1. Anticipointment1 During the press preview of this summer’s 9th , in the main room of Kunst- Werke, I saw a distracted visitor who didn’t notice a pool of water surrounding a video installation.2 He ended up falling into it. This unintentional encounter apparently happened to

01/09 many visitors, and it became a symbolically tragicomic way to begin my visit to the biennial: like a joke that is not funny, nor ironic. What is it then? đđđđđđđđđđThis time around, we are not talking about how an old generation controls the decision- making, or about what a young generation finds slick and appealing, or how it tells the old Ahmet Öğüt generation what’s new and cool. What is happening is not a generational issue in which an accelerated present takes precedence over an Obscure obsolete past and announces the abolition of the Sorrows: future it envisioned. 2. Énouement3 Thoughts On November 26, 2016, the fortieth anniversary of the release of the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy in the UK,” Joe Corré, the son of Malcolm McLaren and around the 9th Vivienne Westwood, plans to burn his collection of irreplaceable original punk memorabilia, valued at around £5 million. In a press release, Corré – who turned down membership in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire – said:

People are feeling numb. And with numbness comes complacency … The most dangerous thing is that they have stopped fighting for what they believe in. They have given up the chase. We need to explode all the shit once more … These days, everyone’s worried about their brand. We live in an age of conformity. Burning this gear is about saying we don’t subscribe to those values.4

Corré deliberately chose a controversial act of vandalism against the beloved heritage of “punk.” Is it also a defensive maneuver? When necessary, we might have no choice but to kill our heroes, or fire ourselves. Maybe one day we will have no choice but to end biennials as well, in order to prevent their total capture by commerce and the corporate aesthetics of self-

e - f l u x j o r n a # 7 5 — s p t m b 2 0 1 6 đ A h Ö ğ ü O b s c u r e S o w : T h g t a n d 9 B l i branding, digital nihilism, individualism, superhighway populism, cyber-utopianism as marketing gimmick, absolute alienation, transhumanism, loops of consumption, hyperconfiguration, privatization, product placement, hyperlinking, artificiality, selfish youthfulness, fetishized novelty, and the institutionalization of neoliberal and colonial agendas that cannot distinguish sponsorship

09.18.16 / 18:33:15 EDT A snapshot of a random shopping bag seen in Wedding, Berlin.

