SPACE OF INTERVENTION IN THE WORKS OF FRANCIS ALS AND OF WOCHENKLAUSUR

In this essay I am going to explore the space of intervention in the works of Francis Als and WochenKlausur. I will understand intervention as the space where the works enter a dialogue with the social space outside the art world, in an attempt to change existing political or economic conditions or to make others aware of a condition they had no knowledge of.

The concept of social space I will assume is that of Henri Lefebvre as outlined in The Production of Space1, where he defines space as a political construction, social space as a social product. This space is an instrument of control and domination but also an instrument for thought and action.2 Space masks the social relationships it contains3, and tends to dissimulate or deny its contents, substituting representations for things, acts and situations. 4

To assess the nature of the intervention in the works of Francis Als and WochenKlausur, the questions I am going to ask are: What is the space where the works operate?, What are the social relationships addressed in the works?, Are these relationships masked or addressed? Is domination reproduced or challenged? Does the work open a space for action or does it ultimately end up as spectacle?

The extent and quality of the relationship an intervention enters with social space can have different degrees. Not all interventions have as a goal the creation of a space for action or of an alternative to the present order of things. Even if the art world is itself a social space, I will not consider attempts to change this sphere to be a social intervention. The reach of the intervention can be gauged differently. On the one hand I will consider the idea of situation as defined by the Situationist International; on the other, I will consider some aspects of Jaques Rancieres politics of aesthetics.

1 2

Henri Lefebvre, The Production Of Space, Maldon, Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Ibid; p.26. 3 Ibid; p. 82,83. 4 Ibid; p.307.

The Situationist International defines a constructed situation as A moment of life, concretely and deliberately constructed by the collective organization of unitary environment and the free play of events.5 A situation, collectively designed and executed, has to be lived by its constructors, the role of the public or expectators diminished in favor of total participation.6 This type of action will resist conmodification and has emancipation as its ultimately goal. For the Situationists, art and politics can not be separated. Jaques Ranciere does not propose a strategy for arts relationship with society, but focuses instead on the aesthetics of politics. The politics of works of art plays itself out to a larger extent [] in the reconfiguration of worlds of experience based on which police consensus or political dissensus are defined7. Intervention considered in the light of this concept becomes a more general process.

In his works, Mexican-based Belgium-born artist Francis Als (1959-) often deals with social and political aspects of contemporary life. Alternative economies, borders, the relationship between poetics and politics, the failed promise of progress and the excessive effort relative to result in much of Latin American life are some of the issues he explores in his works.9

In The Green Line: Sometimes doing something poetic can become political, and sometimes doing something political can become poetical (2004), Als walked Jerusalem dripping green paint from a can along the internationally recognized east border of Israel, known as the green line. This was the border set after the ArabIsraeli war in 1949, but overrun by Israel in 1967. Following the line as still drawn on most international and Palestinian maps and a few Israeli ones was not possible because of the present urban reality, checkpoints to avoid and new roads and
5

Situationist International, Preliminary Problems in Constructing a Situation, Internationale Situationniste#1,1958 http://library.nothingness.org/articles/4/en/display/313 (accessed 1/12/10)
6 7

Ibid. Jaques Ranciere, The Politics of Aesthetics, London; New York: Continuum, 2006,p.65

Mark Godfrey (ed.), Francis Als: A Story of Deception, London: Tate Publishing,2010.

buildings to negotiate. Turning the map back into the complexity of the surface, this action draws attention both to the aspect of a map as a tool of control and spatial politics and to the history of struggle inscribed in the place. If maps, an instrument of power, reduce reality by deciding what spatial realities can remain visible while vanishing others, by placing the line again in the territory Als makes visible what is normally hidden 10. In this sense, it is a reconfiguration of the space where Rancieres police consensus is defined. In the face of Israels efforts to erase the green line, making it visible again constitutes an intervention in the space of political visibility. According to Ranciere, a suitable political work of art disrupts the relationship between the visible, the sayable and the thinkable11, and then there is a measure of success in Alss work.

