Reconstruction, Voice, Identity by Maska Ljubljana

Reconstruction,

Voice, Identity

Reconstruction, Voice, Identity

Maska Ljubljana 2010

Contents The More of Us There Are, the Faster We Will Reach Our Goal Mladen Dolar: How you’ve changed, Emil

CIP – Kataložni zapis o publikaciji Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, Ljubljana 7.038.531(082) RECONSTRUCTION, voice, identity / [edited by Jedrt Jež Furlan ; translation Maja Lovrenov]. - Special ed. - Ljubljana : Maska, 2010 ISBN 978-961-6572-17-0 251830016

Chain of Events Ana Schnabl: Weaving Voices for Words

Monument G2 Astrid Peterle: Reenactments of Performances and the Potential of Calculated Failure

Life [in Progress] Blaž Lukan: Lost in the Split

As a Raindrop into the Mouth of Silence Rok Vevar: A Raindrop As a Downpour of Voices and Art

Walk Performance Miško Šuvaković: Art in The Age of Culture

Slovene National Theatre Domenico Quaranta: Janez Janša, Slovene National Theatre

Pupilija, papa Pupilo and the Pupilceks – reconstruction Katherina Zakravsky: O n the Re-enactment of “Pupilija” A Photo Novel

Miss Mobile Luk Van den Dries and Nele Decock: Ceçi n’est pas la réalité

The More of Us There Are, the Faster We Will Reach Our Goal

Mladen Dolar

Premiere 13 April 2010, Brut Künstlerhaus, Vienna, Austria Authors: Janez Janša, Janez Janša and Janez Janša Scripwriters and directors: Janez Janša, Janez Janša Performer and documentarian: Dražen Dragojević Programming and editing: Luka Dekleva Sound design: Sašo Kalan Dramaturgy: Tina Dobnik Cameramen: Darko Herič, Matjaž Mrak Translations: Maja Lovrenov, Jeremi Slak Production: Maska Executive producer: Tina Dobnik Co-production: Brut Künstlerhaus, Vienna, Austria In colaboration with: Aksioma, Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia Thanks: Bojan Arh, Vincente Arlandis, Zdenka Badovinac, Marko Battista, Marko Battista, Simona Benedetti, Airan Berg, Ana Buitrago, dr. Miro Cerar, Heman Cong, María José Cifuentes, Eam Dany, Hafiz Dhaou, France Cukjati, Mladen Dolar, Gurur Ertem, Tim Etchells, Hu Fang, Thomas Frank, Helena Golab, Dante Grassi, Sergio Grassi, Sofia Grassi, Branko Grošelj, Sandra Gómez, Silvana Guliani Grassi, Asja Hrvatin, Ema Hrvatin, Varja Hrvatin, Vito Hrvatin, Vlatka Horvat, Eva Irgl, Ana Ivanek, Janez Janša, Jedrt Jež Furlan, Zmago Jelinčič Plemeniti, Sebastijan Jeretič, Ven Jemeršič, Alenka Jeraj, Mustafa Kaplan, Andrej Kariž, Nuša Kariž, Žiga Kariž, Hoo Koo Cien, Rathany Koh, Sukunthy Koh, Franci Kek, Jela Krečič, Jože Kuhar, Jože Kuhar, Jože Kuhar, Blaž Lukan, Zulkifle Mahmod, Gerald Mayer, Aldo Milohnič, Gabriel Ocina, Marcela Okretič, Matxalen de Pedro, Manuel Pelmus, Victoria Perez, Chat Piersath, Quim Pujol, Miro Petek, Miran Potrč, Franc Pukšič, Igor de Quadra, Vlado Repnik, Ixiar Rozas, Martina Ruhsam, Eszter Salamon, Nicole Schuchard, Ong Keng Sen, Jecko Siompo, Sonja Sivec, Filiz Sizanli, Damir Smrtič, Veso Stojanov, Ashok Sukumaran, Dane Štrkalj, Ilinka Todorovski, Kanitha Tith, Pavel Toplak, Karmen Uglešič, Rok Vevar, Andrej Vizjak, Jasmina Založnik, Pia Wenzel, Nelisiwe Xaba, all interviewed people, as well as Azala (Lasierra Spain), and TheatreWorks (Singapore)

HOW YOU’V E CH A NGED, EMIL 1. Brecht somewhere talks about Hegel, his great Teacher in the matters of the Great Method, i.e., dialectics. He ascribes to him “the abilities of one of the greatest humorists among philosophers”, especially in view of him being particularly interested in how things constantly change into their opposites and can never remain the same. “He contested that one equals one, not only because everything exists inexorably and persistently passes into something else, namely its opposite, but because nothing at all is identical to itself. As any humorist, he was especially interested in what becomes of things. As the Berlin saying goes: ‘My how you’ve changed, Emil!’” (Brecht: Flüchtlingsgespräche, GW 14, 1460-2) At this point, the kind publisher provides a footnote, explaining that this is taken from a Berlin joke in which a widow visits the grave of her late husband and addresses his gravestone thusly. It is the par excellence example of dialectics; everything changes. In this case, Emil has changed into a gravestone bearing his name. (Leap of quantity into a new quality?) It was not me who 9

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came up with the name Emil here, it was Brecht who wrote it in reference to this Berlin folktale. When they changed their names, the three Janez Janšas – especially the one who dialectically ‘is and is not’ Emil – pointed out, among other things, that the change of one’s name carries the connotation of a symbolic death. If you change your name, it is as if you died, as if you experienced your own death in (symbolic) relation to others. Brecht’s anecdote represents the flip side of the matter; the bearer changes, passes away moreover, and disappears, but what remains is precisely his name. No matter how drastically the state of the bearer changes in this alteration, the name remains the same and persists. The name is that which will outlive us; it is more enduring than we are, and it presents our chance at immortality. It will outlive us in the general sense, as inscribed in the symbolic order and thus serves as a reference point for what we might be remembered for, but first in a more banal and directly material sense, such as written on a gravestone, i.e., literally carved in stone. A name is something that imprints our identity into stone and makes it indelible. Names are endowed with a secret plot – a word that also means a family tomb (Hitchcock’s last film was entitled The Family Plot and it played precisely on this double meaning of the word) – they have a secret destination, the name being that part of us that will find itself

on our gravestone one day. A name is intended – among other things – to be carved into the gravestone, into the substance of the unchangeable, at least as far as it can be foreseen. It is that part of our identity that is more lasting than we are, written on the supposedly longest-lasting substance of stone. Names are ‘eternal’, but we are not; names last, but we are mortal. The free choice of a name change has its flip side in the non-choice regarding the gravestone, while the context of the ‘symbolic death’ has its flip side in symbolic survival. It symbolically lives its life beyond our lives and pertains to the real of our lives. On the one hand, there is the story in which the bearer is unchanged and can freely change name, without this affecting his or her substance, and on the other hand, there is the story in which the name vindicates itself from beyond the grave, proving to outlast its bearer, who may change his/her substance but not his/her name.

2. There is a 200-year old French saying: “There is no room for two Napoleons.” It has several variants, for example, “at the top, there is no room for two Napoleons” or “France is not big enough for two Napoleons”. If someone appears claiming to be Napoleon, then this is a clear case of a lunatic 11

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that has to be put in an asylum. Hence the archetypal idea of a lunatic claiming to be Napoleon. And since the name change under consideration does not involve just any name but the name of the prime minister, this saying puts the name change into the following context: is Slovenia big enough not just for two, but for four Napoleons? Should the three excess ones, who zealously claim that they too are Napoleons and can prove this with documents, be put into an asylum? Or is this an “art project”, and thus a modern alternative to the asylum, since in art, supposedly, everything is allowed and even highly socially-valued? Where do they belong, in an asylum or in a gallery? But the ‘art project’ poses a most ‘real’ question that relates to denomination and domination. The question is not about what qualifies one to bear the name Žiga Kariž for example, but rather what qualifies the one bearing the name, Janez Janša, for example, to occupy the position of power. Wherein lies the connection between a name and power? Is power without a name possible? Is a name not inscribed in power possible? Is there such a thing as a neutral and innocent name? A name is always the bearer of a symbolic mandate and as soon as there appear false pretenders with documents and all, the question is raised about the validity and the justification of the symbolic mandate enabling power. 12

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3. In Slovenian history, the memory of a time when people en-masse changed their names and assumed new ones is still alive. These were the partisan names that, on the one hand, were based on the tradition of using fictitious names under the circumstances of conspiratorial and illegal activities, covering up ‘real’ identity in order to protect their bearers. But, on the other hand, this rationalization does not explain everything, for, behind the pragmatic justification, there lurks a different desire and will, a desire and a will to found a new symbolic order, a new order of designations and symbolic mandates where the ‘real’ and the symbolic impact no longer lie in the real name, but, on the contrary, in a newly chosen and assumed partisan name; herein lies the real identity, regardless of what it says in the documents. (The revolutionary will of the French Revolution expressed itself in, among other things, a new calendar and the new designations of months, among which the best known is perhaps Brumaire – and Thermidor and Germinal – since the above-mentioned Napoleon assumed power on 18 Brumaire, while Marx immortalized this date in the eponymous essay referring to the other Napoleon, Napoleon’s nephew, who, in the historical farcical repetition, relied precisely on the mandate of his name and its abuse.) As a more 13

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Photo: Janez Janša

direct precedent, one can evoke Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov changing his name to Lenin, Lev Davidovich Bronstein to Trotsky, and Iossif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili to Stalin. The will for a symbolic cut, a cut in the symbolic fabric of society, manifests itself as the will to rename. The name change of the three Janez Janšas is, in a certain way, inscribed into the tradition of partisan fighting; assuming partisan names, since these new names – three identical ones, in contrast to tradition – in addition to being anchored in the ‘real’ of changing all the documents, also have the effect of founding a parallel symbolic space, a

virtual new designation and thus the possibility of a different symbolic relation that violates the delimitation of art, civil status and political mandate. The consistency of this relation is precisely in the disregard of the delimitation of these areas in their punctual coincidence. The choice of partisan names was not arbitrary; they always carried a symbolic mandate, although they were chosen seemingly only according to the criterion of having no connection to the true name. It is quite astounding that Edvard Kardelj chose Krištof for his partisan name, as it after all carries the whole connotation of St. Christopher,

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whose symbolic mission was to carry Christ, hence his name (carrier of Christ) and his iconic representation in innumerable variants with the child Christ on his shoulders. And this is also the function that the bearer of this name dutifully took upon himself. Or that Edvard Kocbek named himself Pavel, with all the connotation of St. Paul. The foundation of assuming a new name has biblical dimensions; it extends to the sources of naming, the authority of giving names. The chosen name is the real name, an inscription into an alternative real symbolic network, in opposition to the arbitrariness of civil identity based on the questionable and spurious authority. The virtual inscription doubles the ordinary inscription and undermines its symbolic power. From this point of view, the context of a name change is not only the context of a symbolic death, but at the same time the context of a new birth. Its biblical dimension is not accidental, since renaming was often precisely connected with conversion, i.e., with adopting a new religion, with sudden enlightenment and new baptism. The most celebrated example being Cassius Clay, the most famous boxer in history, who named himself Mohamed Ali and thus marked his conversion to Islam. Thus the partisan names also marked a conversion to a new belief and entailed a new birth, a metamorphosis.

