Marina Gržinić / Ništa još uvek nije izgubljeno, ali je skoro sve na ivici katastrofe
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Draga Marina, počastvovana sam da vodim intervju sa vama za Supervizuelnu, imajući u vidu vaš značaj kao teoretičarke umetnice. Želela bih da vas zamolim da pokušate da sumirate okosnicu predavanja “Nekropolitike i globalni kapitalizam” i definišete Vaše hvatanje ovih pojmova?
Kako bih problematizovala politiku rasne diskriminacije Evropske Unije, koja je uglavnom politika – kako vole sebe da nazivaju – „bivših“ zapadnoevropskih država, koje su skoro sve kolonizatorske i anti-semitske, odlučila sam da pooštrim politički vokabular svoje umetnosti, kulturne i teorijske analize.
Takođe, želela bih da istaknem činjenicu da bivše istočnoevropske države sa svojim korumpiranim političkim elitama, rasističkim govorima, anti-semitskim nasiljem, homofobičnim ludilom i kolabirajućim ekonomijama, nisu – kako vole za sebe da tvrde – kolonizovane, već upravo suprotno, one same su inicijatori i proizvođači homofobičnih beda, napuštenih života i rasističke brutalnosti .
Zbog toga je neophodno radikalizovati ono što su teoretičari dekolonijalističke orijentacije već izneli. Teoretičari koji su se bavili latinoameričkim kontekstom i kontekstom odnosa Latinske i Severne Amerike početkom dvehiljaditih ispravno su zaključili da se naličje modernosti javlja kolonijalni matriks moći koji je, kako oni tvrde, mračna strana modernosti. Kao što Joakin Bariendos (Joaquín Barriendos) izlaže, kolonijalni matriks moći (izraz koji je formulisao Anibal Kijano (Quijano) bi trebalo shvatiti kao hijerarhijsku mašineriju moći koja radi kroz kapitalizam, ali skrivena formom istorijsko-strukturalne heterogenosti.
Predlažem da se ispitaju mračnije strane modernosti i da se one promisle kao najmračnije strane Evropske Unije (EU) i globalnog neoliberalnog kapitalizma. One se sastoje iz četiri isprepletana nivoa događaja i procesa:
- Dva režima života, biopolitike i nekropolitike, bivše istočne i „bivše“ zapadne Evrope.
- Globalnog kapitalizma i njegovih procesa finansijalizacije, obezvređivanja, repeticije i kontinuiranog procesa kapitalističke humanizacije (postajanja čovekom), čija je najmračnija strana dehumanizacija.
- Kapitalističke rasializacije /engl. racialization/ (postupaka rasnog sistematskog diskriminiranja) kao procesa društveno normalizovanog sistema diskriminacije, sortiranja tela, rada i života po načelima nasilnog isključivanja, izdvajanja, nadgledanja i konačno, smrti i istrajnog rata.
- Pitanja rase, pola, klase, državljanstva (beli državljani i svi drugi: crni evropski državljani, manjine meksičkog porekla (Chicanas), azijatske manjine, regularni emigranti iz bivše istočne Evrope) i ne-državljanstva (migranti bez papira, izbeglice i azilanti).
Zbog toga u ovoj tački izlaganja mogu da tvrdim da nekropolitičko u kontekstu bivše Jugoslavije, od Srbije do Slovenije, radi kroz: proizvodnju ne-državljana (izbrisani ljudi u Sloveniji, Romi na prostoru cele bivše Jugoslavije); proizvodnju građana drugog reda (LGBTQI, što znači lezbejske, gej, biseksualne, transrodne, transseksualne, kvir (queer) i interseksualne pozicije i zajednice, osobe tretirane kao građani i građanke drugog reda, koje rizikuju svoje živote kada traže osnovna ustavna prava na jednakost); oživljavanje i rehabilitaciju fašističkih i nacističkih saradnika kao i konstantnu represiju i evakuaciju istorija genocida kao onog u Srebrenici devedesetih u Bosni i Hercegovini.
Svi ovi aktovi upravljanja smrću i nekropolitike znače tačno ovo: NECRO (lat. smrt) politika koja upravlja politikom putem ubijanja, simboličke i socijalne smrti, siromaštva i bede. Nekropolitika znači da je BIO (lat. život) podređen moći smrti, što je takođe povezano sa siromaštvom, nezaposlenošću i nadnicama koje su ispod životnog minimuma.
