Technolace (detail), 1997, instal- lation, dimensions 3 x 2 x 1m. 84 Features Sederholm on Hietanen Bright Noise

Helena Hietanen, Network Lightwall, 2001, dimensions variable.

ent silicone rubber also had in them MUU Gallery in Helsinki in 1996. The tic cable. “I thought that perhaps it light sculptures have been seen across the immateriality that is typical of show was part of a series of exhibitions might be possible to mould light with Europe, the United States and Canada Hietanen’s later work: they seemed to curated by the art critic Taava Koskinen your hands.” Technolace gave a sculp- as site-specific installations. be composed of nothing but shadow. under the theme Conceptualism and tural form to light, but one that is light, Since her technolaces, the imma- Hietanen’s works are basically colour- Handicraft – Women and Technology. volatile and energetic. According to teriality in Hietanen’s works has in- less: black silicone, white lace, hair, It was there that Hietanen exhibited Hietanen, a little girl once said that the creased, although reflections occasion- light-coloured silk thread, bright for the first time the work entitled movement of the light in the cables was ally create quite tangible figures and light. There are colours in them only Teknopitsi (Technolace), a large lu- like the hair of angels. motifs in them. There are often struc- when the colours have a specific, spe- minous lacy surface; the motif had How do a sculptor’s thoughts run tures and windows in the surrounding cial meaning. In the early installation jumped from one material to another. when she thinks with her hands? In the space that are reflected in the work’s Ruma ankanpoikanen (Ugly Duckling, Lace, whose familiarity had not been beginning of her career, the important shiny surfaces; the work and the space 1993) there was one black rubber duck even when made of rubber, now reced- thing was material and its inherent re- are reflected in each other, as in the among others who were all pastel pink ed further away from the observer, yet lationship to light. But over the years light wall entitled Network made for and blue. However, Hietanen says she through the combination of technology her works have become less and less the Nobel Museum in Stockholm, and has noticed that she is primarily inter- and lace patterns, anonymous lace ac- independent objects or light sculptures Metsä (Forest, 2005) which Hietanen ested in materials that have a certain quired a genderless title. Hietanen tried and more like a dialogue between the made together with her husband Jaakko glossiness, translucency or other light- to impart a sense of handicraft to the environment and the work, while the Niemelä. The piece was the winning en- related quality to them. In Enkeleitä technological medium, but fibre-optic artist began making more and more try in a competition to select art for the – heijastuksia (Angels – Reflections) in cable could not be crocheted, because public, commissioned works, many of new offices of the Local Government Hanko at the Myötätuuli 2 exhibition the light-conducting structure inside them abroad. Pensions Institution in Helsinki. Both in 1995, she boarded up the windows the cable was too fragile. Ultimately the One beginning of Hietanen’s in- works incorporate a wall-like structure of old warehouses with steel plates. technolace consisted of knotless loops, ternational career was Illuminazione at composed of translucent net-like layers When the sun hit the angels cut into thought a thousand times with hands, the Venice Biennale in 1997, where she made in a variety of different ways. The the plates, you could sense the touch of bent and fixed with metal wires. participated together with Dane Claus light from the works is reflected from an angel’s wing when the reflected light In a sense, fibre-optic cable re- Carstensen. In Venice Technolace was the windows in surprising ways. hit the surface of the street. sembles transparent silicone rubber. hung on the wall of Palazzo Tron so that It probably comes as no surprise Hietanen’s art acquired a feminist Hietanen says that she is fond of the it was reflected in the Canal Grande. that observing nature is important for dimension at an exhibition held in the immateriality of both rubber and op- Subsequently Hietanen’s Technolace the Finnish artist, natural light for the 85 Features Sederholm on Hietanen Bright Noise

Helena Hietanen (together with Tarja Ervasti), Tapiola Church, 2002, dimensions variable. The light on the altar changes throughout the year. 86 Features Sederholm on Hietanen Bright Noise

Helena Hietanen & Jaakko Niemelä, Three Levels, 2006, dimensions variable.

sculptor of light: “I often watch how ning stages. Being visual professionals, minimalist design (1965), are like a Light that lives in space is like a picture the sun is reflected on water, or how as experts in looking and observing, we sigh or a premonition. Hietanen made of a living God. For Hietanen, personal shadows develop.” Hietanen works have a lot to give. Brainstorming and the piece together with Tarja Ervasti faith and the image of God are both from an impressionistic standpoint: she discussing concepts is great fun!” and it was finished in 2002 after nearly embodied in light. observes light and arrests fleeting mo- Glitter and motion on the surface seven years of preparation. It respects In the last ten years, Hietanen has ments – or actually she creates them. of the water, light as a functional ele- the architect’s vision of light while de- been seriously ill three times because She studies the effect of artificial light- ment, these things keep recurring in veloping it in subtle ways. The compu- of a recurring hereditary breast can- ing on the site and makes the light of Hietanen’s work. At its most delicate ter-controlled lighting changes with the cer. When she went for tests for the her works play on water, as in the wall this is seen in the flickering reflec- passage of holy days and sacraments, as first time and was awaiting the results, of light in a spa in Umeå, Sweden. “If tions of the water in a baptismal font, well as with the seasons and the quality Hietanen says that she was riddled with you make a light sculpture for an out- barely perceptible on the grey brick of natural light. Sometimes, when nat- anxiety. She tried to allay her horror door site, it’s interesting to see how the wall of Tapiola Church in Espoo. The ural light is at its most beautiful, creat- caused by the fear of death by praying light from the work reacts with its sur- light work entitled 3 for the altar and ing fine effects on the altar, the artificial in her mind and immersing herself in a roundings, with natural light. It leads nave of Tapiola Church brings together light is turned off completely. state of relaxation. In that state she had to problems I then start to investigate.” Hietanen’s interests, the relationship In the context of Hietanen’s art we a vision in which she was in the midst Hietanen says that when she is work- between light and materials and the can see that a single element – shadow of a black, stormy, total darkness. She ing with light, she often needs to know sculptural quality of light, which in – changes its meaning and also func- was afraid, but suddenly a big, bright about new technological possibilities, Tapiola emphasises the ecclesiastical tions in a “materialistic” way. There is pillar of light appeared in the darkness, which in turn has led her to study light- space and creates moods for the sacra- a remarkable contrast between the out- descending from high up in the sky. It ing technology and the architecture of ments performed there, from baptism lines of the lace shadows of ten years enveloped her and she heard a voice light. The spatial aspect has constantly and the Holy Communion to wed- ago and the lack of outlines in the play that said: “Hold on to the light and you increased in her work, and she finds dings and funerals. of light and shadow in Tapiola Church. will make it!” It has been ten years since it interesting to collaborate with ar- Hietanen sees light as the funda- The darkness of the nave has been in- the vision and Hietanen’s cancer has re- chitects and other designers in public mental symbol of Christianity, and it corporated into the work, which is also curred more than once. But the vision construction projects, for example. is with light that time is dramatised in subjected to variation and emphasis is still strong in her mind, to such an “I use professionals in my own work Tapiola Church: transience, endless- according to need. But whereas the extent that it has influenced her works whenever it is possible, such as lighting ness and continuity transformed into shadows of the rubber lace remained Heaven Machine and Reflection. “The vi- designers. I hope that we visual artists perpetuity. The shadows cast by natural stationary, the lights projected onto sion of the pillar of light was like those too would be invited more often onto lighting, integral elements already in the altar wall of the church are mov- visual ideas I see when I am planning public project teams in the early plan- architect Aarno Ruusuvuori’s original ing, almost creating a living altarpiece. a work in my head, but it was much 87 Features Sederholm on Hietanen Bright Noise

Top left: Helena Hietanen & Jaakko Niemelä, Gene- Top right: Helena Hietanen & Jaakko Niemelä, Bottom left: Helena Hietanen & Jaakko Niemelä, Bottom right: Helena Hietanen & Jaakko Niemelä, sis – Unfinished (detail), 2006, dimensions variable. Genesis – Unfinished (detail), 2006, dimensions Heavenmachine, 2006, dimensions variable. Heavenmachine, 2006, dimension variable. variable.

stronger. I had been interested in light ating ideas. During her chemotherapy, demonstration was supported by thirty can be used to bring out so much, such before, but the vision showed me what Hietanen collaborated with her hus- artists’ organisations and trade unions. as a jagged network of scars, a motif light means in my innermost being. band in planning two works, an in- “It has led to many good actions to the drawing of which Hietanen has Light, the material of my works, sud- stallation, Heaven Machine (2005), improve our position. Artists could been contemplating for years. Physical denly appeared in my distress to help for the Wäinö Aaltonen Art Museum act together also internationally, to scars are for her just as much material me and give me strength.” in Turku, and Three Levels (2006), an improve things such as exhibition fees, and reality as light, its directness and After a series of major operations, installation for the summer exhibi- for example. We could learn from the its penetrating immateriality. Thinking Hietanen finds it difficult to use her tion at Anttolan Hovi, thereby putting practices in other countries and from about scars of the body and using them hands. When I asked her what it feels her social security at risk. In summer each other.” as material for art is a way of examin- like when an illness prevents you from 2007, the two exhibitions presented The problem may be that people do ing living physical change. She still has working with your hands like you are a Comment, which bore the heading: not understand the nature of an artist’s not done it in public. When I am tak- used to, she answered: “Sculptors think This Is Not a Work of Art. It was a public work. It does not start someplace and ing my leave, we stop by the door of first and foremost with their hands! I appeal for the social security of artists: end when the work is finished. It is a Hietanen’s home in the artist commu- can’t just decide to start making smaller “I feel the same passion today for talk- process that takes years, and is perhaps nity to talk about how a serious illness works. The process of adaptation is ing about artists’ predicament as I felt best described by the word ‘searching’. changes one’s attitudes: healthy people more complex than that and it takes for my work as an artist. The difference It is probably the only word whose are often embarrassed by illness, be- time. I am still adapting and constantly is that whereas the practice of art tends meaning cannot ever be fully exhausted cause they feel that it should belong to thinking: what can I do, where should to emphasise individuality, I now en- by repetition. In Hietanen’s case, the the private sphere. But are they merely I focus my creativity now? My mind is courage artists to work together and to process has also involved discovery, protecting their own privacy and peace working and producing ideas all the talk about their problems. As a group grief, joy, success, illness and loss. Will of mind? When I was thinking these time, but I don’t have the same kind of we have more power to achieve political all that have to end because of the way thoughts, I was reminded of Hannah energy and strength for sculpting as I change! Artists should be networking the authorities interpret her situation Wilke, who brazenly exhibited both used to. I am therefore considering less professionally to discover the power of Hietanen asks, adding that in a society her beauty and her illness. But the material ways of working, such as civic the community when addressing such where the value of things is measured comparison remains verbally alienated, activism, discussion networks and col- issues as deficiencies in unemployment in money, an artist’s work is also politi- needlessly allusive and conceptual. Art laboration with others. You can’t just and social security.” Hietanen grows cal as a gesture. In our Western culture is always about fundamental things: stop thinking.” animated when she tells about a dem- based on competition and efficiency, every work or action of art is always For the Finnish authorities in onstration she organised in spring 2007 the slow, tentative nature of artistic particular. When the lace of scars re- charge of social welfare, making small together with researchers and other practice is a statement in itself. quires the attention of its maker, per- works of art is too much, even gener- casual workers in the cultural field. The The sculptural properties of light haps it will become art. + 88 Features Sederholm on Hietanen Bright Noise

this is not a work of art Public comment and appeal by Helena Hietanen and Jaakko Niemelä presented at the Transparent-exhibition, Fiskars 13.5.–30.9.2007 and the HoviArt-exhibition, 30.6.–31.8.2007. Comment: Concerning the problems experienced by sculptor Helena Hietanen in obtaining sickness benefit and pension security, both of which should be basic rights.

“I did not dare produce a work for this exhibition, not even in cooperation with my husband! This text is not, therefore, our work of art but our comment on the reasons why we have not created the work we originally envisaged for this exhibition. My husband, artist Jaakko Niemelä, and I had intended to examine transparency with the aid of light and space, to bring light and its movement into a space, with shadows of something unseen. We had planned to work with the same idea in two different spaces and exhibitions this summer, at Fiskars and Anttola Hovi. The reason why we decided not to produce this work for either exhibition derives from the problems which I encountered when applying for sickness benefit from KELA (The Social Insurance Institution of Finland) in January 2007.” 89 Features Sederholm on Hietanen Bright Noise

Previous page: Helena Hietanen, This Is Not a Top: Helena Hietanen, This Is Not a Work of Art Bottom: Demonstration for improvement of art- Work of Art, 2007. (installation view), 2007. The exhibition space was ists’ social security rights organized by Helena Hi- left empty, because Hietanen did not dare to make etanen, 2007. Photos by Heli Konttinen. any art due to problems with social security offi- cials. Photo by Jussi Tiainen.

I am very well aware of the risk of fall- to loose than my life and I need not artists to do the same. I have fallen ill to find light, an inner light as I believe, ing ill again and I’m living from one to worry about my career. I can speak with cancer three times, but I have not and covey it to others. Jesus is to me cancer control to another, half a year about things openly. Right now I want been able to get any sickness benefit a Idol and even today a good example at a time. This constant presence of the to concentrate my energy on issues that single time. There are many reasons for of a person whose courage as a social possibility of illness and death in my I can influence in a concrete way, for that, but my case especially reveals how innovator and whose ethical principles life makes me to act, because I want to instance to get publicity to the defects an artist can drop out of the system of endured severe hardships. make things happen as much as I can, in artists’ social security. I’m speaking social security. A motivating force for as long as I still have time. This situa- about problems which have affected me my social and communal action is also tion gives courage: I have nothing else personally and I want to urge also other my faith. Throuh my activism I want – Helena Hietanen 90 Features Jablonskienė on Pennanen Political Refractions

The writer (PhD) is Chief curator of the National Next page: Anu Pennanen, stills from A Monument Gallery of Lithuania. She was the commissioner of for the Invisible, 2003, video installation, S16 mm the Lithuanian pavilion at the Venice Biennial in colour film transferred to DVD. Music by Mika 1999 and a co-commissioner in 2005. Language Vainio. editing by Simon Rees. Next page: Anu Pennanen, still from A Monument for the Invisible, 2003.

Lolita Jablonskienė on Anu Pennanen Political Refractions: Cities, Societies, and Spectacles

Anu Pennanen is a socially-engaged Urban[ism] and strategies of col- their aura of urgency, innovation, and protagonist ‘Johanna’ in A Monument media artist who uses the images she laboration have lately become ‘focus the spirit of avant-garde and become for the Invisible – is case-and-point. produces as political tools. I met the topics’ for both artists and curators. common, legitimate – even casual – de- Cities are ideal objects for the rov- artist for the first time a couple of The seemingly structural and appar- vices among other suggestive aspects of ing, and critical, artist’s eye: as their years ago while preparing an exhibition ently socially inclusive lines-of-enquiry contemporary art practice. Irit Rogoff form and functioning is myriad and project for The Second Moscow Biennale may represent a shift away from iden- has characterized this turn, thus: “... evolutionary. The city’s inhabitants are of Contemporary Art (2007) – by which tity based discourses that endlessly re- criticality while building on critique challenged ­– as is the artist – by the time she had made her international hearse the search for the new or latest wants nevertheless to inhabit culture constantly changing material structure mark with the video A Monument for ‘Other’; commensurate with ‘discover- in a relation other than one of critical and a psycho-geographical milieu to the Invisible (2003). That work tracks ing’ contemporary art in ‘new’, previ- analysis; other than one of illuminating find their proper place in the order (or the travails of a blind protagonist and ously peripheral or marginalized loca- flaws, locating elisions, and allocating chaos). The city plays back on its self, the otherworldly quotidian experience tions; and institute a myriad of new blames.”(1) like an art work, in a state of constant of negotiating a city without sight spaces for contemporary art in dozens Pennanen is equally fascinated actualization. And the production of – and the amplification of different of old and new biennials. Instead these with the terrain of urbanism and social Pennanen’s art works mirrors the city aural and spatial characteristic this en- topics are indicative of a shift towards interactivity but she has outstripped with its images, sounds, narrative tails. The city, Helsinki, is re-envisaged an exploration of community (dare art-system reflexivity and its topical drift, and collaborative/social mode of in the work; its familiar appearance be- I say communism?) under aggressive theoretical and curatorial pre-packag- production. The artist is in a constant ing subsumed by hard surfaces, harsher pressure of globalization. Like many ing practice – by honing on the visu- search for scenarios that will play out sounds, and alienating structural logics. arts-after-modernism these ‘focus top- ality and visual correspondences of alternative, and location specific, socio- When we met, Pennanen was already ics’ rapidly became reflexive and shifted the media tools she works with; and political aspects of the urban experi- engaged in another project – an inves- perceptibly – especially in the work of a by ‘marrying’ the critical analysis of a ence. tigation into the everyday functioning younger generation of artists – towards cultural-social context with the expe- As a rule, Pennanen realizes this and changes in the symbolic meaning a new mode of critical examination rience of a specific situation (both in scenario progressively, in several stag- of public spaces in Tallinn, the capital of contemporary art and its contexts. physical urban space and in an instal- es, choosing one or another form of city of Estonia, based on collaboration While continuing to expose the hidden lation – at the intersection of the real project presentation at each way sta- with local teenagers from different Es- conditions of social (urban) life, vari- and illusory). The heightened sensorial tion. The resulting art works range tonian and Russian social groups. ous collaborative actions begin to lose experience – alloyed to that of the blind from hard-edged yet otherworldly pho- 91 Features Jablonskienė on Pennanen Political Refractions 92 Features Jablonskienė on Pennanen Political Refractions

Anu Pennanen, A Monument for the Invisible, 2003, installation view.

tographs, to interactive workshops that anyone(2) form is equally inscribed tions, often flattening spatial structures site subject with which to excavate the are documented textually or on video, in the openness of interpretation and so that ‘reality’ becomes subaltern: the problematic relationship that all camera spatially sensitive videos integrating el- meaning (remember, cities are familiar contemporary architecture’s reflective, based art has with materiality and, dare ements of ‘sound art’ made in collabo- phenomenon and their visual represen- hard-edged, and shiny surfaces brutal- I say it, truth. The city is equally un- ration with sound artists or composers, tation is repeatedly embodied). ize depth perception. This visual affect knowable and cannot be represented in and their eventual architectural display Pennanen doesn’t rehearse ‘stock’ rejects automatic ocular processing of its totality and the images of the banks in an exhibition setting. These diverse identification – the stuff that ‘conven- the photographs and acts like the sort are like the views of Leibniz’s ‘monadic representations are tempered for dif- tional city photography’ is made of of veil. The physicality and symbolical city’ comprised of a series of windows ferent audiences, including: a ‘local’ ­– she trades in politically adept images. power of the built environment melt out of which no visual gestalt of the city constituency comprised by their site, Her recent photographic projects about in the photographs’ visual logic and is ever experienced. This repelling – of then the cosmopolitan audience that Buenos Aires and Frankfurt aM hone extreme close-ups: so it is difficult for sight and of knowing – evokes a sense attends contemporary art exhibitions, on bank buildings – the power base the viewer to develop a rational and of anxiety and hints at the alienating and in terms of the publicly situated of those cities. Photographing banks, emotional relationship to the imagined and uncontrollable nature of the city works casual passers-by. This open-for- the artist applies fragmental composi- city. Banks seem, therefore, an appo- and its tendency towards entropy. 93 Features Jablonskienė on Pennanen Political Refractions

Top left corner: Anu Pennanen, A Day in the Anu Pennanen, stills from A Day in the Office, Office, 2006, installation view. 2006, video installation, HDCAM transferred to DVD. Sound stereo. Sound by Timothy Lambert.

