The Bureau of Melodramatic Research

Institutional Affects in a Romanian Docu-noir

2011-10-31T04:53:00.000-07:00

Institutional Affects in a Romanian Docu-Noir

From a postcommunist vantage point, the Romanian recent past seems cast in deep shadows and strong contrasts, whereby the gloomy darkness always falls on the same political grounds. The communist past is often described as black (The Black Book of Communism) and heavy (“the lead cap of communism”) and successfully counterbalanced by a luminous, bright “post”, perpetually projected onto some near or distant future. The spacetime of “post” has no official definition other than in contrast with “communism”. All these film lighting tricks and special effects are practically part of an unwritten manual full of guiding rules for staging the 20th century in Romania.

Local experts act de facto as state sponsored special agents. They examine archives, collect proofs, cut&paste biographies, issue reports in order to single out the original perpetrators and their crimes. The emotional surplus value of archives plays a key role in this process. However, the very existence of these archives was made possible by the bureaucratic ambition of the former Securitate which basically commissioned this huge (auto)biographical “literature” of mutual surveillance. Hard facts are impossible to detach from nightmarish fiction.

The casting session is open for artists, designers, sound engineers, filmmakers and writers dealing with recent history. They are invited to play a part in this film, convinced it will be a national blockbuster.

Book covers, posters, sound installations, exhibition displays, monuments are all props for this multimedia fiction. The Romanian New Wave is influenced by the same cinematic rules of docu-fiction. The depictions of the communist experience rely on powerful negative affects: drama, trauma, self-victimization, under the pretense of objectivity and realism.

Friday, 4 November at 7 pm

DAZ, Trg bana J.Jelačića 1/3

Zagreb

in the frame of M I K R O P O L I T I K E

Focus of the lecture series Mikropolitics in 2011 lies on exploring spaces in which contemporary art is generated, produced and respresented, especially on niches, those inbetween-spaces between galleries, museums and so-called off-spaces. We perceive their inbetween-status as a chance for a wide-ranging approach, where an exhibition becomes a kind of dispositif, context-based and –oriented cultural praxis which communicates through specific social-political questions.

For previous lectures see www.mikropolitike.org

(new project website under construction)

organizer: [BLOK]

Biankinijeva 3/1

Zagreb

www.blok.hr

call for RID

2011-10-31T04:40:00.000-07:00

CALL FOR RID

atelier de pancarte pentru demonstratiile batranilor/elor in cadrul proiectului RID

cu Sara Lehn (DE) & Stefan Tiron (RO)

Invitati speciali: Akira&Nae (Sefeu)

impreuna cu persoane varstince din cartierul Rahova

& participanti la proiectul Varsta a Patra de la Caminul Moses Rosen

Atelierul va avea loc in perioada 18-20 noiembrie 2011 intre 11:00 - 17:00.

@subRahova

Strada Sergent Nutu Ion, nr. 2

Inscrierile pana la data de 14 noiembrie. Va rugam sa ne trimiteti un email cu o explicatie scurta a interesului pentru subiect pe adresa de contact.

mai multe detalii: http://riduri.blogspot.com/

EN statement: http://riduri.blogspot.com/2011/10/statement.html

Evacuation Plan

2011-09-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

Original evacuation plan proposed by BMR for the installation

CCA Creativity Counselling for Artists

2011-09-18T11:42:00.000-07:00

CREATIVITY COUNSELLING II

CCA CREATIVITY COUNSELLING FOR ARTISTS

@ CCA Ujazdowski Castle

in collaboration with Anna Ptak

Saturday / 30th of July // 13 PM + 15 PM

Sunday / 31st of July // 12 PM + 15 PM

part of PUBLIC A-I-R, reflective picnic / micro-festival, 29-31 July 2011

http://csw.art.pl/index.php?action=aktualnosci&s2=1&id=426&lang=eng

The deadline race, the competition for residences, biennials and funding are constantly inflating the creativity-bubble which has been the pride of the years 2000. Artists, curators and other cultural workers are all lending a helping hand. For whom should we use our creative potential and who profits from the generated surplus-value?

Any curiosity regarding the origins of the much-touted creativity leads us straight to the right-brain activity, mainly responsible for emotions – the very object of the Bureau’s research. How do we place ourselves on the neurobiological map of contemporary politics? And how to use emotions correctly and efficiently to respond to the generalized creative imperative?

The Bureau of Melodramatic Research will provide creativity counseling services for all those interested. The sessions are open to all the artists and other actors on the local cultural scene who feel that the role attributed to them by the contemporary society, those of seismographs, needs further training. Give up your glittering portfolios, the namedropping mantras and institutional talismans and join the treatment sessions in CCA.

Cercul de lectura si copiere - statement

2011-08-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

READING AND COPYING CLUB

@MAKING OF_NO. 1@Center for Visual Introspection

16 February - 5 March 2011

with BMR& Stefan Tiron

In January 2011 the Center for Visual Introspection launched an invitation to three groups of artists to consider their practice retrospectively and use the gallery space for three weeks to disclose their way of working. The Bureau of Melodramatic Research proposed reading and copying as main strategies in its activity, and used the opening night as a confession opportunity for its members to reveal their hidden stories of copying, stealing, pirating, scanning, cheating. A painting and drawing exhibition was put up on the walls, accounting for the immense amount of copying performed during the 4 years of art study - the so called study of nature and of the great (obviously male) masters, under the guidance of another (male) master. In this setting the Confession took place: the founding members merely read the statement conceived by a third (absent, and again male) one, and invited the audience to make presumptions regarding the authorship of the surrounding works.

The Confession

2011-08-13T13:30:00.000-07:00

The Confession *available in Romanian-entirely created by Stefan Tiron and delivered word for word by BMR at the opening on 16 feb-

EXPLICATII

sau cum se salveaza CIVul

Simtim nevoia naturala sa dam explicatii. De ce dam explicatii? In engleza exista o vorba de duh – “'to explain away' something”. E ca si cum prin explicatii suplimentare ai putea imblanzi situatia de fapt, ai putea sa o trimiti la plimbare intr-o camera separata din cutia craniana. Reflexul este sa te explici si sa iti explici ceva ca sa poti sa te linistesti. Da inca sunt in aer, inca nu m-am lovit de asfalt jos. Asa poti sa ii linistesti si pe ceilalti in prealabil si sa ii trimiti la culcare odata ce le-ai administrat explicatiile cerute. Daca ai dat explicatii ai incheiat capitolul, ai incheiat tricoul situationist si i-ai trimis pe toti la plimbare plini doldora de raspunsuri si chei de citire atarnate la gat ca sa se poata juca mai departe in fata masinilor parcate in fata institutiei unde lucreaza, sa revina proaspeti la munca lor, la familiile lor hetero ca sa termine odata cataloagele in lucru, sau de ce nu - sa finiseze urmatorul mare proiect.

O sa dam exemple istorice clare si directe care ne afecteaza pe noi toti.

Ce a ajuns 'making of' astazi in Bucuresti 2011? Pai pur si simplu s-ar putea in 2011 sa intelegem care e problema cu facutul – cine ne-a facut-o, ce ne-am fi facut daca nu am fi avut capitalism, si ce le-am fi facut noi lor daca nu ne-o faceau ei noua. Ce s-ar fi intamplat cu Berlinul daca nu ar fi fost planul Marshall. Planul Marshall a fost pus in aplicare pentru a mentine Berlinul liber, pentru a-l proteja de invazia rosie. Trebuiau sa ajunga ajutoare numai din Vest, inainte ca sa ajunga alte ajutoare din est. Intotdeuna a fost o chestiune de cine ajunge primul cu primul ajutor, cu medicamente si vaccinuri. Ajutoarele, podurile aeriene si efortul american au mentinut Berlinul de Vest ca pe o insula despresurata de bolsevici. Fara indoiala planul Marshall joaca un rol important in 'making of'-ul Berlinului, la fel cum ce vedeti aici joaca un rol important in making of-ul Bucurestiului si al nostru. Dupa 1989, au existat multe ajutoare pentru care suntem recunoscatori Vestului. Vestul a avut ce da si a avut si de ce da. Marinimos cum este occidentul ne-a dat salarii la negru pe plantatii bine irigate si stropite cu insecticid post-DDT care nu e cancerigen ca pe vremea cooperativelor de stat, dar ne da acum, tot din suflet, si crize financiare covarsitoare. Pentru copii s-au trimis ajutoare, pentru economii privatizari, pentru popor libertate si multe ecrane din ce in ce mai plasmatice.

Pentru artisti, galeristi si critici de arta Vestul a trimis la pachet si notiunea draga a 'cubului alb', vestul a trimis invitatiile de participare la MOMA, la Bienale, in reviste precum Parkett sau Flash Art, pe liste de arta precum e-flux (contra cost binenteles). Altfel eram in epoca de piatra nu? Poate ne intalneam si acum pe holurile de la ITA, sau la maiestrie sau la concerte de ghitara-folk.

Making-of-ul asta ne-a facut sa fim ceea ce suntem. Dar sa vedem care este making-up, sau make-up-ul. Care este compozitia noastra elementara, care este fardul care ni-l punem pe fata cand vin strainii la noi in vizita. Cum o sa ii convingem sa ne dea credit, sa le aratam ca am invatat bine de tot lectiile predate la colegiul Noua Europa, ca am folosit din plin ajutoarele teoretice trimise, ca am folosit bine fondurile trimise, ca indeplinim standardele cu nesat. Pe de alta parte exista si salvarea din interior. Exista initiative meritorii de salvare a CNDB-ului, a existat si initiativa de salvarea a ICR-ului dupa Poney, a existat si salvati Vama Veche, sau poate vreti sa salvati sectorul independent. Pe cine sa salvezi mai intai daca se scufunda corabia. Sa salvezi CNDB-ul de Caramitru? Sau poate vrei sa ii salvezi pe dansatori, sa scape ei de cladirea aia si de blestemul institutionalizarii. Poate vrei sa salvezi cladirea pentru altii ca ei. Fronturile Salvarii Nationale.

Care este totusi rostul salvgardarii decat sa mai protejezi un 'makin of', sa mai protejezi un obiectiv strategic, sa mai faci rost de o chirie pentru luna viitoare. Din making-of-ul intim face parte si chiria, ba chiar joaca un rol important se pare. In acest 'making of' joaca un rol foarte important bugetul daca nu v-ati prins inca. Dar curios lucru cum obligatiile financiare, substratul gros politico-economic nu prea are loc in 'making of', in genere nevoile sunt lasate acasa, sau la servici, la contabilitate, sau parcate undeva vizavi. Porumbelul alb zboara fara frictiune, fara forta gravitatiei si nici macar nu se vede sub pene tromba de aer cald care il tine si il poarta departe.

'Making of' astazi inseamna sa poti sa fi in doua locuri in acelasi timp, sau sa trebuiasca sa ii inlocuiesti pe altii. Daca unul e la servici, numai asa celalalt poate sa faca arta. Poate poti sa faci arta la servici, sau sa faci serviciul cu o mare arta. Stim ca exista conditionari puternice dar cum sa nu le ascundem, impingem afara din spatiu, cum sa nu ne pierdem introspectiv speranta. Dar oare inhabitateaza toti acestia acelasi spatiu-timp comun? Poate astazi esti mai obligat decat oricand sa faci o diviziune a muncii si a spatiilor cat mai taioasa si vizibila. Dependentul care face arta pe gratis isi pierde sigur salariul. Dar haideti sa fim intelegatori.

Poate orice discurs critic are nevoie de ceva adecvat, are nevoie de pereti albiti, are nevoie de fonturi negre de un anume tip, are nevoie de Berlin, are nevoie de un camin propriu, familiar si primitor. Astea is conditiile vitrege ale anului 2011.

Caminul discursului critic s-ar putea sa aiba totusi caracteristici fizice si palpabile, sa nu fie doar o promisiune a spatiului-fantoma. Cum stim aproape toate spatiile criticii au totusi dimensiuni, arata intr-un fel anume. E ca si cum gandirea nu poate avea loc altfel, laboratorul trebuie sa fie clinic, chituit si usor de curatit. Dar iata ca odata ce te-ai autoconditionat sa ai un astfel de camin – trebuie totusi sa citesti pe furis si inafara lui, sa discuti altundeva anumite lucruri, sa iesi afara de acolo, sa fi dat afara, sa il parasesti. E greu sa mentii reduta chiar daca te simti din ce in ce mai bine in reduta ta, incalzit langa resoul tau, rontaind fursecurile tale de deschidere. Adevarul este ca poti sa iti faci nevoile la hotelul de alaturi daca nu ai voie la toaleta de langa. Iar odata iesit afara, simti cum iti intra frigul in oase, cum iti patrunde praful prin toti porii, cum te blochezi in trafic si brusc iti aduci aminte fortat cum stau lucrurile. Am incercat sa producem fortarea asta care nu e deloc o sfortare pentru ca e o buna bucata din viata. Cum poate sa arate astazi 'makin-of'-ul unei camere de tortura actuale bucurestene care se doreste prietenoasa cu gandirea critica. Haideti sa vedem cum poate camera de tortura a unora sa devina camera placerii altora. Haideti mai bine sa vedem cum e mai bine sa pregatim terenul confruntarii critice astazi ca teren non-escapist, ca teren non-elitist si non-exclusivist si care ar fi non-optiunile. Mai sunt cateva zile in care se pot intampla multe. Si noi suntem foarte curiosi cum vom putea citi si copia impreuna aici tinand cont de conditiile actuale. Intre timp puteti sa va petreceti timpul atribuind autori lucrarilor de pe pereti, si ghicind care e care.

Addendum

BMR de la fondare a fortat si a produs pe banda rulanta INSTITUTIA MAMA – institutia si biroul suprem in care se puteau muta si gasi refugiul toate birourile si birouasele intr-o matrice emotionala unica si atot-cuprinzatoare. A carat si colportat din toate partile acumularile birocratiei emotionale din tot felul de institutii culturale straine si romanesti. De la inceput a unificat practic toate spatiile Bucurestene, incepand cu Sutu, Institutul Pentru Investigarea Crimelor Comunismului si MNAC pe un singur teren de lupta comun care este lupta pentru inimile oamenilor.

E ca si cum BMR a incercat sa anticipeze momentul in care toate aceste institutii manate de competitie vor produce corp comun, fortate de situatie, de vitregie si vor trebuie sa con-lucreze pentru indeplinirea acelelorasi sarcini si politici culturale marete. E ca si cum stim de fapt ca nucleele urbane vor fuziona; cum vom avea aici in sudul tarii un fel de BucPlo, Sau PloBuc. Bucurestiul si Ploiestiul vor deveni o singura metropola uriasa in viitorul nu foarte indepartat, la fel cum exista astazi megalopolisul BosWash sau Mumbai. BMR stie ce o sa vina si ne-o pregateste deja.

http://thebureauofmelodramaticresearch.blogspot.com/2010/03/furniture.html

In 2010 am produs un mic filmulet impreuna cu Claudiu Cobilanschi, incercand sa vedem ce s-a intamplat cu anumite spatii din Bucuresti si ce ne mai amintim noi despre ele. http://www.archive.org/details/FrrReport2010Bucharest-OurCollectionOfEvacuatedSpacesmanyMoreTo

Ati observat ca multe instituii culturale din Bucuresti au inceput sa aiba stickere de la diferite firme de bodyguarzi. Special pentru 'Making of' si CIV sau alte institutii care nu vor sa recunoasca dar au nevoie de protectie, CC m-a rugat sa il ajut sa copieze desenele lui Perjo de la CNDB. Am fost foarte bucuros stiind ca e vorba de o initiativa umila, imediata si la indemana oricui. Toti stim ca nu mai are mult CNDB-ul si nici desenele si am incercat cum am putut mai bine sa le salvam copiindu-le pe calc ca sa le putem aduce din nou aici sa ne pazeasca. Vrem sa multumim cu aceasta ocazie si lui Maria, fata lui Ion Grigorescu ca ne-a ajutat cu filmarea si copiatul.

http://zacamant.blogspot.com/2011/02/saving-institutions-by-copying-perjos.html

Reading and Copying

2011-08-13T13:15:00.000-07:00

READING AND COPYING CLUB

Mission Statement

In the precarious atmosphere of 2011, we are witnessing the almost complete extinction of public libraries, the disappearance of "the labor with the book"and the decrease in book stock diversity in foreign cultural centers in Bucharest, hand in hand with the spread of bookstore chains so rich in finery. In Romania bookshelves are now crowded with marketing textbooks, spiritual self-help guides and motivational literature.

