mapping the shifting borders beyond zero points...

Marina Grzinic(1) addresses number of current issues which group around the notion of “post-Socialism.” This is of particular relevance in the context of the move towards an enlarged European community and regrouping of a new Europe through focusing on new media art and aesthetic constitution of the cultural specific condition and its political-philosophical implications.

Sein–Nichts–Werden Being–Nothing–Becoming FürsichSein? Being for Self? Sein–für–Anderes? Being–or–Other?

..………………………………………... die verschobenen Ränder jenseits der null-Punkte auf der Karte eintragen...

mapping the shifting borders beyond zero points...

Grzinic's approach seeks to establish between the cultural specific conditions in Eastern Europe and the emergent Western theoretical debates towards mechanism for synthesis within the realm of creative practices. Grzinic, in her recent essay the “Synthesis: Retro-Avant-Garde, or, Mapping Post-Socialism in Ex-Yugoslavia”(2), proposed the notion of “post-Socialism” in an understanding of “deconstruct[ing] the modern myth of a global world, a world without cultural, social or political specificity, a world without centres and peripheries” (3) in terms of analysing the ‘new’ Europe coded in the ‘East reading East.’

Yet how do we read “post-Socialism” within a context of the culturally specific conditions, which formed the basics, laid down in the visibility and/or invisibility of their multiplicity of psychical and social locations in the midst of former so-called Eastern Block?

A possible method for understanding this new situation and paradigms of specific spaces requires an act of mapping where the effects of differences or “otherness” are represented through a passage from “ideology in-itself” to “ideology for-itself” (4) relative to the subjective position tacitly conceded by its own articulated process. (5) This will allow us to take a step out of ideology in its otherness or externalization in relation to developing of a new media strategies that problematize representation and self-representation.

In pursuance of a better understanding to facilitate a tactical/strategical position in fine art context towards the conditions specific to “post-Socialism;” Grzinic introduces a notion of an aesthetic of “cognitive mapping” which helps us to identify a “situational representation” of the subject. This is problematic because it lacks the constituent of the “un-representable.” The “un-representable” as suggested by Fredric Jameson (6) is integral to ‘cognitive mapping’ prefaced as the theoretical issue holding a particular position in order to reaffirm the analysis of representation; but not exactly mimetic in the sense of its historical basis.

By contrast to that the problematic arises here in its immediate effects on political praxis within the realm of “the representation of the subject’s Imaginary relationship to his/her Real conditions of existence.” (7) Consequently ‘cognitive mapping’ needs to be augmented by the connotation of the empirical position of the subject with abstract conceptions of the geographic totality. This moreover charts not the point at which differences manifest themselves, then ‘what is a cognitive map called upon to do’ relative to a new cultural landscape?

We cannot return to aesthetic practices developed thoroughly on the foundation upon that historical situations rests and dilemmas which are not relevant any more, not least because the situation within which this discourse operates a fracture of the cultural continuum. Nonetheless, the conception of space that has been rendered here a model of a political culture appropriate to a particular situation have to raise spatial issues as its fundamental axiom assuming an organic structure yet to be revealed. We must therefore provide criteria and principles for analysis and evaluation in an objective manner, which might be achieved as a consequence of answering the following questions.

What kind of mechanisms then can be applied to trans-coding of the notion of “post-Socialism” within the context of a ‘generative matrix’ that regulates the relationship between the ‘visible and the non-visible’ and between ‘the representable and the un-representable’?

Marina Grzinic raised and described the cultural logic of global capitalism as an abstract collaboration within the further abstract positioning of East and West. The process of mirroring itself, which was initiated by the debates, related to questioning whether it is possible to subvert this process and create a new locus in its relevance of one to a new relation in critical approach toward art practice and political activism.

In the condition indicated, what kind of changes is brought to light in the scope of current artistic practice and cultural processes in themselves multiple and inconsistent both within the East and West axis though constrained within the East?

These questions are interrelated. Therefore the objective might be to explore ways of theorizing practice through arguments emerging from questioning the paradigms associated with the concept ‘self” or ‘identity’ held in place and/or stabilized with its binary opposition, ‘other.’ If difference, or ‘otherness,’ does not define the possibilities of ‘sameness,’ or identity, then new ways of thinking about the relations between sameness and difference, self and other is required. However is this paradigm still relevant, and if not, in what way can we grasp the politics of the ‘other,’ and who is the Other today?

To re-work paradigms of specific spaces, arts and media productions in Eastern Europe, Grzinic introduces the concept of the “inappropriate/d Other” borrowed from Trinh T. Minh-ha who has proposed a model for re-thinking Asian space and the so-called third world in order to find some other ways to theorize the problematics of identity. Grzinic’s point of departure through the examination of the binary opposition self/other is for her a “difference.” She tries to conceptualize philosophical constrain, insisting on a difference in attempting to articulate a critical difference through the notion of the “inappropriate/d Other” for the purpose of developing a specific concepts for reading the former Eastern European territory.

