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Fahim Amir, Eva Egermann,Marion von Osten, and
PeterSpillmann
What Shall WeDo…?
What follows is a multigenerational conversationbetween the
philosopher Fahim Amir, the artistEva Egermann, and the artists and
curators PeterSpillmann and Marion von Osten, about thevarieties of
antagonism currently shaping theproduction of knowledge.
Scarcity and IntegrationMarion von Osten: I would like to begin
ourconversation with a hypothesis: the productionof knowledge has
entered a phase defined bycertain tensions, leading to a variety of
conflictswe face in our work in the art academy as wellas, and more
importantly, in our intellectual andcultural work. On the one had,
we can observe arise in the significance of certified
expertknowledge bearing academic institutions’ seal ofapproval –
this process is evident in theEuropean debates over BAs/MAs/PhDs,
Clustersof Excellence, and Collaborative ResearchCenters. This
structure of training and research,with its increasingly hierarchic
organization, is inpart being introduced in European art schools
aswell. On the other hand, knowledge producedand passed on outside
schools and institutionshas become more and more important over
thepast fifty years, as have experts who are notacademics. The
practices of everyday life andpopular culture have emerged with
greaterprominence, as has the knowledge produced bysocial
movements, and some of theirspokespeople have become part of the
curricula.Among other consequences, has been anemergence of
critical methodologies that reflecton Eurocentric epistemology,
introduce amultiple-actor approach, conjure up the death ofthe
author, embrace the vernacular, et cetera.What should also be
mentioned in this context isthe attention paid within institutions
to what iscalled “artistic research” and the call
fortransdisciplinary work. Yet extra-institutionalknowledge is also
an essential part ofcontemporary cultural and artistic production.
đđđđđđđđđđPeter Spillmann: It is not so much we, asthe producers of
knowledge or culture, who areat the center of the antagonisms you
describe,but the educational institution. We can movefairly well in
both extra-institutional andinstitutional contexts. For the
university andother institutions of higher education, bycontrast,
the rapidly rising importance of extra-institutional knowledge
implies to my mind thattheir role as authorities over the
legitimacy ofknowledge has become questionable. I think theongoing
reforms and efforts to create newsystems of certification are also
an institutional– as well as political – strategy to counteract
theincreasing dissolution of the boundaries ofknowledge, to shore
up the power to legitimateknowledge and define education; and
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Chair Strike installation at the Academy of fine Arts Vienna,
PC-Lab, in the framework of Strike, she said, by GirlsOnHorses
(Auer,Egermann, Straganz, Wieger).
certifications, as a technique of control anddiscipline,
obviously play a central role in thisprocess.đđđđđđđđđđEva
Egermann: The American situationalready illustrates the conflicts
this creates forthe individual. Many universities have
publiclyaccessible programs, which is to say, a widepublic audience
is invited to attend seminars andlectures. But official enrollment
at theseuniversities, which enables a student to receive adiploma,
to become a university graduate: that issomething very few can
afford. The recent tuitionhikes at American universities, most
prominentlyin the University of California system, have led
toprotests and occupations at UC Santa Cruz andseven other campuses
in California.đđđđđđđđđđPS: I think we need to distinguish
betweenpolitical or institutional strategies and theconsequences
they have for those whom theyaffect. Creating scarcity is the
central principleof the new institutional policy. This
includesintensified efforts to condition and select,through for
instance modularized curricula andmultiple-graded degrees, as well
as the socialenforcement of certain minimum standardscandidates are
expected to meet in order to get ajob. Economic interests play a
role as well,aiming on the one hand to create a scarcity of
public education so that the remainder can beturned over to a
lucrative educational market,and on the other hand to offload as
muchresearch and development spending as possibleonto the public
sector. This not only leads tofinancial shortages, it also narrows
the marginsfor those whose interests have nothing to do withproduct
development. That the publicinstitutions would quickly embrace this
neweducational order was ultimately foreseeable.But why, given
these increasingly tenuousconditions, the great majority of
teachers andstudents would still place their faith in
theuniversities and the degrees they confer, letalone redouble
their faith in them – that, I think,is one central
question.đđđđđđđđđđFahim Amir: University diplomas are meantto
represent objective and standardizedcertificates of competence –
and yet at this veryjuncture, we can observe that the exercise
ofpower becomes increasingly personalized andinformal; this
“neo-feudalist spirit” is manifestin the growing number of
autocratic bodies thatare even less transparent and subject to
evenless democratic control than in the past.đđđđđđđđđđEE: The
staff and budget cuts that lead todiminishing access to
universities as well as toreduced resources, possibilities, and
space at
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Squatting Teacher banner at the Mass Demonstration for Free
Education in Vienna, 28th Oct. 2009.
these institutions, also increasingly render thelives of all
those who work there highlyprecarious. In spite of the distinction
between“students,” “teachers,” and “staff,” most of thesepeople are
affected by precarization to somedegree and urgently need new forms
oforganization.đđđđđđđđđđFA: One far-reaching problem at
theuniversities is that academics are mostlyoccupied with
administrative work and teaching,when these are at the same time
the leastprestigious academic functions and contributethe least to
their careers. Another line of conflictconcerns the problems
surrounding property in,and the accessibility of, knowledge; for
example,a large part of publicly funded research takesplace outside
the universities, where theproduction of knowledge can be organized
inmore autonomous structures, yet the results willultimately be the
property of the commissioningparty – the state or agency paying for
theproject.đđđđđđđđđđPS: There are two different dynamicprocesses
in play here: on the one hand, thereare the efforts undertaken to
make a university“excellent.” This is where marketing or
personnelpolitics comes in. The reinvention of theeducational
institution in the world of business
has a lot to do with public relations, withpresenting a flawless
image and constructing aperfect narrative of success,
professionalism,and contemporary relevance. On the other hand,it
takes familiarity with a field to recognizerelevant knowledge and
context-specific currentpractices of the exchange of knowledge are.
