Dis-Orders

Provincia di Venezia

Assessorato alle Politiche Giovanili e alla Pace

PresidenteAngela Vettese

Consiglio di AmministrazioneGiorgio ChiavalinPatrizia MagliGiampaolo PavanGiandomenico Romanelli Angiola TiboniGianfranco Carlo Tramontin

DirettoreElisabetta Meneghel

Coordinamento generale Dora De Diana

Coordinamento curatorialeMarco Ferraris

CuratoriStefano ColettoMarinella Venanzi

Ufficio Stampa Giorgia Gallina

SegreteriaTina Ponticiello

StagistiValentina SilvestrinGiuditta Crovato

Dis-ordersA cura di Marco Baravalle

Grafica catalogoRoberta IachiniCompuService

Foto di copertinaLuca Tommasi

Traduzioni testiGiuliana RaccoPamela Rech

Stampa CatalogoCompuService

In collaborazione conl'Assessoratoalle Politiche Giovanilie alla Pace

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Dis-orders

Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa

Palazzetto TitoDorsoduro 2826, Venezia

24 ottobre 06 > 19 novembre 06

Comune di Venezia

Is art truly capable of creating turmoil? Its attitude, when it wasn’tmercenary, has often been cavalier, yet the history of its relationshi-ps with socio-political utopias is fascinating: a recent but extremelylong course, in which the moments of exaltation and faith alterna-te with the withdrawal from the field.

The Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation is pleased to host a moment of further consideration of this theme: aware that these are no lon-ger times of all-encompassing, revolutionary hope, but rather of anelastic and continuous negotiation. The Bevilacqua La MasaFoundation’s tradition has, in the past, contemplated moments ofintense ribellionism, of protest, which from the purely artistic havealso become ideological.Opportunities to reflect on disorder and activism in the visual artscan not, even today, help but stimulate our reflection on youthcreativity and on the things which excite this creativity today.

Angela Vettese

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L'arte è davvero capace di creare scompiglio? La sua attitudine è spesso stata cortigiana quando non mercenaria, ma la storia deisuoi rapporti con le utopie sociopolitiche è affascinante: un traccia-to recente ma lunghissimo, in cui i momenti di esaltazione e fiduciasi alternano all'abbandono del campo.

La Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa è lieta di potere ospitare unmomento di riflessione ulteriore su questo tema: sapendo che nonsono più i tempi di una speranza rivoluzionaria totalizzante, mapiuttosto di un negoziato elastico e continuo. La tradizione dellaBevilacqua La Masa ha contemplato anche momenti di intensoribellismo, di protesta che da prettamente artistica si faceva anche ideologica. Occasioni di riflessione sul disordine e sull'attivismonelle arti visive non possono che essere, ancora oggi, di stimoloalla nostra riflessione sulla creatività giovanile e su quanto oggi la muove.

Angela Vettese

morfologica, rende possibile il superamento della standardizzazio-ne del prodotto che, come afferma Brian Holmes, “era il segno visi-bile dell’alienazione dell’individuo sotto il regime della produzionedi massa.”In ultimo, il capitalismo cognitivo è affamato di differenza. La pro-duzione sempre più sottilmente mirata e diversificata delle grandicompagnie multinazionali, richiede lavoratori, corpi, cervelli, ecompetenze altrettanto diversi tra loro.Antipatia verso le gerarchie, sublimazione dell’alienazione del con-sumo, valorizzazione delle differenze: ecco la dimensione biopoliti-ca del capitalismo globale, la messa a frutto delle conquiste di unostraordinario ciclo di lotte, ecco la nostra vita messa al lavoro.Questa centralità della dimensione sociale aiuta a comprendere, adesempio, il successo che il discorso dell’ Estetica Relazionale (indi-cando come campo dell’opera d’arte quello delle interazioniumane e del contesto in cui avvengono) ha registrato negli ultimidieci anni. Esso, anche nella varietà delle sue manifestazioni artisti-che, ha saputo cogliere la natura biopolitica, socio-reticolare delcapitalismo cognitivo e sebbene non si presenti come uno stru-mento di critica diretta nei confronti dell’attuale modello organizza-tivo della produzione, il discorso dell’Estetica Relazionale sembraincapace di scrollarsi di dosso un’aura di ambiguità.Più che una forma di resistenza, le dinamiche artistiche di stamporelazionale si sono dimostrate un efficace mezzo di interpretazionedel capitalismo in rete. Nel riconoscimento delle crescenti possibilità connettive del conte-sto artistico con altri settori produttivi, la “generazione relazionale”trova il proprio punto di maggior distacco rispetto alla critica istitu-zionale degli anni Settanta. Dove l’arte concettuale sottolineava la specificità dello spazioespositivo al fine di farne una metafora della società intera, l’este-tica relazionale preferisce sottolineare i nuovi link che quello stes-so spazio è oggi in grado costruire con altri ambiti al di fuori del cir-cuito artistico.Tale frattura rispetto al passato non appare infondata, risponde aduna corretta osservazione dei processi capitalistici attuali, eppurerimane la sensazione che ad un’intuizione così importante non fac-cia seguito uno scarto adeguato. Infatti, una volta riconosciuto il carattere generico della galleria, ilsuo status di luogo di produzione “tra gli altri” (orizzontalmenteconnesso agli altri), anziché interrogarsi sulla natura del nuovomodello organizzativo della produzione, sulla struttura reticolaredel capitalismo contemporaneo, il discorso dell’Estetica

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L’attivismo radicale, nell’inesauribile varietà delle sue forme, com-porta la produzione di disordini. Esso mina il discorso ufficiale,smuove le ceneri della pace sociale sotto cui cova il fuoco dellabattaglia, riconosce l’origine sanguinosa dell’ordine istituzionale.Esso, nel rovesciare il celebre principio di Clausewitz, esprime laconvinzione che la politica possa essere interpretata come la pro-secuzione della guerra con altri mezzi. E’ questa guerra che deve essere portata in superficie. Il dato disopraffazione che fonda le nostre società, nascosto nei discorsiufficiali, mascherato dalla presunta neutralità della giurisprudenza,viene riportato alla luce dall’attivista.L’attivista è partigiano, nel senso che ha scelto da che parte staree in virtù di tale scelta egli è costretto al conflitto.Per gli artisti e i partecipanti di DIS-ORDERS, l’arte (e più in gene-rale la cultura) è uno strumento di conflitto, un’arma. Ovviamente, l’impiego di questa arma è definito, rispetto al passa-to, dall’attuale stato di prevalenza del capitalismo cognitivo e dal-l’integrazione del contesto (meglio del discorso) artistico all’internodi una rete produttiva più ampia ed articolata rispetto ad alcuni annifa.Il passaggio dal Fordismo al Postfordismo, dal predominio dellaproduzione industriale a quello dell’economia dell’immateriale, hadeterminato un corrispondente mutamento del modello organizza-tivo della produzione. Dove, in precedenza, questa era regolataattraverso una rigida verticalità gerarchica, oggi si osserva un’orga-nizzazione di tipo orizzontale, a rete.E’ la natura stessa del capitalismo cognitivo, con il peso sempremaggiore del settore dei servizi rispetto a quello dell’industria, conla sua dipendenza dalle tecnologie della comunicazione, a far sìche la produzione si strutturi come network.La conoscenza in quanto merce esige di circolare e lo fa attraver-so le complesse reti di relazioni di cui è intessuta la frammentatagalassia del lavoro immateriale. Il capitalismo cognitivo, qui sta lo scarto rispetto al passato, haintegrato nella figura del networker una serie di istanze di democra-tizzazione, alcuni degli aspetti che avevano caratterizzato le prote-ste dei movimenti per i diritti civili e la rivolta globale delSessantotto. Il networker sfugge all’irrigidimento all’interno di una gerarchia, nonè soggetto alla pressione di un’autorità diretta, al contrario, nellarete vengono incoraggiati la varietà degli scambi e la loro bidirezio-nalità.La flessibilità delle reti, assieme alla loro capacità di mutazione