But let’s not forget how important stealthy reading still is for the research process – reading over somebody’s shoulder on a bus or reading a newspaper somebody left on a seat in the subway. Reading while lying on a bench, under your desk at the workplace, while waiting in line at the unemployment office or in residence. One neglected but important source of radicalization of labor is the reading group, be it a small or large one. We’re interested in:
1) Ways in which one can reach seminal readings;
2) Who determines this hierarchy of references and based on what criteria;
3) What are the readings that have been buried alive, but secretly and unsuspectedly influence us.

Cheating in exams has always saved us. Copying and samizdat photocopying is being passed on to scanlaters who scan and actively digitalize books and specialized literature that should be in every home. We want to acknowledge on this occasion the reproductive and multiplicative function of copying in the dissemination of knowledge. We would also like to celebrate on this occasion the role played by friends who let us copying and actively send us compulsory readings, movies, articles, theoretical and critical texts or links without which we don’t know what to do.

first week schedule

2011-08-13T13:13:00.001-07:00

First Week Schedule

Wednesday 16th of February
BMR 19.00 LAUNCH of the Reading and Copying Club at the Center for Visual Introspection
ST at his new job at the Center for Individual Study, Goethe-Institut Bukarest
He can have visits between 17.00 and 21.00
(8-10 Tudor Arghezi Street)

Friday 18th of February
BMR&Florin Flueras 19.00 OBITUARY OF THE AUTHOR AND OTHER OBITUARIES at the Center for Visual Introspection
ST at his new job at the Center for Individual Study, Goethe-Institut Bukarest
He can have visits between 17.00 and 21.00
(8-10 Tudor Arghezi Street)

Saturday 19th of February
BMR&ST 17.00 COPYING AND LIFTING at the Center for Visual Introspection

Necrologul autorului si alte necroloage

2011-08-13T13:10:00.000-07:00

THE OBITUARY OF THE AUTHOR AND OTHER OBITUARIES

with BMR&Florin Flueras Friday, the 18th of February 2011

Special teleguest: Sebastian Big

60's - THE DEATH OF THE ART
now - THE ART OF THE UNDEAD

1967 - THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR
2011 - THE AUTHORSHIP ON THE DEATH

or

1967 - THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR
2011 - THE AUTHORSHIP ON DEATH
The necrology of the Artist and his contribution to Necropolitics

BMR has been collecting obituaries from the daily newspaper Romania Libera since its opening in 2009. Their emotional language has been followed and archived and speaks for the Romanian media discourse full of sentimental outbursts. Private (auto)biographies supersede analysis in the construction of images of public political figures and artists alike.

This discussion was initiated because of the BMR's internal and external collaborations on which doubts were constantly cast. We were interested in re-questioning the authority of authors, the deaths of the author and other deaths for which various authors are responsible. Florin and the Bureau's interests overlapped in some
recent readings which brought us together in Cercul de lectura si copiere:

Lars Bang Larsen - Zombies of Immaterial Labour: The Modern Monster and the Death of Death
Achille Mbembe - Necropolitics

Perjo's visit contributed largely to the heated debate which lasted until the last bus. We tackled issues such as copyright vs property, the financing of critical art in Bucharest today, the death of art spaces, finally reaching melodramatic debates over moral conduct in art, short carriers of artists turned into political activists and the over-used question what is to be done.

At the end we watered the flowers on our graves. You should do the same: M.A.C.R.A.

Memorialul Artei Contemporane Româneşti de Azi

Există în arta contemporană românească un stil dominant. Oile sînt numărate zilnic în diferite feluri. Apar tot soiul de cataloage, culegeri, colecţii, expoziţii comune comemorative ale prezentului etc. Artiştii par a fi grupaţi şi regrupaţi în timp real. În locul producţiei e aleasă diseminarea, care nu e una a operei ci a persoanei. După cum ştim, un artist se vinde cel mai bine după moartea fizică. Dorim să contribuim la eficientizarea acestui flux, aşa că îi vom reuni pe artiştii români contemporani în şi dincolo de mormînt, într-un cimitir virtual, care la o dată ulterioară va lua şi o formă fizică.

Şi pentru înlesni feedbackul şi dincolo de mormînt, am aşternut la baza crucilor lor cîte un buchet de flori cu două poziţii, modificabile prin click: ON [plin de culoare, viu, frumos, cu iubire] şi OFF [gri,veştejit, furat, pişat]. Ceea ce clickaţi, alţii pot dezclicka şi viceversa.

Locurile de veci sînt gratuite: mgacra2010@gmail.com
.
Micii Gropari ai Artei Contemporane Româneşti de Azi

Copiere si ciordeala

2011-08-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

COPYING AND LIFTING

Stefan Tiron&Kostea Vica&Caudiu Cobilanschi&Simion Cernica&BMR&other important guests

Saturday, the 19th of February 2011

ST&BMR confessed their recent book burglary and brought the prey to be further copied. On this occasion we will steal a press release from ParadisGaraj http://aerobix.blogspot.com/2010/04/0347.html

At the end we watched 2 films: one about Somali Pirates and the other about the Danish Cartoons both gifts from the web pirates.

As we didn't get to play the podcasts we were intending to, here is a link to Cory Doctorow's Content on archive. org (he is a SF writer and open source activist, a reformist from the inside, releasing his work for free on the internet and lecturing Microsoft to do the same) We could also consider him as one of the guests. http://www.archive.org/details/CoryDoctorow-Content_268

second week schedule

2011-08-13T00:30:00.000-07:00

Second Week Schedule

+ Miercuri 23 februarie ora 19.00 ARHIVE SI CAPITAL EMOTIONAL
Dezbatere cu: Raluca Grosescu, Clara Mares, Norbert Petrovici, Florin Poenaru + BCM
*ST inlocuieste BCM la job la Centrul de Studiu Individual 17.00 - 21.00, Str. Tudor Arghezi nr. 8-10

Descoperirea arhivei Stanescu/Ghirtoiu de catre Birou a avut loc intr-o perioada in care interesul public pentru dezgroparea arhivelor a crescut, o data cu institutiile publice care se ocupa de asta. Vom analiza limbajul si metodologia acestor rememorari, reevaluari, recitiri ale trecutului investit cu emotii puternice si strivitoare.

+ Vineri 25 februarie ora 19.00 HARTA PUTERII SI A PRESIUNILOR PE SUBIECTIVITATE
Lecture: Florin Flueras
*ST inlocuieste BCM la job la Centrul de Studiu Individual 17.00 - 21.00, Str. Tudor Arghezi nr. 8-10

Vom incerca sa conturam o harta a Puterii si a modului in care aceasta formeaza/afecteaza subiectivitatea. De la institutiile suprademocratice gen FMI pana la cele mai amarate si aparent inofensive, gen cele artistice. De la munca imateriala si capitalism cognitiv in lumea intai pana la managementul eficient al mortii in lumea a treia.

+ Sambata 26 februarie ora 17.00 ARTLEAKS
Dezbatere cu: Ion Dumitrescu, Florin Flueras, Irina Gheorghe, Cosima Opartan, Manuel Pelmus, Alina Popa, Stefan Tiron

Cum ajungem la textele scrise de rockstarurile filozofiei de astazi. Discutii in jurul textelor de Badiou, Bifo, Ranciere, Martha Rosler, Hito Steyerl trimise pe mail. Cum ne ciocnim de ele astazi si cat de rar sau des dam nas in nas cu textele lor. Ce relevanta au aceste texte pentru practica artistica din Romania.

Arhive si capital emotional

2011-08-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

ARCHIVES AND EMOTIONAL CAPITAL
with Raluca Grosescu, Clara Mares, Norbert Petrovici, Florin Poenaru + BCM

*ST replaced BMR at the job at the Center for Individual Study

The debate was around the emotions regarding discovering, reading, interpreting archives. There were four points of view presented: Clara Mares - a researcher working on the Securitate files (CNSAS), Florin Poenaru - the anthropologist's approach in studying the communist past and the reinterpreting of this past today, Norbert Petrovici - from his perspective as a sociologist working around issues such as urbanism and BMR's concern with fictionalized archives (such as Stanescu/Ghirtoiu). We were interested in the artists's involvement with wrapping, designing and animating the archives, creating interfaces for the delivery of these archives into the public space. The ideological and political role of artists in this process needs careful attention and analysis. On the other hand, it was clear throughout the discussion that the same ideological role is to be assigned to the experts researching the institutionalized archives (mainly the Romanian Securitate archives).

We further discussed about their involvement with fictionalizing archives and the problems around interpreting files written by people about people, with loads of autobiographical and personal content to be processed under the name of objective historical data. Another interesting aspect was the discussion about the ordering, classifying and hierachization of the archives which was made possible only by the bureaucratic apparatus of the state. There was also the question of truth in archives and statistics. Florin's interest was in the anthopological role of studying the archives and ethnography as a knowledge tool about the modern state (an analogy with the Securitate employees and the amount of collected data they left behind).

Harta puterii si a presiunilor pe subiectivitate

2011-08-12T20:00:00.000-07:00

THE MAP OF POWER AND THE PRESSURES ON SUBJECTIVITY

Lecture: Florin Flueras

*ST replaced BMR at the job at the Center for Individual Study

Florin drew a map of power on a white cardboard, starting from the upper suprademocratic structures (not elected by deomcratic vote) such as IMF, World Bank, ending with the apparent innocent and allegedly autonomous institutions such as art. He went along the vertical and horizontal axes of this map to explain how power structures determine and affect our subjectivity. From immaterial labour and cognitive capitalism in the First World to the efficient management of death in the Third World.
http://florinflueras.blogspot.com/
http://postspectacle.blogspot.com/

Artleaks

2011-08-12T18:00:00.000-07:00

ARTLEAKS
must-read with
Ion Dumitrescu, Florin Flueras, Irina Gheorghe, Cosima Opartan, Manuel Pelmus, Alina Popa, Stefan Tiron

We disclosed the private exchange of emails between Postspectacle, BMR and ST and discussed around issues such as the criteria by which we choose our references, the monopoly of some authors, the filters which one has to pass to feel comfortable in the art world, the channels by which these texts reach us (one example are the supplements of advertising such as e-flux journal), the decoloniality of knowledge, the jargon which restricts access to some groups/debates etc.

The Center for Visual Introspection was too cold, so we moved to CNDB - for the last time, because rumours say that it closed that weekend.

ST was the one who originally challenged the authority of these authors and who had access to the following texts only by spoken word:

Art of the possible: Fulvia Carnevale and John Kelsey in conversation with Jacques Ranciere
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_7_45/ai_n24354911/?tag=content;col1
If there is a circulation that should be stopped at this point, it's this circulation of stereotypes that critique stereotypes, giant stuffed animals that denounce our infantilization, media images that denounce the media, spectacular installations that denounce the spectacle, etc. There is a whole series of forms of critical or activist art that are caught up in this police logic of the equivalence of the power of the market and the power of its denunciation.

Badiou A. - Does the Notion of Activist Art Still Have Meaning? 

http://interactivist.autonomedia.org/node/13795

Sudeep Dasgupta - Art is going elsewhere. And politics has to catch it. An interview with Jacques Ranciere

http://www.krisis.eu/content/2008-1/2008-1-09-dasgupta.pdf
There is this famous text of Kant, Critique of Judgment, saying that aesthetic judgment asks us only to be sensible of form. When standing in front of a palace, it does not matter that it was built out of the sweat of the poor people; we have to ignore that, says Kant. I think Kant was right. At the same time I came upon a text written by a joiner, a floor-layer,3 and he explains precisely what he sees as he is laying a floor in a rich house. He decides to acquire an aesthetic perception of the room, of the garden, of the whole perspective. So he decides to do as if he had a disinterested gaze, and could get an aesthetic judgment, notwithstanding the fact that he is poorly paid, that he works for a boss, and that he works for the rich.
For me this was important. It reminded me of my view of aesthetics – aesthetics not being a sociology of art but as being a form of experience.  That is, an experience of disconnection. This has been conceptionalized by Kant and Schiller in terms of disconnection: there is something that es-capes the normal conditions of sensory experience. That is what was at stake in emancipation: getting out of the ordinary ways of sensory expe-rience. This thought has been important for my idea of politics, not being about the relations of power but being about the framing of the sensory world itself.

Conceptual Framework of Direnal-Istanbul Resistance Days: What Keeps Us Not-Alive?
http://resistanbul.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/conceptual-framework-of-direnal-istanbul-resistance-days-what-keeps-us-not-alive/

An open letter to the curators, artists, participants of the 11th International Istanbul Biennial and to all artists and art-lovers

We have to stop pretending that the popularity of politically engaged art within the museums, and markets over the last few years has anything to do with really changing the world. We have to stop pretending that taking risks in the space of art, pushing boundaries of form, and disobeying the conventions of culture, making art about politics makes any difference. We have to stop pretending that art is a free space, autonomous from webs of capital and power.

It’s time for the artist to become invisible. To dissolve back into life.
We have read the conceptual framework of the 11th International Istanbul Biennial with great interest and a grin on our faces. We have long understood that the Istanbul Biennial aims at being one of the most politically engaged transnational art events. And what a coincidence! This year the Biennial is quoting comrade Brecht, dropping notions such as neolibreal hegemony, and riding high against global capitalism. We kindly appreciate the stance but we recognize that art should have never existed as a separate category from life. Therefore we are writing you to stop collaborating with arm dealers such as the Koç Holding which white wash themselves in warm waters of the global art scene and invite you to the life, the life of resistance.

Martha Rosler - Take the Money and Run? Can Political and Socio-critical Art “Survive”?
http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/107#_ftn27

I return to the question posed above, “whether choosing to be an artist means aspiring to serve the rich . . .” Time was when art school admonished students not to think this way, but how long can the success academy hang on while galleries are not to be had? (Perhaps the answer is that scarcity only increases desperation; the great pyramid of struggling artists underpinning the few at the pinnacle simply broadens at the base.) Nevertheless, artists are stubborn. The “Resistanbul” writers tell us they “resist in the streets not in corporate spaces reserved for tolerated institutional critique,” as some artists do in order to “help them clear their conscience.” For sure. There are always artworks, or art “actions,” that are situated outside the art world or that “cross-list” themselves in and outside the golden ghettos. I am still not persuaded that we need to choose. There is so far no end to art that adopts a critical stance—although perhaps not always in the market and success machine itself, where it is always in danger of being seriously rewritten, often in a process that just takes time. It is this gap between the work’s production and its absorption and neutralization that allows for its proper reading and ability to speak to present conditions.43 It is not the market alone, after all, with its hordes of hucksters and advisers, and bitter critics, that determines meaning and resonance: there is also the community of artists and the potential counterpublics they implicate.

Dmitry Vilensky (Chto Delat collective) - Pavilion UniCredit: An Artist’s Tale
http://eipcp.net/policies/vilensky/en
The artist’s dialogue with the curator was going well until the folks at Pavilion UniCredit got wind of what he was proposing. They informed him (indirectly, via the curator) that their board couldn’t permit anyone to exhibit an attack on their institution (even in the form of an artwork) within the institution itself. And that was that: the artist’s piece, allegedly so crucial to the concept of the show, was disinvited with amazing alacrity and without any further discussion.

Erste Foundation - Who we are. What we are. How we work

http://www.erstestiftung.org/wp-content/plugins/page/upload/ERSTE%20Foundation%20folder.pd
We are not a foundation owned by a bank.
We are a foundation that owns a bank.
Our two commitments are based on these historical roots:
ERSTE Foundation safeguards the future of Erste Group as an
independent company and reinvests into the common good through
the activities we develop.

Slavoj Žižek - Good Manners in the Age of WikiLeaks
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n02/slavoj-zizek/good-manners-in-the-age-of-wikileaks
The ultimate show of power on the part of the ruling ideology is to allow what appears to be powerful criticism. There is no lack of anti-capitalism today. We are overloaded with critiques of the horrors of capitalism: books, in-depth investigative journalism and TV documentaries expose the companies that are ruthlessly polluting our environment, the corrupt bankers who continue to receive fat bonuses while their banks are rescued by public money, the sweatshops in which children work as slaves etc. However, there is a catch: what isn’t questioned in these critiques is the democratic-liberal framing of the fight against these excesses. The (explicit or implied) goal is to democratise capitalism, to extend democratic control to the economy by means of media pressure, parliamentary inquiries, harsher laws, honest police investigations and so on. But the institutional set-up of the (bourgeois) democratic state is never questioned. This remains sacrosanct even to the most radical forms of ‘ethical anti-capitalism’ (the Porto Allegre forum, the Seattle movement etc).

