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Subject: report from deep europe @ Hybrid WorkSpace From: inke@is.IN-berlin.DE (Inke Arns) Date: 13 Aug 1997 10:47:10 +0200 * * * * * Dear friends, this is the report or "Letter Home" which I wrote about the deep europe event at Hybrid WorkSpace, dX, Kassel, Orangerie... All the best, Inke * * * Deep Europe - some personal impressions: From horizontal to vertical mapping Inke Arns, Berlin, August 12, 1997 The deep europe workshop took place within the framework of Hybrid WorkSpace, located at the Orangerie, during the 10th documenta in Kassel. deep europe started July 28 and continued until August 6, 1997. Due to some obligations that kept me in Berlin I only arrived Thursday, 31st of July, thereby missing the first days of the workshop and the first deep europeans: Calin Dan, Nina Czegledy... I spent my first day at Hybrid WorkSpace as an observer, lurking behind the scenes and in front of them, noticing the public's incredible greed for any kind of stimulation. They come in, and if you don't catch their attention within one or two minutes, they just walk out again. They have a big tour to accomplish. They only have one day to see the whole dx exhibition (which, by the way, is quite feasible, only they still don't know about it!). So they rush. Every day, the deep europe group put together a program for the public, from 2 - 6 p.m. Mostly video screenings, because we noticed that with this kind of public, there is no way to have a public discussion, a lecture or anything "long" and "theoretical". I brought four papers with me, mostly lectures that I had given over the last two months in various places and that I wanted to "recycle" during the deep europe workshop. No way. No attention from the public. So, we "fed" them with media images, videos by Mike Stubbs (Gift, 1997), The Crossing Over video productions from Sofia, Michael Benson's "Predictions of Fire" (documentary on Neue Slowenische Kunst, SLO / USA 1995), Marina Grzinic's & Aina Smid's video art productions, Peter Vezjak's "Bravo" (Laibach in Film, SLO 1993), albanian video programs brought to Kassel by Edi Muka, video documentation of the Belgrade / Novi Sad protests by Aleksander Davic, video documentation of Aleksander Brener's actions, presentations of web projects from Poland and Latvia, and much more.... Catherine's first visit On Friday, 1 August, at 1 p.m. we had an official visit. Protected by her bodyguard, Catherine David came to visit and to get an impression of the deep europe group. Everybody said a few words about him or herself, which made me feel a little bit like in school. We tried to explain to Catherine David what the notion of 'deep europe' means and also talked about the V2_East / Syndicate mailing list. Andreas Broeckmann said that the fact that there are almost no subscribers from France, Spain, and other 'southern' countries made us feel that sometimes Bulgaria is closer than Italy... Mme David responded that the absence of people from these 'southern' countries could be due to the fact that they prefer "a more direct way of communication, having dinner together, not so much through media". Perhaps I am misquoting her, but this is basically what she said. She then asked whether there were any contacts to artists living in China. Interesting, isn't it? Coming to the deep europe WorkSpace and asking about China. Actually, she directed this question more to Kit Blake and Andreas Broeckmann, both working for the V2_Organisation in Rotterdam. If I remember it correctly, for quite a while she then spoke about Chinese artists, how interesting some of them are etc. I got the impression that she was not really interested in the activities of the deep europe / V2_East / Syndicate network because somehow we are "not east enough". Not enough exoticism. Sorry, boys and grrrls. Iliyana Nedkova did a great job today (Friday August 1), moderating and introducing the video screenings. The preparations for tomorrow's visa action are progressing. Lisa Haskel bought all kinds of great office stuff, everything that's needed for brilliant bureaucratic procedures. We create a logo for deep europe (see the V2_East web site, Kit Blake put it up there), we cut out stamps from erasers, formulate official application forms and Edi Muka translates them into Albanian. The application forms will be available only in Albanian. The Visa Procedure Department The public program on Saturday, 2 August, consisted of the visa department activities. Four hours of office work, with people lining up endlessly in front of the Orangerie, body scanning at the entrance door, with the official "Apsardzes" (=Latvian for "deep european officials and guards") shouting instructions in Polish, Russian, Albanian, Bulgarian, German, Latvian, Dutch and other deep european languages. Once inside, people are sent to one of the four desks, where they can apply for a visa for entering deep europe (starting at 9 p.m. that day with a performance of the Institute for Affordable Lunacy from Eindhoven and followed by a deep european party). They just have to fill in a form. Available only in Albanian. Sometimes the desks are closed for unknown reasons. I saw Luchezar Boyadijev reading a journal (even if his desk was "open" - Luchezar, I have a photo to prove it!), Andreas and I were bribed with two Rostbratwuerste which we ate on the spot (we had a cigarette for dessert). Behind their respective desks, everybody was speaking their own language, Branka spoke Serbian, Iliyana Bulgarian, Marjan Slovenian, Andreas Dutch, I myself spoke German - sometimes I switched to French - and Edi spoke Albanian. (Outside the Orangerie there was Dmitri Pilikin performing the "Russian Mission", reading a Russian classic in Russian every day - he got quite famous). During the visa issuing session, there were only three or four people who said the magic words "Asyl" and were immediately taken inside, to undergo "special procedures". It