In this sense described self and Other are here deployed along the axis of the possible, the contingent, or the axis of the play of mirrors as the Other is the structure of a possible world, sustaining the reality of the self. This interpretation of forming an ‘individual self’ requires differentiation from other identities, the resulting disjunctions and contradictions are threads relating to the consideration of practices of difference through physical and social locations in relation to a challenge of divergence. Consequently the consideration of the de-differentiation here takes the form by the whim of the un-/differentiated Other constructed around extending the boundaries.

However, the varied and shifting references between the issues of “inappropriate/d Other” in multiplicity of difference and the emphasis upon the factual lived ‘reality’, traced from reality which are problematized by the ontological foundations of their visibility and invisibility through a multiplicity of psychical and social locations. At the same time this ‘linearity’ is not continuous with static spaces or static conceptions of temporality such as peculiar time-space/container of ‘the transition.’ The impact on practice of this is far reaching since any form of existence takes the form of temporary materialisations serving to make visible symbolic differences.

In that case, is this an indication of a shift in the paradigm of the ‘generative process’ towards abstract multiplication referring to the in-visible structures identified in the virtual worlds with regard to the current state of production and social relations in a set of artistic references?

‘The Axis of Life’(8) is an artistic exploration into aspects of virtual identity and its relation to concepts of dis/em-bodiment by Grzinic in collaboration with Aina Smid. The user is conveyed into a virtual environment inhabited by images concerning a tactical/strategical position towards the cultural specific conditions where the user finds: art, media, history, geography, body, love, birth and death.

Autonomous characters meet within a form of virtually generated imaginary community. The reconstructed digital identity is built upon the reconstructed space within which the mutilated subject and the ‘unknown’ software generate a space where the interaction is only superficial. Therefore it seems there is no recognition of the Other, but recognition of the Other that needs to be represented in ‘inappropriate/d Other’. However, could this be described as the ‘new’ space in which the “divergence of actualization” is leading to tactical ‘becoming’?

The subject of the recorded performed image of situation touches upon the possibilities of representing an ‘object’ in an artistic medium. A process that always entails transformations was introduced in their collaborative work and requires “... the subject’s mirror … of its most elementary capacity for synthesis.” Thus the uncanny is the return of the ‘object’ that insists on being seen captivated in a reciprocal gaze at oneself through the speculation of the Other. This permits us to stake out a subject position trough a projective transference upon the reconstructed digital identity which is built on the reconstructed space relative to the problematics of ‘embodied human possibility,’ in the void within its abstract multiplications. Here the notion of multiplicity as it was previously stated does not imply a multiplication of self, but rather there is no more ‘subject’ and the substance in the classical sense.

Deleuze’s strategy of “deterritorialization” could be introduced here as a process of fictionalization and contiguity that is characterized by dismissing neither/or dialectics and synthesis in appearance of temporary materialisations. Yet, “deterritorialization” is a multiplicitous impelling force or strength of a swift passage from both dialectical syntheses that seek a subversion of perceived monolithic determinates.

“Deterritorialization” is the marking of that interval, but also something more: it is a ‘rhizomic’ marking (9) that is concerned with the production of ideas, rather than a reduction or interpretation. Rhizomic ideas are not interested in origins or results, but in ‘betweens’, in the breaking-up of structural organizations by examining the relation of forces creating the structure. The process merely rejects sign/meaning taxonomies in favour of looking at the relation of forces between things. On the contrary, deterritorial sub-version’s rhizomic function is to offer a multiplicity which resist the totalisations of either monolithic or homogenized orders. These arguments when added to the analysis of Marina Grzinic provide the missing principles which allow an objective evaluation of the condition described.

There are further significant lines of argument used by Deleuze, which reinforced the proposition that the shift in paradigm, which influences social change, is instigated by dematerialization. One argument relates to his theory of individuation, which is the ‘processes of becoming,’ that involves spontaneous spatio-temporal dynamisms, a process of “divergent of actualisation.” (10)

The basis for these oppositions is binary emerging overall by creating a space to interrogate to the point of its implosion - a space of convergence through the reconstruction of the real space which is not an abstract limitation, but a real mutilation in the absence of a single unifying entity as opposed to its transmission formulated partly in “divergent of actualisation.” Yet the route taken to this philosophical dissolution is manifold.

This raises the vital question of how a political image of the visible, which opens new possibilities for the development of new visual and media strategies that problematize representation and self-representation that allow the formation of new forms of articulation in order for positioning and for raising questions of reflection on and articulation of the “post-Socialism” in ‘Eastern European’ condition? And how can a critical space be established with the potential of a continuum in regard to the current state of production and social relations in a set of artistic references?

Grzinic points out that “the aim of the new generation of video artists” in ‘Eastern European’ conditions “has been to investigate the means by which a subject and the body is produced and articulated in electronic moving images. Especially, to investigate the ways of visualization of the ‘so-called’ absent body, object or history […] on the grounds of what has been excluded, of the non-represented object.

