[syndicate] memorial of unrealized projects

[anna balint]

Great that this project got realized after all, after that the  
curator has abandoned it.
I can imagine that legislative and judicial obstacles appeared after  
the selection of the project. But to select a project despite  
personal ethical and curatorial convictions? To ban the project  
later? Do the curatorial obligations and deeds cease when the context  
of the project change?
Indeed, besides the legal and social context of the signature, the  
curatorial choices related to this project worth a conversation.
Curious enough, I will be in Berlin seeing whether this debate will  
happen.
a.


On Jan 28, 2008, at 4:01 PM, claudia westermann wrote:

>
> I would be really interested to know why you chose
> Janez Janša as name / person.
>
>
> --
> I would like to state that
> the selection for an exhibition is in the same way a gesture of  
> power as the
> rejection.
>
> Besides of this, banning someone shortly before an exhibition opening,
> when the artists already put time and money into the project, makes me
> always wonder how/on which basis the selection process was made in the
> beginning -
> there was no time to look/read carefully a project description? How  
> do the
> curators do their job?
>
> This indeed could be a subject for a round table
>
>
> Or did you radically change the project without communicating this  
> change?
> (In this case, for example I would not really understand the  
> surprise on
> your side)
>
>
> - claudia
>
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Sympa Owner [mailto:sympa at eglin.copyleft.no] Im Auftrag von  
> janez janša
> Gesendet: Montag, 28. Jänner 2008 10:45
> An: syndicate at anart.no
> Betreff: [syndicate] Signature Event Context banned from  
> Transmediale.08
>
>
> Subject: Signature Event Context banned from Transmediale.08
>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
> January 28, 2008
> Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša
> "Signature Event Context"
> Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe / Denkmal für die  
> ermordeten Juden
> Europas
> Berlin, Germany
>
>
> !!! WARNING !!!
>
> The performance "Signature Event Context" by Janez Janša, Janez  
> Janša, Janez
> Janša scheduled for the opening of TRANSMEDIALE.08 the 29th of  
> January 2008
> at 8.30 pm at the foyer of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin,
> Germany, has been conjunctively CANCELLED by the director of  
> transmediale
> Stephen Kovats and the Guest-Curator of the exhibition CONSPIRE.  
> Nataša
> Petrešin-Bachelez.
>
> Consequently, Janez Janša, Janez Janša and Janez Janša anticipated  
> the date
> of the action performing "Signature Event Context" on January 28,  
> 2008 at
> 00.01 am
>
>
> WATCH THE PERFORMANCE
> www.aksioma.org/sec
>
>
> Signature Event Context
>
> In summer 2007, three Slovenian artists officially changed their  
> names to
> Janez Janša. Their work focuses on the question of signature, and -  
> more
> particularly - on the role of signature in public space. In their  
> various
> approaches, they explore Derrida's famous statement on signature  
> and its
> paradoxical relationship towards originality and repetition.
>
> "By definition, a written signature implies the actual or empirical
> nonpresence of the signer. But, it will be said, it also marks and  
> retains
> his having-been present in a past now, which will remain a future  
> now, and
> therefore in a now, in general, in the transcendental form of nowness
> (maintenance). This general maintenance is somehow inscribed,  
> stapled to the
> present punctuality, always evident and always singular, in the  
> form of the
> signature. This is the enigmatic originality of every paraph. For the
> attachment to the source to occur, the absolute singularity of an  
> event of
> the signature and of a form of the signature must be retained: the  
> pure
> reproducibility of a pure event." (Jacques Derrida, "Signature Event
> Context" in Margins of Philosophy, tr. Alan Bass, pp. 307-330)
>
>  On January 28th, 2008, Janez Janša, Janez Janša, and Janez Janša  
> performed
> Signature Event Context at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, a walking
> action in the corridors of the Memorial.  Each one of them,  
> equipped with a
> GPS device, covered a different path within the Memorial's  
> structure this
> way, together assembling a common signature visible only in a  
> virtual space
> (the internet). During the performance artists continuously  
> repeated "Jaz
> sem Janez Janša, Jaz sem Janez Janša, Jaz sem Janez Janša." ("My  
> name is
> Janez Janša").
>
> Signature Event Context at the Holocaust Memorial puts together 3  
> concepts
> (signature, event and context) from Derrida's essay in complex  
> relation;
> signature itself is an event which re-contextualizes the site of  
> signature.
>
> In his book At Memory's Edge: After-images of the Holocaust in  
> Contemporary
> Art and Architecture (Yale University Press, 2000) the American  
> scholar
> James E. Young writes that there is no intrinsic meaning in memorials.
> Instead, they derive their meaning from visitors' interactions:  
> each visitor
> makes their own experience of memory at a memorial.
>
> The structure of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, which invites a  
> visitor
> for an individual experience - as has been stated by its architect  
> Peter
> Eisenman -,  points to the intention of the Signature Event Context  
> project.
> Eisenman concludes his statement with the following explanation of the
> experience in the Memorial:
>
> "In this monument there is no goal, no end, no working one's way in  
> or out.
> The duration of an individual's experience of it grants no further
> understanding, since understanding is impossible. The time of the  
> monument,
> its duration from top surface to ground, is disjoined from the time of
> experience.. In this context, there is no nostalgia, no memory of  
> the past,
> only the living memory of the individual experience. Here, we can  
> only know
> the past through its manifestation in the present." (Eisenman  
> Architects,
> Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin. Project text by Peter
> Eisenman)
>
> In Derrida's words, walking and talking signatures by Janša, Janša  
> and Janša
> are the physical manifestations of nowness via individual  
> experience. The
> traces of the walking and talking signature are left only in  
> virtual space.
> Memory is always already a performance of virtuality.
>
>
> REASON FOR BANNING S.E.C. FROM TRANSMEDIALE.08
>
> According to the new director of Transmediale Stephen Kovats and to  
> the
> Guest Curator of the exhibition CONSPIRE. Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez,  
> the
> great cause for banning this project from the festival 4 days  
> before its
> opening has to be find in "judicial and legislative  
> reasons" (Kovats) and
> "personal - curatorial and ethical convictions< (Petrešin-Bachelez).
>
> Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša understand the banning act as  
> an ACT
> OF POWER perpetrated by the artistic director of the festival and its
> guest-curator to the detriment of the artists and as an ACT OF  
> VIOLENCE
> towards freedom of artistic expression.
>
> Artists hereby formally invite the director of Transmediale Stephen  
> Kovats,
> the guest-curator of the exhibition CONSPIRE. Nataša Petrešin- 
> Bachelez and
> the general public to an open confrontation on issues disclosed by  
> Signature
> Event Context to take place in form of a public round table.
>
>
> "Signature Event Context" - images of the performance
> www.aksioma.org/sec/press.html
>
>
> Credits
> Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša
> Signature Event Context
> Performance, SI, 2008
> Production: Aksioma | www.aksioma.org
> Co-production: Maska | www.maska.si, Arscenic | www.arscenic.info
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's  
> FREE!
> http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
>
>
>
>
> -----Syndicate mailinglist-----------------------
> Syndicate network for media culture and media art
> information and archive: http://syndicate.anart.no
> to post to the Syndicate list: <syndicate at anart.no>
> Shake the KKnut: http://syndicate.anart.no/KKnut/
> no commercial use of the texts without permission