Anonymity infers avoidance and is world. “The problem of the crisis of im- that is inaccessible using rational tools and meaningless when set amongst the a type of ‘invisibility’; which are strong ages, of this permanent, continual flux of analysis; to paraphrase Jeff Wall, it‘s chaotic exterior action. And the sound- currents within Pennanen’s work. She is that the price is that of invisibility; as more “about experiencing the pictures track of interviews with office workers turns her camera away from typical soon as you are in an image in a per- than understanding them”.(4) about life and work in the city, (tempo- views of the city; avoiding recogniz- manent way and without articulation, The video work A Day in the Of- rary) inconveniences caused by its reno- able images and decisive moments. you risk finding yourself face to face fice (2006) made for the Liverpool vation and concomitant hopes disap- The people that inhabit her images are with images which lose their meaning Biennial was projected at night on a pears in the bang-and-clatter of the city shadowy, their movement keeps them and become practically invisible.”(3) wall of an art centre situated in central streets. The juxtaposition of the visible, indistinct, and they are like the extras Pennanen refuses to multiply invisible Liverpool; so that Pennanen’s specta- though seemingly autonomous, and un- in films whose fate is to lie in the spools images; instead – she constructs monu- cle – of the city under demolition and controlled, forces of reconstruction and of film littering the cutting-room floor. ments to the invisible reality. There is a reconstruction – merged with the flux the somnolent mundanity of office life In this way Pennanen steps into discus- sense in which her works, photographs and roar of its metropolitan referent. reveals the utopian nature of all recon- sion about what is visible and invisible and especially multi-media installa- The rituals conducted within the city’s struction projects – delivering expedi- in the contemporary image saturated tions, produce a body of knowledge commercial interior spaces look trivial ent changes to an oblivious society and 94 Features Jablonskienė on Pennanen Political Refractions

Anu Pennanen, from the series Buenos Aires, 2006, chromogenic colour prints, 60 cm X 60 cm each.

environment. The Russian philosopher enced in Liverpool. A Day in the Office is one of the fastest developing cities in tically – as it symbolically describes its and critic of post-communist countries’ assumes a specific role in the urban fab- the EU and the corresponding cultural principal theme, and, is the name of transition to capitalism, Boris Kagar- ric – enabling a heightened experience transformations are palpable. The final an old Soviet era cinema located at the litsky, observed that: “What seems so of its surroundings that might stimu- outcome of the artist’s multipartite work very centre of Tallinn (that inspired the intolerable today is the realization that late, a delayed, and, heterogeneous set is an impressive three-channel video in- artist’s line of enquiry). A collision of there will be no awakening, that this is of judgments and actions. stallation that addresses the viewer with narrative and cinematic axes is embod- not a dream but reality, that there is no Pennanen’s project Friendship was more than a textual narration about the ied in this concept of “friendship”. As future except endless repetition of the certainly a ‘time-based’ work taking attempts of communication of the con- cornball as the cinema’s name might present. In the final analysis, the horrors two years, between 2004 and 2006, to flicting ethnic groups. It spatializes the seem to the Western ear (preferring the of the transitional period turned out to complete. She immersed herself in the themes found in the project – produc- sleeker “Odeon”, “Paradise”, and “Hol- be far less frightening than the night- youth culture of Tallinn the capital of ing a sensation close to that of vertigo. lywood”) it was actually a common mare of the bourgeois quotidian.”(5) It Estonia and devised a scenario about The work’s title Friendship (in Estonian name, or typology, for cinemas in the could as easily be applied to the routine the city in collaboration with Estonian Sõprus, Russian – Druzhba) is worthy USSR – as cinema was the people’s art of revanchist capitalism being experi- and Russo-Estonian youngsters. Tallinn of analysis and should be read dialec- and where better to indoctrinate them? 95 Features Jablonskienė on Pennanen Political Refractions

Top row: Anu Pennanen, Sõprus – Дружба Anu Pennanen, stills from Sõprus – Дружба (Friendship), 2006, installation view, Kunstenfes- (Friendship), 2006, film installation, S 16mm tival des Arts Brussels. Music by Stefan Németh. color film on DVD. Music by Stefan Németh. Still Courtesy the artist. photographs by Pelle Kalmo. Courtesy the artist and Virta Productions.

(In my native Vilnius we had one too; shapes, and a multitude of forms, and dor has been forsaken. To many of the went into the construction of the depart- in Lithuanian it is Draugyste). surfaces – many of them reflective, thus nouveau consumers – conversely – the ment store, which made use of flânerie it- In the work Pennanen mobilizes producing more visual parallax – ap- former is the appeal; an escape from self in order to sell goods. The department this time-warp concentrating on two parently implying an infinite field of the poverty-stricken and shadow econ- store was the flâneur’s final coup. (6) symbolically opposite architectural individual possibility and becoming. omy-driven Soviet era “markt” into the monuments: a Soviet modernist mon- Not much of what goes on in a shop- crowd and its concourse of invisibility. No wonder that the artist has chosen to olith and a contemporary shopping ping mall is as individuating as its leg- Walter Benjamin posited this as part of work with teenagers for her film. Mak- mall. The former, designed as a majes- end, as it is designed for mass market- the birth of the “modern” city [of Paris] ing their way in the city – an alien, in- tic symbol of eternity, employing the ing and consumption [of commodities] that Tallinn surely wants to become: timidating and at the same time tempt- structure and symbolics of gigantism and is inhabited by crowds. The price ing cosmos – they attempt to enter it and the language of abstract forms is of the goods is a “chainstore” fixed and The crowd was the veil from behind which against the course of the crowd (and too mute and alien to be friendly (think linked to external markers of value – the familiar city as phantasmagoria beck- resist its subjective control) inventing of a lunar-scape). The latter, is manifest the banter-and-barter of the traditional oned to the flâneur. In it, the city was now idiomatic way-out rituals of their own. with vertiginous hustle, a miscellany of marketplace and the market stall ven- landscape, now a room. And both of these In an attempt to resist the hieratic logic 96 Features Jablonskienė on Pennanen Political Refractions

Anu Pennanen, stills from Sõprus – Дружба (Friendship), 2006, film installation, S 16mm color film on DVD. Music by Stefan Németh. Still photographs by Pelle Kalmo. Courtesy the artist and Virta Productions. 97 Features Jablonskienė on Pennanen Political Refractions

Anu Pennanen, stills from “You don’t realize it used to be different”, 2006, S 16mm color film on DVD. Music by Antoine Verhaverbeke. Still photographs by Pelle Kalmo. Courtesy the artist and Virta Pro- ductions.

(1) Rogoff, Irit (2006).‘Smuggling’ – An Embodied everyone; it‘s for anyone’. Wall, Jeff & Figgis, Mike. Cinema”. The Cinematic, op cit., 148. Baltica Triennial of Photographic Art, cat., Revolver, 26. Criticality. http://transform.eipcp.net. Campany, David ed. (2007). “An Email Exchange”. (4) Wall, Jeff & Figgis, Mike, op.cit., 158. (6) Benjamin, Walter (1968). “Paris – Capital (2) I refer to the remark of Jeff Wall: ‘I like to think The Cinematic. Whitechapel & The MIT Press, 164. (5) Kagarlitsky, Boris & Bienert, Dorothee ed. (2007). of the Nineteenth Century”. New Left Review. that serious art is not at all exclusive, but it is not for (3) David, Catherine (2007). “Photography and “Of Fear and Change”. Don‘t Worry – Be Curious. 4th Ars March–April, 84–85.

of each space, they use the monument ing a viewer into a visual atopia and the make the viewer’s eye wonder among cinematic continuum. and surrounds as a skateboard park, site of Deleuze and Guattari’s “body the events taking place at different The viewer needs to construct their have dates in the ‘arcades’ and go joy- without organs”. The city is equally times and in different places. Comple- own trajectory through the narrative, riding in shopping trolleys on the roof resistant in Pennanen’s films and pho- menting the three-channel installation the coda of identification, the syntax of the mall. Inadequate to the antici- tographs – visually attracting but alien are more videos on LCD screens (the of recognition, and the delineation of pated scenario, their actions betray the and dangerous for the subject’s body. script of the teenagers’ discussions) and the city. This audio-visual activation, artificiality of the scenario itself. If the Within the “Tallinn Project” installa- photographs of the video’s characters extending beyond the documentary action feels proscribed we can hark tion the artist enacts a deconstruction that institute a specific ‘here and now’ representation, is the ineluctable mark back to the inspiration, and title, for of narrative video’s linearity and the dynamic, physically interrupting and of Anu Pennanen’s work: and a reflec- the work: a movie theatre – a special naturalism of single-channel docu- producing a corporeal and spatiotem- tion of the experience of living in the place of cinematic hypnosis, immers- mentary viewing. The three projections poral situation disrupting the illusory global city. + 98 Features Huttunen on Sarje Towards Montage that Eludes Synthesis

The writer (Ph.D.) is Assistant in Russian litera- ture, Department of Slavonic and Baltic languages and literatures of the University of Helsinki.

Tomi Huttunen on Kimmo Sarje Towards Montage that Eludes Synthesis

In principle, montage is everywhere, even the combination of different materials tive also accounts for the usability of chenko, El Lissitzky, Edward Steichen, though not everything is montage [...] The within one and the same work of art montage as a propaganda tool. This Barbara Morgan), theatre (Erwin Po- montage becomes art when these juxtapo- was already necessary from a technical was important for Eisenstein, as well as scator, Vsevolod Meyerhold), poetry sitions and croppings are done intention- standpoint. Nevertheless it was present for the Dadaists. Both Eisenstein and (Vladimir Mayakovsky, Velimir Khleb- ally in line with some artistic goal.(1) when the language of photography John Heartfield saw the viewer as a sort nikov, Vadim Shershenevich) and prose first emerged. In the 1910s, the Berlin of material the author is able to mould (Boris Pilnyak, Anatoly Mariengof, Montage is always an art of juxtaposi- Dadaists used photomontage as a way in a desired direction. It is therefore John Dos Passos, Alfred Döblin).(7) tions and intercuts. It embodies a two- of emphasising the language of photog- important that montage is about texts The principal starting point of mon- way movement, dismantling and com- raphy itself. In film theory, the concept for readers who have only just learned tage was conceptualistic, and it is no bining – the processes of fragmentation of montage was introduced when the to read. wonder it was adopted by Soviet Con- and integration. For Russian theorists grammar of cinema first developed.(4) Montage has already been the start- ceptual Art in the 1970s. In the 1980s, of the early 20th century who oper- In poetry, montage is based primarily ing point of Kimmo Sarje’s conceptual Kimmo Sarje was in an active dialogue ated with the concept from within the on a predominance of nouns, or lack art for a couple of decades. In his work, with Moscow Conceptualists, which framework of cinema, montage was a of verbs, a style popular in the 1910s he has explored issues of Modernism explains the perplexing connection be- dialogue between the author who cre- and 1920s avant-garde and in experi- and Totalitarianism in particular. These tween this postmodernist in Helsinki ated the fragments, and the recipient mental literature. The origin of these two rather conflicting ‘isms’ have in and his colleagues in Moscow. who reassembled them. It is obvious experiments goes back to the myth of fact much in common, precisely in In the 1980s, Sarje was interested that this is a phenomenon not restrict- the creation of language, however, the relation to the concept of montage. In both in the avant-garde foundation of ed solely to silent film and the theories Adamistic process of naming. Adamis- early Soviet culture, montage repeat- Leninism – in the form of a dialogue of its early days, but one that involves tic language was verbless, consisting of edly crossed the boundary between between Malevich and Lenin – and in an entire culture of montage. In the nouns only, which makes the first lin- the aesthetic and the political. The ca- Alvar Aalto’s organic design style and its visual arts, montage has always been a guistic act of humanity a text montage. reer of Gustav Klutsis is a particularly relationship to Finnish official aesthet- political tool as well.(2) As a method The classic Soviet Russian film- good example: his first photomontage, ics. One of his most famous montages and a set of techniques, it belongs to maker Lev Kuleshov had his great in- Dynamic City (1919), is based on pure is Finlandia, in which “... everything the sphere of modernism and historical sight when he was re-editing old films abstraction, but already his works from is honest and transparent: the block- avant-garde, and as such its deconstruc- by D.W. Griffith. He realised that the 1920 incorporate the figure of Lenin board, the official portrait of the Presi- tion and reappraisal is a task for profess- juxtaposition of two images creates a as a harbinger of the new era, looking dent, the text, the rivets, the Aalto vases edly postmodern art.(3) It is from this new concept, a third, new quality that trustingly into the future. Towards the and the chromed screw-in hooks. Eve- position that the Helsinki-based artist, was irreducible to either of the two end of the decade Klutsis moves en- rything is as naturally simple and func- critic and art researcher, Kimmo Sarje, juxtaposed elements. The new qual- tirely to propaganda posters.(6) Sarje tional as Finnish taste or the principles approaches the principle of montage. ity generated thereby in the viewer’s also highlights the conflict between of a blue/red coalition government.”(8) Montage arises in the same space mind – a synthetic meaning – became montage and collage, the supremacy of Sarje has even made a montage series of where the language of art arises at any the core of the theory of Russian film. signification over representation. Mon- the aesthetics of the Finnish rationalist given point in time. In the broadest The way Sergei Eisenstein saw it, the tage challenges existing meanings in architect Sigurd Frosterus, a theme he sense, a montage text – a montage film, author has an image in his mind which order to reconstruct them. It is the art explored also in his doctoral thesis.(9) poem, photo, novel or composition – is he breaks down into shots for the film. of alternation between a fragmentary In his photographs, Sarje has drawn always a text for readers who have just The viewer then takes the shots and surface and a unified deep structure. It attention to the odd similarities be- learned to read. The technical French constructs from them the same im- has been used to construct a syntax for tween Nazi monumental architecture term originally arose in the mid-19th age – verb – that the author had in his film (Dziga Vertov, Walter Ruttman), and Mayan temples. This also reveals century in photographic art, where mind.(5) This viewer-oriented perspec- photography (Klutsis, Aleksander Rod- the fundamental basis of montage – it 99 Features Huttunen on Sarje Towards Montage that Eludes Synthesis

Kimmo Sarje, Direction of Russia, 2006, collage box, 85 x 60 cm. 100 Features Huttunen on Sarje Towards Montage that Eludes Synthesis

(1) Sarje, Kimmo (2003). Montaasin filosofia, The Obscurity of Vision in Cinema and Literature. vedeniya. T. 2. Moscow, 163. modernin käsite: Maailmankatsomus ja arkkitehtu- filosofian montaasi. (Philosophy of Montage, Mon- New York: Columbia University Press. (6) M. Tupitsyn, G. Klutsis & V. Kulagina (2004). Pho- uri. (Sigurd Frosterus’ Concept of the Modern. Wel- tage of Philosophy). Pori, 5. (4) Huttunen, Tomi. Kangaspuro, M. & Smith, tography and Montage after Constructivism. Göttingen. tanschauung and Architecture), Helsinki. (2) Tupitsyn, Margarita (1992). “From the Poli- J. eds. (2006). “Montage Culture: The Semiotics (7) See Montage and Modern Life 1919–1942, (10) Rappaport, A. (1988). “K ponimaniju po- tics of Montage to the Montage of Politics”. Mon- of the Post-revolutionary Russian Culture”. Mod- 21–22; see also Huttunen, Tomi (1997). ”Mon- eticheskogo i kulturno-istoricheskogo smysla tage and Modern Life 1919-1942. Cambridge: ernisation in Russian Society in the 20th Century, taasi ja teksti”. Synteesi 4, 58–79. montazha.” Montazh. Literatura. Iskusstvo. Teatr. Cambridge University Press, 82–127. 187–205. (8) (2003). Montaasin filosofia, filosofian montaasi, 224. Kino. Moscow: Nauka, (3) Sitney, P. Adams (1990). Modernist Montage: (5) Eisenstein, Sergei (1964-71). Izbrannye proiz- (9) Sarje, Kimmo (2000). Sigurd Frosteruksen (11) Voiceovers can be heard on www.leevilehto.net.

is always intertextual. Although such a a code that differs markedly from the nification that eludes synthesis, where the series had been shown in a joint thing as homogeneous montage does overall state of the piece; in front of blockboard, Koivisto and Aalto vase are exhibition together with Leevi Lehto’s exist and has been studied, particularly Putin’s portrait, however, the heteroge- all genuine Finnish realia. The Russian polyphonic poetic piece Voiceovers(11). in architecture, heterogeneous montage neity must be complemented with het- counterparts are Politburo, bus tickets, The concoction of multiple voices and is always more significant in terms of erochronism, thus adding depth to the plastic toys and army equipment. Based sufficient meaning potential is ready. cultural history, as late Soviet cultural meaning. It is quite obvious that the on the use of the motif of the Red Star, The audience prepared for a summa- research had time to point out.(10) artist believes in the inherent power of the works evocative of St. Petersburg rising reading is given the freedom to Heterogeneous montage is a generator the signification of montage at the ex- moods seem to me to be more collage choose its space, the dualistic semantics of new meanings in every artistic disci- pense of representation, and also in the than montage, because representation of images are obscured by the echoes pline. The reinvention of this generator ideal of montage aesthetics – a reader is primary in them. of layered speech, where both the cut- is a central element in the semiotics of who willingly reconstructs meanings in Abstraction on Ad (2007) is dif- ters of coupons and the beholders of Kimmo Sarje’s art. his or her mind. ferent. Its suprematist, intentionally bottoms have a meaningless sound be- A return to the question of the rela- In his most successful montage box, clumsy compositions of the ad and stowed upon them, yet in this wall of tionship between art and Totalitarian- The Direction of Russia (Venäjän suunta, porn sections of a newspaper rest on sound the modern and the postmodern ism is inevitable in Putin’s Russia. If the 2006), Sarje succeeds in creating a po- a reading which challenges Malevich’s city clasp hands. The compositions in dialogue in late-Socialist montage was lyphony of intexts – discrete connec- squares that end art history. The trip- Abstraction on Ad need a poetic reading between Lenin and Suprematism, in the tions that disrupt the general space of tychs recall El Lissitzky’s wedge-like as a sidekick. Similar experiments have 2000s it is between Putin and postmo- the text – that compete with each other shapes of civil war, they proclaim the been successfully made in Russian con- dernity. In his Vostok series, Sarje joins in their degree of foregrounding. In this power of rebellion and are aggressive temporary art and poetry by Alexander the tradition of Conceptual Art to early socially charged box, the Malevichian as medieval icons from Pskov. The red Gornon, whose polyphonosemantic 20th century to Russian avant-garde. suprematism familiar from Sarje’s serial circles on the pages with tits acquire visual poetry is closely related to the In the montage they are both merely works of the 1980s re-emerges, lead- a funny, elemental reading, complete postmodern montage of Kimmo Sarje. “multifaceted signs”, relatively inde- ing the initiate viewer into a game of with satellites and neutron polyps. For Ultimately, it is in the inevitably anar- pendent, carriers of potential meaning autocitations. This is one of the treats a long time, I wondered why Sarje had chistic freedom in the viewer’s mind which must be actualised in the viewer’s of Sarje’s postmodernist montage at left his montage here, in a two-dimen- (since he or she is just learning to read) mind. The boxes underline the notion its best – an intertextual transparency sional, early-modernist dialogue be- which emerges from these multifaceted of texts for readers who have only just toying with its own self-conscious- tween a liturgical text (ads and porn) polyvalent signs and their polyphonic learned to read. In the dialogue with ness. The postmodern montage is not and commentary (the compositions). interaction that we can begin searching Soviet leaders and the upper echelons a sophisticated game of leading astray; I kept thinking it was static and insuf- for the significance of the artist’s post- of the Politburo, the Soviet toys employ it is a forest of multiple voices and sig- ficient, until I realised that works from modern montage. + 101 Features Huttunen on Sarje Towards Montage that Eludes Synthesis

Previous page, top row: Kimmo Sarje, from the Previous page, bottom left: Kimmo Sarje, The At- Top left: Kimmo Sarje, Jang, 2005, gouache on Bottom left: Kimmo Sarje, Circles III, from the se- series Today, (2003), a series of four photographs, mosphere of St. Petersburg 11.VIII (2004), pencil, advertisement, 53,3 x 56 cm. ries Abstraction on Ad, 2002, gouache on advertise- each 90 x 60 cm. drawing ink and water colour on paper, 29,5 x ment, 35 x 27,5 cm. 20,6 cm. Top right: Kimmo Sarje, Jin, 2005, gouache on advertisement, 53,3 x 56 cm. Bottom left: Kimmo Sarje, Circles IV, from the se- Previous page, bottom right: Kimmo Sarje, The ries Abstraction on Ad, 2002, gouache on advertise- Samsara of St. Petersburg 6. VIII (2004), collage ment, 35 x 27,5 cm. and painting (pencil, drawing ink and water col- our) on paper, 36 x 47, 9 cm. 102 Features Koldobskaya on Sarje Like Neighbors...

