JUMPS AND SURPRISES An installation by Zanny Begg and Oliver Ressler
For the group-exhibition "asking we walk, voices of resistance" Den Frie Udstillingsbygning, Copenhagen (DK) Curators: Kuratorisk Aktion (Berlin & Copenhagen) and Katarina Stenbeck (Copenhagen) September 27 -- October 19, 2008 www.denfrie.dk "Jumps and Surprises" is an installation comprising new collaborative work by Zanny Begg and Oliver Ressler and several existing works carried out independently. All these works relate to globalisation and the counter-globalisation movement. The title comes from a quote by John Holloway (in the film "What Would It Mean To Win?" produced during the counter-summit protests at Heiligendamm) where he explains the development of anti-capitalist consciousness as a process of "jumps and surprises". These moments, or "events" -- to use the term of Alain Badiou -- not only surprise the powerful through unpredictable confrontations with capitalism but also the movement itself by creating moments of transformative subjectivity. Almost ten years since "Seattle" this installation explores the impact this moment has had on contemporary politics. Seattle has been described as the birthplace for the "movement of movements" and marked a time when resistance to capitalist globalisation emerged in industrialized nations. In many senses it has been regarded as the time when a new social subject -- the multitude -- entered the political landscape. The installation consists of a large wall drawing by Zanny Begg that maps a genealogy of globalisation and the counter-globalisation movements and is based on the animations from the film "What Would It Mean To Win?" This drawing surrounds the walls of the gallery space and defines an area in which the other works are installed. "What Would It Mean To Win?" (Zanny Begg and Oliver Ressler, 40 min., 2008) is a film based on the most recent counter-globalisation protests in Heiligendamm in Germany (June 2007). It is structured around three central questions: Who are we? What is our power? What would it mean to win? It combines documentary footage shot during the blockades against the G8 summit in Germany, interviews and animation sequences. The video "This is what democracy looks like!" (Oliver Ressler, 38 min., 2002) focuses on the events of 1 July 2001 which took place surrounding a demonstration against the World Economic Forum -- a private lobbying organization of major capital -- which was meeting in Salzburg. This video gives insight into the course of events of the first anti-globalisation demonstration in Austria. This demonstration was banned by the police and 919 demonstrators were encircled and detained for over seven hours. The video "Disobbedienti" (Oliver Ressler and Dario Azzellini, 54 min., 2002) focuses on the origins of Disobbedienti, an activist network that emerged from the Tute Bianche during the demonstrations against the G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001. The Tute Bianche were the white-clad Italian activists who used their bodies -- protected by foam rubber, tires, helmets, gas masks, and homemade shields -- in direct acts of civil disobedience. Toni Negri has described the protests in Genoa as the first revolt of the Post-Fordist multitude against Empire. The Italian autonomist tradition has been incredibly influential not only for the counter-globalisation movement but also for cultural production and intellectual thought more broadly. All three videos are based on interviews with the protagonists of the particular actions. www.ressler.at www.zannybegg.com _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