Irit Rogoff - From Criticism to Critique to Criticality

http://eipcp.net/transversal/0806/rogoff1/en

In the project of ‘criticism’ we are mainly preoccupied with the application of values and judgements, operating from a barely acknowledged humanist index of measure sustained in turn by naturalised beliefs and disavowed interests. The project of ‘critique’ which negated that of ‘criticism’ through numerous layers of poststructuralist theory and the linked spheres of sexual difference and post colonialism, has served as an extraordinary examination of all of the assumptions and naturalised values and thought structures that have sustained the inherited truth claims of knowledge.

Boris Groys - The Communist Postscript
http://radicalcut.blogspot.com/2011/01/as-it-currently-functions-in-west.html
As it currently functions in the West, critical discourse thus proves to be astonishingly homogeneous. It is always the same things being criticized with the same arguments.

Hito Steyerl - Politics of Art: Contemporary Art and the Transition to Postdemocracy

http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/181

A standard way of relating politics to art assumes that art represents political issues in one way or another. But there is a much more interesting perspective: the politics of the field of art as a place of work.1 Simply look at what it does—not what it shows.

Amongst all other forms of art, fine art has been most closely linked to post-Fordist speculation, with bling, boom, and bust. Contemporary art is no unworldly discipline nestled away in some remote ivory tower. On the contrary, it is squarely placed in the neoliberal thick of things. We cannot dissociate the hype around contemporary art from the shock policies used to defibrillate slowing economies. Such hype embodies the affective dimension of global economies tied to ponzi schemes, credit addiction, and bygone bull markets. Contemporary art is a brand name without a brand, ready to be slapped onto almost anything, a quick face-lift touting the new creative imperative for places in need of an extreme makeover, the suspense of gambling combined with the stern pleasures of upper-class boarding school education, a licensed playground for a world confused and collapsed by dizzying deregulation. If contemporary art is the answer, the question is: How can capitalism be made more beautiful?

Hito Steyerl - Is a Museum a Factory?

http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/71

The conservative response to the exodus of political films (or video installations) to the museum is to assume that they are thus losing relevance. It deplores their internment in the bourgeois ivory tower of high culture. The works are thought to be isolated inside this elitist cordon sanitaire—sanitized, sequestered, cut off from “reality.” Indeed, Jean-Luc Godard reportedly said that video installation artists shouldn’t be “afraid of reality,” assuming of course that they in fact were.6

Where is reality then? Out there, beyond the white cube and its display technologies? How about inverting this claim, somewhat polemically, to assert that the white cube is in fact the Real with a capital R: the blank horror and emptiness of the bourgeois interior.

Franco Berardi Bifo - Exhaustion and Senile Utopia of the Coming European Insurrection

http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/191

Social movements should focus on a founding myth of European history: the myth of energy. Modern culture and political imagination have emphasized the virtues of youth, of passion and energy, aggressiveness and growth. Capitalism is based on the exploitation of physical energy, and semiocapitalism has subjugated the nervous energy of society to the point of collapse. The notion of exhaustion has always been anathema to the discourse of modernity, of romantic Sturm und Drang, of the Faustian drive to immortality, the endless thirst for economic growth and profit, the denial of organic limits

...

In late modernity, this depiction became an essential feature of advertising. But contrary to Fascist discourse, late modern advertising did not abuse old age, but denied it, claiming that every old person could be young if he or she would simply accept to partake in the consumerist feast.

...

This is the lesson that Europe may learn if it can come out from the capitalist obsession with accumulation, property, and greed. In a reversal of the energetic subjectivation that animated the revolutionary theories of the twentieth century, radicalism should abandon the mode of activism, and adopt a passive mode. A radical passivity would dispel the ethos of relentless productivity that neoliberal politics has imposed. The mother of all the bubbles, the bubble of work, would finally deflate. We have been working too much over the past three or four centuries, and outrageously too much over the last thirty years. If a creative consciousness of exhaustion could arise, the current depression may mark the beginning of a massive abandonment of competition, consumerist drive, and dependence on work.

program saptamana 3 civ

2011-08-12T17:00:00.000-07:00

CERCUL DE LECTURA SI COPIERE +++ 16 feb - 5 mar @CIV

Biroul de Cercetari Melodramatice&ST

Saptamana trei

+ Joi 3 martie ora 19.30 Dezbatere. PATOS BIOLOGIC SI BIOETICA A\/ORTULUI.
Invitati: Cercul de lecturi feministe al Bibliotecii Alternative, Biroul de Cercetari Melodramatice, ST

Vom discuta despre arta si actiune sociala in contextul noilor campanii pro-life din Bucuresti, despre proprietatea asupra foetusului dar si despre suplimentele de moralitate livrate la pachet pe diferite canale ideologice.

http://biblioteca-alternativa.noblogs.org/post/2011/02/27/marti-1-martie-ora-19-30-cerc-de-lecturi-feministe/

+ Vineri 4 martie ora 19.30 DOCUMENTAREA VIULUI

*BCM isi reia jobul la Centrul de Studiu Individual 17.00 - 21.00, Str. Tudor Arghezi nr. 8-10

Noapte de documentare despre: redescoperirea istoriei celulelor, celulele nemuritoare HeLa, calatorii prin muzeele de istorie naturala, arme biologice si bioterrorism, viata porcilor/gainilor/vacilor, viata emotionala a animalelor si plantelor, parazitologie, cultura si politica reproducerii, istoria chirurguiei, clitoris etc. Va invitam sa va aduceti pe stick documentarele preferate (sa fie intr-un singur episod), noi aducem un calorifer. Este ultima seara la CIV din Making Of_Nr. 1.

Patos biologic si bioetica avortului

2011-08-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

BIOLOGICAL PATHOS AND THE BIOETHICS OF ABORTION
with the Feminist Reading Group of Biblioteca Alternativa, the Bureau of Melodramatic Research & ST

The foetus is the socialist property of the whole society. Giving birth is a patriotic duty. Those who refuse to have children are deserters, escaping the law of natural continuity.

Nicolae Ceausescu, excerpt from a public discourse at the end of the 80s

How does the logic of property function when it comes to the organic and the biological? Asking who the foetus belongs to unquestionably rules out metaphysical questions of moral status or personhood, describing the unborn child almost in terms of natural resources, whose ownership needs to be regulated and agreed upon. Who therefore owns the foetus and who is entitled to make it its own, as a starting point in the extension of possession to life itself.

In the last two decades of the communist period in Romania, abortion was prohibited by law, in keeping with similar measures spreading across most of the Soviet bloc. This was following a liberal period in the 50s, which in turn was coming after strict eugenics inspired regulations in the interwar period. In 1966 Ceausescu issued the 770 Decree, criminalizing abortion in almost all circumstances, which accompanied by the banning of all types of contraception, led to a black market system of medical supplies and pregnancy interruptions. The decision was part of another type of metaphysics, that of the “New Man” and “New Socialist Society”, atheist in theory but bearing the moralizing, idealized construction of the previous religious undertakings it meant to replace.

After the Revolution of 1989, the laws were amended to legalise abortion. However, the moral control of society, previously overseen by the Communist Party, subsequently fell into the hands of the Orthodox Church. As such, the issue of abortion is still a taboo in Romanian society.

In spite of the fact that more conservative sections of society deem the issue immoral, the memory of Ceausescu’s repressive policies, and the still evident repercussions, prevents a discourse on the similarities between the previous government and the current religious stance on abortion. The representation of the past is now part of a new institutionalized discourse. Anticommunism has progressively been turned into a state doctrine, which aims at the purification of history itself in order to properly legitimize the present. For it, the removal of the past demon takes again the form of religious-like rituals. Willingly or not, artists, film-makers or writers dealing with recent history are caught in the manichaeistic debate. One such example is the 2007 Palme d’Or winning 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days film about an abortion case in 1987 Bucharest, whose fetishised image of the aborted foetus at the climax of the film’s action, with its plasticized hyper-reality, is redolent of the biological pathos of the anti-abortion campaigns.

The politics of biological reproduction should be considered in the context of the reproduction of images, and we would like to research the relation between images of fertility and the fertility of images themselves.

We are also interested in how societies use political and legal systems to supplement morality, and conversely how they use ideological tools to supplement the law.

The question of bioethics is what the Bureau has recognized as an intersection point between its field of activity and the controversy surrounding the issue of abortion. Morality as a code of conduct put forward on the basis of the delineations between a so called good/right and a so called evil/wrong is a key aspect of melodrama, which always has a polarized fight at its core. But what are the premises underpinning this type of moralizing discourse? Melodrama as a genre appeared in a time in history marked by increasing secularization, in the aftermath of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment. According to theoretician Peter Brooks, it comes into being in a world where the traditional imperatives of truth and ethics have been violently thrown into question (...) filling the void opened up by the loss of religious certainty and compensatory moral legibility. (Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination. Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama and the Mode of Excess, 1976)

Documentarea viului

2011-08-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

BIODOCUMENTARIES

our last Making Of_Nr 1-night @CIV

We watched a whole bunch of documentaries starting with The Way of All Flesh by Adam Curtis and The Private Life of Plants (The Social Struggle episode). We ended up commenting upon the murky abysses of some recent popularized science documentary offered by Discovery, one of the most sexist and spermocentric accounts on human reproduction. If you dare watch it, it is entitled The Great Sperm Race (2010). It would be an incredible vivisection material especially for the Feminist Reading Group of Biblioteca Alternativa.

CCA Warsaw

2011-07-28T15:59:00.000-07:00

CCA CREATIVITY COUNSELLING FOR ARTISTS

@ CCA Ujazdowski Castle

in collaboration with Anna Ptak

Saturday / 30th of July // 13 PM + 15 PM

Sunday / 31st of July // 12 PM + 15 PM

part of PUBLIC A-I-R, reflective picnic / micro-festival, 29-31 July 2011

http://csw.art.pl/index.php?action=aktualnosci&s2=1&id=426&lang=eng

2011-07-19T05:10:00.000-07:00

2-month residency at CCA Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, Poland.

We spent the first week in Kaszuby at the Summer Research Camp of Free/Slow University in the small village of Kolonia near Kartuzy. A great workshop about the feminization of work with Ewa Majewska, institutional mapping and F for Fake in the evening.

Here are the Free/Slow University proposals of Readings for Artworkers.

The Free/Slow University of Warsaw is a nomadic centre of interdisciplinary studies, critical reflection, and independent thinking about art and society. The FUW operates parallel to the official centres of artistic and academic education. Its principle is to combine theory with praxis and culture with its social context.

Abortion Democracy

2011-07-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

// scroll down for English

Biblioteca Alternativa si Biroul de Cercetari Melodramatice va invita la proiectia filmului documentar:

Abortion Democracy: Poland/South Africa, Germania, 2008 - de Sarah Diehl

Miercuri, 6 iulie 2011, ora 20.00, Biblioteca Alternativa, Str. Episcop Radu nr. 17

Proiectia va fi urmata de o discutie pornind de la film http://www.abortion-democracy.de/ si de la cercetarea BMR http://thebureauofmelodramaticresearch.blogspot.com/2011/05/spectres-of-fetuses.html

Multumim lui Sarah Diehl pentru film si sprijin.

De ce sunt mai accesibile avorturile ilegale din Polonia decat cele legale din Africa de Sud? Filmul documentar Abortion Democracy: Poland/South Africa exploreaza si compara schimbarile legislative cu privire la avort si impactul acestora asupra vietilor femeilor din Polonia si Africa de Sud.

In anii '90 in Polonia avortul a fost interzis din cauza influentei din ce in ce mai mari a Bisericii Catolice dupa caderea comunismului. In aceeasi perioda in Africa de Sud avortul a fost legalizat in urma reformei sistemului de sanatate dupa terminarea regimului apartheid.

Filmul scoate in evidenta legatura directa intre statutul legal al femeii si atentia acordata vocilor femeilor. In societatea poloneza si in media, perspectivele femeilor sunt invizibile; in Africa de Sud, pe de alta parte, ele sunt invitate sa vorbeasca in parlament despre probleme legate de drepturile reproductive.

Filmul pledeaza pentru avorturi sigure si accesibile si pentru legi liberale cu privire la avort. In acelasi timp insa recunoaste paradoxul implementarii unor asemenea legi liberale, care poate avea un efect nesemnificativ asupra accesibilitatiii serviciilor de avort. In Polonia, spre exemplu, avorturile ilegale sunt destul de accesibile si relativ sigure; in Africa de Sud, unde legislatia este foarte liberala, femeile au cu greu acces la informatie si la serviciile spitalelor publice din cauza atitudinii crestin-moralizatoare a personalului medical. Numai o schimbare fundamentala in atitudinea sociala si culturala asupra avortului, contraceptiei si a sanatatii reproductive poate asigura dreptul femeii de a alege intr-o lume in care aprox. 80.000 femei mor in fiecare an din cauza avorturilor nesigure.

Filmul se adreseaza personalului medical, studentilor/studentelor, politicienilor/enelor, avocatilor/elor, membrilor/elor NGO-urilor pentru ca ridica diverse probleme importante in ceea ce priveste accesul la ingrijirea medicala, dezvoltare, drepturile omului si drepturile femeii, legi si politici, precum si intrebari existentiale despre auto-determinare. De aceea Abortion Democracy este folosit pentru programe educationale in domeniul drepturilor reproductive si a ingrijirii medicale, in toata lumea.

Abortion Democracy isi lasa subiectii sa vorbeasca. Interviurile includ povesti personale ale activitistilor/elor, cercetatorilor/oarelor, personalului medical, pacientilor/elor si a altor barbati si femei care traiesc zi de zi cu aceste probleme. Este gandit ca un film provocator pentru orice audienta care este interesata de lupta internationala pentru drepturile omului.

Biblioteca Alternativa & The Bureau of Melodramatic Research invite you to the screening of the documentary feature:

Abortion Democracy: Poland/South Africa, Germany, 2008 - by Sarah Diehl

Wednesday, 6th of July, 20.00 hours, Biblioteca Alternativa, Str. Episcop Radu nr. 17

The screening will be followed by a discussion starting from the film http://www.abortion-democracy.de/ and from BMR's research http://thebureauofmelodramaticresearch.blogspot.com/2011/05/spectres-of-fetuses.html

We want to thank Sarah Diehl for the film and support.

Why are illegal abortions more accessible in Poland than legal ones in South Africa?

This documentary feature explores and contrasts changes in Poland and South Africa regarding abortion laws and their impact on the lives of women.

In the 90's, Poland banned abortion due to the increasing influence of the Catholic Church after the fall of communism; around the same time South Africa legalized it, reforming the health system after the fall of apartheid.

The film reveals how the legal status of women is a direct result of the silencing or empowering of women's voices. In the Polish society and media, women's perspectives were made invisible; in South Africa, on the other hand, they were invited to give public hearings in the parliament about problems in the realm of reproduction.

The film aims to emphasize the need for safe abortions and liberal abortion laws. It also, however, illustrates the paradox that the implementation of such laws may have little effect on the accessibility of abortion services. In Poland, for example, illegal abortions are quite available and relatively safe; in South Africa, where the law is very liberal, women have a harder time getting information and services in public hospitals due to judgemental behavior of the health staff. Only a change in the fundamental social and cultural attitudes towards abortion, contraception, and reproductive health can ensure a woman's right to choose in a world where about 80.000 women die every year from unsafe abortions.

The film is suitable for medical staff/students, politicians, lawyers, members of NGOs because it raises a variety of interesting questions concerning access to medical support, development, womans and human rights, laws and policies as well as existential questions about self-determination. Therefore Abortion Democracy is used for educational programmes in the realm of reproductive rights and health care all over the world.

Abortion Democracy lets its subjects speak for themselves. Interviews include personal stories from activists, researchers, health staff, patients and other men and women who live with the problems every day. It is a thought provoking and challenging film for any audience interested in the international struggle for human rights.

