MONITORISH Revija za humanistične in družbene vede Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences xix/2 • 2017 Izdaja: Alma Mater Europaea – Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis, Fakulteta za podiplomski humanistični študij, Ljubljana Published by: Alma Mater Europaea – Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis, Ljubljana Graduate School of the Humanities 00 - Zacetek 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 1 Monitor ISH Revija za humanistične in družbene vede / Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences ISSN 1580-688X, e-ISSN 1580-7118, številka vpisa v razvid medijev: 272 Uredniški odbor / Editorial Board Igor Grdina (zgodovinopisje), Nada Grošelj (jezikoslovje), Matej Hriberšek (antični študiji), Karmen Medica (socialna antropologija), Tadej Praprotnik (teorija družbene komunikacije), Tone Smolej (primerjalna književnost), Nadja Furlan Štante (religiologija), Polona Tratnik (filozofija), Jože Vogrinc (medijski študiji), Gita Zadnikar (kulturologija) Mednarodni uredniški svet / International Advisory Board Rosi Braidotti (University Utrecht), Maria-Cecilia D'Ercole (Université de Paris I – Sorbonne, Pariz), Marie-Élizabeth Ducroux (EHESS, Pariz), Daša Duhaček (Centar za ženske studije, FPN, Beograd), François Lissarrague (EHESS, Centre Louis Gernet, Pariz), Lisa Parks (UC Santa Barbara), Miodrag Šuvaković (Fakultet za medije i komunikaciju, Univerzitet Singidunum, Beograd). 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Naročanje / Ordering AMEU-ISH, Kardeljeva ploščad 1, 1000 Ljubljana, tel. 059333070 E-naslov / E-mail: maja.suncic@gmail.com Cena posamezne številke / Single issue price: 6,30 EUR Letna naročnina / Annual Subscription: 12,50 EUR Naklada / Print run: 100 http://www.ish.si/?page_id=3610 © Alma Mater Europaea – Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis, Fakulteta za podiplomski humanistični študij, Ljubljana Revija je izšla s finančno pomočjo Javne agencije za raziskovalno dejavnost RS. 00 - Zacetek 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 2 Kazalo / Contents ART AND AESTHETICS IN POST-TRANSITION / UMETNOST IN ESTETIKA V POTRANZICIJSKEM OBDOBJU Miško Šuvaković 7–22 The Implications of Post-Transition for Art and Aesthetics / Potranzicijske implikacije za umetnost in estetiko Bojana Matejić 23–48 Manipulating Memory and Mourning in Post-socialist Art / Manipulacija s spominom in žalovanjem v postsocialistični umetnosti Nikola Dedić 49–64 The Neoliberal Stamp on Post-socialist Art / Neoliberalni pečat postsocialistične umetnosti Polona Tratnik 65–80 Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto from a Philosophical Perspective / Biopolitični manifest Maje Smrekar s filozofske perspektive Curtis L. Carter 81–110 Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works / Globalizacija in kulturna identiteta umetniških del DRUGI ČLANKI / VARIA Jan Babnik 113–133 Eyes on the Ground and Eyes in the Sky. Satellite and Participatory Surveillance: Photography in Sudan / Gledati od blizu in od daleč: satelitska in participatorna fotografija v Sudanu Maja Pucelj, Nadja Furlan Štante 135–156 Evropocentrična nadvlada “Zahoda nad Vzhodom” / Eurocentric Dominance of the West over the East María Antonia González Valerio 157–169 Repositioning Biotech Arts in Mexico / Repozicioniranje biotehnološke umetnosti v Mehiki 00 - Zacetek 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 3 DIAFANIJE / DIAPHANIES Vid Snoj In Jožef Muhovič 173–216 Vincent van Gogh, Zvezdna noč, in Anne Sexton, Zvezdna noč / Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night, and Anne Sexton, Starry Night 00 - Zacetek 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 4 ART AND AESTHETICS IN POST- TRAN SITION 00 - Zacetek 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 5 00 - Zacetek 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 6 Miško Šuvaković1 The Implications of Post-Transition for Art and Aesthetics Abstract: In contemporary anthropology, art history and aesthet- ics, the concept of transition is meant to signify and explain the hy- brid set of changes that occurred in society, culture and the arts following the fall of the Berlin Wall or, more accurately, after the end of the Cold War. The assumption is that there is a relation of contingency between art, culture and society, which may produce the impression of a relation of causality. Keywords: art, aesthetics, transition, post-transition  UDK 7:111.852:316.323.6 Potranzicijske implikacije za umetnost in estetiko Izvleček: V sodobni antropologiji, umetnostni zgodovini in estetiki naj bi koncept tranzicije označeval in pojasnjeval hibridni komplet sprememb, ki so se po padcu Berlinskega zidu ali, natančneje, po koncu hladne vojne zgodile v družbi, kulturi in umetnosti. Tukaj je predstavljena predpostavka, da obstaja odnos kontingence med umetnostjo, kulturo in družbo, ki lahko naredi vtis, da gre za odnos vzročnosti. Ključne beside: umetnost, estetika, tranzicija, potranzicija 0 0 0 7 Moni tor ISH (2017), XIX/2, 7–22 Izvirni znanstveni članek Original scientific article 1 Dr. Miško Šuvaković is Full Professor at the Faculty of Media and Com- munication, Belgrade, Serbia.  Email: miodragsuvakovic@gmail.com. 01 - MiskoSuvakovic 23. 11. 2017 13:12 Page 7 state of emergency is my normal mode of life In contemporary anthropology, art history and aesthetics, the concept of transition is meant to signify and explain the hybrid set of changes that occurred in society, culture and the arts following the fall of the Berlin Wall or, more accurately, after the end of the Cold War. The assumption is that there is a relation of contingency between art, culture and society, which may produce the impression of a relation of causality. Today, “transition” typically signifies moving away – either grad- ual, as in a crisis, or accelerated, as in a break – from Cold War, real- socialist, state-socialist and self-managed society, culture and art toward a reconstructed and, in certain cases, even restored bour- geois society, that is, toward introducing and implementing liberal, typically also national, capitalism.2 Beyond the context of Europe, the concept of “transition” serves to signify political changes from the colonial to the postcolonial con- dition of Third World societies and states.3 The postcolonial condi- tion is viewed as a process of transition that enabled ethnic/national and state-building liberation from colonisation and resulted in the emergence  of  independent  or  partly  independent  Third World states, whether liberal or real-socialist. With the conclusion of the Cold War, the world entered yet another transition leading from real- socialist postcolonial societies toward liberal or post-secular soci- Miško Šuvaković 8 2 Todorova, 2010; Piotrowski, 2012.  3 Godiwala, 2007. 01 - MiskoSuvakovic 23. 11. 2017 13:12 Page 8 eties/states, whereby both liberal and post-secular societies have faced re-colonisation by multinational corporations and ethnic, na- tional, or religious antagonisms of decolonisation. By itself, the con- cept  of  “decolonisation”  contains  another meaning  as  well:  the critical-theoretical subversion of the postcolonial as a postmodern- recolonising notion, in other words, confronting the economic, po- litical and cultural limits of contemporary global biopolitics and necropolitics4 applied to the transitional Third World. One must carefully identify and differentiate between the con- cepts of “reconstructed” and “restored”, because the differences be- tween  them  are  almost  unnoticeable.  To  reconstruct  means  to construct something anew, something that had been constructed before and was then destroyed; furthermore, reconstruction pro- ceeds with an insecure and uncertain vision of the future. Recon- struction is defined by a desire for a new future that might exceed that which is re-constructed. By contrast, restoration denotes the renewal of something that had “organically grown” and was then destroyed. When something is restored, it is renewed and consoli- dated with a vision of an imaginary past, which is meant to be af- firmed at every subsequent moment in the future. In more detail: In everyday speech, the word “transition” denotes the transformation of socialist or communist societies into liberal, capitalist societies with parliamentary democracy, i.e. into demo- cratic societies. In terms of government, “transition” is the transfor- mation of people’s democracies led by the one-party “avant-garde of the working class” to multi-party parliamentary democracies with separate – legislative, executive and judiciary – branches of power. In  terms  of  economy,  transition  denotes  the  transformation  of economies based on social or state ownership into economies based 9 The Implications of Post-Transition for Art and Aesthetics 4Mbembe, 2003. 01 - MiskoSuvakovic 23. 11. 2017 13:12 Page 9 on or dominated by private ownership. In geopolitical terms, “tran- sition” signifies – paradoxically – the emergence of national states (on the localising level) participating in the global economy and in- formation system (the globalising level). In symbolic terms, transi- tion begins by introducing a multi-party political system and ends by implementing a total or near-total privatisation of state and social property. In terms of the aesthetic, transition is the “pluralisation of sensory regimes” ranging from media to spectacle production in mass and global, market- and software-determined culture. In terms of art, transition is a retreat from “artistic practices that are charac- teristic of closed societies” into a global artistic practice with sus- tainable  local  references.  On  its  way  from  real  socialism  to contemporary global capitalism, transitional art switches between various orientations, with specific narratives and relations with the public organisation of contemporary forms of life: • artistic practices featuring the deconstruction of socialist-realist, socialist-modernist and socialist-postmodernist artistic practices;5 • art of the politics of difference,6 characteristic of postmodernity – for instance, feminist, gender and queer art, postcolonial art, racial art, artistic practices in the liminal zones of popular and high cul- ture, etc.; • technocratisation of contemporary artistic practices by linking up with “creative industries”, “corporate art”, “therapeutic artistic practices”,7 etc.; • critical, subversive and activist artistic practices,8 as a reaction to “post-politics”, i.e. to the liberal-postmodern transition from pol- Miško Šuvaković 10 5 Erjavec, 2003; Irwin, 2006. 6 Foster, 1999, 140–141. 7 Chiu, Genocchio, 2010. 8 Klanten et al., 2011.  01 - MiskoSuvakovic 23. 11. 2017 13:12 Page 10 itics as a social practice to managerial policy-making in culture and society; • artistic practices at the time of the “return of the political”,9 i.e. in the conditions of the global economic crisis, the domination of political, media and cultural pluralism and establishment of local autocracies. To be sure, one may also depoliticise the concept of transition and thereby point to “immanent artistic transitions”, for instance, from functional bourgeois or real-socialist art to non-functional, i.e. autonomous art.10 One may also apply the concept of transition to changes in art in relation to the type of artistic or cultural11 cre- ative/productive work – from manual via mechanical to electro-me- chanical, analogue and digital work, i.e. mediation through media in relation to social or cultural formats, etc. Perhaps one could argue that transition was anticipated by the concept of ending the “struggle for workers’ rights”12 – following the collapse of the miners’ strike in Great Britain – during the sta- bilisation of neoliberalism under Margaret Thatcher as prime min- ister. One should not forget Thatcher’s famous slogan: “There is no alternative!” One could interpret her assertion in two ways: either there is no political or economic alternative to the contemporary rise of neoliberalism or every future alternative practice will be ap- propriated by the dominant neoliberal order and thereby trans- formed into a social market-economic artefact. Historically,  one  could argue  that  transition began with  the 1980s “singing” or “coloured revolutions” in the Soviet Bloc, which 11 The Implications of Post-Transition for Art and Aesthetics 9Mouffe, 2005, 1; Rancière, 2004. 10 Šuvaković, 2009. 11 Lovink, 2002. 12 Hall, 1988. 01 - MiskoSuvakovic 23. 11. 2017 13:12 Page 11 culminated with the fall of the Berlin Wall, coming to an end at dif- ferent moments of implementing privatisation from the early 1990s to the mid 2010s. As a process of transition, post-socialism began in post-communist Europe with numerous reform and revolution- ary events, which led to the end of the Cold War. The very begin- ning of that process was the crisis of the Polish state, provoked by the activities of the anticommunist and pro-national-democratic workers’ movement Solidarity (Solidarność), founded at Gdansk Shipyard on 31 August 1980. The collaboration between the unions and the Catholic Church triggered the Polish national revolution, which ended with the Solidarity’s victory in the parliamentary elec- tions of 1990. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s project called “Per- estroika” (Перестройка)  marked  the  beginning  of  democratic reforms, which led to the transition from socialist to capitalist soci- ety and the end of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev’s cabinet adopted the so-called Sinatra Doctrine,13 whereby the So- viet Union stopped meddling in its allies’ internal affairs. This doc- trine opened the way for the collapse of communism in a number of Warsaw Pact member states and for the revolutions of 1989. The Baltic States, which had been integrated into the USSR immediately after the Second World War, saw the beginning of non-violent rev- olutionary movements called “the singing revolution” between 1987 and 1991. The first mass manifestations of national  feelings oc- curred at the Tartu Pop Music Festival on 14 May 1988. The term “singing revolution” was then introduced by Estonian activist and artist Heinz Valk between 10 and 11 June 1988. He gave that name to the nightly demonstrations with singing organised at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds. These were mass demonstrations involving around 300,000 Estonians, who gathered every night to sing na- Miško Šuvaković 12 13 Kushlis, 2009. 01 - MiskoSuvakovic 23. 11. 2017 13:12 Page 12 tional songs and anthems that were forbidden during the Soviet era. Demands for independence were openly made at a music fes- tival held in Tallinn on 11 September 1988. The so-called “Baltic Way” or “Baltic Chain” was a non-violent political event involving around  two million people  forming  a  human  chain  by  holding hands across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on 23 August 1989. The chain was around 400 miles long. It marked the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed in 1939 by the USSR and the Third Reich, when the Baltic States fell under Soviet control. Esto- nia’s declaration of sovereignty was announced at a festival held on 16 November that year. When the Soviet army attempted to put an end to the independence movement, which had been running for four years by that time, Estonia announced the restoration of its in- dependence. Following the announcement of Lithuania’s independ- ence restoration act on 11 and 13 January 1991, the Soviet army intervened, killing 14 civilians and arresting over a thousand peo- ple. The action of erecting “Barricades” was a political action that took place between 13 and 27 January 1991, as an act meant to stop a potential Soviet intervention. Czechoslovakia’s pro-Soviet regime was toppled in the “Velvet Revolution”, which saw revolutionary turmoil and protests between 16 November and 29 December 1989. The Romanian armed uprising, turning into a violent revolution, occurred between 16 and 22 December 1989. China witnessed large and violently suppressed protests between 15 April and 4 June 1989. Tiananmen, Beijing’s central square, was occupied by students demanding the democratisation of China’s society. Etc. One should also distinguish between the terms “transition” and “revolution”,14 since the former involves a pragmatic and rational im- plementation of controlled and gradual changes that have the char- 13 The Implications of Post-Transition for Art and Aesthetics 14 Egbert, 1970. 01 - MiskoSuvakovic 23. 11. 2017 13:12 Page 13 acter of a consensual harmonisation of two distinct systems or mate- rial practices according to established and mediated external criteria. Whereas revolution denotes a sudden break producing radical, which means essential and complete, changes of a given state of affairs, transition signifies a gradual approximation of one system or practice to another system or practice. The initial system or prac- tice is thereby abandoned and transformed into another system or practice – integrated into a differently ordered set of relations be- tween that which is on the one hand and local and global public opinion on the other. By contrast, revolution refers to the destruc- tion of the structural order of a system or practice. According to Antonio Negri, however, revolution is a creative transformation that emerges  from resistance  to  the “dark and terrorist being of  the state”. The factors of revolution – revolt, resistance and constitutive power – are presented as a temporal event, an event in and with time. As a temporal event, revolution shows that “revolt”, “resis- tance” and “constitution” are related to time. Rather than a “space”, time is a “phenomenon” connected to revolution: space is some- thing one occupies, whereas time happens – just as a revolution happens. A revolution is at once an event of insurrection and re- sistance happening at a certain point in time that is necessarily “contemporary” – a literal performance of that NOW. Revolution constitutes a demonstration of the character of that contemporane- ity – how contemporaneity acquires its meaning. Negri’s phrase “time for revolution”15 may be understood not only in terms of a point in time when a revolution should occur, but also in terms of constituting revolutionary time. Transition also effects a relocation and reorganisation – reinte- gration – of one system and practice into another. In public opinion, Miško Šuvaković 14 15 Negri, 2003. 01 - MiskoSuvakovic 23. 11. 2017 13:12 Page 14 transition is presented as “gradual and justified progress” and not in terms of explosive destruction giving rise to a new order. Tran- sition is therefore an ideologically mediated order of events that hide their real intentions. Due to the fetishisation of “progress”, transition cannot be identified with restoration. Then, however, the following question arises: does the concept of progress also involve the concept or effects of emancipation as an important indicator? A revolution occurs when there is a dominant feeling that there is no time left and that everything must be settled now, whatever the price. By contrast, restoration occurs when in public opinion there emerges or is realised the feeling that we have gone too far in our pursuit of the new and now find ourselves in unfamiliar territory, that we must go back and seek safety in a domain of living and act- ing bound by tradition. Transition emerges as a situation where we are in control of time and are aware that things are solved gradually – slowly – by proceeding by the smallest steps that will, by means of accumulating life, economy and politics, eventually yield results. In any case, it  is always an ideology that names and represents “change” in a pragmatically instructive way! However, the transition from real and self-managed socialism to bourgeois, liberal society based on private property brought an established order to an end and enabled the introduction of a new order and reintegration in such a way that both orders found them- selves in the situation of the “end of an order” – real-socialist and liberal society alike. This concerns the tactics of “echo” (in roman- ticist terms) or feedback (in pragmatic terms). In other words, the transition involved not only the “political East”, but also the “polit- ical West”. The end of an order appeared as an essential and total change – where total means global, while essential means a whole- sale change of system and practices from one set of forms of life to an entirely different set. In the wake of the socialist and liberal order 15 The Implications of Post-Transition for Art and Aesthetics 01 - MiskoSuvakovic 23. 11. 2017 13:12 Page 15 there emerged the hybridised order of global and mass economic- representative  populism. Which means  that,  paradoxically,  the mechanisms of transition appear as instruments that simulate rev- olutionary expectations and effects in a global sense. In this context, post-transitional society denotes a “normalised” or “harmonised” society that has completed its transition from “so- cialism” to “capitalism”, which means the establishment of • a parliamentary democratic order, • the domination of private ownership over state and social owner- ship, • the implementation of globalisation in terms of market economy and media and communication. Post-transition, hypothetically speaking, is not a stage of change, but of reaching stabilisation by societies seeking to join the global order; accordingly, for instance, Europe should no longer be divided into Western and Eastern Europe in political-economic terms, which also means cultural, i.e. artistic terms. One then arrives at an entirely harmonised or regulated world image that brings together the local and global public, at least at the level of an individual consumer, that is, a distant accomplice or, frequently, subcontractor, in a complex process of production, exchange and consumption. The preceding opening paragraphs have defined/redefined the concepts of “transition” and “post-transition” in the usual sense of the  contemporary  usage  of  those  concepts.  For  instance, Cuba today stands at the beginning of its transition, Serbia is at the end, while, for example, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary and Russia are in post-transitional stages. Some transitional societies in post-transi- tion adopt the conditions and circumstances of the global state of affairs, i.e. the global view of the world as a public view of the world. We must now return to re-examining the concept and phenomenon Miško Šuvaković 16 01 - MiskoSuvakovic 23. 11. 2017 13:12 Page 16 of “transition”. One may indicate the concept and phenomenon of transition by means of four theoretical indicators and a fifth meta- indicator: phenomenology of TRANSITION change flow transformation transfer/transferring effect of revolution (qua accumulation of changes, flow, transformation and transfer/transferring toward a radical break) “Change” signifies a set of social activities whereby a condition or stage of society undergoes a radical, sometimes even revolu- tionary change and comes to occupy a situation of redefining the local and global world image, which also includes the relations be- tween local and global public and private forms of life. Change is redefined as a social process – a sort of subversive practice with consequences.  “Flow” signifies the uncertainty and irresolubility of permanent change in the course of our lives. No stable situation can be indi- cated. We cannot say that we have come from Condition A to Con- dition B and  that  the  flow,  i.e.  transition,  is  complete. The  flow signifies the permanence of changes, transformations and transfers. From a pre-transitional condition or situation via a transitional one, we have come to a post-transitional condition or situation that is now a new situation, for instance, marked by the global economic crisis16 and thereby initiated as a new flow of changes. At the same time, having attained the ideal or non-ideal paradigms of parlia- mentary democracy, we are facing a crisis of parliamentary democ- racy in the West itself and the transformation of the platforms of 17 The Implications of Post-Transition for Art and Aesthetics 16 Lazzarato, 2009. 01 - MiskoSuvakovic 23. 11. 2017 13:12 Page 17 global neoliberalism17 into those of expansive populism, etc. The flow does not stop. “Transformation” typically signifies a gradual event whereby one  form of life becomes  another  form of life,  that  is,  an  event whereby one world image becomes a different world image. At the same  time,  there  is an analogy between becoming and organic growth, that is, the growing up of a living being. The transformation of society is conceived as an allegorical image of the transformation of living organisms. Transition is a sort of “transfer” of a situation from one context into another context. A transfer is initiated by an impulse that causes the transfer of a situation. Transferring causes changes not only in the situation that is being transferred, but also in the context from or into which it is being transferred – in addition, the aim is to show that there also occurs a counter-change in the “impulse” that initi- ated the transfer by the very event of the transfer. One therefore speaks of transfer and counter-transfer. A transfer is the relocation of an X from one context into another. A counter-transfer is the counter-impact of relocating an X from one context into another that has consequences on the initiator, i.e. the impulse that initiated or caused the transfer. In other words, a form of life or world image in “transfer” is an event with double consequences, which occur in systems  with  feedback loops.  By  analogy  with  psychoanalytic thought,18 transfer initiates the patient’s unconscious through the activity of the analyst, and the patient’s unconscious initiates the an- alyst’s unconscious as an effect-reaction. In other words, initiating transitional processes in the East by the West has the counter-effect of initiating transitional processes in the West by the East.  Miško Šuvaković 18 17 Harvey, 2006. 18 Lacan, 1981. 01 - MiskoSuvakovic 23. 11. 2017 13:12 Page 18 In relation to social flows, one may say that the accumulation of changes, the flow, transformation and transfer/transferring to- ward a radical break appears as an “effect of revolution”: a com- plete and essential end of an order and modality of its existence with counter-impacts on the social, political, economic and cul- tural potentials of the initiator/ideologue and surveillance of tran- sition. A form of life is depleted and discarded. Its place is taken over by other forms of life emerging in the process of transition. In ideological-political terms, transition appears not as a revolu- tion, but as its opposite; by virtue of the fundamental global change it effects, it has the phenomenological – phenomenal – character of a revolution. Therefore, my claim in this discussion is that the “transfer”, i.e. moving from Cold War, real-socialist, state-socialist and self-man- aged society, culture and art toward civil society, that is, toward in- troducing  and  implementing  liberal,  typically  also  national, capitalism, takes place not only in terms of the contents transferred (real-socialist, state-socialist and self-managed society, culture and art), but also in terms of making a counter-effect on the dominant world of the liberal West, which initiated these processes. The tran- sition of Eastern Europe caused a counter-transfer in the society, culture and art of the original initiator of the “transfer”, which was Western liberal capitalism. The global economic crisis is an indi- cator of that counter-transfer and its “painful” realisation. From that first claim follows the second: that the transition of the political East to the economic-political West is not complete, because the very goal of that transition – i.e. the West’s liberal dem- ocratic order – has undergone transitional changes that violate the propositions of liberalism and democratic order. The conception of transition as a controlled and regulated transitory interval of trans- fer from one world image into another is thereby brought into ques- 19 The Implications of Post-Transition for Art and Aesthetics 01 - MiskoSuvakovic 23. 11. 2017 13:12 Page 19 tion. The idea of “permanent transition”19 emerges as an attractive model that one could trace, though not without irony, from the di- alectics of Heraclitus to that of Marx, or connect to Leon Trotsky’s idea of “permanent revolution”.20 It may be traced all the way to ne- oliberal economy with its base in a constant inflation of surplus value and uncontrolled changes in the distribution of social income both locally and globally. Having posited the indicators of operative concepts and having indicated  a  “hypothetical metaphysics  of  transfer  and  counter- transfer”, one may argue that contemporary aesthetics as a theo- retical  practice  and  contemporary  art  as  a  practical  theory participate in the fictionalisation or de-fictionalisation of the “tran- sitional human condition”.  That is meant to show that contemporary transition is a totalis- ing process with all its transfers and counter-transfers, encompass- ing  humankind  in  relation  to  its  geographical  locations, global/networked relations and phase-dislocated historical identi- fications in contemporaneity. Thus we see that transition, as per- manent  processing,  resonates with  politics,  economics,  social dynamic structures, ethics, art, distributions of sensuality. Thus all of human reality is inscribed into a broad constellation of signifiers, i.e. a map of dynamic vectors and vector consequences (economic effects and human affects) whereby transition unfolds in the direc- tion of transfers and counter-transfers. 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PIOTROWSKI, P. (2012): “Agoraphilia after Communism”, in:Art and Democracy in Post-Communist Europe, Reaktion Books, London, 7–14. RANCIÈRE, J. (2004): “The Distribution of the Sensible: Politics and Aesthetics”, in: The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible, Continuum, London, 12–19. ŠUVAKOVIĆ, M. (2009): “Around Althusserian-Lacanian Critique of Autonomy of Art: Class and the Unconscious”, in: Tratnik, P., ed., Art: Resistance, Subversion, Madness, Monitor ZSA, 31/32, 9(1–2), 31–35. TODOROVA, M. (2010): “The Process of Remembering Commu- nism”, in: Remembering Communism: Genres of Representation, So- cial Science Research Council, New York, 9–34. TROTSKY, L. (2010): “What Did the Theory of the Permanent Rev- olution Look Like in Practice?”, in: The Permanent Revolution, and Results and Prospects, Red Letter Press, Seattle, 231–252. Miško Šuvaković 22 01 - MiskoSuvakovic 23. 11. 2017 13:12 Page 22 Bojana Matejić1 Manipulating Memory and Mourning in Post-socialist Art Abstract: When it comes to global contemporary art practice, the present-day humanitarian discourse abounds in a variety of self-ex- planatory notions and imperatives such as: political art, commu- nity-based art, post-studio practices, participatory art, contextual art, socially engaged art, collaborative art, interactive art. It long ago became apparent that artistic practice can no longer revolve around producing objects for consumption by a passive audience, but must take an active part in interfacing with social reality. In per- ceiving the modality of a work of art and artistic practice, such a change goes hand in hand with the post-Fordist economic changes and the immaterial and flexible labour imperatives. Claire Bishop has already extensively depicted such artistic phenomena in several of her publications. Since the early 90s, after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, we have been informed that we ought to be involved with the humanist struggle for the ‘politics of human rights’, and for ‘Art against terror- ism’, or engaged with social groups and minorities with the aim of integrating them into a ‘legal sphere’ of life. The humanitarian/hu- manist imperative, present in everyday political discourse, art and culture, presupposes an opposition between good and evil, where art as a human, humanist and humanitarian activity, is supposed to as- sume a ‘responsible’ role. In the view of such rhetoric, Art must be ‘political’, ‘socially engaged’ and ‘participatory’, to the extent that it 23 Moni tor ISH (2017), XIX/2, 23–48 Izvirni znanstveni članek Original scientific article 1 Dr Bojana Matejić is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Arts in Belgrade. E-mail: bojanamatejic00@gmail.com. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 23 indicates the sharp distinction between the places of violence and those of justice. However, as Marx indicated so many times, the divi- sion between those who have the right to be seen (the ‘polis’, or public sphere) and those who do not have a right to a voice (private sphere), assents to social division as such, as well as a rather contingent eth- ical contraposition between good and evil. Humanitarianism/Hu- manism in art only affirms the existing democratic phraseology. The humanitarian/humanist regime of art validates a separation between civil society and the abstract society of political equality. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to trace the conceptual distinction between the humanitarian ideology of the current time in the post-socialist context of art and culture, and the thinking and practical application of the concept of the dehumanisation of art. The manuscript consists of three parts: In the first part, I will re- call Adorno’s thesis regarding the ‘after-Auschwitz’ ethic of repre- sentation; in the second part, I will discuss the controversy and the implementation of this thesis following 9/11 as related to culture; and finally, in the third part, I will address the issue of how this the- sis, as the main current ideological weapon, conditions the contem- porary state of affairs in the post-socialist spaces of art and culture, by indicating several key symptoms in artistic production. Keywords: humanitarianism, humanism, dehumanisation of art, post-socialism, emancipation, 9/11 UDK 7:316.323.6 Manipulacija s spominom in žalovanjem v postsocialistični umetnosti Izvleček: Ko govorimo o sodobni globalni umetniški praksi, je da- našnji humanitarni diskurz poln široke palete samo po sebi razum- ljivih pojmov in imperativov, kot so: politična umetnost, skupnostno pogojena umetnost, post-studijske prakse, participativna umetnost, Bojana Matejić 24 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 24 kontekstualna umetnost, družbeno angažirana umetnost, kolabora- cionistična umetnost, interaktivna umetnost. Že dolgo nazaj je po- stalo  očitno,  da  se  umetniška  praksa  ne  more  več  vrteti  okoli produciranja  predmetov  za  potrošnjo  s  strani  pasivne  publike, ampak mora zavzeti aktivno vlogo pri povezavi z družbeno real- nostjo. Pri dojemanju modalitete umetniškega dela in umetniške prakse gre takšna sprememba z roko v roki s post-Fordovskimi go- spodarskimi spremembami in nematerialnimi ter fleksibilnimi de- lavskimi imperativi. Claire Bishop je ta umetniški fenomen izčrpno prikazala že v svojih številnih objavah. Že vse od zgodnjih 90. let prejšnjega stoletja, po padcu železne zavese leta 1989, smo obveščeni, da bi morali biti vključeni v hu- manistični boj za ‘politiko človekovih pravic’ in v ‘Umetnost proti terorizmu’, ali pa angažirani v družbenih skupinah in manjšinah s ciljem integrirati jih v ‘pravno sfero’ življenja. Humanitarni/huma- nistični imperativ, prisoten v vsakodnevnem političnem diskurzu, umetnosti in kulturi, predvideva opozicijo dobrega in slabega, kjer naj bi umetnost kot človeška, humanistična in humanitarna dejav- nost prevzela ‘odgovorno’ vlogo. S takšno retoriko v mislih mora biti Umetnost ‘politična’, ‘družbeno angažirana’ in ‘participativna’, vse do te mere, da nakazuje strogo razliko med prostori nasilja in tistimi pravice. Vendar pa, kot je tolikokrat nakazal Marx, razlika med tistimi, ki imajo pravico biti videni (‘polis’ ali javna sfera), in tistimi, ki nimajo pravice do glasu (zasebna sfera), pristaja na druž- beno delitev kot takšno, pa tudi na dokaj odvisno etično nasprotje med  dobrim  in  zlim.  Humanitarizem/humanizem  v  umetnosti zgolj  potrjuje  obstoječo  demokratično  frazeologijo. Humanitarni/humanistični  režim umetnosti  potrjuje  ločevanje med civilno družbo in abstraktno družbo politične enakosti. Tako je cilj tega prispevka slediti konceptualni razliki med humanitarno ideologijo trenutnega časa v post-socialističnem kontekstu umet- 25 Manipulating Memory and Mourning in Post-socialist Art 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 25 nosti in kulture, pa tudi miselna in praktična aplikacija koncepta dehumanizacije umetnosti. Članek sestavljajo  trije deli: v prvem delu se avtorica spomni Adornove teze o ‘post-Auschwitz’ etiki zastopanja; v drugem delu bo govora o kontroverznosti in implementaciji te teze po 11. septembru v povezavi s kulturo; na koncu pa v tretjem delu naslavlja problema- tiko kako ta teza, kot trenutno glavno ideološko orožje, pogojuje se- danje stanje v post-socialističnih prostorih umetnosti in kulture s tem, da bo nakazala več ključnih simptomov v umetniški produkciji. Ključne besede: humanitarizen, humanizem, dehumanizacija umet- nosti, postsocializem, emancipacija, 11. september 0 0 0 Introduction It has been twenty-seven years since the Fall of the Iron Curtain and the promise of a new global post-political, post-ideological and post-historical democratic era. Immediately after this historical mo- ment, politics, art and culture in the Yugoslav context entered the final stage of their disintegration, and instead of the former social- democratic ideals of equality, fraternity and unity, there emerged various nationalist imperatives and programmes under the um- brella of ‘Western liberal democracy’.  During the 90s, it seemed that avant-gardes in the (post-)so- cialist Yugoslav spaces of art and culture were not dead: there ap- peared various alternative, activist, dissident cultural movements (although most of them were financed by cultural initiatives such as the Soros Foundation)2, which strived to overcome the artistic, Bojana Matejić 26 2 Šuvaković, 2002. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 26 traditional, modernist, projective and utopian avant-garde’s en- deavours. As a matter of fact, scrutiny of the modernist avant- garde legitimacy commenced long before Yugoslavia collapsed into its political and territorial disintegration: Between the early 70s and the 90s, some artistic practices such as Slovenian Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) and Laibachkunst announced the de- construction of state socialism and its transition into post-social- ism on the ground of the avant-garde legacy.3 Net.art also marked the two-fold property of access to technology such as (a)political- ity  of  the  internet,  making  political  statements  and  gestures whose goals were to attack norms of the (traditional) art estab- lishment.4 With the postmodernist turn and the collapse of the Eastern bloc, many artists in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe addressed political issues regarding otherness from the feminist, queer and postcolonial identity platforms. What is most striking when it comes to ‘political’ or the so-called ‘socially engaged art practises’ in the last fifteen years, that I find ex- tremely symptomatic in the post-socialist spaces of art and culture, and which, in my opinion, have contributed to the neoliberal glob- alising cultural industry—is an increasing focus on humanist/hu- manitarian imperative of memory production and reception. It may seem that many preoccupations of artists who work with memory, nostalgia, Holocaust and specifically with Yugo-nostalgia, were to be carried forward to the critique of the fascist logic that has been survived and has been always (more or less) alive in the contempo- rary consumer capitalist societies. However, what this kind of art produces is something quite opposite. In the majority of the artistic works of memory, trauma, nostalgia and reconciliation, an accent 27 Manipulating Memory and Mourning in Post-socialist Art 3 Erjavec, 2005, 7. 4 Greene, 2004, 52. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 27 has been placed on the ‘data(base) aesthetics’5 and archival artistic procedures from the moralising standpoint(s) that suffers from the lack of serious research background and query.  On the one hand, the opening towards new technologies (ITC), and, on the other hand bloody wars and political conflicts from the early 90s, enabled the artistic context of South-Eastern Europe to become exquisitely the place of the postcolonial exoticisation, in which the art of memory, trauma and nostalgia with the help of ‘memory studies’ as its main theoretical point of departure and ad- vocation, have played a significant role. As Norman Finkelstein noted, ‘The Holocaust has become “an indispensable ideological weapon”6 in contemporary politics, art, and culture at large, that justifies and acknowledges a doxa according to which ‘there is no alternative’, and (what is most formidable) the procedure of victim- isation of specific, minor group of people (in the USA particularly) – by which certain privileging social relations and forces of produc- tion, as well as their political pretensions – gain immunity to criti- cism.  In  the  wake  of  Novicks’s  research,  Finkelstein  aimed  his analysis at the properties and inflections of the so-called ‘Holo- caust-industry’ claiming that, currently all  the rage  in the  ivory tower, ‘memory’ is surely the most impoverished concept to come down the academic pike in a long time (…) Today, all that remains is the bland, depoliticised language of ‘concerns’ and ‘memory’.7 This cultural, political and economic phenomenon may be tracked in the case of ‘after-Auschwitz’ cultural claim and its gradual ideolog- ical distortion that became more perceptible after 9/11. In other words, what I am trying to state is that the art of memory, remembrance, Bojana Matejić 28 5 Cf. Bulajić, 2007, 3–22. Wilson, 2006. 6 Finkelstein, 2001, 10. 7 Ibid. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 28 trauma and nostalgia represents one of the most powerful contempo- rary political means for protecting and advocating certain class inter- ests on the global level of the all-more social segregation.  A few notes on the ‘after-Auschwitz’ dictum I would like to begin this analysis with some of Adorno’s statements regarding the ethic of the impossibility of art after Auschwitz: 1. Cultural criticism finds itself faced with the final stage of the di- alectic of culture and barbarism. To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.8 2. I do not want to soften my statement that after Auschwitz it is barbaric to go on writing poetry; it expresses, negatively, the im- pulse that animates committed literature. (…) The excess of real suffering permits no forgetting.9 3. It is self-evident that nothing concerning art is self-evident any- more, not its inner life, not its relation to the world, not even its right to exist.10 4. The more the emancipation of the subject demolished every idea of a pre-established order conferring meaning, the more dubious the concept of meaning became as the refuge of a fading theol- ogy. Even prior to Auschwitz it was an affirmative lie, given his- torical experience, to ascribe any positive meaning to existence.11 5. In silence alone is the name of the catastrophe to be spoken . . . But laments and complaints [Klage] about this must reflect—in spirit—the fact that laments and complaints themselves are no longer possible. No weeping melts the armour; the only face left is the one whose tears have dried up. This lies at the basis of an 29 Manipulating Memory and Mourning in Post-socialist Art 8 Adorno, “Kulturkritik und Gesellschaft”; Adorno, 1981, 34. 9 Ray, 2005, cit. 65. 10 Adorno, 2013, 1. 11 Ibid. 208. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 29 artistic method that is denounced as inhuman by those whose humanity has already become an advertisement for inhumanity, even if they are not aware of it.12 6. Perennial suffering has as much right to expression as one who is tortured has to scream; thus it may have been wrong [to have claimed] that after Auschwitz no more poems [kein Gedicht] may be written.13 One could say that the common denominator of all these state- ments rests upon the standpoint according to which Auschwitz was the inexplicable betrayal of a culture’s traditional claim to ennoble and improve humanity. In the light of this argument, Adorno advocated the ‘double bind’ dimension of art towards artistic autonomy, rather than an engaged art which accepts art’s instrumentalisation which pre- supposes both autonomy and the fait social. The concept of the auton- omy of art or of the negative representation of Auschwitz in Adorno’s position implies, simply speaking, blocking the extraction of any aes- thetic pleasure or redemptive meaning. Adorno’s ethics of representa- tion – “the case of Auschwitz” – rests upon a resolution of the issue of how we may proceed to live under the existing conditions of social bar- barism in which the Enlightenment cultural programme has failed. It would be barbarism after Auschwitz to reach back to these traditional moralistic forms of art, on the one hand, and on the other, to subject artistic practices to the moralistic rhetoric of every-day politics.14  In  the  light of  this argument,  it  is worth mentioning one of Adorno’s crucial examples: Schönberg’s The Survivors of Warsaw, in relation to which he elucidates the issue on politicality and the Bojana Matejić 30 12 Ibid. 13 Adorno, 1966; Adorno, 1995, 355/369. 14 Ray, 2005, 64. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 30 ethical claims of art after Auschwitz. As an aporia of historical suf- fering has been aesthetically transformed into a representation, the victims are to be turned into a work of art. With this procedure, the unthinkable becomes thinkable, thereby opening up the possibility of a redeeming transfiguration.15 What it seems that Adorno tries to uphold is the thesis accord- ing to which committed art approaches the social aporia too di- rectly, producing positive – I would say, humanist/humanitarian and moral – significations.  