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What is the work that is done by the foreigner to validate civic belonging?

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I forgot

I was too angry and I forgot. I thought ‘it is urgent now that we produce journalism’. Yet it is precisely now that we most need poetry! I forgot. Can aesthetics disarm oppression? Isn’t the terrain where we stand meant to be ambiguous? It’s the artist’s privilege to stand on a slippery surface. Yet I rejected it because it’s lack of ‘use’. It is in a book that a revolution gestates, in a play, in a gallery. Aesthetics can challenge political imaginaries.

I forgot.

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The Artist is Arm Wrestling

The Number One Undercover, Unexpected Cleaning Agency

Waiting For A Horse

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YES MEN

On December 3, 2004, the twentieth anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, Andy Bichlbaum appeared on BBC World as "Jude Finisterra", a Dow Chemical spokesman. Dow is the owner of Union Carbide, the company responsible for the chemical disaster in Bhopal, India on December 3, 1984. An estimated 3,800 people died immediately from the hazardous chemicals and thousands more were killed by the plume from the UCC plant during the next few days. The Indian government reported that more than half a million people were exposed to the gas, leading to numerous early and late health defects. The Bhopal Disaster became one of the worst chemical disasters in history and the name Bhopal became synonymous with industrial catastrophe. Immediately after the disaster, UCC began attempts to dissociate itself from responsibility for the gas leak. The Indian Supreme Court eventually mediated a settlement in which UCC accepted moral responsibility and agreed to pay $470 million to the Indian government to be distributed to claimants as a full and final settlement. The average amount to families of the dead was $2,200.

On their fake Dow Chemical website, the Yes Men said that Dow Chemical Company had no intention whatsoever of repairing the damage. The real company received considerable backlash, and both the real Dow and the phony Dow denied the statements, but Dow took no real action.

The Yes Men decided to pressure Dow further, so as "Finisterra," Bichlbaum went on the news to claim that Dow planned to liquidate Union Carbide and use the resulting $12 billion to pay for medical care, clean up the site, and fund research into the hazards of other Dow products. After two hours of wide coverage, Dow issued a press release denying the statement, ensuring even greater coverage of the phony news of a cleanup. In Frankfurt, Dow's share price fell 4.24 percent in 23 minutes, wiping $2 billion off its market value. The shares rebounded in Frankfurt after the BBC issued an on-air correction and apology. In New York, Dow Chemical's stock were little changed because of the early trading.

After the original interview was revealed as a hoax, Bichlbaum appeared in a follow-up interview on the United Kingdom's Channel 4 news. During the interview he was asked if he had considered the emotions and reaction of the people of Bhopal when producing the hoax. According to the interviewer, "there were many people in tears" upon having learned of the hoax. Bichlbaum said that, in comparison, what distress he had caused the people was minimal to that for which Dow was responsible. The Yes Men claim on their website that they have been told by contacts in Bhopal that once they had got over their disappointment that it wasn't real, they were pleased about the stunt and thought it had helped to raise awareness of their plight.

At the International Payments Conference on April 28, 2005, 'Dow representative' "Erastus Hamm" unveiled Acceptable Risk, the Acceptable Risk Calculator, and the Acceptable Risk mascot — a life-sized golden skeleton named Gilda — to an audience of about 70 banking professionals.

In February 2012, it was widely reported in the 2012 Stratfor email leak that Dow Chemical Company hired private intelligence firm Stratfor to monitor the Yes Men.

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Christoph Schlingensief

PLEASE LOVE AUSTRIA 

Christoph Schlingensief makes his own contribution to the 2000 Vienna International Festival by organising the reality TV event PLEASE LOVE AUSTRIA - FIRST AUSTRIAN COALITION WEEK.

Amid intense public interest, twelve participants introduced by Schlingensief as asylum-seekers spend one week in a cordoned-off, CCTVed shipping container complex next to the Vienna opera house. Blue flags representing Austria's far-right populist FPÖ party are hoisted on top of a container.

