onMAPS a project by MAPS - Museum of Art in Public Space. concept: DZT design: uzinaliquida cover photo: Stefano Romano All the texts and images are property of the authors and are used with their permission. No part of the material in this publication may be reproduced, without the permission of the authors. Please visit us at: www.the-maps.org Or follow us on Facebook / Twitter Contact: mail@the-maps.org Š DyZeroTre / MAPS - Museum of Art in Public Space, 2016
onMAPS is collaborative project developed as a digital magazine focused on public space realized through contributions of artists, architects, urban planners, writers, thinkers. The magazine is a collection of artworks, photographs, documentation of actions, projects, frames, drawings, illustrations and texts written in the language chosen by the author. A starting point to open a discussion on what it means in general, to work / act / react / in a common space, on how to redefine what we consider public, what public space offers the community and how community access it. About MAPS - Museum of Art in Public Space MAPS - Museum of Art in Public Space is a artist’s run platform founded in 2014 with the aim of promoting contemporary art research that has as its theater, public space in all its forms and derivations. A museum exploded in the city, which allows invited artists to compete each time with different zones, each representing historical and contemporary connotations of city’s iconography. MAPS is a museum that overwhelms / engages / transforms through the production of exhibitions / video screenings / conferences whose focus is always the discussion and dialogue with an area of the city and its social or territorial issues. Because the encounter with art can have the thrill of an uprising, or vice versa art is an uprising because it contains the emotion of people and places met.
Social sensibility Alessandro Rolandi
Project, 2011 (on going) All the images are courtesy of Social Sensibility R&D Department - artist’s work documentation courtesy the artists. What is the Social Sensibility? After 5 years working about it, with it and for it, I still don’t know. We chose these two word together with Guillaume Bernard in 2011 and we are developing a new organism called SSRI, Social Sensibility Research Institute, but still what we re trying to do resists models and definitions. And the thing is that it feels much better like this. We hope the Social Sensibility will become a form by itself, just because we help it staying alive and eventually, growing and developing. Sensibility can be synthesized as a fine tune function between the inner self and the external world. Art, not as a purpose, but as a side effect, influences the sensibility of the people who are exposed to it. Social Sensibility is the attempt to extend and orient this side effect to a broader audience and transform the relationship between art and audience, turning it into an active mutual-influenced and shared environment. This is done by inviting artists to interact with people in working environments on a long-term base and in an informal way. The interaction can lead to a final project, but this is neither necessary, nor compulsory, as long as the first interaction has taken place. On the side of art, this implies bringing art in direct contact with the environments of daily and working life, to create an audience 10
of art users, instead of one of art viewers and to influence directly artists and their projects with external informal influence. Promoting the possibility of a different kind of art for the future, created through collective interaction. On the economic side, Social Sensibility proposes the emergence of an alternative model in which artists would be supported financially not for the production of things, but for their involvement with experimental and daring ideas, in the reality of society and working environments. Social Sensibility seems to develop at least two socially driven potentialities: a transformative one and one that belongs to the realm of vigilance, The first one includes creativity, inspiration, critical thinking and art as a vehicle and an excuse to give birth to a new organic social dynamic. The second one aims at resisting alienation, shortcircuiting hardwired default-setting behavior and preserving diversity, respect and collective participation as premises to awaken social imagination for a future social change. So in order to resume Social Sensibility resisting a strict definition, we can say that its key moment is this physical encounter between artists and people. An encounter in which the rules of engagement are not given from the beginning, but they are constantly invented and negotiated all the time. This small and humble moment, that is also a physical relational space, is very fragile, extremely precious and it possesses unlimited potential. From this undisclosed territory of becoming, a fundamental intuition emerges and it gradually takes the form of a quest into the nature of free will. Alessandro Rolandi
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Megumi Shimizu, Petit Movement
Megumi Shimizu, Petit Movement
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Lulu Li, Pre-occupief
Nan Hao, Empty Usage
Ren Bo, Silent Shine
Lulu Li , Human Products
Yujing, Simple words, simply say
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Ma Yongfeng, Invest in Contradiction Tianji Zhao & Matthew Greaves, Bike Shed
These are (not) the things we are fighting for by Jonida Gashi
