Monday Night 12.16.02 -- "Predictions of Fire" (about NSK)
-- Video Screening
Contents:
1. About this Monday
2. About NSK
3. About Video
4. Divine Intervention Screening
==============
2 notes: in addition to the
screening tonight, we want to
let you know that
a. this Tuesday
Alwan is organizing a screening
of Elia Suleiman's most recent film
"Devine Intervention". Of course, you
will be able to see it at Angelika in
Jan. this is a special preview, and those
who may have seen some of the earlier films,
a few of which were screened at 16Beaver
will surely not want to miss this film.
(see #4 for more details)
b. this Friday
we have tantatively scheduled
an evening with Yerevan based
artists Davit Karayan who is
here on an Artslink grant, more
detail forthcoming.
==============
___________________________________________
1. About this Monday
When: 7:00
What: Video Screening
What: "Predictions of Fire" by Michael Benson
Tonight we will be presenting a video about the famed
Slovenian collective NSK, working on many fronts, with
mutiple wings including the Irwin Group and Laibach,
this video documents their work, strategies,and
interventions.
Pairing this evening with our Lithuanian film screening,
and the upcoming event this Friday with Armenian Davit
Karayan we will embark on a series (for 2003) of evenings
which will present works/projects by artists/groups from
Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Republics.
___________________________________________
2. About NSK
Below is a very limited set of links and texts
any simple search on Google will result in many more
links and materials, if anyone find:
a. About NSK State
http://www.nskstate.com/athens/main.asp
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/pop/topic_1/4062/1.html
http://www.ljudmila.org/trans/
http://www.heck.com/rep.htm
http://www.ljudmila.org/embassy/
http://www.ljudmila.org/kinetikon/
http://www.synet.net/sonic-boom/ai/arc/laibach.html
b. Mobile States
http://www.v2.nl/~arns/Texts/NSK/finale.htm
Mobile States | Shifting Borders | Moving Entities: The Slovenian Artists'
Collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK)
Inke Arns, Berlin <inke@berlin.snafu.de>
in: nettime / Geert Lovink, Pit Schultz (Hg.), Netzkritik: Materialien
zur Internet-Debatte,
Berlin: Edition ID-Archiv 1997, S. 201-211 [German]
in: Irwin, Trzy projekty / Three projects: Transnacionala, Irwin Live,
Icons, Centrum Sztuki Wspólczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski [Centre for
Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle], Warszawa [Warsaw], 7 Dec 1998 - 24
Jan 1999, pp. 59 - 76, ISBN 83-85142-49-5 [Polish/English]
"We always refer to objectivity and subjectivity, but never to trajectivity.
The anthropological discussion of the nomadic life and of sedentariness
explains how the city emerged as the most important political form in
history; but there is no understanding of the vectorial aspects of our
species and its progress to and fro across the earth. Between the subjective
and the objective there is obviously no room for the "trajective", that
is, for the fact that movement takes place from here to there, a movement
from one to the other, without which we will never really understand the
different rules for the perception of the world." (Virilio) (1)
At the end of the eighties and beginning of the nineties, political events
have led to a disintegration of the previously valid world order, according
to which the world was separated into two antagonistic blocks. This formerly
prevailing order is now being replaced by globalization tendencies with
world-wide effect, causing new mental cartographies to emerge and so demanding
radically different systems of coordinates. Two strategies of reaction
are now becoming visible: on the one hand, there is reversion to a static,
defensive understanding of one's own location ("space of regression, ethnospace"),
and on the other hand, the possibility of what might be referred to as
a more situative or dynamic location of the self ("world spaces / transit
spaces"), which is intended to guarantee a means of orientation within
the now mobile global spaces.
Space of Regression / Ethno Space
After the recent end of the once prevailing division of the world into
antagonistic blocks, a new order of the world is emerging; one which,
according to Baudrillard, is "characterized by white fundamentalism, protectionism,
discrimination and control". This "real, white - that is, morally, economically
or ethnically 'whitened', uniform and cleansed Europe" (Baudrillard) (2)
is a result of the concept of ethnopluralism, which, whilst it perhaps
underlines the right to be different, only allows this right in conjunction
with a guarantee of the inviolability of personal identity - that is,
which functions by means of a segregation of the other (3).
In present day Europe, the concepts of national-cultural identity which
have been conceived in this way find expression in a tendency towards
increasing subnationalisation. But this particularism in fact represents
no more than a transference of the well-known "lebensraum concept" to
the regional area. Within the context of the preservation of "lebensraum"
for European nations, in political practice both an increasing tendency
towards the hermetism of the external boundaries of the territories they
enclose is emerging in political practice, and a simultaneous increase
in their ideological overloading, inasmuch as the territory is becoming
a significant point of reference with regard to separation from the other
/ the others.
Although it appeared to have been overcome, the concept of the territory
is gaining a new explosive nature in the nineties: as the crystallization
of present-day political conflicts.
In the nineties, artists are investigating the mechanisms which constitute
the political, territorial status quo. In this process, they create subversive
orders which function parallel to the status quo, and which are always
aimed at a transformation of the territory, that is, at breaking through
the established territorial boundaries. On the one hand, the artists of
the nineties attempt to create alternative counter-ideas to the newly
underlined political fixation with territory, ethnic groups and borders;
on the other hand, they question the sense of a territory defined in national-cultural
terms and - to cite Fredric Jameson - attempt to develop new productive
categories for the definition of social space:
The new political art - if it is at all possible - will have
to deal with the 'truth' of postmodernism, that is, it will have to hold
onto the most important fact, onto the new kind of world space created
by multinational capital. In this, a breakthrough ought to be possible,
a breakthrough to new, as yet inconceivable means of representing this
space, means with which we can again begin to determine our position as
individual and collective subjects. [...] If there is anything which may
be referred to as a political manifestation of the postmodern age, then
this would be called upon to design a global cartography of our perception
and cognition, and to project this into a social space open to precise
evaluation. (4)
World Spaces / Transit Spaces
At the present time, it is becoming obvious that the previously valid
rules for the perception of the world are not the only valid ones, and
that besides or below the former systems of world order, new and alternative
forms and rules for the perception of the world are possible. Our cognitive
process towards the perception of the world is a process which has, with
the use of analogous media and the increased extension of transport routes,
undergone fundamental changes since the 19th century. Since the 80s, a
process of increasing dislocation (that is, of increasing removal from
any spatial ties) has been accelerating with the employment of digital
media and global (at the same time globalizing) computer networks, a process
which makes the development of new regulative criteria necessary. According
to Virilio, the world is shrinking due to the acceleration of information
and transport routes, and the most recent aspect of this process is the
"disappearance of distance". Whilst the past was determined by spatial
order, temporal order will be the key to the future.
Shrinking physical, territorial space is set off by digital territories,
from whence emerges, according to Druckrey, "[...] a neuro-geography of
cognition, an utopos of networks, forms of electronic reception, and of
post-territorial community [...] whose hold on matter is ephemeral, whose
position in space is tenuous, and whose presence is measured in acts of
participation rather than coincidences of location." (5) The French urban
planner and dromologist Paul Virilio also points to the alternative possibilities
of perception when he refers to trajectivity and the vectorial as two
constants neglected by our perception.
Since 1991 the Slovenian artists' collective 'Neue Slowenische Kunst'
has been developing the "NSK State in Time". This state concept, which
is neither based on a concrete geographical territory, nor on an ethnically
fixed Staatsnation, but rather on the notions of 'time' and 'movement',
could be seen as a project addressing these aforementioned constants.