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L’opposizione, dunque, viene necessariamente dall’interno.Gli attivisti di DIS-ORDERS contestano la natura del capitalismocognitivo attraversandolo, investono di significato biopolitico laloro pratica delle reti e l’uso delle tecnologie della comunicazione,denunciano la drammatica frammentazione del lavoro immaterialee tentano di ricomporla attorno alla galassia del precariato (la cuicomplessità va ben oltre la mera opposizione alle forme dellanuova precarietà contrattuale e la cui natura non prevede rigurgitinostalgici), attorno ad una lotta contro la solitudine del networker el’espropriazione della sua creatività.L’adozione di una prospettiva interna di lotta ha direttamenteinfluenzato anche la riflessione curatoriale intorno a DIS-ORDERS. Accanto a realtà chiaramente attiviste, cioè impegnate su un terre-no d’azione o di riflessione eminentemente politico, la mostra pro-pone una serie di lavori sintomatici di una volontà di rovesciamen-to espressa nei confronti di elementi storico-artistici.Si tratta di disordinare, con intelligenza ed ironia, le cifre stilistichedi alcuni autori ormai storicizzati, ma si tratta anche, implicitamen-te, di accettare che il discorso storico-artistico istituzionale, abbiacittadinanza in una mostra che si occupa di attivismo. Ciò nonesprime, ovviamente, un anelito verso quel principio di autonomiache, per valorizzare l’arte, la vorrebbe estranea ai fatti del mondo.La presenza di questi lavori, invece, suggerisce che solo attraver-so una riflessione sull’arte come istituzione, sulla storia dell’artecome disciplina, solo prendendo in esame questi aspetti, l’arte atti-vista può oggi pretendere di articolare una strategia di resistenzainterna. La riflessione sui linguaggi è importante se si accetta, come fac-ciamo noi, che tutti i linguaggi siano espressi dentro ad un conte-sto che li influenza.A questo proposito, è indiscutibile l’effetto dirompente che le teo-rie poststrutturaliste esercitano sull’arte e sulla teoria dell’arte findalla loro affermazione a partire dal 1968. La scoperta, dovuta a Michel Foucault, della falsa autonomia dellediscipline in cui la conoscenza è divisa, il disvelamento della lorocornice istituzionale, delle relazioni di potere e sopraffazione che laattraversano, rovesciano, nella critica istituzionale, il rapporto traspazio espositivo e opera, la quale cessa di essere oggetto inge-nuo e comincia ad indagare sugli aspetti meno nobili della corni-ce in cui è inserita.E’ nota la lettura del White Cube come spazio dell’affermazionedello status quo, della legittimazione dei valori e della cultura delleclassi sociali più abbienti ed è nota l’attitudine di determinate cor-

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Relazionale ci si tuffa in modo acritico, occupando molte varietà dinodi (gallerie, musei, club, negozi, ecc.) e navigando gli infiniticanali della rete. Sempre mantenendo l’innocente fluidità della merce, avida di cir-colazione, l’opera che risponde ai canoni dell’Estetica Relazionaleproduce interazioni e riflette sul contesto, incurante però dei rap-porti di produzione che continuano a strutturarlo, incurante, inoltre,della propria posizione in quanto opera all’interno di questi, dellerelazioni di potere che scorrono nella trama della rete e, in definiti-va, del fatto che il network continui ad essere attraversato da unatensione binaria, dal conflitto tra capitale e moltitudine.Questa riflessione mancata, questo disinteresse nei confronti diuna presa di posizione, costringe l’Estetica Relazionale ad unacondizione paradossale. Pur riconoscendo la potenzialità connetti-va del modello a rete, pur volendo produrre interazioni umane (rea-lizzate o evocate), essa è sostanzialmente invisibile al di fuori delcircuito dell’arte contemporanea. La mancanza di un’impostazionecritica, espressa a tratti nella teoria, ma mai concretizzata, le impe-disce in realtà di generalizzarsi e di contribuire a costruire queicanali della rete sottratti dagli attivisti all’ingordigia del capitale.Il paradosso dell’Estetica Relazionale è tutto qui, il suo condivisibi-le entusiasmo nei confronti delle microtopie, dei modelli realizzatidi comunità alternative, delle strutture precarie della socialità e cosìvia, non riesce a realizzarsi se non al livello del mercato.L’attivista, dal canto suo, sa di non potersi permettere alcuna ambi-guità nei confronti del capitalismo cognitvo, la sua riflessione lospinge ad analizzare la propria posizione all’interno dei rapporti diproduzione, a riconoscere lo sfruttamento biopolitico del capitali-smo in rete e, infine, ad agire di conseguenza.Nella situazione attuale, la pratica dell’attivista, sebbene guidata dauna logica partigiana, non può assumere le forme di uno scontrofrontale. Prima di tutto abbiamo visto come la valorizzazione delledifferenze sia una caratteristica del network, ciò implica che nessu-na diversità è al sicuro, semmai essa è in pericolo di essere messaa profitto, di subire un livellamento nell’esaltazione del mercato.Inoltre, se la formula linguistica “capitalismo globale” trova riscon-tro nella realtà, ciò implica la definitiva sparizione dal pianeta dizone non colonizzate dal capitalismo stesso. Viene a cessare la possibilità di un “fuori”, la possibilità che unaresistenza possa essere articolata a partire da uno spazio dallecaratteristiche alternative. Ciò non significa che non vi sia più alcu-na via d’uscita, bensì che ogni luogo è oggi inserito nel rapporto diforze tra capitale e moltitudine.

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sato (non esiste più un luogo esterno completamente al riparo dallelogiche ufficiali) e la storia dell’arte diventa strumento necessario diquesto percorso conflittuale.Come l’analisi del modello produttivo in rete mette in guardia l’atti-vista rispetto alla familiarità di quello nei confronti delle differenze,allo stesso modo, lo studio della storia dell’arte, della natura delrapporto tra opera e spazio espositivo, dell’evoluzione della conce-zione dello spazio museale, conduce alla consapevolezza dellavariazione di status del museo: da dispositivo di storicizzazione aluogo di produzione dell’arte, cioè del suo inserimento all’internodel circuito capitalistico della produzione.Paradossalmente, si può dire che nessun attivista sia al riparo dallebiennali, la scommessa è far sì che nessuna biennale sia al riparoda noi. Quando studiamo questa storia dell’arte, scorgiamo la contro-sto-ria in filigrana, il nostro compito, come attivisti, è quello di farlaemergere.Certo, messi di fronte ad una contro-storia dell’arte, ci sembra didover fronteggiare un racconto di sconfitte: della sussunzione del-l’anti-arte dadaista, dell’accademicizzazione dell’arte concettuale,della trasformazione, ma non del superamento dei limiti del WhiteCube, dell’inserimento dell’arte attivista nei programmi ufficialidelle istituzioni artistiche (vd. DIS-ORDERS). Eppure, proprio gra-zie alla prospettiva dell’attivista contemporaneo, il quale sfuggeallo stereotipo del bombarolo come a quello dell’artista da studio,è possibile guardare al presente senza rassegnazione. Infatti, la doppia consapevolezza dell’artista-attivista della contro-storia dell’arte e della natura globale del capitalismo in rete, loporta a riconoscere la necessità di una prospettiva di resistenzainterna, di un attraversamento consapevole e conflittuale delle isti-tuzioni e dei linguaggi istituzionali.Nel tempo della smaterializzazione della ricchezza, della finanzia-rizzazione dell’economia, dello zen applicato al management, ilcapitale possiede i doni della velocità, del silenzio, dell’invisibilità,dell’ordine apparente. A noi, attivisti, spetta il compito di scontrar-ci con le contraddizioni della rete perché si palesino, a noi tocca ilpiacere di strutturare una geografia del disordine.