It is a truth universally acknowledged that contemporary art is fundamentally powerless vis-à-vis the status quo and unable to produce meaningful or, at least, long-lasting change. Of course, this does not preclude the existence of politically motivated artworks, though, on the flip side, the label ‘political’ has possibly never been applied as liberally as it is today. Thomas Demand, Carsten Höller, Philippe Parreno, and Anri Sala would probably describe their work as ‘political’ too, which would explain their otherwise unlikely involvement in Albanian PM Edi Rama’s project for the newest cultural space in Tirana, the Centre for Openness and Dialogue (COD). In the context of this collaboration, Parreno and Höller produced two site-specific works, Marquee, Tirana (2015) and Giant Triple Mushroom (2015) respectively, which they donated to the Centre, while Thomas Demand agreed to kick off the Centre’s temporary exhibition programme. As for Anri Sala, he played a key role in bringing the whole project together. As far as cultural centres go, the COD is unremarkable, apart from the fact that it occupies the first floor of the Prime Minister’s Office. Given its location, it is perhaps not surprising that the COD was inaugurated on the occasion of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Tirana on July 8, with Thomas Demand’s most recent work in the exhibition in the entrance hall, Sign (2015) which symbolises, rather conveniently, the ‘partnership between the people of the world by consumerism’, providing the backdrop to Rama’s and Merkel’s joint press conference on the day. As it happens, Angela Merkel’s visit to Tirana took place only a few days after the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called a referendum on the bailout terms that the EU, and in particular Germany, were trying to impose on the Greek people. It meant that the topic of the Greek crisis would inevitably come up during the press conference, and come up it did. A local journalist asked Edi Rama whether the recent tensions inside the Eurozone had tempered the Albanian government’s enthusiasm to join. In his answer, Rama stressed that his government was more determined than ever to steer 36
the country in the direction of EU integration, even at the cost of being considered ‘old-fashioned’, an unfortunate choice of words the sole purpose of which was to gratify Merkel and, by implication, extend the Albanian government’s modest support to the German government’s hardline stance towards the situation in Greece. In the following weeks, as news about the COD began circulating on the internet and puff pieces started to appear in newspapers like the Financial Times, the artists representing Germany at this year’s Venice Biennial, Jasmina Metwaly, Olaf Nicolai, Philip Rizk, Hito Steyerl, and Tobias Zielony, along with a number of Biennial employees, hung a Greek flag emblazoned with the word “Germoney” over the inscription “Germania” at the entrance to the German pavilion. The gesture was intended as an act of solidarity with the Greek people and as a note of protest against austerity measures everywhere. Of course, the gesture was very modest, though quite loaded symbolically, and its impact on government policy was absolutely nil. At the same time, given the spectacle of the inauguration of the Centre for Openness and Dialogue, it is difficult to imagine how even such a gesture would be permissible in Tirana’s newest cultural space. This raises a number of questions about the relationship between art and politics today, specifically about contemporary art’s ability to function as an emancipatory force inside the spaces of power. *** Edi Rama’s affair with contemporary art began in earnest fifteen years ago, when, having graduated from Minister of Culture to become the Mayor of Tirana, he began the project he is still most famous for: The painting of the facades of the socialist apartment buildings of Tirana. It is around the same time that Rama lent his support to the first edition of the Tirana Biennial, itself the brainchild of Italian entrepreneur Giancarlo Politi. In 2003, two of the curators of the second edition of the Tirana Biennial, Anri Sala and Hans Ulrich Obrist, de-
cided to invite Olafur Eliasson, Dominique Gonzalez Foerster, Liam Gillick and Rirkrit Tiravanija, to each design the facade of one of the socialist apartment buildings. Much in the same vein, in the context of the fourth edition of the Tirana Biennale in 2009, curators Edi Muka and Joa Ljungberg invited Franz Ackermann, Tomma Abts, Ann Edholm, Per Enokson, Tala Madani, Adrian Paci and Helidon Gjergji, to contribute to the project. Needless to say, the association with the Tirana Biennial helped to give the facade project more exposure, particularly among art circles, as did Anri Sala’s Dammi i Colori (2003), a sixteen-minute video projection that was first shown at ‘Utopia Station’ at the 50th Venice Biennale. Dammi i Colori is structured like a conversation between Anri Sala and Edi Rama in the back of a moving cab, where the latter can be heard commenting on the facade project as images of Tirana pass before our eyes. Jacques Rancière has discussed the work in The Emancipated Spectator, comparing Rama’s post-communist project to the dream of the Russian avant-garde of ‘an art directly involved in producing the forms and buildings of a new life’, and praising Sala’s work for using the ‘distant’ art of video to question the kind of politics of art that attempts to ‘fuse art and life into a single process’. We can, of course, question the extent to which Dammi i Colori represents, in fact, a cool reflection on Rama’s initiative, or ‘political art’ in general for that matter, but the more interesting question is why so many other artists, curators, critics, etc., participated in and supported the facade project as well throughout the 2000s. The comparison between Rama’s project and that of the Russian avant-garde is fitting here, for just as the artists of the Russian avant-garde enjoyed for a time the support of the Soviet authorities, so the artists, curators, critics, etc., who have collaborated with Edi Rama on various projects, from the facades to the Centre for Openness and Dialogue, have been afforded an extraordinary degree of access and support. This kind of access and support is as unusual today as it was at the turn of the last century, and the fact that Edi Rama ‘was’ an artist himself is frequently of-
