The Anatomy of a Modern Leviathan
poster is designed by Vaast Colson
The idea of a state as meta-human was described by Thomas Hobbes in the classic book of political philosophy, where the concept of a social contract theory between ‘Leviathan’ and citizens is outlined. Artistic strategy of taking metaphor literally and developing narratives from it is a point of departure for this lecture-performance. We still understand little about our bodies. The same is true for political processes. When you get health issues everyone around you either gives 'common advice’ on treatment or recommend you to see the doctor (what most of us try to escape usually). What is the political system 'illnesses’, 'hospital’, 'treatments’? Denis Maksimov drew (literally and figuratively) comparative parallels between the nature of Westphalian-modelled nation state, modern political systems and common knowledge about anatomy of the human body. The lecture-performance is a conceptual triptych, consisting of the physical nature of Leviathan, comparative politics and comparative medicine, the most common deviations and illnesses.
Denis Maksimov was invited to stage lecture-performance by Vaast Colson. It was staged in Stadslimiet art space in Antwerp, Belgium, on January 9, 2015.
A (personal) strategy notes: impactful, meta-modern and meta-conceptual perspective on performance
Preface
Conceptual performance has a purpose of contribution to changing/enriching certain narratives in the society on philosophical and ideological level. It is contextualised in expanded field for performance and the performer, whose individual and collective personality ranges across many possible fields of activities (think tanks of various expertise, for example).
This kind of performances might not engage with viewers in relational or interventionist way (although they may include respective components) - their focus is on unveiling alternative perspectives of seemingly common subjects, disrupting traditional understanding, hacking institutional rigidity and providing a mindful space for reflection on alternatives to the order of things through enhanced, ‘charged’ understanding. Their mission is to charge the audience with intuitive energy of intellectual and emotional curiosity. Creation of active interest and understanding, mental involvement of the audience is of the crucial importance, but unlike in forms of the interventionist art or relational aesthetics the ‘experience’ is meant to rest in the framework of the mind of the viewer.
Why impactful, meta-modern and meta-conceptual perspectives?
‘Impactful’ performance is meant to push the boundaries of accepted frameworks towards new horizons, preparing the foundations for realisation of potential for art to become a legitimate stage for discussion and generation grand narratives. Transnational, national, financial and other institutions with retrograde, devolutionary potential are viewed through unconventional lenses by the public.
Despite seeming instrumentality of the logic of ‘impact’, it is not to be taken literally exclusively from social or political perspective - the logic of fundamental science is applicable here equally. Like in algebra or philosophy, absence of idea of the immediate application of result(s) doesn’t constitute uselessness or folly. The ‘result’ as such should be present in one way or another in order to provide potentiality for impact. It is about taking further definition of ‘art for art’s sake’ - this art played and plays the role of fundamental science. It doesn’t address particular societal or political challenge, but can be a guide towards paradigmatic redefinition.
One of the concrete realisations of conceptual performance impact is what philosopher Daniel Dennet calls intuition pump - a playful setting or staging specific conditions (social, academic, etc.), in which audience is triggered to train intuition and serendipity as a brain muscle.
Meta-modernism is fresh attempt to give positive meaning and charge with romantic optimism scarcity of postmodern reality, consequently causing many contemporary crises, mood of pessimism, sarcasm and sense of total collapse inevitability. Represented contradiction between modernism and postmodernism (‘oscillation’ as authors call it), although claimed otherwise, is an interpretation of Hegelian dialectics. Absence of ‘telos’ in meta-modernism, highlighted by the authors, seems not to be correct - further development of human potential within or beyond tradition seems to be the universal goal of while ensuring happiness (‘gross national happiness index’ or ‘social development index’ to replace GDP) in the process can be regarded as universal trait. The ‘telos’ itself is meta-modern in a way of blending postmodern and modern - mixing in itself essences and aesthetic features of various cultural and philosophic traditions, from Buddhism to Western Enlightenment and so on, became possible with technology available at our hands in the age of deconstruction of post-structuralism.
