anarchiva

Boat diaries: THERE IS SURELY SOME SOCIALISM LEFT IN THE DUSTY CORNER…

2008-06-04T02:41:00.000-07:00

Boat diaries: “There is surely some socialism left in the dusty corner” is a growing image database made of cyclical photo-narratives of journeys following a sea route from Split to Rijeka and back (each ride lasting for twelve hours). During the time two boats exchange; one very old and strong Liburnija, capable of going through the strongest wind which is sailing in the winter time, and more representative and newer one Marco Polo for the summer. A crew is exchanged too.

Each boat journey lasts for two days (Sunday evening to Tuesday morning), or actually two nights on the sea. Each time same routine is performed, as there is no other content on the boat; going to the terrace, then the bar, the restaurant, checking out the cabin, breakfast… Strangely enough, boat cabins seem to be completely different in a random way; some of them have windows, some desks, some even a sofa. It is completely impossible to foresee which one would have a bath curtain, a placemat on the floor in the shower… each cabin blocks some other time and the journey seems to be through the time, not place-wise.

Traveling through four year seasons there is a change of lightening, but as well a difference of boat passengers and their profile. While during the winter time there is hardly a passenger, or those are mostly displaced university professors, truck drivers that cannot go the road way because of the wind, in the early spring there is a “geriatric” tourism and “religious” tourism both of which introduce a sense of dying and superstitions in regard to the sea, but also a certain fear on the breakfast if there is someone who has dived into the nothingness in complete in the boat cabin. With a first warmth there are tourists which do not take boat cabins but sleep on the floor and make a mess, so called “out-of-season” tourists. Strangely enough, the only thing they talk is – how to buy islands and posses parts of a Croatian coast. The summer brings a mass tourism and kills the enjoyment in a noise, mess, dirt, sweat, chaos of questions.

Among all the tourists there are some, as well, that are boat fanatics, they smoke cigars, drink rum and wear navy t-shirts for the occasion… putting all the senses of the boat that change into the stabile one; boat is only a boat, not the vehicle of time, of politics, of a mass tourism...

So while the twelve hour sailing becomes a place of repetitive rituals, which always turn themselves into something else, precisely because of all changes in private and public place of the boat, which depend on the season, the hardware stays the same. Both boats “machines” still carry something of the socialism, not only in the visual sense, but also concerning specific details as the food, furniture, a sense of disconnection, of utopia…

Immediately after sailing out the TV signal is lost and after a while there is a loss of the mobile phone network. Somewhere on the sea only Italian mobile operators can be detected. Twelve hours latter usually the information shock happens; in the coffee shop someone says a terrible thing was reported in the yesterday’s news and the whole "continental" population seem to be fine with it, while boat passengers only need to catch up the time lost on the sea.

Time started: September 2007

Victims' Symptom debate May 17-23: join the curator, artists and theorists online

2008-05-16T06:08:00.000-07:00

Victims’ Symptom, commissioned by LabforCulture and curated by Ana Peraica (Croatia/The Netherlands), invites you to participate in an online debate from May 17-23, 2008 at http://victims.labforculture.org. This open, public debate, conceptualised and moderated by Ana Peraica and co-moderated by art theorist, critic and performance artist Peter Fuchs (Hungary), brings together participating artists and theorists in a series of online discussions around the concept and image of 'the victim' as it is used in contemporary society.

Join the debate via a special online chat interface accessible from May 17-23 at http://victims.labforculture.org/site/debate/debate and read the full debate schedule at http://victims.labforculture.org/site/debate/schedule

In preparation for the discussions, visit the Victims’ Symptom website, which features texts by: Sezgin Boynik (Kosovo), Adila Laidi-Hanieh (Palestine), Geert Lovink (The Netherlands) and Stevan Vukovic (Serbia). Victims’ Symptom also presents a series of online artworks specifically commissioned for this project by: Mauricio Arango (Colombia/USA), Alejandro Duque (Colombia/Switzerland), Andreja Kuluncic (Croatia), Marko Peljhan (Slovenia) and Martha Rosler (USA). A number of interviews, an online glossary, and links to a number of related texts and projects selected through an open call, round off the project.

You are also invited to leave your comments and impressions on all of the texts, interviews and artworks on the Victims’ Symptom website throughout the duration of the project.

Victims’ Symptom was commissioned in the summer of 2007 to mark LabforCulture’s first anniversary. The convergence of ideas, artistic perspectives and technologies is a key element of the work of LabforCulture in stimulating cultural collaboration and facilitating intercultural dialogue across Europe.

Further information:

1. Go online http://victims.labforculture.org The online debate runs from 17 - 23 May 2008

2. Press information contact: Nicola Mullenger: nicola@labforculture.org

3. LabforCulture is a partnership initiative of the European Cultural Foundation and is grateful for the support provided by its funders.

4. LabforCulture is a unique tool for artists, cultural professionals, organisations and networks across the 50 countries of Europe, and a platform for cultural cooperation between Europe and the rest of the world. It provides a wide range of linked information from funding possibilities to cultural news and through their open community space the arts and culture sector can post blogs, search contacts through the online profiles or simply make an announcement about an arts event. The site is in five languages: English, French, German, Polish and Spanish. http://www.labforculture.org/

Victims' Symptom goes live: join the online debate on LabforCulture

2008-04-23T04:33:00.000-07:00

Victims’ Symptom, commissioned by LabforCulture and curated by Ana Peraica (Croatia/The Netherlands), goes live today at http://victims.labforculture.org. The project explores the concept and image of 'the victim' as it is used in contemporary society.

Is the cultural production of victims preventing us from seeing the actual victims? Why does the mass media prefer to talk in terms of numbers? Are we losing our capacity for empathy? These are just some of the questions explored in the Victims’ Symptom project through critical texts, commissioned artworks, interviews and reflections by the curator and a number of renowned theorists and artists.

The new Victims’ Symptom online space features texts by: Sezgin Boynik (Kosovo), Adila Laidi-Hanieh (Palestine), Geert Lovink (The Netherlands) and Stevan Vukovic (Serbia). Victims’ Symptom also presents a series of online artworks specifically commissioned for this project by: Mauricio Arango (Colombia/USA), Alejandro Duque (Colombia/Switzerland), Andreja Kuluncic (Croatia), Marko Peljhan (Slovenia) and Martha Rosler (USA). The texts and artworks provide the framework for an open online debate from 17 - 23 May 2008 in which the public is invited to participate alongside the Victims’ Symptom artists and theorists.

Victims’ Symptom was commissioned in the summer of 2007 to mark LabforCulture’s first anniversary. Katherine Watson (Canada/Finland), Director of LabforCulture said, "it is an online experiment that set out to bring critical thinkers, artists and a wider public together and to encourage reflection, open dialogue and debate on a compelling global issue."

The convergence of ideas, artistic perspectives and technologies is a key element of the work of LabforCulture in stimulating cultural collaboration and facilitating intercultural dialogue across Europe.

Further Information:

Go online http://victims.labforculture.org The online debate runs from 17 - 23 May 2008
Press information contact: Nicola Mullenger: nicola@labforculture.org
LabforCulture is a partnership initiative of the European Cultural Foundation and is grateful for the support provided by its funders.
LabforCulture is a unique tool for artists, cultural professionals, organisations and networks across the 50 countries of Europe, and a platform for cultural cooperation between Europe and the rest of the world. It provides a wide range of linked information from funding possibilities to cultural news and through their open community space the arts and culture sector can post blogs, search contacts through the online profiles or simply make an announcement about an arts event. The site is in five languages: English, French, German, Polish and Spanish. http://www.labforculture.org/

If you would like to unsubscribe from our mailing list please send an email to info@labforculture.org and write "unsubscribe" in the message body.

Victims' Symptom - Open Call for Contributions (artworks, comments, texts and debate questions)

2008-03-07T05:47:00.000-08:00

/Victims' Symptom/ - Open Call for Contributions (artworks, comments, texts and debate questions)

Victims’ Symptom , curated by Ana Peraica (Croatia/The Netherlands) and commissioned by LabforCulture to celebrate its first year anniversary in the summer of 2007, invites the public to join in the preparation for the /Victims’ Symptom/ online debate to take place in April 2008. The project is focused on the following questions:

Why does the mass media prefer to talk in terms of numbers of corpses, calculating them morbidly, with apparent disregard for the victims’ status? Do numbers matter? Or is each loss a single one?