Marco Baravalle

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renti artistiche ad abitare quello spazio con disinvoltura (dissimula-ta nel caso della pittura modernista di matrice greenbergiana, pro-grammatica negli artisti figli del boom del mercato degli anniOttanta).E’ quasi dimenticato, invece, l’aspetto direttamente politico chespinse un gruppo di artisti a metà degli anni Sessanta a concepirela de-materializzazione dell’opera come corrispettivo artistico dellegrandi lotte sociali del Civil Rights Movement.Questi pochi esempi vogliono dimostrare l’esistenza, all’internodella storia dell’arte (e quindi non rintracciabile altrove), di moltecontro-storie che l’attivista è chiamato a scrivere e di cui l’artistaattivista deve farsi interprete contemporaneo. Queste contro-storieci illuminano rispetto alla natura politica di alcuni mutamenti lingui-stici. Esiste, a mio parere, una storia politica della struttura (dei muta-menti avvenuti all’interno dell’arte modernista intesa essenzialmen-te come sistema linguistico) che non è ancora stata scritta. L’attacco all’autonomia dei sistemi linguistici portato da MichelFoucault (sostenuto dal lavoro di studiosi quali Oswald Ducrot eMikhail Bakhtin) alla soglia degli anni Settanta ha influenzato un’in-tera generazione di artisti, ma ha parallelamente costretto gli stori-ci dell’arte ad una curiosa storicizzazione del fenomeno che nonriesce a prescindere dal chiamare in causa, spesso superficialmen-te, le rivolte studentesche del 1968. Strano atteggiamento se sipensa che la posta in gioco è la descrizione della vicenda teoreti-ca di un pensiero linguistico. Strano, ma giustificato, visto che ilpoststrutturalismo ha spinto l’arte a trasformarsi da sistema lingui-stico autonomo a contesto, ha costretto l’esperienza estetica al difuori della dimensione privata verso quella più complessa deldiscorso (con il suo corollario di elementi apparentemente extra-linguistici).Ecco perché anche una prospettiva storico-artistica deve oggiinformare l’arte e la teoria sull’arte di stampo attivista. C’è bisognodi una contro-storia che dissipi l’imbarazzante semplificazionedella narrazione ufficiale nel riferire dei rapporti tra lotte sociali edarte. C’è bisogno di un’arte attivista che continui la tradizionemodernista della riflessione sulla propria natura, ovviamente supe-rando la missione ontologica del concettualismo analitico e tenen-do presente la mutazione del contesto artistico e dello spazioespositivo (che non possono più essere affrontati come negli anniSettanta, ma che, proprio per questo, necessitano di nuovi model-li interpretativi).Lo spazio espositivo istituzionale oggi necessita di essere attraver-

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The flexibility of the networks, together with their ability to morpho-logically mutate, make it possible to overcome the standardizationof the product which, as Brian Holmes confirms, "was the visiblesign of the alienation of the individual under the regime of massproduction."Moreover, cognitive capitalism is hungry for difference. The ever-more subtly aimed and diversified production of the large multina-tional companies requires workers, bodies, brains, and competen-ce to be as different amongst themselves. Aversion to hierarchies, sublimation of the alienation of consump-tion, exploitation of differences: this is the biopolitical dimension ofglobal capitalism, which makes use of the conquests of an extraor-dinary cycle of struggles. Here is our life put to work. This centrality of the social dimension helps us to understand, forexample, the success that the discourse of Relational Aesthetics(which defines human interactions and the context in which theyoccur as the field of the work of art) has registered in the last tenyears. This current, through the variety of its artistic manifestations,has also known how to embrace the socio-reticular, biopoliticalnature of cognitive capitalism. Yet even though it does not presentitself as an instrument of direct criticism with respect to the actualorganizational models of production, the discourse of RelationalAesthetics seems incapable of shaking off the aura of ambiguity. More than a form of resistence, the relational-type artistic dyna-mics have proven themselves to be an effective means of interpre-ting network capitalism.The "relational generation" finds its greatest divergence, withrespect to the institutional critique of the Seventies, in the recogni-tion of the growing connective possibilities of the artistic contextwith other productive sectors. Where conceptual art underlines the specificity of the exhibitionspace with the aim of creating a metaphor of society on whole,Relational Aesthetics prefers to underline the new links that thissame space is today able to construct with other fields, outside ofthe artistic circuit.Such a fracture with regards to the past does not seem unfounded.It responds to an accurate observation of current capitalist proces-ses. The sensation remains that an intuition of such importance didnot lead to an adequate gap.In fact, once the generic character of the gallery is acknowledged,its status as a space of production "amongst others" (horizontallyconnected to others), rather than questioning itself on the nature ofthe new organizational models of production, on the reticular struc-

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Through the inexhaustible variations of its forms, radical activismentails the production of disorders. This undermines officialdiscourse, stirring up the ashes of social peace under which thebattle flames smoulder. It recognizes the bloody origins of institu-tional order. Inverting Clausewitz' famous principle, it expressesthe conviction that politics can be interpreted as the continuationof war with other means.It is this war which must be brought to the surface. The amount ofabuse of power which is at the base of our societies, hidden withinthe official discourses, masked by the presumed neutrality of juri-sprudence, is brought back into light by the activist.The activist is partisan, in the sense that he or she has taken astance and by virtue of this decision is compelled to participate inthe conflict.For the artists and participants of DIS-ORDERS, art (and moregenerally, culture) is an instrument of conflict, a weapon.Naturally, the use of this weapon is determined, with respect to thepast, by the current state of predominance of cognitive capitalismand by the integration of the artistic context (or rather, the discour-se) within a productive network, which is larger and more pronoun-ced than it was several years ago.The cross-over from Fordism to PostFordism, from the predomi-nance of industrial production to that of the economy of the imma-terial, has determined a corresponding shift in the organizationalmodel of production. Where, in precedence, this was regulatedthrough a rigid hierarchical verticality, today we find a horizontalweb-like structure.It is the very nature of cognitive capitalism, with the increasing wei-ght on the service sectors with respect to that on industry, with itsdependence on communication technologies, which ensures thatproduction structures itself as a network.Knowledge as a commodity demands circulation, and does sothrough the complex networks of relationships in which the frag-mented galaxy of immaterial work is interwoven.The main difference, with respect to the past, is that cognitive capi-talism has integrated a series of instances of democratization,some of the aspects which characterized the protests of CivilRights Movements and the global revolt of 1968, into the figure ofthe networker,The netwoker escapes crystallization within a hierarchy. He or sheis not subject to pressure from a direct authority. On the contrary,the variety of exchanges and their bidirectionality are encouragedwithin the network.

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characteristics. This does not mean that there are no longer anyescape routes. Rather, it means that, today, every place is absor-bed into the power relationship between capital and multitude.Therefore, opposition must necessarily come from within.The activists of DIS-ORDERS challenge the nature of cognitivecapitalism by crossing through it, They invest biopolitical meaninginto their network practices and their use of communication tech-nologies, exposing the dramatic fragmentation of immaterial workand attempting to reconstitute it around a galaxy of the precarious(whose complexity goes well beyond the mere opposition to formsof new contractual precariousness, and whose nature does notforesee nostalgic resurgences), around a struggle against the soli-tude of the networker and the expropriation of his or her creativity.The adoption of an internal perspective of struggle has also direc-tly influenced the curatorial considerations of DIS-ORDERS.Next to clearly activist realities, that is, realities occupied on the ter-rain of action or with mainly political considerations, the exhibitionproposes a series of works symptomatic of a desire to overthrow,expressed with respect to historic-artistic elements.It, intelligently and ironically, deals with messing up the stylisticcodes of some of the now historified authors. It also implicitly dealswith accepting that the institutional historic-artistic argumentbelongs within an exhibition treating activism. Obviously, this doesnot express the yearning for that principle of autonomy which, inorder to increase the value of art, would have it be extraneous tothe facts of the world.Rather, the presence of these works suggests that only through aconsideration of art as an institution, of art history as a discipline,only by examining these aspects, can the activist art of todayexpect to articulate a strategy of internal resistance.The reflection on languages is important if one accepts, as we do,that all languages are expressed within a context which influencesthem.For this matter, it is impossible to deny the disruptive effects thatpoststructuralist theories have exerted on art and art theory sincetheir assertion, dating back to 1968.Michel Foucault's revelation of the false autonomy of the discipli-nes into which knowledge is divided, the uncovering of their insti-tutional framework, of the relationships of power and abuse whichrun through them, in the context of institutional criticism, upsetsthe relationship between exhibition space and work, which thusceases to be a naive object and begins to investigate the less nobleaspects of the frame in which it is placed.

