Primacy of Change#1

ACTIVIST [fr. activiste]

Please don’t call any of us “an activist”
then we have to get rid of them
exclude them fast.
To say: “You are an activist”
is like to denounce someone.
To isolate the artist.
To neutralise the artist
To say: “I am an activist”
is even worse.
Can you imagine a spy saying:
”Good morning I am a spy”
”I am secretly going to spy on you”
The word activist
is a word like “contemporary”
is a word like “happy”.
It is a construction.
An invention to get the focus away from action.

Normally artists love to be called activists.
They feel flattered.
They think they are more sexy.
They think they will have more easy flirts
and probably they do.
They feel they will be like heroes.
But they won’t.
Artists called activists
are officially tattooed.
Artists called activists
are easy to spot
are easy to trace
are easy to neutralise
are easy to arrest.
Once an artist is called
or call himself or herself an activist
the artist cannot any longer work undercover.
The artist is deactivated
like a flat joke of which you already know the end.
An activist artist is without arms
(the shoulders touch the floor).
Nonoperational.
Non-existing.
Insignificant.
Spotted.
Boneless.
Fiché.
Dead.

In our days
you can count activist artists not only in hundreds
but in thousands.
In hundred thousands.
There is a devaluation as everyone is pretending
or nominate
themselves as activists.
Even enemies of activism nominate themselves as activist artists.
Please notice
that invited activist artists often
are sponsored by weapon companies.

So let us make that clear
if you want to be an activist
working with the Emergency Room
you have to look
Opposite
And be
Opposite
Than an activist

Text From the dictionnary ER by Thierry Geoffroy

participant artists

Sino Kito
Constantinopel
Carlos Rafael Ramirez Carrasco
Simon Perez Ortega
Maria Adelaida Samper
Heike Langsdorf
Michiel Reynaert

and others…

invited artists

Ashley Wong

Bavo

YourBodyisaTemple

FINAL WEEK [5] - The Call – Occupations, Invention, Tiqqun’s Insurrection

possibilityoftheimpossible:

Download

Tiqqun – Call

Tiqqun – Introduction to Civil War

Merrifield - The Coming of The Coming Insurrection: Notes on a Politics of Neocommunism

Alberto Toscano - The War Against Preterrorism

Nadine - Plateau 5th-11th of december 2011

Primacyofchange#1  will be in artist residency at Nadine for a week …..!!!

Zebrart VZW

http://nadine.be/ 

 http://zebrart.be

with the support of Federaal Impulsfonds voor het Migrantenbeleid

PRIMACY OF CHANGE #1

The primacy of change project is aimed to gather artists who are concerned by a practice of art which could create a social change.

The social change would be a change in their own life but also or indeed in their production.

creating a platform of collaboration with guest artists from abroad and from belgium, the primacy of change is proposing a meeting and discussions around this problematic of an art practice which is taking a political form.

Do you think art could lead a social change ? following some tools of reflexion given by authors, artists and theoretician  we will set a round table to talk about these issues.

Considering that Art has a political place in our society which is not or non recognized sometimes, we would like to open a round table form of discussions and ideas about :  what is the place of art in the social change nowadays ?

Following examples of practices and theorical ideas already developed in the XX century we would like to gather artists in Belgium or abroad to exchange ideas and re-consider what could lead to a political participation of Art in our society.

Starting from the definition of what is “political” in Art and why? until which limitations and borders into the art practice ? or is there a limitation of the definition of Art itself through this definition of “political”?

Many examples of artistic practices will be discussed but the final aim of this meeting would be to open and exchange a constructive theorical base for finding an individual or collective practice or project together.

The idea is to go out from this meeting with new tools by  :

encounters, exchange of working tools , discussions, self- positioning on art practices, what is the censorship into art practices, the over-identification and activism movements , artist in exile and their political place, ethic and aesthetic of the social practice, anonymous form of work.

art and its impact on social changes? how to produce it? in which range? what social changes? how to organize it? 

 could art  lead a social change?

could art be considerd as  an utopian territory for emerging ideas?

could we be politically recognized as a political social action?

how could we define ourselves nowadays in the social context ?

how do you define political art and cultural changes?

is there a frontier between art and the political power of institutions?

how does an artist express nowadays his political view with an art language?

a social change implies an active participation in the social context of the artist .

as an artist do you place yourself as a representing of your nation and cultural country?

what is your art territory of investigation for social changes?

which social changes would you like to create?

art & autonomy?

hybridization of practices into art?

globalisation and modernism?