exit_strategies_and_a_stand_alone_complex

PART I SCENE – IT’S HOW YOU FINISH Inside. An elevator. L.C. is going down. He steps out of the elevator and walks through the hotel lobby to the desk. He looks around, taking in his surround- ings while talking to the clerks. Then he walks to the entrance of the hotel, exits. Outside. Night. L.C. gets in his car and drives off. We see views of a city. L.C. is driving and lights up a cigarette. Soundtrack: Original Soundtrack (reversed) (cont’d) Reverse Engineering --- Man 1 It’s not how you start. It’s how you fin- ish. --- Woman 1 So, let’s finish with the beginning. START CREDITS 151



A N N O TAT E D WORK DOCU- MENTS



FROM WHITEPAPER TO WHITEBOARD (annotated talking points) README Annotations version 1.0. -------------------------------------------------------- Description • The following is the work document ‘From White Paper To White- board (talking points)’ by Peter Lemmens, annotated by Alicja Mel- zacka. • An annotation doesn’t equal description, nor interpretation. It’s not a diversion strategy, a decoy, a digression. And it’s certainly not a revision, nor a correction. So what’s left is that maybe it’s all of these things simultaneously... • The annotations use the medium of hypertext. They draw on the style of early hypertext fiction but utilise contemporary technology: a free online tool for collaborative text processing (Google Docs). Their format is partially dictated by that technology and, partially, it mimics the formatting of each work document. • Hypertext seems to be a somehow logical extension (even if it’s based on an unsound logic) of the semantic field outlined by the three work documents. These also exhibit certain hyper- and inter- textual qualities and challenge the usual notions of authorship and collaboration. ---------------------------------------------------------- Usage notes • It is recommended to start by reading ‘From White Paper To White- board (talking points)’, which functions as a ‘switchboard’ between the work documents. • You can navigate the annotated work documents by scrolling and clicking on links. • The hypertext is using three different kinds of links: external links, which will lead you out of the document (mostly used as referenc- es); cross-links, which connect points across the three texts; and internal links, which bring you to another point in the same text. 155

• In some cases, it is possible to return to the departure point, but in others, the links are diverging further and further away. • Google Docs functions best when opened in Chrome browser. Chrome enables additional viewing functions (i.e. ‘preview mode’), which enhance the browsing experience. • Feel free to skip as many links as you want or keep switching be- tween the regular reading mode and following the hyperlinks. Mul- tiple combinations are possible. • Most probably, in one reading, you will not discover all annotations. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2020, CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike) with Alicja Melzacka from_white_paper_to_whiteboard_annotated_talking_points_Alicja_ Melzacka.doc — go to http://www.diversions.be/annotated/01.html 156

README Annotations version 1.0. -------------------------------------------------------- Description • The following is the work document ‘From White Paper To White- board (talking points)’ by Peter Lemmens, annotated by Laurens Otto. • The annotations use a reversed Q&A (asked by the artist to the curator) while reading the document back to front. • The annotations utilise a contemporary technology: a free online tool for collaborative text processing (Google Docs). ---------------------------------------------------------- Usage notes • There is no recommended reading order for the annotated work documents by Laurens Otto. • Google Docs functions best when opened in Chrome browser. Chrome enables additional viewing functions (i.e. ‘preview mode’), which enhance the browsing experience. • You can read the work document and annotations by scrolling and clicking on links. These are internal and allow you to navigate be- tween text and annotations. • Feel free to skip as many links as you want or keep switching be- tween the regular reading mode and following the links. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2020, CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike) with Laurens Otto from_white_paper_to_whiteboard_annotated_talking_points_Lau- rens_Otto.doc — go to http://www.diversions.be/annotated/02.html 157



THESTOCKEXCHANGE (annotated texts) README Annotations version 1.0. -------------------------------------------------------- Description • The following is the work document ‘THESTOCKEXCHANGE (texts)’ by Peter Lemmens, annotated by Alicja Melzacka. • An annotation doesn’t equal description, nor interpretation. It’s not a diversion strategy, a decoy, a digression. And it’s certainly not a revision, nor a correction. So what’s left is that maybe it’s all of these things simultaneously... • The annotations use the medium of hypertext. They draw on the style of early hypertext fiction but utilise contemporary technology: a free online tool for collaborative text processing (Google Docs). Their format is partially dictated by that technology and, partially, it mimics the formatting of each work document. • Hypertext seems to be a somehow logical extension (even if it’s based on an unsound logic) of the semantic field outlined by the three work documents. These also exhibit certain hyper- and inter- textual qualities and challenge the usual notions of authorship and collaboration. ---------------------------------------------------------- Usage notes • It is recommended to start by reading ‘From White Paper To White- board (talking points)’, which functions as a ‘switchboard’ between the work documents. • You can navigate the annotated work documents by scrolling and clicking on links. • The hypertext is using three different kinds of links: external links, which will lead you out of the document (mostly used as referenc- es); cross-links, which connect points across the three texts; and internal links, which bring you to another point in the same text. • Google Docs functions best when opened in Chrome browser. 159

Chrome enables additional viewing functions (i.e. ‘preview mode’), which enhance the browsing experience. • Feel free to skip as many links as you want or keep switching be- tween the regular reading mode and following the hyperlinks. Mul- tiple combinations are possible. • Most probably, in one reading, you will not discover all annotations. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2020, CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike) with Alicja Melzacka thestockexchange_annotated_texts_Alicja_Melzacka.doc — go to http://www.diversions.be/annotated/03.html 160

README Annotations version 1.0. -------------------------------------------------------- Description • The following is the work document ‘THESTOCKEXCHANGE (an- notated texts)’ by Peter Lemmens, annotated by Laurens Otto. • The annotations use a reversed Q&A (asked by the artist to the curator) while reading the document back to front. • The annotations utilise a contemporary technology: a free online tool for collaborative text processing (Google Docs). ---------------------------------------------------------- Usage notes • There is no recommended reading order for the annotated work documents by Laurens Otto. • Google Docs functions best when opened in Chrome browser. Chrome enables additional viewing functions (i.e. ‘preview mode’), which enhance the browsing experience. • You can read the work document and annotations by scrolling and clicking on links. These are internal and allow you to navigate be- tween text and annotations. • Feel free to skip as many links as you want or keep switching be- tween the regular reading mode and following the links. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2020, CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike) with Laurens Otto thestockexchange_annotated_texts_Laurens_Otto.doc — go to http://www.diversions.be/annotated/04.html 161



REVERSE ENGINEERING (annotated scenario) README Annotations version 1.0. -------------------------------------------------------- Description • The following is the work document ‘Reverse Engineering (scenar- io)’ by Peter Lemmens, annotated by Alicja Melzacka. • An annotation doesn’t equal description, nor interpretation. It’s not a diversion strategy, a decoy, a digression. And it’s certainly not a revision, nor a correction. So what’s left is that maybe it’s all of these things simultaneously... • The annotations use the medium of hypertext. They draw on the style of early hypertext fiction but utilise contemporary technology: a free online tool for collaborative text processing (Google Docs). Their format is partially dictated by that technology and, partially, it mimics the formatting of each work document. • Hypertext seems to be a somehow logical extension (even if it’s based on an unsound logic) of the semantic field outlined by the three work documents. These also exhibit certain hyper- and inter- textual qualities and challenge the usual notions of authorship and collaboration. ---------------------------------------------------------- Usage notes • It is recommended to start by reading ‘From White Paper To White- board (talking points)’, which functions as a ‘switchboard’ between the work documents. • You can navigate the annotated work documents by scrolling and clicking on links. • In ‘Reverse Engineering (scenario)’, the annotations begin on page 19. • If, after landing on a new location, you cannot see any links, scroll down until you come across the next one. • The hypertext is using three different kinds of links: external links, 163

which will lead you out of the document (mostly used as referenc- es); cross-links, which connect points across the three texts; and internal links, which bring you to another point in the same text. • In some cases, it is possible to return to the departure point, but in others, the links are diverging further and further away. • Google Docs functions best when opened in Chrome browser. Chrome enables additional viewing functions (i.e. ‘preview mode’), which enhance the browsing experience. • Feel free to skip as many links as you want or keep switching be- tween the regular reading mode and following the hyperlinks. Mul- tiple combinations are possible. • Most probably, in one reading, you will not discover all annotations. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2020, CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike) with Alicja Melzacka reverse_engineering_annotated_scenario_Alicja_Melzacka.doc — go to http://www.diversions.be/annotated/05.html 164