The 80s: Facing Ideology - "NSK - More Total than Totalitarianism" (6)
Founded in the Slovenian republic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
in 1984, the multimedia artists' collective 'Neue Slowenische Kunst' ['New
Slovenian Art'] consists of the music group 'Laibach' (* 1980), the painters
collective 'Irwin' (* 1983), and the performance group 'Gledalisce Sester
Scipion Nasice' (* 1983). According to the declaration 10 Tock Konventa
written in 1982 by the precursor of NSK 'Laibach Kunst', NSK did not define
itself as a union or an alliance of single individuals but rather as an
explicitely uniform collective. This collective took the State as its
model, committing itself to the "directive principle" and the principle
of industrial production, and adopted the "identification with ideology"
as its main working method.
This well-calculated taking over of elements and the play with fragments
and scraps belonging to official ideology, understood as "ready-mades"
(Duchamp), was about taking up existing codes of power and "answering
those languages by / with themselves." (7) It was a strategy defined by
Slavoj Zizek as radical "over-identification" with an ideology understood
as regulating all societal relations. 'Laibach Kunst' and later 'Neue
Slowenische Kunst' appeared on stage as an organisation that seemed to
be "more total than totalitarianism" (Groys), using all moments of identification
pregiven implicitly and explicitly through official ideology. NSK embodied
a provocative hint towards the ideological structure underlying the "semitotalitarian
system" (Barber-Kersovan) of Yugoslavia (8).
'Retrogarde': Focussing on collective traumata
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. These very different 'salvatory
utopias' or 'ideologies' have been formulated aesthetically as well, and
it is exactly these aesthetic signs that - following NSK - are associated
with certain collective traumata still at work today. Rather than through
the invention of a new sign language, it is through a recourse to existing
traumatic texts that it is possible for NSK to return to, name, point
to and re-work those specific moments in history in which the turning-point
from genuinely utopian dispositions into traumatic experiences has crystallized.
For NSK one such turning-point is the assimilation and consecutive abolition
of the artistic avant-gardes into totalitarian systems at the end of the
1920s.
Through using and interconnecting signs taken from different contexts,
e.g. Russian suprematism and socialist realism, NSK does not want to point
to the formal differences (in this case abstract / naturalistic); rather
the aim is to confront layers of meaning lying behind the signs, and thus
to make us aware of these meanings. The question is whether these layers
of meaning connected to the signs are compatible or radically different.
The working method of 'retrogarde' evokes the historical meaning of these
signs as well as the meaning that retrospectively was added to these signs
through the course of history, and insofar can be understood as a "reconstruction
of complex systems of thought." (Grzinic). The eclecticistic use of "symbolical
forms" (Cassirer) from different cultural traditions as well as from different
periods clearly refers to the assimilatory character of Slovenia's 'eclecticistic'
cultural history, understood as a european microcosmos. NSK's 'retrogardist',
or emphatically eclecticist working method, can be seen as a radically
intertextual artistic practice, adopting and developing further the concept
of intertextuality originally formulated in the field of literature.
NSK's strategy does not aim at overcoming the power of ideological signs
through irony, parody or satire, but it is rather about calling our attention
to the power of these signs. Their strategy works towards a return to,
a reconstruction of, and, consequently a deconstruction of ideology into
the aesthetical elements that constitute its power. The Slovenian collective
is convinced that these ideological sign cannot be overcome. It is only
through calling our attention to these aesthetical foundations of an ideology
that ideology can be partly deprived of its power.
Thus the 'retrogarde' method, most clearly formulated in the paintings
of 'Irwin', has to be distinguished from other artistic strategies, which
at first glance might seem similar, e.g. from american postmodern 'appropriation
art' as well as from the Soviet sots-art or the Moscow conceptualism of
the late 70s and the early 80s. Even if we can suspect that during the
formation period of the retrogardist working method it was influenced
conceptually by american postmodernism, this influence was restricted
to the early beginnings of NSK and its predecessors, and got completely
assimilated into - one could even say appropriated by - the concept of
'retrogarde'.
Subversive strategy
The radical artistic strategies employed by NSK in the 80s can be understood
as an aesthetic transposition / conversion of the theory of the Slovenian
Lacan school, developed in the early 80s around the psychoanalytic and
Lacanian Slavoj Zizek. This new theory, which members of NSK already referred
to in the beginning of the 80s, became an important theoretical foundation
of Ljubljana's subcultural scene.
The activities of the artists' collective are not merely to be seen as
reactions to events in Slovenian, or Yugoslav daily politics. Rather,
NSK should be understood as a research enterprise that, through 'over-coding'
the ideologic-aesthetical foundations of the State, set out to subvert
the so-called ideological superstructure of the Yugoslav state. The emphasis
is put on subversive, because NSK's strategy did not consist of an overtly
critical or moral discourse vis-à-vis the state and its ideology;
it did not distance itself from ideology through satire or irony, but
rather 'over-identified' with the ideology in power.
'Over-identification' with the 'hidden reverse' of ideology
According to Slavoj Zizek and Peter Sloterdijk (9), overtly criticizing
the ideology of a system misses the point, because today every ideological
discourse is marked by cynicism. This means that every ideological discourse
has internalized, and thus already anticipated its own critique. Ideology
does not 'believe' its own declarations anymore, it assumed a cynical
distance towards its own moral premises. Consequently it became impossible
to adequately encounter cynicism as a universal and diffuse phenomenon
through the traditional means of critique of ideology (e.g. through enlightened
engagement). Vis-à-vis a cynical ideology, according to Zizek,
the means of irony becomes something that 'plays into the hands of power'.
The public declarations and values of an ideology are 'cynical'; they
are actually not to be taken seriously.
But as soon as an 'adequate distance' no longer is kept, when an 'over-identification'
with ideology takes place, the so-called 'ruling ideology' has a problem.
According to Zizek an ideology consists of two parts: a) public 'explicite'
values of a political system and b) the so-called 'hidden reverse', i.e.
the implicite values and premises of an ideology that have to remain hidden
in order for the ideology to reproduce itself. NSK addressed these 'implicit'
ideological premises (i.e. violence, fascination, enjoyment / jouissance)
and, through the strategy of 'over-identification', brought the 'hidden
reverse' to the light of day.
Creation of a dysfunctional ideology
Zizek perceives the offer of jouissance (enjoyment) as one important element
in the functioning of ideologies; i.e. the fact that an ideology offers
the individual a chance to take charge of the ordering of the Real. The
ideological discourse consists of single elements, the so-called 'shifting
signifiers' or sinthomes. These sinthomes, which bear no meaning in themselves,
gain their ideological meaning only within the context of the discourse
of an ideology.
According to Zizek, the deconstruction of ideology - which is performed
most effectively by 'Laibach' performances - has to be understood as a
process working on two levels: 1. as a de-contextualisation, i.e. as an
extrication of single elements from the context that confers meaning to
the phenomena, and 2. as a re-contextualisation of these meaningless fragments
(sinthome) within a dysfunctional or pseudo ideology created by the collective.
This supposed offer for identification, which seems to be inherent in
all the ideological elements used by NSK, dissolves after the removal
of the context granting meaning. The elements and splinters of ideology
that are left over can now be experienced in the 'complete stupidity of
their material presence' (Zizek). The goal of this 'excorcist strategy'
(Benson) can be described as 'holding up a distorting mirror', aiming
at a cathartic 'self-enlightenment' of the public by revealing the inherent
jouissance (enjoyment) within any ideology.
The Slovenian Syndrome
The NSK was founded at a time when the domestic political situation in
the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia was characterized by mounting
differences between the individual republics. Soon after Tito's death
in 1980 a process of political re-orientation started. It rapidly became
clear that the majority of responsable politicians on the federal level
tried to tackle the looming political dissolution of the country by taking
authoritarian measures: by re-centralization and by fighting liberalization.
