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Culture of trauma and identity politics - critical frames and emancipatory lenses of cultural...<br />
of ideological recursion <strong>in</strong> the mantra of “renew<strong>in</strong>g cultural ties” hid<strong>in</strong>g the body of the<br />
sovereign (and the fact that the emperor is naked)? And what is this habitus of “art statism”<br />
that feeds <strong>in</strong>to the representative model of govern<strong>in</strong>g aesthetics; what sorts of systems of<br />
classifi cation, dist<strong>in</strong>ction, separation, antagonisms occur here and where is the way out? (It<br />
is worth remember<strong>in</strong>g heuristic toolboxes on these themes <strong>in</strong> the works of Pierre Bourdieu<br />
(Bourdieu, 1986; 1990a; 1990b; 1998). National theatre is all about taste and class. When<br />
Milohnić ends with a thesis proposed by Zoja Skušek some 30 years ago, 2 we fi nd ourselves<br />
with the question of avant-garde theatres <strong>in</strong> an oppositional political relationship they<br />
have to assume concern<strong>in</strong>g the politics of aesthetics and aesthetics of politics concern<strong>in</strong>g<br />
ideological conundrums of statist/sovereign <strong>in</strong>corporation at various levels.<br />
As Ranciére would have it, genu<strong>in</strong>e/avant-garde politics and art are forms of dissensus<br />
because their specifi city resides <strong>in</strong> “their cont<strong>in</strong>gent suspension of the rules govern<strong>in</strong>g<br />
normal experience”, where they eff ect an emancipatory redistribution of the sensible,<br />
through “forms of <strong>in</strong>novation that tear bodies from their assigned places and <strong>free</strong> speech<br />
and expression from all reduction to functionality (…) forms of creation irreducible<br />
to the spatio-temporal horizons of a given factual community” (Ranciére, 2010: 1).<br />
However, the disruption that genu<strong>in</strong>e artistic or political activities eff ect is not about<br />
<strong>in</strong>stitutional overturn<strong>in</strong>g, but “an activity that cuts across forms of cultural and identity<br />
belong<strong>in</strong>g and hierarchies between discourses and genres, work<strong>in</strong>g to <strong>in</strong>troduce new<br />
subjects and heterogenous objects <strong>in</strong>to the fi eld of perception (…) reorient<strong>in</strong>g general<br />
perceptual space and disrupt<strong>in</strong>g forms of belong<strong>in</strong>g” (Ranciére, 2010: 2).<br />
more <strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g for an <strong>in</strong>dependent observer. Symptomatically, journalists, critics, politicians,<br />
producers and artists emphasized <strong>in</strong> their public statements that this exchange of theatre<br />
performances was the fi rst one aft er ten years of suspension of any k<strong>in</strong>d of cultural collaboration<br />
between these two ex-Yugoslav republics. Th is messianic role of the two national theatres is of<br />
course complete mystifi cation which reduces and castrates entire artistic production to nationally<br />
and <strong>in</strong>stitutionally representative art. Exchange of <strong>in</strong>dependent and alternative artists from both<br />
Slovenia and Serbia was never suspended, not even dur<strong>in</strong>g the economic, political and cultural<br />
embargo imposed on Serbia by the ‘<strong>in</strong>ternational community’. Due to many obstacles, <strong>in</strong>tensity of<br />
this <strong>in</strong>dependent cultural exchange was reduced, its visibility <strong>in</strong> mass media was rather marg<strong>in</strong>al,<br />
events were maybe not overcrowded with visitors, but it is both arrogant and ignorant to say that<br />
the recent exchange of performances of the two national theatres from Ljubljana and Belgrade<br />
means the ‘recover<strong>in</strong>g of cultural ties’ between the two newly established states. Th ese states are<br />
maybe new but the mental structure <strong>in</strong> the heads of their most <strong>in</strong>fl uential cultural emissaries<br />
rema<strong>in</strong>s old: it is the same politics of art statism and ignorance of the production which cannot fi t<br />
<strong>in</strong>to the representative model of the rul<strong>in</strong>g esthetic and art system” (Milohnić, 2011: 13-14).<br />
2 “Th e sole existence of national theatres, an important position they still occupy, as well as the<br />
paradox that avant-garde theatres have to defi ne their own position precisely <strong>in</strong> opposition<br />
to big national theatre <strong>in</strong>stitutions, make us believe that, when talk<strong>in</strong>g about contemporary<br />
theatre, we have to confront ourselves with the ideology and practice of the national theatre”<br />
(Skušek, 1980; quoted <strong>in</strong> Milohnić, 2011: 19).<br />
63