Associação Cultural Videobrasil

 

1.

In 'Geo-Cultures' art circles and globalization, Irit Rogoff argues that contemporary artistic practices, rather than being mere reflections or consequences of the globalization processes, are, conversely, dynamic agents, contributing to its construction and development. From this point of view, the international art circuit becomes a factor of change, not just a mirror of ongoing processes. Rogoff also states that mobility and proliferation are central features of globalization, and that, therefore, the art world is a space uniquely positioned to study this process, since it is a field where these dynamics are simultaneously produced and observed¹. Similarly, Enwezor Okwui in The Postcolonial Constellation argues that "bringing contemporary art into the context of the geopolitical framework that defines global relations (...) offers an insightful view of the postcolonial constellation"².To Okwui art should be seen as an instrument for reading the present, something that belongs to and influences the evolution of the current global geo-political landscape. This kind of understanding of the art world as an active element of geo-political changes under way is contrary to the conception of art as merely a reflection or expression of the spirit of time, a peripheral area of life without any influence on the forces that shape our everyday life.

2.

Positioning the artistic context as something autonomous is typical of twentieth-century modernism (formulating one of its narrative structures), where the internal logic of the work of art is marked by its exclusion from the domain of social life, placing the artist's work as a product of high culture, separating it from everyday life. This distinction may be related to the establishment-imposition of one more ideological opposition, making up another modernist narrative: the north-south divide, both resulting from a Eurocentric interpretation of reality, which, until recently, dominated international relations. Again in The Postcolonial Constellation, Okwui develops this idea: "What is astonishing the degree to which the artistic challenges posed by so-called primitive art to twentieth century European Modernism have subsequently been assimilated and subordinated to modernist totalization." In his respect, admitting the paradigmatic rupture produced by this encounter means questioning the narrative of modern art history. Consequently, the useful functions of these non-Western works were silenced, becoming rectified objects of art and removing any ritual and magic value they had in their original context. As a result, African art was rendered innocuous, its items devoid of any sacramental or everyday meaning, making them autonomous. Joining Édouard Glissant’s line of thought, Okwui also notes the need for any critique of the exposed systems of modern or contemporary art to include a reference to the fundamentals of these stories: to their roots in the discourse of colonial empires, but, also, to the pressures that post-colonial thought presently exerts on these narratives ³.

3.

The Videobrasil contemporary art festival is dedicated to the investigation of such issues by proposing a non-autonomous vision of contemporary art, made into a tool for thinking and building the world. The event inhabits an interstitial space between real and symbolic geography, incorporating a critique of the dominant narrative of art history and experiencing new paths for its development. Here, mapping is not synonymous with a new geographic understanding, but rather a way of questioning conceptions crystallized over centuries and of proposing a renewed concept of society and art. The exhibition and public program of the festival, as well as its residency program and tours, are instruments through which we investigate the past and present and propose hypotheses for the future, presenting a multiplicity of visions, which, in their fragmented whole, oppose established understandings on contemporary reality. More than locations, the festival draws a map of relationships and affections, where each participant becomes part of this mapping process, focusing on producing a new image of international geopolitics: the south, also called the geopolitical south, which is not equivalent to the area south of the equator, and rather including regions such as North Africa, the Middle East or Eastern Europe.

4.

This unrealistic cartographic positioning, the lack of equivalence between the named geographical area and the territories participating in the festival, is not new. Yuko Hasegawa, curator of the 11th Sharjah Biennial, in 2013, points out that by studying maps of the Persian Gulf for the last five hundred years, she noticed how charts evolved, showing, with the passing of centuries, the same territories in closer or more distant positions from each other. These maps did not aim at a faithful representation of the geographical area to which they referred, but on the contrary, stimulated or reflected the closer relations between different peoples, mirroring the politics of the time in which the map was produced. Similarly, the geographic areas involved in Videobrasil also belong to an imagined south, a territory that, for centuries, has suffered the imposition of having to incorporate and be subordinate to a Eurocentric thinking as the only form of development. Hasegawa asks: "what would a cultural map look like today?"⁴. Videobrasil has this question as its driving force, and presents in each edition a renewed cartography of art and, in this way, of the geopolitical circuit.

5.

The series of Videobrasil's public programs, which includes debates, conversations and video programs, aims to expand the ideas explored in the works presented in the exhibition Southern Panoramas, and additionally speculate on possible research topics in future editions of the festival. Prominent among the topics discussed are: Around the world: processes and directions of the internationalization of art; Territories of the South: experiences, cities and borders; Magic Nature; and “Transnationality” as horizon; and in screening programmes ideas such as: History, returning and belonging or Ambivalence of architectural spaces. The ultimate goal of these activities is "to extrapolate the specificity of the universe of art to relate the exhibited artworks to their historical, social, political and economic contexts"⁵, a desire that corresponds precisely to the position of Okwui who argues that "(...) any cultural institution, as an object of historical thought, has a social life as well as a political dimension and its function cannot be dissociated from the complex social and cultural arena in which the institutional discourse is inserted"⁶. In this sense, the set of Videobrasil activities, especially the public programs and platform VB, make up what Okwui understands as a postcolonial constellation, "a space to expand the definition of what constitutes contemporary culture in other domains of practice; it is the intersection of historical forces aligned against the hegemonic imperatives of imperial discourse. The postcolonial constellation seeks to interpret a particular social order, to show the relationships between political, social, and cultural realities, artistic spaces and epistemological histories, highlighting not only their contested aspects but also their continuous redefinition."⁷

6.