…With new media and technology we have the possibility of an artificial interface, which is dominated by non-identity or difference (Peter Weibel). Instead of producing a new identity, something more radical is produced: the total loss of identity.” (11)

Hence the production of objects gives way to “a growing multitude of image-objects”(12) whose immediate reality is their symbolic function as image. However Baudrillard states that “duplication suffices to render both [the real and the copy] artificial”13 within an augmented real (an idealised simulation).

“We used to live in the imaginary world of the mirror, of the divided self and of the stage, of otherness and alienation. Today we live in the imaginary world of the screen, of the interface and the reduplication of contiguity and networks. All our machines are screens. We too have become screens, and the interactivity of men has become the interactivity of screens.” (14)

The philosophical consequence involves in a “generative” absence. The threshold which bounds her discourse thus far might be crossed via the creation of the Other, of the autonomy in difference; the self becomes reclusive through inability to deal with the mediated real, where everything becomes more real than real -a creation of a virtual/material dualism within the phenomenon of simulacra through ‘simulating’ its absence, of proving the real. A politicized concept itself, through the simulation of its ‘anti’ but takes it further leading to a tautology of nothingness through the reinforcement of definitions where nothing is the Same, causing ‘to become the other’ from itself in questioning whether ‘mirrors make the real false.’

Yet the ‘self’ is not the realization of the possible Other and find its completeness in its becoming-actual in its actualisation. It is the real which suffers from a limitation as it cannot be without the possible; the virtual suffers from incompleteness as it seeks its completeness in its actualisation.

The conclusion of this epistemological portrayal of this argument and process identified lies in examining notions embedded in the actuality of art practice. This is as an oscillating odyssey of a multiplicity of physical and social locations and multiple belongings. The process remains in convergence when and where it becomes illusive and tagging the “inappropriate/d Other” suggesting a symbiotic relationship to address the complex issues of this new paradigm analyzing the ‘new’ Europe coded in the ‘East reading East.’

Notes

1 Marina Grzinic is a long established Slovenian video artist whose works covers a broad range of the new media and technologies. She has been involved with video art since 1982 and has been working in collaboration with Aina Smid and also works as a freelance media theorist, art critic and curator.

2 A shorter version of this essay was published in the catalogue for an exhibition held under the same title at the Visconti Fine Art Kolizej Gallery, Ljubljana (1994) and also please refer to http://www.ljudmila.org/nettime/zkp4/53.htm

3 ibid.

4 The inherent cognitive value of the term ‘ideology’ here seems to begin with a different, synchronous approach embodied in Hegelian understanding into a mere expression of social circumstances. Hegel distinguished three moments: doctrine, belief, and ritual; where the multitude of associated notions can be disposed with the term ‘ideology’ around these three axes: ideology as a complex of ideas; ideology in its externality, that is, the materiality of ideology, Ideological State Apparatuses; and finally, the most tending to elude domain, the ‘spontaneous’ ideology at the vital centre of social ‘reality’ itself. The order of contributions follows the Hegelian triad of In-itself, For-itself, In-and-For-itself. This reconstruction of the notion of ideology centred on the repeated occurrence of the reversal of non-ideology into ideology - that is, of the sudden awareness of how the very gesticulate of stepping out of ideology pulls us back into it.

5 S. Zizek, “Mapping Ideology”, Verso - London & New York, 1994, p.8

6 F. Jameson, “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”, Verso, 1991

7 L. Althusser, “Ideological State Apparatus”, in Lenin and Philosophy, NY, 1972

8 please refer http://www.ljudmila.org/quantum.east

9 G. Deleuze, and F. Guattari, “A Thousand Plateaus”, trans. Brian Massumi, London: The Athlone Press, 1988, pp. 3 - 25

10 G. Deleuze, and F. Guattari, “A Thousand Plateaus”, trans. Brian Massumi, London: The Athlone Press, 1988, pp. 3 - 25

11 Cf. M. Grzinic “The Representation of the Body Under ‘Communism’ return to the body” text in the book of the Artintact 4 CD-Rom edition series by the ZKM, Karlsruhe; see also the CD-Rom project by Grzinic and Smid Troubles with Sex, Theory and History in Artintact 4 CD-Rom edition series by the ZKM 1997, and also published in: Inke Arns (guest-editor), ‘New Media Cultures in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe’, Convergence: Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, Vol. 4, No. 2, University of Luton Press / GB, Summer 1998 (ISSN 1354-8565) (ISBN 1-86020-032-X), pp.27-30

12 G. Debord, “Society of the Spectacle” (1967), Red and Black, 1983, Thesis 15

13 J. Baudrillard, “Simulations”, trans. P. Foss, P. Platton, and P. Beitchman, NY: Semiotext(e),1983, p. 9

14 J. Baudrillard, Xerox & Infinity (attributed by R.C. Wilkerson, Signs of Simulation, Symbols beyond Value: Jean Baudrillard and Grassroots Dreamwork in Cyberspace, http://www.dreamgate.com