Thisinvolves competencies similar to those requiredin cultural
production – and yet the “chiefexecutive officers” of educational
institutionsgenerally do not possess these competenciesthemselves.
Despite all the talk about innovationin the institutions, there is
virtually no seriousdebate about what adequate conditions for
acontemporary culture of knowledge would looklike.đđđđđđđđđđMvO:
What can be observed, however, is achanged self-conception on the
part of the state.Economistic discourse appears to be takingplace
on the supranational level, too, in EUdirectives, for example. At
the same time,neoliberal interpellations notwithstanding, thisis
about an expansion and not a reduction of thebureaucratic apparatus
in the educationalinstitutions – only this apparatus now
operateswithin the requisite private-publicconstellations. I think
it is perhaps betterunderstood as a different way of formalizing
and
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It is not about the biscuits, it is about the whole bakery…,
Action media spectacle. Occupied Academy of fine Arts Vienna, 1st
Nov. 2009.
discursivizing the relationship between the stateand private
enterprise.đđđđđđđđđđPS: That is a central point, I agree. To put
itstrongly, we might even say that the field ofeducation has in
recent years become thecentral stage on which a state that
hasundergone neoliberal reforms can produce anespecially
conspicuous mise-en-scène of itsnewly optimized functionality, a
production thateven allows it to compensate for the loss
ofauthority in other areas, such ascommunications or
healthcare.đđđđđđđđđđMvO: We must understand all of this againstthe
backdrop of a post-Fordist transformationthat encompasses all of
society. Not only arequalifications certified by schools
anduniversities considered marketable skills –framed as
“competencies” – but qualificationsacquired outside the school
system are alsoincreasingly considered according to the sameterms.
Post-Fordism has raised therequirements by which knowledge is
considerednecessary for productive performance on the job,and the
knowledge I have acquired at aneducational institution, a
university, or a school,is no longer enough. Social skills and the
abilityto work in a team, for example, are necessaryqualifications
I may bring to the job without
formal “training.” So the primary aim behind thenew gradation of
degrees is to create theshortest and most efficient possible path
for themajority through the curricula – an intentionalcontraction.
The new reforms do not in fact makethe course of studies as such
the central value:studies, like research, must first and foremost
beapplied. Today’s internship, and the university ofapplied
sciences too, illustrate this path towarda professional training
more and more gearedtowards job requirements – but this training
canonly partly satisfy the needs of an increasinglyflexible labor
market, or the composition ofbiopolitical labor, as Negri and Hardt
call it. Thatmakes it difficult for the humanities to
legitimizethemselves, and the same goes for art schools.This
process is key to the central conflicts, butalso to possible
alternative outcomes, becauseone could begin to derive potentials
at this pointas well.đđđđđđđđđđEE: It might be interesting in this
context tocome back to the distinction marked by theconcepts of
“Herrschaftswissen” (knowledgethat serves the exercise of
authority) and“herrschaftskritisches Wissen” (knowledge thatenables
a critique of authority). The former wouldbe the sort of knowledge
that serves toreproduce and consolidate hegemonic
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conditions. The latter, by contrast, would be aknowledge of the
prevailing conditions and thepowers that control them, as well as
anawareness of one’s own complicity with theseconditions and the
social struggles against them:an emancipatory knowledge of
resistantexperiences in history and in the present that isrooted in
social struggles and movements. Today,we reencounter this
extra-institutionalknowledge in postgraduate and master’sprograms
such as gender, cultural, andpostcolonial studies.đđđđđđđđđđFA: To
my mind, it is important and at thesame time difficult to shield my
politics from theconceptual trends in academia; against the
hypeforming in strange ways around authoritativesubjects that are
then, for a certain period oftime, brought up at almost every
paneldiscussion. The creation of such hype involves aninscrutable
interplay between a whole number ofactors, and there are large
asymmetriesregarding their charisma and their impact factor.In the
Marxist tradition there is the phrase, the“revolutionary Party as
the university of theworking class,” which once promised a
differentinterrelation between theory and praxis, betweendemocracy
and knowledge, between cognitivecapacity and ability in battle; an
autonomousproduction of knowledge independent of theacademic
construction of theory isindispensable, it seems to me, for any
praxis thatenvisions a fundamental transformation of thesocial
order – and “autonomous,” it is importantto note, means anything
but cut-off or isolatedfrom the larger context. The fact that
activists insubcultural, cultural-leftist, or autonomistcontexts
pay so much attention to academictheory as a source of buzzwords
always strikesme as a problem just as much as does thetiresome
exegesis of the classics in Marxologicalcontexts.đđđđđđđđđđMvO:
Creating a permanent place forfeminist or postcolonial knowledge in
theinstitutions was an important struggle. Thebigger problem today
is that this knowledgebecomes an additional qualification sold for
afee or used in the education market as acompetitive
advantage.đđđđđđđđđđPS: Ambitious universities’
marketingdepartments operate according a logic by whichthey can
envision the creation of a highlypromising niche degree out of any
socialdiscourse whatsoever, just as long as the nichehas a certain
degree of intensity. But we mustconsider first and foremost how
this knowledgecirculates in different social and
interculturalconstellations, how it keeps growing and whichnew
perspectives and emancipatory movementsit enables. Right now, that
is certainly notsomething that is happening within the
framework of, say, postcolonial studies.đđđđđđđđđđFA: The most
important factor enabling thedomestication in the university of
radicalknowledge produced by social movements canbe found in the
everyday function of theuniversity as a bureaucratic monster: the
need toorganize classrooms, meetings of administrativebodies, power
struggles within the university, theadministration of exams, et
cetera. All thatexhausts people, and between these obligations,they
often don’t even know anymore what theycame to the university to
do, or they simply nolonger have the strength to do it.
