2.
EVENTS IN WEIMAR, LEIPZIG, MEXICO CITY, NEW YORK, AND ELSEWHERE
Contents:
Weimar ++
a. Friday – 07.25.03
b. Saturday – 07.26.03
c. Monday -- 07.28.03 (w/New York)
Leipzig ++
d. Friday
– 08.01.03 (w/ Mexico City)
e. Saturday – 08.02.03
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a. Friday Afternoon Lunchtime/Discussion/Event
in Weimar -- 07.28.2003
Contents:
1. About This Friday
(an event in conjunction with participation in ACC's "Get
Rid of Yourself")
2. Passage from Marx's The German Ideology in English and in German
3. Other 16Beaver events and projects connected to "Get Rid of Yourself"
1. About This Friday
We have extended an open invitation to a number of artists, designers,
cultural workers, thinkers, organizers, curators, and people here in Weimar
and the surrounding area to join in a discussion with us (Rene Gabri and
Paige Sarlin from 16Beaver) this afternoon in Weimar on the grass in front
of the ACC galerie where the 16Beaver Group is participating in
the exhibition "Get Rid of Yourself."
It occurred to us as we were preparing for the exhibition and looking
back through the trajectories of the meetings and discussions that
have occurred over the last 4 years at the 16 beaver space that
we have an opportunity to invite this new group of people
(all potential friends, colleagues, and collaborators) to
engage a set of questions and problems which we and those
around us face in relation to "work," our own cultural production and
artistic practices and the selling of our labor to earn money in
order to be able to live.
We explored this "work/work" dilemma in a series of conversations early
in 2000, just about 6 months after the renovation of the 16Beaver
space was completed. At that time, the conversation grew out
a consideration of the form of the work/work spaces that surround
and subsidize the communal/shared space of the 16 beaver group.,
built as spaces in which people could both "do their art" and work
for money. Curious about the complexity of these relations, this
series of conversations explored the vagaries and idiosyncrasies,
as well as the similarities and commonalities, of how individuals
mapped out and constructed lives as artists/cultural workers and
were still able to eat,/make a living.
Over a series of three weeks, the conversations ranged from people sharing
their specific strategies/experiences to debating the merits of different
national systems of cultural support/funding.
We used the passage below from Marx addressing questions related to the
division and alternate models of labor as way to jump start our initial
discussions. We hope it serves a similar purpose within the context of
a re-unified Germany and the radically altered social /economic/ cultural
context of post-GDR Weimar.
2. Passage from Marx's The German Ideology
Part I On Feuerbach
The German Ideology
Part I
On Feuerbach
Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook
Private Property and Communism
With the division of labor, in which all these contradictions are implicit,
and which in its turn is based on the natural division of labor in the
family and the separation of society into individual families opposed
to one another, is given simultaneously the distribution, and indeed the
unequal distribution, both quantitative and qualitative, of labor and
its products, hence property: the nucleus, the first form, of which lies
in the family, where wife and children are the slaves of the husband.
This latent slavery in the family, though still very crude, is the first
property, but even at this early stage it corresponds perfectly to the
definition of modern economists who call it the power of disposing of
the labor-power of others. Division of labor and private property are,
moreover, identical expressions: in the one the same thing is affirmed
with reference to activity as is affirmed in the other with reference
to the product of the activity.
Further, the division of labor implies the contradiction between the interest
of the separate individual or the individual family and the communal interest
of all individuals who have intercourse with one another. And indeed,
this communal interest does not exist merely in the imagination, as the
"general interest", but first of all in reality, as the mutual interdependence
of the individuals among whom the labor is divided. And finally, the division
of labor offers us the first example of how, as long as man remains in
natural society, that is, as long as a cleavage exists between the particular
and the common interest, as long, therefore, as activity is not voluntarily,
but naturally, divided, man's own deed becomes an alien power opposed
to him, which enslaves him instead of being controlled by him. For as
soon as the distribution of labor comes into being, each man has a particular,
exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which
he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical
critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood;
while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity
but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates
the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing
today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon,
rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind,
without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic. This fixation
of social activity, this consolidation of what we ourselves produce into
an objective power above us, growing out of our control, thwarting our
expectations, bringing to naught our calculations, is one of the chief
factors in historical development up till now.
