Showing posts with label collective. Show all posts
Showing posts with label collective. Show all posts

Bezna #4 & Ist Bezna Congress

Bezna #4 is out!






the Ist Bezna Congress. 

a series of lecture-performances on/from the Netherworld
Saturday, 29 Jun, 22h00, CNDB Bucharest


The Second Body and The Multiple Outside - Alina Popa As long as we are caught in the present available body, there is indeed no outside. The problem is not that there is no outside, but it lies precisely in the fact that we are caught in the same outside without working with it. There are multiple outsides to be produced. Even an outside devoid of human and without thought.

Shadow Body (Second Body) - Florin Flueras Shadow Body is a concept but it can be also a concrete unvisual, ungrounded, unknown body, a second nature or even the body that flies in your dreams. Shadow Body is not so much about what exists or what is possible, or about what you can comprehend or validate, Shadow Body is not a body that you have, it is rather a body that has you, it is a concept through which the unknown can abduct you.

The Story of the Fall - Veda Popovici "Generally a relaxed body results in fewer injuries in falls." excerpt from the FFI (Full Fall Instructions). We welcome all to the lecture of the Story of the Fall. This story, told today, after it happened, counts as an act of remembrance and re-learning the New Fear. Springing out of the hybridization of banal darkness with exceptional darkness, it is this New Fear the emotion to trigger the Full Fall.

The pleasure of nibbling in case of afterlife emergency - Mihai Lukacs + Arnold Șlahter "At this point, there's no really authentic way for us to say who or what to look for and guard yourself against. Reaction of law enforcement officials is one of complete bewilderment at this hour. Do not venture outside for any reason until the nature of this crisis has been determined, and until we can advise what course of action to take. The safest course of action at this time is simply to stay where you are. So far, the best advice they are able to give the public is this: "Tell the people for God's sake to get off the streets! Tell them to go home and lock their windows and doors up tight!" (George A. Romero)

Black Lol - Iuliana Stoianescu A blonde was sitting on a couch in front of the TV, when suddenly she hears knocking at the door. She goes to the door and askes: “Who is it?” “Me!” “Me?!?” :))))

The Outernational Condition - Ion Dumitrescu For someone in front of the Iron Curtain (looking over the fresh ruins of the wall) the east seemed an unmolded territory with resilient subjects living in geo-political dim light, humanoid silhouettes agitating in obscurity, apparently not fully developed, too weird to live too rare to die, craving to break in the international habitus. They appeared incomprehensible and unevolved on too many levels. It was only later that these outer-subjects were tamed and transformed in voracious consumers.

Microbification and the Politics of Noise - Irina Gheorghe In the utopian construction of a new world, the borders with the already existing one is clearly marked and fortified. Under the terror of invasions, infiltrations, infections, autonomy and immunity seem to be the only alternative promises. But when interior and exterior are already contaminated by one another separation becomes impossible and resistance annihilates itself.

Centrul de Calcul Bucuresti - Ștefan Tiron + Claudiu Cobilanschi (side event, Wednesday, 26 Jun, 11h00, guided tour in the Museum of Politehnica University, Bucharest). Centrul de Calcul is interested in obsolete forms of knowledge, in retro-futurisms, in the bulky, outrageous and unwarranted nationalistic craze about inventors but also the accidental rediscovery of naive savoire faire that, to us at least, is in need of radical reappraisal.











BEZNA #3

The new Bezna covers the controversial Shelter at the House of People events.

BEZNA = CONSISTENT DARKNESS + DIFFUSSED FEAR



READ IT! FEEL IT! SPREAD IT!

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BEZNA @ truth is concrete in graz.
Thanks to: Critical Practice.



Eva Peron at the House of People

The Presidential Candidate offers Shelter 

@ the House of People

25 - 29 April 2012, in the House of the People


With: Valentina Desideri, Vali Zaharescu aka The Romanian Bum, Franco Bifo Berardi, Aparat Security, Elena Adam (SamuSocial), Mihai Lukacs, the Bureau for Melodramatic Research, Akseli Virtanen, Florin Flueras, Alexandru Gurita, Caroline Keppi-Gurita, Ion Dumitrescu, Eva Peron, Cosima Opartan, FRR.

Everyday at the Shelter: 

- Simple yet Nourishing Food - Simina Guga, Ovidiu Anemțoaicei, Ștefan Tiron.
- Political Therapy - Valentina Desideri
- Medical Care - Iuliana Stoianescu







 That what had to be done in my country was nothing less than a Revolution. 
And when what needs to be done is a revolution, then the persons capable to venture all the way on a such difficult path are not many. They are actually so few, that we could say they are missing. Many revolutions have been started here and elsewhere. But a revolution is a new, difficult road and it is only for those that feel an irresistible attraction for risky endeavors. This is why have failed and will always fail those revolutions desired by the people and even done with its total support. (…)
 It is important to talk about “Evita”, and not out of pride, but because the one who understands “Evita”, can more easily understand the descamisados, the people themselves, and it will never feel of itself more than it is... Never will it become oligarchic, the most feared thing that can happen to a Peronist!

(part of Eva's speech at the Shelter)







Fragment from "What is Eva P.?"
text in Bezna #3.