README Annotations version 1.0. -------------------------------------------------------- Description • The following is the work document ‘Reverse Engineering (scenar- io)’ by Peter Lemmens, annotated by Laurens Otto. • The following is the work document ‘THESTOCKEXCHANGE (an- notated texts)’ by Peter Lemmens, annotated by Laurens Otto. • The annotations use a reversed Q&A (asked by the artist to the curator) while reading the document back to front. • The annotations utilise a contemporary technology: a free online tool for collaborative text processing (Google Docs). ---------------------------------------------------------- Usage notes • There is no recommended reading order for the annotated work documents by Laurens Otto. • Google Docs functions best when opened in Chrome browser. Chrome enables additional viewing functions (i.e. ‘preview mode’), which enhance the browsing experience. • You can read the work document and annotations by scrolling and clicking on links. These are internal and allow you to navigate be- tween text and annotations. • Feel free to skip as many links as you want or keep switching be- tween the regular reading mode and following the links. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2020, CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike) with Laurens Otto reverse_engineering_annotated_scenarion_ Laurens_Otto.doc — go to http://www.diversions.be/annotated/06.html 165



WORKS



FROM WHITEPAPER TO WHITEBOARD README Annotations version 1.0. -------------------------------------------------------- Description • The following is documentation of the work ‘From White Paper To Whiteboard’ (2019) by Peter Lemmens (in collaboration with Karina Beumer and Brenda Tempelaar). • It contains 6 .jpg-files. • These images show the 3 whiteboards before and after the public discussion. • As a standalone second discussion of a study group on distribution in art, this visual thinking exercise spins off to look more at the art- work itself, its possible configurations and an artist’s point of view. Artworks are often given a very concentrated distribution: an exhibi- tion, sometimes limited to the opening of an exhibition, an article, a quick advertisement, ... They might be an ultimate consumer prod- uct, peaking very fast and disappearing arguably even faster. How can art grasp its own distribution? Which roles can distribution play in an artistic practice? How are these models of distribution feeding back into artistic practices? What does art leave slipstreaming in its wake? The first discussion took place on May 20th at de Brakke Grond, Amsterdam. This second part starts from a white paper which will also be made available one hour before the discussion on a white- board. Karina Beumer, Peter Lemmens and Brenda Tempelaar are invited to that whiteboard and redraw the premise during a visual discus- sion. ---------------------------------------------------------- Usage notes • Although there is an initial chronology, there is no recommended order for these images. • There are 3 levels of commitment to the work: 1. Download and share with a torrent file. Seed torrent files, so oth- 169

ers can download it. The more seeds, the faster the downloads. Torrents that are not seeded, will become unavailable over time. Please use a secure VPN connection for your torrent tracker. 2. Download a copy of the work to your computer to keep it. 3. View the work in your browser, without downloading. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2020, CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike) with Karina Beumer & Brenda Tempelaar documentation of a visual seminar on distribution in visual arts: DSC09439.jpg, DSC09460.jpg, DSC09527.jpg, DSC09614.jpg, DSC09619.jpg, DSC09624.jpg presented at ExtraCity Kunsthal (20/06/2019) — go to http://www.diversions.be/downloads/01.html 170

THESTOCKEXCHANGE README Works - version 1.0. -------------------------------------------------------- Description • The following is the work ‘THESTOCKEXCHANGE’ (2017-2018) by Peter Lemmens (in collaboration with Kris Van Dessel). • It contains the 2 .pdf-files of the books ‘THESTOCKEXCHANGE’ and ‘THESTOCKEXCHANGE ANNOTATED’. • As artworks spend most of their time in storage, maybe a storage place is the logical place to approach, think about and invest in artworks. This setting is used as a platform to unpack and discuss a work, to show a video while playing a record, to stack shipping crates and make a room divider, to discard an old work before mak- ing a new one, ... The storage space is activated at irregular intervals to assess its artworks and things in its peripheral view. It hesitates between stock and stock market, wavers between stockpile and stock sale, negotiates between in and out of stock. ---------------------------------------------------------- Usage notes • ‘THESTOCKEXCHANGE ANNOTATED’ functions as a hard copy reference guide of online sources to ‘THESTOCKEXCHANGE’. • However, there is no recommended order for these books and you can also read both books simultaneously. • There are 3 levels of commitment to the work: 1. Download and share with a torrent file. Seed torrent files, so oth- ers can download it. The more seeds, the faster the downloads. Torrents that are not seeded, will become unavailable over time. Please use a secure VPN connection for your torrent tracker. 2. Download a copy of the work to your computer to keep it. 3. View the work in your browser, without downloading. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2020, CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike) 171

with Kris Van Dessel 14 events described in 2 books: THESTOCKEXCHANGE.pdf (Ray McKigney Publishing, 2018), THESTOCKEXCHANGE_ANNOTATED.pdf (Corky Ramirez Publish- ing, 2018) presented at THESTOCKEXCHANGE, Antwerp, Belgium (18/03/2017 - 13/03/2018) — go to http://www.diversions.be/downloads/02.html 172

REVERSE ENGINEERING README Works version 1.0. -------------------------------------------------------- Description • The following is the work ‘Reverse Engineering’ (2020-2021) by Pe- ter Lemmens . • It contains the .mp4-file of the feature film ‘Reverse Engineering’. • A feature film that reflects on loosely connected positions about the future, narrativity and distribution. It’s a rereading of the film Alphaville by Jean-Luc Godard, which in itself displays an out of canon, fan fiction approach. Here, Alphaville is shown in reverse. It functions as a setting for a site-specific artwork that inhabits an existing film. Through text and soundtrack an annotation of inter- ruptions and interference develops. ---------------------------------------------------------- Usage notes • It is recommended to view the film in a cinema or home-cinema set- ting with good speakers or headphones • There are 3 levels of commitment to the work: 1. Download and share with a torrent file. Seed torrent files, so oth- ers can download it. The more seeds, the faster the downloads. Torrents that are not seeded, will become unavailable over time. Please use a secure VPN connection for your torrent tracker. 2. Download a copy of the work to your computer to keep it. 3. View the work in your browser, without downloading. ---------------------------------------------------------- 2020, CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike) a feature film reverse_engineering_2020_2021.mp4 — go to http://www.diversions.be/downloads/03.html 173



