(scroll down for the program srpski/english)

On the 10th of July 2008 Radojko Luković, Aleksandar Mitrović and Mile Veljković lost their live in an horrible car crash.

All three of them have been deeply involved in the fight against Milosevic’s regime. Radojko Luković, got famous to the serbian public, as “the face of Serbia”, after he was beaten by friends of Milosevic’s son Marko.

Mile Veljkovic, who wrote for many national and international newspapers, worked as journalist for many international media agencies, was also involved in our workshop. Thanks to his support, our public seminar, will be held, in the TV Station IN TV, where he was editor in chief. Aleksandar Mitrović used to work with Mile, for the same TV Station.

We are left without words, and can’t realize that Mile won’t be with us.

With deepest sympathy with their families.

Links:

english article on B92, read the comments too.

http://www.club-inn.tv/

Wednesday / Sreda  - 23.7.2008. -  History and current situation in Požarevac / Istorija i trenutna situacija u Požarevcu
10:00 Presentation of the Project/ Prezentacija projekta
12:30 History of Požarevca/ Istorija Požarevca
14:00 Serb, Vlah, Roma and other cultures in the area /Srpska, Vlaška, Romska i druge kulture na ovim prostorima
15:30 Culture - current situation and future perspectives / Kultura – trenutna situacija i planovi za dalji razvoj
17:00 Lunch / Ručak
19:00 Discussion / Diskusija
Thursday/ Četvrtak - 24.7.2008. - Current Situation / Trenutna situacija

10:00 Economy - current situation and future perspectives / Ekonomija – trenutna situacija i planovi za dalji razvoj
12:00 local Industry / Vodeće industrije
13:30 Political situation / Politička situacija
15:00 Urbanism / Urbanizam
17:00 Lunch / Ručak
19:30 Discussion / Diskusija

Friday/Petak -  25.07.2008. - About Gastarbajters / O gastarbajterima (gostujućim radnicima)
10:00 personal Stories of Gastarbajters / Priče gostujućih radnika
12:00 personal Stories of Gastarbajters / Priče gostujućih radnika
13:30 Impact of Gastarbajters on the local economical situation / Uticaj gostujućih radnika na ekonomsku situaciju u Požarevcu
15:00 Impact of Gastarbajters on the local cultural situation / Uticaj gostujućih radnika na kulturnu situaciju u Požarevcu
16:30 Lunch / Ručak
18:00 The situation of Gastarbajters in Europe / Položaj gostujućih radnika u Evropi

Saturday/Subota - 26.07.2008. – Open Forum/Otvoreni Forum – Mobility as a Form of Integration / Mobilnost kao vid integracije

10:00 City tour / Obilazak grada
12:00 OpenForum - What can be learned by moving around? / Otvoreni Forum – Šta se može naučiti iz mobilnosti?
14:00 OpenForum - What are the advantages of being a foreigner? / Otvoreni Forum – Koje vam prednosti donosi to što ste stranac?
16:00 Ručak
17:00 OpenForum - What are the benefits of Gastarbajters for their communities? / Otvoreni Forum – Koje pogodnosti gastarbajteri donose svojim zajednicama?
18:30 Students articles – Department of Anthropology and Ethnology, Belgrade University / Članci studenata – Odeljenje za antropologiju i etnologiju, Univerzitet u Beogradu

Sunday/ Nedelja - 27.07.2008. – Open Forum / Otvoreni Forum – Mobility as a Form of Integration / Mobilnost kao vid integracije
10:00 OpenForum – Can inter-national characteristic be found in Gastarbajter communities? / Otvoreni Forum – Mogu li se internacionalni karakteri pronaći u gastarbajterskim zajednicama?
12:00 OpenForum – How can we in Europe make better use of mobility? / Otvoreni Forum – Kako možemo obezbediti bolju upotrebu mobilnosti u Evropi?
14:00 break / pauza
15:00 Conceptual discussion – Presentation of artworks’ ideas and choosing public places for work  / Konceptualna polemika – Prezentacija ideja za umetnička dela i izbor javnih mesta na kojima će umetnici stvarati
16:00 Lunch / Ručak
17:30 Artists’ presentations / Prezentacije umetnika

Monday/Ponedeljak - 28.07.2008. – Art Interventions / Intervencije umetnošću

10:00 Visiting work places / Poseta izabranim lokacijama za rad
12:00 artists’ presentations / Prezentacije umetnika
17:00 Lunch / Ručak
21:00 Party / Žurka