Criticalreflections on the institutionalization of thewomen’s
movement noticed this effectimmediately after the first women’s
studiesprograms were established. Tearing down theconnections
between subjects participating in astruggle within the university
and those outsideit is a step that further enables integration
intothe “business as usual” at the university. But thelink between
commercial value and anti-capitalism within capitalist
socialization doesnot strike me as something fundamentally new –the
exchange value, after all, is the primarydeciding factor in
capitalism. Remember whatLenin said: the capitalists will sell even
the ropeby which they will be hanged.đđđđđđđđđđPS: I don’t think
that the university can everbecome “ours”! The idea of the
university assuch, as an institution, with its
humanist-bourgeois-liberal tradition – something thechoice of
Bologna for the ominous meeting of theministers of education was
patently aimed tobring into symbolic play – embodies theEurocentric
culture of the institution. Attemptsto open the university to other
actors or practicesof knowledge – Marion mentioned this at thevery
beginning of our conversation – lead at bestto the formation of new
critical theory or thegrowing differentiation of new disciplines
andmethods. And what Fahim is talking about is thecore of the very
conflict we get involved in – anultimately fruitless one – every
time we try tochange the institutions.đđđđđđđđđđFA: During the
battles at the universities innorthern Italy in the late 1970s,
peopledeveloped the idea of the “counter-university” –which is to
say, of fighting within the universityfor causes that are
antagonistic to theconstitution of the university and of the
socialorder tied to it. Another aim was to intervene inone’s own
subjectivation and to turn theexploitative or symbiotic
relationship betweenuniversity employees and the university in
thedirection of an emancipatory parasitism.đđđđđđđđđđMvO: Around
the same time, Ivan Illichpointed out that the desire for
democratizationthrough education, which promises to freepeople of
their class backgrounds, has the
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Simone Hain, Christiane Post, Karin Rebbert, Katja Reichard,
Marion von Osten, Peter Spillmann, Axel John Wieder, Insert 3 6th
WerkleitzBiennal, Volkspark Halle a.S., 2004. Replica of Vladimir
Tatlin's stage set for the production of "Sangesi" by Velimir
Chlebnikow, Petrograd1923. On the back of the stage slide
projections various autonomous theater and agiprop groups : "Blue
Collars", worker’s theater groupfrom Moscow, Russia; "Rote
Schmiede", 1920s agitprop group from Halle a.S., Germany; "Neue
Sachlichkeit" mask ball at the BurgGiebichenstein Halle a.S.,
Germany, 1925; "Brigade Feuerstein", 1980s popular GDR song theater
group from Hoyerswerda, Germany, 1923.
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Simone Hain, Christiane Post, Karin Rebbert, Katja Reichard,
Marion von Osten, Peter Spillmann, Axel John Wieder: Insert 16th
Werkleitz Biennal, Volkspark Halle a.S., 2004. Reconstruction of
Alexander Rodtschenko's interior design for a worker’sclub,
originally realized for the Russian pavilion at the World Fair,
Paris 1925. During the Biennial Insert 1 was displayed at the"Halle
School of Common Property".
Simone Hain, Christiane Post, Karin Rebbert, Katja Reichard,
Marion von Osten, Peter Spillmann, Axel John Wieder, Insert 2,6th
Werkleitz Biennal, Volkspark Halle a.S., 2004. Unrealized model of
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's Raum der Gegenwart which hedesigned 1930 for
Alexander Dorner and the Provinzialmuseum Hannover. In the context
of the 6th Werkleitz Biennal itfunctioned as a display for material
about strategies of participatory knowledge production and
distribution.
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paradoxical effect of introducing a new hierarchy.It means that
social mobility is the de factoprivilege of those who submit to the
sanctionedcertifications; all other necessary knowledgethat could
be acquired in everyday life or at theworkplace remains without
social recognition,leaving the division of labor and the
classhierarchy unchallenged.đđđđđđđđđđPS: If you mean recognition
in the academiccontext, then I agree. But there were and
areinnumerable opportunities outside the universityto experience
social advancement – the child ofthe contractor who makes millions
in real estate,the guest worker who becomes a
restaurantentrepreneur, et cetera. What is interesting isthat the
greatest barriers are currently beingerected precisely against
social advancementfrom the margins, against that which is
self-made, is built on improvisation and situationalknowledge.