Videobrasil views the incorporation of micropolitics as the best way to oppose and rearticulate the mainstream historic narratives that still affect the present day and which Okwui calls hegemonic imperatives of imperial discourse. This is how we find the focal point of the two sections of the festival (exhibitions and public programs): subjectivity. The works included in the Southern Panoramas exhibition, the videos shown in the auditorium sessions and the ideas shared during the debates and conversations, share a personal investigation of different layers of everyday life, formulating subjectivity politics that confront widely-disseminated narratives. The legacy of Walter Benjamin, particularly his Theses on the Philosophy of History, is granted renewed relevance in this context. Although produced in reaction to events in Europe in the early twentieth century, particularly his understanding of the historical building process, it preserves a remarkable relevance and suitability. Benjamin characterized history as a product of the power of elites at the expense of a large silenced majority. The thinker expressed the need for a fierce opposition against dominant readings of the past which was mainly enacted in individual forms, hence, subjective, and thus relates deeply to the policies that mark Videobrasil. At present, where political and economic forces rearticulate in a violent and repressive manner, with strong impacts on the social sphere, and especially its minorities, his Theses (...) make even more sense and echo protests like the Occupy Movement or the Arab Spring. Returning to the work included in the Southern Panoramas, among the strongest themes of these personal perspectives, prominent are memory and sexuality (gender and orientation), which, in turn, may relate to the renewed interest in the idea of nature. Okwui cites Hal Foster on referring to how the emergence of new forces such as the feminist, black, gay, student and environmentalist movements, among others, made clear the unique importance of factors such as gender or sexual orientation, ethnicity or geographical location. Foster calls this process "the revolt of nature," a paradigm shift in relations between power and knowledge that was set until this kind of question appeared⁸. Fictionalizing nature clearly implies destruction of the modernist opposition between culture and nature (another great narrative), in which culture is the product of man and nature an area that is unexplored, disorganized, wild, and, therefore, outside the "civilizational" project of colonizing peoples. The recovery of nature also allows a counterpoint with the silencing of other artistic voices, including the African, regaining its magic, ritual and everyday value, which also represents the destruction of modernist narrative concerning the autonomy of art. As mentioned, this modernist design movement of transposition is based on the subjective renewed social dynamics and, in particular, the processes of individual memory. The implosion, or, at least, the questioning of dominant readings of the past, paves the way a dynamic visibility that was previously silenced (gender, ethnic or sexual orientation, among others), which results in the activation of a democratic process of distribution of power: the emergence of a plurality of voices. These kinds of issues dominated Videobrasil's public programs, appearing across the work, conversations and experiences shared throughout the event.

7.

Recent developments resulting from neo-liberal economic expansion, like the financial, political and social crisis, ranging from Europe to the United States or the emergence of other powerful economies, like China, some Middle Eastern countries or Brazil, problematize existing forms of international symbolic cartography, questioning their validity and claiming a new geopolitical understanding. We witness the emergence of a plurality of new and different categories of south and north. Southern Europe is a recent and acute example of this dynamic, perhaps a former north made into a new south? China is another case of a hypothetical south that becomes a powerful north. And what about the black community in the United States, subjected to centuries of different dynamics of exclusion? Replacing the south for invisible or subordinate and the north for visible or dominant and recovering the words of Yuko Hasegawa, "what would a cultural map look like today?". This type of questions started emerging subtly during conversations and video sessions in public programs. Likewise, the issue of the diaspora also complicates the construction of a symbolic geopolitics, which depends on specific locations. The theoretical foundation for Videobrasil, although having basic principles such as the centrality of the south axis, is built during the course of the event: first through the selection of works and subsequently through meetings, dialogues and intersections (laid down in the program as well as emerging informally, stimulated by the format of the event). Looking at the history of the festival, itself the subject of an exhibition in this year’s edition, there is a clear self-reflexive logic that drives Videobrasil and the certainty that the complex issues raised in 2013 will not await a response in future editions. The format of the event indicates, on one hand, the strong desire to present a plural discourse, and, on the other, openness to constant change. In Postmodernism or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Frederic Jameson argues that political action may be found, and ideology revealed, in the form and not in the content: the way thought is exercised is, in itself, a form of ideological production and implementation.⁹ The Videobrasil model presents extreme coherence with the political ideals that define the festival. The twenty-year collaboration with the SESC network, especially the Pompeia space, grants the event the possibility of making true the modernist rejection of the autonomy of art, using an open space, where, simultaneously, sports and entertainment activities are offered to all ages, formulating a social quasi-utopia. In formal terms, emphasis must be placed on the maintenance of the name: despite operating as a biennial, the event kept the title of festival, indicating the importance of the social gathering as a form of critical production and strengthening connections. Finally, the fact that it uses an open call as the program method provides the plural nature of the event, particularly in view of its purpose: an area of the globe subject to more or less visible forms of domination. These democratic characteristics that Videobrasil has developed allow a glimpse into the possibility of the festival in the future, undergoing another definition of geopolitical south, a much more inclusive one. A marker able of including the dynamics in course today, which problematize definitions sustained by parameters such as geographical location. A flexible and yet grounded definition with foundations but without physical referents. A coordinate beyond the horizon.

____________________
¹ Rogoff
^{2, 3, 6, 7, 8} Enwezor Okwui The Postcolonial Constellation: Contemporary Art in a Sate of Permanent Transition in
⁴ Introductory text of the catalogue of Sharjah Biennial in 2013 by Yuko Hasegawa
⁵ 2013 Videobrasil public programs catalog
⁹ Frederic Jameson