Ovo su aspekti mog interesovanja uz, naravno, analizu rada nekropolitike i isto tako analizu novih pojava formi različitih fašizama (u zapadnom svetu i turbo fašističke realnosti Srbije i bivše Jugoslavije) kao i njihove veze sa globalnim kapitalizmom.
Kao teoretičarka sa jasnom anti-kapitalističkom orijentacijom, kako bi ste prokomentarisali poznatu Žižekovu izjavu: „Lako je zamisliti kraj sveta – asteroid koji uništava sav život na Zemlji, itd. – ali ne možemo zamisliti kraj kapitalizma.“ Koji su po Vašem mišljenju načini i mehanizmi koji mogu biti korišćeni u borbi protiv kapitalizma?
Definitivno prestanak citiranja Žižekovih „5 centi“, jer deluje kao da je to jedino što imamo u vreme šou biznisa u društvenoj realnosti. Mislim da ono što nam može ponuditi drugi put jeste insistiranje na politički emancipatorskim projektima koji su sposobni da rade sa onim što je označeno kao „druge istorije“, odnosno „istorije drugih“; praksama kao što su dekolonizatorski pokret iz Latinske Amerike i SAD, radikalni crnački transfeminizam, pozicije transmigrantske misli iz Evrope i Afrike, kao i azijsko-australijske pozicije čitanja diskriminacije i obezvređivanja nativnog naroda i stanovništva.
Ono što me osnažuje u evropskom kontekstu su rad talmundiste Ivana Segrea (Ivan Segré), koji je briljantan u svojoj militantnoj kritici ispražnjenih diskursa političke korektnosti, Filomene Esad (Philomena Essad) iz Holandije sa njenim radom o strukturalnom rasizmu, kao i Arabe Evelin Džonston-Artur (Araba Evelyn Johnston-Arthur) iz Beča/SAD sa njenom snažnom kritikom belačke kritičke pozicije (critical whiteness) uz jak crnački transrodni pokret koji se bavi performansom i umetničkim istraživanjem ovde (u Austriji) i tamo (u Brazilu).
Sigurna sam da možemo da zamislimo svetove i promenimo realnosti više nego što bi mogli i da pretpostavimo ukoliko promenimo polazište intervencije i transformacije tako što ćemo ih bazirati ih na geopolitičkom prostoru filozofije, politike i prakse, koji sam skicirala za vas.
Okosnica Vašeg doktorskog rada su pitanja virtualne realnosti, cyberspace-a, cyberfeminizma, teorije medija postkolonijalizma. Na predavanju ste spomenuli značajnu promenu paradigme nakon 11. septembra. Da li je ova promena vezana za termine koje ste već istraživali i na koji način?
11. septembar koji označava napad na Svetski trgovinski centar na Menhetnu u Njujorku u SAD (mislim bi trebalo da preciziram o čemu razgovaramo i ta ste me pitali, jer ništa nije samorazumljivo) predstavlja finalnu nasilnu formu ulaska i ustoličenja globalnog neoliberalnog kapitalizma u globalnim razinama. To je momenat koji španski teoretičar Santiago Lopes Peti (Santiago Lopez Petit) zove momentom kada su kapitalizam i realnost počeli da budu jedno, bez ikakve zadrške. To znači da su svi politički projekti emancipacije na kojima smo ranije radili i na koje smo se oslanjali decenijama dovedeni u pitanje. Ovo je takođe jedna od glavnih tema mog istraživanja u proteklih dvadeset godina.
Kako biste opisali svoju hibridnu poziciju između teorije, aktivizma i umetnosti?
Mislim da sam trenutno jako privilegovana jer imam stalno zaposlenje i radim između Ljubljane i Beča. To je, za mene, veoma bitna veza jer me prisiljava da konstantno razmišljam o tome šta su različiti prostori, istorije, prakse i politike. U Beču radim na Fakultetu likovnih umetnosti koji je moćna institucija. Trenutno mislim da smo jako srećni jer imamo rektorat koji je u potpunosti sastavljen od pripadnica ženskog pola i ovo je prvi takav slučaj u dosadašnjoj istoriji načina vođenja institucija u centralnoj Evropi. Sjajno! Sa druge strane, zastupam političko stajalište koje ostaje verno do postulata egalitarne politike i definitivno mislim da profit i privatno vlasništvo produkuju konstantnu eksploataciju, diskriminaciju, siromaštvo i isključivanje. Pokušavam da uvek zadržim taj stav kao polaznu tačku svog rada i procesa edukacije.