Top: Kimmo Sarje, In Moscow, 2006, installation Bottom: Kimmo Sarje, Cross, 2007, gouache on on wall. Photo by the artist. advertisement, 53,3 x 56 cm. Photo by the artist.

Some people say that we all spend our them as sacred and learn them by heart. Marina Koldobskaya lives making amends for our youth. The mere idea that someone might read Kimmo Sarje was a young history stu- the Communist Manifesto as literature on Kimmo Sarje: dent in the Seventies, and, as is typical and make it into art would have seemed for his generation, he was on the left. barbaric to any Soviet student. Like Neighbors... In the Seventies, students would stick But come to think of it, this isn’t carnations into gun barrels in protest quite true. Sometimes, Lenin was in- The writer is an artist, curator and Director of the against the war in Vietnam; they would deed a source of aesthetic pleasure. NCCA in St. Petersburg. Translated from the Rus- sian by David Riff. carry portraits of the invincible Che on Sometimes, someone in the corridor of their chests, and usually sympathized the institute would shout dramatically, with the democrats in Chile, the fate of like a deacon in church: “The M-m-m- Greece under the rule of the black colo- marxist doctrine is o-o-o-omnipotent nels, and with Portugal under the yolk because it is t-t-t-true!!! Our teachers of Salazar. They were afraid of nuclear would snicker in secret. At parties, you war and studied the classics of commu- could also sing the Internationale in the nism. Kimmo Sarje took great pleasure streets at night if you were really drunk, in reading Marx, Engels, and Lenin, and whistling along, and capping it with a he even traveled to the Soviet Union. traditional “E-ey ukhnim” at the end. To me, all of this is unimaginable. These were the popular roots of sots- To live in our country seemed like a art, which grew rampant in the artistic punishment. And all those Marxists underground of those years. texts were inevitably forced upon us in To Russian eyes, the work of Kimmo the form of quotes and digests all the Sarje looks a little like sots art. The par- way from kindergarten to final exams in allels are obvious. The artist uses cliches university. We hated them. We refused and images lifted from political mass the idea that they could contain any culture. He combines them, compar- meaning whatsoever, not to mention ing and superimposing them in the mix. beauty or goodness. They were just non- As a result, he obtains a certain message sense, abracadabra, dross, all the more that is more or less critical. He does this since we were supposed to recognize through devices often used by Soviet 103 Features Koldobskaya on Sarje Like Neighbors...

Kimmo Sarje, What Should Be Done?, 2006, sculp- tural collage. Photo by Oliver Whitehead. 104 Features Koldobskaya on Sarje Like Neighbors...

sots-artists: collages made up newspaper political avant-garde with the artistic was actually happening, but once it rything happens around and near Rus- clippings, official portraits, found ob- avant-garde, the Russian avant-garde happened, he felt free. Anyone who sia is a reflection, circles on the water, jects, and assemblages, quotes from the with its American counterpart, juxta- was born in the USSR could say the consequences. Of course, the attraction classics, party slogans, and so on. posing the beauty of ideas to the beauty same thing. of the center is great. Especially because Moreover, Kimmo Sarje works with of the petit bourgeouisie. But these two Kimmo Sarje spent the late Eighties the process is never over, and something the same ideas and images as any Rus- systems are so different, so irreconcil- and early Nineties – the most interest- is always happening there. sian artist interested in political themes: ably conflictual, that one involuntarily ing time our generation has seen so far Over the last few years, Russia has Lenin, Marx, Malevich, Putin, the avant- remembers a line from Shakespeare: – in the collapsing Soviet Union. And seen something like a restoration of the garde, socialist realism, the war, victory, “Sweets to the sweet: farewell! / I hoped his most touching piece – a toy lorry, Soviet order. The strengthening of the and the catastrophe that followed. thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s pulling away an overturned Lenin bust power vertical has gone hand in hand We see Malevich’s famous figures wife; / I thought thy bride-bed to have – refers directly to the toppling of the with the emergence of a new canonic - black square, cross, and circle – ob- deck’d, sweet maid, / And not have monument of Felix Dzerzhinsky(2) in image of the leader, made according to scuring the pages of an advertising in- strew’d thy grave.”(1) Moscow August 1991. all the laws of the Soviet aesthetic. This sert, or a fragment of a Barnett New- It goes without saying that a co- So actually, Kimmo Sarje is almost leader is Putin, and he is the main char- man painting, superimposed onto a mitted Marxist would never make such a Russian artist. Or, better yet, he is an acter of Kimmo Sarje’s exhibition “The Lenin portrait. An official photograph work. An indoctrined author produces artist who found more fascinating food East” (2006). of the same Lenin is snowed out with propaganda and not critiques. In terms for thought in a neighboring country In these newer works, Sarje com- Christmas snowflakes made of tissue of time, Kimmo Sarje’s long farewell that at home. It may also be that Sarje, pares the new Russian political style paper, overwritten with text fragments to the left coincides with the all-too- as a professional political historian, the to its Soviet predecessor. In the collage of almost senseless quotes. long liberation of Russia from its Soviet former and present Empire of Russia Russian Landscape (2004), a prereform At first glance, Kimmo Sarje’s col- cocoon. The artist admits that at first, appears as a generator of great events, official photo of Azerbaidzhan’s leader lages seem simple: they compare the he could not believe that perestroika or, in any case, as their epicenter. Eve- Gaidar Aliev, who held the “throne” 105 Features Koldobskaya on Sarje Like Neighbors...

Previous page, top: Kimmo Sarje, Composition on Previous page, bottom right: Kimmo Sarje, Rus- (1) Shakespeare, William (1603). Hamlet http:// (4) A boy-hero and protagonist of a children‘s Ad III, triptych, From the series Abstraction on Ad, sian Landscape (Green Shirt), 2006, collage box, 74 www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/ham- novella „Voennaya taina“ [The Military Secret] by 2005, each 53,3 x 56 cm. x 55 x 12,5cm. let/20/ Alexander Gaidar, 1935 (2) Felix Dzerzhinsky, the first head of the Soviet (5) Alexander Pushkin on Russian rebellions, Previous page, bottom left: Kimmo Sarje, Russian Below: Kimmo Sarje, Russian Landscape (2004), secret police, VChK or Cheka (1917-22) and the „The Captain‘s Daughter“ (1836) Landscape (Pioneer Girl), 2003-2006, collage box, montage, 36 x 46,5 cm. OGPU (1922-26), organizer of mass terror, politi- (6) Duma o Rodine [Meditation on Motherland], 74 x 55 cm. cal purges, labor camps, and so on. Saint-Petersburg, National Center for Contem- (3) Heine, Heinrich (1841). “Atta Troll”, http:// pory Art, Akhmatova Museum, 2005 members.aol.com/abelard2/troll3.htm (7) Marcel Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q. (1919)

from the Brezhnev years all the way to The other is a totally barbaric snowman, self says that his collages are playful Azarkhi showed him nude and sur- his death in 2003, is superimposed onto which, for some strange reason, is bright and funny. Here, one clearly see the rounded by allegorical angels and official portraits of Putin. The Putin- green (maybe it’s part of an alien toy?) difference in national mentality shining lamps, like a baroque August Trium- photos are in color, and they have digit- with a yellow-white head. The beholder is through. What Russians take seriously phant, while Evgeny Kuznetsov made ally retouched. Aliev is black and white, probably meant to conclude that that Pu- is no more than fun and games to the him into a foreboding sculpture that and the image has been cleaned up by tin is also a kind of toy, a little devil who Finns. And really, in their approach to shook everybody’s hand and said “I love hand. The technology has improved. has jumped out of the snuffbox, an ideal political themes, today’s Russian artists you” in the voice of a windup toy. Kim- But in terms of meaning, everything is compiled of fatally incompatible frag- are usually “senselessly, ruthlessly”(5) mo Sarje’s work would seamlessly fit still the same: “In his visage, harmony ments. The romanticism of Paleo-Soviet cynical. The champions of this cynicism into a Russian project of this sort, and / And the silent acts of thinking”(3), heroism-patriotism is totally “perpendic- are the artists of the Blue Nose Group, Russian critics would probably praise it willpower and decisiveness, bravely pa- ular” to the real trash of the everyday. who staged and carried out group for its dignified restraint, its academic ternal concern, and an undefinably ma- In the next collage, an army shirt sex with characters wearing masks of depth, and its promising ambiguity. ture age. Both heads are turned in three almost completely covers the entire Bush, Putin, and Bin Laden. But this The present article could be called quarter profile, and have the same seri- picture plane, which is glued over with is only the most interesting (and the a farewell to the image of Putin in art. ous expression with the hint of a smile. the kinds of photos described above. most successful) example from a huge In a month from its writing, Russia will This is Russia’s unchanging admixture The new shirt has never been worn, number of works that go in this direc- have another leader, and another politi- of the pacified glory of Byzantine icon never been pierced by bullets or soiled tion. For example, in the project Duma cal course that will present new aspects painting and the Western-style demon- by blood. The artist avoids intention- o Rodine (Meditation on Motherland) to subject to a critique. No doubt, a stration of political leadership. ally dramatic effects, but unpleasant (2005)(6), Putin appeared in many new icon is in the making, though it Another collage shows Putin with thoughts sneak up on you anyway. guises: in a piece by Kirill Shamanov, will probably be made according to the toys. One of them is a stupidly-heroic All of this is very serious, to Rus- he had a moustache like the one Duch- same rule. Kimmo Sarje will have lots Mal’chish-Kibal’chish(4) of red plastic. sian eyes, of course. Kimmo Sarje him- amp drew onto the Mona Lisa(7); Sofia of work to do. + 106 Framework 8 Global Watch Introduction Global Watch

In the recently emerged geopolitical Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas ety: the removal of the Bronze Soldier is on possibilities for independent me- setting, Josiph Broz Tito’s vision of analyse reasons and consequences of in Tallinn in April 2007 strained the dia making in the Middle East. RUK’s Yugoslavia living by the rules of neither the socially interactive and interdis- relations between the Estonian and (Cultural Workers) recent letter from of the two Cold War superpowers is ciplinary action they commenced in Russia populations to the utmost and Belgrade gives a first-hand account of worth recalling. What is the legacy of 2005 to save an important piece of triggered massive riots. For Estonia the the legacy of opposition in art and poli- the European non-aligned movement community architecture, the Lietuva has been a symbol of the beginning of tics in Serbia. today, and are any of its once-admira- Cinema in Vilnius. Margaret Tali di- the Soviet occupation but for Russia of The reviews travel from Kassel via ble ideas to alternative paths to democ- cusses the sympolic meanings of public the victory over fascism in the Second Kiev, Lisbon and Tallinn to Bamako. ratization relevant any more? monuments that can polarise a soci- World War. Khaled Ramadan’s focus – MS 107 Global Watch Urbonas The Pro-Test Lab

The writers are artists living in Vilnius. They work with the interest to design organizational structures that question relativity of freedom, and through the agency of art to render public spaces for en- Nomeda and The Pro-Test gagement of social groups, evoking local commu- nities and encouraging their cultural and political imagination. They also teach at the Trondheim Art Gediminas Lab Academy in Norway. Language editing by Susan Heiskanen Further references: http://www.vilma.cc/LIETUVA Previous page: John Phillip Mäkinen, Children of Urbonas the Revolution, 2007.

Since its independence in 1990, and sports, and premises for gathering to be privatized and destroyed dur- mocracy is conflict and antagonism, Lithuania has been caught up in a mad and socializing used to be planned in ing the past decade is named after the not consensus. Neo-liberal conformity period of privatization, property devel- the center of the city. Despite its mod- country: Lietuva. means, of course, avoiding antagonism opment and demolition. Public space, ernist aesthetical value and utility, while at the same time making use of it. landmark buildings, cultural life and Soviet architecture is now considered What Is Lietuva? In such a context it is very difficult to public opinion have been the principal as derelict monuments of the past, me- On the lost battlefields of privatization speak of protest. victims. Like a Wild West land grab or a morials to Soviet ideology. There were the Lietuva has become a significant ral- If resistance is unimaginable, what gold rush, speculators and real estate ty- those who hated Soviet architecture, lying point. The Lietuva was was built kind of artistic strategy might be used coons have joined forces with municipal hated modernism, longed for the mul- in 1965 as a piece of Soviet modernist in order to generate some kind of pro- bureaucrats to redevelop the country at tiplex experience, those who claimed architecture, becoming the biggest cin- test? And if there is no protest, can we an insane pace. Their method is simple: that public squares were a deformation ema in Lithuania with more than 1 000 maybe bring it about, make it happen? tell the population that a market econo- affecting the old parts of the city. seats and a 200-square-metre screen. It How do we open up the contradictions my is good for everything. Remind the The ideal of Soviet modernist infra- was home to the Vilnius Film Festival hidden on site?(8) public that making Lithuania look like structure and common space concept and as such has played an important Shanghai, Rio or Bilbao is the best way was suddenly reconstituted in an ide- role in the imaginative life of a whole What Is the Pro-test Lab? to erase the Soviet past – and to make alization of privatized, closed off space. generation of local people. Its name, In March 2005 the former Lietuva tick- the country attractive to even more in- Without being romantic about the past Lietuva (Lithuania), is also an impor- et office in Vilnius was squatted and vestment and development. or defending modernism, a thorough tant signifier of national identity, as it converted into a pro-test lab inviting Cultural and political change assessment of the ideological premises never bore any Soviet overtones (i.e. it people to propose different protest sce- shattered Lithuania as the entire post- – of today’s destructive rhetoric – that wasn’t called the cinema of the Soviet narios; to both inspire action and make Soviet space was unexpectedly hit by replaced it is required. Republic of Lithuania). it happen. Beginning as a case study of the ultra-rapid implementation of a During the Soviet period cinema In 2002, the Vilnius municipal au- the destruction of the Lietuva movie shock doctrine(1). The transformation was crucial to the cultural life of the thorities quietly sold the cinema to pri- theatre – the largest Soviet modernist from the Soviet-planned economy to country, with huge movie theatres being vate property developers with a caveat pavilion-type building in Lithuania capitalism mixed neo-liberalist priva- built in the center of many Lithuanian that it had to operate as a cinema for a – has developed into a space and an ar- tization with the affects of globaliza- cities.(5) These cinemas played an im- three-year period.(6) That term ended chive of various forms of protest (and tion with the potency of a Molotov portant role as places for public gath- on 1 July 2005. legal proceedings) against the corporate cocktail. “Independence did not bring erings. After independence, as Soviet Is it not strange that during all these privatization of public space. freedom”(2): freedom and moderniza- structures crumbled in a wholesale fash- years no voices of protest were raised in The Pro-test Lab has performed the tion in post-Soviet space is uniquely ion, cinema buildings became a focus of Lithuania? Why has there been no pro- function of a recording device, and grad- understood as the free market and attention for the real estate market. In a test at all since the years of the Singing ually built up an identity and a scenario privatization. Put simply: the totality short period of time private enterprise Revolution?(7) It might be thought that for both space and archive. Referring to of one regime has been exchanged for managed to take over and destroy al- the cultural, urban, activist practices the early model of the Lumière Brothers’ another. This totality became a natural most all the cinemas in Vilnius, turning that call for protest, for the reclaiming camera, which had a twofold function law implemented by a new ideological them into apartments, supermarkets, of public space, come from the Western (to shoot film and to project it), this re- institution in Lithuania: the notorious casinos and shopping centers. cultural tradition of democracy. A re- cording device has generated actions and Free Market Institute(3) – which exerts More than twenty cinemas disap- pressive Soviet past simply erased such registered different forms of protest. It undue influence over government. peared. As a poor replacement, and activities from people’s memories. captures the protest, which accumulates, Under this rubric, public space, echoing the tragedy of cities the world Nowadays, the discourse of protest is matures, and yet remains unidentified, landmark buildings, cultural life and over, two huge multiplex cinemas were not possible. Protesting means looking unvoiced, ever in search of a format and public opinion have been the main vic- constructed: the Coca Cola Plaza in the over one’s shoulder, longing for a past; a way of becoming vocal. It has devel- tims. Under the former Soviet regime suburbs and Akropolis Cinemas beyond it connotes Stalinism and the massive oped into a rallying point that extends the idea of public space was introduced the city limits. With the multiplexes repression deriving from the Gulag. artistic claims into political resistance. via notions of architecture and city came multiplex Hollywood movies: Hence the notion of protest has a nega- Artistic praxis ought to reflect planning that captured the contempo- thus, the demolition of cinematic space tive meaning for many people in the change, let’s say. But the question is, raneity of the moment during the peri- encoded the demolition of independ- post-Soviet world. once more, how does it, in fact, con- od of ‘Socialism with a human face’.(4) ent film programming. The state and market forces also tribute to change? Is it possible to con- Cultural entities, facilities for recreation It is symbolic that the last cinema stand in the way of protest. But de- struct a work that wouldn’t just analyze 108 Global Watch Urbonas The Pro-Test Lab

This page: America Will Help Us. From now on any enemy of Lithuania (Lietuva) is an enemy of the United States (after George W. Bush). June 2, 2005.