Meta-conceptualism, formulated in this text as a response to Peter Osborne’s post-conceptualism, calls for more attention to actual importance of influence, additional usage and recycling potential of a concept of an artwork on the revitalising grand-narrative/meta-narrative via praising methodological and universal approach to holism. Calls for blending art and technology in schools is one of the drums of this holistic approach. Liberalisation of access of all audiences and participants to experimentation with knowledge and application of the ‘blending’ strategy is crucial for it’s success - one of the foremost achievements of our time is radically eased access to the information. Meta-conceptualism charges the potential to resist the influence of simple political and marketing manipulation techniques, a very important brain muscle to train in our age.
By praising it’s conceptual goal of contribution into meta-narrative, it highlights the return of the history and ideology, but rather than picturing the negative and dooming outcome of it tries to analyse these processes as an opportunity for paradigmatic reformation of the institutional framework we live in today with the guidance and inspiration coming from the art world. Potential impact and notion of charging the artwork for secondary level impact should not be understood as only interpretable in one or several particular forms (intended by the artist, for example) - it must be able to suggest rich (if not infinite) variety of self-generating outcomes, depending on the audience, in the spirit of presented by the artist meta-narrative. Meta-conceptualism is about bringing on Renaissance-spirit holism to artistic practice in the age of deconstruction. The centre piece of art of the present, unlike in the European Renaissance, is not human but the concept, interconnected system of transdisciplinary ideas placed in multidimensional space. It’s the Renaissance of the concept-centrism, not anthropocentrism. It is striving for thinking of new aka 'academia’ category for education, new ‘forum’ for politics, new exchange mechanism for economy. Increased frequency of employment of universal methodology in creative policy planning is one of the examples of practical realisation of this holism, the process that is already taking place in many states and regions on national and local level.
The notes consist of the preface and three parts: before, during and after, relating to the timeline of planning, realisation and amplification of the impact of the conceptual performance.
Before
conceptualisation
The central question of the concept of the performance is actualisation of the topical issue(s) from the artist’s perspective. Conceptualisation is expanding the issue into holistic picture of potential format of the performance, it answers questions about appropriate means to deliver the messages. It actualises the issue and installs the performance in the time and space dimensions.
Transdisciplinarity and trans-dimensionality are of paramount importance. Complication in attribution of it to certain branch of knowledge is an asset, confusion is a strategy that should be used in order to ‘reboot’ the audience and place it beyond the comfort zone to trigger thinking and reflection processes.
In contradiction with some of the conceptual art pieces, it shouldn’t be escapist - on the contrary, it should address a challenge, cleavage, vice and be purposeful. Meta-modern and meta-conceptual approach in the medium call for taking up responsibility for producing meaningful actions, whatever the potential influence and impact, evident or potential.
Lawrence Weiner said: “Once you know about a work of mine you own it. There’s no way I can climb inside somebody’s head and remove it”. The impact of the concept of the artwork floats towards ‘open source’ (to borrow term from software development) approach - potentiality of free reproduction of the performance has to be clearly actualised (although in many cases it is not possible in reality, conceptual possibility amplifies potential impact of the performance). It is interesting that at the same time each experience of the conceptual performance is unique by itself, what makes ‘scarcity’ not applicable as a category in here.
aestheticisation, objectification, contextualisation
Objectification is the process of distillation of certain questions, mottos, statements from the concept, so to speak. It is the way to specify delivery of the messages from the concept in form of readable statements presented in some strategic and creative way. Breaking up concept into addressable objects is the essence of the stage of performance planning.
In his lecture about ‘post-conceptual art’, Peter Osborne highlighted two key characteristics of approach towards analysis of contemporary art: presence of concept and aesthetics of the piece. Aesthetics of the representation of the concept is important factor determining the character of the impact on the audience.
