UTOPIA AS A GAME OF PROCEDURES
Divna Vuksanović
If the universe of ideas is a real world, whilst its projective images remain in collective memory as shadowy domain of illusions, whereas the technique i.e. art deprives the last remaining of reality from these reflections, we are founding ourselves (always already) in idealistic system of Plato’s theory of mimesis. This state would most probably proclaim the utopian potentialities of every, including contemporary art as well and its multimedia articulated derivates, to be either a third class product of ontological deduction or mimetically derived reduction of reality. Nevertheless, an exit from platonean cave of curved observations and intentionally (not adequately) based meditative reflections is possible through remembering the archaic past, and anticipation of political future interpreted in a sense of (Renaissance) idea of so called “The State of Sun”. For Plato it meant that the concept of utopia has been balancing within undefined zones, which have appeared somewhere between the civilization’s project of sank island/continent of Atlantis and ancient cult of the god of Sun. This effectively symbolizes general, i.e. common good of ancient Greek polis. The third Plato’s expression was entirely secular, but, as it is known due to his philosophical debate with Tyrant, the will of the ruler thwarted the complete implementation of his politically based project of “an ideal state” at one small Greek island.
Anamnesis of the ideal world, already existing in Plato’s work, has been transformed into realistic demands for reasonable governing of a state and its institutions. After the example of the island of memories, or much later derived chaotic topos of dreams, as it illustrates, for instance, Valerian poetic vision of Xiphos, implying that it is not possible to notice a sun bathed island from amount of light that has been constantly emanated, which, further on, brings into a question its own existence. There from is a non-place (U-topia), political retro-vision, an island of dreams or sank civilizations, a poetically-philosophical world where Hope dwells in its homeland (Bloch), the topic of re-questioning contemporary art, if it wants to see itself as l’art pour l’art as well as unambiguous social engagement. While the ways of questioning this topic, as well as its incorporation in a texture of an art piece or current creation process, are significantly different, and they relay on artistic as well as on social aspirations of author himself, or entire creative (social) ambiance that surrounds him, while they are, at the same time, necessarily related to “the rules of a game” on which the very structure of the art piece is based upon.
The “Koreta” case, by Vojislav Klačar, within itself synthesizes almost all problems and aspects of constructing utopian worlds. In the domain of free game imagination, thought in Kant’s sense of this notion, as well as in the context of realization of ideas inspired by so called “political fiction” (Servier), while ascribing them further on one additional, by technological means generated dimension of (multi)media. There from are an aesthetic illusion and implicit social critic, at the same time, the artistic “truth” of perennially projected work of the artist. The functional system of controversial “Koreta” project, which is, in a sense of immanent political architectonic in constant progress. It is made through media established parameters of space and time, which themselves dialectically confront and mediate with artist’s personality (through protégé and time), while it is related to, on one side to historical, social and political moments of constituting the idea of a state. On the other side, it is melted with mythical timelessness, that is, with associative, a-historical and a-political vision of one general utopist exertion that is exposed in floating meanings of those state-constitutive procedures on which thrives the vision of “Koreta”.
Although the idea of “Koreta”, prima facie, is not in any way based on Augustinus’ concept stated in referential theological debate On State of God (De civitate Dei) identified as a late echo of Plato’s ontological propositions transformed into dogmas of western Christianity and slightly atypical patristic eschatology. However, in a certain way it still participates in mind order of one abstract (divine) state that sets/assumes itself as a regulatory idea, fundamental poetically-luddistic strategy and utopically projected ideal, at the same time. There from is the role of artist and god, in a moment of their creative coincidence, derived through the very creative act of genius’ intuition (Schelling), that is, of observing a state as work on an object in continuous progress, formally equalized through mutual legitimating of both these creative principles at once: admitting one’s own state, the artist, actually, reaches apperception as the confirmation of his own existence (i.e. self-consciousness, which is equally valid for “Koreta’s” state apparatus, thought as subjectum itself), and vice versa.
Poetics of this artistic “case”, as any other, definitely remain in ontological/generic darkness (analogies: Robinson Cruso, new Adam, Roussosean man, POMO phenomenon’s of a Cyber town, etc). Still, it is indicative that the author through means of its presentation, as well as by “piece” itself thought in the most flexible meaning of an aesthetic object, apart from sheer urge to play and performing access to its serial upgrade, provokes a quest for those creative procedures or ceremonial forms of social communication. They more intimately connect the work with a personality of the artist himself, which further on brings him into a relation with principles that without a doubt transcendent him. It seems to that through this approach Klačar establishes symbolic control over a state, as a Leviathan entity par excellence, which due to its generality and “divinity” completely “devours” and exceeds him, by which he, at the same time, processes reality itself, or actually structures his own life, by “translating” it in recognizable, time-spatial codes that articulate the concept of eternal life.