The social power, i.e., the multiplied productive force, which arises
through the co-operation of different individuals as it is determined
by the division of labor, appears to these individuals, since their co-operation
is not voluntary but has come about naturally, not as their own united
power, but as an alien force existing outside them, of the origin and
goal of which they are ignorant, which they thus cannot control, which
on the contrary passes through a peculiar series of phases and stages
independent of the will and the action of man, nay even being the prime
governor of these.
How otherwise could for instance property have had a history at all, have
taken on different forms, and landed property, for example, according
to the different premises given, have proceeded in France from parcellation
to centralisation in the hands of a few, in England from centralisation
in the hands of a few to parcellation, as is actually the case today?
Or how does it happen that trade, which after all is nothing more than
the exchange of products of various individuals and countries, rules the
whole world through the relation of supply and demand - a relation which,
as an English economist says, hovers over the earth like the fate of the
ancients, and with invisible hand allots fortune and misfortune to men,
sets up empires and overthrows empires, causes nations to rise and to
disappear - while with the abolition of the basis of private property,
with the communistic regulation of production (and, implicit in this,
the destruction of the alien relation between men and what they themselves
produce), the power of the relation of supply and demand is dissolved
into nothing, and men get exchange, production, the mode of their mutual
relation, under their own control again?
In German
Mit der Teilung der Arbeit, in welcher alle diese Widersprüche gegeben
sind und welche ihrerseits wieder auf der naturwüchsigen Teilung
der Arbeit in der Familie und der Trennung der Gesellschaft in einzelne,
einander entgegengesetzte Familien beruht, ist zu gleicher Zeit auch die
Verteilung, und zwar die ungleiche, sowohl quantitative wie qualitative
Verteilung der Arbeit und ihrer Produkte gegeben, also das Eigentum, das
in der Familie, wo die Frau und die Kinder die Sklaven des Mannes sind,
schon seinen Keim, seine erste Form hat. Die freilich noch sehr rohe,
latente Sklaverei in der Familie ist das erste Eigentum, das übrigens
hier schon vollkommen der Definition der modernen Ökonomen entspricht,
nach der es die Verfügung über fremde Arbeitskraft ist. Übrigens
sind Teilung der Arbeit und Privateigentum identische Ausdrücke –
in dem Einen wird in Beziehung auf die Tätigkeit dasselbe ausgesagt,
was in dem Andern in bezug auf das Produkt der Tätigkeit ausgesagt
wird.
Ferner ist mit der Teilung der Arbeit zugleich der Widerspruch zwischen
dem Interesse des einzelnen Individuums oder der einzelnen Familie und
dem <33> gemeinschaftlichen Interesse aller Individuen, die miteinander
verkehren, gegeben; und zwar existiert dies gemeinschaftliche Interesse
nicht bloß in der Vorstellung, als "Allgemeines", sondern zuerst
in der Wirklichkeit als gegenseitige Abhängigkeit der Individuen,
unter denen die Arbeit geteilt ist. Und endlich bietet uns die Teilung
der Arbeit gleich das erste Beispiel davon dar, daß, solange die
Menschen sich in der naturwüchsigen Gesellschaft befinden, solange
also die Spaltung zwischen dem besondern und gemeinsamen Interesse existiert,
solange die Tätigkeit also nicht freiwillig, sondern naturwüchsig
geteilt ist, die eigne Tat des Menschen ihm zu einer fremden, gegenüberstehenden
Macht wird, die ihn unterjocht, statt daß er sie beherrscht. Sowie
nämlich die Arbeit verteilt zu werden anfängt, hat Jeder einen
bestimmten ausschließlichen Kreis der Tätigkeit, der ihm aufgedrängt
wird, aus dem er nicht heraus kann; er ist Jäger, Fischer oder Hirt
oder kritischer Kritiker und muß es bleiben, wenn er nicht die Mittel
zum Leben verlieren will - während in der kommunistischen Gesellschaft,
wo Jeder nicht einen ausschließlichen Kreis der Tätigkeit hat,
sondern sich in jedem beliebigen Zweige ausbilden kann, die Gesellschaft
die allgemeine Produktion regelt und mir eben dadurch möglich macht,
heute dies, morgen jenes zu tun, morgens zu jagen, nachmittags zu fischen,
abends Viehzucht zu treiben, nach dem Essen zu kritisieren, wie ich gerade
Lust habe, ohne je Jäger, Fischer, Hirt oder Kritiker zu werden.