fered as an explanation. Rama discusses his decision to give up painting and move into politics in Dammi i Colori as well. What we take away from his narrative is that Rama is all too aware of art’s fundamental ‘uselessness’, so much so in fact that he decided to stop practicing art altogether and start practicing politics instead, since as a politician he makes decisions that shape reality on a daily basis. Moreover, the possibilities are potentially endless and the facade project is but an example of what can be achieved. This is especially true today, now that Rama is Prime Minister. The fact that Edi Rama is sympathetic to the plight of the contemporary artist who seeks to not merely criticise the status quo but also change it, as well as the fact that he himself does have the power to change the status quo, is probably what makes him so attractive to artists, curators, etc. - foreign ones in particular, who have no real understanding of Albanian society or politics. The support Edi Rama has received from powerful members of the art world, such as Hans Ulrich Obrist, may in turn explain why he has never had to develop what might pass for a policy or set of policies for the arts and culture. As a consequence, two years after Rama’s government took office, the most important arts and cultural institutions in Albania are still in a dire state. In the meantime, there have been several misguided attempts to use contemporary art as an interface between Albanian society and the country’s difficult communist past. Specifically, art exhibitions have been set up to mark the opening to the public of spaces closely associated with the communist regime, including Enver Hoxha’s official residence in central Tirana. Needless to say, these turned out to be encounters from which neither art nor history came out victorious, in part also because the spaces in question stayed open for very short periods of time (only a few days usually) and the events taking place inside them were organised hastily. This is not to suggest, however, that Edi Rama has not used art politically, for he certainly has done so throughout his political career, most consistently in 37
conjunction with design, broadly understood. The facade project, for instance, is an urban design project in the first place and then an artistic project. Already when this project was still underway, it made no sense to think of the contributions of the artists as actual works of art (hardly any one does in fact, least of all the residents of Tirana), and it was impossible to distinguish between the handful of designs that the artists were responsible for and the rest of them. This is truer than ever today, since many new constructions in Tirana now feature colourful painted patterns on their facades, and the trend has spread to other cities as well. Additionally, the facade project could only take place in the context of Edi Rama’s campaign to transform Tirana’s cityscape, by demolishing the countless kiosks that had sprung up (illegally, of course) in the city centre after the collapse of the communist regime in 1990, while simultaneously signing off on countless planning permissions that transformed Tirana into what many of its residents describe today as a ‘concrete city’. The Centre for Openness and Dialogue is also a design project first and foremost. It marks the completion of substantial renovation work that not only goes beyond the first floor of the Prime Minister’s Office where the Centre is located, but actually started out in the upper floors of the building, which are not accessible to the public, and in the surrounding grounds, where the transformation of a car park facing the back of the building into what looks like a miniature golf course is perhaps what stands out the most. For the doubtful, it suffices to examine a picture album uploaded on Edi Rama’s Facebook page titled ‘Images Speak For Themselves’ that follows the logic of ‘Before and After’ advertisements for weight loss, hair loss, cosmetic procedures, and the like. For the more curious, there is a time-lapse video of the entire process as well, which looks like a sophisticated advert for an architecture studio or an interior design firm, and where the works by Demand, Höller, and Parreno which appear towards the end of the video assume the questionable status of ‘finishing touches’. Now, design, in contradistinction to art, is useful. That 38
is, design serves a practical purpose, usually to make ‘things’ more attractive or more appealing to the user. Art, on the other hand, serves no such practical purpose. For instance, painting the drab facades of the socialist apartment blocks of Tirana with bright colours made these buildings more attractive for the people living and working inside; it also made the streets in which these building are located more appealing and thus helped improve Tirana’s urban landscape as such. By contrast, Anri Sala’s Dammi i Colori serves helped ‘merely’ as an object of contemplation - contemplation of the relative success or failure of the facade project, among other things. Similarly, at the Centre for Openness and Dialogue, even if we accept that it was founded so as to bring the institution of the Prime Minister’s Office closer to the people and not only to make this particular