An intimacy of the author with his project, realized as a moment of absolute assimilation of subjectivities, and, at the same time, rationally established (subjective) distance in relation to the utopist object of research, unusually reminds of the relation described in oniric, fragmented episode, by Pol Valéry. Here the author himself, that is certain “mister P.” sets up a relationship towards exceeding one’s own finite, through an effect of a mechanism “estranging with sugar”. Namely, one small, everyday ritual of mister P., as an “operation” of crumbling sugar in coffee shows, deliberately repeated from day to day, suddenly becomes a reason for establishing communicational connection (religare) with pure sphere of transcendence. The action of mister P. picturesquely demonstrates how certain “causality” (the melting of sugar in a coffee cup, by repeating circular movements of a hand with a coffee spoon in it) becomes substituted with one utterly other, theologically determined paradigm of a relation between the finite and infinity, within their mutual game of negotiating, defining and dialectic limiting.
“Mister P., a man with ideas, stirred his sugar in his coffee. Half distant, he stirred and crumbled, crumbled and stirred, and he prolonged this operation against all possibly excusable reasons, since the sugar entirely melted. But, an alive system “Mister P.” could not longer halt his movement: he was grasped by infinity”, is given in motioned analogy. This ritual exceeding of so called “real” coordinates of space and time, redefined by other referent frame of artistically-utopic worlds, after Valéry, enables a controversy of reversible distancing from a so called real world, which is very alike to projective reversibility of “Koreta” in eyes of V. Klačar. Further on, by activating this unexplainable mechanism it is achieved that a plain, everyday ritual, in its indefinite repeating of simple regimented performances, independently from the primary purpose, outgrows in the act of exceeding here and now of (every) creative subjectivity.
The plan of the game presents, also, a significant element in the construction of background ideology of Vojislav Klačar’s project. A game as “voluntary action or work” (Huizinga) - which in case of “Koreta” can directly be applied to the autonomous world of constitutive state creation – is closing into worlds that function by their own regulations and inner behavior “rules”, derived from tautologically represented political procedures turned into recognizable perspectives of seduction, and in purpose of (delayed) satisfaction of the very principles of the game, which are becoming a purpose itself, as well as one “ontologically” carried out opening to so called outer reality. At the very border of ideas of freedom and necessity, this game, as existential confirmation of the pure subjectivity sphere, is developed, how Huizing suggests while analyzing the phenomenon of a game in general, “inside some established spatial and time borders, by voluntary accepted but unexceptionably obligated rules, which aim is in itself, while it is followed by a feeling of tension and enjoyment, that consciousness that it is ‘something other’ then ‘a plain life’”.
Still, here, said by finckean terms, the game, in a meantime, became the very subject of events (in imaginary “Koreta” the “rules” are equalized with election procedures, while the starting luddistic impulse of the performance is frequently equivalent to the final – aleatory. This is adequately illustrated by election results of the game, that are “transparent” at all levels of its manifesting, effecting us as some, through media means shaped and “predestined harmony”), while the co-players, virtual as well as real participants of this artistic undertaking, precisely as in reality, themselves became part of amorphous election machinery and made-real election procedures, which in the spectral context of endless worlds of parliamentary games effect, realized in hibernated stage of “Koreta”, “work” immanently through own principles of acting.
Thus, the moving of subjective horizon of a game from a free player to the “playing structure” of text, refined through media, relates the project of Vojislav Klačar with a reverse of game and freedom phenomenon, which is its “dark moment” and inescapable image of fake actualization, hypothetically performed by intensifying effects of utopian function of a state grow. Thus, the imaginative system of connected vessels, established between the “ruling apparatus” and its procedure-creative correlates, highlighted in the artistic work, as well as in the projections of author’s personality, is programmed through media as a pure artifact of one internal desire that within itself synthesizes dystopic pessimism, at one, but all eccentricity of an idea of freedom moving, at the other hand.
A view as a wishes-plot, exceeding all existing and constant media “production” of being, and against regressive tendencies of narrowing “realities” in the name of aesthetic illusion, anticipates one other possibility of artistic dispute, that is, critical re-questioning of ideas of identity and reality, which demonstrates immanent confrontation of realizing total project of “Koreta” state as utopian unfulfilled artificial game of self defining procedures.