Cultural politics? Illustration of social cleavages? Economics? Finance? Philosophical ontology? Something else? Placing the concept, it’s specified messages and aesthetic representation in certain contextual frame is necessary for providing ‘entrances’ into logic of the performance for the audience. It is not meant to be directional or propagandistic, but rather subtly, maybe through the massive of signifiers, suggest symbolic connections to a certain context(s).
identification, classification
Lector? Speaker? Sherpa? Performer? Artist? Moderator? Chair? Commentator? Reporter? Narrator? …? Definition of the role is not necessary on public scale, but it’s instrumental for highlighting the position of the performer for him(her)self. Choosing a certain role helps to define the strategy of presentation towards the audience and helps to establish a certain form of confidence towards it, while keeping open the format for transformation during the performative production itself. All ‘naming’ is functional and is meant to help the ‘other’ to place him(her)self in some position as a listener, participator, etc. without limitation or imposed inquiry for a certain action.
Lecture? Theatre? Performative action of visual art piece creation? Stand-up? Interview? Discussion? The question follows naturally the role of the performer, however can (even maybe should) contradict the conventional pairing ‘lecture - lector’, ‘acting - actor’, etc. in order to amplify the impact of the performance on the audience. The purpose of classification is similar to former elements - preparation of the audience and provision of some level of expectations, while keeping the space for surprise and possibility for changes beyond the scripted.
During
communication, narration, reference, improvisation, production, energy
Choice of the form and style of communicating the objectified elements of the concept is shaping perception of the performance by the audience. Stage-related practicalities and limitations of the space shape communication strategy for the message.
Narration strategy rests on axises of logic in communication of the objectified concept. It can be centred around time, space, level of response of the audience, other dimensions - flexibility, interchangeability and adaptation are among crucial components of successful narration.
Exposure of connections between subjects in transdisciplinary narration is important for following the parallels and dimensions by the audience.
Plan or script of conceptual performance has to stay inside ‘before’ and ‘after’ stages and remain sketchy for the ‘during’ - as it provides the space for intuition and serendipity to step in at the ‘present’ of the performance. Heterotopic (‘in between’ condition introduced by Foucault and growing ever since with the technological shift) notion of ‘present’ in conceptual performance is the key to its artistic impact and realisation of the artistic concept.
Conceptual performance might as well result in production of material art objects. The canvas, installation, sculpture or any other form of material representation of the concept has a specific energy as it is created under the very unique, non-repeatable in the same manner circumstances, what makes the product especially valuable. It is charged not only by the performing artist, but by the response and participation of the audience (whatever it might mean, as the artist might be altering communication and narration strategy during the performance). Depending on the audience and it’s reception of the messages transmitted by the artist, ‘the product’ of the performance shall have additional energy, charged by the conditions and environment of it’s creation.
After
Impact
Trigger to think? Propagandistic message? Call for action? Empowerment? Confusion? Influence must not be propagandistic - it has to suggest as wide as possible interpretation and encourage creation of the additional narratives in the framework of the core concept, a meta-idea or meta-message, that is transmitted through performance by the artist. The impact on the audience is of paramount importance - amplitude of an impact defines the energetics of the performance concept, it’s potential for further reproduction, mutation, alteration and further experimentation.
As in case with the narration, impact on the audience is not something that is supposed to be pre-defined and simply ‘executed’ during the performance (it will be a characteristic of ‘propagandistic performance’). While the idea of the effect and emotional response is driving the concept and objectification of the messages in the first place, precise execution of the performance should trigger polar reactions. This polarity would be in a way confirmation of the validity artistic concept in the first place. One of the core differences between ‘lecturing, educating’ and ‘conceptually performing’ is multi-dimensionality of reaction of an audience. In this sense, ‘knowledge’ is placed into the expanded field of performance art, where it’s artistic strategies challenging the very essence of it’s logic and validity. It has neither purpose to ridiculise it, nor to blur it in the mist of deconstructionist style of postmodernism. Generated impact has a purpose of questioning frameworks and institutional authority of the accepted norms and disciplines, which are addressed by the performance. In this way the impact created has a mind-expanding potential. Education is not a goal of it; reflection, invitation for individual discovery of meanings is the purpose. Presentation of any issues has potential of profound impact on an audience in the light of the altered logic/anti-logic, unconventional symbols, surprising context, innovative narrative and valid format.