Prime Minister’s policies more popular, it is the state of the art facilities inside that will ultimately entice visitors to return and use the space in the future. (After all, in order to justify staying open, in the literal sense of the term, the COD will have to attract not only a continuous stream of visitors but also users.) By contrast, the artworks by Demand, Höller, and Parreno fulfil what is essentially a rhetorical function, encouraging critical reflection and debate as art is wont to do - the ‘Dialogue’ in the title. Rama’s attempts to integrate art and design in the projects he has initiated or lent his support to, betray a totalising impulse that, as Jacques Rancière suggests, is reminiscent of the old idea about the so-called ‘total work of art’. At the time when the likes of Malevich, Rodchenko and El Lissitzky dreamed of ‘an art directly involved in producing the forms and buildings of a new life’, however, the Bolsheviks were actually in the process of radically transforming the life of the society on all fronts, not just the artistic or the aesthetic one. By contrast, the totalising impulse we detect in Rama’s artistic/aesthetic endeavours evokes rather a particular take on the idea of the ‘total work of art’, namely, the notion of ‘total design’. Mark Wigley argues in “Whatever Happened to Total Design?” that this concept is so central to modern architecture that it underpins both the tendency towards ‘implosive design’, i.e., ’designing everything
in a single work of architecture’, and the seemingly opposed tendency towards ‘explosive design’, i.e., ‘adding a trace of architecture to everything’. From this point of view, the move from public space, i.e., the facade project, to the spaces of power, i.e., the Centre for Openness and Dialogue, is not accidental. The Centre for Openness and Dialogue, as a space where every detail, down to the doorknobs, has been paid the utmost attention, at times at the expense of functionality, is paradigmatic of this Prime Minister’s vision for the entire country, namely, of architecture as the driving force in the transformation of Albania. Already, the instrumental use of art in political struggles has often been criticised on the grounds that it inevitably leads to the aestheticisation of politics (fascism) instead of politicising aesthetics (communism), as Walter Benjamin famously put it in the 1930s. Of course, many cultural critics and theorists would argue that ours is a time of total aestheticisation, or total design, so that everything from art to politics has become a spectacle, which is something that Philippe Parreno’s Marquee, Tirana clearly alludes to, since Parreno’s marquees have usually been installed in spaces dedicated to contemporary art, such as the Guggenheim in New York, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, etc., rather than in spaces embodying political/state power. Be that as it may, the spaces of art and the spaces of politics are simply not equivalent. I alluded to this at the outset when discussing the German pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennial, but let me take another example. A few months ago, on May 1st, a group of artists and activists occupied the atrium of the Guggenheim in New York to protest against the working conditions at the Guggenheim’s Abu Dhabi site. It is difficult to imagine that Albanian student activists who have taken to the streets (again) to protest against Rama’s controversial higher education bill, will similarly be able to occupy the entrance hall of the Centre for Openness and Dialogue without the National Guard getting involved, if anything for reasons of security. It might be useful here to think of the question of ‘aestheticisation’ along the lines that Boris Groys does in “On Art Activism”.
Groys suggests that the notion of the ‘politicisation of aesthetics’ is grounded in an understanding of aesthetics that is rooted in design, since the function of design is precisely to make the status quo more attractive, whereas the notion of the ‘aestheticisation of politics’ is grounded in modern (and contemporary) art, whose function is to recognise the status quo as being already dead, thus theoretically opening up the horizon for its overcoming. Because the Prime Minister’s Office is still the place where, more than anywhere else, the status quo is produced on an daily basis, this makes it rather difficult for the art inside it to transform the status quo into a corpse, as Groys suggests. Conversely, every artist exhibiting at the Centre for Openness and Dialogue will have to ask him/her-self about the politics they are being used to further. This is a tall order indeed, for although some of the finest politically motivated artworks are the product of an engagement, often the fruit of years of research, with specific events and histories, we do not usually think that art’s task is to keep up with the politics of the day in the way that, say, the media does. The risk then is that the artworks displayed at the Centre for Openness and Dialogue instead of making the Prime Minister’s politics more transparent, will obfuscate it. I want to conclude by giving an example of how this obfuscation can take place. In the speech he gave during the official opening of the Center for Openness and Dialogue, one day after Angela Merkel’s visit, Edi Rama thanked a number of people, among them the architects who supervised the project, Johan Anrys and Freek Persyn. The names mean absolutely nothing to most Albanians, even though they should. Anrys and Persyn are two of the founders of Belgian architecture firm 51N4E, responsible for developing a number of important architectural projects in Tirana when Edi Rama was still Mayor (some of which were completed and others not). When Edi Rama became Prime Minister, 51N4E played a key role in founding Atelier Albania, a ‘laboratory’ unit inside the National Territorial Planning Agency which is directly responsible for all major architectural and urban planning/ 39
