Suprapolitical Protocol and Political Ecology for The Age of Big Data
originally written for ARCH+ magazine
The notion that the Political is fundamentally different from the Politics was introduced by the German political theorist Carl Schmitt.
The Political is a domination as a result of an agonistic struggle. It is an instalment of the subjective set of the norms that statically define the matrix of acceptable socio-political reality and claims the monopoly on the political imaginary. This matrix is a conscious imaginary which provides axiomatic set of values, the fundament of the reality. A set of values can be, in the contemporary context, the nuclear family, a national state/culture or the concept of geopolitics. The market of the Political as a professional discipline is based on defeating adversaries and winning the ultimate prize of power.
Politics, on the other hand, is an everyday human activity, that is rooted in the dialogue for synergic co-living. Politics is healthy when exercised, cared for and thought about by all the citizens regardless of profession, just like brushing teeth. If Politics is not done in this manner, it will be replaced, quite like in the contemporary moment, by the theatre of the Political domination. The checks and balances in any political system are meant to serve the primary goal of controlling the extent of the accumulation of domination by professional actors in Politics. The confusion of Politics and the Political leads to driving the perception of imaginary into the unconscious and gives the green light to populism and extremist forms of exercising power.
The current socio-political imaginary matrix of a nation state is in decline. The resurgent nationalism, imperialism and racism are reactions to the fear of the annihilation of the nation state. The drive for accumulation of political power in order to control the perception of reality has to be classified as the core enemy of future politics.
The land-bound geopolitics as a fundamental design principle of political relations is limiting the potential exploration of other aethers [Ancient Greek αἰθήρ, “upper air”]. Aethers are substances of specific physical properties, which can be used for platforming the systems of relations between political agents. To allow alternative political imaginaries to thrive, we suggest the introduction of Suprapolitics [Latin supra, “above”, and Greek πολιτικά, “affairs of the cities”], a future protocol of universal equality of all viable platforms for the political relations.
All aethers share the potentiality of shaping the common imaginary because any socio-political is imaginary and unnatural. Introducing these alternatives into the academic, professional and public discussion is essential for unlocking the imaginary from the fixation on the present form as the only possible politics.
Aeropolitics is the political design principle charting the political relations among citizens using the subjectivity of the aether of air. Aquapolitics can structure political relations among citizens using the subjectivity of the aether of water. Kenopolitics principle of political design based on the subjectivity of the aether of vacuum. Cyberpolitics principle of political design charting political relations among citizens, including post-human and non-human intelligences, using the subjectivity of the aether of artificial neural networks.
The availability of big data for the citizens creates a unique opportunity for self-organisation of the political space beyond the assumption of the natural character and the exclusiveness of the current order. Our societies need a framework of the political ecology as a set of fundamental principles that protect social relations from corruption by the accumulation of political power. It is currently achievable, much akin to the ecology of nature, only in micro-communities, where an overarching trust can be established. An example of a micro-community is the Platonic polis of 5040 citizens on the land, or a Facebook account of around 5000 friends in the cyberspace. Larger groupings lead to the inevitable conversion of the direct democratic principles into corrupted representational systems. This in turn results in a further usurpation and accumulation of political power - turning the democratic into ochlocratic, war into peace and slavery into freedom.
Politics is an area that would benefit from protocolled, data-driven, decentralised innovations to create a system that allows for the coordination of the citizens’ acts of negotiation about the subjectivity of the experience of the real. It might eventually allow us to leave the vicious circle of violent events of the introduction of new norms and the win-or-lose struggles for overall domination by yet another group of the power-hungry agents. Politics, as seen through the prism of ecology and protocolled equality of imaginaries, is a space for impactful common actions, synergised through the decentralised cooperation between citizens.
Сущность эстетико-политической формации реальности в зеркале современного искусства
оригинальная публикация - Московский Художественный Журнал, 103 (2017)
Брекзит случился, и Европейский проект готовится к перезагрузке. Сорок пятый президент США Дональд Трамп настаивает на строительстве стены на границе с Мексикой. Северная Корея проводит ядерные испытания и запускает тестовые ракеты в сторону тихоокеанского соседа. Седьмой сезон «Игры престолов» закончился падением тысячелетней ледяной Cтены и прорывом через нее армии мертвых.
Дэмиен Херст, «Сокровища крушения невероятного», 2017. Выставка в Центре современного искусства Punta della Dogana, фонд Франсуа Пино, Венеция
Для того, чтобы понять, как мы оказались там, где сейчас находимся, совершим небольшой исторический экскурс. Культурный контекст современности развивается в рамках эстетико-политической формации политической теологии, где эстетика играет ключевую функцию легитимации реального. Форма «политического» развивалась и развивается, как многие другие антропологические процессы, циклично.
Монотеизм двухтысячелетней давности ознаменовал эпоху теологически-политической формации, в которой власть символически передавалась неким единым Богом своему помазаннику на Земле. Этот акт закреплялся в качестве образа легитимной реальности посредством производства культурных артефактов, которые в современности именуются объектами искусства. Гробницы фараонов, монументы римских императоров, Версальский дворец с портретами Короля-Солнца функционировали как элементы стратегии эстетической легитимации теологически-политического режима.
В эпоху европейского Возрождения теологическая сингулярность подверглась деконструкции. Великая Французская революция выбила теологию из фундамента политического, обозначив пришествие новой эпохи интерпретации сущности реальности через институционализацию политического доминирования — идея «Единого Бога» была заменена идеей «Единого Народа».
Формирование национальных государств как этнокультурных империй обрамила национально-политическую формацию политической теологии. Ее эстетическая форма выразилась в национальных флагах, гимнах, создании национальных музеев истории и культуры. Онтологическое стремление империализма к постоянной экспансии и логически выросшие отсюда мировые войны, в свою очередь, подвели политическое мышление к формату «тотального». Новым Богом стала утопия нации, точнее, ее идеологическая архитектура, которая определила фундамент для аккумуляции новых тотальностей: коммунизма, либерализма, фашизма.
