PDF des gesamten Heftes (5MB) - Institut für Theorie ith

_–
_–
_–
18
Cutting through society
After the first Blackmarket, which obviously grew out
of the assemblage of invited experts, i.e. people who had
previously contributed to the community of the Mobile Academies,
Hurtzig conceived the following editions of the
Blackmarket around a cluster of topics. The principle of not
assigning an overarching topic in order to curate knowledge
according to artistic, cultural, social or political interests
still remains an important aspect of the ethics of the Blackmarket.
There are, however, certain procedures and aims to
follow in preparing a topic as an area of research. While not
imposing a particular theme for a particular context with
the interpretative arrogance of «this is good for you», Hurtzig
does account for a certain telos, or at least a set of preferences
and criteria: «As I’m not a talented person, I work
on the basis of ‹deficit and deficiency›. I search for what I
think we’re lacking». For instance, in the Blackmarket held
in Warsaw in 2005 the topic of «ghostly or invisible knowledge»
made connections between people, knowledge and
experience from before and after the regime change in
Poland and presented different ways of deciphering and reading
the process of political and economic transition and its
ghostlines. The thematic guideline for this Blackmarket was
a quote by Heiner Müller : «The phantom of the market
economy has replaced the ghost of communism». Another
example illustrates Hurtzig’s practice when — now that the
model has become popular — she is commissioned or invited
to contribute on a particular topic. Recently she was
asked to organize a Blackmarket on the topic of aging in
Germany. She comments: «Searching for what could be
interesting apart from old people speaking about their lives,
which isn’t particularly interesting, I came across the curious
phenomenon of aged ‹researchers› — people who, after
their professional careers were over, specialized in ‹small›
topics. For instance, there is someone who spent 15 years
since her retirement researching the pit in the cherry fruit.
They are people who decided to do something they couldn’t
do before. Self-determined and non-institutionalized, these
researchers are driven by a passion towards a knowledge
without knowing who would use it.»
The process of research resembled a «rehearsal process
identical to the result — a communication process of
two to three months, where you consult different sources
that help you re-hallucinate a context». To do that, Hurtzig,
together with her collaborators, takes a cut through society,
which is entirely different from what is referred to as interdisciplinary
research. An interdisciplinary approach
presupposes that a topic arises as an event in the surplus
effect of joining and mixing respectable disciplines. The
mixture in the case of Blackmarket is along the lines of
monstrosity: combining something that is known, established
or reliable with something that is less so; thus mixing
various registers of articulating knowledge — disciplined,
alternative, parallel, lay, practical, pragmatic, technical, experience-based
etc. — as something that one owns, is capable
of, uses, is able to teach or learn or just to name. Briefly, it
means «to combine a scientific person with one’s neighbour».
Thereby one avoids having only «the usual suspects» or the
discourse leaders («Diskursstatthalter»), and, secondly, the
outcome is never just one, never just a single difference to
what is established or dominant, and certainly not a coherent,
unified or homogeneous set of expertise, but always an
irreproducible connectivity between people, places, memories,
and interests.
Where to go and what to do
One of the project’s aspirations is this: «I’m interested
in situations where there is a collective moment of learning
that people aren’t aware of and that, potentially, could lead
to action, arousing enthusiasm and hallucination with the
impossible».
You may have noticed that the term ‹hallucination›
used here is a recurring description. I am trying to understand
what Hurtzig means by it: whether it is situated in the
perception or participation of the users or in the social
significance of the event.
Today, when theory has become yet another superstructural
development of late capitalism, featured both in
the rhetoric of art as well as in the creative industries and
in business management, it actually takes some skill to deinstrumentalize
theory from producing an intellectual surplus
value. The Blackmarket is not explicitly a pro-theoretical
project. It does, however, conceptualize knowledge
production, although not through a critical interpretation of
its place in contemporary society but rather through an
experimentation that operates with possibilities and potentialities
of concrete situations.