The three Janez Janšas’ name change caused unease precisely because the three bearers of the new name at no moment wanted to explain their decision and provide the reason for their name change. (But, ultimately, what would be a sufficient reason for any naming?) They did not substantiate or justify the name change with conversion, the adoption of a new belief, the beginning of new life or with the fact that, until then, their lives had been misguided. And the name they had chosen in no way seemed to embody their beliefs, their political sympathies, or to serve as a model of what they wanted to be. Anything but Yet even if we can assume that it perhaps embodies precisely all that they themselves would by no means want to be, they kept completely quiet about it; this was never explicitly formulated. Faced with the probing media, the only explanations they kept providing were ‘personal reasons’, an intimate personal decision, that is, something that functions as a cloak behind which it is impolite to probe, but at the same time as a cliché excuse, since ‘personal reasons’ are precisely another name for not wanting to reveal the true reason. The lack of justification for the name change, the fact that it was not accompanied by a conversion to a new faith, the cloning of three identical names that precisely excludes individuality and uniqueness, and, lastly, the choice of a name that does not

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borrow from any celebrated and mythical past, but points to the none-too-glorious present, undermining its model by cloning – all this makes it impossible to contextualize this gesture and its message. The gesture obviously has a strong message, but it is not quite clear what this message is supposed to be. And lastly, if – as with partisan names – these name changes evoke the will for a new symbolic mandate and a different foundation, the gesture of a symbolic cut, then this supposedly new symbolic order is manifested here precisely as the cloning of the most notorious name around, that of the bearer of the ruling order. The new is only the gap in the contingency of the old, the sameness of names opens an arbitrary coincidence of the bearer and the name, as if a new version of the Hegelian infinite judgement was at work here, which asserts a direct identity of entities that have no common measure: Janez Janša = Janez Janša = Janez Janša = Janez Janša.

famous spot she says: “What’s in a name?”1 Wouldn’t the rose by any other name smell just as sweet? “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? / Deny thy father and refuse thy name.” This is not a question of changing name, but a question of exit from the regime of names as such, the departure from the symbolic places assigned to us by names. But such a way out is not possible, hence the tragedy of the Verona lovers. The scene pits one against the other – on the one hand, the absolute demand of love and on the other, something one could call the politics of the name. Every name entails a politics. By one’s name one always belongs to a certain social group, a class, a nation, a family, the names pin us down to an origin, a genealogy, a tradition; they classify us and allot us a social place, they distribute social power. By name one is always a Montague or a Capulet (“and I’ll no longer be a Capulet,” says Juliet). By our names we are always inscribed in social antagonisms, they always place us either on the Montague or on the Capulet side. A name is never individual, it is always generic. By the family name we are always placed under the banner of

4. One cannot finish without evoking the best known scene in the entire theatre history, the canonical locus princeps of the theatrical tradition, the theatre scene par excellence. In the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet Juliet stands on the balcony and speaks into the night, and on the most 18

1 “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet; / So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d, / Retain that dear perfection which he owes / Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name; / And for that name, which is no part of thee, / Take all myself.” (II, 2, 43-49)

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the father’s name, the Name of the Father; so with the family name we always carry around psychoanalysis and all its luggage. But also the given name is never personal, it is inscribed into a code; in our civilization it is precisely the ‘Christian name’, traditionally given according to the date of birth and its patron saint, based on a ramified classification of saintly distribution. Or else excluded from it – Ivan Cankar’s remarkable short story Polikarp, just a hundred years old, tells the story of a man who was given the curious name of Polikarp at birth, in order to stigmatize him as a child born out of wedlock, as a bastard. He was made to carry that name as mark of Cain; the name defined his fate from the outset. Although the codes today are more blurred, elusive and loose, seemingly liberal, they still very much exist and continue to secretly delineate us. In the balcony scene, love appears as that which should entail leaving behind all these social codes. The tragedy of the Veronese lovers stems from the stark opposition between name and being, that unique human being which is supposed to be beyond naming and which should enable establishing a bond apart from names. And therein lies the gist of their tragedy, the name has nevertheless affected their being and taken revenge; they couldn’t overcome the way they were marked by their proper names. It turned out

that Romeo, by his name, had a different smell, and that was the smell of death. So would Emil Hrvatin by the name Janez Janša smell just the same? By no means.

We thank the author for kindly allowing the publication of his text

Selected bibliography Petra Kapš, “Konstrukcija in re-uprizarjanje slovensk(e)(osti) umetnosti, Triglav brez konca”, Reartikulacija, p. 18–19, okt/nov 2007. Jela Krečič, “Več nas bo, prej bomo na cilju”, intervju z Janezom Janšo Janezom Janšo in Janezom Janšo, Delo-Sobotna priloga, 24.11.2007, p. 34 Peter Kolšek, “Razmnoževanje Janeza Janše”, Delo-Sobotna priloga, 15.9.2007, p. 40 Tanja Lesničar Pučko, “Je biti Janez Janša umetnost?”, Dnevnik, 28.8.2007, p. 16 Ivo Sanader, “Ali je Janez Janša kreten?”, Dnevnik- Objektiv, 1.9.2007, p. 9 Marcel Štefančič, jr., “Janez Janša Biografija”, Mladina, 2008 (book) Blaž Lukan, “Ime u performativu: projekat Janez Janša”, Scena, Novi Sad, 4/2008, p. 131–141 NAME Readymade, Moderna galerija Ljubljana, Revolver, Berlin 2008. Blaž Lukan, “The Janez Janša project”, NAME Readymade, p. 11–28 Amelia Jones, “Naming Power and the Power of the Name: Janez Janša Performs the Political in/for the Art World”, NAME Readymade, p. 31–49 Zdenka Badovinac, “What is the Importance of Being Janez?”, NAME Readymade, p. 51–65 Miško Šuvaković, “3 X Triglav: Controversies and Problems Regarding Mount Triglav”, NAME Readymade, p. 67–74 Catherine M. Soussloff, “In the Name of the Artist”, NAME Readymade, p. 83–99

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Aldo Milohnić, “Ready-name (Over-identification through Over-multiplication)”, NAME Readymade, p. 121–131 Antonio Caronia, “Identity, Possibility, Rigid Designators: On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Janez Janša and Concerning Systems”, NAME Readymade, p. 133–145 Lev Kreft, “Name as Readymade”, NAME Readymade, p. 147–170 Jela Krečič, “Janez Janša as Media Phenomenon”, NAME Readymade, p. 175–195 Marina Gržinić, “Na senčni strani Alp”, v Maska, Ljubljana, št. 113–114, pomlad 2008, p. 66–72. Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša, dopisovanje, Dnevnik – Objektiv, 12.1.2008, p. 29, 26.1.2008, p. 29, 2.2.2208, p. 29, 23.2.2008, p. 29 Maja Megla, “Če si Janez Janša nekaterih stvari ne smeš početi”, intervju, Mag, 10.9.2008, p. 44 Blaž Lukan, “Projekt Janez Janša”, Amfiteater, no1, 2008, p. 71–86 Martina Ruhsam, “Es ist ein name! die Wundersame Vermehrung der Janez Janšas”, Corpus, 10.02.2008, www.corpusweb.net. Lev Kreft, “The Name as a Readymade”, Frakcija, No. 50, Zagreb 2009, p. 76–87 Aldo Milohnić, »Ime mi je Janša, Janez Janša» v Teorije sodobnega gledališča in performansa, Maska, Ljubljana 2009, p. 180–207. Domenico Quaranta, “Mount Triglav on Mount Triglav”, v RE:akt! Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Re-reporting, edited by Antonio Caronia, Janez Janša, Domenico Quaranta, Fpeditions, Brescia, 2009, p. 96–103. Marina Gržinić, “From Biopolitics to Necropolitics and the Institution of Contemporary Art”, v Biopolitics, Necropolitics and de-coloniality, Pavillion, Bucharest, no.14, 2010, p. 35–48 Helmut Ploebst, “Einen Janez Janša gibt es überall”, Der Standard, 6.4.2010 Sandra Krkoč, “Pomnožitve Janeza Janše in vprašanje identitete”, Dnevnik, 8.4.2010, p. 15 Jela Krečič, “Ko ime postane umetnost”, Delo, 16.4.2010, p. 16 Uršula Rebek, “Subverzivno vprašanje – imate radi svoje ime?”, Dnevnik, 4.5.2010, p. 20

Chain of Events

Premiere 24 February 2010, Cankarjev dom, Duše Počkaj hall, Ljubljana, Slovenia Authors, performers and translators: Joséphine Evrard, Irena Tomažin

Ana Schnabl

W eav ing Voices for Wor ds

Light and set design: Jaka Šimenc Artistic coach: Christiane Hommelsheim Sound design: Sašo Kalan Technical support: Luka Curk Photography: Maud Evrard, Nada Žgank Design: Ajdin Bašić Production: Maska Executive producer: Tina Dobnik Co-production: Cankarjev dom, Ljubljana, Slovenia Thanks: the team of Cankarjev dom, staff at Maska, special thanks to Andreas Müller for artistic support, to Alja Predan, Branko Čampa, Lindy Hannis and Milchhof/Berlin, Tanzfabrik/Berlin, Olga Tomažin, Annie Evrard, Jelka Plate, Clément Layes, Bo Wiget, Axel Dörner, Lisa Abee, Anja Golob, Janez Janša, Hanna Preuss, Vanja Rovisco, Senat Berlin, Jonathan Hart Makwaia for the input and inspiration, also to Ingmar Bergamn’s “Persona”, Beckett’s “Not I”, and all that and those who in any way contributed to the creation of this perfromance.