(1) Klein, Naomi (2007). The Shock Doctrine: The Rise liberalization that would still enable the Communist played a crucial role as places for public gatherings Latvia and Lithuania.Wikipedia. of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Metropolitan Books. Party to maintain real power. Wikipedia. and for the production of cultural awareness. (8) The site is always structured symbolically, ar- (2) Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1998). Subaltern (5) By the time that Lenin dispatched agit-trains (6) The Lietuva Cinema was privatized by the VP chitecturally and ideologically, and the job in hand Studies: Deconstructing Historiography, Oxford: (with Dziga Vertov films on board) to propagandize Market, a national supermarket chain. VP Market is to reveal hidden contradictions. Oxford University Press. about the revolution, cinema was already considered has made inroads into other fields, such as real es- (9) We started discussing the idea of creating (3) The statutes of the Lithuanian Free Market to be the most important of all the arts in the Soviet tate, the supply of energy, etc. As well as its overall an experimental model for resistance in the au- Institute clearly support the idea that freedom is Union. As part of Communist policy, but also due domination of the Baltic market, it also extends as tumn and winter of 2004 with the curators of the the right of access to a free market, the rights of to Stalin’s personal fascination for cinema, a great far as Bulgaria and Romania. Populism exhibition. the individual to own private property, the rights many film theatres were built around the country. (7) The Singing Revolution is the commonly (10) [email protected], which had almost two hun- of the market to set value. It would be too reductive to say that cinemas were used name for events between 1987 and 1990 that dreds participants. (4) A process of mild democratization and political merely places of ideology. Those built in Lithuania led to the regaining of independence of Estonia, (11) More than seventy events have been organ- or reflect change but actually generate collaborated, argued with and resisted in the mainstream media. So a strategy be delivered to a larger international it? How does one organize the capacity each other. This was a space to social- for finessing the media to put a positive audience. (The Pro-test Lab archive has to provoke it?(9) ize and make mistakes in, not a place of – and constant – spin on an essentially also been presented in major exhibitions The Pro-test Lab addressed collec- consensus but one of production. insurrectionist project was needed. The in Austria, Italy, Korea and Russia). tive production and participation and Pro-test Lab had to make sure that the Appeals could also be made to interna- was aimed at creating a community to The Pro-test Lab Archive media were regularly supplied with at- tional solidarity as the issue of redevel- activate people’s cultural and politi- The Pro-test Lab Archiveis an art project tractive and newsworthy material – a opment is a contested topic throughout cal imagination. A people’s movement that organizes a collection of images series of performances and events that Europe. Moreover, as in many small called For Lithuania without quotation and props, and the relationships they manipulated populist forms were devel- countries, Lithuanian corporate execu- marks was founded in support of the produce with the act of protest. The ar- oped to keep the project in a constant tives, politicians, and bureaucrats place cinema and the project. The citizens of chive maps the attempts to stage an au- state of animation and ‘going public’. disproportionate store in international Vilnius who’ve joined the Pro-test Lab tonomous platform for action through (The inverse is also true, property de- opinion – lest it threaten future inbound come from different, sometimes antag- an art project that can penetrate reality velopers and neo-liberal politicians can foreign investment. And high levels of onistic, communities and social groups, through political acts. This develops bury information by “not” scripting a investment are drawn from Norway, young and old, students and pension- both inside and outside the art system press release and “not” posting infor- the Netherlands and Germany where ers, intellectuals and workers – all how- by simultaneously considering the ten- mation on websites). Populism was being presented.(12) ever trying to imagine what a positive sion that such a relationship produces. Significant efforts were channeled As the electronic and media profile kind of protest might be. With a bit of The archive is constructed through into building a constant electronic of the Pro-test Lab began to rise new dash, turning pro and test into action, the events of artistic production staged information profile for the Pro-test names and new activists began to appear they have constructed a new identity as a campaign of reclaiming public Lab. The profile of the Internet chat within the web community specifically for the place, as well as created a site for space as their method of protest. It resource, and linkings to other sites associated with the project. This was testing the potential of protest. acts to initiate the debate elicited by and discussion spaces, were constantly manifested in June 2006 when a call To set the ball rolling we organ- the conflict between privatization and being built: as was the issue of public for a public citizens’ meeting of cultural ized a mailing list forum(10) that pro- publicness, art and ethics, activism and space via constantly commenting in the producers was held at the Contemporary grammed narratives and a space con- production. Starting as an art project webblog resources of other web portals Art Centre (CAC) in Vilnius and 60 nected with the search for contempo- that investigates the energies of the on related issues. producers attended: with the aim of gen- rary forms and formats of disobedience productive side of protest, the Pro-test The invitation to participate in erating an alternative vision for the site against the scenario of a single system. Lab is archiving all the possibilities of the international exhibition Populism of the Lietuva cinema – which culmi- At the same time, the site was opened impossible protest that rally people organized by Nordic Institute for nated in a weekend-long workshop.(13) up to conflict, as small groups of archi- against the specific situation of the pri- Contemporary Art – taking place in (Synchronously, opinions began to ap- tecture students, Green Party activists, vatization of public space.(11) Vilnius, Amsterdam, Frankfurt a.M. and pear accusing the Pro-test Lab of instru- vegans, anarchists, musicians, students Oslo in 2005 – also delivered a strategic mentalizing or becoming, “the authority from the TV and cinema school, anima- Timeline: From Art Project platform to the project. Firstly, the Pro- of protest”, “privatizing” the discourse tors, filmmakers and producers, theatre to Real Juridicio-Political Process test Lab would be reported about in the of protest and harnessing the potentials students, Social Democrat party mem- It was apparent from the outset that frame of the exhibition (and at ‘home’ of networking to a selfish end). bers, community leaders, casual passers- the public effectiveness of the Pro-test Lithuanian media always concentrate on A month later the owners of the by, and regular hangers-out opposed, Lab would be tested against its profile the local participating artists) and would Lietuva site, Plot 17 Pylimo Street, 109 Global Watch Urbonas The Pro-Test Lab

Left: Open Bus Tour. Erased city spaces: in search Right: Street game Apartment Block in the square for the dead cinemas. May 22, 2005. in front of cinema Lietuva. May 7, 2005.

ized at, or in relation to, the Pro-test Lab from ized as a three-day-long session discussing the pro- it could be framed as Bezpridel – hard to translate international support to this petition at: http:// April 2005 to present. posal for the Gwangju biennale brought by curator from Russian, it is a “go-as-you-please” notion. www.culture.lt/petition (12) As part of the Pro-test Lab program, on 23 Cristina Ricupero. Reflecting upon the notion “the (14) Several figures dressed as “black widows” of (16) The committee decided to partially meet August 2005 a TV bridge was organized between abundance of Asia”, we found it productive to think Islam (although they were not only women), with the demands of the petition and to approach Vilnius and Oslo by OCA in collaboration with about the constraints framing Europe and Asia. their faces covered except for the eyes, walked the Government to create working groups at the Atelier Nord. It brought together artists, archi- This kind of thinking about two positions is essen- through the main streets of the capital, visiting a Ministry of Environment for establishing a work- tects, activists and politicians from both countries tial for local –Vilnius and Lithuanian – context as it large supermarket, spending some time at the foun- ing group to initiate a law that would define a pub- for comparative study of gentrification processes in is striving to resolve historical bounds with Asia and tain next to the Parliament, etc. An hour after they lic space within the framework of ‘territory plan- Norway and Lithuania and how they render priva- to articulate its relations with Western Europe. It is paid a visit to the Parliament’s fountain, the partici- ning and consent’ and at the Ministry of Culture tization of the public space. considered that Europe is constituted as a constant pants were apprehended by security services. for organizing a survey of cultural spaces in the (13) The workshop titled Bezpridel was organ- building of borders. Asia in turn is borderless, as (15) There is also an ongoing version to express urban environment. made their mandatory public presenta- Government, to initiate two laws: one 2007 the Petition Committee of the belly of the developer’s beast. tion of the plans for the site. Outside to pursue a definition of ‘public space’ the Government of the Republic of In counter-claim the developers the Municipal Offices appeared several and the other to define ‘public inter- Lithuania addressed itself to the peti- counter-sued the four principals of the figures dressed in full black burqa-like est’.(15) Within one month the peti- tion of July 11th, submitted by the movement in the District Civil Court costumes, staged by a new group of pro- tion was signed by 8 000 citizens and movement For Lithuania without quo- for loss of trade valued in hundreds of testers associated with the Pro-test Lab. presented to the Government of the tation marks. The Committee instruct- thousands of Euro as development has In Lithuania (which is mono-cultural) Republic of Lithuania; for mandatory ed the Ministry of Culture to form an been halted while the courts make their the sight of a burqa potentially triggers future deliberation. advisory sub-committee on the matter findings. And that is where the process associations with Islamist terrorists, or At this point, entering the national of the nature of public space and cul- stands – straddling the legal divide: in freedom fighters, among them a group legislative arena, the actions of the Pro- tural artifacts (which included mem- a public face-off between a commercial known as “shakhidi” or “black widows” test Lab began to test the limits of an bers of For Lithuania without quotation Goliath and an activist citizens’ David. that were first active in Afghanistan and art project and also defied the temporal marks).(16) The Lithuanian political and legal more recently in Chechnya.(14) limitations of what is commonly under- In exercising of their citizens’ rights system is being forced to confront the The following month the citizens’ stood as a work of art: a clearly defined to the full – artists do have rights too monster and decide between the spatial movement For Lithuania without quo- and delineated gestalt object and action – the movement For Lithuania without will of the agora or the atrium – simu- tation marks – addressed an open let- (concerned with aesthetic institutions). quotation marks made a submission to lations of public space enclosed within ter to the members of the UNESCO It also began to question the matter of the Vilnius District Administrative a commercial complex. Is public space World Heritage Committee express- public interest and who, if anyone, is Court pursuing an ‘abrogation of re- a space of ambulation and aggrega- ing concerns that the building was responsible for it in Lithuania, as 8 000 sponsibility by the Vilnius District tion free of commercial imperative or being developed in contravention of signatories represent a voting block or Planning Commission for rewarding is a space to wander necessarily linked, the Vilnius World Heritage Protection constituency large enough to influence redevelopment rights and building con- in the future, with the necessities of Order. (Cinema Lietuva is located with- a public election – yet no politician sent for the Cinema Lietuva site’. On 8 consumption? As private sheet-glass in the boundary of the World Heritage associated her/himself with the move- May 2007 the four principal members and steel monuments to consumption Zone). In stark contrast, the Lithuanian ment. It also opened a debate about of the movement were subpoenaed to start to hem the Lithuanian Parliament Green Party, supposedly representative what constitutes public interest, who appear before the Court to address their House and a monument to the fallen of shared concerns, repressed a protest has a right to represent public interest, submission to stay the development of independence heroes – it is becoming action coinciding with a public protest and its proper value in relation to pri- the site. In support of the claim, the an urgent question for Lithuanians action that they themselves were mak- vate concerns. So why not an artist as a Pro-test Lab made an action at the site, and their politicians. Particularly so as ing (and had got proper permission public representative? measuring the effects of the granted per- Vilnius is going to be caught in the glare for): arguing that it would throw them The movementFor Lithuania with- missions in terms of scale, to prove to the of being European Capital of Culture into bad light. out quotation marks began a campaign public just how intrusive the proposed in 2009, a politically motivated project The next step, in reflection of the of writing open letters to the sharehold- new building would be, obscuring the that is supposed to celebrate the na- growing public support for the actions ers and trustees of the holding compa- view of neighboring properties and sub- tional spirit of creativity and public cel- being taken, a public petition “For the ny controlling the Cinema Lietuva site suming both the square and footpaths ebration – that requires public spaces Cinema Lietuva and the cultural policy (to deflect attention from the ultimate used by thousands of pedestrians every ­– of Lithuanian national culture. And related to it” was launched with in- owners of the concern). day. Their daily commuting routes, and not its wreaking by the forces of priva- tention to present the petition to the From October 2006 to January space, were clearly set to disappear into tization and consumption. + 110 Global Watch Tali Our Monuments of Intolerance

The writer is a critic and researcher based in Tallinn. Currently she is working on a research “Contemporary Art Museums in CEE. Agents of social, political and economic transforma- tions?” together with Laura Pierantoni from Italy. Language editing by Tomi Snellman.

Margaret Our Monuments of Tali Intolerance

Filling space with ideas is a seemingly flicts over the Soldier Monument and on the local level to inscribe the face The spot is not only symbolic safe act, even if some negotiations may the Monument to Freedom as they de- of the Estonian Russian community because of its present meanings, but be required on the way. As soon as the fine the content and appearance of city onto it. As expected, such animation particularly because of charged mean- ideas to be established are fitted into spaces in Tallinn. of antagonistic emotions did not suc- ings from the past. The centre line the public space, things may take a dif- ceed in smoothing the conflict over leading from the Soldier Monument to ferent turn. There are different ways of The ‘Aljosha’ Figure and or doing away with any problems. In the Freedom Square (former Square conceptualising the story of the Soldier the Narratives of Place this context, the goal of simplifying, al- of Victory) is difficult to miss. In the Monument and the related conflicts in The anonymousBronze Soldier (Pronks- most infantilising the seriousness of the 1990s, the central axis was quickly April 2007.(1) The context of the story sõdur in Estonian) spread into the in- problematics of failed integration and taken over, and parades held every 9th as presented here is that of nation- ternational media discourse and was neglected rights of heritage was impos- of May in Soviet Tallinn were replaced building. The passionate destruction turned into the signifier for the conflict sible to conceal. with Parades of Estonian Independence of all traces of the Soviet past during in April 2007 which became known The Soldier Monument was erected held on the 24th of February. One pub- the last two decades in Estonia has led as the Bronze Night. The conflict of in 1947. Designed by Enn Roos and lic performance replaced another. The to a situation where little is deemed perspectives and positions in the pub- Arnold Alas, it was placed in the Square use of this particular public space for worth remembering. The ways in lic space in Tallinn is captured in the of Fighters in order to commemorate a community gathering on the wrong which our unwillingness to relate to very name of the monument and the 12 soldiers, some of whom lost their day aggravated the ideological conflict this episode in our recent past erupt ways the riots in the streets of Tallinn lives in battle against the Nazis over between the two regimes and gradually into the present through the design in April 2007 were articulated. Prior to Tallinn. They had been buried in the made the future of the Soldier’s position of the public space are complex, yet these events the monument was known same square two years earlier.(2) The in the context ever more endangered. straightforward in a way that reveals as the Unknown Soldier or the Monu- eternal flame was lit in front of the Commemoration of the correct histori- an ignorance about the experiences ment of Eternal Flame, with an eternal monument in 1964, and only ceased cal events was conceptualised further of certain communities in Post-Soviet flame burning in front of it. The Rus- to be kindled in 1991. Shortly after when plans to place the Monument to and late-Soviet times. Politically cor- sian name of the statue, Monument to this, the monument was moved to Freedom nearby were made. The spatial rect rhetoric and silencing of the Other the Liberators of Tallinn (Монумент stand next to the entrance of the mas- axis also unites the two monuments have been handy ways to escape fac- освободителям Таллина), was never sive National Library building (1993), – the removed Soldier Monument and ing public (international) accusations changed and has continued to refer symbol for the freedom of speech and the Monument to Freedom, over which of discrimination. As soon as issues to the monument as a memorial to uncensored heritage, and the first na- heated debates are pursued to this day. about things desired or remembered are the soldiers who lost their lives in the tional institution to be completed after The collective identification with the called into question, statements about struggle against Nazi Germany in the the political turn in the early 1990s. place and its rearrangement in the in- aesthetics, the public space and related Second World War. The Russian title The small park surrounding the monu- terests of re-evaluating the outcome of sentiments inevitably acquire an open- spread throughout the Russian cultural ment was designed accordingly: the the Second World War have recently ly political turn, revealing our fears space, also to Russian-speaking Estoni- pathway passing the statue, leading to polarized society again into a new de- and uncertainties. Monumentalising an communities and was even present the library’s main entrance, diminishes bate, this time over the means and the narratives are deeply interwoven with in the official viewpoint of Russia. The the import of the monument in the radical nature of the nation-building manipulative feelings about public as two names bring together the conflict park. Despite the extinguished “eternal process. well as private space: the fear of los- of interests with different readings of flame” in front of the statue, the mon- ing one’s space, the freedom of taking history. ument remained in place and became Narratives of Dread and Hatred it, the tolerance to provide it, and the The alternative name for the mon- an increasingly more important gath- The sudden removal of the Soldier right to fight for it. Recent debates ument used during the conflict, mostly ering point for the local Russian mi- Monument was accompanied locally by over public monuments have brought on the local level, is perhaps the most nority. The privately-owned Museum many instances of dirty behaviour and up very many crucial and generally ne- eloquent of all these versions: Aljosha, of Occupation was opened in the intolerant responses. Not only the po- glected problems within the Estonian the Russian diminutive for Alexander. same alley in 2003, literally facing the litical action, but also the symbolism of society. I shall take as my starting point It was quickly adopted into the public monument. The heritage piece might the very process of the statue’s removal, the political nature of heritage which discourse. Akin to the Silly Ivan of rac- have become part of the museum’s col- the way the issue was discussed in the embodies the related symbolic as well ist anecdotes, the name Aljosha was an lection, as a reinterpreted satellite, but local media, and the sudden abandon- as actual rights, to examine the con- attempt to bring the statue to life, and this never happened. ment of the discussion about minority 111 Global Watch Tali Our Monuments of Intolerance

rights after two months from the April space. Curator Maria-Kristiina Soomre Unknown Soldier was one of the most problems, nor do they trust Russian riots as the international media lost its from the Museum of Contemporary visible pieces of public art in Tallinn. politicians(6). interest. It is difficult to read anything Art KUMU has talked about a par- Not only because of its massive scale The two recent conflicts indicate other than fear and dread from the ticularly Estonian brand of national- and eminent position in the city, but that the present social framework has fact that the Soldier Monument was re- ism, sneaking nationalism, which is also, and especially, because of the way missed out the potential for creating moved in the middle of the night from perhaps all the more dangerous, since the surrounding space was marked with a warmth of community in the public the place it had been standing in for 50 it disguises itself under the discourse of thousands of flowers twice every year, space, a warmth that would be based years and surrounding the removal by Estonian “nature”, which is considered unlike any other memorial in Estonia. on something other than ethnic origin. violent police forces, and later marking to be closed and timid.(3) And just as Thousands of fresh cut flowers were For new monuments to be constructed the place with a high fence which re- this specific kind of nationalism mani- stuck into the ground, literally uniting and design of the public space to be ad- mained heavily guarded for months. I fests itself on the daily level, so the eth- the dead with the living.(5) My moth- dressed properly, we need to search for a will return to the question of fear later nic conflict sneaks upon us whenever er, who used to work in the adjacent consensus of some sort at least. What is on in this article. a deeper discussion about nationalities National Library, says the number of even worse than the present, ultimately The vibrations of violence, hatred comes onto the agenda. What turns the flowers grew considerably in the course disparate and ignorant conceptualisa- and disquiet in the air during the two contest over meanings into a clash of of the last decade. tions of history, is the lack of communi- nights following the riots (26-27 April cultures is the continuous suppression After the dissolution of the Soviet cation between people who cohabit the 2007) remain difficult to describe in of the Other, the misunderstanding of Union, the Russian-speaking minority same cities yet hardly speak to each oth- writing. The removal of the monument the importance of historical debate, continued to be perceived as a threat. er. To top this argument with a personal to the Army Cemetery in a Tallinn sub- and ultimately missing communica- An Estonian writer captured the feel- confession I am not the least proud of – urb and the accompanying public mu- tion between what we call “the differ- ings of the public in the early 1990s, in spite of having lived in Tallinn for 27 tiny gathered an unexpected number ent sides”. saying “the more of them take a train years, I have never invited any Russian of people in the streets. Violent riots and go back to cultivate the land of friends to my home. The daily routes ensued, with shops destroyed, a dozen The Issues Untouched their ancestors, the better”. Nowadays, we travel with public transport may be cars turned upside down and public Community is a warm, cosy and com- the wise have discovered it is better to similar, but the schools where we study, buildings plundered, and the unrest fortable place which feels good and keep silent about such sentiments in the bars where we hang out, the neigh- spread across Estonia. Over 1,000 peo- allows us to count on each others’ public. Yet for many people, particu- bourhoods we live in and the media we ple were carefully questioned during good will, Zygmunt Bauman writes. larly those of the older generation, little identify with, all these remain different. these events, many of them were arrest- Community comes into being through has changed since then. The public dis- Ultimately, there is little point to bring ed. The demonisation of the “criminals” stories and myths, in order to mediate course shows how Soviet troops, peo- us together… and saboteurs still continues, although things that must not be forgotten.(4) ple forced against their will to move to What is the freedom to be mon- it has produced hardly anything except Following Bauman’s account, a nation Estonia as part of the Soviet migration umentalised in Tallinn’s Freedom the counter-effect to the interrogations, is made up of a range of different com- policy to feed the needs of a growing Square? Whose freedom is at stake? which on a practical level is a relic of munities which may be formed ran- industry, Soviet ideologues, all these are And how can “we” learn from the ex- Soviet attitudes more than anything domly in the sense that people belong- mixed up in the feelings of the present perience of freedom of the Russian- else. The images of the violent removal ing to one community can simultane- Russian-speaking minorities. In other speaking communities in Estonia? In of the monument and the suppression ously form other communities as well. words, no matter what their personal spite of the existence of certain silent or of the mutiny remain the most difficult The safe place for the Russian minority stories and backgrounds, they are con- closed cultural institutions (the Russian ones to erase from public memory. in Estonia is to be found within minor- sidered carriers of historical guilt, and Cultural Centre, privately-run Russian Nation-building has continued to ity communities, lacking heritage and, therefore must be punished. Fear of the Museum) or conflictuous ones (such follow the aggressive rules laid down by furthermore, an identity of their own. Other and the uncertainty of our “own” as the Russian Drama Theatre and the “us”. On the top of the iceberg there are Talking about the lively use of the identity found a lively reflection in the constant stories of its internal conflicts), the Russian-speaking minorities, on the park and the active rituals surrounding figure ofAljosha . Except for experiences there are hardly any writers, artists, other edge are other minorities, such as the Soldier Monument has become al- of high culture, research has shown that filmmakers or composers who would the fairly small Estonian Roma com- most a taboo in the past year, nor was it the Russian minority hardly identifies be recognized on the national level. In munity who lack whatsoever ways of mentioned during the riots. As long as with contemporary Russia at all: they 1998 a Russian-speaking school was es- participating in the creation of public I can remember, the monument to the do not believe Russia can solve their tablished by the Academy of Arts but 112 Global Watch Tali Our Monuments of Intolerance