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ture of contemporary capitalism, the discourse of RelationalAesthetics dives into it, in an acritical manner, occupying manyvariations of the nodes (galleries, museums, clubs, shops etc.) andnavigating the infinite channels of the network.Always maintaining the innocent fluidity of commodities, eager forcirculation, the work which fits into the canons of RelationalAesthetics produces interactions and reflects on the context, yet itis heedless of the relations of production which continue to struc-ture it. Morevover, it is heedless of its own position as work withinthese, of the relations of power which run through the weave of theweb and, definitively, of the fact that the network continues to becrossed by a binary tension, by the conflict between capital andmultitude.This missed reflection, this disinterest with regards to taking a stan-ce, forces Relational Aesthetics into a paradoxical position.Although recognizing the connective potentialities of a web model,as well as desiring to produce human interactions (both accompli-shed and evoked), it is substantially invisible outside of the circuitof contemporary art. In reality, the lack of a critical definition, attimes expressed in the theory but never really concretized, impe-des it from generalizing itself and contributing to the constructionof those web channels, removed by the activists from the voracityof capital.This, in brief, is the paradox of Relational Aesthetics. Its shareableenthusiasm regarding microtopias, realized models of alternativecommunities, precarious structures of sociality and so on, is notable to realize itself, if not on the level of the market.The activist, for his part, knows that he cannot permit any ambi-guity with respect to cognitive capitalism. This considerationpushes him to analyze his or her own position within the relation-ships of production, to recognize the biopolitical exploitation ofcapitalism in the network and, finally, to act in consequence.In the current situation, the activist's practice, even if guided by apartisan logic, cannot assume the form of a head-on collision. Firstof all, we have seen how the exploitation of the differences is a cha-racteristic of the network. This implies that no difference is safe,rather it is in danger of being made use of, of undergoing a level-ling in the exaltation of the market. Moreover, if the linguistic form"global capitalism" finds its match in reality, this implies the defini-tive disappearance from the planet of zones not yet colonized bycapitalism.The possibility of an "outside" ceases, as does the possibility of thearticulation of a resistance starting from a space with alternative

DIS-ORDERS

Institutional exhibition space today needs to be crossed (there nolonger exists an external place completely safe from official logic),and art history becomes the necessary instrument for this conflic-tual journey.As the analysis of the productive network model warns the activistwith respect to the familiarity of that regarding differences, in thesame way, the study of art history, of the nature of the relationbetween work and exhibition space, of the evolution of the concep-tion of museum space, leads to an awareness of variations of thestatus of the museum: from a device of historification and to aplace of art production, that is, of its insertion within the capitalistcircuit of production.Paradoxically, one could say that no one activist is safe from thebiennales. The wager is to make it so that no biennale is safe fromus.When we study this art history, we catch sight of counter-history infiligree. Our task, as activists, is to make it surface.Of course, placed in front of a counter-history of art, it seems wemust face up to a tale of failures: of the acceptance of dadaist anti-art, of the institutionalization of conceptual art, of the transforma-tion, but not the overcoming of the limits of the White Cube, of theinsertion of activist art in official programmes of art institutions (seeDIS-ORDERS). And yet, due precisely to the perspective of thecontemporary activist, who eludes the stereotype of the bomber aswell as that of the studio artist, it is possible to look at the presentwithout resignation.In fact, the activist artist's double awareness of the counter-historyof art and of the global nature of network capitalism, brings him orher to acknowledge the need for a perspective of internal resistan-ce, of an aware and conflictual crossing of the institutions and insti-tutional languages.In a time of the dematerialization of wealth, of the financializationof economy, of zen applied to management, capital possesses thegifts of speed, silence, invisibility and apparent order. The taskwhich awaits us activists is that of clashing against the contradic-tions of the network so that they become manifest. The pleasure ofstructuring a geography of disorder is left to us.

Marco Baravalle

21

The reading of the White Cube as a space of assertion of the sta-tus quo, of the legitimation of the cultural values of the moreaffluent social classes is well known, as is the bent of specific arti-stic currents to occupy that space with nonchalance (disguised, asin the case of Greenbergian-style modernist painting, programma-tic of the artists who were children of the Eighties market boom).Almost forgotten however, is the directly political aspect which, inthe mid-Seventies, pushed groups of artists to conceive of the de-materialization of the work of art as the artistic counterpart of thegreat social struggles of the Civil Rights Movement.These few examples wish to demonstrate the existence, within arthistory (and therefore not traceable elsewhere), of many counter-histories which the activist is called to write and which the activistartist must become the contemporary interpreter. These counter-histories enlighten us to the political nature of certain linguisticshifts.It seems to me that their exists a political history of the structure (ofthe shifts which occurred within modernist art understood essen-tially as a linguistic system) which has not yet been written.The attack on the autonomy of liguistic systems brought on byMichel Foucault (supported by the work of scholars such asOswald Ducrot and Mikhail Bakhtin), on the threshold of theSeventies, has influenced an entire generation of artists. Yet, it hasalso likewise pushed art historians to a curious historification of thephenomenon which does not manage to exempt the mentioning,often superficially, of the student revolts of 1968. Strange beha-viour if one thinks that the position at stake is the description of atheoretical succession of a linguistic thought. Strange but justifiedseeing as poststructuralism has pushed art to transform itself froman autonomous linguistic system into context, has pushed theaesthetic experience out of the private dimension toward a morecomplex one, that of discourse (with its corollary of seeminglyextra-linguistic elements).This is why even a historic-artistic perspective today must informactivist art and art theory. There is a need for a counter-history todispel the embarrassing simplification of the official narration whenreferring to the relations between social struggle and art. There is aneed for an activist art which continues the modernist tradition ofthe questioning of its own nature, obviously overcoming the onto-logical mission of analytic conceptualism, and keeping in sight theshift of artistic context and of exhibition space (which can no lon-ger be approached as they were in the Seventies, but which, forthis very reason, require new interpretive models).

DIS-ORDERS

23

Andrea Morucchio

Fiambrera Barroca

Gaston Ramirez Feltrin

Giuliana Racco

Globalproject

hackitectura.net

Indymedia estrecho+Fadaiat

Serpica Naro

Trash band

Uni.Nomade Nordest

Nemanja Cvijanovic

GLR

indice

Andrea MorucchioTHE MARS PAVILION EXPERIENCE, VIDEO 2006 (pagina a fianco)

TALK SHOW, VIDEO 2006 (pagine seguenti)

Calleconpistas, sevillaolimpica1 e sevillaolimpica2. 1999.Progetto che consisteva nel plagiare il sito web del Comune di Sivigliain cui si annunciavano i giochi di atletica di Siviglia ’99. Qui sono ripro-dotti il logo ufficiale e quello modificato. Alameda Kit. 2001. Un progetto editoriale nato a Siviglia, pensato per creare uno spazio dallaportata comunicativa in grado di unire controinformazione e possibilità diuna rivista-oggetto con i propri strumenti d’azione. Formato da un consigliodi redazione di cinque persone, il lavoro collettivo consisteva nell’elabora-zione, pubblicazione e distribuzione del Kit in bar, negozi e attraverso unpunto vendita nel mercatino della domenica della Alameda. El Tinglao del Gran Pollo de la Alameda, instalacheautoaviográfico del deseo perturbador. 2006. È un progetto espositivo di carattere collettivo, una scommessa spe-rimentale per visualizzare nell’ambito del Cas (Centro delle arti diSiviglia) alcuni dei metodi a cui abbiamo tentato di dare spazio nel libroEl Gran Pollo de la Alameda. Cómo nació, creció y se resiste a sercomido. Una docena de años de lucha social en el barrio de laAlameda, Sevilla. (Il grande pollo della Alameda. Come è nato, cresciu-to, e resiste a essere mangiato. Una dozzina d’anni di lotta sociale nelquartiere della Alameda. Siviglia). Primavera del 2006.