Picture from the performance "Please love Austria" (Image: Baltzer)

As onlookers applaud ambiguously, a sign bearing the slogan "Ausländer raus" ("Foreigners out") is unveiled and then attached to the container together with the logo of the Kronenzeitung, Austria's biggest-selling tabloid.

Excerpts from speeches by FPÖ chairman Jörg Haider resound across Herbert-von-Karajan-Platz. With clear references to the BIG BROTHER TV show, the Austrian population are asked to phone in and vote out inhabitants, the two least popular of which are ejected each day. Votes can also be cast via the Internet, where Webfreetv broadcasts events from the container live - 24 hours a day for a period of six days.

The square is regularly visited by high-profile "patrons" such as acclaimed writer Elfriede Jelinek and political figures Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Gregor Gysi, who then obligingly provide status reports.

Every morning at eight o'clock, two residents are ejected from the container to be deported to their native country. The winner can look forward to a cash prize and the prospect, depending on the availability of volunteers, of Austrian citizenship through marriage. Jens Jessen summed up as follows in DIE ZEIT: "There can hardly be a clearer illustration of the inextricable links between the stage-managed cynicism of TV and the objective cynicism of a society that judges asylum policy on the basis of its majority mandate while ignoring moral values."

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regina josé galindo

curso de supervivencia para hombres y mujeres que viajarán de manera ilegal a los estados unidos Organizo un curso intensivo de supervivencia para un grupo de 10 personas de ambos sexos que viajarían próximamente a los Estados Unidos de manera ilegal. En el curso aprendieron tópicos como resistencia, orientación y mapage, fuego, primeros auxilios, y un apartado de cómo aprender a escalar un muro.

(Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala. 2007)

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regina josé galindo

a puño limpio

Dos hombres de características físicas similares son contratados para tener una pelea a puño limpio en la inauguración de una muestra de arte.

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regina josé galindo

pelotón

Pelotones de hombres civiles, sin ningún tipo de instrucción militar, policial, ni experiencia, ostentan poderosas armas y optan por el trabajo más demandado por los hombres de clase baja y media en Guatemala, policía de seguridad privada. Estos son nuestros nuevos ejércitos, nuestra defensa nacional.

Cinco pelotones formados por policías de seguridad privada (45 policías en total) permanecen alineados durante una hora, con sus armas cargadas, frente a la Bandera Nacional en la Plaza de la Constitución.

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AVL VILLE

JENNIFER ALLEN: How did Atelier van Lieshout evolve into AVL-Ville?

JOEP VAN LIESHOUT: We were making more and more artworks about self-sufficiency—mobile homes and containers for various activities—so the idea of an autonomous village was already taking shape. Then, in 1998, we got a commission to design an urban-planning project for Almere, a new city that the Dutch government began building in the province of Flevoland in the '70s. We came up with a plan for "Free State Almere," which would have sealed off the city from the rest of the country. Unfortunately, our proposal was rejected, so we decided to create our own free state around the atelier. I wanted to make a beautiful spot for people who work at AVL. We're not interested in having everyone come to live at AVL-Ville; it's intended only for past, current, and future employees. Currently, five of our interns live here, and more of our workers plan to move in this summer. Maybe in twenty years AVL-Ville will be bigger, but it'll never be massive. Right now, it's about the size of a few football fields.

JA: Apart from the studio, you already have AVL-Hospital, 1998, as well as containers for making weapons, bombs, alcohol, and medicine—plus there's a canteen. What other services will residents be able to enjoy?

JVL: We offer housing to people who work in the studio. After a year, when they've shown that they're serious, they can build a house according to their own design on the premises. The materials will be paid for by AVL, but the employees will have to build the structure themselves. That's it. They don't have to pay rent, so it's a cheap way to live. We also have a farm, The Pioneer Set, 1999–2000, which produces organically grown food. Everything is mobile, even the trees and plants; because we have little land, we have to use it intensively. Within a year, the farm will be operational and produce food for our kitchen and restaurant. We'll have a cooking club where you can eat, make meals, and learn new recipes. Soon we will open AVL Academy, 2001, which can be used by people from the studio and from outside AVL-Ville. JA: What can one expect to be on the curriculum at AVL Academy?

