Εvents 2014 2015 in english

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Libby Sacer Foundation 2014-15 Sum of events 5

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Libby Sacer Foundation Sum of events 2014 - 15 Contents

WHAT

About Libby Sacer….……………………….………...…..…….……...…4-19

WHY

About the Libby Sacer Foundation.....................................................20-34

HOW

Exhibitions TRUST..…………………………………………..….…….…..….……..35-77 Performances TRUST …..........................................................................................78-81 Exhibitions Ghost Songs…….........................................................................…...82-87 Performances Ghost Songs…...………………………………….……….……...….....88-91 Other live events Book Reports...............................................................................…92-125 Presentations Artist Talks…………………………………………..….. ….……...…126-135 Discussions Biennale, a discussion ……..……………….……………………….136-163

Contents

Discussions City & the Dough, part I….............................................……….164-179

Presentation City & the Dough, part II: Camilo Vergara…..………..…….….......180-187

Discussions Family as an ideological mechanism……………………………….188-211 Discussions Public space & protest…………………….…………….………..….212-237 .

Discussions The Ghost of Nation…………………………………………...…..…238-247 Discussions Terror & Romanticism……...….……………………..………....……248-263 Performances LINDA prima vista…..……………………………………..………....264-269

THANKS ………………..……….…...……………………………...……….…....…270-271

PRESS & ACADEMIA……..……...…..………………………….……………..…272-295

COLOPHON……………………………………..…...…...………...………….……296-297

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About Libby Sacer

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Libby Sacer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Libby Sacer Birth name Jan Tamrat Born

27 January 1925 Ethiopia

Died

28 January 2013 (aged 88) London

Nationality

Ethiopian

Field

Writing, poetry, art books, installation art

Movement

Conceptual art

Works

Part of the Plan

Libby Sacer also Liberty Sacer born Jan Tamrat (1925–2013) was born in Ethiopia in 1925. Her father, a Jewish Ethiopian, named Tariku Tamrat, in the archives of his community (Beta Israel) was mentioned as a laborer and craftsman but was fluent in more than 20 local dialects and sometimes worked as an interpreter. He died in an accident when his only child was five years old; this had a major impact on Sacer. Her Danish mother Tania, from a family of landowners active in Ethiopia and other countries, was the author of romantic novels and travel books, which she signed with pseudonyms. Because of her mother's occupation, Libby travelled around the world from an early age and received an excellent education.

Life Sacer chose her name when she turned 25. In her writing she leaves hints about her sex that led to speculation that she was a hermaphrodite or a transgendered person. Both her existence and her influence in various movements of art and About Libby Sacer

philosophy were unknown until her death in London in 2013, at age 88. As she never had children, after her death, her will stated that all her property would be handed to the British artist and activist R.H., whom she had never met before. The heir, recognizing the importance of the artefacts found in her house, hired a group of specialists to analyze and classify the findings. Since, a series of discoveries have started, concerning contemporary art and philosophy.

At Sacer's house in London, among other findings, there were works of art by Claude Cahun, Klossowski, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Marcel Broodthaers and others.

These works were thought to have been lost or were unknown. There was also personal correspondence with over 20 prominent personalities of the last century from the fields of philosophy, politics and art, and rarities such as African ritual vessels and masks, stuffed animals, thousands of books, videotapes, audio cassettes and reels, a huge collection of male and female fancy dresses and accessories, and a series of personal objects that belonged to Albert Camus, Michel Foucault, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Guy Debord, Jack Smith, Hannah Arendt, Louis Althusser and others, meticulously archived.

Notes and books by her were also found as well as recordings made by her; as it seems this material circulated exclusively from hand to hand. Some titles of those works are: "Meta-fetishism" After – fetishism, "Part of the Plan" Part of the Plan, "Alluring dominance" Fetching sovereignty, "What is to be un-done" What should be un- done, "City Spine" Urban spine], "The Method" Method.

Some of her letters sent to key figures had been returned unread. The mass of the findings indicates her crucial role in several artistic, philosophical and political movements of a period covering more than half a century. Sacer has been present in a series of major events of the last century. A crucial moment in her lifetime was 1938 when she left Berlin, after burning all her belongings to erase her tracks.

While the available biographical data is still incomplete, much of her life has been mapped out, apart from the 1960s a decade which remains a mystery until now.

According to some evidence, during this period, her mother died and Libby S. retired to a deserted area near her birthplace, close to the border of Ethiopia and

7

Eritrea. According to floor plans that have been found, the house where she lived was designed by the artist and architect Constant Nieuwenhuys as a sample building of the utopian city of New Babylon. There, along with another unknown woman (photos of which have been found), they gave theatrical performances without an audience (viewers were painted on the walls), composed and played music and made artistic projects without recipients. In 1968, however, she relocated to Paris, where she participated in street battles, recorded events and suffered an injury on her left leg. Years later she travelled to Athens, Greece, where she was photographed with Jean Genet in a city-central pastry shop.

While her source of income remains mainly unknown, probably part of it came from essays and articles published over the years with aliases, following her mother’s footsteps, and possibly a share of her mother’s property. How and to what extent Libby Sacer influenced modern thought and art, is still to be investigated by professionals commissioned by her heir.

Additional information The house where she lived during her last years is located within the city of London, while her house in Ethiopia –according to plans and notes that were found in London– is located in a distant, isolated area, outside town, very close to the sea, but cut off from it.

Pieces of information relating to other people, which hitherto remained disconnected and enigmatic, have begun to come to light in recent months, acquiring a new meaning. For example, in the home of a political figure associated with terrorism (member of the Black Panthers), the police had found a note that it was unable to connect with anything else and at the time had simply been archived in police files. The note, pinned inside a closet, bore the inscription: “I’m not interested in people knowing who I am and what I think; I care about discussing these things with those burning by the same flame and together do things that will change reality in an invisible yet tangible way, which people would take for granted, like the street signs.

About Libby Sacer

~ L. Sacer”

Libby Sacer’s body bore two tattoos: An arrow on the inner side of her left arm pointing to her palm and a corresponding arrow on her right arm pointing to the opposite direction (towards the elbow). It is speculated that these two arrows were symbols of one of the theories Sacer had developed regarding the body in relation to space, and to others.

The chronology of Sacer’s life is still incomplete. Confirmed so far are the following: 1925: Birth in Ethiopia 1930: Death of her father 1932 (7 years old): First trip with her mother outside Ethiopia 1938: (13 years old): Leaves Berlin, along with her mother 1950: (25 years old): Begins to travel alone 1952-4 (27-29 years old): Works in a Kibbutz 1960: (35 years old): Returns to Ethiopia [1960-8]: In this time her mother dies 1968: (43 years old): Paris 1970: (45 years old): New York 1981: (56 years old): Athens 2013: (88 years old): Dies in London.

For more information on Libby Sacer, see here.

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About Libby Sacer

Images: Courtesy of the archive of Libby Sacer

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13

About the Libby Sacer Foundation

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From Libby Sacer to the series of events

Passport please

“Αrti burti.* Man’s dead. We need to [incomprehensible] the human being again. She’s still swimming among parallel universes between millions and millions of possibilities. Nothing is final. There’s indications, there’s hopes, constraints, [incomprehensible] possibilities collapse every second, new constellations of possibilities form, new data that influence the composition of the new subject.” *Arti burti: “Bullshit” in Amharic (an Ethiopian language)

Audio recording by L. Sacer while under the influence of alcohol (extract)

The ambiguous sexuality Libby Sacer, seen through the prism of the current debate on the regularity of social gender in relation to sovereign structures, makes us wonder if she would have stayed on the margins if her identity had been recognizable and classifiable as male or female.

On the other hand, maybe her thought wouldn’t have spread in so many fields if she wasn’t puzzled by a tangible difference of her own.

And also: how was her perception of space affected by her extended traveling and lack of national identity?

This mulatto Jew who lived in the heyday of Hitler and Apartheid, seems to occupy a border region in multiple levels. She built her identity in the space between the sexes, and while he lived near celebrities she remained in obscurity. Today, however, it is revealed that she drew a spectacular trail in the shadows. Even though she structured and recorded her thoughts, she made them semi-public, distributing them only to selected recipients, some of whom either presented them as their own, or were significantly affected by her, as her long correspondence shows.

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Libby Sacer abstained from public discourse, keeping distances that probably saved her life, at a time when she would have been persecuted for literally everything that she was. She kept her distances from many other things too, however, choosing to live in the cracks of the common perception of normality and success, in the green zone between avant-garde and obscurity, between what’s ordinary and what’s extraordinary. Surprisingly, through that choice she overcame many barriers and boundaries, leaving the trail behind that seems to be ahead of its time.

What she has left us with, provides her with an after-death passport to pass on the other side of the borderlines she had set or had been imposed to her; a passport that provides her a recognized status and a valid identity, sparking many questions and stirring all that we know about the society of the last fifty years, its art and philosophy. Libby Sacer is today at a place where nobody will ask for her passport. This is a question that she could finally answer only once it could no longer be posed to her: Passport please.

Considering Libby Sacer’s legacy as a spiritual “Trust Fund” that is ours too, we will “discuss” with her ghost over the next months. This dialogue, which will unfold in laboratory structures, with the participation of artists and theorists, relates to boundaries and limitations of space, national and gender identity, and the ideologies shaping their limits. Through this dialogue we will attempt to draw "passports" for unseen areas of our current experience, reflect on the conditions of our reality and detect the elements that define our own "passports". Finally, our intention is to create a field of substantial criticism or controversy even, in regards to what is happening around us.

About the Libby Sacer Foundation

Libby, a person from the potential past, is the embodiment of thought, art and politics that didn’t fit in the normality of an entire era and thus remained invisible; that influenced history but not enough, carving an ab-normal path. She is that certain part of past thinking, which haunts the present.

Libby is an open field under construction that will help us explore some elements of thought and action that we embody in order to exist in our specific social sphere, to “fit in”. These elements constitute our social and political role as persons in a given space and at the same time haunt us.

Libby Sacer exists in between memory and imagination. We can keep building her together, through choosing and inventing our genealogy, so that we can: - become aware of elements invisible and unspoken of, which constitute what defines us.

- build bridges between strictly defined areas; from the subject to its identity, from the body to the urban environment and from memory to imagination for the possible future.

- be critical –in other words, think, imagine and desire– against the authoritarianism of our political present.

We began discussing about borders, limits, separations, isolations, barriers and cracks that we are seeing in almost every field of our experience today. Then, the discussion went on to “porous borders”, bridges, the Passports that define our identities and limit the terms in which we travel, but also the Passports that we could create as passageways between fenced areas of our thinking and experience.

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About the Libby Sacer Foundation

We invite you to explore together how power structures are embodied and reproduce by ourselves, in our space (architecture, public and private space), in our body (in the construction of gender and not only), in our imagination, in art, in the relationships among us. We invite you to create passports. To destroy passports. To summon ghosts. To be possessed by ghosts. To explore:



How are modern cities being transformed in the context of capitalism / neo-liberalism, in the specific frame of Athens?

 How is public space used by crowds and by the riot police?  What are the new frontiers that capitalism sets in the space and to the concept of what a city is?  What are the criteria of artistic production, internally (by artists) and externally (by critics/curators)? What kind of structures govern them?  How is identity established? What ghosts haunt us?  How can the imagination, as an act, open the range of possibilities?  What are the social boundaries of imagination?

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About the Libby Sacer Foundation

The group Libby

Sacer Foundation was founded in January 2014.

As Cheapart Resident 2014, the group was hosted in Cheapart art space and, inspired by Libby Sacer, opened up a dialogue with our origins and ‘ghosts’. Within that frame, the group organized a series of events such as

public

talks, art shows

and

performances

concerning the

boundaries/constraints of the body, space and identity, the ideological mechanisms that define them, and the concept of Mediation in art and public life. This series was entitled Passport

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please.

Exhibitions

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Trust < noun: - Firm belief in the reliability, truth or ability of someone or something.

- Acceptance of the truth of a statement without evidence orinvestigation.

- The state of being responsible for someone or something.

- Person or duty for which one has responsibility.

- Law: An arrangement whereby a person (a trustee) holds property as its nominal owner for the good of one or more beneficiaries.

- A body of trustees.

Exhibitions / TRUST

The group’s inaugural event was Trust, an archive exhibition where next to several artifacts from Libby Sacer’s home – either authentic findings or reconstructions and copies from the archive – were also presented creative approaches to the material, such as objects, architectural models, images and live performances, inspired by the life and work of Libby Sacer.

A detailed presentation of the exhibition is available HERE A group of scientists, architects and artists – visual artists, writers, musicians, dancers and actors – were called to participate in the process of designing the exhibition, by contributing in the presentation of the findings from Libby Sacer’s home and/or creating new works as a response to the archive.

These were: Elena Akyla, Nikos Giavropoulos, Roza Giannopoulou Nelly Kambouri, Eftihia Kiourtidou, Vasiliki Kondyli, Costas Corakis, Tina Kotsi, Euripides Laskaridis, Miakela Liakata, Alexander Maganiotis, Anna Maneta, Maria Sarri, Olga Spiraki, Myrto Stamboulou, Eugenia Tzirtzilaki, Dimitris Halatsis, Stefanos Chandelis, and Maria Fakinou.

Because the process followed was quite experimental, as it called for theoreticians and artists to sit around the same table and jointly create a final outcome-event, while dealing with the unique case of L. Sacer, the need for an observer emerged. The observer (Thanos Vovolis) would assess the process in real time and offer his feedback during the group meetings, from his own viewpoint as an “external” member of the team. Finally, his thoughts would be part of the documentation – evaluation of this experiment.

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What follows is parts from the observer’s notes, after the first meetings of Trust’s group.

FIRST MEETING, TUESDAY 11/03/2014 First of all I’d like to thank the working group for the invitation to participate in the project. I have chosen the observer’s role, on the one hand so that I can have the joy to contribute –in this way even- and on the other hand hoping that my notes might be useful somehow.

An issue that I think is important for this project and I believe would have to be discussed again in another meeting is whether the team’s activity will focus on the artistic event in the form of an exhibition, or it will focus on its function as a workshop “in progress.”

The first option advances […] Libby Sacer as a fundamentally artistic event/show. The second uses her as a vehicle in an attempt to analyze, discuss and investigate the reality we experience living in Athens now and shifts the focus beyond aesthetic choices.

A second observation.

The extremely interesting thoughts and proposals that were presented during the meeting show how enchanting such a «μηχανή» προσωποποίησης can be, as it touches on issues such as identity/ otherness/ difference/ multiplicity/ deviation/ plurality of life and the free flow of desire.

Exhibitions / TRUST

Sacer‘s [dis-]appearance on an archive: Work that was not included in Trust.

Here, two questions arise: 1. Is there’s a danger that the […] process will become itself a goal, precisely because of the importance of the issues it concerns and the charm of this “device”?

2. Why would such a mapping have to include a big accumulation of information, objects and elements? Is the accumulation of elements, in itself, an element of “authenticity”?

Could it be that the mapping has to be orchestrated so that the empty, unmapped space and time of Libby Sacer’s life can become the monant element?

That’s it for now!

Th.V.

TUESDAY 18 MARCH 2014 I’m watching with great interest the orgasm of information and ideas that are exchanged during the meeting! Sublime ideas that often complete and sometimes compete each other. Everyone is willing to understand and allow space for other people’s ideas.

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The meeting is turning into a conversation amongst artists, who discuss as equals, aiming to exchange, collaborate, coexist.

What’s acutely apparent in the meeting is the urgent need of our times for a collective creativity and an alternative was of production that finally forms a unified, collective and anonymous work of art.

Is this a need that’s expressed so vividly because of the crisis we live in?

Is it a way to express a conscious process of collective self-defining?

Who is responsible for the final shape of the exhibition, as it will be presented at the opening, is still a matter of discussion. To what extend does the alternative process of producing the work, is reflected in the process as a whole.

I believe that the entire project bares an excellent dynamic, which, however, needs more time to develop.

The acoustics in the space of Cheap Art are problematic. Due to the enthusiasm that often prevails, many times everyone speaks at the same time. As a result in this meeting the sound environment sometimes became painful to the ears.

However, most important are enthusiasm, exchange, collaboration, cooperation, collectivity.

Th.V.