GLOSSARY



Fringe: similar to the introduction show that this interruption is a meth- to the book accompanying the work odology that highlights discursivity. THESTOCKEXCHANGE (2017- 2018), I point to a negative condi- In From White Paper To Whiteboard tion. In a circumscribing effort, I (2019) this interaction between insist upon the idea of another space, fringe and middle is researched another approach and another criti- through stakeholdership. The dis- cality: a marginal space of refusal. I cussion closes off by rephrasing the position this refusal not as a separa- question of collaboration through a tion or an alternative model, but see reciprocal interaction. It emphasizes it as an embedded, hard to main- a space for autonomy and refusal tain interaction between fringe and within a collaborative interaction. It center. It declines romanticizing its redefines collaboration as an asym- own marginality as well as repro- metrical effort between unequal but ducing the center in a cynical move. responsible partners. I see this as an My research insists that such an innovative contribution to the super- antagonistic space is not only pos- symmetry of equivalence in collabo- sible, but also necessary. This neces- ration. This redefines the necessity sity is demonstrated where I adopt of the negotiation as the central nar- a logic of ‘art as being not only en- rative. tirely fitting to the current terms of contemporary art’s affirmation and In the work Reverse Engineer- distribution but also to expose the ing (2020-2021) this is stipulated limitations of the politics occasioned through the original film’s B-movie in and by art’ (Suhail Malik). I em- format of the hard-boiled detective brace the work’s problematic and ar- story and the appropriation of the tificial ambiguity as an intentionally whole novel and film series. Here inadequate setting with a lot of op- the fringe is a productive site that portunity for misunderstanding. allows a certain hostile takeover as This could easily be interpreted as a legitimate strategy for production an apologetic indeterminacy, but this and distribution. negative element is the absence of a structuring narrative, controlling This operating from the fringe is a the reception or delivery (Jacques way to compromise the narrative. I Rancière). In other words, I see this point at narratives that are not part of refusal to unify the center position the scenario. I look for simultaneity. with the marginal romantization in This reciprocal mode of production a narrative structuring element as and distribution was prompted by an intentional bankruptcy. It’s an in- looking at organizational approaches terrupted, incomplete narrative that of fan fiction. loses itself in order to create an entry into the work as well as an exit strat- egy from the work. In my research I 177

Fan fiction: my PhD started off as in inappropriate spaces by inept pro- a critical approach to concepts con- ducers. nected to fan fiction: DIY, amateur- But with the adoption the new infor- ism, distribution, semi-autonomous mation technologies, I recognized production, meta-language and de- that fan fiction also was not immune pendency. Fan fiction operates with to the impact of these technologies. a different set of parameters that Fan fiction used to be amateurish. seems to be difficult, but interesting It was not only not knowing how to to transfer to a visual arts setting. My write, but not knowing how to write approach withholds looking at fan fan fiction. Then the point of fan fiction directly, but seeks out certain fiction shifted from imagination to methods and positions as productive socializing (Alice Yang). Thinking frameworks for a visual arts practice. about community became the domi- nant narrative, generated through a Paradoxically enough, I’m not in- new meta-language. Fan fiction is no terested in fan-fiction. I don’t read longer about the content, but about it and do not particularly like it. I the summary, the tag, the genre and didn’t start by deep-diving into fan the categorization. The narrative fiction websites such as Archive Of shifted oddly enough from text to Our Own, fanfiction.net, etc… The image, from literature to narrative, idea here is to deliberately bypass from story to statement, from plot fan fiction output and look at its or- to information, from biography to ganization. It formulates a shifted auto-biography and from language attitude towards production and to meta-language. And ultimately distribution in the way it looks for maybe from multiplication to exclu- ligitmacy and value. Fan fiction uses sion. Working with existing mate- existing material as its production rial, looking at a collaborative effort site. Value is not created ex nihilo, and looking at distribution methods but embedded in a specific time and shifted again to favor a quantitative space. This interaction is simultane- report of perimeters with centers and ously deeply interconnected as well fringes. as highly autonomous in its lack of authorization. I initially learned from This idea of readdressing existing fan fiction that it could be interest- work as raw material was researched ing to shift artistic capacity from the in THESTOCKEXCHANGE (2017- creation of work to also include the 2019). The loss of certain artistic re-enactment and the performativ- qualities when my work entered the ity of existing work. It is an indirect storage space, allowed it to function dialogue about what is not part of in a different way. The work in the the scenario. It enfolds a work into stock simultaneously reveals and a labyrinth. It’s uncalled for and un- bankrupts itself. The refusal inherent authorized distribution with unsound to such a fringe space asked for a dif- methods under imperfect conditions ferent interaction and finalization, a 178

different performance, productivity poses multiple voices and positions. and distribution of the work. They keep their reciprocal status by refusing a singular and linear result In From White Paper To Whiteboard as final conclusion. The collabora- (2019) this interaction is put into a tive here is redefined as a difficult perspective of stakeholdership. I proposition with a lot of opportunity propose a more implicated interac- for misunderstanding. It’s an attempt tion where responsibilities and posi- at not replicating symmetric partici- tions are not unified in a predefined pation as a prerequisite. symmetric construction. In the research output, discussion is In the work Reverse Engineering formatted as annotations produced (2020-2021) I engage with fan fic- with two contributors. This indicates tion in the most literal way. I take an that my methodology of annotations existing film to write another sce- is organized as two discussions. I see nario on top of it. The decision for the annotation as an exchange with Alphaville by Godard is motivated existing work, similar to a fan fiction by its appropriation of the existing interaction. These annotations are character of Lemmy Caution from a not meant as an explanatory compo- series of hard-boiled detective films, nent to guide but as an act to impli- novels and radio plays. Godard takes cate. I see them as connective frag- the character (and even the origi- ments, a way to enter the work, not nal actor) to create an out-of-canon through confirmation, but through science-fiction film. This out-of- bankruptcy. They infringe by over- canon part lies in its switching of reaching the boundaries of the work genres (from detective to science- and are therefore simultaneously an fiction) as well as its subversion of exit strategy. the science-fiction genre itself (in black and white). Through a simple As a research strategy this again reversed chronology, this film serves talks about a multiplicity of posi- as a platform, a site that is not emp- tions. It underlines this reciprocation ty. Although the existing film can as an important premise to my work. be pushed to a background, it also pushes back. It simultaneously inter- THESTOCKEXCHANGE (2017- feres and serves a final elaboration 2018) is a negotiation of how to of the researhc topics. share a storage space between two artists as well as with an audience. It Reciprocal: each of the three works, also differentiates between formats made during my research, originates and functions of a space. The work as a discussion. In my understanding points at an interaction between ar- of collaboration, each work juxta- tistic capacities of the work and a space without automatically assum- ing an artistic surplus through this 179

interaction. Guffins or placeholders of the re- search. From White Paper To Whiteboard (2019) is a juxtaposition of three As an intentional displaced center, public lectures (by three artists) di- these three works are not the illustra- verging from distribution as a com- tion of the research. They remain on mon starting point. its fringe, maintaining their autono- my while at the same time informing Reverse Engineering (2020-2021) the research. I isolate the research is a discussion with a muted partner from the works, while still keeping (an existing film). The film layers them close. In this circumscribing off-screen characters’ narratives on motion, I point to things while si- top of an existing film as an emanci- multaneously pointing away from pated dependency. them. It is a bait and switch. Production: I specify production As a meta-narrative, the research out- here as reciprocal: a production that come is formatted as a digital book operates on the fringes of something that describes a reference frame, an else without the necessity of com- outline, the position, a curriculum, pletely acknowledging it as an au- the conditions and vocabulary. thority. This interaction is simultane- ously autonomous as well as deeply THESTOCKEXCHANGE (2017- connected. It is similar to fan fiction. 2018) opens up my shared artwork storage as a discursive space. Four- During the research I produced three teen events were organized with artworks. These works highlight dis- artist Kris Van Dessel. We reflected course and logistical decisions as upon the events through a series of part of an artistic production. These mini-lectures, one for each event. three works set the stage, they point These considered notions of distri- at issues as a set of intermediary bution, materiality, collaboration, steps during the research. They are time and space. Afterwards, these statements during the research pe- events and lectures were collected riod. in a double book. On the one hand, a documentation of the events, con- However, these works are presented taining the re-edited lectures. On the in the PhD only in an indirect way. other hand, hard copy annotations of In a secondary production annotated online contexts and references used versions are created to outline the for the events and the first book. three works. This methodology po- sitions the works as the off-screen From White Paper To Whiteboard parts of the PhD. They are the Mac- (2019) is a discussion written on three whiteboards with two other artists, Karina Beumer and Brenda 180