JVL: Everything you never learned in art school: specific technical skills like working with fiberglass and wood, as well as management and marketing. It's not only for artists and designers, but also for people from the business world who can learn a different, more creative way of thinking. The academy will bring together the best of both worlds, so artists can learn from managers and vice versa. We'll even have philosophy courses, but they will be very practical. Try to become friends with a cow. Be a farmer for a while. Do something very slowly. Do something complex in a short time. We won't be sitting around reading books, because we're people who communicate with feelings and visual effects.

JA: You're the founding father of AVL-Ville. Are you going to be the mayor, too?

JVL: There won't be a mayor. There won't be a government, or a democracy. AVL-Ville has a structure, but it's not a political one with voting; it will be run like a company. Besides, it's such a small society, there's no need to add such complex systems. It's more important to have good management that can take many points of view into consideration. I'm the artistic director, and Jeroen Thomas is the general director of business and finance. Together with the other AVL members, we'll make the decisions.

JA: What's the difference between AVL-Ville and a company that offers bonuses to dedicated, hard-working employees?

JVL: We give away a piece of land and housing to our employees. Since AVL is paying for a large part of people's lives, we are more like communists, although we don't have a communist political system. Our work is based on piracy, not politics or policy. Companies offer incentives to employees to increase productivity and profits; we use the money we make from commissions to invest in other projects that we think are important but may not be profitable. We aren't going to earn a dime from housing or even from the farm, but earning money isn't interesting. It's more important to create something special, to make something different happen.

JA: Do Dutch laws have jurisdiction over AVL-Ville?

JVL: We're subject to Dutch laws, but we're not interested in respecting them. Right now, we're trying to get a blank building permit. We could wait for approval, but we decided to keep on building. If we already have ten buildings, then it'll be difficult for the city to stop us. That's why we get so much done. We don't secure things; we simply do them. Later we see if it gets approved. Besides the blank building permit, AVL-Ville will have its own constitution, which promotes individual freedom, honesty, and equality. Our rules are all based on common sense. If there's a problem, you try to solve it. Pragmatism would be the correct term, but it's more about finding solutions and solving problems. I would call it "solvism."

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LAWRENCE ABU HAMDAN

Aural Contract Audio Archive

Since 2010 I have been working on a project titled Aural Contract, this title became an umbrella for a series of events, publications, exhibitions and workshops that examine the contemporary politics of listening and focuses on the role of the voice in law.

Throughout the project I have built up a sound archive, containing audio extracts of my works together with specific moments of juridical listening and speaking gathered from a wide range of sources such as the trials of Saddam Hussein and Judas Priest, UK police evidence tapes, films such as Decoder and readings from texts including Italo Calvino’s A King Listens. The components of this archive are then mixed together, generating audio documentaries and narrative compositions that immerse its audience in the heart of a discussion about the relationship of listening to politics, borders, human rights, testimony, truth and international law.

For the exhibition at Casco, Utrecht the Aural Contract Audio Archive is presented as a “voice activated” sound installation. Just as the law requires you to speak and vocally testify so does the Aural Contract Audio Archive: Here the audience must speak to the archive and voice their desire to listen to its content as the speech recognition software becomes used as a compositional tool. The microphone and headphones that constitute this installation (as pictured above) are called The Bosch Ultro Discussion System developed by Bosch SecurityTM; the worlds leading amplifier and transmitter of testimony. This system is installed in many courtrooms and political forums including the International Criminal Court in the Hague, the UN Human rights council in Geneva and the UN Security Council in New York.

LIST OF AUDIOS

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Santiago Sierra

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Possibilities

Pink Floyd

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Hasty

I have realised now that the struggle was not being uninformed, the multiplicity of possibilities or a simple decision of which way to take. The trouble was I wanted the work to achieve too much, to reach change without it being born. It is not about my incapability of imagination, but rather an anxiety for being old before being young.