The ‘After-Auschwitz’ ethical claim and its implications in contemporary art after 9/11 Today one may witness the presence of the ‘after-Auschwitz’ ethic’s claim on contemporary political art in a rather controversial manner, especially to the extent it coincides with the recent historical crisis following the demolition of the Iron Curtain, such as the September 11 attacks in 2001 (9/11). In the early 90s, it became apparent that the ‘after-Auschwitz’ ethic had come to dominance and was being gradually conventionalised. As a matter of fact, it seems that the ‘after-Auschwitz’ ethic of representation has been misinterpreted as a consequence of the transitional historical conjunctures and of the conditions of justification for the current democratic phraseology. Deviation of the ‘after-Auschwitz’ standpoint goes hand in hand with the weakening of the utopian social movements in major Western countries and replacing the social struggles for real democracy with the rules of the State of the Right. The result of such procedure be- came obvious in the light of an argument which Rancière has al- ready provided: the political has been withdrawn from the public sphere in such manner that it has become indistinguishable from 31 Manipulating Memory and Mourning in Post-socialist Art 15 Ibid. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 31 the (international) Law.16 At the core of the consensual harmony of ‘humanitarian discourse (of art)’ is the procedure of blurring the boundaries between the factual dispositive (status quo) of the given society  and  its  normative  and  legislative  underpinning.  Subse- quently, this procedure produces a ‘reminder’—a multitude of indi- viduals that fall outside of “this happy circle of fact and law”.17 The result is obvious: Each otherness deserves to be politically seen and heard. Every minority should have the merit of being in- cluded into the social regime of the visible – into the sphere of the ‘right to existence’. The manifestness of bodies and their desiring and machinic life ought to be tracked and performed. Artists “can- not write poetry”, because, after 9/11, “writing poetry is barbaric”. The ‘barbaric communism’ of Cold War rhetoric has now been re- placed with ‘Islamic terrorism’, justifying the humanitarian right to intervention. ‘We’ should all ‘enunciate’, ‘declare’, ‘verbalise’, ‘speak’, ‘break silence’… about the Holocaust/Shoah, for such a Thing ‘will never happen again’ as long as the contemptuously paternalistic military intervention against the disobedient easterners proceeds. One is not faced here only with the established conventions of so- called ‘Holocaust Art’, but with the ideological nucleus that pertains to the contemporary demand for art’s political, moral commitment and its humanitarian and humanist discourse. Gene Ray well noted that: …although the limits Adorno imposed were a critical response to new historical conditions after 1945, the rigidification of those limits into a set of blindly followed formulas obscures their own historical specificity and makes it more difficult to test them against the shifting realities of new contemporary conditions.18 Bojana Matejić 32 16 Rancière, 2010, 101. 17 Ibid. 102. 18 Ray, 2005, 68. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 32 The ‘after-Auschwitz’ ethic of representation has, in the process of its reception, undergone ideological transformation when com- pared to  its original  formulation. The fear of  the  ’concentration camp’  has  proven  to  be  one  of  the  most  efficient  ideological weapons of contemporaneity. The survival of the fascist logic in consumer capitalism is to be found in the current representational taboos, moralistic imagery and humanitarian and humanist visual rhetoric. The dominance of the ‘after-Auschwitz’ dictum goes hand in hand with the US-led “War on Terror” and the reinforcement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict just after 9/11—after ‘We’ were all in- formed that we should be struggling against Islamic terrorism. The word ‘terrorist’ has gradually become an inherently propagandistic term in the everyday political speech that pertains to traditional En- lightenment moralist formalism.  By establishing the place of the so-called ‘Terror’, the propo- nents of the current democratic phraseology lay claim to a human- itarian/humanist and moralist discourse of culture, which reflects itself in the soft totalitarianism of the mass consumer democratic so- cieties and the global government of capital. The humanitarian/hu- manist logic of art justifies the current positive idea of humanity, that is to say, of ‘human rights’, which stands in accord with the Law that regulates judgements and opinions concerning the Evil that happens in some variable elsewhere. As Badiou maintained: Ethics is thus part of what prohibits any idea, any coherent proj- ect of thought, settling instead for overlaying unthought and anonymous situations with mere humanitarian prattle (…)19 The  current  humanitarian/humanist  ethical  consensus,  for which ‘after-Auschwitz’ rhetoric stands, has been founded on the a 33 Manipulating Memory and Mourning in Post-socialist Art 19 Badiou, 2001, 32. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 33 priori recognition and determination of the Evil, and aims at the mobilisation of people, opinion and cultural practices around a pos- itive idea of the Good. The “after-Auschwitz” ethical claim in the much changed circumstances after 9/11 reduces ethical issues to the self-evident principles of human rights and humanitarian ac- tions. Such transformation and misinterpretation of Adorno’s ‘after- Auschwitz’ dictum leads to the definition of (wo)man as victim. Respectively, in the contemporary global cultural circumstances, the artistic ideological principle is reflected in the imperatives of representation of the absolute victim of infinite Evil, which obliges infinite retribution. Ethics, thus, has become a means to identify and conceive of infinite Evil, laying claim to the constitution of an absolute, extra-juridical right to the victim. Two main nucleuses around which this dispositive knits the contemporary ideological marvellous web are 1) The ideal of Good which eliminates political dispute by blurring the boundaries between right and fact (of ways of being and values); 2) Absolute Evil that requires the imperative of representing a (wo)man as a victim. The case of the post-socialist art world In the post-socialist spaces of art and culture, such an ethic can be recognised, especially to the extent that the historical promise of socialism in the last two decades of the 20th century proved to be a failure. Although the term ‘postsocialism’ in art, generally speaking, refers to the common conditions of late socialism or postsocialism which shaped artistic practices from the early 70s, early or late 80s and early 90s20, I use this term more broadly, which is to say, in order to mark the political, social and economic circumstances of the global neoliberal restoration of the class system and traditional Bojana Matejić 34 20 Erjavec, 2003, 337. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 34 values of the former socialist countries that influenced the shaping of artistic production.21 The term ‘post-socialist’ in my own nomen- clature  also  refers  to  the  process  of  specific  contextualisation, fetishisation and political exoticising of the cultural production in the “barbaric” and “traumatised” political geographies of the former socialist and communist countries. It functions as a convenient label for the “specific” contemporary artistic practices, that have been recognised by the rules and regulations of the contemporary global market economy as something “naturally” inherent to the presupposed political geography. The  ‘after  Auschwitz’  ethical  consensus  in  the  post-socialist spaces of art and culture is rooted in the sophistry according to which every revolutionary project necessarily turns into a totalitarian night- mare. ‘We’ have been convinced over the last fifteen years that every attempt to inscribe an idea of justice and equality turns into Evil. The ethical demand is clear: ‘communicate’, ‘politicise’, ‘make visible’, ‘ver- balise’, ‘participate’… —the sharp distinction between the places of vi- olence and those of justice must be verified. From the early 90s,‘’we’ were all to break silence about the crimes in the Balkans and make otherness  visible—which,  under  this  supposition,  had  not  been granted the right to any kind of an existence under the previous to- talitarian regime. According to such a claim, all true emancipatory art must be “politically” and “ethically” engaged.  The moral, humanitarian nexus of the majority of such practices is based on the afore-mentioned ethical humanitarian dictum at the 35 Manipulating Memory and Mourning in Post-socialist Art 21 I would like to stress that I do not consider the Yugoslav ‘socialist space of art and culture’ as an innocent area of that what was or should be the righteous and justifiable opponent to the Western capitalist consumerism in any mean possible. When it comes to Yugoslavia, the ideals of the self- management market system failed, and the result was a consolidation of the so-called ‘economic statism’.  02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 35 intersection with the local narrative of the given political geogra- phy. As I have pointed out elsewhere22, in the contemporary post- socialist constellation of art, which nevertheless assigns to itself the attribute of political emancipation, one can recognise mutually related, key moments: Fetishisation of art of memory, trauma and nostalgia The concept of the art of memory, trauma and of nostalgia inclines to that which is today, in a most popular manner, termed the ‘culture of remembrance’. This specific artistic activity mostly takes the form of recycling the existing texts and data from the field of broader cul- ture in the manner of postmodern pastiche. Collecting, appropriating, getting, retrieving, finding of data, information, and cultural texts in the broader sense of the term, appears to be a self-sufficient play with historical illusions. Practices of this kind are structured around cer- tain historical, cultural and aesthetical patterns, myths and stereo- types linked to the past, that stipulate the postcolonial exoticising of the (post-)socialist spaces of art and culture.  The issue of nostalgia was problematised even twenty-five years earlier in the context of the cultural production conditioned by ‘late capitalism’. Fredric Jameson, an emblematic figure on the Marxist theoretical polygon, provided an elusive account on this matter. Jameson made his critique of the postmodernist logic, especially when discussing nostalgia film (la mode rétro), claiming that the imperative of nostalgia in the postmodernist cultural production Bojana Matejić 36 22 Matejić, 2014, 42–56. In this manuscript, I introduced the broader typol- ogy of artistic practices in the post-socialist spaces of art and culture that contribute to the reproduction of the existing power relations. The focus of my attention here is only a memory discourse of art and culture and its humanitarian/humanist logic. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 36 implies “a depersonalised visual curiosity”23 in which “intertextu- ality” is applied as  a deliberate, built-in feature of the aesthetic effect and as the op- erator of a new connotation of “pastness” and pseudohistorical depth, in which the history of aesthetic styles displaces “real” history.24 A memory, as a set of imagery constructions of the past or his- torical ruptures/traumas, and nostalgia in the postmodern logic of the cultural production, whose logical deviations are still present today, colonises the “present”, by which historicism appears as a substitute for “real” history.  Notwithstanding, Linda Hutcheon elaborated a different ac- count on the politics of postmodernism as related to nostalgia / re- membering, addressing the issue of the constant critique of the postmodernist ahistoricim. She stated that most of these critiques of the postmodernist nostalgia were focused on the postmodernist “naive” and “nostalgic” recycling of history. In Hutcheon’s perspec- tive, what appears to be naive is the unquestionable belief that any recall of the past must, by definition, be sentimental nostalgia. Post- modernist usage of the past, says Hutcheon, does not include the mechanisms of quotation of history with the aim of the transcen- dental utopian projecting it into future. According to such claim, it might be said that the traces of the postmodernist nostalgia in the contemporary post-socialist spaces of art and culture do not imply a search for transcendent timeless meaning, yet rather an evocation of “a dialogue with the past in the light of the present”.25 37 Manipulating Memory and Mourning in Post-socialist Art 23 Jameson, 1991, xvi. 24 Ibid., 19. 25 Hutcheon, 2003, 19. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 37 What I am trying to indicate here by juxtaposing two opposing discourses on postmodernist logic is that ‘postmodernist art’, in such explanation—that  I share with Hutcheon  to some extent— wields its subversive dimension in its specific historical and geopo- litical constellation(s). However, most of the postmodernist tactics are to be soon appropriated by the contemporary global power re- lations becoming a mainstream. What is most exploited today from the postmodernist strategies are artistic formal procedures such as appropriation, citation, nostalgia (howbeit, here “bad” nostalgia) and memory.  Taking into account this difference, by the memory discourse of the post-socialist art and culture I do not presuppose the postmod- ernist  post-avant-garde  /  retro-avant-garde,  or  the  post-Soviet anachronic painting etc. which problematise and deconstruct the great historical metanarratives in accordance with the postmod- ernist logic and cease to announce the political riots and conflicts immediately around the Fall of the Iron Curtain. By the memory discourse of the post-socialist art and culture, I imply the relatively recent symptomatic phenomenon that appeared in the work of the (predominantly) younger generation of artist and art theorists of addressing topics such as the communist and socialist past, the repercussions of the wars in the Balkans, partisan legacy, transfor- mation of urban life in the changed political and economic circum- stances  after  1989  from  the  moralising,  humanist  and  memory discourse’s standpoints. Let me dwell more on this problematic. The memory discourse includes a broad corpus of texts and things—from the (contempo- rary) museum procedures and regulations of collecting, archiving, managing, allocating, representing and distributing of knowledge (as the ‘legal’ battle over repressed memory) to the market for cul- tural production, artistic works, academic books and articles that Bojana Matejić 38 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 38 refer to memory as key word—that all together create and partici- pate in the so-called ‘memory industry’.26 The academic interest and fascination with the memory discourse is a quite new phenom- enon. The concept of ‘collective memory’ appeared as an object of scholarly enquiry in the early twentieth century with the first seri- ous ‘crisis of historicism’.  The term “collective memory” in the ‘culture of remembrance’ nomenclature was first used by Hugo Hofmannsthal, while Maurice Halbwachs regards memory, contrary to H. Bergson and S. Freud, as a specifically social phenomenon in his book The Social Frame- work of Memory (1925). However, what is most striking is that the academic and cultural interest in memory studies has grown with the postmodernist dominance in the 80s, especially with the emer- gence of two books: Yosef Yerushalmi’s Zakohor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (1982) and Pierre Nora’s “Between Memory and History” the introduction to an anthology Lieux de mémoire (1984). In these manuscripts, memory is regarded as a “primitive or sacred form of accessing the past that is opposed to modern histor- ical consciousness”. For Yerushalmi, the Jews were the archetypal people of memory who had adopted history only recently and then only in part, for ‘modern Jewish historiography can never replace an eroded group memory’. For Nora, memory was an archaic mode of being that had been devastated by rationalisation: ’We speak so much of memory because there is so little of it left”.27 The logical justification of the indispensable conceptualisation of memory,  in  the wake of postmodernism —as something that, under  the  supposition,  confronts  (‘Western’)  aspiring  to  meta- physics and historical grand metanarratives—rests upon humanist 39 Manipulating Memory and Mourning in Post-socialist Art 26 Kerwin, 2000, 127. 27 Ibid. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 39 / human and moralising belief that the process of ‘memorising’ will necessarily prevent from the (radical) Evil / Holocaust (to ever hap- pen again). All the more, some proponents believe that the ‘memory discourse’ has a political dimension to the extent it takes a critical stance towards the fascist consumer logic of (contemporary) capi- talism. Unfortunately, to recall briefly Hannah Arendt’s seminal manuscript, a (radical) Evil has nothing to do with the exception of sadism, perversity, totalitarianism, community, brotherhood, soli- darity, unity, socialism, communism, partisans, capitalism, history, metaphysics (whatever word or label used), yet with the humanist, moralising “terrifying normality” as such.28 Right here, one may re- mark all the fine curtains of the humanitarian/humanist ideological anamorphosis of the ‘after-Auschwitz’ ethical dictum.  During the 90s in the post-Yugoslav spaces of art and culture— socialism, communism, socialist modernism, self-management, par- tisan  legacy etc. appeared  to be  indecent words. Only after  the beginning of new century, the memory discourse—which includes artistic imagery reinvention of the traces of either the “barbaric” and/or “golden era” of the communist/socialist past, as well as the implications of the process of vanishing of the socialist/communist culture under the changed socio-political and economic circum- stances—was enabled to be brought into light. As it was assured that (state) communism/socialism (both in political life and cul- ture) would not survive, that it was completely defunct and that it no longer represented a threat to the neoliberal democratic ideals, the memory discourse of the post-Yugoslav / post-socialist (or of the recuperations of the war) cultural production was finally “al- lowed” to exist, only if  it  is to be exploited by the new imperial regimes of power.  Bojana Matejić 40 28 Arendt, 1963/2006, 276. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 40 Consider some of the examples of the (particularly) younger gen- erations of artists: Relying on some visual patterns of (post-)concep- tual art, Vladimir Milanović—the author of the exhibition Invisible violence (2014) at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, de- claratively addresses the issues of the post-war trauma of the former Yugoslav societies, as well as the questions of how the media and the institutions in the post-Yugoslav societies “create public sphere” and “collective memory”.29 This project, to some extent, stems from the broader project “Četiri lica Omarske” initiated by artist Milica Tomić. The exhibition launches an avalanche of serious questions: from the visual aspects and methodology of the work as related to its conceptual principles and the framework to the moralising stand- point  typical  for  the  humanitarian/humanist  discourse.  Among many, one imperative is imposed: We are all obliged to speak, enun- ciate, declare, make visible, face etc. “our/Serbian/German… guilt” for the Terror. Take another “young” example—Benjocki’s sound in- stallation made of recordings and archival material of the Interna- tional Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) titled Soundtrack (Statements of Guilt) exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in the Hague in 2011. The author produced a piece of music from the previously archived, recorded, transcribed and translated voices and statements of guilt. The work addresses the “reciprocal alienation of voice and body from words and their context, and their complex relationship with to how the trauma experienced in the countries of the former Yugoslavia and the Netherlands is articu- lated.”30 These works of art rather exemplify that of what Benjamin called a(n)aestheticisation of politics31 of the existing humanitarian 41 Manipulating Memory and Mourning in Post-socialist Art 29 Cf. http://vladimirmiladinovic.blogspot.rs/. 30 Cf. http://www.kristinabenjocki.com/soundtrack-statements-guilt. 31 Benjamin, 2008, 41. Cf. Martin, 1992, 21. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 41 democratic materialism32 / ‘after-Auschwitz’ ethical demand. The aesthetical conception of memorising, remembrance and personal enunciation here stand for the process of “normalising” of some- thing which can never be symbolised—something which is at the core of the “normality” per se.  An artistic act of mourning The second symptom that I find dominant in the last fifteen years in the work of a younger generation of artist / theorist is an artistic act of mourning. The concept of an artistic act of mourning implies artistic prac- tices that address the exotic mourning of the vanishing of the so- cialist and communist aesthetic and historical legacies, such as partisan history and  the  collapse and/or  lost utopia  (dystopia). More precisely, the act of mourning in art privileges lost object of desire which had implied some social values in the former socialist and communist countries. What it seems here is the major focus of the issue, is, actually, the act of mourning for the loss of the eman- cipatory projective object of the great modernist utopias—which testified to even before Auschwitz.33 Yet, that of what is missing is nothing other than the “memory of deep memory”. What is enacted is nostalgia for nostalgia, for the grand older extinct questions of origin and telos, of deep time and the Freudian Unconscious (…) for the dialectic also, as well as all the monumental forms left high and dry by the ebb tide of the modern moment, forms whose Absolutes are no longer audible to us, illegible hiero- glyphs of the demiurgic within the technocratic world.34 Bojana Matejić 42 32 Badiou, 2016. 33 Horkheimer, Adorno, 2006. 34 Jameson, 1991, 155. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 42 One should take into consideration, as Domenic Boyer stated, that the nostalgia production is never neutral or innocent when consid- ering the system and categories of valuation. Similar to history con- struction, it is a narrative which is selected however legitimised, since it comes “from above” (personal/social vs. history/state). Fur- thermore, one should not neglect a discrepancy between the ‘indus- try of nostalgia’  and  the  ‘culture of nostalgia’  as  remarks Mitja Velikonja, since the former implies the exploitation of the culture whose main resources are sentiments and emotions.35 Let me take an example: Tanja Deman’s and Vesna Jovanović’s collaborative project Deserted Utopia (artist book, 2010) reflects on examples in architecture and urban planning whose utopian “goal” was emancipation of the modern Yugoslav society in the light of aspiring to social values of ‘unity’, community etc., as that which today represents a sign of a vanishing (either “golden” or ”shame- ful”) socialist past. Similar Yugo-nostalgic reflections and outcomes are suggested in Marta Popivoda’s film How Ideology Moved Our Collective Body—a work in which the author seeks to make (media) information, often lost or displaced, physically present, using the methodology of archival samplings, juxtapositing the media con- structions of the life form(s) in the socialist past and the 90s, that marked  the  collapse of Yugoslavia.  Ivan Fijolić  cites  the visual stereotypes and constructions of the socialist realism in the work NEO N.O.B – The (Un-)popular Culture of Remembrance in  the manner of the postmodernist pastiche and transfigures the visual narrative by incorporation of the elements of pop culture. In the in- stallation Here Come the Women (2015) Adela Jusić in collaboration with Andreja Dugandžić produces monumental collages as the ci- tation of the evident visual markers and traces from the media con- 43 Manipulating Memory and Mourning in Post-socialist Art 35 Popović, Belić, 2014, 94, 25. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 43 structions of the woman’s social life under the Yugoslav socialist regime. The installation problematises that of what could/might socialism and/or equality claim mean for the “average” woman. Similar topics and issues are initiated in the work Born without a Reason: The Internal Soliloquy in Personal Encounter with Heroines (2011) by Milica Rakič etc. Most of these artistic practices, more or less, tend to use ‘Yugo- nostalgia’ as the artistic act of mourning aspiring to political and critical reflections on the current crisis of democracy and neoliber- alism. Among other aims, they tend to reflect on the object that could/might be realised, but in the end failed. However, what is overseen in this relatively new cultural phenomenon is that they push the contemporary neoliberal commodification of the ‘post-so- cialist context of art’ to the extreme, by preserving the position of the object for victimisation, exotification and humanitarian ideo- logical anamorphosis. Conclusion At the end, I must stress that the aim of this manuscript was not to render the listed artistic works as politically insignificant in the cur- rent state of the post-socialist art and culture—or worse to claim that such artistic practices should not exist—yet to open a dispute for the identification and critical reflection of the new, quite fash- ionable tendency of the (younger generation) artist/theorist who comes (geographically) from the post-Yugoslav context. The rea- sons for this situation should be found in the institutional disposi- tive (art schools and master programmes) in (Western) Europe that create and shape this global demand on the one hand, and on the other—the global market economy which rests upon the procedures of categorisation, separation and recognition, specifically inherent in the given culture/geopolitics. Bojana Matejić 44 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 44 Distortion of the ‘after-Auschwitz’ ethical dictum especially after 9/11 became one of the most powerful imperative as regards arts and culture in which memory discourse plays the most significant role. The art of memory, trauma and nostalgia contributes to the re- cent restoration of the classical liberal bourgeois society values (equality, civil rights, free speech, open media, humanitarianism, etc.) resting upon the production of the “degraded repository of im- ages and simulacra”36, in such a way that they substitute and reify the stereotypical constructions for filling the gap between reality and the past itself.  Therefore, today inasmuch as, Hanno Rauterberg37 says, contem- porary art is finally “free” from the categories of the form, technic and visual, perceptible aspects of the modernist achievements, the issue  of  its  function,  its  forms of  political,  economic  and  social “value” / agency, its modes of shaping one’s/social life, become more important. In the present dominant humanist/humanitarian circum- stances, one should try to think and practically indicate the possi- bilities of the process of the dehumanisation of art—of the moments of refusal that exceed the current culture’s affirmative social func- tions. As the humanitarian imperative of a/Art calls for obedience to some supposed Good against Evil, for which it is assumed cultural workers must strive, an art that aspires to emancipation might start by  recognising  the dominant  images and spectacularisations of democratic phraseology critically demonstrating this very process of recognition. All these moments of post-socialist artistic practices that I have just identified, more or less acknowledge, fortify and con- solidate the current ‘fear of Terror’ and ideological anamorphosis of the ‘after-Auschwitz’ ethic of representation. 45 Manipulating Memory and Mourning in Post-socialist Art 36 Jameson, 123. 37 Rauterberg, 2016, 8. 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 45 Bibliography ADORNO, T. (1966): Adorno, Negative Dialektik, in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 6.  ADORNO, T. (1981): “Cultural Criticism and Society,” in: Prisms, trans. Samuel and Shierry Weber, MIT Press, MA: Cambridge.  ADORNO, T. (1995): Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B. Ashton, Con- tinuum, New York. 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Bojana Matejić 48 02 - BojanaMatejic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 48 Nikola Dedić1 The Neoliberal Stamp on Post-socialist Art2 Abstract: The main objective of this paper is to provide an outline for a future theorisation of the following question: what is it that specifically determines the art of our time, that is, how do the con- ditions in which this art is created differ from the conditions in which art was created a decade or even twenty years ago? In order to carry out this analysis, it is necessary to take into account several factors: (a) the specificity of the social order within which the art of our time is created, that is, the evolution of a neoliberal “transition” state and its ideological apparatus; (b) the problem of material work forms, which has to do with economic production models that both contemporary neoliberal state and art are based upon; (c) the issue of value (for want of a better word let us call it “aesthetic”) which is implied or entailed by the work in the field of art. Keywords: art, transition, post-socialism, society UDK: 7:316.323.6 Neoliberalni pečat postsocialistične umetnosti Izvleček: Glavni cilj tega prispevka je ponuditi osnovo za prihodnje teoretiziranje o naslednjem vprašanju: kaj je tisto, kar specifično do- loča umetnost našega časa, torej kako se pogoji, v katerih ta umet- 49 Moni tor ISH (2017), XIX/2, 49–64 Pregledni znanstveni članek Review article 1 Nikola Dedić is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Music, Belgrade, Serbia. E-mail: dedicnikola@yahoo.com. 2 An early version of this paper, titled “Art in Peripheral Capitalism”, is published  in  the  exhibition  catalogue  of  the  17th Biennale  of  Arts  in Pančevo, See Art Gates (2016), Kulturni centar, Pančevo, 63–85. 03 - NikolaDedic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 49 nost nastaja, razlikujejo od pogojev, v katerih je nastajala umetnost pred desetletjem ali celo dvema? Če želimo izvesti to analizo, je nujno vračunati več dejavnikov: (a) specifičnost družbenega reda, znotraj katerega nastaja umetnost našega časa, torej evolucijo neo- liberalnega stanja “tranzicije” in njenega ideološkega aparata; (b) problem oblik materialnega dela, ki je povezano z ekonomskimi proizvodnimi modeli, na katerih sta osnovana tako sodobno neoli- beralno stanje kot umetnost; (c) vprašanje vrednosti (v iskanju pri- mernejšega izraza mu za zdaj recimo “estetske”), ki se implicira ali narekuje z delom na področju umetnosti. Ključne besede: umetnost, tranzicija, postsocializem, družba 0 0 0 The dominant ideological meta-narrative within which post-social- ist societies developed after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the col- lapse  of  the  communist  project  was  one  of  a  “democratic transition” and a new state of liberal democracy. A constituent of this narrative is the story of “totalitarianism”: former communist societies should overcome their totalitarian legacy and enter a so- ciety of liberal freedom, human rights, democratic distribution of power and, of course, free market. Thus the EU becomes the ulti- mate goal of historical development, and the European integration process becomes the path to be followed by former totalitarian so- cieties in order to transform, gain an education, and mature, with a view to turning from non-European dictatorships into European democracies. However, as the historian János Kornai shows on the example of his homeland Hungary, the idea of  liberal democracy, especially in the aftermath of the great economic crisis in 2008, has reached its definitive debacle, even ceasing to play the role of Nikola Dedić 50 03 - NikolaDedic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 50 an ideological meta-narrative.3 Kornai analyses institutional, leg- islative and ideological changes brought on by Orban’s regime: one of the founding principles of liberal democracy, the separation of executive and legislative powers (a separation that has probably never been achieved in Eastern European countries but has at least functioned as an attainable “ideal”), was suspended with a series of legislative changes. These included changes to the constitution, electoral laws, media laws, election of state prosecutors, etc., which culminated in the passing of the so-called 32 “cardinal laws”, whose further potential change can be  implemented only with a  two- thirds majority in the parliament. In terms of economy, Orban’s Hungary abandons the market model and heads for state protec- tionism; this does not mean turning back to the socialist model but to a new form of neoliberal economy. The latter replaces a nomi- nally free market with a clientelist system where economy devel- ops under the fundamental influence of political elites close to the Prime Minister.  Finally,  there  is  strict  control  of  the  “cultural sphere”, which started with a radical  “purge” of  the media and which leads to the institutionally shaped negation of any ideolog- ical “pluralism”. Kornai’s thesis is that these changes are structural, that is to say, they do not constitute a deviation, degeneration, or dysfunction of a liberal system, but build a new system that cannot even theoretically be called liberal. Nor can this new system be called a “dictatorship” in the tradi- tional sense of the word. In fact, it is a sort of hybrid between “liberal democracy” and “dictatorship”, which, for want of a better word, Ko- rnai refers to as autocracy. This transformation from democracy (at least in principle) towards autocracy is, owing to a series of legisla- tive and institutional changes, practically irreversible: 51 The Neoliberal Stamp on Post-socialist Art 3 Kornai, 2015, 2–24. 03 - NikolaDedic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 51 Fidesz is prepared for the unlikely but not impossible event of its failing to win a parliamentary majority in the next elections. The 32 cardinal laws can only be modified by a two thirds par- liamentary majority, and even in the case of Fidesz’ electoral de- feat  no  such  majority  would  be  possible  without  their participation. The mandates of many key positions, most impor- tantly those of the chief prosecutor, president of the republic, head of the central bank, of the audit office, and of the judicial office, extend beyond the current parliamentary cycle; they can sit tight, even if the opposition wins. The fiscal council, a body appointed by the present government, but which would remain in office even in case of an election defeat, has not only an advi- sory role but also the right of veto over the budget submitted by a new government. If that veto is used, the president of the re- public may dissolve the parliament and call for new elections. In other words, a few hand-picked men loyal to the present gov- ernment would be able to overturn the next government. All of this leads to the logical conclusion that it would probably be extremely difficult to effectively dismiss the government at parliamentary elections.  In this sense,  the situation that has emerged is nearly irreversible. Historical experience shows that an autocracy can only be brought down by an “earthquake” that rocks the very foundations of the system.4 Although he writes about Hungary, Kornai’s thesis is gaining confirmation in other countries as well, both in the former socialist bloc and the countries of the so-called peripheral capitalism. The paradigmatic place is actually Putin’s Russia, but states such as Er- dogan’s Turkey, Poland, and former Yugoslav countries are going Nikola Dedić 52 4 Ibid. 03 - NikolaDedic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 52 through substantially similar processes. This does not necessarily mean that “Putinism” is the model, or a role-model for the processes of a new neoliberal autocracy constitution – all these countries ex- perience the erosion of liberal democracy meta-narratives in specific local circumstances and traditions, and within different networks of international economic and political relations. However, what still links them to each other  is a strong neoliberal economic policy, which is necessarily clientelist. On the one hand it implies strong social and class stratification, and on the other the strengthening of conservative elements in the ideological sphere domain, which is in some cases (as is the case with the latest Croatian government or the process of rehabilitation of the Second World War collaborators in Serbia and elsewhere) openly neo-fascist. A more detailed re- search into the extent to which these processes have become irre- versible in post-Yugoslav countries is beyond the scope of this text: direct parallels between Serbia and Hungary still cannot be drawn because Serbia has not yet implemented the structural constitu- tional and legislative transformations of the political system that would be reflected in an even more rigid constitution and change of electoral laws, although there have been sporadic announcements of the sort. The revision of private property still has not been carried out, nor its “amendments” through a state centralised economy. On the other hand, similarities are obvious – the concentration of power in one political personality, clientelism, suspension of power distri- bution, elimination of a functional opposition, changes in labour legislation, and perhaps most notably full control of the media, that is, “ideological apparatus”. Kornai’s thesis points out precisely the fact that the process marked as “democratic transition” has finally been rounded off, which means that former socialist countries have entered a new “post-transition” phase of their development. The question that arises is how this gradual formation of an autocratic 53 The Neoliberal Stamp on Post-socialist Art 03 - NikolaDedic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 53 neoliberal country of peripheral capitalism is reflected in the field of art and artistic production. The socialist system viewed art in a broader context of mod- ernism as a universal meta-narrative. In this regard, communist sys- tems, including the Yugoslav system, saw art as the key place of political self-legitimation: socialism “with a human face” is only possible as part of the global emancipatory meta-narrative. Thus a communist state treats art within a kind of Hegelian teleology: the totality (the universal) is achieved by the interaction of a multitude of opposing subtotalities (local modernisms), not annulling but in- tegrating them into this “higher” form of totality (the universal con- cept of “great” modernism). Disintegration of the teleological art narrative happened parallel with the disintegration of the socialist project: after the fall of the Berlin Wall (if not even earlier) it was hardly possible to speak of a universal project of modern art. From the state of modernity, art has come to the state of contemporaneity, that is to say, it has become a series of synchronic micronarratives, none of which reaches the level of the Hegelian totality. Yet it would be wrong to assume that the “transitional” state rejects all forms of artistic teleology: the logic of liberal transition is basically teleo- logical. Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić once said: “Our gen- eration is a generation that has a huge responsibility. Of course, with responsibility comes great honour. We have been chosen, we have a mission to complete.” This mission, of course, is the Euro- pean Union. Within such logic, history is seen as a teleological nar- rative that leads to the ultimate self-fulfilment: the order of liberal Europe is a kind of “homecoming”, the end of history, which can be reached only through rejection and complete erasure of the Yu- goslav socialist legacy. Art resumes its place within this liberal-cap- italist  teleology:  the  concept  of  “Eastern  European  art”  is  the construct included in the project of cultivation, “civilisation”, of Nikola Dedić 54 03 - NikolaDedic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 54 local pre-modern societies into the community of European demo- cratic nations. As Miklavž Komelj states, “Eastern” art is those post- conceptual  practices  that  reflect  on  avant-garde  heritage (perestroika art, soc-art, Yugoslav retro-avant-garde). The constitu- tive element of this art is a myth of the socialist “totalitarianism”, underlined by the broader historical process of restoring capitalism, and therefore the global art market as well. In Komelj’s words: The rhetoric of “Eastern art” refers to the otherness of the “East” and the subversion of that otherness in the global art system – which we could understand exactly as fighting against the ide- ological disqualification of the “East” performed by the “West” through the use of the term “totalitarianism” [...]. This thesis, however, is nothing more than a way to incorporate the “East” as such in the space of the “West”, that is, a globalised art market now. Thus, of course, the “East” becomes harmless; something that until recently represented a real threat to the “West” be- comes a potential cultural wealth that can fill the globalised art system with new vitality. It is about how to convert social issues into issues of art and launch them as such onto the globalised art market.5 This process of capitalist culturalisation of the “East” meant at the same time the construction of an entire institutional infrastruc- ture  of  “Eastern”  art  production:  the  paradigmatic  place  is  the launching  of  the  Soros Centers  for Contemporary Art  network (SCCA), and then large biennial exhibitions such as Manifesta. The real break-up of this artistic teleology occurred only with the com- pletion of the transition: only a neoliberal “post-transition” state does not truly need contemporary art as a source of self-legitima- 55 The Neoliberal Stamp on Post-socialist Art 5 Komelj, 2011, 32–33, 185–201. 03 - NikolaDedic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 55 tion. The dominant narrative of the “post-transition” cultural logic is no longer that of a more democratic integration but one of pure market, which is supplemented by the ideological rhetoric of “aus- terity” and by phasing out a large part of what we once perceived as the “public sector”. Parallel to this, there occurred a disintegra- tion of cultural infrastructure, both the infrastructure that was built in socialism and the one that was made up of “independent” cul- tural and activist organisations  (NGOs),  such as  the aforemen- tioned Soros network of Centers for Contemporary Art. That is why the protagonists on the contemporary art scene in countries like Serbia feel as para-institutional workers. This feeling is followed by a disorientation in both conceptual and, even more so, institutional sense, as well as by the feeling that a post-transition state recog- nises only “occasional” culture (e.g. popular music festivals and sim- ilar  commercially  viable  “entertainment”  events)  but  not  the supposedly “serious” culture, such as contemporary art. In other words, “post-transition” art is art which does occur within the ne- oliberal framework, but is devoid of the “transitional” teleology of reaching liberal democracy.  Working in the arts also reflects well the transformation of work caused by integration into the neoliberal market, which can be de- scribed by the standard term of precarisation. The precarisation of art  is  the  result  of  both  external  factors  (global  transition  from Fordist to post-Fordist production model) and the development in- herent in art as such. The art historian and curator Jelena Vesić ad- vances a thesis according to which the concept of contemporaneity was introduced in art and aesthetic debates precisely through the construct of post-socialist transition (and thus “Eastern European” art as well), which brought with it the “managerial” model in terms of institutional infrastructure for the production art: the basic prem- ise was that the culture of Eastern countries was “contaminated” Nikola Dedić 56 03 - NikolaDedic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 56 with “totalitarian” ideology and state control (concern), and that the main task of today’s historians, curators, or artists was the “opening” of contemporaneity, which was to be achieved through a “renova- tion”, “reconstruction” and “new management” of history. Hence, SCCA offices have become the new meeting places of artists, but now these places are run by hired managers (usually local art histo- rians and critics). While in the socialist system the development of art was decided upon by the state, the development of contemporary art depends on the decisions of a few expert councils (modelled on company management in the West). In this regard, “post-socialist art exhibitions in most cases are not judged, but curated – they are now curated either by a ‘council’ or, in later stages, by an invited cu- rator”.6 Moreover, while modernist authors focused on the métier (artistic skills), creating tangible artefacts/works in their studios, the author in post-Fordist neoliberal economy conditions spends most of his time in offices “engaging in post-studio practices, dealing with communication, documentation, creating projects for his/her future works, researching, planning and so on”.7 It is about constructing a new type of artist-entrepreneur who no longer requires art institu- tions as institutions of social care but works on the curator-manager model, or as Vesić points out, as a self-governing individual who solves “his/her existential issues either on the art market (still linked to objects) or in the context of the project market”.8 This (neoliberal) paradigm, first established within the SCCA network, remains a model to this day. “Post-transition” art is thus created in conditions of the complete dismantling and disintegration of institutional frameworks that were 57 The Neoliberal Stamp on Post-socialist Art 6 Vesić, 2015, 68. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 03 - NikolaDedic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 57 initially formed in the socialist era, but it is left without even “alter- native” institutional frameworks, which were once provided by the ideology of “liberal” integration of post-socialist societies and its in- herent concept of “Eastern European art”. The precarious market model is the dominant framework of today’s art. However, at this point there emerges a paradox which is also characteristic of global frameworks: although it offers work in precarious conditions, often unpaid work, social insecurity, etc., the number of art students is not declining. The last decade saw the introduction of private higher ed- ucation in Serbia, and one of the trends is an increase (not decrease, as might have been expected) in the number of art academies, de- partments of new media, digital art, art theory, curatorial practice, design and so on. This is one of the paradoxes that point to the fact that work in the field of art, even in precarious neoliberal conditions, carries a specific type of symbolic value, a kind of “symbolic capital”. The question remains how to consider this kind of cultural value which is implied by the work in the field of art. It seems that in the local circumstances at least three dominant discourses can be iden- tified: (a) traditional; (b) market (or entrepreneurial); and (c) the dis- course of contemporary art in a strict sense (this is, of course, only an approximate and intuitive typology). The traditional model refers to mostly common-sense guide- lines within which a work of art is treated as an autonomous “beau- tiful”  object  in  an  indifferent  and  non-utilitarian  sense.  An autonomous work is an “outstanding” object, rarely a situation or event,  which  essentially means masterfully made,  authentic  or unique.9 This kind of “common-sense” definition of art occurs in different contexts, and is often an argument within the institutional realignment on the local art scene – a good example is the change Nikola Dedić 58 9 Šuvaković, 2010, 408–411. 03 - NikolaDedic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 58 of the Management Board and program of the October Salon, where objections to the current concept, mainly articulated within official art associations, rested on the argument that the Salon had stopped dealing with “beautiful” art, authentic aesthetic values  and visual arts, that “waste” was exhibited instead of genuinely valuable works (according to one of the critics of the “conceptual” approach to con- temporary art), and that international artists had been privileged at the expense of local, national authors. On the other hand, the tra- ditional approach is also characteristic of a phenomenon typical of the new millennium since its beginning: the emergence of private collectors who are mainly governed by the logic rooted deeply in the “object market”, preferring art based on the idea of “artistic” and aesthetically valuable art objects. Nevertheless, this “traditional” value model often spreads beyond the scope of guild artistic circles into the broader field of political debates and realignments: from conservative and right-wing advocacy for an “authentic” national culture  to,  for  example,  debates on  reality  television programs, where the mass media aesthetics of “kitsch” are supposedly coun- tered by “authentic” high culture and art. An example is last year’s protest by a student organisation, “Sistem vrednosti”, which sup- ported  a  petition  against  reality  programs  by  playing  classical music concerts in the central city square; as the mainstream media reported, “they say that they want museums and theatres, rather than  ‘Farms’,  ‘Couples’ or  ‘Big Brother’, and as they stated,  they showed that they appreciated real Serbian and European culture, and were against the promotion of immorality and stupidity, which abound in TV programs”. Another model that we have singled out is the “market” or “en- trepreneurial” model. It is a context gradually built by creative indus- tries: in circumstances where the state withdraws from everything that was once understood as “public goods”, including artistic pro- 59 The Neoliberal Stamp on Post-socialist Art 03 - NikolaDedic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 59 duction, a market environment is supposed to emerge that will en- able economic “self-sustainable” cultural policies. One of the ways that should allegedly make this possible is through the so-called pub- lic-private partnerships. The basis of this is the affirmation of private enterprise, which is based on the combination of art, social activism, marketing, and collaboration between people working in the field of art and private companies. One of the implicit arguments of this view is that there is still no “real” market in our country and that our cul- tural scene is branded by bad habits from the socialist era, rooted in the state’s patronising attitude towards culture, as well as by the lack of a “global trends” knowledge, successful management, and ideas. The naivety of these views aside, if the market did not solve any of the transition society problems, why should we expect it to resolve cultural production issues? It is of much more importance to realise that the “free market” concept is one of the constituent ideological constructs  of  transition  countries:  as  indicated by Kornai  in  the abovementioned text, peripheral capitalism rests on a centralised, clientelist system in which the state functions as the prime regulator of the market. The curator Vida Knežević has written most strikingly on this issue, analysing the work of an event based on the concept of “public-private partnership”, noting that creative industry work ac- tually means state controlled and patronised business modelled by local private companies, “whose business is largely non-transparent, and rests on privatisation of social property, social infrastructure and resources built during the period after the Second World War”.10 In her opinion, it is a complex mechanism of institutional collusion be- tween private business, political elites in power and the new mana- gerial class, which actually masks the structural conflict between work and capital. Nikola Dedić 60 10 Knežević, 2016. 03 - NikolaDedic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 60 Finally, the third model is the contemporary art discourse in the narrow sense of the word. It suggests diverse post-post-avant-garde and postconceptual practices, which have generally rejected deal- ing with traditional art objects. What they start from is art as a form of political practice rather than its aesthetic “content”. The institu- tional framework of this art is based on the networking of local prac- tices with international art “worlds”, where the underlying form is the concept of international biennials and the increasingly frequent art fairs. These practices are often positioned as critical, even sub- versive in relation to the local ideological, political, aesthetic and economic models. With reference to this, as indicated by the French sociologist Nathalie Heinich, the main axiological determinant, a kind of pre-condition for the integration of such a work into the globalised contemporary art system, is transgression.11 In the mod- ernist model, mediation between the work and the recipient tended to be direct and unmediated (and where the artist’s main task was expression, the rendition of his private world). Today, by contrast, in order to enter the art system, a work of art has to question and even go beyond the borders of what is rationally considered a work of  art. Artists  create  ambivalent,  “transgressive” works  and  the mechanism of their “socialisation” is achieved through a curator and theory respectively. This is what Heinich calls the “permissive paradox” of the contemporary art system: We cannot understand how contemporary art functions unless we understand that, while artists are trying to push the bound- aries, mediators (intermediaries) simultaneously keep extend- ing the borders so that artists can get in – while at the same time the incompetent keep crying “but it is not art”. This is what I 61 The Neoliberal Stamp on Post-socialist Art 11 Special thanks for the comments on the transgression thesis and referral to Nathalie Heinich’s text are due to Dr. Rade Pantić. 03 - NikolaDedic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 61 have called in the conclusion of my book the “permissive para- dox”, which refers to the fact that by accepting and integrating transgressive proposals, contemporary art institutions are act- ing in a way contrary to what artists they supposedly support are doing because they pre-accept everything that is created as opposed to their power.12 This is precisely the mechanism by which “Eastern art” was cre- ated: authors create an ideologically and politically ambivalent, that is, provocative and subversive work, and the mediation process is carried out by specialised experts – critics, theorists, curators. A typ- ical example of this is the famous Irwin group and the NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst) movement intervention, remembered in the his- tory of art as the “poster scandal”, which rested on an ambivalent at- titude to the thesis of “totalitarianism”; Irwin’s international success lies in the impossibility of any “straight-line” reading of their work either as a glorification of totalitarian ideology or as its criticism and deconstruction. Local contemporary art scenes in former socialist countries are marked by the influence of such a “mediation” mech- anism, which is the basis of the global art system: local art is often marked by internal tensions – “short circuits”. These mainly revolve around the question which artistic gesture is “authentically” political and which reflects “backward”, “bourgeois”, “nationalist”, “conserv- ative” ideologies, etc. It is indirectly expected that “progressiveness” will ensure a work’s integration into the globalised art system. An- other typical example of this kind was a major debate about the work Gipsies and Dogs by the artist Zoran Todorović in 2009–2010. Due to its ambivalent character, that is, its resistance to being straight- forwardly read either as a critical documentation of racial exploita- Nikola Dedić 62 12 Heinich, 2007. 03 - NikolaDedic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 62 tion or as its racist reproduction, the work caused a stir and an insti- tutional and ideological realignment of the scene. We have already pointed out that a common argument in the local art circles is the lack of a “real” market. It is argued that the for- mation of a functional art market would solve some of the structural problems of contemporary art production and reception. However, we hope that it is clear from the above why this faith in the market is at least ideologically naive: the point is exactly that the art created in post-socialist countries is already part of the capitalist market, that  it has already been co-opted by neoliberal  logic, no matter whether it is circulating within traditional or contemporary models; the point is that this market is of a peripheral type. This does not mean that it is structurally not integrated into the mechanisms of the global capitalist system, be it the “object market”, where private collectors are replacing former public institutions, the market of pre- carious work, which is taken up by increasingly clientelist-oriented creative industries, or the “project market”, where survival in the world of art means integration into a global network of art biennials, residences, etc. Until concrete political answers are articulated, an- swers which will use a new mass political movement to question the very foundations of the current capitalist system, we can hardly ex- pect art to escape co-optation into the neoliberal order. Bibliography HEINICH, N. (2007): “Soumission – Transgression” (“Submission – Transgression”), Presentation from the Conference at the Centre du Graphisme, December 19, 2006, Institute de la Communication et de Médias d’Échirolles, Université Stendhal Grenoble. KNEŽEVIĆ, V. (2016): “Kvart kulture i njegove kulise” (“Culture Quarter and its Scenery”), http://www.masina.rs/?p=1599. 63 The Neoliberal Stamp on Post-socialist Art 03 - NikolaDedic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 63 KOMELJ, M. (2011): “Uloga oznake ‘totalitarizam’ u konstituisanju polja ‘istočne umetnosti’” (The Function of the Signifier ‘Totalitar- ianism’  in  the Constitution  of  the  ‘East Art  Field’”), Sarajevske sveske, 32–33, 185–201. KORNAI, J. (2015): “Hungary’s U-turn”, Capitalism and Society Vol. 10, Issue 2, Art. 1, 2–24. ŠUVAKOVIĆ, M. (2010): “Kao zdravorazumska definicija umetni - čkog dela” (“As a Common-Sense Definition of a Work of Art”), Diskurzivna analiza, Belgrade, Orion Art and the Department of Musicology of the Faculty of Music, 408–411. VESIĆ, J. (2015): Kustoski gest u svetu savremene umetnosti (“The Curatorial Gesture in the Contemporary Art World”), the doctoral dissertation manuscript, Belgrade, University of Arts, 68. Nikola Dedić 64 03 - NikolaDedic 23. 11. 2017 13:49 Page 64 Polona Tratnik1 Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto from a Philosophical Perspective Abstract: With her series K-9_topology, Maja Smrekar is challeng- ing anthropocentrism by linking biology and culture, in particular addressing interaction between human and animal species. The artist builds upon the recent scientific findings that it is not only the dog species that has been domesticated; the domestication that took place during evolution is to be considered mutual. Not only has the dog been mastered by the human, but dogs have had an ac- tive role in “using” the human species for a more comfortable sur- vival as well. Both species coexist. In the project Ecce Canis Maja Smrekar built upon the sense of smell as an interface used to trigger the emotional connection between the species. Hybrid Family is another project in the K-9_topology series. In this performance Smrekar nurtured a puppy. By submitting herself to two and a half months of physiological training, she achieved milk production in her breasts. The artist refers to this process as to the process of becoming, of becoming-animal, becoming-woman and becoming m(Other). She is deeply rooted in her own experi- ence at the beginning of the 3rd millennium, when “liberal capital- ism finally struck hard into the newborn Slovenian economy”, as she writes in her blog: her parents lost their business, house, cars, forests, meadows and vineyards, and her father committed suicide. She finds her own way of resisting, which is in submitting herself 65 Moni tor ISH (2017), XIX/2, 65–80 Izvirni znanstveni članek Original scientific article 1 Dr. Polona Tratnik is Dean of Alma Mater Europaea – Institutum Studio- rum Humanitatis, Ljubljana Graduate School of the Humanities. E-mail: polona.tratnik@almamater.si. 04 - PolonaTratnik 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 65 to a “dog-human kinship relationship as a radical intimate action of ‘returning home’”.  In  the  present  paper,  the  process  of  becoming  mother  is analysed in relation to the process of becoming animal. Further- more, the process of becoming (m)Other is particularly examined with reference to the mother-and-child unity, applying the Umwelt notion and a Hegelian, existentialist feminist and post-structuralist discussion of  identity and difference. The process of becoming (m)Other is finally examined as a biopolitical statement or inter- vention with the investment of the artist’s body. Its purpose is to re-gain the position of power, i.e. to perform an act of resistance to bio-power on and through bodies. Keywords: biopolitics, Other, bio art, Maja Smrekar, bio-power, per- formance art, K-9_topology, Hybrid Family UDK 7:606 Biopolitični manifest Maje Smrekar s filozofske perspektive Izvleček: S svojo serijo K-9_topologija, Maja Smrekar izziva atro- pocentrizem s povezovanjem biologije in kulture, še posebej pa na- slavlja interakcijo med človeškimi in živalskimi vrstami. Umetnica gradi na najnovejših znanstvenih dognanjih, da ni samo pasja vrsta tista, ki je bila udomačena; udomačitev, ki se je odvijala med evolu- cijo, se mora smatrati za obojestransko. Niso samo psom zagospo- darili ljudje, ampak so tudi psi imeli aktivno vlogo pri “uporabi” človeške vrste za svoje bolj udobno preživetje. Obe vrsti sobivata. Pri projektu Ecce Canis je Maja Smrekar gradila na čutu za voh kot vmesniku, ki se uporablja kot sprožilec za emocionalno povezavo med vrstama. Hibridna družina je še en izmed projektov v seriji K-9_topolo- gije. V tem performansu je Smrekarjeva vzgajala kužka. Z dva in pol meseca trajajočim fiziološkim treningom je dosegla, da se je v nje- Polona Tratnik 66 04 - PolonaTratnik 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 66 nih prsih začelo proizvajati mleko. Umetnica o tem procesu govori kot o procesu postajanja, postajanja žival, postajanja ženska in po- stajanja (druga) mati. Globoko je zasidrana v svoje izkustvo na za- četku 3. tisočletja, ko je, kot je zapisala v svojem blogu, “liberalni kapitalizem končno globoko zarezal v novorojeno slovensko gospo- darstvo”: njena starša sta izgubila podjetje, hišo, avtomobile, goz- dove, travnike in vinograde, njen oče pa je naredil samomor. Sama je našla svoj način upora, ki se izraža v tem, da se podvrže “odnosu pasje-človeškega sorodstva kot radikalnemu intimnemu dejanju ‘vrnitve domov’”.  V pričujočem prispevku je proces postajanja mati analiziran v povezavi s procesom postajanja žival. Še več, proces postajanja (druga) mati je še posebno pod drobnogledom glede na enotnost mati-in-otrok, z uporabo pojma Umwelt in heglovske, eksistenciali- stične feministične in post-strukturalistične diskusije identitete in razlikovanja. Proces postajanja (druga) mati je na koncu preučen še kot biopolitična izjava ali intervencija z investicijo umetničinega telesa. Njegov namen je ponovno pridobiti pozicijo moči, torej iz- vesti dejanje upora bio-moči – vaja moči na telesu in skozenj. Ključne besede: biopolitika, drugo, Maja Smrekar, bio-moč, upri- zoritvena umetnost, K-9_topologija, Hibridna družina 0 0 0 With the series K-9_topology, Maja Smrekar is challenging anthro- pocentrism by linking biology and culture, in particular addressing interaction between human and animal species. The artist builds upon the recent scientific findings that it is not only the dog species that has been domesticated; the domestication that took place dur- ing evolution is to be considered mutual. Not only has the dog been 67 Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto from a Philosophical Perspective 04 - PolonaTratnik 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 67 mastered by the human, but dogs have had an active role in “using” the human species for a more comfortable survival as well. Both species coexist. In the project Ecce CanisMaja Smrekar built upon the sense of smell as an interface used to trigger the emotional con- nection between the species. Hybrid Family is another project in the K-9_topology series. In this performance Smrekar nurtured a puppy. By submitting herself to two and a half months of physiological training, she achieved milk production in her breasts. The artist refers to this process as to the process of becoming, of becoming-animal, becoming-woman and becoming m(Other). The project is deeply rooted in her own experience, as she writes in her blog. At the beginning of the 3rd mil- lennium, “liberal capitalism finally struck hard into the newborn Slovenian economy”,2 so her parents lost their business, house, cars, forests, meadows and vineyards, and her father committed suicide. In this regard Hybrid Family is her way of resisting the neoliberal power over the bodies and lives of people. Becoming mother Maja Smrekar bought a young puppy, which had been taken away from its primary dog-mother, and adopted the role of its new parent. In addition to ensuring a new home for the puppy, as any ordinary dog keeper would, this new parent ensured its nurture in the most literal sense possible, by breast-feeding it. Let us consider the sig- nificance of this act more carefully. With breast-feeding the puppy and the artist connect biologi- cally, if biologically means through and with investing their own bodies. The artist “hunts nature”. She has not only become a sort of social parent to the puppy, ensuring care and protection. Becom- Polona Tratnik 68 2 http://majasmrekar.org/post-no-1-history-of-tears.  04 - PolonaTratnik 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 68 ing the breast-feeding “parent” to the puppy puts this human dog keeper in a corporeal relationship with the dog. “Naturally” milk is produced within the exchange process be- tween mother and child; the production is realised by the mother but evoked by the child. The mother’s capacity to produce milk is enabled only by the child’s evocation. The production of milk by the woman’s body is thus a process that originates from the tight con- nection between the mother and the child, or the unitymother-child. Breast-feeding is a process significant for the mother-child for- mation, in which the two are mingled together. Julia Kristeva as- certains that in this phase the child does not yet have a narcissist attitude, which only develops after the intervention of the third, who becomes the object of the mother’s desire. The third breaks apart the dyad. According to psychoanalysis, this moment signifies the beginning of the process of autonomisation or the formation of the self.3 In our case we are not paying attention to the moment at which the formation of the self begins, but to the moment which is originally performed here, that is, the moment at which the mother- child formation is established. The project thus establishes the sit- uation before the moment of quitting the breast-feeding, in which the boy is protected against regret that he is no longer a breast- feeding baby or a girl, as ascertained by Simone de Beauvoir, since from then on he will embody his transcendence and his arrogant sovereignty in his sex.4 If this moment signifies the becoming of the first or the second sex, to paraphrase de Beauvoir, the project performs a “reverse” process of becoming: of becoming the breast- feeding mother for the artist and of becoming the human breast- fed baby for the dog. 69 Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto from a Philosophical Perspective 3 Kristeva, 1987. 4 Beauvoir, 2010. 04 - PolonaTratnik 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 69 Mother and child are in this formation of breast-feeding min- gled to such a degree that they exist as an entity. Rather than the other of the child’s self, the mother is a part of the child’s own sub- jectivity, of the child’s own self.  This moment of unity could also be examined with a reference to the notion of the Umwelt, introduced by Jakob von Uexküll.5 The early 20th century zoologist and one of the founders of ecology, Jakob von Uexküll, examines the notion of the environment that is bound to an animal. For Uexküll animals don’t experience the same world and time. The bee, the tick and the fly that we observe don’t move in the same world or share the same world with us, the ob- servers. Each Umwelt is a closed unity within itself.  For Uexküll there exists also die Umgebung, a rather objective environment which, however, changes according to one’s perspec- tive, since there is no objective space per se: there is only a forest- for-a-woodcutter, a forest-for-a-botanic, a forest-for-a-wanderer, etc. Uexküll does not find much interest in the notion of die Umgebung, but offers a very interesting examination of the structure of die Umwelt, in which the world and the animal are intrinsically or exis- tentially linked.  Uexküll takes into consideration the case of a tick. The funda- mental aspects of the structure of die Umwelt, the environments that are valid for all animals, can be derived from the example of the tick. Out of the egg crawls a not yet fully developed little animal, but even in this state it can already ambush cold-blooded animals such as lizards, for which it lies in wait. Once the female has copu- lated, the eyeless and deaf creature finds its way to a warm-blooded animal, from which it pumps a stream of warm blood. Uexküll as- certains that the tick uses the sense of smell and has no sense of Polona Tratnik 70 5 Uexküll, Kriszat, 1934. 04 - PolonaTratnik 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 70 taste. It takes in any liquid, so long as it has the right temperature. For the tick it is existentially relevant to get the meal: after getting it, it will fall to the ground, lay its eggs and die. The tick gets into a “functional cycle as a subject and the mammal as its object”.6 In die Umwelt there are carriers of characteristics or signifi- cance; in semiology these would be marks [Merkmalträger], which are also carriers of meaning [Bedeutungsträger]. These carriers are all that interests an animal. An animal has receptive organs that are designed  to  perceive  the  mark  [Merkorgan]  and  to  react  to  it [Wirkorgan]. Uexküll believes that his explanation of the subject – object in- terconnectedness in die Umwelt has finally connected biology to Kant’s philosophy by emphasising the decisive role of the subject, because there can be no time and no space without a living subject.7 By analogy with Uexküll we can postulate that in the case of the child and the mother,  the child undertakes a role similar to the tick’s. The functional cycle of breast-feeding makes the mother the object of the child in the sense that she is required for the child to survive, she is the child’s host, the nourisher, the food, the existential expansion of the parasite child. Together they form this significant environment, die Umwelt, which is a closed unity within itself. We, not being part of it, don’t share their world. And there is one sig- nificant conclusion that we have to formulate at this moment: there is no mother per se, there is no objective mother, the mother is the mother-for-the-child. The fact that the artist voluntarily undertakes the “objectification” of herself for the puppy by becoming mother- for-the-puppy though breast-feeding, as well as through becoming the puppy’s social parent, opens up a new dimension of the project. 71 Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto from a Philosophical Perspective 6 Uexküll, 2010, 50. 7 Ibid., 52. 04 - PolonaTratnik 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 71 One should not forget that the dog keeper is legally responsible for ensuring proper care for the animal. The role of the caretaker is somehow similar to the role of the parent. However, the dog is con- sidered the dog keeper’s property, an object with an ability to suffer, which is why suffering may not be caused. Yet the punishment for the violation of a child’s or a puppy’s rights tells the most about the hierarchical difference between human and animal, as agreed upon in a given society. The difference between the two species has been recognised within historical materialism, as ascertained by de Beau- voir, which ensured a relevant recognition that “[h]umanity is not an animal species; it is a historical reality”.8 If Maja Smrekar is be- coming mother-for-the-puppy, this makes up a significant dimen- sion of the process of becoming, in which she is simultaneously becoming an animal-mother. With objectifying herself for the dog, she is resisting the policy by which domestic animals are consid- ered proprietorial objects of humans. The hierarchical differentia- tion of human and animal species is here subverted. Becoming animal, becoming other Saying that one is becoming an animal seems senseless since man is an animal, a speaking animal, if we agree with Jacques Derrida.9 For Martin Heidegger, however,  there exists a difference be- tween animal and human and stone; it lies in the relation of each of them to the world: “the stone is worldless [weltlos]; the animal is poor in the world [weltarm]; man is world-forming [weltbildend].” The origin of Heidegger’s consideration of the relation between the being and the world is to be found in Uexküll: what Uexküll defined as marks or carriers of meaning, Heidegger calls disinhibitors, and Polona Tratnik 72 8 Beauvoir, 87. 9 Derrida, 2008. 04 - PolonaTratnik 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 72 what Uexküll defined as die Umwelt, Heidegger calls the disinhibit- ing ring. Heidegger examines the relationship of the animal to its disinhibiting  ring  further  in  order  to  define what  he  called  the “poverty in the world” characteristic of animals. Heidegger differ- entiates between animal existence in the world and the mode of the human world. The mode of existence proper to an animal is signi- fied in its relation with the disinhibitor – it is in a state of captiva- tion. As an example of captivation Heidegger presents the case of a bee described already by Uexküll. A bee, placed in front of a cup full of honey, begins to suck it, then its abdomen is cut away, yet the bee happily continues to suck while the honey visibly streams out of its open abdomen. The animal is captivated, stunned, but also taken away, blocked [benommen], as well as taken in, absorbed [eingenommen]. The animal is essentially captivated and wholly ab- sorbed in its own disinhibitor. It cannot truly act in relation to it, it can only behave.10 The animal is being-alongside-itself: the animal does not recog- nise the situation, the bee does not recognise the presence of too much honey neither the absence of its abdomen. It is taken by [hin- genommen] the food. “This being taken is only possible where there is an instinctive ‘towards …’ [treibhaftes Hin-zu]. Yet this being taken in such a drivenness also excludes the possibility of any recognition of any being-present-at-hand [Vorhandensein]. It is precisely being taken by its food that prevents the animal from taking up a position over and against [sich gegenüberzustellen] this food.”11 The baby is taken by the mother’s milk. When the animal comes in contact with its disinhibitor, it gets taken by [hingenommen] the 73 Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto from a Philosophical Perspective 10 Agamben, 2004, 52. 11 Heidegger, 1995, 263; original in Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe, vols. 29– 30,  Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Welt–Endlichkeit–Einsamkeit, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1983, p. 383. 04 - PolonaTratnik 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 73 food, it is captivated, because the “very possibility of apprehending something as something is withheld [genommen] from the animal, and it is withheld from it not merely here and now, but withheld in the sense that it is ‘not given at all’”.12We can draw an analogy with the captivation of  the animal and  the breast-feeding child. The breast-feeding  baby  gets  into  a  disinhibiting  ring.  The  baby  is driven toward the breast. It gets into instinctive drivenness “to- ward”. Being taken by the milk prevents the child from taking up a position over the milk or apprehending something as something. In this case, however, the subject experiencing the “poverty in the world” is not the animal as in the case discussed by Heidegger, but the child, which is a pre-state of human being. The captivated subject, the breast-feeding child, does not, ac- cording to Heidegger’s theory, fulfil the criteria for a human being. The difference between man and animal lies in the human capabil- ity to act in relation to the world or to act against it, according to Heidegger. It would not be correct to say that this child is becoming human through the process of breast-feeding or this performance. Recalling Derrida saying that man is a speaking animal, let us re- flect upon the communication aspect. Uexküll refers to the decisive role of the subject expounded by Kant when conceptualising the notion of die Umwelt to show how space and time depend on the subject, the animal in our case. Kant introduces the notion of exis- tence of things for the subject. So how does the baby exist for itself? The environment, time and space are formed according to the sub- ject, they exist for the subject. But as a being in the state of captiva- tion,  the  child  is  not  capable  of  apprehending  something  as something. Accordingly, it is not capable of apprehending itself. The same holds true for the animal. There is a certain difference Polona Tratnik 74 12 Ibid., 253; original, 269. 04 - PolonaTratnik 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 74 between the baby and the grown-up. If man is a speaking animal and other animals are not speaking, the baby is a non-speaking an- imal, an animal as all other non-speaking animals. The mother, on the contrary, is a speaking animal. One might say that the mother is capable of reaching the state of being-for-herself. She is thus a conscious being, and it is con- sciousness that makes the difference between human and animal. On the other hand, Jean-Luc Nancy disagrees that consciousness is the criterion and claims there is no difference between man and animal. There is no consciousness, but there is exchange.13 Let us consider the breast-feeding performance as a communi- cation event. Jean-Luc Nancy recalls Edmund Husserl’s reflection upon the silent voice of the self, talking to itself, listening to itself. The self communicates with the self. One aims to be present to one- self. Yet to see oneself can only happen if there is a difference be- tween presence one and presence two. There is an “Augenblick”, a moment, it takes a while. The self starts to go to the self, but the self will never find itself. There is a différance at work. With this term Jacques Derrida refers to the double meaning implied in its root: the French verb différermeans to be different from or to delay some- thing. The delay of the différance is an infinite delay. To be becomes suspended. It is a continuous, never ending process of becoming. If the baby has no capability to apprehend itself as itself, to be present to itself, it does not even start to go to the self. The mother, by contrast, has the ability to aim to be present to herself as the mother. Yet this to be, the identity, is suspended. The mother enters the continuous process of becoming mother. 75 Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto from a Philosophical Perspective 13 Jean-Luc Nancy in a Ph.D. seminar for the Humanities program, Alma Mater Europaea – Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis in collaboration with the Global Center for Advanced Studies, 30th August 2016. 04 - PolonaTratnik 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 75 Considering the existence of an identity, Hegel introduced the notion of an other. The relationship between the two, the mother and the baby, is essential for the establishment of their identities. It is the baby that makes the mother the mother. According to Hegel, something is existence, determined by its relationship to others: “[s]omething is a determinate existence, this something is in rela- tionship to others, and also to a perceiver among these others.”14 Identity is being established not essentially, but through a dif- ferentiation process in relation to that which something is not, i.e. through negative relational defining. Something is defined through relations and differentiations, negations (and confirmations).  Furthermore, for Hegel, something is also becoming. The two moments are not those of abstract being and nothing, but an exis- tence, something, and another existence, which is the negative of something. “The other moment is equally an existent, but deter- mined as the negative of something – an other. As becoming, some- thing  is  a  transition,  the  moments  of  which  are  themselves something, and for that reason it is an alteration – a becoming that has already become concrete.”15 With breast-feeding the puppy, the artist positions herself in a kinship relationship with the dog. She enters a process of differ- entiation and of becoming the negative of herself as a speaking animal, that is, as a non-speaking animal. At the same time the puppy enters a process of becoming human. Humanity enters its differentiating  identity,  the  identity of a non-speaking animal, which has the speaking animal as its other. This equalisation of the two processes of becoming is significant for the artist. Agam- ben’s finding that “[t]he total humanization of the animal coin- Polona Tratnik 76 14 Hegel, 2010, 64. 15 Ibid., 90. 04 - PolonaTratnik 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 76 cides with a total animalization of man”16 is a relevant reference in the K-9_topology.17 In short, we will focus upon the political implications of this equalisation. But first we need to shed light on the artist’s struggle for de-hierarchisation, since the two species do not enjoy political equality. The original positioning of the artist lies in making herself a disinhibitor for the puppy. In this disinhibiting ring she does not take over the “higher” state of being as regards the relation to the world, but a “lower” one, as far as one can gather a hierarchical po- sitioning of the human, animal and stone in Heidegger. She enters a transsubstantiation process of becoming a “defined” being, an an- imal, as Heidegger comprehended the animal. At the same time the animal becomes “privileged” with its transition to the human. Becoming a non-speaking animal is, however, at work also in the mother-child formation through breastfeeding, if we infer from Heidegger that the baby is a “defined” being as well as other ani- mals. It is the state and the relation to the disinhibitor that defines the being as “defined” or “non-defined”. The “defined” being is not in a state in which the subject would be able to apprehend some- thing as something or itself as itself, or in which it would aim to reach a comprehension of itself. In this state the subject surrenders to the instinctive drivenness “toward”, it is the state of captivation. With putting herself in this state, Maja Smrekar can discard the “privilege” of the human to be a “non-defined” being. As this project demonstrates, the mother is not a mere host that harbours the par- asite, the breast-feeder: rather, she is captivated in her own turn by the breast-feeder in this functional cycle. The one who gives suck is dependent on sucking, as the whole process of breast-feeding is 77 Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto from a Philosophical Perspective 16 Agamben, 77. 17  1. 11. 2016 04 - PolonaTratnik 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 77 dependent on the breast-feeder. The existence of this breast-feeding Umwelt is  established on breast-feeding,  since without  sucking there is no milk. Therefore, it is relevant to conceive the Umwelt of the breast-feeding mother and the child, as well as the Umwelt of the artist and the puppy, as an exchange circuit. For Maja Smrekar this physiological captivation is of extreme importance. It becomes her means of resistance: “Becoming (- ani- mal) is a molecular process: in my case the molecular process of my pituitary glands being so much triggered by systematic breast- pumping, they would get connected with hormone prolactin to ac- cumulate milk  in my  body. As  a side  effect  of  that  triggering, hormone oxytocine increases, which evokes empathy.”18 Biopolitical resistance: becoming bare life “I hunt nature and culture hunts me,”19 says the artist in the title of another K-9_topology performance. Aiming at becoming “nature” is aiming at escaping culture. Maja Smrekar aims at becoming “zoē”, bare life, the domain once reserved only for animals. But what can we say today of the distinction between zoē and bios? Accord- ing to Giorgio Agamben, the anthropological machine produced humanitas by de-ciding every time between man and animal. There is a “total management” of biological life at work today, that is, of the very animality of man. Humanity “has taken upon itself the mandate of the total management of its own animality”.20 Maja Smrekar responds to the situation in which bio-power is being exercised on and through the bodies, as ascertained by Michel Foucault. “As an artist I feel I need to use my own body (and bodies Polona Tratnik 78 18  19. 10. 2016. 19 The title of another Maja Smrekar’s performance with wolves. 20 Agamben, 77. 04 - PolonaTratnik 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 78 of my dogs) to re-gain the position of power. To re-gain my body. Our bodies.”21 The project of becoming (m)Other is to be comprehended as a biopolitical statement or intervention with the investment of artist’s body for the purpose of re-gaining the position of power and her own animality, i.e. as an act of resistance to bio-power.  Her artistic gesture is additionally to be read as a response to neoliberal capitalism: “The global economy threatens to homoge- nize people by means of the lowest common denominator – the abil- ity to consume.” The artist feels the urge to resist by using her own economy of emotions: “Therefore I am submitting myself to the dog-human kinship relationship as a radical intimate action of ‘re- turning home’.”22 Bibliography AGAMBEN, G. (2004): Open. Man and Animal, trans. by Kevin At- tell, Stanford University Press, Stanford. BEAUVOIR,  S.  de  (2010): The Second Sex,  trans.  by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, Vintage Books (Random House), New York. DERRIDA, J.  (2008): The Animal that Therefore I Am,  trans. by David Wills, Fordham University Press, New York. HEGEL, G. W. F. (2010): The Science of Logic, trans. by George di Giovanni, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. HEIDEGGER, M. (1995): The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphy- sics: World, Finitude, Solitude, trans. William McNeill and Nicholar Walker, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. 79 Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto from a Philosophical Perspective 21  19. 10. 2016. 22  19. 10. 2016. 04 - PolonaTratnik 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 79 KRISTEVA, J. (1987): Tales of Love, New York: Columbia University Press. UEXKÜLL, J. von, KRISZAT, G. (1934): Streifzüge durch die Umwel- ten von Tieren und Menschen, Springer, Berlin. UEXKÜLL, J. von (2010): A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans, trans. by Joseph D. O’Neil, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, London.  Webology http://majasmrekar.org/blog http://majasmrekar.org/k-9_topology  http://majasmrekar.org/post-no-1-history-of-tears http://majasmrekar.org/post-no-2-involution-of-m-mother Polona Tratnik 80 04 - PolonaTratnik 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 80 Curtis L. Carter1 Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works Abstract: Works of art are properly characterized as cultural ob- jects, as opposed to being merely physical or perceptual objects. As cultural objects, works of art can be embodied in physical objects, but they require properties that physical objects do not necessarily possess, such as being  intentionally composed  in some artistic medium in a particular historic context informed by ideas, values, and technical skills and means offered by the culture. Works of art retain their identity in important respects, but may also undergo change when transferred from one culture to another. The identity of a work may be enriched and expanded to incorporate features acquired as a result of its being interpreted in a new cultural setting. An expanded and clarified account of culture is required to give a fuller  characterization  of  the  cultural  properties  that  comprise works of art and to support the view that cultural identity in some sense transcends a culture of origin. Culture is a multi-phased con- cept involving at least three related elements. First, there are the particular art cultures consisting of art-making and their attending strategies of interpretation found in the art worlds of various soci- eties. Secondly, the culture of a people consists of the broader soci- etal, political, economic, religious, ideological, and other practices that define a culture. An additional element is world or global cul- ture consisting of the features of art that enable people from diverse cultures to interpret and appreciate art from other cultures. Within 81 Moni tor ISH (2017), XIX/2, 81–110 Izvirni znanstveni članek Original scientific article 1 Dr. Curtis Carter is a Professor of Philosophy at Marquette University. Email: curtis.carter@marquette.edu. 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 81 these frameworks, the identity of art works is open and cumulative, with the result that they continuously acquire new properties over the duration of their existence. Keywords: art, globalization, cultural identity UDK 7:005.44 Globalizacija in kulturna identiteta umetniških del Izvleček: V nasprotju s tem, da bi bila zgolj fizični ali perceptivni predmet, so umetniška dela primerno okarakterizirana kot kulturni objekti. Kot takšna so lahko umetniška dela utelešena v fizičnih predmetih,  a  zahtevajo  lastnosti,  ki  jih  fizični  predmeti  nimajo nujno, na primer da so namerno sestavljena v nekem umetniškem mediju v določenem zgodovinskem kontekstu, ki se napaja z ide- jami, vrednotami in tehničnimi znanji ter sredstvi, ki jih kultura po- nuja.  Umetniška  dela  v  pomembnih  pogledih  ohranjajo  svojo identiteto, a se lahko, ko se prenašajo iz ene kulture v drugo, tudi spreminjajo. Identiteta dela se lahko obogati in razširi, da vključuje lastnosti, ki so pridobljene kot rezultat interpretacije v novem kul- turnem okolju. Potrebno je razširjeno in razjasnjeno mnenje o kul- turi, da se lahko poda popolnejša karakterizacija kulturnih lastnosti, ki sestavljajo umetniška dela,  in se podpre mnenje, da kulturna identiteta v nekem smislu presega izvorno kulturo. Kultura je več- fazni koncept, ki vključuje vsaj tri povezane elemente. Najprej so tukaj določene umetniške kulture, sestavljene iz umetnostnega obli- kovanja, in njim pripadajoče strategije interpretacije, ki jih je moč najti v umetniških svetovih različnih družb. Drugo je kultura ljud- stva, ki sestoji iz širših družbenih, političnih, gospodarskih, verskih, ideoloških in drugih praks, ki določajo neko kulturo. Dodatni ele- ment je svetovna ali globalna kultura, sestavljena iz lastnosti umet- nosti, ki omogočajo ljudem iz različnih kultur, da interpretirajo in cenijo umetnost iz drugih kultur. Znotraj teh okvirjev je identiteta Curtis L. Carter 82 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 82 umetniških del odprta in kumulativna, rezultat pa je, da skozi traja- nje svojega obstoja kontinuirano pridobivajo nove lastnosti. Ključne besede: umetnost, globalizacija, kulturna identiteta 0 0 0 Underlying the question of artistic understanding between the cul- tures of East and West in the era of globalization is the problem of the identity of works in art in relation to culture. With respect to art and aesthetic values, the problem of cultural identity addresses the question: In what sense might a work of art created in a western culture such as ancient Greece be understood and appreciated in contemporary China? Or in what is the basis for appreciating Andy Warhol’s  image  of  a Campbell  Soup  can  created  in  the United States in the 1960s when it appears in a Chinese cultural setting? This problem is not simply a matter of developments in the twen- tieth or twenty-first centuries. For example, in the early nineteenth century the Parthenon Marbles of ancient Greece were welcomed in London in 1800 as the Elgin Marbles when the British Lord Elgin removed them from Athens. The Elgin Marbles were created as part of the Parthenon in fifth century Athens. Since their transfer in 1800 they have resided in the British Museum in London. The question for consideration here is, do the works located in their original set- tings, respectively in Athens (the Elgin Marbles) and New York (the Campbell Soup Can pictures), have the same cultural identity when viewed in London or in Beijing as the art works had in their original settings? The answer depends in part upon our understanding of cultural identity and our view on how to accommodate the changes resulting from a work transferred to a culture other than its culture of origin and also sustain the identity of the art work. 83 Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 83 I propose to accept in principle the thesis offered by Joseph Margolis and others that works of art are properly characterized as cultural objects, as opposed to being merely physical or perceptual objects. As cultural objects, works of art can be embodied in phys- ical objects, but they require properties that physical objects do not necessarily possess, such as being intentionally composed in some artistic medium in a particular historic context informed by ideas, values, and technical skills and means offered by the culture. Fur- ther, it is my intention to argue here for the position that works of art retain their identity in important respects, but may also undergo change when transferred from one culture to another. This means that the identity of a work may be enriched and expanded to incor- porate features acquired as a result of its being interpreted in a new cultural setting.  