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INTRODUOAs prticas artsticas colaborativas e coletivas tm experi-

mentado uma espcie de renascena nos ltimos dez anos.Apesar de muitas dessas prticas inclurem colaboraesentre artistas, minha preocupao principal aqui envolve-r projetos onde artistas colaboram com indivduos e gru-

pos de outras subculturas sociais e polticas. Tratase deum fenmeno eminentemente global, que vai desde o tra-balho do Sarai Media Lab com comunidades da cidade deDelhi, at a Casa de Concreto de Chumpon e Chantawipa

Apisuk, na cidade de Bangcoc, incluindo as colaboraesde Huit FacettesInteraction em aldeias em Dacar.1 Traba-

lhando na bacia do Rio da Prata, na Argentina, o coletivoAla Plastica desenvolveu uma srie de projetos interconec-

tados, baseados no princpio da montagem social [socialassemblage], em oposio ao grande nmero de obras deengenharia que tm danificado a infraestrutura ecolgicae social da regio. Trabalhando em conjunto com ativis-

tas locais e ONGs, iniciaram uma srie de plataformasdesenhadas para facilitar a resistncia local. Trabalhandonuma escala menor, Navjot Altaf produziu desenhos inova-dores para bombas de gua e templos infantis na regio do

Bastar, ndia central, ao longo dos ltimos sete anos, emcolaborao com as associaes de artistas do povo nativo

Adivasi. Ela usou o desenho e o processo de construopara abrir uma srie de novos espaos de troca e de inte-

rao social entre as mulheres e as crianas nas aldeias do

COLABORAO,ARTE E

SUBCULTURAS

Por GRANT H. KESTER

GRANT H. KESTER professor associado de histria da arte na Universidade da Califr-

nia, em San Diego. Suas publicaes incluemArt, Activism and Oppositionality: Essays

from Afterimage [Arte, ativismo e oposicionalidade: Ensaios de uma psimagem] (Duke

University Press, 1998) e Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Mod-

ern Art [Assunto de conversa: Comunidade e comunicao na arte moderna] (University

of California Press, 2004). Seu prximo livro ser The One and the Many: Agency and

Identity in Contemporary Collaborative Art [O um e os muitos: Agncia e identidade na

arte colaborativa contempornea].

Bastar. O Park Fiction, de Hamburgo, na Alem

desenvolveu uma forma divertida mas eficaz djamento participativo com os moradores de umbeira do cais, prestes a sofrer um processo de o, que finalmente conseguiu exercer press

sobre as autoridades locais para transformar oum parque pblico, incluindo palmeiras falsasna forma de tapetes voadores.

Esses projetos possuem uma dimenso ped

cita, evidente no uso freqente da oficina comdor de interao que se desdobra atravs de g

cessos de trabalho compartilhado. Alm do mdeles foi produzido em conjunto, ou em negoc

grupos ativistas, ONGs e associaes de bairroartistas, em um formato que Wallace Heim cobatizou de ativismo lento. Esses projetos cocoletivos so consideravelmente diversos da p

tica convencional baseada em objetos. O engaparticipante realizado pela imerso e participrocesso, mais do que na contemplao visuadecodificao de um objeto ou imagem). A teo

existente orientada primordialmente para a objetos e imagens individuais entendidas comuma nica inteligncia criativa. Essa abordageo que descrevi como um paradigma textual

trabalho de arte concebido como um objetoproduzido pelo artista de antemo e subseqe

apresentado ao observador.

2

O artista nunca auma posio de comando semntico, e a parti

observador basicamente hermenutica. Ao pexiste uma significativa latitude na resposta pobservador obra (distanciamento clnico, auchoque etc.), este no pode exercitar efeito su

ou real sobre a forma e estrutura do trabalho, nece a expresso singular do consciente autor

INTRODUCTIONCollaborative and collective art practices have

experienced something of a renaissance over the pastten years. Although many of these practices involvecollaborations among artists, my primary concern herewill be with projects in which artists collaborate with

individuals and groups from other social and politicalsubcultures. This is a thoroughly global phenomenon,extending from Sarai Media Labs work with Delhicommunities, to Chumpon and Chantawipa Apisuks

Concrete House in Bangkok, to Huit FacettesInteractionsvillagebased collaborations in Dakar.1 Working in the Ro

de la Plata basin in Argentina, the Ala Plastica collectivehas developed a set of interconnected projects based on

a principle of social assemblage, in opposition to a numberof massive engineering schemes that have damagedthe ecological and social infrastructure of the region.

Working in conjunction with local activists and NGOs,

they initiated a series of platforms designed to facilitatelocal resistance. Working at a smaller scale, Navjot

Altaf has produced innovative designs for water pumpsand childrens temples in the Bastar region of central

India over the past seven years, in collaboration withindigenous Adivasi artist guilds. She has used the designand construction process to open up new spaces for socialexchange and interaction among the women and children

in Bastars villages. Park Fiction, located in Hamburg,Germany, developed a whimsical but effective form of

participatory planning with the residents of a waterfrontneighborhood slated for gentrification, eventually creating

COLLABORATION,ART, AND

SUBCULTURES

By GRANT H. KESTER

enough pressure on local authorities to have the site

turned into a public park, replete with fake palm treesand lawns shaped like flying carpets.

These projects possess an explicit pedagogicaldimension, evident in the frequent use of the workshop as

a medium for interactions that unfold through the gesturesand processes of shared labor. Further, each of them wasproduced in conjunction and negotiation with activistgroups, NGOs, neighborhood associations, and artists

guilds in a form of what Wallace Heim has aptly termedslow activism. These collaborative and collective projects

differ considerably from conventional, objectbased artpractice. The participants engagement is actualized by

immersion and participation in a process, rather thanthrough visual contemplation (reading or decoding animage or object). Existing art theory is oriented primarilytowards the analysis of individual objects and images

understood as the product of a single creative intelligence.This approach privileges what Ive described as a textualparadigm in which the work of art is conceived as anobject or event produced by the artist beforehand and

subsequently presented to the viewer.2 The artist neverrelinquishes a position of semantic mastery, and theviewers involvement is primarily hermeneutic. Whilethere is significant latitude in the viewers potential

response to the work (clinical detachment, selfreflection,shock, etc.), they can exercise no real or substantive effect

on the form and structure of the work, which remainsthe singular expression of the artists authoring conscious.

This paradigm is entirely appropriate for most imageand objectbased work, but is less useful when it comesto collaborative practices which emphasize the processand experience of collective interaction itself. Like most

paradigms, it can be both empowering and disabling. Inthe case of the collaborative practices Ill be discussing

GRANT H. KESTER is an associate professor of art history at the University of California,

San Diego. His publications includeArt, Activism and Oppositionality: Essays from After-

image (Duke University Press, 1998) and Conversation Pieces: Community and Commu-

nication in Modern Art(University of California Press, 2004). His forthcoming book is The

One and the Many: Agency and Identity in Contemporary Collaborative Art.


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Esse paradigma vlido para a maior parte das obras ba-seadas na imagem ou no objeto, mas tornase menos tilquando falamos de prticas colaborativas que enfatizamo processo e a experincia da prpria interao coletiva.

Como acontece com a maioria dos paradigmas, isso podetanto dar poder quanto desinstrumentalizar. No caso dasprticas colaborativas, discutirei que eles nos impedem deapreender o que genuinamente diferente, e potencial-

mente produtivo nesse trabalho.

A PARCELA MALDITAComo podemos dar conta da proliferao de prticas ar-tsticas preocupadas com a criao ou facilitao de novasredes sociais e novas modalidades de interao social?Nicolas Bourriaud, diretor do Palais de Tokyo, em Paris,

props o conceito de uma esttica relacional para des-crever e conter as vrias prticas colaborativas que emer-giram durante a ltima dcada. Hoje, os contornos geraisdo argumento de Bourriaud (aventados pela primeira vez

no seu livro de 1998) encontramse bem estabelecidos.Vivemos na sociedade do espetculo, em que at mesmoas relaes sociais encontramse reificadas (O vnculosocial tornouse um artefato padronizado).3 Em resposta,

um grupo de artistas, no incio da dcada de 1990, desen-volveu uma nova e de muitas maneiras indita abor-

dagem da arte, envolvendo a encenao de microutopiasou microcomunidades de interao humana. Esses pro-

jetos artsticos conviviais de fcil uso [user friendly], in-cluindo reunies, encontros, eventos, [e] vrios tipos decolaborao entre as pessoas, abriram um rico filo deinterao social.4 Os modelos tangveis de sociabilidade

encenados nesses projetos relacionais prometem ultrapas-sar a reificao das relaes sociais. Nesses processos, osartistas tambm buscaram reorientar a prtica artsticapara longe da expertise tcnica ou da produo de objetos,

em direo a um processo de troca intersubjetiva.Bourriaud oferece uma rearticulao mais ou menos

direta da arte de vanguarda convencional, em que aatitude instrumentalizadora, antes entendida como um

efeito potencial de exposio cultura de massa, agoracolonizava os modos e caminhos mais ntimos da inte-rao humana. No mais capazes de desestabilizar essesefeitos atravs de uma espcie de engenharia reversa

formalrepresentacional (isto , pela criao de objetose imagens que desafiam, deformam ou complicam os c-digos visuais redutivos da cultura de massa), os artistasdevem agora confrontlos no prprio terreno da intera-

o social. Os escritos de Bourriaud, se so por um ladoatraentes, tambm so esquemticos. Ele oferece pouca

ou nenhuma leitura substantiva de projetos e(sua escrita caracterizada por breves descro significado particular de um trabalho presdo que demonstrado). Como resultado, pode

determinar o que precisamente constitui o cttico de um dado projeto relacional. Ao mesBourriaud captou algo que inegavelmente cuma gerao recente de artistas: uma preocu

interao social e coletiva. Como o autor escdepois de dois sculos de luta por singularida

impulsos grupais precisamos [reintroduzirpluralidade [e inventar] novas maneiras de e

tos, formas de interao que vo alm da inedas famlias, guetos de facilidade de uso tecninstituies coletivas.5

