Announcement: Drifting Identity Station

° Drifting Identity Station | 12 October - 5 November 2011

Opening: 11 October, 19.00 pm

Project curator: Stefan Rusu

Participating artists:

Marina NaprushkinaKristap GulbisStefanos TsivopoulosSociété Réaliste (Ferenc Gróf and Jean-Baptiste Naudy)Tilmann Mayer-Faje

Seminars and workshops: DRIFTING IDENTITY STATION by Gulsen Bal and Stefan RusuLocation: Institut für Kunst und Gestaltung, TU Wien11 - 18 October 2011

Round table talk/discussion: De-linking, de-coloniality by Marina GrzinicLocation: Open Space, Open Systems3 November 2011, 19.00 – 20.30 pm

The Drifting Identity Station uses a model of former Soviet Polar Stations, which was a trend in the 50's to explore the arctic environment while experiencing extreme cold. Station operates in the harsh climate associated with “political winter,” while researchers interested in the socio-political environment by deploying various devices and methodologies in order to collect and monitor the data that is relevant to the given context. While exploring the frozen landscape, researchers analyze old trajectories (derived from the former USSR political construct and a new formation in European Union progress) to identify what characterizes the mapping of states and identities in an attempt to determinate the intensity and temperature of the political debates connected to ongoing process of EU enlargement. The process of formation of European Union have polarized the issue of the identity of the states and its inhabitants in certain contexts.

The underlying idea of National Costume of the European Union developed by Kristap Gulbis is a starting point for a debate concerning the identity within a European context and the adjustability of various EU directives and regulations to its historically and mentally diversified regions. Belarus in figures by Marina Naprushkina is part of of a larger initiative Office for Anti-Propaganda is focused on the critical examination of the contemporary Belarus state which is authoritarian ruled by Alexander Lukashenko; The opposition is oppressed and marginalized, the media are brought into line. Because of this circumstances Belarus is also an outstanding example of how to establish a modern dictatorship and how the western democracies handle this case. Lost Monument by Stefanos Tsivopoulos takes upon a controversial monument, a statue of former American president Harry S. Truman located in downtown Athens that appears as though it were a still unidentified archaeological find. The Truman Doctrine shifted American foreign policy toward the Soviet Union and historians often use it to mark the starting date of the Cold War. Societe Realiste (Ferenc Gróf and Jean-Baptiste Naudy) shows two maps extracted from the collection London View. One is a map superimposing the political frontiers that existed at the turn of each century between year 0 and year 2000 on the European peninsula and its surroundings. The other graphic is a colorimetric map of European segmentations, where every single portion of land divided between these frontiers has been associated to a specific taint, averaging their respective trans-historical surrounding frontiers.

Dulcification Measure by Tilmann Mayer-Faje examines how people nowadays live in the huge skeleton of the industrialized urbanization that took place in the Soviet time and analyse how the functions of micro district could be transformed to the contemporary life and needs of the inhabitants. While reproducing the ornaments as they where stamped on the houses in order to indicate a local identity, he plays with the failure of this machinery.

The Drifting Identity Station is initiated as a research platform to monitor and preserve the data related to the evolving state of identity in a given context, here in the context of European Union and the countries of Baltic region and neighbouring countries of the Eastern Partnership (Belarus, Ukraine, Republic of Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan).

Visual art projects and other contributions that will be on display in the Station comment on the evolution of the social engineering project of European Union, as a political construct in progress and the political identity of the neighbouring countries at its current state. At the same time the artists assume the posture of researchers that collect the samples from the field in order to preserve the residual traces that re-articulate the post-socialist condition. The area of research is extended to Mediterranean region that most recently become a fertile ground for the export of European democracy.

Artist info:

Marina NaprushkinaBelarus in Figures, mixed media installation (wall intervention), 2011

Belarus in Figures is a serial of diagrams, which are compiled from the numbers taken from the annually statistical reference book „Belarus in figures“. This book provides information on the socio-economic situation in the Republic of Belarus and is put together by the National Statistical Committee, the institution which is a part of the authoritarian system build up by the Belarus government. The figures should give the right and proved information about the agricultural produce, industrial products, education, number of employed, the population size and should provide a very stable image of Belarus State to its citizens. The diagrams done by Naprushkina pretend to be the real official diagrams, a part of state propaganda. These diagrams show the forged results and demonstrate how the state manipulates its institutions. The serial is a part of the archive of Office for Anti-Propaganda, it consists of app. 40 pieces and is updated every year. “Office” produces an archive of videos, texts and picture material on the subject of political propaganda. Belarus political model can be transferred to some other East European and Latin American countries from which Belarus gets political support. Belarus is also an outstanding example of how to establish a modern dictatorship and how the western democracies handle this case.

Kristaps GulbisNational Costume of the European Union, Printed Magazine and 9 photographic prints, 2009

The aim of the initiative is the creation of a new attribute of the European Union – a national costume designed for all EU citizens. The European Union already possesses many of the attributes of a sovereign country: a Parliament, a Central Bank, a currency, legislation, a flag and an anthem.Just as the front side of Euro coins is common throughout the whole of Europe, the National Costume of the European Union also has a common element – yellow stars on a blue cloth background. Similarly to the reverse side of the coins, designated for memorialising important symbols of each Member State, the National Costume of the European Union is also based on different designs for each country, using the historical national costumes of a particular territory as a basis. The garments’ details are borrowed from the national costumes in a stylized way and adjusted to the rhythms of modern life, thus indicating the wearer’s country. The costumes are suitable for different climate zones and can be worn for important European-level official, festive occasions.A voluntary union of diverse, historically independent states and citizens has never existed on the continent of Europe and this aspect makes it unique. Economically and politically the EU functions as a single organism. However, the various cultures and traditions of European countries, as well as diverse mentalities determine the multi-nationality of this geopolitical cultural space.Inhabitants of European countries have always taken pride in their statehood and cultural traditions. The latter also include their national costumes. Even though their topicality and usage have changed over time, they still remain relevant during various cultural activities and events, and even nowadays in some European regions they still serve as festive dress.The official costume of the European Union, that is, the National Costume of the European Union will become another symbolising attribute of the union of these countries. It is planned to submit a draft law to the European Commission, to set regulations for the use of these national costumes and legally approve their design and pattern.