Calleconpistas, sevillaolimpica1 e sevillaolimpica2.jpg 1999The project consisted in the plagiarizing of the website of theMunicipality of Seville which publicized the Athletic Games of Seville1999. The official logo and the modified one are reproduced here. Alameda Kit. 2001An editorial project born in Sevilla which was planned to create aspace of communicative significance capable of linking counter-infor-mation to the possibility of a magazine-object with its own tools ofaction. Formed by an editorial council of five members, the collectivework consisted in the elaboration, publication and distribution of theKit in bars, shops and through a salespoint in the Sunday market.El Tinglao del Gran Pollo de la Alameda, instalacheautoaviográfico del deseo perturbador. 2006. An exhibition project of collective nature. An experimental wager tomanifest, in the Cas (Seville Centre for the Arts), some of the methodsthat we have attempted to make room for in the book El Gran Pollo dela Alameda. Cómo nació, creció y se resiste a ser comido. Una doce-na de años de lucha social en el barrio de la Alameda, Sevilla (The BigChicken of Alameda. How it was born, raised, and resisted beingeaten. A dozen years of social struggle in the neighbourhood ofAlameda). Spring 2006.

Fiambrera Barroca

(pagina a fianco)

(pagina a fianco)

(pagina seguenti)

Gaston Ramirez FeltrinLA CULEBRA, INSTALLAZIONE 2006

Survival English proposes itself as something that lies between amanual and an exercise book, which can actually function as a toolfor learning the English language, but which touches upon some ofthe most critical issues related to surviving in contemporary Italy,with a particular focus on the anomalies of Venice. In order to beas accurate and current as possible, the exercises are largelybased on research and interviews conducted with locals and forei-gners (both legal and illegal), residing in the Venice area. And thou-gh it is possible to learn English by applying oneself to the tasksproposed in the book, the intention of the work lies in the diffusionof useful information and the relation of actual conditions, in orderto help open up space for discussion and also to inform users ofwebsites and places to go to find or provide assistance. It is myhope to raise the consciousness of those, who perhaps are not onthe edge of survival, of the current situation. I expect that this work,which I intend to distribute free of charge throughout the city, canalso open up a space for discussion about the issues, which arebecoming increasingly pressing. In contemporary Italy, the lack ofstructure and support for both actual citizens and arriving forei-gners, predominantly in terms of secure and legal work and acces-sibly priced housing, can potentially lead to an explosive situation,while at the moment it is the cause of much suffering, unease, raci-sm and social tension.

The Survival English workbook that I have produced, at this point,consists of five modules: Survival Tactics, Immigration, Work,Housing and Criminality. The chapters of this text are divided intothe same module structures. Each module contains a page alludingto Richard Serra’s Verb List, in which the artist wrote with pencil onpaper a series of verbs related to the concept of work. In mypages, I have constructed lists of verbs, placed in traditional tensegrids, which refer to the subjects of each module. The other pagesof the book are divided between vocabulary building and grammarexercises, juxtaposed with images taken in Venice, from theInternet or from books. The combination of text, linguistic structu-res and images is intended to instigate reflection on the issues pre-sented by giving them a visible form.

Giuliana RaccoSURVIVAL ENGLISH : THE PRACTICE OF EVERYDAY ENGLISHEdition of 21 x 25 cm books, 36 pages

Venice, 2006

Hackitectura.net does not manage to clearly distinguish art, politics and work (Pasquinelli,Radical Machines). At times we use the idea of biopolitical production to describe what weare trying to do. Raoul Vaneigem’s definition of qualitative referred to the artistic act fasci-nates us. According to him, the artistic act produces itself in those moments or situationsthat change the world and transform life. In all our production the construction of situationsconnected in real time (audio/visual through the Internet) plays a fundamental role.We are used to having difficulties explaining what we do to Òordinary peopleÓ, moreoverwe don’t usually leave sellable objects or materials, and even more rarely, works of art inthe traditional sense. More likely, we leave traces of lipstick (Marcus, 199).We try to explore the becoming cyborg of the masses in spatio-temporal terms, of con-structing spaces that base themselves on social cooperation and on collective intelligence.We don’t work as authors in the traditional sense, but as assistants within the networks inwhich artists, activists, programmers and web technicians collaborate. One of the aims ofthese networks of production is the attempt to strengthen the single entities which consti-tute it.

The materials with which we operate are of at least three types:• physical space• electronic streams/networks• social bodies/networksWhat call cyborg territory takes shape in the interactions between these three factors, aspace in continuous construction which, as with every traditional space, becomes a site ofcompetence of different social groups and a theatre of different battle fronts. In most cases,it entails experimental work, more often than not, ephemeral, while on other occasions, wehave participated in projects which already were part of, or hoped to be part of, the dailyreality of our communities. In accordance with these ideas of cooperation and collectiveintelligence, we use free software, often altered by ourselves and by our friends.

2006: [Liberty Square], Seville (project)One of the works in which we are currently involved is in the Plaza de las Libertades inSeville. This project is aimed at organizing a permanent public space within which we putinto practice a series of ideas that surfaced over the course of our processes of experimen-tation.The project in the square – of whose name we are not responsible – was carried out throu-gh a competition announced by the Municipal Administration of City Planning of the City ofSeville. It entails the transformation of a space of 30, 000 m2, where the new space incor-porates information and communications technologies and the global dimension of thecontemporary world.

The project conceived of in collaboration with MGM (JosÎ Morales and Sara Giles, respec-ted architects of Seville) and with the visual artist Esther Pizzaro, won.Our proposal consisted in the creation of a soft and accessible ÒtopographyÓ, which orga-nizes the space in multiple environments devoid of hierarchy. In as much as the cyborg

hackitectura.net(KERNEL: SERGIO MORENO AKA CHASER,JOSÎ PÎREZ DE LAMA AKA OSFA, PABLO DE SOTO)CADIZ - SEVILLE - BARCELONA

aspects on which our contribution focalizes, the square, through interactions betweenhardware, software, wetware (bodies) and spaceware (spaces), charges itself with a com-plex series of valencies which push toward a consideration regarding its nature as publicspace.

> The public space as an active core of the web of networks (connection in real time toother places).> The public space as interface (social and physical: screens and interactive systems).> The public space as an Operating System (a reticular and modular infrastructure whichallows the working of different applications and the connection of different devices).> (Faced with video-surveillance) the public space as Mille Plateaux (cameras, soundsystems and other equipment permanently available in order to broadcast on the web thatwhich occurs in the square: meetings with friends, school performances, art festivals, poli-tical debatesÉ).> A public space as an emerging system (which implies a conception of this same spaceas an open situation available for the production, within itself, of the interaction between dif-ferent social and mechanized subsystems).> A public space as “wiki” (wiki square), a public space resulting from the cooperationbetween many social networks, exactly as a “wiki” (for example, wikipedia.org).

Since January 2006, when the project was awarded, we have continued to develop theseconcepts and their realization, but overall (and in spite of a certain skepticism), we havebegun to weave webs which can, in the future, manage to realize this new form of space,an urban electromagnetic field, a laboratory of cyborg citizenship. We don’t know what willhappen, and this is what drives us forwardÉ We only think of making our wishes contagiousuntil they become collective desireÉ

JosÎ PÎrez de Lama, aka osfaSeptember 2006

Links:http://estrecho.indymedia.orghttp://mcs.hackitectura.net

Plaza de las Libertades, Seville (project, 2005). MGM, hackitectura.net and collaborators.Image: MGM.