Documentation, recycling and post-production, validity
The primary purposes of documentation of the performance are monumentalisation and historical actualisation of it’s concept and resulted impact. However the most important goal is to trigger recycling and post-production of the performance as well as research of it’s essence on the basis on that documentation. Choice of appropriate mediums of documentation is strategic as it is providing basis for spreading the concept of the performance to wider audience and making sure it’s reproduced, talked about, discussed and generates profound influence on an audience beyond the space of it’s creation.
Conceptual performance should have an ambition of presentation of a certain system of ideas in creative way. Verification of the validity of messages and their appropriation with the disciplines and subjects that are addressed during the performance is ‘subject a posteriori’, but it’s strategic importance for the impact of the performance on further reproductions shouldn’t be underestimated during period of conceptualisation.
Art, society and politics: Russian ‘soft power’ in recent history
KU Leuven
What is the history of the interrelation between art and politics? Is ‘soft power’ really that new a phenomenon? How did art’s role from the tool of transmitting and narration of political power transformed during the 20th century? What role do art, so-called 'cultural diplomacy’, and soft power play in the big political games on the global scale? How did The Soviet Union and Russia exert this soft power? How does this compare to other countries?
More information | Lecture slides
Nature of meta-curation and responsibility of contemporary art in the crisis of scattered postmodern societies
written in 2014
Marcel Duchamp. The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass). 1915–23, reconstruction by Richard Hamilton 1965–6, lower panel remade 1985 © Richard Hamilton and Succession Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2017
Everything can be art [Marcel Duchamp], and everyone can be an artist [Joseph Beuys] - the
legitimisation and general acceptance of spillover of the ‘artistic’ into all fields of human
activities since last decades is becoming greater than ever. Somewhat a ‘mystery’ of
contemporary art platforms attracts exponentially more people on local and global scale to
visit galleries, museums, biennales, pop-up art events and shows. It is explained partly by the
fact of rigidity of existing frames of dialogue about the future in other platforms like academia
or politics, which results in growing boredom, absenteeism and escapism in societies.
Accelerating development of innovations in the field of dissemination of information, namely digital and internet revolution, helps art to penetrate more areas - both retinal and conceptual power of influence on spectator has ever increasing potential.
There is a parallel logical process: blurring the borders of structures and roles in the art world. Commercial galleries, for instance, become de-facto a legitimate stage for presenting contemporary art not only as a product for consumption, but also contribute to meta-narrative of contemporary art as they are capable of much faster response to the zeitgeist than bureaucratised museums and formal cultural institutions.
The roles of curator, critic, collector and artist are re-defined in the direction of further hybridisation. As art expands further beyond the conventional area of “visual history of humanity” and often assumes the role of actor in political and social life, the agents of “artistic” become interdisciplinary “portals” in between the worlds that seemed to be functionally separated before. This post-structuralist shift commenced and was noticed by philosophers several decades ago - today we witness the scaling effect of it’s magnitude.
One of this new “agents” or “ambassadors”, “sherpas” of multi-dimensional interrelations between art and the areas where it actively spills is meta-curator. Who is the meta-curator and what is the medium of meta-curation dealing with?
The role of intermediary between artist and public was existing before, but curating as conceptualised discipline and profession is quite young, maybe 30 years old. The concept of discourse of Michel Foucault played an important role in it’s genesis. As Zigmund Bauman put it, “curator is on the front of the big battle for meaning under conditions of uncertainly”. A special attention to the curation was drawn in 1990s when the level of ‘uncertainty’ started to grow exponentially with collapse of bipolar world order. The medium of “curation” was then widely discussed and contextualised in leading art magazines - since then “curator” was established as accepted role and verb “to curate” made it’s way to conventional usage. The story had just started there - conceptualisation of curation opened a field of redefining the relationship between contemporary art and life in all it’s aspects as it continued expansion to the other fields at the accelerated pace. Contemporary art came in with an important multi-dimensional analysis and research of the society as creative laboratory of alternatives to the accepted conventional methods of language, storytelling, research and so on in humanities. Art is no longer primarily serving the function of the mirror of social and political events, or creative narration of histories and present. The rigidity and limitations of ever-bureaucratising institutions (academia, politics, etc.) triggers a search for alternative channels of delivering innovative ideas, that challenge accepted frames of understanding of the society history, present and future. For example, why performance art cannot be legitimised as social experiment in sociology? Why think tank strategic mind mapping and political science hypotheses are separated from pictorial representation of ideas in contemporary conceptual art?
