Stranger in the City

Isaac Julien, "Paradise Omeros" , 2002.


"Why are we afraid of globalization, that is the dissolving of the state frontiers monitored by armies of adequately equipped specialized police bodies? We are afraid of globalization because strangers will be constantly trespassing into our neighborhoods and lurking on our street-corners!

The next question then is: Why are we afraid of strangers? I am afraid of strangers because they might harm me. I am afraid to be assaulted and killed by strangers. This is why I feel safer with state-monitored frontiers.

And this leads to the third question: Were foreigners always considered dangerous and the well-guarded frontiers always necessary? Here we stumble on an intriguing diversity of attitudes: not all world civilizations consider strangers dangerous creatures. Where the 1930s Hollywood movie-makers put two pistols in the hands of the cowboy to make sure that the treacherous stranger who appeared at the frontier had no chance to escape death, the ninth century Baghdad story-tellers who crafted the Sindbad tales, made the Iraqi crowds love foreigners, because this hero gathered fabulous wealth by taking risky trips to India and China's faraway islands. "

Fatema Mernissi, Why Are We Afraid of Globalization

E-flux Video Rental

E-flux video rental is an ongoing work by Anton Vidokle and Julieta Aranda, comprising a free rental, a public screening room, and a film and video archive that is constantly growing. This collection of over 850 works of film and video art has been assembled in collaboration with more than 400 artists, curators and critics.
The art project initially presented at a storefront in NY Chinatown and made possible by Anton's and Julieta's large network of institutions and individuals gathered thru e-flux's (electronic flux corporation) newsletter and international biennials, came to Lisbon this summer after landing in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Seoul, Paris, Istanbul, Canary Islands, Austin, Budapest, Boston, Antwerp, Berlin, Miami and Lyon.
The setting for exact replica of NY store (missing only the water dripping air condition mounted in front) couldn't be more unsettling- EVR was placed in a foyeur of a powerful private foundation with public interest, relying on oil traffic, which still remains the primary in-flux of money for this 'national' institution of good reputation, funded by an armenian emigré in the times of turkish genocide, and exercing unquestioned influence and power in the local art context.
But that's yet another of inumerous contradictions of our present condition.
EVR is a poetic exploration of alternative processes of circulation and distribution, and it is structured to function like a typical video rental store, except that it operates for free. VHS tapes can be watched in the space, or, once a new member fills out a membership form and contract, they can be checked out and viewed at home.
It's a great idea to enable public access to around 800 video works, that even the art goers that 'operate' internationally would have little chance to see, and have to content themselves with occasional stills spotted in this or that magazine, this or that electronic portal, a newsletter, an exhibition(but these are almost exclusively dedicated to a single artist or historical works, with some exceptions).
As well an emphasis on circulation (here Anton referred to Marx and video art in its beginnings) and use of out-dated technology (VHS video tape) work as a concept, but when you're there in the screening room, choosing and playing one video after another in an attempt to watch all, in fact the bad quality of the image can become very irritating, especially when you know that most of the videos are part of the current art production, HD, and imagine that some elites actually have the opportunity to see them in better screening conditions. Why archives have always to be so boring?
However, this horrible tech makes you aware of the circulation and distribution, that is the idea behind the art project.
To propose my personal 'cut' on the film and video works, to write history in the present, I would destaque An Artist Who Cannot Speak English Is No Artist by albanian Jakup Ferri, based on Mladen Stilinovic's conceptual work from the '70s. Here the artist appears talking to the camera in his studion in a kind of improvised creepy english, not articulated, repeating, with local sotaque, an outcast, impossible to understand, looking like he is trying his best to give meaning to this babbling, though in fact mocking with the artworld.
Letters à Francine consists of b&w stills, and a voice-over of a man, travelling in Istanbul who's dealing with uncurable disease attempting to comunicate his feelings and observations to beloved one, a woman called Francine. It evokes La Jetté.
Sunset at Corniche was repeatedly filmed by The Atlas Group, a project to investigate the contemporary history of Lebanon. I Only Wish That I Could Weep could be filmed as well in Lisbon or any other city by the sea, could it be? Sunset in Beirut looks so uncannily familiar.
Soviet illegal women in Turkey are the protagonists of Unawarded Performances by Gülsün Karamustafa. “When Soviet Union broke up, our families broke up.”
Another document, Khiam, provided by Hadjithomas&Joreige incitates the victims of torture perpetuated at Israeli detention camp to talk.
Oda Projesi Revisited documents the Istanbuli 'room projects', a socially oriented art practice engaging with the community, somewhat akin to esthetique relationelle, that was tested already by Claire Bishop in her widely discussed article Social turn: Aesthetics and Its Discontents in Artforum.
Hala Elkoussy's Candy Floss Stories are strange and poetic fictions about worker of wonders on a black and white Cairo beach accompanied by wicked elctronic beats and president's speech at the end.
This Day by Akram Zaatari is a feature, a political meditation about Bedouin and the Desert, employing documentary approach and tackling notions like space, nomadism, migration, perpetual movement and the reconstruction of history.
This autumn EVR is travelling to Colombia, Argentina and Brazil.
Having outlived the technology that made it possible, the project will be premanently archived at the Arab Image Foundation and Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana, in 2009.