26 MARCH 2014 In contrast to the previous meeting, this time the volume during the discussion is clearly altered. I almost can’t hear what is said because many people speak in low vice, unenergetically. I don’t know what has contributed to this spectacular change,

Exhibitions / TRUST

I suspect, though, that the limited time available as well as the stress for the deadline and the opening day has played a crucial role in this new situation. […]

The question posed is to what extend can a person participate in, at least seemingly, such different social networks without losing her plausibility. I personally believe that yes – maybe actually these contrasts constitute the basis for believability.

There’s the danger that the story of this personality is overly referential to the artistic, philosophical and political movements of the 20th century On the other hand, these movements are the basis of the discussions and events that follow Trust, which in turn constitute an attempt to analyze the reality in which we live in now in Greece.

We’ll see!

That’s it for now.

Th.V.

Preparing for Trust

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Fragments from a diagolue that took place among the collaborators of Trust, within the course of several weeks. Through physical meetings and e-mails ideas, information and insight was exchanged amongst the 19 participants of Trust during the preparation period of the exhibition. The aim was not to simply have a harmonious and furtile collaboration as a group, but to actually develop – in whatever degree was possible – another kind of subject: a joined / common one.

.http://www.beforethey.com/journey/ethiopia

http://www.thecass.com/people/w/ines-weizman, http://www.metalocus.es/content/en/blog/a-house-black-venus Space House by Friedrich Kiesler 1890-1965 No more walls! “The ordinary wall or flour is a concentration camp” The eggshell is the perfect example of a structure in which walls, floors and ceiling are self-supporting in an architectural sense.

We can not see space therefore. What appears to be space is an illusion of it, namely a succession of Foregrounds in configuration of object-forms one behind the other until we are unable to see them anymore. . (http://bam150years.blogspot.gr/2013/03/the-living-theatre-at-bam-revolution.html) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gYBXRwsDjY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe95sn0cN3k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_F8XVssqr8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Out5aigb5Ls http://booksjournal.gr/component/k2/item/190-%CE%BDo-11,-5_1_2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvVb9EZ6Kqs

*** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A66zU9xM-y0 (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margherita_Cagol), Cindy Sherman http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/feb/14/claude-cahun-finding-great "A writer born into literary royalty, with a pseudonym to hide the fact; a forebear of Cindy Sherman, with only one self-portrait published in her lifetime; a lesbian in love with her step-sister; a Jewish, Marxist Surrealist – Claude Cahun is probably the most complicated artist you and I have never heard of ( … ) Cahun effectively vanished from history. " (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/arianna

*** http://www.utimes.pitt.edu/?p=287 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assata_Shakur), http://books.google.gr/books?id=ToqOWxwpoMC&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=margherita+mara+cagol&source=bl&ots=kVce9k HBQx&sig=73sA0H1BxA8_2aQlZV4cXLsmD7w&hl=el&sa=X&ei=UTw1U521N MKV0AWpxoAQ&ved=0CGYQ6AEwCg#v=onepage&q&f=false

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(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Tress) http://www.eyedoll.gr/ngine/article/3381/%CE%B6%CE%AF%CE%B3%CE%BA%CE%BC%CE%BF%CF%85%CE%BD%C F%84-%CE%BC%CF%80%CE%AC%CE%BF%CF%85%CE%BC%CE%B1%CE%BD-%CE%B4%CE%B5%CE%BD%CE%B5%CE%AF%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%B9-%CE%BA%CF%81%CE%AF%CF%83%CE%B7%CE%B5%CE%AF%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%B9%CE%B1%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%B4%CE%B9%CE%B1%CE%BD%CE%BF%CE%BC%CE%AE%CF%80%CE%BB%CE%BF%CF%8D%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%85

*** (http://hur-reporters.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post_28.html#ixzz2xucAT07J) *** http://flix.gr/news/25steps-director-sammendes.html *** 1872, in Petersburg: Alexandra Mikhailovna Killontai, the Peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Commissar of public charity and the first woman-ambassador in the world: http://www.prlib.ru/enus/history/pages/item.aspx?itemid=478 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/164602/diplomacy/233757/The-role-ofwomen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia#From_Menelik_II_to_Adwa_.281889-1913.29 *** (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libby_Sacer) *** Date: 2014-04-20 23:33 GMT+03:00 I am alone. But I am not alone. I am multiple. Multiple means weak. But alone means strong.

Alone is not lonely. Alone is not separate. Alone is to be just enough for one person.

I have had enough of solitude. Performing for the walls, performing for an audience in my head, performing for the dead... enough of that.

Now I am alone one more time, May was mortal, Paris is asleep, Africa is behind me. I want to be with people.

I need people to listen to me. But not to look at me. I need people, many people, to see me, but not to look at me. Is this possible?

I am multiple in an era of solitude. I forget what I need and remember what I fear. I must articulate, openly. Speak as one person amongst many, amongst the living.

I'm not a young girl any more. I am a woman, half-white, half black, half-grey.

Half woman too.

Not belonging is what makes me be alone, is what makes me be me, is what makes me be strong. I am not part of a tribe, or an army, or a clan. And I don't have secrets any more. I am the only secret.

Enough of dark houses, enough of burning streets, enough of ridiculous ideas about self-God and man-God and dead-God. This is a definite goodbye to God. My left leg hurts when it rains and when i cry too. Not so many tears these days, but it rains a lot. What about you? Where is your place of hurt? What water is bad for you? What is your favourite water? *** http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/meschac-gaba-museumcontemporary-african-art *** Je suis seule. Mais je ne suis pas seule. Je suis multiple. Multiple ça veut dire faible.

Mais seule ça veut dire moyen forte. Seule ce n'est pas solitaire. Seule n'est pas séparée. Seule c’ est d’ être juste assez pour une personne.

J'en ai assez de la solitude. En scène pour les murs, en scène pour des spectateurs dans ma tête, en scène pour les morts ... assez.

Maintenant, je suis seule encore une fois, mai était mortel, Paris est endormi, l'Afrique est derrière moi. Je veux être avec les gens.

J'ai besoin de gens qui m' écoutent. Mais pas pour me regarder. J' ai besoin de gens, beaucoup de gens, de me voir, mais pas pour me regarder. Est-ce que c'est possible?Je suis multiple dans une époque de solitude. J' ai oublié ce que j'ai besoin et je me souviens ce que je crains. Je dois exprimer ouvertement. Parler comme une seule personne parmi tant d' autres, parmi les vivants.

Je ne suis pas une jeune fille plus. Je suis une femme, moitié blanche, moitié noire, moitié grise. Moitié femme aussi.

N' appartenant pas c’est ce qui me fait être seule, c'est ce qui me fait être moi, c'est ce qui me fait être forte. Je ne fais pas partie d' une tribu, ou d’ une armée, ou d’ un clan.

Et je n' ai pas de secrets plus. Je suis le seul secret. Assez de maisons sombres, assez de rues brûlantes, assez d' idées ridicules sur l' auto- Dieu et l'homme-Dieu et le mortDieu. C'est un adieu définitif à Dieu.

Ma jambe gauche fait mal quand il pleut et quand je pleure trop. Pas tant de larmes ces jours, mais il pleut beaucoup. Qu' en penses-tu ? Quel est ton lieu de souffrance?

Quelle eau est mauvaise pour tu? Quelle est ton eau préférée?

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Libby Sacer ‫סעסַאס ליבי‬ Либи Hикогаш не постоел ‫ליינייל‬ ‫ גַאווַאן‬non è mai esistito kò papo kamwe kuwepo

In the Greek version of this document, this section (”Fragments of the diagolue”) occupies fifteen pages. In this, much smaller, version only the links & quotes originally in English appear. While Greek readers can read excerpts from e-mails that are not translated here into English, this is obviously a loss for the english speacking reader. However, the fragments in the Greek version anyway constitute a mere 0,5% of the e-mails exchanged, while records of actual meetings or of the preceding 3-month preparation period are not included at all.

Thus, this archive – as any archive – is really a selection and hence the questions posed by Sacer’s biography also arise here.

These questions have been central to this overall project: What is retained in memory and what gets lost? How, who and what is being cut out of History? How do such exclusions shape our collective memory and identity?

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Η

Λιμπι

Sacer

Σακερ

‫ליבי‬

Libby

‫סעסַאס‬

δεν

υπήρξε ποτέ не постоел ‫ליינייל‬ mai

‫גַאווַאן‬

non

esistito

existed

kò

papo

è

never nie

existiert kamwe kuwepo n'a jamais existé

What?

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Libby Sacer NEVER EXISTED

Huh?

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Η Λίμπι Σάκερ Либи никогаш Libby Sacer ‫ סעסַאס ליבי‬δεν υπήρξε ποτέ не постоел ‫ גַאווַאן ליינייל‬non è mai esistito never existed kò papo nie existiert kamwe kuwepo n'a jamais existé aldrig eksisteret var olmamış

Exhibitions / PERFORMANCES

We constructed Libby in order to use her as a vehicle that would take us where the things that concern us are.

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Trust performances

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Performance â&#x20AC;&#x201C; study on Libby Sacerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s body during her private moments; part of Trust. Based on the available information about her (ethnic origin, sexuality, choice to remain unnoticed and so on), a physical approach to her condition was attempted, through basic bodily needs (eat-drink-moverest) as pleasures (liqueur, dessert, dance, relax).

Exhibitions / PERFORMANCES

Revival of one of Sacerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s performances; part of Trust. According to her notes, Sacer used a jacket in a private performance (with a painted audience on the walls) during the period 1960-68. She called it the "Karyotakisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; jacket", although she had never met the Greek poet. In its pockets, she kept items associated with loss. During the performance, she would wear the jacket, sit on a chair and then perform multiple falls.

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The groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s next exhibition was Ghost Songs which focused on what haunts or makes us up personally or collectively.

Rationale: From the ghosts of History to our personal ghosts, whatever haunts us, insisting to exist regardless of time and space and remaining invisible despite of its manifestations, is part of our identity.

Ghosts can hide or reveal themselves, trespassing boundaries and limitations, exhibiting complete disregard for any sort of Passports. No matter what we ask of them, they do not respond or comply; they retain the right to fully control and define themselves, while enjoying the dominant emblem of power: to be able to see us even when we cannot.

What ghosts 'haunt' us, compose us, dominate us, keep us company, torture and liberate us? Which is their voice, well hidden within our own?

Do they appear by default, did others cast them upon us or have our own thoughts and choices brought them forth? Are we haunted by the questions we neglected to pose or by unresolved problems?

Traditionally, before an entity can haunt the present it must first die, become the past. Death is a necessary condition for overcoming the limitations of matter. And paradoxically, it is precisely the ghostsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; return to life, their exposure to the light of current reality that may finally silence, paralyze and render them finally dead.

But how would we find our way and who would we be without them? If a truth is what refuses oblivion, then what becomes of forgotten truths?

Are there ghosts whose presence we gladly nurture and cherish? Which ones would we prefer to get rid of and how? And finally, what ghosts are we talking about?

49

The Ghost Songs exhibition opened on June 27th 2014 and paused on July 18th, to resume again on the 10th up until the 19th of September 2014.

The participating visual and performance artists, writers and musicians were: Yorgos Aggelakis, Elena Akyla, Andreas Vais, Maria Georgoula, Ana Hopfer, Akiro Hellgardt, Stefanos Kamaris, Katerina Katsifaraki, Anna Lascari, Mikaela Liakata, Alexandros maganiotis, Mariela Nestora, Aris, Siafas, Victoria Skogsberg, Olga Spiraki, Myrto Stampoulou Eugenia Tzirtzilaki, Eugenia Fragos, Irine Vela, Mark van Yetter, Maria Fakinou, Dimitris Halatsi, and Stefanos Handelis.

A bilingual presentation of the show is available here

Exhibitions / Ghost Songs

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Exhibitions / PERFORMANCES

Ghost Songs performances

53

Mariela Nestoraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dance performance C7, was presented in Ghost Songs. Î&#x2122;t evolved every time it was presented, leaving traces behind.

Morphologically it was inspired by paranormal contact with another dimension, using plants that are said to be especially sensitive to the perception of ghosts, such as Anagallis arvensis and Bryonia Alba.

Exhibitions / PERFORMANCES

Olga Spirakiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dance performance Wake, was presented in Ghost Songs.

It explored how our traces reflect our identity and also the duality of human nature, its virtue and its wickedness.

Visitorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; traces were

collected throughout each day and the dancing on the traces occurred once at the end of the day.

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Other live events

57

Open Call: negating mediation

Other live events / BOOK REPORTS

Meanwhile a Book Reports series is unfolding This is a series of public book presentations; books presented might not be new, but are somehow considered vital now by those presenting them. The books could belong to any genre: science, theory, fiction, or any other kind, and each presentation is followed by an open discussion.

On the one hand this series is about sharing think-tools and examining them collectively through the discussions that follow, and on the other hand it’s a public confession of what defines us. Those who present each night do not know each other; they read different books, live in different neighborhoods and might have never met otherwise. What connects them is the will to share, the curiosity to listen and the desire to discuss with strangers.

The Book Reports fall into the Ghost Songs thematic. Certain people have been invited to present, who don’t normally speak publically, and there is also an open call* for the series:

Book Reports: Pick a Ghost and be its Passport Athenians pick and present a book that “haunts” them.

A day when ideas become viral and thrills become contagious.

Small extracts from each presentation follow.

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Book Reports #1| June 13th 2014 During Book Reports #1 the following books were presented: “The tight shoes” by Georges Sari, presented by linguist Kanela Pouli, “Ping-pong: Sizzling chops and devilish spins” by Jerome Charyn, presented by George Katsikatsos, mechanic with studies in philosophy, and Plato’s’ “Seventh Letter,” presented by artist Alexandros Mistriotis.

“Words play an important role in my life.

Rereading The Tight Shoes for today's presentation I realized that as a child I was confronted with many of the issues that concerned me as a linguist, in a single book.

The most interesting to me is how language is a tool for the creation or the effort to change reality.” ~ Kanela Pouli

“The reality of exercise humanizes. The humanization consists in feeling the full weight of one’s mortality. And mortality means wear, which is sensed through the body. When I run long distances and gradually increase the effort, my body is driven to extremes. I attempt to by-pass it, to get out of it. The repetition, the monotony, the loneliness, the constant hormonal secretion after a critical point have their effect: long-distance runner euphoria. ~ Yorgos Katsikatsos

“A text that is relatively unknown, a fact that is unjustified compared to its importance. In this delightful letter, Plato reviews his turbulent life; in four years he will die and from then on others will be offer accounts and interpretations of his life.” ~ Alexandros Mistriotis Other live events / BOOK REPORTS

Book Reports #2 | October 1st 2014 Book presented: Yannis Adoniades' “Chess and Literature” presented by journalist Kosmas Kefalos, Georg Büchner's “Lenz” as well as some of his letters, unpublished in Greek (translated by Maria Roussou) presented by actress Eftihia Kiourtidou, Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Antichrist”, presented by visual artist Dimitris Halatsis, and "End Pit" by Alina Popa, Irina Gheorghe, Stefan Tiron, Claudiu Cobilanschi, Florin Flueras, Ion Dumitrescu (The Beauro of Melodramatic Research, PradisGaraj, Postspectacle) presented by Eugenia Tzirtzilaki.

“The best Greek chess player once told me that he worries at the beginning of a set, because he hasn’t managed yet to get insde the chessboard. I didn’t understand, so I asked again.

Indeed, he said that from a point on he didn’t see the pawns on the table in front of him but walk among them on the chessboard.” ~ Kosmas Kefalos

“Romanticism, with all its heroism and lyricism, was blooming. But Büchner was already far away from it. With the phrase ‘The only thing that made me unhappy was that I couldn’t walk upside down with my legs up high’, we enter the new German literature."

~ Eftyhia Kiourtidou

“I grew up in the province, in a family that was close to church, I went to church school, etc. Up until my father’s death that made me doubt everything. And just then, at a street sale, amongst old furniture, clothes and watches, I saw this book. And It changed the way I looked at the world." ~ Dimitris Halatsis "These people collected thoughts, images, observations, theoretical texts, legends & folk Tales from Romania and Turkey, dealing with gold as value, meaning, politics and economy. We also have a Rossia Montana though. There is ground for a conversation" ~ Eugenia Tzirtzilaki

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* A hand-made copy of "End Pit" was found in Cluj (here ) & photocopies were given to the audience in Athens.