After carrying out the action, Als showed the resulting video piece to eleven activists of various affiliations and recorded their responses to the work. When displayed, the viewer can choose which recording to play. On the one hand, the critique of the work is incorporated in it, opening a space for discussion; on the other, this makes the work even more ambivalent and open-ended. Facing the viewer with an option between conflicting views can be understood as a way of engaging his/her opinion and points to a potential for opening new social possibilities. Moreover, the inclusion of dissenting voices reveals the conflicting social relationships in Jerusalem. However, all these voices were brought back into the gallery space and it is in the gallery space where responses are elicited. If there is a possibility of dialogue, it is only pointed at in a somehow abstract manner, a mere possibility. After all, even if the viewer was really eager to enter dialogue, there is no one there to enter an actual dialogue with.

10 11

Ibid; p. 176. Jacques Ranciere, The Politics of Aesthetics, p.63.

Francis Als, The Green Line (Sometimes doing something poetic can become political and sometimes doing something political can become poetic) (2005) , Photograph from David Zwirner, New York. (Image source: NewsGRist http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2007/03/francis_als_poe.html (accessed 28/11/10))

Contrasting with the unresolved open-endedness of this work, the collective WochenKlausur believes that interventions can only be successful when the question to be solved is clearly stated. 12

WochenKlausur is a group of artists based in Austria that has been carrying out interventions since 1993. Their goal is to actively take part in the shaping of society by putting the artists ability to find creative solutions beyond the manipulation of materials into different areas of society, where complex social problems may require an original approach. Art and creativity are directed to a direct intervention into society. WochenKlausur works on invitation from art institutions, usually on an eight-week project. The institution proposes an issue to be addressed, and research, WochenKlausur research, design and plan a concrete intervention.

12

WochenKlausur, http://www.wochenklausur.at/texte/arbeitsweise_en.htm (accessed 2/11/10).

Their project Perception of Subcultures (2003)

13

originated from an

invitation by the Dunkers Kulturhus cultural centre in Helsingborg, Sweden, to participate in their exhibition The Bourgeois Show Social Structures in Urban Space. This exhibition centered around the dominance of the bourgeoisie in Helsingborgs cultural life, and the resulting exclusion of many other cultural currents from public interaction. WochenKlausur built a house using wooden pallets in front of the gallery space to be used by different groups as a presentation platform. A wide range of groups were then invited to use the house: a womens soccer team, a skater organization, animal-rights activists and a UFO observation group were some of the associations given each a weeks time to present themselves to the public. Each group began its week with a press evening where they debated their objectives with guests invited from politics, culture and the media. In this sense, Perception of Subcultures does the opposite of The Green Line instead of concentrating discourse inside the gallery, the gallery is stretched out. A new space is created that is both inside and outside, where viewers can turn into actors and subcultures can reappropriate, albeit temporarily, the established institution and interact across social differences without being absorbed into it. For Community development from place to place (2001), WochenKlausur drove around Austria in a van equipped with a mobile laboratory. The van carried a team of scientists and experts from the areas of city planning, ecology, sociology, tourism and architecture. The project was designed to serve as a model for cooperation between art and science. The van visited seven towns for four days each. The team observed positive and negative aspects of the town and drew proposals for improvement. The team presented the proposals to interested residents, the mayor and the town council. Many of the proposals were later realized.

13

WochenKlausur, Projects : Perception of Subcultures, http://www.wochenklausur.at/projekte/18p_kurz_en.htm.