Does the number of victims reported by the media’s “truth speaking” make any real difference or is it perpetuating the media myth that cannot report on few? Who profits from death? Is there a bureaucracy of death? What is the dominant exchange rate between civilians and soldiers, our victims and their victims?

Is the cultural production of victims preventing us from seeing the actual victims? Are we able to see what happened only after a sufficient number of movies, novels and theses published on massacres? Is earning a degree on a massacre ethical? Furthermore, how can denying a massacre lead to no consequences? Are we losing our capacity for empathy? Are we victimised ourselves? Is there a therapy for such a world?

We are inviting the public to send in their responses to these questions in the following ways:

1. Links to existing projects to be reviewed

Links should be accompanied by a short description (100 words max) explaining which particular curatorial question or questions they address. This description will subsequently accompany the selected links on the /Victims’ Symptom/ website.

2. Full, published texts or interviews (html, blog, wiki…)

Texts should be summarised in a short description (200 words max) outlining the specific issues and questions they address. Texts that require users to login for access will not be considered.

3. Separate discussions on mailing lists, message boards and forums with public access

Moderators with proposals for discussions should send an email outlining the concept along with the names of the proposed participants. If the discussion is to take place on external mailing lists, message boards or discussion forums, the forums should be open access and, optionally, have an RSS feed. A one-line description of the location of the discussion should be provided, stating the URL, focus of the group / forum, year it was founded, number of members, etc.

Send an e-mail to victims_symptom@yahoo.com with your proposal for participation by 21 March 2008.

All contributions will be reviewed by /Victims’ Symptom/ curator Ana Peraica and assistant Marko Stamenkovic' and selected material will be included in the online space and debate in April 2008.

For more information on Victims’ Symptom

LabforCulture is a partnership initiative of the European Cultural Foundation and would like to thank its funders for their support.

Be part of something bigger: One website, 50 countries, 5 languages.

http://www.labforculture.org

HR - A remark on art & technology research in regard to the place of origin taken as the state, place of living, as well as only a domain

2008-02-16T18:00:00.000-08:00

Text published on LEF (click on the image)

What could be the purpose of LEF?

Is there a need to address a national inheritance in media arts in general or that is just a very Balkanian and nationalistic way of thinking? Somehow I had a problem since ever if someone would name me “a Croatian theorist”, I was not schooled in Croatia, I never had a Croatian stipend either has Croatian Ministry of Science recognized my diplomas, but when there is a need to put some names in state purposes - I turn out to be suddenly Croatian. Yet, I am Croatian by the origin and I also live there, but what does that have to do with my profession? I could be more Dutch, in those terms.

Still, a brave attempt to fit all of events into a linear national narrative has been done by Darko Fritz in his text Media arts in Croatia commissioned by Croatian governmental cultural portal Culturenet, which probably wanted to advertise with it. Unfortunately, most of people mentioned in the text were not in Croatia at all for many years, so the overview seemed more like - what would be if they would not have left the same country for the reasons precisely connected to the same ministry? And what happened with other artists names of whom were hardly ever heard latter?

Despite Fritz’s systematic review of arts “done by artists that have been born in Croatia” was suffering a bit of non-present criticism of precisely the same state’s relation to a media art research, it has still shown some important aspects of it. It was precisely the relationship to the state that was framing the difference between three generations of artist, fitting episodes for the mere reasons - there are complete gaps of time in between generations; nothing at all. Though I, again, dislike such systematisations, no matter how clear or logical it may sound, as no art narrative can fit to such a cruel structure, there is actually a sufficient reason to mark a generational change of “arts produced by artists born in Croatia”, precisely for the reason of relationship with the state – power and ways of sponsoring an independent research.

Darko Fritz: Media Arts in Croatia
(pdf) http://www.noemalab.org/sections/ideas/ideas_articles/pdf/fritz_media_art.pdf

1. Socialistic generation: fooled about causes: Nove Tendencije (1961 – 1973)

The first (experimental) generation is presented by the project Nove Tendencije (New Tendencies, alternative title) having no direct succession. Their research was state sponsored. Mostly unpreserved objects and texts were researched for years, also by artist Darko Fritz who is to be praised for his dedicated work that saved these works, much before settling down the exhibition Bit International.

Politically inspired by the utopianism of its programs, striving for non-alliance and separation from the mass (but never popular) style of art, this generation has introduced a wave of newness though it has staid forgotten for decades in cellars of the Museum not knowing how to deal with it at all. Future utopia of deliberation of a worker has desegregated in parts of robots none could put working again.

Bit International at Neue Gallerie Graz http://newmediafix.net/daily/?p=1500
Bit International at ZKM http://www.culturenet.hr/v1/english/read.asp?id=1761&cat=17
Darko Fritz: Amnesia International, Early computer art or the New Tendencies Movement (doc) http://darkofritz.net/text/Amnesia%20International.rtf

2. War (1991 – 1995) and post-war generation: leaving the country

Through in the early nineties artists leaving the country in war, or leaving it in post-war period, have profiled as researchers in technology for a variety of reasons. Most of them were connected to research centers in Belgium and Netherlands offering possibilities to work on independent projects. Among them the most active are Maja Kuzmanović working on different research based projects and Zvonimir Bakotin – Zone mostly working with VRML (Digital Staad Amsterdam and Merzbau with VGTV). A first curatorial project online was done by me in 1999, (Machine philosopher, Jan Van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht)

Zvonimir Bakotin: Digital Staat Amsterdam http://www.dds.nl/ The work awarded Silicon Graphics Award 1996
Zvonimir Bakotin with VGTV: Merzbau http://www.merzbau.org/ The work is developed for for Sprengel Museum Hannover in 1999.
Maja Kuzmanovic: Foam http://fo.am/bubbles/maja/ Maja was nominated one of 100 "Young Innovators" of 1999 by MIT.
Ana Peraica: Machine_philosopher (19999)
http://www.janvaneyck.nl/enlightenment/Pages/ana4.html The work presented on the Enlightenment symposium (Chapter 2, 2000) reviewed in C. H. Gray: Peace, War and Computers (Routledge, 2004)

3. Generation of national disasters (from black economy, centralism, corruption)

Croatian dis-connection has produced large inconsistencies in means of production. The country itself was having a Ministry of Science and Technology which was in terms of technology totally inoperable. Since new funds, predominantly from Soros have been allowed for post-socialistic countries, some have managed successfully to equip small groups and fund their travels (as soon as possibilities for traveling without VISA were opened, a war between artists was quite often just for the reason of a single travel funding) but they have stayed completely closed to others. With Soros funds withdrawing the only left, state funds, were reasons of the battle in which power is still exercised, for which MI2 club, founded in 1999, has been named “anarchists on the state support”.

Unfortunately trying to politicize the art and technology itself to be legible for funding, media art has institutionalized as a techno-sect, neither being artists nor scientists, but advocating technological tools for mere “being different” and showing it up to the quite right orientated society.

Proliferation of translations of texts meant to provoke rather then to inform have ended up, unfortunately in non-original writing having a cultural by-product of B-production academic style of writings (depicting certain writers as ultimate authorities while mis-interpreting them, over-quotations with no sense, forcing up systematisation of genres and concepts with no explanation…). A TV show which has representing media arts “scene” (whatever that is now in this text) Transfer, has ended up in totally nonsensical and absurd reports with no real intent to make them such, dealing pretentiously with obviously non read theory and on few individuals, usually recorded by themselves or nearest events as “the largest world events and the most important ones.”

Sadly enough, arts in the “cultural” capital Zagreb has not given enough of place to lonely artists as Andreja Kuluncic employing various media techniques in her projects. It has instead staid without discourse. Though obviously the most interesting as employing research tools of social and political science instead of playing with new technique, her pools, statistics and games have given more effective way of commenting and criticizing the society itself.

Contrary of the capital city, media art scene in smaller the city of Split was the first one to set up exhibitions and the big festival. International festival of new film (founded 1996) become a recognizable international event that has promoted new media artworks as a separate selection. Unfortunately a problem that there is no curator for such art, no critic and especially – no public because of previous two personae missing but also for a vanity of the cultural elite from the capital never arriving to follow events, has made this event totally useless.

