The Johannesburg Salon, Volume 5

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Edited by Achille Mbembe

The Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism is an experiment in global conversation based in the South. Located in Johannesburg, we seek to be a critical node in the re-territorializing of global intellectual production. We are a centre for theoretical work that takes seriously a position in the South while addressing international conversations and problématiques. We take the labour of theory and criticism to be significant political work that is crucial to the experimentation in social forms.

The Movement of Ideas/Screening of all 15 films by Oliver Ressler

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“The Movement of Ideas” is the first comprehensive screening of all films by Oliver Ressler. Since 2000, Ressler has created 15 films, which all will be presented at Cinema Dynamo, a cinema space initiated by Andrea Bellini, the new director of the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Switzerland.

The philosopher Alain Badiou writes: “We have to overturn the old verdict that would have us believe we are living in the age of the ‘end of ideologies’. We can now see quite clearly that the only reality behind their so-called ‘end’ is ‘Save the banks’. Nothing could be more important than rediscovering the passion for ideas, or than contrasting the world as it is with a general hypothesis, with the certainty that we can create a very different order of things. We will contrast the wicked spectacle of capitalism with the real of peoples, with the lives of peoples and the movement of ideas.” (The Communist Hypothesis, 2010)

A Refugee Protest Camp in Vienna and the European Union’s Processes of Racialization, Seclusion, and Discrimination

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by Marina Gržinić, e-flux journal: http://www.e-flux.com/

Since November 2012, refugees have been protesting in Austria.1 At the center of this protest lies the formation of the Refugee Protest Camp in Vienna, which started with a ten-hour march of approximately a hundred refugees and their supporters. The march, which took place on November 24, 2012, started at the refugee reception center in Traiskirchen and ended at the Vienna city center—a distance of around twenty kilometers. The march resulted in the erection of the Refugee Protest Camp, which included tents, a kitchen, and activities in Sigmund Freud Park, in front of the Votive Church in the center of Vienna. This camp was cleared by police on December 28, 2012. After negotiating with personnel from the Votive Church, the refugees entered the church itself. They decided to “camp” in the freezing cold church building (while at the same time being monitored and controlled by Caritas, a Catholic Church charity relief organization). As nothing was offered to them by that point—no answer from the authorities regarding their demands—a group of refugees went on a hunger strike.

15Mbcn.tv

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La subcomisión de audiovisuales de acampadaBCN creada a partir del 15 de mayo propone a asambleas de barrio y pueblos, y colectivos que apoyan el movimiento del 15M lo siguiente:

Ofrecemos apoyo, cobertura y difusión a todas las asambleas de Barcelona, Catalunya y Estado Español que nos sea posible. Para eso ponemos a disposición de todas aquellas asambleas y colectivos que siguen apoyando el 15M, toda la infraestructura creada por la comisión de la siguiente forma: estableciendo una comunicación directa con todas las asambleas. Cubriendo las acciones que nos sea posible y que desde las asambleas se requieran…

Videoart by Marina Gržinić & Aina Šmid

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Marina Gržinić&Aina Šmid are involved in video from 1982. They have collaborated in more than 40 video art projects, they made a short feature 16 mm film and numerous video and media installations; independently they directed several video documentaries and television productions. In 1997 they realized an interactive CD-ROM for ZKM, Karlsruhe. Grzinic and Smid in their almost 3 decades long collaborative engagement presented and exhibited their video works and video installations in more than 100 video festivals in the World and have received several major awards for their video productions.

La Uni al Carrer: ¿Que significa fer films decolonialment? Algunes notes per a la reflexió

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Descolonització generalment indica un procés de superació del colonialisme, associat a les lluites anticolonials en el marc d’estats colonitzats. Però un cop conclou el procés de colonització, no s’esgota en el colonialisme, sinó que inclou moltes altres experiències i articulacions que segueixen operant en el nostre present a través de la naturalització de jerarquies territorials, racials, culturals i epistèmiques, possibilitant la reproducció de relacions de dominació (explotació, subalternizació i obliteració de coneixements, experiències i formes de vida)(Rastrepo y Rojas). ⁠