Vi ste ujedno i redovni profesor na Fakultetu likovnih umetnosti u Beču. Na koji način su vaše pozicije teoretičarke, umetnice i aktivistkinje uticale na vašu poziciju kao edukatora?
Suviše sam protiv trenutno vrlo prisutnih pozicija koje zamenjuju umetnički rad procesom nastave, da bih izjavila da je moja „klasa“ moj umetnički projekat ili neku sličnu besmislicu. Sa jedne strane, mislim da je vođenje nastave danas čista politička intervencija – možete uništiti generacije ili kroz borbu izgraditi uporišta i metode koji ostavljaju otvoren prostor za kritički rad. Ja sam plaćeni radnik i moram da budem svesna odnosa umetničke institucije i znanja, kao rada unutar institucije moći. Ali, kao što sam već izjavila, ukoliko razmišljate o znanju, formiranju praksi i vezama sa politikom, postaje jasno da je nastava izrazito odgovoran posao jer određuje tip istorija, socijalne prakse i političkih subjekata čijem ćete stvaranju doprineti unutar institucije. Sa druge strane, takođe negujem proces razmene, kroz provokativne i izazovne rasprave u učionici koje se tiču najbitnijih socijalnih, političkih i ekonomskih kontradikcija. Umetnost je deo ovih spojeva. Sa svojom partnerkom Ainom Šmid stvaram video radove i instalacije, koji se takođe bave sličnim pitanjima.
U komentaru o umetniku Zampa di Leone-u 2004. godine ste izjavili da njegovu kritičku poziciju prema poretku stvari na Balkanu smatrate zabavnom i osvežavajućom. Šta su po Vašem mišljenju najbitnije pojave na umetničkoj sceni na Balkanu?
U istorijskom trenutku pre desetak godina ta pitanja su bila važna. Smatrala sam da je to bilo pitanje formulisanja kritičnosti sposobne da se distancira od lobija moći, iako sam i ja lično bila napadnuta.
Danas je situacija radikalno drugačija i moć je pomerena iz domena nekropolitički dosadnog do nekropolitički uzbudljivog stanja. Za mene su najzanimljivije čvorišne tačke u kontekstu Srbije one pozicije koje su sposobne da emancipatorski zastupaju LGBTQI pozicije, od aktivizma, socijalnog i političkog rada pa do umetnosti; TkH (Teorija koja Hoda) je institucija za sebe koja je otvorila puteve za mnoge teorije, prakse i na posletku projekte, koji mogu formirati kritička pitanja minule istorije i trenutnih emacipatorskih veza. Slično razmišljam i o Sloveniji, ne toliko o projektima, koliko o lezbejskim, transrodnim, gej i transseksualnim pozicijama koje formiraju kritički diskurs, koji su po pitanju dubine analize, snažne i ujedno bolne, retko ko može da nadmaši tu kritičnost (o EU, Sloveniji i bivšoj Jugoslaviji).
Ništa još uvek nije izgubljeno, ali je skoro sve na ivici katastrofe.
Da li postoje akteri umetničke scene na Balkanu koje smatrate zanimljivima i na koje načine?
Već dugo smatram da je veza biopolitike i nekropolitike veza koegzistencije, su-vlasništva i istovremenosti. One su obe tu sa nama, što znači da u doba smrti socijalnog, smrti političkog, umetnost i kultura, a posebno institucije koje ih reprezentuju, one nisu ništa više od biopolitičkih institucija, što znači da žive samo za sebe. One pokušavaju da po svaku cenu prežive. Zbog toga, u ovoj situaciji, moramo da uništimo ovu cirkularnu repeticiju, ili moramo da izgradimo strukture u umetnosti i politici koje potencijalno neće izostavljati najvažniju stvar, a to je odnos između kapitala i rada.
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Marina Gržinić je doktorka filozofije i umetnica. Bavi se video umetnošću od 1982. i radi u tandemu sa Ainom Šmid. Radi u Beču i Ljubljani. U svečanoj sali Rektorata Univerziteta umetnosti 22. aprila 2015. prof. Marina Gržinić održala je predavanje pod nazivom “Necropolitcs and Global Capitalism / Nekropolitika i globalni kapitalizam” i tom prilikom sam je intervjuisala.