Stefanos TsivopoulosLost Monument, Single channel video, HD cam, 16:9 Colour, 27 min, 2009

Lost Monument takes upon a controversial monument, a 4 meter bronze statue of former American president Harry S. Truman. The monument is located down town Athens, Greece next to the historic triangle of Acropolis, Greek Parliament and Panathinaiko Stadium. Ever since its erection in 1963 as a commemoration to the Truman Doctrine, the monument has been a favourite target of citizens wishing to express their opposition to the very idea of placing a US president’s statue in the capital city of a country whose civil war was decided thanks to that very president’s intervention.During the film the statue is discovered by two farmers in a field and it seems not possible to identify who the man in the statue is. Moreover it has no value which is obviously why got it thrown away. From that moment on the statue starts a journey, almost like another Ulysses, which sends it to several different sceneries in Greece and Turkey where the individuals involved have no knowledge about the statue and eventually want to get rid of it. The people and landscapes we see in Truman’s Homeric wanderings are absolute, and bordering on stereotypes, in order to highlight the metaphysical dimension of displacement which the four views that constitute the film take forward and intertwine.Lost Monument do not just concern a key passage in the history of Greece but also, in a broader sense, a particular post-war moment in Europe, which is undoubtedly still closely linked to the present. The symbolic start of the Cold War with the intervention of Truman in 1947 and its corresponding historicisation not even twenty years later with the erection of a monument dedicated to him in a public place in Athens, both reveal a desire to superimpose one memory on another in an antagonistic manner. This takes place within an area of discourse in which the conflict remains open and where, by its very definition, the artefact of power shows the signs of its visual ineffectiveness.

Société Réaliste (Ferenc Gróf and Jean-Baptiste Naudy)Transitioners: London View, two large photographic prints, 2009

In 2006, Société Réaliste launched Transitioners, a “trend design agency” specialising in political transitions. Transposing the principles of trend forecasting used by the fashion industry to the field of politics, the project questions «Revolution» as a central operative category for contemporary Western societies. Depending on the present political atmosphere, Transitioners defines formal climates in which future social transformation movements will take place, in order to maximize their efficiency. Every year, a new trend collection is based on a referent historical event.In 2009, Transitioners developed for showcases in London, Berlin and Novi Sad its collection “London View.” Inspired by the 1848 “Spring of the Peoples”, this collection approaches this “Year of Revolution” and the new political paradigm experienced in those days: the scheme of a synchronous and continental revolutionary attempt. From the first students and workers demonstrations in Paris in February 1848 to the end of the Hungarian Civil War in December 1849, revolutions took place all over Europe. Forty European cities have been the theatres of major collective events that continue to interrogate today’s political context: collective spontaneity, poly-centric organization, international collaboration by means of communication and horizontal strategies.In February 1848, Marx and Engels published the “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, an essay marking the beginning of the Hegelian Marxism theoretical leadership on the European revolutionary forces. Transitioners: London View questions specific points in Marx & Engels' analyses of the political situation, in particular the inaccuracy of their Londoner theoretical point of view in regard to the complex multiplicity of the revolutions happening concurrently on the European continent.

Tilmann Mayer-FajeDulcification Measure, mixed media installation, 2011

Tilmann Meyer-Faje is looking for individual expressions that are possible within a dominant structure. He examines how people nowadays live in the huge skeleton of the industrialized urbanization that took place in the Soviet time. He is analysing how the functions of micro district could be transformed to the contemporary life and needs of the inhabitants. Thereby he discovers a lot of similarities especially from recent time although the dominant system failed long ago. He holds an image database with a lot of exchangeable spots from the former Soviet territory. (how people behave, what they wear, the billboards, micro business, garage boxes and so on) Actually he does not have an explanation for that phenomena. Maybe an after effect of the Soviet doctrine might still works in peoples genes, ore a new sovereignty took it over to supply the daily infrastructure? In his performances and installations Tilmann Meyer-Faje is linking the daily routine to the concrete mass production how the prefabricated flats where build. He reproduces the ornaments as they where stamped on the houses in order to indicate a local identity. He plays with the failure of this machinery. The decorative part proposed to create an identity supposed to become the most exchangeable part of the building and the scribes caused by the frowzy constructors becomes more dominant than the actual design. At the European Ceramic Center EKWC in Den Bosch he staged a whole manufacture where workers produced standardized flat buildings.

Supported by:

bm:ukkMA 7 - Interkulturelle und internationale AktivitätenERSTE FoundationEuropean Cultural Foundation (ECF), STEP beyondMondriaan Foundation

kind support provided by:

University of Vienna - Department of Meteorology and Geophysicscyberlab - Digitale Entwicklungen GmbH

In Cooperation with Institut für Kunst und Gestaltung, TU Wien