Though the city itself has founded institutions of multi-media in which sadly enough curators do not know to switch computers on for already a decade and governmental agencies are centralised and suffering of obvious corruption (as instead of professionals for some reasons jury for funds is including a pop singer, as well as representatives of largest institutions depending on the fund itself) the situation would, hopefully change.

Andreja Kulunčić: Homepage http://www.andreja.org/ Project Distributive Justice http://www.distributive-justice.com/ definitely most popular, exhibited on Documenta XI (Kassel, Germany, 2003)
Split Film Festival Homepage http://www.splitfilmfestival.hr/

4. New generations: crossing the barrier of the nation

With the influence of Film Festival, the first media arts department was founded (1997) by film artist Dan Oki, still mainly dealing with video art. After Split, Zagreb has also founded the media department within art academy studies. The first theoretical courses, however, were offered on the graduate studies of Cultural studies, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Rijeka. With new generation of theorists hopefully the situation of chronic amateurism with consequent terminological pamphletism and confusion would be solved.

Finally the technology is coming more available and there are no needs for state non-governmental or governmental investments, or at least not in case of a single computer meaning - knowledge. Most of young people finally do speak English and do not need translations of works of theory in the breaking and constantly changing field, which is always coming too late translated, as a decade ago.

Working individually and not depending on translations (and by that mean – selection but as well; a censorship) new generations are researching far more seriously media arts far behind local clubs of art and technology sub-culture or a lifestyle and they are not depending on opening of “multimedia” centers being mere mere money laundry industry. Also, as traveling more, they are not framed by newspaper or TV filters on what should be seen as media arts.

But, it would be also great if they could have an online course : )

Video Vortex (Amsterdam,

2008-01-08T09:19:00.000-08:00

Video Vortex Conference

PostCS 11, Oosterdokskade 3-5, Amsterdam www.ilove11.nl.

Friday January 18, PostCS11

09.30 Doors open, coffee and tea

10.00 Welcome

10.15 - 12.30 Opening Session
Moderator: Geert Lovink

Tom Sherman
Geoffrey Bowker
Florian Schneider

12.30 - 13.30 Lunch

13.30 - 15.30 Online Video Aesthetics
Moderator: Patricia Pisters

Helen Kambouri
Andreas Treske
Tal Sterngast
Stefaan Decostere

15.30 - 15.45 Coffee, tea

15.45 - 17.45 Alternative Platforms and Software
Moderator: Seth Keen

Matthew Mitchem
Valentin Spirik
Philine von Guretzky
Jay Dedman
Tatiana de la O

Saturday January 19, PostCS11

10.00 - 12.00 Cinema and Narrativity
Moderator: Sonja de Leeuw

Thomas Elsaesser
Jan Simons
Dan Oki
Rosemary Comella

12.00 - 13.00 Lunch

13.00 - 15.00 Curating Online Video
Moderator: Vera Tollmann

Patrick Lichty
Emma Quinn
Thomas Thiel
Sarah Cook

15.00 - 15.15 Coffee, tea

15.15 - 17.15 Participatory Culture
Moderator: Monique van Dusseldorp

Tilman Baumgärtel
Dominick Chen
Ana Peraica

20.00-00.00 Evening programme: Video Slamming

Opening Session

YouTube made 2006 the year of Internet video. The video content is produced bottom-up, with an emphasis on participation, sharing and community networking. But inevitably, like Flickr being consumed by Yahoo, Google purchased YouTube. What is the future for the production and distribution of independent online video content? How can a participatory culture achieve a certain degree of autonomy and diversity outside mass media? What is the artistic potential of video databases and online filmmaking?

Online Video Aesthetics

Looking at the videos on YouTube, what aesthetics do we find? Is there a homogeneous style that mainly builds on eyewitness tv, candid camera formats and webcam diaries? And now that music videos and commercials increasingly resemble video art, can we define how artistic practices influence the look of online footage? Is YouTube a medium and platform in itself for art works, or is it merely used as a promotional device?

Participatory Culture

Web 2.0 promises new levels of participatory culture in which all users are producers, sharing their homemade content with their networks of friends. In this utopian approach, the user has the potential to overcome centralized top-down media and create dialogue. To which extent can this be considered citizen journalism? Is the increased user participation a sign of a new socio-political culture or is it a mere special effect of technological change?

Cinema and Narrativity

Do fragmented video databases lead to new narratives and genres? Does a database like YouTube evoke new media skills or rather contemporary conditions such as ADD? Against the latter, scholars have put the ability of users to reassemble short stories into larger new narratives. The bricolage is assembled by the end-user, not the producer. Does this add up to a new cinematic experience?

Curating Online Video

From 16mm film and video to the Internet and back, artists have always used the moving image to produce critical and innovative work. This session will explore early examples of Internet video and investigate how artists and curators have responded to the YouTube challenge. Online video databases seemingly are the ideal artist portfolio online, with unlimited uploads and a massive audience. MySpace is inhabited by bands and musicians, but why don’t video artists and filmmakers occupy YouTube? On the other hand, where would this leave the curator?

Alternative Platforms and Software

This session will investigate developments in the field of open source software in creating alternatives to proprietary software like Windows Media Player. Through investigating Peer2Peer alternatives and open licenses, both users and programmers aim to create a truly distributed network, in which content can freely float around without having to use centralized servers and sign strings of user agreements.

Evening programme: Video Slamming

Much like poetry slamming the use of short video fragments has become a dominant mode in visual culture. Where are the video files found and how are they used and played with? Is ‘video slamming’ the new way of watching audiovisual files? This evening session is all about the new ways of watching, using, and playing with moving images, such as scratching, sampling, mixing, (meta)tagging and recommending.

Offbeat catalog online

2008-01-03T06:01:00.000-08:00

Offbeat catalog (pdf) can be downloaded from this location

Curator: Maja Ciric

Authors: Selda Asal, He Chengyao, Biljana Djurdjevijic, Guerilla Girls, Ivana Klickovic, Eufrosinia Kersnovskaya, Aprilija Luzar, Grace Ndiritu, Ana Peraica, Nevena Popovic, Jovana Popic, Milica Ruzicic, Anne - Marie Schneider, Ivana Smiljanic, Hito Steyerl and Aleksandra Zdravkovic

SKC, Belgrade

December 2007

New feminism, worlds of feminism... book out

2008-01-02T17:39:00.000-08:00

NEW FEMINISM: Worlds of Feminism, Queer and Networking Conditions / Eds. Marina Gržinić, Rosa Reitsamer

English, 41 contributions by 60 theoreticians, artists, activists;

474 pages, black and white images;
ISBN 978-3-85409-472-2
Published by Löcker Verlag, Vienna, 2007
www.loecker.at

Contibutors:
Jamika Ajalon, Pamela Allara, Helga Amesberger, Rutvica Andrijasevic, Elke Auer, Evelyn Torton Beck, Maria Jose Belbel, Eva Blimlinger, Rosi Braidotti, Judith Butler, Yvonne P. Doderer, Eva Egermann, Sonja Eismann, Antke Engel, Olivera Erić, Nataša Govedić, Marina Gržinić, Encarnacion Gutierrez Rodriguez, Brigitte Halbmayr, H.arta group, Reni Hofmüller, Marty Huber, Rada Iveković, Biljana Kašić, Maria Klonaris and Katerina Thomadaki, Klub Zwei, Đurđa Knežević, Xiao Liyun, maiz, Katharina Miko, Suzana Milevska, Katharina Morawek, Zorica Mršević, Tanja Ostojić, Ana Peraica, Marta Popivoda, Rosa Reitsamer, Birgit Rommelspacher, Lisa Rosenblatt, Emily Roysdon, JD Samson, Karin Sardadvar, Johanna Schaffer, Basak Senova, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Esther Straganz, Zeynep Tul Akbal Süalp, Shirley Anne Tate, Trinh T. Minh-ha, James Pei-Mun Tsang, Nataša Velikonja, Azucena Vieites, Virginia Villaplana, Ana Vujanović.

New Feminism: Worlds of Feminism, Queer and Networking Conditions
"New Feminism is politics!"

This anthology presents and constructs a configuration of acting and fighting for New Feminism by feminists, lesbians and queers. What we are interested in is not only opening up this configuration to unknown histories, but also presenting new actors, agents and forces who do not talk only about unknown histories, but first and foremost re-articulate the very foundation of what the feminist movement is. In order to give new power to the movement, it was necessary not only to open up the history and present of feminism by introducing a certain break (implied by the word "new"), but also to enlarge the agendas of its emancipatory politics.