Meta-curator is an “agent”, a theorist and an artist of the intersecting discourses, who has a task of researching the variables of answers on these and many other questions. Meta-curator is not the trader on the market of discourses - this is the work for propagandist, who’s task it to narrow down the complex meta-narrative to simple binary formulas in order to achieve particular advances in institutional structures. Meta-curation is a creative analysis of meta-narrative of societies, contextualised and conceptualised on the intersections of multiple disciplines of knowledge. Means of this analysis are variable - therefore meta-curator can wear a hat of artist, if this is the chosen language of dissemination of ideas; as well as he can be active in the mediums of writing, criticism, observation or reviewing. In fact variability and possibility to change, intersect and combine the mediums of expression is offering more space for possible innovations.
Meta-curator has responsibility to mediate and structure a better understanding of the processes of spillover between arts and other disciplines, providing the space for interdisciplinary dialogue, that should trigger development of the ideas, schemes, strategies to reform social and political structures. Contemporary scattered postmodern society is lost under the heavy rain of accessible at the tap of the finger on the touchscreen or laptop keys zillions of terabytes of information. Information as a commodity became inexpensive, while comprehensive cross- sectoral meta-analysis of anthropological, social, economic, political, etc. processes is in the opposite flux: limitation of the capacity of conventional frames of analysis and production of viable in modern time ideas for adaptation to rapid changes in continuum.
Meta-curation actualises and analyses the issues that shape and change meta-narrative. It is a reflection of visual and conceptual representation of the elements of meta-narrative in the form of creative storytelling via exhibitions, performances, shows, artworks, texts - the list of mediums is never closed. It is a cooperative activity.
The task of a meta-curator is to suggest, analyse and contemplate on innovative, prospective, groundbreaking embodiment of aesthetics as a platform for staging interdisciplinary dialogues beyond the traditional frameworks. One of the questions he/she has to ask - what makes contemporary artwork great, outstanding from increasing amount of recycled narratives, manipulated messages and ever repeating stories? How contemporary art can influence the way the world looks and thinks about the issues, that might have been regarded in the same way for thousands of years before? How this new ways of looking at issues can change/improve our lives?
The apparatus of meta-curation expands beyond representation or construction of discourses for illustrative purpose. Free from pre-defined frames observation and analysis of singularity of synergies opens up possibility to understand phenomenon of serendipity. Meta-curator is first of all a reflective mediator, who’s span of activities can bridge, for example, artistic practice with scientific researches in various fields. Charting bits of modernity as a whole for further progress of humanity is probably the right concise way to shape meta-curation as a continuous process.
Meta-curation is expanding field itself: it assigns to contemporary art the responsibility for raising questions and staging the dialogue about alternatives for future in scattered by ambiguity and uncertainty postmodern society. It is an issue of paramount importance as it has been becoming more obvious with the crisis of academia and enforced, neo-dogmatic framing in political, economic and social sciences: the freedom of discussion of alternatives for future is increasingly limited. Shall we fall in dark of new Medievalism until another enlightenment, proving that Hegelian law of repeating histories is instantly correct, or should we try to breakthrough?
Reference text:
Paul O’Neill. The Curatorial Turn: From Practice to Discourse // pp. 13-26, Issues in Curating
Contemporary Art and Performance. Edited by Judith Rugg, Michèle Sedgwick. Intellect Books, The
University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Innovative methods of teaching: competitiveness of future university
Hogeschool Universiteit Brussel, Brussels
The academic education is challenged by the further development and sophistication of the online education platforms. Orientation of the industries on practical knowledge and skills disregard the diploma is a risk for university standard to become a mere fetish in upcoming future, holding position of prestige at the maximum.