OMIVA

2011-06-08T06:06:00.000-07:00

Irina Costache împreună cu Biroul de Cercetări Melodramatice lanseaza cu ocazia Nopții Albe a Galeriilor:

OMIVA// Observator Mobil de Investigare a Voluntariatului Artistic

vineri 10 iunie 2011, intre orele 19:00 - 04:00

În buna tradiție a disecării conceptelor pe care trebuie să le internalizăm în calitate de artiști / artiste, Irina Costache & Biroul de Cercetări Melodramatice propun cu ocazia Anului European al Voluntariatului o echipă mobilă care va monitoriza implicarea voluntară în cadrul NAG #5. După mitul creativității în 2009 și al combaterii sărăciei și excluziunii sociale în 2010, Uniunea Europeană celebrează în 2011 munca voluntară - datorie morală față de fortăreața-mamă. Nu munca patriotică în ritmuri de imn național, ci munca voluntară autocolonizatoare, conformă cu etica suprademocratică, întru imacularea occidentală și gonflarea conturilor bancare din sectorul privat.

Vom circula pe la toate spațiile și vom face un sondaj cu întrebări relevante legate direct sau indirect de voluntariat. Să vedem dacă munca voluntară creativă și recreativă are tonalități majore precum Oda Bucuriei. Ce înseamnă voluntariat azi în arta contemporană? Cum se învață bunele maniere instituționale, cum ne antrenăm să jucăm noi rolul statului responsabil social cînd o să ne privatizăm cu tot cu ICR-uri și AFCN-uri? Cum ne autoexploatăm prin voluntariatul de zi cu zi, cum ne flexibilizăm, cum pregătim un salt elegant de la artist / curator voluntar la artist / curator corporat și incorporat în piața de artă și în băncile - mecena. Cum învață artistul-voluntar fidelitatea și angajamentul moral față de un potențial finanțator cu o sîrguință aproape religioasă? Sfîntul Precarie îi ocrotește pe voluntari.

Rezultatele investigațiilor vor fi analizate și prezentate post-NAG prin munca echipei mobile, cu efecte voluntare și involuntare.

un proiect realizat cu suportul NAG. Multumim Suzana pentru voluntariatul organizational si inspirational in slujba Biroului!

www.noapteagaleriilor.ro

futurologie institutionala

2011-06-03T05:19:00.000-07:00

Irina Costache, scientific consultant
The Bureau of Melodramatic Research
The Museum of Modest Apartment Art/ The Agency for Art Bets and Forecasts

together with invited experts Ovidiu Ciornea, Mihai Stanescu and Cristian Vasiliu

invite you to the workshop "INSTITUTIONAL FUTUROLOGY: PROSPECTION BEYOND PLANNING"
as part of The First Congress of Spectral Institutions
++Saturday the 4th of July++13:30++UNAGaleria++Str. General Budisteanu nr.10++Bucharest

Our intervention at the congress “The Spectral Institution Today and Tomorrow” aims at optimistically exploring the future. For this purpose, we invite all participants, representatives of spectral institutions, theoreticians, ideologues, affiliated and non-affiliated artists and symposium attendees to join us. For one hour, we intend to push the logic of critique beyond the constraints of the present and test the forces and the authorities of the future. Throughout the workshop, together with our invited guests – a business consultant, a coach and a bioenergetician we will identify and analyze those trends that would potentially shape the future of our institutions.

We’ll be looking back into the future and think where our institutions might find themselves tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. We’ll consider a range of development opportunities, success rates as well as risk scenarios. Our guests are very willing to offer consultancy, to discuss plausible prognosis or to offer remedies (where and when needed) in order to ensure to all participant institutions, as well as to their umbrella structure (the spectral institution herself), a luminous and worthwhile future. Throughout the workshop we’ll investigate models of emotional engineering that feed sciences of the future.

Irina Costache is Phd Candidate at CEU (Gender Studies Dep) where she works on a thesis on corporeality in real existing socialism. Up until she started using her feminist lense to Romanian’s recent history she has also written on women’s football, young women and poverty and more recently on feminism and curatorship. She’s generally interested in anything that has to do with women.

The Bureau of Melodramatic Research is an independent institution founded by Irina Gheorghe and Alina Popa which studies the use and abuse of emotions with the help of melodramatic techniques. The bureau takes as constant investigative site the accumulated sentimental capital of its partner institutions, even more so now when they enjoy the attention of the banking sector enlivened and rejuvenated by radical contemporary art.

The Museum for Modest Apartment Art/ Muzeul Artei Modeste de Apartament ( M.A.M.A) founded by Luiza Alecsandru, is a museum set up in an apartment on Hristo Botev, next to Coltea hospital. The overloaded space was reopened as a museum that treasures domestic objects. Reconstructing a personal history, the institution is an apparently modest opportunity always at hand, to reconfigure the immediate surroundings.

Ovidiu Ciornea represents Cie-Aura Romania, the international producer of the most powerful energy bracelets in the world. These bracelets convert natural vibrations into intrinsic energies which interact with the human vibration system to produce personal equilibrium, energy, concentration and clarity.

Mihai Stanescu is coach, the founder of Rocoach, a company that provides services for the business enviorment on two segments: corporate segment, in which return benefits are 5 times more that the initial investment in coaching sessions and the antreprenorial segment in which return benefits often reach 10 times the initial investment.

Cristian Vasiliu was head of foreign relations department and business development manager at ROMEXPO and its representative in Turkey. Today he works as a business consultant at Nexidian International where he aims to develop, optimize and support clients’ efforts to internationalize. His efforts follow an ethics of competition, honesty and dedication.

An initiative of the Blind Museum, founded by Veda Popovici, The Congress of Spectral Institutions is the first of a series of events dedicated to the gathering, analysis and redifining of spectral institutions of all sorts.
The Spectral Institution is the meeting point among several institutions in course of legitimation which occupy a hybrid state between authority, contemporary art, institutionalization and production of discourse.

//
Irina Costache, consilier stiintific
Biroul de Cercetari Melodramatice
Muzeul Artei Modeste de Apartament/ Agentia de Pariuri si Pronosticuri in Arta impreuna cu expertii invitati Ovidiu Ciornea, Mihai Stanescu si Cristian Vasiliu

va invita la workshopul: FUTUROLOGIE INSTITUTIONALA: PROSPECTII DINCOLO DE PLANIFICARE
In cadrul Congresului I al Institutiilor Spectrale
++sambata 4 iunie++ora 13:30++UNAGaleria++Str. General Budisteanu nr.10

Intervenţia noastra la congresul “Institutia spectrala de azi si de maine” isi propune sa exploreze optimist viitorul. Pentru aceasta, invitam toate/toti participantii/ele la congres, reprezentanti/e ai institutiilor spectrale, teoreticieni/e, ideologi, artisti/e afiliati sau neafiliati si simpozisti/e de orice fel sa ni se alature. Ne propunem ca, pe parcursul unei ore, sa impingem logica criticii dincolo de constrangerile si istoriile prezentului si sa testam fortele si autoritaţile viitorului.

Pe parcursul workshopului vom incerca alaturi de cei trei experti invitati - un business consultant, un coach si un bioenergetician sa identificam si sa analizam curentele si tendintele de transformare care afecteaza institutiile spectrale.

Ne vom uita inapoi spre viitor si ne vom gandi unde s-ar putea gasi institutia spectrala maine sau poimaine. Vom cantari oportunitatile de dezvoltare, sansele de succes dar si scenariile de risc si pericol care vor afecta in viitorul apropriat institutiile participante. Invitatii nostrii sunt dispusi sa ofere consultanta, sa prezinte prognoze si sa propuna remedii (acolo unde institutia e in dificultate) pentru a asigura institutiilor si institutiei mama un viitor pe masura. Pe parcursul workshopului vom inregistra modelele de inginerie emotionala care hranesc stiinta viitorului.

Irina Costache este doctorandă in cadrul departamentului de Studii de Gen (CEU) unde lucrează la o teză despre corporalitate în comunism. Până să aplice lentila feministă peste istoria recentă a mai scris şi despre fotbal feminin, femei tinere şi sărăcie şi mai recent feminism şi curatoriat. În general o interesează cam orice are legătură cu femeile.

Biroul de Cercetari Melodramatice este o institutie dependenta fondata de Irina Gheorghe si Alina Popa care studiaza uzul si abuzul emotiilor cu ajutorul tehnicilor melodramatice. Capitalul sentimental acumulat de catre institutiile partenere constituie o investigatie permanenta pentru Birou, cu atat mai mult cu cat acesta se bucura de curtoazia crescanda a sectorului bancar insufletit si intinerit de arta contemporana radicala.

Muzeul Artei Modeste de Apartament, fondat de Luiza Alecsandru, este un muzeu amenajat intr-un apartament situat pe langa strada Hristo Botev, in apropiere de spitalul Coltea. Spatiul supraincarcat de obiecte a fost relansat ca muzeu valorizand toate aceste obiecte domestice. Reconstruind o istorie personala, institutia este o posibilitate aparent modesta, de fapt oricand la indemana, de a reconfigura realitatea imediata.

Ovidiu Ciornea este reprezentant in Romania al CieAura, producatoare a celor mai puternice bratari cu energie din lume. Acestea convertesc vibratiile naturale in energii intrinseci, care interactioneaza cu sistemul vibrational al corpului pentru a produce echilibru personal, energie, concentrare si claritate.

Mihai Stanescu este coach, fondator all companiei RoCoach, a carei activitate este axata pe doua segmente principale ale mediului de afaceri: segmentul corporatist, in care returnarea investitiei serviciilor pe care le ofera este de minim 5 ori mai mare fata de bugetul alocat initial (coaching-ului), si cel antreprenorial, in care returnarea investitiei depăşeste cel mai adesea de 10 ori suma investita.

Cristian Vasiliu a fost sef departament relatii externe si business development manager in cadrul ROMEXPO si reprezentantul acestuia in Turcia. Acum este consultant in cadrul Nexidian International si isi propune sa dezvolte, sa eficientizeze si sa sprijine punerea in practica a procesului de internationalizare al clientilor sai in spiritul competentei, onestitatii si dedicarii.

Spectres of Fetuses

2011-05-27T13:30:00.000-07:00

Romania’s Pain Memorials, Biological Pathos and the Spectres of Fetuses

by&with Alina Popa

          The Bureau of Melodramatic Research

posters by Sara Lehn

interflugs lecture

May 31st / 7pm / UdK Berlin/ Hardenbergstr.33/ room 102

Body screamin’ fuckin’ bloody mess - Not an animal - It's an abortion 

Sex Pistols, Bodies, 1977

Spectres of Fetuses are haunting the post-communist imagination. A recent article with a neoconservative touch deplores the aborted Romania, the countless “unborn” Brancusi’s that could have enriched MOMA’s collection for the pride of the nation. Such “what if” stories have become dominant flashback moments in a classical nationalist melodrama. What if all those “unborn” had been actually born? What if Communism hadn’t come to Romania?

The termination of communism is thus seen as the legitimate return to the big European family, fed at the breast of the Capitoline She-Wolf. The new retributive and revengeful history (written mostly by men) regards Communism as being forced on Romania by the Bolsheviks, more precisely Russian men. Romania was ideologically and physically raped and made pregnant with a new unwanted fetus that had to be abandoned and locked away, in the wait of the western immaculate conception. The therapeutic abortion of the Communist past is repeatedly induced in movies, reports, Communist Crimes Commissions, public monuments, political speeches and corruption scandals. 

The first televised images forcepsed out of the “inscrutable” country after ‘89 were that of women queuing in front of abortion clinics: thus Romania is gendered and becomes a supine woman waiting to be examined and seduced. The miracle of the penetrating West is reproduced on every building, on every billboard, in every shopping mall, while the miracle of life is blessed with a glossy varnish by the new joint venture between local orthodoxy and pro-Vita lifestyle. 

The talk will follow the harsh folklore of abortion through different media, following activist debates and recent feminist positions. It is a strange and unsettling tale that already smells of wax figurines, small plastic doll fetuses used as educational props and religiously charged neo-orthodox clinics.

http://www.interflugs.de/en/events/ils-presents-alina-popa/

benevolent planters

2011-03-31T08:04:00.001-07:00

A clear example for the manipulative way melodrama was used by the West Indies slave masters to lobby against abolition. Benevolent Planters is a short play by Thomas Bellamy published in the revolutionary year 1789. It just shows how creative communities such as artists, writers, poets were involved in the pro-slavery propaganda.
The play tells the love story of Oran and Selima who were separated in Africa and got together again by living on nearby plantations in the West Indies patronized by well-intentioned masters. The two black slaves left their idle life in Africa and replaced it with the new productive and god-fearing lifestyle on plantations. The names of their respective slave owners, are emotionally suggestive of the alleged good-willingness of their new 'fathers' - Goodwin and Heartfee - these, as Malcolm X would immediately add, will become the family names of Oran and Selima, as it happened with so many Africans enslaved by the efficiency-loving white Europeans.

Sufletul Sustenabilitatii

2011-03-15T12:58:00.000-07:00

In the morning before the opening of the exhibition "Just do it. Biopolitical Branding", the Bureau of Melodramatic Research was personally announced by the director of PAVILION UNICREDIT that Simina Neagu, as curator of this particular exhibition and assistant director at the same institution, would be fired, if we don't exclude from our work all the facts and figures about the budget of the exhibition (that is the exact sum of our fee plus production costs). Moreover, we were informed that if we didn't agree upon this condition, the Director would additionally cancel the opening due at 7 PM the same day.

The aforementioned financial infos were part of our work and since we haven't signed any contract or confidentiality agreement, we didn't expect any opposition on the part of the institution. Following tense negotiations, we were told that we could publish the budget, only if we include all the current expenses of PAVILION for the period of the exhibition (electricity, salaries of Pavilion's employees etc). The director of PAVILION calculated an amount of 1400 Euro per artist/artist group. This amount is 7 times higher than our production costs+fee altogether. And it is 100 Euro less than the whole exhibition's initially announced budget (at least considering what we were told by the PAVILION employees when we were invited to take part in this project). Since we were interested only in the publishing of the artist fee+production costs and weren't allowed to disclose the detailed budget or any parts of it, the 1400 Euro were of no use for our work. Nevertheless, we had to publish this mystified amount of 1400 Euro, in order to avoid the firing of the curator and the canceling of the exhibition.

We acknowledge that, besides the amount for fee+production costs, whose publication was censored, we got the support of Pavilion for the transportation of all the pieces of furniture and installation. Moreover, the Director himself has initially approved of our work's concept (at least, most of it).

Considering all these facts, we are inclined to believe that the ending of Simina Neagu's contract (officially announced today) is no melodramatic coincidence. And this should be a reason to worry for the all the artists and curators, be they employed or unemployed (or unemployable). To which extent do spaces "of the critical thinking" such as PAVILION UNICREDIT really encourage critical thinking? How come/how is a curator proposing an exhibition about "the use of soft power" consequently affected by Power itself? What is the politics of PAVILION UNICREDIT's organizational scheme? When answering this question, please consider that, at least from our experience, gender discrimination is undeniable in this institution. During our collaboration with Simina Neagu within the institutional frame PAVILION UNICREDIT, we noticed several concluding facts: only men could speak out, only men had the final word, only men solved or tried to solve any problem/misunderstanding with the artists (aka BMR), even if it directly concerned the concept and realization of the exhibition proposed by the woman-curator. In harmony with the sexism of much of the Romanian society today, a "good curator" in this institution, has to acquiesce every whim of her male director, and probably part of the unmentioned job description would be to become a complete YES-person in his presence. Also how come that a space that "promotes an artistic perspective implying the social and political involvement of the art" is censoring the publishing of the artists' fee as part of their work which was overtly dealing with the conditions of production (and the function of branding assigned to art through categories such as sustainability)? Why have all the works which include the questioning of the politics of art as a field of work been rejected (see Vilenski's case) or partly censored (our case)? Why cannot the precarious work conditions of the artists be openly addressed (see also Societe Realiste during BB4)?

We already witnessed many instances of PAVILION UNICREDIT discrediting itself, the last one being the expelling of the curator Simina Neagu. On this occasion we wish her good luck for her future career as an independent (or at least less dependent) curator.