Tempelaar. In a public revision and Krauss). As things accelerate in dis- edit session, we rewrite and anno- tribution, simultaneously additional tate that discussion to reflect on net- things are dispersed in an obfuscated works, distribution and stakehold- background. A motion blur obscures ership as a different collaborative what slipstreams in distribution’s practice. wake. What is being distributed is actually piggybacking on what ap- Reverse Engineering (2020-2021) pears to be distributed at first glance. is a film that reflects on loosely con- nected positions about the future, Thinking about distribution was narrativity and distribution. My film first addressed in THESTOCKEX- is a rereading of the film Alphaville CHANGE (2017-2018) where I by Jean-Luc Godard, which in itself tried to define the value of distribu- displays an out of canon, fan fiction tion and an asymmetric exchange as approach. Here, Alphaville functions well as the constant bankruptcy of a as a setting for a site-specific art- brand and its capacity of capitalizing work that inhabits an existing film. on community creation. Through text and soundtrack an an- notation of interruptions and inter- In From White Paper To Whiteboard ference develops. (2019) I place distribution at the cen- ter of interaction. Here, I discuss dis- Distribution: distribution might be tribution as part of a stakeholdership a dominant force in our current so- and address a reframed network as ciety. Things are dispersed as fluid part of the artwork’s artistic capac- inventory, ordered and produced on ity. demand. Postponing production to the last possible moment (or even In Reverse Engineering (2020-2021) indefinitely) places a lot of em- I think about distribution, narrativ- phasis on the distribution moment. ity and the future via the narrator’s Production has been superseded by voice-over. The circulation method distribution, that no longer requires of the film (i.e. as a dowloadable and material. This bizarre Gestalt-switch shareable file) also addresses distri- from regarding the collection as a bution and a different collaborative form of cultural patrimony or as practice. specific and irreplaceable embodi- ments of cultural knowledge to one Defining aspects of distribution are of eying the collection’s contents as layered over my research as it ends so much capital- as stocks or assets by making the whole PhD avail- whose value is one of pure exchange able through a website and sharing and thus only truly realized when platforms. The PhD is published by they are put in circulation (Rosalind distributing the works, their anno- tated versions, and the digital book a downloadable set of files. This 181

distribution is seen as an integral collaboration, exhibition location, part, format and conclusion to the availability, etc… are subverted into research. This torrent format, which artistic components. They indicate a allows for a long tail, decentralizes certain critical approach to their so- distribution. It is a DIY, semi-anon- cial, political, economic and artistic ymous methodology that is not cu- context. Logistical questions that are rated, while at the same time func- often pushed aside as inconsequen- tioning as a collaborative effort. It’s tial or neutral are here acknowledged the redistribution of existing work as moments of resistance. By plac- through annotated, overwritten, cor- ing these aspects more to the fore- rupted, devalued, unsound, bastard front, my research takes a prolonged versions. look at that part of my artistic work. A reflective framework connecting This again positions distribution as a the methodological specifics seemed refusal of a singular position. When necessary to question my own prac- distribution is inserted into the artis- tice and artistic position. Construct- tic decision and thinking, it not only ed through annotations, three dis- adopts new methods (e.g. other net- placed works and a digital book, this works, other technologies, …), but framework is also important to share it also affects content (e.g. different as research output. I see it not as a contexts, other collaborative efforts, point of reference, but as a point of …) as well as other aesthetics (e.g. discussion. My goal is not to create performativity, different immaterial- a model illustrated with well-defined ity-materiality relation, …) The re- examples, but to set up a discursive fusal of the singular position within setting with flawed, blurred material a work is an intentional decision to about narrativity, distribution and escape the authoritarian position and production as it relates to artistic at- narrative. So, the point is not to dis- titudes and current social, political tribute new formats, new narratives, and economic context. but to distribute a renewed critical approach. Like this I sidestep pro- As a finalization, the research output moting new social, economic or po- is distributed as a downloadable set litical blueprints in favor of a height- of files through a website and shar- ened sense of criticality of the social, ing platforms. These distribution the economic and the political arena. methods are literal sites with their own specificity relating to the terms Annotation: artistic organization fringe, fan fiction, reciprocal, pro- is a background layer that continu- duction and distribution. ously informs my artworks. Deci- sions such as edition size, produc- The annotations are created by re- tion process, distribution method, watching and rereading the works in conversation with two separate col- laborators. One set of annotations is 182

created in discussion with Laurens definition of annotation here? When Otto (independent critic and cura- I look at Wikipedia: an annotation tor). In a reversal of position, I for- is extra information associated with mulate a set of questions to a cura- a particular point in a document or tor who answers from his position. other piece of information. It can be These questions and annotations are a note that includes a comment or published in reverse chronological explanation. Annotations are some- order and attached to the end of the times presented in the margin of preparatory Word documents that book pages (Wikipedia). make up a work’s final stage before The annotation is a post-scripted re- presentation. Like this they offer a flection upon an existing text as an backwards path to return to the start explanatory tool. It is an interface of the work. to make things readable, to mediate. A second set of annotations is made Why is this useful for my research? with Alicja Melzacka (curator It installs the reflective moment in CIAP). Here the three preparatory the margins of my work. Taking Word documents that make up the place after the work is done, it enters work’s final stage before presenta- a dialogue with the work. It’s an af- tion are annotated with a text, a set terthought that interacts with or even of references and an interfering hy- disrupts the work and sets it up for an pertext narrative. uncertain future. I use the annotation These annotations return a reader to as a dispersed, marginal, interfering the moment before and write a di- tool for reflection, particularly suited verging path for the work after the to mirror the reflective methodology facts. of the PhD. In this way, it also ap- proximates a fan fiction approach. In keeping with the artworks’ dis- cursive set up, these annotations are In a subversion, these annotations ways to review, reassess and com- are not used as a lucid explanatory ment. The double exposure of two component. The mediation here is annotators exacerbates a fragment- not the same as an explanation. In ed, incomplete position. It refuses a discursive turn, I use the annota- the singular and instead juxtaposes tion as an elaboration or a rephrasing works as well as a multiplicity of that gives opportunities for misun- annotations. This underlines simul- derstanding. It postpones the mo- taneity as a productive method and ment of completion. It casts doubts highlights the intended discursive and is a way to exit the work instead aspects of my research and work. of getting deeper into the work. This exit creates a fringe position to These remarks, interferences and ad- look back at the work while simul- ditions function as an exposé with taneously looking at other things. the methodology, format and lan- Through the annotations I construct guage of the annotation. What is my the PhD around a void where three 183

works could or should be. In an in- verse move, these annotations ad- dress these three works, made dur- ing the research period, while at the same time looking away from the center. This shifted attention, allows the works to facilitate the discussion beyond the work. Similar to how a MacGuffin or placeholder is used to structure a film, it is simultaneously a void and the opposite of the empty page as a setting. Arts are squeezed between econom- ic value and cultural heritage. An ex- planatory component does not solve the problem of interpretation. An artist’s supplement is not what gives us the solution, the answer, the right insight, but rather postpones the so- lution, the answer, the right interpre- tation even more (Dieter Lesage). Here, the annotations offer a frag- mented route trough the work. This intentional non-linearity refuses the one-dimensional approach as an ar- tistic position that insists on recip- rocal methods, discourse and multi- plicity. 184