renewal projects across the country. It is irrelevant here how capable or incapable the founders of 51N4E are, the fact remains that the ethics behind allowing a foreign private company to play such a decisive role in shaping the urban development of the country are highly questionable. Apart from this, there is the fact that it is impossible to find out who works for Atelier Albania, certainly not from Atelier Albania’s webpage or any other government website. Finally, Atelier Albania as well as 51N4E have been involved in tendering procedures, both in Albania and abroad (Belgium), that have given rise to suspicions about corruption, suspicions over which one of the founders of 51N4E and Atelier Albania, Peter Swinnen, was dismissed from his position as State Architect for the Flanders government last February. The Albanian government and the Prime Minister himself have never addressed these suspicions, at least not convincingly. Contemporary art, which was once Edi Rama’s strongest selling point, especially outside of Albania, is thus quickly becoming his alibi, particularly in view of the most recent news stories about Rama and his government. I am referring here to the coverage in the German media of the dramatic increase in the number of Albanian asylum seekers in Germany since the beginning of the year, during which time Rama managed to attend the openings of two solo shows featuring his drawings in commercial galleries in Berlin and Munich, but not once visited a single refugee camp. In the meantime, the local media have focused on Rama’s ambivalent attitude, to put it mildly, toward the process for the decriminalisation of the political parties in Albania. These are the kind of issues that the art at the Centre for Openness and Dialogue should address but does not and perhaps cannot.
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Observations of one fence Ibro Hasanović
Photos (diptych), 2014
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La vertigine by Stefano Romano
Stare in mezzo, in mezzo a due fuochi, in mezzo all’oceano, in mezzo alle montagne, come se stare in mezzo significasse essere perso; perso nel mezzo... alla stessa vertigine da tutte le soluzioni.
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Playing in the Street Aïda Gómez & Sr. Charly
Action, Berlin, 2012 Documentation of the action and installation. He found a hole in a brick wall that reminded us of a Harp. We placed guitar strings in the whole and we tuned them to create a public street instrument. Aïda Gómez
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Don’t look at the sun while you’re expecting to cross it Driant Zeneli
Action - photo by Nico Covre Photo, 2014 In 2011 scientists all over the world were astonished by the performance of comet Lovejoy which passed through the perihelion of the sun, remaining intact. After this unique scientific event, I asked myself: ‘If one comet can cross the sun remaining intact, maybe we can try and do the same in the future? ‘Don’t look at The Sun While You’re Expecting to Cross It’ it’s a performative action which is commonly perceived as impossible. The impossible that becomes desire, a desire that becomes a necessity to trace a new space. The desire of tracing a space for one’s self, takes the form of a temporary ‘space in between’. The same desire is responsible for what brings us to modify what surrounds us. This is the attempt to search for a space which, in turn, creates another space ‘in between’ the other. This space can be seen as a tense thread which form is given by two or more extremities pulling in opposite directions. Driant Zeneli February, 2016
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Il caso della pianta scultura “Pesë Heronjte të Vigut” di Shkodër Nico Angiuli
Studio per un documentario, 2015 << Io c’ero, quella mattina di marzo di un anno fa, quando arrivarono le ruspe e i camion. Ero lì, con decine di curiosi, ad osservare la rimozione della pianta scultura,* icona della lotta per l’indipendenza del popolo albanese dai nazifascisti. Tra cumuli di polvere e le proteste di qualche vecchio partigiano di Scutari e di Tirana, i 5 eroi di Vig (questo il nome traslitterato dall’albanese) vennero sradicati con le radici tutte e, dalla piazza centrale di Scutari, trasportati su di un camion verso un luogo non meglio specificato; qualcuno vociferava che avrebbero trovato collocazione in quel di Lezha una foresta a nord dell’Albania. Ho scoperto la verità un paio di mesi fa, durante una visita nella periferia est di Scutari, zona solitamente usata come discarica; tra macerie e immondizie ecco ergersi la pianta scultura. Circondata di carcasse animali, non aveva perso l’antica gloria sacrificale; avevo con me dell’acqua, ho pensato di versarla ai suoi piedi, dove ho notato molte altre bottiglie di plastica>> * Una Plantae Sculptura (pianta scultura) non differisce di molto da una qualsiasi pianta angiosperma apprezzabile in natura. Solo nelle sue fasi preliminari si consiglia di scegliere attentamente il materiale che si intende seminare: bronzo, argilla, acciaio, marmo esprimono ognuno specifici rimandi politici, di retorica, nostalgici, etc. Una volta raggiunte dimensioni apprezzabili in vaso, la pianta scultura potrà essere 62
manipolata e infine trapiantata nel luogo prescelto, di solito spazi pubblici o di assembramento. Si consiglia di scegliere tale luogo con cura, onde evitare ripetuti spostamenti che potrebbero minarne o metterne in discussione la funzione.
