|
Dziga
Vertov (the theoretician of kino-glazo) was certain that
film could be used for political goals, that it can be changed
into a means for a “communist decodification of the world”.
It’s hard to tell whether with the title of his last project
– DemoKino
– Janez Janša wished to pay tribute
to one of the fathers of film or to make fun of his unrealized
ambitions.
The project is a narrative divided into 8 film clips based
on a screenplay by Antonio Caronia. It
unwinds live, with a streaming technique, allowing viewers
to edit the film interactively. The main character is one
Kolja, a Slovene youth with an average education and an
average interest in current events, facing a serious of
varied dilemmas through the day, a sort of contemporary
Hamlet. For example, two Mormons ring his doorbell, and
he begins to ponder sects, Raelites and cloning. Or: he’s
surfing the net and suddenly begins to question copyright.
In this manner, while engaging in every day activity, on
the toilet or on the phone, Kolja starts thinking about
abortion, euthanasia, genetically modified organisms, therapeutic
cloning, homosexual marriage, water privatization. He discusses
all the pros and contras and then tries to decide: which
is where the user steps in, voting in his name; the majority
vote then leads onto the next room, the next question. And
the next dilemma. From one vote to the next, we come to
the final clip of the film, followed by, without interaction
by clicking, a final short clip. The now-familiar face of
Kolja is substituted by a smiling clown: "What about
if I tell you that everything was defined in advance?".
A silly melody and a sarcastic smile thereby destroy any
illusions brought about by the “virtual parliament”
of DemoKino.
Concepts like (inter)active collaboration, direct democracy,
a virtual agora and freedom of choice, collapse alongside
the clown’s red nose, just as Italian democracy did alongside
pianists’ musical performances. As with Kafka, the clarity
of law is disfigured in the muddle of a process that remains
invisible to the end. But the question of the virtuality
of contemporary democracy is only one of the questions put
forth by DemoKino:
it also discusses the effectiveness of the much praised
interactivity of the web and the transformation of politics
into biopolitics, or rather, the recent tendency to try
to make the private public, and transform life itself into
a political question. This complexity is common to all works
of Janša, an Italian artist who moved to Ljubljana
in 1995, where he founded the non-profit organization
Aksioma, producing works which use new media to investigate
social, political, ethical and aesthetic questions. Because
life is politics, theatre is terrorism and problems produce
profit...
DQ.
How did DemoKino come about? Does
it bear traces of a particular event in our everyday politics,
or is the project a result of a more general contemplation?
DG. I would say that the work is the result
of a general contemplation, although there is a very specific
event that triggered it. In the late 'nineties, I read the
book Collective Intelligence by Pierre Lévy, which
among other things, indicates a socially more beneficial
use of computer-supported communication, supplying individuals
with the tools to establish intelligent collectives and
initiate democracy in realtime. If we reread the book today,
we would surely find it evident that Lévy's idealistic vision
has failed to materialize.
I then accidentally found an article in the online version
of the Financial Times discussing the phenomenon
of the so-called "pianists", the Italian senators that were
filmed voting for their absent colleagues via the electronic
voting system.
If they were voting by a show of hands, such a pianist would
have to raise both arms, which, if nothing else, would be
a very "brave" act if only because of the obviousness of
such a gesture. But this analog and backward voting system
would definitely not allow characters like senator Lucio
Malan from Forza Italia to perform a skilful triple
vote, unless of course he managed to borrow Stelarc's famous
third arm in time. The electronic voting system, however,
does enables such things - clear evidence of how new technology
actually makes work easier.
So: this news got me thinking about a whole array of questions.
Confronting this fact, which is symptomatic of the unreliability
of the representative or parliamentary democracy, with the
realization of the failure of Lévy's idea, I felt a great
sense of impotence and at the same time the urge to delve
further into these themes.
DQ.
DemoKino makes fun of the supposedly
democratic nature of interactivity, as well as contemporary
democracy tout court. In both cases, freedom of choice seems
inherently linked with the mechanism of choosing, while
in reality it this very mechanism which prevents democracy.
Do you see a way out of this blind alley?
DG. To answer this question, we would have
to carefully consider the significance of democracy, as
well as the meaning of interactivity. The concept of democracy,
historically and philosophically charged with meaning, seems
emptier today than ever before, a caricature of its former
self, far from the idea described by "sovereignty of the
people."
If anything, the dictates of the economy and the market
are the ones followed today. It would make more sense to
coin neologisms such as "econocracy" or "marketocracy".
The term "democracy" acquires an even more grotesque meaning
when it is uttered in a missionary manner or, even worse,
when it is identified as a 'good' to be exported with a
marketing operation, for which the package design is basically
more important than the content. Capitalism is looking for
new markets for Democracy, too.
With artworks, video games, automatic bank tellers and other
'finalized' products defined as interactive, the reciprocal
operation, the release of a process of interaction, is merely
virtual. The bottom line is, in the programming phase of
these products, a number of possibilities are considered,
but no matter how many, they are still limited, studied
ahead and programmed accordingly. The interaction with these
devices creates in the user a strong sense of sovereignty,
of self-determination. But on closer inspection, this feeling
turns out to be merely virtual. Herein, perhaps, lies the
reason, the factor of interactivity is so well aligned with
Virtual Realities. In both cases, we deal and worry about
more with appearances than with effectiveness.