The point of departure of what should be conceptualized as New Feminism is the discussion on the most internal changes of feminism today, asking what are the conditions within global capitalism that inform and reshape its concepts, paradigms and statements in relation to labor, migration, capital and democracy. Claiming that a territory wider than just first world capitalism exists, and also that the geographical opening practiced by global capitalism is not enough, we ask for an urgent introduction into feminist theory and practice of questions, topics and agendas that react against wo/men trafficking, the forces of migration and bare lives, and reflect on possible new mode(l)s of their representation and articulation. New Feminism is a term that tries, firstly, to break the simple continuity in the feminist movement and, secondly, to re-engage new agencies and topics within the movement.

When we decided to work on this book, it was obvious that the history and present of feminism - in order to give a new future to the movement - must break with the one and only history of the movement developed in the First Capitalist World. New Feminism therefore presents itself through the constitution of a new conceptual genealogy of feminism with the conceptually radical and straightforwardly stubborn intent to develop a platform that includes marginalized but relevant histories, practices and theories that form and activate new political subjects.

If we are to establish a new genealogy, it has to be done outside the known pattern of translation from unknown territories to the well-known international arena, from unknown spaces into a known vocabulary. We decided to get rid of such a process, asking precisely those who already engage in their own spaces to formulate and reflect on this engagement, and to speak out. Even more, we asked them not to describe the state of things inside to those outside, giving just a "picture" of the territory, but rather to propose a politically engaged break with the one and only history and present of feminism. We asked them to question the already established mainstream history, vocabulary and signifying processes of feminism. The idea is to bring to the surface a process of erasure and to give to this new configuration a list, a "declaration" of very important signatures and positions, which should no longer be perceived as a geographical extravaganza, but instead as a clear re-politicization of the movement of feminism.

With this book we want to further encourage and enlarge a possible new social relationship of transnational networking that searches not only for a new representational politics, but also opens a new possibility for feminism as political act! In the world of global capitalism, where all we can do is to individualize a proper life, to think about a relationship in the form of a new network means politics. New Feminism is politics.

Marina Gržinić and Rosa Reitsamer

Read full text by Brigitte Rommelspacher

Lecture: Avi and DivX art (Split film festival, 15 - 22 September, 2007)

2007-08-27T08:33:00.000-07:00

15TH - 22ND
SEPTEMBER 2007
PROGRAM

COMPETITION FEATURES 2007.
DIRECTOR ORIGINAL TITLE COUNTRY DUR. min

Akerman Chantal LA-BAS FR/BE 78
Askarian Don ARARAT - FOURTEEN VIEWS AM 75
Cohn Norman/Kunuk Zacharias THE JOURNALS OF KNUD RASMUSSEN CA 112
Saakyan Maria MAJAK RU 78
Schreiner Peter BELLAVISTA AT 117
Serra Albert HONOR DE CAVALLERIA ES 95
Tarr Béla A LONDONI FÉRFI FR/HU/DE 132
Weerasethakul Apichatpong SANG SATTAWAT TH/FR/AT 105
Wyborny Klaus HOMMAGE AN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN DE 72
Yuedong Zhang XIA WU GOU JIAO CN 77

FOCUS 2007.

DIRECTOR ORIGINAL TITLE COUNTRY DUR. min

Catlett Juan ERÉNDIRA IKIKUNARI MX 117
Currie Andrew FIDO CA 91
Fly Per DRABET DK 99
Ki-Duk Kim SI GAHN KR 96
Ming-Liang Tsai HEI YAN QUAN TW/FR/AT 115
Salour Saman CHAND KILO KHORMA BARAYE MARASSEM-E TADFIN IR 85
Shutaro Oku KAIN NO MATSUEI JP 89
Stünkel Franziska VINETA - DAS GEHEIMPROJEKT DE 93
Tam Patrick FU ZI HK 150
Wehling/Olav F. FUTSCHICATO DE 68

IMAGE 2007.

DIRECTOR ORIGINAL TITLE COUNTRY DUR.min.

Bohusz Mike GOING TO PIECES: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SLASHER FILM US 88
Cronin Paul IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE IMAGE (PART 1 & 2) UK 200
Freedman Mimi BRANDO US 166
Gelmini Elio ANGER ME CA 72
Hoeferlin Marc SHOOTING GHOSTS - THE MAKING OF GHOSTS UK 64
Jacobs Ken TWO WRENCHING DEPARTURES US 90
Jones, William E. V.O. US 59
Payton Sarah/Teerink Chris IN THE SHADOW OF THE LIGHT NL 93
Pollard Sam AMERICAN MASTERS: JOHN FORD/JOHN WAYNE: THE FILMMAKER AND THE LEGEND US 87

FORUM 2007.
DIRECTOR ORIGINAL TITLE COUNTRY DUR.min.

Ang Mirabelle MATCH MADE US/SG 48
Berends Andrew WHEN ADNAN COMES HOME US 74
Braun Natalie METAMORPHOSIS IL 57
Colusso Enrica ABC COLOMBIA IT/FR 88
Czombos Marcel SE ESCUCHA? AR 53
Kazen Lidia CHORA MILOŚĆ PL 55
Khalil Mano DAVIDE TOLHILDAN CH 54
Loznitsa Sergei BLOKADA RU 52
Merewether Janet JABE BABE: A HIGHTENED LIFE AU 52
Pascoe Will NOAM CHOMSKI: REBEL WITHOUT A PAUSE CA 75
Rhalib Jawad EL EJIDO, LA LOI DU PROFIT BE 80
Rickels Jiska 4 ELEMENTS NL 89
Torres Leiva José Luis EL TIEMPO QUE SE QUEDA CL 86
Ulmer Bruno WELCOME EUROPA FR 90
Xian Sun LAO YUAN CN 52

COMPETITION SHORTS 2007.
DIRECTOR ORIGINAL TITLE COUNTRY DURATION min. sec.
Alastruey Karlos ARDIA ES 13 4
Altabas Ciro DVD ES 17
Altuna Asier SAREAN ES 4
Bitzer Jan/Brunck Ilija/Weber Tom 458NM DE 6 30
Bentovim Yoni/Harris Emily THREE TOWERS UK/IT 12
Bilajbegović Haris MOST BA 11
Block, Brian Dugan FAST, FASTER, FASTEST(AMERICAN ATTRITION) US 14 54
Borówka Krzysztof SIOSTRY PL 14 48
Boswell, Mark Warren THE ST. PETERSBURG PARADOX US 8 22
Bruch Martin FENSTER / DREI SÄTZE AT 11 5
Caillat Sébastian HISTOIRE SANS GRAVITÉ FR 14
Capliez Antoine LES SOMNAMBULES (LA NUIT) FR 30
Chkheidze Giga BERLIN 96 GE/DE 7
Coover Roderick SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED ONLY ONCE US/MX/UK 22
Čučić Damir LA PETITE MORT HR 7 20
Eberhard Bettina LOSTAGE DE 20
Edelgart, Mia Isabel HANDVAERK DK 8
Faktor Ivan KANAGAROO COURT HR 7 40
Fazeli Hossein Martin TRICKO SK 10 44
Finnegan Lorcan DEFACED IE 3 10
Gauvreau Martin AGNIESZKA 2039 UK 12
Gomez Sandra LAS CAMAS SOLAS CU 14
Grecu Mihai UNLITH FR 7 58
Gruffat Sabine THE EXPEDITIONISTS: LA CIUDAD DORADA CO/US 14 40
Harper Tom CUBS UK 10
Hong, James T. 731: TWO VERSIONS OF HELL CN 27
Hwidar Abdelatif SALVADOR ES 11
Inza WHITE BLUE AIR FR 7
Kanchaveli Bidzina 7/1 FRAUEN DE 9
Kasumi THE FREE SPEECH ZONE US 14
Kelly Tony BLIND MAN'S ALLEY UK 7 25
Kennedy John/O'Brien Ruairi TEETH IE 2 10
Kobayashi Kazuhiko POLYPHONIC JP 1 30
Kooijmans Jeroen FATA MORGANA NL 1 33
Köves Krisztián Károly TÓBI HU 12
Kraning Laura AMERICAN PARADE US 17
Kuchar George FAULTY FANTHOMS US 15
Kütt Mati UNE INSTITUUT EE 10
Lale David THE END FOR BEGINNERS UK 23
Lanfranconi Romana DIE EINWEICHER CH 29
Maciá Mariel FLORES EN EL PARQUE (O LOS PRIMEROS BESOS) ES 10
Mihaljević Stjepan UNPLUGGED HR 12 15
Minck Bady DAS SEIN UND DAS NICHTS AT/LU 10
Mondelos Stefanos MASTERPIECE ( PART 1) GR 25 7
Muja Alban/Rytel Joanna PLAY GIRL AL 5 10
Ostbye, Thomas A. 6 FORESTILLINGER OM FRIHET NO 19
Oxby Lizzie THE SEAWATCHERS UK 4 30
Partamian Chantal CHÉRE N. LB 7 52
Price John THE VIEW OF THE FALLS FROM CANADIAN SIDE CA 6 56
Ptičar Krunoslav LABIRINT HR 9 56
Rhodes, Geoffrey Alan MIRROR/BUTTERFLY US 6
Ripatti, Mika J. MOSCOVALAINEN TYTTŐ FI 6
Rudavsky Ondrej BEYOND INVISIBLE US 39
Schreiner Volker FROM AFAR DE 5 25
Schuster Nikki ROBOTANT AT 4 23
Silberstein Guli BEACH IL 4 55
Smith John PYRAMIDS/SKUNK (HOTEL DIARIES 5/6) UK/NL 16
Sun Xun REQUIEM CN 7 21
Thompson, John Alan SONGBIRD US 6