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Hapësirat e të tjerëve by Bora Baboçi
Një prej të rinjve në qytetet ku s´mbërrihet kurrë, që ndryshon banesë në prag të çdo gjashtëmujori. 3000 refugjatët e aeroportit të braktisur Tempelhof. Dikush që shihte prej varkave të Bosforit sesi informalizohej gjatë një jave Taksim Square. Carmen Amaya kur kërcente për peshkatarët e Somorrostros. I fundit rom që u zhvendos nga Liqeni i Thatë teksa kalonte përmes moteleve me pagesë orare. Veriori që zaptoi tokat bujqësore të Kamzës dhe u kthye në objekt studimi për migracionin e kulturave ndërtimore. Janë endacakët, të huajt, të tjerët që vijnë në qytet.
rrethina, në pragjet e zonave ku mbizotëron qyteti, disa hapësira në të cilat qyteti nuk ndodhet. Për shkak të kushteve të pafavorshme lidhur me tokën apo dinamikat urbane, mund t´i imagjinojmë si hapësirat që teprojnë; për të cilat nuk ka largpamje urbanistike dhe nën kushtet bashkëkohore janë shterpë dhe të pashfrytëzueshme apo thjeshtë, kanë mbetur rastësisht jashtë radarit të interesave qytetare. Pra, këto teprica nuk kanë specifika të qarta dhe përgjithësisht zaptohen nga veprimtari që kanë diçka të përbashkët; nevojën për të qëndruar jashtë qytetit.
Në përgjithësi, mundohem të bëj dallim mes ¨të ardhmes¨ dhe ¨asaj që do të vijë¨ (l´avenir). E ardhmja është ajo që nesër, më vonë, shekullin e ardhshëm, do të ndodhë. Pra ka një të ardhme që mund të parashikohet. Por ka një të ardhme, ¨ajo që do të vijë¨, që i referohet dikujt që vjen dhe ardhja e të cilit është tërësisht e paparashikueshme. Për mua, kjo është e ardhmja e vërtetë, ajo e cila është tërësisht e paparashikueshme.
Janë - terrain vagues - të Ignací Solá Morales. Heterotopitë e Michel Foucault-s. Janë hapësirat ku qyteti nuk ndodhet, por ku gjithashtu shprehet më qartë gjithçka devijuese nga norma qytetare. Mbase janë Aleph-ët Borgesianë, ku qyteti shihet nën lupa të njëhershme dhe gjithëpërfshirëse, por gjithmonë në negativin e tij, në atë çfarë zgjedh të mos jetë; aktivitetet, mendësitë, rutinat që nuk mund të përkufizohen, klasifikohen apo pranohen si pjesë e natyrshme e përditshmërisë së tij. Janë hapësirat e vetme ku të tjerët realisht mund të mbërrijnë, për të qendruar derisa bëhen pjesë e proçeseve prodhimtare të qytetit. Pra janë hapësirat e të tjerëve, e të huajve që vijnë, derisa shkëmbehen me një prej shumë alternativave, utopive, të ardhmeve të mundshme që qyteti zgjedh për to l´avenir.
Derrida(2002) Dick Kirby; Amy Ziering Kofman Documentary Ndërkohë që të tjerët vijnë, qyteti ruhet me fanatizëm. I kushtohet ripërtëritjes së vazhdueshme të një realiteti hapësinor nga e kaluara; vendosjes së kufijve, organizimit të hapësirës, rritjes së rendimentit dhe shfrytëzueshmërisë së tokës si dhe ndërtimit të një panorame urbane që siguron përkatësi, identitet dhe njehsohet vazhdimisht me kulturën që qyteti zgjedh. Qyteti përgjon kërcënimet e vogla dhe të përditshme të përhapjes së rutinave dhe ritualeve të huaja, të zhbërjes së normave qytetare, të mungesës së kontrollit, të mundësisë së tjetërsimit. Mbërthehet fort pas publikes dhe privates, pas familjares dhe shoqërores, pas kulturores dhe të domosdoshmes. Mbërthehet pas hapësirave të dikotomive për të mos u përballur me psikologjitë dhe performancat e reja që të tjerët, që vijnë, dhe lëvizjet e tyre, sygjerojnë vazhdimisht mbi truallin e tij. Gjatë këtyre përpjekjeve, mbeten, të harruara nëpër 68
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Between Fuerteventura Filippo Minelli
Between, photo, 2006 Fuerteventura, photo, 2015 John Giorno once said ‘space forgets you’ but it’s not only space forgetting about us. Borders are now more visible then ever, they are being secured, walls are being built in every corner of the planet and they don’t actually care about us too. We live an age where technology helps doing what religions were created for - creating understanding through circulation of interpretations - so are physical borders less important now than technological borders are? We still don’t know, but still between borders we are stuck.
