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.