Divna Vuksanović
If the universe of ideas is a real world, whilst its projective images remain in collective memory as shadowy domain of illusions, whereas the technique i.e. art deprives the last remaining of reality from these reflections, we are founding ourselves (always already) in idealistic system of Plato’s theory of mimesis. This state would most probably proclaim the utopian potentialities of every, including contemporary art as well and its multimedia articulated derivates, to be either a third class product of ontological deduction or mimetically derived reduction of reality. Nevertheless, an exit from platonean cave of curved observations and intentionally (not adequately) based meditative reflections is possible through remembering the archaic past, and anticipation of political future interpreted in a sense of (Renaissance) idea of so called “The State of Sun”. For Plato it meant that the concept of utopia has been balancing within undefined zones, which have appeared somewhere between the civilization’s project of sank island/continent of Atlantis and ancient cult of the god of Sun. This effectively symbolizes general, i.e. common good of ancient Greek polis. The third Plato’s expression was entirely secular, but, as it is known due to his philosophical debate with Tyrant, the will of the ruler thwarted the complete implementation of his politically based project of “an ideal state” at one small Greek island.
Anamnesis of the ideal world, already existing in Plato’s work, has been transformed into realistic demands for reasonable governing of a state and its institutions. After the example of the island of memories, or much later derived chaotic topos of dreams, as it illustrates, for instance, Valerian poetic vision of Xiphos, implying that it is not possible to notice a sun bathed island from amount of light that has been constantly emanated, which, further on, brings into a question its own existence. There from is a non-place (U-topia), political retro-vision, an island of dreams or sank civilizations, a poetically-philosophical world where Hope dwells in its homeland (Bloch), the topic of re-questioning contemporary art, if it wants to see itself as l’art pour l’art as well as unambiguous social engagement. While the ways of questioning this topic, as well as its incorporation in a texture of an art piece or current creation process, are significantly different, and they relay on artistic as well as on social aspirations of author himself, or entire creative (social) ambiance that surrounds him, while they are, at the same time, necessarily related to “the rules of a game” on which the very structure of the art piece is based upon.
The “Koreta” case, by Vojislav Klačar, within itself synthesizes almost all problems and aspects of constructing utopian worlds. In the domain of free game imagination, thought in Kant’s sense of this notion, as well as in the context of realization of ideas inspired by so called “political fiction” (Servier), while ascribing them further on one additional, by technological means generated dimension of (multi)media. There from are an aesthetic illusion and implicit social critic, at the same time, the artistic “truth” of perennially projected work of the artist. The functional system of controversial “Koreta” project, which is, in a sense of immanent political architectonic in constant progress. It is made through media established parameters of space and time, which themselves dialectically confront and mediate with artist’s personality (through protégé and time), while it is related to, on one side to historical, social and political moments of constituting the idea of a state. On the other side, it is melted with mythical timelessness, that is, with associative, a-historical and a-political vision of one general utopist exertion that is exposed in floating meanings of those state-constitutive procedures on which thrives the vision of “Koreta”.
Although the idea of “Koreta”, prima facie, is not in any way based on Augustinus’ concept stated in referential theological debate On State of God (De civitate Dei) identified as a late echo of Plato’s ontological propositions transformed into dogmas of western Christianity and slightly atypical patristic eschatology. However, in a certain way it still participates in mind order of one abstract (divine) state that sets/assumes itself as a regulatory idea, fundamental poetically-luddistic strategy and utopically projected ideal, at the same time. There from is the role of artist and god, in a moment of their creative coincidence, derived through the very creative act of genius’ intuition (Schelling), that is, of observing a state as work on an object in continuous progress, formally equalized through mutual legitimating of both these creative principles at once: admitting one’s own state, the artist, actually, reaches apperception as the confirmation of his own existence (i.e. self-consciousness, which is equally valid for “Koreta’s” state apparatus, thought as subjectum itself), and vice versa.
Poetics of this artistic “case”, as any other, definitely remain in ontological/generic darkness (analogies: Robinson Cruso, new Adam, Roussosean man, POMO phenomenon’s of a Cyber town, etc). Still, it is indicative that the author through means of its presentation, as well as by “piece” itself thought in the most flexible meaning of an aesthetic object, apart from sheer urge to play and performing access to its serial upgrade, provokes a quest for those creative procedures or ceremonial forms of social communication. They more intimately connect the work with a personality of the artist himself, which further on brings him into a relation with principles that without a doubt transcendent him. It seems to that through this approach Klačar establishes symbolic control over a state, as a Leviathan entity par excellence, which due to its generality and “divinity” completely “devours” and exceeds him, by which he, at the same time, processes reality itself, or actually structures his own life, by “translating” it in recognizable, time-spatial codes that articulate the concept of eternal life.