Nowadays, a dishwasher will have ahard time becoming a millionaire
without anMBA.đđđđđđđđđđMvO: We should note here that the academyof
arts does still leave a certain amount ofleeway, leeway we need to
defend. Nowhere elsecan people without academic degrees still
beappointed professors. And if matters keepmoving in the direction
they are, that will soon bea thing of the past.đđđđđđđđđđPS:
Another reason I went to study at a freeart school instead of a
university was that I neverquite understood how studying at a
universityreally works. No one in my family had gone to
auniversity, and so it wasn’t something I justpicked up along the
way. I didn’t know whatmattered most, how I was supposed to find
myway through a university’s offerings, what wouldbe the best thing
to do. Knowing what would beimportant requires that you already
have definedinterests – or have been introduced to a
specificmilieu. Acquiring knowledge at a universityalready
presupposes a great deal of knowledgeor habitualized
experience.đđđđđđđđđđMvO: Or people didn’t manage to completetheir
studies because they were tripped up bythe inscrutable syllabi, or,
at the academy of art,by the professors’ self-mythologizing and
theirsexism. There was a lack of“herrschaftskritisches Wissen.”
Poststructuralisttheories were an incredibly important instrumentin
helping to understand what all of this meantbeyond the personal
level. But when I was astudent in the 1980s, this did not take
placeeither at the university or at the academy of art –it wasn’t
soft rock.đđđđđđđđđđEE: On the other hand, there are
alsoopportunities and productive situations at theuniversities,
situations in which people canexperience studying as a form that
enablesindividual action, a space that enables them to
reflect on the social structures within which theystudy.
Artistic strategies then in turn offer apossibility to intervene in
these conflicts, tocreate spaces or counterpublics. During
theoccupations of the universities in Austria and theinternational
protest movement of the fall andwinter of 2009–10, we saw an
intense realizationof this possibility: the university as a place
ofcontentious debate, of rebellion andinsurrection. These
occupations not onlysucceeded in unleashing a broad debate
overeducational policies, but also enabled the re-politicization of
many areas and uncontrolledspaces. This intensity and eruption
createdabsurd situations of teaching and learning andalternative
practices of knowledge; a communityof teachers and students, we
might say, unitedby a defined goal: to subvert the structures of
theuniversity. The participating groups – Salong(Munich), Academy
of Refusal (Vienna), Interflugs(Berlin), and 10th Floor (London) –
describe thiscollective learning process as occurring in themidst
of an eruption, as something that was ableto shatter established
structures of power.Squatting turned the rigid, cool,
neoclassicalauditorium into a site of negotiations. Solidarityand
collective euphoria created the energyrequired for an unforeseeable
amount of workthat needed to be done.
Immanence or ExodusMvO: So intra-institutional and
extra-institutional knowledge can not be conceived asbeing quite so
distinct anymore. Theirrelationship is not dialectical but rather
one ofimmanence. And yet it doesn’t seem easy todescribe the
quality of difference in theknowledge production we engender in
ourcollective work. Instead, we tend to exhaustourselves in
contention with the institutions. Assomeone born in the early
1960s, I am a memberof a generation of autodidacts, the
so-calledbrilliant dilettantes. Doing-it-yourself returnedto
prominence in the 1990s, when people taughtthemselves software,
graphic design, how tomake music, video, and texts, how to
writereviews. Not that any of this is unusual in the artcontext.
But what was really at stake was thatwe would not accept the
traditional division oflabor in the art context any more than
anywhereelse, and that we would take the relations ofproduction
into our own hands. The possibility ofdoing that in a collective
was a way to escape thecan, the eternal “stand and
alone.”đđđđđđđđđđEE: A few years ago, I worked with otherswithin
the framework of the Manoa FreeUniversity. Together we organized
study circles,but also projects, publications, parties,
andexhibitions. The MFU provided a sort of structurefor
collaboration, a shared space for the political
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and artistic production of knowledge, and theability to
reference a defined collective context.After the first round of
neoliberal reformssubjecting Austria’s universities to an
economiclogic – including GATS (the General Agreementon Trade in
Services), the introduction of the lawon universities in 2002, and
the abolition ofstudent codetermination, something Iexperienced in
fairly drastic ways because I wasat the time an active member of
the ÖH (AustrianStudents’ Association, the general
organizationrepresenting students at Austrian universities) –it
seemed more necessary than ever to createautonomous structures, or
to form self-organized structures outside the university,instead of
helping to implement the processes ofeconomization and being at the
mercy of theprevailing conditions. And similar structureswere being
founded everywhere at the time. Anautonomous, extra-institutional,
or “different”praxis of knowledge of the sort you describe wasan
important aspiration for us. By now, theperspectives within
extra-institutional culturalcontexts have also shifted, I think,
especiallywhen a project is not decidedly political. Notleast
importantly, it has become clear that suchinitiatives are no less
part of a system of artdefined by an economy of reputation.