An expanded and clarified account of culture is required to give a fuller characterization of the cultural properties that comprise works of art and to support the view that cultural identity in some sense transcends a culture of origin. My proposal is to think of cul- ture as a multi-phased concept involving at least three related ele- ments.  First,  there  are  the  particular art cultures consisting  of art-making and their attending strategies of interpretation found in the art worlds of various societies. Secondly, the culture of a peo- ple consists of the broader societal, political, economic, religious, ideological, and other practices that define a culture. An additional element is world or global culture consisting of the features of art that enable people from diverse cultures to interpret and appreciate art from other cultures. Within these frameworks, the identity of art works is open and cumulative, with the result that they continu- ously acquire new properties over the duration of their existence. The plan for developing the remainder of the paper is as follows. I will first undertake a critical review of the notion of culture as it Curtis L. Carter 84 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 84 appears explicitly or implicitly in the writings of the authors re- ferred to above, and will propose modifications necessary to clarify the cultural nature of works of art. Thirdly, I will consider the ques- tion of criteria for judging whether a work retains its identity when it is relocated in another culture, again relating the issue to the cul- tural factors surrounding the identity of a work of art. The Elgin Marbles and Warhol’s Campbell Soup Can paintings will serve as examples to facilitate the discussion. The essay terminates with brief comments on the implications of the discussion here for com- munication of East-West aesthetic values. I. The Elgin Marbles Before taking up the broader issues outlined here, it will be useful to consider for a few moments some aspects of the cultural and his- torical information surrounding the Elgin Marbles. This informa- tion will establish the Marbles as works of art and will also provide a concrete reference for the theoretical points that are being con- sidered here. Nearly 200 years ago in 1800, Lord Elgin sailed to Constantino- ple to assume the role of ambassador of Great Britain to the Turkish Empire, which then included Athens as well as all of Greece. High on the list of his priorities was the intent to take back to England artists’ drawings and casts of the magnificent sculptures and reliefs which had been installed in the Parthenon. Lord Elgin’s primary aim was to elevate the standards of artistic practice and taste in England by introducing these works to his countrymen.  The Parthenon had been built on the Acropolis in Athens be- tween 447 and 431 BCE under the direction of the architect, Ictinos, during the administration of Pericles the Athenian ruler and was intended to serve as the Temple of Athena, the patron goddess of Athens. It was part of a program of public works intended to sym- 85 Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 85 bolize the glories of Athens as the center of Greek culture and of political power. The temple itself was built of the finest-grained white marble in the Doric order of Greek architecture, and with ex- traordinary precision of workmanship, resulting in a perfection of artistic form. The building was adorned by sculptured figures cre- ated by or under the direction of the sculptor Phidias. These con- sisted of groupings of figures carved in the round, representing such mythical events as the birth of Athena and also a legendary contest between Athena and Poseidon. On the outside of the tem- ple, the panels or metopes were carved in high relief with scenes of mythological gods, giants, Lapiths, and centaurs at war. Around the inside was a frieze in low relief of the Panathenaic procession, a major religious ceremony which occurred every four years in the Parthenon. The centerpiece of the Parthenon was the statue called Athena Parthenos.2 The figure, designed by Phidias, stood approx- imately 12 meters high and was adorned with ivory and gold.3 By the end of the eighteenth century, the Parthenon was under the reign of the Turkish Empire, and had undergone substantial physical changes in its 2300 year history. The center of the building had been destroyed in 1687, for example, during a siege by the Vene- tians, and remnants of many parts of the temple were all that re- mained. During  its  lifetime,  the building had also undergone a variety of uses: including a pagan temple, a Christian Church and a Turkish Mosque. When Lord Elgin’s agents arrived in 1800, the Parthenon was serving various purposes for the Turks occupying the Acropolis. St. Clair details the state of things in his biography of Lord Elgin in these terms: Curtis L. Carter 86 2 St. Clair, 1967, 52. See also Smith, 1916, 180.  3 Brommer, 1979, 60.  05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 86 The Turks living on the Acropolis built their houses, vegetable gardens, and fortifications round about the ruins, or made use of them as it suited their purpose. Inside the Parthenon was a small Mosque, and the spaces between the pillars of the Propy- laea were half bricked up to provide a kind of castellation for the guns. Everywhere it was obvious that for years the ruins had been a main source of building materials.4 Although Lord Elgin seemed to have had no prior plan to do anything more than to make drawings and casts and, perhaps, to collect a few fragments, the deteriorating condition of the monu- ment, together with the urging of his agents, led to an agreement with Turkish authorities, which resulted in the actual removal of a substantial portion of the principal remaining sculptures to Eng- land. At  the urging of Elgin’s  secretary, Reverend Phillip Hunt, Elgin agreed to the drafting of a firman, or official letter of permis- sion. The document was sufficiently vague that it served the Eng- lish to guarantee the following permissions and protections from the Turkish government: (1) to enter freely within the walls of the citadel, and to draw and model with plaster the ancient temples there; (2) to erect scaffolding and to dig where they might wish to discover the ancient foundations; (3) to take away any sculptures or inscriptions which did not inter- fere with the works or walls of the citadel.5 It is doubtful that the Turks  intended  to  grant  permission  to  actually  remove  the sculptures, given the fact that Turkish policy had heretofore for- bidden the removal of such, particularly from the Parthenon. 87 Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works 4 St. Clair, 51. 5 Smith, 190. 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 87 But Hunt and his colleagues persuaded the chief Turkish offi- cials to the contrary. The removal of the Marbles was, at the same time, a controver- sial event from the beginning. However, the objections and doubts appear to have come from the British, rather than from the Greeks, who were in a state of subjection and decline, or from the Turkish officials, whose actions indicated that their primary interest was in using the Marbles for political or economic benefit.6 Lord Byron, who was traveling in Greece at the time the Marbles were trans- ferred  to  England,  denounced  Lord Elgin  in  his  satirical  poem “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” as well as in other poems and prose. In “The Curse of Minerva” Byron refers to Elgin as a plunderer who basely stole the treasures of the Parthenon.7 II. Culture, Cultural Objects, and Art The interest of philosophers in works of art as cultural objects is not new; rather, it is implicit in the philosophical treatment of art by many philosophers including Plato and Hegel, who both recog- nized that a work of art is shaped by the state of ideas and artistic practice at the time it is produced. It is unlikely, however, that either of these philosophers would have supposed that all or the most im- portant properties of art could be exhaustively supplied by a par- ticular culture without  incorporating an element of  the  form of beauty or absolute spirit. The incorporation of form or absolute spirit would have been their way of recognizing that the art can be of interest beyond its immediate community. Curtis L. Carter 88 6 St. Clair, chapters 6, 9. 7 Lord Byron, 43. See also St. Clair, 187–201. 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 88 Over the past two decades, philosophers such as Joseph Margolis, Andrew Harrison, and Arthur Danto have advanced the study of art works as cultural objects. Margolis is a proponent of the notion that works of art are culturally emergent entities embodied in physical ob- jects and that the embodiment of cultural properties is a function of the culture of origin.8Harrison also affirms that culture is the primary factor in bringing works of art into being and establishing their iden- tity. In practice this means that to identify a work of art is to lay down what material events or particulars are to count as instantiating it.9 Danto addresses this issue by locating the identity of art works in a matrix which consists of art history and theory operating within the art world at a particular time.10Others who approach cultural identity primarily within the context of interpretation theory include Michael Krausz and Richard Shusterman. Krausz argues that art works are so- cially constituted entities whose identity is determined by their place within a given practice, sustained by their own aims, rules, and pro- cedures, and sustained by interpretations of informed practitioners.11 Shusterman, following Rorty, locates the identity of a work of art in the pragmatically identified propositions, which are provided by the customary ways of talking about such works.12 The work of these au- thors offers a point of departure for examining the effects of a change of culture on the identity of works of art, and I will refer to them from time to time as the discussion proceeds. Among the philosophers who offer an account of art works as cultural objects, Margolis has developed his views more fully than 89 Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works 8Margolis, 1980, 41.  9 Harrison, 1967–68, 125, 127. 10 Danto, 1980, 111. See Margolis’ critique of Danto’s views, in Margolis, 1995, 256–266. 11 Krausz, 1993, 38, 39. 12 Shusterman, 1988, 408.  05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 89 most. In his book Art and Philosophy (1980), he contends that works of art are artifacts that can be identified only in reference to the artistic and appreciative traditions of a given culture.13 They share with other cultural objects the condition of being in some sense (nondeductively and nonreductively) linked with physical entities of some sort. Their existence depends upon the culturally informed work of persons who intentionally produce the art works within a specific cultural practice.  According to Margolis, “‘cultural’ signifies the property of any system in virtue of which certain entities emerge and exist, a sys- tem in which both persons and what they may produce—a fortiori works of art—exist or once existed. Such a system is at once rule- governed, in that what is typically produced is intelligible only in terms of rule-like regularities (traditions, customs, practices, insti- tutions). …”14 It follows that works of art consist of culturally emer- gent  properties  intentionally  embodied  in  a  physical  object according to the rules, customs, and practices of an artistic medium such as sculpture. Among the properties that might be assigned within various practices are representational, expressive, abstract, conceptual, or other stylistic features. The works embody features that would enable an informed audience to grasp their meaning and locate them within a recognizable artistic tradition.  More recently, in his book Interpretation Radical but not Unruly (1995) Margolis emphasizes that emergent properties, in this case aesthetic values, consist of intentional properties which are “social or societal or collective or historical” rather than individual mental or neurological states.15 A corollary of this expanded version of cul- Curtis L. Carter 90 13Margolis, 1995, 41. 14 Ibid., 46. 15Margolis, 1995, 52. 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 90 tural identity is found in Margolis’ notion of unicity, a concept that he employs to argue that the identity of a work of art embraces its cumulative history of interpretation over time, in lieu of a fixed na- ture established at its origin and intended to serve as a referent for all future interpretation.16 Margolis’ views will serve as a starting point in the development of the three-tiered structure (art culture, culture of a people, and world or global culture) necessary to provide an account of cultural identity for works of art that extends beyond the culture of origin and addresses the continuing issue of identity for works of art orig- inating in one culture and subsequently being relocated in another. The account of cultural identity given in Art and Philosophy, em- phasizing a tradition of art production and interpretation, fits the notion of an art culture, which provides the rules of a practice nec- essary to account for the cultural identity of art. Art culture repre- sents the world of the practitioners and includes artists, critics, and institutions responsible for training, interpreting, and maintaining the traditions and developing new practices as the culture evolves. It consists of a specialized culture focusing on the aesthetic, stylistic and technological aspects of production. Art cultures do not exist independently of the wider culture of which they are a part. In many instances, a plurality of art cultures may exist as part of a whole cul- ture, each with its own important links to the larger culture. In mod- ern societies it is now common for fine art, folk, and popular art cultures to exist simultaneously. Similarly a plurality of fine art, folk, or popular art cultures may exist within a single larger culture.  Applying this concept to the Elgin Marbles, one might say that the Parthenon Marbles were the product of a particular artistic prac- tice under the direction of Phidias and his artist collaborators in 91 Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works 16 Ibid., 33–35, 46.  05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 91 Athens of the fifth century BCE, which embodied them with the fig- urative, naturalistic concepts of a style of representational art.  There is merit in considering this aspect of the identity of art works. It is favored by certain approaches to art history because it lends understanding to the origins of the work and the practices sur- rounding its production. In claiming that cultural properties are to be understood as rule governed regularities of a particular tradition of artistic production and interpretation, Margolis also favors a nar- rower rather than a broader context in which to discuss the “rules” governing the identity of works of art, such as is provided by an art culture.17 However challenging it might be to come up with a coher- ent set of rules governing an art practice for a particular art culture, it would be even more difficult to do so for the culture of a people. Nevertheless, there are serious problems with limiting our dis- cussion of cultural identity to a particular art culture. Such a limited view would isolate what is occurring in the larger community (cul- ture of a people). Moreover, a history of art which deals only with the art culture surrounding the origins of a work of art in an art cul- ture would necessarily exclude a significant portion of the life of the art work which follows from its interpretations and uses in his- tory. Hence the specialized art culture in which a work of art is pro- duced does not account for all of the cultural properties that are important, namely those which derive from the larger culture of which the art culture may be a part. Most importantly, ‘art culture’ does not adequately explain how a work of art sustains a continu- ous identity when it is removed from its culture of origin and relo- cated within another culture. Hence it is necessary to introduce at this time the notion of the culture of a people to broaden the context for considering the cultural Curtis L. Carter 92 17Margolis, 1980, 47–49. 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 92 identity of art. This sense of culture might include myth, language, philosophy, recreation, and technology, as well as the institutions of politics, economics, law, and education. A culture in this sense covers formal and informal ways of behavior, including the thinking, feeling, and doing expressed through day to day involvement in the various practices and institutions. Art practices of particular cultures func- tion within, and interactively, with these other aspects of the culture of a people. Therefore it is necessary to take account of the interactive influences from the larger culture on the practices of art when con- templating the cultural identity of works of art. In traditional tribal societies works of art are closely linked with community life, where they incorporate the values of the commu- nity  and also participate  in  the processes of  social  integration. Sculptures are used in certain African communities, for instance, to symbolize harmony among the members of the community and to invoke ancestor presence as a means of establishing continuity between past and present members of the community. Mythical im- ages incorporated symbolically into tribal art may also relate to the cycle of life and death.18 With respect to the Parthenon Marbles, the primary reason for their coming into being lies beyond the particular art culture that produced them. As we have seen earlier, it was the desire of Pericles and his fellow citizens to produce a monument that would embody the achievements of Athens and symbolize for all the world its su- perior political, material, and spiritual achievements. This aim led Pericles and his followers to appropriate their own treasures, often coupled with the treasures of their unwilling allies to create a cul- ture with unsurpassed art and architecture at its very center. Even 93 Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works 18 Botombele, 1976, 22–23. See also Bahoken, 1976, 14. World Conference on Cultural Policies: Problems and Prospects, 1982, 31.  05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 93 the ruins of Ancient Athens still command the awe of Greeks and generations  world  wide,  and  have  generated  unending  debate among critics and historians particularly over the significance of the Parthenon Marbles. This debate and the attending historical events have extended their significance far beyond the particular art culture of their origin. As Melinda Mercuri’s impassioned re- marks imply, the cultural identity of works of art is integrally linked to the culture of a people: “We are talking about the unity of a unique moment which is part of the culture and democracy of Greece. The Marbles are part of a monument to Greek identity … our roots, our continuity, our soul.”19 The extension of cultural identity of art works to include the cul- ture of a people would appear to go beyond Margolis’ initial formu- lation  of  cultural  identity  in  Art and Philosophy,  which  was essentially linked to the art culture of origin. However, Margolis’ more recent version of cultural identity found in Interpretation Rad- ical But Not Unruly, with an emphasis on the societal, historical, open-ended sense of cultural identity, appears to be, in principle, consistent with recognition of the broader culture of a people as a necessary component of the identity of art works. There, Margolis notes that the intentional, which is the agent of embodying cultural properties in physical forms, has already internalized “… the Lebens- formen of a particular society.”20 The purpose of drawing attention to the larger scope of culture found in the culture of a people is to point out that at least some of the important cultural properties embodied in works of art are a re- Curtis L. Carter 94 19 Touhy, Milwaukee Journal, June 27, 1983. 20Margolis, 1995, 52. 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 94 sult of arts connections to the religious, mythical, political, economic and other values and activities that are important to the general cul- ture of a people. This notion expands our basis for understanding the cultural identity of works operating within a particular local culture. Yet it does not account for the identity of works in a new culture, such as the case of the transfer of the Parthenon Marbles to England. The relocation of the Marbles (now referred to as the Elgin Mar- bles, after Lord Elgin who arranged for the entry of the Marbles into England) offers insight into the process by which a work of art from one local culture enters into another local culture, and the implica- tions of such changes for the cultural identity of the work. The first of the Marbles arrived in England in 1806. The critical and inter- pretive responses of the British art world and the public at the time of their arrival are well documented. Their arrival generated sub- stantial enthusiasm among England’s artists and critics and the public. The responses of the British art culture were immediate and intense. Critics debated the specific properties of the Marbles in a context of ideas about classical art based on their familiarity with such work as the “Apollo Belvedere”, located in the Vatican collec- tion in Rome, and the “Venus de Milo”, housed at the Louvre in Paris. The British art world was startled by the contrast between the vital, life-like properties embodied in the Marbles and the more ac- ademic, ethereal properties of the Apollo and the Venus. At that time, the critics were unaware that these works were Roman copies or Hellenistic statues rather than classic works of the fifth century.  Leading English artists of  the  time, such as Benjamin West, Thomas Lawrence, and J. M. W. Turner, immediately acclaimed the significance of the Marbles, and may have been influenced by their imagery. “There is in them,” said Lawrence, “an union of fine com- position and very grand form, with a more true and natural expres- sion of the effect of action upon the human frame than there is in 95 Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 95 the Apollo or any of the other most celebrated statues.”21 On the other hand, critics such as William Hazlitt brought to the Marbles a new set of interpretive properties by presenting them in the light of their own interpretive theories. Hazlitt applied a variant of British Romanticism to the Marbles in these brief excerpts: This is the great excellence of the Elgin Marbles, that they do not seem to be the outer surface of a hard and immovable block of Marble, but to be actualized by an internal machinery, and com- posed of the same soft and flexible materials as the human body.22 Their “amazing vitality and “life-like appearances” led Hazlitt to ex- tend further his attribution of the qualities of nature to the Marbles. Nothing remains of them but their style; but that is everything, for it is the style of nature. Art is the imitation of nature; and the Elgin Marbles are in their essence and their perfection casts from nature—from fine nature it is true, but from real,  living, moving nature, from objects in nature, answering to an idea in the artist’s mind. …23 Ennio Quirino Visconti, director of the Capitoline Museum at Rome and later director of the Louvre in Paris, and Antonio Canova, a leading European sculptor and critic, visited the Elgin collection in London and responded with high enthusiasm concerning the au- thenticity  and  artistic  importance  of  the Marbles.  Their  views brought international confirmation of the favorable responses to the marbles from the English art world. Curtis L. Carter 96 21 Report from the Select Committee of the House on the Earl of Elgin’s Collection of Sculptured Marbles. Also cited in St. Clair, 254. 22 Hazlitt, 1822, 154. 23 Hazlitt, 1934, 100.  05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 96 There were also less favorable critical interpretations applied to the Marbles. Richard Paine Knight, a leading English critic, was steadfastly unenthusiastic about the significance of the Elgin Mar- bles. He maintained that they were in fact from the later period of Hadrian, and in such poor condition that they were of relatively sec- ondary interest. His cryptic remarks convey his sentiments: “You have lost your labor, my Lord Elgin; your Marbles are overrated— thery are not Greek, they are Roman, of the time of Hadrian, when he restored the Parthenon …”.24 But Knight’s interpretation failed to carry the day and did not significantly affect critical or popular understanding of the Marbles in England. The responses to the Marbles within the British public were sub- stantial. Debates in Parliament over the purchase of the Marbles, as well as questions about their artistic merit and ownership had brought the matter of their role in English culture to wide public attention. Additional interest and awareness had followed public exhibitions of the Marbles beginning soon after their arrival in Eng- land. The result of the processes of incorporating the Marbles into the art culture and the culture of the British people was to firmly establish a place and a meaning for the Marbles in their new cul- tural home. The principal change from the Greek understanding of the Marbles was the substitution of British for Greek cultural inter- ests. The British interpreted the Marbles in reference to their own national interests, viewing them as “proud trophies” of British pres- tige.25With respect to their artistic status, the Marbles were widely admired as works of fine art which the British found no difficulty placing in their most prestigious showcase at the British Museum. Parenthetically, it is interesting to note that the issues of national 97 Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works 24Messman, 1973, 71. 25 Smith, 1916, 35. 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 97 honor and their significance as works of art were important factors in the deliberations of the select committee and in parliamentary debates  over  the  legitimacy  of  their  official  acquisition  by  the British nation. In summary, the strong reception of the Marbles in England as works of art suggests that they did retain their cultural identity as works of art through the change of cultures. The closing words of an editorial exchange in 1941, between the editors of the Burlington and the Connoisseur art journals over the return of the Marbles to Greece, attests to the extent to which the Marbles have been assim- ilated into British culture: “What we have we will hold.”26 Having shown by example that such cultural transfers do exist and that the works continue to have meaning outside their cultures of origin, it remains to account for this phenomenon. First, it is nec- essary to look further into the question of identity for the trans- planted Marbles. Let us begin by inquiring into the relationship of the “Elgin Marbles” located in the British Museum to the “Parthenon Marbles” that formerly resided at the Parthenon in Athens. Here it is necessary to ask, do the two terms refer to the same work of art? Throughout this disucssion, the Marbles have been represented as composite objects; consisting of a set of physical objects (pieces of marble) embodied with intentional properties (their form given by the artist operating within various levels of culture), as well as inter- pretive properties acquired throughout their life. Suppose we limit the discussion for a moment to the culturally embodied physical object. Among the accepted criteria for the iden- tity of culturally embodied physical objects is identity of parts and spatio-temporal continuity. If we mean, do the terms ‘Elgin Marbles’ and ‘Parthenon Marbles’ refer to the same configuration of natural Curtis L. Carter 98 26 Granville Fell, 1941, 220.  05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 98 marble and technical and stylistic markings, the answer would be a qualified yes. The qualification derives from the fact that the Elgin Marbles were initially attached to the temple on the Parthenon as part of a larger work, and from possible physical alterations result- ing from faulty cleaning, or aging over time. Nevertheless, the major parts of the Marbles have remained continuous throughout their history, and their form is intact. For all technical and formal pur- poses, they retain the same numerical identity. On another level, the situation here recalls Frege’s classical for- mulation of the problem of identity of meanings. Gottlieb Frege ar- gued  that  identity  is  to be  interpreted as a  relation between  the names of objects rather than as relations between objects themselves. I take this to mean that for identical objects the descriptions that apply to one will apply to the other. Applying this notion to the Elgin Marbles, it follows that the cognitive sense of Elgin Marbles will vary in some respects from the “sense” of Parthenon Marbles, even though they refer to the same numerical entity. The difference follows from the fact that “Parthenon Marbles” refers to the Marbles as seen from the Greek perspective, whereas “Elgin Marbles” encompasses the British perspective at a given moment in their respective histories. Thus far, our analysis suggests that the cultural identity of the Marbles incorporates the interpretive properties derived from an historical understanding of their culture of origin and, additionally, those properties which derive from its life in the new culture. One way to view the matter, as I do, is to adopt the view that the cultural identity of a work of art encompasses its entire history of produc- tion and interpretation. From my perspective, all of the interpretive properties that have been associated with the Marbles, including their Greek and English cultural histories, and even the interpreta- tions brought by visitors from other cultures, become a part of their evolving identity. The cultural identity of the work is necessarily 99 Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 99 open ended in the sense that it includes past, present, and future properties. Changes that occur in the properties of a work can be additive as when the work is interpreted in a fresh light, or selective when taking on the interests of particular interpreters. The British may at a particular time choose to add to, ignore, or suppress the special interpretive properties which the Greeks may have invested in the Marbles, or vice versa, but this action does not alter the fact that the respective properties are a part of any complete account of the identity of the Marbles. It would not be necessary, however, that any one person contemplating the Marbles should have in mind all of the possible interpretive properties, only a sufficiently rich sam- pling grounded in first hand experience and augmented by critical discussions as required by the viewer’s purposes. An art historical comprehension or a critical assessment of the works would obvi- ously call for perusal of a greater range of interpretive properties than would be sufficient for a casual tourist’s needs.  This requires the acknowledgment that some of the properties contributing to the cultural identity of works of art may originate outside their culture of origin, a view contrary to Margolis’ initial view. This would imply also that the understanding of art works ex- tends beyond particular cultural boundaries, and calls for an ac- count of their appreciation and understanding when viewed outside a particular culture of origin. As far as I can determine, Margolis’ view of cultural identity does not explain how a work can be under- stood outside its culture of origin, although he does not deny that works of art can have meaning beyond  their cultures of origin. Without some common ground among the interpreters extending beyond a particular local culture, an historical understanding of cul- tural identity that embraces, in principle, the entire range of activ- ities surrounding the work is insufficient to explain how a work can have meaning outside its culture of origin. Curtis L. Carter 100 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 100 To remedy this deficiency, I would introduce the notion of world culture or global culture as providing a level of understanding that extends beyond the scope of particular local cultures or culture of a people. The problem remains how to explain that the cultural identity of a work produced in one of these cultures transfers to an- other and retains a continuous identity sufficient to provide mean- ingful interpretation and understanding. There are two possible answers. First, the possibility that the works are embodied with ex- pressive, formal, or other world cultural properties that contribute to their being understood at some level by persons, irrespective of variations in the rules and means governing local cultural practices. Secondly, this would require of persons that they possess, or are able to acquire through learning, the necessary attitudes and apti- tudes  for  transcending particular  cultural  languages,  including those of the arts. Cases like the successful relocation of the Elgin Marbles in England demonstrate that art works do successfully transfer, and the entire world system of museums is predicated on the premise that such cross cultural understanding is possible.  Many  philosophers  have  alluded  to  the  necessity  of  some broader frame for human understanding which would extend be- yond local cultures. An ancient philosopher such as Plato or Aris- totle might have centered the discussion of global properties in terms like beauty, truth, and goodness. But for us these terms do not say as much. With the possible exception of beauty, they have lost their richness and are afloat in a quest for clarity and specificity through philosophical analysis.  Hegel, perhaps, understood better than most the importance of world culture when he  linked art  to  the realm of spirit.27 Hegel wisely did not provide any strict rules for producing or identifying 101 Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works 27 Hegel, 1979, 413–414. Also, Hegel, 1975, 56–58. See Carter, 1986, 239–256.  05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 101 the properties of art that might be used to sustain universal interest from one culture to another, a task far more demanding than giving rules to a particular art culture, or to the art of a people. Instead, he relied on a typological outline marking the particular stages in the world historical development of art as an important manifestation of the disclosure of world spirit or absolute spirit. In his scheme, there is no break between developments in particular historical epochs and the world spirit. Individuals, civilizations, and the ab- solute all participate in a common milieu, which at least in principle might accommodate communication between cultures and allow for transcultural understanding. Karl Popper alludes to a possible structure for  locating the foundations for transcultural understanding of art works in his discussion  of  objective musical  work,  in  conjunction with  his “world 3,” which he characterized as consisting of objective con- tents of thought, derived from actions in worlds 1 and 2; or the physical and the subjective respectively.28 Such objective entities would represent the results of solutions to problems that arise in particular historical conditions, but transcend the limits of local cultures, thus suggesting another possibility for transcending the bounds of local cultures.  Gadamer’s hermeneutic approach to the understanding of cul- tural works relies on a “fusion of the horizons” that melds an un- derstanding of the historic past with our own comprehension of it. This process includes a universal or classical perspective to facil- itate communication across the boundaries of particular historical cultures. Perhaps this universal element of human communication could be useful for the purpose of deciphering the meaning of an art work from another culture. He also holds the view that “the very Curtis L. Carter 102 28 Popper, 1976, 60–68. Cited also in Krausz, 1993, 35, 36. 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 102 fact of human communication signifies the universality of human nature.”29 I do not point out these views here for critical examination or commendation. Rather, it is to note that an appeal to transcultural conditions of human communication, as a means of accounting for crosscultural understanding, is not without its serious proponents. Among recent work on this problem of cultural identity, Margo- lis’ account of “radical history,” based on a critical synthesis of an- alytic, hermeneutic, and poststructural developments in twentieth century philosophy, offers an alternative to traditional views. Mar- golis eschews all claims to changeless universals or  invariantly structured cultural identities for art works, proposing instead to re- place these with narrative devices or socially shared histories of in- terpretation.30 The  historical,  in  this  instance,  incorporates  the actual events as historicized over time, and most importantly, the experience of the interpreter at a given moment in time. Applying this notion to the problem of cultural identity for art works means that identity would be established at any given moment by consult- ing an informed societal concensus “grounded in the habits of life” of the community. This tactic might well be suited for identity ques- tions within a particular local culture, but it remains unclear how Margolis’ latest proposal would account for the cultural identiy of art works outside the particular society or on a global basis. There is one possible answer. That would be to adopt a global understanding of community, in which the boundaries of all local communities are dissolved into one world community. This is in some sense what Hegel has in mind as an ultimate strategy, and 103 Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works 29 Gadamer, 1975, 337. See also Gadamer, 1976. Margolis offers an extensive critique of Gadamer throughout Interpretation Radical But Not Unruly. See especially 48–52; 76–81.  30 Margolis, 1995, 52. 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 103 perhaps Popper and Gadamer in their respective ways as well. I am not at all certain that this is what Margolis has in mind, but other- wise his insistence on restricting the exploration of cultural identity to  the  limits of  local cultures could not adequately address  the larger issues of cultural identity, that is, how to account for cultural identity beyond local cultures. Clearly the struggle between local cultures and global culture has become one of the major issues of the late twentieth century. We cannot hope to resolve all of the issues of political and eco- nomic dominance that this struggle entails. But it is possible that one small step toward global understanding is to continue explor- ing ways to make the art works of a particular culture accessible to the people of other cultures. In this analysis, I have attempted to identify three aspects of cul- ture that enter into the cultural identity of works of art. First, art culture, which supplies the technical and formal elements of art pro- duction. Secondly, the culture of a people, which links the art work to the various other components that form a particular community. The third is the idea of a world culture, which addresses the fact that the interest in art works is not necessarily limited to the particular culture in which they emerge. Each of these levels of culture respec- tively contributes to cultural identity. The use of the Elgin Marbles as a case study has, perhaps, been helpful in making clear some of the issues that are involved in ques- tions concerning cultural identity. With respect to the historic sit- uation  surrounding  the  Marbles,  I  have  shown  that  the  Elgin Marbles share an identity with the Parthenon Marbles, an identity which was reconstituted in England during the early nineteenth century, and which is reconstituted from time to time as a focus of the debates over their artistic significance and the question whether they rightly belong in England or in Greece. Their identity must be Curtis L. Carter 104 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 104 viewed as consisting of their on-going cumulative history, which begins with their production in fifth century Athens and embraces their new life in England. Like all truly great works of art, the Mar- bles do not belong to a particular people, but are to be shared in a broader world culture. Great art speaks from the viewpoint of an encompassed humanity, albeit produced through the seemingly abridged elements found in our various local cultures.31 Bringing the focus of the discussion closer to our time, aesthetic values have undergone radical changes as western art has under- gone substantial changes from modern art to pop art, leading to the emergence of a highly pluralistic art culture. The changes have been so radical that it is difficult for many people to comprehend, let alone appreciate some of the new developments. The radical changes in pictorial composition introduced by Picasso’s cubism, the pop art paintings of Warhol in the 1960s, and the post-modern aesthetics of late twentieth century media arts are but a few markers of  changes  in  the  arts  and  aesthetic  values.  Who  would  have thought that any one could think of selecting a commercial com- modity, such as a soup can, as a subject for art? And yet Warhol cat- apulted to world wide fame by introducing into his work symbolism 105 Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works 31 As for the present dispute between Greece and England, there is no sup- port in this analysis of the identity of the Marbles for the nationalistic claims of either country. There is no question that the role of England in preserving  these  works  has  been  immensely  important  in  their  past preservation. From this it does not, however, follow automatically that their claim is forever. The issue must be decided on other grounds: that is, in the best interest of preservation and the proper display of the works for the world’s appreciation and understanding. The decision is best left to the responsible members of the world arts community who are, one hopes, able to distinguish national interest from more fundamental issues of art conservation and the interpretation of these important works for the world community.  05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 105 drawn from the everyday experiences that caught the spirit of mid- twentieth century America. In this work he followed the imagery of mass advertising, focusing on everyday objects that were under- standable to the masses, and also caught the attention of the art world. At first Warhol’s art might seem the very antithesis of what has been traditional in art, the images that are removed from every- day life and focused on more high minded matters. What, we may ask, would happen to this art in China today? Would it garner un- derstanding and appreciation? What values does  it carry? How would it be changed by being placed in the culture of contemporary China? Given that there is already in place a Chinese pop art move- ment, with its own culturally specific symbols and aesthetic values, it might come to be appreciated. If the thesis offered here is viable, the Soup Can painting would retain its original aesthetic values to be  shared with  a  different  culture,  but Chinese  interpretations would expand upon the meaning as the work became acclimated to a new cultural setting. In order to bring the topic of the cultural identity of art works closer to home, it is useful to consider how the dominance of glob- alization in contemporary world cultures has affected our under- standing of cultural identity. There is no time here to develop this issue, but perhaps an example will serve to point in a direction for further research. As a closing reference, I will briefly consider cul- tural identity as it applies to contemporary artists practicing in China and elsewhere today. Chinese contemporary artists in par- ticular must struggle with the question of how their work relates to a near 5000 year tradition of aesthetics and art practices, as they experiment with and modify Chinese art and culture of the past. The central problem Chinese contemporary artists face is how to build upon their Chinese cultural heritage and also connect to new developments of contemporary life in China and throughout the Curtis L. Carter 106 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 106 world. It is on the mind of every serious contemporary Chinese artist how to remain connected to their Chinese roots while creating art that would be appreciated in a changing world, where East and West are drawn ever closer. Addressing these changes is not a ques- tion of Chinese art versus western art. Rather, the practice of art in a global context has become a matter of enabling individual artists to create by using the ideas and visual forms irrespective of their particular cultural origin, while establishing relevance to contem- porary Chinese culture. This means that there is at the artist’s dis- posal  an  evolving  universal  vocabulary  of  artistic  means, contributed over time from the practices of artists working in many cultures throughout the world. Creating art today thus requires con- sidering exactly such a universal visual language. The solution does not lie in creating a new “International Style” reminiscent of the Euro centered International Style, grounded in formalism and pro- posed as the norm for western architecture of the modernist era. Rather, the situation invites artists to continue to develop new ideas for art, incorporating their cultural histories and those of others.  