Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship - autonomous ...
Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship - autonomous ...
Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship - autonomous ...
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artificial hells<br />
investigated An Event for <strong>the</strong> Post Offi ce . . . for two months <strong>and</strong> Knížák<br />
recorded an account <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir meeting with <strong>the</strong> residents in a samizdat newspaper<br />
<strong>of</strong> that year. 19 While <strong>of</strong>fering an amusing <strong>and</strong> vivid description <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
discussion, Knížák provides no photographs, <strong>and</strong> <strong>of</strong>fers no analysis <strong>of</strong> his<br />
intervention, only a testimony to <strong>the</strong> diverse responses it solicited. He<br />
reports that about half <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> people are ‘not too much against us, <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
rest are totally against us’; infi ghting between <strong>the</strong> different factions in <strong>the</strong><br />
building (an army major, a mouthy blonde, a teacher, <strong>and</strong> so on) seems to<br />
predominate. 20 His tone is ra<strong>the</strong>r distant <strong>and</strong> brusque, as if poking fun at <strong>the</strong><br />
protagonists. It is clear that <strong>the</strong> residents failed to underst<strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> artistic<br />
aim <strong>of</strong> his intervention, focusing on questions <strong>of</strong> time <strong>and</strong> money, <strong>the</strong> anxiety<br />
caused by <strong>the</strong> packages (<strong>the</strong>y could be bombs), <strong>and</strong> so on. The text<br />
shows Knížák’s commitment to documenting participant feedback, but it<br />
prompts more questions than it answers. What were his criteria <strong>of</strong> success<br />
for such a piece? Since none <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> participants actually went to <strong>the</strong> cinema,<br />
did he consider this work to be a failure? Was <strong>the</strong> conceptual proposition<br />
more important than its actual realisation <strong>and</strong> consequences? Bereft <strong>of</strong><br />
photographic documentation, <strong>the</strong> work never<strong>the</strong>less st<strong>and</strong>s as an idiosyncratic<br />
combination <strong>of</strong> aggression, generosity, absurdity, didactics <strong>and</strong><br />
provocation. It’s worth recalling that at <strong>the</strong> time <strong>of</strong> this performance,<br />
Knížák was still only twenty- six years old.<br />
Alongside <strong>the</strong>se provocations <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> anonymous public, Knížák founded a<br />
social organisation in Prague between 1963 <strong>and</strong> 1971 called <strong>the</strong> A- Community,<br />
which also had a branch in West Bohemia. ‘A’ stood for ‘Aktual’,<br />
reiterating his Fluxus attachment to <strong>the</strong> everyday. Under Knížák’s charismatic<br />
leadership, <strong>the</strong> group explored music, performances, mail art <strong>and</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r ‘necessary<br />
activities’ not always framed as art, <strong>and</strong> which dem<strong>and</strong>ed a maximum<br />
level <strong>of</strong> personal engagement from <strong>the</strong> participants. Knížák later described <strong>the</strong><br />
A- Community as a group <strong>of</strong> self- elected people who desired to be different,<br />
<strong>and</strong> that this was <strong>the</strong> sole criterion for joining: its basic aspiration was to fi nd<br />
a more vivid, all- encompassing experience <strong>of</strong> everyday life. (Knížák reports<br />
that ‘drunkenness, drug abuse <strong>and</strong> sex became burning elements <strong>of</strong> a wild<br />
asceticism aiming towards <strong>the</strong> unveiling <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> quintessence <strong>of</strong> experience’. 21 )<br />
Photographs <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> A- Community are typical <strong>of</strong> countercultural ga<strong>the</strong>rings<br />
anywhere in <strong>the</strong> mid to late 1960s: long hair, fl owing clo<strong>the</strong>s, beaming smiles<br />
<strong>and</strong> musical instruments. The heightened consciousness sought by <strong>the</strong> A-<br />
Community was not tied to political awakening but to <strong>the</strong> formation <strong>of</strong> an<br />
alternative parallel community. Unlike Argentinian actions <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> late 1960s<br />
(discussed in Chapter 4), which intended to create a transitive link between<br />
awareness <strong>of</strong> one’s situation <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> desire to change it, Knížák’s primary<br />
concerns were aes<strong>the</strong>tic ra<strong>the</strong>r than political: to change one’s life into art,<br />
ra<strong>the</strong>r than changing <strong>the</strong> system under which you live. From his perspective,<br />
capitalism or communism were irrelevant categories; what mattered was<br />
one’s freedom <strong>of</strong> perception <strong>and</strong> experience <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> world.<br />
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