Other live events / BOOK REPORTS

Book Reports #3 | April 5, 2015 During Book Reports #3, the following books were presented: Jack Ketchum's "The girl next door" presented by private employee Pepi Daniel, and Sergio Tischler's “Time and emancipation - Mikhail Bakhtin and Walter Benjamin in the Lacandon jungle” presented by sociologist Katerina Nasioka.

"Under what conditions do the darkest aspects of the human psyche flourish and spread? How does one reach sadism without having anything to gain?" ~ Pepi Daniel

“How whimsical is the relationship between time, concepts, image and revolution?” ~ Katerina Nasioka

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Artist talks / A dialogue on cultural production Subversive mediation: Mixing different audiences

6 – 7 / 06 / 2014 Cultural policies, that is the institutional frame and strategies for the support of art, is often at the center of public discussion. But what about art itself and its production from the creators’ standpoint?

Focusing on cultural production, we invited six extraordinary artists to discuss, how and why they create. What do they do and how do they think about it? How do they produce their art? Each evening hosted 3 artists, each working in an entirely different field: photography, dance, poetry, architecture, theater, visual arts. Each artist attracted a very different audience that became unified and so people acquired access to ideas and conversations they wouldn’t normally be part of.

Poet Katerina Aggelaki-Rooke, choreographer Tzeni Argiriou, theater director Giorgos Zamboulakis, photojournalist Mara Koura, architect Elias Papa Georgiou and visual artist Stavros Bonitos, shared their thoughts on their practice and the reasons that motivate them.

During their presentations, the artists referred to four questions, the same for all, from the questionnaire that Libby Sacer compiled in 1938.

Questions: 1. What do you think you are doing?

2. What are you really doing?

3. Who is it for?

4. How do you make a living?

Each presentation was followed by discussion with the audience.

Brief info on the artists and photographs from their presentations follow in the next few pages.

65

Friday, June 6 2014

â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was interested in how the brain works, and then I really got into memoryâ&#x20AC;?.

Tzeni Argiriou | Dance Tzeni Argiriou is a choreographer, performance maker and media artist.

She is a founding member of the group amorphy.org and the last few years her work is based on the dialogue between the performing arts and new media. She has presented her work in Holland (Virtual Museum), Germany (InteractionsLabor Media Lab, PACT Zollverein), Portugal (Lugar Comum) France (Try Angle), New York (Fringe Festival) Athens and Kalamata Festivals, Benaki Museum, CAMP and elsewhere.

Other live events / ARTIST TALKS

Maro Kouri | Photojournalism In her 20 years of work Maro Kouri has travelled the world bringing to light issues such as the Tanzanian Albinos, child slavery and women’s oppression, she’s approached dangerous zones such as the Tynisian riots and brought travel stories from Africa, Asia and the Maori in New Zealand. Known for her photojournalism and portraits alike, she has collaborated with top publishers, from National Geographic to Art in America and was awarded the international SCOOP award - Prix du documentary photo. She taught photography in Eleonas women prison.

“To me, photography is magic”.

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* “When I design I try to remember that this is not just shapes and structures - I make the window from where some Maria will come out, crying “Billy, don’t go, I love you!"

Elias Papageorgiou | Architecture

Elias Papageorgiou studied architecture at the National Metsovian Polytechnic University and attended additional classes in furniture-making at the Diplareio School of Athens. Today, the field of his professional work ranges from unique furniture to the design of small and mid-scale buildings.

Other live events / ARTIST TALKS

Saturday, June 7 2014 Katerina Aggelaki-Rooke | Poetry Katerina Aggelaki-Rooke studied foreign languages in Athens and in France and graduated in Geneva as a translator - interpreter (Greek, English, French, Russian). She has been awarded the A’ Poetry Award of the city of Geneva (Prix Hensch), the B’ National Greek Poetry Award and the Costas and Eleni Ourani Award from the Academy of Athens. In her 50-year course she has published about 20 poetry collections, while her translating work is also rich. She has delivered lectures and read her poetry at Harvard, Cornell, NYU, Princeton, Columbia Universities and elsewhere, and articles on her poetry and translations have been published in the international press. Her poems have been translated in more than ten languages.

”Poems fail when love affairs fail.

Don’t listen to them a poems needs loving affection to survive the cold time”.

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Stavros Bonatsos | Visual Arts

Stavros Bonatsos was born in Athens in 1945. He studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts at Yianis’ Moralis class (1964-1969) and in Paris, at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués et des Métiers d’ Art, in the plastic arts and polyester class of J. Cantes (1972-1976). He has exhibited his work in 10 solo shows and many more group exhibitions in Greece and abroad. From 1978 until 2012, he taught at Vacalo School and FOCUS School of Photography.

” I don’t like explaining my work; it’s what you see”.

Other live events / ARTIST TALKS

*”When I was younger, there were no opportunities for young people.

When youth got to be trendy, I was too old already”.

Giorgos Zamboulakis | Theater Giorgos Zamboulakis has directed more than 20 performances, for state stages and free-lance, in Greece, Sweden, Iceland, the UK, Egypt and Romania. He has taught acting at the Greek National Theater, the Athens Conservatory and abroad. Along with Thanos Vovolis he was the artistic director of the 1st Educational Athens Festival (2006), in the frame of the Greek Festival. He is the artistic Director of the Experimental Theαter of Thrace, the Concept Curator of “Page_31 Festival” at Camp and founding member of the group deviant GaZe.

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Other live events / ARTIST TALKS

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Biennale, a discussion Focusing on mediation

29 / 10 / 2014 A discussion focusing on the Biennale and other large-scale periodical exhibitions, in reference to their politics and economy. How are these artistic

events

produced? What is

their role as

institutions

in

contemporary art and how do curators and artists function within them?

What did the recent reaction by participating artists of the Sydney and Sao Paolo Biennale concern?

Invited speakers were the art historians Nikos Daskalothanasis, Alexandros Teneketzis and Evi Baniotopoulou who discussed the frame and symbolisms of cases such as the Venice Biennale, the Kassel Documenta and the Biennale of Thessaloniki, and the politics-aesthetics relationship in the environment of large-scale institutional art shows.

Image: Greek pavilion, Venice Bienalle, 2011

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Speakers Nikos Daskalothanasis is an Art History professor at the Athens School of Fine Arts.

Most recently he published the book “Art History, the birth of a new science, from the 19th to the 20th century” at Agra Editions.

Evi Baniotopoulou is an independent art historian, curator and professor at the Greek International University.

She has collaborated with museums and organizations and Greece and abroad, such as the Thessaloniki Contemporary Art Museum, Action Field Kodra, Tate Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts and the Sotheby’s Institute of Art. She holds a Ph.D. from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design on the relationship of art curating and the city.

Alexandros Teneketzis is an art historian, teaching at Crete University and at the “Plato’s Academy” program of the Athens University. He is also a consultant at the Zogopoulou Institute, the Chamber of Fine Arts of Greece and the National History Museum, while he collaborates with the Greek National Gallery. He deals with issues of social history, memory and art.

Discussion / BIENNALE

From Libby Sacer Foundation’s introduction to the event We’ll begin with some positions as a frame for the discussion. And certainly, these positions are to be challenged or confirmed through the discussion and the comments later, which will hopefully be plenty.

Contemporary art’s detachment from the conditions of its production and the disregard of its historicity are characteristics that seem to run through large-scale periodical exhibitions. This perception undermines the historical interpretation of cultural phenomena and “sees” art as an exclusively

aesthetic

experience,

paving

the

path

for

its

instrumentalization by the structures that produce it. Meanwhile, the substitution of the “political” by the “aesthetic” and an overuse of the term “political art” seem extremely problematic.

There is very little criticism of these institutions. On the contrary, surrender to existing mechanisms of exhibiting and circulating art (collectors, sponsors, curators, art critics) prevails.

Two recent instances of criticism on behalf of the artists.

For over 40 years, the Transfield Company was the great sponsor of the Sydney Biennale. In 2011 however, a branch of the company, Transfield Services, took on the construction of compulsory detention centers for immigrants on behalf of the Australian government. And in 2014, the company signed a new contract for services concerning the welfare and security of these centers.

As these centers are accused for human rights violations, on February 2014, 37 artists participating in the Sydney Biennale send a letter to the Bienalle’s Board asking its financial detachment from Transfield. The Board denied, but in March its president, Luca Belgiorno Nettis, was

77

forced to resign. His art-loving father had founded the Biennale in the mid-70s, as well as Transfield Co. to which Luca Belgiorno Nettis is still the president.

A few months later, at the end of August 2014, 66 of the 70 artists who participated at the Sao Paolo Biennale, the second oldest after the Venice Biennale, sent an open letter to the Biennale Institute asking it to return the Israeli sponsorship and remove its embassy logo from the promotional material of the exhibition. Two of the artists signing the letter were Israeli. Five curators of the Biennale supported the artists through their statements. The artists’ letter mentioned: “We, the undersigned artists participating in the 31st Bienal have been suddenly confronted, just as the show is about to open, with the fact that the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo has accepted money from the Israeli state and that the Israeli Consulate logo appears in the Bienal pavilion and on its publications and website.

At a time in which the people of Gaza return to the rubble of their homes, destroyed by the Israeli military we do not feel it is acceptable to receive Israeli cultural sponsorship. In accepting this funding our artistic work displayed in the exhibition is undermined and implicitly used for whitewashing Israel’s on going aggressions and violation of international law and human rights.

We reject Israel’s attempt to normalize itself within the context of a major international cultural event in Brazil.”

And this way, with the Biennale of Sydney and of Sao Paolo, an international conversation on the ethics, politics and economy of major artistic evets is rekindled. And the question is: Through what processes is the dominant aesthetic of our era formed?

Discussion / BIENNALE

Venice Bienalle, 2011

Excerpts from the presentations follow

79

Discussion / BIENNALE

From Nikos Daskalothanassis’ presentation. The full text can be read, in Greek, in the collection Restitutions (Futura 2015).

What is to be done?

When Lenin wrote in the early 20th century (1901-1902) a text under the same title ("What is to be done")[1] in order to criticize the "anarchic-like" tendencies of the Social Democratic Party of Russia and the British "operaismo", he couldn’t of course imagine that the same slogan would be used almost a century later – in 2007– by the artistic director of a "massive" institutional mechanism –the 12th Kasel Documenta– as one of its three theoretical-research projects [2]. And this is not so because Lenin was not particularly imaginative –perhaps indeed he wasn’t– nor because artistic issues concerned him, as it is clear from his writings, as much as they concerned Marx– that is, in essence, very little. The nature of Lenin’s 'failure' is objective: both in the industrially delayed Russia and in industrially developed Europe, the issues concerning the activity of the masses could not be perceived otherwise than in purely political terms. And in Lenin’s time, for the revolutionary forces, political terms had a specific content: they were about overthrowing the existing production, and hence, class, correlations. A century later, what has been certainly overthrown is such a perception.

The absolute vagueness of the political, is the dominant reality of our era. In the visual arts field the substitution of the "political" by the "aesthetic", or, at least, dealing with political issues in aesthetic terms –and the other way round– can be considered a result of this phenomenon. The witticism of Roger M. Buergel – the German artistic director of the 12th Documenta– is born out of this reality [3].

Especially in recent decades the term "political art" is repeated, particularly within large institutional artistic events, with a frequency that is unprecedented [4]. And maybe the Kassel Documenta leads here in the most typical way. Indeed, the Documenta directly “integrated” in the program of its 10th anniversary, the concept of the political: "Political-poetic" was the title chosen by Catherine David, the French 1997 artistic director of the event (and co-curator of the first Biennale of Thessaloniki, 2007). If the term political, despite the "crisis" it is going through, continues to refer

81

to issues related to the "non-aesthetic" aspects of human life, the term poetry refers (from the time of Aristotle) precisely to them.

Two first objections, perhaps among the many, may be raised immediately.

Firstly, only a rigid reductive thought would perceive the terms political and aesthetic in such an absolute purity so as to juxtapose them. And our time has not ceased, rightly so, to demonstrate the restrictions of reductionism. Secondly, the discussion on the relationship between politics and aesthetics is –to remain within the era of modernity– at least a century old, if not older (that is, it was already active at the time when Lenin wrote his text) and, moreover such a correlation was often requested by artistic groups that formulated positions which could be considered to be far from politically conservative.

One answer to the first objection: regardless of the correctness of the critique on reductionism, the issue that ought to be clarified is under what historical conditions the osmosis of the political and the aesthetic is currently carried out within institutional artistic events. Perhaps this clarification will not clarify the exact content of the osmosis, it will provide however an answer as to the causes of its great diffusion.

An answer to the second objection: indeed, modernity often raised the issue of the political-aesthetic relationship. However, not only the trend that dominated the most advanced (politically) versions of the movements of modernity –from the Russian avant-garde and the dada to the surrealists– was to “de-aestheticize” art so as to serve reality (not vice versa) [5]– but also something more: the relationship of art and politics was a matter of the artists themselves and, in any case, was perceived, at least as a stated intention, as part of political criticism, beyond and outside of institutionalized mechanisms. The cultivation of this relationship by definition inside the existing institutional cultural systems was an idea altogether foreign not only to Lenin -who anyway set his priorities based on a fairly clear separation between politics and aesthetics- but also to the artists of the 20th century themselves. Here lies a radical difference in the relationship between art and politics in our time. Whatever mobilized those artists of the historical avant-garde interested in the political dimension of their work, was the faith in a broader program in which their art Discussion / BIENNALE

functioned as a liberating aspect. Its essential points, usually expressed in the form of a war declaration compiled by them or by some theorists organically connected however with the art groups (the examples of Tzara or Breton are of the most prominent). This program didn’t simply result from the practical activity of the artists but was a product of their wider attitude towards reality: their attitude toward the world determined their art and not the opposite. In short, it wasn’t the acceptance of the terms of existing reality that allowed them to make up their artistic expression but, conversely, their artistic expression could be formed exactly because it was triggered by a critical attitude towards existing reality. Much of the art of our time, as implemented within large institutional events, is characterized by the reverse of this perception. What’s more, maybe this shift, this reversal, is one of the fundamental characteristics not only of contemporary art theory (that interests us here interested in particular) but also of the entire post-modernity era [6].

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[1] In Greek, Lenin’s text is included in the edition of his Collected Works.

[2] The other two were: "Is modernity our antiquity?" And "What is the 'bare life'?".

[3] We will not get here into the details of the (pseudo?) controversy on the acceptance or rejection of the aesthetic in the art of the last hundred years [for both sides of the issue see respectively the two anthologies by Peter Osborne (ed.), From an Aesthetic Point of View. Philosophy, Art and the Senses, London, Serpent’s Tail, 2000 and Hal Foster (ed.), The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays oh Post-Modern Culture, Seattle (WA), Bay Press, 1983]. The phenomenon that will concern us here is the increasing osmosis between art and politics as implemented through artistic institutions in recent decades, so here what will be examined mainly is how art is "politicized". Of course, clearly the opposite direction could be investigated too: how politics become “aestheticized” (the adoption of performance forms to make political manifestations of a massive character and the use of “poetic” slogans to advertise political demands, the substitution of traditional billboard with political slogans by billboards with works of art for the election campaign, for example, of professional politicians are here some of the most "striking" examples).

[4] "The homeless: spectral scenes of the globalized society" is the title of the second Biennial of Seville (2007), "Future construction of history," is the title of one of the 2006 Shanghai Biennale, "a directly political issue," according to critic Philip Tinari, "6th Shangai Biennale", Artforum, XLV, 3, Noem. 2006, s.292. It should be clarified here that in the context of this text, the term "political" is used in a broad sense, without shades (such as, for example, as distinct from the "social").

[5] This trend is summarized mutatis mutandis by Benjamin in very last phrase of his most famous essay, see Walter Benjamin, Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit (19361939) [6] Here, the terms "postmodern" and "contemporary" coincide for functionality, in order to delimit the historical period of the last forty years or so, since we can not enter the, otherwise extremely interesting, debate as to whether this period belongs, in Ernest Mandel’s terms, to the late phase of capitalism (Frederick Jameson has gone on to relate capitalism and postmodernity) or if now starts, in the terms of Daniel Bell, a post-industrial era.