Dieses Sichfestsetzen der sozialen Tätigkeit, diese Konsolidation
unsres eignen Produkts zu einer sachlichen Gewalt über uns, die unsrer
Kontrolle entwächst, unsre Erwartungen durchkreuzt, unsre Berechnungen
zunichte macht, ist eines der Hauptmomente in der bisherigen geschichtlichen
Entwicklung, und eben aus diesem Widerspruch des besondern und gemeinschaftlichen
Interesses nimmt das gemeinschaftliche Interesse als Staat eine selbständige
Gestaltung, getrennt von den wirklichen Einzel- und Gesamtinteressen,
an, und zugleich als illusorische Gemeinschaftlichkeit, aber stets auf
der realen Basis der in jedem Familien- und Stamm-Konglomerat vorhandenen
Bänder, wie Fleisch und Blut, Sprache, Teilung der Arbeit im größeren
Maßstabe und sonstigen Interessen - und besonders, wie wir später
entwickeln werden, der durch die Teilung der Arbeit bereits bedingten
Klassen, die in jedem derartigen Menschenhaufen sich absondern und von
denen eine alle andern beherrscht. Hieraus folgt, daß alle Kämpfe
innerhalb des Staats, der Kampf zwischen Demokratie, Aristokratie und
Monarchie, der Kampf um das Wahlrecht etc. etc., nichts als die illusorischen
Formen sind, in denen die wirklichen Kämpfe der verschiednen Klassen
untereinander geführt werden (wovon die deutschen Theoretiker nicht
eine Silbe ahnen, trotzdem daß man ihnen in den
"Deutsch-Französischen Jahr- <34> büchern" und der "Heiligen
Familie" dazu Anleitung genug gegeben hatte), und ferner, daß jede
nach der Herrschaft strebende Klasse, wenn ihre Herrschaft auch, wie dies
beim Proletariat der Fall ist, die Aufhebung der ganzen alten Gesellschaftsform
und der Herrschaft überhaupt bedingt, sich zuerst die politische
Macht erobern muß, um ihr Interesse wieder als das Allgemeine, wozu
sie im ersten Augenblick gezwungen ist, darzustellen. Eben weil die Individuen
nur ihr besondres, für sie nicht mit ihrem gemeinschaftlichen Interesse
zusammenfallendes suchen, überhaupt das Allgemeine illusorische Form
der Gemeinschaftlichkeit, wird dies als ein ihnen "fremdes" und von ihnen
"unabhängiges", als ein selbst wieder besonderes und eigentümliches
"Allgemein "-Interesse geltend gemacht, oder sie selbst müssen sich
in diesem Zwiespalt bewegen" wie in der Demokratie. Andrerseits macht
denn auch der praktische Kampf dieser beständig wirklich den gemeinschaftlichen
und illusorischen gemeinschaftlichen Interessen entgegentretenden Sonderinteressen
die praktische Dazwischenkunft und Zügelung durch das illusorische
"Allgemein"-Interesse als Staat nötig. Die soziale Macht, d.h. die
vervielfachte Produktionskraft, die durch das in der eilung der
Arbeit bedingte Zusammenwirken der verschiedenen Individuen entsteht,
erscheint diesen Individuen, weil das Zusammenwirken selbst nicht freiwillig,
sondern naturwüchsig ist, nicht als ihre eigne, vereinte Macht, sondern
als eine fremde, außer ihnen stehende Gewalt, von der sie nicht
wissen woher und wohin, die sie also nicht mehr beherrschen können,
die im Gegenteil nun eine eigentümliche, vom Wollen und Laufen der
Menschen unabhängige, ja dies Wollen und Laufen erst dirigierende
Reihenfolge von Phasen und Entwicklungsstufen durchläuft.
3. Other 16Beaver events and projects
connected to "Get Rid of Yourself"
To get further details on projects and how you can participate please
visit:
http://www.16beavergroup.org/w-l
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c.
Monday Night in New York & Weimar -- Languages and
Power –- Selected Readings & Discussion led by Deidre Hoguet
and Peter Walsh – in collaboration with Gallery P74, Ljubljana,
Slovenia -- 07.28.2003
Contents:
1. About this Monday
2. Text: “Imagined Communities,” Benedict Anderson, Chapters
5 and 6
3. About Gallery P74
4. About ACC in Weimar + Context ('Get Rid of Yourself') + Directions
5. Stay tuned for September discussion in Ljubljana, Vilnius, New York!
__________________________________________________
1. About this Monday, 07.28.03
When: 7pm
Where: 16 Beaver Street, 5th Floor + Burgplatz 1+2, 99423 Weimar
Who: Open to all
The Bush Administration’s “Coalition of the Willing”
for the invasion of Iraq was in many ways a “Coalition of the English-Speaking.”