Thuesday/Utorak – 29.07.2008. – beginning of artists’ workshop / početak umetničke radionice
Sunday/Nedelja – 10.08.2008. – exhibition opening / otvaranje izložbe

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Wir wollen dabei sein.
Jetzt, wo der Chinese in Afrika investiert.
Wir wollen unser Stück vom chinesischen Kuchen.
Wir sind die Pioniere des Afrikanischen Filmbusiness.
Afriwood statt Hollywood.
Letztes Jahr schulten wir erste Slumbewohner im Umgang mit Videokamera und Schnittcomputer.
Heute drehen wir mit ihnen bereits eine eigene Sitcom und eine regelmäßige Wochenschau.
Die Menschen sind dankbar. Wir haben die Unterstützung der UNO.
Nur die FPÖ ist gegen uns.
Für nächstes Jahr prognostizieren wir eine Reichweite von acht Millionen Sehern
in der für die Werbewirtschaft interessanten Zielgruppe der 14- bis 49-Jährigen.
Die durchschnittliche Lebenserwartung in Kenia liegt bei 48.
Slum-TV sehen und sterben.
Das kommt an.
Wir haben Eventcharakter und verhandeln gerade über lukrative Werbeverträge.
Den Break-Even erwarten wir spätestens nächstes Jahr.
Dann werden wir verkaufen.

Alexander Nikolic/Lukas Pusch

SLUM-TV und Charity-Business
Lecture Performance

brut im Konzerthaus
2. Juli, 21 Uhr
Lothringerstraße 20
1030 Wien

5,- Einheitspreis

Eine Nikolic/Pusch/brut-wien Co-Produktion

Mit freundlicher Unterstützung des Festival Politik im Freien Theater

http://www.brut-wien.at/

Am 1. Juli um gibt es ein Leporello auf Ö1 zu unserer Lecuture Performance

http://oe1.orf.at/

Hi everyone, who is interested to participate in one of the two workshops: The return of the Gastarbajter or Sex in Transition, this summer in Serbia, is requested to act quite fast. Deadline is 05.07.2008.

Information, please scroll down, or select in the categories the link: The return of the Gastarbajter

cheers alex

SLUM-TV in Belgrade and Novi Sad is organized by
Anonymous said: and Youth Center CK13 and is supported
by ERSTE Foundation, Austrian Cultural Forum and
Cultural Center DOB

(28 Pages, serbian and english, 1,6 mb)

download

slum-tv-novine

and some pict’s from the presentation in Belgrade

(scroll for english version)

Postovani,

zadovoljstvo nam je da Vas pozovemo na predavanje/prezentaciju/diskusiju SLUM-TV u Beogradu i Novom Sadu u subotu, 7. juna 2008. godine u DOMU OMLADINE BEOGRAD / Sala za tribine i u nedelju 8. juna 2008. godine u OMLADINSKOM CENTRU CK13, u Novom Sadu, sa početkom u 18h.

Ucesnici: Sam Hopkins, Alexander Nikolic, Lukas Pusch
Moderatorka: Ljubica Gojgic

Beograd
Subota 7.06.2008. u 18h
DOM OMLADINE BEOGRAD / Sala za tribine

Novi Sad
Nedelja 8.06.2008.u 18h OMLADINSKI CENTAR CK13

Podrska
ERSTE Stiftung, Austrijski kulturni forum, Dom omladine Beograd

- - -

We have the pleasure to invite you to the lecture/presentation/debate SLUM-TV in Belgrade and Novi Sad on Saturday, June 7th, 2008 [CULTURAL CENTAR DOB / debate room, Belgrade] and on Sunday, June 8th, 2008 [YOUTH CENTER CK13, Novi Sad] with the beginning at 6 PM.

Participants: Sam Hopkins, Alexander Nikolic, Lukas Pusch
Moderator: Ljubica Gojgic

Belgrade
Saturday, June 7th, 2008, at 6 PM
CULTURAL CENTER DOB / Debate room

Novi Sad
Sunday, June 8th, 2008, at 6PM YOUTH CENTER CK13

Supported by
ERSTE Foundation, Austrian Cultural Forum, Cultural Center DOB

Dear Friends, I’m happy to announce the cooperation with Noa Treister in the following Workshop. sorry for crossposting!