SPECIAL PROGRAM 2007.

DON ASKARIAN RETROSPECTIVE
Armenia

ORIGINAL TITLE YEAR DUR. min

THE BEAR external link > 1984. 58
KOMITAS external link > 1988. 96
AVETIK external link > 1992. 84
PARADJANOV external link > 1998. 60
THE MUSICIANS external link > 2000. 76
ON THE OLD ROMAN ROAD external link > 2001. 76

BLUE NIGHT

DIRECTOR ORIGINAL TITLE COUNTRY DUR.min

Kyung-Mook Kim EOLGUL EOPNUM GEOTDUL KR 65
Peralta Mariano SNUFF 102 AR 100
Reilhac Michel THE GOOD OLD NAUGHTY DAYS FR 69
Westerwelle Stefan SOLANGE DU HIER BIST DE 80

THE MEDITERRANEAN

DIRECTOR ORIGINAL TITLE COUNTRY DURATION min

Nola Lukas PRAVO ČUDO HR 117
Meštrović Toni ABYSSOS DE/HR 17

SPECIAL FESTIVAL AWARD: Lars von Trier

PRESENTATION
Alex Adriaansens DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?
NL

Ana Peraica AVI AND DIVX ART
HR

MASTER CLASS
Don Askarian AM

LECTURE
Ib Tardini PRODUCING LOW BUDGET FILMS DK

EXHIBITION Ivan Faktor

NO SELECTION The aim of the project is to give an opportunity for the young and unestablished authors to showcase their works with no barriers and no selection...

NEW MEDIA 2007.

ARTIST ORIGINAL TITLE COUNTRY DESCRIPTION

Brown, Sheldon SCALABLE CITY US INTERNET PROJECT
Hovagimyan G.H. HD_RANTS US NET PERFORMANCE
Lapschina, Lena von 17 SEKUNDEN KUNST AT INSTALLATION
Magruder, Michael Takeo MONOLITH(S) UK INTERNET PROJECT
Man Calin JAM PACK RO INTERNET PROJECT
McMullen Kenneth ARROWS OF TIME UK RADICAL CINEMA
McPhee Christina LATENCY STRUCTURES (BONNEVILLE SALT FLATS ) US INSTALLATION
Projectising group MONKEY PARTY FR INSTALLATION
Sinclair Scott/Musgrove BOTBORG AU PERFORMANCE

Stott Krishna CRIMEFACE UK
INTERACTIVE FILM

Wirth Michael VI: VARIANT ITERATION KR INSTALLATION / PERFORMANCE

Avi and DivX art
Summary:

After the appearance of the Ubuweb archive containing very exotic
Modern video collection, artworks of contemporary artists such as
Matthew Barney, Marina Abramovic, Harun Farocki etc... started to be
available. This ("Napsterisation") phenomena, that has caught first
the most commercial domain of popular culture, is slowly but surely
distributing once "elite" culture to unknown viewers. Despite the
elementary information of "what" to search for is needed, more
important for new art public is actually "how". For example, Arttorrents blog
gives one of comprehensive entrances to artworld giving "free tickets" or
torrents.

Still, behind this new sort of public, "knowing how" to search for
movies or videos is more curious and skilled, it has also lost become
almost immune on the resolution barrier. Instead of screening
resolutions preview resolutions are taking place.

(The presentation analyzes institutional, public and educational
status of downloadable video art, showing a part of the 500 GB
collection with a VJ)

Read the whole text:

Ana Peraica. Avi und DivKunst Videokunst am Rande des Uberlebens
(Springerin, summer 2007 / Documenta magazine)
http://magazines.documenta.de/frontend/article.php?IdLanguage=5&NrArticle=1363

Ghetto club program starts: INTER-NATIO AND TRANS-NAZI PHENOMENA

2007-08-03T01:42:00.000-07:00

To Pope (1964 - 2007)

Ghetto club, that has funded my travel on CEI meeting on Venice Biennale is celebrating seven years of existence and two sad events along it.

Just after a sad anniversary of death of Željko Jerman, artist and founder of the gallery, another sad lost has stroke us. A couple of days ago we have lost our beloved friend, spiritus movens of the gallery, Žarko Popović - Pope. The program Inter-natio and Trans-nazi phenomena he promised to me he would support is therefore dedicated to him.

INTER-NATIO AND TRANS-NAZI PHENOMENA

SUMMARY:

Integrations in religious or secular societies in the last decade are coming stronger. Neo-liberal wills to integrate and associate can also produce a schizoanalitic Other, the enemy not known. War machines are only coming bigger and more dangerous. Paranoid and closed societies are uniting in larger units, instead of disintegrating into individuals.

In that sense Balkans' disintegration can be found even healthier process.Once occurred it has disintegrated a union of several republics into a number of individuals that escaped original circumstances. Still, they are engaged in a critique of Leviathan super-structures and huge social or political agglomerates, fighting in the politically incorrect sense against totalitarism, cynically embodying into the point of trans-Nazi movement.

AUTHOR, STATE, AUTHORITY

or on the psychotic effects of the methonymical triplex of art as war as game

Ana Peraica

1. A STATE

ON-LINE

For the newest members of virtual communities trying to legislate own social utopia it is almost unavailable fact that some of previous ones, also using normative formal pattern from the world of social formations, such as states and furethermore illustrating it with its symbols (as; flags, passports etc...), have been formed in early days of the Internet, and even outside of it. Compared, old ones had more of the kind of fiction called vaguely the Postmodern[i]

These “old” virtual states seemed to be more imaginative, maybe for the reason – the medium itself was still new and undiscovered, while today it already forms own territory in regard to reality, through legislative acts. Territorial states are taking initiatives to not only mirror the egalitarian basis of correlation with states of affairs in material and immaterial land, or national and digital territory, but also to use the new dimensions offered[ii] Of course, it is not only national states doing so, but also – an attempt done by state conglomerates, such as NATO, too.[iii]

Reading that history backwards, and analyzing the presence of previous states in present ones, their reflections, instead of historicizing, would be a hard task, but – I have decided to make that move, as – there is a reason why new legislations are coming, on the territory used to be idealized as as a territory of fiction. Why that metonymy functions?

One knows the state only by living in it, but still more - one is fully aware of the state only when the state is left, for the particular reason, comparing the second living circumstances, or it can happen without moving only when the state is abolished for the new one, in place. I’ve lived in two states myself, even without moving, my grandfather in four, being at the same place all the time.

So, all the non-normative definitions that would arrive would always be – identifying own experience. I would identify too, as – an Eastern European, Croatian precisely, living in the Netherlands, being an art theorist. And my topics of the state would resonate consequently; wars and dictators. But, I actually do want to speak on - arts.