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File Away Linda Alborghetti&Marco Bellini
Photos, 2015
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Hapësira në mes ... shtrirjes së hapit. by Romeo Kodra
DyZeroTre në këtë ftesë për MAPS më ndihmon të ofroj një lexim të nëntekstit të veprimarisë sime profesionale si operator artistiko-kulturor dhe si studiues. Me hapësirën kam disa vjet që po merrem. Këndvështrimi dhe interesi im është mbi atë hapësirë që përcaktohet, parcelizohet, zaptohet në kuptimësinë e saj prej arti dhe politikës, ose prej të dyjave sëbashku. Gjithçka në studimin tim fillon prej teatrit, një formë arti ku hapësira e ndërmjetme midis aktorit dhe spektatorit është thelbi material i përcjelljes së kuptimeve të këtij arti jo material. Prej kësaj forme arti të polis-it të lashtë athinas, mbahet gjallë në interesin tim studimor dhe kërkimor qoftë arti, ashtu dhe politika, qofshin aktorët, ashtu dhe spektatorët, të cilët, nën maskat që përdoreshin një herë e një kohë brenda aparatit teatror, nuk janë gjë tjetër veçse politikanët dhe publiku i së përditshmes. Pra, për MAPS, Museum of Art in Public Space, po jap në këtë hapësirë publike virtuale koordinatat e hartës sime kërkimore, kuptimet e saj të përcaktuara, kuptimet e saj në përcaktim e sipër dhe ato të papërcaktuara . “Space in between”, prej përkthimit të anglishtes si “hapësira e ndërmjetme” apo “hapësira në mes”, më stimulon disa ndërlidhje që kanë të bëjnë me gjuhën shqipe. Kjo më ndodh shpesh, për shkak të formimit dhe studimeve të mia shkencore por edhe për shkak të kontekstit shqiptar ende kaq të varfër në kërkime të këtilla, të cilat me mungesën e tyre mundësojnë shkretimin e vazhdueshëm prej injorancës së pushtetit (rasti i betonizimit të Parkut Natyror të Liqenit në Tiranë prej vetë Bashkisë është shembulli më i fundit në këtë drejtim). Hapësira në shqip ka të bëjë me hapjen, por edhe me hapin. Etimologjia e fjalës na përcjell në filozofinë e konceptit “hapësirë”. Në fillim mund të duket si lojë fjalësh, për ata që nuk janë të rrahur në kërkime shkencore, apo paksa abuzive, për ata që kanë komplekse ndaj gjithçkaje të jashtme, përfshi këtu edhe trajtimin e gjuhës (detyrimisht të huaj) si burim krijimi artistiko-shkencor. Por, për mua, shqipja, si gjuhë dhe jo 80
si produkt atdhetarizmi, është burim frymëzimi as më pak e as më shumë se latinishtja apo greqishtja, kaq shumë të lëvruara në lloj-lloj studimesh artistiko-kulturore ndër shekuj. Pra, nga shqipja, mendoj se shumë gjëra na qartësohen në konceptin e hapësirës, e cila nga një anë përcakton hapjen dhe, nga tjetra, hapin. Pra, neve, subjekteve perceptuese, hapësira qartësisht na parashtrohet si derivat hapjeje, por edhe e papërcaktuar përfundimisht nëpërmjet prapashtesës “sirë”, e cila përcakton vetëm vetinë e kësaj hapjeje përballë së cilës gjendemi. Në këtë hapje, ne si subjekte, herët a vonë bëjmë hapa, tendosim dhe shtrijmë këmbët, masim, territorializojmë (Deleuze). Por këtu kemi një kundërshti. Hapat tanë janë të kufizuar, ndërsa hapja, në dukje, na paraqitet pa kufij. Për të mbërritur në kufijtë e saj duhet të ecim përpara drejt horizontit të fundit. Tani një pjesë e shkencës dhe e filozofisë avancon drejt këtij horizonti të fundmë të hapësirës. Unë, personalisht, kam tjetër interes, më pak sugjestiv, por, për sa më takon, më urgjent se ky horizont i eventeve të fundmë. Më intereson humbja progresive e horizontit të pikënisjes. Nga kjo pikëpamje çka aktualisht më interson më shumë në kërkimet e mia