———————————————————————————————
Art Interventions
The Return of the Gastarbeiters
22.7-10.8.2008

Location: Požarevac, Eastern Serbia

Media: all media

Organizers: KUD “Art Klub”, Kucevo
Partners: Serbian Ministry of Diaspora, Požarevac Cultural Center, Citizens of Europe, Berlin, Neocom, Vienna

Colloquium description:
The subject of the colloquium is returning guest workers from Europe to Eastern Serbia and their influence on the local economy, politics, culture and environment.
It will consist of:

• 3-week field research by students of the anthropology department of the Philosophical faculty of Belgrade
  University
• a week long seminar that will include lecture on the history of the area and its current situation, on the
• subject of returning economical immigration and on engaged art and art in public space
• a 2-week artist’s workshop in which will participate 20 artists, 10 Serb and 10 international,
• 3- week exhibition  in Požarevac
• Seminar and presentation in Belgrade

The artists will work and exhibit in public spaces in order to allow maximum communication with the returning immigrants and the population that stayed behind. The documentation of interviews with returning immigrants and decision makers done as part of the pre-colloquia research, students’ research, the lectures given in the seminars and the artists work will be collected in catalogues and presented in Belgrade to create a reaction on a national level.

Concept:
The area of Eastern Serbia is a traditionally poor agricultural area and therefore had much immigration to different developed countries. Now many immigrants are returning with their interpretation of the experience they have got in the West which often deteriorates to corruption, nationalism, nouveau riche culture and lack of respect to the environment. Since the area is dependent on that income there is no public debate on the phenomenon and no directives, no regulations or laws regarding these issues.
The relation between the immigrants – host community distinctly affects the relation immigrants – home community but there is an agreement of silence between the home community and immigrants to keep these worlds apart. When in Serbia they very rarely talk about their experiences and difficulties abroad. In that way they maintain an illusion that they do not really work abroad and conceal their real status their and assert the powerful image of the patron and their status of power. Consequently, people in these areas talk about people who “have money” or “do not have money” but never about working for money. That money is either “given or not given” to them as reward or punishment for how they behave, again without any relation to work. To fulfill their side of the bargain the local community plays the role of an obedient, respectful, needy kin which makes them even more helpless and lacking initiative. This project will raise taboo in the public of discussing these issues and pressure public institution to create regulation concerning the disturbing aspects of the phenomenon.

Conditions: the artists will be provided with accommodations and food and will use local material. An additional sum of up to 75 Euro will be provided for materials.

For further details and registration please contact: noa.treister(at)gmail.com

———————————————————————————————
Sex in Transition
15-31.8.2008

Location: Kucevo, Eastern Serbia

Media: all media

Organizers: KUD “Art Klub”, Kucevo
Partners: Serbian Ministry of Culture, Municipality of Kucevo, The Kattenbak Collective, Amsterdam, Citizens of Europe, Berlin,

Colloquium description:
The subject of the colloquium is returning guest workers from Europe to Eastern Serbia and their influence on the local economy, politics, culture and environment.
It will consist of:

• 3-week field research by students of the anthropology department of the Philosophical faculty of Belgrade University
• a week long seminar that will include lecture on the history of the area and its current situation, on the subject of returning economical immigration and on engaged art and art in public space
• a 2-week artist’s workshop in which will participate 20 artists, 10 Serb and 10 international,
• 3- week exhibition  in Kucevo
• Seminar and presentation in Belgrade

The artists will work and exhibit in public spaces in order to allow maximum communication with the returning immigrants and the population that stayed behind. The documentation of interviews with returning immigrants and decision makers done as part of the pre-colloquia research, students’ research, the lectures given in the seminars and the artists work will be collected in catalogues and presented in Belgrade to create a reaction on a national level.

Concept:
When we speak about communities or countries in transition, we usually refer to economical transition in this we underestimate the abyss that lays before the sides facing each other. The difference rests within the basic concepts (such as truth, time, security, privacy, intimacy, communication, etc.) on which each person builds his/her life. The main discrepancy lies in the grasp of a person as an individual, which is a modern concept, from which grow notions of love, happiness, accomplishment, freedom, etc. Marriage, in this community structure, is one of the institutions that insure its continuum in the same way. Both men and women fill preconditioned roles before and during their married life and in that pay their dues to the community and are held in check by the rumor economy and the threat of excommunication that would penetrate even their basic means of existence. What happens inside the marriage (form love to neglect or violence) is irrelevant to the surrounding as long as the institution is maintained and therefore is accepted by the partners themselves. As was perceived by one of the community members:

“When you ask men what they think about it, most of the would answer that about intimacy that have never heard but sexually they are very active, great lovers (a legend close to Greek mythology ϑ) and that they can seduce any women. On the other hand, most women would say, with allusive irony, that of intimacy they have long forgotten and that sex they accept as a duty, something they have to “execute” with their man, like preparing lunch, housekeeping or similar things.
[…] in a small town, in which are still performed many old, even pagan customs, in which there is still fear of occultism (Vlah magic) and in which people are still closely (and shallowly) connected with their families, land, past, life revolves around “practicalities”. Most people think: “if I sow the land, it will give birth, if I sow a woman she also will give birth ϑ” and everything will function well on a superficial level because I am a monkey and not a man! If I tough intimacy, it will touch me, which can be extremely fuck up, and I don’t wish to have a fucked up life!” (Davor Radulj)

No person or community is located in one end of this scale or another, we are all somewhere in the middle with our fears of losing our economical and emotional security, our standing in society, or our future continuity on the one hand and a wish to become and be loyal to the event of love on the other hand.
It is this diversity that our project aims to map and about which we wish to create a public debate.

Conditions: the artists will be provided with accommodations and food and will use local material. An additional sum of up to 75 Euro will be provided for materials.

For further details and registration, please contact: noa.treister(at)gmail.com

———————————————————————————————

Why simply reproduce the shit?

In the article, published in the Meta Mute Magazine, Fahim Amir questions why simply reproduce the shit, as in his eyes Lukas Pusch work is a mere copy of a bad reality. And this question can be easily answered, the copy is simply more worth than the original, and the well-known paradox is, that the original only exists here through the “copy” of Lukas Pusch’s work. Why?

In an contemporary art show and in mainstream media coverage, a white man in an white dress in an african slum, would usually be a doctor without borders, other white man which appear in such an context, are white soldiers that prevent the locals to fight a bloody war. Africa, doesn’t appear in another context. Even the coming event of the world soccer championship 2010 in South Africa is mediated through that certain prism of violence,crime and unstableness. Last months bombing of Somalia by the United States which was the forth since 2007, raised here in Vienna less media attention, than the tragic homicide of an Austrian ex-Soccer player who attended the draw of the qualification groups for the World Cup, and not comparable with the recent reports from South Africa.

Focusing again on Pusch’s work, where he uses an old situationist strategy, to produce bigger shame, is no point to search for an appropriation. There is simply no appropriation there, as the original is hidden, sublime and materializes only in our educated minds. But even educated minds believe, that after 40 years of independence, former colonies are self responsible for the shit going on.

Pusch in this case, only performed, what he is. An bourgeois Austrian, who simply doesn’t help. No false comrading, no fake promises, an Austrian guy, who went to Kenya to come back with an story. As Vladimir Vlidi Jeric writes, in his text, which will be published next week: no attempt to false represent any positions.

alexander nikolic

Vladimir Vlidi Jeric’s text will be published in the frame of:

slum-tv u novom sadu i beogradu

organizers:

dušica dražić
anonymous said:
www.anonymoussaid.org
Omladinski centar CK 13
www.ck13.org

World-Ex-Position ´08
26th of April – 15th of May 2008

A project, World-Ex-Position ´08, curated by Vienna-based artist Alexander Nikolic in cooperation with Gulsen Bal (Open Space - Zentrum für Kunstprojekte ) and Thomas Jelinek (Labfactory), is likely one of the most interesting art shows Vienna will be offering this year.

„The monolithic desire of this world-ex-position knows one aim only: the final de- and reconstruction of all formations in Austrian civil society.“ Stefan Lutschinger (media activist )

The curatorial approach

The curatorial practice of Alexander Nikolic can be partly conceptualised within the analytical framework of the recent works of French historian and philosopher Jacques Rancière. In Disagreement (1999), Rancière uses the term ‘police’ to refer to ‘the set of procedures whereby the aggregation and consent of collectivities is achieved, the organization of powers, the distribution of places and roles, and the systems for legitimizing this distribution’ . Politics, by contrast, is ‘an extremely determined activity antagonistic to policing: whatever breaks with the tangible configuration whereby parties and parts or lack of them are defined by a presupposition that, by definition, has no place in that configuration’.

The project, World-Ex-Position ´08, centrally structured around questions of national representation, critical artistic re-appropriation, the relationship of art, economy and institutions, and last but not least, around the problematic of world expositions themselves in the midst of an exhibition that covers a wide range of artistic works, performances and lectures. World-Ex-Position ´08 attacks well established aesthetic relations and conventional hermeneutic practices, that perform the function of „police“ in the spheres of art and culture.