Forexample, a young artist recently told me that shewanted to found
a self-organized “off-space”because, she said, curators appreciated
whensomeone’s biography included “experience inself-organization.”
So I guess it is not a given thata different knowledge-praxis of
the sort we arediscussing would have to take place outside
theuniversity; perhaps it is simply a matter offundamentally
different criteria.đđđđđđđđđđFA: Exactly – and that, it is
important tonote, is not the same: most off-spaces hardlystrike me
as “extra-institutional”; they seem“small-scale institutional”
instead. Most of themdo not at all break with the prevailing
aesthetic,social, and organizational procedures – butproblematizing
these procedures are anindispensable part of being such a space in
thefirst place. So this is not about some sort ofradical purity on
the part of subjects, but abouthow they interrelate. That is
something we – halfa dozen very different people with backgroundsin
art, culture, and theory – tried to implement inpartly
experimental, partly directed ways whenwe founded the performance
bar Schnapslochfour years ago. It was important to us that
weoperate this space without the support offinancial backers (on
whom we otherwisedepend), that we put the focus of
aestheticproduction on the fashioning of specificsocialities,
cultivating perspectives thatproblematized our relations to
reception,participation, and curatorial work. We will close
the space down this summer because we don’twant to become
subculture administrators: whenthere is no avenue of defense left,
it still strikesme as better to do what people did with
severalsocial centers in Italy – they smashed thewindows of their
own social spaces rather thanallow them to be
yuppified.đđđđđđđđđđPS: On the other hand, there is no form
ofaction in the production or communication ofknowledge that is not
embedded in socialstructures and shaped by relationships,
betweenpeople who are friends, meet on neutral terms,or do not like
one another at all. And this is trueof all contexts equally. Even
in a highlyformalized academic context, all knowledge-communication
processes are a permanentemotional roller-coaster ride;
encouragement,support, preferential treatment,
competition,interference, et cetera. The same holds for anyother
independent and self-determined context.But there people can more
radically thinkthrough – and sometimes live – the socialintensity
tied to a shared cause and interest,whereas the institution tends
to emphasizebureaucratic administration even of the socialaspect,
and often fosters its use for strategicpurposes.đđđđđđđđđđFA: I
agree – there is an atmosphere ofcompetition, envy, focus on
status, and thinkingin hierarchies, in combination with the wish to
bepart of a trend, that is characteristic of theacademy, but also
of artistic and culturalproduction. This atmosphere is also the
reasonwhy I have time and again preferred self-organized contexts,
which, though they are notimmune to these issues, offer other
possibleways of dealing with them.đđđđđđđđđđPS: Among my personal
acquaintance, Iknow about a dozen people who, after twenty ormore
years of innovative project-related work ina wide variety of fields
– from exhibitions andparticipative projects to the creation of
entirecurricula – now receive rejections in response toapplications
because they are “overqualified.”They are told, “You have already
implemented somany demanding projects, we don’t think we canoffer
you enough!” Or, on the other hand, they arerejected because they
don’t have a degree –“Unfortunately, a BA or MA is an
absoluterequirement for working with us!” These peopleare now
forced to look seriously into gettingsome degree or other for
20,000 Euros. That is aperversion and a gigantic scandal. The
minimumdemand in light of such absurd developmentsshould be that
the first degree, at whatever age,be free.đđđđđđđđđđMvO: People
need knowledge for differentreasons. Sometimes you just need
experienceand to exchange views. The projects I aminvolved in are
more about initiating cognitive
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processes and less about knowing theory andhaving the right
quotes ready. They are aboutgaining insight, about perceiving in
new waysand making something public or communal byexhibiting,
publishing, et cetera. This can happenby way of a variety of
practices – a fact that isoften effaced from the institutionalized
debate. Ihave arrived at important insights through designor manual
processes, or because I failed atsomething. And the most important
thing is to beable to move among different kinds ofknowledge, build
social relations, open spaces,make a different subjectivation
possible, and soforth. All that is part of the sphere of
action.đđđđđđđđđđEE: The goals should be cognitive processesand
critical engagement and not theaccumulation of knowledge as a form
of deadcapital. The idea of an official knowledge oftencorresponds
to thinking in disciplines. Universitycurricula are designed to
introduce students tothe methodologies and habits of
specificdisciplines, rather than provide skills withpractical
applicability. That is where an artisticor creative praxis that
serves as a cognitiveprocess, in the way you have just described,
isdifferent. Moreover, the field of art – as a more orless
autonomous sphere – can itself serve as asite for analysis and
renegotiation betweendifferent interpretations and positions, for
thepossibility of experimental, interventive, andactivist artistic
praxis and research, if we want todescribe it in these terms. That
is the sort ofpraxis I would be interested in, and it is
preciselynot about objectifying, generalizing,standardizing, or
quantifying a certain kind ofuniversal knowledge.đđđđđđđđđđPS: The
way we as artists and culturalproducers engage theory, too, tends
to resemblea form of interference. We have read some thingsand been
told about others or picked them up indiscussions. Combining these
with our ownprojects or with questions directly related to
ouractions produces new ideas, books, spaces,images, and projects.