But there is a form of interaction, a mutual exchange of
inputs, provocation and information, taking place between
subjects in more or less wide communities, both in physical
reality and cyberspace. I find the interaction between individuals
or groups of individuals much more interesting, much less
predictable and more creative, especially if we understand
interaction as a "cohesion force". Certainly, even such
interaction is subject to limitations put forth by the system
in which interaction is taking place. This is why some communities
and collectives are trying to free themselves from such
'tyranny' by setting their own 'rules of the game', often
and deliberately opposite and incompatible with the rules
of the 'imposed system'.
A possible exit from this blind alley might be that suggested
by Hakim Bey in TAZ, yet we remain in the sphere
of utopia and idealism.
DQ.
DemoKino connects the personal
choices of the main character with a virtual parliament.
And if the final negation of the votes mortifies the voters,
it also returns the freedom of choice to out hero. Do you
believe that there is a conflict between personal freedom
and collective will?
DG. I must say that I disagree with your
claim for at least two reasons.
The first is that at the end of DemoKino,
the voting is not really done in vain. Rather the question
"What about if I tell you that everything was defined
in advance?", put forth by the clown while whistling
a melancholy sing-song tune inoculates the cybervoter with
the doubt that everything might have been set in advance.
It's not an affirmation - it's an element of doubt.
Indeed, the same thing happens when we vote. After we throw
the ballot into the box, we have a feeling that we have
used our right to vote, which was acquired at great cost
through centuries of very important social struggles. But
what, really, is the feedback, the proof that our vote was
really counted? All in all, it wouldn't be the first time
we hear about gerrymandering.
My second reason for not agreeing with your claim is that
freedom of choice is in no way returned to 'our hero'.
He, as a matter of fact, is presented to the viewer and
voter as a protagonist of eight prerecorded short films,
which therefore are in no way modifiable.
The decision of the cybernetic voting body affects the chronological
order of the themes addressed by the lead character, but
not his actions. So, even if the hero were to free himself
of the will of the voters, what freedom would he gain?
The conflict between personal and collective freedom definitely
exists and is an undeniable fact. The only way to avoid
this conflict would lie in the form of a 'totalitarian will'.
Impossible.
DQ.
If Problemarket researched the
development of politics in an economic sense, DemoKino is
a reflection on the politicisation of life. Do you believe
the terms to be connected? What is life like in the era
of biopolitics?
DG. Both phenomena are undoubtedly interconnected,
in my opinion.
The economy has managed to trap politics, and politics has
a direct influence on everyday life. We could say that the
economy, as filtered through politics, dictates the rules
of everyday life.
The predominance of the economy over politics has reduced
democracy to a formal ceremony, in which the leading role
is played by the interests of the corporations. The greatest
attention is paid to the maintenance of the machine of capitalism,
to prevent it from breaking down. The central point of everything
is not man, but rather the survival of the system. So, in
the era of biopolitics, life is, if not a marginal matter,
at least of secondary importance.
DemoKino
continues your collaboration with Antonio Caroni, with whom
you have been working since Problemarket. Where does such
harmony come from and why did you choose an activist and
media theorist to write the screenplay?
DG.
The “tuning” between Antonio and I is something
that grew over time, through dialogue and the exchange of
opinions on various themes, mainly on social issues.
We’ve known each other since the middle of the ‘nineties,
from a time when we were both interested in questions regarding
the human body in a digital era and new technologies. I
read his work Il Cyborg, saggio sull’uomo artificiale
and later Archeologie del virtuale. Both books
amazed me, not only with their content, but also with their
clarity and synthesis.
When I began to work on DemoKino,
I chose Caronia as screen writer, because I knew I could
expect a precise, clear and analytical work. I knew Antonio
was acquainted with the themes I wished to deal with, precisely
because he is personally committed as activist.
It was at that time, during the first European social forum
in Florence, that SocialPress
was being founded, a daily with independent funding and
production, co-founded with Antonio.
The publication deals with issues that are subject to political
debate, through the testimonies of social networks, communities
and individuals taking part in “the movement of all
movements”. Antonio forwarded copies of the daily
to me, finally convincing me that he would be the perfect
screenwriter for DemoKino.
I contacted him and we met in Milan. The project was already
well-defined in form, but some radical decisions had to
be made in content. We drew up a list of possible subjects
and then proceeded to decide on the final eight.
This form of collaboration turned out as an intellectually
very fruitful experience for both sides. I think it’s
very stimulating to create a “space of interference”,
a zone of inter-action of dialogue and action between individuals,
specialized and active in various fields.
Translated by Jure Novak.
Domenico Quarnata is an art critic and
curator who lives and works in Brescia and Turin. He is
the editor of Cluster magazine and author of the
book NET ART 1994-1998. La vicenda di Äda'web published
by Vita e Pensiero in 2004. In 2005, he curated the Game
Scenes section of the Piemonte Share Festival. He also
writes for the art e-zine Exibart
and contributes to Arte e Critic, Tk_Off,
Digimag,
Corriere della Sera, Boiler, Noemalab, A minima and Titolo.
Some excerpts from this interview were published in La
democrazia diffusa? Una pagliacciata. in "Exibart",
July 28th 2004, and also in "Exibart. Onpaper." no. 16,
p. 56.
|