These decisions also implied a renouncement of the autonomous rights of
the Yugoslav republics guaranteed by the Yugoslav constitution, as well
as of the decentralized organisation of the state. These steps taken were
directed especially against Slovenia; in comparison with other Yugoslav
republics, a more liberal climate prevailed in the Socialist Republic
of Slovenia. The hard-liners called this climate the "Slovenian Syndrome"
-- a quite derogatory and almost pathological expression.
The development of this more liberal climate in politics and culture could
take place due to the relative open-mindedness of Slovenian authorities
towards the alternative movements which had begun articulating themselves
in the early 80s. This open-mindedness became obvious, at the latest,
around 1986/87. The alternative or subcultural scene had begun formulating
alternative social and autonomous cultural concepts long before the process
of party formation in 1988, which in politological terms is normally equated
with pluralization and democratization. The activities of the 'alternative'
triggered a process which can be seen as an important factor in the development,
or rather the re-emergence, of civil society in Slovenia.
It is important to know that the carriers of this process were neither
dissident intellectuals nor reform communists; rather a network of alternative
groups developed, communicating through deviating subcultural forms (e.g.
punk), or through new 'alternative' art forms and social interest groups
(the New Social Movements). This 'alternative' didn't have reform of the
existing political system in mind, nor did this 'alternative' perceive
itself as a 'dissident' movement ex negativo. Rather it tried to create
its own autonomous structure of an alternative public and, according to
the new contents, to create and use different forms of communication.
In the 80s, the formulation of alternative societal outlines was clearly
linked with the creation and development of new artistic and aesthetical
forms of articulation.
NSK's 'subcultural escalation games'
Within the 80s subcultural scene of Ljubljana, 'Neue Slowenische Kunst'
represented the most radical exponent of the 'alternative'. NSK consistently
combined all the elements that existed within the alternative scene: In
the 80s, the artists' collective was playing "subcultural escalation games"
(Dieffenbach), which were constantly pointing towards the aesthetics of
power. The NSK did not perceive itself as a 'moral instance' opposed to
a presupposedly 'amoral' state. Rather, it displayed the absurd theatre
of the fascination of power, using the pre-given available ideological
material. Even 'Laibach's 'exorcist' strategy can be subsumed under the
new form of communication: It was about bringing the hidden phantasm into
the open, on stage; not by explaining rationally how suppression works,
but by making this mechanism psychically and physically understandable
and thus depriving it of its power. Right from the beginning, the aesthetic
principle of 'Neue Slowenische Kunst' was anti-enlightening: It exhibited
not a single millimeter belief in the cold power of rationality. It was
a provocation of a political-ideological system based on pathetic anti-fascism,
but which "remains mute when it comes to the structure of [totalitarian]
longing." (10). By addressing all the traumatic experiences of European
as well as Slovenian history, by breaking all taboos, NSK brought to the
surface those things that had remained concealed: the existence of nationalist
myths and the subcutaneous longing for voluntary subordination. Zizek
has called this subversive strategy "traversing the phantasm".
Catalysing democratisation processes
How is it that an artists' collective that declared itself 'totalitarian',
was perceived as one of the catalysts of the pluralization and democratization
processes? How is it that, according to Alenka Barber-Kersovan, the 'totalitarianism'
of the "spiritual terrorists" (11) of NSK became an "essential element
for the democratization of a semi-totalitarian system" (12)? Besides the
fact that NSK's artistic activities were a genuine part of the complex
activities of the alternative scene, the effects of the collective's artistic
strategies have to be emphasized in two directions: towards the public
/ the audience and towards the state authorities. By refusing to take
an unequivocal stance regarding their genuine position and by refusing
to taking a clear didactic role concerning the evaluation of certain phenomena
(e.g. 'totalitarianism'), NSK remained an ambivalent phenomenon, permanent
trigger of public discussion. NSK's ambivalence called for a constant
self-control and for a permanent positioning of the individual towards
collective identification patterns.
But it was also the socialist regime that had to react to this ambivalence.
The regime perfectly understood the pathetic mockery produced by NSK provocateurs.
The measures taken against NSK by the authorities in the 80s can be understood
as an indicator of the readiness of the Yugoslav authorities to allow
actions outside the sphere of the officially sanctioned discourse; respectively
the form of this discourse. NSK was challenging these boundaries / limitations;
it was about testing how far ambivalent cultural phenomena and strategies
diverging from the official discourse could induce the state to react
politically. The state could not avoid reacting to the challenge of NSK,
and whatever the reaction was, it allowed an insight into the 'nature
of power'.
Anti-enlightened strategies with an enlightening effect
Behind the 'anti-enlightened' strategies of 'Neue Slowenische Kunst' in
the 80's one can perceive a driving force which can be described as having
a thoroughly enlightening effect. It was really through the ambiguity,
through the seemingly open 'totalitarianism', through its collective form
of organisation which proved to be latently menacing, that the NSK forced
the single individual to constantly check his or her own political position.
Retrospectively the unusual artistic strategies of 'Neue Slowenische Kunst'
can be seen as one of the factors in the social changes that were happening
during in the 80's in Slovenia, a societal change which became the decisive
condition / presupposition for the political processes of pluralization
and democratization taking place at the end of the 80s.
The 90s: Facing Global Politics
The political events that were taking place in Yugoslavia in the beginning
of the 1990s have not left unaffected the work of the artists' collective
'Neue Slowenische Kunst'. Parallel to the declaration of independence
of the Republic of Slovenia in 1991, NSK, previously an 'organisation',
declared their transformation into a 'State'. The artistic concept of
the NSK Drzava v casu ('NSK State in Time') comments on concrete political
developments in ex-Yugoslavia in a specific way: through an artistic counter-sketch
(plan, project) NSK tries to offer a hint at an alternative to the political
fixations on territories, ethnic groups and borders that gained strength
since the beginning of the 90s (not only in ex-Yugoslavia, but certainly
there in its most extreme shape).
Time & Movement: new categories for defining space
As an artistic state concept, the NSK Drzava v casu defines itself neither
through a concrete geographical territory, nor through an ethnically fixed
Staatsnation. For the definition of a proper 'spiritual' territory the
concept of NSK emphasizes the notion of time. The notion of time is understood
as a new productive category for the definition of space. Within this
terminology, 'time' is equated with the individual accumulation of 'experiences':
The role of art and artists in defining time which belongs
to them individually is more effective than in defining territory. The
real, not imaginary, 'fatherland' of the individual is limited to the
circle of the house in which he was born, the classroom or the library
in which he acquired knowledge, the landscapes in which he walked, the
spaces to which he is oriented, to the circle of his own individual experience,
to that which exists and not that he was born into.
The territorial borders of the NSK state can by no means be equated with
the territorial borders of the actual state in which NSK originated. The
borders of the NSK state are drawn along the coordinates of its symbolic
and physical body, which at the time of its activity acquired objective
values and objective status. (13)
The artistic concept defines the "NSK State" as an 'abstract body' whose
borders are in a state of constant flux, depending on the activities of
its 'physical' and 'symbolic' body, and whose 'territory' is situated
in the consciousness of its 'members':
The NSK state in time is an abstract organism, a suprematist
body, installed in a real social and political space as a sculpture comprising
the concrete body warmth, spirit and work of its members. NSK confers
the status of a state not upon territory but upon the mind, whose borders
are in a state of flux, in accordance with the movements and changes of
its symbolic and physical collective body. (14)
By putting an emphasis on the factor of movement, another productive category
for the definition of 'space' is given. It is through movement, i.e. a
physical change of location, from one place to another, and through the
ensuing intellectual preoccupation with the 'other place', and with the
'other spiritual territory', that new experiences become possible, leading
again to the creation of 'time'. "The relation between place and time
is the key relation. Movement implies temporality, i.e. produces time."