(1) For Estonia, the bronze statue is a symbol of Estonian embassy was beleaguered by the Russian Presentation in the Seminar Translocal Express. the beginning of the Soviet occupation but for nationalistic youth organization Nashi for a week’s Museum of Occupation, 21 February 2008. Russia of the victory over fascism in the Second time. (Ed.) (4) Bauman, Zygmunt (2001). Seeking Safety World War. The removal of the statue in April (2) Kaasik, Peeter (2006). Tallinnas Tõnismäel in an Insecure World. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007 strained the relations between Russia and asuv Punaarmeelaste ühishaud ja mälestusmärk. 2-3. Estonia to the utmost and triggered massive riots Inimsusevastaste Kuritegude Uurimise Eesti (5) Lotman, Mihhail. “Märulisemiootika Eesti both in Moscow and Tallinn. In Tallinn, bank of- Sihtasutus, 4. Available at http://www.valitsus.ee/ pealinnas”. Postimees 02.05.2007 fice and shop windows were demolished and shops brf/doc.php?34981 (10.03.2008) (6) Lauristin, Marju. ”Eestlaste sallimatus toidab plundered, among other things. In Moscow, the (3) Soomre, Maria-Kristiina. Lost in Integration? propagandamasinat”. Päevaleht 11.08.2007

was closed down in 2003, signalling heritage” that would reflect the minori- lives in an absence of rights or herit- languages, readings of history and ways the failed policies of integration. The ty’s life experiences, they can be made age, and is made to recognise it. But of communication are ultimately dif- reason brought to it was lack of gov- illiterate, without identity, status or a even worse at this point is the absence ferent? Stories about fragmented com- ernmental funding for arts. This does face of their own in society. Even the of stories of minorities on the agenda munities come into being through art- not mean that there were no Russian very term Russian-speaking minority of local cultural and memory institu- works, embodying the fragmentedness speaking artists graduating from the is highly problematic, but I use it here tions, as exemplified by the special of these narratives. The stories about Academy of Fine Arts, but their way in the absence of a better term to re- exhibition programmes drawn up for the two monuments have reopened ahead in their career was not off by the fer to this large section of our society, the 90th-century anniversary events of many old conflicts, and continue to dominating nationalist ideologies that which makes up 31% of the Estonian the country: the exhibitions Iseolemise recreate stories about us and them, link- continued to emerge in the policies and population. Little is known about their Tahe in the Estonian History Museum ing physical presence firmly to spatial practices of institutions. Local cultural personal stories, and this relates to hu- (semi-permanent show in Maarjamäe representations. The meanings relating institutions and their daily practices man rights in a most peculiar way: one Palace), and Freedom Square in the Art to the two monuments have also polar- have been produced to recreate the ex- third of this large minority has either Hall (27 February – 6 April 2008), ised the society. On the positive side, clusion. Cultural participation among some other citizenship than Estonian, and so on. The first of the two exhibi- it may have made us think about the the Russian speaking minorities has or none. tions is especially alarming in its one- importance of heritage and of power remained low for the same reason, art She who fights with the Dragon sided and uncritical account of ways relations and give more thought to the administrators have no obligation to for a long time starts to resemble the to come to terms with the Soviet era. structure of our society, on the negative serve people in other languages than Dragon herself, someone once said. The nonexistent platforms of discus- side, it might only reproduce the exist- Estonian. On the other hand should we The dangers of nationalism are hard- sion reflect the continuing misunder- ing hatred. Tolerance is a fragile thing, read Russian graffiti in the public parks, ly recognised by the people, if at all. standings and unwillingness to deal but indispensable as a way of learning toilets or buses? In this case, heritage is Language policy too has reinforced the with it. to live with one’s past, and even more firmly linked to self-organization, ac- perception of the state as a homogene- so with one’s missing or neglected her- cess, and ways of community creation. ous Estonian-speaking space – at the Instead of a Conclusion itage. What else is to be done with the Because of the lack of a “contemporary same time that the Russian minority How can we negotiate over space if Dragon? + 113 Global Watch Ramadan Independent Media Making in the Middle East

The writer is a curator and media documentary (1) http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:-y film maker with diverse interests in the fields of d6F0zWEZUJ:www.al-bab.com/media/cinema/ media research, history and critical theory. He is cinema.htm+Mariam+Rosen+arab+media+indust lecturer at the Department for Cultural Studies ry&hl=da&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=safari and the Arts, Copenhagen University

Khaled Independent Media Making Ramadan in the Middle East

The current media world-order is am- vated the media industry. Competition to the Sabra and Chatila massacres, the remaining 900 or so were negative. The bivalent because of the massive number over viewers, national interests, as well Intifada (uprising) in Palestine in 2001, Arab film industry has not made simi- of transnational TV stations, each with as patriotism aroused by wars and con- the 9/11 events, the wars on Iraq, all lar negative depictions of Westerners, its own political interests and arrange- flicts, resulted in uncertain and aggres- have contributed to the industry in however. Since the emergence of the ments. It is worth remembering that sive broadcasting. Giant transnational positive and negative ways. Arab film industry in the 1930s, only world-wide media practices have been media co-operations, including some The productive Tunisian filmmaker 17 films have given rise to diplomatic subject to drastic technological changes Arab TV stations, nowadays all argue Nouri Bouzid, who in his work deals a controversy with the Western world. over the last 20–30 years. One of the over the verification of truth, their pub- lot with matters such as the Arab iden- The author Dr. Shaheen, who is major changes with regard to media has lic credibility and balanced reporting. tity and crises related to it, explains this Professor of Mass Communications been the decline in the so-called signal However, while the majority of the sta- tendency as follows: at Southern Illinois University and colonialism. tions are trapped by the need to market former CBS News consultant on As Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto explains, their dogma in a standardized commer- We must face our memory, judge it, un- Middle East affairs, has argued that if when there is no longer any physical cial format, the viewers are confused veil it. Change comes from knowledge. We Arabs want to change the way the West space to conquer, virtual space is colo- and have difficulties subscribing to any don’t dare to see ourselves in the mirror, views the Arab world and polish their nized instead. The long period of colo- of them. Nevertheless, as in the West, we look for someone else, we’re not proud image, they have to go through the two nization, leading to a near-monopoly nationalist and populist TV stations in of what we are. Our history is bound by centres of power: one in Washington of the global airwaves by Western me- the East are scoring the highest ratings. memory and prohibition. We must unveil and the other in Hollywood. In other dia giants such as the BBC, the Voice of what we keep hidden in order perhaps to words, they have to make use of both America and CNN, was implemented Film as Media, Media as Film know who we are.(1) entertainment and politics, because the mercilessly. Being subjected for many In parallel with the changes to TV- two go hand-in-hand. He also called years to the relentless broadcasting of media in the Arab world, the film, The unveiling of the self which Bouzid on Arab filmmakers to produce films audiovisual material, especially in the documentary and video industry is is calling for is specifically related to that could help convey a clear and true Third World and the Middle East, the also changing. For many filmmakers, the Maghreb region. Concerns such as image of the Arab world to the West, identity and life of the target groups the only way to explain current issues the French influence on local language especially in the United States. were seriously influenced by Western seems to be by turning to look at the as well as local habits and traditions The first video maker to answer Dr. norms. past. In the 1970s and 1980s their reflect the identity crisis the Maghreb Shaheen’s call directly was Jacqueline Within the limited alternatives, was an attempt to spread nationalist region has been and to a certain extent Salloum in her video Planet of the viewers were subscribed to Western val- Arab unity in this way, which is still is still suffering from. Arabs. Jacqueline Salloum was born ues broadcast to them in local languag- a dream for many in the Arab world. in Dearborn, Michigan, of a Middle es – up until the beginning of the “sat- Another historic experience which the The Image of the Bad Arab Eastern father and an American ellite era”, about twenty years ago. At Arab countries have in common, is the It is also necessary to unveil the image of mother. She was one of the first video this point, the monopoly was reduced, encounter with colonialism. European the Arab people shaped by the Western makers to take the American film in- if not endangered, particularly with the colonialism still makes itself felt in dai- film industry, such as Hollywood’s re- dustry task on this topic. Inspired by birth of antagonistic semi-independ- ly life and that, too, has overshadowed lentless stereotyping of Arabs. The image Dr. Shaheen’s Reel Bad Arabs, the video ent satellite news stations such as Al the Arab film and media industry. of Arabs is studied in Reel Bad Arabs by Planet of the Arabs takes a critical look Jazeera, Al-Mamnoua TV, Alalam TV The Arab film industry has been Dr. Jack G. Shaheen, a book about the at Hollywood’s relentless dehumaniza- and Al-Manar from the Arab world, subjected to many cultural chocks, and depiction of Arab and Muslim charac- tion of Arabs. In an outstanding audio- and other broadcasting entities from for a time it no longer knew how to de- ters in American films in the period from visual style, Salloum presents the other Asia and Africa. fine itself. Historic events such as Anwar 1896 to 2000. Out of 1,000 films with face of representation. She unveils the The emergence of a massive number Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in 1977, the Arab and Muslim characters, only 12 of American/Arab claim to friendship of satellite stations world-wide, aggra- invasion of Lebanon in 1982 which led the depictions were positive, while the and investigates what that friendship 114 Global Watch Ramadan Independent Media Making in the Middle East

Meen Erhabi, Jackie Salloum, 2004, video still, Khaled Hafez, Untitled, 2004, video still, courtesy courtesy of the artist of the artist

is all about. Her nine-minute video struggle for the control of the image, for ated such an international crisis as The speaking TV station) manage to attract consists of ready-made footage from the power to define identity. That identity Diaspora. This particular serial was the majority of Arab viewers. over 30 films showing how Arab and is clearly rooted in the crossroads of the broadcast on the Hezbollah TV station The Arab media and the Arab film Muslim characters are depicted by the culture of the region, extending as it does Al-Manar in 2003. Two years later, hav- industry have now catered to regional American film industry. Intensive film between Europe and Black Africa, be- ing been denounced by Israel, the US audiences for a very long time. They flashes with Michael J. Fox, Danny tween the Atlantic and the Arabian Gulf, and France alike, the serial caused Al- did not manage to reach a global au- DeVito, Chuck Norris and Arnold but also between the city and countryside Manar to lose its licence and be banned dience until the birth of the first in- Schwarzenegger show them all mock- and desert (...) between a colonial past from broadcasting to Europe and the ternational English-speaking Arab TV ing and conquering Arab individuality and a nominally independent present. US. The French High Council for station, Al Jazeera International, and and identity. Audiovisual Matters ordered Eutelsat the new Iran-based English-language Hence in the case of Soubhi’s film one and HotBird to pull Al-Manar off the station, Press TV. Post-9/11 TV Serials can argue that Knight without Horse was air. The reasons given for the ban were The TV station Al Jazeera perceives Film and video makers from the a direct attempt to communicate with based on Al-Manar’s ideology and what itself as a protector/promoter of the Arab world itself also struck back at local and global audiences simultane- the station stands for. The French ar- Arab dream. It documents, archives Hollywood’s anti-Arab production in ously. Consequently, Soubhi’s produc- gued that Al-Manar’s programs con- and educates its viewers about their their own way, especially by produc- tion was part of a populist game. He tained anti-Western propaganda and historic events, cultures, beliefs and ing films and series in the same style as managed to please the local audiences, that immigrants of Arab descent living politics. In presenting the Arab society Hollywood. This was the case with the but he also provoked an overall debate in the West could be negatively af- in its broadcasts and website, Al Jazeera Egyptian actor Mohamed Soubhi and over the notion of artistic freedom and fected and eventually reject integration uses the perception and notion of “us”, his serial Knight without Horse (Fares freedom of expression claimed by the into Western societies. The American referring to “us the Arabs”. It is the only Bidoun Jawad) of 2003. This particu- West. His point was confirmed when reason, on the other hand, was that Arabic station that uses this expression. lar political production (not supported the US and Israel denounced his pro- Al-Manar is an anti-Semitic terrorist It also seeks to report events taking by the local Egyptian regime) was duction. Eventually, however, the station. place in Arab countries at depth. The denounced by the White House and criticism worked to the advantage of The French decision to silence Al- station has offices in every Arab coun- Israel for being anti-Israeli and resulted Soubhi’s film serial, when he argued on Manar led to unanticipated support try, so it also assumes the position of a in a diplomatic crisis between Israel CNN that Arab audiences supported for Al-Manar from around the world. maker of norms, as well as culture. In and Egypt. Knight without Horse shows his production, and underlined how Politicians and journalists, especially Doha and now in Damascus, Al Jazeera how the Arab film industry still reflects any artwork by Arab producers would from the Arab media, raised their voices training centres are open for Arab stu- regional issues and related socio-politi- be condemned and banned if it criti- because they dreaded being the next tar- dents and filmmakers to study docu- cal struggles . cized Israel, or the West for that mat- get. Despite the Al-Manar controversy, mentary making and journalism. In the words of the film critic ter. the Arab satellite stations managed to Mariam Rosen, the Arab film industry Other Arab filmmakers engaged break the Western monopoly over their Contemporary Tendencies has not yet detached itself neither from themselves in the game of labelling airspace. Western media can no longer In terms of its economy, the film indus- the history of the region nor from state and stereotyping the “other”. A good choose to tone down images of war and try in the Arab world is doing better to- interests. Rosen writes that example is the TV serial The Diaspora conflict and replace them with graphi- day than when it used to be dependent (Al-Shataat) by the Syrian script writer cally manipulated computer representa- on investors, banks and private com- The Arab film industry is the product and Fadlallah Umar. No other serial pro- tions, while stations such as Al-Manar, panies. Today, many projects are com- the expression of a long and unresolved duced by Arab filmmakers has gener- Al Jazeera, or World TV (Iranian Arabic- missioned and sponsored by the several 115 Global Watch Ramadan Independent Media Making in the Middle East

Khaled Ramadan, Manar TV After Shelling, 2006. Top right: Khaled Ramadan, Beirut Suburb, 2006, Photo by the artist, courtesy of the artist. video still, courtesy of the artist.

hundreds of newly established Arab sat- the pressure on TV in the Arab world, pansion applies to the visual expressions Joreige and Joana Hadjithomas, Zinab ellite TV stations. It is now 16 years ago, build up under state control for such a and experiences of the region and mani- Sedera, Rabih Mourué, Walid Raad, that the Arab world experienced its first long time. Following Dubai, two other fests itself as electronic development, an Kaya Behkalam, Saifolah Samadian, semi-independent satellite TV station, Free Zones were established in Cairo expanding media industry, a changing Fouad Elkoury, Jalal Taoufic, Ghas- the Saudi-owned MBC. Numerous and Amman. A Lebanese Free Zone is motion picture culture, and new prac- san Salhab, Mohamed Soueid, Raad satellite stations have followed. Before also in the making. tices within Arab visual culture. Yassin, Jacqueline Salloum, Mahmoud the development of the pan-Arab TV In the first test, the Free Zones Although video documentary op- Hojeij Emily and Anne Marie Jacir, industry, Western TV stations such as failed to be free when Al-Mamnoua erated in the margins of Western soci- Hassan Khan,Moataz M. Nasr, Ahmad the British BBC and the French TV5 attempted to re-broadcast what Al- ety for many years, it ultimately won Habash, Mohanad Alya’qubi, Ayreen were among the few broadcasting to the Manar had broadcast – the TV serial an autonomous position in the West as Anstas, Munira Al Souleh, Mireille Eid Arab world. However, the substance of The Diaspora. Again it was the US that well as in the Middle East. The world- Astore and Ammar Bouras, have man- these Arabic-speaking Western stations asked the Jordanian regime to stop wide popularity of video documentary aged to expand our understanding of was pro-Western. Today, the majority of the broadcasts. As a first reaction, the as a medium began already in the six- experimental film and video makers semi-independent satellite stations such Jordanian regime declared the Free ties. Video documentary started to from the Middle East. as the media icons Al Jazeera, MBC, Zone an independent media haven, gain popularity across the Arab world The result of their interventionist Al-Arabiah, Abu Dhabi, ANN, Orbit, which prevented the US from doing around the eighties, when several new practice is more visible and recognized Future TV, Alalam TV and Al-Manar much about it. However, soon after, experimental, independent media pro- now than ever before. We have seen are situated in Arab countries, mainly the US debated cutting part of its an- ducers emerged in cities such as Beirut, how video and documentary theorists in the Gulf region. They are pro-Arab nual foreign aid to Jordan, and conse- Damascus and Algiers, but also in in both the East and especially in the and to some extent also anti-West. quently the TV serial was taken off the Tehran and Istanbul. West are clearing a larger space for the Since Arab investors began to take air, and the TV station was doomed. Because of their aesthetic concerns, history, memory, and nature of such notice of the importance of TV, a few as well as critical and analytical concep- practices, regarding them as a discur- influential individuals such as Prince Investigational, Independent Video tual approaches, experimental autono- sive, experimental genre in which aes- Walid Bin Talal, the late Rafik Hariri Documentary on the March mous video documentary makers from thetics and cultural theory are com- and Mohamed Saleh have helped the Parallel to the mainstream TV stations the Middle East have been celebrated bined in a constantly evolving formal Arab TV industry to flourish. During scattered across The Middle East and internationally. Their independent combination. the last five years or so, Arab TV and beyond, a new generation of experi- work has been the subject of numerous The works of the above-mentioned other media have entered the Free mental video makers and documen- scholarly publications and essays, with video artists and documentarists are Zone. The idea of Free Zones is that tary-film makers is on the rise, offering several major international academic searching for new forms of expression there should be no interference in their alternative sources of information and conferences and forums held in Beirut, and the redefinition of representations, production. This gives TV stations the entertainment, and enjoying the so- Cairo, Istanbul and Sharjah. The mov- which are capable of catching up with freedom to broadcast without interfer- cial awareness of the new media, from ing image has also claimed a position at the rapidly changing local/global, so- ence from local governments, in theory Morocco to Iraq. the centre of significant scholarly dis- cial, and political environment. The at least. Starting with Dubai Media Regarding the changing climate of cussions about memory, truth, verifica- exploration and articulation of cultural City, the concept of a Free Zone became visual culture in contemporary Middle tion, and visual re-presentation. and aesthetic contexts in this type of a reality in the Middle East, though Eastern society, what the region is wit- The work of young Middle Eastern video making is just beginning in the not without problems. The conception nessing today may be best described as video and filmmakers like Akram Zaa- Middle East, so we can expect yet more of Free Zones was intended to relieve cultural growth and expansion. This ex- teri, Hamdi Attia, Wael Shawqy, Khalil surprising works to soon be born. + 116 Global Watch RUK Why a Contemporary Art Newspaper?