nuk është një kthim mbrapa, një kthim drejt pikënisjes fillestare apo adamike, por është hapësira që përcaktohet brenda një hapi të hedhur prej një subjekti, hapësira e vogël që përcaktohet ndërmjet këmbëve të tij të mbështetura në tokë. Brenda këtij hapi, ndërmjet këmbëve, të majtës dhe të djathtës, më pëlqen të ndalem, të hedh një hije dyshimi, një hezitim në tranzitimin nga një hap në tjetrin. Por nuk po flas për filozofi. Fokusi im, siç thashë, është mbi hapësirën midis artit dhe politikës. Këtu, nga njëra anë, hapat që hidhen artistikisht në një hapësirë, pra në një hapje të papërcaktuar që i parashtrohet subjektit artist, janë hapa të hedhur përtej së mirës dhe të keqes, janë hapa që nuk kanë pole orientimi në busullën e tyre. Kuptohet që me këtë lloj arti
nënkuptoj një art që ka përtypur e përpunuar Nietzsche-n, komercializimin e artit, Andy Warhol-in dhe Baudrillard-in, pra nënkuptoj një art që vetëm për arsye retorike i vë edhe një subjekt, një sub+jectum, një të hedhur poshtë, një të nënshtruar. Në pak fjalë marr si të mirëqenë që lexuesi po ma lejon a priori këtë botkuptim mbi artin dhe artistin si një trup i përbashkët përtej çdo metafore apo misticizmi, i cili nuk ka nevojë të nënshtrojë apo të mbivendoset mbi një subjekt dhe objekte të tjera që mund ta rrethojnë. Nga ana tjetër hapat që hidhen politikisht në një hapësirë, pra edhe këtu në një hapje të papërcaktuar që i parashtrohet subjektit politik/an, janë hapa të hedhur përkëndej së mirës dhe të keqes, janë hapa të një subjekti që i ka hedhur duke sintetizuar të mirën dhe të keqen pa i tejkaluar, janë hapa që kanë gjetur kompromisin me të mirën dhe të keqen dhe që gjithsesi shtrihen vendosmërisht përpara duke territorializuar hapësirën ndërmjet këmbëve, duke e marrë këtë hapësirë të shtresëzuar (Deleuze) e të fragmentuar me objekte e subjekte të tjera si të ishte e njëtrajtëshme, e drejtë dhe koherente. Kjo qasje skizofrenike ndaj hapësirës merret si normale vetëm në saj të dhunës që subjekti territorializues politik, ai që hedh hapin, ushtron mbi objektet dhe subjektet që e rrethojnë. Kjo hapësirë politike ndjek ritmin e këtij subjekti të ankthshëm bipolar.
të mëparshme dhe tjetra tek e tashmja, te sinteza kuptimore e së shkuarës që mundohet të kalojë apo tranzitojë të tashmen në të ardhme. Kjo është hapësira e ndërmjetme që më intereson, tranzicioni dhe transportimi i peshës kuptimore të trupit të subjektit nga një këmbë në tjetrën, hap pas hapi. Më intereson energjia që subjekti merr nga hapësira midis këmbëve-kohë (e shkuara dhe e tashmja), nga terreni i matur, i njohur, i territorializuar, nga konteksti dhe kuptimet që prej tij ka sintetizuar. Në pak fjalë nuk më intereson progresi dhe përparimi hapësinor, por energjia që e mundëson atë, më intereson energjia psiko-fizike që mundëson hapin.
Në politikë, ndryshe prej artit, hapësira, falë kompromisit, merret si homogjene edhe kur nuk është. Në politikë hapësira nuk problematizohet ndonjëherë për “karakterin e saj kontradiktor në prirjen dominuese drejt homogjenes” (Lefebvre). Përkundrazi, bëhet gjithçka që ajo të merret si homogjene, e njëtrajtëshme, me mundësi dhe potencial të kufizuar sipas mundësive të lejuara prej subjektit autoritar që mbi të ligjëron e mbizotëron. Kërkimi dhe aktivitet e mia artistiko-kulturore janë të gjitha të fokusuara mbi këtë lloj hapësire të përcaktuar prej dy këmbëve të një subjekti. Njëra këmbë mbështetet tek e shkuara, te shuma e eksperiencave 81
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