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[Nettime-ro] Vlah magic: CfA: Sex in Transition, Art Intervention, Kucevo/Serbia, 15-31.8.2008 |
---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: [balkans] CfA: Sex in Transition, Art Intervention, Kucevo/Serbia, 15-31.8.2008 From: "Noa Treister" <noa.treister@gmail.com<../mc/compose?to=noa.treister@gmail.com> > Date: Mon, June 16, 2008 15:31 To: balkans@yahoogroups.com <../mc/compose?to=balkans@yahoogroups.com> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Art Interventions *Sex in Transition * 15-31.8.2008 *Location: *Kucevo, Eastern Serbia** * * *Media: *all media *Organizers:* KUD "Art Klub", Kucevo *Partners: *Serbian Ministry of Culture, Municipality of Kucevo, The Kattenbak Collective, Amsterdam, Citizens of Europe, Berlin, * * *Colloquium description:* The subject of the colloquium is returning guest workers from Europe to Eastern Serbia and their influence on the local economy, politics, culture and environment. It will consist of: - 3-week field research by students of the anthropology department of the Philosophical faculty of Belgrade University - a week long seminar that will include lecture on the history of the area and its current situation, on the subject of returning economical immigration and on engaged art and art in public space - a 2-week artist's workshop in which will participate 20 artists, 10 Serb and 10 international, - 3- week exhibition in Kucevo - Seminar and presentation in Belgrade The artists will work and exhibit in public spaces in order to allow maximum communication with the returning immigrants and the population that stayed behind. The documentation of interviews with returning immigrants and decision makers done as part of the pre-colloquia research, students' research, the lectures given in the seminars and the artists work will be collected in catalogues and presented in Belgrade to create a reaction on a national level. *Concept:* When we speak about communities or countries in transition, we usually refer to economical transition in this we underestimate the abyss that lays before the sides facing each other. The difference rests within the basic concepts (such as truth, time, security, privacy, intimacy, communication, etc.) on which each person builds his/her life. The main discrepancy lies in the grasp of a person as an individual, which is a modern concept, from which grow notions of love, happiness, accomplishment, freedom, etc. From this viewpoint, a community is an assemblage of individuals and individuals are free to belong to a number of different communities without hurting their loyalty to each one. In traditional communities, what is important is the survival and continuation of the collective, the person and his/her desires do not play a role this structure, he/she is only fulfilling a function and therefore the community organizes one's life to the smallest details i.e. the concept of privacy does not exist. Respect and authority are measured not by one's ability to fulfill one's vision or desires but by one's loyalty to the norm and customs of the community. In this way, the community as an institution provides one with almost absolute security in life in exchange for the erasure of desire or will i.e. individualism. These traditional communities have in one way or another always have maintained a connection with western development of thought and production especially today with the advanced technology and media (including: films, pop music, internet etc.) so they are aware of the differences but that does not necessarily mean they regard them as progress. Furthermore, they do not see the connection between the transformation of these concepts and the economical development they seek. Even if they see the need for change, the diversity given within western thought is confusing and the change is hard to put into practice on a personal and community level. The result is that they live in modern technology with traditional concepts. Marriage, in this community structure, is one of the institutions that insure its continuum in the same way. Both men and women fill preconditioned roles before and during their married life and in that pay their dues to the community and are held in check by the rumor economy and the threat of excommunication that would penetrate even their basic means of existence. What happens inside the marriage (form love to neglect or violence) is irrelevant to the surrounding as long as the institution is maintained and therefore is accepted by the partners themselves. As was perceived by one of the community members: "When you ask men what they think about it, most of the would answer that about intimacy that have never heard but sexually they are very active, great lovers (a legend close to Greek mythology J) and that they can seduce any women. On the other hand, most women would say, with allusive irony, that of intimacy they have long forgotten and that sex they accept as a duty, something they have to "execute" with their man, like preparing lunch, housekeeping or similar things. […] in a small town, in which are still performed many old, even pagan customs, in which there is still fear of occultism (Vlah magic) and in which people are still closely (and shallowly) connected with their families, land, past, life revolves around "practicalities". Most people think: "if I sow the land, it will give birth, if I sow a woman she also will give birth J" and everything will function well on a superficial level because I am a monkey and not a man! If I stough intimacy, it will touch me, which can be extremely fuck up, and I don't wish to have a fucked up life!" (Davor Radulj) In this situation sex is just another physical need fulfilled (usually in the most unimaginative way) or denied and as such a tool for manipulation. Marriage, especially in poor communities where the hardships of life are so demanding, is a parallel existence of two humans in order to meet elementary "practicalities" of life. All in the name of security, comfort and insuring the continuum of the line, usually reproducing the same situation in a circular notion of time, like the seasons of the year. But what is it in the notions of individuality and intimacy that in every community, in every generation people are willing to risk their security, at times, even their lives to experience? Where does this courage come from? What is this wish to be wanted for who you are, who you can be for the other and whom the other makes of you rather then, for what you can perform? What is the difference between fucking and making love? The answers are as many as the relationships but what is visible is that relationships that aim to include intimacy are dynamic ones that require reciprocal attention, sensitivity and communication throughout their duration rather the static self-evidence of the traditional marriage i.e. it require the individual commitment that is made every moment rather then the loyalty to the collective and the institution that is taken once and for all. It consists of the fragility and vulnerability of exposure to another human being, complex and unpredictable just as one is, with the capability to give and receive kindness, compassion, and creativity rather then the programmed set of emotions and demands given in the course of socialization. In this setting sex is an expression of individuality, a process of becoming, sharing, an encounter, rather than a need, a procedure for the production of pleasure or for the reproduction of a next generation. This process is one that fulfills a desire of a particular person rather then a need of the species. Intimacy is a unique concept in the modern world since it is the one thing that one cannot be/have/do alone. In this world, where one can almost do everything by oneself or pay for it to be done, including having children, intimacy is the one place where the other is actually encountered. The pain of its lack has given rise to many works of art in different media literature, visual arts, music, etc. The pain of its lack has given rise to many works of art in different media literature, visual arts, music, etc. But that does not automatically imply that these same people, who suffer from the lack of intimacy, have the courage to leave the secure zone of the known and step into the uncharted and maybe unknowable space of relations. However, this response-ability is the essence of every living human Being or the Being of a living community. Otherwise, we are surrounded by traces alone that we can document and archive but not inhabit. No person or community is located in one end of this scale or another, we are all somewhere in the middle with our fears of losing our economical and emotional security, our standing in society, or our future continuity on the one hand and a wish to become and be loyal to the event of love on the other hand. It is this diversity that our project aims to map and about which we wish to create a public debate. *Conditions: *The artists will be provided accommodations and food and use local materials. An additional sum of up to 75 Euro will be provided for materials. * * *For further details and registration, please contact:* noa.treister@gmail.com <../mc/compose?to=noa.treister@gmail.com> -- Noa Treister Council Member Citizens of Europe Mobile: + 381 64 316 2558 ______________________________________________ Balkan Academic News _______________________________________________ Nettime-ro mailing list Nettime-ro@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-ro --> arhiva: http://amsterdam.nettime.org/