09.18.16 / 18:33:15 EDT from ownership. 5. Slipcast7 3. Opia5 A few weeks after the Berlin Biennale opened in Since 2010, DIS has established significant June, I went to see the exhibition “Human Factor autonomy as an independent collective across a – Endless Prototyping,” organized by Ars range of media and platforms, bringing together Electronica and held at the Volkswagen Group what it describes as an international community Forum in Berlin. It featured artworks dealing with of writers, fashion designers, photographers, 03/09 the challenges of the “digital revolution,” and musicians, and DJs. But the combination of the focused on the human element in an engineered 9th Berlin Biennale and DIS has created a environment. There were projects about bricks dangerous condition. The danger is to be found in made of sand hardened with the help of bacteria, the promotion of a “sarcastic” attitude as a tool and a prospective future scenario that for institutionalization, and as a means of envisioned a supermarket in which customers legitimizing complicity. Art doesn’t always have could pay only with their personal Facebook to be about legitimizing humanitarian, ethical, data. Innovative projects merging art and science and analytical positions, negotiating for were spread around the venue alongside structural change, or reclaiming the city. There is Lamborghinis and other shining cars – here the nothing wrong with having fun. But what is distinction between art and commerce was happening with the combination of the 9th Berlin nonexistent. Biennale and DIS is not “fun.” It’s also not simply đđđđđđđđđđAt its temporary venue on Leipziger Strasse, about what has been referred to as a new the Julia Stoschek Collection celebrated the aesthetics, a new generation, or just “the new” in successful institutionalization of so-called post- general. It is rather about a glorified sarcastic internet art, which had previously been a low- nihilism that dominates any form of sincerity, cost art practice that circulated primarily online. humor, irony, emotion, intellectual discourse, Now it consists of high-budget installations, and critique, or political and social struggle over how is well represented in the art market. In response modes of art production can be detonators for to this increased market demand, will artists be counterculture and counterfinance. complicit in corporatized exhibitions, or will they use information technology for countercultural 4. Occhiolism6 purposes? Berlin is an appropriate place to ask In 2011, I travelled to Moscow for the first time to these questions, as it is where the Chaos participate in the Fourth , Computer Club was founded on September 12, which had a strong focus on new media and 1981. Europe’s largest association of hackers, technology (I never know what this means, but the CCC advocates for government transparency, some critics called it “gadget art”). One of the freedom of information, universal free access to main venues was the top floor of the Central computers and technological infrastructure, and Universal Department Store, perhaps Moscow’s the human right to communication. most fashionable and expensive department store. As we walked up every single floor to reach the exhibition space, we were asked to test perfumes along the way. At the other exhibition sites for the biennial, the first things I encountered were a car being promoted by a sponsoring company, and a kiosk displaying new Samsung flat-screen TVs. Sponsors were present not only through logos but also through competing installations. đđđđđđđđđđMany celebrities walked around with personal photographers looking for an artwork to A Bentley parked next to artworks at Human Factor – Endless use as a background. It seemed I had landed in a Prototyping exhibition organized by Ars Electronica in their really bad dream: a future of biennials that no Volkswagen Group Forum premises.. longer distinguished art and its contingent spaces from the corporate visualizations and branding that accompanied them. This future is 6. Apomakrysmenophobia8 close, even overlapping with our present. Five Even if there has been a strong aesthetic break in years later, with this dystopian future scenario recent years, modes of art production and their still in my mind, I was not surprised to encounter possibilities should not be altered to fit the the 9th Berlin Biennale’s branding, which SWOT matrix used in the business world to depicted a so-called post-contemporary cul-de- evaluate companies, products, industries, and sac of complicit conditions. people: “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities,

09.18.16 / 18:33:15 EDT and threats.” While our gut reaction might be to stimulating and serious discourse, as did the say, “A biennial cannot be reduced to a biennial catalogue and the texts commissioned playground for representing successful and especially for the biennial and published online desired art genres,” we need to look at what is under the heading “Fear of Content.” During the underneath these slick and appealing desires. press conference held at the Allianz Forum, not a The problem is not the genres, but the attitude single question was asked. “Fear of Content” with a capital A, especially when it comes to could have initiated a stimulating discussion, but decision-making: we must be wary of an attitude 04/09 in the actual exhibition spaces sarcastic nihilism that promotes self-centered surplus, mostly covered up issues that are still taboo. competition, and individual success, as is found đđđđđđđđđđToday’s economy makes it increasingly everywhere in Western capitalism in the difficult to pursue higher education and earn a neoliberal age. The solution is not to ignore or run living as an artist, especially in New York, where away from this million-dollar question. Mimicry DIS is based. DIS was formed two years after the is not an answer either. 2008 global financial crisis, which eliminated many commercial creative jobs. Given the 7. Kuebiko9 precarity of artmaking in the US, it is safe to In order to develop counterfinance strategies, we assume that most of the American artists need to understand that the financial world and participating in 9th Berlin Biennale, especially if its tricks are not based on the “real” economy, on they were born in the 1980s or later, are buried in the actual production of goods and services in a student loan debt. We can’t ignore such a life- traditional sense. They are based on speculation, alerting fact; as Maurizio Lazzarato has written, on the buying and selling of shares and debts. the “indebted man” is a central subjective đđđđđđđđđđThe word “debt” appeared in the press product of the neoliberal age. This age, according statement of the 9th Berlin Biennale only once, to Lazzarato, began in the mid-1970s with and since then it hasn’t been around. In fairness, changes to the financing structure of the welfare early last year DIS’s online platform organized an state. eloquent debate concerning the issue. DIS’s đđđđđđđđđđBerlin has been thought of as comfort zone online magazine often publishes articles offering where people can escape unpleasant debates

A price list for merchandizing on sale at the 9th Berlin Biennale.