An intimacy of the author with his project, realized as a moment of absolute assimilation of subjectivities, and, at the same time, rationally established (subjective) distance in relation to the utopist object of research, unusually reminds of the relation described in oniric, fragmented episode, by Pol Valéry. Here the author himself, that is certain “mister P.” sets up a relationship towards exceeding one’s own finite, through an effect of a mechanism “estranging with sugar”. Namely, one small, everyday ritual of mister P., as an “operation” of crumbling sugar in coffee shows, deliberately repeated from day to day, suddenly becomes a reason for establishing communicational connection (religare) with pure sphere of transcendence. The action of mister P. picturesquely demonstrates how certain “causality” (the melting of sugar in a coffee cup, by repeating circular movements of a hand with a coffee spoon in it) becomes substituted with one utterly other, theologically determined paradigm of a relation between the finite and infinity, within their mutual game of negotiating, defining and dialectic limiting.
“Mister P., a man with ideas, stirred his sugar in his coffee. Half distant, he stirred and crumbled, crumbled and stirred, and he prolonged this operation against all possibly excusable reasons, since the sugar entirely melted. But, an alive system “Mister P.” could not longer halt his movement: he was grasped by infinity”, is given in motioned analogy. This ritual exceeding of so called “real” coordinates of space and time, redefined by other referent frame of artistically-utopic worlds, after Valéry, enables a controversy of reversible distancing from a so called real world, which is very alike to projective reversibility of “Koreta” in eyes of V. Klačar. Further on, by activating this unexplainable mechanism it is achieved that a plain, everyday ritual, in its indefinite repeating of simple regimented performances, independently from the primary purpose, outgrows in the act of exceeding here and now of (every) creative subjectivity.
The plan of the game presents, also, a significant element in the construction of background ideology of Vojislav Klačar’s project. A game as “voluntary action or work” (Huizinga) - which in case of “Koreta” can directly be applied to the autonomous world of constitutive state creation – is closing into worlds that function by their own regulations and inner behavior “rules”, derived from tautologically represented political procedures turned into recognizable perspectives of seduction, and in purpose of (delayed) satisfaction of the very principles of the game, which are becoming a purpose itself, as well as one “ontologically” carried out opening to so called outer reality. At the very border of ideas of freedom and necessity, this game, as existential confirmation of the pure subjectivity sphere, is developed, how Huizing suggests while analyzing the phenomenon of a game in general, “inside some established spatial and time borders, by voluntary accepted but unexceptionably obligated rules, which aim is in itself, while it is followed by a feeling of tension and enjoyment, that consciousness that it is ‘something other’ then ‘a plain life’”.
Still, here, said by finckean terms, the game, in a meantime, became the very subject of events (in imaginary “Koreta” the “rules” are equalized with election procedures, while the starting luddistic impulse of the performance is frequently equivalent to the final – aleatory. This is adequately illustrated by election results of the game, that are “transparent” at all levels of its manifesting, effecting us as some, through media means shaped and “predestined harmony”), while the co-players, virtual as well as real participants of this artistic undertaking, precisely as in reality, themselves became part of amorphous election machinery and made-real election procedures, which in the spectral context of endless worlds of parliamentary games effect, realized in hibernated stage of “Koreta”, “work” immanently through own principles of acting.
Thus, the moving of subjective horizon of a game from a free player to the “playing structure” of text, refined through media, relates the project of Vojislav Klačar with a reverse of game and freedom phenomenon, which is its “dark moment” and inescapable image of fake actualization, hypothetically performed by intensifying effects of utopian function of a state grow. Thus, the imaginative system of connected vessels, established between the “ruling apparatus” and its procedure-creative correlates, highlighted in the artistic work, as well as in the projections of author’s personality, is programmed through media as a pure artifact of one internal desire that within itself synthesizes dystopic pessimism, at one, but all eccentricity of an idea of freedom moving, at the other hand.
A view as a wishes-plot, exceeding all existing and constant media “production” of being, and against regressive tendencies of narrowing “realities” in the name of aesthetic illusion, anticipates one other possibility of artistic dispute, that is, critical re-questioning of ideas of identity and reality, which demonstrates immanent confrontation of realizing total project of “Koreta” state as utopian unfulfilled artificial game of self defining procedures.