Emprestando do trabalho de Flix Guattari

Deleuze, Bourriaud defende que as prticas arrelacionais desafiam a territorializao da idconvencional com uma compreenso plural,do sujeito. A subjetividade s pode ser defini

Bourriaud, pela presena de uma segunda suEla no forma um territrio exceto baseado eritrio que encontra ela modelada no prinridade.6 Essa profisso de f nas verdades do

sujeito descentralizado na crtica da arte agonode rigueur. Existe alguma tenso, no ob

esforos algo extenuantes de Bourriaud para efronteiras claras entre as novas maneiras de

que ele privilegia em seu prprio trabalho curartistas tais como Pierre Huyghe, Liam GillickTiravanija e Christine Hill) e um Outro abjetodo na tradio socialmente engajada de prtic

colaborativa que se estende at a dcada de 19do trabalho de Conrad Atkinson, Grupo de Artinos de Vanguardia, David Harding e Helen e Harrison, passando por Suzanne Lacy, Peter D

Loraine Leeson, Carole Conde e Karl BeveridgMaterial e Welfare State, e chegando a gruposPlastica, Platform, Littoral, Park Fiction, Ultratos outros, encontramos uma gama diversifica

tas e coletivos trabalhando em colaborao coambientais, sindicatos, grupos de protestos anzao e muitos outros. Essa tradio no apensente do relato de Bourriaud, mas tambm a

desconsiderada como ingnua e reacionria. posio que seja diretamente crtica da sociecreve Bourriaud, ftil. Bourriaud oferece udora descrio de prtica artstica engajada so

que marcha passo a passo com um programa gamente stalinista (Est claro que a era do N

CADERNO VIDEOBRASIL 02 Colaborao, arte e subculturas

here it prevents us from grasping what is genuinelydifferent, and potentially productive in this work.

THE ACCURSED SHARE

How do we account for the proliferation of art practicesconcerned with the creation or facilitation of new socialnetworks and new modalities of social interaction? Nico-

las Bourriaud, director of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris,has proposed the concept of a relational aesthetic to

describe and contain the various collaborative practicesthat have emerged over the last decade. By now the gen-

eral contours of Bourriauds argument (first floated in hiseponymous 1998 book) are well established. We live in a

society of the spectacle in which even social relations arereified (The social bond has turned into a standardized

artifact).3 In response a cadre of artists, beginning in the1990s, developed a new and in many ways unprecedentedapproach to art, involving the staging of microutopias or

microcommunities of human interaction. These conviv-

ial, userfriendly artistic projects, including meetings,encounters, events, [and] various types of collaborationbetween people, provided a rich loam for social inter-action.4 The tangible models of sociability enacted in

these relational projects promise to overcome the reifica-tion of social relationships. In the process these artists

also sought to reorient artistic practice away from techni-cal expertise or objectproduction and towards processes

of intersubjective exchange.Bourriaud offers a fairly straightforward rearticulation

of conventional avantgarde art, in which the instrumen-

talizing attitude formerly understood as a potential effectof exposure to mass culture has now colonized the mostintimate modes and pathways of human interaction. Nolonger able to destabilize these effects through a kind of

formal/representational reverse engineering (i.e., bycreating objects and images that challenge, deform, orcomplicate the reductive visual codes of mass culture)artists must now engage them on the terrain of social in-teraction itself. Bourriauds writing, while compelling, is

also schematic. He provides few if any substantive read-ings of specific projects (his writing is characterized byshort descriptions in which the works particular signifi-cance is assumed rather than demonstrated). As a result

it can be difficult to determine what, precisely, consti-tutes the aesthetic content of a given relational project. Atthe same time, Bourriaud has captured something that isundeniably central to a recent generation of artists: a con-

cern with social and collective interaction. As he writes,Today, after two centuries of struggle for singularity and

against group impulseswe must [reintroduce] the ideaof plurality [and invent] new ways of being together,forms of interaction that go beyond the inevitability of

the families, ghettos of technological userfriendlinessand collective institutions.5

Drawing on the work of Flix Guattari and GillesDeleuze, Bourriaud contends that relational art practiceschallenge the territorialization of conventional identity

with a plural, polyphonic understanding of the subject.Subjectivity can only be defined, Bourriaud writes, by

the presence of a second subjectivity. It does not forma territory except on the basis of the other territories

it comes acrossit is modeled on the principle of other-ness.6 This profession of faith in the verities of the plu-ral and decentered subject is by n ow routine, if not derigueur, in art criticism. It exists in some tension, however,

with Bourriauds rather strenuous efforts to establish clearboundaries between the new ways of being together thathe has privileged in his own curatorial work (by artistssuch as Pierre Huyghe, Liam Gillick, Rirkrit Tiravanija,

and Christine Hill) and an abject Other, embodied in thetradition of sociallyengaged collaborative art practicethat extends back to the 1960s. From the work of Conrad

Atkinson, Grupo de Artistas Argentinos de Vanguardia,

David Harding, and Helen and Newton Harrison, throughSuzanne Lacy, Peter Dunn, and Loraine Leeson, Carole

Conde and Karl Beveridge, Group Material, and WelfareState, and up to groups such as Ala Plastica, Platform, Lit-

toral, Park Fiction, Ultra Red, and many others, we find adiverse range of artists and collectives working in collabo-ration with environmental activists, trade unions, antiglo-balization protestors and many others. This tradition is

not only absent from Bourriauds account, it is openly dis-paraged as nave and even reactionary. Any stance that isdirectly critical of society, as Bourriaud writes, is futile.Bourriaud offers an ominous description of sociallyen-

gaged art practice marching in lockstep conformity witha vaguely Stalinist political program (It is clear that theage of the New Man, futureoriented manifestos, and callsfor a better world all ready to be walked into and lived in

is well and truly over7).Bourriauds caricature, which collapses all activist art

into the condition of 1930s socialist realism, fails to con-vey the complexity and diversity of sociallyengaged art

practice over the last several decades. Even Bourriaudscritics share this almost visceral distaste for sociallyen-gaged art. Claire Bishop, writing on Bourriaud in October,reassures her readers: Im not suggesting that relational

artworks need to develop a greater social consciousbymaking pinboard works about international terrorism, for

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example, or giving free curries to refugees.8 For Bishop,art can become legitimately political only indirectly,by exposing the limits and contradictions of political

discourse itself (the violent exclusions implicit in demo-cratic consensus, for example) from the quasidetachedperspective of the artist (this is also the basis for ThomasHirschorns anxious assertion that he isnot a political

artist, but rather, an artist who makes art politically).In this view, artists who choose to work in alliance withspecific collectives, social movements, or political strug-gles, will, inevitably, be consigned to decorating floats for

the annual May Day parade. Without the detachment andautonomy of conventional art to insulate them, they aredoomed to represent, in the most nave and facile man-ner possible, a given political issue or constituency. This

fate is all the more tragic as the real power of art lies pre-cisely in its ability to destabilize and critique conventionalforms of representation and identity. Art, in fact, has nopositive content, but is more properly understood as a

mode of selfreflexive analysis and critique that can beapplied to virtually any system of signification (individualor collective identity, institutional discourse, visual repre-sentation, etc.) which fails to adequately acknowledge its

necessary contingency.This detachment is necessary because art is constantly

in danger of being subsumed to the condition of consumerculture, propaganda, or entertainment (cultural formspredicated on immersion rather than a recondite critical

distance). Instead of seducing the viewer the artists taskis to hold them at arms length, inculcating a skepticaldistance (defined in terms of opacity, alienation, estrange-ment, etc.) that parallels the insight provided by critical

theory into the contingency of social and political mean-ing. The maintenance of this distance (literally embodiedin projects such as Santiago Sierras Wall Enclosing a

Space for the 2003 Venice Biennale) requires that the

artist retain complete control over the form and structureof the work. Relational practice is thus characterized by atension between two movements. One runs along a con-tinuum from the visual to the haptic (the desire to literal-

ize social interaction in nonvirtual space), and the otherruns along a continuum from the work as a preconceivedentity to the work as improvisational and situationally re-sponsive. In order to preserve the legitimacy of relational

practice as a hereditary expression of avantgarde art itsnecessary for critics like Bourriaud and Bishop to privilegethe first movement over the second. It is for this reason,I would suggest, that a number of Bourriauds relational

projects retain an essentially textual status, in which so-cial exchange is choreographed as ana priori event for

de manifestos orientados em direo ao futuro e clamorespara novos mundos prontos a ser adentrados e vividos estterminantemente acabada7).

A caricatura de Bourriaud, que reduz toda a arte ativis-ta condio do realismo socialista da dcada de 1930,fracassa em transmitir a complexidade e diversidade daprtica artstica socialmente engajada das ltimas dcadas.