(15) Within Irwin's terminology, this specific form of movement can be
equated with a 'transplantation of knowledge':
There are basic differences between the perception and interpretation
of the sign language of Irwin's paintings. This is one of our main concerns,
because signs change with time and place. A sign may have one meaning
in Russia, and yet another meaning in the West. Recognition of signs and
symbols functions in such a way that their meanings differ with places;
but nevertheless they have certain elements in common. Differences and
similarities provide logic to our research. Irwin's starting point is
to proceed from the specificity of the place of its origin, and to transfer
experience [to the West]. This is transplantation of knowledge. (16)
The 'immaterial state' NSK Drzava v casu performs this movement by materializing
in different time intervals under the form of an 'embassy' or a 'consulate'
in various places (17). This means that the members of the different NSK
groups, as performed for the first time in 1992 during the "NSK Embassy
Moscow" (18) in Russia, travel to a certain place together (in Moscow,
a private appartment), and then through lectures of NSK members and participants
from Slovenia or ex-Yugoslavia as well as local theoreticians and artists,
and discussions with the audience, stimulate an exchange of experiences.
For the duration of the 'embassy' or the 'consulate' the place of the
event is declared to be state territory of the NSK Drzava v casu. The
central element of this exchange of experiences is accompagnied by exhibitions
('Irwin', 'Neuer Kollektivismus' [= 'New Collectivism'; the graphic department
of NSK], concerts ('Laibach') or performances ('Kozmokineticni Kabinet
Noordung'). As of today, the NSK Drzava v casu has been installed temporarily,
as well as permanently, in Moscow, Gent, Venice, Suhl, Berlin, Florence,
Amsterdam and Umag.
One would suspect that the transition from the 80s to the 90s brought
about a fundamental change in NSK's working method. With the loss of the
clearly defined contextual reference system which NSK's 'overidentifying'
strategies were addressing in the 1980s, we can now question the viability
of continuing these strategies within the context of today's globalization
tendencies and the gradual vanishing of clearly localizable (power) centers
in the 90s. NSK's disorientation since the early 1990s, triggered by the
cessation of reference systems, becomes clear in the visual metaphors
used in the 1992 'Laibach' music video "Kapital": In the hermetically
sealed-off cockpit of a space ship whose walls are decorated with suprematist
black and white crosses, the 'Laibach' crew flies into deep, dark space.
The visual material that has been accumulated by NSK in the 80s doesn't
find reference points anymore in the as yet unknown and unsurveyed ("black")
space of the 1990s.
More promising seems the direction under formulation since 1991 - with
the creation of the "NSK State in Time" - mainly by 'Irwin' and Eda Cufer
(member of NSK): The concept of the "NSK State in Time" leads away from
the hermetic entity which NSK defined itself as in the 80s; away from
NSK as a declarative setting (Setzung) using totalitarian emblematics
meant to confront the single individual with his or her (own) fantasized
partaking of, or participation in power.
On the contrary, in the 1990s the concept of the "NSK State in Time" puts
the emphasis on the moment of communication, of open interaction, of exchange
of experiences. The temporarily materializing 'embassies' of the "NSK
State" are not only about a self-referential re-working of the own history.
Rather, the aim can be described as the wish to communicate the specific
experiences made in a certain place in the 80's to another 'different'
place, and thus to make these experiences productive. Which differences
can be perceived; what are the possible similarities or homologies? How
can the specific experiences made in the "East" be communicated to the
"West"; how far can these experiences be adapted or actualized and made
productive for the 1990s? To what extent can the contemporary - potentially
totalitarian - projective discourse formations be met by using strategies
developed by the NSK in the 80's? Can the deconstructive procedures by
which NSK was revealing and pointing to the affective functioning of ideologies
within mass societies be transferred to the more subtle - and thus much
more perfidious - working of 'Leitbild' formations within the mass individual
societies of the 1990s?
During the one month journey of the "NSK State" through the United States
of America in July 1996 ("Transnacionala. A Journey from the East to the
West") these issues, among others, were also addressed. These are question
that NSK has to ask themselves critically, but questions directed to the
audience as well.
The NSK State without territory
In his text "Es gibt keinen Staat in Europa" (1992) ["There is no state
in Europe"] Slavoj Zizek laid out the theoretical foundations of the artistic
concept of the "NSK State in Time", linking these to the concrete events
in ex-Yugoslavia since 1991. Describing the relation to the state of both
the left and the right, Zizek asserts that "[t]he utopian perspective,
which henceforth opened up towards both the radical left-wing as well
as the antiliberal right-wing, was the abolition of the State or its subordination
to the community." (19) According to Zizek, the war in ex-Yugoslavia can
be understood as a result of the dissolution of state authority as well
as the subordination of state structures to ethnic interests:
Today's experience, summed up in the word 'Bosnia', confronts
us with the reality of this utopia. What we are witnessing in Bosnia is
the direct consequence of the disintegration of State authority or its
submission to the power play between ethnic communities - what is missing
in Bosnia is a unified State authority elevated above ethnic disputes.
(20)
Contrary to the utopian ideas of both the extreme left as well as the
ultra right, it now becomes clear "that there is nothing liberating about
the breaking of the state authority - on the contrary: we are consigned
to corruption and the impervious conflict of local interests which are
no longer restricted by a formal legal framework. (21) Following these
ideas, Zizek formulates his philosophical-theoretical state concept, which
at first glance seems paradoxical, confronting the reader with a complete
reversal of previously valid concepts:
From all this it is thus necessary to draw what at first
glance seems a paradoxical, yet crucial conclusion: today the concept
of utopia has made an about-turn - utopian energy is no longer directed
towards a stateless community, but towards a state without a nation, a
state which would no longer be founded on an ethnic community and its
territory, therefore simultaneously towards a state without territory,
towards a purely artificial structure of principles and authority which
will have severed the umbilical chords of ethnic origin, indigenousness
and rootedness. (22)
Transposition: Zeppelin = Vehicle / Traject and Vector
In the 80s NSK could be described as static, bound to place, analyzing
the flux of aesthetic-ideological signs through territories. In the 90s
the artists' collective, through its transformation from an organisation
into a state body, itself becomes an immaterial 'organism', fluctuating
through real territories. As such, the NSK State in Time becomes
a trajective vehicle of a 'pure exterior', a core without interiority,
a border without territory. The only form of existence of the NSK State
are its embassies, ephemeral temporary materialisations serving to make
visible symbolic differences. The aim of the transposition of NSK,
of movement, of travelling and the ensuing changes of location of the
entire NSK organism can be seen in communication and exchange with this
other (different) place.
"[...] an autonomous NSK territory can be defined;
a territory capable of moving, not confined by geographical, national
and cultural borders; a territory realizing its own notional space." (23)
This text is partly based on the concept "Topos / Territorium: Mobile
States - Shifting Borders - Moving Entities" (Inke Arns / Kathrin Becker,
Berlin, March 1996) and on excerpts from "Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK)
- an analysis of their artistic strategies in the context of Yugoslavia
in the Eighties" by Inke Arns, M.A. thesis, East European Institute at
the Free University of Berlin, December 1995.