Projects(Kusmi Tea Sweet Love)

Concept and Location:.
The project Kusmi Tea Sweet Love is a collaboration between a curator, lawyer, architect and a filmmaker based on the research conducted in Lisbon's multicultural and somewhat notorious neighbourhood Martim Moniz that reflects the shifts on global scale.
It adresses art and its markets by looking at the other, less familiar trading places and routes extending from Europe to Africa, Latin America and Orient.
Or is it the other way around?
The relations between contemporary art and theft, public space and speculation, artworld and black market, architecture and frontier, and micro-economy and immigration are being explored.
Set in an apartment rented on purpose in the same zone for one month and transformed into a temporary art space, it comprises of an art exhibition, lectures, screenings, discussions, a dinner take-away, a concert, documentation, a food store, tea service, etc.
The location shapes the project in unexpected ways.
We took a following text as a departure node:
In the midst of a black market, a town in town, a buissness spot with unlimited traffic, where micro economy based on exchange of all kind of goods except artworks, is performed daily by immigrants from India, Pakistan, China and Guiné Bissau. Thieves? Merchants? Speculators?
In the centre of Lisbon a small narrow street, where the red letters on ringbells are exclusively in chinese. Some of the apartments, however difficult to say which, host illegal chinese restaurants that differ little from common homes in order to hide their activity. The owners/cooks don't speak neither portuguese nor english and the clients choose from untranslated menus.
Located on the frontier with moorish and red light district, the zone is also known for delicious indian sweets of many colours.
Fiction?
Throughout the history and up to the present the site has been demolished many times, to be rebuild after according to the new ideology.
The huge square bears a monument to the conquest of the Arabs, over-shadowed by the totalitarian architecture of four-star Hotel Mundial, equally over-sized, or the unfinished construction plans on the side. The square serves as a resting area, unofficial market or a spot for encounters and socialising. In other words: unrestricted space, difficult to find in other european capitals and probably closer to the notion of public space in african cities.
The decadent four-storey “shopping centre” CCM (not to be mistaken with CCB- that's contemporary art centre) provides a wong kar wai-style corridors with neon lights where buissness keeps going on until late. The indian spices can be purchased along with sunglasses from Bangladesh and underwear from Brasil. There is a chinese restaurant with a view of 180 degrees and an african hairdresser, the best in town, to balsam your hair after visiting the music shop with the latest singles that could as well be in Kinshasa or Bamako.
The previous research conducted in the zone included a friendship with a young Pakistani buissness man who introduced me to the tricks of the market, a frequent lunch at chinese legal quiosque or a dinner from the clandestine menu, cutting hair at the african hairstudio, shopping Chai(the black tea with spices) at indian supermarket and take-away of the sweets form the restaurant around the corner, filming the square- men with turbans trading mobile phones and women walking down the square from CCM carrying enormous,black plastic bags on their heads. It involved also performing on the square dressed as a wealthy muslim woman(post 9/11), etc.
The collaboration is done together with a lawyer(who wishes to remain anonymous), a funder of the NGO dealing with the rights of the immigrants, foreigners and others, and immigrant herself. She is responsible for the legal questions, meaning that she will also do a lecture on the topic and provide free advisory for interested parties.
The architect of lively spaces and night conversations, and main cultural mover Sara G enters the project to deal with all spatial issues, including the exhibition design. She will also move the crowd gathering outside of her bar every night in direction Martim Moniz.
The capeverdian filmmaker Victoria Verrisímo will fly-in to produce a low-budget documentary film about the square and its notorious surroundings and document the event.