Evacuation Plan - first version proposed by BMR in the evening before the opening of the exhibition. It contains the legend of all the contents of the installation, together with a more detailed account of the financial conditions which led to the existence of the artworks present. The information in the plan is based on UniCredit's sustainability page for part concerning Elena Andrei and Doina Roman's works, and on verbal agreement with the curator and the director for the part concerning BMR's participation in the show.

These series has been realized with the support of the UniCredit grant, amounting to 2400 euro/person for the master students of the Arts University in Bucharest, Painting Department. The grant program is part of the bank's sustainability strategy, as is the support provided to the contemporary art center Pavilion Unicredit (sections Education and Sport, Art and Culture respectively). For the fee and production of the Soul of Sustainability BMR will receive 200 euros, while the whole budget of the whole exhibition being 1500 euro.

Evacuation Plan - after censorship. The changed sentence was composed by the director and was a result of the threat to cancel the opening and fire the curator.

These series has been realized with the support of the UniCredit grant, amounting to 2400 euro/person for the master students of the Arts University in Bucharest, Painting Department. The grant program is part of the bank's sustainability strategy, as is the support provided to the contemporary art center Pavilion Unicredit (sections Education and Sport, Art and Culture respectively). For the Soul of Sustainability the total production costs (including the current expenses of Pavilion Unicredit such as heating, light and salaries) have been of 1400 euro. Generally, there are no fees for artists.

Hankerchief Collection

2010-11-13T06:27:00.000-08:00

Under construction

Private Belongings

2010-11-13T06:21:00.000-08:00

Under construction

knot bucharest

2010-11-12T14:08:00.000-08:00

Cry- Baby@ KNOT
Good manners training with The Bureau of Melodramatic Research, 23th-24th of October 2010, Parcul Carol, Bucharest

Rhea K.

2010-11-12T11:56:00.000-08:00

(c)rheak. no reproduction allowed

The House

- - -
I got a message I can't read (Radiohead, In Limbo)
- - -

When Bob left, they followed him for a while by the footsteps in the grass, but they grew tired and Gerard turned around and walked straight back. He looked at the sky and it was huge and stretched on like a giant canvas above just like it did ever since he could remember: blank, an ever present shade of yellow. Or gray. Or both. He doesn’t know.

After that Ray turned pebbles around in front of the house and Frank turned circles around the house. Gerard never said anything.

Mikey thought about how Bob was blond and had translucent skin and how he saw Bob lying naked in the grass. He was blond everywhere.

Sometimes he went back on Bob’s tracks, to the top of the hill, until the house was a dot of black in the green distance. He went there and breathed in and it was lonely and vast and there were no birds in the sky. Sometimes Frank came with him for a while and when Mikey returned he always found Frank sitting in the grass smoking. Ray never came, or Gerard, and after a while neither did Frank.

Mikey walked through the grass until the dew made his pants wet and the grass grew back and there were no tracks left.

One day they found Ray hanged in the upper chamber. He hung from the ceiling and his hair was in his face but Mikey knew he was all bloated underneath and wanted to look. Gerard slapped his hand away, then slapped him across the face and Mikey felt odd, and sorry too because Ray had always been nice to him and Ray smelled like cinnamon and tasted like mouth and tongue and teeth and Mikey missed that.

Frank drowned. And Gerard had wept and screamed and for a while it was just him and Gerard in the house, all quiet and grey and cold and the grass all around them to the horizon.

When Gerard came one night and the bed creaked under him and he felt Gerard’s face on his skin, under his shirt, and Gerard’s cold fingers on the sides of his body, he didn’t say anything, just let Gerard do what he wanted because he missed Frank too and with Frank Gerard had never felt so cold.

He didn’t register the fact that it may have been sad. The sad part came when it was clear that there would be no sound in the house other than his breathing or Gerard’s breathing, or the water dripping slowly from a towel.

Sometimes Mikey went where Ray and Frank were buried under the grass and slept between the graves. He stopped counting the days since Bob left, or the days since he saw Frank’s hand trembling on the doorknob to the chamber where Ray hanged; he stopped counting the days since Frank floated over the water--blue lips and pale flesh, and Gerard wouldn’t stop screaming. There, between Ray and Frank he wanted to cry and the earth under him felt cold and humid.

His earliest memory was of waking up in his bed and Gerard by the window. He said: you are Mikey, and Mikey didn’t say anything because Gerard sounded so convincing, he didn’t know what else to say. He can’t remember anything before that.

It took getting used to, but he stopped wondering if Gerard is alright on his own, locked inside his room. Only sometimes, usually at night or early in the morning, did he get scared that Gerard might do something like Ray and he’d be alone forever. Then he just looked through a creak in the door at Gerard breathing underneath the cover and he was alright.

Mikey didn’t dream much, but when he did he usually remembered things like Bob’s shoulder full of freckles, or Frank’s laughter, or Ray’s embrace. Sometimes he dreamt he couldn’t breathe. Like there was something over his chest, crushing him underneath, slowly, and Mikey dreamt of falling and feeling dizzy. Then Mikey dreamt of grass.

It was routine, him staring at Gerard sitting at the table, asking: where did Bob go? And Gerard never answering. Gerard always hated Mikey asking about everybody in one sentence but Mikey thought they were few enough to bother. So he asked: Are there others like you and me and Bob and Frank and Ray? Enumerated all the names like beads on a rope, but aside from a mere flinch at Frank’s name, Gerard did not respond. It seemed easier for Gerard to talk to the walls, to Frank’s chair, to Ray’s guitar, to the empty air around him and never expecting a reply, but Mikey found it difficult. Gerard? And it always reduced itself to one question really, with the silence banging at the walls, grabbing at his shoulders with icy fingers:

Why is no-one coming?

Except there was never an answer and Gerard usually left so Mikey thought Gerard didn’t know either.

---
I want everything to go back to the way it was.
---

It was early morning and the windows a blur when Bob came and lay down against Mikey’s shivering body. And it was unexpected (because Bob left months ago) and Mikey startled, his legs tangled between the sheets, whispered: you need to go see Gerard, and Bob had said: not now Mikey, I’m tired, and Mikey said nothing (because he was happy) and let Bob lie next to him, his nose against his nape, blowing warm air slowly into the hair growing there. And Mikey could feel himself shivering and Bob’s sweater grazing at the skin of his back and Bob’s knee inside his own bent leg and he held on to Bob’s fingers and asked: where did you go? Only Bob said nothing, put his hand between Mikey’s legs instead and Mikey felt dizzy (because this felt real again and nothing really mattered).

Did you see Bob, he asked when he woke up later that day and went downstairs, and Gerard stared at him with this odd, ghostly expression. Bob was here last night.

Bob is dead, Mikey.

And Mikey had run, all the way through the grass and it cut his knees and Mikey didn’t find the footsteps again and least of all did Mikey understand.

When Mikey sat on the porch later he wanted to cry, felt like crying and couldn’t. Gerard sat down next to him and Mikey would have wanted Gerard to hold him, but Gerard just put his hand on his shoulder and said: but you knew that already, Mike, you knew that. And Mikey didn’t know anything.

Gerard hated repetition. That’s why they never did anything twice. That’s why they sat on different seats every morning, that’s why Gerard woke up early, or late, or anytime in between. Sometimes Gerard woke up in the night--Mikey knew because he heard Gerard crying downstairs--and talked to himself or smoked Frank’s cigarettes. It was so long ago since they found Frank in the pond and yet Gerard still smoked Frank’s cigarettes. Mikey thought how everything eventually ends and how Frank’s cigarettes never seemed to. It was the only repetition Gerard allowed. Mikey thought repetition was good because he never knew what was expected of him otherwise. And with Gerard it seemed something was always expected of him.

Mikey was there when Bob left and Frank had said oh fuck it and Gerard said don’t curse. Then Bob had left and Ray held on to himself a little too tight, Mikey could see it by his knuckles turning white, and Mikey was sad because he couldn’t do the same now that Ray was doing it. So he just held on to the door-frame as Bob disappeared behind the hill top.

---

Mikey’s doing the dishes and Gerard goes:

I miss Frank. And I miss Bob and I miss Ray and I miss you.

And Mikey turns around, says, but I’m here.

Gerard keeps his head between his hands. No. You’re not. You’re just... and then he sighs, gets up and goes outside. The door creaks then bats against the frame for a while. Mikey puts a plate aside and stares at an ant crawling over the window frame, then outside where the sky is great and dull and Gerard is sitting in the grass near the pond where Frank and Ray are buried.

---

He said: you are my brother and Mikey didn’t know what that meant other than it was something special and he was somewhat important because Gerard had said you are like me and he didn’t say it to Frank or to Ray or to Bob.

He doesn’t remember.

It doesn’t matter anyway.

---

Gerard is talking to the walls, to the chair where Frank used to sit in front of the window, on a pillow someone made and Mikey doesn’t remember who. Sometimes Gerard talks to him and Mikey doesn’t say a thing afraid that maybe he’ll ruin something and Gerard won’t talk to him again. But Gerard grows tired and stops anyway. Always.

---

Go away, Gerard said one day, go away. Screamed it in his face and Mikey didn’t know what to do, stood there with a towel in his hand and stared at Gerard till Gerard jerked it out of his hands and Mikey was left with a burning on his fingers.

Leave me alone.

And Mikey left, went in the direction he remembered Bob leaving and walked until he couldn’t see the house anymore. There was nothing but grass around him and no road, just grass and sky stretching on infinitely and Mikey walked for a very long time.

---

I want everything to go back to the way it was.

---

Bob left two weeks ago and Mikey walks through the grass on the hill. When he goes back Frank sits in the grass, smokes, says: I had a dream, and Mikey says nothing but looks at him for a while, sits down next to him in the grass. He can feel the ground cold underneath.

I dreamt I was famous, and Frank laughs and Mikey laughs with him even though he doesn’t know why. We were all famous and you and Gerard--Frank turns around, looks straight at his mouth--you were so pretty. Mikey smiles faintly. Then Frank looks at the ground, swings his arms and stretches on the grass, takes a drag from his cigarette and his eyes cross a little and Mikey supposes he’s watching the smoke.

Ray is a genius, he says, you know? And Mikey nods a little.

---

Gerard says if you wish for something really bad, like really really bad your wish will come true. You think it’s true?

I don’t know.

Mikey wishes for Bob to come back but Bob doesn’t and he thinks that maybe he doesn’t wish it really really bad and asks: Ray, what do you wish for? But Ray just looks out the window, whispers: I wish Bob came back, and Mikey feels warm and holds Ray close because two can make a wish stronger.

---

I can’t remember much Mikey, but this dream felt so real, you know? and Mikey keeps nodding because he doesn’t know, he doesn’t dream much.
It’s just that... something happened and it wasn’t good anymore. And Mikey nods.

---

You are not here.

---

Crazy! ... Mikey sits and stares at the sky ... You are crazy! You hear me? You’re crazy, Gerard! ... He takes his glasses off, rubs them against his shirt for a moment, puts them back on. ... Stop it! ... He can’t hear Gerard’s voice but he knows what he says ... Stop it! ... It’s always Frank’s voice he hears, Gerard keeps saying the same thing; he doesn’t have to hear it to know. ... Please stop it! But Gerard won’t stop and Frank runs out and breaks down crying outside, behind the house where he thinks no-one can see. A forced panting, rather than crying. And Mikey sees because he‘s sitting on the roof and he stops dangling his legs because he doesn’t want Frank to see him when Frank wants to cry and can’t.

---

You are not here.

---

In the middle of the field, grass below and sky above, Mikey stopped and sat down and thought for a very long time.

If he dreamt, the images had no shape and he couldn’t remember anymore: Bob’s shoulder, Frank’s laughter, Ray’s embrace, nothing; he couldn’t remember Gerard. And he felt sad.

If he slept, the images strangled him in their ugliness and even though he saw Ray and Frank when their bodies were cold and stiff, even if he saw Gerard’s face screaming at him, even if there was no one out there with him but ants and pebbles and grass, and he was all alone, where no one could harm him, he dreamt of being strangled and he dreamt of being crushed and he dreamt of blood and he trashed and he wanted to cry but couldn’t.

It occurred to him that all those months, the whole time, he didn’t, ever, see anyone else cry other than Gerard--when Frank died, he didn’t, ever, hear anyone else cry other than Gerard--when it was dark and quiet and Gerard thought he slept.

---

I want everything to go back to the way it was.

---

Before, right after he woke up and Gerard told him his name, they used to go outside and Ray would show him how to play guitar, Frank would smoke and Gerard would laugh while Bob just lay there naked in the grass by the pond.

---

I remember something. I mean, I dreamt it but this felt like memory not like dream, you know? And it doesn’t make sense. Mikey looks at the tips of his shoes in the grass and Frank mumbles something, something that sounds like I died, but Mikey isn’t sure, could have been I lied. But that’s stupid, Frank says. I can’t remember that. And he laughs, short and awkward and Mikey looks at Frank looking at the field. It was probably because I fell from my bed. And Frank laughs again, like a stupid three year old, and Mikey doesn’t laugh, smiles, because Mikey can’t remember what a three year old means and after a while Frank doesn’t laugh either just stares into the distance.

When there was nowhere left to walk to and nothing but grass and sky, he saw a house in a valley by a pond, and on the porch there was a person.

Gerard didn’t see him at first.

There was this time when Mikey slipped from the roof. He didn’t fall, his leg slipped, because his shoes have smooth soles and the roof was a little damp with dew and he slipped. It was a second and Mikey caught the chimney nearby and hung on to it. He didn’t fall. It was just for one second. And his palms hurt because they had scraped at the chimney, and his knees shook and for a while Mikey couldn’t breathe and he knew he’d felt like that before, somewhere. It was just a second and after that Ray came and said let’s eat, Mikey saw him standing in the grass looking up at him and Mikey couldn’t let go of the chimney.

Gerard wouldn’t let him climb the roof after that.

You are not Mikey.

That night he sleeps in his old bed and it’s Gerard strangling him and he can’t breathe, can’t understand, can’t move and can’t see that Gerard is crying, and repeating I want it all to go back, over and over and over and over and over until Mikey doesn’t breathe anymore and it’s all dark and there’s nothing left. There are flashes, little flashes of bright light, red and blue and red and blue and there’s something over him, so heavy, and Frank’s face turned in a weird position, staring at him and Mikey knows this isn’t here, this isn’t now and then he sees something from before, like the inside of a bunk and the walls are not straight and it’s just a second and then he doesn’t see anything at all just thinks I remember, I have to remember this, this is important, I have to remember.

---
Another message I can't read (Radiohead, In Limbo)
---

When he opens his eyes--there’s this feeling, something in the back of his mind (a dream, it was important, I can’t remember; something important)--the room is empty, a bed and concrete walls. It’s a blur and his hand searches instinctively for his glasses. He knows he’s wearing glasses. He doesn’t need to remember. And even though he doesn’t--remember that is--anything before waking up, his name, his life, anything, he trusts that person in front of the window giving him a name, saying: good morning Mikey. He doesn’t notice how the person looks so tired and how his words have a vague spacing when he says: I am Gerard.
He will, later, when the house will be empty and the field will be empty and there will be an accident (an unexpected and undesirable event, especially one resulting in damage or harm; again) Gerard will cry and there will be nothing but grass from here to nowhere, over and over and over again.

end

Octav Avramescu

2010-11-12T11:10:00.000-08:00

The significance of ideals expressed in such 19th century British plays like The inchcape bell (1828) and The pirates of penzance () can take into account both the valuational and epistemological implications of the term “ideals.” Values expressed by individual characters cause the plot to move forward and realize or represent individual ideals on stage in meaningful moments for the audience. (Such moments stand out as the truth content of actions on stage.) In them, individual ideals subsumed in the structure of plays under the requirement of scenic representation become validated (or invalidated). But audiences look at stories staged through their own separate set of ideals, in which the theater can represent something else/more than an impersonal and perfect mirror held to the world and its functioning. Thus, by analyzing metatheatricality what in The pirates of penzance appears as a structure of dialectical recuperation for the ideals expressed in earlier nautical burlettas like The inchcape bell, a valuational and epistemological analysis of ideals is possible, because through these techniques of creative assimilation The Inchcape Bell and The pirates of penzance can test playfully and openly the transposition of individual ideals into collective ideals, as well as the limits within which ideals can evolve in a popular genre like melodrama, from which the plays analyzed derive their techniques of internalizing the ethical validity of ideals against their factual validity.