Still, lamenting on the states, in regard to the arts, some metaphors and metonymies are culturally and historically inherited, and should be mentioned as “metonymical paradigms”. Metonymies, of the “art of war” as defined by Sun Tzu and Machiavelli, but still more precise: the “war as a game.[iv]. Fused in the metonymical triplex metonymy can be connected into a war – art – game trilogy. And, in whichever intersection we are reading its dynamics, we can recognize, besides the common: pressure a release element, an unifying factor, still going under thee different names in its structural organization: the authority, the author, and the player.

So – lets go to the present situation of virtual states. My Google claims – there is already a bunch of them. Some of new ones do issue passports. But, those passports are still disfunctional for most of us. Besides the imaginative mobility they offer no real one, for which reason I can only see them, myself, as cynical, or uncritical, though actually I am fully aware the problem is in their innocence of knowledge, the game. In this essay I am going to refer to three passports – the heterotopical one (seeming to be an utopia from the outside, but actually being a dystopia), one that has staid only a curiosity of undistinguished land, the critical one, and finally – one full of chocolates, which somehow I do find the most complex reading the metonymical trilogy.

TOURING ON LINES

Speaking in trajectories, there is one passport that sounds ideal. Less known – UNHCR Passport (Resolution 1951), made for refugees allows a travel without the nation-identification. But, idealizing that one, without referring to its long history of revisions in which tragedies are written, would be overly insensible[v] The tragedy of the passport is - it can take the holder almost anywhere – except for the place that even the fairytales, as Dorothy from Oz, taken as virtual lands, do tend to have a catharsis – the return home[vi].

Of course, dreamlands can exist even on the world map, the lands imagined, though in most of cases they turn out to be – sad illusions. What happens when there is a dreamland unfound while home abandoned? When – there is no home, and the ideal of the dreamland is actually: replacing it? Then the virtual state becomes a melancholy being illustrated. Birgel’s concept of Heimat [German: Homeland], the home that is lost, gives the closest definition of “utopia omnius,” as elaborated by Morley and Robins, of a ghostly reminder to a disintegrated past, that cannot be re-established[vii]. Only in the Bible, it was lost twice (ibid).

That tragedy is a psychological trauma. It is a home that is abandoned but not refused while at the same time desired but still rejected. It is a metonymical impossibility. On that impossible territory in-between the lost past and still unreached future, lacking the dimension of the present, there is an impossible choice that is arising a self-conflict known as the “double-binding[viii].” There, only the imaginative “shift” functions, a salvation – schizophrenic delusion, a psychosis that unites the gap into a fully acceptable union. Going back to the world map – it is a territory of none’s land, one would choose to freely live on without having any infrastructure[ix].

CROSSING THE BORDER

Far more safe, psychologically, is choosing to cross the line. And, in real, without less-known dream-passports there are initiatives that do assist in problems of legality of choice; such as Kein Mesch is Illegal[x]. But also – there are proposals for a ‘digital shift’.

The tragedy of it is written-in the Refugee Republic (1996), one of the first virtual states on the Internet. The author – the artist Igo Gunther has attempted to make the issue of refugees visible, to “speak up,” but there was a slight of the negativity of the authorship inscribed – as using, for example, a version of a Rolls Roys mark for own symbol. Gunther’s state wthough a territory was the first one appearing on-line, but the first one mentioned, as far as I know, was the “ideal one” that appeared already in Lewis Carroll’s Hunting of the Snark, or even deeper in time, in rationalist solution of a Plato’s Republic[xi]. In the fairytale – the Snark owns the map of own territory in the 1:1 measure, and it is completely blank, similarly to the Borghesian one – which was: full.

A curiosity of the Snark’s project is – he manifests, latter on co-related ‘semantic theory of the truth’ by Tarsky, as he exercises the power of the truth by telling a lie trice. Though, the ideology is already present in the map, as we shall see. It distorts and confuses everyone seeing the blank map, as it is worst of all – invisible, inhospitable to the view. It gives no choice, as there is no line. It is total, even more imprisoning than the Abbott’s Flatland[xii].

Going back to lines, borders and shifts – another critical issue in regard to Gunther’s state arrises - why should refugees identify their real tragedy in ideal, virtual places? Once being ‘free’ in the zone of spyware, cookies and most of trade related identity polices – there is no need to identify the loss of utopia and of consequent identity, especially: not - for an art-project. As the reminder is already there… Even in the design of the navigator – the type ‘home’ – there is a place that forces to identity the starting point.

The page appearing is the only starting place of virtual identity, which still is - a tourism, but can, in a large effect, for the most of us, carry a critical base of the reason of shifting into a digital territory – an escape. Still, in real – virtual body splitting, this paradox becomes extreme. The impossibility to return, or to define this split identity, was an issue of the Darko Fritz’s installation positioning a large print of the type from the navigator within the real territory of the native land of the author. But, is this strategic nationalism or virtual melancholia of the artist, living himself in the Netherlands since the early days of war? Both, as it is a metonymy…

2. AUTHOR

Home (as; Heimat) is also a central issue of the first artist virtual state proclaimed – NSK State in Time. Contrary to territorial way, even defined in negativity, as in the case of Gunther’s Refugee Republic, or the solution of the virtual-real double-binding in Fritz’s installation, NSK State has profiled through tactical manifestations that are not having any sense of the melancholic approach. Its heavy “artillery” was so visible during the eighties in Yugoslavia (the group was found in 1984), through various cultural manifestations that, after almost two decades, it seems like a virtual war appearing as a sign of the one starting at the same place, around six years latter – and becoming a total catastrophe: the war of virtual formation of Yugoslavia against its national parts (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina…), running all through the nineties[xiii].

Curiously enough, the virtual (cultural) army has shown the fight winning through the NSK Guard, appearing in most of the states that have separated themselves along with some nearby ones, also being ”conquered.” If one reads cultural (as; virtual) symptoms not separated from the political (as; realer), then; there is an inscription of State in time over the State of place that might suggest a tactical maneuver, a war, also – but won not through the heavy artillery. Its point was in the – map, having one more dimension: the calculated time of waiting.[xiv]

The symbol worn by the NSK army was – a Kazimir Malevic’s cross[xv]. This particular cross, a sign of Suprematism – has a complex history of state-provocation itself. Artist El Lissitzky was the first to provoke authorities in the Socialist Russia telling “Suprematism will surpass Communism in the World’s order,” which was a perfect “art as war” metonymy for the Lenin’s claim it that the winner in the race in politics would be - the Communism.

What happened to Suprematists – we know, they have lost in the realest reality. And, it seems the reason was the authorial hack of the authority, in which, according to art historian Groys it was Stalin who made the expropriation of the Modern for the organization of the whole society[xvi]. Despite the Soviet Modern has attempted to adapt to the formation of Modern dictatorship, in groups of artist-workers, as UNOVIS (made by Malevich) or other groups – it was unsuccessful in adaptation to the politics of the “real” and the reality engineering.

Though, if another parallel may be taken, in regard to the virtual-real, from the antique: it is quite uncertain what can be inside one artwork, as was suggested in another paradigmatic case, the story of the sculpture representing a wooden horse, made by the forgotten artist Epeios that has started the Trojan War. This trick has functioned in virtual – real situation with the NSK too. They have been using symbols of the ‘enemies’ of the discourse of socialism within the socialism, still unseen from the real politics disinterested in the cultural form, but interested paradoxically in – its content[xvii]. It was a Trojan horse strategy. And, according to the unified manifestation of the NSK Guard – they have indicated own winning.

WHO DREW THE MAP?

NSK state is fortunately; even tough not being a virtual world, a public and transparent state you can enter, even through the electronic embassy most of the real countries still do not have. But, previously of this state there were many of artists dreams thought, suggested but never realized in the real space to which they referred, or that staid in the literal logics of the map, as a suggestion

A show Cartographers (curated by Koščević, Zagreb, 1997) has shown a maneuver of artists in the genre of political graphics: maps[xviii]. Though innocently registering its connections with other shows of the kind as Boundary Rider (Sydney Biennale, 1992), Mapping (MOMA, New York, 1994) around the same - this exhibition was far more political.

It was in a precise timing that a story on another map - curiously enough, had enter into to the center of political debate in situ, for the strategic division of the “cake” called – Bosnia. “Ashdown serviette” – appeared for the first time in memoirs of the British politician and representative Paddy Ashdown. It was, according to the story, the serviette he has kept from the meeting with Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, on the 50th Anniversary of the liberation of Europe (1995, Guidehall, London), which he has decided to publish after seeing the plans on the map are coming true in so-called “Knin operation.” The authenticity of the serviette – on which it is only a letter “S” is written (or drawn) by Tudjman was denied as a historical document of relevance even on Den Haag Tribunal for the War Crimes in ex-Yugoslavia[xix]. Interestingly enough - the polemics was not of the serviette but the authorship of drawing denied.