Voice is the “hole of identity” or that aspect of identity that, despite its material manifestation, does not seem attached to anything; it comes from thin air and transcends bare materiality. It rounds off the so-called „individual“ and enables speech, language, and words. The voice is the key mediator of an individual; it is that with which we most explicitly communicate with the world, and, at the same time, it is the most externalised internal and the most internalised distance to the world. Voice is also the main tool, the point and the key, of Chain of Events by Irena Tomažin and Berlin-based Josephine Evrard. By this particular “chain of events”, Duša Počkaj Hall in Cankarjev dom became a completely white, sterile support, broken on the left by a see-through plastic curtain, while the monotony of the white wall was vivified by a paper series. The “white key” continued also in the costumes, which most efficiently but subtly assimilated into the “environment” and (perhaps) hinted at the anonymity of one who is silent. 25

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Ch ain of events

The introductory scene, which is performed just as spectators enter the hall, is a statement of the unity of two physical bodies, two movements, coupling, without any obvious intention of domination, without any obvious direction or culmination. The performers are bodies of an amorphous mass; in a sort of a non-embodied manner, they crawl on the ground, next to each other, one on top of the other, then finally separate, stand up and start walking. Despite their physical separation, which is effected by a silence occasionally interrupted by the audio recordings of their conversation (an exhibition of dialogue taking place whilst they touch and embrace), they remain one, and their actions carry only a gentle hint of individual initiative. This is all until a short and impulsive fade-out, after which a voice makes a cut between them. Guttural, unarticulated voices gradually turn into melody, melody into singing, and, finally, in the music the performers create, they find the Word. This moment is decisive also in view of the situational tension, representing a turn in the dramaturgy; up to this moment, their relationship was wedded to unity and as such undefined. Until this point, the happening was unexciting, stuck in the indistinct, but with the introduction of the voice, it is accelerated and gains an identity. There follows a game of denotation; with excessive talking driven to the comical, even absurd, the performers

Photo: Nada Ĺ˝gank

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react to actions (the role of Tomažin here being more prominent). The more words seep into the space between them, the less they understand each other, the stranger they are to each other: “Listening to voices you don ‘t understand.” The game escalates into Tomažin’s neurotic confession, represented most clearly by the sentence, “If I hear my voice, then in a way I exist, in a way I am.” Evrard records this on a dictaphone, which she later puts in her mouth, where her identity supposedly comes from. With this most imaginative and witty solution, the performers finally bring their performance to a head. In critique as in everyday life, it is difficult to find the right words and especially the right last words that would instruct that something is something, that someone is someone, that you are you and I am me. In the end, it will always only be mere voice. (From Dnevnik, 26.2.2010, p. 21) We thank the author for kindly allowing the publication of her text.

Selected bibliography Katja Čičigoj, “Splet glasu in besed v bit in identiteto posameznika”, Radio Študent, 1.3.2010 Mojca Kumerdej, “Podvojenost glasu”, Delo, 2.3.2010, p. 15 “Kritiki”, Mladina, 5.3.2010, p. 58 Splet okoliščin slovensko-francoskega tandema, RTVSLO MMC, 24.2.2010

Monument G2

Premiere 27 February 2009, small stage City theatre Ljubljana, Slovenia Directors: Janez Janša, Dušan Jovanović Performers: Jožica Avbelj, Matjaž Jarc/Lado Jakša , Boštjan Narat, Teja Reba Stage design: Janez Janša Light design: Andrej Koležnik

Astrid Peterle

Reenactments of Performances and the Potential of Calculated Failure

Music: Matjaž Jarc Dramaturgy, director assistant and video projection: Samo Gosarič Technical director: Igor Remeta Photography: Tone Stojko Production: Maska Executive producer: Jedrt Jež Furlan Co-production: City Theatre Ljubljana/Mestno gledališče ljubljansko Monument G2 is a part of the What to Affirm? What to Perform? project, a cooperation of Allianz Kulturstiftung, Centre for Drama Art Zagreb, Centrul Nacional al Dansului Bucharest, Maska Ljubljana and Tanzquartier Wien. The project is co-funded by Allianz Kulturstiftung and the European Cultural Foundation.

(…) In 2009 Janez Janša created a reconstruction of another “legendary” Slovenian performance, namely “Monument G”, which was directed by Dušan Jovanović in 1972. The “original” performance, that based on a drama text about a partisan-monument, featured solely the actress Jožica Avbelj and a musician. As an experimental theatre performance it combined spoken text and songs with physical theatre on the border of dance and was strongly influenced by Jožica Avbelj’s extraordinary physical presence and voice. For the reconstruction of “Monument G” Janša found another effective way of including the creators of the “original” into the process of the reconstruction. Jovanović restaged the performance with Jožica Avbelj and Janša produced a reconstruction with the young dancer Teja Reba. Both the restaging and the reconstruction take place at the same time on stage. In some parts Avbelj and Reba perform next to each other, sometimes after one another. During the 31

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performance quotes from the “original” cast and quotes from art critics’ reviews from 1972 are projected on the back wall of the stage. Through this setting, as a viewer one can equally experience the performance in itself and follow the process of reenacting as well as reflect on the procedure of remembering. The simultaneous performance of Avbelj and Reba offers Photo: Tone Stojko the opportunit y to reflect upon the relations, interrelations and differences between the “original” performer and the performer of the reconstruction. When seeing the video-recording of a fragment of the “original” performance featuring Avbelj (which is the only existing recording of the “original”), it becomes obvious that Reba is much closer to the “original” performance than Avbelj. While Reba bases her performance on 32

Monument G2

Photo: Tone Stojko

the video and performs the movements as similar as possible, the Avbelj of today tries to perform in the way her body remembers, in the way she bears in mind the “original” performance. Are both of the performers actually “copies” of the “original”? Is Avbelj still the same performer that she was in 1972? Does she as the “original” performer posses more authority to reconstruct the “original”? The multilayered construction of performing reaches its peak when towards the end of the performance Jožica Avbelj moves on the floor and the projection on the back wall informs the viewers that she moves in the way “as can be seen in the video recording of Monument G”, the “original” one. The 33

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slightly different movement of Teja Reba, who moves next to Avbelj, is termed as the movement “as remembered by Dušan Jovanović”. With this scene the reconstruction made the laws of remembering visible, but it was another moment in the performance that referred even more strikingly to the fragile construction of both history and its reconstruction. Approximately ten minutes before the ending Teja Reba walks to the black back wall and writes on it with white chalk: “And what if we invented all? (2009)”. As an audience we have to trust the performers of a reconstruction that they actually do not “make it all up”. But what difference would it make? Is history not always something individuals, groups, scholars or whole nations “make up”, at least partially? (…) (in Tanzjournal, Berlin, no. 5/2009, p. 6–14) We thank the author for kindly allowing the publication of her text

Selected bibliography Ric Allsop, “Some Remarks on a Space of Appearance”, BIT © RA, november 2009 Slavko Pezdir, “Iz gledališkega rodu v rod …”, Delo, 3.3.2009, p. 23 Ana Perne, “Iz časa v čas”, Dnevnik, 4.3.2009, p. 19 Petra Tanko, “Spomenik g”, Radio Slovenija, 28.2.2009 Anja Golob, “Na dobri poti”, Večer, 4.8.2009, p. 14

Life [in Progress]

Premiere 22 August 2008, festival Tanz Im August, Berlin, Germany Concept and director: Janez Janša

Blaž Lukan

Lost in the Split

Creators and performers: Caroline Decker, Dražen Dragojević, Teja Reba, Janez Janša in Janez Janša Light design: Miran Šušteršič, Igor Remeta Music: Dražen Dragojević Photography: Janez Janša Technical director: Igor Remeta Translation: Maja Lovrenov Production: Maska Executive producer: Jedrt Jež Furlan Co-production: Tanz im August, Berlin, Germany, Old Power Station / Stara mestna elektrarna – Elektro Ljubljana (SMEEL), Ljubljana, Slovenia Co-production of research project Rehearsing freedom, Tanzquartier, Vienna, Austria

Life [in Progress] by Janez Janša is also a performance in progress, although its conception actually lacks nothing. It is in progress because, except for orientation points (markers) arranged around the hall of the Old Power Plant, that is, the agenda of the tasks that the spectator is supposed to perform, there is nothing constant in it. It counts on the reaction of the visitors, spectators and at the same time also performers: each new rerun is a new staging of this event. This is perhaps the key performing turn of Janša’s new performance: if, in his performances so far, he has in various ways staged the difference between performing and viewing, production and reception of a performing event, he now pushes things to a certain limit, abolishing every explicit and emphasized function of the actor or, more precisely, transforming the spectator into it. The spectator is thus a performer, for him/herself and, at the same time, for other fellow spectators. In the tasks that the instructions posted on panels put before them, they can express themselves and have their say in a completely 37