Indymedia estrecho/madiaq è uno spazio in mutazione, in continuodivenire.In questo modo Indymedia estrecho/madiaq non è mai identico ase stesso e i punti che compongono i suoi vettori direzionali dipen-dono dal tragitto che si compie. In questo senso è uno spazionomade…

Indymedia estrecho è un laboratorio di produzione biopolitico. Lecollaborazioni e le creazioni che il progetto ha coniugato e resopossibili comprendono un lavoro cartografico tradotto in unamappa, la produzione di un ricco e nuovo immaginario riguardan-te le forme ibride nate dagli incroci tra culture e forme di vita, alcu-ne collaborazioni e collezioni artistiche legate al fenomeno dellafrontiera e dello stretto (come il progetto dell’ archivio multimediaTransacciones) ed il lavoro di istituzioni pubbliche e professionaliche si occupano di un trattamento diverso dell’informazione.

Indymedia estrecho non è solo una pagina web, bensì un collega-mento strategico, uno strumento comunicativo che fa parte di unprocesso di coesione ed auto-organizzazione sociale il cui perno èrappresentato dalle rivendicazioni per la libertà di movimento e diconoscenza nella frontiera meridionale dell’Europa ed in quella set-tentrionale dell’Africa.Forse è tutto quello che nel sito non si vede a costituirne la mag-giore ricchezza: gli incontri, le alleanze, le nuove reti che si creano,le connessioni tra progetti che fino ad allora, pur condividendoalcune delle rispettive tematiche, non avevano considerato la pos-sibilità di collaborare gli uni con gli altri.

Fadaiat

fadaiat: una nuova forma di spazio pubblico. Fadaiat, in arabo,significa satellite, piattaforma spaziale e antenna parabolica!

È un evento nomade realizzato per 3 anni consecutivi tra Tarifa,Tangeri e Barcellona come esperimento di un Ateneo interdiscipli-nare e biopolitico. Un laboratorio tecnologico, artistico, politico earchitettonico basato sulla relazione tra libertà di movimento elibertà di conoscenza nel territorio geopolitico dello stretto diGibilterra, frontiera tra la Fortezza-Europa e l’Africa popolare / dellemoltitudini.

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Loro costruiscono muri, noi ponti. Loro propongono paura, noicontagio. Loro sono ordine, noi movimento. La lotta per la cittadi-nanza globale è aperta. 14 km separano le due sponde dello stret-to. 14 km separano (il mondo) Europa e (il mondo) Africa.

Ci è più facile capire questo paesaggio se comprendiamo che da alcu-ni punti della costa si scorge con chiarezza l’altro lato, l’altro mondo. Lasensazione di prossimità, di vicinanza creata dalla vista di un altro con-tinente suscita uno strano e tangibile desiderio di attraversare questeacque. Madiaq, una terra di frontiera, una terra di forze in conflitto, unaterra dove si respirano la logica della guerra e del controllo.

Indymedia estrecho / indymedia madiaq è una rete di attivisti dellacomunicazione organizzati in forma orizzontale e partecipativa eintegrati nella rete indymedia globale. Questo indymedia si caratterizza per la sua capacità di affrontareproblematiche già prese in esame da distinti progetti politico-comunicativi e dai restanti nodi della rete indymedia.

Indymedia estrecho è un progetto di comunicazione transfrontalie-ra, un progetto che utilizza la frontiera come centro d’osservazionee di lavoro.

Abbiamo scelto il territorio dello stretto come spazio dove interve-nire, dove ricercare le linee di fuga, i processi emergenti di unadiversa soggettività, dove la disobbedienza comporti l’immediatacostruzione di spazi alieni alla logica di comando, dove si possacamminare verso la costruzione di un movimento unico e moltepli-ce allo stesso tempo. Parliamo della costruzione di un corpocomune e crediamo che si stia formando, un corpo comune cheabita un territorio lontano dalla logica dello stato-nazione, un terri-torio che è al di là di ciò che la parola Andalusia può definire.

Si tratta della messa in pratica di uno spazio direzionale più chedimensionale,o meglio, di uno spazio che non è retto da determi-nazioni metriche, dimensionali, bensì stabilito dai “vettori direzio-nali” che lo compongono, flussi intersoggettivi in grado di costrui-re un rizoma- una struttura decentralizzata ed eterogenea- cheprende le distanze dalla logica geo-politica dello stato-nazione.Un rizoma è composto da piani collegati da micro-fessure.Pensiamo che questi piani siano già lì e siano infiniti. Il compito chei soggetti implicati in questo processo devono svolgere è quello diprodurre le micro-fessure che collegano i diversi piani.

Indymedia estrecho+Fadaiat

They construct walls, we build bridges. They spread fear, we diffu-se contagion. They are order, we are movement. The battle for glo-bal citizenship is open. 14 km separate the two shores of thestraits. 14 km separate (the world) Europe and (the world) Africa.

It is easier for us to understand this landscape if we understand thatfrom some points of the coast, the other side, the other world, isclearly visible. The sensation of proximity, or closeness, created bythe view of the other continent stirs up a strange and tangible desireto cross these waters. Madiaq, a border land, a land of conflictingpowers, a land where one breathes the logic of war and control.

Indymedia estrecho / indymedia Madiaq is a network of communi-cations activists organized in a horizontal and participatory struc-ture and integrated into the global indymedia network.This indymedia is characterized by its ability to confront problemswhich are already being analyzed by distinct political-communica-tions projects and by the remaining knots of the indymedianetwork.

Indymedia estrecho is a cross-border communications project, aproject which uses the frontier as an observation and work centre.

We have selected the territory of the straits as the site of interven-tion, to search for the vanishing points, the emerging processes ofa different subjectivity, where disobedience entails the direct con-struction of spaces alien to the logic of control, where one canmove toward the construction of a movement which is both singleand multiple at the same time.We are talking about the building of a mutual body, which we belie-ve is forming, a mutual body which inhabits a territory far from thelogic of the nation-state, a territory which is beyond that which theword Andalusia can define.

It means the putting into practice of a directional space rather thana dimensional one, or better yet, of a space which is not supportedby metric or dimensional coordinates, but is established by the"directional vectors" which form it, inter-subjective streams capa-ble of constructing a rhizome / a decentralized and heterogeneousstructure- which takes its distance form the geo-political logic ofthe nation-state.A rhizome is composed of planes connected by micro-fissures. Webelieve that these planes are already there and are infinite. The task

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Il progetto è stato promosso da gruppi e persone che lavorano nelcampo multimediale, dell’arte, dei mezzi di comunicazione indipen-denti, dei principali movimenti sociali per lo stimolo della creatività,del pensiero e delle attività riguardanti le idee di libertà di cono-scenza e di movimento nel contesto della recente storia geopoliti-ca della zona. Il progetto si avvale della collaborazione di diverseuniversità, enti statali e municipali. Abbiamo disposto di una rete distreams audio e video, provenienti da Tarifa, Tangeri e altre parti delmondo, per costruire un ponte virtuale sopra lo Stretto, documen-tando gli eventi che si sono succeduti nei due luoghi.L’interesse del progetto sta nella sua capacità di assemblaremoduli, laboratori e attività dalle caratteristiche diverse ma semprelegate dal leitmotiv della libertà di movimento e di conoscenza oltreche da quello dello scenario delle naturali trasformazioni del lavo-ro e della frontiera. In particolare, il progetto Transacciones consi-steva nella compilazione di un archivio multimediale di opere arti-stiche e narrative sul tema dello stretto. Inoltre, con Transaccionestv, fu realizzata una trasmissione televisiva sperimentale (delladurata di 3 giorni) del lavoro realizzato negli incontri di Fadaiat e diuna serie di materiali alternativi. Il tutto fu trasmesso per 4 ore algiorno dalla tv locale della città di Tarifa. In generale Fadaiat è stato un modo di creare un’intelligenza col-lettiva, contro-immagine della guerra globale permanente e delloscontro di civiltà.