Mesmo os crticos de Bourriaud compartilham esse des-gosto quase visceral da arte socialmente engajada. ClarieBishop, escrevendo sobre Bourriaud na revista October,assegura seus leitores: Eu no estou sugerindo que obras

de arte relacional precisam desenvolver um conscientesocial maior fazendo trabalhos escolares sobre o terro-rismo internacional, por exemplo, ou dando refeies gra-tuitas a refugiados [free curries to refugees ].8 Para Bishop,

a arte pode se tornar legitimamente poltica apenasindiretamente, atravs da exposio dos limites e contra-dies do prprio discurso poltico (as excluses violentasimplcitas no consenso democrtico, por exemplo) a partir

da perspectiva semidistanciada do artista (essa tambm a base da ansiosa afirmao de Thomas Hirschorn, quan-do ele diz queno um artista poltico, mas sim, umartista que faz arte politicamente). Dentro dessa viso,

artistas que escolhem trabalhar em aliana com coletivosespecficos, movimentos sociais ou lutas polticas, inevita-

velmente esto destinados a decorar carros aldesfile de Primeiro de Maio. Sem o distanciamnomia da arte convencional para isollos, ele

denados a representar, da maneira mais ingpossvel, uma questo poltica dada ou um pcfico. Esse destino ainda mais trgico se coque o poder real da arte reside precisamente n

lidade de desestabilizar e criticar as formas code representao e identidade. A arte, de fatoqualquer contedo positivo, mas mais apropentendida como um modo autoreflexivo de a

ca que pode ser aplicado a praticamente qualde significao (identidade individual e coletivinstitucional, representao visual etc.) que nreconhecer adequadamente sua contingncia

Esse distanciamento necessrio porque a constante perigo de ser reduzida condio dde consumo, propaganda ou entretenimentoculturais predicadas na imerso em vez de um

crtica recndita). Ao invs de seduzir o obsertarefa do artista mantlo a certa distncia, um distanciamento ctico (definido em termocidade, alienao, estranhamento etc.) que fa

com oinsight oferecido pela teoria crtica acetingncia do significado social e poltico. A m



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the consumption of an audience.9 In addition to natural-izing deconstructive interpretation as the only appropriatemetric for aesthetic experience this approach places theartist in a position of ethical/adjudicatory oversight; un-

veiling or revealing the contingency of systems of meaningthat the viewer would otherwise submit to without think-ing. The viewer, in short, cant be trusted.10 Hence thedeep suspicion of both Bourriaud and Bishop of art prac-

tices which surrender some autonomy to collaboratorsand which involve the artist directly in the (always/already

compromised) machinations of political struggles.On one level this persistent discomfort with activistart is typical of postCold War intellectuals embarrassedby work that evokes leftist ideals. Precisely what makesrelational artists such as Rirkrit Tiravanija, Thomas

Hirschorn, Pierre Huyghe, and Jens Hanning new, inthis view, is their attempt to redefine collectivity and in-tersubjective exchange outside of existing, and implicitlyretrograde, political referents (the extent to which their

projects actually accomplish a significant remodeling ofcollectivity is open to question). The modest gesturesemployed by Bourriauds artists (offering to do someoneswashing up, paying a fortune teller, etc.) run no risk of

being appropriated to dangerousgrand rcits that will,inevitably, be revealed as reactionary and compromised.11It would seem to be relatively uncontroversial to locatethe relational projects embraced by Bourriaud (or Bishop)

on a continuum with sociallyengaged projects that em-ploy processes of collaborative interaction. However, forboth of these writers activist work triggers a kind of sac-rificial response; as if to even acknowledge this work as

art somehow threatens the legitimacy of the practicesthat they do support.12 A reductive version of engaged oractivist art (e.g., Bishops free curries for refugees) thusfunctions as a necessary foil, representing the abject, un-

sophisticated Other to critical, relational art, and therebygiving some coherence to a body of work that might oth-erwise be dismissed as insubstantial.

THE INVISIBLE HAND

This blithe, if not scornful, dismissal of political art islinked with a deep skepticism about organized political ac-tion in general. It finds its intellectual justification in the

writings of figures such as Flix Guattari, Gilles Deleuze,and JeanLuc Nancy; French thinkers who came of age inthe postWWII era, and who enjoy nearcanonical statusin the contemporary art scene. Despite significant differ-

ences in inflection and emphasis they share a decidedantipathy to organized, collective political action and

have instead identified the individual body or singular-ity (Deleuzes replacement for the discredited languageof the individual) as the primary locus of resistance (e.g.,Guattaris molecular revolution, Foucaults turn to bio-

politics, etc.). Their capacity to imagine alternative po-litical forms was decisively fixed by the events of May 68,which function as a kind of template, dictating both thelimits and the possibilities of all future forms of political

resistance. Traumatized by the failure of the student andworker uprising at the time to catalyze a fullscale societal

transformation (due in part to the paralysis of the FrenchCommunist Party), they retained an enduring cynicism

about organized political groups; which can only ever becorrupt, mired in bureaucracy, and unresponsive to thereal desires of the people they claim to represent. Alongwith it came an equally powerful identification with the

spontaneous, unplanned energies of the Parisian streetprotests, which seemed to represent a literal manifestationof the upwelling energies of the body and desire againstthe reified institutions of collective, public life, both left

and right. It was necessary that these protests be seen asuncoordinated, almost intuitive, events (in AntiOedipusDeleuze and Guattari compare them to steam escapingfrom a radiator). The result is a somewhat simplistic

opposition between reason and the body. In its most pro-nounced cases it leads to a disabling tendency to equatereason (in all its totalizing evil) with conscious agency,and the containment and deradicalization of a preexisting

(and implicitly pure) desire. Correct political action must,then, not be based on the exercise of a conscious volitionor an organizing impulse (agency, to paraphrase MichaelHardt and Toni Negri, is merely the poisoned gift of

Western ontology).Deleuze, Nancy, and others face a significant challenge

when trying to describe precisely how all these disparatebodies, singularities, and monads would interact or

work collectively. The framework necessary to build asense of solidarity or communicate and exchange informa-tion is often collapsed into some metaphysicalje ne sais

quoi (desire, finitude,lan vital, etc.). In the more poetic

accounts of May 68, a (nontotalizing and temporary) uni-ty is established among the participants almost magically;without planning, dialogue, or the formation of a consen-sus to coordinate action tactically. Hardt and Negri have

projected this particular image onto a global scale in Em-pire. They argue that the only appropriate mode of resis-tance to the newly subtle and dispersed mode of contem-porary capitalism is sporadic, uncoordinated, and singular.

There is no need to challenge the institutions of politicaland economic power with collective forms of resistance

dessa distncia (incorporada literalmente em projetoscomoMuro Cerrando un Espacio, de Santiago Sierra paraa Bienal de Veneza de 2003) requer que o artista retenhao completo controle sobre a forma e a estrutura do traba-

lho. A prtica relacional assim caracterizada por umatenso entre dois movimentos. Um deles ocorre ao longode um contnuo que vai do visual ao hptico (o desejo deliteralizar a interao social em um espao novirtual), e

o outro percorre um contnuo que vai da obra como umaentidade prconcebida obra improvisatria e situacio-

nalmente responsiva. Para preservar a legitimidade daprtica relacional como uma expresso hereditria da arte

de vanguarda, crticos como Bourriaud e Bishop precisamprivilegiar o primeiro movimento sobre o segundo. poressa razo, eu sugiro, que alguns dos projetos relacionaisde Bourriaud retm um status essencialmente textual, em

que a troca social coreografada como um evento a prioripara o consumo do pblico.9 Alm da interpretao des-construtiva naturalizante apresentada como a nica mtri-ca apropriada para a experincia esttica, essa abordagem

coloca o artista em uma posio de descuido [oversight]ticoadjutrio, desvelando ou revelando a contingnciade sistemas de significado aos quais o observador de outraforma se submeteria sem pensar. Resumindo, no se pode

confiar no observador.10 Da a profunda desconfiana tan-to de Bourriaud quanto de Bishop em relao s prticasartsticas que do alguma autonomia aos colaboradores eque envolvem o artista diretamente nas (sempre e de ante-

mo comprometidas) maquinaes das lutas polticas.Em um nvel, esse persistente desconforto com a arte

ativista tpico de intelectuais psGuerra Fria, cons-trangidos com trabalhos que evocam ideais esquerdis-

tas. Precisamente o que fazem artistas relacionais comoRirkrit Tiravanija, Thomas Hirschorn, Pierre Huyghe eJens Hanning ser novos, dentro dessa viso, so suastentativas de redefinir coletividade e troca intersubjetiva

fora dos referentes polticos existentes, implicitamenteretrgrados (at que ponto seus projetos realmente alcan-am um significativo remodelamento de coletividade estaberto discusso). Os modestos gestos empregados pelos

artistas de Bourriaud (oferecerse para lavar a roupa sujade algum, pagar uma cartomante etc.) no correm o riscode ser apropriados a perigososgrand rcits que sero, ine-vitavelmente, revelados como reacionrios e comprometi-

dos.11 Pareceria relativamente incontroverso localizar osprojetos relacionais abraados por Bourriaud (ou Bishop)em um contnuo junto com os processos de projetos so-cialmente engajados que empregam a interao colabora-

tiva. Porm, para ambos os escritores, o trabalho ativistadispara um tipo de resposta sacrificial, como se at mesmo

reconhecer esse trabalho como arte de alguameaasse a legitimidade de prticas que elesUma verso reduzida da arte engajada ou ativas refeies gratuitas para refugiados de Bis

funciona como uma repulsa necessria, repreOutro abjeto e pouco sofisticado da arte crticdesta forma imprimindo certa coerncia a umtrabalho que poderia de outra forma ser desca

como nosubstancial.