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Li fe [in Progress]

intimate sense, being deep inside themselves but at the same time exposed to the gaze of others, so they are constantly on stage. This double status is the primary status of a performer in a contemporary performing arts event and Janša offers the spectators an opportunity to experience this themselves, first hand. But only if they are prepared to cooperate, otherwise they can simply sit and observe the performance of others – even though this is also a task that Janša assigns to them in advance. Life [in Progress] is thus a spectacle of the spectatoractor’s free will only at first sight, since every role that they assume in the fifty minutes of “viewing” the performance is in reality predestined. And although the first impression we get from the performance, whose expressive means range from the exclusive quotations of known performances (Carolee Schneemann, Marina Abramović and Ulay), socialization procedures and current political allusions to a simulation of various therapeutic techniques (for example gestalt), is positively relieving and the feeling many people get playing the roles, in other words themselves, is playfully relaxed, it seems that the point of this interactive populated installation is somewhere else. If we listed precisely the tasks that Janša puts before the spectator, we would see that in them there is always an initiation into the world of the suppressed, prohibited desires,

Photo: Janez Janša

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Li fe [in Progress]

Photo: Janez Janša

taboos, prejudices, fears, traumas, etc., and the activities he prescribes are sometimes close to exhibitionism and at other times voyeurism. It is therefore a matter of revealing – if we somewhat simplify – the dark side of the moon. Life in progress as the perfect execution of the event would reveal that it is full of shadows, stains and censorships, which Janša’s performance raises to the surface, thus giving them a chance to “heal”, but, in doing this, it cannot (and does not want to) avoid the impression that this life is in reality desperate and that there is no help for the living lost in the painful split between playing and observing, that is, in the original impossibility of taking a unequivocal and unambiguous position. And what was the concrete performance the author of this critique saw? (With the noticeable help of “animators”) the spectators mostly decided to break plates, drink hard liquor, “protest” or shout into a microphone, the feeling of one great family was authentic, but the roles were somehow not distributed completely. It would be hard to say that the space was charged with intimacy, rather it was filled with a mild and favourable humour, also embarrassment, which is only a threshold that can be crossed in a performing séance by planned guiding. But, here, the spectators were left only to their own (limited) imagination. In theatre, democracy causes slight confusion, it seems, and the spectators are 41

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not always prepared to completely assume their roles arising from the mentioned split and, therefore, also not the responsibility for their own life. But we can always – as Janša’s performing arts manifestation – spend it also only as observers, even despite the feeling that then something definite slides by. (in Delo, 6.12.2008, p. 15) We thank the author for kindly allowing the publication of his text

Selected bibliography: Life [in Progress], Centro Municipal de Arte Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro, 2009 (catalogue) Life [in Progress] (artist book) designed by Dora Budor and Maja Čule, Maska, Ljubljana, 2009) Isabela Fraga “Tropicália ficou só mesmo no mome”, Caderno jornal do Brasil, 12.9.2009, p. 6 Eduardo Fradkin, “Centro Helio Oiticica rabre hoje”, Jornal O Globo, Rio de Janeiro, 12.9.2009

As a Raindrop into the Mouth of Silence

Premiere 13 November 2008, Cankarjev dom, Duša Počkaj hall, Ljubljana, Slovenia Author, and concept: Irena Tomažin Creators and performers: Primož Bezjak, Irena Tomažin

Rok Vevar

A R aindrop As a Downpour of Voices and Art

Dramaturgy: Anja Golob Sound composition: Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec Voice design: Irena Tomažin, Primož Bezjak, Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec Light design: Jaka Šimec Stage design: Ema Kugler Costume design: Barbara Stupica Photography: Nejc Saje Graphic design: Minea Sončan Mihajlovič Production: Maska Ljubljana Executive producer: Tina Dobnik Co-production: Cankarjev dom, Plesni Teater Ljubljana Thanks: the team of Cankarjev dom, especially Alja Predan, collective of Maska, SNG Drama Ljubljana, Katja Legin, Pavel Zupan, Igor Remeta, Pionirski dom Ljubljana, Collegium Graphicum printing house, Zavod En- Knap, and all that in any way contributed to the creation of this performance.

With her every performance or authorial work, Irena Tomažin proves, again and again, that she is an exceptional, versatile artist in the field of performing practices. Even though we associate her with contemporary dance practices, she is also a musician, an actress and, last but not least, a philosopher. Looking at her work, we can see that already in her 2001 solo piece, Hitchcock’s Metamorphoses, she indicated that her suggestive dance body wanted to strip its talking potentiality to something more fundamental than language, perhaps even to something ontological. She introduced this fundamentality with her voice in her (not quite felicitous) 2005 performance Caprice (subtitled “A Loud-Voiced Performance”). In the autumn of 2006, she put on the developed and perfected version entitled Caprice (Re)lapse, in which she managed to achieve, through her dance and vocal material, a special consonance of space, body, sound and light – a consonance in which voices lose their predicativity (where they stop being the voices of 45

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“Someone” or “Something”) and become an autonomous harbinger of dance places where time “has not begun” yet, in which voices have not been normalized by any counting or factored into the structure of language. Irena Tomažin’s latest performance As a Raindrop into the Mouth of Silence, which was produced by Maska (in cooperation with Cankarjev dom and Ljubljana Dance Theatre) and opened at Cankarjev dom, is a crossword of art practices (music, dance, visual arts, poetry, etc.), reading possibilities, genre palimpsests, semiotic and material performing modes, artistic procedures and active principles etc. But this ascertainment does not really ring true until we answer the question about where different “things” in this performance meet – that central, in-between place, a letter that cannot be ascribed with certainty either to merely vertical or merely horizontal solutions (a sort of inoperative, but at the same time constitutive place of language affected by its emptiness). That is, of course, the Voice. In this performance, the vocalists are its creators (in addition to Tomažin, Primož also is featured as a dance vocalist, Anja Golob as dramaturgical vocalist, Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec as sound composition vocalist, Ema Kugler as spatial vocalist, Jaka Šimenc as light vocalist, and Barbara Stupica as costume vocalist), but since the voice is the central locus of the performance, 46

A s a R aindrop I nto T h e Mout h of Si l ence

Photo: Nada Žgank

the spectators also suddenly become vocalists through their audible responses. When the spectators decipher this vocal centre as a meeting place, they can move their gaze and thoughts within the performance as its vocal creators do: horizontally, vertically, and all the directions in-between. 47

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Photo: Nada Žgank

The voices in this performance have different sources, different mouths, but a common silence. At the very beginning, for example, two mouths (Irena Tomažin, Primož Bezjak) emerge with their voices from the silent mouth of a white bathtub (a truly Beckettian scene, which is no coincidence in my opinion). When the voices harmonize with 48

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the space (through the speakers their repetition emerges as a sort of last tape by Karp), which has its mouth everywhere, they can become two new, bigger mouths; they become bodies, the locations of their voices. By way of the lens through which Primož Bezjak’s eyes and mouth look at the spectators, the gazes also change into voices; the sound of the performance is thereby harmonized with its visual field. In it, the dramatic nature of the dance and vocal scenes becomes evident, with the bodies trying to forcefully instrumentalize each other (the bodies play on one another), passing from consonance to dissonance, harmonizing in their solos in order to reach a consonance with the light and space, in which (with the help of light) their (im)possible (auto)reflection is reflected: the Other. What connects them is not language, but the locus of its emptiness; a voice without predicativity, a voice that is never a voice of someone or something, but an in-between, common space without an owner, a common place of conflicts, a place of an event as a precondition of every singular ethics. Perhaps this is precisely that raindrop that has to drop into a dry mouth of silence in order to fulfil a fundamental condition of interpersonal consolidation. In my opinion, As a Raindrop into the Mouth of Silence is the first really mature performance of Irena Tomažin’s generation (c.1979). With its astounding complexity, 49

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communicativeness, and, last but not least, original virtuosity, it belies those representatives of the Slovene contemporary dance and theatre scene claiming that it is impossible to create relevant works in the given conditions. We can listen to it as if it were a concert or view it as a dance or theatre performance, a performance art piece, or a multimedia installation. In its complexity, it is at the same time exceptionally communicative – accessible to the gaze and the audition. (in Večer, 3.12.2008, p. 14) We thank the author for kindly allowing the publication of his text

Select bibliography Blaž Lukan, “Kipar glasu”, Delo, 21.11.2008, p. 26

Walk Performance

Premiere 23 November 2008, conference East Dance Academy, Cankarjev dom, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Miško Šuvaković

A rt in The Age of Cultur e

Research, reconstruction of scores, re-enactment: Samo Gosarič Design and Illustration: Maglish Ma Performing in “From the Underdog File”, Make-up, sewned beetle: Jelena Milovanović Günter Brus suit: Aco Photography: Urška Boljkovac Video: roro Translation: Maja Lovrenov Production: Maska Executive producer: Tina Dobnik Project site: http://www.vimeo.com/samogosaric/

Samo Gosarič is a young Slovenian performer, theatre practitioner and critic. At the end of the first decade of this new century, his work in the field of performance art draws on artistic formats, such as appropriation, recycling, and “cold identification” of neo-avantgarde performances, especially ones by the OHO group and the Austrian Actionism movement. His work of appropriating and recycling bares resemblance to contemporary production and self-production in the performing arts (Yvonne Rainer, Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov, Janez Janša, Robert Morris, Marina Abramović), where historical examples of happenings, action and performances are appropriated and recycled in order not only to contemporize the lost and seemingly unrepeatable past, but also to answer the demand for a demystification of the neo-avantgarde myths that have become essential proto-utopian references in the age of the great financial crisis at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. 53