Are we witnessing the re-emergence of a kind of Anglophone pan-nationalism?
Were the American, British and Australian governments - “the willing”
– really defining their joint interests by the following phrase:
“Where English-speaking armies go, English goes, and where English
goes, English-speaking business people go”? With the current
climate in mind, we want to discuss two chapters relating to languages
and the origins of nationalisms from Benedict Anderson’s well-known
book “Imagined Communities.”
Envisioned as the first of a series of discussions about the relationships
between various languages to each other and to power, this Monday night’s
reading and discussion will be hosted by artists/16 Beaver participants
Deidre Hoguet and Peter Walsh. The two English-speaking, New York-based,
US-American artists will be traveling to Ljubljana, Slovenia in September
2003 to perform “Tongue:Jezik,” a series of street actions
created for Ljubljana’s Gallery P74. As such, Monday night’s
discussion is co-sponsored by P74. A related discussion, co-sponsored
by 16 Beaver, will take place in Ljubljana in September (also in Vilnius,
Lithuania as part of 16 Beaver’s participation in the “24/7”
exhibition, also in New York in 16Beaver's participation in 16Beaver Monday
Nights).
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2. Text: “Imagined Communities,”
Benedict Anderson
“Imagined Communities” is a classic text on nationalism originally
written in 1983 and updated in 1991. It’s well worth reading in
its entirety. We highly recommend purchasing it if you’re
interested in these topics. The links below are for Monday Night’s
discussion.
Chapters 5 “Old Languages, New Models”
http://www.16beavergroup.org/pdf/imaginedcommunities1.pdf
Chapters 6 “Official Nationalism and Imperialism” http://www.16beavergroup.org/pdf/imaginedcommunities2.pdf
http://www.16beavergroup.org/pdf/imaginedcommunities3.pdf
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3. About Gallery P74
Centre and Gallery P74 is the newest non-profit art space in Ljubljana,
Slovenia. For the past five years it has promoted diverse programs of
contemporary art and culture, supporting young and innovative artists
and curators. Founded by artist, scholar and curator Tadej Pogacar, Gallery
P74's programming is focused on the presentation, study and promotion
of contemporary visual arts, performance and time related arts (new media,
music). The mission of the Centre and Gallery P74 is to foster knowledge,
exchange new ideas and promote innovative and challenging models in current
art and culture. Centre and Gallery P74 supports non-profit programs and
collaboration between artists, art centers and galleries locally and internationally.
Center and Gallery P74
Prusnikova 74
1210 Ljubljana
http://www.parasite-pogacar.si/P74/index.htm
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4. About ACC in Weimar + Context ('Get
Rid of Yourself') + Directions
16Beaver is also in Germany (Weimar & Leipzig) for 'Get Rid of Yourself'
a show curated by Frank Motz dealing with artist groups and artists working
collaboratively in the US (more details forthcoming). A few of us
will be organizing activities here, among them some walks, discussions,
and well, this Monday's discussion. Hope you can make it either
here or in New York.
The ACC-Galerie Weimar, a non-profit space which has maintained an international
exhibition and studio program for 15 years. http://www.acc-weimar.de/
Hall 14 a recently opened art space in Leipzig in a former Industrial
Complex of a Cotton Spinning Mill.
Address in Weimar: Burgplatz 1+2, 99423 Weimar
Tel. 03643/851262, Fax 851263
for questions contact:
Directions
from Brooklyn:
Take Northside Car Service to Newark (Liberty? uggghhh) Airport --
$60
Take any airline in this case Continental to Frankfurt -- $720
Take any train to the main train station (3 stops from airport) -- did
not pay
Take train to Weimar from Central Station (preferably ICE1653 Train) --
$50
Walk south from central station, til you hit a building, go to the street
heading south on the right side, start veering left once you hit, Fried
something Strauss, then head south again and start asking people for Burgplatz,
make sure not to say Burgerplatz!!! See you there for what should
be an interesting evening.
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e.
Saturday – 08.02.03
For the opening
of "Get Rid of Yourself" 16Beaver participants organized a space
for an evening discussion at Halle 14. The topics ranged from some trajectories
of 16Beaver projects to political situations in the US, Europe, Occupied
Palestine, Iraq and elsewhere. One particualr point of contention and
discussion was related to rising anti-american attitudes in Europe and
in even the US.