For that reason Nikolic’s exhibition as whole opens up the unconventional aesthetico-politial strategies, without dictating some totalising artistic master profile and draws on a broad spectrum of artists of diverging national origins.

An overview on the venues

Performing art works and lectures were presented at LABfactory, a cooperation-platform for productions at the interface of new and old media, often, like in this case, live-streamed via giss-tv. As the historical location of the planning office of Vienna’s first world exhibition in 1873, the venue was well chosen in the light of the exhibition’s programmatic questions. It served as intellectual and artistic battleground for interventions into what may be seen as contemporary artistic critique.

Works of fine and applied art found their temporary home at Open Space - Zentrum für Kunstprojekte (centre for art projects). Open Space is a new venue in Vienna, which already took parts of the local and national art scene by storm. In her initiation with Open Space, Gulsen Bal, the director as well as head of program, has achieved through a dense series of well-curated exhibitions in the shortest possible time, what a long list of others failed to do in months and years of work. Since it’s opening in January 2008 Open Space has became one of Vienna’s premier venues for new art, positioning itself in the context of the urgent questions of our times and in contrast to usual and „normalized“ modes of their treatment in the context of comtemporary artistic practices. Open Space has united different creative practices and created an accessible collaborative forum for diverse kinds of projects. It has become one of the best places to encounter the most interesting Viennese critical art scene.

The pieces: a continuous dialogue

Austrian feminist grrrl-Zine-project Cuntstunt presents a feminist „handapparat“, a collection of texts, pictures and collages confronting the cleansed politics of artistic „professionalism“ that usually equals to copying commodity-aesthetics. The assemblage „Take it as a Gift!“, arranged in a black box, succeeded in combining feminist Punk aesthetics with political radicalism, politicising apparently ordinary questions of daily life and paying heed to historical partners-in-crime – all of that in an entirely unpretentious way. Cuntstunt #3 is eagerly awaited!

Zampa di Leone’s „selections“ are anonymously published caricatures of protagonists and relationships in the international and „Balkan“-related art scene. They were „created at the time of a fictional history (tradition) in order to negate this fabrication in the most brutal fashion“ (Sezgin Boynik). The viewer is left clueless as to whether to embrace this sniper-like critique of the politics of aesthetic distinction, the „dispositiv“ (Foucault) of the creative „author“, its attacks on the definitorial lighttowers, hermeneutic monopolists, heroes and heroines of the art-world or to reject it as cheap post-adolescent pillorying from the safe position of the hideout, that levels all nuances that matter. Certainly the works of Zampa di Leone are occasionally intelligent and funny.

Politically urgent issues of textile surface embedded in the fashion of the Nazi elite and its post-Fascist present in the icon of Hugo Boss are focus of Tanya Ury’s works „who´s boss“ and „boss rune“ t-shirts. Societé réaliste – a French cooperative project initiated by Ferenc Gróf and Jean-Baptiste Naudy, deals with the history of „temporary free zones“ and the possibilities of their „ergonomic partitioning“. Christoph Teiler’s work „wechselstrom“ questions dis/continuities of historical and contemporary artist-patron-dependencies. Rudi Hübls „ART- & CULTURE-SAUSAGES“ are board sausages made of posters of Austria’s „high culture“, thereby criticising Vienna’s new regulations prohibiting public and free placarding. Kasimir Malevic’s „black cross – draft ca. 1985“ questions authorship and biography in the field of fine art. Jaesper Alvar’s piece „The banana tree stereoscope“ brings into focus the relationship between post/colonial international trade and the unholy traditions of world exhibitions. It achieves this effect by using a stereoscope, which only works when you unfocus your eyes: politically aware, conceptionally strict, and even fun.

Lukas Pusch’s two pieces in the „Vienna Voódoo“-series, however, disappoint as mere copies of a bad reality: why simply reproduce the shit? In a photograph taken in an African slum, Pusch can be seen dressed in a white tuxedo, handing out little treats to children. He here reproduces and reinforces a phallocentric image, showing merely how the attempted re-appropriation of racist imagery fails and collapses into stabilizing the conservative and reactionary relations of assymetry: The black crowd is visually represented phallocentrically as gravitating around the big bold white man. The other piece, which is a drawing, makes the same mistake by mainly reproducing, instead of criticizing, shifting or explaining, sexist-racist imagery. Erasing all debates about progressive and emancipatory politics of the visual, and neglecting all worldly contradictions and interdependances, Pusch’s two Voódoo series pieces simply reinforce repressive normalization. Pusch’s obviously progressive intention proves irrelevant in light of the highly problematic form and content of these pieces. Fortunately his oeuvre encompasses more than these two works.