Notes: (1) Paul Virilio, Revolutionen der Geschwindigkeit [Revolutions
of Velocity], Berlin 1993, p. 62 (2) Jean Baudrillard, 'Kein Mitleid für
Sarajevo' (1993) ['No Compassion for Sarajevo'], in: Lettre international,
Berlin, Winter 1995, p. 91 (3) see Rainer Ansén, 'Die Ethnisierung
Europas. Zur Philosophie der Neuen Rechten' ['Ethnicizing Europe: On the
philosophy of the New Right'], in: Lettre international, Heft 24 / 1994,
pp. 89 - 90; Boris Groys, 'Sammeln, gesammelt werden. Die Rolle des Museums,
wenn der Nationalstaat zusammenbricht' ['Collecting and being collected.
The role of the museum when the national state collapses'], in: Lettre
international, Heft 33 / 1996, pp. 32 - 36 (4) Fredric Jameson, 'Postmoderne:
Zur Logik der Kultur im Spaet- kapitalismus', in: Andreas Huyssen / Klaus
Scherpe (eds.), Postmoderne. Zeichen eines kulturellen Wandels, Reinbek
bei Hamburg 1989, p. 99 f. (5) Timothy Druckrey, 'The Fate of Reason in
the Global Network: Teleology, Telegraphy, Telephony, Television, Telesthetics',
in: ars electronica (ed.), Mythos Information: Welcome to the Wired World,
Wien / New York 1995, p. 152 (6) see Boris Groys, 'The Irwin Group: More
Total Than Totalitarianism', in: Irwin, Kapital, exhibition catalogue,
Ljubljana 1991 (7) Laibach, cit. in: Claudia Wahjudi, 'Zwoelf Jahre musikalische
Zitatenschlacht zwischen zwei kontraeren Systemen', Interview mit 'Laibach',
in: Neues Deutschland, 13. 8. 1992 (8) see Alenka Barber-Kersovan, ''Laibach'
und sein postmodernes 'Gesamtkunstwerk'', in: Helmut Roesing (ed.), Spektakel
/ Happening / Performance. Rockmusik als 'Gesamtkunstwerk', Mainz 1993,
pp. 66 - 80 (9) see Slavoj Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology, London
/ New York 1989; Slavoj Zizek, Liebe Dein Symptom wie Dich selbst! Jacques
Lacans Psychoanalyse und die Medien, Berlin, 1991; Slavoj Zizek, 'Das
Unbehagen in der Liberal-Demokratie', in: Heaven Sent No. 5 / 1992, p.
44 - 50; Peter Sloterdijk, Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of
Cynical Reason], 2 vols., Frankfurt a. M. 1983 (10) Katja Dieffenbach,
'Slowenien und die 90er: Kunststaat', in: Spex, No. 10, Oct. 1994, p.
52 (11) H. Davenport, 'Partisan Performances', in: The Observer, July
19, 1987 (12) Alenka Barber-Kersovan, ibid., p. 75 (13) Eda Cufer &
Irwin, 'Concepts and Relations' (1992), in: Irwin, Zemljopis Vremena /
Geography of Time, exhibition catalogue, Umag 1994 (14) Eda Cufer &
Irwin, 'NSK State in Time' <http://www.ljudmila.org/embassy/1a/time.htm>
(1993), in: Irwin, Zemljopis Vremena / Geography of Time, ibid. . Note:
NSK makes a distinction between its 'citizens' and its 'members'. 'Citizens'
in practice are anyone who can scrape together the money for a passport,
while 'members' are specially fifteen people. (M. Benson) (15) 'Irwin',
in: "Transcentrala (Neue Slowenische Kunst Drzava v casu)", video by Marina
Grzinic & Aina Smid, 20.05 min, Ljubljana 1993 (16) Ibid. (17) As
an addition to the embassies and consulates, the NSK Drzava v casu issues
passports, which are understood as a "confirmation of temporal space"
(NSK) and which can be obtained by any person irrespective of citizenship
or nationality. (18) Neue Slowenische Kunst, NSK Embassy Moscow. How the
East sees the East (Irwin in Collaboration with Apt-Art International
and Ridzina Gallery, Moscow May 10 - June 10, 1992), Obalne Galerije Piran
/ Loza Gallery Koper (eds.), Koper [1992] (19) Slavoj Zizek, 'Es gibt
keinen Staat in Europa' <http://www.ljudmila.org/embassy/1a/staat.htm>
(1992), in: Padiglione NSK / Irwin: Gostujoci umetniki / Guest artists,
exhibition catalogue XLV. Biennale di Venezia 1993, Moderna Galerija (ed.),
Ljubljana 1993 (20) Ibid. (21) Ibid. (22) Ibid. (23) Miran Mohar (Irwin),
in: Eda Cufer, The Symptom of the Vehicle, Interview with Irwin (NSK),
1995 [unpublished manuscript] c. Irwin
http://www.v2.nl/~arns/Texts/NSK/abstract-NSK2002.html
REAL TIME PROJECTS
AN INTERVIEW WITH IRWIN1
BY INKE ARNS
I N K E ARNS: Would you agree that German reunification in 1990 can be
seen as a symbol of some
more general developments within Europe?
I R W I N : After the fall of the Berlin Wall, a feeling of insurmountable
distance transformed into a
general wish and hope that the two halves of Europe would join together
in the shortest possible time.
This was most evident in Germany, which was the only country capable of
promising an almost
instantaneous reunification that would remove all traces of different
living and working conditions.
The fact is that Germany was a place where conditions for rapid reunification
Ÿ and the related desire
to forget Ÿ were optimal. But despite the fact that East Germany
was one of the most developed
socialist countries and that the quantity of capital invested in it after
1990 can’t be compared with
investments in any other country in transition, it is now clear that the
reunification didn’t take place
in a moment. This is even more true of all the other countries that don’t
have the possibility of
identifying themselves with part of the EU. Although the strategy of oblivion
is potentially effective,
it is at the same time problematic. Black-box theories do have certain
legitimate functions in science:
they are economic, and they make it possible to advance by circumventing
terrains of ignorance
that are difficult to penetrate. But to turn such a makeshift solution
into practice, some 130 years
after it was first proposed, seems to merit the harsh designation of a
celebration of obscurantism, as
Goran Therborn would put it.
I’m interested in what IRWIN’s relation to NSK as a whole
was in the 1990s, in the last decade.
In the 1980s we organised ourselves internally as an art collective, NSK,
but at the same time we
were also shaped from the outside, by the political situation in former
Yugoslavia. Reactions to
Laibach and the poster scandal2 left a strong mark on us. In the 1990s
or towards the end of the
1980s, when the ideological bloc collapsed, not only in Yugoslavia but
in the whole of Eastern
Europe, we started to construct ourselves. The Kapital project (an exhibition
and book) launched the
topic of “Eastern Modernism” for the first time to stress
the difference between the East and the
West and start the process of mapping the East. One big change was that
in the 1990s IRWIN and
NSK began to move. The first big move was a one-month stay in Moscow within
the framework of the
NSK Embassy Moscow project in 1992. The majority of NSK’s constituent
groups participated in this
project, which was initiated by IRWIN. Through its intertwining of public
and private spaces, the
NSK Embassy Moscow project also brought new possibilities of communication
and eventually led to
the formation of the NSK State in Time.
1 Conducted by Inke Arns on 19 March 2000 in IRWIN’s studio in Ljubljana,
Slovenia.
2 IRWIN is referring to the NK poster scandal of 1986/1987.
Our relationship to NSK has not changed but evolved. In view of the fact
that in the 1990s NSK already
had a decade-long history of its own behind it, we couldn’t have
avoided this even if we’d
wanted to. We didn’t want to evade our own history, we began to
use it Ÿ not only as a fact but also
as a means. Our key projects in the 1990s were aimed at articulating or
constructing the context of
IRWIN. Given the specific practice of interpreting and inscribing (or
excluding) things in the narration
of art history characteristic of ex-socialist spaces, as well as the fact
that the desired oblivion is
Ÿ perhaps not explicitly, but no doubt at least implicitly Ÿ
breaking the lines of possible historical
narration, we set ourselves as a point of support. Like Baron Münchhausen,
we got hold of our hair
and lifted ourselves.