was incredible. People were lining up for one hour or so, even standing in the rain, and when they finally reached the visa department, they quietly filled in the (Albanian) forms - not quite accurately, we had to refuse several applications - got a visa and went out again. Most of them seemed happy. At least they had a smile on their faces. This of course attracted even more people to join the waiting crowd. Over the four hours, we played Albanian military music (taken from Edi Muka's video) - a tune which still sounds in my ears. Great stuff. Andreas is flabbergasted... On Sunday, 3 August at 3 p.m. we had scheduled a public debate between the participants of the deep europe workshop. The public came in, stayed for one minute, went out again. Extremely distracting. Our 'debate' continued for ca. 10 minutes. No audience. Then new people came in, turned their backs to the discussion participants and started speaking to each other. Among the panel participants there started to emerge a strange feeling of talking to a wall. Then.... Andreas was just f l a b b e r g a s t e d . He told the audience that he could not go on like this... that there was nobody who was listening (actually, now, everybody was listening, and there was a silence among the visitors). We thought about stopping the public discussion completely, but we then remembered that this - meeting, talking, developing projects - was actually the reason for us to be here, in the Hybrid WorkSpace in Kassel. So we sat in a circle and continued talking among ourselves. There was even a guest from the audience who joined us and asked basic questions such as "What is the Syndicate", "why is it called like this" etc. The discussion was recorded and parts of it were transmitted during the radio show we made Sunday night at the Freies Radio Kassel (thanks to Herbert A. Meyer). It can be also found at the website of Radio Internationale Stadt (RealAudio: http://www.icf.de/cgi-bin/RIS/). Feeding the audience with media images and having fun... On Sunday evening, after the public program was over, we joked around about how to deal with the dX audience. "It's - a fly!", as Edi Muka was reported to have uttered around 10 p.m. It was decided that from now on, we would not appear in front of the public anymore, but stay behind the wall and be present 'only' through a live transmission on the monitors and on the big video projection. We called it "Deep Circuit TV". From Monday onwards, incredible but true, people seemed to stay a bit longer in the Orangerie. The audience seemed to prefer media images to 'real' people...! On Monday Edi Muka premiered with "Deep Circuit TV", Tuesday it was my turn. I tormented the audience with three performative lectures, the first one being the "Small Media Normality for the East", read by Andreas and myself (more than one hour), the second was Tom Bass' "The Tarnish of Silver and Black. Transsilvanian Obscenity Test" (about 45 min.) and finally "Surfin' the Lower East Side of Europe", written by Andreas and me (one hour). On Wednesday, the last day of deep europe, all the participants (those who still remained) were interviewed for the Deep Circuit TV by Thorsten Schilling. When asked about the meaning of deep europe, some of us independently referred to Luchezar Boyadijev' reading of the words: "Europe is deepest where there are a lot of overlapping identities." With the notion of deep europe we refer to a a new understanding of Europe, which leads away from the horizontal measuring of the size of a territory (thus including East / West etc.), towards something that could be called a vertical mapping or a vertical measuring of the different cultural layers and identities in Europe. On Monday we had a discussion with the Chinese poet Yang Lian, who the night before had given a lecture at the "100 days - 100 guests" program. The interview was partly transcribed (& posted to the list on August 6) and can be also found on the Radio Internationale Stadt (RealAudio: http://www.icf.de/cgi-bin/RIS/ris-display?870805944) During the last two days, there was an internal debate on the European Media Policy. Andreas posted the results of this discussion earlier on the Syndicate mailing list. Andreas Broeckmann, Marjan Kokot and me had several talks about a possible Syndicate Publication Series, which could include "original publications and multi-directional translations about Deep European media culture". We will post a more elaborate concept on this very soon. Also, we talked about the creation of a Translator's Network on the Syndicate mailing list. This would basically mean, that we will try to put together a group of people from the list who could translate texts from the original language into English (into English for now - it is planned to have 'multidirectional translations' later on). We'll post the concept to the mailing list as soon as it is ready. I was planning to write something about documenta X in this report. I am not going to, because I don't have the time right now. BUT: To anybody of you, who is planning to go to Kassel (again), I would like to recommend an exhibition I saw in the former police school of Kassel. It is called "Innenseite" and has been organized - already for the fourth time - by a group from Kassel. There are artist's works from all over the world, mostly unknown people. I went there with Marjan Kokot and we both found it very inspiring. Today I got the photos I made during the deep europe activities. They are great. I will scan as many as possible and put them online. I'll send a message as soon as they are available. Deep Europe is a great experience. Inke Arns, Berlin, August 12, 1997 http://www.documenta.de/workspace http://www.v2.nl/east --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Inke Arns * Pestalozzistr. 5 * D-10625 Berlin * Germany Tel / Fax + 49 - 30 - 313 66 78 * inke@is.in-berlin.de http://berlin.icf.de/~inke/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------