Conclusions What can be learned from this analysis about the question of com- munication of aesthetic values between the respective cultures of the East and the West? First, this analysis provides a framework for understanding culture in terms of its multiple dimensions. These dimensions include the idea of a culture based on the aesthetic val- ues associated with a particular art practice (for example classical representational sculpture or modern pop art painting), national cul- tures such as ancient Greece or contemporary China, and global world culture in which all persons participate by virtue of their com- mon humanity. In this multiple framework, art has the possibility of serving as an important means for communicating and understand- 107 Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 107 ing cultural values. Understanding the art of another culture is thus one means of establishing communication among the different cul- tures world wide. Art, apart from its culturally specific means, is also grounded in common human capacities, such as the ability to rec- ognize and value creative expressions of ideas and feelings.  Secondly, the analysis offered here recognizes that the identity of works of art is not static or fixed. As a work of art enters into an- other culture, its meaning may change as it is seen in a different cultural framework, allowing for new interpretations with reference to the values of a new environment. Hence a sculpture from ancient Greece, when seen in London or Beijing, or a Warhol Campbell Soup painting in a cultural setting in Asia, may bring an opportu- nity for communication of values. Finally, as artists from China in- creasingly attempt to incorporate elements drawn from the visual cultures of both East and West, discussions concerning the cultural identity of works of art will have to expand to take these changes into account. 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Carter 108 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 108 GADAMER, H. G. (1976): “The Universality of the Hermeneutical Problem,” Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. David E. Linge, Uni- versity of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London.  GADAMER, H. G. (1975): Truth and Method, trans. Garrett Barden and John Cummings, Seabury Press, New York.  GRANVILLE FELL, H. (1941): “Hands Off the Elgin Marbles,” The Connoisseur, 107. HARRISON, A. (1967–1968): “Works of Art and Other Cultural Ob- jects,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 68, 105–125. HAZLITT, W. (1822): London Magazine, 154. HAZLITT, W. (1934): The Complete Works of William Hazlitt, ed. P. P. Howe, v. 18. HEGEL, G. W. F. (1975): Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, translated by H. B. Nisbet, Cambridge University Press, MANJKA KRAJ. HEGEL, G. W. F. (1979): The Philosophy of Spirit, trans. M. J. Petry, Hegel’s Philosophy of Subjective Spirit, 3 Vols, Riedel, Dordrecht, II: 413–414.  KRAUSZ, M.  (1993): Rightness and Reasons, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London. LORD BYRON (1922): “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” Canto II.  MARGOLIS, J. (1980): Art and Philosophy, Humanities Press, At- lantic Highlands, New Jersey. MARGOLIS, J. (1995): Interpretation Radical but Not Unruly: The New Puzzle of the Arts and History, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London. MESSMAN, F. J. (1973): “Richard Payne Knight and the Elgin Mar- bles Controversy,” British Journal of Aesthetics, 13(1), 69–75. POPPER,  K.  (1976): Unended Quest: An Intellectual Biography, Open Court Press, LaSalle, IL. 109 Globalization and Cultural Identity of Art Works 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 109 SHUSTERMAN, R. (1988): “Interpretation, Intention, and Truth,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, XLVI no. 3, manjkajo strani. SMITH, A. H. (1916): “Lord Elgin and His Collection,” The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 36, 163.  ST. CLAIR, W. (1967): Lord Elgin and the Marbles, Oxford University Press, London.  World Conference on Cultural Policies: Problems and Prospects (1982), UNESCO, Paris. Curtis L. Carter 110 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 110 DRUGI ČLANKI 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 111 05 - CurtisLCarter 23. 11. 2017 13:50 Page 112 Jan Babnik1 Eyes on the Ground and Eyes in the Sky. Satellite and Participatory Surveillance: Photography in Sudan Abstract: The paper analyses the project of participatory surveil- lance (Ears and Eyes of God, 2009–ongoing) and on the satellite surveillance project (The Satellite Sentinel Project, 2010–2015) in the border area between South and North Sudan. Both projects try to raise awareness of atrocities being committed in this region by various belligerent parties fighting for control over the region and both advocate for the benefit of the civilian communities affected. The paper addresses and analyses the power of photography to deter, advocate, and provide evidence. It analyses the difference be- tween explicit, first-hand visualisation and implied, indicative vi- sualisation of the two projects. It argues that understanding the role of photography in contemporaneity in general (and in these two cases in particular) the investigation should turn away from the questions of re-presentation and focus more closely on the logic of the photographing itself (the act of photography) and its possibility of structuring the reality.  Keywords: satellite surveillance photography, participatory pho- tography, documentary photography, photography of atrocities, Sudan UDK: 77.044(624) 113 Moni tor ISH (2017), XIX/2, 113–133 Izvirni znanstveni članek Original scientific article 1 Jan Babnik is a PhD candidate in the Philosophy and Theory of Visual Culture course at the Faculty of Humanities, University of  Primorska. He is director of the Membrana Institute. E-mail: jan@membrana.org. 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 113 Gledati od blizu in od daleč: satelitska in participatorna fotografija v Sudanu Izvleček: Članek analizira projekt participatornega nadzora (Oči in ušesa Boga, 2009– še traja) in projekt satelitskega nadzora (The Sa- tellite Sentinel Project, 2010–2015)  na območju meje med Severnim in Južnim Sudanom. Oba projekta se trudita ozaveščati o grozodej- stvih, posledicah boja med različnimi frakcijami za prevlado v regiji in oba se zavzemata za skupnosti civilistov, ki jih ta boj najbolj pri- zadeva. Članek se posveča in analizira moč fotografije za pridobiva- nje dokazov, zavzemanje za druge in odvračanje od nasilja. Analizira tudi razliko med eksplicitno vizualizacijo iz prve roke in implicitno, indikativno vizualizacijo kot razvidna iz teh dveh projektov. Članek zagovarja tezo, da je za razumevanje vloge fotografije v sodobnosti nasploh (in v teh dveh primerih še posebej) potrebno usmeriti po- zornost stran od vprašanj reprezentacije in se posvetiti bolj logiki samega fotografiranja (fotografskega dejanja) in njegove zmožnosti strukturiranja realnosti. Ključne besede: satelitsko nadzorna fotografija, participatorna fo- tografija, dokumentarna fotografija, fotografija grozot, Sudan 0 0 0 Forensic Paradigm InThe Crime Scene Photographer by Gail B. Stewart one of the pho- tographers is quoted as saying: “You don’t know why you photo- graph  everything  –  but  the  detail  is  the  key  to  crime  scene photography.”2 The point being that the detail mentioned by the photographer is not the detail that interests the photographer but Jan Babnik 114 2 Von Brauchitsch, 2012, 71. 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 114 rather the detail that can be revealed, found later on in the investi- gation process. The imperative is to photograph everything not just the objects of interest but also the empty space – which is “an equiv- alent motif,  a pictorial  subject  that  should be acknowledged as such”.3 To put it figuratively: to deplete the reality of the scene and transform it into pictorial representation as a whole in view of turn- ing “a temporary scene into a permanent record”.4 The only way to achieve such an objective ideal of complete record is to act in the manner of the camera, the machine – a crime scene photographer is required to “to switch of thinking and document thoroughly”5, to be both emotionally and rationally disinterested in their subject matter. To see the world, the object as the ideal omniscient eye of the camera sees it – in its totality, as a complete pictorial entirety from every possible angle.  An example of crime scene photography will be used as a point of reference to discuss notions such as disinterestedness, distance, proximity, involvement and transparency and power in relation to photography’s revealing potential. We will more specifically ad- dress two projects in Sudan: participatory photography (The Eyes and Ears of God) and satellite surveillance photography (Satellite Sentinel Project). We will analyse these projects through concepts of objective representation and active engagement taken as specific modes of structuring the reality and the events. We will focus on the documentary ideology of visually structuring the world to make possible the emergence of the truth – the incriminating detail.  It is imperative for the crime scene photographer to write down detailed impressions of each photograph (what is to be seen in them 115 EYES ON THE GROUND AND EYES IN THE SKY. Satellite and Participatory Surveillance 3 Ibid., 73. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., 71. 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 115 what the photographer sees and lastly even what should be seen in them) – all the information which might or might not reveal some- thing later on in the investigative process.  “The crime scene evidence must be accurately documented at the scene by sketch, measurement, photography, and notes for a re- construction to be attempted. A misallocated item may lead to a wrong interpretation.”6 Thus creating a multi-layered, multi-sensorial, interdisciplinary “reconstructive  image” of  the crime scene. A similar process of struggle against photography’s reductivism potential was a subject of Geoffrey Batchen’s insightful book Forget me not: Photography and Remembrance where he deals with the relationship between memory and the image on the vernacular photo-memorabilia ob- ject. He observes “the efforts of ordinary people to overcome – or at least reduce – the power of photography to replace living, emo- tive memories with static and historical images.”7 These efforts are based on “enriching” the photographs with ornaments – creating memorabilia objects (photographs combined with locks of hair, ob- jects  belonging  to  loved  ones,  inscriptions,  quotations  and  of course, the titles with the date and location). All this as if in an at- tempt to “anchor” the photography in words, tactile objects – thus creating complex linguistic-visual-haptic photo-collages or com- plex “photo-objects” as Batchen terms them. Complex objects that would function as emotive memory triggers – as opposed to pure photographs that provide just factual data or rather more to the point – static, historical, barren, formal facts. Isn’t every forensic re- construction surprisingly similar to such a complex photo-object? Evoking the truth, reconstructing it from past – as is it would a long- Jan Babnik 116 6Mozayani, Noziglia, 2011, 121. 7 Batchen, 2004, 94. 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 116 lost memory that only contiguity and similarity would resurrect from oblivion. Another way to describe this would be to resort to Roland Barthes and see this as an attempt to tame the “semiotic” madness of photography. In a similar way memorabilia photo-ob- jects are structured with desire to facilitate future memory (future recollection of persons, events) the forensic imagery is based on a model of structuring the visual so as to make possible the “future” emergence of the truth – the incriminating detail – for future in- crimination (future use of the images as evidence in the court of law). The truth of the forensic mode is deeply tied to incrimination. And as such it must be transparent – it is imperative to know how it was made, who made it, where, in what context, and how it was perceived by the photographer. This entire context in accordance with the complex production procedures functions as a basis for knowledge – or rather as a model for particular knowledge – for the supposed forensic truth of the event.  In The Burden of Representation John Tagg’s view is that what is omitted (i.e. not seen) from this forensic realistic representative system is the process of production itself.  “In realism, the process of production of a signified through the action of a signifying chain is not seen. It is the product that is stressed, and production that is repressed.”8 But forensic realism does not rest solely on the simplified belief of “eternal, consciousness-independent reality” which is “out there”. It rather lies precisely in the belief in the de-subjectification process itself. In the belief that procedures, instruction, careful following of forensic methodology will at the end reveal the reality precisely through the transparency of its procedures. Tagg stresses that in forensic photography there is “an unshaken belief in the photo- 117 EYES ON THE GROUND AND EYES IN THE SKY. Satellite and Participatory Surveillance 8 Tagg, 1993, 99. 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 117 graph as a direct transcription of the real.”9 But this realism does not lie in the pictorial aspect of photography but rather in its wider social institutional apparatus – in the filing cabinet. There are strict rules that qualify one or the other photograph as being a “direct transcription” of the real – as being a piece of evidence in forensics. There is a difference between the time of “mechanical objectivism” of the middle of the nineteenth century where the burden of repre- sentation lay on the image and today where the burden of repre- sentation lies in highly evolved interpretive apparatus.10 But even in the early days of photography it was never taken for granted  because  of  its  likeness  to  the  reality;  it  was  taken  for granted because the process was perceived to be completely natu- ral: chemical, optical, and mechanical. Similarity is more or less a cultural “side effect” of a particular era and its particular pictorial conventions. One just needs to take into account non-western tra- ditions of photography to come to the conclusion that photogra- phy’s  naturalism  is  not  to  be  confused with  particular western realism.11 To perceive something as being “a copy of” cannot be re- duced on perceiving something as “being similar to” in pictorial re- alistic terms. Photography verism is a specific cultural construct. There is no better example of this notion than the writing of French realism film critic André Bazin in The Ontology of the Photographic Image. Photography “shares, by the virtue of the very process of its becoming, the being of the model of which it is the reproduction; it is the model.”12 This is usually termed an indexical nature of pho- tography (that rests on the belief in mechanical reproduction that excludes human agency). What is usually forgotten while quoting Jan Babnik 118 9 Ibid., 98. 10 See for example: Daston, Galison, 2007. 11 See for example: Pinney, 2011; Pinney, Peterson, 2003.  12 Bazin, [1948] 2010, 51. 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 118 Bazin’s “photography as a death mask” syntagm is precisely the so- cial nature of the death mask – the power of which lies in the magic of contact (contagious magic) and is deeply connected to the par- ticular  social,  cultural uses. One needs  to question – when and where does this “law of contact” come into effect – what are the rit- uals that enforce it? The rituals of the death in the case of that mask. The death mask performs a certain “need” in the ritual of the death. In modern day forensics, the power of photography is measured against its constitutive ritual – the legal system that structures the legally specific “photography realism”.  The regime of forensic photography itself it is nothing less than a purely visual regime of exclusion – exclusion of the human factor – the photographer from the picture (in a figurative sense) as an at- tempt  at  complete  delineation  of  a  photographer’s  influence (artistry) from the process in such a way that the reality, the event, the crime will “shine through” the process unimpeded. And by that John Tagg’s notion of the unshaken belief in the realism of photog- raphy reaches its proper meaning. It is not a simplified, naïve belief in photography realism but rather deeply structured (scientific) re- lation to reality – for the purpose of this article, we are terming it “a forensic paradigm of reality”. The “forensic real” itself as presented in this paradigm is some- thing infinitely reproducible. Walter Benjamin in his The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction states while reflecting on emerging techniques of mass reproduction (photography and film) that there is a strange new “desire of the present-day masses to ‘get closer’ to things, and their equally passionate concern for overcoming each thing’s uniqueness [Oberwindung des Einmaligen jeder Gegebenheit] by assimilating it as a reproduction.”13 Or to re- 119 EYES ON THE GROUND AND EYES IN THE SKY. Satellite and Participatory Surveillance 13 Benjamin, 2005, 105. 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 119 peat from the beginning of our elaboration: to deplete the reality of the scene and transform it into pictorial representation as a whole in view of turning “a temporary scene into a permanent record”. But as such forensic realism is far removed from photographic natural- ism – the forensic photographer actually works “against” the very nature of photography or at least “nature” as perceived in the tradi- tion of western thought on photography. It  tries to minimise its “openness”, its strange time-meaning rapture, the effect of what Wal- ter Benjamin termed optical unconsciousness and Roland Barthes, although on slightly different grounds – punctum.  In the book Photographic Evidence: The Preparation and Use of Photography in Civil and Criminal Cases it states: “[T]here are instances in which counsel must use photographs of amateurish appearance simply because they are the best, or the only, pictures available. Furthermore counsel should avoid obtaining photographs that appear to slickly made or too ex- pensive, lest the jurors come to believe that the presentation is being overdone. Legal photographs should be rich in informa- tion but not expansive in appearance”14 Amateur photography is admissible in a court of law – it is ac- tually even preferable for the forensic imagery itself to look similar to amateur, vernacular non-artistic images. The forensic paradigm rests on the notion of excluding the modernistic “artistic” author- ship of the image, emphasising the realistic artistry of the image making. In addition, realistic artistry encompasses both – the ob- jectified, scientific forensic photography and vernacular, subjective photography. It goes almost without saying that both can be used in a legal model only insofar as the intentions of the photographer Jan Babnik 120 14 Ehrilch in Tagg, 1993, 98. 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 120 – the author – can be delineated clearly and what remains is deemed a pure document of the reality.  The intentions of the forensic photographer can be rather easily deciphered (since it is based on and strives for uniform, repeatable procedures) whereas it might seem that the intentions of a vernac- ular photographer are not that easily decipherable. But of course, sometimes the vernacular images are “the only pictures available” and furthermore their mode of production is supposedly quite clear and transparent since the vernacular author is perceived as being basically a naive, quotidian snap-shooter. In his Towards a Philoso- phy of Photography Vilém Flusser said much  the same about a snap-shooter. He merely functions – he is just a functionary in the representative regime. There is a beautiful metaphorical descrip- tion that Flusser gives us describing the vernacular, quotidian pho- tographer: “Viewing the motion of a man with his camera (or a camera with its man), we are looking at the movements of hunt- ing.”15 The camera of a vernacular photographer is not the exten- sion of the photographer – but rather the opposite holds true – the photographer is an extension of the camera apparatus. What unites the two practices of amateur and forensic would be the syntagm: “Photographing without thinking.” Through the forensic paradigm, the photographer as an opera- tor and the operational side of the images that is revealed – and as such a photography is, in the words of John Tagg “no longer a mon- ument for future memory, but a document for possible use”.16 The operational aspect of this type of documentary photography needs to be emphasised – in contrast to the misconception of a document as being a factual description (or inscription) of the real, of being a 121 EYES ON THE GROUND AND EYES IN THE SKY. Satellite and Participatory Surveillance 15 Flusser, 2010, 37. 16 Tagg, 1993, 90. 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 121 transformation  of  reality  to  discursive  (written  or  visual)  form, being a mere objective “snapshot” out of an event, process or a state of things – a document has its meaning only in relation to certain use – to certain operation that is to be performed. Therefore, docu- mentary images are operational, performative from the very begin- ning. Eugene Atget described his works as  “documents”  in  the following context that Molly Nesbit so poignantly explains: “ [...] the photograph was a good document because it could be applied to art as well as to science, providing a ‘document vu’ to accompany the ‘document écrit.’ It would tell the truth about, say, a leaf, a doorway, an animal in motion, an earlobe, or an hys- teric. So an architectural photograph would be called a docu- ment, as would a chronophotograph, a police i.d., or an X ray. They had one thing in common: all of them were pictures that went to work.” (our italics)17 Eyes and Ears of God The project Ears and Eyes of God (EEG in short) was instigated and started by Slovenian documentary filmmaker, human rights ac- tivist, and journalist Tomo Križnar in 2009 in the border region be- tween North and South Sudan where the ongoing conflict between the various belligerent parties and the central Khartoum regime is taking a heavy toll on civilian population. The conflict can be most aptly described as a pre-planned and organised genocide by the Khartoum government against the indigenous communities living in the regions of South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur. In 2009, through  the  humanitarian  foundation  H.O.P.E.,  Tomo  Križnar started disseminating small cameras to the affected communities and teaching the volunteers to use the cameras and to upload the Jan Babnik 122 17 Nesbit in Hutchings, 1997, 237–238.  06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 122 images to the world wide web via a satellite connection. The idea behind the project is threefold. The presence of the cameras should function as a deterrent to the perpetrators, the images (created on a large scale by the victims themselves) could be used later on as evidence, and importantly – the online availability of the images themselves  should  stir  the  worldwide  community  into  action.  Such an ambitious grass-roots surveillance project is made pos- sible only by advancements in technology and then by the system that enables quick and easy dissemination of images as well as quick production of them. What we are observing is the develop- ment of a new kind of “engaged” photography approach – grass roots documentary or its even more engaged, “militant” variant – activist participatory photography. Let us observe closely the logic of the project – and how images and the production of imagery are embedded in it. The knowledge of the production of photographs and the means to produce them is passed on to the “participants” of the project. To a lesser extent even the means and knowledge of dissemination (access to distribution channels) is passed on. The emphasis on the role of an author – the photographer, so prevalent in the tradition of documentary, is missing. Importantly, the partic- ipants are at the same time the authors of the images and the tar- geted, selected unprivileged group in focus – in need of help. They produce the images that aim to empower them. This approach is nothing new in the tradition of documentary photography although it was largely repressed by its more canonical, photojournalistic, and art-oriented tradition. Such grass roots, self-representation tra- dition  of  documentary  can most  notably  be  traced back  to  the Worker’s Film and Photo Leagues of the twenties and thirties of the last century and community photography movement in the seven- ties. It is a belief that the only real representation of the other is the one that is made by the other – thus enabling self-representation of 123 EYES ON THE GROUND AND EYES IN THE SKY. Satellite and Participatory Surveillance 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 123 the other – as the only proper way of empowering the unprivileged. But in the EEG project, of course, the purpose is more focused, the images more operational.  It seems that aesthetical mode is absent from the project. How could one even think about the mode of representation, the manner in which  the  images were made under  such horrendous  condi- tions, by the ones exposed to the harshness and atrocities? Never- theless it is there – it is a mode of vernacular, amateur, snapshot photography. One can hardly imagine aesthetically pleasing, for- mally perfect imagery to pass as a point-of-fact, down-to-earth re- ality, presented to us (the global public) through the eyes of real people living through atrocities as they are happening right now. It seems that the aesthetics of press imagery is actually less pow- erful; the style of press photography (that is readably recognized globally as having a uniform pictorial structure) carries nowadays a strong burden of scepticism. Poignantly – in contemporaneity the objectiveness (the perception of authenticity, realism) can be most effectively achieved through imagery that is distinctly de-subjecti- fied from the point of view of the production – it is almost necessary for the images to be made in such a way as to be recognised as being able to have been made by anybody in order for their index- ical value (i.e. representative ambition over the real) to take effect. As an observer one can relate to images if one perceives him or her- self as being a possible author of the images. Interestingly there is some new “vernacular realism” at play here – we perceive things to be real only insofar we perceive ourselves as being in the position of an author – and at the same time recognising that it is so pre- cisely because this position is inherently interchangeable – every- body could be an author. The partial aim of the EEG project is to influence (structure) the events themselves by the mere presence of  the cameras. The deterrent effect  through the perceived om- Jan Babnik 124 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 124 nipresence of the cameras seems to work (at least so it seems for now) even without the sanctions. It is reported by the EEG project that since the presence of the cameras in Darfur sexual assaults on women in the region have gone dramatically down.18 The EEG project is all about making the reality visible by provid- ing for incessant photographing and that in turn means completely depleting the reality and transforming it (or should we say) – dissolv- ing it into an image. Making the “ground zero” of horrific events com- pletely transparent. In this we can clearly sense the “forensic” logic of transforming the reality in a pictorial plane – so that the truth, “the incriminating” detail might appear. But there is one important dif- ference – whereas the forensic, crime scene photography structures the closed, secluded, controlled space in a pictorial representation where the truth of the event might appear, the EEG project structures the ongoing actuality, the event itself, for the “pictorial” truth to ap- pear –  in order  for  the  truth of  the event  to disappear. The  logic closely follows the logic of a classic, liberal documentary (although as we have seen the EEG project enriches it with the participatory di- mension). By making the truth (the horrors, the genocide) visible, thus pictured, the truth should disappear from reality (through a global campaign and by addressing policy makers). However,  EEG tries  to  structure  the  reality  itself,  not  just through  the  process  of  participatory  image  making  but  also through the mere presence of the cameras. The observing subject is missing from this logic; the photography has become instrumen- talised. There is almost no need for the visual representation, no need for an observer, for a subjective eye that sees the images. The photography has the ability to structure the reality by its mere 125 EYES ON THE GROUND AND EYES IN THE SKY. Satellite and Participatory Surveillance 18 Eyes and Ears of God. Available at: http://www.tomokriznar.com/ang/ index.php?li=novice [11.9.2013]. 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 125 presence – by its very logic, which is deeply imbedded in our con- ception of reality.  The aim of EEG images is to function as an objective record, a valid testimony; the goal of this project is the future incrimination and at the same time real time deterrence against atrocities. We have seen how the logic of real time deterrence works – but we have neglected the future incrimination aspect. Since most of the images are done by volunteers whose names and identities are not dis- closed for obvious reasons, sometimes images lack the interpreta- tive context (the how, who, where, for what purpose ...) which would in a manner quite similar to the forensic one be able to function in the court of law. It is precisely that which gives credibility to these images – the “vernacular realism”, the logic of author-lessness of images that could prove problematic in the court of law.  Satellite Sentinel Project The Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP in short) was launched on 29 of December as a private and NGO-run satellite surveillance over the border region of South and North Sudan. John Prendergast (co-founder of the Enough Project) and actor George Clooney in- stigated it. It is hiring DigitalGlobe’s satellites to take satellite imagery of the region, provide expert analysis of the images (dis- cerning from the images the threats to civilians, traces of military activities, traces of bombings, grave dig outs etc.), get as much confirmation  as  possible  from  the  ground  and  then  alert  the media, policy makers, the public, and publish the findings. On the first page of their web page, there is a telling description of the project:  “From 300 miles in the sky, the imagery seems indecipherable. But up close, the Satellite Sentinel Project, or SSP, is looking for clues. Researchers on the ground ask questions to try to get Jan Babnik 126 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 126 closer. SSP finds out the facts, and monitors what’s really going on in Sudan. Satellite  imagery uncovers evidence of alleged atrocities. Stories that alleged war criminals don’t want told. Then SSP sounds the alarm. The world is watching because you are watching.”19 The images taken from afar by satellite are intended to function as an objective record of events taking place on the ground – war zones. Similar to Eyes and Ears of God, the Satellite Sentinel Project has several objectives: “What do you get when you combine cutting edge imagery and data analysis? You get a game-changing project that uses tech- nological innovations to document, deter, and seek accounta- bility for war criminals and mass atrocities.”20  To document, deter, and seek accountability – to paraphrase: to record, to structure the reality on the ground, and to incriminate. Because of the use of the satellite still imagery one has an idea that every image is a crime scene image waiting to be deciphered, ex- plained, clarified – to discern the truth of event from the picture, the event that has already taken place. But there is another side to the project – a pre-emptive side, which is lacking in the EEG project. The aim of the SSP project is also to warn about atrocities before they actually happen – much in the manner of war reconnaissance images – through the assumption of future actions from the tell-tell signs of military activities (building roads, fortification, building artillery positions, moving convoys etc.) 127 EYES ON THE GROUND AND EYES IN THE SKY. Satellite and Participatory Surveillance 19 The Satellite Sentinel Project. Available at: http://www.satsentinel.org/ [11.9.2013]. 20 Ibid. 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 127 “SSP seeks to hold perpetrators of alleged mass atrocities ac- countable by documenting human rights crimes as they develop and unfold.”21 The role of the author in this project is ultimately reduced to that of the operator of the “machine”. The production is perceived as done by the machine – the satellite camera (and an image-mak- ing program); images are made from a distance. The truth claim of SSP would be that objectivity is achieved by removing the subjec- tive, human factor from the production – as if the images were pro- duced by themselves. The aesthetics factor is perceived as a burden for the reality of the representation. The indexical value of photog- raphy is preserved or valued through distance objectification. The logic of this project falls neatly into the forensic model – or rather into the forensic paradigm.  The truth of the images is hidden in the small granular pixels, in strange pictorial structures in shapes and contours that to the nonprofessional’s  eye  tell  nothing.  The  truth must  be  revealed through the pointers, diagrams, graphs, cursors, drawn areas, de- tailed descriptions (a tank, burned house, recently dug out defen- sive trenches etc …) even time-lapse imagery (comparison between before and after). It is through the mathematical schemata, through the aesthetics of the objective, the scientific that these images talk to the nonprofessional observer. Not surprisingly, the images lack any emphatic potential, any identification markers with the victims. Between the satellite images and the final recipient there is an in- terpretative corpus, represented by an expert, one who knows how to interpret the images, one that possess the knowledge of satellite image production – as the general public is perceived as lacking the ability to discern the reality from these images.  Jan Babnik 128 21 Ibid. 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 128 The  images of SSP are  intended  to  function as an objective record, a valid testimony; they will “perform” in a court of law in the future – where events will finally be reconstructed in legal, veristic, objective way. Of course – one of the most important goals of SSP is precisely the future incrimination and a real time deterrent effect against atrocities only second. SSP addresses foremost and even specifically the policy makers (as opposed to the EEG project; they have presented their findings to selected senators of the USA Con- gress). SSP exposes the war machinery, the “invisible” structure of the war happening right now and the war that is about to happen.  Up Close and From Afar Even though both projects still rely on the classic, liberal documen- tary paradigm, they are in contrast with the tradition of classical doc- umentary photography, more or less unorthodox. They both foster a certain reluctance towards the function of the author in a classical sense. Authorship is deemed more or less a burden for the correct representation. In these two projects the author functions more as a facilitator for the production of the images made by the others – in the EEG the participants themselves, in SSP the camera machine – the “Cyclops eye” of the satellite. EEG wants to explore every possi- ble viewpoint from every possible angle by as many as possible par- ticipants photographers in the field itself – relying on the impact of reality style vernacular photographs taken from close-up in the ut- most proximity – in the ground zero of atrocities. The EEG includes a multitude of subjective cameras – achieving objectiveness through the numbers. The SSP relies on the exclusion of the author through distance – through the logic of “viewing from afar”, through objec- tive, automated, programmed production of the images.  But there are further developments to the projects. At some level both projects tend to gravitate slowly towards the other in terms of 129 EYES ON THE GROUND AND EYES IN THE SKY. Satellite and Participatory Surveillance 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 129 their representative regimes. The SSP uses a combination of satel- lite images and images taken on the ground in a collage manner. And some of the images are actually taken by the participants of EEG project. On the other hand the EEG project has recently started an action of another kind of surveillance – aerial drone reconnais- sance – aimed to capture events while they are taking place, from above. Capturing the horrific reality at the very moment of its un- folding, not just recording the aftermath of events, which takes the old photographic logic of “getting closer” to the event to the ex- treme. Only if we can capture the unfolding of reality at its utmost presence will the international community finally “really see” (as Tomo  Križnar  so  convincingly  and  emphatically  says  in  the fundraising video for the purchase of drones) and the perpetrators be exposed. The images that are the result of these two projects cannot be further apart from each other – on the one hand, we have highly technical, to the naked eye completely vague satellite imagery, on the other vernacular snapshots of bomb holes, injured civilians, and dead, burnt bodies. Whereas the first can be believed only through trust in the interpretive apparatus (pointers, diagrams, close-ups, before-after images of the changing landscape), the second can be believed on the grounds of their vernacular aesthetics. Similar to the  way we  have  discovered  in  forensic  photography,  both  ap- proaches follow the representational paradigm of what can consti- tute “a document” in contemporary legal ideology.  The impact of these two projects is still, after so many years, under question. The international community has been stirred to action, but to limited effect, since there is no political will to seri- ously act upon the results from these two projects – there are no im- mediate sanctions against the Khartoum regime (being blocked mostly by China and Russia, but silently also by the EU and USA). Jan Babnik 130 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 130 Even more, the culprit is not only North Sudan – it seems that even the South Sudanese political elites are profiting from the conflicts. It is of no surprise that from 2015 onwards the SSP ceased its activ- ities. Its “founding fathers” created a new NGO – The Sentry:  “The Sentry is a team of policy analysts, regional experts, and financial forensic investigators that follows the money in order to create consequences for those funding and profiting from genocide or other mass atrocities in Africa, and to build leverage for peace.”  Following the money, The Sentry found culpability on five con- tinents of the earth: Europe, North America, Africa, Asia, and Aus- tralia. At the end,  it must be admitted that the representational strategies employed in these two projects and their efforts to com- bat the atrocities in Sudan are simply no match for the political and corporate power unleashed on people in 21st century. Consequently, it seems that representational strategies in general (art and docu- mentary) and their theoretical analysis are even less a match for the global powers. And it is only on the grounds of such an insight that any socially engaged theory and practice can staggeringly move forward, especially so if the aim is not a grand global change but small-scale local one. It is then that the power of the camera to structure reality by its mere presence could be harnessed to its full (yet still limited) potential. It is on this power of photography (pro- photographic) – to directly engage and change the events accruing – that maybe we should theoretically, if not even more practically, focus a bit more attention. On the photographic act, on the process of photographing itself.  131 EYES ON THE GROUND AND EYES IN THE SKY. 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Jan Babnik 132 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 132 VON BRAUCHITSCH, B. (2012): “Crime Scene Picture”, European Photography, Vol. 33, no. 91, issue 1, summer.  133 EYES ON THE GROUND AND EYES IN THE SKY. Satellite and Participatory Surveillance 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 133 06 - JanBabnik 24. 11. 2017 08:57 Page 134 Maja Pucelj,1 Nadja Furlan Štante2 Evropocentrična nadvlada “Zahoda nad Vzhodom” Izvleček: V prispevku je predstavljen pregled izbranih zgodovinskih dogodkov, ki so pripeljali do trenutnega razmerja moči med obema diametralnima poloma – torej Zahodom in Vzhodom ter posledično prispevali k negativnemu vrednotenju muslimanov ter stereotipi- ziranja le-teh kot drugih. Evropocentrična miselnost je postala še bolj izrazita v času sodobnih migracij, pri čemer mislimo predvsem na prihod beguncev in migrantov, do katerega je prišlo v zadnjih letih  predvsem  z Bližnjega  vzhoda  in  severne Afrike.  Prispevek opozori na izjemen pomen zgodovinskih dogodkov, ki so pripeljali do tega, da so  tako muslimani, živeči na Zahodu, kot begunci  in migranti, ki so v zadnjih letih prišli z Bližnjega vzhoda in severne Afrike, na Zahodu dojeti kot drugi, izrazito negativno ovrednoteni ter se srečujejo s porastom sovražnega govora, islamofobije ter ote- ženo integracijo v družbo.  Ključne besede: evropocentrizem, Zahod, Vzhod, muslimani, po- razdelitev moči, superiornost, križarske vojne, kolonializem, impe- rializem, neokolonializem UDK: 316.7:327:28(4) 135 Moni tor ISH (2017), XIX/2, 135–156 Pregledni znanstveni članek Review article 1 Mag. Maja Pucelj je doktorandka na Alma Mater Europaea – Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis, Fakulteti za podiplomski humanistični študij, Lju- bljana. E-naslov: puceljmaja@gmail.com. 2 Dr. Nadja Furlan Štante, izredna profesorica za področje religijskih zna- nosti in višja znanstvena sodelavka na Znanstveno raziskovalnem inšti- tutu Koper. E-naslov: nadja.furlan@zrs-kp.si. 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 135 Europocentric Dominance of the West over the East Abstract: This paper presents an overview of the chosen historical events that led to the current distribution of the power between the two diametric poles - the West and the East, and consequently con- tributed to a negative evaluation of the Muslims and stereotyping them as others. Eurocentric mentality became even more evident during the time of the modern migrations, by which we primarily have in mind the influx of the refugees and migrants mainly from the Middle East and North Africa, which occurred in the recent years. The contribution highlights the exceptional importance of the historical events that led up to the fact that the Muslims, who live in the West, as well as refugees and migrants, which came from the Middle East and North Africa in recent years, are perceived as others in the West, are strongly negatively evaluated and are faced with the rise of the hate speech, Islamophobia and difficulties in order to integrate into society. Key words:  Eurocentrism,  West,  East,  Muslims,  distribution  of power, superiority, Crusades, Colonialism, Imperialism, Neo-Colo- nialism 0 0 0 Uvod Tematika nadvlade moči Zahoda nad Vzhodom oziroma v našem primeru zahodnega sveta nad muslimani kot delom vzhodnega sveta krepko presega okvire tega kratkega prispevka, zato bomo skušali podati vsaj grob oris dogodkov, ki so pripeljali do trenut- nega razmerja moči med obema prej navedenima poloma. Musli- mane zahodni svet postavlja v podrejen (inferioren) položaj – ali kot sestavni del nerazvitega Vzhoda ali kot nazadnjaške “barbare” Maja Pucelj, Nadja Furlan Štante 136 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 136 z navadami, pogledi in verskim fanatizmom, ki nikakor niso in ne morejo biti združljivi z modernim, naprednim, bogatim ter sekula- riziranim Zahodom, ali pa kot osebe, ki hočejo na silo stopiti na tla Zahoda z namenom izvajanja terorističnih napadov, odvzema služb avtohtonim prebivalcem in še marsikatere argumente lahko slišimo oziroma preberemo, ko tema naleti na muslimane, ki prihajajo iz vzhodnih dežel. Negativna porazdelitev razmerja moči v smislu nadvlade Zahoda nad Vzhodom in posledično muslimani je nav- zoča že vrsto stoletij in se skozi stoletja le še poglablja. Na podlagi študija literature in raziskovanja za potrebe izdelave znanstvene monografije3 lahko trdimo, da je eden izmed pomembnih vzrokov problemov, s katerimi se sedaj srečujejo muslimani na Zahodu (de- nimo manj uspešna integracija, nestrpnost do muslimanov, ki vodi v sovražni govor in včasih celo v sovražna dejanja pripadnikov za- hodnih družb), izrazita (okcidentalistična) polarizacija med Zaho- dom in Vzhodom.  