185



REFERENCES



This bizarre Gestalt-switch from regard- experience the cumulative impact of a ing the collection as a form of cultural given oeuvre. The discursive change he patrimony or as specific and irreplace- was imagining is, we might say, one that able embodiments of cultural knowledge switches from diachrony to synchrony. to one of eying the collection’s contents The encyclopedic museum is intent on as so much capital- as stocks or assets telling a story, by arraying before its visi- whose value is one of pure exchange and tor a particular version of the history of thus only truly realized when they are art. put in circulation Krauss, R. (1990). The Cultural Logic of the Late Krauss, R. (1990). The Cultural Logic of the Late Capitalist Museum. October, 54, 3 // keywords: Capitalist Museum. October, 54, 3 // keywords: future, narrativity distribution [...] we can say that to produce this “prod- the imaginary space projected by the art- uct” efficiently will require not only the ist will not only emerge from the formal break-up of older productive units [...], conditions of the contradictions of a giv- but will entail the increased technolo- en moment of capital, but will prepare its gization (through computer-based data subjects-its readers or viewers-to occupy systems) and centralization of opera- a future real world which the work of art tions at every level. It will also demand has already brought them to imagine, a the increased control of resources in the world restructured not through the pres- form of art objects that can be cheaply ent but through the next moment in the and efficiently entered into circulation. history of capital. Krauss, R. (1990). The Cultural Logic of the Late Krauss, R. (1990). The Cultural Logic of the Late Capitalist Museum. October, 54, 3 // keywords: Capitalist Museum. October, 54, 3 // keywords: distribution future [...] the three immediate requisites of this from a perspective firmly situated at the expansion are 1) larger inventory [...]; 2) end of the ‘80s, sometimes referred to more physical outlets through which to as “the roaring ‘80s,” the idea that pay- sell the product [...] and 3) leveraging ing your debts makes you rich seems the collection (which in this case most pathetically naive. What makes you rich, specifically does not mean selling it, but we have been taught by a decade of ca- rather moving it into the credit sector, or sino capitalism, is precisely the opposite. the circulation of capital;the collection What makes you rich, fabulously rich, will thus be pressed to travel as one form beyond your wildest dreams, is leverag- of indebtedness; classically, mortgaging ing. leveraging Krauss, R. (1990). The Cultural Logic of the Late Krauss, R. (1990). The Cultural Logic of the Late Capitalist Museum. October, 54, 3 // keywords: Capitalist Museum. October, 54, 3 // keywords: debt, future storage, distribution, debt how these few in depth over the full They testify to the violent dislocation, amount of space it might take to really transferrals, and displacement of images 189

- their acceleration and circulation with- Obviously, this condition is not only in the vicious cycles of audiovisual capi- connected to the neoliberal restructur- talism. Poor images are dragged around ing of media production and digital the globe as commodities or their effi- technology; it also has to do with the gies, as gifts or as bounty. post-socialist and postcolonial restruc- turing of nation states, their cultures, Steyerl, H. & Berardi, F. (2012). The Wretched of and their archives. the Screen. Berlin, Germany: Sternberg Press // keywords: distribution Steyerl, H. & Berardi, F. (2012). The Wretched of the Screen. Berlin, Germany: Sternberg Press // In the class society of images, cinema keywords: distribution takes on the role of a flagship store. In flagship stores high-end products are On the one hand, the economy of poor marketed in an upscale environment. images, with its immediate possibility More affordable derivatives of the same of worldwide distribution and its eth- images circulate as DVDs, on broadcast ics of remix and appropriation, enables television or online, as poor images. the participation of a much larger group of producers than ever before. But this Steyerl, H. & Berardi, F. (2012). The Wretched of does not mean that these opportunities the Screen. Berlin, Germany: Sternberg Press // are only used for progressive ends. keywords: derivative, distribution Steyerl, H. & Berardi, F. (2012). The Wretched of But the economy of poor images is about the Screen. Berlin, Germany: Sternberg Press // more than just downloads: you can keep keywords: distribution the files, watch them again, even reedit or improve them if you think it neces- Poor images are poor because they are sary. And the results circulate. Blurred heavily compressed and travel quickly. AVI files of half-forgotten masterpieces They lose matter and gain speed. But are exchanged on semi-secret P2P plat- they also express a condition of dema- forms. terialization, shared not only with the legacy of conceptual art but above all Steyerl, H. & Berardi, F. (2012). The Wretched of with contemporary modes of semiotic the Screen. Berlin, Germany: Sternberg Press // production. keywords: distribution Steyerl, H. & Berardi, F. (2012). The Wretched of heir situation reveals much more than the Screen. Berlin, Germany: Sternberg Press // the content or appearance of the images keywords: immaterial, narrativity themselves: it also reveals the conditions of their marginalization, the constella- This flattening-out of visual content tion of social forces leading to their on- - the concept-in-becoming of the im- line circulation as poor images. ages - positions them within a general informational turn, within economies Steyerl, H. & Berardi, F. (2012). The Wretched of of knowledge that tear images and their the Screen. Berlin, Germany: Sternberg Press // captions out of context into the swirl of keywords: distribution permanent capitalist deterritorialization. 190

Steyerl, H. & Berardi, F. (2012). The Wretched of artisitic terrain has become of strategic the Screen. Berlin, Germany: Sternberg Press // importance. Indeed, artistic and cultural keywords: narrativity production is vital for capital reproduc- tion. This is due to the increasing reli- Then, however, the dematerialized art ance of Post-Fordist capitalismon se- object turns out to be perfectly adapted miotic techniques in order to create the to the semioticization of capital, and thus modes of subjectivation which are nec- to the conceptual turn of capitalism. essary for its reproduction. Steyerl, H. & Berardi, F. (2012). The Wretched of Gielen, P. (2013). Institutional attitudes: Institut- the Screen. Berlin, Germany: Sternberg Press // ing art in a flat world. Valiz // keywords: value, keywords: immaterial, narrativity distribution, narrativity On the one hand, it operates against the Cinema has long since been preparing fetish value of high resolution. On the us for a dystopian future it knows to be other hand, this is precisely why it also real. It’s already going short. ends up being perfectly integrated into an information capitalism thriving on Unknown Source // keywords: future, debt compressed attention spans, on impres- sion rather than immersion, on intensity Since 2008, Vidokle has been working rather than contemplation, on previews on Time/Bank, an ongoing initiative that rather than screenings. enables groups and individuals to bypass money as a measure of value and instead Steyerl, H. & Berardi, F. (2012). The Wretched of trade time and skills for anything, in- the Screen. Berlin, Germany: Sternberg Press // cluding food. keywords: narrativity, future Thompson, N. (2014). https://creativetimere- The poor image is no longer about the ports.org/2012/10/17/an-interview-with-anton- real thing - the originary original. In- vidokle // keywords: future, value stead, it is about its own real conditions of existence: about swarm circulation, The internet frames the world for its digital dispersion, fractured and flex- user, but it does not reveal its own fram- ible temporalities. It is about defiance ing. That opens a possibility for the ex- and appropriation just as it is about con- hibition of art, and, more generally, for formism and exploitation. In short: it is data, that circulates on the internet. Such about reality. a form of exhibition is able to thematize the internet’s hardware and software, Steyerl, H. & Berardi, F. (2012). The Wretched of thus revealing its hidden mechanisms of the Screen. Berlin, Germany: Sternberg Press // distribution and presentation. keywords: distribution, future Groys, B. (2018) https://www.e-flux.com/jour- [...] with the decisive role played by the nal/94/219462/curating-in-the-post-internet- culture industries in the capitalist pro- age // keywords: distribution cess of valorization, the cultural and This is to say that artists on the internet 191