It was never about havingread everything. In reality, things work
in muchmore playful and fragmentary ways. What iscentral for us is
that we identify with the issuesand projects, that we stand behind
them, areresponsible for them, perhaps even havesignificant doubts
about them, but that we are inany case willing to commit ourselves
to them.đđđđđđđđđđMvO: These practices have been undersiege by the
ongoing neoliberal educationalinterpellations for more than ten
years. In themid-1990s, I could still write with a very lighthand
about different forms of knowledge-production and collectivity of
the sort developed,say, in exhibition projects. Now that has
becomedifficult, since everyone’s working lives are tiedup with
institutions in which a number of
antagonistic relationships also take shape.đđđđđđđđđđPS: But
that demonstrates even moreclearly that all knowledge is
situational orsituated, that it comes into being in very
specificsocial contexts and networks, in places wherewe are active,
where we communicate, think,produce, and act, in the domains of
activitythrough which we move. It is very difficult totranslate
these things into bureaucratizedstructures or curricula. At the
same time, weshould note that the universities themselveshave also
never produced anything butsituational knowledge, which is to say,
that theyare specific with regard to their social context,their
actions, and their social habits.đđđđđđđđđđMvO: But in contrast to
other contexts, thisexclusive specific context has time and
againbeen able to define how knowledge ought to beproduced and
which knowledge is relevant.đđđđđđđđđđPS: Exactly! And that is also
the source ofthe one-sided preference given to certain formsof
knowledge. There are, in contexts defined byprojects, very
different forms of experience orreferences that would warrant
greater reflectionand study. For example, a certain sort of
musichas played a role, or certain works of art; weencountered all
sorts of experts, on variouslevels; certain spaces and sites
influenced thedevelopment of a project or became a centralpoint of
departure for new ideas and insights, etcetera. When the complex
constellation ofexperiences, observations, and events that makeup a
specific everyday practice interacts in thisway with theory on an
ongoing basis, we willnotice significant differences from the
academiccommunication of knowledge, also as regardsthe results.
There would certainly be more to it inthe end than text
production.
Constitute and UniteMvO: If we place the focus on the
contemporarypraxis of the producers of culture and knowledgeinstead
of on the educational institution, wearrive at different results.
If it is recognized thatknowledge has been and is being
producedeverywhere, that emancipatory knowledge isengendered
outside the university or theacademies, that cognitive processes of
centralimportance are contained in manual activities aswell, and
not just in intellectual achievements,then that matches the idea of
interpenetration,of immanent knowledge, and at once entails
adifferent conception of praxis, as well asproduction. What emerges
is a differentunderstanding of the communal and the publicand the
erosion of the division between manualand intellectual production.
Which is to say, wecan recognize practices that counteract
theinstitutional scarcity we talked about earlier,that are also
points of reference for a
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Materials of "Halle School of Common Property" at "Common
Property - Allgemeingut," 6th Werkleitz Biennale Halle, 2004.
postcapitalist politics.đđđđđđđđđđPS: At their core, these the
are central ideasof the emancipatory movements of the 1960s.Looking
back at my school days, I have to saythat these were also the ideas
that provided mewith strong arguments against all sorts
ofauthorities in the family and the school, as wellas against the
social interpellations that pushedme to train for a respectable
profession. Noquestion: elementary schools, paperbacks,street
fairs, and adventure playgrounds were allstrategies of
dissemination, of participation andself-empowerment. I find it
interesting now torecognize that, under different social
conditions,there are again possible ways to pick up wherethese
movements left off, not only in theory butalso in concrete
action.đđđđđđđđđđEE: Just as you have described it, we
areexperiencing an accelerating shift in theconfiguration of
capitalist conditions. After thetransformations of the past decades
– from thepostwar Fordism shaped by Social Democracyand
Keynesianism to a neoliberal mode ofgovernment driven by financial
markets – cracksare becoming apparent in today’s neoliberalism,and
not just since the financial crisis of 2008;which is to say, its
social hegemony is crumbling.Whereas alternatives have in the past
appeared
highly unlikely, changes in the social, political,and cultural
conditions have now become moreconceivable. In her introduction,
Marionproposes a general change of perspective,inquiring about a
postcapitalist politics andpraxis and more specifically about where
such apolitics and praxis are already taking placetoday. I think
that is a very interesting approach.So where can we find a praxis
of this sort, or thedevelopment of a sense of such
postcapitalistpossibility, in the praxis of knowledge and
theartistic contexts we have discussed? Art that“operates in the
domain of the political” wouldnot be the least important space of
contingencyin which a political, social, and culturalimaginary, as
well as new postidentitariansubjectivities, could take form. I have
oftenwondered how the intensity of politicization,collectivity,
debates, and counterpublics invarious projects can be harnessed to
createsomething sustainable in the long term thatwould in turn
effect more concrete changes. Butthese changes are taking place;
for what we dodoes something to us. A situated andpostcapitalist
praxis of knowledge is a process oftransformation that proceeds
step by step andchanges the individuals in turn. Such a praxis isin
motion and serves the abolition of putative
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boundaries – be it in the emergence of acommunist society within
the capitalist one, i.e.,in the progressive accumulation of
thecommunal from the bottom up, as proposed byHardt and Negri in
Commonwealth; or in theconception of new communisms.đđđđđđđđđđPS: I
would propose that we conceive notonly knowledge production but
also learningitself as context-specific and situational, andthink
of it as much more separate frominstitutional structures. Quite
patently, there areindividual ways to proceed that respond
todifferent initial situations, interests, and sets ofproblems:
professional training, projects,starting a business, forming a
band, traveling,internships, university studies, founding
aninstitute, taking some time off, et cetera. Thecounter model
against wasting resources on eliteuniversities might be a generous
“educationallowance” in addition to a guaranteed basicincome.