How university can compete with changing landscape of education and stay relevant in the post-Internet age?
Interdependence of FDI Quality and a Country’s Political Infrastructure: Impactful Foreign Direct Investment (IFDI) Benchmark
illustration by Denis Maksimov
in the context of Denis Maksimov’s PhD research (2011-2014) at the Department of the Theory and Practice of Business-Government Interaction, the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow)
FDIs are an important resource for the economic development of the countries. The flow of FDIs in the world is constantly growing, being slowed down just in 2008 after the economic crisis. Perspectives of globalisation of the international trade suggest that the overseas investment activities would continue the steady growth. FDIs are not coming to the country-object of the investment alone: high-quality FDIs (impactful FDIs, ‘high-quality’ FDI - IFDI†) directly contribute to the competitiveness of the countries economies, bringing in technologies, innovation and unique competences. The researches show that FDIs also motivate national investors to accelerate their investment activities domestically*. On the other hand, short term oriented investors are not interested in development of the fundamental infrastructure and might be even supporting local corruption and underdevelopment of the institutions‡.
Competition for the FDIs among the countries is growing constantly on the global scale. The quality of the investment climate is one of the crucial parameters for the investors. The investment climate is a comfort level of the conditions for doing business and living in a country, defined by sets of variables: macroeconomic policies such as fiscal, monetary and trade policies; governance and institutions; infrastructure§. Investment climate and the country’s reputation among the investors are very interconnected. Both are dependent on the political atmosphere and political risks, which the country’s political system might be generating.
Political infrastructure of the country is a combination of parameters of political system and political regime of the country, that can directly or indirectly affect performance and valuation of the business of the investors. The research will investigate different approaches to definition of the minimum viable quality of political infrastructure for the market entry for the foreign direct investors as well as conditions, that are necessary for strategic entry to the market with long-term perspective. In the case of “low quality” investments the investor is hardly interested in contribution towards long-term development of the country. Therefore investor approaches enterprise in the country exclusively in the framework of quick gains and quick possible exit from the country. Investor in this case will rather participate in corruption schemes than try to contribute to eliminating or transforming them, will not be interested in training personnel and delivering new skills to the population, but rather prefer to import skills for short term.
Quality of the FDI is defined by the period of the entry to the market (short-term vs. long-term), type of the business (ex. natural resources mining vs. technological innovation, high added value production), orientation (external vs. internal market) and another parameters. Quality of the FDI is defined from the data provided openly by the World Bank, MIGA, the World Economic Forum, the IMF and other international organisations and institutions.
The focus of investigation on high quality investments, that accelerate modernisation of the country’s industries, elevate total factor productivity, have positive synergic effect on other economic sectors, contribute to the human capital, education, basic infrastructure and etc. These should be the most desirable investments for a country by default - as they provide direct contribution to country’s long term development.
What are the most important characteristics, that influence the decision of investor concerning the type of business activity he/she plans to pursue on the new market (long term, short term, etc.)?
Low quality political infrastructure generates political risks for the investors, that might cause fatal damages for the business and affect their operations worldwide. As soon as the political infrastructure lacks mechanisms of checks and balances, predictability, cross-controlling functional instruments for defending rights and interests of the investor, the probability of generation of political risks is high. Whatever is the agreement with the strongest political group in the country, investor, by committing to work in such an environment, takes up significant risks for their business, what may result in grave consequences - from financial, reputational and other perspectives.