A MO INVISVELEssa dispensa displicente, at de desprezo, datica, est ligada a um profundo ceticismo emao poltica organizada de um modo geral. Ejustificao intelectual nos escritos de figuras Guattari, Gilles Deleuze e JeanLuc Nancy; p

franceses que amadureceram na era psSeguMundial, e que tm status quase cannico no arte contempornea. A despeito de significativas de inflexo e nfase, eles compartilham de

patia decidida pela ao poltica organizada, cinvs disso, identificaram o corpo individual odade (o substituto de Deleuze para a linguageditada do indivduo) como o principal foco de

(por exemplo, a revoluo molecular de Guabiopoltica de Foucault etc.). A capacidade qimaginar formas polticas alternativas foi fixaddecisiva pelos eventos de Maio de 1968, que f

como uma espcie de estncil, ditando tanto quanto s possibilidades de todas as formas fusistncia poltica. Traumatizados pelo fracassdos estudantes e dos trabalhadores de 68 em

transformao de grande escala na sociedade devido paralisia do Partido Comunista Francretiveram um cinismo duradouro em relao polticos organizados: eles podem apenas ser

atolados em burocracia e insensveis aos desepessoas que eles alegam representar. Junto veio uma identificao igualmente poderosa cespontnea e noplanejada dos protestos de

ses, que pareciam representar uma manifestadas energias acumuladas do corpo e do desejinstituies reificadas do coletivo, da vida pb esquerda quanto direita. Era necessrio qu

testos fossem vistos como eventos descoordenintuitivos (noAntidipo, Deleuze e Guattarinos ao vapor escapando de um aquecedor). uma oposio um tanto simplista entre a ra

Em seus casos mais pronunciados, leva a umaparalisante de igualar a razo (em sua maldad



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20 21

or to build political alliances across national boundariesbecause power has thoughtfully reconfigured itself to bedecentralized. Thus, we must meet the rhizomatic forcesof capital with the Deleuzean flows of migration and

unplanned and local gestures. For Hardt and Negri the actof representing a collective political will, far from being anecessary step in organizing resistance to dominant politi-cal and economic interests, simply constitutes another

form of oppression. Pointing to the negative consequencesof postcolonial nation building in Cuba, Vietnam, and Al-geria they reject any political strategy that implies thatthe nation state can provide any legitimate resistance to

global capital.13 In their analysis the states only functionis negative: to contain desire and objectify difference onthe basis of a monolithic collective identity (the nation,the people, etc.).

Further, the workingclass, understood as an agent ofcollective political struggle and transformation, is irrel-evant. It has been replaced by an inchoate army of labor-ers scattered across the globe, whose most radical political

option is nomadic migration to the metropolitan centersof the developed world to serve as lowwaged labor. These

multitudes are to be allowed a political role, but only solong as their resistance remains resolutely fragmented

and dispersed, for fear that they might otherwise forma dangerously fascistic sense of solidarity.14 Note, thatit is not simply a question of working on multiple frontsfor Hardt and Negri (both local and individual as well as

more collective modes of resistance). Rather, it is theprohibition ofany political action that depends on theexperience of collective struggle; these actions can onlyever lead down the slippery slope towards the gulag of

totalitarian nationalism. Hardt and Negri would leave nocivic or institutional insulation whatsoever between themobile and predatory forces of global corporate capitaland the poor and working class, to whom even the solace

of a communicable solidarity is denied. Their analysisoperates through a kind of negative teleology in whichall possible outcomes of the cultural and political logicof modernity are anticipated in the specific experience

of the EuroAmerican Nation State. There is no point intrying to organize trade unions in China or work towardsa more egalitarian government in Nicaragua because we(white Europeans) have already been down that road.

Hardt and Negris allergy to collective political entities, ofwhich the state is theurform, extends even to those non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and activist groupswhich merely operate in proximity to state power. Thus,

humanitarian agencies such as Mdecins sans Frontiresor Oxfam are, they contend, completely immersed in the

biopolitical context of Empire and the most powerfulpacific weapon of the new world order.15

We encounter, in the emerging canon of relational aes-thetics, an emphatic desire to establish clear divisions be-

tween activist cultural practices and art. I would contend,however, that some of the most challenging new collabora-tive art projects are located on a continuum with forms ofcultural activism, rather than being defined in hard and

fast opposition to them. Far from viewing this sort of cat-egorical slippage as something to be feared I believe it isboth productive and inevitable, given the period of transi-tion through which we are living. It is, in fact, a persistent

characteristic of modern art created during moments ofhistorical crisis and change (Dadaism and Constructivismin the wake of WWI and the Russion Revolution, the pro-fusion of movements and new practices that emerged out

of the political turmoil of the 1960s and 70s, etc.). In thecontemporary Weltanschauung Ive described above weare presented with two options: withdrawal into aestheticautonomy and ironic detachment or deferral, as we wait

for the messianic moment in which a radical insurrec-tional demand will magically arise from the fragmentedlegions of the multitude.16 For my part, I believe the deci-sive locus for political and cultural transformation will be

precisely at the level of collectives, unions, activist groups,and progressive NGOs working in conjunction with socialstruggles and political movements ranging from the localto the transnational.

We are living in a moment of grave danger and greatpossibility, as capital reconfigures itself in ever more effec-tive ways globally. In this endeavor it has been necessaryto undermine the legitimacy of the state, or any other

form of collective, public authority that might challengethe imperatives of the market. The goal is not to dismantlethe apparatus of the state, but rather, to make it entirelycompliant with the needs of the capital, and of that small

faction of the public that benefits most directly from themarkets operations. This pressure is both external, em-bodied in the neoliberal policies of the International Mon-etary Fund and World Bank, and internal, as evidenced

by the increasing corporate control of government in theUnited States. In the U.S. the result has been the gradualerosion of an entire infrastructure of public policy and in-stitutional oversight designed to restrict or challenge cor-

porate power (e.g., the dismantling of regulatory agenciessuch as the Federal Communications Commission andthe Food and Drug Administration, and the privatizationor elimination of programs such as Aid to Families with

Dependent Children, Social Security, Medicaid, and evenpublic education).

ra) agncia consciente e conteno e desradicalizaode um desejo prexistente (e implicitamente puro).

A ao poltica correta precisa, ento, no ser baseadano exerccio da volio consciente ou no impulso organi-

zador (a agncia, para parafrasear Michael Hardt e ToniNegri, tratase meramente do presente envenenado daontologia ocidental).

Deleuze, Nancy e outros tm pela frente um desafio

significativo quando tentam descrever precisamente comotodos estes corpos, singularidades e mnadas dspa-res interagiriam ou trabalhariam coletivamente. O quadronecessrio para construir um senso de solidariedade ou

para comunicar e trocar informao freqentementereduzido a algum no sei qu metafsico (desejo, finitude,lan vital etc.). Nos relatos mais poticos de Maio de 1968,uma unidade (nototalizante e temporria) estabele-

cida entre os participantes quase que magicamente, semplanejamento, dilogo ou a formao de consenso paracoordenar as aes taticamente. Hardt e Negri projetaramessa imagem particular numa escala global em seu livro

Imprio. Eles argumentam que o nico modo apropriadode resistncia aos novos modos dispersos e sutis do ca-pitalismo contemporneo espordico, descoordenado esingular. No h necessidade de desafiar as instituies do

poder econmico e poltico com formas coletivas de resis-tncia ou construir alianas polticas atravs de fronteirasnacionais, pois o poder se reconfigurou cuidadosamentepara ser descentralizado. Assim, precisamos encarar as

foras rizomticas do capital com fluxos deleuzianosde migrao e gestos locais, noplanejados. Para Hardt eNegri, o ato de representar uma vontade poltica dominan-te, longe de ser um passo necessrio para a organizao da

resistncia aos interesses polticos e econmicos dominan-tes, simplesmente constitui uma outra forma de opresso.

Apontando para as conseqncias negativas da construodas naes cubana, vietnamita e argelina pscoloniais,

eles rejeitam qualquer estratgia poltica que impliqueque a NaoEstado possa prover alguma resistncia le-gtima ao capital global.13 Em sua anlise, a nica funopossvel do Estado negativa: conter o desejo e objetivar

a diferena com base na identidade coletiva monoltica(a nao, o povo etc.).

Alm do mais, a classe trabalhadora, entendida comoagente de luta poltica e transformao coletiva, irrele-

vante. Foi substituda por um exrcito incipiente de tra-balhadores espalhados pelo globo, cuja opo mais radical a migrao nomdica aos centros metropolitanos domundo desenvolvido para servir de modeobra barata.