Наконец, с падением Советского Союза в качестве концептуальной альтернативы в середине 1980-х, конкуренция тотальностей сменилась единой, казавшейся на тот момент некоторым теоретикам финальной, формой: неолиберально-капиталистической эпохой национально-политической теологии. Книга «Конец истории и последний человек» Фрэнсиса Фукуямы могла стать новым священным писанием неолиберальной политической теологии, однако, как показали события социально-экономического и культурно-технологического толка, этому периоду не было суждено продлиться долго. Мы оказались в эстетико-политической современности: многогранных и противоречащих друг другу нарративов, знаний, инаковостей. При этом очевидна парадоксальная гомогенность и одинаковость — аббревиатуры музеев современного искусства, как и международных аэропортов, биржевых индексов и интернет-доменов, так же однородны и глобализованны, как и внутреннее наполнение типизированных архитектурных форм (неотличимые дьюти-фри, работы одних и тех же современных художников в музеях, разделяемых континентами). Британский дуэт Никки Бел и Бена Лангландса прекрасно отразили этот феномен в «A Muse Um», «CALM CASH (NASDAQ)», «Domain» и других работах.
Неолиберально-капиталистическая логика в политике и функционально-эмпирическая в науке сохраняют статус-кво, однако уровень доверия к их постулатам стремительно падает, создавая вакуум в пространстве политической рефлексии и действия. Постправда и альтернативные факты являются непосредственными последствиями дробного восприятия «реального», где политический выбор и идентичность становятся ключевыми якорями. Качество их эстетического оформления повышает шансы политического успеха, соответственно антагонизм и идеологическая борьба на этом поле становятся все более поляризованными, что делает проблематичной саму возможность поли(диа)лога. Пересечения мнений и обмен ими базируются теперь на военном поле, в то время как колоссальные ресурсы уходят на фундаментализацию уже признанных постулатов, тех или иных маркеров идентификации сторонниками и последователями.
Критическая роль эстетики в данном контексте становится жизненно важной: она позволяет создавать «мягкие пространства», где поли(диа)лог возможен на нейтральной, критической площадке, дерме под слоями сезонного, регулярно себя обновляющего идентификационного «эпидермиса».
Каким образом институты современного искусства реагируют или участвуют в формировании такого рода критических площадок?
Результат «глубинного обмена» между куратором Уго Киттельманом, писателем и кинорежиссером Александром Клюге, художником Томасом Демандом и дизайнером костюмов и театральной сценографии Анной Виброк в венецианском дворце фонда Прада демонстрирует продуктивность осознанного столкновения субъективностей, которое в свою очередь генерирует еще больше возможностей для создания постидентификационных смыслов. В качестве художника-перформера-актера выступает сам дворец, который играет одновременно множество ролей, прописанных для него участниками обмена. Диапазон ролей может быть неограниченно расширен критиками и всеми посетителями выставки. Представленный хаос изначально не имеет смысловой доминанты: этическая и позиционная нейтральность характеризуют его уникальный, деполитизированный потенциал. Политический ландшафт современного мира, по выражению политолога Яна Бреммера, мира «G-0», не имеет четко выявленного центра и представляет собой абстрактный эстетико-политический хост, где обилие элементов, маркирующих претендентов на лидерство, отщепляющихся от распадающегося ядра, раскрывают потенциал для индивидуального креационизма.
Масштаб потенциала индивидуального креационизма можно оценить, переместившись из мягкого пространства фонда Прада в один из центров фонда Пино, Пунта делла Догана или Палаццо Грасси. В обоих пространствах Дэмиен Херст развернул иконографичную, колоссальную по размерам, пластиковую и оттого частично ироничную картину некой потерянной империи, которую художник открыл в результате продолжительной экспедиции. Пародийность и «пластиковость» эстетики отвечают становящимся каноническими принципам вязания нарративов постправды. При этом факт исчезновения этой империи не исключает возможности идентификационного строительства на ее руинах: make (вставьте желаемое) great again как универсальная панацея от необходимых изменений более чем актуальна в период парадигмального социально-политического кризиса. Гигантские тотемные скульптуры, представляющие собой свидетельства существования колоссальной империи наподобие Атлантиды, организованы в формате этнографического музея. «12 подвигов Путина» вместе с крымскими амфорами в Москве и документация «гигантских толп» на инаугурации Трампа в Вашингтоне вполне органично могли бы смотреться вместе с проектом Херста в контексте еще большей групповой выставки. Эстетизация современной политики в период, когда технологический прогресс ускоряет производство медиаконтента и альтернативных форм документации, создает беспрецедентную ситуацию. Постправда и альтернативные факты разрушили ранее казавшуюся неприступной монолитность реальности на всех уровнях, от локального до глобального, и выставка Херста демонстрирует критическую карикатуру на мегаломанию. Эстетико-политическая формация современной культуры выражается в возможности производства комплексной, референтной мифологии посредством эстетизации в минимальные сроки. При этом символическая база, учитывая легкость доступа к расширяющейся вселенной медийного контента, не ограничена какими-либо барьерами: бомбардировка смыслами пассивного участника процесса, «политического зрителя» шоу, только интенсифицируется. Новая реальность, наряду с сокращающимся отрезком внимания и фокуса, позволяют даже некачественным, шитым белыми нитками мифологиям работать эффективно.