09.18.16 / 18:33:15 EDT around economic issues, income inequality, rates on the part of German neofeudalism, in the of artist compensation, wage stagnation, and colonial competition among networked global rising tuition costs. It is perhaps the suppression museums. of these concerns that generates the slick image đđđđđđđđđđThis is something that cannot be subverted of young, glamorous, skinny, beautiful bodies in with either a top-down or a bottom-up approach. front of white backgrounds. All those who lost Rather, it necessitates a hybrid strategy. This their jobs during the 2008 financial crisis and year in Berlin, several new laws have been had to become “creative technologists” and 05/09 passed that cap rents for the quarter of a million “innovative designers” have returned to the art people who live in the city’s public housing. This world, but only a few will find commercial will hopefully head off unsustainable rent hikes success amidst the new institutionalized genre- before Berlin turns into another Williamsburg or fication.10 The rest, as life dictates, will be forced East London. In January 2011, under the name to continue working multiple jobs such as art “Haben und Brauchen” (To Have and to Need) a handling, bartending, and other low-paid gigs. group of artists, curators, scientists, art historians, critics, exhibition-makers, gallery- 8. Zielschmerz11 owners, politicians, architects, and planners What has been the position of the Berlin published an open letter that aimed to make Biennale when it comes to urgent questions Berlin’s complex of cultural and political about the city itself? What has it advocated for? problems accessible to the general public.14 Two In the history of the Berlin Biennale, the 7th years later, in April 2013, Haben und Brauchen edition – curated by Artur Żmijewski and held in published another letter about the planned 2012 – bent the rules the most. But it ultimately Berlin City Tax.15 As the layered, long-term issues failed because of a few tactical mistakes, such of the city are deliberately absent from the 9th as failing to review over five thousand project edition of the Berlin Biennale, it is interesting to proposal submitted through ArtWiki, and inviting note the absence of any statement by Berlin’s the to occupy only the main artists and culture workers expressing exhibition space of KW. An institution is made up discomfort with genre-fication.16 not only of exhibition space. The occupation should’ve been extended to the office space, 10. Lachesism17 where the decisions were made. Still, we can I would propose that in times of heavily view this as a productive failure that enables a militarized technology, we should learn how to be step forward rather than back. time-sensitive when talking about “present, đđđđđđđđđđI have a feeling that since Żmijewski’s past, future.” If, when talking about the edition, the dominant factor in decision-making “present,” we mean the timespan between the around the Berlin Biennale has been a “fear of initial conception of the 9th Berlin Biennale and failure.” At this very particular “present” in its subsequent opening, none of us knew that on history, it would be ridiculous if the trajectory of June 3 more than 340 people would be rescued the debate were stuck on the question of either from a boat thought to have been carrying seven politics or aesthetics. It is definitely time to step hundred migrants to Italy, calling to mind the out of our comfort zones. 2011 case of the migrant boat “left to die” by the NATO-led coalition fighting in Libya;18 or that on 9. Rubatosis12 July 3, shortly after a coordinated bomb attack in Meanwhile, there is a lot happening in Berlin Baghdad killed over three hundred and injured related to long-standing debates about city hundreds more, Iraq’s prime minister would order politics. The fear-driven hostility expressed by the removal of British-made fake bomb detectors traditional, outdated models of cultural and renew a corruption investigation into the hegemony13 is a product of current polarization sale of the devices from 2007–10, which cost Iraq campaigns around Europe. Corporate city more than £53 million; or that in the early hours branding strategies that promise a generic of July 8 in Dallas, for the very first time US law cosmopolitan experience (“be Berlin,” “I enforcement officers used a robot (the Remotec ,” “OPEN Copenhagen”) should not be Andros Mark V-A1) to kill a suspect, who was an confused with the necessity for progressive and e - f l u x j o r n a # 7 5 — s p t m b 2 0 1 6 đ A h Ö ğ ü O b s c u r e S o w : T h g t a n d 9 B l i Afghan War veteran; or that on July 15 members engaged culture institutions. In Berlin, the of the Turkish military would attempt a coup Humboldt Forum, which will open in 2019, is one d’état, flying F-16s over low enough to scandalous example. The Humboldt Forum’s plan create sonic booms that sounded like explosions. is to relocate the ethnological collections of the These are only some of the catastrophic Museum (which was one of the venues incidents that have been happening, and for the 8th Berlin Biennale) to a reconstructed unfortunately there are more to come. And no Prussian palace in the center of Berlin – a matter where we are, they impact us. Therefore multicultural West German-East German gesture one should not see catastrophe and human