3. AUTHORITY

MODERN AND POSTMODERN DICTATORS

By the time, artists and cultural workers from the segregated territory, at the time, have attempted to make another fiction – maybe the most melancholic in real – The Future State of Balkania.[xx] Soon after this has become a real plan for the peace in the Southeast of Europe, cureiosly enough having the same name in proposal and the project was abandoned as simply not being original any more. It has become real.

The decade of the cartographic movements on the Balkans, but also of new re-unions in the Europe itself, uniting in the block-formations of small states has passed…The map is closed, again, and the last issue in regard for Europe is – the EU inclusion of ex-socialist states.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), “Europe” (meaning the Western, capitalistic) was the fiction for the large territory of the ex-socialist states. It was virtual in some way, as it was the socialist “there-ness”. The fictionality of that dream, was maybe the best expressed in–the appearance of the EU flag with one star more on the entrance of Bulgaria, in the year 2000, couple of us were going to the C-front conference.

We can conclude – virtual states, no matter how imaginative, how creative – cannot be else but attempts to localize fictions. The localization of it is precisely – that shift, a critical loss. And that is a point of the psychosis, as Freud has noted. But even without a psychoanalytical analysis in depth – war psychosis is the obvious media phenomenon.

Yet, if we are to distinguish something as an art psychosis, going back to the metonymical trilogy art - game – war, in which the temporary status of such a state is seeming obvious for the game, we can – refer to the relationship of the Modern and Postmodern (though not suggesting that the war in the question for the most of these works was the – Postmodern solution for the Modern experiment).

Namely, if there is a difference between the Postmodern segregation, deconstruction, or even decay to the unifying, constructive and utopian Modern, we can recognize it fully in terms of logics of the state, or at least – that is the point at which even NSK has functioned, and Groys has suggested. Between the tectonic movements of the real states and the virtual cultural formations of Modern-isms, there were points of close metonymical indications: the battlefield. Modern was the obvious visible in the new war formation, as suggested already Gertrude Stein[xxi]. And it has lost the war in socialism.

From that metonymy, we can ask ourselves: what is a typical Modern “art-state”? It is the state of an “–ism”, having always a defined leader, a key-figure, elected by the cult of persona, showing signs of the dictatorship, as do whiteness simultaneously profiled critics. It is showing singnals of the group psychosis[xxii]. What else can we say in the case of the Surrealism and Breton, remaking the World Map (1929) compared to present virtual states?

But even if this is not a precise difference… at least, there is one in formation of the Modernist authority. based on the stiff shauve model, denying the flirting cosmopolite, flaneur, or city-cruiser Romantic ideal. Modern dictator is - a Barbarian. And if nothing, that is what the official politics has taken from the Modern, for sure.

Postmodern, through being defined as the ‘cultural logics of capitalism’ (Jameson) has also been the life time-out period for the most of dictators of that kind, but also, of the authorial rights of the author, being overtaken by the enforcement of the copyright law instead, its market value. Authorities are no longer the authors; they are copyright holders, owners. This period logics can be named feminine if we are to make a contrast with beasts, being nontransparent and manipulative. Compared to the old-school dictators, the ones of today come with the fairy-faces. No uniforms, beards, mustaches… no pipes, no fat-fingers.

NEW WORLD ORDER

Anti-oedipal Deleuzian authorities, or the ones arriving theoretically with the virtual nomadic affairs, or in real with mass refugee movements, asylum seekers, are also – appearing as: generous, but having a more manipulative logics of the dispersed identity of the control[xxiii].

Some may note – that reading is actual outcome of the propaganda of queer politics, that at the end we recognize the identity logic formations to claim for some female politicians look like drag-queens or else. But they still hold the signals of the state. Are these new authorities a consequence of new games of identity?

Indeed the time of the small metal soldiers on the map has passed, also cowboys and Indians or its variant as Eastern European game of Partisans and Germans, strictly defining the Other. It would be hard to find out - if the globalization is a consequence of network games, identity plays, or vice versa. But, surely we can understand the logics in toys-production.

Recently, a Croatian artist Sandro Djukic has told me a story on a guy who has invented the whole new world map when he was a kid. He has invited, at the time, all of his friends to participate, and they have made their constitutions, symbols as flags and hymns each for own territory. They have also done some wars. Today they are adults – and conspiratively enough: they meet once a year and play that game, still holding them connected.

Fortunately, it has staid – a game. But some games may be – dangerous we know since Sun Tzu manual, but also in their full revisions on the map in the XIX, also being told are games. The sad fact is - even the army treats it so.[xxiv]

DICTATORS IN THEIR ROOMS

There is something pathetic inscribed in the disappearance of transparent “old school” dictators, no matter what we think of them. They die alone, excluded, unwanted – as if they are taken away own territory for the play: own board for the long circular play with trains, own small states they have already imagined as kids, playing alone.

In the work of Ivan Grubanov, following the fall of Milosevic up to Den Haag Tribunal for the War Crimes on the Balkans (2003) – we can notice that loneliness, a punishment that was probably there since ever. None wanted to play with him as a kid. None liked him, so he decided….

It was during the Franjo Tudjman’s government that a Croatian left-magazine Feral Tribune has decided to make a total critical oeuvre on that topic. They have published along photos of Mussolini, Hitler and Tudjman in their primary school classroom[xxv]. Amazingly enough – they have been on the same place, having the same visible interactions with their classmates. But, unfortunately, as that is the way visual logic does, instead of making us afraid of Tudjman – it has made us heuristic about life-styles of our own school-colleagues, and at the end – afraid of our own kids.

MY SWEET MOTHERLAND!

Today’s genetics says – we can recognize psychopaths, murderers, and power-maniacs even previously the moment they are born. And – if there are all three of characteristics – then we know – it would be a dictator (challenging for a mother?). Unfortunately the logic of exclusion of that kind arrives precisely from the logics of dictatorship, the practice of eugenics.

But, we could know it already in schools – those sad kids that were building own Empires, own control-systems to feel secure in, those that shifted. That is where we know the virtual states from.

It might be a coincidence, but the problem of the coincidence is – if we do disregard it – it may turn out to be - a conspiracy, yet another psychotic explanation. Still if we pay too close attention to it – it can become a malady of obsession, own -frenia. What are the statuses of control of mechanisms of dreaming alternative states, of Oedipal throwing down of authorities?

Now, coming back to the chocolate passport politics, we can ask ourselves – to whom are they addressed to? Chocolate always seems to be too much of the apology, also when being given as a present, as it usually comes, as flowers do, too – with the conspiracy to be found out. Even worst - in those stories of the childhood where we were offered it, we were warned – it could be a perversion of adults behind. But also, adults do have passports, while kids in most of the countries do not. Passport seems to be a power-privilege of the parent.

Giving a passport to a kid, the one full of chocolates may suggest the interpretation of the Oedipal revolt against an authority, which grounds the formation of “make-it-yourself” state. Through this, not a conspiracy politics, but advertising commercial effect – the commercial product is actually entering in the depth of a fear of new generations and their games. It is obviously reactionary, but manipulating advertisement, attempting to localize a fiction to reality, maybe even not programmatically. But, dreaming what exists is the best way to stay – sane, indeed.

The uncertainty of the fiction makes a possibility of its turning down to a horror, and that is the point of where I have already suggested the psychotic element of dreamlands. Still, the worst horror is one – unrecognized of being one.

WANDERLANDS, SCHIZOLANDS AND DREAMLANDS

The scenario of “it seemed to be fine all until” is in most of cases technical Deus ex Machina. Yet, it was for the first time carried out in the case of Descartes. In his Meditations the author starts to loose his sense of reality and shifts to the state of explanation of the Evil Demon making illusions on him – meaning; having a power over the author of the text, being an authority. In this particular case, still, it was solved by another agent that cannot be fully understood: a God having a control. Today similar argument arrives from our relationship to a machine that can do much more complex operations, in a bigger speed, than we can with our brain in normal circumstances.