Однако стратегия срабатывает далеко не всегда: Фридерицианум, первый общественный музей в Европе, основанный в 1779 году в Касселе, в этом году впервые после тринадцати итераций Документы не является ее центральной площадкой. Музей представляет миссионерам со всего мира часть коллекции ЕМCТ, Музея современного искусства Афин, которая на данный момент не доступна для публики греческой столицы. Выставка названа «Антидорон», что в переводе с греческого буквально означает «возвращение дара». Мягкий и несколько наивный контекст обмена между Германией и Грецией в сложный период самоопределения для разрываемого внутренними конфликтами и внешними угрозами Европейского Союза не вызвал, как показывают многие критические отзывы на выставку, ожидаемого куратором и его командой эффекта единения, этической рефлексии и морального возвышения. Когда предложенная эстетико-политическая форма обрамляется как нотация, ассоциативность с религиозной догмой становится неизбежной и вызывает естественное сопротивление. «Любите друг друга», «дружите и помогайте соседям» и прочие фундаментальные истины воспринимаются чуть ли не как лицемерие в пространстве эстетико-политического, какими-либо позитивными ни были намерения куратора.
С аналогичной проблемой сталкиваются выставки в Центре изящных искусств Брюсселя, который активно старается инкорпорировать политическое и идеологическое, то есть эстетико-политическое, образование в свою выставочную программу. Проект «Травма и возрождение», посвященный переоценке отношений между Россией и Европой во время и после холодной войны, является ярким примером. Выставка «Лицом к будущему: Искусство Европы 1945–1968» была показана в частности в Пушкинском музее и включила работы российских и европейских художников, работавших в нестандартных для них, согласно историческому контексту идеологического противостояния, медиумах. Рафинированное представление объектов абстрактного искусства из Советского Союза и западного, пускай не соц-, но все же реализма по принципу «мы все делали одно и то же» — не столько возвышает и сближает «агентов» противостояния, сколько представляет их в едином тусклом свете. Если проводить иную политическую аналогию, то подобная логика схожа с аргументацией президента Путина в отношении военных интервенций в соседних регионах — «покрутите глобус и попробуйте найти место, где американцы не пытались совершить переворот», или с позицией президента Трампа, склонного к отказу от морального лидерства в пользу жесткой реалполитик образца XIX века.
Однако простой вопрос легко очерчивает причинно-следственные связи в этой ситуации: когда прямое нравоучение эффективно справлялось со своей задачей? Мишель Фуко отмечал в 1980 году: «…я мечтаю о критике, которая не судит, но претворяет… идеи в жизнь… Она умножает не суждения, а знаки существования; она объединит их, вытащит их из сна; возможно, даже придумает их — все к лучшему… Она добавит тем самым молнии к возможным штормам»[1].
Эстетико-политическая форма теологии, в отличие от теологическо- и национально-политической, прядет реальное не напрямую. Она служит площадкой для создания мифов, символов, их реорганизации и реинтерпретации. Прозрачность этого процесса, институционализация хаоса многогранности возможного, подрывает легитимность любых попыток тотального или нотационного подходов. Они кажутся смешными. Но с учетом отсутствия какой-либо альтернативы строительству новых тотальных идеологических башен из слоновой кости для организации политического, институционализации доминирования и власти, ключевая проблема остается неизменной: смеется последним тот, кто строит не альтернативу, а самую высокую или толстостенную, неизбежно комичную башню. Однако даже толстые стены башен не помогут скрыться от онтологической угрозы наступающей армии мертвых с Королем Ночи верхом на ледяном драконе.
ПРИМЕЧАНИЯ
- ^ Foucault M. The Masked Philosopher // Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954–1984. Vol. 1. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, Allen Lane, 1997. Р. 323.
Theoxenia as Politics for Shared Futures
The term ‘hospitality’ has many distinctive definitions and origins.
In Ancient Greece one of the most important protocols of diplomacy was called xenia. Xenos (ξένος, “alien”, “foreign”, “strange”, “unusual”, “guest”) is an ambiguous term that had been used in Greek poetry from at least Homer onwards. The interpretation of it fluctuates from ‘stranger’ to ‘guest friend’ all the way to ‘enemy’.
Xenia as a protocol of relating to the Other played incremental role in the narratives that came down to us from Ancient Greek poets. In the last book of Homer’s The Iliad the king of Troy Priam comes to the camp of Achaeans to claim the body of his fallen son Hector and the Greek hero Achilles, abiding by the rules of xenia, allows him to stay and provides food, warm bed and entertainment despite the hostilities on the battlefield and his own personal rage over the death of Patroclus, his closest confidant and lover.
The respect towards unknown Other was a subject of special importance since (s)he/them could have been a disguised god. The protocol of ancient hospitality could be more accurately defined as theoxenia (θεός “god”), a hospitality towards a possible god who can appear in a disguise of a humble stranger. In the first book of The Odyssey, Telemachus welcomes masked as a maiden Athena in his home and protects her from the rude suitors of his mother. He exercises the ritual of xenia and earns her favour and this act led to change of the heart of the goddess towards his father Odysseus, cursed by her for stealing a sacred statue of Athena from Troy’s temple in order to bring the victory to Achaeans in the 10 years war. Athena’s aid to Odysseus further was earned by his son’s act of hospitality.
There are several key differences between hospitality in contemporaneity and the ancient Greek protocol of theoxenia.
First of all, theoxenia is unconditional. Mourning Achilles neither welcoming Priam in his camp in hope for a reciprocity or while plotting a stratagem to use the king of Troy for the sake of some future act of revenge, nor he shows in this way his moral and ethical superiority by being so generous towards the enemy. He simply obeys the sacred rule of hospitality as if it would be an answer to the equation of two plus two. In order words, his approach to hospitality there is beyond selfish: it is ritualistic and cultural rather than opportunistic, pitiful or predatory.