The importance of the political risk assessment for the investment activities in the world is constantly growing. The ownership and controlling share of governments (posing “compliance risk”) in the national economies is on the rise globally. The political instability, rising level of chaos in the fragile global governance, the economic decline of the West and the rise of the developing economies are among the factors that drive generation of the political risk. From the perspective of post-structuralism, the political, economic, social and cultural institutions (both formal and informal) don’t possess strictly aligned institutional borders - and the process of fuse, blur and deterioration continues. Risks generation occurs on their former borders and enlarging overlaps. Political risk generation occurs in “the loop holes” of the political system. Political risk itself is a certain, generated by a political system event (or combination of events), which causes direct or indirect financial losses for the investor. The parameters of the political risk are diversifying: expropriation, sovereign debt default, currency inconvertibility, violation of the state contract terms, legislative actions against the interests of investors, political violence, riots, strikes, revolts, revolution, civil war, attacks on the employees due to xenophobia/intolerance and other. In order to define exact specific list of the risks for a particular country it is important to make an analysis of the country’s quality of governance beforehand, application of sorts of ‘one list fits all’ types of classification gives vague approximation.
This research aim is to identify the conditions of improvement of the parameters of the political infrastructure, that have potential to attract high-quality investments to the country and improve it’s long term chances for economic prosperity, development of fundamental institutions, transfer of innovation and skills, etc. The idea of introduction of the mechanism for fining the countries with low-quality political infrastructure by introducing the contractual framework in which these the government would be obliged to offer their resources on more favourable terms in case the progress in development of their political infrastructure is not happening. In the times of growing economic and political interdependence of the world, it is important to explore potential of increasing pressure on the countries that are lagging behind in the social performance - causing general slowdown in the global human capital development and economic skewness. It is illustrated by forced migration from place with low quality of political infrastructure to ‘better places’. It is especially important in the modern condition of globalised and increasingly interdependent world economy. The Westphalian political order is hardly representative as the responsibility of the countries for the quality of well-being of their citizens is internationalised due to immediate effects of globalisation.
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† FDIs, that have a set of the certain characteristics: strategy assume long term involvement of the investor (10-15 years or more); import of technologies and innovation; creation of jobs for the local population; transfer of new skills to the local population; increasing level of localisation of the production over time; contribution to the competitiveness of local industrial clusters, synergic driving of other businesses’ growth; motivating other investors to come to the country; positive influence on the quality of life of the local population; contribution to the democratisation of political system, increased level of politicians’ accountability.
*Eduardo Borensztein, Jose De Gregorio, Jong-Wha Lee. How Does Foreign Direct Investment Affect Economic Growth? NBER Working Paper No. 5057, Issued in March 1995, http://www.nber.org/papers/w5057
‡ Laura Alfaro, Andrew Charlton. Growth and the Quality of Foreign Direct Investment: Is All FDI Equal? Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. November 2007. http://ideas.repec.org/p/cep/cepdps/dp0830.html
§ OSCE. Best-Practice Guide for a Positive Business and Investment Climate. http://www.osce.org/eea/19768
Understanding the contemporary art world and it’s key actors
How to approach and analyse works of contemporary art? What is art and what is not? What mediums, subjects and artists define ‘modernity’? What are the key roles and functions in 'the art world’? How do galleries, art fairs and museums work in relation to each other? Why do people invest in contemporary art? How to talk and what to ask in conversation with artists? How does art influence the way we perceive the world around us?
Contemporary art collection: a visual representation of organisational philosophy and values
Peter Bialobrzeski, Shenzhen 1, 2001, courtesy of ING Art Collection
Contemporary art as a language to express company’s values and philosophy can be a powerful tool, which has potential to facilitate conversion of an organisation into an institution. Modernity demands rethinking current capitalism model, which is obviously unsustainable. Michael Porter, the author of corporate social responsibility (CSR) concept and the head of Harvard Business School Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness. recently offered a new vision on CSR - ‘a shared value’. ‘A shared value’ in it’s essence, suggests that the current organisational determination with NGO, business and political institutions representing ‘three sectors’ of society should be eliminated. At the moment each ‘sector’ has own goal: political institutions - redistribution, business - production, non-commercial and non-governmental sector - reflection, adaptation and socialisation. The challenges of today’s world, however, demand a common response from all the sectors. Their activities has to driven by shared agenda and shared understanding of responsibility. All of it is distilled in a term of ‘a shared value’, especially actual for corporations.