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Appropriation can be understood as a procedure of assuming and transferring the historical models of the performance art of the 1960s and 1970s into the field of the current distribution of information, while emphasizing its “interventional” nature. Recycling is a strategy of staging historical performance art pieces (actions, happenings) as cultural post-production in the new conditions and circumstances of contemporary art. At the same time, it is a reconstruction of historical data, of the facts about the performance and its conditions; it is a “de-fetishization” of the transience and “unrepeatability” of historical performances. “Cold identification” denotes an interest in historical patterns that is taken with minimal nostalgia, empathy and over-identification; it actually refers to maximally “cold” – emotionally neutral – procedures of instrumentalizing historical data, visual patterns and vanished events. Gosarič has appropriated, recycled,and cold identified actions by the OHO group, Slovenian conceptual artist Marko Pogačnik, Czech conceptual artist Jiři Kovanda, Slovenian-A merican conceptual artist David Nez, Slovenian poet and conceptual artist Tomaž Šalamun, Slovenian poet and performer Vojin Kovač – Chubby, Austrian performer Valie Export, Croatian director and performer Tomislav Gotovac, and Austrian Actionist 54

Wa lk Per formance

Photo: Dejan Habicht

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Wa lk Per formance

Günter Brus. He has performed his actions on the streets in the centre of Ljubljana (in the marketplace, at Tromostovje – the “Triple Bridge”) during rush hours. His procedure is based on masking or stripping (a simulation of a historical performer’s authentic appearance) and a completely discrete action or intervention into an urban space among accidental passers-by. Identification demands masking; the masking helps recycle the performer’s appearance and realize the movement of meanings that were at the basis of the performance work. Discrete action and intervention point to “cold identification”, i.e., to a presence that makes a historical performance visible in the present, but at the same time neutralizes it to the level of a micro-event or micro-ecology impressed into the everyday, from which it is barely perceivable. Gosarič’s work is a perfectly characteristic example of the art practice referred to as “art in the age of culture”. Art and culture are spaces of a lasting exchange of relations, and an exchange of relations is precisely what the artist seeks in his every meticulous performance.

Photo: Dejan Habicht

This text by Miško Šuvaković was published in the catalogue accompanying U3 – The 6th Trinnial of Contemporary Art in Slovenia: An Idea for Living. Realism and Reality in Contemporary Art in Slovenia, Moderna galerija/Museum 57

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of Modern Art, Ljubljana. We thank the author and Moderna galerija for allowing the text to be republished. We also thank Moderna galerija and photographer Dejan Habicht for the photos.

Selected bibliography Frederika Whitehead, “ANTI festival”, Art Monthly, november 2010, p. 30–31 Zala Dobovšek, Ivana Novak “Performans na pohodu in plesniva rekonstrukcija”, Delo, 28.10.2009, p. 20

Slovene National Theatre

Premiere 28 October 2007, Old Power Station – Elektro Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia The award wining performance for innovation and aesthetic breakthrough at 43rd Borštnik Meeting in the year 2008, Maribor, Slovenia

Domenico Quaranta:

Ja nez Ja nša, Slov ene Nationa l Theatr e

Concept and director: Janez Janša Performers: Aleksandra Balmazović, Dražen Dragojević/Boštjan Narat, Janez Janša, Irena Tomažin/Barbara Kukovec, Matjaž Pikalo Sound dramaturgy: Boštjan Narat Video: Janez Janša Camera: Janez Janša, Andrea Keiz Editing: Janez Janša Photography: Marcandrea, Andrea Keiz Technical director: Igor Remeta Production: Maska Executive producer: Barbara Hribar Post-production: Tina Dobnik Co-production: Aksioma – institute for contemporary arts. Thanks: Andrea Keiz, Janez Janša, Andreja Kopač, Samo Gosarič, Iztok Ilc, Maja Šorli, Jelena Milovanović, Marcela Okretič, Kerstin Schrott, Bojana Kunst, Irena Tomažin, Seminar of Contemporary Performing Arts, TV Slovenia, Slovene National and University Library

On 28 October 2006 the Strojans, a family of 31 (including 14 children) were forced to leave the Slovenian village of Ambrus under police escort, and taken to a refugee centre in Postojna, 30 miles away. They had been under siege for two days, trapped by a crowd of fellow townspeople who were demanding they leave the town, under threat of death. The Strojans were not a popular family in the village. Their neighbours accused them of illegal appropriation of land, and dumping rubbish in a nearby waterway. The situation had come to a head a few days previously, when there was a fight and a local man ended up in hospital, in a coma. But it was not a normal grievance between neighbours, by any means. The Strojans are “tzigani”, to use the local word, gypsies. The disturbing story of the family soon became a political case which brought forth the xenophobia of an entire nation, which until then had been viewed as a haven of peace and prosperity in the troubled Balkans. 61

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Slovene Nationa l T h eatre

“Kill the Gypsies!”, “We’ll string you up on a cross!”, “Gypsies raus!”1 were just some of the shouts from the crowd that formed around the house. At 6 pm the Slovenian Home Secretary arrived, intervening decisively to ensure the “relocation” – a euphemism for deportation? – of the Strojans to Postojna, with the promise of a new house in three weeks. The situation calmed down. “We have nothing against them. We just think they should be found somewhere else to live”2, declared the mayor of Ambrus to a reporter from the International Herald Tribune, while the Education Minister commented, “I think the standard of living is far better in Postojna”, evidently not understanding what it might mean to live in a house for 60 years and then be forcibly removed from it. But when the human rights ombudsman Matjaž Hanžek observed that the members of the government didn’t even realise they were using discriminatory language, the prime minister Janez Janša accused him of denigrating Slovenia3. The Strojans never got their house. On Christmas Day 2006, grandma Elka, the oldest member of the family, left

Postojna in secret with some of the children and tried to return home. As soon as the people of Ambrus got wind of this, they gathered once more, and the government had the brilliant idea of sending in bulldozers to demolish various buildings that the Strojans had built illegally on their land. At this point the Slovenian president Janez Drnovšek got involved. Known for opposing the policies of the prime minister, Drnovšek tried to help grandma Elka, provoking a furore among the townspeople, who stopped him in the street to tell him to go back to where he had come from. The months following the “Ambrus incident” saw an increase in episodes of racism, directed especially at the Tzigane community. The xenophobic right increased its power in the 2004 elections. But the most disturbing part of the whole episode was the fact that the aggressive language used by the people of Ambrus, together with the “discriminatory speech” described by Hanžek was – as Blaž Lukan observed – legitimized by the political élite, who took it on and thus normalized it. It is this very language that the Slovene National Theatre4 invites us to think about: its harshness, but above all its

1 Nicholas Wood, “Hounding of Gypsies Contradicts Slovenia’s Image”, in The New York Times, November 13, 2006. Available online at http://www. nytimes.com/2006/11/13/world/europe/13slovenia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin 2 Nicholas Wood, “Roma family’s forced move raises rights issue in Slovenia”, in International Herald Tribune, November 7, 2006. Available online at http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/07/news/gypsy.php?page=1 3 Nicholas Wood, “Hounding of Gypsies Contradicts Slovenia’s Image”, quoted.

4 Slovene National Theatre is the name of Slovenia’s most prestigious theatre company, but as we will see in this paragraph, the use of the name here is linked to the desire to highlight how the “Ambrus case” brings forth some of the salient characteristics of modern-day Slovenia.

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Slovene Nationa l T h eatre

ambiguities; its open, aggressive racism, with the spectre that conjures up, but above all its latent racism, anaesthetized by political euphemisms. Slovene National Theatre (Slovensko narodno gledališče or SNG) is a theatrical piece that works on two levels. On the stage there are four actors standing in a row side by side. Wearing headphones, they mechanically repeat what they hear: the declarations made by the mayor of Ambrus, the president Janez Drnovšek and other political figures; the shouts of the crowd and the utterances of others involved in the incident: the members of the Strojan family, police officers, journalists. Fragments of the media storm that blew up around the episode are repeated in the neutral, detached style of the actors of SNG. At the back of the stage are five giant plasma screens playing videos in which, against a background of five places that symbolism the ostracism of the Tzigane gypsies, Janez Janša (the artist behind the show, not the prime minister) obsessively repeats the mantra “Tziganes… Tziganes… Tziganes”5. The radical nature of Janez Janša’s approach makes the performance interesting for a number of reasons. In the first place the original event is not represented, as you would expect with a piece of theatre, or reconstructed, as you would expect with a re-enactment. The only thing 5 The five places are: the Holocaust Monument in Berlin, Mount Triglav, the Jože Pučnik airport in Ljubljana, a university library and a Catholic church.

Photo: Marcandrea

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Slovene Nationa l T h eatre

about the Ambrus episode that is presented, with total fidelity6, is the linguistic aspect, as it was conveyed in the media. But the form that this “re-invoicement” takes, with the actors mechanically repeating what they hear in their headphones, strips the original media documentation of any vestige of drama. Or rather, it strips the word of the rhetoric and anaesthetizing slant of the media, and offers its to the spectator bare, without inflection, and as a result, laden with a different kind of drama. At the same time, by detaching these utterances from the media and lending them the immediacy of a live experience, having them spoken by people right there in front of us, Janez Janša brings these words out of oblivion and consigns them to memory. As Blaž Lukan writes: “Much more important is the fact that Janša with this reconstruction and transcription of the documentary material brought back to life a fact, which our political (and media) reality already left behind and forgot about. Trying to keep the memory of the Ambrus case alive and protecting it from the (partly dictated and partly spontaneous) amnesia of political and media reality, is the essential quality of this piece.”7

Secondly, on a more formal level, we have the acute contrast between a highly ‘mediatized’ version of reality – represented on stage by the videos and headphones – and the evocation of a theatrical topos – the historic tradition of the chorus commenting on and accompanying the action. In actual fact, Janša’s chorus does not comment on the action, but is the repository that contains it: it places the audience before the bare facts, and instead of imposing a particular vision, elicits the audience to form their own point of view and value judgement. In other words SNG works with the ambiguous relationship between media and reality in a highly mediatized society. Quoting Philip Auslander, Tomaž Toporišič writes: “whereas mediatized performance derives its authority from its reference to the live or the real, the live now derives its authority from its reference to the mediatized, which derives its authority from its reference to the live, etc.”8 These dynamics emerge to the letter in SNG. Its point of departure is a traumatic event which reveals the tensions in an apparently peaceful, calm society: an event that is metabolized, digested and expelled without a solution ever being reached, precisely thanks to its ample media presence, leaving evident traces in the language of that society.