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Discussion / BIENNALE

Excerpt from Alexandros Teneketzisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; presentation (unpublished)

The Venice Biennale after the war On an artistic level the important event was the gradual transfer of the metropolitan center from Paris to New York and specifically in the circles around the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) led by Alfred H. Barr Jr. [1] - see "How New York stole the idea of modern art." This geographical, political and ultimately artistic shift to the other side of the Atlantic was felt both in large arts institutions (such as the Biennale) and in the case of the development of a version of public memory and art and especially, naturally, around the theme of war - memorials are now outsourced to architects and not to sculptors with a clear preference in abstraction, mainly geometrical. Before we discuss the Biennale though, let's see what was going on at the same time: (fig. 1 â&#x20AC;&#x201C;pg. 136) The international institution that has given rise to the widespread diffusion of artistic standards in the West was the 'International Sculpture Competition for the Monument to the Unknown Political Prisoner', which was organized in the period 1950-3 under the auspices of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London and the Tate gallery. However, we know that essentially it was realized with the encouragement, blessings and supervision of the CIA. (fig. 2) The winner was British sculptor Greg Butler with an abstract and symbolic composition.

The awarded proposals were all at this wavelength anyway. (fig. 3) Moreover, in 1955 on the initiative of painter and art professor Arnold Bode, the first Documenta in Kassel of West Germany was organized, dedicated to the Art of the 20th Century, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture 1905-1955, as was the subtitle - probably in response to the Venice Biennale [2], wanting to renounce the national characteristic in the identity of the creators and the projects. (fig. 4) In the wide and globalized field of abstract art the American version dynamically enters as well, with the second Documenta and the vast presence of artists creating in the style of abstract expressionism and Jackson Pollock as the central figure, one of the four honored artists no longer alive and in the central hall too [3]. As in the case of the competition for the unknown political prisoner, so at the Documenta and especially

85

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

Discussion / BIENNALE

(6)

the second one, abstraction, in any form and intensity, was presented as the only way possible, as the only remarkable stylistic, but also ideological, choice. ď&#x201A;§

The postwar Venice Biennale

The mark, however, of the major trends and conflicts in the global art world can be seen more clearly in the probably most important international cultural event, already institutionalized and acclaimed since 1895, the Venice Biennale, which was returning after the pause of the years 1942-1948 - but was starting again with absences that had little to do with artistic parameters, with most striking examples the continued absence of the USSR, the absence of Germany and of Greece as well. In this first postwar Biennale, even before the Cold War backdrop of the next decades peaks and becomes fully crystallized, only fifteen countries participated, among them some that although they had joined the Soviet sphere of influence, were still not fully depend on Moscow, which these first years was somewhat tolerant. So we come across Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland - but not Romania and Yugoslavia that followed the Soviet line. [4] The organizers, however, with pioneers the new secretary of the Biennale and practically the general manager, art historian Rodolfo Pallucchini, and Lionello Venturi and Roberto Longi, known to all funs of modernism, wanted from the outset to give an air of renewal to the institution and especially to stop the links with the fascist past, with all that it had brought to the organization, aiming at the same time to reconnect with the pre-war avant-garde movements.

An important innovation, compared to the Biennale before the war, is the fact that now historical and retrospective exhibitions become more frequent and established, focusing on avant-garde art of the first half of the 20th century. In this spirit, both the choices of retrospective exhibitions and the awards that were eventually given focus on the rehabilitation and re-legitimization of modernity, which for many years was considered by the fascist regime as 'degenerate art'. (fig. 5) The return to the past begins with the 'Exhibition of the Impressionists', which was proposed by Roberto Longi and housed in the empty German Pavilion [5], catching the thread of modern art from its supposed origins. Then, and in an attempt to restore the Italian art of the interwar period, which had much suffered from Mussoliniâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s regime, we find the exhibition 'Three Italian metaphysical painters' with works by

87

Discussion / BIENNALE

Carlo Carrà, Giorgio Morandi and Giorgio de Chirico. In the central pavilion of the 24th Biennale we find, next to the exhibition on Klee, an exhibition with works by German artists who were persecuted and exiled from the Nazi regime, such as Otto Dix, George Grosz, Max Pechstein and others.

One of the most important moments of this Biennale though, was the presentation for the first time in Italy of Peggy Guggenheim’s collection, which was housed in the empty Greek pavilion. (ex. 6) Actually, due of the late organization of the American pavilion, it representing somehow the United States, for which the owner of the collection herself said she was very proud and happy. [6] This was a collection of 136 works by 73 artists of classic modernism with works by Picasso, Mondrian, Klee, Kandinsky, Ernst, De Chirico, Magritte, Braque, Dalí, Moore, Giacometti, Chagall and others, and for the first time Italian audiences will also see works by the American Pollock.

The next Biennale will have Pallucchini’s mark, but will be organized in very charged international conditions, with the Cold War climate reaching its peak after the Berlin events and the establishment of the two Germanies. A consequence of these non-artistic events was the departure, apart the USSR which continued since 1934 and of Romania that had not participated since 1948, of the other Eastern Bloc countries, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland, that attended two years earlier.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] See Guilbaut, Serge, “Postwar Painting Games: The Rough and the Slick”, op. cit., pp. 30-84, and of course by the same author, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art: Abstract Expressionism, Freedom, and the Cold War, Goldhammer, Arthur (trans.), The University of Chicago Press, Chicago / London 1983.

[2] See Winkler, Kurt, “II. Documenta '59 - Kunst nach 1945”, op. cit., pp. 428.

[3] Pollock died in 1956. The other three were Willi Baumeister (1955), Nicolas de Staël (1955) and Wols (1951), see Winkler, Kurt, “II. Documenta '59 - Kunst nach 1945”, op. cit., pp. 431.

[4]See Di Martino, Enzo, Storia della Biennale di Venezia 1895-2003, Arti Visive - Architettura Cinema - Danza - Musica - Teatro, op. cit. 122-125.

[5] See the official website of the Biennale http://www.labiennale.org.

[6] For the history of the collection’s handing to the city of Venice see Di Martino, Enzo, Storia della Biennale di Venezia 1895-2003, Arti Visive - Architettura - Cinema - Danza - Musica - Teatro, op. cit., pp. 40-51.

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4th Biennale of Contemporary Art & the city of Thessaloniki The topic of my speech will be the Thessaloniki Biennale and its relationship to the city where it was hosted and organized in, in relation to issues of attributing and redefining urban identity. I propose, hereby, to examine as a limited case study the tendency of a city to restore to its collective memory and to display part of her identity through a large-scale institutional exhibition.

The main reason for the need to redefine or attribute elements of identity, not only in Thessaloniki but also in other cities internationally, seems to emerge from the fact that in recent decades the concept of nation-states, as formed, is in decline, and the emphasis is given most particularly in the cities of the world.

This tendency is inscribed onto the modern condition, namely globalization and the consolidation of the tertiary production sector, where cities play an important role as administrative, economic and socio-political centers. The proliferation of Biennales throughout the world, especially in the last three decades is indicative of the increased demand for services, associated with these changes, among them for cultural goods. Besides offering the modern trends in art, Biennales are also used, often, in part as 'tools' for attributing urban identity. This is done within the frame of a tactic of promoting the city that’s hosting them, which is intertwined with the institution since its appearance in Venice in the late 19th century.

In the so-called “cities of the world,” in particular, such as Thessaloniki, historical depth and cultural and political importance of the cities is especially appreciated, while their modern capabilities and possible future role are promoted. Thessaloniki’s identity, as it has been formed over the centuries, but also as the city itself seems to perceive it in modern times, is composed of various elements, amongst which its historical continuity, its commercial character, its strategic geographic location and, above all, its cosmopolitanism, as a result of long successful integration and harmonious coexistence of populations of different religions and cultural backgrounds.

Discussion / BIENNALE

So, my presentation continues the exploration of the ideological and political transformations with the frame of international large-scale Contemporary Art exhibitions (following the speech of Mr. Teneketzi), but based this time on the choices of the curators for Thessaloniki - and how these relate to the historicalcultural memory, the space and the image of the city as it is being reshaped.

I will refer, specifically, to the 4th edition of the Thessaloniki Biennale, the

biennále: 4, entitled Everywhere but Now, curated by Adelina von Fürstenberg.

The 4th Biennale was part of the wider theme of Old Intersections – Make it

New, which was structured in three consecutive editions of the exhibition, between 2011 and 2015 (3rd-5th Thessaloniki Biennale). Old Intersections -

Make it New dealt with the position and importance of the Mediterranean as a crossroads of special historical, but also contemporary importance for the political, social and economic upheavals in the wider region. I will focus on two aspects of the organization of biennále: 4, which are interdependent and complementary, and I consider them as adequately reflective of both the curators’ choices and the city itself on organizational level. These elements are the use of certain municipal buildings and the creation of the map of 4th Biennale.

Excerpt from the presentation of Evi Baniotopoulou – processing of positions in a collaborative paper included in the publication: Baniotopoulou, E., Roupakia, L.E. and Sideri, E., ‘Locating Belonging, Refiguring Space: Mediterranean crossings and the 4th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art’, in Dimadis, K. (ed.), Continuities, Discontinuities, Ruptures in the Greek World (12042014): Economy, Society, History, Literature, Proceedings of the 5th European Congress of Modern Greek Studies, Athens: European Society of Modern Greek Studies, May 2015, pp.667-677

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Discussion: City & the Dough, part I 8 / 10 / 2014

From the introduction: Today’s discussion is part of a dialogue on the definitions and limitations of Body, Space, Identity and the ideological mechanisms that shape them. We aim to allow space and offer a frame for critical discourse regarding what concerns us all: the transformations of the contemporary city. In the case of Athens, who intervenes to these transformations and how? (NGOs, Universities, Institutions, etc.)

What processes appear to emerge from collectives and residents and which are verified as such? What does the “City of the Capital” or “City of Solidarity” mean? This discussion is an opportunity to review or decode the changes currently unfolding in the city, but also to interpret them as political phenomena. Our speakers are architect Dimitra Siatitsa, urban planer and writer Panos Totsikas, and the economist Elias Ioakeimoglou.

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Dimitra Siatitsa is an architect and PhD candidate on the subject of “Right to housing and social movements in Southern European cities.” As an architect and researcher, she specializes on issues of urban policies, housing policies, sustainable urban development and social movements. She is a member of the international network for research and action in the city (I.N.UR.A.) and of the group of “encounter Athens”.

Panos Totsikas studied Political and Social Sciencies in Athens and Architecture in Paris. He has participated in teams preparing urban studies and local development programs, and has been awarded in many architectural and urban planning competitions. He participates in civil movements dealing with the city and the environment and he collaborates with various magazines and newspapers.

Elias Ioakeimoglou is a member of the editorial board of the political and economic theory magazine “Thesis”. He has published a series of studies and books on the economic and political situation in Greece.

Discussion / CITY & THE DOUGH

Excerpts from the Presentations

From the town of crisis in the city of solidarity PANOS TOTSIKAS When speaking of the "city", we mean both the urban and suburban "city space,” and the "city people", the "society of people."

In recent decades, Attica / Athens constitutes an extensive field of social and ecological transformation. The sole aim of the dominant capitalist-neoliberal "development", which is nowadays in decline, is the rampant speculation of some – of few individuals who accumulate money defiantly, without any regard to addressing real social needs.

The traditional «exploitation of man by man" combined with the unprecedented extent and intensity of the exploitation of the city space and nature by humans mainly from those who have the economic power - acquires new dimensions and forms an explosive mixture for evolution t the city in the coming years.

Within these conditions, social resistance develops at local or central level against the concession of public land and public spaces to individuals for long-term exploitation, against the commercialization of open spaces, beaches, forest areas and mountains.

Moreover, social economy and solidarity networks develop, as well as self-organized collectives that operate according to direct democracy, manifesting "another real world."

From the city of crisis....

The Greek polity/regime change in 1974 finds Athens "overflowing" towards the Thriassio and then to the plain of Mesogeia. Antoni Tritsi’s effort to halt urban expansion in Attica, is ultimately inefficient. Moving the airport to Spata and then the spreading of Olympic venues (Stadium area in Maroussi, Olympic Village in Parnitha, Saronic Beach etc.), give a different turn to the formation of the "city space", while the government of PASOK offers to the extended lower middle classes the ability for economic growth and their mutation into "neo-rich" who usually live on borrowed money.

Athens acquires the characteristics of a 'bubble', both in terms of space utilization and of the economic development of its residents, especially the lower-middle classes. The wide economic crisis that manifests itself after 2008, essentially pauses every buildingexpansionist activity in Athens. Permission is granted to specific individuals for the exploitation of public space and in the limelight appear some milestone gentrificationinterventions by Greek and foreign private investors - "sponsors." The coastline of the

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Saronic Gulf, the area of Elliniko, the gentrification of Panepistimiou Avenue and of certain neighborhoods such as Kerameikos and Metaxourgeio as a continuation of the "upgrading" of Plaka and Psiri, are now referred to as an answer to the stalled construction but also as an "upgrading of the product of tourismâ&#x20AC;?, so that Athens can become an attractive tourist destination. The economic crisis is affecting every aspect of our lives and obviously it is reflected in the space of the municipalities in which we live and move.

Athens, as the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capital, is the central scene where the socio-economic crisis is imprinted.

... to the city of solidarity Within these conditions, the "city people" become marginalized and are rapidly transformed into beggars. They can no longer pay what they owe and cannot receive new loans. They cannot pay the new taxes imposed on them or the enormous electric bills that include many more costs other than electricity usage. They lose their jobs, their shops, their businesses, their homes. Unemployment and underemployment go wild and wages and pensions freeze and shrink; as a result consumption is limited, deadening everything. The city-commodity now concerns fewer and fewer people.

So yesterday's "landlord" is now in a tragic condition and tries to find support not at the traditional mechanisms of political parties, MEPs and politicians, but rather at the newly sprang social structures. Whatever welfare state has survived, is disappearing gradually and the torch is passed on to substitutes provided by the municipalities and the church while at the same time independent social solidarity structures are growing: Social medical practices, social pharmacies, soup kitchens, temporary residence hostels, social cooperatives, promotion of products "without intermediaries", free lessons, time exchange Banks, eco-communities, self-managed urban fields, housing occupations constitute grass roots initiatives. Faced with the bankrupt model of "development", a different model is attempted. The economy of cooperative and solidarity, make up a proposal with multiple recipients, highlighting another existent world.

Discussion / CITY & THE DOUGH

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The Left and the City of Capital ELIAS IOAKEIMOGLOU The set of relationships that make up the typical capitalist society, with its capitalist production, its bourgeois state, and some remnants of previous modes of production that acquired an organic relationship with capitalism (especially rents on land and family), is a tangle of relationships that when it spreads spatially it creates the typical capitalist city, which we can call the City of Capital. The City of Capital is the footprint, the transcription of stable capitalistic relationships in space --stable relationships in the sense that they remain unchanged over time and are independent of geography, they are permanently present within the sequence of events and the variety of separate cities. They are the internal relations defining "large properties and silent backgrounds" (in the words of Michel Foucault [1]) of historical movement. Thus, the City of Capital has neither history nor obeys geography or other external fixings such as gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity etc. External determinations [2] such as these, are the heterogeneous number of relationships that can exist or not in a given country or situation, and therefore do not belong to the core of internal relations that define the City of Capital. Do these external determinations make "the same economic basis to present endless variationsÂť (Marx), the same process of reproduction of the labor power to appear in many different forms of daily life in one or the other country, and the City of Capital itself to present endless variations in the form of concrete, existent, capitalist cities.

So far, and with the exception of the leading components of the Soviet revolution, the Left faces city issues within the diversity of existing capitalist cities, without taking sufficient account of these relate, ultimately, to the City of Capital. Blinded by the colorfulness of the specific conditions, the Left in the 20th century, after 1930, will not be able to see cities as endless variations of the City of Capital, and its interventions will remain trapped in the leadership or the managing of spontaneous struggles and revolts that will develop because of the structural weakness of capitalism to solve the issue of housing: land occupations, resistance to the capitalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s initiatives for the gentrification, upgrading and delivery of popular neighborhoods to the bourgeoisie and to speculation, squatting of deserted buildings etc. The management of movements by the Left will move between two extremes, between moderation and leftism [3]. Moderation, which mainly characterized the "official" left of communist and socialist parties, ended up in defensive struggles for the modernizing of the built environment without changing its functions, upgrading for serving the reproduction of labor power better, maintaining the status quo, etc.. Leftism, which mainly characterized the organizations of the extra-parliamentary left, resulted in the overDiscussion / CITY & THE DOUGH

politicization of struggles, where verbosity and maximization of objectives served as the closest substitute for a pragmatic radical, subversive or revolutionary policy for the issues of the capitalist city.