The controversial rise of melodrama as a new genre of theater in London at the beginning of the 19th century afforded playwrights an optimal chance to invest, and investigate, collective wish images. They were derived through a combination of high and low theater, and could address both the “overwhelming misfortunes of the great” and “the frailties and follies … of the lower orders of society,” according to a contemporary commentator (qt. in Hadley, 65). The hybridism of melodrama is thus a new rule under a unified morality, in which the new is permeated with the old, and the affirmation of individual values changes the formal features of dramaturgy.
In his survey The Melodramatic imagination, Peter Brooks claims that “our clearest indication of the issues at stake in melodrama” needs to be lifted from this genre’s specific mode of operation, “which tends toward … spectacular moments of public homage to virtue and its effects” (26). The “spectacular” appears thus as a subcategory of the “public” element in melodrama; in this way a literary historical analysis of the genre can contain/frame the melodramatic tendency for excessive representation, and read into this imaginary paradigm a recurring but temporary significance of its specific set of ideals, especially in a context limited to the significance of ideals expressed.

“scriitorii de melodrama”

Iulia Anghel

2010-11-12T10:56:00.000-08:00

Melodrama şi fabrica de sensuri

Melodrama nu este o stare, o direcţie, un curent sau o predispoziţie atitudinală. Melodrama este o fabrică de sensuri.

Asumarea sa echivalează cu un salt în afara propriei fiinţe perceptive: cel care trăieşte melodrama este conştient de exagerarea estetică, individualizantă şi particularizantă a propriilor trăiri.

Melo-dramarea rezidă în asumarea tragică sau nu, a unei imense singurătăţi. Individul îşi “joacă” sieşi piesa propriilor trăiri, proiectate prin lupa exagerării. Hiperbolizarea sentimentului este un soi de aruncare “înainte” în dorinţa disperată de a atinge înţelesul, care devine însă absent – se deplasează fatidic “înapoi”.

Actul melodramatic impune şi o conexiune antagonică şi specifică în mod exclusiv trăirii umane: fugă exagerată după sens, dublată de acceptarea voluntară a sentimentului ridicolului.

Ridicolul nu echivalează doar cu “negativul” sau absenţa primului termen invocat, sensul, ci şi cu supralicitarea sa intenţionată. Ridicolul poate fi o specie hibridă de sens: o direcţie percepută în mod deformat, care la rîndul său acţionează deformant la adresa lumii exterioare individului melodramatic.

Melodrama guvernează tot.

Adio homo faber sau homo politicus – începe dictatura lui homo (melo)dramaticus.

Melancolie, nostalgie, ironie

Balet semantic după Jean Starobinski

Plecînd de la celebra butadă a regelui Soare, l'état c'est moi, se poate dezvolta o aserţiune nouă, cu implicaţii teribile pentru întreaga psiho-socio-patologie umană – melancolia este egală cu eului.

Nu poţi să te trezesti într-o unitate evidentă., directă şi angoasantă cu propriul tău sine fără să devii melancolic. Între tine şi fulguranta ta fiinţă se instalează astfel un vid neliniştitor şi cu efecte subversive. Melancolia conştiinţei de sine este o maladie care a înspăimîntat fiinţa umană încă din primele sale zbateri întru devenire. Pe vremuri melancolia se trata cu leacuri complicate şi rare, care vizau în principal suprimarea acelei substanţe amăgitoare şi nefaste, care era Bila Neagră.

Materie inconsistentă fizic, dar cu profunde simptome psiho-fiziologice, această licoare neagră se transforma într-un soi de Styx interior, care guverna din umbră statuia umană. Mai tîrziu melancoliei i s-a confiscat statutul de maladie şi a fost redusă doar la o simplă predispoziţie atitudinală. Ironic, melancolia a continuat să facă victime, cu precădere în rîndul celor care-i negau existenţa – pandemia s-a declanşat în modernitate.

Cumva putem spune că dialectica societăţii umane este o dinamică a melancoliei şi a melodramei:

Vorba lui Hobbes, omul era singur şi melancolic – şi tocmai de aceea i-a inventat pe ceilalţi. Ceilalţi au devenit la un anumit fatidic şi terifiant moment un tip de nou de Eu şi mai mare şi mai însingurat. Atunci s-a revenit la eu-l mic şi posedat doar de melancolia lui. Societatea ne învaţă să fim melancolici împreună, devenind astfel un fel de mare sanatoriu sentimental.

Suntem într-un mare spital prin care bîntuie melancolia, învăluită în mantia melodramei – uite aşa aflăm, fără să ne dedăm filosofiei, că Nimicul totuşi există.

BMR Collection of Hysteria

2010-11-12T09:27:00.000-08:00

As You Desire Me, George Fitzmaurice, 1932

The Lady from Shanghai, Orson Welles, 1949

Caught, Max Ophüls, 1949

Written on the Wind, Douglas Sirk, 1956

The Snake Pit, Anatole Litvak, 1948

Imitation of Life, Douglas Sirk, 1959

The Bad and the Beautiful, Vincente Minnelli, 1952

Written on the Wind, Douglas Sirk, 1956

Possessed, Curtis Bernhardt, 1947

Imitation of Life, Douglas Sirk, 1959

The Snake Pit, Anatole Litvak, 1948

The Snake Pit, Anatole Litvak, 1948

Leave Her to Heaven, John M. Stahl, 1945

The Women, George Cukor, 1939

Caught, Max Ophüls, 1949

The Snake Pit, Anatole Litvak, 1948

Les Diaboliques, Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955

Imitation of Life, Douglas Sirk, 1959

Mildred Pierce, Michael Curtiz, 1945

Imitation of Life, Douglas Sirk, 1959

The Women, George Cukor, 1939

Rebecca, Alfred Hitchcock, 1940

Gaslight, George Cukor, 1944

A Stolen Life, Curtis Bernhardt, 1946

Leave Her to Heaven, John M. Stahl, 1945

Les Diaboliques, Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955

Browse the archive

2010-11-12T09:04:00.001-08:00

Stanescu Sisters' Film Stills (courtesy of Mr. Ghirtoiu)

Mr. Ghirtoiu's Obituary

Mona & Lisa Stanescu's Private Belongings

The Handkerchief Collection

BMR Cinema Collection of Hysteria

Read the experts' contributions to the 2009 BMR Report

Bureau Gold Anatolians

2010-11-10T05:18:00.000-08:00

Partnerships

2010-11-02T05:47:00.001-07:00

ArtLeaks

Biblioteca Alternativa

Fanclub of Romanian Achievements

Aerobix

Corina Lucia Apostol

Irina Costache

The Presidential Campaign

Cosima Opartan

Zacamant

Prisaca
Ailanthus Altissima

Valeria Barbas & Tatiana Fiodorova

Spectral Institutions

Adrian Gheorghe special thanks for making the blog!

National Bureau of Statistics Chisinau

2010-10-25T05:40:00.000-07:00

In the frame of the project Chisinau- Art, Research in
the Public Sphere, The Bureau of Melodramatic Research
announces the launch of the Department of Statistics, led
by two Bureau agents from Chisinau: Valeria Barbas and
Tatiana Fiodorova. The official launch of the new Department will take place in the park in front of the National Bureau of Statistics
of the Republic of Moldova on the 20th of September 2010, at 16:30.

BNS refused to collaborate with BMR, that is why the presentation will take place in the public space.

A second presentation of the results of the survey took place at the Bureau for Interethnic Relations at the project's final conference.

The Department of Statistics releases the results of its research in Chisinau, GROSS NATIONAL HEEL. The study has collected numeric data regarding the height of the heels in 5 places in Chisinau. The results of the surveys will be shown both in the public space and in the state institutions situated in the immediacy of the studied area.

The graphic displayed at the Romanian Embassy,
showing the variation of the height of the heels at the queue in front on the 10th of September 2010, between 11:44-12:14.

The graphic displayed at the Moldova Stock Exchange,
showing the variation of the height of the heels at the entrance of the building on the 10th of September 2010, 12:57-13:29.

The graphic displayed at the National Commission of Financial Market, showing the variation of the height of the heels on the main boulevard in Chisinau on the 11th of September 2010, between 17:55-18:25.

The graphic displayed at the Moldova State University,
showing the variation of the height of the heels at the entrance of the building on the 11th of September 2010, between 17:01-17:28

The graphic displayed at [KSA:K] Center for Contemporary Art,
showing the variation of the height of the heels in front of the
building on the 11th of September 2010, between 15:27-15:51.

Stefan Tiron

2010-10-25T05:21:00.001-07:00

„La memorialul de la Sighet iei parte la o sfănta înmormantare. Se îngroapă uneltele însângerate ale comunismului, se plâng victimele date trupului țării. Capul e plecat, pumnul e strâns - dorind dreptate, auzul se ascute, iar durerea se vrea razbunată.”
Cătălina Matei, elevă de la Liceul "George Enescu" din București participantă la școala de Vară de la Sighet

Crimele comunismului și alte efecte speciale melodramatice

Tematizarea istoriei are nevoie de efecte speciale. Fără efecte de sunet nici un film nu face doi bani. Se știe că peste 90% din filmele de succes de astăzi se bazează pe efecte speciale si de postproductie. Chiar dacă se investește mult timp, multi bani și multă putere de calcul în aceste efecte speciale, asta nu înseamnă că sunt prea sofisticate. Oricat ar fi nivelul de complexitate al animațiilor și simulării de tornade, explozii sau cutremure, multe din efectele 3d sunt direcționate spre un homunculus senzorial simplist care percepe doar efecte puternice și violente. Daca ai altera ușor doar freamătul frunzelor dintr-un colț al ecranului, percepția ar fi moartă. Dar daca scufunzi Titanicul încă odată, o sa ai toată atenția publicului.

Pentru a produce dramatic postcomunismul este nevoie de postproducție în studiouri de sunet, design, arhitectură și în ateliere de artiști vizuali.

Nici în film, nici în muzeu, nici pe scena nu poți afecta publicul, nu îl poți convinge dacă nu te bazezi pe efecte speciale din cele mai turbulente, violente și excitante. Suferința, durerea, teroarea trebuie să fie experiențială ca să poată fi memorabilă. În Romania trecuturile istorice medievale, preistorice și moderne sunt în competiție directă unele cu altele pentru atenția împrăștiată a tinerilor de azi, pentru spații de expunere inexistente și pentru fonduri din ce in ce mai mici. Competiția asta fără milă se desfășoară și la nivelul valorii de șoc a trecutului. Ce poate șoca cel mai mult din trecutul istoric al țării?

Un exercițiu fertil ar fi să vedem ce perioade din istoria țării pot fi activ tematizate si transformate în muzee si parcuri tematice astăzi și care evident te fac să uiți și să te plictisești. S-ar putea inaugura un memorial interactiv al bătăliei de la Posada sau de la Călugareni? Putem sa ne imaginăm un display dolby surround cu numeroasele invazii barbare de pe teritoriul țării noastre? Acestea ar fi desigur niște exemple de display-uri interactive, diferite de niște simple muzee de ceară de tipul celor care comemorează semnarea unor tratate, armistiții sau a încoronărea unor conducatori și voievozi locali. Oricăt de fastuos și înălțător ar fi ceremonialul de la curtea domnească, nimic nu se compară cu pământul ars, casele pustiite și cadavrele celor care au luptat pentru neatârnarea neamului românesc.

În filmele de acțiune americane exista un fel de record al cadavrelor – un body count. Cu cât era mai popular un film, cu atât părea sa fie mai plin de morți și răniți, mai plin de cadavre decât precedentul. Tot așa, parcă urmărind să doboare recordul anterior, cele mai exploatabile dpdv artistic și melodramatic sunt perioadele istorice unde abundă macelurile, jerfta, suferințele și torturile repetate. Experiența gulagului românesc este un fel teren de antrenament pentru senzații tari și percepții ultradure. La școala de vară de la Sighet, tinerii elevi aleși prin concurs din întreaga țară pot simți reprimarea comunistă pe viu într-un mediu însorit și prietenos.

Putem spune ca tinerii si elevii aceștia par să fie segmentul de populație țintit atât de noua propagandă cât și de vechea propagandă. Înainte mergeai cu școala la pușcariile ilegaliștilor comuniști, acum după 1989 mergi la pușcăriile dizidenților anticomuniști. Salvarea tineretului român printr-un exercițiu de trăire directă și dramatică a crimelor comunismului este motivată de un fel de fatalism istorico-pedagogic cu privire la inevitabila spălare pe creier a generațiilor tinere. Și aici remarcăm o competiție cu privire la numărul si prioritatea spălării pe creier a celor tineri.

Trauma este ridicată la nivelul unei experiențe educativ-pedagogice în fostul lagăr comunist. Trauma poate fi un bun profesor. Trauma te ține treaz și deschide ochii.
Dar nu este oare asta și explicația din spatele filmelor de groază cenzurate de părinții grijulii? Dacă vezi și citești ceva sângeros și atroce, nu este atât de sigur că o să devi mai blând, mai milos și mai sensibil.

Un afiș promotional recent pentru Memorialul Victimelor Comunismului si al Rezistenței de la Sighet exemplifică exact această metodologie pedagogică veche/nouă. Supriza constă in faptul ca aceasta metodă pedagogică nu este prea sofisticată, este chiar foarte aproape de funcția basmului modern de tip Frații Grimm.
Pe afiș avem doi copii înmărmuriți, un fel de Hansel si Gratel moderni care stau și privesc printr-un vizor de temniță comunistă. Se văd numai fețele lor privind afară prin aceași deschizătură printr-o ușa de metal groasă si brutală. Deschizătura permitea supravegherea celor din interior fără deschiderea ușii principale. Această ușiță priveau îi lega vizual pe deținuții politici de torționarii lor. Accesul la trecutul uitat, accesul la ce s-a întâmplat înainte de comunism se face prin această ușiță de carceră comunistă. Tinerii actuali, generațiile de după 1989 sunt pierduți, sunt rătăciți pe meleagurile istoriei, s-au pierdut în sălbaticia codrului istoric așternut după întunericul comunist. Harta gulagului românesc vine ca un fel de hartă formată din firimituri istorice prețioase care permit salvarea, întoarcerea acasă și recuperarea memoriei istorice pierdute. Dar istoria lui Hansel si Gratel a copiilor recuperați si atrași într-un mediu excitant, plin de senzații puternice și efecte speciale lacrimogene ascunde o casă de turtă dulce-amară, cu uși grele ca un cuptor de reeducare ideologico-alchimică. Lecția sumbră istorica este ca întradevăr, în lipsa oricărui marcaj prin codrul istoric poți ajunge oricând la prima casă corecțională, luminată și primitoare.

Urmărind morala neintenționată a basmului de tip Grimm și aplicațiile ei moderne postcomuniste, o sa avem surpriză neplăcută să nimerim și noi prin codrul istoric tot într-un cadru concentraționar, iarăși într-un locus al încarcerării ideologice ferecate. Privind acest afiș îi vedem pe tinerii de azi care sunt ei inșiși deținuți, hrăniți și îngrășați sistematic cu seminarii, prelegeri, lansări de carte și conferințe la fiecare ediție nouă a școlii de vară de la Sighet. Pe afiș scrie „vreți să înțelegeți Romania de azi?” - și acesta trebuie înțeleasă ca o întrebare capcană menită sa atragă tineri într-o experiența de neuitat. Acesta pare să fie afișul unei agenții turistice care ne atrage în inima iadului comunist reconstruit pentru nevoile prezentului.