A essas multides se permitir um papel poltico, masapenas na medida em que sua resistncia permanea re-

solutamente fragmentada e dispersa, por elas, de outra forma, formem um senso perigocista de solidariedade.14 Note que para Hardt no simplesmente uma questo de trabalha

mltiplas (tanto os modos de resistncia locaiduais quanto os mais coletivos). Tratase da pqualquer ao poltica que dependa da experiluta poltica; essas aes poderiam apenas lev

escorregadia em direo ao Gulag do totalitarnalista. Hardt e Negri no permitiriam nenhumcvico ou institucional que separasse, de um laas mveis predatrias do capital corporativo

outro, os pobres e a classe trabalhadora, paramesmo o consolo de uma solidariedade comunegada. Sua anlise opera atravs de uma esplogia negativa onde todos os resultados possv

poltica e cultural da modernidade so anteciexperincia especfica da NaoEstado EuroNo faz sentido tentar organizar sindicatos natrabalhar rumo a um governo mais igualitrio

gua, porque ns (europeus brancos) j percestrada. A alergia de Hardt e Negri s entidadecoletivas, das quais o Estado aurforma, semesmo quelas organizaes nogovernamen

e a grupos ativistas que operam em proximidader estatal. Assim, agncias humanitrias comsans Frontires ou Oxfam esto, sustentam eltamente imersas no contexto biopoltico do

a mais poderosa arma pacfica da nova ordemNo cnon emergente da esttica relacional,

mos um desejo enftico de estabelecer divisetre as prticas culturais ativistas e a arte. Eu s

entanto, que alguns dos mais desafiadores procolaborativa esto situados dentro de um conformas de ativismo cultural, mais do que sendem oposio pura e simples a elas. Longe de v

de deslize categrico como algo a ser temido, que tanto produtivo como inevitvel, dado otransio que vivemos. Essa , de fato, uma capersistente da arte moderna criada durante m

crise e mudana histrica (o Dadasmo e o Cono rastro da Primeira Guerra Mundial e da Resa, a profuso de movimentos e novas prticagiram do redemoinho poltico das dcadas de

etc.). No Weltanschauung contemporneo, quacima, duas opes nos so apresentadas: retiautonomia esttica e distanciamento ou adiamcos, enquanto esperamos por um momento m

que uma demanda inssurrecional radical emgicamente das legies fragmentadas da multid



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22

23

These changes bring us full circle, to the political cul-ture of the late 19th century; a period of untrammelledcorporate influence and political corruption in the United

States. President Bushs reliance on faithbased initia-tives as a replacement for various forms of public assis-tance returns us, quite literally, to the Victorianera beliefthat poverty was a sign of moral failure. The destructive

energies of the market and monopoly capital unleashedduring the Gilded Age led to a crucial struggle over theconstitution of civil society and the definition of the pub-lic good. This period witnessed the formation of a national

network of political parties (anarchist, socialist, populist,agrarian, etc.), unions, activist organizations (devotedto issues ranging from pacificism and worker rights tochild labor and freespeech), social workers, suffrage

campaigners, progressive foundations, publications, edu-cational programs, and more. Despite significant tensionsamong and between these social actors, they constituted

a powerful oppositional political culture. Operating like ashadow government, they stood outside of, but adjacentto, existing state institutions, holding them accountablefor democratic political ideals that were all too often sacri-ficed to the specific interests of the wealthly and powerful.

They developed a civic presence through elaborate publicexhibitions (on issues such as tenement house reform,

immigration, public health, and child labor), the draftingof model legislation, the creation of surveys designed toreveal the underlying social forces that structured the

industrial city, and a range of other activities that effec-tively put pressure on government officials to be account-able to the public as a whole.

The rhetorical mode of Progressiveera America finds

a parallel in Jacques Rancires description of the publicdiscourse of the French working class during the July Rev-olution. The revolutionary declaration of the equality inlaw of man and the citizen, as Rancire writes, presented

a radical challenge. This assertion implies a most pecu-liar platform of argument. The worker subject that getsincluded on it as speaker has to behaveas though sucha stage existed, as though there were a common world of

argumentwhich is eminently reasonableand eminentlyunreasonble, eminently wise and resolutely subversive,since such a world [a world in which workers can claim

the right to public speech] does not exist17 This pre-figurative dimension of political culture, the as if ofRancires workers, is of particular importance, and canreveal something to us of the potential for a sociallyen-gaged art practice in our own day. A century later, we

again find ourselves at a moment in which corporationsexercise overwhelming power in our daily lives; a period

nha parte, eu acredito que o locus decisivo para a transfor-mao poltica e cultural ser precisamente no nvel doscoletivos, sindicatos, grupos ativistas e ONGs progressistas

em conjunto com as lutas sociais e movimentos polticosque vo desde o local at o transnacional.

Vivemos um momento de grave perigo e grande pos-sibilidade, enquanto o capital se reconfigura de maneira

global cada vez mais efetivamente. Neste esforo, temsido necessrio solapar a legitimidade do Estado, ou dequalquer outra forma de autoridade coletiva ou pblicaque possa desafiar os imperativos do mercado. O objetivo

no desmantelar o aparato do Estado, mas sim fazlointeiramente convergente com as necessidades do capi-tal e daquela pequena faco do pblico que se beneficiamais diretamente das operaes do mercado. A presso

tanto externa, encarnada nas polticas neoliberais doFundo Monetrio Internacional e do Banco Mundial, quan-to interna, tal como evidenciado pelo crescente controle

corporativo sobre o governo dos Estados Unidos. Nos EUA,o resultado tem sido uma gradual eroso de toda uma in-fraestrutura de poltica pblica e de deslize institucionalque tinham sido planejados para restringir ou desafiar opoder corporativo (por exemplo, o desmonte das agncias

reguladoras como a Federal Communications Commis-sion e a Food and Drug Administration, e a privatizao

ou eliminao de programas como a Aid to FaDependent Children, Social Security, Medicaieducao pblica).

Isso nos leva a uma volta completa, um retora poltica do final do sculo XIX, um perodo corporativa sem freios e de corrupo polticaUnidos. A poltica do Presidente Bush de apoi

ciativas crentes [faithbased] como substituvrias formas de assistncia pblica nos leva literalmente, crena tpica da Era Vitoriana breza um sinal de fracasso moral. As energia

do mercado e do capital monopolista deslanchte a Era de Ouro levaram crucial luta pelao da sociedade civil e a definio do bem pperodo testemunhou a formao de uma rede

de partidos polticos (anarquistas, socialistas, agrrios etc.), sindicatos, organizaes ativista temas que iam desde o pacifismo e direitos

at o trabalho infantil e liberdade de expresstes sociais, partidrios do sufrgio, fundaes publicaes, programas educacionais e muitopeito de tenses significativas entre esses ageeles constituram uma poderosa cultura de op

tica. Agindo como um governo paralelo, eles pfora das, mas adjacentes s, instituies estat



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24 25

characterized by massive differentials in income and privi-lege, in which obedience to the natural law of capital isembraced at the highest levels of our political system (andin which the regulatory power of the state over the market,

won at such cost over the preceeding century, has beenalmost entirely surrendered). It is a moment, as Ive statedabove, of both peril and opportunity. As dominant politicalnarratives lose, their legitimacy space is opened for new

stories, new models of political organization, and new vi-sions for the future. It is this sense of possibility, I believe,that animates the remarkable profusion of contemporaryart practices concerned with collective action and civic

engagement, not just within the U.S., but globally.

COLLABORATIVE IDENTITIESThis experimental engagement with new forms of collec-tivity and agency is evident in Park Fictions work in Ger-many, where they reinvented the process of participatoryurban planning as an imaginative game. The speculative

quality of this work is literally embodied in their name(the fiction of a park), and in the audacity to imaginea public park in place of expensive, highrise apartmentbuildings. Rather than simply protest and critique the pro-

cess of gentrification that was beginning to unfold aroundHamburgs waterfront (an area with a diverse, workingclass population), Park Fiction organized a parallel plan-ning process that began with the creation of alternative

platforms for exchange among the areas existing residents(musicians, priests, a headmistress, a cook, cafowners,barmen, a psychologist, squatters, artists, and interven-tionist residents). The element of fantasy is apparent in

the plans already developed for the park, including theTeagarden Island, which features artificial palm trees andis surrounded by an elegant fortymeter long bench fromBarcelona, an Open Air Solarium, and a Flying Carpet (a

waveshaped lawn area surrounded by a mosaic inspiredby the Alhambra). Park Fiction combines this whimsicalspirit with a welldeveloped tactical sensibility, and a so-phisticated grasp of the realpolitik involved in challenging

powerful economic interests. They were able to build ona tradition of organized political resistance in the areaaround Hamburgs harbor that extends back to the occu-

pation of the Hafenstrasse (Harbor Street) neighborhoodduring the 1980s, when local residents took control ofseveral city blocks and effectively halted the citys effortsat eviction. The residents of the Hafenstrasse employedstreet theater, pirate radio, mural painting, and other

cultural practices during the occupation, to challenge thepolice, gain media attention, and encourage a sense of

solidarity and cohesion within the embattled neighbor-hood. Park Fiction member Christoph Schfer describesthe leverage this history provided in the process of bring-ing the park into existence:

The location for the park is directly at the river. Its a very expen-

sive, highly symbolic place, where power likes to represent itself

To claim this space as a public park designed by the residents

really meant to challenge powe rits not an alternative corner or a

social sandbox the parents can afford to give away. The resistance

could only be overcome by a very broad and clever network in the

community, by a new set of tactics, trickery, seduction, and stub-

bornness and an unspoken threat lingering in the background of

all this: that a militant situation might again de velop that would

be costly, and bad for the citys image, and deter investment in the

whole neighborhood.18

It was necessary for Park Fiction to develop a closerapport with activist groups and organizations inthe neighborhood. As Schfer describes it, they only

collaborated with institutions that had local credibility.These included a Community Center, which was knownfor providing free and anonymous legal services, as wellas a school that had supported the Hafenstrasse squatters

during the 1980s.While operating in a very different cultural context, the

work of the Argentinian collective Ala Plastica parallelsthat of Park Fiction in many ways. TheirProyecto AA,

located in the Ro de la Plata basin near Buenos Aires,mobilized new modes of collective action and creativityin order to challenge the political and economic inter-ests behind largescale development in the region. The

construction of a massive rail/highway line over the lasttwo decades has exacerbated flooding and destroyed thefishing and tourist economies in the delta, leading to highlevels of unemployment and deteriorating social services.

Ala Plastica initiated theProyecto AA with a process ofspatial and cognitive mapping, developed in collaborationwith the areas residents, along with a bioregional studyof the Ro de la Plata and Paran delta. This mapping

procedure was combined with various exercises designedto recover and collect local knowledge about the region.