Secondly, theoxenia protects the perpetual peace and excludes psychological or any other form of violence. Allow me to elaborate here. The contemporary political interpretation of the term hospitality is closely tied with terms like integration, assimilation and tolerance. All three of them are presuming, although not admitting, an act of violence on the subjectivity of a guest/stranger. The agencies of integration and assimilation demand from the Other to assume traditions and norms of the society, in which her/him/them are integrating, as new fundamentals. Ultimately, they violently break the subjectivity that the Other had before the integration or assimilation process had begun. Tolerance of a host to a guest, on the other hand, is a mind construct of the borders of acceptable freedom within the cage of subjective reality defined as principal within the society that is tolerating the guest. Telemachus protects disguised in a clothes of shallow woman Athena from the drunk suitors of his mother Penelope, risking his life, in order to prevent the act of rape that is considered not far beyond ordinary towards the woman of unknown provenance in Ithaca. He places the respect the protocol of theoxenia over the normality of the socio-political order, preventing the violence even as it is justified by local norms, therefore he stands against the local tradition and identity.
Thirdly, theoxenia is transnational, transcultural and universal. While contemporary hospitality is distinctly different among the people belonging to the same tribes - racially, socially, politically, ethnically, linguistically, etc - theoxenia is equal in the face of any otherness. Trojans are foreigners to Greeks, and all foreigners are considered Barbarians by the Achaeans, having different norms and understanding of justice. Achilles however treats Priam as a relative of his own. Disguised Athena is a traveller of unknown origin, an ultimate foreigner, but she receives protection of the prince of Ithaca.
Contemporary hospitality is cruel, selfish, hostile and reciprocally economical. We talk about migrants and refugees, nomads and travellers (relating to them as ‘tourists’) as a livestock on the meat farm, economic items, the biomass that is meant to be violently integrated, assimilated, serviced and entertainment if they have money; and at the best tolerated by our ‘normalised’ orders of the societies. The condition of perpetual peace is simply impossible as the inflicted on the Other violence internalises in the form of deep sleeping trauma, which will eventually reemerge. It is not surprising to me, for example, that sociologists from the Berlin Institute for Population and Development report “that foreigners who come to live in Germany tend to remain strangers, even after 50 years and three generations in some cases”. It is not the failure of integration, as it is wrongly portrayed by the analysts - but the failure of hospitality.
There is a better way to understand, teach about and explain hospitality than elaborating inevitability of cultural, social and political violence, that is meant to be inflicted on the Other who found themselves in the geopolitical space of your norms. In the face of Pangaeac challenges such as climate change, resurgence of narrow mindedness, nationalism and imperialism - it is the time to rid off tribal understanding of the world and explore the universal protocol of humanity within all of us.
Queering Theogony in Athens
original interview for LIFO (in Greek)
Georgia Papastamou (GP): Could you tell me a few things on what is it that you do and what your talk in Athens is gonna be about?
Denis Maksimov (DM): The talk will be an introduction into a vast area of potentiality contained in mythologies to shape our futures. I will speak about critical and creative mechanisms of turning the objects of textual, material and visual culture into living things and narrative machines. I will focus on analysis of Hesiod’s Theogony, to which I refer to as a ‘Rosetta stone’ of ancient mythographies. From presenting alternative ways of reading the characters such as Athena and Dionysos, I will then turn to the pertaining conversation about actuality of “narratives for Europe” and ideological interconnection between these subjects.
I will also present the agenda of the critical reading group “Queering Theogony”, which will take place the following week - starting from queering tour in The National Archeological Museum on Sunday, February 4, and following with reading sessions and screening programme in Athens Museum of Queer Arts (AMOQA) on February 5-10.
GP: Am I right saying that you are trying to explore and read myths of the past in a way different than the one we are used to and have been taught? And also that the way we understand myths is not disconnected to patriarchy and capitalism?
DM: Yes, and even more - the polytheistic mythology is presented in the education and contemporary culture as something that is meant to entertain and aesthetically please, sometimes causing nostalgia. For example political theology, that looks at the religion as an organised way to redistribute power and connected with it agony, departs in its analysis from monotheisms such as Judaism and Christianity. My point that mythological sources are powerful tools for thinking critically about ourselves, the societies we inhabit and the images of the desirable futures. The major concepts of ‘justice’, ‘good governance’ and ‘social peace’ were presented in a form deified beings that over the time became ‘ideographs’ - the high-level abstractions that represent commitment to a particular purpose. They sometimes radically metamorphosed over thousands of years and the way we interpret it now, which is often called ‘normal’, is very recent. Ideology makes it seem eternal, omnipresent and timeless. The inquiry into instability and temporality of these norms has paramount importance for decolonising our imagination towards thinking about alternatives to capitalism and patriarchy among other things.
GP: Why is it important to explore these alternative readings now?
DM: I will avoid repeating already becoming usual banalities about amount of crises that the world is going through - but you don’t need to be Cassandra to see that politics, economy and societies at large are in the complex state of turmoil. To give practical example of this crises juxtaposition - look at the state of the European idea, which is under violent siege of nationalisms and lost most of its revolutionary potency. While we talk about specific challenges like dysfunctional democracies, the core issues are tend to escape from our sight. I am convinced that critical and creative reading of the fundamental sources of our socio-political lexicon is one of the possible gateways to address this sort of powerlessness and hopelessness, this feeling that change is not possible and you can only drag on your existence under control of invisible and eternal matrix. But if we can’t yet make the alternatives visible, we can start from making them sensible. We need to aim for ‘livable life’, to quote the philosopher Judith Butler, as opposed to more and more ‘effective existence’ within the dehumanising matrix.
GP: What do you think of the role myths play in current societies? Which are the myths of our times?
DM: Myths have been always a backbone of communities, then and now. I think the main difference between myths in the past and today is that we lost the critical sight of the nature of myth. For instance, the myth-concepts of ‘social contract’ on which the basis of our democratic regime is laid down or of a ‘sovereign’ and ‘nation state’ is as mythological as the stories of creation of humans by the gods. Man is a political and theological animal - if you radically withdraw from the myth of, lets say, creation of the world, you choose believe in its replacement, which in our strictly epistemological culture is usurped by what we refer to as ‘science’, ‘theory’, whatever. And we are ought to critically decipher all of it with the same rigour.