Though we are aware of the social turn in contemporary art and the potential of this project, Kusmi Tea Sweet Love doesn't attempt to improve anything in society, serve the community or bring art back to life. It just brings the artworld face to face with the market of a different kind and hopes to make them think.
The label Kusmi Tea was founded 140years ago by P.M. Kousmichoff. St. Petersburg, London, Paris, Berlin. Kusmi Tea initially spread its influence in Europe before offering the whole world exclusive and high quality blends.
The Kusmi Tea Sweet Love is said to be an exquisite spicy blend that stimulates the senses.
Sweet Love is made of Black China tea, ginseng and liquorice roots, spices, guarana seeds and pink pepper.
Some of the proposed topics for discussion/lectures can be found here:
“ More intriguing to me, however, is how conceptual practices have migrated to the platforms of larger buissness models and proved them quite successful in that context. This suggest a different level of correspondence between art and commerce. ” Tim G(ArtForum)
“ Modernity and renewal by their nature are connected to ideas of a rational and ordered mode of thought, of a planned and effective kind of production, with ideas of a thoughtful use of space and resources, with ideas of a well organized and equitable society. “ Igor Zabel(Individual Systems)
Artists:.
Irwin group opens a passport office, issuing official documents of the NSK State in Time.
Sislej Xhafa does an exclusive performance on the notion of “clandestino”. The artist is known for subversive performance works, which adress the social, economical and political realities of tourism and geographical relations, and the complex forces that form modern global societies.
Sancho Silva stages a new project contaminating public space. Orange Works is an ongoing collaboration project, started in 2004, to build unauthorized temporary urban constructions camouflaged as in-process construction sites in order to probe existing spatial pressures, and reorganize public spaces to allow for new social uses.
DJ/Rupture(Brooklyn) does a live mix for the vernissage and in addition to performance his weekly radio show Mudd-Up! is broadcasted every wednesday at midnight local time.
“New bass and beats plus live guests(musicians, Djs, poets) and an ear for the global south. Cumbia. Dubstep. Gangsta synthetics. Sound-art. Maghrebi. International exclusives.”
MioStoj, an emergent artist and architect based in Frankfurt shares a video shot in a dance club called Robert Johnson, after a famous jazz musician, that was recorded during one year without having a permission. Weekend never dies.
Emily Jouvet pays a spicy hommage to photography from a Paris' rooftop. The soundtrack of this short and stimulating video is by Portishead. The artist became known for the feature film One Night Stand, a close-up of the casual erotic encounters between girls, for which Roof is a short excercise in style.
The art duo Piglet&Butcherboy, in a duel since 1996, have their take on Tate Modern. Uninvited, they decided to contaminate the gallery with a pig while Olafur Eliasson's Wheather Project was on. Meanwhile, the tourists were having their lunch from MacDonald's peacefully underneath the huge sun installation.
Two very young and unestablished local artists are being included in the exhibition. Filipa Almeida shows her portraits of the legendary jazz musicians performing live in Lisbon. While Catarina Pedroso installs a series of large scale photos, blow-ups of the mouth, at the same time dangerous and erotic, playing with prejudices, and referring to advertising, anthropology and feminism.
Budget:.
The total budget including curator's fee, the artists' fees and trips, the installation and equipment, apartment rent, dinner service, a small publication(can be on-line), posters announcing the event, a salary for the staff, etc. is 30 000 euros, provided by the NGO, Gulbenkian Foundation(production of the exhibitions, up to 10 000 euros), City Council(offering a space), foreign cultural institutes and embassies(covering rtists' travel and stay), sponsorship by the restaurants for the dinner, drinks from Baliza bar, plus european funds if applicable.
Publicity Plan:.
Posters all over the city, unusual for art events here. If the budget allows also appears on e-flux, in addition to local press.