Obsession (2008)

OBSESSION, 2008/ watch video>> 
Marina Gržinić and Aina Šmid, in collaboration with  Zvonka Simčič

DIALOUGE LIST

Video …has any
sense to make

experimental videos
in Slovenia today?

In the past we
produced our videos

with Slovenian television.

Žižek.

Page 56.

The person is fantastic.

He writes
interesting stuff:

To me it seems
that we need to take

this radical step
and construct

new conceptual
genealogies, given

that the Huntingtons
and the Žižeks

the Laclaus,
the Bourdieus,

or even better,

the Giddens who
advise Blair

and the Becks who
advise Schroeder,

can no longer be
those who guide

critical thought
from the »other side«

of colonial difference.

Hence the importance
of considering the
geopolitics of knowledge
within them.

Why  you  speak in English?

Because they say
it is too much text.

I am Walter Mignolo.

Argentinean.

In 1984, I took
USA citizenship.

…the Huntingtons,
the Giddens, the Becks…

…can no longer be
those who guide

critical thought
from the »other side«

of colonial difference.

Hence the importance
of considering the

geopolitics of knowledge
within them.

What is today
important in Slovenia

is the ERASED people.

Each country  has
its dirty stain.

Šefik Tatlić explains:

Post-socialist and former
Eastern European societies

perceive global capitalism
not through future

inequalities and class
divisions, but with

a willingness to
prepare their

economies to adopt
global capitalism.

European Union demands
from transitional societies

are seen as
implementation

of several extremes,
for example,

the implementation of an
information society,

but with the false
predisposition that

it is a mere
technological structure,

followed by extreme
economic imbalances,

extreme  class
divisions,

fascistic
nationalistic regimes

decoded as mere figures
in endless political games,

with unequal distribution
of knowledge within

local social structures
which conduct the

whole process.

Question:

In the beginning
will not say anything.

Ana Vujanović, Belgrade,
free lance theoretician.

Answer:

When  we talk about
experimental video

it is never about a
simple experimental

structure.

We wanted to
develop video

as a revolutionary
concept.

To develop different
politics of affects

and effects.

When we talk
about our videos

it is not about
simple editing.

It is to produce
a sticky work,

as a  sticky spit
between fingers.

Each frame is first
about life and politics,

and then about art.

In the video all
is contaminated.

Each frame is
about politics,

about what is
out there, in society,

and each politics
that is brought from

the outside in the
video is about

this inside, that is art.

Night portiere, a film by
Liliana Cavani, from1974.

The main actress  is
Charlotte Rampling.

She is a concentration
camp survivor.

She is deadly and
sexually bond to the

Nazi officer who abused
her in the camp.

Three sisters, video,
from 1992.

In the video the actress
Marinka Štern

reconstructs Charlotte
Rampling completely.

She were

− »fuck!« −

wears the
Nazi officer cap,

Nazi officer
trousers and breeches.

We are in the
historical moment

when it is necessary
to decide  what is

the destiny of the
signifier “Jew”

−  “zoom in” −

that can take a place
of an universal signifier.

This is why  Badiou
provocative as always,

argues that for Jews
is not a problem how

to bear the name “Jew,”
proudly or doubtfully,

hidden  or obviously,
but that it is

necessary today
to create a “new” Jew,

− Is this by
Jelica Šumič-Riha?

Yes, and Badiou! −

that the  Jew of
our time has

still to come.

We played our
best cards.

Is anything left?

Does this all
make any sense?

Answer:

It is never enough
politics about

the state of the things.

To be afraid of
being too political,

is a fake feeling.

These dialogues
are a process of

political conceptualization.

Not a process of
simple hybridization.

I am against
simple layering

with a bit
of modernization.

Today is necessary
to establish

a difference
in-between things.

It is necessary to
position ourselves

as well towards
state and

governmental
politics.

When it comes
to  freedom, it seems

that in art all
is allowed.

Wrong thinking!
Exists a border.

When it is
transgressed,

things become
really contaminated

Action!

I will continue
with history.

What happens
when video

starts to function
as polygon for

performing history?

When it is not
only a setting

for working methods:
for research,

experiment, technology,
but when moreover

it is  a place for
performing a traumatic,

hidden history?

Milošević and his
clique you can

project on my ass!

What are the so-called
layers within  video?

Costumes, make up
the mise-en-scenes,

text and music,
up to sound and effects.

All our videos are
artificial.

In post-production
all the elements

are additionally
artificially

reorganized and
doubled.

Nothing is natural
in front of the camera.

Nothing is natural in
the process of editing.

However, the result is
not a technological effect.

Although it is
about effects.

It is not about
psychology,  but

the  structure
of the work.

At the base of the
video work are:

recycling, reconstruction
and repetition.

These procedures
are used from theory

to practice, from
movement to crying.

As who can better
speak about the

politics of affects,
and about the

politics of history
than replicants?

This is for us the
new  logic of performativity.

Good point of departure.

Theory is for us
as hair brushing or

cutting a line with
a razor blade

along the vein
of the arm.

We need  theory in
order not to perform

facts and repeat
practical  and

conceptual mistakes.

Or to put this
differently:

Does not  exist
a meta-language,

a place outside
the work and its

visual structure
from where

the artist will
safely and neutrally

create.

Has video any
importance today?

If  for the official
art history is not

relevant, then,
it is up to us

to rewrite
its history.

Conceptual history.

It is about blood,
and not red.

Indeed.

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