use the means of production and distri- destroying the old relationship between bution prescribed by the internet to be wages, work and profit. compatible with protocols that are usu- ally employed to spread information. Mason, P. (2017). Postcapitalism: A guide to our future. New York: Farrar, Straus &; Giroux. // Groys, B. (2018) https://www.e-flux.com/jour- keywords: distribution nal/94/219462/curating-in-the-post-internet- age // keywords: distribution, prescriptive [...] it is simply a matter of time before a generation not weaned on paper and [...] the artistic use of the means of com- chemicals sees the manufactured bubble munication presupposes the suspen- of “art photography” for æwhat it is, and sion, or even annulment, of information, begins to explore the potential of an in- which in the context of art means a total clusive, affordable distribution network absorption of content by form. However, and its inherently interesting formal in the context of the internet, the form qualities for presentation and distribu- remains identical for all communica- tion. tion, thus immunizing content from this absorption. Klein, A. & Cotton, C. (2010). Words without pictures. New York: Aperture, pp. 58 // key- Groys, B. (2018) https://www.e-flux.com/jour- words: distribution nal/94/219462/curating-in-the-post-internet- age // keywords: narrativity, placeholder Hal Foster (2010) summarizes the tenor of agreement among the contributors by We all know the substantial role that the stating that ‘the category of “contempo- “linguistic turn” played in the emergence rary art” is not a new one. What is new is and development of conceptual art. the sense that, in its very heterogeneity, much present practice seems to float free Groys, B. (2018) https://www.e-flux.com/jour- of historical determination, conceptual nal/94/219462/curating-in-the-post-internet- definition, and critical judgment’. age // keywords: narrativity Malik, S. & Phillips, A. (2010). The Wrong of But the new orientation towards mean- Contemporary Art : Aesthetics and Political In- ing and communication did not make determinacy. // keywords: indeterminacy art somehow immaterial or make its ma- teriality less relevant, nor did its medium this ‘critical art’ range across modern- dissolve into message. ism, from John Heartfield to Martha Rosler, Kryzstof Wodizcko and Hans Groys, B. (2018) https://www.e-flux.com/jour- Haacke. Such work is premised upon the nal/94/219462/curating-in-the-post-internet- assumption that the viewer is incapable age // keywords: narrativity, immaterial of recognizing the relations between im- age circulation, power and capital (for There is a growing body of evidence that example) and seeks to lead her or him information technology, far from creat- to recognize (better yet) the horrors of ing a new and stable form of capitalism, the world (war, capital, misogyny, xeno- is dissolving it: corroding market mech- phobia, etc.). anisms, eroding property rights and 192

Malik, S. & Phillips, A. (2010). The Wrong of determinacy. // keywords: collaboration Contemporary Art : Aesthetics and Political Indeterminacy. // keywords: distribution For aesthetics-art, the disestablishment of the account of the logos or the more a ‘tension’ between, on the one hand, a general sensorium by the repartition of logic that maintains the separation of art the sensible is assured not only by the from other kinds of sensory experience ‘free play’ and ‘gap’ between poiesis and – all the more to have political effectivity aisthesis but also by the absence of any through its autonomy from the domina- narrative that binds these two aspects tion of life by capitalism and so on – and, of the work to one another in any inevi- on the other, a logic that pushes art to- table way. wards ‘life’ in which it becomes fully in- tegrated as an effective and direct form Malik, S. & Phillips, A. (2010). The Wrong of of activity Contemporary Art : Aesthetics and Political Indeterminacy. // keywords: narrativity Malik, S. & Phillips, A. (2010). The Wrong of Contemporary Art : Aesthetics and Political It is important to stress that in Rancière’s Indeterminacy. // keywords: distribution conceptualization of politics such an in- determinacy of political particularity is The doubling in Meckseper’s work with not a shortcoming of art. the spectator’s informed or ‘emanci- pated’ position distinguishes it from the Malik, S. & Phillips, A. (2010). The Wrong of previous generation of critical art artists: Contemporary Art : Aesthetics and Political In- it is the absence of a structuring narra- determinacy. // keywords: indeterminacy tive controlling the reception or delivery of these images in relation to the vitrine the ‘origin’ of politics is for Rancière not of objects that makes it exemplary of the principle of equality itself but its en- aesthetics-art. counter with the police order since ‘it has no place or objects of its own’ (1999: Malik, S. & Phillips, A. (2010). The Wrong of 29). It cannot, as a matter of logic: if it Contemporary Art : Aesthetics and Political did, it would have exactly the differentia- Indeterminacy. // keywords: narrativity tion and hierarchy, be the kind of orga- nizational principle, that it undoes. aesthetics-art observes the principle of equality that is for Rancière ‘solely’ what Malik, S. & Phillips, A. (2010). The Wrong of occasions politics in that it is equality Contemporary Art : Aesthetics and Political that is instantiated by ‘whatever breaks Indeterminacy. // keywords: narrativity the tangible configuration’ of a police order. That the principle of equality is [...] a common sense of contemporary the occasion of politics is understood in art as irreducibly complex, non-partic- more familiar terms when it is rendered ular and indeterminate, whose cogency as the bringing community and non- as an aesthetico- political undertaking community together, is given by Rancière’s logic of art, which can then be understood to give an exact, Malik, S. & Phillips, A. (2010). The Wrong of Contemporary Art : Aesthetics and Political In- 193

precise and lucid account of contempo- Lampert, M. (2016). Beyond the politics of rary art in its criterialess heterogeneity. reception: Jacques Rancière and the politics of art. Continental Philosophy Review, 50(2), 181- Malik, S. & Phillips, A. (2010). The Wrong of 200 // keywords: future Contemporary Art : Aesthetics and Political In- determinacy. // keywords: indeterminacy Aesthetics and politics therefore overlap in their concern for the distribution and has given to artists and their mini-dem- sharing out of ideas, abilities and expe- onstrations, their collections of objects riences to certain subjects – what Ran- and traces, their dispositifs of interac- cière calls le partage du sensible. In this tion, their in situ or other provocations, framework, it is not possible to conceive a substitutive political function. Know- of an aesthetic judgement that is not at ing whether these ‘substitutions’ can re- the same time a political judgement – shape political spaces or whether they a comment on the ‘distribution of the must be content with parodying them is places and of the capacities or incapaci- without doubt an important question of ties attached to those places’. our present. Bishop, C. (2012). Artificial hells: Participatory Malik, S. & Phillips, A. (2010). The Wrong of art and the politics of spectatorship. London: Contemporary Art : Aesthetics and Political Verso Books. // keywords: distribution Indeterminacy. // keywords: placeholder make themselves seen and heard in the artists and scholars always keep voicing of a claim; this claim defines a an eye on developing ‘transferable wrong and demands a share of the com- skills’ for a future in the ‘knowl- mon good in the name of the whole edge economy’. In other words, the community. By making themselves seen contemporary university seems in- and heard, the political subjects trans- creasingly to train subjects for life form a previously depoliticized space of under global capitalism, initiating “circulation” or “moving-along” into a students into a lifetime of debt, political space, “a space for the appear- while coercing staff into ever more ance of a subject: the people, the work- burdensome forms of administra- ers, the citizens tive accountability and disciplinary monitoring. Lampert, M. (2016). Beyond the politics of reception: Jacques Rancière and the politics of Bishop, C. (2012). Artificial hells: Participatory art. Continental Philosophy Review, 50(2), 181- art and the politics of spectatorship. London: 200 // keywords: distribution Verso Books. // keywords: future, debt Thus art sets up a utopian promise which [...] the completion of the report, which it is powerless to fulfill; the artwork must seems to be foiled at every ‘narrative’ remain an empty promise of a possible turn, has been left indefinitely delayed utopian future. As such, it can inspire— (‘However hard you try it’s always to- but, as we said above with respect to morrow’), while at other moments one “committed” art, this inspiration cannot has the sense that the text of Discussion be predicted nor instrumentalized. 194