What about your 1999 installation “The Retroavantgarde”? You
are saying that you are basically
doing now what the East was denied the possibility of doing. You are retrospectively
constructing a
movement of the Retroavantgarde, which was never a movement. There were
just artists from all over
Yugoslavia – Mladen Stilinoviå from Zagreb, Malevich from
Belgrade, Braco Dimitrijeviå in Sarajevo
and Laibach Kunst /NSK in Ljubljana – who worked in similar ways.
And finally, does the concept of
the Retroavantgarde change IRWIN’s relation to NSK?
The scheme of the Retroavantgarde from 1999 is only one phase in a series
of manifestations dating
back to the beginning of the 1990s, it has its prehistory in the 1980s
and is by no means the
last manifestation of that scheme. If we agree that a movement is defined
as the joint actions and
efforts of a group of people with the aim of achieving a specific goal,
then the Retroavantgarde
can’t be regarded as a movement simply because some of the artists
included in this scheme have already
been dead for some time. And even though we’ve been friends with
the others for many years,
and frequently exhibited together, we’ve never maintained that the
Retroavantgarde was a movement,
but rather an avant-garde constructed retrospectively. Which is why we
consider the
Retroavantgarde a ready-made avant-garde. That’s nothing unusual
in art history. Everything from
Vasari and the construction of the Northern Renaissance to Minimalism,
which was constructed with
the help of the media, is a rule rather than an exception. The fact that
there was no coherent and
internationally comparable art history narration within the former Yugoslavia,
and that the mentioned
artists used similar procedures (the crucial point in common is precisely
their reflection upon
the non-existent system of inscription in the history of art), enables
us to construct the avant-garde
line retrospectively.
In our environment the most guarded terrain is that of interpretation
and inscription in art history.
Oblivion being the most effective weapon, interpretation takes place with
a delay of at least
10, but more often 20 years. Parallels with the retro mapping of the avant-garde
are no coincidence.
The view that artists only have a right to their own time is particularly
characteristic of Slovenia
and other ex-socialist countries. That they should be part of a certain
period and nothing apart from
that. In the 1960s and 1970s this usually took place via artists simply
imitating some well-known
Western artist and making similar things. After a few years their careers
were over. These are very
short stories. In sum, you’re absolutely right in establishing that
the Retroavantgarde was not a movement;
it’s a possible, sensible and arbitrary inscription Ÿ as much
as any looking back is arbitrary
by definition Ÿ of a particular line in the history of art. Because
of the comparatively poor knowledge
of the works of the artists involved, and the chosen manner of their presentation,
the
Retroavantgarde functions as if it were a work of art. And it is precisely
this double inscription Ÿ as
an act of mapping and an artefact Ÿ and the sliding of perception
it produces, in this particular case,
that is the object of our interest.
Boris Groys made some interesting remarks about the logic of art collections.
He gives an appropriate
description of the Western perception of the East when he says that from
the viewpoint of
Western collections there are two alternatives for the East. The first
possibility is that it is perceived
as a copy of Western art because it is so similar to Western art, and
the second possibility is that it is
so different that in Western perception it can only be perceived as folk
art.
To make such an assertion, the following two assumptions are needed: first,
that art actually happens
in a linear progression with all significant steps made in the West, and
second, that Eastern
countries de facto function as ethnicities. Not a few Westerners regard
such assertions as problematic.
But we must agree with Boris Groys. In most cases the perception actually
is such, and with some
rare exceptions, as far as we know, there are no collections in the East,
for the time being, that
would refute such a view. But while there are still no collections, artists
have certainly been here for
quite some time, although we’re afraid this view could mostly apply
to them as well.
In the East, there are incomparably fewer art collectors and collections
and less planned work
with the latter than in the West. Since we believe that collections are
extremely important tools, it’s
not by chance that we’ve participated in the creation of three art
collections since the late 1980s.
The first is FRA-YU-KULT, a collection of works by artists from the territory
of ex-Yugoslavia referring
to the art of the 1980s. The project was conceived by IRWIN in collaboration
with Jadran AdamoviÊ
and realized independently of art institutions. The second collection
is Sarajevo 2000, in which we
participated at all developmental stages. And the third one is 2000+,
which is managed by the
Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana. Collections are intersections of different
chains of signification,
where monetary capital coincides with symbolic capital. They’re
prolongations of art historical schemes
and an effective means for the breakthrough of the logic of the status
quo, and therefore a privileged
place of creation based on selection, on the setting and shifting of boundaries
between the
included and the excluded. They are a kind of art work made of selected
works of art.
The word “art”, etymologically speaking, means to make, simply
to make. Making something is
choosing, choice is the main thing, even in normal painting, if we quote
Marcel Duchamp.
You are not the only ones who discovered communication spaces in the 1990s.
When I read
Misiano’s text “The Institutionalisation of Friendship”,
where he talks about ‘confidential projects’, I
immediately had to think about networks like the Syndicate. The Syndicate
was a group of people working
in the media cultural field in Europe and beyond, connected via a mailing
list, with regular meetings
in different cities (ranging from Rotterdam to Tirana). The spirit is
approximately the same as
that described in Misiano’s text. Can you explain its relation to
your ‘confidential project’?
Confidential projects seem to be something that only became possible in
the 1990s, right?
Misiano himself mentions projects from Moscow from the late 1970s and
early 1980s, which he
compares to similar practices in 1990s. In Slovenia, the OHO group can
certainly be understood in
this way. Besides, all modernism is based on groupings organised as types
of confidential projects.
An example of this is Bloomsbury, and groups in Paris in the second half
of the 19th century, on the
basis of which Pierre Bourdieu develops his thesis about the field of
cultural production. Among
other things, he also mentions some poet from that time who proposed that
artists establish a state.
The critical mass enabling the constitution of a relatively autonomous
field of cultural production
is reached at different moments in different spaces, whereas in certain
spaces it has never been
achieved at all. So it seems reasonable to treat confidential projects
Ÿ at least as far as ex-socialist
countries are concerned Ÿ in relation to the constitution of such
a field. Of course, despite many
points common to the projects mentioned and those from the 1990s, it is
possible to speak about a
difference which apparently became possible only in the 1990s. We would
like to emphasise that
these projects became their own object only in the 1990s. The construction
itself of the system
could be understood as creation, so that the function these systems perform,
or don’t perform, is often
neglected. What’s interesting is the sort of ready-made quality
of such projects.
NSK itself was such a confidential project, initiated in the beginning
of the 1980s. But in the late
1980s and throughout the next decade we developed new networks based on
the concept of the NSK
State in Time. The first was a network of artists from ex-Yugoslavia who
participated in the creation
of the FRA-YU-KULT collection. Then came the NSK Embassy Moscow, Transnacionala
and connections
with Moscow artists, and lastly the Retroavantgarde project.
How many citizens does the NSK State in Time have today, in the year 2000?
More than the Vatican. Much more. Three times more than the Vatican.
How do you imagine the future of the NSK State in Time? What should it
become in the future? How
should it evolve? How should it develop as a state?
The NSK State in Time is defined as an abstract organism, a suprematist
body, installed in a real
social and political space as a sculpture comprising the concrete body
warmth, spirit and work of its
members. NSK confers the status of a state not upon territory but upon
the mind, whose borders are
in a state of constant flux, in accordance with the movements and changes
of its symbolical and
physical collective body. The NSK State is not a project about which we
could speak in the third person.