GP: Could you give me an example of “queering Theogony”?
DM: ‘Queering’, in a way how I use the term, is about exposing the alternative, suppressed narratives within something that appears to be ‘straight’ and ‘normal’. Take the character of Athena for example, one of the dearest to me personally. Instead of focusing on her being a loyal daughter, ‘an extension of her father and his power’, queering her in Theogony is focusing on her otherness. She is female, masculine, asexual, goddess of both war and arts, as powerful as her father Zeus - combines seemingly unresolvable contradictions, you can even say that by standards of today she is sort of a freak (aka “queer”) in Olympus. But those queer traits of her contain massive potentiality to write her story differently than we learn it in schools and mass culture - for example, if she is as powerful as patriarch-Zeus, she possesses potentiality to overthrow him. I approach queerness from inclusive perspective: when we are looking at it as a resistance to normalisation and standardisation of the social, political and individual. For example, should we aim for universal ‘gay marriage’, normalising gayness, or rather diversity the ‘straight’ concept of marriage itself? It is a question of what absorbs what in a way.
Athena born from the head of Zeus, with two Eileithyiai, Hermes and Hephaistos in attendance. Amphora from Vulci, currently in the British Museum.
GP: You have written an interesting analysis on the myth of the birth of Athena. Would you like to tell me a few things on that?
DM: The myth of Athena’s birth is one of the most potent stories of Theogony from my point of view. You can write books about it, I will make here just a little example with potent major consequences. Her birth was parthenogenetic - Zeus technically is both Athena’s father and the mother, as she leaped out of his head. But her ‘Other mother’ is Metis, the primordial figure symbolising cunning and wisdom, was the first wife of Zeus, whom he swallowed as she was prophesied to bore him a child that will be more powerful than Zeus himself and will dethrone him and his patriarchal order. Technically speaking, Athena is this child. But somewhat misogynistic commentators over the thousands of years excluded possibility of that - because what madmen would even think that woman can change something radically? In my analysis, Athena has potential to free from the biased limitations of her character.
Curator and Epimelet: The Ritual, The Context and The Thing
The reconstruction of the classical entrance of Athenian Acropolis (source)
Epimelētai, translated from Greek as “overseers” or “carers”, were individually appointed in Athens for particular festivals, such as the Panathenaia. Their functions, as presumed by historians, was to oversee the festivities, orderliness and livelihood of the happenings.
‘Curator’ takes the etymological root from Latin “cura”, which stands for ‘healing’. Curator therefore is therefore ‘healer’, ethical and aesthetic ‘doctor’ for the communities (s)he is active in. Later on, curators role were redefined as guards and conservationists of the cultural memory.
As currently the status and role of the curator becomes more and more blurred, I’d like to suggest to look at the nature of activities that were carried out by epimeletai.
Available to us sources suggest that they were appointed to oversee mysteries - such as already mentioned Panathenaia, the most important event in ancient Athens, Dionysia, Eleusinian and other what we would call now ‘festivals’. They were responsible for appropriate ‘content’ - the staged ‘performances’, but mostly importantly rituals. In fact, they had to make sure that the whole festival doesn’t become a mere entertainment, but preserves its ‘magic’. The objects, that were used in the mysteries - such as statues of gods, gifts, costumes, masks, etc - had to carry holistic and ritualistic value, united in embodied and well-communicated to participants. Epimelet is a ‘civil servant’, that makes sure to remind about ‘thingness’ of life and its worth amidst the risks and hardships of existence through the vivid, lively and immersive ritual.
Art today is one of the creative industries, however its ‘magic’ is still referenced to be somewhat special. Totems of prestige, the withholders of value, an alternative to cryptocurrencies exchange mechanisms in the freeports, etc - the objects of art serve many functions, that weren’t imagined even decades ago. Silly melancholy through is felt when the discussion about the ‘magic’ or ‘mystery’ of it is on the table.
But perhaps, we’d still benefit as a whole more from a little less preservative healing and a little more lively magic?
Будущее в настоящем: продуктивное провокаторство в актуальном искусстве
«Судебная архитектура». «Белый фосфор», 2012. Рафа, Сектор Газа, 11 января 2009. Фото Ияд Эль Баба/ЮНИСЕФ
Искусство, чтобы называться «современным», как подчеркивает Борис Гройс, должно быть «товарищем времени», в контексте которого оно создается[1]. Поэтому в начале прошлого века художественные провокации Марселя Дюшана не столько отражали эпоху модернизации европейского общества, сколько предопределяли, и более того — активно формировали будущие тренды радикальной трансформации искусства и его проникновения в другие сферы жизни. Отказавшись от роли «обслуживания» политики, эстетизации экономики и морального воспитания общества и выйдя в сферу независимости и сформировав собственную матрицу ценностей и собственную политическую позицию, искусство обрело новую значимость.
Тем не менее, с образованием Советского Союза и последующей его сталинизацией, а также с крахом Веймарской республики и приходом к власти нацистов в Германии потенциал этот угас. Позднее холодная война расколола мир на два противостоящих лагеря, и искусство «вписалось» в эту дихотомию, сформировав инфраструктуру, отвечавшую задачам политического антагонизма и следовавшей из них агонии.
С развалом Советского Союза социополитическая агония продолжилась, однако антагонизм уступил тотальной монополии неолиберального капитализма как центральной социополитической и экономической парадигмы. Выход из тотальности практически и теоретически оказался — как об этом писал ранее Теодор Адорно — иллюзорным. Современность же этого пребывающего в агонии неолиберального порядка предопределена — как это ни парадоксально, его господствующим монопольным положением и попытками со стороны теоретиков, политиков и экономистов, находящихся по большей части в маргинальной позиции, пробудить критическое массовое сознание и подвести его к осознанию кризиса «вечного настоящего» капитализма, настаивающего, что его единственное возможное будущее — это пролонгация настоящего, его вечное «улучшение».