Island might be that of the finished re- As he states: ‘[the] discursive framework port itself, whose content is nothing projects a problem just out of reach, and more than the narration of its own frus- this is why it can also confront a socio- trated (in)completion. economic system that bases its growth upon“projections”. Roberts, B. (2012). Burnout: Liam Gillick’s Post- Fordist Aesthetics. Art History, 36(1), 180-205 // Roberts, B. (2012). Burnout: Liam Gillick’s Post- keywords: narrativity, postponement, future Fordist Aesthetics. Art History, 36(1), 180-205 // keywords: narrativity, postponement Gillick reveals his inclination towards a Gilles Deleuze-inspired conception of There was a political bottom line to this the global neoliberal order as a space of work that incorporated a rather rarefied unrestricted and unpredictable material populism, the hope that by dematerialis- and immaterial flows (of information, ing the art object we could make it acces- bodies, time and space); an ‘intensive sible to a far broader audience. But, in so multiplicity’ that will continually thwart doing, we forgot that the audience has to our best rational attempts to track it. want it after it is made available. Roberts, B. (2012). Burnout: Liam Gillick’s Post- Lippard, L. R. (2007). Six years: The demateri- Fordist Aesthetics. Art History, 36(1), 180-205 // alization of the art object from 1966 to 1972 ... keywords: narrativity, immaterial Berkeley: Univ. of California Press // keywords: immaterial, distribution Maurizio Lazzarato argues that the la- bour of communication is today all but In 1977, Adorno wrote that “it is not the utterly subsumed within a capitalist log- office of art to spotlight alternatives, but ic of equivalence and exchange, directly to resist by its form alone the course of productive of surplus-value, and the the world which permanently puts a pis- more transparent it is the better it enacts tol to men’s heads” this logic. Gordon-Nesbitt, R. (2007). https://shiftypara- Roberts, B. (2012). Burnout: Liam Gillick’s Post- digms.wordpress.com/policy/false-economies- Fordist Aesthetics. Art History, 36(1), 180-205 // time-to-take-stock // keywords: distribution keywords: narrativity, indeterminacy, distribution (The related noun, ‘discourse’, emphasiz- As art cannot be dissociated from the es the regularity of a system or exchange conditions of its production and dis- of meaning, and lacks the adjective’s tribution, what happens when critique connotations of disorder and short-cir- intersects with institutions, which em- cuiting.) By way of the discursive mode, brace values that form the basis of that both Gillick’s writing and visual practice critique, must also be examined. aim to be as elusive and slippery as their ever-displaced and displacing object, the Gordon-Nesbitt, R. (2007). https://shiftypara- financialized flows of capital itself. digms.wordpress.com/policy/false-economies- time-to-take-stock // keywords: distribution Roberts, B. (2012). Burnout: Liam Gillick’s Post- Fordist Aesthetics. Art History, 36(1), 180-205 // In other words, ‘using the label ‘didactic’ keywords: narrativity, distribution, indeterminacy 195

conceals the fear that something might Financialization not only refers to the truly be learned from art, in the sense incredible power of the financial sector that it might be a useful source of infor- over economics and politics. It also re- mation’. fers to the creep of financial ideas, meta- phors, narratives and measurements Gordon-Nesbitt, R. (2007). https://shiftypara- throughout society and culture more digms.wordpress.com/policy/false-economies- broadly. time-to-take-stock // keywords: distribution Haiven, M. (2014). Cultures of financialization: The Euro-wide realisation that artists are Fictitious capital in popular culture and everyday being exploited life. Palgrave Macmillan // keywords: narrativity as flexible knowledge- or brain-workers has led to claims of ‘flexploitation’ and approaches to finance that see it as demands for ‘flexicurity’ and prompted purely an imaginary realm of specula- a consideration of (admittedly relatively tion do an injustice to the ways that fi- privileged) artists as precarious workers, nancialization both preys and relies on the everyday dimensions of debt, credit Gordon-Nesbitt, R. (2007). https://shiftypara- and abstract monetary flows, and the digms.wordpress.com/policy/false-economies- ways these are stitched into the world of time-to-take-stock // keywords: distribution meaning, representation, ideology and the imagination. With ‘professionalism’ increasingly re- placing criticality in art schools, the Haiven, M. (2014). Cultures of financialization: only viable option that confronts most Fictitious capital in popular culture and everyday emerging artists, in many cases before life. Palgrave Macmillan // keywords: narrativity, they have even graduated, is to tailor distribution their work to the art market. description of financial wealth as ‘ficti- Gordon-Nesbitt, R. (2007). https://shiftypara- tious capital,’ suggesting that finance is digms.wordpress.com/policy/false-economies- a social fiction whose reproduction and time-to-take-stock // keywords: narrativity power depends on and drives the pro- liferation of social fictions throughout the commissioning institution (the mu- financialized societies seum or gallery) turns to an artist as a person who has the legitimacy to point Haiven, M. (2014). Cultures of financialization: out the contradictions and irregularities Fictitious capital in popular culture and everyday of which they themselves disapprove... life. Palgrave Macmillan // keywords: narrativity, Subversion in the service of one’s own distribution convictions finds easy transition into subversion for hire; ‘criticism turns into the discourse of creativity over the past spectacle’ forty years (and especially the past fif- teen) cannot be separated from the Gordon-Nesbitt, R. (2007). https://shiftypara- rise of financialization and the power digms.wordpress.com/policy/false-economies- of speculative capital. Ideas of ‘creative time-to-take-stock // keywords: narrativity capitalism’, ‘creative destruction,’ the ‘creative class’, ‘creative cities,’ and the 196

economic potential of creativity are ger- keywords: narrativity mane to an era dominated by financial speculation and the globalization of fi- The calendar future is the projection, nancial markets. from the present, of the past order of events. It is the possibility of treating the Haiven, M. (2014). Cultures of financialization: present as a past moment among others Fictitious capital in popular culture and everyday from a fictional point created by cutting life. Palgrave Macmillan // keywords: distribution out a segment of time past, which has been transferred from the other side of [...] finance capital, while a massive and the present. The future is only the great- destructive force in economic, social, est non-determination possible; the political and cultural life, also possesses maximum of absence. the seeds of its own negation and its re- placement. He notes the importance of Huyghe, P. (2013) Press Kit Centre Pompidou // reclaiming concepts like ‘security’, ‘debt’, keywords: future, narrativity, immaterial ‘creativity’, ‘speculation’ and ‘play’ from financialization. ­[...] the core of capitalist production it- self — the movement toward resource Haiven, M. (2014). Cultures of financialization: elimination as the necessary correlation Fictitious capital in popular culture and everyday to the expansion of capital. life. Palgrave Macmillan // keywords: narrativity Aranda, J., Wood, B. K. & Vidokle, A. (2015). The historical forms of the novel and, to The Internet does not exist. Berlin: Sternberg some extent, the cinema, embody an an- Press // keywords: immaterial alogic mode of temporality, one in which the narrative progresses from beginning What the Soviet avant-garde of the twen- to end in a text whose closure is deter- tieth century called productivism — the mined and finite. The novelist is writing claim that art should enter production a story that must finish. The tale will not and the factory — could now be replaced continue; the protagonists will not sur- by circulationism. Circulationism is not vive. The reader and the author, too, will about the art of making an image, but of go their separate ways. postproducing, launching, and acceler- ating it. It is about the public relations Huyghe, P. (2013) Press Kit Centre Pompidou // of images across social networks, about keywords: narrativity advertisement and alienation [...] The fragmentation and dispersion of Aranda, J., Wood, B. K. & Vidokle, A. (2015). time zones results in an intensification The Internet does not exist. Berlin: Sternberg of the present, obscuring the polarities Press // keywords: distribution of being and time, self and other. This is the time of the storyteller rather than A diagram, as Deleuze and Guattari ren- the historian – of collective experience der the idea, is not a representational (shared imaginary) and of invented tra- sketch of a single arrangement but rather ditions (collaborative rituals) an “abstract machine” that is generative Huyghe, P. (2013) Press Kit Centre Pompidou // 197

