A Politics of Lies
Friday 25 November (17:00 – 22:00)
Saturday 26 November (11:00 – 17.00)
I always speak the truth. Not the whole truth, because there's no way, to say it all. Saying it all is literally impossible: words fail. Yet it's through this very impossibility that the truth holds onto the real.
Jacques Lacan,
“Television.”
Circuits & Currents, Project Space of the ASFA and the Unit of Entrepreneurship and Innovation of ASFA present the “politics of lies”. In recent years, a rising number of art practices from Greece have chosen to experiment with the use of lies and semblances. These cases craft public lies or the condition needed for their emergence. The subtext of such paradigm is often a strategy of “overidentification” and “subversive affirmation.” In certain cases the peculiar stance of “underidentification” is employed as a hypotonic reproduction of an already dull/ repetitive everyday reality experienced as oppressive. The rise of such examples possibly consists in a more or less spontaneous response towards phenomena of “hypernormalization” of the sociopolitical condition, the public sphere and the antagonistic discourse of crisis.
The lasting and sometimes cynical (self)subversion of political alternatives, the recurring rhetoric about “national sovereignty” and its “loss”, the reproduction of traditionalist lifestyles by prominent radicalist discourses, the pendulum motion between the heroism of “resistance” and collective self-victimization, the orientalism pertinent to the way the global art-field and intelligentsia often deal with the landscape of the Greek crisis, leaves no room for neat and safe choices between “resistance” and “conformism.” The lie, in the form of semblance, emerges as a way to inhibit the totalizing function of social normality, but also as a more prosperous ground for addressing the composite ties between desire and oppressive everydayness. The practices presented in this mini-marathon of screenings, discussions and actions do not compose some concrete counter-paradigm but a composite “network” of activities that systematically challenge the humanistic representations of crisis and the hypocritical transformation of art into a “social service” apparatus.
Friday 25 November (17:00 – 22:00):
Mini-marathon on the “politics of lies.” Presentations, talks, performative actions by the participants. A screening and additional footage regarding the presented practices will be accessible in the space. This material will remain accessible for the day after.
Saturday 26 November (11:00 – 17.00):
Workshop on the history of the art of overidentification. Collective and personal experimentation with the construction of lies. Students and graduates of ASFA and Panteion University will be participating. Participation is open to everyone.
Curating and coordination of the Politics of Lies: Kostis Stafylakis.
Participants: Ai WeiWei for the Nobel Peace Prize 2016 (Vassilis Vlastaras/Panos Sklavenitis/Kostis Stafylakis),
Manos Bazanis , Eleana Yalouri, Eva Giannakopoulou & Rilène Markopoulou, Sofia Grigoriadou, ΔΟΚΟΥΜΕΝΑ, IDAMM (Institute for the Management of the Athenian Post-documenta Melancholy), Elpida Karaba/Despina Zefkili/Glykeria Stathopoulou (Temporary Academy of Arts), KavecS (Vana Kostayola & Kostis Stafylakis), Persefoni Myrtsou/Aysenur Babuna, Lykourgos Porfyris, Puerto Rico (Panos Sklavenitis/Kostis Stafylakis/Alexis Fidetzis), Panos Sklavenitis, Alexis Fidetzis, FYTA, Io Chaviara, Marios Chadjiprokopiou.