Marina Gržinić: Nothing is yet lost, though it is almost all at the verge of disaster
Interview by Aleksandra Kovačević
Hello Marina, I am really honored to make this interview for Supervizuelna since you are very prominent figure in both art and theory. I would like to kindly ask you to summarize the essence of your lecture on Necropolitcs and Global Capitalism. Maybe it would be interesting for our audience for you to define range in which you use those wide terms?
My initial proposal, in order to tackle the apartheid politics of European Union that is mostly the politics of the “former”, as they like to call themselves, “former” Western European states, that are almost all colonial and anti-Semitic states, is to intensify the political vocabulary of my art, cultural and theoretical analysis. It is also to tackle the fact that the former Eastern European states with their corrupted political elites, with their racist talks, anti-Semitic violence and homophobic madness and last but not least collapsed economies are not, as they like to say, colonized but on the opposite the very producers and initiators of homophobic misery, abandoned life, racist brutalities. Therefore it is necessary to intensify what the theoreticians of the decolonial turn (theoreticians formed by the Latin American and US- Latin American context in the beginning of 2000) propose. They argued rightly that on the back of modernity functions the colonial matrix of power; this matrix they state is modernity’s darker side. The colonial matrix of power coined by Anibal Quijano should be, as Joaquín Barriendos argues, understood as a hierarchical power machinery that works throughout capitalism but under an explicit form, of what Anibal Quijano calls, the historical-structural heterogeneity. I propose to invigorate the darker side of modernity and to conceive it as the darkest sides of the European Union (EU) and of neoliberal global capitalism. The darkest sides consist of four entangled levels of violent events and processes:
- Two modes of life biopolitics and necropolitics, former Eastern Europe and “former” Western Europe
- Global capitalism and its processes of financialization, dispossession, repetition, and the never-ending process of capitalist humanization (becoming human) with dehumanization as its darkest side
- Capital’s racialization as a process of socialized/normalized system of discrimination, of sorting bodies, labor, life under the politics of violent exclusion, seclusion, surveillance and last, but not least, death and enduring war
- The question of race, gender, class, citizenship (white citizens and the other: Black European citizens, Chicanas, Asian minorities, regulated migrants, former Eastern Europeans), and the non-citizenship: for undocumented migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.
Therefore at this point I can state that the necropolitical in this situation in the former Yugoslavia, from Serbia to Slovenia works with production of non-citizens (erased people in Slovenia, Roma people in the whole space of former Yugoslavia); second grade citizens as the LGBTQI community (that means Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Queer and Intersexual positions and communities that are seen as second grade citizens that risk life when demanding their basic rights of equality in front of the Constitution); the resurgence of fascist and Nazis collaborators rehabilitation and as well the steady repression, evacuation of histories of genocide as that in Srebrenica in the 1990s in Bosnia and Herzegovina. So all these are acts of managing death and necropolitics means exactly this NECRO (in Latin death) that is governed by politics in forms of killing, symbolic, social death, poverty, misery. Necropolitics means that BIO (in Latin life) is subjugated to the power of death. This is as well connected with misery, unemployment, wages that are under the life minimum.
These are the elements of my interest; of course the analysis of necropolitics works as well with analysis of forms of different fascisms here and there (in the western world and in the turbo fascist reality of Serbia and former Yugoslavia) that are connected with global capitalism.
Since you are anti-capitalistic theoretician how could you comment famous Žižek’s quote “It is easy to imagine the end of the world — an asteroid destroying all of life, and so on — but we cannot imagine the end of capitalism.” On your opinion, which are the main mechanisms that could be used in fighting capitalism?
Definitely to stop to quote this Žižek “5 cents” that seems that is all what we have in the time of show business in the public realm. I think that insisting on political emancipatory projects that are capable to work with what is termed other histories, political practices as the decolonial movement from Latin America and USA, the black radical transfeminism and transmigrant thoughts and positions from Europe and Africa and the Asian-Australian positions of reading discrimination and dispossession onto and of the native people and populations are those which can give us another path. In the European context the work of the Talmudist Ivan Segré (that is brilliant in his militant critique of emptied discourses of political correctness), Philomena Essad from Netherlands (with her work on structural racism) and Araba Evelyn Johnston-Arthur from Vienna/USA (with her strong critique of critical whiteness) are those who empowers me, along the strong black transgender movement of performance and art research here (Austria) and there (Brazil). I am sure that we can imagine worlds, and change realities more than we can think of, if we change our point of intervention and transformation and base them on the geopolitical-space of philosophy, politics and practice, I sketched for you.