(...)
There is a great prophecy which says that in the end times, the prostitute will lead the world. Those are the times of Apocalypse, the lifting of the veil, the times of dis-order and chaos. Eva Peron was the closest to the fulfillment of such a prophecy, however authoritative agencies kept his-story going and the fantasy postponed. Called upon at the Shelter, Eva Peron becomes Eva P., an incantation for the reality of the Apocalypse prophecy. 
The time of the AntiRepublic haunts our present. It is there in the anti-communist ideology, in the virulent demonization of the looser of the Cold War, the so-called anti-democratic, communist East. It is there in the recent fall of the so-called Arab dictatorships. It is also there, in the visions of anarchists of all times and now in the practice of the ones in Greece. The AntiRepublic is also so present in the measures of radical neo-liberals that prophet the reign of the free market. But most of all, the AntiRepublic is already present everywhere in what is obvious to many: the failure of representative democracy. 
Eva was the first of her kind to vote but eternally enable to be voted. She is always just about to be named the Leader. Eva P., a ghost of true representativity, is powerless, she represents no real multitude. She is just an image of the Other, the one perpetually out of the space of authority, the imperfect powerless double. Brought to the Shelter, Eva P. is the model of anyone becoming a candidate for leadership and never a leader, the perpetual candidate for the great position of presidency, an archetype for the times of the AntiRepublic, when everybody will be a candidate and nobody will be president. 
(...)


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About the Shelter:
It looks like what we, The Presidential Candidate, have been anticipating in the last years, with our "no hope" messages and slogans, is already at work. This is not perceived as an eccentric, provocative vision anymore, it is the banal reality that everybody can feel. So what now? What’s happening when you give up hope and you are pushed into the corner?

There is a feeling of urgency, fundamental issues need to be immediately confronted and we will do exactly that. The House of the People (Ceauşescu's Palace) will be transformed temporarily into a real house of the people, where, for a few days, free education, free health services, free food, political therapy, a bit of everything that now is disappearing, will be provided.

Still, there is a sensation that it's too little and, maybe, already too late, so we don’t know if we can avoid adding a dystopian dimension to the whole situation. The events within the House of the People will be a good opportunity for thinking the present and feeling the (no) future in this first Postspectacle shelter.

Participants: Aparat Security, Franco Bifo Berardi, the Bureau of Melodramatic Research, Valentina Desideri, Ion Dumitrescu, Florin Flueras, Simina Guga, Alexandru Gurita,Caroline Keppi-Gurita, Mihai Lukacs, Cosima Opartan, Eva P. & Veda Popovici, the Presidential Candidacy, Elena Adam & Samu Social, Iuliana Stoianescu, Akseli Virtanen, Vali Zaharescu aka the Romanian Bum.

Details on the program here.

BEZNA #2

A new, fascinating issue crossing apocalypse with the January-March protests in Bucharest.

READ IT! FEEL IT! SPREAD IT!

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fragment from "The Carnival, the Spectacle and the Non-event"

text in Bezna #2


(...)
Tons of white, cold matter still cover the city. It feels cold, hard and deadening. Snow has become from an object a subject. It determines our lives, our needs, our actions and even politics. The few protesters who still remain in the streets sometimes sing: „The Souls melt the the Snows”. They already feel that the snow is the new body, the new flesh of the revolts, as the oppressive State-Media duo tell us. Carne vale, goodbye to the flesh is now a somber perspective. We are the snow and the snow should be cleaned, collected and disposed of.

Invitation to War


Statement

On Friday, the 16th of March 2012, the artist activist group Voina (Russian: „war”) had a public presentation at the National Museum for Contemporary Art situated in the House of People in Bucharest. 

Each person attending this event had to pass through a control of his/hers belongings and a body control through a metal detector, including the Voina artists. They were even longer and more thoroughly searched. The reason for this is that the building is a military objective. A space totally dedicated to State authorities, it hosts various institutions of „national importance” like the Parliament. 
We consider the event a invitation to war. 
The war is against today's form of the Romanian State, a police state that has progressively straighten its repressive character in the last six months. The fundamental right to protest and contest state authority has been and still is seriously broken. Too many activists and not only have been picked up and fined abusively and even physically assaulted by the military arm of the State, the privileged Jandarmeria. 
Inside the House of People, the war can only be symbolic, a representation of that real war through which the protest is, as each day passes, domesticized and annihilated. We have come to war in the only way we can: with toy guns. Just as freedom of speech is just a toy and protest just a simulacra in the eyes of the authorities. We played the role of harmless harlequins, toy-terrorists, a role that the same authorities attribute to artists. Responding to a symbolic war invitation, we try to push the limits of security and surveillance at the security check of the Museum. The toy guns are confiscated at the entrance, the art gesture is amputated in the hallway of the Great House. The reason: with toy guns one can threaten and create panic. In the space that the State dedicated to contemporary art, contemporary artists are not welcome if they undermine its authority. Two pistols out of five manage to get across the tough security check. Throughout the presentation, anyone could observe the other guns left next to the metal detector. At the first floor of the Museum, the Voina presentation is about to begin. At this moment, we place ourselves in front of the obedient audience, two of us holding our guns at sight. The others are wearing the message: „I came to Voina, but this plastic gun had to stay at the security check of the Museum”. Although we threaten the audience with our guns, nobody panics.
 We are perfectly safe in the most guarded building in Romania. 
The limits of security and surveillance seem unreachable. 
A threatening as a simulacra and the neutralization of any conflict, this is the only Voina possible at the House of People. 

 Arnold Schlachter / Bogdan Drăgănescu / Mihai Bumbeș / Mihai Lukacs / Veda Popovici.

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An extended version of this text was presented at the Anarchist Studies Network Annual Conference, 3-5 September 2012, Loughborough University, U.K.

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