09.18.16 / 18:33:15 EDT A Federal Government ad announces the launch of a multibillion dollar program for the deployment of broadband networks in Germany. Here photographed as seen in , Berlin.

09.18.16 / 18:33:15 EDT tragedy as time-related or distance-related; they sounding board. By that I mean that for are motion-related and often technology- everything you do, you get feedback only monitored. from your own clique. You somehow only đđđđđđđđđđRegarding the statement of the 9th Berlin function within this scheme. You have to Biennale, the discussion should not be narrowed make sure that you can break out again.21 down to the ABCs of post-post-internet art (aesthetic) or post-contemporary art (genre- Perhaps it is impossible to expect a biennial to fication). What if the catastrophe is not 07/09 directly address the urgent issues that surround somewhere far away, but just around the corner? us today. Yet DIS could still have taken a focused Does Jon Rafman’s virtual reality simulation View stand, maybe by embracing queer theory as an of Pariser Platzđ(2016) make us feel safe, as if the anarchic and transformative concept, as was Berlin Biennale itself is far away from such a indirectly promised by the biennial’s title. They doomsday scenario? Even staying within the safe could have attempted to problematize or zone of the art world, why do we keep hearing disengage from networks of capital and power – about new campaigns to save art institutions or they could have simply made art fun again by that are on the brink of disappearing (“Save bending the rules. Instead, DIS remained in its Malmö Art Academy,” “Save De Appel,” or own echo chamber and performed its complicity recently closed institutions like the Townhouse with neoliberalism, which mechanically slays the Gallery, YAMA, and SALT Beyoğlu)? Can we even effectiveness of any kind of critical thinking. be sure that the Berlin Biennale as we know it đđđđđđđđđđ× will exist much longer? The author would like to thank Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle, and Noah Barker, for their challenging conversations 19 and generous input. A special thanks to Kinga Kielczynska, 11. Flashover Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Puck Verkade, and Emily As many have already asked, does the 9th Berlin Roysdon.đAll photos courtesy of the author. Biennale present a better art world, or does it give up on art entirely? Artists like Trevor Paglen (who has collaborated with journalist, artist, hacker, and security researcher Jacob Appelbaum) and (who, instead of using existing footage, travelled to shoot at the actual site of the former National Observatory of Iraq, now within the territory of the Kurdistan Regional Government) are well aware of the urgent question of how to navigate information technologies that are under the pressure of state-monopolized and militarized conditions. This should not be confused with other positions that are limited to mimicry. Babak Radboy, the creative director of the influential Bidoun magazine, was one of the people responsible for the biennial’s highly problematic marketing slogan “Why should fascists have all the fun?”20 He deliberately avoided responsibility for this question, claiming as a tactic that he was technically “not in the biennial” and “not the creative director,” even though his ad campaign was at the heart of the biennial. The best response to this evasive attitude can be found in the self-critique of Mike Meiré of Meiré and Meiré, who was behind the visual identity of the 9th Berlin Biennale. In a 2002 interview he discussed the early years of branding: e - f l u x j o r n a # 7 5 — s p t m b 2 0 1 6 đ A h Ö ğ ü O b s c u r e S o w : T h g t a n d 9 B l i