We are the state. Perhaps the NSK State in Time should better be viewed
as formalisation, reification,
not as a formation that is to propagate and develop a certain type of
activity. If in the beginning
of the 1990s it was sensible to use terms such as embassies, consulates,
etc. because they
enabled easier and faster understanding and identification with the NSK
State as a notion, later on,
when the state was established, this was no longer so vital. In brief,
the NSK State interests us as a
point of distance, of symbolisation. However, this is not to say that
in the future we have no intention
of dealing with projects that are usually characteristic of state institutions.
Right now we are
preparing another such project. Take, for example, the NSK Moscow Embassy:
the circumstances in
which we carried out this project were merely a tool for creating or enabling
very specific conditions
to generate very specific communication. For us, it was extremely important
to document the event
in a book. What was in question was not an embassy as a work of art; for
us, the embassy was really
a tool by means of which we got to things that interested us. The same
is true of Transnacionala.
The two books documenting these projects are in fact a result of the very
specific situations that we
created to induce communication. And we are convinced that the content
presented in these two
books could not have been possible in different circumstances. But we
are not interested in producing
embassies or consulates as such, as empty gestures.
You’ve been working in collectives for two decades. How do you experience
the relation between
the individual and the group?
The group can be much more effective because of faster information feedback,
but at the same time
there’s the ever-present danger of inertia. One of the key questions
in the functioning of a group
is how to establish its dynamics, how to establish a common interest and
direct efforts to a common
focus. We deal with this a lot. This often requires certain manoeuvres
and specific rituals. The content
and effect of such joint actions then influence every one of us as individuals.
This is the principle
of permanent “self-deception”; putting oneself in the position
of a viewer, amazed by the activity
he has just triggered. In principle, that’s also what it was about
in larger projects, such as
embassies or journeys.
When you work in a group you have a certain understanding, a certain rule
that you don’t touch,
and this may also lead to conservative decisions. At the same time, however,
group dynamics also
open up a possibility based on heresy; certain ideas which, when presented
for the first time, may
seem totally unacceptable, grow in significance and even come to form
a key basis in time.
You are Slovenian artists. What does this label represent to you? What
kind of images and reactions
does it evoke in you? What are the benefits and disadvantages of determination
with a nationality, or
national state?
The perception of artists, and consequently of art, still depends on information
about their nationality
or citizenship. Of course, the significance and effect of this data differs
considerably with respect
to the country you represent, whether you like it or not. (One of the
functions of the NSK
State in Time is to avoid or lessen the automatism of such identification).
On the other hand, it has
to be admitted that different spaces Ÿ due to differences in the
structure and hierarchy of information
and preferences Ÿ affect production itself. In short, the interest
of a Slovenian artist and that
of a German artist, both of whom would like to be merely artists, inevitably
differ. As for IRWIN, we
have to say that the Slovenian art system always interested us. We see
a great advantage in the fact
that Slovenia Ÿ as well as the entire former socialist East Ÿ
still hasn’t become an integral part of the
symbolic field of the international art system and that it is primarily
this symbolisation that is taking
place today.
In one of your manifestos from the 1980s you claimed to be the founder
of a new national art. Which
was of course ironic: your art consisted of everything except “originally”
Slovenian stuff. This reflec-
ted your view of what Slovenian identity might be: a patchwork of all
kinds of different cultural influences,
but certainly not a genuine or authentic “national culture”.
Would you say that this is still like
that?
There was no irony in this at all; on the contrary, we seriously suggested
that eclecticism should
become the basis of national authenticity. Different cultural influences
and an authentic culture —
these two things do not exclude each other at all. From the point of view
of style, Slovenian art was
always a mixture. From the point of view of interpretation, however, it
was always mythologized. In
Slovenia we still have mythologies instead of consistent art theories
and art history. And this hinders
comparisons between Slovenian artists and art and the international space,
which results in
self-sufficiency. But at the same time, we ourselves are proof that the
assertion that Slovenian artists
are not interested in the international context doesn’t hold true.
We are interested in it, and
we are not the only ones. At least part of Slovenian art has lately been
oriented towards, and has
successfully penetrated, the international arena, to the extent that has
never been seen in Slovenia
so far. At the same time Slovenia is being recognised as one of the centres
of European modern art.
10
REAL TIME PROJECTS
This interview was conducted for the book Devedeseta/The 1990s, ed. by
Eda »ufer and Gregor
Podnar, Ljubljana 2002 (forthcoming).
Dieses Interview entstand für das Buch Devedeseta/The 1990s, hrsg.
v. Eda »ufer und Gregor Podnar,
Ljubljana 2002 (im Druck).
___________________________________________
3. About Video
http://www.bodyproject.net/kinetikon/fire.htm
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
IF I WERE TO “CROSS REFERENCE” THE GUIDING CONCERNS OF MY
WORK I WOULD
SELECT two major themes. One is best loosely described as “East-West
issues” (and by East-West I mean the relationship between the so-called
Western World and the countries of the former Eastern block -- including
the ex-USSR and the former Yugoslavia). The other, overriding, concern
is
the question of art and ideology. This has been true since the mid-80’s,
when -- through a sequence of lucky breaks -- I was the first American
to
write about, and photograph, the Soviet rock counter-culture for US media
(in Rolling Stone first, and then the Nation and Interview, among other
places). It remains true now, with Predictions of Fire, a film about the
ex-Yugoslav collectivist art movement NSK and the relationship between
art and ideology in the 20th century. The source of this fascination with
the East and West, and with art and ideology, is no doubt my experience
of growing up in a US diplomatic family stationed at various key places
during the 70’s and 80’s: Moscow. Belgrade. Ankara. They unroll
like a
spool of archival film in memory, fixed in time & space, yet also
in
motion. Commuting psychically, spiritually, and physically between the
twin poles of a bi-polar world prepared me, finally, for a pretty
informed “take” on its disappearance (and the resulting chaos).
The
crises in Russia, which is ongoing, and the horror in ex-Yugoslavia,
which is ongoing, remain perpetually in my thoughts and concerns. Is
there such a thing as Western “values” which are supposed
to react? How
do “we” see ourselves in the context of this struggle? The
question of
the “Other” is part of the texture of my life-experience.
In the late
80’s, when I was a journalist and photographer, I did my best to
sell
commissioning editors on the Yugoslav story well before the violence
erupted. I will always remember the Village Voice editor who said: “Call
me when there is a war in Yugoslavia.” (He will remain unnamed.)
By then,
however, I was already in NYU Graduate Film School and disgusted at mass
media, with its pack mentality (a mirror of the same mass mentality
capable of sending an entire nation into war). Film, finally, has been
the true goal, one that I managed to reach with Predictions of Fire. What
do I see myself bringing to film? For one, a determination to prove that
the film medium doesn’t need to simplify complex issues; it’s
a language
which doesn’t have to be second to prose in its ability to be concise,
or
evocative, or profound, or in fact to be history. If it’s possible
to
mention it, the project for which potential NYFA money is intended is
a
road movie titled Transnationala: An Untitled Road Movie, which I shot
this summer on digital video. Ten Russian and Slovenian artists packed
into two Winnebagos on a mission of discovery across the United States
(the East on a trip from East to West -- this time within the USA). As
a
New Yorker with an ingrained “expatriatude”, it neatly encapsulates
my
life-long interests. And it’s already mostly in the can. I’m
working now
on some more production for it, then will do post production in
Ljubljana, so that audiences will be able to see what happens when nine
Russian and Slovenian conceptualist artists arrive in Las Vegas. To take
only one example.