6 As the introduction to SNG explains: “All characters are real people with the same names and titles or functions and all have actually said what is written here. No words have been added, appropriated or changed. The text has not been (grammatically) proofread…” 7 Blaž Lukan, “Janša in Ambrus”, originally published as “Janša v Ambrusu”, in Delo, 2 November 2007.

8 Tomaž Toporišič, “The Political at the Intersection of the Live and the Mediatized”, in Maska, vol. XXIII, no. 113–114, Spring 2008, pp. 51–55.

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The media, the principle force behind the episode’s fall into oblivion, is also the main repository of its history, and by recovering the media flow and stripping it of its transitory character, Janša succeeds in rediscovering and restoring the original event, in its full impact. (in RE:akt! Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Re-reporting, exhibition and book produced by Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia, p. 105–109) We thank the author for kindly allowing the publication of his text.

Selected bibliography Blaž Lukan, “Predstava in pisava”, v Drama, tekst, pisava, uredila Petra Pogorevc in Tomaž Toporišič, Mestno gledališče ljubljansko, Ljubljana 2008, p. 149–173 Tomaž Toporišič, “Jeziki predstave in politike teksta”, v Drama, tekst, pisava, uredila Petra Pogorevc in Tomaž Toporišič, Mestno gledališče ljubljansko, Ljubljana 2008, p. 48–68 S.E.Wilmer, “Perfroming Statelessness”, Amfiteater, 2, 2008, p. 52–68. Zala Dobovšek, “Slovensko narodno Gledališče Janeza Janše”, Radio Študent, 30.10.2007 Blaž Lukan, “Janša v Ambrusu”, Delo, 2.11.2007 Ana Perne, “Gledališče, ki iritira”, Dnevnik, 5.11.2007 Petra Tanko, “O premieri predstave Slovensko Narodno Gledališče”, radio Slovenija, 29.10.2007

Pupilija, papa Pupilo and the Pupilceks – reconstruction

Premiere 20 September 2006, Old Power Station – Elektro Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia Special award for “re-actualising a constant wish to question the nature and boundaries of the theatre”, festival Bitef, Belgrade, Serbia (2007) Reconstruction and director: Janez Janša Creators and performers: Aleksandra Balmazović, Gregor Cvetko, Dražen Dragojević, Lado Jakša, Alja Kapun, Boštjan Narat, Matjaž Pikalo, Dejan Srhoj, Ajda Toman, Irena Tomažin, Grega Zorc Music: Gregor Cvetko, Lado Jakša, Boštjan Narat Technical Director: Igor Remeta Assistant director: Samo Gosarič Projections: Samo Gosarič, Janez Janša, Igor Štromajer Camera operators: Gregor Lipičar, Iztok Sajdl Montage: Gorazd Kernel Makeup artist: Barbara Pavlin Photography: Marcandrea Bragalini Production: Maska Executive producer: Barbara Hribar Postproduction: Tina Dobnik Co-production: Festival EX PONTO, Bunker Productions Co-producer of video: Videoprodukcija Kregar Sponsor: Elle magazine Thanks: Center and Gallery P-74, Festival Ljubljana, RTV Slovenia. Special thanks to all the members of the original cast of the performance Pupilija, papa Pupilo pa Pupilčki, especially to Dušan Jovanović, Ivo Svetina, Barbara Levstik and Goranka Kreačič.

Katherina Zakravsky

On the R e-enactm ent of “Pupilija” A Photo Nov el At first sight it seems something like the history of the world, or a model biography. Someone says, “When I’ve had enough of this mess I start putting the world in order.” We see people behaving like babies, blowing up balloons. A double reference to infancy and to a collective of some kind of Pere Ubu baby gods who start the world by creating perfect spheres – spheres getting in shape by the effort of their own lungs – almost an equivalent to “creatio ex nihilo”. We have to think of this age of innocence, in a double reference to the biographical age and the era the performance took place first. As if we would remember our collective historical childhood in the year 1969. Then one could start a world by starting a performance that denies all previous historical efforts to create a world. Innocence that was the expression of an active will to 71

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Pupi lija , papa Pupi lo and t h e Pupi lcek s - reconstruction

forget, yet a blessing of a collective amnesia, a collective well of youth that is in itself – historical. The act of retelling this history of innocence can not be innocent itself

individuality there evolves the discovery of sex in an act of initiation. The two kiss – be it a man and a woman or two women. (I never saw two men). The children creating a world lose their innocence but keep it as historical representatives of the new discovered sexuality of the sixties. A photography of two female performers kissing 1969 is being projected on the screen and being commented by one of them – she says that it has been a big gesture then to show a seemingly lesbian scene. This innocence has been lost since. By now it is only a spectacle for voyeurs to emphasize the same-sex-aspect. So we can rather see the “fairy-tale” reference of a kiss of initiation that in case of “Snow White” signifies the last scene of infancy and the first step into the age of adulthood – a heavy transition the fairy-tale marks with the interlude of a fake death.

Snow white And as time goes on, from situation to situation, more games are being played. As the group plays on the subject of the collective gives way to the new discovery of the individual. A game of selection uses chance to finally expose two individuals. Their sex is not yet important, yet with

Photo novel

Photo: Marcandrea, 2006

In the st/age of puberty the need for gender role models is attaching the individual to the defining power of media, thus returning the newly born individual that just emerged from the collective of children to a more mediated collective power. In a tricky synchrony the photo novel scene from 1969 is projected and the live scene clearly refers to it 73

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Pupi lija , papa Pupi lo and t h e Pupi lcek s - reconstruction

as the original to be imitated. Thus the original scene that had already re-enacted the then popular medium of the photo romance takes on the position of the photo romance for the present. The days of the photo romance in teenage magazines may be gone, but the Sixties performance seems to be the photo novel of the contemporary performance – something to be watched with sentimentality as the expression

historical film in order to re-enact it as good as possible are not so much putting on a loving parody but displaying their own status as re-enactors. The whole thorough process of rehearsal led to a very free and sovereign mastery of the original material – no practical need to expose the act of imitation like that. This display of dependency of the original is much rather a gestus in the tradition of epic theater that reminds the spectator that the performers might seem free And joyful in their actions – still their performance is also a live document demanding a certain intellectual contribution from the audience. Ironically the one element that marks the most obvious difference between the live performance and the original is the presence of the original in documents.

The Globe Photo: Tone Stojko, 1969 (left); Marcandrea, 2006 (right)

of a world in which the simpler medium expresses the simpler relationships. Yet this equation might be misleading. The almost sacral status of the b/w photography as privileged documentary medium of performance indicates a more complex relationship between the still and the moving image. And the live performers clearly looking at the 74

There is nothing more historical – in the double meaning of the word – than a strong sign of liberation. Then a man in the prime of his Prometheian power could take the globe and fuck it. Apparently this gesture has been one of the most unbearable provocations for the Yugoslavian authorities of 69 they even rejected with a critique of missing logic: “No one can fuck the globe!” This might touch us as yet another historical document of good old bona fide 75

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Pupi lija , papa Pupi lo and t h e Pupi lcek s - reconstruction

The Provocations Old-fashioned, sexual provocations wane, new provocations occur. The director Emil Hrvatin went through a whole crime story of assaults and advice when trying to re-enact the slaughtering of the white chicken that gave the Sixties performance its final ritualistic appeal. Then this act of violence against an animal slipped through the loose fabric of an anarchist happening that had not been properly announced anyway. The historical gap to the present is Photo: Marcandrea, 2006

historical materialism that holds on to realistic size and scale rejecting the volatility of cultural symbolism – and rightly so, for this symbolism has been the birthplace of the universe of logos and brands we have to inhabit today. And so it is only consequent to choose a flabby, amorphous beach ball kind of a globe to represent what has become of the globe since then. Today the globe is only one of so many things that can stand for worlds we can fuck around with. And so the rather unmanly act of penetrating this plastic ball transforms this once almost mystical union into yet another comic display of today’s fetishist relations between persons and objects. 76

Photo: Marcandrea, 2006

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Pupi lija , papa Pupi lo and t h e Pupi lcek s - reconstruction

indicated by the by now obligatory heavy administration of any performative event – the bureaucratic prize performance has to pay for its entrance into the realm of high culture. The loss of performance innocence goes along with the moral privileging of the innocent creature as one of the last sacred taboos left to us. The animal as “homo/ animal sacer”, the bare life that can neither be slaughtered nor sacrificed, is the flip side of a society that does otherwise not grant any sphere of innocence to its members, a complete abandonment that also includes art. There is no need to emphasize the built-in hypocrisy considering the hard facts of industrial slaughtering. What is notable here is just the taboo of showing it – and to show is the function of art. The chicken are presented several times during the show. This ritualistic animal displays are accompanied by a quite sinister look of the performers. Still they protect the animals from the fantasies of slaughter they implanted in the minds of the audience. In the end the audience is confronted with a multiple choice situation. They are to decide if there should be a showing of the original document of the slaughter, a report on it by the witnesses, a legal instruction on the conditions of a public slaughter or finally a live slaughter. It seems that the last option won quite often. If this is the case a performer is presenting a knife and asking

a member of the audience to come on stage and do it him/ herself. This scene puts the blame on the spectator, and it takes a very long time. On the other hand quite hidden appears another scene that looks at first site as yet another innocent and gleeful

Photo: Marcandrea, 2006

display of song-singing and collective choreography. The 1969 performance as a collective achievement of a couple of Slovenian avant-garde poets could be described as the local equivalent of the Austrian fine arts movement of Sixties actionism; the era’s anarchist zeal for the destruction 79