This blindness that didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t allow the Left to see the City Capital behind the particular cities, as well as moderation and its leftism, all emerged from the same causes: From the lowering of criticism by the Left towards the process of reproduction of the working classes, thus less criticism of family and the everyday organization in space of family households, from the dead-end criticism of gender roles, from the protection of children rearing against any criticism that would put into question the dominant patterns of useful slave production, from the acceptance of the most odious ideological mechanisms of the State, particularly of school, family and the church, as if they were class-neutral mechanisms that embody the general interest and meet needs given by Human Nature. The Left, from communist parties to extreme left organizations, from Lotta Continua [4] to David Harvey [5], has forgotten that the reproduction of labor power is the voluntary breeding of collective paid slave and that the City of Capital is the prime area of this reproduction. It has forgotten that the City of Capital is the physical channels that direct the flow of labor power to its eternal cycle between the realm of exploitation and space of its conservation and from there to the realm of ideological allegiance and the training a new generation of working classes slaves.

Inevitably, anyone who doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t challenge the class-based, capitalistic, character of the labor powerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reproduction, as a reproduction of collective wage slaves, is in no position to challenge the City of Capital, but only its imperfections, the selfish appropriation of housing from the Capital and its consequent inability to meet the housing needs of the working classes that are also, of course, a disputed subject of social conflicts, and large class struggles for the right to housing or the "right to the city".

[1] Michel Foucault (translated in Greek in 1987), The Archaeology of Knowledge [2] Gerard Dumenil (1978), Le concept de loi economique dans "le Capital", Maspero [3] Manuel Castells (1975), La question urbaine, Maspero [4] Lotta Continua, "Occupying the city - social struggle in Italy, 1971-1973" kompreser magazine, issue 2, 2011 http://kompreser.espivblogs.net/2011/09/09/take-over-the-city/ [5] David Harvey, "The Right to the City ", kompreser magazine,, issue 1, 2011 http://kompreser.espivblogs.net/2011/04/02/dikaioma-stin-poli-david-harvey/

Excerpt from the Presentation. The full text in Greek here: https://barikat.gr/content/apo-tin-poli-toy-kefalaioy-stin-poli-tis-ergasias

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Poster /Patision Ave. tram stop (“Re-activate, re-think, re-map, re-turn-to-hell”)

Discussion / CITY & THE DOUGH

Poster /Patision Ave. bus stop (â&#x20AC;&#x153;The city center is warâ&#x20AC;?)

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Other live events / CITY & THE DOUGH ΙΙ: CAMILO VERGARA

City & the Dough, part II: Camilo Vergara

24 / 10 / 2014

In collaboration with the group of young researchers encounter Athens.

Camilo Vergara’s lecture was introduced by anthropologist Costas Gounis, Professor at the University of Crete.

Camilo Vergara presented photographs he has shot in the U.S.A. and in Germany, and spoke of the city as a field of destruction and desire, with references to ghettoization (New American Ghetto, 1995), disaster (American Ruins, 1999), gentrification (Harlem: The Unmaking of a Ghetto, 2013) and the “new urban ruins”, such as the case of Detroit.

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Camilo José Vergara

is a Chilean-born, New York-based writer,

photographer and documentarian, known for his photographic documentation of American slums and decaying urban environments.

Beginning in the 1980s, Vergara applied the technique of rephotography to a series of American cities, photographing

the

same

buildings

and

neighborhoods from the exact vantage point at regular intervals over many years to capture changes over time. Trained as a sociologist (BA in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame, MA in Sociology from Columbia University), Vergara turned to systematic documentation at a moment of urban decay, and he chose locales where that stress seemed highest: the housing projects of Chicago; the South Bronx of New York City; Camden, New Jersey; and Detroit, Michigan, among others.

Focusing on the "built environment" as a reflection of urban life, he developed a methodical approach to photographic documentation by researching his subjects, and systematically documenting them over time.

His techniques are adapted from sociological methodologies: traveling from one subway stop to the next, he would emerge onto the street and photograph the surrounding blocks. Vergara increasingly interwove his photographs with quotes from other writers, fragments of comments by citizen-dwellers in the cityscapes he developed, and his own writing.

He has spent more than forty years documenting poor, urban, and minority neighborhoods mainly across the United States, at the country’s largest ghettos, where at least forty percent of the residents live below the poverty level. He also photographs drug trade areas, prisons, expressways, cemeteries, industrial sites and areas of gentrification among others.

After more than a decade of documenting the phenomenon of deurbanization (including the conversion of buildings from one function to

Other live events / CITY & THE DOUGH ΙΙ: CAMILO VERGARA

another, then another, before their abandonment, and the process by which nature recolonized long-urban areas), Vergara published his first book, The New American Ghetto, for which he received the Robert E. Park Award of the American Sociological Association in 1997.

Since 2004, Vergara's main work has been conveyed in a website called "Invincible Cities." His work has been exhibited at the National Building Museum, National Design Museum, the Municipal Arts Society in New York City and elsewhere. In 2002 Vergara won a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" for his work documenting changing urban landscapes across America, and served as a fellow at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH) at Rutgers University in 2003â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2004. In 2010, he was awarded a Berlin Prize fellowship. In 2013, he received the National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama.

Vergara has authored eight published books: Silent Cities: The Evolution of the American Cemetery (1989), New American Ghetto (1995), American Ruins (1999), Twin Towers Remembered (2001), Unexpected Chicagoland (2001), Subway Memories (2004), How the Other Half Worships (2005), Harlem: The Unmaking of a Ghetto (2013).

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Four of the photographs Camilo José Vergara shared during his lecture. These images demonstrate Vergara's use of time lapse in recording a site over time.

The pictures show Fern Street in N. Camden, NJ shot over the period 1979–2004.

Clockwise from top left: 1979, 1988, 1997, 2004.

Other live events / CITY & THE DOUGH ΙΙ: CAMILO VERGARA

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Discussion | Family as an Ideological Mechanism

22 / 10 / 2014 What does family mean? What is its role in the construction, control and reproduction of identity? How does the family stabilize social power relationships? And how does family change in today’s crisis-stricken Greece?

University professor Makis Spathis, film director George Georgopoulos and historian-researcher Gianna Katsiampoura approached the subject from an economic, a political and an artistic standpoint, in reference to Greek feminist theory, to young people’s transition from the family’s nest to educational grounds and to how family is dealt with in contemporary cinematography.

111

is

a

Makis Spathis is a professor and former deputy Dean of the National Metsovion University, dep. of Applied Mathematics and Physical Sciences. For many years he was president of the Panhellenic Federation of Teaching Associations & Research Staff and member of “Space for Dialogue and Joined Action”. He’s part of the editing committee and founding member of the political and economic theory magazine “Thesis”.

George Georgopoulos studied directing at Stavrakos Film School, sociology (Universita Roma I: La Sapienza) and European Culture at the Greek Open University. He worked as an editor and later a director in documentaries, such as those for ActionAid, TV spots and educational series for National Television.

For the last 15 years he runs the production co.

Multivision and the multi-awarded Tungsten was his first feature film.

Gianna Katsiampoura is a researcher and science historian at the Historic Research Institute of the National Research Foundation. She teaches at the National Kapodestrian University and the Greek Open University. She has dealt with the issue of gender in sciences and has published amongst others the book Gender Studies and Science: Problems, Tasks, Perspectives, as a co-editor with Annette Vogt (INR/NHRF-Nissos Editions, Athens 2012).

Discussion / FAMILY AS ΑΝ IDEOLOGICAL MECHANISM

From the introduction Our intention for tonight’s discussion is to open up some space for thought regarding the one thing we all participate in, family. How is personality formed? What role does family play in the construction, control and reproduction of what we call Identity?

Family, either from an economic viewpoint – as a reproduction mechanism of the work force and a consuming entity – or as an ideological mechanism that defines gender and gender-roles for the very first time in one’s life, it ends up stabilizing the social power relations.

How can the Greek history of feminism inform us about that process?

A few decades ago, French philosopher Louis Althusser, personal friend of Libby Sacer, posed the demand for a critique of the family once again, claiming that, despite its private character, it constitutes a mechanism of the bourgeois state. What’s more, it is a mechanism that functions parallel and complimentary to the educational ideological mechanism, which is the primary one in capitalism.

What happens when a child leaves the family nest and enters a space for education?

Althusser died, exactly 100 years ago today. And his demand for a critique of the family seems to be exacerbated in crisis-stricken Greece, as we also observe in contemporary art production – the visual arts, literature, live arts – and perhaps more obviously in cinema that inherently travels easier and wider. From Lanthimos’ Dog Tooth and Koutra’s Strella, to Avrana’s Miss Violence of films with an even larger thematic such as Georgopoulos’ Tungsten, family is acutely present. And it is challenged.

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Discussion / FAMILY AS ΑΝ IDEOLOGICAL MECHANISM

Family: Marxist approaches Gianna Katsiaboura Friedrich Engels, 1884 The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigentums und des Staats • Historical interpretation of forms of family, based on ways of production. Basic principles: The relations established among people when they produce & distribute their means of livelihood influence all other aspects of their lives too.

The key factor in history is the production and reproduction of life’s necessities (the production of means for survival, the reproduction of the species) The social organization of the people of a particular historical time and a particular country is determined by both kinds of production: by the stage of development of work and family.

Monogamy: transformation of the nuclear family into a basic economic social unit, where women and children are dependent on the husband.

Correlating with class relations of exploitation that led to women’s oppression of. The enslavement of the female gender was based on the transformation of socially necessary labor into private service, a consequence of the woman's separation from the genus (clans).

The separation between family and genus was social expression of private property.

The lower class family is the foundation of class society: Removing the common worker from the community safety that the genus provided, means that the working man is personally responsible not only for providing for himself but also for his wife and children. This ensures not only that he’ll keep working but also his obedience.

To liberate the woman-wife it is required that the individual family stops being an economic unit of society.

Converting parenting ability into an obligation.

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Bebel August, 1879 Die Frau und der Socialismus, 1889 Women under Socialism, 1904, Women and Socialism, 1910 [Greek translations in 1892 and 1981] Focuses on the status of women through the (legal and social) conditions in Germany of his time, because "marriage was a burden for them" - not the result of free choice, but an imperative social institution with its own demands.

Focus on working-class women, because the issue until then had mainly troubled women of the working class, who saw only a part of women’s difficulties within and outside the family.

Alexandra Kollontai, 1920 Economic and sexual liberation of women, 1984 "Communism and the Family", Komunistka, No 2, 1920, and in English in The Worker, 1920 (Selected Writings) "The workers’ state needs a new form of relations between the sexes... In the place of undissolvable marriage, based on women’s slavery, we will see the free Union rising, fortified by the love and mutual respect that both members of the workers’ society will feel, with equal rights and equal obligations.

In private selfish family’s place, a big global family of workers will rise, where all workers, men & women, will be above all siblings & comrades...

These new relations will offer humanity all the joys of the so-called free love that would be ennobled by true social equality among interested parties, joys that were unknown in the commercial society of the capitalist regime."

• In the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets in 1919, Kollontai was elected Commissar of Social Welfare in the Soviet government. In this context: new familial legislation.

Women’s emancipation could only be achieved when society’s mindset on marriage and family would change. Changes in the behavior of men and women would take longer than reforming the economy.

Discussion / FAMILY AS ΑΝ IDEOLOGICAL MECHANISM

The socialist solution was the final dissolution of marriage and family.

The aim was, tasks and responsibilities of the individual family to be transferred to a collective and sociable society. Individuals would to the community as a whole, but not to each other. â&#x20AC;˘ Plan: Resolving conflict between work and family.

Domestic work in the public sphere.

Replacement of the family as a small business introverted mechanism by a complete system of social care and accommodation.

The absorption of household functions by institutions of the socialist society, uniting all generations with solidarity and mutual aid, would really liberate both partners.

Athena Gaiitanou - Giannou, Socialist Women Group, 1919 Views on marriage and family in Esperini, 1930, Socialist life, 1930 -1932, Ellinis, 1931 â&#x20AC;˘ Positions in view of drafting the new Civil Code (late 20s) "Marriage, a legal bond that involves legal recognition and consequences."

Civil Marriage.

Gender equality in the family.

Abolishing dowry.

Right to abortion.

Abolishing discrimination against women.

Socialist Workers Party of Greece "The principles and Program of the Socialist Workers Party," point 12: "Full civil, political, economic and social equalization of women to men.

Abolition of all laws restricting the rights of women and illegitimate children."

Today?

Open question: Function and role of the family.

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Family: ideological mechanism

George Georgopoulos For me, a better title for the discussion we’ll be having today, would be "Family as a conservative automation," because often the concept of mechanism involves a conspiratorial content. We imagine that somewhere, someone is moving the threads of this mechanism in order to achieve certain goals. Since we are talking about the cinema, of course there have been such periods, e.g. that of McCarthyism, but I'm not sure that today we can speak of such a period. I think that the dominant element of the current period in relation to the issue is the "law of the market". In other words, that’s what they want, “that’s what I will give them”. Without of course defying the fact that as long as someone gives to another what he believes the other wants, so a pre-existing condition is perpetuated.

Discussion / FAMILY AS ΑΝ IDEOLOGICAL MECHANISM

When we talk about family, we refer to an institution within which there are two perspectives: that of the ancestors and that of the descendants.

In relation to these two points of view, I’ll respectively move on two axes during this presentation.

1) The first deals with films that have family as their theme; movies trying to question various certainties and the status quo, both Greek and foreign. Why is family (some say the dysfunctional family) chosen as a film theme so often? Surely it’s an inexhaustible topic, an endless source of stories. It is for the same reason that family is chosen as a topic in somebody’s psychotherapy or psychoanalysis. Family as an already formed situation, where the offsprings have no word in forming. As such a state, it is questionable already. Patterns of degradation – questioning.  Matchbox [Yiannis Economides, 2002]: Violence, scenes of classical patriarchy and of the father-boss (the shop is mentioned throughout the film). The father's dream is open a restaurant and not another cafeteria. At the most crucial moment, his wife uses the superweapon called questioning the paternity of children. In other words, she brings the common blood in the foreground. (Comment on how the way we see movies has changed because of the crisis).  Dogtooth [Yorgos Lanthimos, 2009] (50.17): Home as a castle. Walls around it, isolation, incest, counterfeiting of reality. All this, for the safety and protection of the family. A metaphor for the entrapment in this castle and the agonizing effort to escape.  Miss Violence [Alexandros Avranas, 2013]: Pedophilia, incest, prostitution.  Strella, A Woman's Way [Panos Koutras, 2009] (00.45.00): Issues of honor, sexual oppression, incest, punk irony. In Strella the issue of incest has probably two dimensions and this is what makes it a very successful film. Some believe that Strella punishes her father this way and others that she simply wants him in her life, in any way she can.

Why is it, that the motif of incest and pedophilia is used so much? Are these two so prevalent in Greek families? Rather, they are exceptions.

But they’re used so widely, firstly because they are obviously considered by a large part of our society as the most reprehensible crimes (taboo).

It is impossible for such crimes impossible not to challenge and intrigue

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even the most progressive family men. So this is an abrupt and violent way to start a conversation. Such stories are used primarily as parables.  El castillo de la pureza [Arturo Ripstein, 1972] 00.54.50 Luis Spota The laughter of the cat: Scene with recycled blood. Children Names: Porvenir - Future, Utopia, Voluntad - Will.

An audience’s common complaint is that films challenging traditional models, only deconstruct them and don’t suggest anything. The complaint is fair, but we mustn’t forget that a film’s job is to raise questions, not offer answers. Whenever films actually give answers, we are dealing with the phenomenon of authority that we’ve struggled so much to leave behind. What a film can do is open up a discussion when the end credits begin. The longer this discussion lasts, the more successful the film is. At best, it will challenge a certainty. Also because there are movies of huge influence, like this one:  Festen [Thomas Vinterberg, 1998]: The son of the family decides to

reveal during a large family celebration that he and his sister, who died a few months ago, have been raped repeatedly by the father of the family. Interestingly, in the house’s basement is the kitchen staff, functioning like a chorus and giving social - class extensions to the story. The lower class watches and comments from the basement.  Padre Padrone [Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, 1977] (53.08): At the heart of this film, which is based on a true story, is the relationship of a father to his shepherd son, in the province of Sardinia. Oppression & violence (he doesn’t let his son go to school) revolve around safeguarding the father’s property and work. In other words, (in)heritage. What’s more essential for the perpetuation of the existing socio-economic model than heritage? So we have the father-master and the son –worker, who has to suffer because "all that you see, my son, will be yours one day.”