Everyone would be entitled to it, at anyage, and it would be
deposited into their accountas soon as they knew what to do with
it.đđđđđđđđđđMvO: The call for an unconditional basicincome is of
absolutely central importance. Onlywhen my material conditions are
secured am Iable to do something that does not need to bepaid for,
that does not have a price and can beshared without having to
become property.Without a different material and structural
basisfor our labor relations and living conditions, allfantasies of
knowledge as a common good willremain farcical – they would amount
to nothingmore than yet another innovative variant ofzombie
neoliberalism and remain shaped by ourdependency on the
institutions of modernity.đđđđđđđđđđFA: I would agree, as long as
this basicincome is in principle a global, which is to
say,transnational, entitlement and covers the marginof subsistence
beyond a reasonable degree; onlythen can we prevent the
transformation of thisdemand into the rotten compromise of
anational-chauvinist flat rate whose primarypurpose would
ultimately be to undo the Fordisttangle of social transfer
payments. That thisdemand, easy to understand and
generallydesirable though it is, will not become globalreality – it
would undermine the internationaldivision of labor and the
compulsion to sell one’slabor for the enrichment of others,
andultimately lead to the abolition of capitalism –would be a
worldly answer to Philippe VanParijs’s question, “Real Freedom for
All: What (IfAnything) Can Justify Capitalism?” The questionof
providing material security for learningprocesses aside, it seems
important to me toemphasize the physical and affective quality
ofthe difference that separates book knowledgefrom knowledge based
on personal experience. Alearning experience takes place in
social
struggles that is accompanied by a considerableproduction of
affect and knowledge. That, to mymind, was one of the most
importantachievements of the protest movement of2009–10: not that
specific demands were met,but rather that the active subjects
related indifferent ways to themselves as well as toothers, on both
sides of the barricades, andcontinually displaced these barricades.
Withinthe protest movement, questions such as
howknowledge-production within and outside theuniversity works were
subjects of continuousdiscussion in working groups and
workshops.One result of these discussions among many wasthe
creation of the initiative for a Critical andSolidary University.1
Other issues that came upwere a so-called “Augustine Academy”
(astructure conceived in collaboration withhomeless people), and
the understandabledesire to bring together students, teachers,
andresearchers in artistic and scientific fields.đđđđđđđđđđEE:
Besides the unconditional call for aglobal basic income and social
infrastructure(e.g., education) for everyone, then, there arealso
short-term demands that have emergedfrom our concrete and immediate
context sincethe education protests during the winter of2009–10.
There is the demand that the spacesand infrastructures now
controlled by studentself-determination, such as the
squattedauditoriums in Vienna and elsewhere, spaceswhere
participants can exercise a postcapitalistpraxis of knowledge, be
retained and expanded.Study-ins as well as expanded open
andinterdisciplinary communities of teaching andlearning, a more
comprehensive self-organization of the precarized knowledgeworkers
at the universities, support for leftistuniversity networks and
magazines, and thedevelopment of alternative avenues of access
tothe universities, and so forth – by now, suchspaces are once
again under threat of beingforcibly cleared. An applied
knowledge-production of this sort is a process that aims toabolish
the current state of affairs, with itsartificial
scarcity.đđđđđđđđđđMvO: That inevitably implies redistribution!A
redistribution of resources, money, and spaces,that is to say, of
the instruments for a differentpraxis, is necessary. I would
primarily championthe idea of small steps instead of an
all-for-allperspective. A start would be to conceive
newtrans-institutional structures in our work lives.That would be
to take the situation with whichwe began – knowledge is being
producedeverywhere and by many actors, not justacademics or artists
– a lot more seriously. To mymind, this also means that we call the
existingbinary and hierarchical opposition
betweenintra-institutional and extra-institutional
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knowledge-production into question, in theexisting public
institutions and in our self-organized production. đđđđđđđđđđPS:
The demand for different conceptions ofeducation – to the extent
that we need to raisethis demand at all – cannot be directed at
theschools and universities alone. Theseinstitutions would have to
gradually becomesideshows – or better: become the places
where,perhaps not unlike the internet, people cancontinually
exchange and comment on thewealth of insights, experiences, and
productionsgenerated in all sorts of contexts.đđđđđđđđđđMvO: So one
central demand would be thateveryone who needs emancipatory
practical ortheoretical knowledge has to get access to it,and not
just those who have a qualifying highschool diploma and wealthy
parents. Which isthe current situation. The
working-men’s-clubmovement and the adult education center arejust
two examples that stand athwart the wholenonsense about Clusters of
Excellence and eliteuniversities. Creating different desires,
desiresfor radically democratic practices andstructures: that is
something for which thecultural field would be a suitable place,
becauseit lends itself to the articulation of wisheslocated at the
center of social change. And Ithink that is roughly the conclusion
at which wearrive when we debate “educational turns” andsuch. By