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Pupi lija , papa Pupi lo and t h e Pupi lcek s - reconstruction

of old petrified forms and codes did not seek the liberating power of blood and flesh but the multitude of languages. Some idioms used in the show are spoken by nations – such as Slovenian, Italian, Russian; some only by one or a few individuals such as Milan Jesih’s beautifully looped pig Latin, or a scene dedicated to Majakovski or a passage of fake Hebrew. The sensuality of music and sounds wins over the culturally defined code of language. Thus we drift through a serious of child rhymes, songs, concerts, sound poetry that sometimes imitates a computer, sometimes a trivial medium such as commercials and horoscopes. The passages in between speech and song, silence and sound, sense and non-sense are smooth, rich and elegant. And in the midst of all these semantic colors is this weird marching performance of a 19th century Slovenian patriotic poem by Koseski that addressed the Austrian monarchy with a snotty declaration of Slovenian honor and self-esteem. Strangers attacking Slovenia will be “plucked like cherries”, it says. It is in itself a complex but valid historical lesson to see this patriotic outburst as a sign for a national and linguistic minority complex, but the poetic wealth of languages so specific to the 1969 performance as the more dignified answer to the same misery – an answer sovereign enough to even digest this patriotic belch as only one of its many components. This 19th century display of

Slovenian pride might have been an almost absurd sign in the Yugoslavian sixties. Yet it gained a strange new actuality after the dissolution of Yugoslavia. The contemporary performance marks the enormous historical changes that recontextualize the poem by the unfolding of two flags – the old Communist star and the new flag that displays the symbol of a mountain that very much resembles a logo for a chain of wellness hotels. To Hrvatin not the globe fucking, not the slaughtering of the chicken, but the reciting of Koseski’s anthem is the most disturbing provocation of the piece.

The Hippie Messiah During the reciting of a litany in fake Hebrew one of the 69 performers takes on the posture of a priestly authority. The fact that he wears no shirt is accidental. He did not take if off for this scene. In the photo he has been caught as an icon of the era reminding us of phenomena like “Jesus Christ Superstar”, “Hair” and “Tommy”. The birth of the Slovenian variant of the hippie messiah with a bare chest took place as a side effect of a performance of poetry taking historical shape only in the process of its own documentation. Also due to the conceptual decision of not casting individual performers with their “type specific” contemporary 81

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with hand-painted stripes is rather displaying its difference from the striped T-shirt of a 69 performer. One performer even happens to wear no shirt. But there is no effort to reembody the figure of the bare chested messiah. The loyalty to historical truth demands the insight that a bare chest now cannot bare the same meaning as it did then. The actor in a re-enactment is the pure bearer of indexicality. He/she does not symbolise a classical archetype or role but puts on a function of referring to a precise historical moment. And by being a dummy embodying historical indexicality the re-enactor does something quite striking as a side-effect – and necessarily so, without being aware of it. Failing to become the historical performer who “first did it” the re-enactor displays the finiteness, the singularity, the unrepeatable strangeness of his/her own historical moment – not the moment of the first act but the moment of the re-enactment. Photo: Tone Stojko, 1969

equivalents the cast of the contemporary performers resembles the original cast only as a group. The performers also come from different professional backgrounds reaching from literature and music to professional acting. Their costumes only vaguely resemble the originals, a T-shirt 82

The Melancholy of Re-Enactment Only if there is a gap in between the other world of the first event and the circumstances of the re-enactment, only if the historical discontinuity of these events is guaranteed, the mirroring of these two singularities that never become the role playing of one another can take place. 83

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Pupi lija , papa Pupi lo and t h e Pupi lcek s - reconstruction

What the re-enacting performance has to face is the fact that it transforms the original. By referring back to it the re-enactment constructs the “original” as historical document. And the historical evaluation comes at the

of a loss that cannot be overcome, as this loss is the structural condition of both historicity and re-enactment. Right in between the contemporary performers and the documents of the Sixties a third element not being part of neither staged event but part of the projections could relieve this structural melancholy by a biographical continuity both bridging and affirming the historical gap: the performers of 1969 who watched the original documents and commented on their experiences then and their evaluation today. (in Documenta 12 Magazine, no.3. Kassel 2007, p. 76–85) We thank the author for kindly allowing the publication of her text

Selected bibliography

Photo: Marcandrea, 2006

prize of freezing the many colours and ambiguities of the past event. The historical moment is only born after the event. After the world it belonged to has waned. As a trace of the lost world the document comes to represent it. The living embodiments of a re-enactment represent Freud`s definition of melancholy: the excessive mourning 84

Janez Janša, “Reconstruction 2: On the Reconstruction of Pupilija, papa Pupilo and the Pupilceks and Monument G”, from the book: The pupilceks have arrived: 40 years of the Pupilija Ferkeverk theatre, Maska and the Slovenian National Theatre Museum, 2009 p. 261 Astrid Peterle, “Reenactments of Perfromance and the Potential of Calculated Failure” from the book The pupilceks have arrived: 40 years of the Pupilija Ferkeverk theatre, Maska and the Slovenian National Theatre Museum, 2009, p. 297 Sergej Pristaš, “Operation, intervention, reconstruction”, Frakcja, no.42, 2007, p. 24 Rike Frank, “Déjà Vu All Over Again”, Artforum, april 2007, p. 113 Jack Hauser, Judith Helmer, Elke Krasny, Helmut Ploebst, Martina Ruhsam,« Eine kooperation zwischen Tanzquartier Wien und Mumok Wien«, Corpus on-line magazine, 16.11.2006

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Linda Lewkowicz, Sybille Cornet, Béatrice Didier, “ Trouble”, Ballet-tanz Yearbook 2008, p. 101–103 Blaž Lukan, “Reconstruction of Pupilija, Three Performances in One”, Delo, 28.9.2006, p. 13 Rok Vevar, “Reconstruction, the original, the re-stagning and the difference”, Večer, 28.9.2006, p. 12 Gašper Troha, “Communist and Democratic Censorship in Slovenia: The Case of Pupilja papa Pupilo pa Pupilčki”, Primerjalna književnost/Comparative literature, Ljubljana, no.31 special issue, 2008, p. 251–258 Maja Megla, “Bo bela kura tokrat preživela?” Pogovor z režiserjema Dušanom Jovanovićem in Emilom Hrvatinom, Sobotna priloga, 16.9.2006, p. 20–21 Matej Bogataj, “Najboljši ribiči ne lovijo več”, Večer, 30.9.2006 Matej Bogataj, “Izgubljena nedolžnost Pupilije F.”, Večer, 20.10.2007, p. 12 Matjaž Pograjc, “Brezglava kura napadla brezglava režiserja”, Siol.net/blog, 19.9.2006

Miss Mobile

Premiere 1 September 2001, Vooruit, Gent, Belgium Concept: Janez Janša

Luk Van den Dries and Nele Decock

Ceçi n’est pas l a r éa lité

Performer: Janez Janša Painters: Viktor Bernik, Žiga Kariž, Sašo Vrabič Production: Maska Executive producers: Nataša Zavolovšek, Barbara Hribar Post-production: Tina Dobnik

On 2nd September [2001] the first Janus Salon took place, under the title ‘The Terminal SpectaCtor’. This subject was drawn from the essay of the same title by the Slovenian dramatist/cultural philosopher Emil Hrvatin (also published in Janus). In this essay he distinguishes a new type of spectator, one who is no longer the voyeur looking on passively. He is not a consumer of the theatre art, nor is he on the active side of the stage as was the case in the happenings of yesteryear when the public were invited to participate and all the boundaries between the audience and the actors were removed in an ultimate democratic dream of a community without distinctions. Hrvatin skilfully finishes with this dual notion of the spectator.The reality of the spectator in contemporary theatre cannot be reduced to the contrast between active and passive (with, in its wake, the paradigms that associate with each other like tough rootstocks: undifferentiated/community/social/remote/ thinking as opposed to differentiated, individual/ liberal/proximity/feeling).The 89

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truth of the spectator is more complex. He becomes an actor in his own private performance. Not like the demented King Ludwig of Bavaria who became a sort of Super-spectator in his own one-man theatre. But more in a ‘weak current’ sense: the spectator merges into a network connection. He becomes a terminal because he is himself a link in a broadly established programme of pulses. He becomes a ‘terminal’ to which all manner of signals come in and go out again. In this form of theatre the movement on stage is no longer regulated like a ribbon of motorway with the teleological transport of meaning from point A to point B,and to which the spectator can surrender blindly. It offers the endless arranging of possibilities, a highly diffuse field of points of energy between which there are countless connections. The spectator takes part in this traffic, simultaneously active and passive. Hrvatin resolves this classic antithesis into a new ‘contaminated’ concept in which watching and looking coincide: the spectaCtor is born. This dissolved spectator also interacts with the theatre of life. Because there too we find an increasingly fluid area between the private and the public, domains which from a bourgeois ideological angle were in fact always fixed and differentiated.The new media play a particularly important part in this. They entice one to unburden oneself. And they penetrate into the most intimate corners of human activity. 90

M iss Mobi l e

Photo: Igor Delorenzo Omahen

Commercialisation suddenly transforms this intimacy into a million-dollar business. The television show Big Brother is undoubtedly the bestknown example of this sort of intimacy i mploding business plan. A Big Business plan, because the Dutch media tycoon Joop Van den Ende has already sold this reality sitcom, in which everyday banality is glorified, to 35 countries. In this television format the boundaries also become intermingled: it is of course reality TV that vividly reflects the most glamorous fiction. You could describe it as a reality 91