The issue of family property is found very often in films.  The Idlers of the fertile valle [Nikos Panagiotopoulos, 1978] A wealthy bourgeois father and his three sons withdraw in a country

Discussion / FAMILY AS ΑΝ IDEOLOGICAL MECHANISM

villa where they spend their days in absolute dullness, while the young and beautiful maid is doing everything for them. They indulge in the pleasure of sleeping and laziness permeates their world, to the point that they start looking like the living-dead. Great emphasis has been given to the family home, an environment loaded with inanimate objects.

Statuettes and numerous framed paintings pass in front of the cinematic lens. Meanwhile, the long shots of the Greek director eloquently describe this suffocating feeling of immobility. The gradual but steady decline reaches decay & complete destruction, when even their biological functions are starting to become idle. The parasitism & the decay of the bourgeoisie that eventually leads to death, is described vividly.

On the opposite end are the will to live and the robustness of the working class. Only the men are inactive in the film, a very apt comment on patriarchy and the way it works. ď ś

The Descendants [Alexander Payne, 2011]: The father of a family (Matt - George Clooney) is trying to build a relationship with his daughters; his wife dies after an accident and he finds out that she had been cheating on him while at the same time a sale of 25,000 hectares of family property is about to take place. A pattern appears in many films that connects the nostalgia of family warmth with a property asset, often the family home, which is usually about to be sold, demolished or confiscated. Other times it symbolizes a world that is vanishing. It's a pattern that I guess has its roots in Chekhov's Cherry Orchard and then displayed in different variations. We saw it recently in a Greek film called The tree and the swing which deals with the sale of the family home, and we had seen in the film "Gold Dust" by Margarita Manda the topic of which was also almost identical.

Another kind of approach to the topic of family in film is the parallel of dislocation with the fall of a country: ď ś Homeland [Silla Tzoumerka, 2010] (13.50): Here, of course, the question arises: "Really where did the country fall from?" Could it be that the film actually functions in a way contrary to its intentions?

Could it be that in reality it argues in favor of conservatism?

121

 My enemy [Yiorgou Tsemberopoulou, 2013] (00.09.00): A very interesting film. A crime is revealed inside the family, the members of which are called to pick sides. The act is not accepted, the father becomes isolated and decides to deal with the issue on his own.

And the icing on this type of approaches:  A Serbian film [Srdjan Spasojevic, 2010]: A pronostar of α certain age

agrees to participate in an "Artistic film” so as to professionally withdraw after that, but realises that the he has been enlisted to create a pedophilic and necrophilic film in which everything is really happening (snuff film).

2) The second axis has to do with films addressing the family. Meaning, with what the industry thinks that the family wants to see. This is the movies that we watch on a Sunday afternoon. What are their common characteristics? What models do they reproduce?

Family Movies Characteristics: Promotion of traditional values Marriage – Family Bravery Clear and absolute separation of good and evil The nightmare of orphanhood The typical pattern of the travel and the return home as ultimate goal.  The Wizard of Oz [Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Mervyn LeRoy, Norman Taurog, King Vidor 1939]: Dorothy and her dog Toto, are swept by a hurricane and arrive at the land of OZ. They must find the Wizard of OZ who will help them return home.  Back to the future [Robert Zemeckis, 1985]: Marty (Michael Fox, where has he been all these years) goes back to 1955, in a very nostalgic approach by the creators, where he discovers that he has to help his parents fall in love because otherwise he will disappear. And actually he begins to disappear during the film. Essentially what he needs to do is make sure that nothing changes in the world that we knows and he originates from. At the same time he tries, with the help of Doc Emmett, to go back to his home and his time.

Discussion / FAMILY AS ΑΝ IDEOLOGICAL MECHANISM

 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial [Steven Spielberg, 1982]: ten year old Elliot tries to help ET To return to its planet.  Toy Story [John Lasseter, 1995]: Woody and Buzz after their fallout when the latter replaces the first in Andy’s heart, the child they belong to, get lost and try to find a way to return home.

The common element in these films is the wandering and a re-evaluation by the hero of the situation he comes from, up until his final triumphant return home. Reproducing a stereotype: Films that satisfy families as they are today while forging the continuation of this particular form of family.

A vicious circle; a pattern we encounter even today, even in very different movies. In other words, if you leave home, all hell will go loose.  Special mention: The kids are alight [Lisa Cholodenko, 2010]: For the closing I choose a movie to see how conservatism can sneak everywhere. Everything is a matter of intent. The Annette Benning and Julian Moore are a gay couple who has a teenage son. See the scene where freak out on suspicion that their son is gay. In the development of the film's son knows the sperm donor and Julian Moore has a love affair with him. At the end of the film the family rewritten and triumphs. The family united can face everything. The ultimate triumph of the family. Unlike the mythical Strella closed with a totally ironic scene for what we call family peace and warmth. (01.40.32)

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Discussion / PROTESTS ΑΝD PUBLIC SPACE

Discussion | Public space and protest* The protesting body

29 / 05 / 2014

A discussion about the control mechanisms of the body and the use of public space both by crowds and the police during protests â&#x20AC;&#x201C; marches.

Speakers: Architect Nikos Kazeros, sociologists and research associates at Pantion University, department of Gender Studies, Nelly Kampouri and Pavlos Hatzopoulos, scientific associate of the Work Institute General Confederation of Labor Dimitris Katsoridas, and publisher Michalis Paparounis of Futura editions.

Definition of protest [Oxford Dictionary] Protest (noun): * A statement or action expressing disapproval of or objection to something. * An organized public demonstration expressing strong objection to an official policy or course of action.

125

Nikos Kazeros graduated from the School of Architecture (Aristotle University of Thessalonica) and the Postgraduate Program Architectural DesignSpace-Culture (National Technical University of Athens). He was awarded 1st Prize in a Europewide competition for remodeling Monastiraki Sq. (1998). He co-edited Without Limits: the Vast Lands of the Athenian Suburbs (2003) and Urban Void: Actions 1998-2006 (2007).

His articles have appeared in journals, collective publications and newspapers. He ιs a member of Urban Void, a group of architects & artists working on collective actions in the city. He taught at Patras University (Architecture Dept. 2002-11). His research focuses on the transformations of the urban landscape.

Nelly Kampouri is a researcher. She’ s worked at the Gender Stadies Lab of Panton University and of the Center of Social Morphology and Social Politics, as well as for the Technology and Research Institute. Her research interests include migration, gender, social movements and critical political philosophy.

She has published books and articles on issues of gender, migration, science and social movements.

Pavlos Hatzopoulos holds a doctorate in International Relations from the London School of Economics. He has participated as a researcher in European programs around migration, gender and digital networks. He has published a series of articles on digital networks and social activism, edited the volume "Religion and International Relations: The Return from Exile" (Palgrave, 2003) and is the author of the book "The Balkans beyond Nationalism and Identity" (IB Tauris, 2007).

Michalis Paparounis is a publisher (futura editions).

Dimitris Katsoridas is a Research Associate of the GSEE Labor Institute.

Discussion / PROTESTS ΑΝD PUBLIC SPACE

Excerpts from the Presentations

MICHALIS PAPAROUNIS | Protests and public space The most emblematic moment to use in order to reflect on the body in relation to what concerns us in tonightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s discussion is undoubtedly the self-immolation of the 26 year old Tunisian peddler Mohamed Bouazizi, on December 17, 2010: the desperate action of a man lacking any means of survival, which became the trigger for the "Arab Spring" riots that spread like wildfire to various parts of the world.

Bouazizi's body can be seen as a metonymy for the state the global proletarian subject is in, because it bares the contradictions (also of) of the current period of crisis of restructured capitalism. On the one hand this body is the main object of exploitation (as a "carrier" of laborpower) and the other hand it increasingly becomes an object of repression (as a labor-power surplus, which cannot be utilized in the production of capital gain). This fact demonstrates, in the most painful manner unfortunately, that the reproduction of labor power has been disconnected from the reproduction of capital. Since it cannot vindicate the securing of its reproduction, if not the improvement of its life, in the terms of the past, the proletarian body immersed in despair, destroys itself in a heartbreaking way.

NIKOS KAZEROS | 3 notes on local demonstrations March - Demonstration [1] Between a march and a demonstration we can detect a spatial differentiation. The term march describes the motion path that a crowd follows in space (e.g. within the city).

Graphically, crowd movement is defined by a beginning (starting point), the usually linear path it follows (distance covered by the moving crowd) and its endpoint (finish). A march, that is, refers to a crowdâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s overall linear

127

formation and movement in the urban space. Contrariwise, although a demonstration contains a march, as a crowd’s spatial movement, it goes beyond its linear aspect, since the method of publicizing and promoting the crowd’s requests relates more to conditions of spatial diffusion and dispersion. Both marches and demonstrations, till now, take place on the ground of the city and are surveyed by air [2].

From defendant to generally suspect [3] In modern surveillance the subject is treated as a potential suspect of committing offenses worthy of criminal charges. The institutionalized transition [4] from the concept of being a "defendant" to the concept of being "generally suspect" implies the unlimited monitoring of the subject, its constant spatial tracking. The "generally suspect" doctrine legitimizes the continuous control of the subject, the uncontrolled security measures against potential or imaginary dangers, and ultimately its manipulation. The participants in a march, in a demonstration, are perceived by policing mechanisms of the state, in advance and majority, as suspects of committing offenses worthy of penalties and therefore preventive measures can be applied to them, such as body searches, detentions and arrests before or on the way to the march etc.

Movement and protest networks in the center of Athens. In the last decade, marches-demonstrations [5] have been developing in wider parts of the Athenian center, in a network of smaller streets and and covered walkways. That is, they diffuse in urban space and use the urban infrastructure to a greater extent. But they also diffuse off-center, in the city suburbs [6] (decentralization / dispersion in the suburbs). As for the spatial setting of the central area of Athens, it consists of sections with orthonormal organization. Three key roads increase the regularity of the center: Academias, Panepistimiou and Stadiou roads. They also connect large public spaces, such as Omonia, Klafthmonos and Discussion / PROTESTS ΑΝD PUBLIC SPACE

Constitution squares, which function for the demonstrators as places where they gather, begin, end up, get rearranged and remain. Most demonstrations or marches usually happen on these three straight [7] roads. But due to their spatial characteristics (geometry, perspectivedepth of field, etc.) they allow the immediate and overall supervision of the protesting crowd. Additionally they allow instantaneous, suffocating application of suppressive measures against demonstrators.

However, we should also take into account, along the above roads, the extensive collateral network of smaller streets that are also, where appropriate, a significant demonstration space. And in addition, we should take into account the special role that the central network of covered walkways acquires (the open galleries along the streets, the ones running across building blocks with both ends open, the dead-end ones), a "hidden" network that negates, breaks, the regularity of the central roads and the smaller streetsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; network and "enriches" the routes that one can follow through the city. The dual usage of the network of galleries from protesters and repressive forces highlights its criticality in the social claims on the ground. From protesters it is used as an escape network (safe escape route through the galleries that are open in both ends) and from the forces of repression as places of hiding from the crowd of demonstrators, in order to surprise or entrap them.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] March: the covering of a distance by a crowd, a group of people, for a certain cause: ~ peaceful / protesting. The ~ for the anniversary of the Polytechnic events. II synecdochically, the moving crowd: the head / the end / the tail of the march.

Demonstration: projecting a request or claim in a massive, public and organized way: I organize / allow / forbid / break up a ~. Student ~. Many people participated in the ~ for the respect of human rights. [(see demonstrate) translation. fr. manifestation] http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/index.html [2] Their surveillance and recording is done by police helicopters. Probably later drones will be used (Souliotis Yiannis, 2015, "In test â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;missionsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; three drones of the Hellenic Police."

Kathimerini, August 15.

[3] Sotirchou Ioanna, 2002, " The concept of generally suspect has been given a formal status" Eleftherotypia, May 20, p. 20.

[4] In Greece this transition occurs at the end of the decade 1990-2000.

[5] An established 'standard version' of a demonstration-march, has the Polytechnic as its starting point, passes through Panepistimiou or Stadiou Ave and ends up at the Parliament or the American Embassy.

[6] There has been an increase of marches-demos happening in the Athenian suburbs.

[7] The linear part of each avenue is almost 1 km long.

129

131

NELLY KAMPOURI & PAULOS CHATZOPOULOS For a scattered protest We start from Constitution square. Not all together, unfortunately, although we should be more united in these critical hours. We continue along Queen Sophia Avenue. We walk for some time, but this time all together (thankfully) until we arrive in front of the American Embassy building. After launching slogans, fruit, vegetables, eggs and other objects, we disperse. The connotations and symbolisms are simple and clear: of the mass. From the place that (according to common perception of dominant politics and ideology) symbolizes the sovereignty of the people (Constitution Square) in place (the embassy of the only remaining superpower) that symbolizes – for some of the protesters at least – its abolition.

Through the luxury of a panoramic view, the picture remains incomplete: Additional practices that are less visible, are leading and follow the mass flow. A large number of police officers are waiting at the endpoint to symbolically indicate, but also via the threat of suppression (at least as a final solution), that this protest is controlled by the state apparatus. The surrounding streets are blocked in order to prevent not only incoming vehicles but mainly outgoing protesters. The protest has to follow its predetermined course without deviations. And the cleaning crews of the city of Athens follow the demonstrators discreetly to restore the streets to their pre -demonstration state.

Similar marches are noted internationally: start, middle, end (always in the same order unfortunately). Silently, demonstrators and law enforcement officials agree, despite their varied and substantive disagreements, to repeat the sequence of movements that constitute

Discussion / PROTASTS ΑΝD PUBLIC SPACE

the institutionalized (nowadays) form of a protest paths. In liberal democracies, a march is an act that those in power not only tolerate but welcomes (always in the name of freedom). As long, of course, as the way the crowd moves through space and time is controlled. And from the perspective of the demonstrators, everything seems to have a transient form: using the existing space and stealing some time from the city life for a different but certainly ephemeral use. The order is not disturbed but temporarily, to be restored in all its splendor: the city never looks so clean and organized as after the demonstrations.

The inability to have wider participation in the anti-capitalist fight is reflected in the bored repetition of the marches. Usual micro-practices are not a secondary tactical factor for informal organizers, but deconstruct their often subversive goals. The protests against the attack on Iraq made it possible to rethink the widening of a participation in anticapitalist struggles as a possibility. As far as their form and organization is concerned, these marches werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t radically different from the established model. The crowd that gathered, however, was not a homogeneous group that rebelled, united in the name of a common goal. The war in Iraq did not unite people turning them into a mass aiming to reverse the momentum of the fortified-to-the-teeth US Embassy, the monument of international authoritarianism. There was no pulse, no common slogans or even a common starting point. Yet the success of the mobilizations lies precisely in this diversity that allowed conflicting groups to coexist without a single representation. And in retrospect we were wondering what was the object, or rather objects, of the opposition of so many different groups: Bush, the War, the cops, America,

cars,

Israel,

international

capitalism,

multinational

oil

companies, the Simitis government, television, the army, the American bases. There is certainly a single answer exists.

133

These protests had the dynamic of actions not springing from the certainty of a common identity, the opposition towards a mythical outside, but from the diversity of within. They were gatherings of heterogeneous elements that were not confined within the city limits but extended to the province, and even more connected with other cities and other provinces challenging the traditional notion of state borders and the expression of popular sovereignty within the limits of the nationstate. The crowd was characterized by these multiple interfaces that initially emerged on the internet and then on the parallel operations, which expanded simultaneously in scattered parts of the world complying with a geography of power that is not based on the territorial entrenchment of space. [1] In contrast to the complexity of the crowd, the orchestration of the demonstrations was awkwardly trying to reproduce the linearity of the classical march. The organizers, in most cases, sought to draw routes, directing the crowd in a certain direction. These efforts were in most cases in vain because even those groups who managed to achieve the required synchronization and move rapidly in one direction (mainly the Greek Communist Part Youth, due to tradition) sounded like an anachronistic discord in the crowd’s disharmony. But the undefined movement of the crowd was a radical form of political action.