The Members of RUK include (so far): Borka Pavićević, Vida Knežević, Kristian Lukić, Gordana Nikolić, Dejan Sretenović, Aleksandar Bošković, RUK, Ana Bezić, Jelena Radić, Zoran Erić, Branko Dimitrijević, Svebor Midžić, Darinka Pop Mitić, Miloš Čvorović, Branimir Stojanović, Marko Radnici u kulturi Miletić, Milica Tomić, Vladan Jeremić, Vladimir Jerić, Nikoleta Marković, Milena Dragićević Šešić, Ljubica Beljanski Ristić, Vladimir Tupanjac, Ivana Marjanović, Borut Vild, Jelena Vesić, Nebojša Milikić.... Language editing Ivor Stodolsky. Top: Dren Maliqi, Face to Face, 2003. Torn down half an hour before the opening speech. Why a Contemporary Bottom left: In the foreground one of the viola- tors, academic painter Zoran Calija (with the black Art Newspaper? A Letter hat), some time before he interrupted the opening speech.

Bottom right: February 7, 2008, KONTEKST from Belgrade Gallery, Belgrade. Few minutes after academic painter Zoran Calija interrupted the opening speech by capturing the stage and holding a hate- speech in which he discredited the participating artists and accused the organizers of betraying fa- therland and humanity. His intervention made the police instruct the organizers of the exhibition to shut it down before it had even been opened. Photos by Jovan Jaksic.

The opening of the exhibition problem of Serbia herself and her eman- Exception/ The Contemporary Priština cipation. This is only possible if one un- Art Scene was recently violently ob- derstands, identifies and criticizes Serbia’s structed by ultra-nationalist and cleri- repressive policy against the Albanian cal-fascist groups, the interpreters and population in Kosovo up through 1999, executors of Serbian state ideology. and if one recognizes its consequences. During the immediate course of the RUK believes that fascism, supported incident, a spontaneous gathering of by the silence of the state and its institu- citizens and culture professionals, who tions, must be stopped. were prevented from attending the RUK’s communication plat- opening, decided to respond to this forms include the newspaper, The act of violence by organizing an artis- Contemporary Art Review, as well as tic-political event, forming the new public discussions and a web site. group RUK (this is the Serbian acro- With its launch, the Review will nym for the syntagm Radnici u kulturi, offer a critical analysis of the Exception i.e. Culture Workers). The intention of exhibition, its concept and artworks. RUK is to initiate public debates about In the empty exhibition space all the incident and create conditions for the remained was the incident! the censored exhibition to be opened, Or, more precisely: the politics of and to bring politics back into the field the incident, its topology, the (lack of) of contemporary art. public reaction, the (lack of) the reac- RUK states that contemporary art tion of state officials, the position of in Serbia is in a state of emergency. the art scene in relation to the incident, Political space in art no longer exists, i.e. the differentiation, polarization and and the constitutional right to the free- confrontation, the cultural apoliticality dom of thought and speech has been of Belgrade/Serbia, reproduction of the revoked. The question now is, what Serbian apartheid policy, the policy of makes contemporary art and anti-fas- segregation, political terror and repres- cist discourse in today’s Serbia so dan- sion, moved from the Kosovo Albanians gerous to the state and its apparatus? to the contemporary culture and art RUK is open to all those who refuse scene, which now almost fully adopted to accept censorship and the impossibil- the ban of any mention of Albanians, ity of publicly discussing contemporary Kosovo, i.e. the ban of free speech in art and society; to all who intend to act contemporary art. against this social paralysis, confirmed The first edition of the The yet again by this aborted opening; and Contemporary Art Review deals with the to all who believe that politics belongs in reconstruction and analysis of the inci- art. Moreover, RUK is open to all who dent, and the policy behind it. + believe that the problem of an exhibition being closed down is no longer a prob- Letter from the members of RUK, Radnici lem of minority rights in Serbia, but a u kulturi Belgrade, February 2008. Exhibiton Exception Incident Map as of 7pm 117 Global Watch RUK Why a Contemporary Art Newspaper?

K

apetan M

išina St. 118 Global Watch Reviews Vishmidt Reviews

The writer is a London-based writer currently on a research residency in the Theory Department of the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, The Netherlands. Her work focuses on the production of temporality, labour and value in contemporary art. Language editing Ivor Stodolsky.

Marina An Aesthetic Education in Vishmidt ‘Fictitious Capital’

To see one’s own sight means visible blind- ‘hard currency’ of what we can agree deep retreat back into formalism and heteronomy (connection to and con- ness. – Robert Smithson(1) to call ‘criticality’ or ‘politicization’ in bourgeois aestheticism after Documenta tamination by ‘the real’, dependency) contemporary art. As the former faces 11’s intrepid escalation of the stakes which Adorno would re-inscribe again By way of a fragmentary review of its crisis in the current deflationary fall- for a critical, contextual, post-media, in a Marxist vein in the dual character Documenta 12, I would like to propose out of the subprime crash, the latter’s dispersive and relational blockbuster of the artwork as a utopian commod- some correspondences between what crisis was most spectacularly inflated exhibition craft. Many rejected the ity. The avant-garde’s was influenced I will refer to as the crisis of value in in this year’s Documenta 12. Of course, emphatic ‘withdrawal’ of context, by ‘aesthetic education’, insofar as it contemporary art and the crisis of value these questions could not pretend to be discursivity (or its outsourcing to the attempted to bridge the gap between in contemporary capital. The former is confined to this exhibition or this dis- Documenta Magazines platform) and art and life through the cultivation of embedded in the former, while retain- cursive framework, as they have been arrogant flouting of what I will call the freedom – dissolving the specialised ing a relative autonomy. This can be animating so many of the aporias, op- ‘normative criticality’ of globalised art and elite character of art as a commod- seen more immanently as an analytic portunisms and performative contra- exhibition and mediation. ity in an everyday life, a life in which and practical commonality between the dictions of the art world and its institu- But I don’t think that’s what it is, or creativity has become generalised, the ‘nominalist’ turn in art production and tions in recent years. all of what it is. It is merely a reductive creativity of a new society. discourses that renders the work of art, and consumer-facing version of a quix- It is decisively this idea of the role and the worker who produces it, indis- The Pedagogical Sublime: otically revived faith in the Romantic of the realm of art as intervening in tinguishable from many other kinds of Learning from Kassel concept of aesthetic education. This is the sensible, and its, by turns, civiliz- social or productive activity, except for In their preface to the fabulously etio- most famously developed by Schiller, ing and radicalizing (amounting to de the financial and critical instruments lated Documenta 12 catalogue, as well which has lately been heavily revisited facto humanizing) potential – always at that designate it as art. This is the ho- as in statements on the Documenta in the work of Jacques Rancière, and in a remove from actual social and politi- mogenising effect of exchange value website, Roger Buergel and Ruth the circulation of this work among crit- cal change, but inseparable from it, and that acts to commodify the human Noack say : “. . . exhibitions are only ics, curators and art public.(3) Rancière with its heritage of Kantian aesthetics as capacity to intervene in the natural, worth looking at if we manage to dis- reconstructs Schiller’s notion as a link the free play of the faculties and the ex- and increasingly, social and technical pense with preordained categories and between the ‘free play’ of the faculties cess augured by the sublime etc. – that world – i.e. “abstract labour”(2) – and arrive at a plateau where art communi- already noted by Kant as intrinsic to serve up the antinomies of Buergel and extract surplus value from it. An addi- cates itself and on its own terms.” But the non-purposive experience of art Noack’s Documenta. It is an experiment tional point of conjuncture would be to they also say, and the formation of a free human in a self-cancelling didactics of art. situate the crisis of value in what many being able to engage in the emerging Their programme seems to both disa- political theorists have discussed as the The global complex of cultural transla- democratic political communities of vow and continue to insist on autono- ‘real subsumption’ of the social in proc- tion that seems to be somehow embedded the modern era (in distinction from my as the last best hope for social prac- esses of capitalist valorization. in art and its mediation sets the stage for their ‘failed’ versions, e.g. the French tices, which can no longer be entrusted This process has tremendously ex- a potentially all-inclusive public debate Revolution because it slipped into ter- to the judgment of the market, nor to panded the arena of the law of value (Bildung, the German term for education, ror and tyranny). In that sense, the aes- the mediation of institutions to ensure while eroding the grounds for grasp- also means “generation” or “constitution”, thetic regime that Rancière identifies as their ontological or critical purchase as ing or resisting it, producing the crisis as when one speaks of generating or con- the condition of appearance of modern art. It is difficult to distinguish between of value. The not unrelated ‘real sub- stituting a public sphere). Today, educa- art and modernity itself are necessar- this and its proximate practices: deter- sumption’ of art in the social – ‘criti- tion seems to offer one viable alternative ily tied up with one another culturally mining value in the dealer’s showroom, cality’ – on the contrary, has had very to the devil (didacticism, academia) and and historically. Further, art produced the collector’s parlor or the cabinet of little impact on the economy or scale the deep blue sea (commodity fetishism). in the aesthetic regime is always caught curiosities (where the exercise of wilful of art production and circulation. A up in a dialectical tension between au- distinction propagates primarily a dis- tentative equation, thus, can be made Here is what phalanxes of critics, with tonomy (critical detachment from ‘the cerning subject eager to display her/his between the ‘fictitious capital’ and the some vehemence, have described as a real’, independence from necessity) and strategies of elite consumption more 119 Global Watch Reviews Vishmidt

(1) Flam, Jack ed. (1996). Robert Smithson: The the equality whose direct materialization, accord- Collected Writings. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: ing to Schiller, was shown to be impossible by the University of California Press. French Revolution. It is this specific mode of living (2) For brevity’s sake, see the “Abstract labour in the sensible world that must be developed by and concrete labour” article on Wikipedia, http:// ‘aesthetic education’ in order to train men suscep- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_labour_and_con- tible to live in a free political community. The idea crete_labour of modernity as a time devoted to the material re- (3) In English, see especially The Politics of alization of a humanity still latent in mankind was Aesthetics and “The Aesthetic Revolution and Its constructed on this foundation.” Outcomes”, New Left Review, issue 14, March- (4) Allen, Jennifer (2007). „Bare Life? Barely“. April 2002: “ . . .the aesthetic education of man . . Metropolis M, accessed at the Documenta .defined a neutral state, a state of dual cancellation, Magazines website, http://magazines.documenta. where the activity of thought and sensible receptiv- de/frontend/ ity become a single reality. They constitute a sort of (5) Rancière, Jacques (2002). “The Aesthetic new region of being – the region of free play and Revolution and Its Outcomes”. New Left Review, appearance – that makes it possible to conceive of issue 14, March-April.

than the resonance of the artwork in art cannot be squared by reference to from Mira Schendel’s frangible neo- for an Academy, the project adapts the question). the dissolution of art in everyday life Concrete objects and typography, to art envelope for circumstantial ends, The danger of espousing a method- – by activist strategies, by a splicing of Nasreen Mohammedi’s notebooks, employing a cheap and implosive ology of ‘letting the art speak for itself’, the ‘make it new’ betokened by artistic Florian Pumhösl’s poised and elliptical mimicry (electric-tape panels and other while holding in reserve the premise creativity. This is an admission of the screens, the Inquiry into the/our Outside quasi-objects among the monitors and that there is an educational pay-off for intractability of contemporary variants project, the Jo Spence and the Grupo binders, a murky light quality). contemporary art audiences willing to of old Modernist problems: that is, the de Artistas de Vanguardia archives, and But, again, it is not this, or not only lend an ear, merely displaces the instru- insoluble contradictions of art-oriented the Lee Lozano paintings . . . In a way, this. This is aesthetic education as un- mentality of institutional framing, and radicalism that does not only subsist the art does speak for itself, but the ex- happy consciousness, and its effects on the vagaries of the market, rather than in a society of commodity production, hibition refrains from translating the the viewer can be bracing, equivocal, or going beyond them. It displaces the cri- but is the most articulate and rarefied dialects into a common language. absent. Such is the contingency of ap- sis of value into the heart of its contra- example of it. In other words, we see Alejandra Riera’s Inquiry into the/our pearing in this space, of opening up to dictory reticence about discourse and the spectacle of a specious Schillerian Outside itself is a kind of passion-play heteronomy so widely, that autonomy the conventions of mediation and dis- retro-garde poised to make combat of the exhibition’s dilemmas, staged on is out the window. This is why it seems play – conventions that guarantee the with every presupposition of ‘the desire the top floor of the Fredericianum with like a microcosm of the Documenta itself commodity status of the artwork pre- for social change’ on the part of artists, one window left open. Riera works with – sincere, committed, equivocal, bitter cisely in their reticence. It goes without art theorists and art publics. a collective of former and current psy- – by turns inside/outside, all is/not lost. saying, that this was always the ‘ideol- But it seems like a weak and apa- chiatric patients who are also writers, Returning to an overall view, it is ogy of the white cube’. By proposing thetic contest, a fact that is already artists, sociologists and journalists in worth remembering the basic notion to instigate a certain kind of resistant deducible from the opposition of the their work which takes them through that the autonomy of the aesthetic is subjectivity on the part of the ‘viewer’ demonic academy with the deep blue urban areas of Brazil in encounters with unthinkable without its relationship to and evacuating their own responsibility sea of commodity fetishism, and the school kids, security guards, build- heterenomy(5). Art can only be separate – i.e. of ‘intervening’ or ‘making mean- inexcusable muddle of Buergel’s con- ers, activists, tramps and others. These from life on the condition of its consti- ing’ – the Documenta’s curators signal a cept of ‘bare life’ operative in the ex- video interviews play on monitors. It is tutive entanglement in it, in economy, repudiation of the overtly ‘democratic’ hibition (yes, it’s Guantanamo, but it’s a presentation of collective and open- in politics. An abiding antagonism is, or ‘relational’ ambitions of so many also jouissance).(4) What lays bare the ended processes in a bounded and po- then, inescapable from any effort to curatorial and artistic projects in recent rather endearing bewilderment mani- liced exhibition context. In this way, conjugate art with politics, an antago- years. And this, only to close the circle fest in the whole Documenta concept, it wonders how such labour is turned nism exacerbated by autonomy, not and end up back at the hermetic con- is a studied obliviousness to political into an art object, and how social pro- reconciled by it. tradictions that every encounter of art economy – for only such obliviousness duction itself is placed into hierarchies, The encounter of a visitor to with the ‘social’ in the past 40 or 50 could propose ‘aesthetic education’ as made to produce value, turned into in- Documenta with its very divergent years has been striving to interrogate. a solution to engaging with art in the sides and outsides. It shows the way in works, presented with very little infor- So what does this little diversion mode of commodity fetishism. which representation may be a kind of mation, makes this split vivid and op- entail for the relationship of art with This is an obliviousness countered embalming, and embalming may be the erative, a key element of the experience. politics? Documenta 12 constitutes a by many of the tensions that emerge in most (aesthetic?) educational part. The The work is out of time, out of place retreat from the question of an artis- the juxtaposition of histories and prac- tone of the installation seems to imply – but what could its time and place be? tic autonomy that, if left to its own tices in the exhibition itself. I think this that art provides a contingent space for Like the ‘fictitious capital’ mentioned devices, is more than capable of gen- latter element should be accentuated, explorations where art is not at issue, above, the core structuring mechanism erating critique, context, effect and, by because Noack and Buergel’s method- but explorations can only be consumed of the field of contemporary art in con- implication, social change. We also saw ologies, however opaque, really do un- in that space as art, when other social, temporary society is non-productive, a a fairly blatant admission that the cir- cover and collide some extraordinary political avenues have been closed off. relic of exhausted time, animated only cles of crisis of value in contemporary ‘positions’ (as they say in Germany): Like the captive ape in Kafka’s Report by the inertia of its contradictions. + 120 Global Watch Reviews Kadan

The writer is artist and member of a group R.E.P. Exteriors based in Kiev. Translated from the Russian by Center for Contemporary Art, National Jonathan Brooks Platt. University, Kiev (CCA at NaUKMA), Ukraine October – November, 2007

Short Term Institutional Connections Occent Art Salon, Odessa, Ukraine October – November, 2007

Organized by Index, The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation and The Swedish Institute in Ukraine Nikita From Kadan Outside