Odnos Evropejcev do drugih kulturnih prostorov je bil skozi zgo- dovino poln nasprotij in tako je bil za Evropejce od 16. do 18. stoletja neevropski svet hkrati prostor za plenjenje, pobijanje in uničevanje ter prostor romantičnega iskanja lastnih korenin, nedolžnosti in naravna- nosti4. Reprezentacija drugega pomeni nekrščanskega drugega, ki v renesansi  postane  nerazsvetljeni  drugi  in  pozneje  ‘drugi  tretjega sveta’, ki je brezbrižen, neizobražen in neracionalen – je manj kot ev- ropski človek, in prav ta stališča so spodbujala, upravičevala in repro- ducirala evropsko eksploatacijo od 18. do 20. stoletja.5 Taka stališča temeljijo na evropocentričnih stališčih, “ki soočena z neznanim sve- tom drugačnih  religijskih,  estetskih, moralnih  in družbenih oblik 137 Evropocentrična nadvlada “Zahoda nad Vzhodom” 3 Pucelj, 2016.  4 Lužar, 2010, 138. 5 Lužar, 2010, 138. 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 137 nanje reagirajo odbijajoče in ksenofobično”.6 Izrazita evropocentrična miselnost pa, poleg negativnega vrednotenja muslimanov in stereo- tipiziranja le-teh kot (negativnih) drugih, vpliva tudi na sodobne mi- gracije, pri čemer imamo v mislih (nedavne) migracije beguncev in migrantov z Bližnjega vzhoda in severne Afrike. Omenjeno družbeno skupino (torej begunce in migrante z Bližnjega vzhoda in severne Afrike) se velikokrat predsodkovno enači z religijsko pripadnostjo islamu, ki naj bi bil edini ali (pa vsaj) najpomembnejši način identifi- kacije, s čimer se potem (hote) poudarja njihova kulturna in verska “neenakost/drugačnost”, “nekompatibilnost” z evropskimi (sekular- nimi) vrednotami, kot tudi njihove (domnevne) značilnosti v smislu stereotipnega dojemanja le-teh – kot so denimo “nepoštenje, nečistost, kriminalnost, nevarnost”. Takšna retorika posledično ponižuje, razža- ljuje ali razčlovečuje ter spodbuja sovraštvo ali celo nasilno obnašanje nad njim. Zelo podoben (slabšalni odnos) ima Zahod tudi do musli- manov, ki v miselnosti pripadnikov zahodnih družb predstavljajo del Vzhoda in jih zahodne družbe od križarskih vojn naprej dojemajo pre- težno kot “druge” in so le-ti zato v zahodnih, pretežno krščanskih drža- vah,  zaradi  svoje  veroizpovedi,  tako  kot  begunci  in  migranti  z Bližnjega vzhoda in severne Afrike, velikokrat deležni diskriminatorne obravnave, sovražnega govora in celo sovražnih dejanj. Vzpostavitev superiornosti Zahoda nad Vzhodom oz. muslimani Postaviti ključni moment, kdaj je Zahod pričel dojemati muslimane in Vzhod kot inferiorne,7 je zelo težko, saj je momentov več, občutek Maja Pucelj, Nadja Furlan Štante 138 6 Lužar, 2010, 138; Šterk, 1998, 29. 7 V tem prispevku se bomo osredotočili na tematiziranje evropocentri- čnega pogleda na večvrednost  Zahoda (zahodnih miselnih paradigem) nad Vzhodom (vzhodnimi miselnimi paradigmami), s poudarkom na mu- slimanski paradigmi.  07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 138 superiornosti pa Zahod kultivira in nadgrajuje že mnogo let ozi- roma stoletij. Muslimanski odnos do Zahoda pa je bil, kljub skup- nim  teološkim  koreninam  in  stoletja  dolgi  interakciji,  pogosto zaznamovan z medsebojno ignoranco, stereotipiziranjem, odporom in konfliktom.8 Teoretično bi lahko govorili o mitičnem začetku oziroma genea- logiji predsodkovnega občutenja, usmerjenega proti muslimanom, v okviru naslednjih zgodovinskih manifestacij: 1) z rojstvom preroka Mohameda okoli 570. leta (glede na to, da je Mohamed vzpostavil islam kot veroizpoved in s tem tudi iz- postavil  razlog  za  ločevanje med  zahodnim krščanstvom,  ki predstavlja pravoverstvo v očeh zahodnih narodov in vzhodnim islamom, ki v teh istih očeh predstavlja krivoverstvo);  2) v času širitve islama skozi dinastije Omajadov in Abasidov, ko je zanos, ki ga je vzbujala nova vera, pripravil Arabce k temu, da so se, še preden je minilo pol stoletja, spustili v osvajanje sveta, ki se je razmahnilo v eno najmočnejših dogajanj v zgodo- vini človeštva;9 3) v času obdobja rekonkviste, ki je predstavljala skorajda osem stoletij (od 8. do 15. stoletja) trajajoče obdobje osvajanja ozemlja s strani muslimanov na območju Iberskega polotoka in predsta- vlja prvo srečanje Evrope z islamom. Rekonkvista se je v 15. sto- letju  končala  s  padcem  Granade  in  umikom  muslimanov  z Iberskega polotoka10;  V tem kontekstu lahko govorimo o treh večjih konceptualnih zgodovinskih vzrokih, ki so vplivali na percepcijo Zahoda do mu- 139 Evropocentrična nadvlada “Zahoda nad Vzhodom” 8 Esposito, 1992, 24. 9 Potočnik, 2006, 41. 10 Pucelj, 2016, 25. 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 139 slimanov, ki so enačeni z Vzhodom kot inferiornim drugim. To so križarske vojne, kolonializem in imperializem.11 1. Križarske vojne Mirovno gibanje v enajstem stoletju je: “načelno prepovedalo prelivanje krščanske krvi in poenotilo za- hodno krščansko družbo v miru. Dopolnilo se je v sveti vojni. Da bi sveta vojna lahko bila, so bili muslimani skonstruirani v So- vražnika krščanstva in poenotene družbe zahodnih kristjanov, kristjanstva. Nasilje je bilo, načelno, preusmerjeno proti temu So- vražniku. Vendar ni šlo preprosto za to, da bi bila vojna proti “ne- vernikom” cena, ki jo je bilo treba plačati za mir med kristjani. Mir je postal pogoj, sredstvo za vojno proti muslimanom. Vojsko- vanje proti “sovražnikom vere” je bilo norma in sveta vojna deja- vno načelo zahodne enotnosti. Zahodnjaške predstave o muslimanih so zato igrale ključno vlogo pri oblikovanju – in pre- oblikovanju – oblastnih struktur na Zahod in še posebej pri ure- janju odnosov med temi oblastnimi strukturami pri ustvarjanju zahodne enotnosti”.12 S  križarskimi  vojnami  so  se  začeli  oblikovati  stereotipi  o Vzhodu in Zahodu, saj od križarskih vojn naprej velja Zahod za progresističnega, Vzhod pa vidi sebe kot žrtev travmatičnega sre- čanja s tujo kulturo ter dodaja, da je ta barbarski vdor v srce mu- slimanskega  sveta  začetek  dolgega  obdobja  dekadence  in Maja Pucelj, Nadja Furlan Štante 140 11 Čeprav muslimani živijo tudi na Zahodu, pa so v očeh zahodne kulture še vedno dojeti kot “drugi”, kot del vzhodnega nerazvitega sveta in zato posledično inferiorni v primerjavi z nemuslimanskimi prebivalci zahodnih držav. Zato bova v tem delu privzeli to percepcijo muslimanov kot dela nerazvitega Vzhoda.  O tem vprašanju piše tudi Anja Zalta (2006). 12 Mastnak, 1996, 8. 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 140 obskurantizma, ki ga v islamskih deželah še danes občutijo “kakor posilstvo”.13 Izraz “križarske vojne” označuje serijo osmih vojaških pohodov od 11. do 13. stoletja, s katerimi je krščanski (zahodni) svet – vsaj deklarativno – poskušal tajno zavzeti ozemlja v osred- njem delu muslimanskega sveta.14 Eden izmed vzrokov za križar- ske vojne je bil želja po nadzoru s strani Evrope (torej zahodnega sveta) nad takrat najbolj dragoceno surovino – azijskimi začim- bami.15 Torej, če pogledamo na enega izmed vzrokov te travmati- čne izkušnje, ki je pustila neizbrisljiv pečat v odnosih med obema poloma, lahko vidimo, da so že zgodnji spori med njima imeli ko- renine v  želji Zahoda, da bi dosegel  ekonomsko submisivnost Vzhoda. Vendar pa so bili ti prvi boji krščanske Evrope z islamom seveda predstavljeni drugače,  in sicer kot spopad krščanskega sveta proti nevernikom, poganom oziroma sovražnikom.16 “Doje- manje islama kot sovražnika pa se je še poglobilo ob koncu 11. sto- letja, ko se začne ogrožanje krščanske cerkve in papežev, saj jih začnejo muslimani z osvajanjem južne Italije in približevanjem Rimu počasi ogrožati. Takrat postane islam glavni sovražnik, ki je pozneje v križarskih vojnah poenotil novo, krščansko Evropo”.17 Julija leta 1099, ko je s strani križarjev v Jeruzalemu prišlo do po- boja 30.000 muslimanov in Judov, se je s strani Zahoda pričelo dojemanje muslimanov kot “drugih” in to je prvi dogodek, ki je botroval stoletja trajajoči sovražnosti med obema poloma.  141 Evropocentrična nadvlada “Zahoda nad Vzhodom” 13 Mastnak v: Maalouf, 2008. 14 Šterbenc, 2011, 128–129. 15 Engdahl, 2012, 11, 12. 16 Mastnak, 1998, 25–40. 17 Pucelj, 2016, 26. 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 141 2. Kolonializem18 Od kolonializma dalje lahko govorimo o začetku in rasti občutka superiornosti Zahoda tako proti muslimanom kot delu Vzhoda kot proti Vzhodu kot nerazvitemu delu sveta. V obdobju kolonializma so nastajali prvi zametki hierarhij v odnosih med državami, saj so evropske  države  kot  države  kolonialne  dominacije  predstavljale razvite, napredne, vodilne države, v nasprotju s kolonijami, ki so veljale za nerazvita kolonizirana ozemlja, ki so brez pravic in te- meljev  za  ustrezen,  nadaljnji  razvoj.  Nesorazmerje  gospodarske, politične, vojaške in še kakšne druge moči, je instrument kolonialne dominacije.19 V nasprotju s tem Ferguson20 izraža občudovanje do obdobja kolonializma ter predstavi le eno (zahodnjaško) perspe- ktivo tega obdobja, ne predstavi pa negativnih posledic tega ob- dobja. Navaja, da so zahodnoevropske državice, ki so intelektualno sledile orientalski matematiki, astronomiji in tehnologiji, v poznem 15. stoletju ustvarile civilizacijo, ki je bila sposobna zavzeti velike orientalske imperije in si podrediti Afriko, obe Ameriki in Avstra- lazijo ter dodaja, da ni nobena predhodna civilizacija nikoli dosegla takšne dominacije, kot jo je Zahod nad preostankom sveta. Vendar pa se je treba zavedati, da je “obdobje kolonializma muslimanskim deželam/nekdanjim muslimanskim kolonijam otežilo ekonomsko in politično napredovanje, kar je/in še vedno vzbuja negativne ob- čutke pri muslimanih po svetu”.21 Esposito dodaja, da je bilo v od- nosu med muslimanskim svetom in Zahodom zgolj malo dogodkov Maja Pucelj, Nadja Furlan Štante 142 18 V Slovarju slovenskega knjižnega jezika (http://bos.zrc-sazu.si/sskj.html (dostop 15. 4. 2017)) je kolonialízem opredeljen kot (î) v kapitalizmu poli- tika gospodarsko močnejših držav, ki temelji na osvajanju, gospodarskem izkoriščanju in političnem zatiranju drugih dežel.  19 Južnič, 1980, 15–16. 20 Ferguson, 2014. 21 Pucelj, 2016, 28. 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 142 bolj daljnosežnih in vplivnih, kot je bila izkušnja evropskega kolo- nializma.22 Imperializem23 Imperializem, ki ga lahko razumemo tudi kot najvišji stadij kapital- izma24, je pojem, ki se ga v svoji konceptualni zgodovinski osnovi povezuje z evropsko nadvlado, ki se je pričela krepiti po letu 1500 in v zadnjem času z nadvlado Združenih držav Amerike (v nadalje- vanju: ZDA). Pred letom 1500 je bila porazdelitev moči na strani naslednjih  imperijev:  indijskega/Mogulskega  imperija,  perzij- skega/Safavidskega imperija,  turškega/Otomanskega imperija  in Kitajske, medtem ko je bila Evropa po zatonu rimskega imperija le obrobje Evrazije in kot takšna nepomembna. Po letu 1500 pa se je razmerje moči pričelo preusmerjati proti zahodu, predvsem evrop- skemu delu Zahoda. Leta 1500 so bodoče imperialne evropske sile zasedale  okoli  deset  odstotkov  zemeljskega površja  in največ  16 odstotkov svetovnega prebivalstva, medtem ko je leta 1913 enajst zahodnih imperijev nadzorovalo skoraj tri petine vsega ozemlja in prebivalstva ter več kot tri četrtine (kar 79) odstotkov svetovnega ekonomskega proizvoda.25 Do prevlade Zahoda je prišlo zaradi na- predka v znanosti in tehnologiji.26 Od srede 19. do srede 20. stoletja je Zahod vladal preostanku sveta.27 To ni bila samo doba imperijev, 143 Evropocentrična nadvlada “Zahoda nad Vzhodom” 22 Esposito 1992, 47. 23 V Slovarju slovenskega knjižnega jezika (2000) je imperializem opre- deljen kot 1. nav. ekspr. težnja po obvladanju tujih ozemelj: nastopiti proti imperializmu; ravnati v duhu imperializma / politični imperializem; 2. polit. razvojna stopnja kapitalizma, na kateri je ta usmerjen k novi eko- nomski in politični delitvi sveta. 24 Brumen in Jeffs, 2001 25 Ferguson, 2014. 26 Ali, 2002, 280. 27 Ferguson, 2014. 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 143 temveč tudi imperializma in teorije prekomorske ekspanzije, ki je upravičevala formalno ter neformalno dominacijo nad nezahodnimi narodi iz koristoljubnosti, pa tudi altruističnih vzgibov.28 Ravno to obdobje  je  tisto,  v  katerem  je  Evropa najbolj  opazno posegala  v neevropski svet – to obdobje je v marsičem opredelilo družbeno- gospodarski svet koloniziranega sveta.29 Analiza tega obdobja  je izhodišče za razumevanje nastanka sodobne mednarodne skupnosti in posledično razdeljenosti sveta na razvite in nerazvite30.  V sklopu govora o imperializmu je treba poudariti tudi (še vedno trajajoči) ameriški  imperializem, ki  je navzoč  tudi sedaj  in ned- vomno zelo vpliva na odnose med ZDA in Vzhodom oziroma mu- slimani v negativnem kontekstu.  Ideološka prevlada Združenih držav, ki jo podpira njen vojaški vzpon, je “postala tako izrazita, da celo številni od tistih, ki so bili nekoč kritični do tega, kako so svojo moč uporabljale, samo še prizanesljivo predejo in banalno hvalijo”.31 ZDA, ki po koncu II. svetovne vojne izgubijo samozadostnost pri osnovnih surovinah, pričnejo politično intervenirati v obliki držav- nih udarov, lokalnih vojn, pri ustanavljanju ameriških oporišč …  “Trmasto vztrajanje pri oligarhiji v Venezueli, generalih v Braziliji in Čilu ter pri klanu Al Saud v Saudovi Arabiji, to so bili najprepro- stejši načini za boj proti komunističnemu sovražniku in za zaščito ameriške ekonomije”.32 – Pri tem lahko potegnemo črto vzporednice tudi na dogajanje in nasilno poseganje na Bližnji vzhod (torej eko- nomski interesi po nadvladi nafte), kar potrjuje Ali33 tudi v nadalje- vanju, ko obravnava Huntingtonovo teorijo in pravi, da Maja Pucelj, Nadja Furlan Štante 144 28 Ferguson, 2014.  29 Južnič, 1980, 33. 30 Južnič, 1980, 33. 31 Ali, 2002, 259. 32 Ali, 2002, 268–269. 33 Ali, 2002, 277. 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 144 “mora biti Zahod (v resnici Združene države) pripravljen na obračun z vojaškimi grožnjami drugih civilizacij. Jasno je, da sta najbolj preteča islam in konfucijanstvo (nafta in kitajski izvoz), in če bi se ta dva kdaj povezala, bi to predstavljalo grožnjo za ob- stoj bistva civilizacije”. Dodatni spori, ki škodljivo vplivajo na razumevanje med Zahodom in muslimani Poleg omenjenih treh zgodovinskih sporov je (v prejšnjem in tem stoletju) prišlo do dodatnih dogodkov, ki kvarno vplivajo na odnos med Zahodom in muslimani, saj izkazujejo željo Zahoda po izkazo- vanju svoje superiornosti nad Vzhodom oziroma muslimani.  Izraelsko-palestinski spor Kot pravi Mandelc (Arabska vstaja), se ne zmotimo veliko, če izrael- sko-palestinski konflikt označimo za “mater vseh konfliktov” na Bližnjem vzhodu. Pomembnost tega spora za odnos med obema po- loma lahko razberemo tudi iz naslednjega stavka: “Udarec je islam doživel tudi z ustanovitvijo judovske države leta 1948, ki je sprožila več vojn med Judi in Palestinci, kar je posredno pomenilo tudi spo- pad med ZDA in islamom.”34 V muslimanski percepciji je nastanek države Izrael neločljivo povezan z obdobjem evropskega kolonial- izma-imperializma.35 Ustanovitev Izraela leta 1948 je bila dojeta kot najbolj drzen primer dvoličnosti evropskega kolonializma in nje- gove želje, da bi Arabce ohranil ločene in šibke.36 Izrael je obravna- van  kot  evropsko-ameriška  (zahodna)  kolonija  sredi  arabskega sveta, kot orodje zahodnega imperializma, ali kot mostišče za pro- 145 Evropocentrična nadvlada “Zahoda nad Vzhodom” 34 Potočnik, 2007, 59.  35 Šterbenc, 2011: 137. 36 Esposito, 2012, 73. 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 145 jiciranje zahodnega vpliva, penetracije in dominacije v arabskem svetu.37 Po drugi strani pa ima Palestina izjemno pomembno in celo edinstveno mesto v zavesti vsakega muslimana, saj izraelsko-pale- stinski (arabski) spor, ki traja že vsaj od leta 1948, zbuja izjemno po- zornost vseh svetovnih muslimanov.38 “Palestina je v percepciji muslimanov otipljiva posledica kolo- nializma, ki je še vedno zelo pod drobnogledom muslimanov po svetu. Po mojem mnenju se izraelsko-palestinski spor ne bo rešil še lep čas, menim pa, da je že sorazmerno prepozno za ugodno rešitev za obe strani, kar se bo nedvomno reflektiralo tudi na odnosu muslimanov proti Zahodu in posledično tudi na želji po integraciji muslimanov, ki bodo prihajali na Zahod. Kakšen bo ta vpliv, pa je zaradi še vedno trajajočega spora v Palestini, na tej časovni točki zelo težko ustrezno ovrednotiti oziroma oceniti”.39 Neokolonializem Današnji neokolonializem predstavlja imperializem v svoji končni in morda svoji najbolj nevarni fazi.40 Neokolonializem je dojet kot prilagojena oblika kolonializma, ki izkoristi slabosti novo dekolo- nializirane države, da doseže gospodarske, politične in kulturne prednosti,41 predvsem preko opuščanja politične moči naklonjenih Maja Pucelj, Nadja Furlan Štante 146 37 Šterbenc, 2011, 137. 38 Šterbenc, 2011, 137. 39 Pucelj, 2016, 38. 40 https://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/books/Economics/Neo-Co- lonialism_KwameNkrumah.pdf (dostop 19. 4. 2017) 41 Ardent, 1965; http://icip.gencat.cat/web/.content/continguts/publica- cions/workingpapers/2011/ arxius/ wp_2011-6_ing.pdf (dostop 10. 4. 2017). 42 Martin, 1985; http://icip.gencat.cat/web/.content/continguts/publica- cions/workingpapers/2011/ arxius/wp_2011-6_ing.pdf (dostop 10. 4. 2017). 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 146 elit.42 Cilj je enak kot v kolonializmu – obdržati prejšnje kolonije v samostojnem  položaju,  ki  dopušča  gospodarsko  izkoriščanje.43 Splošna percepcija muslimanov je, da vodi Zahod v odnosu do mu- slimanskega sveta neokolonialno hegemonsko politiko, katere cilj je ohranjanje podrejenosti svetovnih muslimanov.44 “Neokolonializem je dejansko nekakšna “nova oblika kolonial- izma” v moderni dobi. Gre za politiko, ki jo Zahod vodi proti Bliž- njemu vzhodu in ki jo muslimani dojemajo kot vzrok sovraštva do Zahodu, saj se zdi, da Zahod s to politiko želi podrediti tako Bliž- nji vzhod kot celotno muslimansko populacijo na Zahodu. Na- silno poseganje na Bližnji vzhod tako vzbuja odpor pri celotni muslimanski populaciji, ne glede na to, kje ta živi in posledično na Zahodu pripomore k temu, da se muslimani težje uspešno vključijo, saj ima takšno ravnanje nedvomno vpliv na slabšo psi- hološko integracijo muslimanov”.45 Nasilno poseganje Zahoda na Bližnji vzhod Skozi zadnja leta se je na območju Bližnjega vzhoda zgodilo več do- godkov, ki botrujejo še dodatnemu poslabšanju odnosov med mu- slimani  in  Zahodom.  Kot  prvega  lahko  nedvomno  izpostavimo napad na Irak leta 1991 in leta 2003. Kot ugotavlja Šterbenc, je imel vojaški poseg ameriško vodene koalicije proti Iraku leta 1991, ko so milijoni muslimanov po vsem svetu Sadama Huseina obravnavali kot islamskega heroja,46 izjemno negativen učinek, ameriški napad na Irak leta 2003 pa je bil odločilna prelomna točka, saj je odprl Pan- 147 Evropocentrična nadvlada “Zahoda nad Vzhodom” 43 Kabunda Badi, 1991; Ardent, 1965; http://icip.gencat.cat/web/.content/ continguts/publicacions/workingpapers/2011/arxius/wp_2011-6_ing.pdf (dostop 10. 4. 2017). 44 Šterbenc, 2011, 136. 45 Pucelj, 2016, 50.  46 Šterbenc, 2011, 142. 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 147 dorino skrinjico konflikta in grozodejstev.47 Ameriški napad na Irak je sprožil bistvena procesa, ki sta privedla k nastanku Islamske države, že prej pa do njene predhodnice, Al Kaide v Iraku.48 “Iraško ozemlje je zaradi različnih razlogov zelo pomembno za sunitske in šiitske muslimane. Irak je kot današnja država umetna tvorba, ki so jo vzpostavili Britanci avgusta 1921. V zgo- dovini muslimanskega sveta je Irak obstajal predvsem kot geo- grafski pojem, ki je označeval območje južne Mezopotamije. Za sunite ima območje Iraka ogromen pomen, ker je bil v Bagdadu med letoma 762 in 1258 sedež bagdadskega abasidskega kali- fata, v času katerega je islamska civilizacija doživela svoj naj- večji gospodarski, kulturni in znanstveni razcvet. Bagdad in Irak sta simbola nekdanje moči islama, napad ZDA pa je imel priča- kovano velik negativen simbolni odmev.”49 Napad na Irak so muslimani po svetu razumeli kot napad na nji- hov “simbol moči” in “kot željo Zahoda, da bi muslimane ponižal na simbolni ravni, saj so napadli njihov “ponos”, torej Irak. Kot odziv na ta napad, je v Evropi prišlo do različnih terorističnih napadov (največja sta se zgodila v Madridu in v Londonu), kot odziv na na- silno poseganje Zahoda na Bližnji vzhod”.50 Zaradi križarske reto- rike – in dejanj – ameriške administracije je vojna proti terorizmu radikalizirala del muslimanskega prebivalstva od Mavretanije do Indonezije in je kot učinek bumeranga s terorističnimi napadi Ma- Maja Pucelj, Nadja Furlan Štante 148 47 http://www.rtvslo.si/svet/radikalizacija-muslimanov-nerazumljiva-novost- fikcija-ali-nadaljevanje-vecdesetletnega-trenda/345626 (dostop 29. 4. 2017). 48 http://www.rtvslo.si/svet/radikalizacija-muslimanov-nerazumljiva-novost- fikcija-ali-nadaljevanje-vecdesetletnega-trenda/345626 (dostop 29. 4. 2017). 49 http://www.rtvslo.si/svet/radikalizacija-muslimanov-nerazumljiva-novost- fikcija-ali-nadaljevanje-vecdesetletnega-trenda/345626 (dostop 29. 4. 2017). 50 Pucelj, 2016, 42. 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 148 drida in Londona obiskala Evropo.51 Če ostanemo še pri “simbolu moči” za muslimane, torej Iraku, pa le-tega ni prizadel le fizični napad, temveč tudi ekonomski embargo s strani Združenih naro- dov, ki so ga v Beli hiši zmagovito razglasili za “najstrožji in najob- sežnejši embargo v zgodovini”.52 Sankcije proti Iraku, ki so bile uvedene leta 1990 zaradi napada na Kuvajt, so bile primer splošnih oziroma celostnih sankcij, saj so ukrepi med drugim obsegali pre- poved vsakršne trgovine z Irakom, prepoved izvoza orožja, preki- nitev  mednarodnih  letalskih  povezav,  prepoved  vseh  finančnih transakcij in zamrznitev iraškega premoženja v tujini.53 Ekonomski embargo  “je za sabo potegnil ogromno negativnih posledic, od podhranje- nosti ljudi, do visoke stopnje umrljivosti novorojenčkov, razmah so doživele tako telesne kot duševne bolezni in tako dalje, zaradi česar ni presenetljivo, da tudi ta dogodek ostaja v muslimanski percepciji po svetu kot izredno negativno obdobje nasilnega po- seganja Zahoda v muslimanski svet”.54 Nasilno poseganje Zahoda na Bližnji vzhod pod t. i. Vojno proti te- rorizmu, ki jo imenuje Videmšek55 kar največji geostrateški dogo- dek po padcu berlinskega zidu in za katero so odgovorne ZDA, se je po terorističnem napadu na WTC 11. septembra 2001 iz “strahu” pred porastom terorizma opazno razširilo. Takrat so namreč ZDA pričele (tako preventivno kot represivno) izvajati različne ukrepe, med njimi so bili tudi različni napadi na Bližnji vzhod. Po tem tero- 149 Evropocentrična nadvlada “Zahoda nad Vzhodom” 51 Videmšek, 2011, 15. 52 http://www.dlib.si/details/URN:NBN:SI:DOC-1I8TSH1P (dostop 16. 4. 2017). 53 Al-Samarrai, 1995: 133. 54 Pucelj, 2016, 43.  55 Videmšek, 2011, 15. 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 149 rističnem napadu so ZDA skupaj z zavezniki začele vojno proti ta- libanskemu režimu v Afganistanu, saj talibani Američanom niso hoteli predati Osame bin Ladna, po mnenju Bele hiše vodilnega ar- hitekta  terorističnega napada na New York  in Washington.56 V sklopu “vojne proti terorizmu” je prišlo do več napadov držav na Bližnjem vzhodu s strani ZDA, in sicer do:  1) napada na Afganistan leta 2001, ki se je leta 2010 razširil tudi v Pakistan, saj sta se Pentagon in Bela hiša leta 2010 “odločila afganistansko vojno tudi uradno razširiti čez Durandovo črto v Pakistan, epicenter vseh afganistanskih potresov”57;  2) že prej omenjeni napad na Irak leta 2003 je bil “ključni dogo- dek sodobne zgodovine, ki je nepovratno premešal geostrateške karte”;58 ZDA so zaradi vojne, ki je temeljila na laži o iraški po- sesti orožja za množično uničevanje, sprožile razpad države, ki je pripeljal do krvave državljanske vojne in popolne razgradnje nekoč najbolj trdne države na Bližnjem vzhodu;59 3) izpostavimo lahko še kar nekaj napadov, ki so se zgodili kot posledica “vojne proti  terorizmu”, vendar se v pojasnjevanje ozadja in posledic le-teh zaradi kratkega obsega pričujočega dela, ne bomo detajlno spuščali, in sicer:  a) napadi na Demokratično republiko Kongo – najbolj krvav konflikt po drugi svetovni vojni60;  b) na Somalijo – eden najbolj krutih konfliktov našega časa61 ter  Maja Pucelj, Nadja Furlan Štante 150 56 Videmšek, 2011, 12. 57 Videmšek, 2011, 21. 58 Videmšek, 2011, 103. 59 Videmšek, 2011, 103. 60 Videmšek, 2011, 204. 61 Videmšek, 2011, 231. 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 150 c) na Sudan – “prvo bojišče tretje svetovne vojne, vojne za energetske vire in vodo”.62 V kontekstu vojn in napadov s strani Zahoda na vzhodni/mu- slimanski svet pa je nujno potrebno omeniti, da Zahod svoje suve- renosti ne kaže le z napadi in z izvedbo nasilnih dejanj, temveč tudi z opustitvijo dolžnega ravnanja, ki ga muslimani pričakujejo od Za- hoda, do česar je denimo prišlo v času vojne v Bosni in Hercegovini med letoma 1992–1995. V tej vojni je nasilje srbskih in hrvaških sil proti bosanskim Muslimanom (Bošnjakom) doseglo razsežnosti ge- nocida, zahodne sile pa so večji del vojne to tragedijo bolj ali manj pasivno opazovale, pri čemer še dodaja, da je nepripravljenost za- hodnih sil, da bi na krilih svoje množične intervencije za izgon ira- ških sil iz Kuvajta ustavile bosanski genocid, vodila v otipljiv bes ne zgolj militantnežev, kot je Osama Bin Laden, temveč tudi več sto milijonov navadnih muslimanov po svetu.63 Zaključek Pri vseh vojnah in sporih med Zahodom in Vzhodom oziroma muslimani, ki smo jih navedli, lahko najdemo skupni imenovalec, in sicer željo Zahoda, da ekonomsko izkoristi Vzhod in si ga po- dredi, kar nesporno pri muslimanih zbuja odpor. Ta tendenca je bila navzoča že v času križarskih vojn zaradi želje po nadzoru nad svilno potjo. Trenutna težnja pa je navzoča zaradi želje po nad- zoru nad naftnimi bogastvi. Vzhodne dežele, ki so bogate s suro- vinami, so zaradi te v osnovi pozitivne izhodiščne točke, torej naravnega bogastva svojih območij, “nemočen plen” Zahoda, kar v muslimanih po svetu vzbuja odpor in sovražnost, usmerjeno 151 Evropocentrična nadvlada “Zahoda nad Vzhodom” 62 Videmšek, 2011, 256. 63 Šterbenc, 2011, 144. 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 151 proti Zahodu.64 Zgoraj navedeni napadi in superiorna medijska manipulacija zahodnih medijev s strani Zahoda so usodno vpli- vali na porast islamofobije in protiislamskih občutkov po svetu, ki se v zadnjih letih še stopnjujejo. Če pogledamo podatke v ZDA, je v zadnjih desetih letih prišlo do opaznega porasta neugodnega dojemanja muslimanov, saj je med letoma 2006 in 2016 v določe- nih raziskavah odstotek nemuslimanov, ki so izrazili neugodno dojemanje muslimanov, porastel z 21 odstotkov (v letu 2006) na kar 63 odstotkov (v letu 2016).65 V letu 2015 in 2016 je prišlo do opaznega porasta islamofobije, ki jo vzpodbuja tudi retorika v predsedniških volitvah (predvsem s strani Donalda Trumpa).66 Medtem ko  je na drugi  strani,  torej na  strani muslimanov oz. Vzhoda “Vojna proti terorizmu” privedla k nastanku Al Kaide in Islamske države.  Superiornost  Zahoda proti Vzhodu  oziroma muslimanom  se kaže praktično na vsakem koraku – ali če pogledamo pobližje po- ročanje medijev  ob  terorističnem napadu,  se  kaže  v  takojšnjem prevpraševanju in iskanju vzročno-posledične povezave z islamom oziroma  muslimani.  Osredotočimo  se  lahko  tudi  na  družbena spletna omrežja, kot  je denimo Facebook, ki  so  (in še vedno) po prihodu muslimanskih beguncev in migrantov z Bližnjega vzhoda Maja Pucelj, Nadja Furlan Štante 152 64 Muslimani  na  Zahodu  čutijo  povezanost  z  muslimani  z  Bližnjega vzhoda iz dveh razlogov: 1) v Koranu je opredeljeno, da so vsi muslimani bratje in sestre, 2) Bližnji vzhod je v percepciji muslimanov dežela, od koder prihaja večina muslimanov, živečih na Zahodu in kamor odhajajo na romanje v islamsko svetišče (v Meko v Saudovi Arabiji in predstavlja kraj rojstva preroka Mohameda), zaradi česar ni težko razumeti solidar- nosti muslimanov po svetu z muslimani, ki živijo na Bližnjem vzhodu.  65 http://www.irdproject.com/ (zadnji dostop 19. 4. 2017) 66 http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/02/10/3748058/chapel-hill-anniver- sary/ (dostop 18. 4. 2017); http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/ 12/9/us- muslims-experience-surge-in-islamophobic-attacks.html (dostop 14. 5. 2017). 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 152 polni sovražnega govora, ki se posledično usmerja tudi na musli- mane, že živeče na Zahodu zaradi miselne povezave muslimanov kot enotnega naroda v percepciji zahodnjakov/nemuslimanov. Se- veda ob tem ne smemo pozabiti na že prej omenjena nasilna pose- ganja Zahoda na Bližnji vzhod. Omenjena dejanja (vsaj kratkoročno) vplivajo  na  povečano  število  terorističnih  dejanj  na Zahodu,  na “slabšo” psihološko integracijo muslimanov, povečano diskrimina- cijo in islamofobijo ter sovražni govor, usmerjen proti muslimanom in s tega stališča na oteženo integracijo muslimanov na Zahod. Če vsemu temu dodamo še ugotovitev, do katere smo prišli v znan- stveni monografiji,67 in sicer, da je v desetih obravnavanih državah področje diskriminacije muslimanov urejeno bolj neuspešno, nam postane jasno, da superiornost Zahoda postavlja neizbrisljive meje med Zahodom in muslimani, ki onemogočajo kakovosten dialog med obema stranema, kakor tudi majejo temelje uspešni integraciji muslimanov, ki že živijo na Zahodu.  Zahod bi lahko imel v podzavesti zavedanje, da so skozi zgodo- vino velike civilizacije in imperiji nastajali in tudi propadali in si posledično tudi izmenjavali razmerja moči, s tem mislimo na grško in rimsko civilizacijo, indijski/Mogulski, perzijski/Safavidski, tur- ški/Otomanski imperij in Kitajsko, od leta 1500 pa se je razmerje moči preusmerilo proti Zahodu – najprej proti evropskemu delu Za- hoda, v zadnjih približno dveh stoletjih pa v smeri ZDA. Enaka usoda lahko doleti tudi Zahod, ki bo lahko čez čas ponovno v po- drejenem položaju in se mu bo trenutno vedenje lahko zelo mašče- valo v enakem (poniževalnem) odnosu s strani nove superiorne sile, ki bo prevzela trenutno mesto Zahoda in bodo tako sami na mestu Vzhoda oziroma muslimanov.  153 Evropocentrična nadvlada “Zahoda nad Vzhodom” 67 Pucelj, 2016, 367. 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 153 Bibliografija AL-SAMARRAI, B. (1995): “Economic Sanction Against Iraq: Do they Contribute to a Just Settlement?”, v: Cortright, D., Lopez G., ur., Economic Sanctions. Panacea or Peacebuilding in a Post-Cold War World?, Boulder, Westview Press, 133–139. ALI, T. (2002): Spopad fundamentalizmov: križarstvo, džihad in mo- dernost, Ljubljana: Znanstveno in publicistično središče.  ARDENT, P. (1965): “Le néo-colonialisme: thème, mythe et réalité”, Revue française de science politique, 5, 837–855.  BRUMEN, B., JEFFS, N. (2011): Afrike, Ljubljana: Študentska založba.  ENGDAHL, W. (2012): Vojne za nafto: [za vso nafto, vsepovsod], Mengeš: Ciceron.  ESPOSITO, L. J. (1992): The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, New York: Oxford University Press. FERGUSON, N. (2014): Civilizacija: kako so vrednote Zahoda osvo- jile svet, Ljubljana: UMco. JUŽNIČ, S. (1980): Kolonializem in dekolonizacija, Maribor: Založba Obzorja Maribor.  KABUNDA, B. M. (1991): “El neocolonialismo en África. Sus formas y manifestaciones”, Cuadernos África América Latina, 24, 63–68. LUŽAR, T. (2010): “Upravljanje migracij”, Socialna pedagogika, 14/2, 131–152. MAALOUF, A. (2008): Križarske vojne v očeh Arabcev, Ljubljana: Založba /*cf. MARTIN, G. (1985): “The historical, economic and political bases of France’s African policy”, The Journal of Modern African Studies, 23/2, 189–208. MASTNAK, T. (1996): Kristjanstvo in muslimani, Ljubljana: Znan- stveno in publicistično središče.  MASTNAK, T. (1998): Evropa med evolucijo in evtanazijo, Ljubljana: Studia Humanitatis. 154 Maja Pucelj, Nadja Furlan Štante 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 154 POTOČNIK, D. (2006): Azija med preteklostjo in sedanjostjo, Ma- ribor: Založba Pivec.  POTOČNIK, D. (2007): “Stiki civilizacij”, Zgodovina v šoli, 16/1-2, 56–60. POTOČNIK, D. (2015): Iran: dežela med Perzijo in islamom, Mari- bor: Založba Pivec.  PUCELJ, M. (2016): Nivo uspešnosti integracije priseljencev islam- ske veroizpovedi v zahodne države, Ljubljana: Založba Vega.  ŠTERBENC, P. (2011): Zahod in muslimanski svet: Akcije in reakcije, Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede.  ŠTERK, K. (1998): O težavah z mano: antropologija, lingvistika, psi- hoanaliza, Ljubljana: Študentska organizacija Univerze v Ljubljani, Študentska založba. VIDEMŠEK, B. (2011): Vojna terorja: deset let po 11. septembru, Lju- bljana: Cankarjeva založba. ZALTA, A. (2006). “Muslimanska identiteta v času globalizacije”, Annales, 16/1, 69–76.  Spletni viri http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/12/9/us-muslims-expe- rience-surge-in-islamophobic-attacks.html (zadnji dostop 14. 5. 2017). http://icip.gencat.cat/web/.content/continguts/publicacions/wor- kingpapers/2011/arxius/wp_2011-6_ing.pdf (zadnji dostop 10. 4. 2017). http://www.irdproject.com/ (zadnji dostop 19. 4. 2017). http://www.rtvslo.si/svet/radikalizacija-muslimanov-nerazumljiva- novost-fikcija-ali-nadaljevanje-vecdesetletnega-trenda/345626 (zad- nji dostop 29. 4. 2017). http://bos.zrc-sazu.si/sskj.html (zadnji dostop 14. 4. 2017). https://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/books/Economics/Neo -Colonialism_KwameNkrumah.pdf (zadnji dostop 19. 4. 2017). 155 Evropocentrična nadvlada “Zahoda nad Vzhodom” 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 155 http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/02/10/3748058/chapel-hill- anniversary/ (zadnji dostop 18. 4. 2017).  http://www.dlib.si/details/URN:NBN:SI:DOC-1I8TSH1P (zadnji do- stop 16. 4. 2017).  Maja Pucelj, Nadja Furlan Štante 156 07 - MajaPucelj-NadjaFurlanStante 23. 11. 2017 13:51 Page 156 María Antonia González Valerio1 Repositioning Biotech Arts in Mexico Abstract: This paper examines the role played by biotech art in Mexico and the way in which it has been inscribed in the local is- sues. Specifically, it focuses on the first biotech art exhibition in Mexico and on the production of the installations at the National University. It emphasises the epistemological and aesthetic prob- lems encountered during the production of the artworks and the setting up of the exhibition. Key words: bioart, transgenic crops, biotech, corn, aesthetics UDK 7:111.852:606 Repozicioniranje biotehnološke umetnosti v Mehiki Izvleček: Ta članek preučuje vlogo, ki jo biotehnološka umetnost igra v Mehiki, in način, na katerega se je vtisnila v lokalna vpraša- nja. Natančneje se osredotoča na prvo biotehnološko umetniško razstavo v Mehiki in na proizvodnjo instalacij na Narodni univerzi. Poudarja epistemološke in estetske probleme, na katere so naleteli med izdelavo umetnin in postavljanjem razstave. Ključne besede: biotehnološka umetnost, transgenetične rastline, koruza, estetika 0 0 0 157 Moni tor ISH (2017), XIX/2, 157–169 Strokovni članek Professional article 1 María Antonia González Valerio  is Full Professor of  the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras and of the postgraduate programs in Philosophy, Phi- losophy of Science, Art History and Fine Arts at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). E-mail: gonzalezvalerio@gmail.com. 08 - MariaAntonia 23. 11. 2017 13:52 Page 157 What follows is an attempt to describe the process through which the pieces of BIOS Ex machinA (the first art collective in Mexico producing transgenic and biotechnological art2) were generated, in order to reflect about the exhibition that took place in 2012–2013, “Sin origen/Sin semilla”3 (Without origin/Seedless) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Describing this process will be an occasion to put forward the limits and possibilities of biotech arts, for example the challenges confronting artists, the re- sponse of museums, the possibilities of working with lab conditions in the art world, the range of topics that biotech arts can address, and how collective work is accomplished at a university which has, as an advantage, active group works in the fields of arts, technology, sciences and humanities. At the same time, the whole project repre- sents an effort to confront the alterations of the Mexican landscape in the recent decades, reflecting the transition from traditional agri- culture to industrial agriculture. We focused on the topic of maize because it has a symbolic significance for the Mexican culture, being deeply rooted in the national imagery, in the ancient myths, and in the food. Moreover, it can be thought of as an axis of a way of being, of dwelling and transforming nature and culture. It has been a challenge for Mexico to adopt the practices of late capitalism, to change the agricultural landscape in order to cope with the competition of the USA and the Californian crops, to adopt the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and slowly to de- velop an agricultural industry which does not consider the traditional crops and farming, but sees the land as something instrumental that María Antonia González Valerio 158 2 BIOS Ex machinA was conformed in 2012 by: Marcela Armas, Axel Bar- celó, Arcángel Constantini, Deborah Dorotinsky, María Antonia González Valerio, Marco Antonio Lara, Jorge Enrique Linares, Sebastián Lomelí, Juan Carlos Martínez, Rosaura Martínez, Lena Ortega y Luisa Valender. 3 For further information about the exhibition, see González Valerio, 2016.. 08 - MariaAntonia 23. 11. 2017 13:52 Page 158 can be exploited for economic gain and growth. Although the issue might seem two-sided, an opposition between traditional crops and a capitalist agriculture that follows the neoliberalist rules of the mar- ket, it is of course more complex than that. It involves the recent his- tory of Mexico and the outcome of the Mexican Revolution regarding the land and the city (specifically Mexico City) as the two options for economic growth in the second half of the twentieth century. The Mexican land was severely impoverished after the Mexican Revolution (1910–1921), and the whole country was in an economic and political crisis. The centre of economic development was Mexico City, which grew enormously in the next decades, representing the possibility of a new life, after the land was more or less abandoned and the reforms on agricultural laws ended up many times leaving people with land ownership but with no means to cultivate it. The Green Revolution changed things dramatically, starting in the north of Mexico in the 1940s with the introduction of improved wheat, beans, potatoes and maize by Norman Borlaug, who later won the Nobel Peace Prize for introducing many of the improved seeds in Mexico to Asia and helping reduce famine there. The biodiversity of Mexico and its varied climate conditions made it a perfect spot to experiment with new projects of agricul- ture and to create a seed bank, which goes back to the 40s and nowadays contains the largest maize seed collection in the world. The project was sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and was later established as the International Maize and Wheat Improve- ment Centre (CIMMYT-Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo4). They realised very soon the importance of seeds as a biotech product, as an epistemic artefact and as a way of control- ling knowledge and agricultural development. 159 Repositioning Biotech Arts in Mexico 4 See http://www.cimmyt.org/. 08 - MariaAntonia 23. 11. 2017 13:52 Page 159 The very existence of seed banks and the research on improved seeds of maize and wheat, among others, in Mexico even before the end of the Second World War make us consider to what extent bio- politics are involved in the construction of our contemporary world as a crossroads of science, technology, neoliberalism, late capital- ism, territory, fast transformations of the environment, and our re- lation to the land. The fact that the South of Mexico, where many indigenous people preserve their traditional crops, still resists the introduction of agroindustry prompts us to start thinking about all that is at stake in the transformation of agricultural practices. The CIMMYT is likewise investigating the production of trans- genic seeds. In collaboration with Monsanto, they launched trans- genic maize  (maize Bt)  in Kenya  in  2016. Although  transgenic maize is still forbidden in Mexico because of the many protests and movements by activists, scientists and artists, Monsanto continues to try and introduce GMO’s with the support of the Mexican Federal Government. Recently the CIMMYT has received financial support from Bill Gates and Carlos Slim, two of the richest people in the world, who are well aware of the importance of the seeds for the near future.  From this scenario, how to produce art in the intersection of biotechnology? How to deal with some of the broad issues that are involved in the era of technoscience? With these questions in mind, the collective BIOS Ex machinA started its quest in order to  produce  the  first  exhibition  in  Mexico  of  transgenic  and biotechnological art. The primary question that we had to answer before becoming BIOS Ex machinA was how to invent a collective that would reunite artists, scholars and scientists to produce biotech arts.  At the very beginning we got together planning to produce biotech art. We needed to call on those who could be interested María Antonia González Valerio 160 08 - MariaAntonia 23. 11. 2017 13:52 Page 160 in our intention and ideas. And then we knocked on some doors. But how does one knock on doors with the intent of producing “biotech art”, to intervene and manipulate living organisms? How is this to be done? We formed an initial group and a seminar, assembled a library of basic texts, and began studying. Ideas came up during the sem- inar: we discussed them and kept reading. We dove into some pretty confusing depths. But there was a lot going on and we were in well over our heads. Luckily, our enthusiasm was overwhelming as well. A good part of the collective group was made up of scholars from UNAM, and because of this, most of the theoretical and research work with and on the texts proceeded quite naturally. The enthusi- asm to turn and redirect or, more accurately, to invent new research lines was equally buoyant. We had a lot of questions. Above all, we studied biology texts on transgenic modifications in maize, for example. We added these readings to reflections on aesthetics and biotechnological arts. Dis- cussion points were never scarce. We were slowly beginning to un- derstand  the discourses  that had  come  into being  surrounding these topics. Perhaps the most important case was maize, and our growing involvement with themes that had at first seemed foreign to us, for our focus in the discussions was of a more ontological order, permeated with very abstract concepts. Another important point that determined what we were going to produce was politics and the political commitment of art. Bio-politics could not be trans- lated into a mere slogan or manifesto. The issue of maize had been previously addressed in Mexico with a very strong political charge by visual and plastic artists who repudiated transgenic maize and mobilised all over our Re- public to denounce the practices of transnational corporations and political parties. 161 Repositioning Biotech Arts in Mexico 08 - MariaAntonia 23. 11. 2017 13:52 Page 161 Our immersion into the topic was marked by scepticism and radical doubt about transgenic maize and its condemnation. We held a position of uncertainty. We were studying texts which were in its favour and texts which were against it,5 until we took our stand, which depended in good measure on the people we encoun- tered on our way. One of the first doors we knocked on happened to be Elena Ál- varez-Buylla’s at the Ecology Institute of UNAM. One thing led to another, and all of a sudden we were in the molecular genetic lab trying to uphold the importance of biotech art and to convince her to collaborate with us. The Laboratory for Plant Molecular Genetics, Development and Evolution was studying the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana, and Elena’s team was dedicating part of its work to this. She took us to the greenhouses where rows of genetically modified Arabidop- sis were growing, and explained what her experiments consisted of. There we asked her if we could work with Arabidopsis and create a genetically modified plant expressly for our project. To our surprise she agreed. We sealed the deal. Naturally, what followed was a thorough investigation of what this minute plant called Arabidopsis thaliana was, and how the María Antonia González Valerio 162 5 Paradigmatic texts in its favour include: Carlos Blanco 2008. Here we find a profusion of data on the positive impact of transgenic modifica- tions; indeed, Blanco even affirms that “It is desirable for developing coun- tries, especially Latin American ones, to adopt strategies that allow them to take advantage of the benefits of transgenic crops so as to reduce their food dependence on bigger economies”, 46. Conversely, texts like Ha- ciendo milpa (México, UNAM, 2011), coordinated by Elena Álvarez-Buylla, and Origen y diversificación del maíz (México, UNAM, 2009), coordinated by T.A. Kato et al., stress the importance of biodiversity, of the recognition and conservation of traditional knowledge of maize, in order to preserve the varieties that have developed in Mexico. 08 - MariaAntonia 23. 11. 2017 13:52 Page 162 website that gathered all the information obtained from labs around the world worked.6 I signed up on the website, requested informa- tion, and they sent me genetic sequences with the warning that their distribution was strictly forbidden. It was evident that I could not understand anything and did not know what to do with these sequences. But I was surprised by how easy it was to gain access to this kind of information, to databases and the software. My academic credentials were sufficient for me to register on these websites. Indeed, I even registered as a laboratory in an at- tempt to buy a part of the international stock of modified Arabidop- sis seeds and pay for them with my credit card. Fortunately, before doing so, I asked some colleagues from the Faculty of Sciences if it was feasible to receive such material. They warned me that Mexican customs officers were so corrupt that they had let biological mate- rial die or decompose on many previous occasions, and thus it was pointless to buy anything: the customs officers would keep every- thing, even animals, they insisted. Access to information without the proper tools to interpret it is completely worthless. The obtained genetic sequences are undeci- pherable and useless if you do not know what to do with them. We were very far from knowing what to do. Anything that involved transferring this genetic information into another realm, be it sound or illumination, seemed to us completely ridiculous. We had the project of an immersive installation to build with Arabidopsis. We chose the mutant Arabidopsis agamous with a re- porting GUS gene because it produced a blue super flower, and that allowed us to play with the classical canon of beauty (a super flower 163 Repositioning Biotech Arts in Mexico 6 Results of genetic interventions are published on this website. The study of the genome of this plant turned into an epistemic artefact is the result of a collective international effort in which even Monsanto is involved. www.arabidopsis.org. 08 - MariaAntonia 23. 