[1] In postmodern society, the crowd takes the shape described by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri as "a field of singularities, an open set of relations, which are neither homogeneous nor identical to itself but exists in a vague, comprehensive relation to the outside". In this sense it is not identical to the People, which implies and at the same time empower a single identity that is articulated in stark contrast to its outside: the Enemy of the People. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), pp. 103.

N.Kampouri’s & P.Chantzopoulos’ presentation was based on an earlier article they had published at Theses magazine in 2 parts: Α’(issue 86, 2004), Β΄ (issue 90, 2005).

Discussion / PROTASTS ΑΝD PUBLIC SPACE

DIMITRIS KATSORIDAS The strategy of scattered protest Protest is first of all movement. The form of this movement determines its political impact. Thus, the momentum of the crowd of protesters is the goal and the highlight is when the inefficiency of state power is proven, as it happened when the rebelled people took over Bastille, during the French Revolution of 1789, or when the Winter Palace was occupied during the Russian October Revolution in 19171.

A protest or strike or both is a way to express demands to any kind of power, whether this is a government or an employer, in order to cause dysfunction in the process of production and / or the state. As far as strikes are concerned and given that the life of any society depends, primarily, on production and fiscal activity, the cessation of work by the employees happens in order to put pressure on the state power or the employer or both2.

In demonstrations, usually the following apply: protesters move to a specific place and time and towards a specific direction until this process is completed and they disperse. Within this period there may be disputes or conflicts between demonstrators and state law enforcement forces. Many times this practice takes on a folkloric dimension, knowing in advance what will happen more or less, but in the end gives out a bitter taste, in the sense that once again a ceremonial march was 1

Hatzopoulos - Kambouri "For a scattered protest," Theseis Magazine, January March 2004, No. 86, pp. 153.

2

D. Katsoridas - Sophia Lampousaki, "The phenomenon of strikes in Greece: recording of strikes during 2011", published in Enimerosi magazine of GSEE Labour Institute, March 2012, No. 192.

135

performed with no goal, no result and no continuity. But here lies the fundamental problem. Meaning that the demonstrators have turned power into a symbol, in the sense that they think that it is manifested in one or several specific persons, who usually work for the government, or In some buildings, such as the Parliament building or a ministry or the American embassy or any other building etc.

At this point, we should note that the apparent power – which is symbolized by something, like a building or a person – is not the only one that exists; there’s also the invisible power, which is more internalized, more efficient and therefore more difficult to fight. Therefore, power is not merely a tool in the hands of the ruling class, but also a diffused power grid, which penetrates all social practices and from which the rulers benefit, who could not rule otherwise (See. Theseis magazine, vol.

89, p. 84).

Taking the above into account, we can see the following: perhaps the traditional forms of protest can offer a sense of control both of the streets and the city center, and this is very important, but that’s no longer enough. Because state power has at its disposal all the modern means to control the demonstrations’ flow (e.g. modern and well-trained military-style police units such as the riot police, new monitoring technologies, bans and closing of roads and metro stations so ας to prevent the protestors’ access of to assembly points, televised fear through fixation in front of the TV sets, helicopters that roam over the protesters to monitor their course, rapid flow of information, etc.).

Faced with these forms of state power there is no response strategy on behalf of those who, in one way or another, challenge power. The traditional forms of protest do not correspond and cannot measure up Discussion / PROTASTS ΑΝD PUBLIC SPACE

to the forms of today's diffused power. So the challenge is to develop a strategy of division and disbandment of state power and of the police forces. To this end, the strategy of scattered protests and dispersed rallies is important3. This means that thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no need for a specific gathering space for all forces, to be followed up by a specific flow, time, direction, and dispersion of the rally. In short, there is no need to have a single rally every time, towards a spot that has become a symbol. On the contrary, the protest could unfold, simultaneously or not, towards different directions, in different rhythms and initiatives, but on condition that there is at least some specific coordination and goal for this tactic.

"The fragmentation of the rally, which was a law enforcement technique in the past, can be used today as a strategy to overthrow the existing order. To be effective, the demonstration must be scattered in different parts of the city, declaring the crowdâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s opposition to the equally scattered micro-practices that make up authority. The American Embassy can be only one (not necessarily the most important) of the many points where the opposition of the crowd is expressed. Groups of demonstrators will gather simultaneously both at the offices of an oil multinational and at the statue of Truman, both at the Starbucks entrance and at the countless police stations where migrants and refugees are detained, as well as at the points of entry to this country where they are chased every day, in front of the offices of TV channels that present the violence of war as a consumable good and at the Ministry of Defense that legalizes this violence [...]. "4

3

What follows, about the strategy of scattered protest, is borrowed from the approach of Hatzopoulos Kambouri in their two papers, entitled: "For a scattered protest," Theseis Magazine, January-March, 2004, issue 86, and "For a scattered protest 2: a state of emergency," Theseis magazine, JanuaryMarch, 2005, issue 90.

4

137

Hatzopoulos - Kambouri ibid, Theseis magazine, vol. 86, pg. 157.

Discussion / THE GHOST OF NATION

Discussion | The Ghost of Nation 24 / 06 / 2014 Two Australian natives, radical Greek-Australian author Christos Tsiolkas and ant-Zionist Jewish journalist for The Guardian Antony Loewenstein discuss the notion of nation*. As children and grandchildren of immigrants, white inhabitants of a black continent and men functioning beyond normality on multiple levels, the two trace their relationship with what we call Nation. * Live translation by interpreter Julia Roubinis.

Below is the translation of an article about the event, at The Books Journal [published: Wed, 3 September 2014]

The Ghost Îżf Nation Christos Tsiolkas became widely known through The Slap (2008), which earned him many awards and one nomination for the Booker Prize. It was preceded by Loaded, The Jesus Man and Dead Europe. Born in 1965 in Melbourne, son of Greek immigrants, leftist and gay, he often publically participates in political discourse.

Tsiolkas visited Greece in order to present his new book, Barracuda, published by Oceania editions. Earlier, however, on 24/6, he appeared at cheapart art space, as a guest of the group The Libby Sacer Foundation, to speak on "The Ghost of Nation." He was accompanied

139

Christos Tsiolkas was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1965. Son of a working-class Greek and

family

migrants, gay,

he

of

left-wing

has

been

called “one of the leading contemporary writers in Australia.” He has been honored with many awards, including the Age Book of the Year fiction award for Dead Europe that was adapted into a film in 2012. In 2009, his fourth novel, The Slap, won the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2009 for best novel in the South-East Asia and South Pacific area, while in 2010 he was shortlisted for the Booker prize. Amongst his many

books,

translated

in

Greek

are:

Barracuda, Dead Europe, The Slap, The Jesus Man and Loaded. He’s also written essays, film scripts and theater plays.

Antony

Loewenstein

journalist, maker

writer

based

and in

is

a

film-

Sydney,

Australia. He writes a weekly column at The Guardian, he has written best-sellers, such as "My Israel Question",

"The

Blogging

Revolution"

and

"Profits of Doom" and he edited the books "Left Turn" and "After Zionism”. Currently he is working on a documentary and a new book on vulture capitalism. (antonyloewenstein.com, twitter, flickr) Discussion / THE GHOST OF NATION

by writer and journalist at The Guardian, Antony Loewenstein, who was in Greece, investigating the consequences of the crisis.

Tsiolkas referred to the partner who is a cartographer and is assigned to record the land, language and sites of the indigenous people in the Victoria area.

"Looking at this map, one can see the colonial borders of European countries, ghost-borders as I call them, and the history of genocide, of deprivation and continuous occupation from which the Aboriginal people still suffer. This makes me feel ashamed. But even though we have destroyed the language, culture and religion, the ghost of these things still survives; these is a resistance that says: this was our history. We Australians come from many different places, but what connects all our ancestors is that everyone was fleeing some kind of war.

Australia was a safe haven that offered opportunities. And nevertheless, it is built with terrible violence and racism. In the early 1990s, when Australian economy was going through a crisis, it a far-right racist party, called One Nation, was rising. I’m still trying to figure out how this party appealed to a part of the working class that had lost its link with the traditional parties of the Left.

As for Greece, ‘Greece eats her children’, my father used to say. "

What is nation for you?

"That’s a difficult question. Since I was a child I’ve been wonder what I am and where I am from. This is because Australia was a racist country.

They didn’t want us there. The White Australia policy was in force until 1972. After the Second World War, because Australia wanted to develop an industry and needed a larger population, they said "the Italians and Greeks are a little dark, but they are Europeans, so we’ll allow them to enter". However, we were still the wogs (derogatory term, also in use today), the foreigners. And I used to say that one day I‘ll go to Greece, where I will feel "at home". When I came here, though, I realized that I love this country very much but I'm not from here. I am something else, I am Australian. This story of shame and colonialism is mine. I will always think about it and say: What can I do? I think I'll be looking what "home” means up until the end ".

141

If the concept of the nation is problematic, what could replace it?

"To say ‘I’m from here’ is one thing; the ‘homeland’s politician speaks of is another. What is my homeland? Melbourne. I understand it, I know its every alley, I have a history there and in the end I am from there. In Northern Australia I feel like a stranger, it's like another country. For me, being an Australian means ‘from this country that I know.’ The problem is not the country, but when we call it homeland and when politicians say: we are doing it for the country. I'm not sure I need to replace the concept of homeland with anything, but I prefer how Aboriginals use the concept of ‘homeland’, i.e. as a confirmation of space - where I come from and where I belong to. We feel uncomfortable with the concept of nation because we come from a multiethnic country where the definition of nation has been terribly oppressive, something that you, as Europeans, probably can’t understand.

"Can patriotism exist without nationalism?

"With the rise of the party One Nation, I saw something I hadn’t seen before: the flag was everywhere, on windows, cars, football fields. I think that the Left was wrong not to find a language to respond. We knew how problematic Australia’s history was, but we didn’t say ‘there is something here, people want something to feel like a nation or a homeland or a country’, and we didn’t counter-propose anything. The dominant political language then was a bourgeois one that was unable to communicate with a large part of the working class. We could have said: here’s the reasons why this fanaticism scares us, but is there a way to celebrate what’s positive about our nation? We could, for example, instead of waving the Australian flag that contains the British one, wave the Aboriginal or the Eureka flag, which came out of the trade unions

Discussion / THE GHOST OF NATION

history in Australia. There was a time when we could have done that and change the conversation. But we didn’t because we didn’t know how."

Is there is nationalism in Australia now?

"In Australia there are people hailing from England, Scotland and the Netherlands, who claim to be the true Australians. There are also the Aboriginals who claim they have more of a right to call themselves that.

And there’s also Greeks, Italians, people from Asia and the rest of the world who say: we are Australians and something else too. These three categories coexist. The dangerous thing is that the first has the power.

What scares me is that many second and third generation Greeks, feel that they have more in common with Anglo-Australians than with immigrants and refugees. We need to find a language that speaks to everyone; to our parents’ generation, the Anglo-Saxons and the Aboriginals

too.”

Bkbc

acv

cvlvkk

mnc

jffjfjshj

iiihuh

u8

oih Ε. Τ.

During a public event last week in Athens with writer Christos Tsiolkas and me, talking about the concept of nation in a fractured, patriotic world, organizer E. T. encouraged the audience to challenge popular and simplistic notions of identity and find a more inclusive European perspective.

- A. Loewenstein, The Guardian

143

Romanticism & Horror 25 / 9 / 2014

Architect and theorist Yorgos Tzirtzilakis and film critic Akis Kapranos detect the relationship between Romanticism and Horror. Î&#x2014;ow is what we consider scary changing, artistically and politically, and how are the fears of every era expressed through the mythology and aesthetics of horror.

How does horror culture inform us about what scares us? Assessing the relationship between the movement of Romanticism and Nazism, how does a new kind of Romanticism today relate with the neo-Nazism that spreads rapidly across Europe and beyond?

145

Akis Kapranos is a film critic for the newspaper Nea, the Cinema magazine and the radio (on the 3rd Program in the past and currently on Piraeus Channel 1).

He has been a member of the jury at the Thessaloniki Film Festival (Digital Wave). He is

also

a

musician

and

other

than

recordings and live concerts, he’s also signed several film soundtracks, such as Yiannis’ Ecokonomides’ "Soul kicking". He’s a horror films lover.

Yorgos Tzirtzilakis is associate Professor at the Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly. He has curated exhibitions of architecture,

contemporary

art

and

industrial design in Greece and abroad.

He is prolific, has edited publications as well as documentaries on architecture and art, and

is

artistic

consultant

of

DESTE

Foundation. As a member of the group Saprophytes,

he

co-authored

Saprophytes 01, a publication where much of modern Greek parafilologia on vampires and other monsters is gathered.

Discussion / ROMANTICISM & TERROR

From the introduction to the discussion

Libby Sacer Foundation’s intention for tonight’s discussion is to track rather ethical issues, which που touch on the political, through the path of aesthetics. Ethos etymologically means place of origin and the habits of this place: where we are coming from. In other words, our ethos is our world. And we perceive our world through its specific aesthetics.

For example, what can the culture of horror – in film, literature and art – tell us about what horrifies us? How does our terror change as the world around us does, and is this a one-way or a two-way relationship? Who changes who?

Our attention is turned specifically to the movement of Romanticism that flourished in the 18th century, projecting certain characteristics – regarding the relationship with nature, the past, folk tradition, heroic identity and so on – that were later embraced by Nazism. We observe that today’s rise of a new Romanticism (with gothic references, vampires, werewolves and the elite of the living-dead at the center of popular culture for the last decade at least), chronologically coincides with the personification of Terror as the “evil dragon” against whom an actual war is declared (U.S.), but also with the rise of neo-Nazism throughout Europe and not only.

Is this a random coincidence or not? How political is the imaginary and what is the relationship between them?

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Degenerate art/EntarteteKunst

Crowds lined up to visit Degenerate art / 1938 Schulausstellungsgebaude, Hamburg

Excerpt from Akis Kapranosâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; presentation

At the beginning, darkness and muffled sounds. Prolonged distress - until, suddenly, you are surrounded by undefined, ghostly forms that look at you uttering unintelligible sounds. Congratulations: You have just been born.

In the historically first cinematic release (of the film "The arrival of the train at the station of Lyon"), viewers ran to the exit awestruck, believing that the train was coming straight at them would instantly kill them.

When entering a movie theater where a "HORROR" film is playing, in substance, we have two ultimate goals: Return to the womb, and to the clearest cinema possible. For dedicated cinema audiences, the first is completely inseparable from the latter.

Hence our love for the cinema of the Fantastic.

Akis Kapranos showed and commented on excerpts from the movies: Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero (1968) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre by Tobe Hooper (1974) Suspiria by Dario Argento (1977)

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Discussion / ROMANTICISM & TERROR

From the website of the Golden Dawn (far right / neo Nazi Greek party): “Romanticism, a spiritual movement against rationalism and the renaissance.”

The article is filed under “Ideological Texts.”

[Screenshot 17/07/2015]

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From the presentation of Yorgos Tzirtzilakis

The grave of Novalis (1772â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1801) Sculpture by Fritz Schaper, 1901

Christian Friedrich Tieck, bust by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, 1819

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Discussion / ROMANTICISM & TERROR

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Other live events / LINDA: A COLLECTIVE PERFORMANCE

Linda, prima vista Participatory performance A collective documentary performance of an interview.

10 / 11 / 2014 Linda, owner of a fake password, is leaving. On the eve of her departure, Linda speaks of her past and future, borders, love, racism, money, dreams and art.

We find out who Linda is together, as we read her words collectively. *From Talking with Linda, an Albanian immigrant talks about her life, edited by Helen Syrigou-Rigou, ed. Open Borders

The space was divided with a vertical cloth, and behind it stood a table, a chair and a light; on the table was the transcript of Linda's interview.

The readers of the text alternated, without the mediation-interpretation of professional performers: the audience members read as much of the text as each wanted, prima vista. The spectators' chairs were set on the other side of the fabric, so only the magnified shadow of the readers could be seen, offering an encouraging anonymity to those who read and unifying them visually (the shadow as costume).

Every pause called for a new decision in real time about whether the story would continue or not. Every new reader who took a seat behind the curtain, decided it would.