Your PHD which was dealing with the terms of virtual reality, cyberspace, cyberfeminism ,postcolonial theory and media theory. On your lecture you have mentioned September 11th as a big shift in paradigm. Is this shift related to the terms you have already examined and in which way?
The 11th of September 2001 that marks the attack on the World Trade Centers in Manhattan in New York, USA, as we have to be precise about what we talk and what you ask, as nothing is self-understandable in itself, presents the final violent form of entrance and enthronement of global neoliberal capitalism on a Global world scale. It is a moment that Santiago Lopez Petit, Spanish theoretician, calls as the moment when capitalism and reality started to be one, without a short circuit. That means that the political projects of emancipation that we had worked onto before and we had relayed on for decades were put all put under question. This is as well one of main points of my research for the last 20 years.
How could you describe your personal hybrid position between theory, activism, and art?
I am at the present moment very privileged as I have a fix position of employment and I share the work in between Ljubljana and Vienna. This is for me a super important relation, as I am constantly forced to think what are the different spaces, histories, practices and politics. I am working in Vienna at the Academy of Fine Arts that is a powerful institution. At the present moment, I think we are very lucky as we have a full female Rectorat and this is a first case in a history of how institutions are managed in Central Europe. Great! On the other side I take the political stance of a fidelity to postulates of egalitarian politics and a clear view that profit and private property produce constant exploitation, discrimination, poverty and exclusion.
I try to have these points of departure constantly part of my work and as well in the processes of teaching.
You are also working as a full-time professor on Faculty of Fine Arts in Vienna. In which ways does your position as a theoretician, activist and artist influence your position of an educator in arts?
I am completely against the positions very much present these days of substitution of the art work for a process of teaching, so to state that my “class” is my art project and some similar nonsense. On one side, I think that today teaching is a pure political intervention, you can destroy generations or you can build alliances and methods that leave open the space for critical work, also through fight. I am a wage worker that has to be very clear of the positions of institutions from art to knowledge, as part of the dispositive of power. But as already stated up, if you think about knowledge, formation of practices and relations of politics, then it is clear that teaching is a super responsible work, as it is about what kind of histories, social practice and political subjectivies you will help to form within the institution. On the other side I am also growing in the process of exchange, through harsh discussions in the classroom regarding the most important social, political and economic contradictions. Art is part of these junctures.
I make films and videos and installation with my partner Aina Šmid, and there I as well enter similar questions.
In 2004 you have stated in your review of an artist Zampa di Leone that you find his critical position towards state of things on Balkans amusing and refreshing. What are on your opinion main issues on Balkan’s art scene?
At that present historical moment about 10 years ago they were important though I was as well attacked by them, I thought it was a question of formulating a critique to be capable to distance from lobbies of power. Today the situation changed radically and power is doubled from a necropolitical boring toward a necropolitical amusing condition. For me the most interesting nodal points in the Serbian context are those positions that are capable to emancipatory stands for the LGBTQI positions, from activism, social and political work to art; TkH (Theory that walks) is an institution per se that opened many paths for theory and practice, and, last but not least projects that can form critical questions of past history and present emancipatory relations. Similarly, I can think about Slovenia, not so many projects but the lesbian and transgender positions, gay and transsexual positions they are capable to form a critical discourse that almost nobody can match in terms of deep analysis that are strong and at the same time painful (about EU, Slovenia and former Yugoslavia).
Nothing is yet lost, though it is almost all at the verge of disaster.
Are there actors on Balkan’s contemporary art scene whose work you find interesting and which ways?
I see for a long that the relation of biopolitics and necropolitics is the relation of co-existence, co-propriety and co-simultaneity. They are both here with us and that means that in the time of a death of the social, of the death of the political, art and culture, and especially the institutions that represent them, are just biopolitcal institutions, that means they live only and solely for themselves. They try to survive not matter what. Therefore in such a situation we have destroy this circular repetition. Or we have to build structures in art and politics that will propose potentiality also in terms not to leave out of our thinking what matters the most the relation between capital and labor.
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Marina Gržinić is PHD in Philosophy and an artist. Together with Aina Šmid, she works in a field of video since 1982. She works in both Vienna and Ljubljana. On 22nd of April 2015, she had held a lecture on topic ” Necropolitcs and Global Capitalism” in Congress hall on Rectorate of University of Arts, Belgrade and I had a chance to make an interview with her.