http://www.hackitectura.net/osfavelados/2006_venezia/image-nes/indymedia_fadaiat/

Indymedia estrecho+Fadaiat

The project has been promoted by a group of individuals who workin the multimedia field of the arts, of independent communicationmeans, of the primary social movements for the stimulation ofcreativity, thought and activities regarding the ideas of freedom ofknowledge and of movement in the context of the recent geopoli-tical history of the area. The project is assisted by collaborationswith different universities and national and municipal organizations.We have a network of audio and video streams at our disposal,from Tarifa, Tangier and other parts of the world, which will help usbuild a virtual bridge over the Straits, documenting the eventswhich will happen in both places.The project's interest is to assemble modules, workshops, activi-ties of different characteristics, yet always tied to the leitmotif offreedom of movement and knowledge, and also to that of the sce-nario of the natural transformations of the work and of the border.In particular, theTransacciones project consisted in the compilationof a multimedia archive of artistic and narrative works on the themeof the straits. With Transacciones tv an experimental televisedscreening was carried out, over three days, of the works producedduring the Fadaiat meetings and other alternative contents, broad-casted for four hours a day by the local television station of the cityof Tarifa. In general, Fadaiat was a means of creating a collectiveintelligence, a counter-image of the permanent global war and ofthe clash between civilizations.http://www.hackitectura.net/osfavelados/2006_venezia/image-nes/indymedia_fadaiat/

53

that the subjects implicated in this process must undertake is thatof producing the micro-fissures which connect the different planes. Indymedia estrecho/madiaq is a space in mutation, in continuousbecoming.In this way Indymedia estrecho/madiaq is never identical to itself,and the points which compose its directional vectors depend onthe trajectory which is followed. In this sense, it is a nomadicspace...

Indymedia estrecho is a laboratory of biopolitical production. Thecollaborations and the creations which the project has combinedand made possible involve a cartographic work translated into amap, the production of a new and rich imagination regarding thehybrid forms born from the crisscrossing between culture and lifeforms, some collaborations and artistic collections tied to the phe-nomenon of the border and of the straits (like the multimedia archi-ves Transacciones project), and the work of public and professio-nal institutions interested in a different handling of information.

Indymedia estrecho in not just a web page, but a strategic connec-tion, a communication tool which is part of the process of cohesionand social self-organization whose axis is represented by thedemands for the freedom of movement and knowledge on thesouthern border of Europe, as well as the northern border of Africa.Perhaps it is all that is not visible on the site which gives it its grea-test richness: the encounters, the alliances, the new networkswhich are created, the connections between projects which untilthen, though sharing certain respective themes, had not conside-red the possibility of collaborating with one another.

Fadaiat

fadaiat: a new form of public space. Fadait, in Arabic, means satel-lite, space platform and parabolic antenna!

It is a nomadic event carried out over three consecutive yearsbetween Tarifa, Tangier and Barcelona, as an experiment of an inter-disciplinary and biopolitical university. It is a technological, artistic,political and architectural workshop based on the relationshipbetween freedom of movement and freedom of knowledge in thegeopolitical territory of the Straits of Gibraltar, the frontier betweenFortress-Europe and the people's Africa / of the moltitudes.

Chamber of Fashion was not the ultimate aim, but rather the goal was the establishment of relationshipsbetween precarious creative people and the precarious employees and their own creativity, the values thatwere shared within a framework of conflict. From the Serpica Naro experience we have understood thatfor many precarious workers it became possible to practice conflict even in front of apparently unassaila-ble business giants, since the apparent potential to be blackmailed had been bypassed by safeguardingthe anonymity of those who helped circulate the information or who offered their own competence andabilities for the success of the operation. The precarious networks, active and in solidarity, did the rest. Themechanism is simple but explosive. Faced with flexibility and exploitation, there is no loyalty to the firmwhich stands strong. One can create complicity and relationships in the tone of anti-corporation quiteeasily: a terrible virus for those who advocate the fragmentation of every social and working relationship.

2. There is still one question left to be answered: was it a colossal hoax or an explosive vision of the futu-re? Or rather, what happened afterward?

The Serpica Naro label that we created, which we had to register in order to officially participate in theCalendar, was then freed in 2006 through a license, which in its principles refers to the license for softwa-re and music elaborated by Creative Commons. The Serpica Naro label is therefore free to be used byall, as long as the creations connected to the label are freely reproducible, and the resulting products areissued in accordance with the same license. This makes the creativity, the ability, and also the capacityand the decision to not make use of practices which exploit workers in the production/distribution chain,available and sharable, as well as the necessity to reinsert the value of those who produce into the social.

After Serpica Naro, many people asked where the Serpica items could be purchased. A rather glamo-rous fascination with respect to the operation itself, but which also proved a desire to exit from the serial,from the anxiety of being universally branded, to reappropriate a more personal style, more ethical and"clean", without necessarily stuffing oneself in fair-trade jute sacks.We need a space where we know that we are buying clothing free from exploitation, items produced bycraftspeople. In particular, if you work in the field of fashion, social communication, mass media, or enter-tainment, it could be very interesting to spread the clothing and accessories connected to Serpica (butthis is true for any work environment in which precariousness strangles the workers) as a sign of the irre-ducible relations to the logic of the businesses which impose precariousness.

There is a desire for a space, real or virtual, where one can go to find clothing in which one knows thateverything purchased is produced by craftspeople, small producers or spinnerettes which guarantee pro-duction, respecting job security as much as possible. A space where free and nonprofit exchanges, beit of clothing or of ideas, are favoured and encouraged. A style which permits one to recognize oneselfand to enter into contact with a network of relations which foresees the precarious in the spotlight.Today, fighting precariousness does not only mean participating in the labour struggle, but also removingthe neo-liberal yoke from one’s neck in order to experiment with diverse economies.

3. A free license of a registered label: nothing similar has ever been attempted? A social idea of the futu-re or artistic license?

Licensing a label for us implied sharing all the rights that the law reserves for the owners of registeredbrands. The real owner of a social process is the community which understands to share know how andexperience, and through this method is able to move something in the institution of precariousness.Serpica Naro has always made reference to the hacker community which led to the experience of free-software as a liberation of knowledge, through the gpl license. But software isn't a sweater! We wouldn'thave been able to issue a label under a free license, characteristic of software: we had to elaborate alicense which kept in consideration the problem of the freedom of a material product. The registered tra-demark is different from both a patent or a copyright, even though it is an integral part of the laws onintellectual property. The passage from immaterial work to real production forces us to take into consi-deration, on the one hand, serialization and, on the other hand, the relationship between free and auto-nomous production and industrial production, since that which we would like to develop through theSerpica Naro brand is not the article of an established designer, but the virality of the mechanisms of par-ticipation in social processes. Serpica Naro is a MetaBrand! And for this reason the licence was writtenex novo taking our cue from the experiences of Creative Commons.

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Serpica Naro does not exist.Serpica Naro is a MetaBrand.Serpica Naro is a overtaking of the centrality of the trademark,all those who recognize themselves in it can participate in it.Serpica Naro is a space where imagery and autonomous production meet, creativity, style and radicali-sm.Serpica Naro claims an imagery, a methodology, an opening through which social production and con-flict can be expressed.Serpica Naro is the autonomous production of sense and symbols,it is a method of sharing, a public cracking of codes,freedom is placed in a network of competence and intelligence.Serpica Naro is a condition of relations, in a reticular, continuous and completely open form.Instability becomes active wealth, the continuous becoming makes us move and create new styles.Creativity and social experimentation go together.Serpica Naro as a MetaBrand is the response with which we declare the closure of the week of fashionand the beginning of the season of precarious conspiracy.