of a real that is yet to come. a p­ sychoanalytic­ working-through­ (dur- charbeiten) ­in ­the­ future­ anterior,­“ in­ Aranda, J., Wood, B. K. & Vidokle, A. (2015). order t­ o­ formulate­ the r­ ules­ of­ what w­ ill The Internet does not exist. Berlin: Sternberg h­ ave ­been ­done”. Press // keywords: future Hui, Y., Birnbaum, D. & Broeckmann, A. (2015). What is astonishing in this is that the 30 years after Les immatériaux. Lüneburg: Me- depletion of petroleum is naturalized son Press // keywords: future, postponement as empirical fact — as if it had already happened — and in design can only be The­ saturation­ of­ data s­ imply ­means relevant by factoring in that process. ­the n­ eutralisation o­ f­ events. T­ he ­future­ This is the project’s pragmatic realism. A subordinates ­the ­present,­ because,­ coming decimated landscape — the end when­ the­ future­ is­ already­ determined­ point of a process so natural that it can (memorised),­ the ­present ­loses ­the be accounted for before it is even set in ­privilege­ of ­being­ a­ moment ­that c­ an not­ motion become a determinant factor in be ­grasped i­ n i­ tself.­ The­ tension­ of­ the the architectural production of the pres- ­event ­is­ simply­ broken­ in ­that­ the e­ vent­ ent. is­ always ­an­ occurrence ­between­ a ­“not ­yet” (­ pas encore)­ of t­ he f­ uture a­ nd­ an Aranda, J., Wood, B. K. & Vidokle, A. (2015). ­“already ­no ­more” ­(déjà plus) ­of ­the­ past.­ The Internet does not exist. Berlin: Sternberg Press // keywords: prescriptive Hui, Y., Birnbaum, D. & Broeckmann, A. (2015). 30 years after Les immatériaux. Lüneburg: Me- [...] in the world in which the proj- son Press // keywords: future, prescriptive ect has disappeared as a refer- ence point, other logics take effect Conventional n­ otions ­of­ originality,­ — logics of a vastly more liber- authenticity,­ objecthood,­ narrative,­ and­ ated form of entrepeneurship: style­ were­ supplanted­ by­ appropriation,­ The exploitation of bodies, perfor- duplication,­ distribution, j­ uxtaposition,­ mance, and “Liveness” replaces and ­randomness. the exploitation of labour that has previously produced objects. Ob- Hui, Y., Birnbaum, D. & Broeckmann, A. (2015). jects whose Conditions of produc- 30 years after Les immatériaux. Lüneburg: Me- tion could be negotiate. son Press // keywords: narrativity, distribution, indeterminacy Aranda, J., Wood, B. K. & Vidokle, A. (2015). The Internet does not exist. Berlin: Sternberg What ­the a­ ge­ of­ immaterials p­ romises, Press // keywords:immaterial ­then,­ is­ a c­ omplexification o­ f­ matter­ “in ­which e­ nergy ­comes t­ o b­ e [...] and a­nother ­looking­ beyond,­to­ a ­reflected,­ without h­ umans n­ ecessarily­ t­ echnoscientific­ future­ always­ almost- getting­ any­ benefit f­ rom t­ his”. And­ here, that­ is,t­ o­ a p­ ostmodernism ­always­ since­ immaterialisation,­ through i­ ts in ­need ­of ­experimentation ­and h­ ence­ g­ eneralised­ coding­ and­ redistribution infinitely d­ eferred. ­In­ his ­writings ­on­ o­ f­ material­ affect,­ also r­ econfigures­ our the­ postmodern,­ Lyotard­ would­ often­ ­relation ­to­ the­ cultural ­and­ the­ aesthetic, qualify­ this­ wavering­ as­ an“­ anamnesis“,­ ­it­ implies“­ a­ profound­ crisis­ of­ aesthetics­ 198

and­ therefore­ of­ the­ contemporary­ arts”. Bourriaud, N., & Butler, E. (2016). The exform. London: Verso // keywords: collaboration, pre- Hui, Y., Birnbaum, D. & Broeckmann, A. (2015). scriptive, narrativity 30 years after Les immatériaux. Lüneburg: Me- son Press // keywords: immaterial, distribution Althusser observes, language (le verbe) already constitutes an abstraction: ‘We The future is already here, it’s just not would have to be able to speak without very evenly distributed. words, that is, to show. This indicates the primacy of the gesture over the word, of Gibson, W. (2018). https://quoteinvestigator. the material trace over the sign. com/2012/01/24/future-has-arrived // keywords: future, distribution Bourriaud, N., & Butler, E. (2016). The exform. London: Verso // keywords: immaterial [...] 272 of Karagarga’s 21.399 users have downloaded one of the two available The work of art operates on both direc- versiosn of the film, which appear to tions of time: turning towards the future, have been dubbed from a VHS copy. [...] it generates its own causal chain; plung- Such unofficial forms of distribution are ing into the past, it modifies the form a central means by which experimental and content of History. film and video circulate today. Bourriaud, N., & Butler, E. (2016). The exform. Balsom, E. (2017). After uniqueness: A history London: Verso // keywords: future of film and video art in circulation. New York: Columbia University Press // keywords: distri- “ The undecidable character of the work bution of art renders all teleology null and void: assigning any historical finality at all to This logic of emergence – as opposed art means denying the idea of movement to the logic of an origin – points back and replacing it with a scenario scripted to the analytic cure: nothing precondi- in advance. Assigning an origin involves tions what emerges in the course of the a similar negation, for art’s historical narrative, and nothing else comes in to foundations “are in perpetual move- explain it. ment, too; Bourriaud, N., & Butler, E. (2016). The exform. Bourriaud, N., & Butler, E. (2016). The exform. London: Verso // keywords: narrativity London: Verso // keywords: indeterminacy, pre- scriptive, transition This is what ideology does: it assures social cohesion by assigning individuals They declare the political and economic predetermined places, telling the ‘story’ framework in which we are living to be (histoire) everyone is duty-bound to immutable and definitive: a scenario in believe. But ‘not to indulge in storytell- which the décor and props undergo per- ing’ means more than just changing the petual (and superficial) transformation course of the narrative: it means break- – but nothing else changes. ing the mould where the truth is fabri- cated 199

Bourriaud, N., & Butler, E. (2016). The exform. A frequent image: that of the ship Argo London: Verso // keywords: narrativity, transi- (luminous and white), each piece of tion which the Argonauts gradually replaced, so that they ended with an entirely new Jacques Rancière seems to draw an anal- ship, without having to alter either its ogous conclusion when he writes that name or its form.” ‘the relationship between art and politics [is] not a passage from fiction to reality, Barthes, R. (1994). Roland Barthes by Roland but a relationship between two ways of Barthes. University of California Press // key- making a fiction. words: placeholder Bourriaud, N., & Butler, E. (2016). The exform. Projection is at the heart of neoliberal London: Verso // keywords: narrativity structures. It forms the base of attempts to predict potential future benefits to be [...] its central problematic, is organizing gained through the process of render- multiplicity: relations outweigh objects, ing financial and economic relationships branches points, and passages presence; into abstract constructs. paths prove more significant than the stations along the way. And so, inas- Gillick, L. (2016). Industry and Intelligence. much as they are caught up in dynamic Columbia University Press // keywords: future, contexts, forms naturally tend to exude narrativity (secréter) narratives: concerning first their production, then their diffusion. The suggestion here, then, is that ASAP is more possitive and problematic than Bourriaud, N., & Butler, E. (2016). The exform. infinite projection. If you defer continu- London: Verso // keywords: narrativity, distribu- ally, nothing happens, nothing changes. tion Everything will be fine, but you will flounder within a state of permanent The problem can be summarized simply projection. The difference between pro- enough: Archive has grown extremely jection and displacement is political. relevant in our time. Databases have matured into new instruments of power. Gillick, L. (2016). Industry and Intelligence. Co- But the search engines that turn data lumbia University Press // keywords: postpone- into archive are endlessly transitioning ment (always in migration, unlike old-fash- ioned ‘archives’). They are risky; they of- ideologies of ‘the end of history’ and ten pose as liberation, but are often more ‘investment in the future’ emerge, re- like mob rule governed by wealth and spectively, out of the ‘new economy’ of risk capitalism. immaterial labour and the deferred tem- porality of financial speculation. Klein, N. (2011) https://www.pagesmagazine. net/en/articles/imaginary-futures-and-the-ar- Annie McClanahan (2013): Investing in the chive // keywords: distribution, narrativity Future, Journal of Cultural Economy, 6:1, pp. 78-93 // keywords: future, postponement, im- material 200