Ala Plastica sought to actualize the insights of the areas

residents into the social and environmental costs of theZrateBrazo Largo rail complex and the proposed PuntaLara Colonia bridge, which have damaged the ecosystemas well the social fabric of local communities. In order tochallenge the institutional authority and technopoliti-

cal mindset of the corporate and governmental agenciesresponsible for these projects, Ala Plastica worked with

tes, fazendoas prestar contas dos ideais polticos demo-crticos que tantas vezes eram sacrificados em nome dosinteresses dos ricos e poderosos. Eles desenvolveram umapresena cvica atravs de elaboradas exposies pblicas

(sobre temas como a reforma da habitao pblica, imi-grao, sade pblica e trabalho infantil), o esboo de le-gislaomodelo, a criao de levantamentos destinados arevelar as foras sociais subterrneas que estruturavam

a cidade industrial e uma gama de outras atividades queefetivamente pressionavam os agentes governamentais aprestarem contas ao pblico como um todo.

O modo retrico da Era Progressista americana encon-

tra paralelo na descrio de Jacques Rancire do discursopblico da classe trabalhadora francesa durante a Revo-luo de Julho. A declarao revolucionria de igualdadedo homem e do cidado perante a lei, como escreve

Rancire, apresentava um desafio radical. Essa afirmaoimplica numa plataforma de argumento muito peculiar. Osujeito trabalhador que se inclui nela como discursantetem que se comportarcomo se tal palco existisse, como se

houvesse de fato um mundo comum de discusso que eminentemente razovel e eminentemente no razovel,eminentemente sbio e resolutamente subversivo, j quetal mundo [um mundo onde trabalhadores podem recla-

mar o direito ao discurso pblico] no existe Essa di-menso prfigurativa da cultura poltica, o como se 17dos trabalhadores de Rancire, de suma importncia, epode revelar para ns algo do potencial para uma prtica

artstica socialmente engajada em nossos dias. Um sculodepois, novamente encontramonos num momento emque as corporaes exercitam poder acachapante sobrenossas vidas dirias; um perodo caracterizado por dife-

renas massivas de renda e de privilgios, em que a obedi-ncia lei natural do capital abraada pelos escalesmais altos de nosso sistema poltico (e no qual o poderregulador do Estado sobre o mercado, ganho com tanto

custo no sculo anterior, foi quase totalmente entregue eperdido). um momento, como j afirmei acima, tanto deperigo quanto de oportunidade. Enquanto as narrativaspolticas dominantes perdem, seu espao de legitimidade

se abre a novas histrias, novos modelos de organizaopoltica e novas vises para o futuro. esse senso de pos-sibilidade, acredito, que anima a notvel profuso de pr-

ticas artsticas contemporneas preocupadas com a aocoletiva e o engajamento cvico, no apenas dentro dosEstados Unidos, mas tambm globalmente.

IDENTIDADES COLABORATIVASEsse engajamento experimental com novas formas de

coletividade e agncia evidente no trabalho tion na Alemanha, onde eles reinventaram o pplanejamento urbano participativo como um tivo. A qualidade especulativa desse trabalho

toma corpo em seu nome (a fico de um paudcia de imaginar um parque pblico em lue caros prdios de apartamentos. Mais do quemente protestar e criticar o processo de gentr

comeou a desdobrarse ao redor do cais de H(uma rea que abriga uma populao trabalhaversa), o Park Fiction organizou um processoplanejamento que comeou com a criao de

alternativas de troca entre os residentes que l(msicos, sacerdotes, uma diretora de escolanheiro, donos de cafs, barmen, um psiclogo[squatters], artistas e intervencionistas reside

elemento de fantasia aparente nos planos jdos para o parque, incluindo a Teagarden Islajardim de tomar ch], que apresenta palmeirae rodeada por um elegante banco de quaren

comprimento vindo de Barcelona, um SolrioTapete Voador (uma rea gramada na forma dvolta por um mosaico inspirado no palcio deO Park Fiction combina esse esprito divertido

sensibilidade ttica bem desenvolvida, e um esofisticado darealpolitik envolvida no desafiointeresses econmicos. Foram capazes de concima de uma tradio de resistncia poltica o

na rea ao redor do cais de Hamburgo, que veocupao do bairro doHafenstrasse (rua do rante a dcada de 1980, quando residentes loco controle de vrios quarteires na cidade e ef

impediram os esforos da prefeitura em desperesidentes daHafenstrasse mobilizaram teatrrdio pirata, pintura mural e outras prticas cdurante a ocupao, para desafiar a polcia, ga

ateno da mdia e estimular um senso de solcoeso dentro do bairro sitiado. O integrante tion Christoph Schfer descreve o poder de ahistria exerceu no processo de trazer o parq

O parque est situado diretamente beira dgua

muito caro, altamente simblico, onde o poder gos

representar Reclamar este espao como um parqu

nhado pelos residentes realmente significa desafiar

se trata de uma esquina alternativa ou um parquinh

pais possam se dar ao luxo de ceder. A resistncia s

vencida atravs de uma rede na comunidade, muito

gente, por um novo conjunto de tticas, truques, sedu

alm de uma ameaa tcita que pairava sobre tudo



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26 27

the areas residents to articulate their own visions for theregion through the creation of communications platformsand networks for mutual cooperation. They helped de-sign emergency housing modules for use during periods

of flooding, and provided communications training andinfrastructure, with a particular focus on women. Buildingon a tradition of willow cultivation that dates back to themid19th century, theProyecto AA identified new uses for

willows and encouraged the emergence of local economiesbased on willow production. Throughout theProyecto

AA Ala Plastica worked closely with local activist groups,NGOs and others, including the Producers Cooperative of

the Coast of Berisso and the Health and Plants Network ofArgentina. School #25, located in close proximity to theZrateBrazo Largo complex, provided an important baseof operations. As they note, School #25 is recognized as

an active community centerin addition to its role asan educational institution it acts as a relief center for thesocial and economic problems of around 100 students andtheir families.19

TheProyecto AA was inspired by an earlier work,Emergent Species (1995), which involved research intothe capacity of reeds and other aquatic plants to absorbpollution. In the process, Ala Plasticas members came to

identify a significant correspondence between the struc-ture of reedbed propagation and a creative practice thatlinks diverse particularities via a nonhierarchical network:

We planned a project represented by the metaphor of rhizomatic

expansion and emergence, alluding to the behavior of these plants

and to the emergent character of ideas and creative practices. The

connection of remnants within one another generated a practically

indescribable warp of intercommunication deriving into innume-

rable actions that developed and increased through reciprocity:

dealing with social and environmental problems; exploring both

noninstitutional and intercultural models while working with the

community and on the social sphere; interacting, exchanging expe-

riences and knowledge with producers of culture and crops, of art

and craftwork, of ideas and objects.20

We find a similar commitment to collaborative modes ofcreativity in the hand pump sites and childrens templesproduced by Navjot Altaf in conjunction with Adivasi com-

munities in central India over the past seven years (theAdivasi are Indias indigenous population and have longsuffered from economic and social discrimination). Accessto clean water is a complex, and politically contentious,issue in rural India. As corporations penetrate further into

the countryside in pursuit of cheap labor they put increas-ing pressure on natural resources to support their pro-

duction facilities; in many cases either contaminating orprivatizing local water supplies.21 As a result, the Adivasicommunities in the Bastar region, where Altaf has beenworking, are engaged in struggles over land and water ac-

cess, while also grappling with the impact of economic andcultural modernization. What interested me most was thehybridism of the cultures, Altaf writes, contradictionsand identity crises which are multiple and interrelated. 22

This macropolitical dimension is paralleled by a set ofcultural traditions around water collection that place thegreatest burden on women and young girls. Altaf began herwork in Bastar with the simple goal of creating more effi-

cient pump sites, using ergonomic designs that would easethe physical burden of collecting and transporting water.She developed the sites through a series of collaborativeworkshops that brought together Adivasi craftspeople, vil-

lage residents, teachers, college students, hawkers, andother volunteers in the creation of the quasisculpturalconstructions that surround the pumps. The constructionsare practical (they include niches that allow water carriers

to rest their vessels as they lift them to their shoulders),while also incorporating symbols and forms associatedwith local cultural and spiritual traditions. In the processof developing the pump sites Altaf came to realize their

importance as gathering points for women and children;one of the few spaces in which they could meet and in-teract socially. This led her in turn to the development

of Childrens Temples (Pilla Gudi) that could function ascenters for activity and exchange among young people inthe village.