Still, besides computers are quite privileged ‘species’ in the current world order, they seem not to be capable of doing so. Let me explain, in a conversation with Chris Hables Gray, speaking on the AI (artificial intelligence) in relation to the AL (artificial life) definitions, I was complaining my computer agent can enter in more of countries than I can, needs not visas, and in almost every city – it has own embassy and a “hospital-care”. It is because of the brand (I would not give the promotion here), is its passport. (And that is what I call the Postmodern copyright dictatorship: owners and its brands being privileged).

The same way as Descartes has recovered from own doubts we can say; despite we know it was the Army inventing the Internet, despite still we know the maps are dangerous, and those games we play… Our computers will never turn us down. We can still turn them down ourselves. In the best case if a virtual state becomes a terror – we are back home, and it is so nice there is one.

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[i] Arns, Inke. 1999. Mobile States | Shifting Borders | Moving Entities: The Slovenian Artists' Collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK). In Irwin, Trzy projekty / Three projects: Transnacionala, Irwin Live, Icons, edited by Warszaw: Centrum Sztuki Wspólczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski [Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle].Frissen, P. 1999. Politics, governance, and technology: a postmodern narrative on the virtual state, New horizons in public policy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

[ii] Fountain, Jane E. 2001. Building the virtual state: information technology and institutional change. Washington, D.C.; [Great Britain]: Brookings Institution.

[iii] Virtual reality [electronic resource]: state of military research and applications in member countries = La re\0301alite\0301 virtuelle: l'e\0301tat actuel des travaux de recherche et des applications militaires dans les pays membres de l'alliance [1 CD-ROM; 4 3/4 in.]. N.A.T.O., Research and Technology Organization 2003

[iv] Sun-tzu, th cent B. C. 2001. The art of war: a new translation. Boston: Shambhala. Machiavelli, Niccolo. 1521. The Art of War. Translated by N. Wood. Second ed, Ellis Farneworth Translation. Cambridge: De Capo Press.

[v] 1 year passport named “Nansen Passport”, from the WW2 initiatives, replaced by London Agreement Passport (1946), and again by the passport of the 1951 Convenction, enforced with 1964 Convenction of UNHCR.

[vi] Peraica, Ana: Digital Nomadism, Refugee, Displaced Person (Is this Place Home?): Nettime.

[vii] Morley, Dave, and Kevin Robins. 1995. Spaces of identity: global media, electronic landscapes and cultural boundaries. London: Routledge.

[viii] double binding – as the gap for the development of psychosis

[ix] Peraica, Ana; 2001. On the Indifference [inhabiting 'in-between' as a territory. In Communication-front 2000, [Crossing Points East – West], edited by K. a. Sevova. Sofia: Communication Front, David Langlois Foundation.

[x] Kein Mensch is Illegal http://www.contrast.org/borders/kein/ also note Alexey Shulgin performance on Tijuana border (Borderhack, 1998)

[xi] Carroll, Lewis. 1872. The hunting of the Snark: an agony in eight fits. London: Macmillan.Plato. 1992. The Republic. London: David Campbell.

[xii] A tale usually quoted in regard to the problem of hyperdimensionality – where intervening into a two-dimensional plane of people drawn on the paper – an author/authority is formed from the higher dimension Abbott, Edwin A. 1884. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions: Princeton University Press.

[xiii] NSK collective includes: 'Laibach' (founded in 1980), the painters collective 'Irwin' (founded in 1983), and the performance group 'Gledalisce Sester Scipion Nasice' (founded in 1983). Aldready by the declaration 10 Tock Konventa written from 1982 'Laibach Kunst', previous to NSK formation, they have formed themslves according the principle of the State and ideology, rather than being a mere group of artists. All the groups of the NSK were bound to the working method of 'retrogarde', which through an "emphatic ecclecticism" used all those texts (signs, images, symbols and forms of rhethoric), that retrospectively have become identification signs for certain artistic, political, religious or technological 'salvation utopias' of the 20th century (Arns, see footnote I)

[xiv] Neue Slowenische Kunst. 1991. Los Angeles: AMOK Books in a joint venture with Grafic\030Cki zavod Hrvatske, Zagreb.

[xv] Grzinic, Marina. 2004. Situated Contemporary Art Practices: Art, Theory and Activism from (the East of) Europe. Translated by D. D. (editing). Edited by V. L. a. C. Heller. paperback ed. Frankfurt am Main and Ljubljana: Revolver and ZRC Publishing.

[xvi] Groys, Boris: 'The Irwin Group: More Total Than Totalitarianism', in: Irwin, Kapital, exhibition catalogue, Ljubljana 1991

[xvii] Peraica, Ana:. 2001. The Art of War making [strategies of mapping]. Der Standaard.

[xviii] Featuring Janusz Baldyga, Ben, M. Bijelić, Marinus Boezem, Imre Bukta, Dan Calin, Maurizio Cattelan, Shirley Chubb, Nancy Chunn, Wim Delvoye, Braco Dimitrijević, Andrzej Dluzniewski, Felix Droese, Michael Druks, Jimmie Durham, Equipo Limite, Erdogmus Tayfun, Anna Fairchild, Peter Fend, Daniel Fischer, Füsun Onur, Aleksandar Garbin, Ingo Gunther, Jusuf Hadžifejzović, Dick Higgins, Benito Huerta, IRWIN, Žarko Jovanovski, Sanjin Jukić, Krzysztof Jung, Nina Katchadourian, William Kentridge, Jussi Kivi, Ante Kuduz, Guillermo Kuitca, Renata Ladović, Moshekwa Langa, Otis Laubert, Mangelos, Vlado Martek, Raoul Meel, Urbain Mulkers, Guttorm Nordo, Nam June Paik, Roberto Ohrt, Yoko Ono, Alen Ožbolt, Simon Patterson, Marko Peljhan, Tadej PogaČar, Ramos Ibrahim Mirando, Christoph Rhis, Chryssa Romanos, Thomas Schmit, Michael Schuster, Rudolf Sikora, Tomasz Sikorski, Yuri Solomko, Sluik/Kurpershoek, Luca Vitone, Ruth Watson, Manfred Willmann, Annette Wilzig, Brygida Wrobel-Kulik, Vilko Žiljak.

[xix] The discussion on the case is interesting for one reason – if the map or the division were written the first. The argument reminds very much on the argument of the Abbott in the Flatland. See more in Ashdown, Paddy. 2000. The Ashdown diaries. London: Allen Lane.Tudjman, MIroslav. 2002. Prica o Paddy Ashdownu I Tudjmanovoj salveti. Zagreb: Naklada Pavicic.

[xx] Future State of Balkania (Temp Media Lab, KIASMA, Museum of Contemporary Arts, Helsinki, 1999). The project though referring to the politically disunited space of the ex-Yugoslavian and neighboring states on the Balkans was time-definition limiting, referring to the future: which, of course, carries a rhetorical function of the warning.

[xxi] Schwartz, Hillel. 1996. The culture of the copy: striking likenesses, unreasonable facsimiles. New York: Zone Books; London: MIT Press, see also Sekula, Alan. 1975. The instrumental image, Steichen at war. Artforum, December, 1975, 26 – 35.

[xxii] Group psychosis, in which the key figure is the – inductor, while inducted shows the weaker part of the phenomenon elaborated especially in follie en doux, but also elaborated in war psychosis, but whereas the author of the war psychosis is in question, in organized groups having the program and the goal which is readable – usually it is the manipulative formation of the leader :victim. See more in Wilberg: The Zone, Reflections on War, Mysticism and Psychosis http://www.meaningofdepression.com/Wilberg's%20articles.htm

[xxiii] Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. 1987. A thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: (Minnesota University Pres).

[xxiv] Army, England. 1896. Rules for the conduct of the War-Game on a map. 1896: pp. 24. Stationery Office: London. Eke, C. Richard. 1997. A game of soldiers. [Brighton: C.R. Eke]. Everard, Jerry. 2000. Virtual states: the internet and the boundaries of the nation state, Technology and global political economy. London: Routledge. Foreman, Michael. 1993. War game. London: Pavilion.

Frissen, P. 1999. Politics, governance, and technology: a postmodern narrative on the virtual state, New horizons in public policy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

[xxv] Feral Tribune

Dates to catch up are 17th August: Alban Muja and 23 August: Ivan Grubanov

tag: Ghetto Club, Ivan Grubanov, Alban Muja,

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