By the mid-Eighties we at One Blow had sixty people. We were very successful. Many magazines covered us. We were showpiece yuppies. Naturally that was a great time, but in a certain way it also perverted me. You live in your own world, which consists of a sort of conditioned

09.18.16 / 18:33:15 EDT Ahmet Öğüt (born in 1981 in Diyarbakır, Turkey) is a đđđđđđ1 percent work as educators. sociocultural initiator, artist, and lecturer who lives The section titles in this text are Another 14 percent are not in the all from the Dictionary of labor force at all. See and works in Istanbul, Berlin, and Amsterdam. Obscure Sorrows. Created by http://bfamfaphd.com/wp-cont Working across a variety of media, Öğüt's institutional John Koenig, this dictionary ent/uploads/2016/05/BFAMFAPh solo exhibitions include Forward!, Van Abbemuseum, consists of neologisms (and D_ArtistsReportBack2014-10.p Eindhoven (2015); Happy Together: Collaborators their corresponding definitions) df. that designate emotions hitherto Collaborating, Chisenhale Gallery, London (2015); unnamed in English đđđđđđ11 Apparatuses of Subversion, Horst-Janssen-Museum, http://www.dictionaryofobscu This word can be defined as the Oldenburg (2014); Stacion – Center for Contemporary resorrows.com.đAnticipointme nt exhilarating dread of finally 08/09 refers to the sinking feeling pursuing a lifelong dream. Art Prishtina (2013); Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2012); when anticipation fails to be the SALT Beyoglu, Istanbul (2011); The MATRIX Program at greater part of pleasure. đđđđđđ12 the UC Berkeley Art Museum (2010); Künstlerhaus This word can be defined as the đđđđđđ2 unsettling awareness of your Bremen (2009); and Kunsthalle Basel (2008). He has This pool was part of Cécile B. own heartbeat. also participated in numerous group exhibitions, Evans’s immersive installation including the 8th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale (2014); that consisted of her works What đđđđđđ13đ Performa 13, the Fifth Biennial of Visual Art the Heart Wants (2016), Chris Dercon’s contested Endurance Study – A Pictorial appointment as director of the Performance, New York (2013); the 7th Liverpool Guide I, II, III (2016), and Handy if Volksbühne Theater started a Biennial (2012); the 12th (2011); you’re learning to fly I, II (2016). new discussion about rethinking Trickster Makes This World, Nam June Paik Art Center the role of theater in Berlin and đđđđđđ3đ in Germany as a whole. However, (2010); the New Museum Triennial, New York (2009); The word can be defined as the the Maxim Gorki Theater and the and the 5th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art bittersweetness of having Impulse Theater Festival have (2008). Ögüt has completed several residency arrived in the future, seeing how been taking up this challenge for programs, including at the Delfina Foundation and things turn out, but not being years, sometimes in an even able to tell your past self. more progressive way than most Tate Modern (2012); IASPIS, Sweden (2011); and contemporary art institutions. Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam đđđđđđ4đ (2007–2008). He has taught at the Dutch Art Institute, Quoted in Tim Jonze, “Malcolm đđđđđđ14 McLaren’s son to burn £5m of Haben und Brauchen: “In Netherlands (2012); the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, punk memorabilia,” Guardian, contrast to other big cities, Finland (2011–2014); and Yildiz Teknik University, March 16, 2016 Berlin was devoid of any Turkey (2004–2006), among others. Öğüt was awarded https://www.theguardian.com/ exceptional pressure on the the Visible Award for the Silent University (2013); the music/2016/mar/16/malcolm- housing market, and the range mc laren-son-joe-corre-burn- of available spaces enabled special prize of the Future Generation Art Prize, pun k-memorabilia-punk- diverse and often self-organized Pinchuk Art Centre, Ukraine (2012); the De Volkskrant london-qu een art practices. Now this situation Beeldende Kunst Prijs 2011, Netherlands; and the is beginning to change đđđđđđ5đ dramatically. Rents are on the Kunstpreis Europas Zukunft, Museum of The word can be defined as the rise, and pressure on the Contemporary Art, Germany (2010). He co-represented ambiguous intensity of looking conditions of production and Turkey at the 53rd together with Banu someone in the eye, which can living is increasing without any Cennetoğlu (2009). feel simultaneously invasive and increase in money making vulnerable. opportunities. Most people engaged in cultural production đđđđđđ6đ still earn most of their money The word can be defined as the outside of Berlin. The bustling awareness of the smallness of art scene in Berlin evolved less your perspective. through the specific support of the city and more through its đđđđđđ7đ historical situation. The word can be defined as the Nevertheless, at the very default expression that your moment when the conditions for face automatically reverts to people engaged in cultural when idle; amused, melancholic, production are worsening pissed off. dramatically, the city prides itself on its artists; and the đđđđđđ8đ attention is welcome – in The word can be defined as the principle. Formed in response to fear that your connections with these issues, Haben und people are ultimately shallow. Brauchen seek to be advocates in the field of art as well as in đđđđđđ9đ art’s neighboring occupational The word can be defined as the fields with a platform for state of exhaustion inspired by discussion and action.” See acts of senseless violence, http://www.habenundbrauchen. which force you to revise your de/en/category/haben-und-bra image of what can happen in this uchen/chronic/page/2/. world. đđđđđđ15 đđđđđđ10đ Haben und Brauchen: “We As a BFAMFAPhD report shows, demand the implementation of there are about two million arts the statement made in the graduates in US, with bachelor’s coalition agreement between