One of the questions that needs to be addressed is how to communicate values of the corporations in their external and internal communication, to their customers and partners and their staff. It is medium of corporate culture from one side and company’s reputation and image from another.
Leading companies, NGOs, expert institutions and universities in the world address the issue of constructing strong corporate culture for decades already. In our ever-speeding up world the task of keeping the most talented people inside the company becomes harder every day. How to reduce the risk of ‘brain and talent drain’ and increase ‘company patriotism’ among the most talented?
Markus Stuecklin/Keystone/AP Photo
Conversion of company from ‘an enterprise’ into ‘an institution’ is the way to achieve greater competitive advantages, alongside with aligning itself with the logic of ‘a shared value’. The company is not resonating the market it operates on, it is first and foremost the composition of talented, devoted people, who share the same philosophy and values, work for the same causes and purposes. They are ready to adapt to ever changing environment within the organisation and contribute to its goals and development to the maximum. It is realisation of ‘shared value’ concept.
How do you achieve this goal?
The possible answer is visualisation of company’s philosophy and values in the format of contemporary art collection. Contemporary art is not decorative, it’s value, philosophy and concept driven. It is not characterised by terms of style, format, time, space, material, beauty or aesthetics. It became free of certain determination - ‘to define is to limit’ as Oscar Wilde said long before contemporary art period has started. Therefore contemporary art provides to corporations opportunity to shape visual representation of its most essential resource - skilled, devoted, adaptable people, a team with high total factor productivity and high level of synergy in their work. Companies like Belgacom and ING are already active participants of contemporary art medium. It is important not to encapsulate them solemnly in the framework of ‘players of contemporary art market, investors and speculators’. Possibility of earning on the art market, what makes the visualisation of company’s philosophy an investment, provides obvious motivation for companies to pursue this format of realisation of ‘a shared value’ concept, as it provides opportunity not only to return the capital from this investment, but also to earn on it financially.
Contemporary art collection uplifts external reputation of the company: impressing partners, sponsors, creditors, etc. It is moving company’s credibility to the next level - institutional. The collection is reflecting institutional and reputational status of company as an institution with values towards employees, increasing their alignment and cementing their ‘belonging’ to the company. The direct consequence of that is decrease in level of skilled and especially valuable personnel turnover, the effect that is already in place in ING, for example. Contemporary art collection provides the basis for ‘immortalisation’ of the company.
Maastricht 12 March 2016, The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) - AXA Corporate Collections Symposium. Photo: TEFAF Maastricht, Harry Heuts
It is important to realise that contemporary art collecting is accessible for wide range of the companies, not only to major chips on the market. The yearly budget for expanding, sustaining and managing of the collection can range from hundreds of thousands to millions of euros, but a start can be as humble as several tens of thousands of the investment. Moreover, as it was mentioned before, it is indeed an investment, where smart strategy can bring a generous financial return, apart of the other benefits listed above. Involvement of the company in contemporary art, simply speaking, makes company ‘sexy’ - indeed, popularity of contemporary art and the attendance of the museum around the globe is growing exponentially over the last decade. There are a lot of versions offered by critics and theorists to explain this phenomenon - one of them is that contemporary art provides to people a free of censorship medium for self-reflection.
by Denis Maksimov and Harlan Levey
Harlan Levey and Denis Maksimov are working together as curatorial team to help companies, political institutions and expert organisations to work out their strategy of activities in contemporary art medium, including visualisation of values, collecting and management of the collection.
International research cooperation: Russia in spotlight
Tallinn University
In this keynote lecture for EARMA annual conference, Denis Maksimov on behalf of Eurasia Competitiveness Institute had presented analysis of Russian innovation system and research infrastructure competitiveness in the context of government strategy and policies of the recent years, as well as the outlook for possible future scenarios.
Strategies for creative university branding
Flemish Cultural Centre, Brussels
How modern university, especially the one without ages of history, can ‘mark’ it’s location on the global map of academic propositions to attract the best minds from all over the world?