contrast, little has happened in astructural sense, or by way of an
“everyone is anexpert” movement. So the small circlespracticing
alternative knowledge-productionremain elite structures, if we do
not engage inconstituting inclusive conditions and openingsfor
diverse actors and actions.đđđđđđđđđđPS: To the extent that there
is no way to dothis without formalized structures backed by
thestate, one alternative to learning in institutionsthat might be
interesting is a kind of mentoringprogram that would appeal to a
great variety ofpeople, both as teachers and as students. Such
aprogram might do more to render the distinctionbetween praxis and
theory obsolete, or rather,make it a matter of context-specific
needs.đđđđđđđđđđMvO: Describing the city or even society as“our
university” in order to render visible that themost diverse actors
and cultures of knowledgeinteract and cooperate here might be a
potentialpoint of departure, allowing us to reflect muchmore on the
contemporary composition ofknowledge and culture and to operate in
theactual relations of production. đđđđđđđđđđPS: In any case, it is
unacceptable that theinstitutions, no matter whether museums
oruniversities, use our reputations and ourknowledge – which we
have worked for years tocreate in projects we have invented
ourselves, infree and often massively underfinanced projects
– to bolster their profiles by, say, employing usfor a few
years; that they do not nearly offer usthe conditions we would need
to continue ourwork with comparable intensity; or that
theyultimately deny that we have the qualificationswe actually
have. At the same time, it is alsobecoming clear that the
thoroughly rationalizedenterprises of the “cultural” and
“educationalindustries,” designed to produce excellence inthe most
efficient way, have lost the capacity foranything but
administration and marketing, andare thus becoming ever more
dependent onprecarized cultural producers and knowledgeworkers.
This is exactly the point at which weneed new organizations of our
own that exertinfluence to ensure that, for example,
the“reputational benefit” the institutionsincreasingly extract for
their own internalexpansion flows back into our projects
andnetworks. For instance, we must form poolsthrough which
institutions can access ourknowledge, our experience or reputation,
butonly receive it on loan and on our conditions;through which a
share of all honorariums, projectgrants, royalties, and revenues
flows into acommunal fund that will provide independentfinancing
for our research and our projects and,if need be, our livelihoods.
So not another debateover “copyrights” or “intellectual property”
–these are the strategies of the factory owners inthe “creative
industries.” Instead, toward greatersolidarity, communal soup
kitchens, and cultureclubs. Knowledge producers of all
disciplines,unite!đđđđđđđđđđ×Translated from the German by Gerrit
Jackson.
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Fahim Amir is a Viennese theoretician and culturalproducer with
Afghan origins. Recently (2006/2007) heworked as dramatic adviser
of spiel:platz at thedietheater Vienna. Here and elsewhere he
realizedartistic, theoretical, and post-disciplinary projects
onself-organization and critique of society incontemporary artistic
and cultural productions. Hewas guest professor in the class for
post-conceptualarts practices at the Academy of Fine
Arts(2005/2006). During this time, he worked on post-operaistic
approaches, theories of governmentality,post- and neo-marxism. He
is involved in variouscollaborative practices in the field of art,
theory, andculture. đ
Eva Egermann is an artist based in Vienna. She isinterested in
aesthetic, theoretical and politicalpractices that are aimed at
disrupting normativeregimes, and forms between artistic formats,
socialspatialization, and experimental text production. Shehas been
working in various media and collectives, asin the framework of the
Manoa Free University(www.manoafreeuniversity.org), the
groupGirlsOnHorses, within the magazine MALMOE(www.malmoe.org), or
other individual collaborations.She is currently Assistant
Professor at the Academy ofFine Arts Vienna. Together with Anna
Pritz she editedthe two Publications School Works and Class Works
in2009 about pedagogical, artistic, and researchpractice. Together
with Elke Krasny she is organizingthe exhibition project “2 or 3
things we’ve learned,Intersections of Art, Pedagogy and Protest”
that opensin September 2010 at the IG Bildende Kunst
Gallery(www.igbildendekunst.at) in Vienna. đ
Marion von Osten works with curatorial, artistic andtheoretical
approaches that converge through themedium of exhibitions,
installations, video and textproductions, lecture performances,
conferences, andfilm programs. Her main research interests
concernthe working conditions of cultural production in
post-colonial societies, technologies of the self, and
thegovernance of mobility. She is a founding member ofLabor k3000,
kpD (kleines post-fordistisches Drama),and the Center for
Post-Colonial Knowledge andCulture, Berlin. đ
Peter Spillmann is an artist, researcher, and curator.He is a
founding member of the media art collectiveLabor k3000 Zurich and
the Center for Post-ColonialKnowledge and Culture, Berlin. Since
2006 he hasbeen lecturer at the University of Applied Science
andArts, Lucerne. Among his latest projects are:
“This-was-tomorrow.net” (2008-2010, Haus der Kulturen derWelt
Berlin/ MACBA Barcelona / Museum SztukiWasaw), “Der Park” (2007,
Kunstraum LakesideKlagenfurt and MigMap), “Governing Migration”
(2004-6), and “Projekt Migration” (Kölnischer Kunstverein).
đđđđđđ1The Kritische und SolidarischeUniversität, or KriSU;
seehttp://krisu.noblogs.org.
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