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soap. And as Sloterdijk has already said, it is at the same time based on the Auschwitz principle of selection. The SMS messages by which the audience plays an interactive part in voting occupants out of the house are a media variant of the Endlosung. It is precisely this heavy weightlessness between voyeurism and exhibitionism, intimate and private, fictional and real, that was the topic of this salon. It was held in parallel with the annual Theatre Festival, at which the most interesting Flemish and Dutch theatre productions of the past season are shown. High under the rafters of the Vooruit theatre building in Ghent, it took the form of a sultry cocoon of action, reactions and interventions. It was a Salon des independants. ‘Je doute donc je pense donc je suis’.’This Cartesianesque statement sounded convincing as the motto and motive behind the organised salons of a century marked by the emancipated human power of reasoning. Between Ie Siecle des Lumieres and today, the Salon has undergone radical changes. In this salon,TheTerminal SpectaCtor, organised by Aisthesis (a university research centre into physicality) and Janus, doubt embedded itself into the salon furniture itself like a virus. A few old armchairs remind us of an intellectual discussion circle. But there is hardly any discussion. There is playful reasoning, fictional demonstrations, reality is deceived by fiction and fiction lied to by means of reality. 92

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Ceci n’est pas la realite In an interactive performance, Emil Hrvatin explored a few of the possibilities of this ‘third’ spectator. He immediately fixed the boundaries of fiction and reality. From the moment he picked up the microphone he announced that everything was invented, that any similarity to existing facts was purely coincidental and the word reality cannot be used. He cleared the table and made a sanctuary that gave him the chance to elicit more from the people than they might have wanted to give. Such as: their mobile phones, turned on and with one of their friends at the other end of the line. He immediately chose two attractive female assistants from the half of the group without mobiles. In this way he already assured himself of one televisual cliche. The quiz could now begin. With wit and the necessary dose of pertinence, Hrvatin started a talkshow using mobile telephones. He wangled eight phones out of the audience and started making the acquaintance of the people at the other end of the line. With a micro at the ready Hrvatin examined the mobile devices like a steady-handed surgeon. ‘Tell us your name and stay on the line’. The performer built up a network of conversations. Eight unknown people became present by means of mobile telephony. They were drawn out of their privacy to participate aurally in what was 93

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M iss Mobi l e

for them an utterly unclear theatrical game. Amplification enabled their absent identity to be catapulted into a public space. This was followed, one by one, by a presentation of who they were. `How would you describe yourself? You know: are you a good or a bad person, what is your temperament? How tall are you? When do you look sexy? What should I say to these people to get hold of an eighth telephone? Do you think revolution is possible? Why are you lying? Does a mother have the right to hit her child? What is your message to the world?’ Hrvatin comes up with the questions with a natural ease. One question is always repeated: ‘What are your political convictions?’ The concept of the`terminal spectator’ is after all about politics too: behind the changed relationship between looking and acting lies a shifting view of the place of the individual in society. As far as this was concerned, the answers given by the Eight Mobile Phones were exceptionally vague: somewhere between communism with a human face and liberalism with respect for everyone. The intimacy of an absent space was used by one of the phone participants to assume a new identity: she claimed to be Meg Stuart. The other Meg Stuart (which is the real one?) hid herself away amongst the audience. Identity is a construction, certainly in a network of endless possibilities. `Lying increases possibilities’ (the ‘Meg Stuart’ on the phone). Ceci n est pas la verite.

Photo: Igor Delorenzo Omahen

Eight mobile phones on a table. Eight people waiting in a virtual space. One speaker and an audience. Despite the unisex nature of a mobile phone, the flow of energy originating from it is not sexless. One discerns a notable shift in approach when a woman comes on the line. ‘Sorry for keeping you so long,’ is said with just a little more empathy.The intimate space of a wireless connection is like a seducer’s room. The salon of the chase is open. Ouestions from the audience were also welcome. And also questions to those being questioned. ‘Do I feel like a minister with eight telephones under my nose?’ ‘Can I 95

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come a drink a Mochito at your place? Well OK, I’ve got your phone number, anyway.’ ‘Of course I think it’s possible to be a Marxist and a social democrat at the same time. I just had someone on the line who claimed that anything is possible. Why not?’ At the climax of the chase the live show was broken off. It was announced that the audience would choose a male and a female winner from the’present absentees’ and have these two communicate with each other. Or to put it another way: to close down the signals of 8 mobile phones by votes from the audience (something which the owners of the mobile phones were quite happy about, considering the bill that was being run up). But at that crucial moment Hrvatin, the master of ceremonies, stopped his conversations with the terminal listeners. A cliffhanger? Moral inhibition? (excerpt from the article published in Janus, no. 9/01, p. 11–16) We thank the authors for kindly allowing the publication of text

Selected bibliography Kurt Taroff, “Long Distance Performance: Emil Hrvatin’s Miss Mobile at La Mama”, Slavic and East European Performance, New York, vol 22, no.2, Spring 2002, p. 94–97 Luk Van den Dries and Nele Decock, “Keep out of fiction (no one is watching)”, Janus, no. 9/01, p. 11–16

Luk Van den Dries, “Tearjerkers and Mindgames. About Emil Hrvatin’s Theatre Work”, TheaterForum, La Jolla, California, no.23, Summer/Fall 2003, p. 3–11 Nataša Govedić, “Dva lica monodrame i interakcija s publikom”, Novi list, 24.4.2003 Kim Cuculić, “Nazovi M radi radijskog ustrojstva”, Zarez, 7.11.2002, no.1 Jasna Vombek, “Avtetičnost virtualne participacije”, JSKD, Ljubljana, 2006, p. 3–11 Jaša Kramaršič, “Diskretno naprej”, Mladina, 10.6.2002 Darinka Nikolić, “Kruta učna ura demokracije”, Dnevnik, Novi Sad, 2.6.2002 Mario Brandolin, “Drive in Camillo na sceni v Sedilisu”, Messaggero Veneto, Videm, 1.8.2002 Nela Valerjev, “Miss Mobile Emila Hrvatina v njujorški La Mami”, Novi list, Rijeka, 15.4. 2002 Andraž Gombač, “Halo, tu Janez Janša”, Primorske novice, 29.7.2009, p. 9

Special editions

RECONSTRUCTION, VOICE, IDENTITY

FAMA

Maska 2010 Special edition

POSTDRAMATIC FISHING

Published by Maska, Metelkova 6, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia; www.maska.si

COLLECT-IF

Edited by: Jedrt Jež Furlan Translation: Maja Lovrenov Proofreading: Camille Acey Prepress: Vtis Printed by: Cicero Circulation: 500 copies

MEMORY_PRIVACY_SPECTATORSHIP

ON FORM/YET TO COME WATCH IT! Janez Janša LIFE [IN PROGRESS]

Mediakcije Series Serge Halimi NOVI PSI ČUVAJI Naomi Klein NO LOGO Sandra Bašić Hrvatin, Lenart J. Kučić MONOPOLI. DRUŽABNA IGRA TRGOVANJA Z MEDIJI Olivier Razac EKRAN IN ŽIVALSKI VRT Ariel Dorfman in Armand Mattelart KAKO BRATI JAKA RACMANA. IMPERIALISTIČNA IDEOLOGIJA V DISNEYEVIH STRIPIH McKenzie Wark HEKERSKI MANIFEST Mike Davis BUDOV VOZ. KRATKA ZGODOVINA AVTOMOBILA BOMBE

Copyright by authors, photographers and publishers Copyright for this edition Maska. With the support of Slovenian Book Agency TRANSformacije Series MASKA, Institute for Publishing, Production and Education Metelkova 6, SI – 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia, Europe Tel.: + 386 1 431 31 22; + 386 1 431 53 48 Fax.: + 386 1 431 31 22 Email: info@maska.si www.maska.si Maska is a nonprofit organization for publishing, production (performances, interdisciplinary and visual art works), education and research. It is oganized through three sections: Maska Publications, Maska Productions and Maska Symposium. Maska’s theoretical, critical and artistic activities are involved in contemporary art and theory, research, experimental performing practices, interdisciplinary art and critical theory. Maska is co-funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Muni cipality of Ljubljana. Maska publications are co-funded by the Slovenian Book Agency

PRISOTNOST, PREDSTAVLJANJE, TEATRALNOST, zbornik Blaž Lukan DRAMATURŠKE FIGURE Bojana Kunst NEMOGOČE TELO TELO, UJETO V DROBOVJE RAČUNALNIKA, zbornik

Katrien Jacobs LIBI_DOC: JOURNEYS IN THE PERFORMANCE OF SEX ART Katrien Jacobs LIBI_DOC. SLOVENIJA: MISTIFICIRAJ TELO, POVZDIGNI DUHA

ZADNJA FUTURISTIČNA PREDSTAVA, zbornik

READY 2 CHANGE, zbornik

TEORIJE SODOBNEGA PLESA, zbornik

DEMOKINO – VIRTUAL BIOPOLITICAL AGORA, zbornik

Jana Pavlič, Boris Pintar KASTRACIJSKI STROJI

SODOBNE SCENSKE UMETNOSTI, zbornik

STELARC, zbornik Amelia Jones BODY ART. UPRIZARJANJE SUBJEKTA ZERO VISIBILITY, zbornik Alexei Monroe PLURALNI MONOLIT. LAIBACH IN NSK Hans-Thies Lehmann POSTDRAMSKO GLEDALIŠČE

Inke Arns AVANTGARDA V VZVRATNEM OGLEDALU Nicolas Bourriaud RELACIJSKA ESTETIKA. POSTPRODUKCIJA Jacques Attali HRUP Beti Žerovc KURATOR IN SODOBNA UMETNOST. POGOVORI

THE FUTURE OF COMPUTER ARTS, zbornik

Aldo Milohnić TEORIJE SODOBNEGA GLEDALIŠČA IN PERFORMANSA

Tomaž Toporišič MED ZAPELJEVANJEM IN SUMNIČAVOSTJO

PRIŠLI SO PUPILČKI, zbornik

Bojana Kunst NEVARNE POVEZAVE

Jacques Rancière EMANCIPIRANI GLEDALEC

Reconstruction,

Voice, Identity

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