[ Watch part Î&#x2018;â&#x20AC;&#x2122;]

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Other live events / LINDA: A COLLECTIVE PERFORMANCE

A note on the live arts

While in most European languages the word for “audience” comes from the Latin

audio

(hear),

and

the

word

performance refers to what one sees, or the spectacle (Italian: spettacolo), in Greek the word for audience is “κοινό” which literally means “common” or “shared”.

The audience in Greek is not simply a group

in

public

space

(German:

Publikum) and the emphasis is not on what you see (English: show) or hear (Albanian: audienca), but somewhere else: on the act of participating, the realitry of sharing, the fact of entering the commons.

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LIBBY SACER FOUNDATION THANKS

Thank you to artist Jordi NN for his beautiful photographs, to Thanos Vovolis for his contribution as the observer of Trust, and to interpreter Julia Roubini for her help in the The Ghost of Nation.

Also, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to thank Nikos Kazeros for his presence during the early stages of the Libby Sacer Foundation, Fotini Kapiris, Dimiris and Yorgos Georgakopoulos for hosting us at Cheapart in 2014, our friends from 15 Tsamadou str. for their hospitality in 2015, as well as the participants and contributors of each and every event.

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selected Press: The Guardian * Το Περιοδικό * Αθηνόραμα Ι * Allevents * Antenna * Εφημερίδα των Συντακτών * The Books Journal * Αυγή * Art & life * Athens Voice * Antony Loewenstein I * Loewenstein II * Left.gr * Lifo * Το Περιοδικό * Αυγή * Athens Voice * Metropolis Press * 10percent * Φύλο Συκής * Αrt & Life * Περιοδικό ΑΩ * Click at Life * Το Περιοδικό * Athens Voice * The R project * Το Περιοδικό ΙΙ * Το Σπίρτο * Athens Voice II

Academia:

Participations in publications & conferences: Art Of Disobedience / ΙΕΤΜ * Balkan Express

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From: stratis (steve) Pantazis spanta01@googlemail.com Date: 2014-04-30 12:36 GMT+03:00 Subject: Libby Sacer/ information Dear Mr. Tzirtzilaki, Fotini Kapiris gave me your email address to get in touch with you. I am an art historian and recently I saw the exhibition of your group in Cheapart.

I imagine that there must be quite a lot of unpublished material about the work and life of Libby Sacer and I would like to deal with it on a research level. Basically I would like you to inform me if the Foundation could support the publication of a book or a text for publication.

It would be my pleasure to also have a discussion face to face.

Many greetings and have a good 1st of May , Στρατής

At 3:03 pm Wednesday, April 30, 2014, Eugenia Tzirtzilaki <eu.tzir@gmail.com>: Should we just meet him and tell him what’s the deal?

[...]

2014-05-15 10:13 GMT+03:00 stratis (steve) Pantazis <spanta01@googlemail.com>: Good morning I hope you and the other members of the group are well. I haven’t heard from you re the interview and hope my questions seemed interesting to you.

Hope to see you soon in person too.

Many greetings, Stratis

[...]

LIBBY SACER FOUNDATION / ACADEMIA

See below for strati – change and add freely not just in what I wrote, but as startis says we could even add our own questions… xxx!

1. How did you discover L. Sacer’s work & collection?

We found out about her by accident, through meeting her heir, who told us about her and what was found in her home after her death.

2. Although you are a group not based London, away from Sacer’s home, how come her heir agreed to work with you? Is it possible that in the future the members of the group change depending on where the presentation of Sacer’s work takes place?

We met with Sacer heir in January 2014 in London, where we had travelled for another reason. Our acquaintance with him, although accidental, was very warm from the very start. This man was very aware of the global political and economic affairs and particularly of the Greek crisis and that was what started our conversation.

He was very interested in the recent developments in our country and his questions towards us span over a wide range of topics – he wanted to know how Greeks are reacting to the current changes socially and culturally.

Soon our conversations went beyond simply reporting or describing the situation in Greece, and as we agreed to more and more new meetings, our discussions became more analytical and detailed: our dialogue acquired depth, like our relationship.

That is the first reason why he trusted us with a small part of Sacer’s archive, so through it a dialogue can start in our country about the issues that are urgent now, which also mattered a lot to Sacer during most of her life. That’s also the second reason why, although we are based outside London as you were right to remark, her heir showed such trust in us. As shown by some of the foundings in her home, Sacer had a special relationship

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with Greece. On the one hand she was friends with some Greek intellectuals and artists living abroad, such as Patatakis whom she met in Paris, and on the other hand she had visited and our country helself, as evidenced by her photo with Jean Genet in a central Athenean patisserie.

So the reasons that led her heir to trust us relate both to his own mindset and concerns, as well as to his understanding and respect for the interests and choices of Libby Sacer herself.

We are not sure we understand the second part of your question. The Libby Sacer Foundation is a group (although its name refers to a Foundation), the members of which are Myrto Stamboulou Evgenia Tzirtzilaki and Dimitris Halatsi. In order to realise its events the group aims to collaborate with scientists, artists and theorists, Greeks or not, and hopefully we’ll be able to organize and present our activities in other places outside Athens. I hope I answered your question.

3. At least from the information found online, it seems there hasn’t been any earlier presentations of her work and collection. Why is the collection shown for the first time in Athens, rather than London or Ethiopia?

As you already know, this is all very recent. It’s only been a few months since the day Sacer’s home opened and cataloging the artifacts hasn’t been completed yet, let alone analysinf and researching them. We presented in Athens a small, tiny part of the archive, along with several creative approaches to it, which constitute the bulk of the "Trust"exhibition. So in fact this is not even the first presentation of the archive, but an introduction or a preface to the archive and to Sacer herself. When the archiving and research on the material found in Sacer’s home has reached a stage that it could support a full (or indicative) presentation of the archive, its presentation will certainly not be organised by our group and most likely it won’t take place in Greece. It is at her heir’s discretion whether he’ll LIBBY SACER FOUNDATION / ACADEMIA

create an institution or foundation to manage the archive’s management, as well as where the archive will be presented officially for the first time.

4. In this exhibition in Cheapart, the visitor comes to contact with a rich and interesting work and collection and a unique personality. Do you know whether in the future her London home or any other place will serve as a foundation where people can enjoy her archive, work and collection?

That’s something we don’t know, as explained above.

5. In your exhibition I realized that there aren’t many photos of Sacer and that, although there are models of her house, you don’t state her exact address in London. Is this deliberate? Are you creating a mystery similar to her life and personality? Or is it out of respect for her choice to erase her traces or move in the background?

The reasons are far more simple and practical than what you are suggesting. Since, as stated already, processing the archive hasn’t been completed and the strategy of exposing the material to the general public hasn’t been decided yet, her heir has asked us to keep him anonymous and not disclose her address in London, since at this stage this would only incommode any further research.

As for the photos, the truth is that Sacer probably avoided having her photograph taken and there aren’t many clear pictures of her, which makes sense: this woman chose or was forced to live invisibly or, if you wish, in the margines, maintaining in this way freedom of movement. We believe that the lack of many images is entirely consistent both with her character as seen in the narrative shaped by the findings, and the historical conditions that ran through much of her life. She was a mulatto who lived in the Apartheid, a Jew who lived in the Third Reich, a transgender who died just last year all this made her vulnerable and a likely target of many kinds of attacks, so moving discreetly in the world was a smart choice or simply a necessarily condition.

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6. Do you think that her introversion or rather her attempt to be a silent protagonist has to do with her controversial sexuality, the fact that she was s mulatto, had no homeland and maybe felt that she couldn’t fit anywhere?

Very reasonable thoughts, but our previous answer probably covered this one too.

7. You also mention that Sacer and another woman delivered theatrical performances without an audience, at her home in Ethiopia. The paradox of course in this case is that sh had painted an audience on the walls. Do you know if her artistic work was rejected or she simply needed to "marginalize" her work because she was an introvert?

We can’t know Libby Sacer’s intentions or the reasons for her actions and of course we are not authorized to represent her. Like you, all we can do is guess and of course offer some of our own interpretations to the facts. That said, we don’t think Sacer was a professional artist but rather an active thinker who used a variety of mediums. Whether it was through projects she created privately / in secret, like the ones you mention (period 1960-1968) or through her public yet anonymous performances (street performances, ‘70s) or through recordings and books that she distributed personally to selected recipients, through works she published with pseudonyms or allowed others to appropriate by signing them, Sacer continued to be active in the world and interact with it. Also we don’t think Sacer was an especially introverted personality, as periods of introspection were often followed by periods when she chose to be in ‘hot spots’ among many others. In the 60s – when, along with another woman, she composed music and created art works without recipients (with viewers painted on the walls) at her home in Ethiopia – Sacer’s mother, Tanya, died. Probably her mourning for her mother was connected to these "blind" gestures, which probably bare the charge of a sacret act.

Remember that Sacer changed her name to what we know at the age of 25 and it’s assumed that her choice of surname refers to homo sacer, a term in Roman law, about which the wellknown Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben happened to write recently. While in Roman law homo sacer was a kind of man that citizens with “full rights” were allowed to abuse or kill with impunity provided that they didn’t do so under a

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formaly ceremony, it’s worth noting that the word sacred (holy) in Roman-based languages etymologically comes from the word sacer.

Traditionally, an act or gesture that is considered sacret does not require viewers: it is for the active subject, the sacred element (as understood by the doer) and an audience, which, however, could also be imaginary. If the viewers are somehow “viewing” the event, ie perceive it visually, the term "public" or “audience” is very diffent. The performersacret-public triangle can be accomplished in many different ways and it is possible that Sacer during that period was addressing her dead mother, the ghosts of her past in her birthplace in Ethiopia or other people who anyway didn’t exist anymore.

This certainly remains just an interpretation that may be far from reality. Anyway, the end of this period is marked by her presence in Paris in May '68, her participation in street clashes and getting wounded in the left leg. Through Sacer’s notes about the events, we know that she actively participated in meetings and discussions, and that after Paris she was in New York. There, and in other big cities, she was handing out to people passing by excerpts from her diary which she regularly cut out. So introversion might not have been one of her dominant characteristics, but simply one of the phases of the turbulent life.

LIBBY SACER FOUNDATION / ACADEMIA

8. Seeing the exhibition and the other events accompaning it, I realized that you didn’t only intend to make her work and collection publically known. Her heir wants Sacer’s work and collection to function mainly as an inspiration to other artists – is that right?

Generally your observation is correct, although we’d say Sacer is more of a starting point for a dialogue on certain issues, rather than an inspiration for artists.

From our acquaintance with her heir, we don’t think his interest is focused on art; he rather sees art as one more human activity, as another field where a substantial dialogue on certain urgent issues can unfold today.

9. Which side of Sacer is more important? That of the artist, the thinker / author or the collector?

It’s doubtful whether Sacer herself would ever accept any of the above characterizations, nor does she seem to ever have been particularly interested in what she was. More valid for her seemed to be questions as to what she was doing, what he considered important and what interested her. Her identity seemed to be determined through her thoughts and actions as they unfolded in relation to the world around her, often in contradictory ways, as is the case indeed in most lives. Her collections were probably merely mementoes of her relationships, and her art was inseparable from her thought. So if we had to choose one of the titles you mention, we’ll probably choose the second one, even though we don’t see why we should classify her in any category.

10. Will your cooperation with her heir continue and if so what are your plans?

We hope to continue our cooperation and fruitful dialogue with Libby Sacer’s heir, although there aren’t any concrete plans in this regard. Besides, something actually very important has been achieved already through our relationship, which is the initiation of a dialogue on the issues that concerned Sacer and are triggered by her entire life.

[...]

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Hi guys, First of all, I think you need to decide as a group if you want the secret about Sacer to be revealed.

I can suggest the following: 1. If you want to get the truth out, what I can do is to get in touch with the Dawn newspaper (or any other that will agree), publish the first interview and at the end of your program publish the second one that will undo the myth or maybe both interviews can be published togather.

2. If you want to reveal the truth to the end of your program, I can contact the publisher of the Art History Supplement magazine. I will ask him, if possible, to publish both interviews together, or to write a text about Sacer’s myth, the exhibition and the program that followed.

3. Simply publish the first interview on facebook and if later you want to reveal the secret we do another one.

Guys,you decide what you want or if you don’t want to do any of these options. Honestly I don’t want to put pressure on you to do something you don’t want to do.

I hope to see you soon, S.

At 24:07 Tuesday, June 10, 2014, Eugenia Tzirtzilaki <eu.tzir@gmail.com> wrote: Check it out now – is it OK to send? hello Stratis the truth is that we are not particularly interested in whether & when to reveal that Libby doesn’t exist. Let it never be revealed. This is not a central issue for us, it's just a detail, a medium to do the things that interest us and were easier to draw attention to through Libby. We have the impression that your attention has been focused

LIBBY SACER FOUNDATION / ACADEMIA

mainly on the constructed dimension of Libby, hence all the questions you posed focused on documentating and providing information on Libby. (To be honest, I don’t think such an interview is really interesting to an audience. Libby isn’t Picasso so that if we say she’s fictional we’ll make everyone gasp; not so many people know her so revealing the truth won’t cause a sensation. In other words, who cares?) Of course anyone can be interested in what they want and if you’re only or mainly interested in that, that’s fine. But we don’t care about it and don’t want to give time, energy or thought into revealing Libby is fictional or not that. We won’t deal with that because it doesn’t interest us.

I believe that you too were interested in the exhibition before we tell you that Libby is not a real person, right? That’s why we met in the first place. I think your interest wasn’t only cognitive, like "oh, I didn’t know this Sacer woman" but more profound too, you were drawn to the issues Sacer raises and incorporates. Through Sacer we opened up a dialogue with our era and used her construction as a bridge to our past and origins. That’s what interests us. And I hope that this is what interested you initially too; you saw some things in another light, on the occasion of Libby.

If you’d like to write something somewhere that δεαλσ with the exhibits & their correlations, whether you mention Libby or not, that’s great. You can write and publish here or abroad and we’ll help as much as we can. If you wanna do anything – article, book etc- about the issues that arise, using Libby as a vehicle, acting as if Libby was real, that would also be great.

Also if you want to give us some info on the gallery you’d mentioned in Manchester and (if we are interested in this particular gallery) proceed with a proposal to present the exhibition there too, that’s also great. This also interests us.

And of course if you have another idea, it’s welcome. But we won’t deal with how and when it will

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be revealed that Libby is a construction. And certainly we won’t make any such anouncement at the moment, because that’s not where our attention is and of course because we continue and we will continue to use Libby as a vehicle until at least next year for the exhibition at Camp (maybe later even). In other words, the program in the space is still running & everything is happening in reference to Libby Sacer. And if that’s not too clear, I’ll put like this: If we told you that we will never reveal that Libby is fictional, what would you do?

Do you have any idea?

That’s it from us, many kisses and we’re looking forward for your thoughts xxx!

2014-06-11 1:03 GMT + 03: 00 Myrto Stampoulou <myrto.stampoulou@googlemail.com>: I on the other hand start to believe that we’ve delayed exposing her, but I'm a little bit out of it and if you both agree to keep it a secret then let’s do it.

Otherwise it’s all good.

Kiss m

LIBBY SACER FOUNDATION / ACADEMIA

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This publication aims at disseminating and continuing the dialogue about the constraints and definitions of the body, space, identity (gender & race-wise), the ideological mechanisms that define us and the concept of mediation in art and public life.

This publication, as well as every action it records, aspires to erode the constraints & definitions that surround and isolate ideas and groups of people, by making the borders between them be porous.

COLOPHON

Photographs of Libby Sacer (Tina Cotsi and Dimitris Halatsis as Sacer): Elena Akyla, Tina Kotsi, Eugenia Tzirtzilaki, Stefanos Chandelis Photos of live events: LIBBY SACER FOUNDATION exept pp 180, 182, 186, 188, 268, 270: Jordi NN On pp 92, 94, 117 there are images of works by Dimitris Halatsis (installations) and on pp 169, 170, 223, 224 mages of works by Myrto Stamboulou (pencil on paper) Translation Eugenia Tzirtzilaki Design LIBBY SACER FOUNDATION

ALL EVENTS WERE ENTIRELY SELF-FUNDED AND FREE TO THE PUBLIC Want to support us or just

talk? Send us a message here

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