Altaf views the collaborative interactions among

artists and village residents, and between Adivasi andnonAdivasi, that occur in these projects as decisive. Asshe writes, For us, organizing the workshops requiredto design and construct the pumps and Pilla Gudi is as

important as creating the sites themselves. It encouragesa communication network among artists from differentcultures and disciplines, both within the area and outside,and with and among the young. These crossculturalexchanges, Altaf notes, lead the young to think about

different ways of knowing and modes of working, enablingthem to draw nourishment and sustenance from differ-ence and similarities. The process of designing and con-

structing the pump sites and temples, the interactions ofartisans, young people, and visitors, are at the same mo-ment designed to encourage a critical renegotiation of Ad-ivasi identity. This renegotiation is particularly crucial inIndias multicultural society due to the rise of rightwing

fundamentalism over the past decade, which has activelyrepressed nonHindu cultures (like that of the Adivasi).

situao militante poderia se desenvolver de novo, o que seria dis-

pendioso e ruim para a imagem da cidade, barrando investimentos

em todo o bairro. 18

Foi necessrio que o Park Fiction desenvolvesse uma rela-o estreita com grupos ativistas e organizaes de bairro.Como descreve Schfer, eles somente colaboravam com

instituies que tinham credibilidade local. Isso incluaum Centro Comunitrio, que era conhecido por oferecerservios legais annimos e gratuitos, assim como umaescola que apoiara a ocupao daHafenstrasse durante

a dcada de 1980.Embora operando num contexto cultural bastante

diferente, o trabalho do coletivo argentino Ala Plasticaencontra paralelo de vrias maneiras no trabalho do Park

Fiction. SeuProyecto AA, situado na bacia do Rio daPrata perto de Buenos Aires, mobilizou novas formas deao coletiva e criatividade a fim de desafiar os interessespolticos e econmicos por trs do desenvolvimento de

grande escala da regio. A construo de uma enormelinha de trem e rodovia ao longo das ltimas duas dcadasfez piorar as enchentes e destruiu as economias de pescae turismo no delta do rio, levando a altos nveis de desem-

prego e deteriorao de servios sociais. O Ala Plasticainiciou oProyecto AA com um processo de mapeamentoespacial e cognitivo, desenvolvido em colaborao comos residentes da rea, junto com um estudo biorregional

do delta dos rios da Prata e Paran. Esse procedimento demapeamento foi combinado com vrios exerccios organi-zados de modo a recuperar e coletar conhecimento localsobre a regio. O Ala Plastica buscou incorporar as idias

dos moradores do entorno no clculo dos impactos sociale ambiental resultantes da construo do complexo ferro-virio ZrateBrazo Largo e da planejada ponte Punta LaraCorona, que tm danificado o ecossistema e o tecido social

das comunidades locais. Para desafiar a autoridade insti-tucional e o modo de pensar tecnopoltico das agnciasgovernamentais e corporativas responsveis por essesprojetos, o Ala Plastica trabalhou com os residentes da

rea para que articulassem suas vises da regio atravsda criao de plataformas de comunicao e redes paracooperao mtua. Eles ajudaram a desenhar mdulos dehabitao de emergncia para uso nas pocas de enchente,

e ofereceram infraestrutura e treinamento de comunica-es, com foco especial nas mulheres. Construindo sobreuma tradio do cultivo do choro, que data de meadosdo sculo XIX, oProyecto AA identificou novos usos paraessa rvore e estimulou o surgimento de economias locais

baseadas na produo do choro. Ao longo doProyecto AA,o Ala Plastica trabalhou em estreita relao com os grupos

ativistas locais, ONGs e outros, incluindo a CProdutores da Costa de Berisso e a Rede de Satas da Argentina. A Escola #25, situada perto ZrateBrazo Largo, constituiu uma importan

operaes. Como observam, a Escola #25 rcomo um centro comunitrio ativo alm decomo instituio tradicional de ensino, funciocentro de ajuda social e econmica para apro

te cem estudantes e suas famlias.19OProyecto AA foi inspirado em um trabalh

Espcies emergentes (1995), que envolveu a psobre a capacidade do junco e outras plantas a

absorver a poluio. No processo, os integrantPlastica identificaram uma significativa correentre a estrutura da propagao do leito de jutica criativa que liga particularidades diversas

uma rede nohierrquica.

Planejamos um projeto representado pela metfora

emergncia rizomticas, aludindo ao comportamen

tas e ao carter emergente de idias e prticas criati

de remanescentes, um dentro do outro, gerava uma

mente indescritvel de intercomunicao, derivando

aes que desenvolveram e aumentaram atravs da

lidar com problemas sociais e ambientais; explorar

los noinstitucionais quanto os interculturais, ao

em que trabalhavam com a comunidade e na esfera s

trocando experincias e conhecimento com produtor

de cultivos, de arte e artesanato, de idias e ob

Encontramos um comprometimento semelhamodelos colaborativos nas bombas de gua m

templos infantis produzidos por Navjot Altaf ecom as comunidades Adivasi na ndia centraldos ltimos sete anos (os Adivasi so a populaindiana e h tempos vm sofrendo discrimina

e econmica). O acesso gua limpa um temxo e politicamente conflituoso na ndia rural. que as corporaes penetram o meio rural emmodeobra barata, elas pressionam cada ve

recursos naturais para a alimentao de suas produtivas; em muitos casos contaminam ou as fontes de gua.21 Como conseqncia, as co

Adivasi na regio do Bastar, onde Altaf tem traesto engajadas em lutas pela terra e pelo aceenquanto tentam lidar com o impacto da modeconmica e cultural. O que mais me interesbridismo de culturas, escreve Altaf, contrad

de identidade so mltiplas e interrelacionaddimenso macropoltica encontra paralelo nu



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28 29



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tradies culturais ao redor da coleta de gua, que colocao fardo maior sobre as mulheres e jovens meninas. Altafiniciou seu trabalho em Bastar com o simples objetivo decriar bombas de gua mais eficientes, usando desenhos

ergonmicos que aliviassem o esforo fsico de coletar etransportar a gua. Ela desenvolveu os lugares onde asbombas eram instaladas atravs de uma srie de oficinascolaborativas que reuniram artesos Adivasi, residentes

das aldeias, professores, estudantes universitrios, vende-dores e outros voluntrios na criao de construes semiesculturais estruturadas ao redor das bombas. As constru-

es so prticas (elas incluem nichos que permitem aoscarregadores de gua repousar seus baldes e bacias quan-do os levantam para cima de seus ombros), enquanto aomesmo tempo incorporam smbolos e formas associadasa tradies culturais e espirituais locais. No processo de

desenvolvimento dos locais para as bombas de gua, Altafpercebeu a importncia desses lugares de coleta de guacomo ponto de encontro para mulheres e crianas; um dospoucos lugares onde podiam encontrarse e interagir so-

cialmente. Isso levou a artista a desenvolver o Templo dasCrianas (Pilla Gudi), que podia funcionar como centrode atividade ou troca entre os jovens da aldeia.

Altaf considera que as interaes colaborativas entreos artistas e os moradores das aldeias, e entre Adivasise noAdivasis, que ocorrem nesses projetos, so deci-sivas. Como escreve a artista, Para ns, a organizao

das oficinas necessrias para o desenho e construo dasbombas e do Pilla Gudi to importante quanto a criaodos lugares onde as bombas so instaladas em si. Issoestimula uma rede de comunicao entre artistas de dife-

rentes culturas e disciplinas, tanto dentro quanto fora darea, e com e entre os jovens. Essas trocas interculturais,observa Altaf, levam os jovens a pensar sobre diferentesformas de saber e modos de trabalhar, capacitandoos a

alimentarse e encontrar sustento nessas diferenas e se-melhanas. O processo de desenhar e construir os luga-res das bombas de gua e os templos, a interao dos ar-tesos, jovens e visitantes so ao mesmo tempo pensadaspara estimular uma renegociao crtica da identidade

Adivasi. Essa renegociao particularmente crucial nasociedade multicultural da ndia devido emergncia, naltima dcada, do fundamentalismo de direita, que tem

reprimido ativamente as culturas nohindus (como a dosAdivasi). Ao mesmo tempo, o sistema educacional da n-dia tenta neutralizar a diferena cultural, segundo Altaf,atravs de uma poltica de Unidade na Diversidade, queminimiza as histrias especficas dos Adivasi e dos Dalit

(os intocveis).23Os projetos do Park Fiction, do Ala Plastica e de Navjot

Altaf assumem uma relao estratgica com opolticos hoje em formao. Comeam com ua seus colaboradores sobre a qual escrevi em em termos de esttica dialgica.24 Amadou Ka

Huit FacettesInteraction, escreve: No Senegoutros lugares da frica, cumprimentar uma pconsciente da presena do outro, como interlotestemunhar sua existncia como ser humano

mais verdadeiro da palavra. Aquele que senteexiste (ao respeitar voc) legitima at certo pomanidade.25 As trocas iniciadas por esses pro

tituem uma forma de trabalho que distinta ddo individualismo possessivo. Seu objetivo nextrao de valor ou a supresso da diferenacoproduo (literalmente, colabor) de identinterstcios de tradies culturais, foras polt

jetividades individuais existentes. Esses projesafiam a reconhecer novos modos de experine novas grades para pensar a identidade atravdensamente texturizadas, hpticas e verbais q

nos processos de interao colaborativa. Eles dam, a seu tempo, a reconsiderar a formao ddade moderna. Nesse esforo necessrio desoprocesso pelo qual a identidade constitud

modernidade a partir do impulso conativo do lismo possessivo. Eu sugeriria que o desafio pidentidade moderna reside no em nossa inde

ilusriaper se, mas em nossa relao com nonatureza intrinsecamente dependente. O ponno simplesmente reconhecer a verdade ddescentralizados em algum momento singularengendrado pelo artista, mas sim desenvolver

des necessrias para mitigar a violncia e objenossos encontros permanentes com a diferen

Essa forma deinsight tico e esttico no prada atravs do substituto de um objeto de art

de um deslocamento ontolgico que simplesma experincia de instrumentalizao de volta vador. Ela requer, ao invs disso, um processoestendido na durao da troca. o produto de

ma intensamente somtica de conhecimento:gesto e de expresso, a complexa relao comhbito, e a maneira pela qual o conflito, a rec

e a solidariedade so registrados no corpo. O prtica de arte colaborativa enquadrar essa cialmente, institucionalmente, processualmendoa suficientemente da interao social cotidestimular um grau de autoreflexo; chamar a

para a prpria troca como prxis criativa. H abertura que estimulada enquanto os partic