Efectele 3d vin în ajutorul istoriei și al locației îndepărtate. În 2008 Fundația Academia Civică și SpiderNET lansează dvd-ul „Muzeul de luat acasă” - o vizită virtuală tridimensională a Muzeului Memorial Sighet. După cum ne informează situl oficial, firma SpiderNET se ocupă de proiecte de software educațional și corporate training. Ei au realizat practic un muzeu al crimelor comuniste „de luat acasă”. În Romania eLearning-ul, îmbunătățirea prin mijloace electronice a proceselor de învățare și predare, este aplicat cu succes pentru a realiza o experiența căt mai completă a pușcăriilor regimului totalitar cu ocazia unui tur virtual. Nu am avut niciodată un dvd 3d cu Muzeul Partidului Comunist, dar slavă designerilor 3d și animatorilor avem pușcării comuniste modelate exact după realitatea comemorativă a prezentului. Virtualizarea crimelor comunismului permite asimilarea penitenciarului devenit muzeu cu arhitectură 3d de joc de-a istoria și suferința pe nivele de tortură, deportare și rezistență. Sobrietatea statisticilor, enumerarea lagărelor si victimelor comuniste, uscăciunea științifică cu care sunt livrate materialele istorice riscă parcă să asigure uitarea, numerologia sacră deranjează scopului eduativ. Sentimentul fricii și al terorii, emoția suferinței adaugă exact un plus esențial de convingere a simțurilor indiferente la înșiruiri de cifre. Acestă bombardare sentimentală este esențială și pare că face parte dintr-un proces de decontaminare programată. Comunistologii care conduc seminariile de la Sighet vorbesc activ despre decontaminare, decomunizare ca și cum s-ar vorbi despre o chemoterapie intensivă. Supradoza de emoție, durere și calvar comunist asigură și un fel de experiență 4d. La dimensiunile grafice 3d se adaugă totdeuna o experiența emoțională sfășietoare legată de conținutul sentimental al relatărilor care sporesc realismul și conferă un fel de comuniune senzorială la toate nivelele.

Detaliile torturii, lupta eroică contra atacantului străin sau puterii totalitare este tematizată astăzi cu succes în cadrul unor muzee și case memoriale din fostul lagăr comunist. Această tematizare nu folosește doar artefacte, statistici, acte, povestiri orale, arhive foto si alte dovezi clasice. Componenta poate cea mai interesantă și atrăgătoare o constituie aportul unor artiști contemporani, ai unor creatori de instalații interactive, instalații de sunet, coloane sonore, designer-i și chiar artiști plastici. Fie că modelează peisagistic sau că propun ansambluri sculpturale sau că dedică lucrări deja existente, fie că sunt plătiți sau nu, acesti colaboratori și specialiști în efecte speciale sunt în mare parte responsabili pentru impactul turistic și propagandistic al acestor locații muzeale. Conștient sau nu, aceștia manufacturează consensul istoric cu privire la trecutul recent și sunt adânc implicați în valoarea de șoc a acestor parcuri tematice anticomuniste. Sighet este un exemplu românesc, dar a servit ca precursor, cum ne asigura comunistologul Stephane Curtois și pentru alte muzee din Europa de est. Prepararea realității sporite a terorii în prezent se poate face prin mijloace tehnologice și estetice artistice actuale.
Casa Terorii nu este un film de groază mexican. Terror háza este un nou tip de muzeu dedicat terorii și groazei dictaturilor fasciste și comuniste din Ungaria. Deschis în 2002, el este o atracție turistică și are o coloană sonoră special compusă cu orchestră de coarde, mixuri stereofonice și efete de sunet terifiante.

Muzeul Revoltei din Varșovia (pl. Muzeum Powstania Warszawskieg) lansat în 2004 este și el în mare parte dotat cu instalații de sunet și instalații interactive care permit un imersiunea totală. Vorbim aici aprope de un fel de „tunelul groazei” istorice prin care sunt invitați să treacă vizitatorii. Imersiunea într-un segment modelat dupa canalizările Varșoviei, loc prin care circulau si se aprovizinau cei din rezistență, este o experiență brutală de șoc și dezorientare senzorială, lipsită doar de elementul olfactiv ca să fie completă. Există un zid in inima construcției cu urme artificiale de gloanțe si sunetele unei bătăi de inimă constante care transmite emoție, frică și te ține cu sufletul la gură. Continuu, în întreg muzeul, pe toată desfășurarea orelor de vizită are loc un bombardament aerian simulat non-stop. Ghida principală spunea că aici la noi războiul nu se termină niciodată. Și întradevăr noile muzee tematice ale groazei, rezistenței și terorii se declanșează și o iau de la capăt după apăsarea unui simplu buton de pornire. Angajații și paznicii din interior joacă deja rol de victime sau torționari în funcție de uniforma purtată și special croită cu logo-ul muzeului. Sunetul este în loop și explicațiile sunt în loop.

Linkuri utile
http://www.memorialsighet.ro
http://muzeuldeluatacasa.ro/
http://www.terrorhaza.hu
http://www.1944.pl

As You Desire Me

2010-09-18T12:54:00.001-07:00

As You Desire Me

The Contemporary Art Gallery of Brukenthal National Museum
6th – 29th of August 2010

Curator: Raluca Voinea (RO)

Everyday we build ourselves, we pose, perform ourselves, we connect to each other when it seems appropriate, only to forget that feeling of attachment as soon as the right moment has gone, we divide ourselves and then come back in one piece, in the mirror of memory or in that which the others – always benevolent – put in front of us. Later we raise our children with the same wishes as ours, and if we failed to embody those wishes, we can still invent a past which we don’t remember or which never existed. (Raluca Voinea)

Creativity Counselling Goethe

2010-09-18T12:24:00.000-07:00

CREATIVITY COUNSELLING I

poster by Postspectacle

CREATIVITY COUNSELLING

@Goethe-Institut Bucharest

During the The Long Night of the Galleries in Bucharest, The Bureau of Melodramatic Research provided creativity counselling services for all those interested. On the 11th of June 2010, at 7 o’ clock in the evening BMR opened the glass doors of its host, Goethe-Institut (long after its usual opening hours). The host was chosen because of its special relationship to the Bureau. BMR is mostly financed from the part-time bureau jobs of its founding members in Goethe-Institut Bukarest. At the same time, BMR recognizes its strategic positioning, right near the newly founded Kunsthalle Batiste, replacing Paradis Garaj, overtaken at that time by BB4 (Bucharest Biennale 4.

The treatment session was open to all the artists and other actors on the local cultural scene who felt that the role attributed to them by the contemporary society, those of seismographs, needed further training. The Bureau of Melodramatic Research has taken into account Goethe-Institut’s policy expressed by its president, Prof. Dr. Klaus-Dieter Lehman: Goethe-Institut helps actors, artists, teachers and scientists develop and unfold their competence and creativity in various ways in the host countries. http://www.goethe.de/ges/prj/kue/ini/en3740637.htm

** For a creativity bonus the event supported the Presidential Campaign: The election posters were displayed for all the duration of the evening.

The counselling was provided individually in the order of the arrival. On demand, we could organize group counselling sessions.

BMR agrees to maintain confidentiality regarding its clients’ identity or other personal facts. Moreover, the counselling is free of charge.

Statue Presentation Chisinau

2010-09-18T12:22:00.001-07:00

During the first part of a project organized by [KSA:K] in Chisinau, we attended a seminar in the Moldova State University. Everybody was scheduled for a portfolio presentation, the usual self-selling exercise, part of the larger battle for supremacy in the attention economy.

The Bureau decided to leave the university aula and make the presentation in the public space, which brought about a conflict. The disagreement was finally appeased by means of democratic vote, proposed on spot by Stefan Tiron. Finally everybody agreed to go out.

The chosen location was the lawn in front of the bronze statue Ion and Doina. Requiem to Love, right next to the university. The two proto-Romanian names and the traditional posture of the heterosexual couple hinted at the prototype of the nuclear family. At a first glance the statue seemed to be the impersonation of abstract (however patriotism instilled) love. After a few inquiries in the area we found out that it actually represented a couple of Moldavian pop stars of the 90’s: Ion and Doina Aldea Teodorovici. They died in a car accident in 1992 but their songs remained emblematic for the extreme right wing Noua Dreapta, since they were praising nationalism, conservative values and the unification of Moldova with Romania. One of their famous songs was dedicated to the Romanian national poet, Mihai Eminescu, also a key-figure for the Noua Dreapta and the new revived conservatism after 89 in both countries.

In the manner of school open-air trips arousing patriotic feelings, the Bureau made a presentation about love, reminder of propagandistic sun-burned talks.

We reiterated the couple figure by showing two additional objects on the statue’s plinth. One was a plastic statue of Pocahontas and her lover and the other one was a wedding photo, both found on the shelf of our rented apartment in Chisinau, left behind by the owners for the time of our stay there. They had originally displayed them together as well, maybe because of the striking resemblance of the couple’s posture: the woman, smaller, was comfortably leaning on the man’s strong chest.
We traced some parallel between three systems of representation and instrumentalization of love, using the hook in Ovidiu Tichindeleanu’s presentation that morning about alternative economies, among which he named and discussed the wedding system.

The nuclear family propaganda together with the traditional distribution of the gender roles was reflected by the three objects, in the order of their size: a public monument, a private photograph and a tiny pop culture plastic figurine. The bronze- paper-plastic trilogy perfectly served our aim of explaining the melodramatic mode by means of spontaneous reaction to the surrounding context and use of the existing material proofs around.

The monument is representative of Romanian nationalist discourse, augmented by a melodramatic recourse to folklore and romantic feelings towards nature (the embraced couple, on top of a steep cliff). It is also part of the traditional figurative aesthetics, glorifying and monumentalizing, in the same way the neoconservative discourse is pervaded by ostentatious metaphors, emotional epithets and striking parables.

The wedding photo as the fetish object of self-representation visually fulfils the legal requirements of a “serious” married couple. This legitimization of love by juridical means is also a promise of enhanced financial security as well as the motor of a sentimental black market around the wedding event. The latter is part of a gift economy which functions by its own unwritten rules, determined by social status, friendship, degree of kinship etc. The official state and church doctrine is thus satisfied, so the wedding photo can be framed and displayed as a further incentive to reproduce and stay faithful to heterosexual love.

The plastic statue of Pocahontas and her lover brings a further layer to the alleged innocent issue of love, re-enacting the relation of power in a new setting of (neo)colonial thinking. The bipolar structure of gender roles is reproduced in the geography of cardinal direction, with psychological traits attached to it: East= Woman, West=Man and on the same ideological axis East=Feel, West=Think. These cultural constructs enforced by the academic discourse as well as the mass-media, especially beginning with the 19th century, were sharply criticized by Edward Said in his 1978 Orientalism. The feminizing of the East, as well as its infantilization were also re-enacted with respect to the East of Europe, especially after 89, which was the subject of some other BMR analyses.

KF Arad

2010-09-18T11:14:00.001-07:00

Cry-Baby

2010-09-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

CRY-BABY. HOW TO WIN HEARTS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

The crisis of global capitalism can be textually read as a crisis of the official rhetoric of optimism. The transnational ode to joy is being at last overshadowed by gloomy, negative feelings; the sudden shift from euphoria to panic is paving the way for emotional collapse. Doctrinaire choirs set the tone for these public lamentations, the economic and political depression is more and more often tantamount to nervous depression.

The generalized lachrymatory outbursts cannot be legally controlled anymore, they are not even threatened by EU’s recent law which bans the traditionally East-European profession of mourning at funerals. At the same time, there is a new emerging category of professional mourners, a new code of emo-political manners. This code is constantly promoted by public figures, ranging from presidents to all sorts of other feeble-hearted political or legal personalities, including corporations. It keeps fueling a ubiquitous compassion which, most of the times, ethically justifies economic interests.

On the other hand, depression as “de-activation of desire” could be a fatal crack in the social nervous system, an irreversible imbalance in the self-sufficient xanax economy, the first false tones in the much touted hymn of the capitalist miracle.

Being interested in the circuit of emotions, the Bureau of Melodramatic Research recognizes the anti-hierarchical potential of cry-babies - weeping as a form of resistance, but also its manipulative purpose with the aim of producing consent. BMR proposes a new etiquette, the Cry-Baby Guide. This new guide turns to onion, as a natural catalyst for these socially forbidden eruptions in the public space. The new skool of lachrymatory practice aims at breaking the alleged monopoly of emotional secretions and promotes reflex tears as a form of counter-crying, a protest which doesn’t end but start with tear gas.

Download here

Creativity

2010-09-18T10:33:00.001-07:00

-ongoing and available by request-

Please submit your request if you feel you are in need of treatment sessions.

CREATIVITY COUNSELLING I

has taken place in Bucharest, 2009

CREATIVITY COUNSELLING II

has taken place in Warsaw, 2010

The Bureau of Melodramatic Research provides creativity counselling services for all those interested. The sessions are open to all the artists and other actors on the local cultural scene who feel that the role attributed to them by the contemporary society, those of seismographs, needs further training. Give up your glittering portfolios, the namedropping mantras and institutional talismans and join BMR'S treatment sessions!

Gross National Heel

2010-09-18T10:23:00.000-07:00

GROSS NATIONAL HEEL
A BMR Survey in Chisinau, Moldova

Moldova’s Gross National Income is one of the lowest in Europe. The economic crevasse at the EU border is countered by wider railway lines and higher heels worn on women’s stilettos. While the financial situation is extremely uneven across the ex-soviet territory, the train lines and the bodily elevation of the female population are rather constant, responding to invisible biometrics.

The imperative of verticality, typical of the civilized world, is completed by the one of height. The skyscraper and the space race, from the Cold War period, are gradually replaced by the new high altitude standard: the heel pedestal competition.

In the public space in Chisinau, the totalitarian sound of heels is oftentimes the only feminine voice. It obscures through frequency and intensity the spoken discourse, the controversies, gossips or neighbourhood arguments. The groundlessness of the high heeled Moldavian women is visible both on the sidewalks and on the billboards. It seems to be a resistance movement in the flood of nationalist slogans aiming at luring the citizens closer to the ground, but paradoxically the same company is responsible for both campaigns.

BMR has chosen several locations in Chisinau to collect numeric data regarding the height of the heels, thus warning against a lacuna in the official statistics. The results of the survey will be displayed in place of origin, in the form of a graphic of the heel height variation in time. This will be shown both in the public space and in the state institutions situated in the immediacy of the studied area. BMR recognises an institutional disregard of the relevance of such data. In the spotlight are: The Romanian Embassy, The Stock Exchange, The National Commission for the Financial Market, The State University, The Center for Contemporary Art [KSA:K].

All the graphics will eventually be displayed in the proximity of the National Bureau of Statistics of Moldova. The Bureau of Statistics has refused collaboration with the Bureau of Melodramatic Research, therefore the presentation will take place in the public space.

See the results of the research here

Gabi Eftimie

2010-09-18T04:21:00.000-07:00

12 februarie, 1938 (in absentia)

Am deschis la întâmplare caietul şi am scris unde am apucat. Am ajuns să cred că sîntem singurele care-şi mai dedică timp pentru repetiţii după dispariţia lui M.

............................................................................ Şi ce să scriu despre ele, nu ştiu...

Astăzi am ajuns la finalul cărţii lui Sadoul: Istoria cinematografului mondial, după care am revenit la Péret
Tot ce reţin din non-chant d’amour e „la courbe de tes yeux ne peut plus faire le tour de mon cœur”. Jeny nu mai vrea să lucreze cu M. Are senzaţia că asistă la reconstituirea a ceva fals. Mă gîndesc adesea dacă n-am mai trăit şi eu viaţa asta de căprioară de porţelan.

Mie mi s-a părut că e doar o chestiune de orgoliu, i-am scris bileţele şi i le-am strecurat pe sub uşă:

Stai, tu mă simt ca sub cascada iguacu alunec pe săpun din creierul ăla al tău iesecam mult fum
semnat Anonimul

M. ar fi făcut-o oricum de mai demult, iar cu Jeny nu mai poţi vorbi decît despre cum ar fi să ne sinucidem chiar în timpul înregistrării. Când mi-a spus asta, brusc am simţit nevoia să fug la baie. Atunci cînd moare cineva şi aflăm, normal ar fi să ni se oprească funcţiile şi necesităţile biologice, dar ele nu se opresc, …sîntem biologie.

Dorinţe primitive mă încearcă, aşadar !adio.

18? februarie 1983

Filmăm la „Obsidian”, sînt distrată, în loc să mă pună pe gânduri, comportamentul lui Jeny mă amuză, se poate să renunţăm la scena ocultă. Sîntem nişte cuconete delicate, desigur.

Mă interesează mai mult ideea lui M. de a construi totul pe argumente ştiinţifice şi apoi visul ca element eliberator. A trecut un an deja de atunci (???) Mi-ar plăcea să împrumut din modul lui exact de a gândi.
„Tulburările cognitive şi behaviorale ajung să eclipseze deseori atacurile de apoplexie şi pot afecta calitatea vieţii. Pacienţii care suferă de epilepsie pot avea defecte cognitive, care afectează atenţia, memoria, viteza mentală şi limbajul, precum şi funcţiile executive şi sociale. În plus, aceste probleme sunt deseori ignorate sau diagnosticate incorect.”