Exteriors was titled Nazovni in Murakami, Paul McCarthy, and Pierre who were supposed to be conducting was a split among the participants in Ukrainian, which literally translates and Gilles. Such a star-studded cast of a military operation in a “socialist vil- the action – people of the older gen- as “from outside”, because this corre- artists and titles must have reminded lage”- among country houses, gardens, eration who had spent a long time liv- sponded more closely to the exhibit’s the Kievan viewers of another show, and vegetable plots. The artist gave ing in deficit conditions under Soviet concept of transformations in public which was on at the same time, exhib- visual form to a cliché from the times rule, lacking the most basic goods, had space. The foreign borrowing extere’er iting the collection of Ukrainian busi- of the Cold War. The cliché itself must a difficult time stepping on the various would have been understood in the nessman, Viktor Pinchuk. But more on have come from the West – the image sweaters, scarves, and shirts. The people Ukraine only as the external surface of Pinchuk later. Alevtina also installed of an American infantry soldier burst- who had come of age during the post- a building. In the words of the exhibit’s glass cubes on Kreshchatik Street, the ing into a collective farm never featured Soviet era of capitalist development and curators, Helena Holmberg and Mats central street in Kiev, which is popular in Soviet propaganda, and in the minds the consumer boom felt no discomfort Stjernstedt, Exteriors prefers to go be- for strolling. In the cubes, similar draw- of the citizens of the USSR the real at having to walk along the carpet. yond the semantic boundaries of the ex- ings were displayed (and were for sale), struggle occurred somewhere far be- The Kiev Center for Context and ternal as surface, beyond the idea of the though this time they depicted luxury yond the “iron curtain”. Communication was created by Inga facade, attempting instead to address accessories. The third work Alvetina Lada Nakonechnaya’s video, Zimprich from Berlin, Ingela Johanson and explore certain “specific issues”. Kakhidze did for Exteriors was a banner Valuables, shows cars either standing or from Stockholm, and Vladimir Among the issues considered were “the hung on the fence around the building slowly crawling in a traffic jam. With Kuznetsov from Kiev. The work of the contemporary urban landscape as a of the Center for Contemporary Art. the ever-hastening pace of life in the KCCC is based on studying the insti- powerful example of social progress”, The text on the banner explained that megalopolis and the constant increase tutional landscape of contemporary “the art institution as another form of one could expand the space of one’s in the number of cars, drivers and pas- Ukrainian art after the end of Western public space”, and “how history is con- apartment by encasing its balcony in sengers on public transport suddenly, financing. At the exhibits in the CCA structed and inscribed in contemporary glass, but that doing so would deprive through no choice of their own, find at NaUKMA and the Accent Salon, the culture, and how art as a commodity in others of a type of architectural element themselves removed from the normal results of research on the Odessa art consumer culture reflects the processes that decorates the facades of buildings. rhythm of their lives so that (whether scene in the 1980s were presented. In of development within contemporary Thus the artist highlighted the point at they like it or not) they can devote these years, a circle of original concep- urban societies and economies”. which the ‘private’ and ‘interior’ end themselves to contemplation. The en- tualist artists, who would later merge The artists who participated in and the ‘exterior’ and, consequently, tire scene in the video is illuminated with the Moscow Conceptualists, was Exteriors were Marcus Degerman the ‘public’ begin. by bright sunlight; everything is shin- formed in the underground art scene. and Martin Karlsson from Sweden, Marcus Degerman’s installation, ing, the glare lazily crawls across the Research was also presented on the pe- Ukrainian artists Alevtina Kakhidze Extra Wall, is about the architecture of surface of the automobiles – a painful riod from 1996, when the Soros Center and Lada Nakonechnaya, and also the CCA. The artist noticed the addi- and dazzling spectacle. The video was for Contemporary Art was opened, and the Kiev Center for Communication tional walls in the galleries of the Center shown without sound in a dark room 2001 when the Odessa Center closed and Context, which includes artists which are used to expand the exhibi- on a small monitor, resembling a piece down, and all artistic activity in the city from both countries. The Center for tion space. Degerman built a new wall, of jewelry in an illuminated box. stopped, as Western financing had been Communication and Context also which was distinguished by its smaller The artist also sewed a thirty-me- cut off. invited the Ukrainian art collective, size and position: he installed it at a ter red carpet from items of clothing The installation in the Kiev CCA R.E.P., to participate in its project. diagonal to the existing walls. Marcus that were all of different shades of red. consisted of documents relating to the Alevtina Kakhidze contributed the Degerman thus rehabilitated a «sec- The carpet was laid out in the center of Soros Center in Odessa and to life in installation, Private Collection, the latest ondary» element of the interior design, town, in the Passage, among the most the art world in the 1980s, as well as in her Most Commercial Project series, used only for the display of objects. expensive shops. Waiters handed out remakes of old works by Odessa artists. which the artist has been working on Degerman’s non-functioning Extra glasses of champagne, creating the at- A small institutional affair project was for several years. Kakhidze draws “por- Wall came to play its own independent mosphere of a society gathering. The shown in Odessa in the galleries of the traits” of different things, and the price role in the formation of the space of the Passage is one of those places in the Accent Salon, which is owned by the of each drawing is equal to the price Center of Contemporary Art. Ukrainian capital where the contrast Ukrainian National Union of Artists, of the thing represented. In the galler- Martin Karlsson used members of between wealth and poverty is most an organization which had control over ies of the CCA at NaUKMA, the art- Kiev’s costumed historical reenactment striking, and Lada Nakonechnaya’s red quite a bit of property in the Soviet pe- ist exhibited her “collection” of copied club for his piece. He photographed carpet became an image of luxury, ex- riod. Artists received free studios from works by Gilbert and George, Takashi people in American military uniforms, cess, and senseless expenditure. There the Union, and every exhibition space 121 Global Watch Reviews Kadan

Martin Karlsson, American Soldiers in a Socialist Alevtina Kakhidze, Dreams, 2007, installation in Alevtina Kakhidze, Dreams (detail), 2007, installa- Lada Nakonechna, Passage, 2007, installation in Village, 2007. public space. tion in public space. public space.

in the country – aside from museums if it was a part of archivized museum The institutions of arts pedagogy have who attended the exhibition. Aside of art from the past – was owned by the culture. This treatment of the subject not modernized their programs, and from the fact that many of the works Union of Artists. Like the rest of the is obviously in contradiction with the in the most important of them – the were explained by artists’ commentary, old art system that served the ideology real state of affairs, since contemporary National Academy of Arts in Kiev – the the exhibition was a remarkably mod- of the state, this organization now lies art in the Ukraine gets no recognition topic of contemporary art is taboo. est and laconic spectacle. This came as in ruins. at the national level. It has always re- In the Academy, instruction in the a serious shock to those who were used The peeling paint on the ceil- mained an interest either of the nar- history of European art stops at the to the superficial attractions on offer ing, the dirty walls, the broken and row, cultish circle of its own artists and beginning of the twentieth century. in most local artistic displays. On the then glued together shop windows of critics, or of the George Soros Fund’s Although the CCA at NaUKMA was whole, the Exteriors project was only Accent’s galleries were telling evidence “Renaissance”, whose ideologues saw for a long time one of the most popular successful in its street actions, which of this fact. It was also symptomatic contemporary art as a means of “de- exhibition spaces in the Ukrainian cap- were specifically geared towards the ac- that the exhibit, which represented Sovietizing” public consciousness, or of ital, and although it helped establish cidental viewer. itself as “an exhumation of contem- rare private investors. State support has the circle of Ukrainian contemporary But what was supposed to be porary art in Odessa”, was shown in always only been enough to provide a artists who are active today, it would special about Exteriors was precisely no place other than the galleries of living for the Union of Artists and the be incorrect to say that it has man- the emphasis on communication and the Union of Artists. After all, the museums that are oriented on uphold- aged to achieve its educational goal of openness! The exhibit represented the community of underground, “non-of- ing tradition. Although, the latter are establishing an adequate understand- artist not as a manipulator who knows ficial artists” arose in resistance to the also constantly suffering from a lack of ing of international contemporary art how to surprise and entertain the peo- Union and other Soviet structures of financing... among some form of a wider public. ple who come to see his work, but as control. Indeed, it was precisely the The CCA at NaUKMA, where The new art center that was opened in a potential interlocutor. The visual re- Soros Centers for Contemporary Art the Kiev exhibit took place, was also Kiev in 2006 by Viktor Pinchuk, one straint of the works and the absence of that the dinosaurs from the Union a part of the network of Soros Centers of the richest people in the Ukraine, spectacular effects demonstrated respect of Artists called “places d’armes of the for Contemporary Art. A number of chose the path of working with the for the viewer as a fully fledged intellec- Western cultural occupation”. This these centers perished, like the Odessa public at the level of their current con- tual partner. It was only a range of local “occupation” ended when, at the one, when the ‘Renaissance’ Fund cut ceptions. Exhibits are put on there in concerns that defined the territory for turn of the 1990s and the 2000s, the off its financing, considering its social which works of contemporary art are possible discussion in each work. Soros Fund cut off its financing of the mission accomplished. The state took chosen for their visual effectiveness Still, because of the limitations of CCA networks throughout all of post- over the upkeep of several of them, for and accessible content. There is often the art scene in Ukraine, no gesture Soviet space. Meanwhile, the Union example, in the Baltic states. The CCA a minimum of commentary, and it is in the sphere of contemporary art can of Artists, deprived of it function of at NaUKMA became an independent presented as completely non-obliga- go unnoticed. And it seems that the ideological control over art, is dem- organization and continues its activities tory. The Pinchuk Art Center is also Exteriors project will have some social onstrating its non-viability more and in line with the former ‘Sorosian’ pro- founded on the ‘magic of names’, ex- resonance, albeit indirectly. While (or more clearly every day. In this way, the gram. During the thirteen years of its hibiting artists who have achieved star perhaps even because) contemporary conflict between “official” and “non- existence, the Kiev Center has had to status like Damien Hirst and Takashi art remains, to a certain degree, an al- official” culture is gradually becoming combine the functions of an exhibition Murakami. The Center has caught the ien phenomenon in Ukrainian society, a thing of the past. space and an educational institution, as attention of a wide public and is con- the Exteriors show’s representation of Within the framework of the well as financing art projects, the crea- sidered the uncontested leader of the the “artist-interlocutor” figure turned Odessa exhibit there was also a per- tion of a network of international con- Ukrainian art scene. out to be extremely topical. The artist formance by the Kiev artists’ collective, tacts for Ukrainian artists, research on Aside from the CCA at NaUKMA who chooses a language of direct ad- R.E.P. In the performance, a tour guide the local scene, and the popularization and the Pinchuk Art Center, contem- dress and a subject that is important to from the Odessa Literary Museum was of contemporary art among the widest porary art in Ukraine is shown in sev- a given audience, avoiding populist en- hired by the artists to give the people audience, which is completely unpre- eral commercial galleries that generally tertainment as much as intrusive didac- attending the opening a conservative, pared for it. Contemporary art, which prefer works that are “easy” to take in. ticism is the only one who will be ca- “classical” tour of the exhibit. The tour the government actively and conscious- In this context, many visitors con- pable of provoking the viewer to make guide told them about the activities ly blocked off from public life during sidered the Exteriors exhibit to be her- an interpretative effort, to perform the of the artistic underground and the Soviet times, has turned out to be of no metic, dry, and unintelligible, a fact re- labor of participation, to meet the artist history of the Odessa Soros Center as use to the new Ukrainian state either. flected in the written responses of those halfway. + 122 Global Watch Reviews Vänskä

The writer has a Ph.D. and works as a freelance re- Biennale of Young Artists, Tallinn 2007: searcher, independent curator and freelance jour- Consequences and Proposals, 28.09–11.11.2007 nalist, mostly in Helsinki. She is a founding mem- Rüütelkonna Building, Kiriku plats 1, Tallinn, ber of SKY – the Society for Finnish Curators. Estonia. Translated by Tomi Snellman

Annamari Children of Vänskä the Post-Revolution

Two young Estonian curators, Anneli Even more political than Levulis’s tics was represented in the exhibition tic animation New Movements in Fashion Porri and Rael Artel, displayed great am- work was Kristina Norman’s docu- by the works of Scandinavian artists. (2006) featured dolls that depict fash- bition when they curated the first Baltic mentary-like video installation about Having grown up surrounded by pop ion mannequins plagued by rivalry and Biennale of Young Artists in Tallinn in the Estonian statue controversy. culture, artists from Finland and Sweden quarrelling over clothes. Muravskaja’s 2007. No conventional venue for this Considering future generations, the had a more playful attitude towards the photographic series Positions (2006) ap- exhibition: it was held in the Old Town video work is an excellent reminder theme of the exhibition than their col- propriated the tradition of fashion pho- of Tallinn in the Rüütelkonna Building, that calls attention to the justification leagues from the Baltic countries. tography – but instead of clothes, the which has over the years served as the for political and symbolic signs and Taking its title from a 1972 song artist had asked her models to dress up House of Nobility, the Ministry of their potential offensiveness. Will the by T. Rex, Children of the Revolution in the Estonian national flag. Djurberg’s Foreign Affairs and as the National history of oppression and traumatic (2007) by John Philip Mäkinen was an animation, which was also presented Library. Staged in a politically charged past disappear and be forgotten, when interesting illustration of the process at the Carnegie Art Award show in the space outside conventional institutions signs that remind us of it are removed whereby political signs and politically Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, of art, the exhibition invited unusual from sight? Should we keep traumatic charged situations are easily emptied has attracted some praise. However, expectations: what would be the expe- monuments in order to remember? Or, of their content in a capitalist market when I saw it I felt it was a rather un- rience of an exhibition whose explicit should we demolish them because they economy. The work makes one inevita- problematic and banal repetition of the theme was critique of art institutions arouse anxiety whenever one encoun- bly think not only of T. Rex’s song, but seedy side of the fashion world. Having and the political dimensions of art? ters them in everyday life? also of the ideas of simulation by the seen Kate Moss snorting cocaine in a The closest to a state-politi- An entirely different kind of poli- French philosopher Jean Baudrillard: in fuzzy photo in a sleazy magazine, do cal approach were Lithuanian Song tics was in evidence in the photos of the today’s world, it is challenging to grasp we really need an artwork that depicts Celebration (2007), a video work by Lithuanian artist Akvile Anglickaite. the reality even of things like war and cat fights between fashion models? the Lithuanian Rudolfas Levulis, and The work whose title, perhaps ironi- political conflicts, because reality itself Djurberg’s other animation, The Natural The Monolith. Eternal Mix (2007), a cally, was I am an artist (2007), de- has been fragmented into an ocean of Selection (2006), succeeded much better video installation by the Estonian artist picted young actors in the field of art. media representations. Living amidst in establishing a parallel between the Kristina Norman Using material shot What seemed particularly topical in the cacophony of signs and spectacles, world of fashion and animal breeding. in the annual song and dance festivals the photos was that educated people in young people do not necessarily realise The idea is a funny joke, but also true of Lithuania, Levulis’s video brought the field of art are only too seldom em- that they are participating in politics in a way: nowadays outward appearance a touch of the past to the exhibition. ployed in a job that reflects their train- when they dress in a Palestinian scarf or seems to be important for success, and Whereas in Soviet Lithuania the festi- ing. The photos included a portrait of an outfit with a picture of Che Guevara not only in the fashion world. val still was a major event in terms of a young art historian who works in a (or some other political activist) on The curators had also succeeded uniting the people and creating a sense beauty salon, and a picture of a young it, bought from some international in incorporating a dimension of sex- of identity, in the current conditions man who had studied media art, but clothing chain. Mäkinen’s skilfully tai- ual politics in the show. Fag Fighters of regained independence it has be- is now employed as a trolley collector lored flight jackets, now made out of (2007), an installation by the Polish come just one event among many. In in a supermarket. Hung, perhaps sug- Estonian and Russian national flags, artist Karol Radziszewski, was a kind the neo-liberalist market economy, the gestively, outside the main exhibition but which apparently can be made us- of inverted story about gay bashers: song and dance festival constructs its space, in a back room or a former office ing any flag, highlighted this paradox in the installation, it is not the thugs own individual identity instead of a na- at Rüütelkonna, the photos underlined, with a phenomenally light touch. who wear terrorist masks, but the gays tional one. Resembling a music video perhaps a bit too excessively, the reality Fashion was a central theme also who – as the story has it – in the dark in its format, the work emphasises the that too many people in the field of art in the works of the Swede Nathalie hours of the night go looking for those apolitical nature of the festival in con- have to face after graduation. Djurberg and the Estonian Tanja who have beaten them up and raped temporary Lithuania. A considerably lighter take on poli- Muravskaja Djurberg’s somewhat nihilis- them. An eye for an eye, a tooth for 123

Top left: Karol Radziszewski, Fag Fighters, 2007. Top right: Tanja Muravskaja, Positions, 2006. Pho- Bottom left: John Phillip Mäkinen, Children of the Bottom right: Akvile Anglickaite, I am an artist, Photo by Reimo Vösa-Tangsoo. to by Reimo Vösa-Tangsoo. Revolution (detail), 2007. Photo by Reimo Vösa- 2007. Photo by Reimo Vösa-Tangsoo. Tangsoo.

a tooth? Is this the way to change the but transferring the idea directly into a was nevertheless perceived as one un- seemed to me to be offering proposals world? Hardly – I for one was unable work of art does not really jell. divided whole, at least by this viewer. and models for interpretation that are to take seriously a work which argues Although the galleries had at times Walking around the exhibition, I won- perhaps too carefully considered. that homophobia could be opposed insufficient lighting and some of them dered about the curators’ motivation But if one ignores the point made by turning homosexuals into violent, had an awful stench, it seemed that the for wanting to separate the two themes above, the exhibition itself left a lively drunken terrorists who rape gay bash- curators’ decision to locate the exhibi- so definitely. Did they not have things and refreshing aftertaste. With its poli- ers. Naive aggression, I was thinking in tion outside regular art institutions was in common – or did the curators mere- cies comprising a variety of different front of the work. If it were meant as extremely successful. ly want to underline their own choices viewpoints, the exhibition showed that grotesque sexual-political irony instead, What I failed to understand was and thereby their own, personal vi- there is much hope in the young gen- one may well ask: could anyone else re- the curators’ decision to underline the sions? I personally would have liked to eration of artists and curators. Tired of ally understand it, apart from those two themes of the exhibition – conse- see the curators give the viewers greater easy spectacles and apolitical artistic who are familiar with gay culture and quences and proposals – with title tags freedom to create a story of their own claptrap, it was delightful to encounter anti-gay violence? Of course one might of different colour. Even if the exhibi- about consequences and proposals an exhibition that does not hide its ten- want to retaliate in kind if one is con- tion comprised two separate exhibi- from the show – something they will ets, but presents its views point blank tinuously persecuted for one’s sexuality, tions, as the curators would have it, it do in any case. As such, the exhibition to the visitor. + 124 Global Watch Reviews Nimis

The writer received her PhD in African history 7th Biennale de la Photographie Africaine from the University of Pantheon-Sorbonne, Paris, Bamako, Mali in 2003. She is presently a postdoctoral fellow at 23 November – 24 December, 2007 the Laval University, Quebec City and has written three books on Malian and West African photog- European Guest Country – Finland raphy. Translated by Kathleen Fleming. Telling… Contemporary Photography from Finland Veli Granö, Marja Helander, Tellervo Kalleinen ja Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Jari Silomäki, Riitta Päivläinen, Nanna Saarhelo

(1) Presented at the Musée National du Mali, November 24 to December 23, 2007, before tour- ing several cities, mainly in Europe Erika Capital of African (2) Collective (2007). Bamako 2007. VIIes Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie. Dans la ville at au-delà / In the City and Beyond. Paris: Nimis Photography Marval. (3) Fondation Jean-Paul Blachère http://www. fondationblachere.org/en (4) Simon Njami, co-founder of La Revue Noire and commissioner of Africa Remix and the African Pavilion in Venice, has been working for years on the recognition of contemporary African art in Europe. He was general commissioner of the Rencontres de Bamako for the fourth consecutive year.