Отсюда закономерно появление в искусстве современности «продуктивных провокаторов», которые в своей практике, преодолевая тесные рамки настоящего, пытаются предвосхитить возможное будущее. Однако какие черты определяют их творческую поэтику?
- ^ «Современное искусство заслуживает своего имени, если оно демонстрирует свою современность». Гройс Б. Товарищи времени // Художественный журнал № 81 (2011).
Can Artificial Intelligence(s) (AI) become a lawful subject with rights and responsibilities? Should AI be taught about ‘humanity’ and how to approach the dilemma of possible eradication of human as inferior waste-generator and biodiversity limiting factor?
Bruxellois at Art Dusseldorf
Art Düsseldorf 2017, © Felix Hild
The German Ruhr is a heartland of tangible capitalism in Europe and home of many impressive private art collections.The region attracts art dealers and galleries from all over the world who try out the market’s readiness to spend money on intangible value of culture materialised and objectified in pieces of art.
Art Cologne exists already half a century and its focus on German conceptualism is spelled out. This year, neighbouring Dusseldorf added itself on the arts fair map. According to the organisers, 50% of the largest well known European art collectors paid a visit. The fair organisers are proud of the new mobile app, qhich replaced the traditional heavy catalogue (which I never pick up for exactly that reason) - the app allows you to make a snap and ‘shazam’ the artwork.
The Belgian presence in the fair was well-balanced. Galerie Rodolphe Janssen and Galerie Albert Baronian were among the Belgian entrants. Showing a wide range of Belgian and international talents in the booths, the galleries embodied the growing importance of Brussels as one of the major centres of experimental and daring contemporary art.
Courtesy: Galerie Rodolphe Janssen. Sanam Khatibi. But I want to swallow you, 2017. Oil and pencil on canvas, 160 x 200 cm; 63 x 78 ¾.
Rodolphe Janssen showed delicately violent paintings of Brussels-based Sanam Khatibi, who expresses the justified rage of womankind on being shut down, silenced, misinterpreted, appropriated and underrepresented since the beginning of culture. The mythological motifs of her paintings question archetypes in their subjects: the women are playing the roles that are not assigned to them in the context of contemporary and historical “normalities”.
Aline Bouvy, one of the artists brought to Dusseldorf by Galerie Albert Baronian, is questioning the ‘normal’ in another way - by bringing in aesthetic pictures into art object elements, that are discarded as not belonging or considered to be ‘ugly’. She critically highlights our invisible bias in identifying something ‘worth of a painting’ and democratises the field by proving that beauty can have infinite amount of angles and perspectives.
Aline Bouvy, “Urine Mate 7”, Inkjet print on archival paper mounted on Dibond Linoleum on wood, 230 x 190 cm, 2015, courtesy: Galerie Albert Baronian.
From the art institutional landscape, Dusseldorf’s K21 museum and Julia Stoschek Collection are definitely ‘must visit’ spots.
The permanent installation of Tomas Saraceno allows visitors to walk above the roof of the museum with nothing but a net under them, lifting the limitation of ‘thickness’ of our foregrounds. Apart from that, the permanent collection of the museum showcases impressive works from Pamela Rosenkranz, Thomas Hirschhorn and the famous Dusseldorf school quartet: Candida Hoffer, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth and Thomas Ruff.
Julia Stoschek Collection is one of the most important places to see cutting edge video art. At its 10th anniversary, the exhibition is curated by Ed Atkins, whose videos are at the forefront of the visual critical theory.
The city has quite a lot to offer culturally beyond the seasonal art fuzz: several massive private collections are open to the public as museums organise rotating public exhibitions on a continious basis.
Original publication in The Brussels Times
Mythology for Queer Futures and Potentiality of Athena-Dionysian Justice
Marble head of Dionysos (from Piraeus, late 4th c. BC) / Marble head of Athena with Corinthian helmet (reign of Hadrian)
“I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men’s minds without their being aware of the fact” [1] - claimed Claud Live-Strauss in the introduction to “Mythologiques”. Myths play fundamental role in constructing the compass of ethical and moral orienteers in culture. Mythographies and theogonies are the original source materials of the early utopias, although the concept itself was introduced in particular form more than two millennia later. In contemporaneity, the pastiche of the remnants of the ancient theogonies forms the present grand narratives, that were mistakenly pronounced dead by Jean-François Lyotard. Lyotard was however paradoxically right and wrong in his statement: the narratives “…we tell to justify a single set of laws and stakes [that] are inherently unjust…” [2], indeed, however we are not able to outgrow them. The denial of existence of the grand narratives creates an illusion of freedom from biased judgements, while they are continuously performed on the basis of convictions that are driven deeper into subconscious. Carl Schmitt highlighted in “Political Theology”: “All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development - in which they were transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for example, the omnipotent god became the omnipotent lawgiver - but also because of their systematic structure, the recognition of which is necessary for a sociological consideration of these concepts” [9]. Moreover, since the last decade of 20th century “…facts [are] uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent” [15]. This condition is referred to in futures and transdisciplinary studies as post-normal and requires reassessment of the very foundations of epistemological heritage, such as the relevance of the questions concerning the universal “truths”. Critical reading of the archived as historical texts allows to discover the contemporary thingness within them and the disruptive potentiality of unearthing alternative futures.