Radio: Oddaja za kalibriranje sluha in posluha

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Britanski GaydarRadio, italijanski Radio DeeGay, nemški GayFM, nizozemski Out Radio, francoski NRJ Gay, ameriški Gay Internet Radio Live, kanadski Proud FM, avstralski Joy 94.9 … so samo kaplja iz morja neskončne radijske, pretežno spletne ponudbe za lgbt-skupnost. Kaj pa pri nas? Stara kronika, izdana ob 20-letnici 2. programa javnega radijskega servisa poroča, da je bila […]

Tongue Untied, Tongue with Tongue; Mining the Binary Matrix

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Nowadays we are caught in a new stage of capitalism called postpolitical, – here, as Lopez Petit writes, politics has taken on its most archaic forms; that is, exclusion (social death), blackmailing and robbery (the economic crisis and anti-crisis measures) and war,- or pharmacopornographic, as named by Preciado, referring to the processes of the biomolecular (pharmaco) and semio-technical (porno) control of subjectivity. Accumulation through dispossession, the decomposition of society, the devalorisation (not yet complete) of state institutions, the explosion of inequality, precariousness … is simultaneously accompanied by the articulation of new forms of control of subjectivity using technical, biomolecular and media platforms in the “former” first capitalist world and consequently through new forms of colonization in all other worlds. The techno-social-economical megasystem is at work that incessantly aims at the infinite accumulation of capital and control of subjectivity. It neutralizes and absorbs any subversive potential of political action and finally depoliticizes any political intervention. Precisely this biopolitical economical turning point and the identification of capitalism with reality signifies that life itself has become the field of political struggle.

Jezik za zobmi, jezik z jezikom; miniranje binarne matrice!

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Danes smo ujeti v novo fazo kapitalizma, ki ji pravimo postpolitična; v njej je politika, kot piše Lopez Petit, dobila najbolj arhaične oblike; izključevanje (družbena smrt), izsiljevanje in ropanje (ekonomska kriza in protikrizni ukrepi) ter vojna; – ali farmakopornografska, kot jo poimenuje Preciado, referirajoč se na procese biomolekularne (farmako) in semio-tehnične (porno) nadvlade subjektivitete. Akumulacijo prek razlastitve, de-kompozicijo družbe, de-valorizacijo (ne še popolno) državnih institucij, eksplozijo neenakosti, prekernosti … hkrati spremlja artikulacija novih oblik nadzora subjektivitete s pomočjo tehničnih, biomolekularnih in medijskih platform v “nekdanjem” prvem kapitalističnem svetu in posledično, prek novih oblik kolonizacije, v vseh ostalih svetovih. Na delu je tehno-družbeni-ekonomski megasistem, ki neustavljivo teži k neskončni akumulaciji kapitala, kontroli subjektivitete, nevtralizira in absorbira kakršenkoli subverziven potencial politične akcije in v končni depolitizira vsako politično intervencijo. Prav ta biopolitični ekonomski obrat ter identifikacija kapitalizma z realnostjo pomeni, da je samo življenje postalo polje političnega boja.

“Ómnibus” neoliberal: Procomunes contra Industrias Culturales

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Entrevista con Jorge Luis Marzo

En el redactado del “Anteproyecto de Ley de Simplificación, de Agilidad y Reestructuración Administrativa y de Promoción de la Actividad Económica” propuesto por Convergència i Unió al parlamento, conocido como las “Leyes Ómnibus”, se declaran una serie de cosas: la remodelación del Consell Nacional de les Arts, que pasaría a depender directamente de los puntuales criterios de la Conselleria; la anulación de la autonomía de los centros culturales adscritos a la Generalitat; la desposesión de ciertos derechos de algunas entidades de gestión cultural y de actividades. La aplicación de todo esto creará un enorme daño a la independencia de las programaciones, a la salvaguarda de las manipulaciones políticas y administrativas y a la salubridad del tejido cultural. Pero lo más preocupante, si es que ya no lo es lo anteriormente dicho es este párrafo: “Se entiende por empresas culturales las personas físicas o jurídicas dedicadas a la producción, la distribución o la comercialización de productos culturales incorporados a cualquier tipo de soporte, y también las dedicadas a la producción, la distribución o la comercialización de espectáculos en vivo. Se incluyen dentro de este concepto las personas físicas que ejercen una actividad económica de creación artística o cultural”.