At the same time the mainstream educational system inIndia attempts to neutralize cultural difference, accord-ing to Altaf through a policy of Unity in Diversity that

minimizes the specific histories of the Adivasi and theDalit (or untouchables).23

The projects of Park Fiction, Ala Plastica, and NavjotAltaf take on a strategic relationship to political collectivi-ties currently in formation. They begin with an opening

out to their collaborators which I have written aboutelsewhere in terms of a dialogical aesthetic. 24 As AmadouKane Sy of Huit FacettesInteraction writes: In Senegal,

as elsewhere in Africa, greeting someone, being consciousof the presence of the other, as interlocutor, is to bearwitness to their existence as a human being in the truestsense of the word. The one who feels that you exist (byrespecting you) legitimates to some extent your human-

ity.25 The exchanges initiated in these projects constitutea form of labor that is distinct from the work of posses-sive individualism. Their goal is not the violent extractionof value or the suppression of difference, but a coproduc-

tion (literally, a colabor) of identity at the interstices ofexisting cultural traditions, political forces, and individualsubjectivities. These projects challenge us to recognizenew modes of aesthetic experience and new frameworks

for thinking identity through the thickly textured hapticand verbal exchanges that occur in the process of col-laborative interaction. They call upon us, in turn, to

reconsider the formation of modern subjectivity. In thisendeavor its necessary to uncouple the process by whichidentity is constituted within modernity from the conativedrive of possessive individualism. I would suggest that thechallenge posed by modern identity lies not with our illu-

sory independenceper se, but with our relationship to ourown intrinsically dependent nature. The decisive point is

not to simply acknowledge the truth of our decenteredselves in some single, epiphanic moment engineered bythe artist, but rather, to develop the skills necessary tomitigate violence and objectification in our ongoing en-

counters with difference.This form of ethical and aesthetic insight cant be gen-

erated through the surrogate of an art object or throughan ontological dislocation that simply reflects the ex-

perience of instrumentalization back onto the viewer.It requires instead a reciprocal, durationally extendedprocess of exchange. It is the product of an intensely

somatic form of knowledge: the exchange of gesture andexpression, the complex relationship to habitus andhabit, and the way in which conflict, reconciliation, andsolidarity are registered on the body. The effect of col-laborative art practice is to frame this exchange (spatially,

institutionally, procedurally), setting it sufficiently apartfrom quotidian social interaction to encourage a degreeof selfreflection; calling attention to the exchange itselfas creative praxis. There is a kind of openness that is

encouraged as participants are implicated in an exchangethat is not immediately subsumable to conventional,pragmatic contexts, but is ceremonially marked off as

art. In fact, it is precisely the lack of categorical fixity

around art that makes this openness possible. The dis-tancing from the protocols and a ssumptions of normativesocial exchange created by aesthetic framing reduces

our dependence on the default behaviors, expectationsand modes of encouraging a more performative and ex-perimental attitude towards the work of identity. Despitetheir differences the projects of Park Fiction, Ala Plasticaand Altaf reflect a calling out to these experiences: a de-

sire to work through them in a tentative, experimental,but nonetheless rigorous, manner.



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implicados numa troca que no imediatamente reduzidaaos contextos convencionais, pragmticos, mas cerimo-niosamente rotulada e descartada como arte. De fato, precisamente a falta de rigidez categrica ao redor da

arte que faz esta abertura possvel. O distanciamento dosprotocolos e presunes da troca social normativa, criadopelo enquadramento esttico, reduz nossa dependncia de

comportamentos padronizados, expectativas estimular uma atitude mais performtica e exfrente ao trabalho de identidade. A despeito drenas, o Park Fiction, o Ala Plastica e Altaf re

chamado para essas experincias: um desejo atravs delas de forma experimental, de tentamesmo assim, rigorosa.



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34 35

1 On Concrete House see: http://www.empowerfoundation.org/art.html. Forinformation on Sarai Media Lab see:http://www.sarai.net/. For informationon Amadou Kane Sy (founder of HuitFacettes) see: http://people.africadatabase.org/en/person/17784.html.

2 See my essay Aesthetic Enactment:Loraine Leesons Reparative Practice,

Art for Change: Loraine Leeson, 19752005 (Berlin: Neueun Gesellschaft frBildende Kunst, 2005).

3 Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthet-ics, translated by Simon Pleasance andFronza Woods with the participation ofMathieu Copeland (Dijon: Les Pressesdu Rel, 2002), p. 9. Bourriaud mentionsdozens of artists in Relational Aestheticsand his follow up book, Postproduction(New York: Lukas & Sternberg, 2000).

Among the most frequently cited areChristine Hill, Carsten Hller, PhilippeThomas, Rirkrit Tiravanija, andPhilippe Parreno.

4 Ibid., pp. 289.

5 Ibid., p. 60.

6 Ibid., p. 91.

7 Ibid., pp. 31, 45.

8 Claire Bishop, Antagonism and Rela-tional Aesthetics, October, 110 (Fall2004), p. 65.

9 These include Alix Lamberts WeddingPiece(1992), in which she married anddivorced four different people in recordtime, according to Bourriaud, and

Angela Bullochs caf installation in whichseated visitors triggered an audio loopconsisting of a Kraftwerk song. In fact,Bourriauds chosen projects frequentlyexhibit a kind of relational objectifica-tion in which the collaborator (hiredor directed by the artist towards somepredefined task or exhibiting some formof scripted pseudoagency) is reduced to acipher, plugged into a semantic equationthat has already been written (SantiagoSierras installations are exemplary inthis regard). In many of the works that

Bourriaud describes the positions ofartist, collaborator, and viewer, far from

being destabilized, remain highly con-ventional. Aside from offering the viewersome nominal form of social interaction(taking a flyer, eating food, etc.) the artistnever relinquishes control. The work isorganized or arranged beforehand andoften presented to the viewer as a kindof spectacle (exchanges are raw matter,as Bourriaud writes).

10 Bourriauds account of relational prac-tice is based on an unresolved tensionbetween conviviality (the beholder asneighbor) and a prescriptive desireto put the beholder in an awkwardposition or a disconcerting situation.Relational Aesthetics, pp. 43, 37, 31.

11 In this respect, Bishop and Bourriaudare two sides of the same coin. Bishopcriticizes Bourriauds nave and un-critical model of relational practice fromthe theoretical perspective of Laclauand Mouffe, who have themselves

been criticized for navely celebratingthe liberatory potential of the marketsystem. See, for example, Slavoj Zizeksdiscussion of the depoliticization of theeconomy in Laclaus thought in JudithButler, Ernesto Laclau, and SlavojZizek, Contingency, Hegemony andUniversality: Contemporary Dialogueson the Left(London: Verso, 2000), pp.316323.

12 See Bishop, Antagonism and RelationalAesthetics, p. 57.

13 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri,Empire(Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 2000), p. 43.

14 The disabling fear of taking any posi-tion (ethical or otherwise), frequentlyencountered in contemporary arttheory, leads to a perverse formalismwhich reduces political discourse to asimplistic opposition between stasisand flux. Thus, Akseli Virtanen andJussi Vhmki, writing in Framework:The Finish Art Review, #4 (December2005), describe a Deleuzean utopia inwhich People are set in motion, flow,and spread without the limitations of

direction, origin, and meaning. Onlysuch setting in motion, flowing, andspreading unleashes movement anddesire. Or, thinking can advance, move,and touch only when it takes meaningto the point of collapse, far beyondsociety and its requirements (p. 31).

Any possible external predication of thesingular individual is forbidden. All thatis left, then, is a kind of social phys-ics of attraction and rejection inwhich good relations are those thatadd power, extend, and combine and

bad relations are those that take apart,isolate, and suffocateWhen we comeacross something that is right for us, welink to it, combine with it, and devourit (p. 33). Any number of vexing ques-tions related to the ethical and strategicimplications of collective action arethus resolved by the simple expedient ofrefusing to acknowledge their existence.

15Empire, p. 36.

16 In fact, the multitudes are only vaguelydefined in Hardt and Negris book.Instead, the primary fulcrum of politicchange is assigned to intellectual,immaterial, and communicative labor

power (p. 20), meaning, designers,managers, technicians, media workers,etc. This analysis will be familiar to any-one with a knowledge of recent sociol-ogy, as its been advanced in one form oranother for at least three decades (from

Andr GorzsFarewell to the WorkingClassto Daniel Bells The Coming ofPostindustrial Societyto Robert Reichsdiscussion of the symbolic analystclass in The Work of Nations). More-over, the interdependence of industriallabor and a technicalmanagerial cadre

has been a feature of capitalism for atleast a century (evident in steel andautomobile production in the U.S. bythe early 1900s). While it is no doubtquite flattering to the average softwaredesigner or university professor to findhimself suddenly placed at the leversof history, there are obviously reasonsto remain somewhat skeptical of thisanalysis.

17 Jacques Rancire, The Rationality ofDisagreement: Politics and Philosophy,

translated by Julie Rose (Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1999),p. 52.

18 From an unpublished interview withMargit Czenki and Christoph Schfer by

Noel Hefel (August 2005).

19 From an unpublished document (Art ina Social Context: the AA Project).

20 Ibid.

21 See, for example, the grassroots cam-paign in India against CocaColasattempts to privatize water (http://www.indiaresource.org/news/2005/2037.html).

22 This, and the following quotes, are froman unpublished interview with Navjot

Altaf by Grant Kester (July 2005).

23 Navjot Altaf, Contemporary Art, Is-sues of Praxis, and ArtCollaboration:My Bastar Interventions and Inter-rogations,Towards New Art History:Studies in Indian Art, edited by ShivajiPanikkar, Parul Dave

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