Our moral ontological terminology of “right” and “wrong”, basic understanding of the ethical concepts of “Love”, “Discord”, “Quarrel”, “Justice” “Social Peace”, “Bad Governance”, “Good Governance” etc.; our biases and prejudices - originate from myths. Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Deleuze and others used mythological basis for constructing cultural, psychoanalytic, philosophical, etc understanding of culture and its dynamics [3]. The potentiality of mythology as a source of alternative shared concepts, archetypes [17], in academia is dimmed by the rise of the dominance of analytical school, pursuing enclosed paradigmatic approach while seemingly embracing interdisciplinary ideas. Just like for a racing horse with blindfolds, the only possible track of movement is still forward at higher speed to a finish line. But who designed the track and why the finish line is where it is?
Theogonies and cosmogonies are numerous and include texts and remnants written down from spoken narratives all around the world: African (incl. Egyptian), Middle and Central Eastern (Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Phoenician, etc), Classical Mediterranean European (Minoan-Cretan, Archaic and Classical Greek, etc), Northern and Central European (Celtic, Finnish, Germanic, etc), pluralities of Indian, Native American and among more sources all demonstrate common traits and recurrent stories. The comparative analysis of the narratives and symbolic references within those sources reveals a lot of interesting connections [4; 12] and similarities.
One of them is Hesiod’s “Theogony”, “…an intensely political poem” [3]. Hesiod “…has selected, compiled, systematized, and transformed into a widely disseminated written document… fully surviving example of a Greek tradition of written theogonies and cosmogonies…” [5]. Muses, he claimed, gave him “the awareness within himself of a new ability to compose poetry about matters past and future” [5]. Interestingly, the researchers of Hesiod’s work indicate petering end of “Theogony”, as if it was cut abruptly by the editor of some sort [5]. Whether it could have been an accident, like burning the essential scrolls in the fire caused by Caesarian troops in Alexandrian Library in August 48 BC, or deliberate destruction by censors at the time of decline of polytheism and monotheistic radicalisation (for example, by early Christian radical extremists), or neither of those options - we are gifted with a fruitful soil for productive speculation. Searching for clues about possible futures in the genealogy of fundamental ethical concepts disguised as various forms of divinities presented in the text is a promising exercise.
“Theogony” is the genealogy of fundamental ethical concepts disguised as various forms of divinities presented in the text, including the concepts of justice, power and sovereignty, which are fundamental for political theory and utopian writing. Paul Morgenthau defined “…the Political… to be understood as a force that exists within the individual and is necessarily directed towards other people in the form of “desire for power” [8], while mentioned earlier Carl Schmitt spoke of a sovereign as “…he who decides on the exception” [9]. A sovereign through the imposed legitimised domination and mechanisms of the exercise of power is the source of definitions of “justice”, “righteousness”, which are all etymologically coming from Proto-Indo-European religious cults.
Andrea Brocca. Hera brings image of Eris in the mind of Zeus after his quarrel with Athena (from illustrations for Mythology for Queer Futures), London, 2017
The figure of patriarchal Zeus in Hesiod’s “Theogony” is an embodiment of the order of justice and enjoyed some attention from researchers [3, 5]. The myths about his deeds, his involvement in the conflicts among gods and men, his path to power on the Olympus as well as his relation with children, whose generation is the last of those consecutively described in “Theogony”, carve the concept of Zeusian justice as a sort of everlasting ideal. Zeus cements his sovereignty after the battle with the monster Typhon - the last challenge to his authority. After victory he seems to have established timeless control in a form of patriarchal harmony. The archetypes within Zeusian justice form the socio-political and cultural order we inhabit: with the dynamic hierarchy of virtues being presented in regularly refreshed new aesthetic forms, but however retaining its essential structure. Critical deconstruction of the genealogy of ordinary virtues in “Theogony”, willing ostracisation from the totality of political power in Zeusian justice is paramount for the alternative thinking towards otherness as praxis.Zeus was prophesied to be challenged by the child of his first wife Metis, the mother of wisdom, deep thought and cunning. He supposedly overcome it by outsmarting the solution of his father Kronos, who used to swallow his children to avoid any of them posing the challenge to his rule. Zeus devoured the pregnant wife instead. Later on, Athena “…pealed to the broad sky her clarion cry of war…” [10] from his head after Zeus’s skull was cleaved open following the intolerable headache. He therefore became mother and father to Athena, who never married or mothered a child and was the only Olympian to be entrusted with the ultimate ‘godly nuclear weaponry’, thunderbolts. Athena embodied the continuity and at the best refinement of the concept of everlasting Zeusian justice, according to the most interpretations. But richness and controversial to ‘normality’ character of the goddess [11; 12], her multiplicity in representation of plasmatic in the political, polis, citizenry above nationality, to name the few and potentiality of opposition to Zeusian patriarchy offers a strong foundation for the possibility of alternative futures.
Another peculiar character, Dionysus, the son of the patriarch and mortal woman, who was resurrected twice from the thigh of Zeus and is therefore, like in Athena’s case, count the patriarch as both mother and father. One of the resurrections was possible because Athena saved Dionysus heart after he was torn apart by Titans sent to kill him by the jealous second wife of Zeus, Hera. Dionysus remarkably showed outstanding mercy and saved Hera from imprisonment by Hephaestus, her own unwanted son. Dionysus also notably turned the object of mocking into the weapon and the symbol of power: given him by Titans pine cone stick became thyrsus, his Olympian stuff. He arguably became a model [13, 14] from which ‘the simplified’ figure of suffering gods, including Jesus, emerged in monotheisms. In the Orphic tradition [4] Dionysus has a central role in the pantheon of deities. He is the representation of “zoe”, the authentic, unobstructed by convention and oppression of the mundane existence energy of life, as well as the artistic aura and creativity. His sacrifices and uncompromising nature of personal morality is both a radical opposite and an ideal counter-balancer to Athena in possible duality of alternative archetypes for futures.