11. 2017 13:52 Page 163 would be maximally beautiful). To this we added blue dye, water, dystopian imaginaries produced by biotechnology, the production of a dislocated space … and the piece Accumulated transparence. Arabidopsis AG:GUS (Yes, it is blue! It has to be blue! A coagulated blue in the offing) began to take shape in our minds. Moreover, we had the idea of a 3D printer mounted on a tractor that would print seeds out of a biopolymer PLA moving in a radial space: this would become Polymer “milpa”. We decided to build an installation that would allow a live experience of detecting transgenic maize con- tamination on the basis of its resistance to glyphosate, a wide-spec- trum herbicide. The installation had the name: They will be ashes, but will make sense (Slightly toxic). And the project of a documen- tary film about transgenic maize: Cross-pollination. When we finally worked out the projects for four pieces, we only needed to bring them about and find a way of doing so, for we were starting on a road never trodden before. The most important part was to have complete and multidisciplinary teams that could create these pieces. This was no easy task. For Polymer “milpa”, not only did we have to get our hands on a 3D printer, but we also had to find engineers and designers that would help with the programming and assembly. To build this robot was not easy at all, and only minutes before opening the doors of the museum did it finally work! The arm spun around moving the tractor, which left its tracks in the soil contained in the circular ring that marked the radial space, and the printer produced little 3D modelled seeds, based on the samples we had collected for another piece. In a slow, seemingly fragile movement the injectors pushed PLA out in seed shapes, which fell on the soil. The biopolymer car- tridge was spinning and through the four giant speakers one could hear  the  audio  from Monsanto’s  stock exchange  that had been recorded for three months. People were going around taking the María Antonia González Valerio 164 08 - MariaAntonia 23. 11. 2017 13:52 Page 164 seeds – some unnoticed, some not. This continued throughout the two months that the exhibition lasted. The seeds became plastic monuments to recall the acting power of biotechnology. The documentary film that would give place to Cross-Pollination was a research on maize, biotechnology and transgenic modifica- tions: the parties involved in the debate, the political and economic positions, and the artists who had taken a stance. The film had two screenings,  one  at  Museo  Universitario  Arte  Contemporáneo (MUAC) and the other at Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Artes (MUCA Roma). The videos were edited in a different manner for each setting. The documentary became an actual testimony to the power of words to speak truth and lies. When Accumulated transparence began to take shape in our minds, we had no idea how incredibly complicated it was going to be to create that piece, or the number of people who would have to be involved in the process, or the amount of money we were going to spend. We thought of water, of blue dye, of the transgenic plant, of the immersive installation, and of an aesthetic experience that would surpass the “classical” limits of the effect on the spec- tator. We thought of creating a hybrid in which the limits of art, science, and philosophy would be broken through, leading to a dis- located space. The first practical and technical challenge was to build a pool inside MUCA Roma, for the museum is located inside a Porfirian house7 that crumbles a little more with each earthquake. The next step was the visualising device. To try to decide between acrylics, crystals, mirrors, metals, in order to build that visualisation device, the box in which we would have to reproduce the laboratory condi- 165 Repositioning Biotech Arts in Mexico 7 A house built during the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz at the turn of the 20th century in French Baroque style. 08 - MariaAntonia 23. 11. 2017 13:52 Page 165 tions for plants to survive and in which we would have to create a game of mirrors, visions, reflections, objects, plants, breaths. The task of the artist as producer consisted only of deciding. We were not involved in the manufacturing, the forging of the metals, or the polishing of the mirrors. We didn’t even know the names of the hammers and silicone that were shaping the materials. Who is the creator/producer here? Is there in fact a “who”? How to continue with this questioning if the very act of creating is dissolved into things, people, processes, instructions? There is no solitary artist masterfully crafting the wood with his hands or sculpting the stone. There is no solitude. There is – indeed, without a doubt and with unparallelled strength – a community of voices in which it is useless to ask who is speaking or who this discourse can be attributed to. Moreover, one would have to enter these voices, intercept them, throw some of them back, and witness how all of this was coming to be, letting oneself be driven by this whole process with a joyful smile. A primary self-surrender and then yielding to forces without trying to direct, without turning multiplicities into a course directed towards a previously defined and fixed goal. What needed to be built now was a visualisation device with web cameras that would be inside Elena’s laboratory, streaming the growth of these plants live. In the museum we would showcase the mutant agamous. The transmission of the image in real time was yet another complication of this piece – another nut to crack, as we may say. The next nut was the piece’s audio track. The audio was fi- nally set up when everything was full of water, and it began sound- ing through all the hidden speakers behind the black background that served as the room ceiling. Enwrapping anguish. The last nut was the actresses. They had to act as scientists, with white lab coats and blue glasses, to direct the public and create a biohazard envi- ronment. An arsenal of mouth covers, gloves, blue surgeon slippers María Antonia González Valerio 166 08 - MariaAntonia 23. 11. 2017 13:52 Page 166 and lab coats had to protect the spectators, who would face, proba- bly for the first time in their lives, genetically modified organisms, biological mutants created inside a laboratory. Actresses played their part convincingly. In fact the piece had absolutely no biohazard risk. The intention was to play with the dystopian imaginaries that biotechnology produces,  to create a crossroads  between  science  fiction  and  the  questioning  of  the sometimes invisible borders between “nature” and “artificiality”. Many people thought and acted as if they were truly submitting themselves to a space controlled for security reasons and labelled with the international symbol of “biohazard”. Then it became real (some even ran away from the waiting room or asked for protection for the children). As the weeks went by, the Arabidopsis girls, as we called them, amplified their discourse. The presence of these ac- tresses allowed, in such a way, to transmit the information that peo- ple would hope to obtain from a scientific experiment. That was, however, no scientific experiment. Nor was it something that could be contemplated aesthetically. Its elusive character was manifested as such, moving the territories of the expectations of meaning. They will be ashes changed our previous conceptions of maize, the debate on transgenics and its cultural significance. As I had men- tioned, we were unwilling either to create ideological art or to posi- tion ourselves for or against the issue. Knocking on more random doors, I found Margarita Tadeo, an agronomer at FES-Cuautitlán, a campus of UNAM, with a long and important work career on maize.  We had a large stock of seed samples, which had been collected by the team here and there. I planted them so that they would keep growing until it was time to begin their annihilation process. The life-death bond proper to this whole piece was beginning to emerge tensely. After having taken care of the seeds and then the plants for weeks, I had to kill them. I prepared a solution of glyphosate-water, 167 Repositioning Biotech Arts in Mexico 08 - MariaAntonia 23. 11. 2017 13:52 Page 167 covered myself up as much as possible, took these plants to the roof and sprinkled them (with the camera in one hand and the sprinkler in the other). A week later I sprinkled them again. With the passing of days, all but one began to die. In a few weeks all plants were with- ered except one, which insisted on living. It came from a warehouse in the state of Guanajuato that sold foraging maize. We ran some Elisa tests on the maize to confirm that it was transgenic. I left the plant at home so that it would slowly wither, and then we exhibited it in the museum. For the installation at MUAC, we repeated the experiment that I had already carried out at home. The seed samples were again our own, expanded in the following months with an enormous stock from Guerrero and Veracruz, kindly given to us by Margarita Tadeo. We had a performance every week at the museum, sprinkling the seeds with glyphosate. The installation was aesthetically suc- cessful. We had been working to design the furniture containing the plant pots, striving towards an aesthetic that was not exactly laboratory-like, but also not completely like a garden or a green- house. One could actually go plowing about through the piece as if it were a “milpa”, and in order to go through the entrance one had to cross a sign on the floor where one could read “slightly toxic”, the letters drawn with the ashes of the burnt plants. For the time being, our experience was the successful detection of transgenic maize in Guanajuato and the experience of trying to conduct an experiment in museum conditions rather than labora- tory conditions. BIOS Ex machinA was basically about reducing the quest for the “who” and witnessing the frenetic movements. It was about bringing the living into being from a producing (desiring) machine (device) and executing an immanent thought that searched for what was there (beyond matter, and before transcendence). The machine María Antonia González Valerio 168 08 - MariaAntonia 23. 11. 2017 13:52 Page 168 produced everything, from the very name of the collective group to the last comma of the texts. That was the experience: to be many and to produce the multiple in a realm of indefiniteness, indecision (what is it that is there, what is it that is?). This experience prompted some necessary questions: What does it mean to create, to produce? What does it mean to think? BIOS Ex machinA is a machinery that still needs some fine tun- ing and will probably always be in the process of tuning (itself). This was its first presentation: the course of its development was set by chance, uncertainty and drift. Instead of chance, we should say forces. Bibliography ÁLVAREZ-BUYLLA,  E.,  coord.  (2011):  Haciendo milpa,  México, UNAM. BLANCO, C., coord. (2008): Cultivos transgénicos para la agricul- tura latinoamericana, México, FCE.  GONZÁLEZ VALERIO, M. A., ed. (2016) Sin origen, sin semilla/With- out origin, seedless, Mexico, UNAM/Bonilla. KATO, T. A. et al., coord. (2009): Origen y diversificación del maíz, México, UNAM.  169 Repositioning Biotech Arts in Mexico 08 - MariaAntonia 23. 11. 2017 13:52 Page 169 08 - MariaAntonia 23. 11. 2017 13:52 Page 170 DIAFANIJE 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 171 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 172 173 Vid Snoj1 in Jožef Muhovič2 Vincent van Gogh, Zvezdna noč, in Anne Sexton, Zvezdna noč Zvezdna noč 1889, olje na platnu, 74 x 92 cm, New York, The Museum of Modern Art 1 Dr. Vid Snoj, redni profesor, Filozofska fakulteta Univerze v Ljubljani, Oddelek  za  primerjalno  književnost  in  literarno  teorijo.  E-naslov: vid.snoj@guest.arnes.si. 2 Dr. Jožef Muhovič, redni profesor, Akademija za likovno umetnost in oblikovanje Univerze v Ljubljani. E-naslov: jozef_muhovic@t-2.net. 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 173 The Starry Night That does not keep me from having a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars. Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother The town does not exist except where one black-haired tree slips up like a drowned woman into the hot sky. The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars. Oh starry night! This is how I want to die. It moves. They are all alive. Even the moon bulges in its orange irons to push children, like a god, from its eye. The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars. Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die: into that rushing beast of the night, sucked up by that great dragon, to split from my life with no flag, no belly, no cry. Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 174 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 174 Zvezdna noč To me ne odvrača od strašne potrebe po – naj izrečem to besedo – religiji. Tedaj grem ponoči ven slikat zvezde.  Vincent van Gogh v pismu bratu Mesta ni, razen kjer neko črnolaso drevo drsi navzgor kot utopljenka v vroče nebo.  Mesto je tiho. Noč od enajstih zvezd povreva.  O zvezdna noč! Tako  si umreti želim. Giblje se. Vse so žive. Še mesec v svojem oranžnem okovju nabreka, da iz svojega očesa otroke potisne kot bog. Nevidna stara kača golta zvezde. O zvezdna, zvezdna noč! Tako si umreti želim: v to hitečo žival noči,  da me ta véliki zmaj vsesa in se ločim od življenja brez prapora, brez trebuha, brez krika. Prevedel Vid Snoj po Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999, str. 53 175 Diafanije 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 175 VID SNOJ: Zvezdna noč je ena najslovitejših van Goghovih slik, če ne morda celo najslovitejša. Vzemiva, Jožef, za  izhodišče sodbo Meyerja Schapira, ki jo je označil za “vizionarno sliko”.3  Schapira v tej zvezi na začetku ne omenjam po naključju. Za štu- dente na newyorški univerzi Columbia, kot je bil v poznih štiride- setih letih prejšnjega stoletja na primer poznejši beatniški pesnik Allen Ginsberg, je bil nič manj kot guru umetnostne zgodovine. Tam je študiral, doktoriral in nazadnje postal zaslužni profesor, pre- daval  in  pisal  je  o  zgodnjekrščanski  in  srednjeveški  umetnosti, poleg tega pa je bil tudi promotor modernosti v slikarstvu. V zgod- njih petdesetih letih je izdal knjigi o van Goghu in Cézannu. K van Goghovim slikam, razstavljenim v MoMI,4 je napisal kratka eno- stranska besedila; med njimi je tudi Zvezdna noč. V čem je ta “vizionarna slika” že na prvi pogled posebna v pri- merjavi z drugimi van Goghovimi slikami? JOŽEF MUHOVIČ: Če  želiva  odstreti  semantične  horizonte Zvezdne noči in nastaviti  ogledalo njenim  interpretacijam,  tudi Schapirovi, nikakor ne moreva mimo vsaj skicozne osvetlitve življe- nja ter značajskega in ustvarjalskega profila njenega avtorja.  Vincent van Gogh se je rodil 30. marca 1853 v mestecu Groot-Zun- dert v južnonizozemski provinci Severni Brabant. Bil je drugi otrok v družini protestantskega pastorja. Ko je leta 1934 izšel biografski best- seller Irvinga Stona o njegovem življenju in delu, je v hipu za več de- setletij  postal  slikarski  zvezdnik,  prototip  nekonformističnega umetnika, ki zunaj dosega vrednostnih radarjev svojega časa in v naj- trših socialnih okoliščinah, v popolni osami in z na vse načine preiz- kušano vero v umetniško poslanstvo ustvarja umetnine, ki daleč presegajo sočasno kulturo, njen okus in umetniške standarde.  Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 176 3 Schapiro, 1950, 100. 4MoMA je kratica za The Museum of Modern Art v New Yorku. 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 176 Van Gogh je bil kot otrok introvertiran in občutljiv ter je težko prenašal formalno izobraževanje, pa tudi pozneje je bil nenehno v napetem razmerju z avtoritetami. Poklic je iskal dolgo in z mnogimi preobrati. Po srednji šoli v Tilburgu, ki je ni končal, se je leta 1869 zaposlil kot vajenec v haaški podružnici trgovine z umetninami in umetnoobrtnimi izdelki Goupil & Cie, katere solastnik je bil njegov stric Cent. Po začetnem seznanjanju z etablirano umetnostjo in uva- janju v cenilske spretnosti je od leta 1873 do 1875 delal v njeni lon- donski podružnici. Potem je bil zaradi osebnih razlogov premeščen v pariško filialo. Ker mu je bila tuja hinavščina in je bil brez občutka za prodajalsko  “diplomacijo”,  je  imel  v Parizu  razmeroma malo trgovskega uspeha. Zapiral se je vase ter se čedalje bolj prepuščal prebiranju Biblije in dejavni religioznosti. Ker je za veliko noč 1875 samovoljno zapustil delovno mesto in odpotoval na obisk k star- šem, je dobil odpoved.  V naslednjih treh letih in pol se je neuspešno preizkušal v razli- čnih poklicih. Bil je pomožni učitelj, pomožni pastor, prodajalec knjig, nesojeni študent teologije in nazadnje pomožni laiški pridigar v belgijskem rudarskem mestu Borinage, kjer so ljudje živeli v po- sebno težkih razmerah. Z njimi se je solidariziral in delil najhujšo revščino, kar ni bilo pogodu njegovim predstojnikom, ki mu zato leta 1879 niso hoteli podaljšati delovne pogodbe. Zaradi te zavrnitve se je v naslednjih letih povsem odvrnil od institucionaliziranega krščanstva, ne pa tudi od osebne vere in močne potrebe po presež- nem. O tem piše v mnogokrat citiranem odlomku iz pisma bratu Theu z dne 29. septembra 1888, in sicer da si v svoji umetnosti pri- zadeva upodobiti “težke prizore iz življenja”, da pa mu to nikakor ne odjemlje “strašne potrebe po religiji”.5 177 Diafanije 5 Vsa van Goghova korespondenca je v angleškem prevodu in opremljena z opombami dostopna na spletni strani http://vangoghletters.org/vg/, ki jo vzdržuje Van Gogh Museum v Amsterdamu. 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 177 Po prekinitvi pogodbe je van Gogh še leto dni ostal v Borinageu. Veliko je risal in mislil samo na to, da bi postal slikar, za kar se je dokončno odločil jeseni 1879 pri sedemindvajsetih letih. Da bi prišel v stik z umetnostjo in umetniki, se je oktobra 1880 preselil v Bruselj in se lotil samostojnega študija risanja. Ni dokazano, da bi kdaj zares obiskoval bruseljsko umetniško akademijo, čeprav je bil vpi- san nanjo. Po nekaj poskusih z zasebnimi učitelji je novembra 1885 odšel v Antwerpen, kjer je skromno živel z bratovo podporo in se kot avtodidakt izobraževal po muzejih. Že naslednje leto se je zaradi finančnih težav preselil k Theu v Pariz, epicenter takratne svetovne umetnosti. Tam je ostal dve leti. Obiskoval je tečaje v zasebni sli- karski šoli Fernanda Cormona, v kateri je spoznal številne slikarske kolege, ki so pozneje postali znani, Henrija de Toulouse-Lautreca, Paula Signaca in Paula Gauguina. Posebno prijateljstvo je sklenil z Émilom Bernardom, s katerim sta še dolgo ostala v pisnih stikih.  V Parizu je van Gogh spoznal takrat aktualni slog, impresionizem, pod vplivom katerega je njegova paleta postala svetlejša in barvitejša. Navdušili so ga japonski lesorezi, njihova oblikovna prečiščenost in barvitost, ki sta mu odpirali nove smernice za delo. Čeprav ni imel skorajda nikakršne formalne likovne izobrazbe, njegove refleksije v številnih pismih Theu kažejo, da se je vztrajno oblikoval v – to lahko mirno rečem – prvovrstnega likovnega intelektualca svojega časa, čigar konceptualni in oblikotvorni horizonti so presegali horizonte večine njegovih formalno šolanih sodobnikov.  V. S.: Dovoli, da te prekinem: v kakšnih okoliščinah pa je nastala Zvezdna noč?  J. M.: Naslikana je bila sredi junija 1989, komaj kaj več kot leto dni pred van Goghovo smrtjo, in je imela nadvse razburkano predzgo- dovino. Van Gogh se je leta 1888 preselil v južnofrancosko mesto Arles, ker je upal, da se bo v blagem mediteranskem okolju izognil severnjaški zimi, si povrnil zdravje, načeto zaradi nezmernosti pri Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 178 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 178 delu in pitju alkohola, ter našel svetlejšo, toplejšo in jasnejšo paleto. Arles je imel sprva v mislih kot vmesno postajo do Marseilla, ven- dar prvotnega načrta ni nikoli uresničil. Nastanil se je v hotelu Car- rel, ki je odprt še zdaj, ker pa so bili stroški preveliki, je aprila najel “rumeno hišo”, si v njej uredil atelje in od septembra tam tudi bival. Uresničiti je hotel svoje dolgoletne sanje – atelje, v katerem bi umet- niki skupaj živeli in ustvarjali.  Za “projekt skupnega bivanja in ustvarjanja” se je po dolgem omahovanju, šele potem, ko mu je Theo plačal prevozne stroške in obljubil mesečno podporo, odločil Paul Gauguin. Van Gogh ga je pričakoval z veseljem, pa tudi z napetostjo. Da bi ga navdušil, je v kratkem času naslikal veliko slik, med njimi znamenite Sončnice, in z njimi opremil zanj pripravljeno sobo.  Gauguin je v Arles prispel 23. oktobra in atmosfera med težkima in impulzivnima značajema je zaradi vsakdanjih in strokovnih spo- rov kmalu postala napeta. Skupno življenje se je končalo natanko dva meseca pozneje zaradi nekega nikoli docela pojasnjenega do- godka: van Gogh si je po enem od številnih sporov z Gauguinom odrezal velik del levega ušesa. Naslednje jutro so ga našli brez za- vesti in oslabljenega zaradi velike izgube krvi, ker si je prerezal za- dajšnjo avrikularno arterijo.6 Gauguin je o tem obvestil Thea in se po policijskem zaslišanju odpravil nazaj v Pariz.  Opisani dogodek velja dandanes za prvo manifestacijo van Go - ghove duševne bolezni, ki so jo tedaj zmotno označili za epilepsijo. Po njegovih lastnih navedbah so take napade spremljale blodnje, more in globoke depresije, ki so lahko trajale dneve in celo tedne, v vmesnih obdobjih pa je bil bister in zmožen za delo.  Februarja 1889 se je napad, ki je trajal nekaj dni, ponovil, zato je bil van Gogh hospitaliziran. Potem ko so ga odpustili iz bolnišnice, 179 Diafanije 6 Prim. Kaufmann in Wildegans, 2008, 305. 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 179 so arlški meščani zaradi njegovega “čudnega” vedênja podpisali pe- ticijo, na podlagi katere so ga v bolnišnico internirali, in sicer do aprila, ko je bil ukrep v zvezi njegovim prisilnim bivanjem v njej uradno odpravljen. Ker ni bil prepričan, da je zmožen živeti samo- stojno, se je odločil, da zaprosi za sprejem v psihiatrično kliniko Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, stacionirano v nekdanjem samostanu iz 12. stoletja v bližini mesteca Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Terapij za pa- ciente tam pravzaprav ni bilo, le njemu je bilo zaradi terapevtskih razlogov dovoljeno slikanje.  Slikati je začel že prve dni po prihodu. Najprej je slikal to, kar je bilo mogoče videti na bolnišničnem vrtu in skozi okno njegove bol- niške sobe, pozneje pa tudi motive iz okolice Saint-Rémyja. V takih okoliščinah je nastala Zvezdna noč. Naslikana je v oljni tehniki s poudarjenimi pastoznimi nanosi in značilno vangoghovsko fakturo. Gledano z likovnega stališča je na njej veliko ritma in ekspresije, kot da bi se slikar z njo neposredno iztezal v protoekspresionizem. Kmalu po nastanku jo je poslal Theu v Pariz za razstavo. Po Theovi smrti jo je podedovala njegova vdova, ki jo je leta 1900 prodala in pozneje spet odkupila. Potem ko je slika zamenjala še nekaj zaseb- nih in institucionalnih lastnikov, je leta 1941 pristala v MoMI, kjer je še zdaj.  Ker je van Gogh tedaj, ko je nastala Zvezdna noč, živel v psihia- trični bolnišnici, ki jo je smel zapuščati samo podnevi v spremstvu, ponoči pa sploh ne, je več kot verjetno, da je ni naslikal na podlagi neposrednega opazovanja, ampak po spominu ali vsaj v kombina- ciji opazovanja in imaginacije.  V. S.: Zvezdna noč je bržkone posebna po tem, da jo je van Gogh naslikal nekoliko drugače kot veliko večino drugih slik. Naredil jo je kot “abstrakcijo” v pomenu, ki ga je tej besedi dal Gauguin.  Povedal si že, da je Gauguin z van Goghom v Arlesu preživel nekaj tednov jeseni 1888. Leto pozneje, novembra 1889, je van Gogh Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 180 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 180 pisal drugemu slikarskemu kolegu, Bernardu, da se je, ko sta z Gau- guinom slikala skupaj, enkrat ali dvakrat pustil zapeljati njegovemu načinu slikanja. Abstrakcija po Gauguinovo seveda ni to, kar ta izraz na področju slikarstva pomeni dandanes. Ne nanaša se na nemime- tično ali nepredmetno slikarstvo, v katerem ne prepoznavamo oblik stvari, kot jih vidimo v svetu, ampak meri na slikanje po spominu ob pomoči domišljije, ki oživlja bledico zapomnjenega, za razloček od slikanja po naravi, pri katerem ima slikar svoj model ves čas ne- posredno pred očmi.  Van Gogh je Theu kmalu potem, ko je naslikal Zvezdno noč, na- pisal pismo, v katerem to sliko imenuje “nočna študija”. Uvrstil jo je med slike, ki jih je Theu poslal v Pariz, da bi bile tam razstavljene. V istem pismu omenja tudi tiste slike, ki so se mu posrečile, vendar med njimi – presenetljivo – ni Zvezdne noči. Zakaj ne?  Rekel si, da se Zvezdna noč bliža ekspresionizmu. Z drugimi be- sedami: ni naslikana po naravi. Na njej je več “nerealističnih” prvin: mestece, cipresa, vrtinci na nebu. Van Gogh je na tej sliki upodobil pogled skoz okno s svoje bolniške sobe, toda od tam menda tedaj ni bilo videti cipres,7 kaj šele mesteca. Ciprese in mesteca ni niti na nekaterih pripravljalnih študijah za Zvezdno noč, pri tretji “nereali- stični” prvini pa ne gre za to, da od tam sploh ne bi bila vidna, ampak za način, kako so naslikane sicer ponoči vidne zvezde – kot vrtinci. Van Gogh je pogled skoz okno svoje bolniške sobe naslikal večkrat, vendar je nočnega upodobil enkrat samkrat, kje drugje se- veda kot na sliki Zvezdna noč z vzvrtinčenim nebom. Še nekaj. Ko van Gogh v že omenjenem pismu Bernardu govori o tem, da se je Gauguinu pustil zapeljati v abstrakcijo, dodaja, da se mu je to zgodilo še enkrat, že potem, ko je Gauguin odšel iz Arlesa. Ta še enkrat tudi izrecno imenuje “spodrsljaj” oziroma “korak nazaj”, 181 Diafanije 7 Prim. Pikvance, 1986, 103. 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 181 in ker v isti sapi omenja prevelike zvezde, je upravičeno sklepati, da je imel v mislih prav Zvezdno noč. Če si pred oči prikličeva drugo sliko, recimo zgodnejšo Zvezdno noč nad Rono, ki je nastala sep- tembra 1888 in prav tako upodablja nočno nebo, na njem ne bova našla velikanskih zvezdnih vrtincev. Ne morem si kaj, da ob zvez- dah, kot so naslikane na tej sliki, ne bi pomislil na Strniševo podobo iz zbirke Zvezde – “čiste krone zvezd”. Van Gogh je torej o Zvezdni noči sodil kritično, najverjetneje zato, ker je ob njej občutil nekaj takega kot nezvestobo samemu sebi, na- mreč da je prišel v nasprotje s svojo slikarsko poetiko, s svojim si- ceršnjim slikanjem po naravi. Pa vendar je ta slika dosegla veliko slavo. Ni pritegnila samo pozornosti umetnostnih zgodovinarjev in občudovalcev umetnosti po vsem svetu, ampak tudi pesnikov. Ob Anne Sexton, katere pesem bova obravnavala v nadaljevanju pogo- vora, jo je v pesmi Vincent Van Gogh naj mi blago odpusti imel pred Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 182 Vincent van Gogh, Zvezdna noč nad Rono, 1888 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 182 očmi na primer tudi Arsenij Tarkovski,8 oče slavnejšega sina, film- skega režiserja Andreja Tarkovskega.  J. M.: Dal si kar nekaj iztočnic za razpravo. Ena od njih je vsekakor povezanost van Goghovega in Gauguinovega slikarskega dela z ab- strakcijo. Če izhajam iz etimologije, tj. iz latinske besede abstrahere, ki pomeni “odtrgati”, “odcepiti”, “izločiti” in “odmisliti”, izraza “ab- strahiranje” in “abstrakcija” v likovni umetnosti označujeta slikarski ali kiparski postopek odmišljanja nebistvenega pri kakem motivu ter luščenje in poudarjanje tistega, kar je bistveno. Vsaka abstrakcija ima torej za izhodišče motivno predlogo, ki obstaja zunaj slike in slikarjevega uma. Izhajajoč iz predloge likovni ustvarjalec selekcio- nira, prečiščuje in po potrebi intenzivira oblikovne in barvne po- datke,  ki  jih  je  perceptivno dobil  iz  nje.  Po  tej  plati  so  vse  van Goghove slike “abstraktne”. Res pa je, da pri slikarjih velikokrat na- letimo na mnenje, po katerem je poudarjanje in potenciranje bistve- nega pri motivu nekaj “realističnega”, nekaj, kar potencira njegovo “resničnost”. Zato svojih slik ne imenujejo abstraktne in imajo tako poimenovanje lahko celo za pejorativno, čeprav je odmik od oblik in lokalnih barv motiva na njih, tako kot pri van Goghu, izrazito “ne- realističen”, kot bi rekel povprečen gledalec. Razlog za to kratko malo je, da je umetnik motivu pogledal pod kožo, če se tako izrazim, in slikarsko intenziviral njegovo doživetje. V. S.: Tu mi prihaja na pamet misel Paula Kleeja: Kunst gibt nicht das Sichtbare wieder, sondern macht sichtbar, “Umetnost ne podaja vid- nega, ampak dela vidno”.9 Torej: umetnost ne daje videti vidnega nak- nadno, in sicer tako, kot je videti tudi sicer, že pred njo, ne reprezentira, ne ponavzočuje tega, kar vidimo ne glede nanjo, ampak v vidnost pri- vaja tisto, česar sicer ne vidimo, kar je bilo za nas prej nevidno.  183 Diafanije 8 Pesem je v slovenščino prevedel Drago Bajt; gl. Antologijo ruske poezije 20. stoletja, 1990, 293. 9 Klee, 1920, 28. 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 183 J. M.: Kleejeva misel je tu več kot dobrodošla. Z njo bo namreč na- četo témo laže sistematično pojasniti.  Na splošno ima likovna umetnost, če jo opazujemo vzdolž osi časa, tri generalne artikulacijske možnosti. Prva od njih, ki je znana že iz paleolitika, je približevanje videzu vidne stvarnosti. To pribli- ževanje je lahko elementarno, tako kot v umetnosti arhajskih ljud- stev ali v otroškem likovnem izražanju, ali pa sofisticirano, kot se kaže v delih realizma ali sodobnega fotorealizma. S tako artikulacijo sva imela opraviti pri Vermeerjevi sliki Ženska v modrem, ki bere pismo. Njena strategija se sicer dandanes, v času mobitelske foto- histerije in razrasta čedalje bolj sofisticiranih fotoreproduktivnih tehnologij, utegne zdeti trivialna, a je na slikarsko prepričljiv način ni prav nič lahko doseči.  Druga generalna možnost likovne artikulacije je odmik od videza vidne stvarnosti in spust v razkrivanje njene globinske strukture, se pravi metoda abstrahiranja. Abstraktni slikar vangoghovskega in gauguinovskega tipa “dela”, kot pravi Klee, pri motivu vidno tisto, kar je za navadno gledanje nevidno. Ko odstira videz in lušči bistvo vidnega, razširja ter zase in za druge poglablja horizonte percepcije. To je nekaj velikega, saj širše in globlje zaznavati pomeni širše in globlje doživeti – tudi povsem navadne stvari v povsem navadnem življenju. Zato abstraktni umetnik praviloma ne potrebuje ekstrava- gantnih ali izjemnih motivov, saj nenavadnost, izjemnost in izrazi- tost najde takoj, ko pogleda v zakulisje stvari, ki so na zunaj videti povsem navadne. Na primer v zakulisje cvetočega vrta, krajine s ci- preso, oljčnega nasada, žitnega polja, šopka irisov ali sončnic.  Tretja generalna možnost likovne artikulacije, na katero morda predvsem meri znameniti Kleejev stavek, pa je proizvajanje še ne- videnih videzov, se pravi videzov oziroma oblik, ki jih ni ustvarila “narava” sama, a jih je mogoče proizvesti na podlagi spoznanja nje- nih prostorskih in vizualnih zakonitosti. To možnost dandanes ime- Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 184 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 184 nujemo “nepredmetna umetnost”. Umetnik, ki ustvarja v njenem okviru, ne izhaja iz nobene inicialne vidnosti, iz nobenega motiva, ampak poskuša, kot pove Klee, tisto v umetnikovem umu, kar sploh še nima vidne in prostorske oblike, narediti vidno tako, da to z li- kovnimi izraznimi sredstvi “uprizori” v dvodimenzionalnem ali tri- dimenzionalnem prostoru. Prototip takega umetnika je na primer Piet Mondrian s kompozicijami iz svojega poznega, neoplasticisti- čnega obdobja.  S stališča opisane artikulacijske trinitete je van Gogh abstraktni slikar par excellence. Njegova ustvarjalnost se v celoti giblje v ob- sežnem območju oblikotvornih možnosti med posnemanjem videza na eni strani in ustvarjanjem avtonomnih videzov nepredmetne umetnosti na drugi.  Druga iztočnica, ki si jo dal, je dejstvo, da van Gogh Zvezdne noči v pismu Theu ni navedel v skupini del, ki jih je sam imel za uspela, pa vendar je ta slika pozneje dosegla svetovno slavo. Tu se razpirata dve vprašanji. Prvič, zakaj Zvezdne noči “ni znal ceniti”, in drugič, zaradi česa je pozneje dosegla tolikšno slavo.  Odgovor na prvo vprašanje ni preveč težak. Slikarjem, ki se jim kaka slika posreči, se pogosto zgodi – še zlasti če se morajo za uspeh truditi v težkih okoliščinah in z visoko stopnjo koncentracije –, da take slike zaradi ustvarjalne “izpraznitve” ne znajo takoj ustrezno ovrednotiti. Po navadi so do nje hiperkritični in jo lahko celo pod- cenjujejo. To se je zgodilo tudi van Goghu, ki v pismu Theu sep- tembra 1889 pravi, da je zelo nezadovoljen s kompozicijo Zvezdne noči in s pretiravanji oziroma deformacijami oblik na njej ter da mu je pogodu le barva nočnega neba. Ni pa mogoče takoj odgovoriti na vprašanje, katere kvalitete te slike in katere okoliščine so bila vzrok za njen dvig na firmament svetovne slikarske slave. To ostaja enigmatično, odprto, se pravi najina “naloga”, še zlasti če se spom- niva na Ludwiga Wittgensteina, ki v Logično-filozofskem traktatu 185 Diafanije 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 185 pravi, da dejstva – in van Goghova Zvezdna noč je sistem vizualno- prostorskih dejstev –, spadajo v nalogo, ne v rešitev.  Za katera dejstva gre v zvezi z Zvezdno nočjo? Začniva z najbolj zunanjimi. Kot že rečeno, je več kot verjetno, da van Gogh te slike zaradi bolnišničnega režima ni naslikal neposredno na podlagi opa- zovanja, ampak, kot si že prej nakazal z “nerealističnimi” prvinami na njej, po spominu, de tête, “iz glave”. Van Goghova bolniška soba v sanatoriju je bila v prvem nadstropju. V njej ni smel slikati, lahko pa je risal in skiciral. Za slikanje je imel na razpolago atelje v prit- ličju. Zvezdno noč je torej zelo verjetno naslikal podnevi v ateljeju. Pogled, ki se ujema s krajinsko mizansceno Zvezdne noči, pa je bil prepoznan kot pogled skozi vzhodno okno njegove bolniške sobe. Obstaja kar nekaj risb in slik, navdihnjenih s prizorom, ki se mu je ponujal od tam.  V. S.: Menda ga je risarsko in slikarsko upodobil kar enaindvajset- krat … J. M.: … recimo na slikah Pšenično polje pri Saint-Rémyju, Zeleno polje, Ograjeno pšenično polje po nevihti, Hribovita pokrajina za Saint-Rémyjem ali Pokrajina s cipresami. O tem inspirativnem po- gledu Van Gogh v pismu Theu z dne 23. maja 1889 piše tole: “Skozi zarešetkano okno lahko razločim ograjen kvadrat pšenice [...], nad njim pa zjutraj vzhod sonca v vsej njegovi gloriji.” Malo pozneje, v pismu z dne 18. junija, dodaja: “Končno imam krajino z oljkami, pa tudi novo študijo zvezdnega neba.” Vendar ne vemo povsem natanko, kje je napravil to študijo in kako, saj je vmes slikal tudi na prostem.10 V. S.: Ko ugotavljava dejstva, ki spadajo v najino nalogo, ne smeva spregledati tistega, ki si ga delno že omenil oziroma celo citiral – van Goghovega pričevanja o njegovi “strašni potrebi po religiji”. V pismu Theu, napisanem ob koncu septembra 1889, nekaj dni po ti- 186 10 Prim. Hulsker, 1986, 394. Jožef Muhovič in Vid Snoj 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 186 stem, v katerem Zvezdno noč imenuje “nočna študija”, pravi: “To me ne odvrača od strašne potrebe po – naj izrečem to besedo – re- ligiji. Tedaj grem ponoči ven slikat zvezde …”  To izjavo, “grem ponoči ven”, bi zdaj lahko nalahko vzela za po- trditev, da van Gogh Zvezdne noči ni naslikal na kraju samem, z okna svoje bolniške sobe. Vendar se prej kot nanjo nanaša na tiste van Goghove slike z zvezdnim nočnim nebom, ki so res nastale zunaj, na planem, ob razsvetljavi plinske svetilke, recimo na prej omenjeno Zvezdno noč nad Rono, kot je mogoče sklepati iz njego- vega pisma Theu, napisanega septembra 1888, še v Arlesu. Na- sprotno Zvezdna noč prikazuje pogled, kot se odpira prav skoz okno njegove bolniške sobe, ne od koderkoli že na planem, in vanj za na- meček postavlja drevo in mestece, ki ju v tistem, kar se je ponujalo pogledu od tam, kratko malo ni oziroma ni bilo.  Toda pustiva ta zaplet, ki ga poraja van Goghova “abstrakcija”, ob strani. Van Gogh v navedenih besedah vsekakor povezuje svojo religioznost s slikanjem zvezdnega nočnega neba. To stoji. In Anne Sexton je te van Goghove besede postavila za moto svoji pesmi na njegovo sliko.  J. M.: Van Gogh je bil plenerist, se pravi slikar, ki dela na prostem, neposredno pred motivom in po njem. Romaneskne in filmske upo- dobitve ga eksemplarično prikazujejo, kako z zložljivim slikarskim stojalom na hrbtu in z za ta namen ne prav majhnimi formati napetih platen koraka skozi pokrajino ter se zvečer s še svežimi platni utru- jen vrača domov. Tudi kadar  je zaradi slabega vremena ali kake druge nadloge slikal v ateljeju, je to večinoma počel po skicah in štu- dijah, ki jih je napravil v naravi, ali pa je naravo oziroma realnost – stol, čevlje, tihožitje – poiskal kar v ateljeju. “Zvestoba naravi”, tj. zve- stoba najbolj “naravnemu”, neizumetničenemu v naravi, je bila sploh njegova slikarska deviza. V skladu z njo je tudi Zvezdna noč, čeprav se je zaradi že omenjenih okoliščin ni mogel lotiti pleneristično. 187 Diafanije 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 187 Ta slika je edini nokturno v beri van Goghovih saintrémyjskih slik. Zgodaj junija je pisal Theu: “To jutro sem s svojega okna dolgo gledal pokrajino pred sončnim vzhodom z ničimer drugim kot z ju- tranjico, ki je bila videti zelo velika.” Pozneje so astronomi potrdili, da je bilo jutranjico oziroma Venero junija 1889 v Provansi dejansko mogoče videti v skorajda največji mogoči velikosti. Venera naj bi bila na sliki Zvezdna noč najsvetlejša zvezda desno od ciprese,11 in na “predsvitnem pogledu” morda temelji tudi nebesna konstelacij- ska mizanscena, poglavitni ikonografski moment te slike. To pomeni, da je naslikani prizor glede na motiv pravzaprav ne- kakšen kompozitum. Nekateri interpreti so mnenja, da je nebo na sliki provansalsko, kar potrjuje tudi astronomska rekonstrukcija Ve- nerinega položaja junija 1889, mestece pod njim, o katerem si že po- Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 188 11 Prim. Boime, 1984, 86. Shematičen prikaz Zvezdne noči z Venero in Ovnom 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 188 vedal, da ga skozi okno van Goghove bolniške sobe ni videti, pa je bolj nizozemsko. V. S.: Pravzaprav obstajata dve razlagi, prva, po kateri je gruča hiš na van Goghovi sliki mestece iz njegove rodne Nizozemske, nasli- kano po spominu, in druga, ki pravi, da je to mestece Saint-Rémy, kot je videti z bližnjega hriba – in torej tudi naslikano po spominu, ne tako zelo oddaljenem, ampak bližnejšem.  J. M.: Čeprav se je van Gogh sprva jezil nad Gauguinom, češ da ga je zapeljeval v “abstraktno” slikanje, tj. slikanje “iz glave” oziroma po spominu, je – tako se zdi – to “tehniko” dela delno zaradi svojih slikarskih spoznanj, delno pa zaradi delovnih okoliščin čedalje bolj ponotranjal. To je mogoče jasno razbrati iz pisma Theu z dne 18. av- gusta 1888, v katerem opisuje, kako bo naslikal portret prijatelja umetnika, v katerega bi rad vnesel “svoje spoštovanje, svojo ljube- zen do njega”.  189 Diafanije Vincent van Gogh, Portret Eugèna Bocha (Pesnik), 1888 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 189 Najprej, pravi van Gogh, ga bom naslikal takega, kakršen je, ko- likor le mogoče zvesto. A slika s tem še zdaleč ne bo končana. Da bi jo dokončal, nadaljuje, bom postal samovoljen kolorist. Namesto navadne stene zanikrnega stanovanja bom za njegovo glavo nasli- kal “neskončnost”. Zmešal bom najintenzivnejšo in najžlahtnejšo modro, ki jo bom lahko dobil. Pretirano bom poudarjal plavost nje- govih las, tako da bom prišel do oranžnih odtenkov, do poltonov blede citronaste barve, in tako bo svetla plavolasa glava na žlaht- nem modrem ozadju proizvedla skrivnosten vtis zvezde na temni modrini nočnega neba, podoben učinku, s katerim moj prijatelj umetnik sveti na nebu naših življenj.  Tipologija te slikarske strategije, ki je samo na videz naivna, je po mojem mnenju vgrajena tudi v Zvezdno noč. Ta slika namreč ni nastala zgolj z abstrahiranjem in potenciranjem motivne pred- loge, ampak “samovoljno”, s kombiniranjem elementov različnih motivnih predlog v popolnoma novo, transmotivno celoto. Videti je, kot da bi se zunanja motivika nočnega neba in notranja motiva- cija “sle po neskončnosti” na sliki medsebojno preželi in bi slikar “gorivo” za artikulacijo kratko malo črpal iz obeh interferirajočih virov. O tem dobesedno govori tudi že citirana van Goghova izjava, češ, ko začutim silovito potrebo po neskončnem, po religiji, grem slikat zvezde. Prisilni situacijski odmik od slikanja po motivu bi bilo v tej zvezi mogoče imeti za eno od spodbud, ki so peljale k interakciji med zu- nanjim motivom in notranjo motivacijo, kar van Goghovemu delu daje še silovitejši semantični “potisk”. Zunanji motiv, nočno nebo z zvezdno konstelacijo, s cipreso in spečim mestecem ...  V. S.: K vsemu temu se bova še vrnila, čas pa je, da preideva k umet- nostnozgodovinskemu razlaganju Zvezdne noči, ki je pomembno tudi za pesem Anne Sexton nanjo. Avtor najodmevnejše umetnost- nozgodovinske razlage je nemara Schapiro, čeprav se najvplivnejši Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 190 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 190 del njegove razlage nanaša samo na to, kar se dogaja v zgornjem delu van Goghove slike, na nebu.  Schapiro je van Goghovo upodobitev dogajanja na nebu povezal z dvanajstim poglavjem zadnje biblične knjige, Razodetja. V njem je govor o prvem izmed sedmih znamenj poslednjih časov, o ženi, ki je ogrnjena v sonce in ima pod nogami mesec, na glavi pa venec ali krono iz dvanajstih zvezd. Žena je noseča, vpije od porodnih bolečin, in pred njo se, potem ko je z repom pometel z neba tretjino zvezd, ustopi zmaj, da bi požrl otroka, ko bi ga porodila. Žena v razlagalskem izročilu zahodne in vzhodne krščanske Cerkve velja za Božjo porod- nico Marijo, o zmaju pa že pisec Razodetja sam pove, da je “stara kača, ki se imenuje Hudič in Satan” (Raz 12,9). Marija, iz katere se je rodil Božji Sin, v tem izročilu simbolizira Božje ljudstvo, ki je po eni razlagi Izrael, prvotno izvoljeno ljudstvo – od tod dvanajst zvezd v kroni na njeni glavi, ki ponazarjajo dvanajst Jakobovih sinov oziroma prav toliko judovskih rodov. Po drugi razlagi je Cerkev, novi Izrael namesto starega, ki je Kristusa zavrgel, čeprav je ta kot človek izšel iz njega, in dvanajst zvezd je dvanajst apostolov. Videnje žene in zmaja se končuje s tem, da ko se otrok, se pravi Kristus, rodi, ga zmaj ne pogoltne, ampak je odnesen k Bogu. Na nebu izbruhne vojna med nadangelom Mihaelom in zmajem ter njunima angelskima vojskama – in zmaj je nazadnje skupaj s svojimi angeli vržen na zemljo.  O čem na van Goghovi sliki bi bilo mogoče reči, da ustreza vi- denju pisca Razodetja? To bi bilo bržkone mogoče reči o vrtincih na nebu, torej o zvezdah, o mesecu kot največjem izmed njih in o progi, ki se vijuga po sredi neba, z vrtinci zgoraj in spodaj, ter spominja na veliko repato kačo. Toda na nebu, kot ga prikazuje Zvezdna noč, ni človeške figure niti ničesar, kar bi napotovalo na ženo v porodnih bolečinah, ki je osrednja figura videnja v Razodetju.  J. M.: Kratek medklic: morda pa taka figura na sliki vendarle ob- staja, čeprav v kriptoobliki. Kontura hribov mi namreč zbuja aso- 191 Diafanije 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 191 ciacijo na ležečo figuro, ki bi jo lahko označil za porodnico. Gre za nekaj podobnega kot pri “Mrtvem menihu” v Zgornji Savinjski do- lini, ki je od daleč videti kot ležeča postava z obrazom, meniško kuto in na prsih prekrižanimi rokami, tvorijo pa ga konture Velikega Ro- gatca, Lepenatke in Črnivca. Toliko za intermezzo. A vrniva se k umetnostnozgodovinskim razlagam. V. S.: Tudi jaz sem slišal za to hribovsko konfiguracijo, pa ne za “Mrtvega meniha”, ampak za “Mrtvega škofa”. Nekatere je njen po- dolgovati iztek očitno spominjal na meniško kapuco, druge na ško- fovsko kapo.  Kakorkoli že, zelo kmalu, že ob koncu petdesetih let, se je poja- vila druga razlaga nebesnega dogajanja na van Goghovi sliki. Spet na podlagi Biblije, tako kot že Schapiro, jo je zasnoval Šved Sven Loevgren. Vendar Zvezdna noč po Loevgrenu ne prikazuje van Go - ghove različice apokaliptične vizije, kot je menil Schapiro, ampak je izraz “religiozno naravnanega hrepenenja po onstranstvu”,12 še več, upodobitev njegove lastne končne potopitve v kozmos.  J. M.: Na eni strani torej apokaliptični motiv iz Biblije, na drugi av- torjev notranji hrepenenjski elan – nekaj podobnega temu, kar je po- kazala tudi formalna analiza. Kje pa je Loevgren našel oprijemališče za svojo “personalistično” hipotezo? V. S.: Loevgren je bil prepričan, da je van Goghu za predlogo pri slikanju neba rabil neki drug biblični odlomek, s katerim je mogoče pojasniti pomenljiv detajl. V zgodbi o Jožefu in njegovih bratih, na- tančneje, o njegovih sanjah iz Geneze se namreč pojavi natanko to- liko zvezd, kot jih je tudi na van Goghovi sliki – enajst. Dvanajst je bilo število Jakobovih sinov, med katerimi je po tem, da je bil deležen posebne očetove ljubezni, izstopal Jožef – mimo- grede rečeno, tvoj soimenjak, Jožef, oziroma sploh prvi, ki je nosil Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 192 12 Loevgren, 1971, 183. 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 192 to ime. Kot mladenič je imel sanje, v katerih je skupaj z brati na polju vezal snope in se je njegov snop postavil pokonci, snopi bratov pa so se razpostavili okrog njega in se mu začeli priklanjati. In imel je še druge sanje: “Spet se mi je nekaj sanjalo,” je rekel bratom, “sonce, mesec in enajst zvezd se mi je priklanjalo” (1 Mz 37,9). “Sonce, mesec in enajst zvezd”, se pravi: oče, mati in enajst bratov. Enajst zvezd za enajst bratov. Znano je, da je van Gogh Zvezdno noč naslikal alla prima, brez poprejšnje risbe na platnu, vendar je naredil nekaj pripravljalnih študij oziroma risb zanjo. Na eni izmed njih lahko vidimo, da se ci- presa s svojim vrhom, ki molí v nebo, dotika njenega roba. Na- sprotno je van Gogh cipresin vrh na končani sliki toliko skrajšal, da je rahlo desno od njega lahko doslikal še eno zvezdo. Enajsto. Zdi se, da geneza Zvezdne noči govori v prid Loevgrenovi izbiri odlomka iz Geneze kot predloge za to sliko. Pa vendar njegova ra- 193 Diafanije Risba za Zvezdno noč 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 193 zlaga pojasnjuje samo število zvezd na njej, ne pa tudi njihove kon- stelacije. Ta konstelacija nima središča, zvezde, okrog katere bi ple- sale druge zvezde, kot bi to zahtevala krožna razporeditev prikla- njajočih  se  snopov  in  zvezd  iz  Jožefovih  sanj.  