It has already been thirteen years since shot in Spain and originally accom- group exhibition evocatively entitled, tional art market’s most valued pillars this Bamako photography biennial panied by an essential text. Another Telling, conceived by Nigerian inde- of continental photography. Malick came into existence; already thirteen forte of the international exhibition, pendent curator Bisi Silva with the col- Sidibé, awarded a Golden Lion in years that, despite the contradictions the series, Mémoire (Memory), by laboration of Aura Seikkula, curator at Venice last spring for lifetime achieve- arising from its lack of adequate local Sammy Baloji (Democratic Republic of the Finnish Museum of Photography. ment, was not left out either. The bien- backing, this unique event has been Congo) was cut by two-thirds, with the The exhibition was shown at the very nial dedicated two major events to him: contributing to African photography’s remaining panoramic photomontages central Musée du District de Bamako, a highly publicized visit to his famous visibility in the world. reproduced on oilcloth and presented in a luminous, curvilinear gallery up- studio in Bagadadji, a working-class In addition to a comprehensive outside, thereby diluting their impact stairs. More than just an unexpected district of Bamako, as well as a celebra- presentation of the African continent’s considerably. Baloji’s photomontages encounter, this exhibition of new trends tory evening called «Be Sidibé», com- best in the field, this year’s biennial revisit the colonial memory of the in Finnish photography was an oasis of plete with a concert by Bamako’s leg- housed a high-profile exhibition on Katanga, a coveted mining region of freshness and colour on the festival- endary group from the ‘70s, the Super the new generation of Finnish artists. the DRC, crossing archival photo- goer’s route. The artists presented were Rail Band, and a fashion show on a set A first! graphs of the early 20th-century city of mostly from the Helsinki School, expo- conceived entirely from the work of the What were the highlights of 2007? Lubumbashi taken by the Belgian co- nents of the great vitality of Finland’s city’s festive photographer. First, a program that was much tighter lonial administration with present-day contemporary photography. All five Beyond a certain strain of African (half as many artists) and more balanced colour landscapes of the same mining photographers and two videomak- photography still too often reduced to than in previous years. The success of town now lying fallow. ers had come to Bamako. Guaranteed past clichés, the jury chose to encour- the international exhibition, In the City The great novelty of 2007 was the culture shock for them too! Riita age new trends exclusively. Awards went and Beyond,(1) lay in the variety of «Nouvelles Images section», where the Päiväläinen’s frozen coats never seemed to Sammy Baloji, mentioned above; works presented, showing all the trends Rencontres opened up more exten- so striking and surrealistic as under the Nontsikelelo «Lolo» Veleko (South in contemporary African photography, sively to video art. However, the ten fluorescent lights of this Bamako mu- Africa), for her «flashy» portraits in- from black-and-white journalism to videos programmed, some of which seum. Tellervo Kalleinen’s and Oliver tersecting the fashion world and post- abstract colour photography. were commissions for the biennial, Kochta-Kalleinen’s video installation, apartheid South Africa’s questioning of Even though the scenography suffered from the ill-adapted exhibi- The Public Complaints Choir, based on identity; as well as to Aida Muluneh, granted Tunisian artist, Mémia Taktak, tion site, out of which the odd visitor the lamentations of inhabitants of four who conveys a refined black-and-white elegantly compensated for the flaws of emerged, overwhelmed by the deafen- European cities, made more than a few vision of Ethiopia. Let us also acknowl- the primary exhibition sites, visitors ing uproar and stifling heat. Another people smile, even though the heat edge the awards give to Saidou Dicko and prominent artists criticized the site, the Bamako «Off» festival, a kind seemed hazardous to the work pre- (Burkina Faso), a poet-shepherd who absence of introduction texts in most of industrial no-man’s-land renamed sented separately on the museum ter- endlessly photographs shadows, and re- places (National Museum, Library and the «Quartiers d’Orange» (referring to race. Heat, the Bamakois could easily porter Calvin Dondo (Mozambique), Pyramid), partly due to an evident the famous telecommunications com- complain about! Suggestion to this pair whose framing is resolutely contem- shortage of space, but also to lack of pany that backed the site), had a more of videographers … porary (see the Rencontres catalogue preparation. This problem also persists modest installation of videos produced Increasingly contemporary, the cover and poster). in the biennial’s gorgeous catalogue,(2) during an artistic residency initiated by biennial did not however abandon Let’s hope these promising talents where texts are often flawed. the Fondation Blachère, which works its original «stars», dedicating a ret- make it quickly onto Finnish walls. In This absence of explanatory panels to promote contemporary creative pro- rospective to self-portraitist Samuel the meantime, there is a commitment detracted from certain major works, duction in Africa.(3) Fosso (Central Africa), who showed for 2009 to further the wish of general including Las Canas (The Dogs) by Other compelling initiatives also at the Rencontres in 1994 and who, commissioner Simon Njami – «that South-African Jodi Bieber, a poignant marked this biennial, such as inviting with Seydou Keita and Malick Sidibé Bamako become the true capital of series of portraits of addicts that was Finland to present its new talent in a (Mali), remains one of the interna- African photography».(4) + 125 Global Watch Reviews Kaski

(1) See, for example, the brochure produced by The writer has a PhD in Political Science and nine Voices nine Places – Finland the Government of Finland to market series of International Relations. He currently works at the Adel Abidin, Panagiotis Balomenos, Päivi Häk- Finnish cultural events in France, titled 100% Representation of Finland to the EU in Brussels kinen, Minna L. Henriksson, Petri Huurinainen, Finalnde: http://www.kauppapolitikka.fi; http:// and has published on international security, politi- Kati Immonen, Jukka Korkeila, Harri Palviranta, www.100pour100finlande,fr. cal theory as well as on arts and politics. Language Roi Vaara (2) In Kalemaa, Kalevi, ed. (2007). Rauha on editing by Susan Heiskanen. 16 April – 30 May, 2008 sana. Ajatuksia sodasta ja rauhasta. Helsinki: Like, IC – Instituto Camões, Lisbon, Portugal 48. Translation into English by AK. Below: Adel Abidin, Tasty, 2008, two channel www.instituto-camoes.pt (3) In Kalemaa, Kalevi, ed. (2007). Rauha on video installation. Photo by the artist. sana. Ajatuksia sodasta ja rauhasta. Helsinki: Like, 190. Translation into English by AK. Snellman was a renown Finnish statesman and philosopher. He was born in 1806 when the territory of today’s Finland was part of the Swedish Kingdom and died in 1881 within the Russian Empire.

Antti nine Voices Kaski nine Places – Finland

The exhibition nine Voices nine Places view for the exhibition from which the Choices, too). The exhibition does not his electronically processed guitar and – Finland presents nine contemporary viewer may want to approach the art- aim at providing a survey on Finnish the various effects units. Päivi Häkkinen artists and an impressive body of works works. Each of the artists has a connec- art from an (art) historical point of touches the themes of memory, identi- from Finland to the Portuguese public. tion to Finland. It is a location which view, but to translate to the public what ty and space with her humorous – and In fact, when it comes to the visual arts, has strongly influenced their set of in- has been more pressing within Finnish distressing – sculpture installation. very little contact has been established dividual experiences and their work. As contemporary art. Preference has not Kati Immonen pokes the heart of between people from these two corners a curiosity, one may take a look at the necessarily been given to artists whose the narrative of Finnishness and its he- of Europe. The exhibition provides thus project crew: Seven out of the nine art- position easily rests within the Finnish roic Winter War with her Winter Tale an important and timely exposure of ists were born in Finland. The two born mainstream contemporary culture. The series of water colours. Nationalism is Finnish culture in Portugal. However, elsewhere, in Greece and in Iraq, now artists and their works represent differ- also explored by Minna L. Henriksson there is much more to it. live in Finland. Three of the Finland- ent moments in Finnish contemporary who takes the nationalist imagery in First, much has been written in re- born artists permanently live outside art, but share a critical view, to place, to advertising under her sharp conceptual cent years about the changing role of the country’s geographical borders, identity, to history. scrutiny. Finally, Adel Abidin’s elabora- the artist from, well, an artist into an in Berlin, Istanbul, and London. The The exhibition nine Voices nine tions on perceived identities, nation- entrepreneur exporting his or her com- Mozambique-born Portuguese curator Places – Finland brings together artists alities, peace and violence, and their modities for the good of the national has a permanent residence in Helsinki who use a variety of different media, symbolisms, are conveyed to the public economy. Nowadays, it seems, an artist and a second home in Brussels. “A ranging from Roi Vaara’s perform- by two video installations and one mul- cannot just participate in the interna- human being I am necessarily, a ance to Jukka Korkeila’s overwhelm- timedia installation. tional arts discourse by exhibiting his Frenchman I am purely coincidental- ing paintings, and to the military The exhibition Nine Voices nine or her works to audiences around the ly”, wrote Montesquieu (2). – and sensual – drapery by Panagiotis Places – Finland is a considerable and world. Instead, artists are referred to as Without elaborating here further on Balomenos. Harri Pälviranta discusses ambitious undertaking, and as such exporters of culture for the good of their theories on nationalism and statehood, it the absurdity of violence in everyday certainly the most important project nation, and turned into tradesmen of a appears evident that anyone who claims locations through photography. Petri of “cultural export” from Finland to ‘national model’ (1). At the same time that there is art that is 100 per cent Huurinainen is equally vocal abusing Portugal in a number of years. + as it contributes to cultural exchange by Finnish – or of any one nationality – ei- presenting Finnish contemporary art in ther aims at a witty self-criticism or seri- Portugal, the exhibition nine Voices nine ously undermines the public. “No one Places – Finland aims at avoiding the nation can alone develop its culture, but hazards of nationalist and national-in- only together with other nations may it strumentalist agendas and aims to fo- become an entity with particular charac- cus proudly on, well, the art. teristics”, argued J. V. Snellman (3). According to the curator of the Second, the exhibition presents a exhibition, Sílvio Salgado, the idea is critical – “an outsider’s” – view: All the to present nine artists who “each have nine artists represent what is the most their own distinct place from which uplifting in today’s contemporary art. they engage in their art explorations”. At the same time, they may not all be The nine ‘voices’ of the artists meet in the most obvious choices for an inter- the exhibition creating something more national exhibition presenting Finland than their sum. The Voice of Finland? – – those whom we already have seen No. According to Salgado, the country at numerous international fairs (this Finland provides a context or a point of said with all respect to the Obvious 126 Obituary Kosova A Restless Soul

Hüseyin Alptekin worked in Finland Cheap Finnish Labour, a Vaasa based artistic axes, were Hüseyin Alptekin’s enemies purportedly threatening the on sevaral occasions during the last ten artist group had the honour to assist contributions to the Tirana Biennale in country from the West. These obsolete years, staying in residency propgrams Hüseyin Alptekin in the preparations September 2003. The group included architectural objects are dotted around of NIFCA The Nordic Institute for of his large-scale installation that was Hüseyin Alptekin, Can Altay (Turkey), the Albanian landscape without much Contemporary Art, HIAP Helsinki utilizing wooden structures of several Staffan Jofjell (Sweden), Minna Hen- use, since, as Alptekin put it, “the once International Artis-in-residence Pro- traditional barns from the Western rikson (Finland) and Kaija Kiuru (Fin- perceived and exaggerated enemy of gramme and Platform in Vaasa. In coast of Finland. land), who surveyed and documented Hoxha’s country and system is de- Vaasa he prepared his last exhibition, Alptekin’s B-Fact: Black Sea, Baltic a number of the 600,000 concrete funct”. BRG invested its efforts in re- Don’t Complain, The Turkish Pavilion Sea, Barents Sea and its spin off, The bunkers constructed by the paranoid inventing these massive and obsessive at the 52nd International Art Exhibi- Bunker Research Group (BRG), link- regime of Enver Hoxha in Albania military objects in order to give them tion of the Venice biennale in 2007. ing the North-West and South-East during the 1960s, as defence against new social significance. – MS 127 Obituary Kosova A Restless Soul

The writer is an art critic based in Istanbul. He Previous page: Hüseyin Alptekin in Loppi. Photo is also a lecturer at the Kadir Has University in by Sakari Viika in June 2003. Obituary Istanbul. Language editing by Susan Heiskanen.

Erden A Restless Soul: Kosova Hüseyin Alptekin 1957-2007

It is a terribly difficult task to ex- to a full extent, he despises the implo- Europe and the ex-socialist terrain. The ing and yearning for other geographies press something meaningful ‘after’ sion of theory into its own jargonistic material he accumulated in the geo- other than the place of origin or resi- Hüseyin. It is immensely painful and constraints. He dislikes art historical graphical triangle between the Balkans, dence, was later extended to the Balkan unconvincing to locate him into the readings on his works with statements the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea in geography and beyond. past tense, a person who has been as- like “in this work, Alptekin touched the late nineties became the source of Hüseyin could approach all kinds sociated with the sense of mobility to that issue” – he demands companions his “B-Facts” project. With the same of people from varying social segments such an extent, and whose presence who can write ‘along’ his work. He speed, he started to co-ordinate LOFT, very easily. In an anarcho-hedonistic has had such a powerful command on finds the moderation and the long-term a low-budget project space in Istanbul, fashion, he could single-handedly sneak his surroundings and on the minds planning of my generation completely which became an open platform for in- into the guts of the urban texture and of people who have known him. He boring and criticises the fictional char- teraction between younger artists and secret niches of margin-experiences and has to be somewhere now. He might acter of the works of the younger gen- artists, critics and curators visiting the then leap back into the circles of glam- be at a clinic in Odessa for therapy, in eration of artists for being escapist. He city from abroad. In order to facilitate our. The materials he used in his works Copenhagen visiting his favourite pho- looks older than he actually is, yet he the transversal mobilities between the displayed the interaction of imagina- tography store, or in his barbershop in acts younger. neighbouring regions, he initiated the tion between the top and the bottom of Helsinki. Or else, he could have fled to Present tense doesn’t hold anymore playful collective of Sea Elephant Travel the society (as exemplified in his sequin the latest party of the night, he could – I have to surrender him to the past Agency. wall installations such as LoveLace, be out photographing some curious tense now. The first attempts to revi- The agency took its inspiration LoveFace and TremourRumourHoover). urban scenery that has kept bugging talise the academia in Turkey against from the Jules Verne novel, Keraban Le Unexpected encounters, transversal in- him, he could be stuck yet again at a the vacuum inflicted by purges run by Tetu. The story is about an Ottoman teractions, minor-scale mobilities, leaps distant airport, or he could be on his the military regime since 1980 were tobacco merchant from Istanbul in restricted conditions, cheap but curi- way to another city of which we have seen in some departments of the new who wants to be a perfect host to his ous objects… all these reflected a sense no other knowledge than its name. But semi-private Bilkent University at the customer coming all the way from of optimism in Hüseyin’s work: in this he has to be somewhere… His name beginning of the nineties. The efficient Rotterdam. Keraban promises the perspective, informed by a hope spe- is surely now being recited by many correlation between the programmes Dutch dealer a lunch in a famous res- cific to the periods of transformation, people from various geographies – in on arts and culture, in which Hüseyin taurant located at the opposite side of the hulking bunkers of Enver Hoxha laughter-triggering anecdotes, in angry also had a teaching position, is still be- the Bosporus. When they get to the could be transferred from Albaina to murmurs, hastily swapped rumours, ing remembered as the golden age of seaside they learn that the Sultan has other places; horse statues plundered a name-dropping sessions during first intellectual life in Ankara, and as the issued a new tax regulation for crossing millennium ago from Constantinople moments of acquaintance, in belated breeding ground of an emerging con- the river. Keraban is infuriated by this could (indirectly) be returned to the e-mails, so basically he has to be some- temporary art scene in the country. unjust tax and refuses to pay it. Being city, a huge van filled with plastic balls where… Following the global disintegration of irrationally loyal to his word, he comes could stand on water…. Hüseyin keeps saying that he has state socialism and in the midst of the to a crazy decision: he travels with his Shadows shed by darkening clouds never enjoyed diving into the deep noisy declarations of a conclusive victo- guest along the whole Black Sea basin of the changing times could be detect- waters of history, that he has always ry of neo-liberalism, the focus of power to reach the Asian side of Istanbul. The ed in Hüseyin’s latest work. In Don’t hated Hegel and that he instead prefers was shifting from the blocs of nation- novel narrates the adventures during Complain, his installation at the recent to make use of cultural signs and ob- states onto the fault lines being drawn this long journey. Sea Elephant Travel Venice Biennial, for example, we found jects that belong to the present and to between certain cities. Hüseyin turned Agency planned to reiterate Keraban’s the stories of disappeared people during record the changes these signs and ob- to the notion of megalopolis in order to journey by hiring a boat that would be the wars in Kosova and Chechnya and jects have been exposed to. Yet, his own underline the concealed urban poten- transformed into an art platform by of the killing of Anna Politkovskaya, being reflects the flavour of an untrace- tialities. Against the homogenising and the contribution of the artists joining and images of a mute African guy able historical period, a radicality that uniforming liquidity of neo-liberalism, the trip from various port cities such as who collected rubbish from the street doesn’t belong to the dynamics and a vivid disorder was unleashed: geogra- Varna, Constanta, Odessa, Sevastopol, Hüseyin lived on. attitudes shaping the present: an insist- phies started to recall their past, cities Yalta, Rostov, Novosibrsk, Sochi and Hüseyin made us think about and ence on intensification of experience started to remember their relations, the Batumi. The dubious and unfair ap- have fun with what we do; he estab- that shields life against various forms of desires and dreams of their residents propriation of the project by another lished connections between people; banalisation and a firm devotion to the became more visible, ‘atypical’ regions art institution disappointed Hüseyin he accelerated networks; he unsettled tragic dimension of the moment and reinforced their resistances, minor-scale deeply, but he had to carry on. He things. Yet, there were still distances to reality. Although he took lectures from mobilities transgressed the well-pro- photographed the sings of Istanbul ho- cover, relationships to mend, words to all the prophets of the post-structuralist tected borders of nation-states. While tels that were named after other cities be written and read, rows to have, jokes thought during his education in Paris departing from the field of art theory in and countries around the world. This to tell, vodkas to drink, nights to kill, in the eighties, and has deployed the favour of producing artworks, Hüseyin project, Capa-city, which disclosed the kids to raise… Hüseyin disappeared theoretical material he got from them started to frequent the margins of role of remembering, desiring, imagin- again. This time he didn’t come back.+ 128 IT MAY BLOW YOUR MIND! CARTES FLUX3 FESTIVAL OF NEW MEDIA ART 6.–18.5.2008 WEEGEE & CULTURAL CENTRE / TAPIOLA, ESPOO SCREENING & FESTIVAL CLUB 14.5. AT LOUHISALI

>> WWW.CARTES-ART.FI/FLUX3

David Svensson: Light Plan, 2006.

Hall, Wing 15/02–25/05 08 Project Room 15/02–25/05 08 Phenomena Unto Pusa – kubismi ja kansallinen kuvasto David Blandy (uk), Hanna Haaslahti (fi), (Maire Gullichsen ja modernismi -sarja) Eva Koch (dk), Tuula Närhinen (fi), MediaPoint 15/02–25/05 08 Jaana Partanen (fi), Fredrik Raddum (no), Tuomo Rosenlund (fi), Marika Seidler (dk), Kalle Hamm Jari Silomäki (fi), David Svensson (se) SMS (School of Mobile Studies, Fine Art Group) 129

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punaste lippude all under the red banners

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villu jaanisoo, 8.5.–29.6. kati immonen, 4.7. –31.8. miikka vaskola, 19.9.–2.11 päivi häkkinen, 7.11.08 – 4.1.09

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H2O Contemporary Nordic and Russian Public Art September 1-14, 2008 Peter and Paul Fortress, St. Petersburg

Participating artists: Tommi Grönlund and Petteri Nisunen (Finland), Carl Michael von Hausewolff (Sweden), A K Dolven (Norway), Jacob Kirkegaard (Denmark), Kaspar Bonnén (Denmark), Finnbogi Petursson (Iceland), and two artists from St. Petersburg to be an- nounced after a competition in May, 2008.

Curated by Anna Bitkina. Organized by the international cultural ex- change organization, CEC ArtsLink with support from the Nordic Culture Fund and other Nordic cultural and governmental organiza- tions, this exhibition represents the first major international public art event in St. Petersburg. www.cecartslink.org

Image:s A K Dolven, Liberty, 2008, stills from 16mm film. Courtesy carlier|gebauer, Berlin and Wilkinson Gallery, London 136 Framework 8/April 08: In Need of Openness The Finnish Art Review Colophon

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140 Paths Not Taken Not Paths