“Theogony” contains the potentiality of another of order of justice, perhaps identified beyond the term ‘justice’ itself - namely Athena-Dionysian tandem. Athena is female, yet masculine, while Dionysus is male, yet feminine - they are queer, ‘the Other’ among the Olympians. “Queer is…whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant… It is an identity without an essence. ‘Queer’… demarcates not a positivity but a positionality vis-à-vis the normative…” [16].
Andrea Brocca. The “Other” Olympians before the storm: Athena, Dionysus & Hephaestus (from illustrations for Mythology for Queer Futures), London, 2017
They share special relation to their father-mother and played special roles in impacting the build-up of the European cultural and political archetypes. Athena became the personification of the model of concious, critical and reflective citizenship in relation to polis and representation of “public”, while Dionysus ‘cultivated’ model of ‘authentic life’ and vitality of experience. What would be the legitimate story for construction of the basis in creation of other archetypes, that would challenge the monopoly of current justice - based on union of patriarchal Zeus and jealous, revengeful Hera? And why is it urgent for futures?
The pertaining question and deadlock of critical theory is negative methodology that appear to be not capable of alternative thinking about socio-political order. In conversation with Christian Delacampagne, Michel Foucault highlighted “I can’t help but dream about a criticism that would try not to judge but to bring an oeuvre, a book, a sentence, an idea to life; it would light fires, watch the grass grow, listen to the wind, and catch the sea foam in the breeze and scatter it. It would multiply not judgments but signs of existence; it would summon them, drag them from their sleep. Perhaps it would invent them sometimes – all the better. All the better. Criticism that hands down sentences sends me to sleep; I’d like a criticism of scintillating leaps of the imagination. It would not be sovereign or dressed in red. It would bear the lightning of possible storms.” [6]
Critical reading of classic texts embody the possibility of opening the vortex for alternative meanings of the very fundamental presuppositions - and therefore undermining silent and invisible ethical and moral monopoly of patriarchal justice, disguised as eternal and universal. #notsurprised about ‘Harvey Weinsteins’ is just a drop in the ocean of examples of the appearances and forms of the embedded order in the DNA of socio-political and cultural ideology, hidden by the layer of seemingly different and competing, but in reality fundamentalising it discourses. On the other level we face, for example, the European Union desperate and so far unsuccessful search for ‘new narratives’ to legitimise its vision of united future(s). Neoliberal marketing-disguised forms of engagement with the citizens of the EU fails, especially facing of economic and political crises. The sense of belonging to one culture, one people and sharing common futures is far from being formed - insistence of ‘Christian tradition of Europe’ was arguably one of the key reasons of failure of the European constitutional project. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “Every culture that has lost myth has lost, by the same token, its natural power of creativity. Only a horizon ringed about with myths can unify a culture. The forces of imagination… are saved only by myth” [7].
Myth is a fundamental active agent of storytelling and narrative-building: lifelessness resulting in disempowering it through aestheticisation closes its potentiality and rejects possibility of alternative futures. “Mankind today, stripped of myth, stands famished among all his pasts and must dig frantically for roots… What does our great historical hunger signify, our clutching about us of countless other cultures, our consuming desire for knowledge, if not the loss of myth, of a mythic home, the mythic womb?.. And who would care to offer further nourishment to a culture which, no matter how much it consumes, remains insatiable and which converts the strongest and most wholesome food into “history” and “criticism”?” [7] - wrote Nietzsche more than a century ago, however ‘today’ commenced long before him and continues now. The real alternative to the thickening totality of everlasting present comes not from flying cars and autonomous robots - but from the depth of mythological archetypes and our courage to re-think and develop them.
Andrea Brocca. Nike emerges from the clash of thunderbolts (from illustrations for Mythology for Queer Futures), London, 2017
Onward! Towards defining the lightnings for an upcoming storm.
—
by Denis Maksimov (November 19, 2017)
References
[1] Marcel Hénaff. Claude Lévi-Strauss and the Making of Structural Anthropology. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, London, 1998. p. 108.
[2] Williams, James. “Jean-Francois Lyotard” in Key Contemporary Social Theorists by Anthony Elliott and Larry Ray. Oxford, Blackwell Publishers, 2002, pp. 210-214.
[3] Stephen Scully. Hesiod’s Theogony: from Near Eastern Creation Myths to Paradise Lost. Oxford University Press, 2015
[4] Gladys M. N. Davis. The Asiatic Dionysos. G. Bell and Sons, ltd., 1914.
[5] Glenn W. Most (ed.). Hesiod: Theogony, Work and Days, Testimonia. Harvard University Press, London, 2006.
[6] Michel Foucault. “The Masked Philosopher” in J. Faubion (ed.). Tr. Robert Hurley and others Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954-1984. Volume One, Penguin, 1997.
[7] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, trans. Kaufmann, Random House, 1967, sec. 23
[8] Kate Schick. Gillian Rose: A Good Enough Justice. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2012
[9] George Schwab. Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, trans. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985.
[10] C.D. Warner, et al., comp. Seventh Olympian Ode by Pindar. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.An Anthology in Thirty Volumes, 1917.
[11] Rebecca Futo Kennedy. Athena’s Justice. Athena, Athens and the Concept of Justice in Greek Tragedy. Peter Lang Publishing, NY, 2009.
[12] Susan Deacy and Alexandra Villing. Athena in the Classical World. Brill, 2001
[13] James Rendel Harris. The Origin of the Cult of Dionysos. Reprinted from the Bulletin of John Rylands Library. April, 1915.
[14] Rene Girard. Dionysus versus the Crucified. MLN, Vol. 99, No. 4, French issue, Sep. 1984, p. 820.
[15] Funtowicz, S. and Ravetz, J.. Science for the post-normal age, Futures, 31(7), 1993, pp. 735-755
[16] David Halperin. “Queer Politics” in The New Social Theory Reader by Steven Seidman and Jeffrey C. Alexander. Routledge, 2001.
[17] Carl G. Jung. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Princeton University Press, 1968.