WochenKlausur, van used in Community development from place to place (2001), (image source: WochenKlausur, http://www.wochenklausur.at/texte/arbeitsweise_en.htm (accessed 2/11/10))

Henri Lefebvre sees space as homogenizing and fragmented, society in its entirety is reduced to an endless parade of systems and subsystems, and any social object whatsoever can pass for a coherent entity14. Thus, instead of unmasking the social relationships that produce space, space is detached from these relationships it contains and broken into specialized disciplines15 that reproduce class distinctions. Community development from place to place brings, to a certain extent, these fragments together by creating a space where specialists in different disciplines come together with residents and the city council. For a space of a few weeks, different social groups are more visible to each other.

WochenKlausur works are closer to a Situationist idea of intervention than Alss works. WochenKlausur works are deliberate, constructed by a collective and turn spectators into participants. It is not clear, however, that there is a free play of events as the situations created are quite controlled and count on the support of dominant politics -Community development from place to place was funded by the government- run Austrian Landscape Research programme and most of their projects are backed by art institutions who provide them with funding and resources. This is not resisting conmodification, but leads to an institutional sanctioning of their work. It is also possible to see this situation differently in their own words If

14 15

Henri Lefebvre, The Production Of Space, p.311. Ibid. p.

WochenKlausur works at the invitation of art institutions, the institutions are acting to anchor Activist art practice in human consciousness.16 However, there is no ultimate goal of emancipation or broader changes, this is more community arts than activist art, and while it aims at changes that operate on a new and more participatory dynamic of social space, this dynamic remains within the space of dominant economic culture. WochenKlausurs works reach into social space outside the art world is wider than that of Francis Alss work. The Green Line postcards presumably left the art world, and there were also those who must have come across the actual line, but these relationships are not made visible. The dissenting voices accompanying the video end up in the gallery space, substituting a representation for a situation. A social theme does not make a work socially active, and the space of intervention in this work disappears from view. The work of WochenKlausur, on the other hand, directly addresses social relationships and makes them visible. Acts and situations do not turn into a representation. Even though it would be inadequate to say their works challenge domination, they do not reproduce it completely unchanged. They open a space for action, yet that space relies on legitimation on the cultural system they aim to change, there is no refusal of the logic of the system itself. In this light, the change brought about seems too circumscribed and provisional.

This brief analysis of the space of intervention leads to more questions than answers. Could intervention achieve greater social and economic changes? Are there interventions that completely redefine social relationships? Is it that interventions scope will remain limited as long as it lacks the backing of a social movement? What would this imply for its relationship to cultural institutions and to power? Does or should art keep its autonomy in this process? There are no straight answers to these questions, but they show that intervention is a conflicting space full of potential.

16

Variant, Archive, Issue 16, Concrete Social Interventions,Interview with Pascale Jeanne of the artists' group WochenKlausur, http://www.variant.org.uk/16texts/Concrete_Interventions.html (accessed 5/12/10).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Debord, Guy, The Society of the Spectacle, Bureau of Public Secrets, http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/ (accessed 26/10/10)

Godfrey, Mark (ed.), Francis Als: A Story of Deception, London: Tate publishing, 2010. Lefevre, Henri, The Production of Space, Maldon, Oxford,Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 2004 Lefevre, Henri, Key Writings, London, New York: Continuum, 2003 Ranciere, Jacques, The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible, London ; New York : Continuum, 2006. Situationist International, Preliminary Problems in Constructing a Situation, Internationale Situationniste#1,1958 http://library.nothingness.org/articles/4/en/display/313 (accessed 1/12/10)

Variant, Archive, Issue 16, Concrete Social Interventions,Interview with Pascale Jeanne of the artists' group WochenKlausur, http://www.variant.org.uk/16texts/Concrete_Interventions.html (accessed 5/12/10) Vishmidt, Marina, Line Describing a Curve Asymptotes about Valie Export, the New Urbanism and Contemporary Art, in Will Bradley and Charles Esche (eds.) Art and Social Change: A Critical reader, London: Tate Publishing : In association with Afterall; New York :2007, pp.447-460 WochenKlausur, http://www.wochenklausur.at/texte/arbeitsweise_en.htm (accessed 2/11/10)