e - f l u x j o r n a # 7 5 — s p t m b 2 0 1 6 đ A h Ö ğ ü O b s c u r e S o w : T h g t a n d 9 B l i degrees in fields such as music, the governing parties that they drama, theater arts, film, wish to increase support for photography, art history and independent cultural production criticism, studio art, visual art, and to improve its structural and performing arts. Fewer than framework in concrete, active 200,000 – just 10 percent – political action: independent of make their living primarily as if and when the City Tax does artists. The rest are dispersed eventually become reality. We across other occupations: 23 demand a new, qualified and percent work in professional and sustainable cultural policy which managerial occupations, 17 recognises the reality and social percent are employed as sales relevance of a self-organised and office workers, and 17 artistic practice which has

09.18.16 / 18:33:15 EDT grown out of the specific historical conditions and free spaces to be found in Berlin.” See http://www.habenundbrauchen. de/en/2013/04/haben-und-brau chen-offener-brief-zur-gepla nten-city-tax-in-berlin-2/.

đđđđđđ16 Discomfort with the genre- fication of politically engaged 09/09 artistic practices was addressed in a public letter collectively written by a loose group of Berlin-based artists and cultural workers during the three-day congress of Artist Organizations International at HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin, January 2015.đ

đđđđđđ17 This word can be defined as the desire to be struck by disaster.

đđđđđđ18 In the summer of 2011, the “research agency” Forensic Architecture launched the Forensic Oceanography project. Its aim was to support a coalition of NGOs demanding accountability for the deaths of migrants in a region of the central Mediterranean Sea that, starting in March of that year, was being tightly monitored by NATO as part of its arms embargo against Libya. During the events of the “left-to-die boat” case, this monitoring enabled NATO and participating states to become aware of any migrant distress signals – and therefore be effective in assisting. The Forensic Oceanography report turned the knowledge generated through surveillance into evidence of responsibility for the crime of nonassistance.

đđđđđđ19 This word can be defined as the moment a conversation becomes real and alive.

đđđđđđ20 This slogan was part of a marketing campaign called “Not in the Berlin Biennale,” created for the biennial by Radboy, Roe Ethridge, and Chris Kraus.

đđđđđđ21 Mike Meiré in an interview with Peter Martin, Branding Interface, June 2002. e - f l u x j o r n a # 7 5 — s p t m b 2 0 1 6 đ A h Ö ğ ü O b s c u r e S o w : T h g t a n d 9 B l i

09.18.16 / 18:33:15 EDT