However, Stefan Rusu’s three videos, LAZO, SARS OPERA, and JEREZ, magnificently explore the construction of myths and legends in the former Soviet States and the „post-Socialist“ present. Working with archival material in combination with contemporary contexts and situations, staged or not, Rusu’s docu-fictional pieces are a highlight of the exhibition and must-see.

By the same token, Ira Hadzic´s video „Visoko – Flying High“, a 45min piece showing the effects of the „discovery“ of pyramids in the Bosnian city Visoko, make an equally positive impression. The Pyramids, heavily overgrown with trees and vegetation, are presented as material-semiotic artifacts, half reality, half fiction, partly material, party narrative, mediated through 21st century communication technology. A cyborg-entity coming to life via the affective and economic investments of a Texan with Bosnian roots, who is described by a local as a Tito II. With a female restaurant-worker’s confession that she believes in the pyramids’ existence, because her life improved due to the evolving pyramid-tourism, the post-war-dilemma crystallizes in all its depth and width as a projection of national(-ist) hope, interconnected with German economic restructuring, science wars, and the profound belief in a brighter future through a better past. Hope is a productive force, and Ira Hadzic’s video is an excellent visual social and cultural anthropology at the beginning of the third christian millennium, a temporal space in which technobiopolitics is standard, and NATO is bombing dissenters. And in the end, you -the viewer- want to believe, knowing that it won’t matter. Ira Hadzic’s piece, produced as part of the duo „meereshund“, impresses long after the immediate sensory experience is over, and wows in its simple but well applied means, and its neither voyeuristic nor objectifying design.

Speaking of technobiopolitics, and all subjectivity as mediated through 0 and 1, sister0 (a.k.a. Nancy Mauro-Flude) performed the film-lecture-performance „My First Burial“ in collaboration with Jesse Darlin’s (a.k.a. Jessica Errey) „I was a teenage porn star“. In a middle section, both talk about the pieces’ artistic means and their political and biographical vectors. They thereby bring the performers’ intentions, their social and historical contexts, back into the discussion as well as into the artwork itself, propagating an intelligible aesthetic of transparency.

Jesse Darlin´s performance examines heterosexism and structural violence in the porn-industry through performative means, projections and loudspeakers. The - formerly objectified - performer, proves against all difficulties of the office-like ambiance of LABfactor, that a performance can be powerful, by taking delicate matters seriously. The performance accomplishes to be inspiring and provocative at the same time, but never embarrassing (the oldest danger of performances). Sister0, who calls herself the „queen of uncensored data“, connects in „my first burial“ the Shaman Rattle of an exoticised elsewhere with today’s technopolitics.

Here, Sister0 shows in lines of thought and performance the desire to transcend time and space as patterns of continuity, while the concrete historical fields changes, but she never forgets about the sexual politics immanent to these fields as situated practices. It was hilarious and serious, funny and destructive performance, dealing with questions of life and death as it was encapsulated in Marx reading: „making the ossified conditions dance by singing them their own melody“.

Media activist and co-founder of the XL Terrestrials Pod p Podinsky performed „TRANSMIGRATION OF THE TELEPRESENT“, an interactive cinema installation, that deals with the change of course of telematics, human communications and social relationships.

UK-based political scientist Richard Barbrook presented another intellectual punchline of an exhibition already rich in highlights. In his lecture he argued that the vision of an imaginary network-society community can be a powerful and mass-inciting weapon in the arsenal of the cold warriors from east and west, still echoing today. Drawing on his recent publication “Imaginary Futures. From Thinking Maschines to the Global Village”, Barbrook analyzed the history of futures from the 1964 World´s Fair onward in a visually excellently supported tour de force.

His politically apt and historically well informed argument presents a strong antidote to the euphoric manifestos of the net’s postmodern leftist theorists of the likes of Antonio Negri, without falling for the techno-pessimistic traps of an oversimplifying critique of ideology. Indeed, to quote Barbrook, „those who forget the future are condemned to repeat it“.

.

* Fahim Amir is theoretician and cultural producer, based in Vienna

Published on Mute magazine - Culture and politics after the net