Michael Benson
Predictions of Fire (1996)
Synopsis: In the early '80s, an industrial rock band named Laibach emerged
out of the tiny Yugoslavian republic of Slovenia. Laibach was more than
just an ordinary rock band. Soon they were joined by Irwin, a painting
group, and Red Pilot (aka Noordung), a theatre group and found themselves
at the helm of one of the largest and most controversial "arts"
collectives in the world. Modeled after a socialist state bureaucracy
and
calling itself New Slovenian Arts, or NSK, these three groups now
represent a virtual mini-state within the small state of Slovenia. NSK
recently began issuing its own passports and opened embassies in Moscow,
Venice and Japan. Michael Benson's documentary not only provides a
compelling portrait of NSK's work but also provides great insight into
the
current Balkan conflict.
PREDICTIONS OF FIRE
A Film About Art, Politics, and War
SYNOPSIS
Until 1991 the Western republic of Socialist Yugoslavia, Slovenia's
violent secession struck the first spark in the Balkan war which defined
the first chapter of the post-cold war era. Using an inventive
combination of reportage, dramatization, archival footage, animation and
miniatures, Predictions of Fire is a revealing study of the controversial
and internationally acclaimed Slovenian arts collective NSK, as seen
through the lens of 20th century Central European history. Shot in
Ljubljana, Moscow, New York, Belgrade, and Athens, this visually
arresting film offers a portrait of a culture suspended between East and
West. By documenting NSK, Predictions of Fire holds a mirror up to Europe
and the world, analyzing the way nations are brought into conformity with
ideology.
The film won the Canadian Film Board's Best Documentary award at the 1996
Vancouver International Film Festival. The jury issued a statement:
"Predictions of Fire is intellectual dynamite. It explodes the icons and
myths of communism and capitalism. Out of the shattered history of
Slovenia, this film constructs a new way of looking at art, politics,
and
religion."
In the early 80's, an industrial rock band named Laibach emerged out of
the tiny Yugoslav republic of Slovenia. Incorporating what many took to
be fascist imagery in their performances, they shocked this tiny Balkan
republic and, after signing a recording contract with London's
prestigious Mute Records label, went on to shock the rest of the world
as
well. Laibach was soon joined by a painting group, Irwin, and theater
group, Red Pilot, at the helm of one of the most ambitious and
cutting-edge arts collectives in the world. Modeled after a socialist
state bureaucracy, and calling themselves Neue Slowenische Kunst (New
Slovenian Arts, or NSK), these three groups became the titular heads of
a
micro-state within the independent republic of Slovenia. NSK recently
began issuing its own passports and opened embassies and consulates in
Moscow, Berlin, Ghent, Florence, and in the US.
Although Predictions of Fire documents the NSK collective, positioning
their work within the history of ex-Yugoslavia, the film emerges as much
more than an arts documentary. Predictions of Fire offers surprising
insight into the Yugoslav conflict and the ongoing trauma experienced
by
generations of Eastern Europeans raised in totalitarian regimes. Variety
wrote that the film "uses a postmodern, quasi-Godardian sensibility to
show how politics invades every facet of artistic creation and how
integral ideology is to the understanding of the structure and
signification of images... An extremely rich tapestry of historical
events and their mythic implications in both art and politics unfolds
onscreen."
http://www.bodyproject.net/kinetikon/fire.htm
___________________________________________
4. Divine Intervention Screening
==================
Because of technical limitations, this movie will be screened in
video.
The film will be released on January 17 at the Angelika in 35mm.
==================
Tuesday December 17 at 6:30pm
at The New School's Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th St. in NYC
Divine Intervention
by Elia Suleiman, France/Palestine, 2002, 35mm, 92 min.
Arabic with English subtitles
Subway: A,C,E to West 4th Street 1,2,3,9,L to 14th Street-6th
Avenue
4,5,6,N,R to 14th Street-Union Square
See location A at http://www.newschool.edu/gf/directory/map3.htm
==================
Alwan NYC in cooperation with The Diversity Initiative of The New School
University, and Avatar Films present
Divine Intervention
by Elia Suleiman, France/Palestine, 2002, 35mm, 92 min.
Arabic with English subtitles
with Elia Suleiman, Manal Kahder, Naeif Daher, Nayef Fahoum Daher
Producers: Humbert Balsan, Avi Kleinberger, Joachim Ortmanns,
Babette Schroder, Elia Suleiman
Screenwriter: Elia Suleiman
Cinematographer: Marc-André Batigne
Editor: Véronique Lange
Palestinian director and performer Elia Suleiman delivers a darkly comic
masterpiece. Suleiman utilizes irreverence, wit, mysticism and insight
to
craft an intense, hallucinogenic and extremely adept exploration of the
dreams and nightmares of Palestinians and Israelis living in uncertain
times.
Subtitled, "A Chronicle of Love and Pain," Divine Intervention follows
ES, is a character played by and clearly based upon the filmmaker himself.
ES is burdened with a sick father, a stalled screenplay and an unrequited
love affair with a beautiful Palestinian woman (Manal Khader) living in
Ramallah. An Israeli checkpoint on the Nazareth-Ramallah road forces the
couple to rendezvous in an adjacent parking lot. Their relationship and
the absurd situations around them serve as metaphors for the lunacy of
larger cultural problems, and the result is palpable, bottled personal
and
political rage.
Suleiman's wry chronicle sketches his hometown of Nazareth as a place
consumed by ferocious absurdity, where residents harbor feuds, dump
garbage into neighbors' yards, and surreptitiously block access roads.
Characters transgress rules with abandon - stealing forbidden cigarette
breaks in a hospital corridor, for example. Yet the film's acerbic,
absurdist sense of humor (earning comparisons to Jacques Tati and Nanni
Moretti), in a situation where death seems to lurk at every corner, and
Suleiman's own eye-popping directorial interventions, are what earned
him
the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. (Avatar)
Awards
** Cannes Film Festival, Grand Jury Prize, and FiPresci Prize, 2002
Selections
* Toronto International Film Festival 2002
* New York Film Festival 2002
* Mill Valley Film Festival 2002
* AFI Film Festival, Los Angeles 2002
* Denver International Film Festival 2002
* Arab Film Festival, San Francisco 2002
Tuesday December 17 at 6:30pm
at The New School's Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th St. in NYC
Divine Intervention
by Elia Suleiman, France/Palestine, 2002, 35mm, 92 min.
Arabic with English subtitles
Subway: A,C,E to West 4th Street 1,2,3,9,L to 14th Street-6th
Avenue
4,5,6,N,R to 14th Street-Union Square
See location A at http://www.newschool.edu/gf/directory/map3.htm
==================
Information from Avatar Films
==================
alwan
16 West 32nd Street, Suite 10E
New York, NY 10001
Tel: 646-473-0991
Fax: 646-473-0993
www.alwan.org
__________________________________________________
16 Beaver Group
16 Beaver Street, 5th fl.
New York, NY 10004
phone: 212.480.2093
for directions/subscriptions/info visit:
http://www.16beavergroup.org
TRAINS:
4,5 Bowling Green
N,R Whithall
1,2 Wall Street
J,M Broad Street
16 Beaver Group
16 Beaver Street
Fifth Floor
New York, NY 10004
212.480.2093
Trains:
4,5 Bowling Green
N,R Whitehall
1,2 Wall Street
J,M Broad Street
A,C Broadway
Directions:
16Beaver is located
in the Financial Dist.
east of Bowling Green
& Battery Park and
the National Museum
for the American Indian
16Beaver is east of
Bowling Green Park.
Between Whitehall &
Broad St . On the corner
Beaver & New Street