Po  tej  plati  je Loevgrenova razlaga v resnici šibkejša od Schapirove, ki s pojas- njevanjem dinamike dogajanja na nebu brez dvoma deluje preprič- ljiveje. Kdo tretji bi sicer  lahko rekel, češ, van Gogh  je  imel pred očmi oba biblična odlomka in je, kot je dovoljeno umetnikom, nekaj vzel iz enega, nekaj iz drugega. Na koncu bi tako imeli opravka z nekakšno conflatio bibličnih virov, vendar upravičevanje razlage z umetniško svobodo po mojem razlagi ni v prid.  J. M.: Preden bi bilo o neustreznosti interpretacij, ki si ju predstavil, mogoče reči kaj bolj določnega, afirmativnega ali kritičnega, je po mojem treba narediti kratek ekskurz v splošno hermenevtiko likov- nih in sploh umetniških del. Umetniška dela so fenomeni v prostoru in času. To verjetno ni sporno. Ti fenomeni so dejstva – in dejstva po Wittgensteinu spadajo v nalogo, ne v rešitev. Umetniški feno- men je torej sistem dejstev, ki so del naloge, načini, kako to nalogo rešujemo, ko smo soočeni z dejstveno matrico umetniškega dela, pa so, če to povzamem po Franklovi “dimenzionalni ontologiji”,13 interpretativne projekcije.  Umetniški fenomen si lahko figurativno predstavljamo kot tri- dimenzionalni objekt v prostoru projektivne geometrije, čeprav ima lahko v realnosti tudi več dimenzij in se zato pojavlja v večdimen- zionalnem hermenevtičnem prostoru. Skratka: umetniški fenomeni venomer omogočajo različne projekcije. Najbolj elementarna med njimi je projekcija na recipientovo doživljajsko projekcijsko ravnino. Mogoče so tudi projekcije na projekcijsko ravnino recipientovega svetovnega nazora, prevladujoče družbene ideologije, te ali one iko- Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 194 13 Prim. Frankl, 2005, 12–17. 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 194 nografije, te ali one teorije ipd. Vse te projekcije – in teh je lahko ve- liko – pa so nižjedimenzionalne od fenomena, ki ga interpretirajo.  Če umetniški fenomen iz njegove večdimenzionalnosti projici- ramo na različne dimenzije, ki so nižje od njegovih lastnih, se od- slikava tako, da si odslikave med sabo nasprotujejo. Če na primer kozarec, ki je, geometrijsko gledano, valj, iz tridimenzionalnega pro- stora projiciram na dvodimenzionalno ravnino tlorisa in stranskega risa, v prvem primeru dobim krog, v drugem pravokotnik. Iz obeh projekcij izhaja tudi protislovje, saj gre obakrat za sklenjen lik, ko- zarec pa je odprta posoda. Poleg tega se različne stvari, ki jih iz nji- hove dimenzije projiciramo na eno  in  isto projekcijsko ravnino, odslikavajo tako, da si odslikave med sabo nujno ne nasprotujejo, ampak so večpomenske. Ko valj, kroglo in stožec projiciram na tlo- risno ravnino, vselej dobim krog. In če vem, da gre pri tem za sence, ki jih mečejo valj, krogla in stožec, uvidim, da so te sence večpo- menske, saj po njih, ker so si enake, ni mogoče sklepati, ali jih meče valj, krogla ali stožec.  S stališča umetnostne hermenevtike se mi zdi, da čas, v katerem živimo, o umetniških delih kopiči neznanske množine nižjedimen- zionalnih projekcij, težave pa se pojavijo, ko bi morali iz projekcij sklepati nazaj na večdimenzionalnost umetniškega fenomena. Pro- jekcije tega fenomena na nižjedimenzionalne projekcijske ravnine so v načelu enakovredne, niso pa vse enako pomembne zanj. Posta- vlja se torej odločilno hermenevtično vprašanje, kako med mogo- čimi projekcijami identificirati tiste, ki so bistvene za umetniški fenomen, in kako te projekcije reflektirano navezati nazaj na ume- tnino. Mislim, da interpretativne projekcije, na primer omenjeni bi- blični v zvezi z Zvezdno nočjo, dajejo dobrodošlo podlago za to, da se lahko približujemo bistvenemu na sliki, čeprav dvomim, da je van Gogh pri slikanju te slike resno pomislil na katero od obeh bi- bličnih projekcijskih možnosti.  195 Diafanije 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 195 V. S.: To bi pomenilo, da ni slikal stvari samih, ampak je z njimi upo- dabljal biblične like. Vendar ne verjamem, da je na nebu želel nasli- kati nekaj takega kot biblično alegorijo.  Ampak preidiva počasi k pesmi Anne Sexton, saj se bova ob njej tako ali tako nenehno vračala k van Goghovi sliki, pa ne samo k njej, ampak tudi k njeni umetnostnozgodovinski razlagi. Pesničina Zvezdna noč to razlago namreč očitno predpostavlja, ob Schapirovi, kot se bo jasno pokazalo, tudi Loevgrenovo. Pesem je izšla leta 1962 v zbirki Vsi moji lepi (All My Pretty Ones), Loevgrenova knjiga pa tri leta prej, sicer v Stockholmu, vendar v angleščini. Naj najprej povem besedo, dve o pesničinem življenju. Anne Sexton je večino svojih otroških in mladostniških let preživela v Bo- stonu. Še pred dvajsetim letom je pobegnila od doma in se poročila. Pri šestindvajsetih, leta 1954, leto po rojstvu prve hčere, je bila prvič hospitalizirana v psihiatrični bolnišnici. Njena diagnoza je bila ma- nična depresija oziroma, kot se temu reče dandanes, bipolarna mot- nja. Leto pozneje, nekaj mesecev po rojstvu druge hčerke, se je spet znašla v psihiatrični bolnišnici in tedaj ji psihiater kot terapijo sve- toval pisanje poezije.  Poezija Anne Sexton se uvršča v tako imenovani konfesionalizem, ki se je s Sylvio Plath, Robertom Lowllom, Johnom Berrymanom in drugimi v petdesetih in šestdesetih letih prejšnjega stoletja razmah- nil v ZDA. Vendar je njeno pisanje daleč od sentimentalistične izpo- vedi. Pisala je o menstruaciji, splavu, masturbaciji, prešuštvu, incestu, odvisnosti od mamil. Njena pesniška kolegica Maxine Kumin je za- pisala, da “noben drug ameriški pesnik našega časa ni na glas izgo- voril toliko zasebnih nadrobnosti”.14 Bila je najbolj spotikljiva izmed vseh konfesionalistov in je razdvojevala bralce. Odziv bralstva je bil tako rekoč bipolaren: del jo je sprejemal in se, zvečine ženske, istovetil Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 196 14 Kumin, 1999, xix. 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 196 z njo, drugi del pa jo je ostro zavračal. Kljub temu je leta 1967 prejela prestižno Pulitzerjevo nagrado za pesniško knjigo Živi ali umri. Življenje Anne Sexton je nekoliko podobno van Goghovemu: bilo je življenje z duševno stisko, ki se je končalo s samomorom. J. M.: Zelo pomenljivo. Morda bi van Goghovo “epilepsijo” danda- nes prav tako diagnosticirali kot bipolarno motnjo. Z bližino usode, da tako rečem, je verjetno zaznamovano tudi pesničino branje van Goghove slike.  V. S.: Brez dvoma. A kot rečeno, Anne Sexton gleda oziroma bere Zvezdno noč ob pomoči njene umetnostnozgodovinske razlage, ki pred sliko samo postavlja biblično predlogo. Reči pa je treba, da njeno likovno konfiguracijo, kar zadeva dogajanje na nebu, po tej predlogi razbira natančneje od obeh umetnostnih zgodovinarjev. Čeprav je njena pesem že bila prevedena v slovenščino,15 sem jo prevedel na novo, ker se stari prevod pretirano odmika od izvirnika in bi popra- vljalno pojasnjevanje prevodnih odmikov jemalo preveč časa. Anne Sexton iz van Goghove podobe nočnega neba, ki ujame silovito dinamiko dogajanja na njem, razvije prizor. Razvije ga na podlagi bibličnega scenarija iz dvanajstega poglavja Razodetja, če- prav je očitno, da pozna tudi Loevgrenovo razlago, saj izrecno ime- nuje število zvezd na van Goghovi sliki: “Noč od enajstih zvezd povreva.” To je ta prizor: mesec, največji izmed vrtincev skrajno desno zgoraj na sliki, potiska “iz svojega očesa otroke”, se pravi, da kot svoje otroke poraja zvezde. Ženo, ki je na tem, da porodi, torej kot porajalec zamenja mesec, zvezde pa golta “nevidna stara kača” – nevidna, ker na sliki, tako kot ni jasno in razločno izrisane ženske figure, tudi ni do potankosti sfiguriranega zmaja, a vendarle vidna, vidna namreč v obliki vijugaste proge sredi med zvezdami.  197 Diafanije 15 Prevedel jo je Mart Ogen; gl. Antologijo ameriške poezije 20. stoletja, 1986, 371. 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 197 Ko Anne Sexton opisuje porajanje zvezd, pravi, da mesec na- breka in its orange irons, “v svojem oranžnem okovju”. Besedna zveza in irons izhaja iz časa, ko so Angleži začeli v svoje kolonije na ladjah prevažati kaznjence, okovane v železo, in odtlej v pomoršča- ški angleščini zaznamuje položaj, v katerem se znajde ladja, ko, obrnjena proti vetru, ostane brez hitrosti in se ne more premakniti, zaviti ne desno ne levo, skratka, njen impasse. V pesmi Anne Sexton pa se, kot kaže pridevnik orange, nanaša na tale krajec, bi lahko rekla, na …  J. M.: … tole objemko … V. S.: … ja, lahko bi rekla tudi na objemko, oranžno objemko, ki z ene strani, z leve, oklepa okroglino znotraj največjega vrtinca na van Goghovi sliki, tisto, kar se od tega krajca ali objemke naprej z ukri- vljenimi potezami čopiča obli navznoter, najnotranjejši del vrtinca, ki ga pesnica morda imenuje “oko”, organ mesečevega porajanja.  Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 198 Izrez desnega zgornjega dela Zvezdne noči 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 198 Vsekakor sva zdaj v zadregi: če je ta vrtinec mesec in ima oranž- nina znotraj njega obliko mesečevega krajca, ki delno objema nje- govo notrino, imava pred sabo podobo meseca, mladega meseca v mesecu ali meseca, ki poraja samega sebe. Kot da bi se mesec v po- dobi Anne Sexton čudno podvojil. Vendar se ta podoba prav prek idioma in irons hkrati preliva v semantično polje plovbe. “Po nebu plava mesec” – to metaforo rabimo tako pogosto, da smo na to, na- mreč da je metafora, malone pozabili, Anne Sexton pa z in irons v podobi meseca sugerira ustavitev, zastoj v njegovi plovbi po nebu, še več, njegovo ujetost, nemoč. Mesec poraja zvezde,  toda proti temu, da jih golta “stara kača” ali “žival noči”, “véliki zmaj”, kot se ta kača imenuje v zadnji kitici pesmi, ne more ničesar. Anne Sexton torej van Goghovo podobo nočnega neba razgiblje z glagolsko dinamiko (mesec nabreka in poraja zvezde, zvezde golta kača) v prizor, narejen po bibličnem scenariju. Kljub temu pa van Goghovo videnje v tem prizoru navsezadnje dobi občutno druga- čno podobo od videnja v Razodetju, v katerem novorojenca ne po- goltne zmaj. Van Goghova “apokalipsa” v njem postane popolnoma brezizhodna. J. M.: Čutna dinamika van Goghove slike, ki jo pesnica lovi z “gla- golsko dinamiko”, ima podlago v dveh likovnih izraznih sredstvih: barvi in fakturi.  Zvezdno noč bi tudi laiki označili za barvito. Vendar barvitost na njej, če natančno pogledava, ni stvar množice intenzivnih barvnih tonov, ampak odnosov med njihovimi perceptivnimi in semanti- čnimi dinamikami. Naslikana je – presenetljivo – le z malo barvami: z modro (kobaltom, ultramarinom in pariško modro), s kromovo in kadmijevo rumeno, z neznatnimi količinami rdeče, iz katere izhajajo majhni rdečeoranžni poudarki in rjavine, ter z belo, ki mestoma svetli izhodiščne barvne tone. Tu so torej le štirje barvni toni, iz katerih so izpeljani odtenki. Modri in zeleni barvni odtenki, ki prevladujejo, 199 Diafanije 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 199 ustvarjajo svežo barvno mizansceno prizora, topli, tj. rumeni in rdeči, pa s kontrasti točkastih oblik vodijo gledalčev pogled po kompozi- ciji. Veliki kontrasti so v zgornjem delu slike, manjši v spodnjem, krajinskem. Modra, zlasti svetla, ima v simbolnem smislu ekstra- vertno semantično intenco, v njej “tiči” želja po neskončnosti, čistosti in nadnaravnem. Zelena kot mešanica perceptivno aktivne rumene in kontemplativne modre poudarja ravnovesje, v katerem lahko člo- vek pride na sled slutnji ponotranjenega življenja in novega upanja. In rumena spontano zbuja asociacije s svetlobo, soncem, zvezdami, mesecem in odsevi, kar je témi pisano na kožo.  S kolorističnega gledišča ima slika torej dve dinamiki: odnosi med ekstravertnimi in introvertnimi barvnimi toni gledalca nago- varjajo k iskanju ravnovesja med akcijo in kontemplacijo, nervozo in umirjenostjo, kar se še kako dobro veže na takratno van Goghovo psihično stanje, odnosi med toplimi in hladnimi barvami pa pod- pirajo perceptivni vitalizem slike, tj. načrtno vodenje pogleda od akcenta k akcentu, in se s tem neposredno povezujejo s fakturo. “Faktura” – od latinskega facere, “narediti”, “storiti”, “opraviti”, “ustvariti” – je v likovni teoriji izraz za umetnikovo rokopisno uni- katnost, ki ostaja vpisana v zanj značilno vodenje orodja – svinč- nika, čopiča, dleta – po likovnem prostoru. V fakturi je, podobno kot v ročnem podpisu, s katerim podpisujemo pogodbe in ki ga over- jamo pri notarju, zaobsežen enkraten, neponovljiv pečat umetni- kove osebnosti, še zlasti če umetnik, tako kot denimo van Gogh, svojo fakturo načrtno razvija, kultivira in podreja formalni disciplini slike. Poudarjanje fakture v likovni artikulaciji je znamenje potrebe po osebnem pečatu, po osebni, tudi telesni ekspresiji, ki je v mo- dernem času eksplicitno prišla do izraza v ekspresionizmu, klimaks pa je doživela v action painting, “akcijskem slikarstvu”. V. S.: Pri Jacksonu Pollocku, Willemu de Kooningu, Franzu Klinu ... Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 200 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 200 J. M.: Pri njih, ja. Vendar je treba reči, da ima to, kar slika van Gogh, večina gledalcev za “emocionalno ekspresijo”, čeprav je mogoče po- kazati, da je takšna ekspresija veliko bolj navzoča v učinku kakor v vzroku njegovega dela. Če pogledamo van Goghove risbe in pero- risbe iz tistega časa in še od prej, zlahka ugotovimo, kako sistemati- čno  in disciplinirano vleče poteze po papirju,  ne da bi  te  zaradi sistematike in discipline izgubile kanček svojega ekspresivnega na- boja. V likovni teoriji tako gradnjo imenujemo “aditivna gradnja”, se pravi gradnja iz elementarističnih izhodišč. Elementi so poteze s pe- resom ali čopičem, celota pa je motivna artikulacija, ki jo poteze vzpo- stavljajo. To pomeni, da mora umetnik ob vsaki potezi imeti jasno predstavo celote, saj brez nje ne bi mogel smiselno povleči nobene. Skratka: pri taki gradnji risbe ali slike je sistemsko mišljenje primar- nejše kot akcijska ekspresija, ki bi poteze s svojo impulzivnostjo in furioznostjo znala pomešavati in jih celo izigravati drugo proti drugi.  Res pa je, da slikar z akcijsko ekspresijo v izvedbi potez doseže interno dinamiko svojega dela, ki bolj kot iz zunanjega motiva izvira iz njegove notranje psihične motivacije.  V. S.: Glede na to, kar si pravkar povedal, se mi zdi temeljno vpra- šanje, ali je Zvezdna noč ekspresija, torej ali izraža van Goghovo ob- čutenje stvari, ki so upodobljene na tej sliki, ali pa prikazuje stvari same. S tem se vračava še dlje nazaj, k razločku, ki si ga razprl med abstraktnim in nepredmetnim slikarstvom: med abstrakcijo, ki odv- zema, vendar od stvari, ki so zunaj nas, jemlje stran, kar je nebistve- nega, in nepredmetnim slikarstvom, v katerem slikar na platno iz samega sebe projicira prej  še neoblikovano, kar  sploh ni nepo- sredno vezano na karkoli zunanjega.  J. M.: Mislim, da gre tu za presečno množico obojega in da je prav interakcija med abstraktnim in nepredmetnim v poznem van Go - ghovem delu tudi njegova poglavitna presežna ali “dodana vred- nost”, kot v ekonomističnem žargonu pravimo dandanes. Če bi si 201 Diafanije 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 201 ogledala realni motiv nočnega neba z zvezdami, denimo kje na po- deželju ali v puščavi, kjer ni svetlobnega onesnaženja, ki zakriva in pači prezenco, bi z lahkoto ugotovila, da je optična slika zvezdnega neba močno drugačna od zvezdnega neba na sliki Zvezdna noč. Osrednja razlika je v tem, da optična slika nočnega neba v ospredje gledalčeve pozornosti potiska svetlostno izpostavljene dražljaje, zvezde, gibanja nočnega neba pa se ne vidi nikjer. Običajen pogled v nočno nebo je vgrajen v optični spominski repertoar vsakega gle- dalca in vsakega likovnega ustvarjalca.  Vendar se zadeva zaplete, kadar likovni ustvarjalec v nočnem nebu vidi izziv za “zdravilo duše”, za “religijo” in “kozmično odpi- ranje”, ki ga optična slika ne vsebuje in ne daje. Če pogledava zgor- nji del van Goghove slike, vidiva odprti kader nekega brezbrežnega kozmičnega gibanja, vrvenja in razprostranjanja planetarnih mas, njihovih interakcij in sil, ki jim le stežka sledimo. Na sliki te sile v obliki linearnih ritmov izvirajo iz slikarjevega občutenja, najprej iz njegovega telesnega gibanja, iz telesne ekspresije in rokopisne uni- katnosti, nato pa tudi iz notranje psihične motivacije, da bi se dina- mika človeške psihe uskladila z ritmi presežne kozmične dinamike, z ritmi kozmične “neskončnosti”.  V. S.: Skratka, občutenje, ki ga slikar v tem primeru s svojo roko pre- vaja na platno, predpostavlja kozmično vrvenje. To občutenje ni ni- kakršna avtoafekcija. Prej sem govoril preveč shematično, naj se popravim: “stvari zunaj” so vselej že znotraj nas. Ni stvari zunaj, vsaj ne za nas. Tudi če so bile pred nami, so nam zmeraj (pred)dane v naši notranjosti. Zmeraj imajo barvo, ton naše izkušnje ali pa drsijo skoz nas, ne da bi jih izkusili – in slika (ali pesem) je tedaj prazna izkušnje. J. M.: Vsekakor. Telesne in duhovne energije, ki kibernetizirajo li- kovno ustvarjanje, so nedvomno naravne ali, če želiš, kozmične sile. Vendar se te energetske inherence in interakcije med osebno in koz- Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 202 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 202 mično ravnjo dogajanja navadno ne zavedamo, dokler se ne poka- žeta na čutnonazorni ravni, na primer v konkretnem slikarjevem duktusu, ritmu in kompoziciji. V. S.: Dajva,  ozriva  se  še malo  na konkretni  duktus,  ta  na  sliki Zvezdna noč, na njeno likovno fakturo. Če sliko približno razdeliva na pol, lahko opaziva veliko razliko med potezami čopiča v njeni zgornji polovici in tistimi v spodnji. Mestece v spodnji polovici, hiše, njihove strehe so vse naslikane z ravnimi črtami, v zgornji po- lovici pa so poteze čopiča ukrivljene oziroma zaobljene. Spodnja, zemeljska polovica je po tej nasprotnopoteznosti popolnoma stati- čna, zgornja, nebesna z vrtinci, silovito dinamična.  203 Diafanije Izrez spodnjega dela Zvezdne noči Izrez zgornjega dela Zvezdne noči 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 203 Toda “statično” in “dinamično” sta samo tehnična izraza … Prej si omenil kozmično vrvenje. Kadar začutim potrebo po religiji, grem po- noči ven slikat zvezde, je dejal van Gogh. Sam pa bi rad rekel, da se po mojem v zaobljenih potezah njegovega čopiča upodablja neka sicer brezpodobstvena sila. To ni fizikalna sila, ki je nevidna, a jo je mogoče meriti, ampak Božja sila, ki stopa en érgo, “v delo” – Božja enérgeia. Ta sila si nebo udeluje v prizorišče svojega prikazanja. Od nje, ki je sila življenja, ki je življenje samo, se suka in kopa v vrtincih vse nebo. In s takšnimi potezami, vzgibana od takšne energije, je na mnogih drugih van Goghovih krajinah naslikana tudi narava podnevi.  J. M.: Na primer na sliki Pšenično polje s cipreso. V. S.: Recimo, ja, to je dober primer. Ta slika je Zvezdni noči med drugim blizu tudi po času nastanka – nastala je julija 1889 –, pa ne samo po tem. J. M.: Mislim, da zdaj razumem, kaj hočeš reči. Duktus spodnjega dela slike razvidno vodi diktat motiva, njegove prostorske organi- zacije in geometrije, duktus zgornjega dela pa v optični sliki motiva, se pravi zvezdnega neba, pravzaprav nima nobenega morfološkega oprijemališča, nobene oblikotvorne podlage, če seveda odštejeva astronomske rekonstrukcije in prikaze kozmičnih dogajanj, na pri- mer zvezdnih konstelacij, gibanja kometov, razvoja galaksij itn.  Umetnostni zgodovinar Albert Boime je objavil obsežno študijo, v  kateri  dokazuje  ujemanje  van Goghove  upodobitve  z  realno zvezdno topografijo provansalskega neba poleti 1889 oziroma sklad- nost oblik naslikanih zvezd in njihovih sijev s sočasnimi reprezen- tacijami astronomskih pojavov v ilustriranih publikacijah astronoma Camilla Flammariona, ki naj bi jih van Gogh poznal posredno, prek prebiranja Victorja Hugoja  in Julesa Verna.16 Po Boimu so edini nerealistični momenti na sliki Zvezdna noč mestece in vrtinci na Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 204 16 Prim. Boime, 1984, 88–89. 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 204 nebu, ki naj bi izvirali iz van Goghovega razumevanja kozmosa kot “živega, dinamičnega prostora”.17 Glede na to, da van Goghovo slikanje, kolikor mi je znano, ni ni- koli temeljilo na študiju znanstvenih dejstev in teorij, Boimu kljub njegovi veliki študiozni prizadevnosti ne morem pritrditi. Zato se mi tvoje vprašanje, od kod v oblikovnem smislu izvira dinamika zgornjega, “kozmičnega” dela Zvezdne noči, zdi relevantno. Če prav razumem, se sam nagibaš k odgovoru, da je duktus na njem spod- bujen s “silo”, ki v sliko stopa kot (Božja) enérgeia v starogrškem pomenu, torej kot “življenje” oziroma bivanjska vitalnost, in si jo jemlje za prizorišče svojega prikazovanja. Slika v zgornjem delu, kot rečeno, ni ritmična odslikava vidnega, ampak nevidnega energet- skega toka slikarjevega življenjskega vitalizma, ki se aktualizira prek likovnih izraznih sredstev in se s tem kaže tudi za druge. Če je van Gogh, ko je portretiral prijatelja umetnika, za ozadje naslikal “modro neskončnost”, da bi portretirančeva glava na njej simbolno svetila kot zvezda na nočnem nebu, je na Zvezdni noči poskušal “portretirati” interakcijo osebne in motivne dinamike z dinamiko kozmične energetike, da tako rečem. V. S.: Ne, nisem mislil povsem tako. Moram te popraviti, kot sem prej popravil sebe, in se o tem morda jasneje izreči. Enérgeia je v teologiji vzhodne krščanske Cerkve izraz za delovanje, v katerem se nam izkazuje Bog, za razloček od njegove ousíe, “bitnosti”, ki je za nas popolnoma nespoznavna. Z njo nisem meril na tok življenj- ske sile v slikarju, na van Goghov “življenjski vitalizem”, na njegov élan vital ali kaj podobnega, ampak na Božje življenje, ki ga je ob- čutil in ga v hrepenenjskem iztezanju k njemu prevajal na platno. J. M.: Prav, recimo, da si s tem opozoril na finalni ontični izvor “bi- vanjske vitalnosti”, ki sem jo imel v mislih. Ta izvor je nekaterim 205 Diafanije 17 Ibid., 92. 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 205 blizu, za druge pa je tendenciozen in nesprejemljiv, čeprav se sklada s pisno izpričanimi van Goghovimi življenjskimi nazori.  V tej zvezi je pomembno še nekaj, česar doslej nisva tematizirala z usmerjeno pozornostjo, namreč temna plamenasta cipresa. Ta je po eni strani, gledano iz kolorističnega zornega kota, nekakšen bar- vni “povzetek” oziroma izravnava v nekromatičnem, saj se v njej zbi- rajo in v njeni plemeniti temni kvaliteti izravnavajo vsi najznačilnejši barvni toni slike, modri, zeleni, rumeni, rdeči in rjavi. Po drugi strani pa  je  to  temno, elegantno,  lepo proporcionirano  in  razviharjeno drevo od nekdaj znamenje posebne, skrivnostne vitalnosti. V. S.: Cipresa v sredozemskih deželah raste na pokopališčih, kjer drži stražo mrtvim in s tem, da ima obliko sveče oziroma plamena, simbolizira goreče upanje obojih, živih in mrtvih, ki ležijo v zemlji, v življenje. Vendar njen položaj na sliki Zvezdna noč, levo od me- steca v njeni spodnji polovici, predvsem napeljuje na to, da to me- stece ne spi svojega mirnega nočnega spanca, ampak  je mrtvo, mesto mrtvih. Kontrast med zgornjo in spodnjo polovico slike, med oblasto vzvrtinčenim nebom in ravno zemljo, je kontrast med ži- vostjo in mrtvostjo. J. M.: Če sledim temu, kar si pravkar razvil, bi morda lahko rekla, da je spodnji del slike nekakšen simbol nekropolskega “večnega počitka”, nad katerim se je razdivjal cunami kozmične “večne dina- mike”, nekakšna akropola “nebeškega Jeruzalema”, če uporabim žargon Apokalipse. Vez med obojim je cipresa, ki je, kot rečeno, pod oknom van Goghove saintrémijske spalnice ni bilo. Vendar je van Gogh to mediteransko drevo v južni pokrajini pogosto srečeval in je  tudi  intenzivno  pritegovalo  njegovo  pozornost.  O  slikarskih aspektih cipres piše Theu v pismu z dne 25. junija 1889: “S cipresami si še zmeraj dajem opravka in rad bi z njimi naredil nekaj podob- nega, kot so platna s sončnicami, saj me osuplja, da jih doslej še nihče ni naredil tako, kakor jih sam vidim. Po obrisih in proporcih Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 206 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 206 je cipresa enako lepa kot egiptovski obelisk. In njena zelenina je po kakovosti tako izjemna. Je temen madež v pokrajini, preplavljeni s soncem, eden najbolj zanimivih temnih tonov, ki ga je od vseh, kar si jih lahko zamislim, najteže zadeti.” Simbolne vidike cipres tema- tizira v pismu z dne 1. februarja 1890: “Ko sem naredil tiste sončnice, sem iskal nekaj nasprotnega, pa vendar enakovrednega – in sem rekel: to je cipresa.”  Ni torej dvoma, da se je van Gogh zavedal ne le likovne, ampak tudi simbolne vrednosti cipres. Tako kot je s sočnicami obdelal sim- boliko življenja, je s cipresami poskušal priti na sled ekvivalent- nemu simbolu smrti. Jessica Caldarone, ki je napisala razpravo s pomenljivim naslovom “Ciprese v ‘Zvezdni noči’: simbolni avtopor- tret Vincenta van Gogha”,18 pravi, da ga je ukvarjanje s simboliko cipres čedalje bolj nagibalo v “obsedenost” s smrtjo in posmrtnim življenjem. Kot bi se v cipresah, v njihovi barvni izravnavi v nekro- matičnem, ki je simbol zatona in odsotnosti energije, ter v njihovi obeliskni formi, ki je simbol svetlobe, stremljenja kvišku in hrepe- nenja po presežnem, lahko povezovalo in simbolno sobivalo oboje. V. S.: Cipreso na sliki Zvezdna noč je vsekakor mogoče razlagati kot figuro med zemljo in nebom, ki tu stoji za človeka. Na možnost takšne razlage spet napotuje van Goghova korespondenca. Cipresa v levi spodnji polovici slike, pomaknjena naprej glede na mestece v ozadju, je Loevgrena spomnila na Kristusa v vrtu Get- semani, na samotnega, tesnobnega, v smrtni boj zapletenega člo- veka pred bližajočim se trpljenjem in smrtjo na križu, in mestece na speče apostole (prim. npr. Mt 26,36–46). Res je sicer, da je van Gogh leta 1888 v Arlesu dvakrat poskušal naslikati ta motiv, vendar je oba poskusa zavrgel, in ko je izvedel, da sta se Kristusa v Getsemaniju kmalu potem lotila Bernard in Gauguin, je Bernardu, ki mu je poslal 207 Diafanije 18 Prim. Caldarone, 2011.  09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 207 fotografije svojih novih slik na novozavezne motive, o njegovem Getsemaniju odpisal, češ, očitno je, da slikar ne ve, kako je oljka vi- deti v resnici, in da bi bilo bolje, ko bi namesto Kristusa v oljčnem vrtu naslikal resničen oljčni vrt. Slikanje po bibličnem ali katerem- koli drugem literarnem motivu namesto po naravi van Goghu ni šlo in mu je tudi pri slikarskih sodobnikih zbujalo nelagodje. Da bi biblični motiv naslikal po ovinku prek stvari iz narave, kar je Loev- grenova (in v temelju tudi Schapirova) ozadnja misel, in povrhu na- redil dve biblični alegoriji, eno na nebu, drugo na zemlji,  se mi nikakor ne zdi verjetno.  Kljub temu pa bi na sliki Zvezdna noč izmed vseh stvari iz na- rave prav drevo lahko stalo za človeka. Van Gogh je Theu že leta 1882 pisal, da vidi “v vsej naravi, predvsem v drevesih, izraz in dušo kot tako”. Okleščene vrbe, je dodal, ga včasih spomnijo na berače, mlado žito na spečega otroka, pomendrana trava ob cesti na prebi- valce revne mestne četrti in zmrznjene zeljne glave pred kratkim, ker je snežilo, na starke v tankih krilih in starih rutah, ko so zjutraj šle po vročo vodo in premog.  To, da za človeka na sliki Zvezdna noč lahko stoji drevo, ameri- ška literarna zgodovinarka Jean Schwind utemeljuje z van Gogho- vim branjem Whitmanovih Travnih bilk. Na Walta Whitmana kot enega izmed virov za to sliko je sicer opozoril že Loevgren. Whit- man je v izdajo Travnih bilk iz leta 1881, pesniške zbirke, ki jo je od njenega izida leta 1855 kar naprej popravljal in dopolnjeval ter je do njegove smrti doživela devet izdaj, vključil razdelek z enaindvajse- timi pesmimi in s skupnim naslovom “From Noon to Starry Night”, “Od poldneva do zvezdne noči”. Van Gogh, ki je Whitmana isto leto, ko je nastala Zvezdna noč, priporočil v branje tudi svoji sestri, naj bi naslov za sliko vzel iz naslova tega razdelka. Jean Schwind pa je iz  van  Goghovega  navodila  bratu,  kam  naj  bi  obesili  njegovo Zvezdno noč na pariški razstavi, razbrala, da bi morala, čeprav je Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 208 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 208 bila navsezadnje izločena izmed izbranih slik, “viseti ob svoji dne- vni ustreznici, njegovem ‘Pšeničnem polju s cipreso’”.19 Cipresa pod zvezdnim nebom ponoči ob cipresi zraven žitnega polja sredi dneva.  Jean Schwind je v Whitmanove Travne bilke kot vir za Zvezdno noč kopala še globlje in v njih med drugim naletela na verz o mestih, ki so “bolj polna mrtvih kakor živih”20 – tako kot je v nasprotju z živim nebom mrtvo z ravnimi črtami izrisano mestece na van Goghovi sliki. Pa ne le to. V pesnitvi Popotovanje v Indijo je našla verz, v katerem Whitman postavlja človeka v nasprotje z drevesom: “Mar nismo do- volj dolgo stali tu v tleh kakor drevesa?”21 (Ne stali na tleh – razsodno, stvarno, s čutom za resničnost –, ampak v tleh, in the ground, pravi 209 Diafanije 19 Schwind, 1985, 7. 20Whitman, 1977, 459. 21 Ibid., 437. Vincent van Gogh, Pšenično polje s cipreso, 1889 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 209 Whitman, zakoreninjeni v tla in nepremični, kot so drevesa.) Toda kaj ima to opraviti z van Goghom, ki je zlasti v drevesu videl “izraz” in “dušo”, nekaj, kar, naj še enkrat ponovim, lahko stoji za človeka?  V Whitmanovi pesnitvi, ki je tako kot nekatere druge pesmi ali pesnitve v Travnih bilkah posvečena Krištofu Kolumbu, je ta, ki je stal zakoreninjen v tla kakor drevo, stari človek. Kolumb, odkritelj Amerike, je za Whitmana, barda Amerike, prerok novega človeka, njega, ki si je drznil podati se na plovbo proti zahodu, pustiti stari svet za sabo in iti v novega, na Manhattan in naprej na zahod v pre- rijo. Stari človek je mrtev. Živi novi Adam. In več kot speče, mrtvo, mrtvo kot pokopališče je tudi mestece na van Goghovi sliki, ob katerem navzgor v nebo poganja cipresa. Jean Schwind, ki Zvezdno noč razlaga v paru s Pšeničnim poljem s cipreso, v spremenjenem položaju ciprese, ki je na prvi sliki nasli- kana na levi strani in na drugi na desni, razbira “ne le gibanje proti levi, ampak plovbo proti zahodu”,22 in tako v cipresi prepozna sim- bol za človeka, ki si je s tem, da se je izruval iz starega sveta in se podal na zahod, odprl možnost postati novi Adam, ter navsezadnje celo simbol za pesnika Travnih bilk samega. Vendar gre v teh pre- poznanjih predaleč. Je van Gogha res tako zelo navdušila ameriška različica novega človeka ali njen bard, da bi naslikal modernizirano, vendar v temelju še zmeraj na Biblijo, na Pavlovo razločevanje med starim in novim človekom (prim. Rim 5–6) oprto alegorijo?  Poglejva sliko: cipresa na njej ne poganja iz tal, ampak je spodaj odrezana z okvirom. Slika je kadrirana tako, da se vrh ciprese tako rekoč zapikuje v nebo, tla, v katera bi morala biti zakoreninjena, pa ostajajo zunaj slikovnega prostora. To drevo, s spodnjim, širšim delom krošnje pri nevidnih tleh, je breztalno. Nima korenin na zem- lji. Lebdi ali plava, plava med zemljo in nebom, plava proti vzvrtin- Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 210 22 Schwind, 1985, 7. 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 210 čenemu nebu. To, da plava, je po svoje videla tudi Anne Sexton, ki na začetku pesmi pravi: “ … neko črnolaso drevo drsi / navzgor kot utopljenka v vroče nebo.” Lahko da je torej cipresa na sliki Zvezdna noč nosilka hrepenenja, van Goghovega lastnega hrepenenja ven iz tujega in mrtvega človeškega sveta h kipečemu življenju na nebu. J. M.: Lahko da. Vendar menim, da je pri interpretativnih projekci- jah tega tipa dobro biti zadržan, še zlasti če se gibljemo zunaj prvoo- sebnega oziroma pesniškega doživetja. Prvič zato, ker je dejstvo, da so likovne artikulacije “nosilke” avtorjevih doživetij in pojmovanj, tako rekoč aksiomatično in velja na splošno. In drugič zato, ker so take semantične projekcije teoretsko tako rekoč nedokazljive, če- prav so v osebnem doživljanju ne le mogoče, ampak tudi verjetne, pogoste in smiselne. Vsekakor pa priznam, da so ciprese v van Go - ghovi slikarski izdaji vselej unikati, tako rekoč portretirane. V. S.: Zanimiva beseda, “portretirane” – kot bi šlo za ljudi. J. M.: Vsekakor ne gre za tipske objekte, ampak za “subjekte arti- kulacije”. Slikarji prejšnjih dob so imeli radi postopek, ki mu pra- vimo  “antropomorfizem”  oziroma  “personifikacija”.  Z  njim  so nevidne,  netelesne  ali  težko  predstavljive  fenomene,  na  primer veter, boga, ljubezen, glasbo ali pravico, prek podobotvorne imagi- nacije pretvorili v simbolne – večinoma človeške – figure, ki jih je bilo mogoče upodobiti. Za zgled je tu lahko, denimo, Gauguinova slika Mesec in zemlja iz leta 1893, na kateri je planet zemlja pred- stavljen z ženskim aktom s hrbta, njen satelit mesec pa z moškim poprsjem desno zgoraj, ali Picassova Guernica z bikom kot simbo- lom agresije, “nosilko luči” kot simbolom upanja, “žensko, ki pada”, kot simbolom moderne breztemeljnosti itn.  Van Gogh je pri svojem delu ubiral ravno nasprotno pot, me- todo, ki bi  jo pogojno lahko imenoval “personalizacija” oziroma poosebljenje.  Z  njo  je  tudi  v  neživih  stvareh,  drevesih,  oblakih, nebu in zvezdah, prepoznaval in likovno poudarjal neki njim lasten 211 Diafanije 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 211 energetski vitalizem in neko njim lastno (p)osebnost. Če je bila temelj antropomorfizma podobotvorna imaginacija, torej tvorjenje podob za  reprezentacijo pojavov, ki nimajo vidne  in prostorske podobe, je temelj personalizacije oblikotvorna imaginacija, se pravi tvorjenje oblikovnih karakteristik, ki pri motivu niso vidne, a so nujne, da ikonografski elementi na sliki intenzivneje semantično zaživijo. Zgledi za to so, denimo, ritmično gibanje neba na sliki Zvezdna noč, ki ga pri motivu ni, “samovoljni kolorizem” na por- tretu prijatelja umetnika, ki ga pri motivu tudi ni, “portretne zna- čilnosti”  tipskih  objektov,  kot  so  ciprese,  sončnice  ali  čevlji,  in “poroka dveh komplementarnih barv”, o kateri van Gogh govori v pismu Theu z dne 3. septembra 1888 in ki s svojimi nasprotji in mešanjem lahko ponazarja kompleksno dinamiko “ljubezni med zaljubljencema”. Skratka: van Gogh iz objektov, ki so motivno “vrženi predenj”, dela subjekte, ki “ležijo spodaj” – iz latinskega sub, “pod”, “spodaj”, in iectum, “to, kar je vrženo (pod)” in torej leži spodaj, “temelj” – ter s tem ekspresivno utemeljujejo objektnost presegajočo semantiko naslikanih stvari. To omogoča, da cipresa na sliki ni zgolj cipresino drevo, ampak lahko glede na svojo oblikovanost simbolizira razli- čne vsebine, na primer smrt, kadar v njeni obliki ugašajo in se nev- tralizirajo barve, hrepenenje, ko se njena oblika kot ognjeni zubelj v drzno vihravem ritmu poganja kvišku, eleganco in dostojanstvo, ko se kot vitek obelisk dviga nad pokrajino in jo osredinja, ipd. Te na oblikotvornosti zasnovane simbolne iztočnice pa lahko v oseb- nem doživetju in osebni interpretaciji vsekakor zaživijo natanko tako, kot si nakazal prej, ko si govoril o “van Goghovem lastnem hrepenenju ven iz tujega in mrtvega človeškega sveta h kipečemu življenju na nebu”, ali kot predlaga Jessica Caldarone s svojo “av- toportretno cipresno sugestijo”. Novost, ki jo odpira van Gogh, je, da o fenomenih lahko govori Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 212 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 212 na način, ki z njihovo običajno ikonografijo in predstavnostjo nima nobene zveze. O smrti lahko na primer govori brez lobanje, smrtne postelje ali pogrebnega sprevoda, o strasti brez mimike in gestike in celo brez človeške figure, o religioznem občutju brez sakralnega prizora in o neskončnosti na omejenem prostoru. V. S.: Strinjam se s tem lahko in pritrjujem hermenevtični previd- nosti, na katero opozarja. “Lahko” razlage mora venomer imeti za- gotovljeno podlago v umetniškem delu samem, drugače je izraz poljubne subjektivne eisegeze. A naj se nazadnje dotaknem še razmerja med van Goghovo sliko in pesmijo Anne Sexton. Pesnica to sliko bere na podlagi Razodetja, ob predpostavki, ki jo je vzpostavila umetnostnozgodovinska razlaga. Van Gogh pa je na nebu naslikal predvsem življenje in v tem se zas- navlja temeljna razlika med njegovo in Zvezdno nočjo Anne Sexton. To, kar v pesmi zbode v oči, je drugačnost pesničine želje. Anne Sexton bi se gotovo podpisala pod besede, ki jih je van Gogh zapisal v pismu Theu julija 1888: “Kakor vzamemo vlak, da pridemo v Ta- rascon ali Rouen, tako vzamemo smrt, da pridemo do zvezde.” Želja, hrepenenje obeh je naravnano od tod k zvezdnemu nočnemu nebu. Toda za van Gogha je smrt kakor vlak do zvezde, do zvezdnega neba, kjer je obet življenja, za Anne Sexton pa je na zvezdnem nebu smrt. Ko se pesnica v pesmi na van Goghovo sliko, medtem ko opisuje dogajanje na nebu, oglasi s svojim glasom, pravi: “Tako / si umreti želim.” In še enkrat, potem ko je opisala mesečevo nabrekanje in porajanje ter kačino goltanje zvezd: Tako si umreti želim: v to hitečo žival noči,  da me ta véliki zmaj vsesa in se ločim 213 Diafanije 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 213 od življenja brez prapora, brez trebuha, brez krika. Pesničina želja po smrti, po tem, da jo, enako kot zvezde, vase vsesa “žival noči”, je želja po ločitvi od življenja. “Brez prapora” – se pravi: brez triumph of life, če si sposodim Shelleyjevi besedi, brez “zmagoslavja življenja”. Vojska je premagana, ko nihče več ne drži prapora kvišku in ta pade oziroma ga osvoji sovražna vojska. Ostati brez prapora je pretrpeti poraz, vendar pesnice ni strah, da bo ži- vljenje poraženo. Nasprotno, želi si ga pustiti za sabo. Njena želja govori: naj bo zmagovalka smrt. Umreti  “brez  trebuha”  in “brez krika”, kar po nabrekanju in porajanju meseca spet priklicuje nose- čnost in porod, pomeni: ne da bi porodila življenje ali ne da bi se sama skoz smrt porodila v življenje.  Poanta pesmi  je v nadvse ostrem nasprotju s citatom iz van Goghovega pisma, ki ji rabi za moto. Van Goghova slika je globoko religiozna  slika brez  tradicionalnega sakralnega motiva, pesem Anne Sexton njen counterstatement. Slika  je kljub  tremendumu vzvrtinčenega neba zame svetla, pesem temna. J. M.: To občutenje povsem delim s tabo. Tudi to, da je van Gog- hova slika “globoko religiozna”, čeprav je brez “tradicionalnega sa- kralnega motiva”,  se  kar  najbolj  sklada  z  že  omenjeno metodo “personalizacije”. Vendar je zanimivo še nekaj drugega. Van Gogh v času, ko je naslikal Zvezdno noč, ni bil v dobri telesni niti duhovni kondiciji. Bil je v sinusoidi, obrnjeni navzdol, dobesedno k smrti, ki je prišla dobro leto pozneje. Presenetljivo pa je, kako se je njegov poslavljajoči se življenjski elan intenzivno odpiral v tisto, kar bi lahko brez slabega namena in brez apriorne postmoderne zadrža- nosti do takega poimenovanja imenovala “transcendenca”, kratko malo zato, ker se Zvezdna noč v odprtem kadru razpira v neke Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 214 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 214 druge, brezbrežno pulzirajoče, neulovljive, presežne svetove. In za- nimivo je, da enérgeia telesa to transcendentno odpiranje in raz- piranje še zmore. V. S.: Ali pa Zvezdna noč odstira Božjo enérgeio v tem svetu, jo v tem svetu “dela vidno”, če spet uporabim Kleejevi besedi, vendar v zvezi z resničnostjo, ki je sam bržkone ni imel v mislih. Dela ne- vidno vidno. To. Bibliografija AVANZO, M., ur. (1986): Antologija ameriške poezije 20. stoletja, Ljubljana, Cankarjeva založba. BOIME, A. (1984): “Van Gogh’s Starry Night: A Hystory of Matter and a Matter of History”, Arts Magazine, 86–103. CALDARONE, J. (2011): “The Cypress Trees in ‘The Starry Night’: A Symbolic Self-Portrait of Vincent Van Gogh”, Providence College Art Journal, 53–63. FRANKL, V. E. (2005): Človek pred vprašanjem o smislu (slov. prev. Živa Verbič idr.), Ljubljana, Pasadena. HULSKER, J. (1986):The Complete Van Gogh. Paintings, Drawings, Sketches, New York, Harrison House/Harry N. Abrams. KAUFMANN, H., in WILDEGANS, R. (2008): Van Goghs Ohr. Paul Gauguin und der Pakt des Schweigens, Berlin, Osburg Verlag. KLEE, P.  (1920): Tribüne der Kunst und der Zeit. Eine Schriften- sammlung, ur. Kasimir Edschmid, zv. 13: Schöpferische Konfession, Berlin, Erich Reiß Verlag, 28–40. KUMIN, M. (1999): “How It Was”, v: Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, xix–xxxiv.  LOEVGREN, S. (1971): The Genesis of Modernism. Seurat, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and French Symbolism in the 1880s, Bloomington, In- diana University Press (2., revidirana izd.). 215 Diafanije 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 215 PAVČEK, T., ur. (1990): Antologija ruske poezije 20. stoletja, Lju- bljana, Cankarjeva založba, in Moskva, Hudožestvennaja literatura. PICKVANCE, R. (1986): Van Gogh in Saint-Remy and Auvers, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. SCHAPIRO, M. (1950): Vincent van Gogh, New York, H. N. Abrams. SCHWIND, J. (1985): “Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ and Whitman: A Study in Source”, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 3, 1–15. STONE, I. (1934): Lust for Life, London, New York in Toronto, Long- mans, Green and Co.; slov. prev.: Sla po življenju. Roman o Vincentu van Goghu (prev. Peter Donat), Ljubljana, Modra ptica, 1938. VAN GOGH, V. (2009): The Letters. The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition, ur. Nienke Bakker, Leo Jansen in Hans Luijten, http://vangoghletters.org/vg/. WHITMAN, W. (1977): The Complete Poems, ur. Francis Murphy, London itn., Penguin Books. Vid Snoj in Jožef Muhovič 216 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 216 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 217 Tit Makij Plavt, Perzijec, Kazina, prevod, opombe in spremna beseda Nada Grošelj, AMEU-ISH, zbirka Dialog z antiko, Ljubljana 2017, 212 strani, 17,90 € Eden najpomembnejših rimskih komediografov, Tit Makij Plavt (3.–2. stol. pr. Kr.), se je navdihoval pri starogrški »novi komediji«, ki je sledila prepoznavnemu vzorcu: prikazovala je stereotipne melodramatične zgodbe in v njihovem okviru paleto člo- veških tipov, kakršni so sitni in stiskaški oče, zaljubljeni mladenič, pretkani suženj. Svojim predelavam grške komedije pa je Plavt vtisnil še lastni pečat z vnašanjem prvin iz italske uprizoritvene umetnosti, ki sta jo zaznamovali burkaštvo in zajedljiv humor. Ta knjiga prinaša njegovi doslej neprevedeni burki Perzijec (Persa) in Kazina (Casina). V Perzijcu se Plavt poigrava s konvencijami grške nove komedije, tako da lahko v njej vidimo kar »komedijo o komediji«, medtem ko v Kazini spremljamo motiv, dobro po- znan iz številnih del evropske književnosti, ne nazadnje iz Linhartove veseloigre Ma- tiček se ženi: gospodar zasleduje služabnico, a se na koncu osmeši. Rdeča nit, ki povezuje Plavtovi igri, je prevratniški saturnalijski duh, v katerem osebe z avtoriteto – starci, očetje, gospodarji – potegnejo krajši konec. Tit Makij Plavt, Perzijec, Kazina, prevod, opombe in spremna beseda Nada Grošelj, Ljubljana 2017, AMEU-ISH, zbirka Dialog z antiko, 212 strani, 17,90 € 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 218 Knjiga prinaša prva prevoda dveh Evripidovih manj znanih tragedij, Prošnjice in He- raklovi otroci, ki pa sta zaradi tematike, ki jo obravnavata, danes prav gotovo bolj ak- tualni kot katera koli druga tragedija, ki se nam je ohranila iz antike. Prošnjice sodijo v tebanski ciklus in uprizarjajo, vzporedno z Antigono, sklepno dejanje tega mita, le da se v Antigoni pravica do pokopa obravnava na ravni posameznika, v Prošnjicah na ravni kolektiva – za vrnitev trupel in pokop prosijo matere padlih Polinejkovih sobor- cev. V Heraklovih otrocih spremljamo usodo junakovih otrok po njegovi apoteozi: pred gotovo smrtjo zbežijo od doma in, od povsod pregnani, končno dobijo azil v Atenah. V obeh dramah se mesto Atene kot zaščitnik šibkih in preganjanih, kot nosilec novih, demokratičnih in civilizacijskih vrednot, postavi na stran občečloveških pravic celo za ceno vojne; v bran pravic, brez katerih si tudi danes ne bi smeli predstavljati civilizirane družbe – sprejem beguncev in pokop mrtvih, ne glede na to, ali so padli na strani poraženega agresorja ali zmagovalnega branitelja. Vendar ob nepokopanih žrtvah druge svetovne vojne in kilometrih rezilne žice, ki naj ustavi begunce, ni po- vsem jasno, ali se je v dva tisoč petsto letih spremenila definicija civilizirane družbe ali pa družba, v kateri živimo, ni civilizirana. Evripid, Prošnjice, Heraklovi otroci, prevod, opombe in spremna beseda Jera Ivanc, Ljubljana 2016, AMEU-ISH, zbirka Dialog z antiko, 172 strani, 18,99 € 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 219 Obvestilo avtorjem Pris pev ke in dru go ko res pon den co po ši ljaj te na na slov ured niš tva. Ured - niš tvo ne spre je ma pris pev kov, ki so bili že ob jav lje ni ali so is to ča sno po - sla ni v ob ja vo dru gam. Ne na ro če nih ro ko pi sov ne vra ča mo. Iz da ja telj re vi je se gle de ure ja nja av tor skih raz me rij rav na po ve ljav - nem Za ko nu o av tor skih in so rod nih pra vi cah. Za av tor sko delo, po sla no za ob ja vo v re vi ji, vse mo ral ne av tor ske pra vi ce pri pa da jo av tor ju, vse ma - te rial ne av tor ske pra vi ce pa av tor pre ne se na iz da ja te lja. Av tor do vo lju je ob ja vo svo je ga dela na splet ni stra ni re vi je. Prispevke pošljite po e-pošti, pisani naj bodo v pro gra mu Mi cro soft Word. Be se di lo mora vsebovati naslov v slovenščini in angleščini, izvleček v slo venš či ni in an gleš či ni (do 10 vr stic) in do 5 ključ nih be sed (v slo venš - či ni in an gleš či ni). Pris pev ki naj ne pre se ga jo 1 av tor ske pole (30.000 zna kov s pre sled ki) vključ no z vse mi opom ba mi. Pris pev ki naj bodo raz de lje ni na raz del ke, ki so oprem lje ni z med na slo vi. V be se di lu do sled no upo rab ljaj te dvoj ne na - re ko va je pri na va ja nju na slo vov član kov, ci ti ra nih be se dah, teh nič nih izra - zih ipd., ra zen pri ci ta tih zno traj ci ta tov. Na slo ve knjig, pe rio di ke in tuje be se de (npr. a prio ri, oi kos, kai ros ipd.) je tre ba pi sa ti le že če. Opom be in re fe ren ce se ti ska jo kot opom be pod čr to. V be se di lu naj bodo opom be oz na če ne z dvig nje ni mi  in dek si. V be se di lu se spro ti v opom bi oz na ču jejo samo av tor, let ni ca ozi ro ma av tor, let ni ca, šte vil ka stra - ni. Po poln, po abe ced nem redu ure jen bib lio graf ski opis ci ti ra nih vi rov mora biti pri lo žen na kon cu po sla ne ga pris pev ka. Ci ti ra nje v bib lio gra fi - ji naj sle di spod nje mu zgle du: 1. Pra prot nik, T. (2003): Skup nost, iden ti te ta in ko mu ni ka ci ja v vir tual nih skup no stih, Ljub lja na, ISH. 2.  Grošelj, N. (2010): “Ciceron in prerokovanje”, v: Grošelj, N., O preroko- vanju, ISH, Dialog z antiko, Ljubljana, 9–36. 3.  Medica, K. (2013): “Humanistika : humanizem – antropološki pogled”, Monitor ISH, XV/2, 233–242. Vsi pris pev ki bodo po sla ni v ko le gial no re cen zi jo. Av tor jem bomo po sla - li ko rek tu re, ki jih je tre ba pre gle da ne vr ni ti v ured niš tvo v pe tih dneh. 09 - Diafanije_2 24. 11. 2017 09:13 Page 220