Yvonne Brenta of settimanadellamoda.it interviews Serpica Naro

1. Since February 26th, the day on which Serpica revealed itself as a product of precarious nature, theChamber of Fashion, which manages an impressive system of indirect lobbying, can do nothing butwithdraw its troupes in subdued silence. The forces of order, that intercepted you or followed you stepby step, throughout the week of fashion, confirm that it was not possible to understand or predict anidea so complex, which in its infinite articulations seemed simply to be the chaotic sum of thousandsof different events. How did you come up with the idea of the operation?

We have always sensed a feeling very much like that of a shopping centre in the week of fashion: it is anideological outpost, that is, a logistic network through which a social organization based on trivial andreiterated consumption, on an imagery of which the values are competition, atomization of the individualand the superfluous, is propagated and encouraged.If you live in Milan, you can always find a way to scrape a living doing something related to fashion ordesign. But these aren't those glamorous jobs that people imagine...In fact, in the brief week of fashion,hundreds of precarious employees work 12-15 hours a day installing, taking down and runningsomething which produces a movement of 10 billion euros, yet from which only a small segment profits.The objection to the week of fashion was in our hearts and in our minds for some time. We were justlooking for the right point to insert ourselves into its mechanism. Therefore, we tried to understand what would have been the best way to show this during the week offashion, without risking being silenced by mainstream media, which in those days, busies itself witheverything but this problem. Making anagrams out of the name San Precario, champion of all us preca-rious workers, we selected Serpica Naro among the numerous combinations. Since the beginning, Serpica Naro contained San Precario within itself. The name already concealed itstrue essence. The operation had many levels of action which in themselves involved different groups ofpeople: the creation of the virtual character and its emanation in the media, the construction of the fashionshow, the inclusion of autonomous production, the logistic management of the tensiostructure and of thepermits, the relations with the workers within the fashion circuit...After the disclosure, all these levels weremade evident, and moreover it became clear that being accepted in the official calendar of the National

Serpica NaroSPERIMENTAZIONI DI UN META-BRAND, VIDEO INSTALLAZIONE, 2006

4. What exactly is the crossover from mainstream media to Social Media, what is the MetaBrand?

Social Media is born from the consideration that Communication constitutes a strategic field of con-flict. The experience has shown us how mainstream media is not a field on which to hold a confron-tation, accepting its rules in order to then attempt to creatively break them: we believe that this is nolonger enough, actually, it’s unnecessary.Social Media is a form of Communication which is born from the participation of the precariousworkers, which can not be traced back to the reproduction of goods. It is capable of representingthem and simultaneously building a form of conspiracy which cannot be summed up and re-elabo-rated by the instruments of neo-liberalist production.Social Media surpasses mainstream media, infiltrating every crack and appearing as somethingwhich cannot be standardized or reduced to profit. Serpica Naro is an example of what we imply bysocial media. Social media is an instrument for inserting new values within the dominant ones.

Compared to a brand like all the others created expressly for the market in order to determine the(empty) relations which channel consumption, Serpica has revealed itself to be the opposite: that is,a MetaBrand created by real relations which auto-represent themselves in it, producing social impro-vement (for who produces it) and value (which must be rechannelled in the social).

The possibility to activate mechanisms of material and symbolic production, which in the end takeaway ability, fascination, relationships and consumption - unbridled and bored – from the society ofbrands, in order to place them back into circulation under the form of political production in the posi-tive, social, relational and material, while at the same time weakening the companies’ grasp onworkers (blackmail) and the dictatorship of the state on the social (selective and punitive social state).

The label, which safeguarded the quality of the Brand, has transformed itself into an instrument forthe maintenance of a monopoly over the production of everyday objects with a high margin of profit.Therefore the brand places itself at the apex of a pyramid which concentrates wealth and producesexploitation in the three levels of creativity, of production and of sales, emanating imagery and valuesconstructed in the company boardroom.

On the contrary, the MetaBrand dissolves that pyramid and inserts a virtuous circle which uses theconstruction of a Brand as a tool, starting from the values and imagery embodied in precarious com-plicity, values which are immediately redistributed by its License, the multiplier of relations andacquaintances between creative people, producers and salespeople (figures often present in thesame person).

Serpica Naro is an idea for the retraining of the social, for the improvement of the relations which areestablished within it. Unlike the Brand which sucks the lifeblood of the social with the aim of redefi-ning it in the image and semblance of the necessity of consumption, Serpica Naro is born from thesocial itself. A Social Media returns to the social that which belongs to it: the soul and the ideas, thebody and the relationships

What is Trash Band? Trash Band is a collective of musicians, visualartists and performers who sing modern folk songs and mounthigh-energy stage shows. Trash Band uses only the world’s mostplentiful resource, YOUR TRASH, to fabricate instruments, cars,puppets, bicycles, stilts, costumes and props for their shows. Trash Band has performed street theater, club shows, educationalengagements, in museums, in parades, on television and filmthroughout California since 2000.“Bananagun (Padre Brown contro i vampiri cowboy di venezia)” isthe second film made by the Trash Band collective. Their firstmovie “ The Pirates Versus the Unicorn “, completed in 2004, fol-lows the escapades of a band of dry-land pirates sailing the lonelydesert on the hunt for the fabled Booty of the Unicorn. This film,completed on an out of pocket budget, uses live action video,Super 8 film, shadow puppetry, and stop-motion animation to tellthe story. No money is allotted for props, sets or costumes. All ofwhat budget there is goes to film supplies, gas, food and beer.

This tradition has been carried over into the making of Bananagun.All props and costumes were found or acquired second hand, orare made of food. All scenery was provided by the beautiful city ofVenice.Trash Band is based in and around Los Angeles, CA, USA. Theycan be reached through their website at www.trashband.net forperformance bookings, DVD sales, to purchase jewelry, and tosend fan mail.

Trash band

Bananagun is the story of one man’s holy journey to rid the City ofVenice of the evil demons that lurk there. Told in the classic styleof the spagetti western, on location among the gothic architectureof Venice, our hero must hold true to his personal mission and drawstregnth from his personal relationship with god. The fate of Venicerests upon the shoulders of this leatherfaced crusader, absolvingthe savagries he must commit to defend the innocents from thedemons that walk the streets. God bless you, and lord save us asthe canals run red with sangue di pomodoro.

Bannagun was shot on location in Venice by Michael Gump,Christine Gump, Alessandro Thompson, Micheal Rabbit, MicaelaO’Herlihey, Joel Fox; affiliated in America as a performance groupcalled Trash Band. Our Italian actors Milena Colperto, CountForkula, were drawn from the streets of Venice. Many thanks to themany activists of Labortorio Morion and to the innocent people ofVenice whose support for this movie was boundless, though, to us,paradoxical.

After spending a few weeks completing a contract job building ahippopotomous of mud for a few artists in the Venice Biennial, thecollection of Americans and Italians decided to shoot a movie.They had a free place to stay and a lot of free time. The Americansare all professional filmmakers, sculptors, clowns and artists in LosAngeles.They were also very afraid of getting lost in the spooky streets ofVenice at night. This is how Bananagun was born.

“BANANAGUN, (PADRE BROWN CONTRO I VAMPIRI COWBOY DI VENEZIA)”

Nemanja CvijanovicUNA E TRE SEDIE, INSTALLAZIONE 2003Dimensione reale*Sedia sul quale e' stato fucilato il partigiano Vjekoslav Duki´c5.XII.1941 a Trsat dai fascisti Italiani. La sedia appartiene allacollezione del ex "Muzj narodne revolicije", adesso "Muzej grada Rijeke".

ONE AND THREE CHAIRS, INSTALLATION 2003Real Size*Chair on which partisan Vjekoslav Duki’c was shot by the Italian Fascistsin Trsat (December 5, 1941). Courtesy of collection ex “Muzj narodne revolicije”, now “Muzej grada Rijeke”.