Am visat din nou ceva legat de atacurile lui M., părea că se agaţă de ultimul strop de demnitate. NU există o singură cale, sînt mii de drumuri, mii de culori, toate la fel de reale şi de posibile.
Ce mi-a mai plăcut teribil era că, în pauzele dintre secvenţele spectacolului, când orchestra noastră se pregătea să o pornească din nou, bătrânii începeau să tuşească. Dar nu numai unul, ci mai mulţi. De parcă asta au aşteptat în tot timpul care a trecut: să tuşească şi să răguşească. M-am apărat de ei cu puterea gândului, după sfatul lui M.

M. pot să mă întorc la tine? M. pot să mă întorc prin tine? M. pot să mă întorc în tine?

E scena în care spun Sînt o femeie sofisticată.
E linişte.
Demonii şi clovnii au plecat acum.(de ce-mi vine să rîd)

18 → 19 februarie,

Ce coşmar cu miros de patchouli!

Pînă la urmă nu ştiu unde duc toate experimentele lor, Jeny spune că e absurd ce facem. Azi am fiert numai legume veştejite, bani nu mai sunt pentru costume, nici pentru redecorare.

Lumină, moarte şi umbră. Insomnie, am început să număr bătăile inimii, în ordine inversă, cum a numărat, probabil, şi el.

60 59 58 57 56 55 54 53 52 51....

poza e din camera în care am repetat ultima oară cu M. acum 3 luni

... şi nici o amintire care să ne salveze.

31 martie 1938
Am găsit un bilet de la Jeny. Spune că M. a uitat-o într-o carte pe care a împrumutat-o de la ea. Versurile mele preferate:

acest călător trudeşte să ajungă la destinaţie peste abis cu ochii-n pământ, şopteşte „oare nu se mai sfârşeşte această durere nemuritoare care mă bîntuie?" ai devenit calea care ne duce spre distrugere fii blestemat fii abolit anihilat ochii, picioarele, şoldruile încep să se mişte încă un sacrificiu care murdăreşte piatra de mormânt a disperării noastre în timp ce mă înarmez cu rugăciuni totul e mişcare, totul stă nemişcat pe drumul durerii pe calea morţii

Cred că fără M. nu mai are rost să mai învăţ tabelul original pentru scena de mîine.

Caudiu Komartin

2010-09-18T04:16:00.000-07:00

Soare şi semne cu trecerea interzisă

personaje:

Tal, 27 de ani, foarte probabil vie

Sam, 28 de ani, fără speranţă

(Acţiunea se petrece într-o maşină de tocat carne. Şi, întrucât textul nu are nici un fel de acţiune, maşina de tocat poate să se transforme pe parcurs într-o presă hidraulică sau într-o altă maşină care să lucreze simultan cu discursul personajelor la fărâmiţarea oricărei coerenţe posibile)

Tal: Simt că o să intre un gândac în casă.

Sam: Nu-i mult de atunci: felia de pâine uitată pe masă. Susurul robinetelor. Var şi zaţ amestecate în cana de tablă.

Tal: Pleoapele tale, genele şi retina, palmele, penisul tău: plante agăţătoare pe care aş fi dat orice să le îngrijesc doar eu.

Sam: Totul prestabilit, decupat, aşezat conform regulamentelor de ordine mentală. Blestemata ordine mentală.

Tal: Noţiunile prostituate.

Sam: Acum obiectele simt mai mult decât noi.

Tal: Cât întuneric e dincolo de fereastră?

Sam: Întinde mâna.

Tal: Afară, o piele va tresări.

Sam: Apă alunecând printre pietre.

Tal: Percepeam privirile îndrăgostite, indiferent de anotimp.

Sam: Îmi amintesc. Stăteai cu genunchii la gură, ghemuită între pat şi fereastră.

Tal: Cum de ai râs?

Sam: Umbra nu se întinsese până aici.

Tal: Totul s-a făcut ţăndări într-o singură clipă.

Sam: Să vorbim despre oameni ca şi cum am vorbi despre măşti.

Tal: Înveliţi în toată spaima asta. Ca într-o placentă mare. Cald rece

Sam: Şi iarăşi cald.

Tal: Aş fi vrut să învăţ limba pe care o vorbesc localnicii. Nu m-ai lăsat niciodată.

Sam: Ar fi fost nevoie de benzină, chibrituri şi multă răbdare.

Tal: Te urăsc fiindcă bei.

Sam: Te urăsc fiindcă fumezi.

Tal: Te urăsc când îţi duci mâna la frunte îngândurat.

Sam: Te urăsc când ştii ce voi spune şi foloseşti asta împotriva mea.

Tal: Ai aruncat la gunoi tot ce era important.

Sam: Soare şi semne cu trecerea interzisă.

Tal: Te urăsc fiindcă mă umileşti de faţă cu ceilalţi.

Sam: Te urăsc fiindcă nu poţi să aştepţi nimic în tăcere.

Tal: Urăsc dezertările tale. Atâtea secrete.

Sam: Urăsc fluturii pe care ţi-i prinzi în păr, urăsc aripile lor colorate şi singuratice.

Tal: Îmi doream să te îmbolnăveşti ca să am grijă de tine. Să fim doar noi doi. În mijlocul unei plantaţii de seringi şi suspine.

Sam: S-a terminat cu râsul dement în parcări subterane. Cu furia acceleraţiei pe autostrăzi cufundate în noapte.

Tal: Timpul zâmbetului este acum timpul caterelor care îmi sfâşie pielea.

Sam: Sunt după-amieze în care îmi spun că a fost doar un film, o superproducţie horror şi că am jucat după un scenariu scris de un sadic.

furniture

2010-03-02T09:35:00.001-08:00

Bucharest City Museum kindly supported the display of the archive

The Romanian Cultural Institute offered a working desk together with its counterpart, a relaxation armchair according to the typical Romanian greeting Have an easy working day! (Servici usor!)

The institute for the Tnvestigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile provided us with the second desk.

The National Museum of Contemporary Art - the documentation department

film stills 5

2010-03-02T04:18:00.001-08:00

fim stills 4

2010-03-01T10:46:00.001-08:00

Igor Mocanu

2010-03-01T03:12:00.000-08:00

VIAȚA CELORLALȚI. PROIECT DE LEGE PRIVIND COOPERAREA STRATEGICĂ A SRI CU BCM/BMR

Domnului Preşedinte al CSAP

Domnule Preşedinte al Consiliului Suprem de Apărare a Patriei,

Din informaţiile care ne-au parvenit în data de 21 septembrie 2009 de la Pilonul de Securitate şi Control prin Structurile de Securitate şi prin Structurile Juridice de Control şi Audit, cît din cele care ne-au parvenit de la Pilonul Informaţii, Operaţiuni, Analiză şi Planificare prin Direcţiile Judeţene de Informaţii, toate aflate în componenţa Serviciului Român de Informaţii, aducem la cunoştinţă că în urma unei monitorizări sistematice şi strategice pe un eşantion temporal de un an, incluzînd perioada 1 septembrie 2007 – 1 septembrie 2008, s-a constatat:

- Oamenii devin mai comunicativi atunci cînd sînt copleşiţi de sentimente (90% din cazuri).

În Comuna Băbăreni, Judeţul Aslui, cetăţeanul Lae Cormoran a plîns. Întrebat de ce plînge, Lae Cormoran şi-a povestit viaţa în cele mai mici detalii, începînd cu adolescenţa, cînd împreună cu o gaşcă de prieteni a pus la cale extragerea din avutul Statului a unor bunuri de preţ, şi terminînd cu tendinţa lui ornitofilă din ultimele luni.

- Sentimentele copleşitoare generează informaţii de gradul I (80% din cazuri).

În Comuna Băreni, Judeţul Slui, cetăţeanul Petru Atatei a fost fericit. Întrebat de ce este fericit, Petru Atatei a povestit despre metodele prin care a reuşit să-şi facă nepotul, Marius Atatei, să treacă ilegal graniţa Republicii Moldova, iar de-acolo să emigreze în Rusia, de unde ştim că sub numele Piotr Petrovici Papaşkin s-a implicat în procesul gazelor livrate Ucrainei.

- Informaţiile de gradul I sînt transformate în informaţii de gradul II prin canalele media (100% din cazuri).

Privind cazul lui Lae Cormoran, postul privat de televiziune ORP TV a difuzat ştirea că Lae Cormoran a violat mai multe găini în ultimii 5 ani. Conform raportului pe 2008 al Direcţiei Veterinarilor din cadrul Ministerului Dezvoltării Agricole, 98% din găinile violate au şanse de viaţă scăzută, de la 5 zile la 1 săptămînă. În conformitate cu informaţiile prezentate de către Departamentul Decesuri Non-umane din cadrul Direcţiilor Judeţene de Informaţii, în anul 2008 au murit cca. 4.000.589.348 găini, ceea ce a dus la diminuare drastică a livrărilor pe care le efectuează statul nostru pentru concernul KFK.

- Canalele media livrează informaţii de gradul III atunci cînd fac uz de internet (100% din cazuri).

Potrivit portalului de ştiri www.hardnews.com, care a preluat ştirea de la postul privat de televiziune ORP TV, cetăţeanul Lae Cormoran ar fi avut tendinţe ornitofile din cauza celor 3 decesuri survenite în familie: mama, tata şi fiica.

- Informaţiile de gradul III stîrnesc sentimente copleşitoare (90% din cazuri).

În cadrul comentariilor din footer-ul paginii web a www.hardnews.com, comentatorii au folosit emoticoane în proporţie de 99,99%. Cele mai utilizate emoticoane au fost: :-) – 6 %, :-( - 23%, ;-( - 71%, în ocurenţă cu nenumărate informaţii privind viaţa intimă a comentatorilor.

Domnule Preşedinte al Consiliului Suprem de Apărare a Patriei,

Oamenii sînt copleşiţi de emoţii cel mai mult în timpul sărbătorilor, nivelul sentimentelor depăşind cu mult cazurile particulare de: naştere, deces, dezvirginare, copulaţie, căsătorie, divorţ, despărţire, aniversare; realizările profesionale avînd în plan emoţional acelaşi emobarometru precum sărbătorile legale ori celelalte sărbători. Prezentăm mai jos emobarometrul (procent per emoticon) pe perioada investigaţiei curente:

† Două zile pentru fiecare dintre cele 3 sărbători religioase anuale, declarate astfel de cultele religioase legale, altele decât cele creştine, pentru persoanele aparţinând acestora. Legea 202/2008, ca şi forma anterioară a art. 134(1) din Codul Muncii, nu precizează dacă respectivele 2x3 zile înlocuiesc zilele libere definite explicit (Paştele, etc.) sau se adaugă acestora.

Domnule Preşedinte al Consiliului Suprem de Apărare a Patriei,

Colegii noştri din Republica Cehă ne-au adus la cunoştinţă că în perioada 2 august – 21 septembrie 2009, un anume Birou de Cercetări Melodramatice, fondat de două cetăţene ale României, şi-a desfăşurat activitatea la Galeria Klatovy din Klenová. Acest Birou de Cercetări Melodramatice şi-a propus, cităm dintr-un mail trimis de bordul biroului către cetăţeanul străin, domnului Igor Mocanu, ca „pornind de la cazul particular al unor fotografii găsite” în arhiva răposatului nostru coleg, domnul Marian Ghirţoiu, iubitor de frumos şi redutabil monteur de negative la Studiourile Sahia Film, „să analizeze melodramatizările din spaţiul public românesc”, „plus imaginea femeii şi posibilul ei rol ameninţător”, aşa cum reiese el din cazul Monei şi Lisei Stănescu, dar şi „veşnica frică masculină de telenovelizare a culturii oficiale / reci şi frica de «cădere în melodramatic» exprimată deseori în presa românească, dar cultivată cu sfinţenie în acelaşi timp”. Corespondenţa BCM cu Igor Mocanu a fost pusă sub urmărire strategică şi informaţională.

În acest context şi luînd în considerare cele expuse mai sus, Serviciul Român de Informaţie aduce în atenţia CSAP intenţia de a coopera strategic cu Biroul de Cercetări Melodramatice. În acest scop, avem de gînd să aplicăm strategia celor 3 paşi:

1. Infiltrarea unui agent SRI în corpul BCM.

2. Conjugarea membrilor BCM cu obiectivele SRI.

3. Promulgarea unei legi privind cooperarea SRI cu BCM.

Proiectul de lege care va reglementa cooperarea strategică a SRI cu BCM va trebui să ţină cont de următoarele aspecte:

a. Legea se va promulga numai prin ordonanţă de urgenţă.

b. Textul legii va conţine accentele necesare privind cooperarea strategică şi informaţională pentru achiziţia de intelligence nou.

c. Legea va prevedea pentru viitorul apropiat filializarea naţională şi internaţională a BCM.

Domnule Preşedinte al Consiliului Suprem de Apărare a Patriei,

În numele Serviciului Român de Informaţii, solicit includerea pe agenda CSAP data şi locul desfăşurării întrunirii pentru a discuta cele expuse mai sus, cît şi pentru citirile în plen ale textului legii.

Cu deosebită consideraţie,

Director SRI – Amiral Acula.

Sebastian Big

2010-03-01T02:55:00.000-08:00

Melodrama, natură şi artă.

Cercetarea melodramatică înseamnă studiul acelor lucruri care au de-a face cu bunăstarea fiinţelor umane care trăiesc în societate. De unde rezultă că nu există pe planeta Terra o ştiinţă mai importantă şi mai interesantă. Mă tem totuşi că multă lume ar putea considera cercetarea melodramatică o simplă extensie a ştiinţei antropologice, sau un efort de a pune în funcţiune o (altă, nouă) intolerabilă birocraţie, care să patroneze orice acţiune a vieţilor noastre şi poate chiar să încerce să ne amelioreze rasa, ca şi cum ar fi vorba de nişte vite.

Nu acesta e punctul nostru de vedere. Platon şi Rabelais, Campanella şi Morus, au fost printre primii care au anunţat principiile cercetării melodramatice. Trebuie să existe melodramă, au recunoscut toţi aceşti mari pionieri, căci sănătatea societăţii, la fel ca sănătatea trupului e marcată atât de fluxul expansivităţii cât şi de refluxul retenţiei, iar propensiunea spre melodramă e justificată de faptul că fără melodramă nu poate exista fericire. Misiunea cercetării melodramatice e tocmai descoperirea unei noi fericiri şi a unei noi libertăţi.

Privind astfel procesul cercetării melodramatice suntem feriţi de pericolul de a o considera o interferenţă artificială cu Natura. După cum o spune şi Campanella, în Cartea Naturii pot fi citite legile vieţii şi ale guvernării. Sau, după cum spunea şi Quernel acum trei secole: "Natura e melodrama universală". Toate animalele sunt riguros melodramatice; gradul de elaborare al melodramei merge de mână cu gradul de inteligenţă al speciei. Chiar şi gândacul, care trăieşte pe ceea ce noi numim mizerie îşi petrece timpul cultivându-şi propria melodramă. Orice melodramă, în cel mai adevărat sens al cuvântului, nu e decât o metodă din ce în ce mai complexă şi extinsă de purificare - purificarea condiţiilor de viaţă prin legi sănătoase, purificarea propriilor noastre minţi prin o mai bună cunoaştere, purificarea sufeletelor noastre printr-un mai devotat simţ al responsabilităţii melodramatice şi purificarea rasei înseşi printr-o melodramatică eugenie luminată, ajutând în mod conştient natura în efortul ei manifest de a întrupa noi idealuri de viaţă. Nu omul, ci natura, a realizat această idee curajoasă de a plasa în vîrful piramidei trofice antropoide stând pe picioarele din spate, eliberându-le membrele din faţă pentru realizarea aspiraţiilor sufleteşti, cum ar fi arta, în speţă forma ei melodramatică. Nu putem decât să urmăm umili aceeaşi cărare, eliberând forţele latente ale vieţii şi suprimându-le pe acelea care nu mai servesc scopurile ei prezente, după cum bine spunea şi Shakespeare:

"Nature is made better by no mean

But Nature makes that mean...

This is an art

Wich does mend Nature, change it rather, but

The art itself is Nature."