Dispariția mistică

Dispariţia mistică

Co-curatori Raluca Velisar, Nicolae Comănescu


Introducere în istoria disculturii

… Sau într-o noapte am visat un vis că erau mai mulţi, un urs, o mamăurs cu doi ursuleţi şi ei îşi făcuseră cuib pe stradă sub o maşină. Am mai văzut o căţea, la mine la bloc, roşcată, care la fel. Şi cu urşii ăştia nu ştiu ce era, că parcă erau buni şi am intrat şi eu la ei în bîrlog. În contextul actual, societatea postindustrială operează mutaţii fantastic de importante, iar criza informaţională operează aberaţii reflectate fin de chaturile de pe internet. Toate acestea ne conduc la introducerea unei noţiuni noi, aceea de discultură. Referiri la discultură s-au mai făcut. Există chiar antecedente istorice,discultura nefiind un fenomen care ar fi apărut acum sau care aparţine societăţii postinformaţionale. Acum 40 000 de ani a existat o perioadă prefigurativă (perioada niusteriană) sau în China sec III î.Cr. cînd la ceva timp după atingerea apogeului poeziei clasice chineze s-a declanşat experimentalismul. Nu insistăm asupra acestor reconsiderări istorice. Nu e cazul să facem noi lucrul acesta. În cazul nostru noi nu putem da decît exemplul nostru, care avînd personalităţile disociate nu-l mai putem distinge de realitatea imediată. Pe cine? De ce? Prophet reafirmă faptul că în reconstituirea oamenilor ca cyborgi trupurile lor rămîn baza iar aceste corpuri îşi menţin abilitatea de a suferi şi de a simţi durerea. Corpul nu este un complex funcţional definit medical, ci un cîmp de forţe care nu este limitat de ceea ce medicina vestică descrie drept organic. Organele nu sînt aparate biologice, funcţionale, ci condensări temporale, fluctuaţii energetice care se transformă constant, neputînd fi obiectivate ca elemente corporale continue. Este vorba despre un cîmp eterogen inform, poate fractal, în care au loc evenimente limitate temporal.

Această viziune poate avea conexiuni în tradiţia europeană antigramaticală ce leagă “corpul gol” al lui Bataille şi “corpul fărăorgan” al lui Artaud de “trupul intesităţilor” al lui Deleuze şi Guattari. Dezvoltarea tehnologiei computerelor ar putea reprezenta în acest sens ocazia pentru a pune în discuţie logicacorporală europeană, aplicaţiile creative şi speculative ale computerelor permiţînd deschiderea unor spaţii imaginative pentru reconceptualizarea corpului, iar nanotehnologia reprezintă posibilitatea inventării unor noi organe eterogene şi ipotetice, dezvoltînd modele culturale alternative, operaţionale pentru corp.

Tot aşa am citit în Dilema că scria Andrei Codrescu care şi el auzise nu mai ţin minte unde că organele din corp ar fi nişte entităţi separate care vin de pe planete diferite şi care stau împreună şi noi nu ştim şi ce-i mai grav nu ştim nici cînd o să se despartă şi o să plece fiecare înapoi pe planeta de pe care a venit. Alienşi adică. Societateapostindustrializată presupune coabitarea unei societăţi postindustriale împreună cu o societate secretă de alienşi, permiţîndu-ne ca în materie de fenomene sociale, să putem vorbi deja de un fenomen disocial.

Punerea în discuţie a hegemoniei ontologice a umanului nu mai are la bază reflecţiile filosofice sau istorice, şi se datorează cercetării şi creativităţii umane. Experienţa liminală conduce la mecanismele subiectivizării, un fel de a lua cunoştinţă de sine, atribut (şi mă feresc să spun mai mult) al oamenilor.

Premise ale dispariţiei mistice

Nu-mi plac ruşii. Dar mi-a plăcut la un moment dat un proiect care urmărea vieţile a 10 luzări. Şi adică nu era vorba că ar fi fost vreo conjunctură specială. Pur şi simplu luzerii ăştia erau nişte rataţi care pentru ei nu era prevăzută nici o şansă niciodată. Un proiect întreprins de Ylia Kabakov care se referea la ce se întîmplă cu arta care nu intră în muzee, care intră în muzeu, dar acele muzee se află într-un context geo-politic greşit, care nu este consemnată, sau care nu intră într-un sistem social sau financiar oarecare, determinat, sigur. Cred că, nu mai îmi amintesc bine, criticul lui Ylia menţiona aceste probleme şi se întreba unde dispar lucrările, opera şi artiştii, el zicea acolo ceva despre o dispariţie aproape mistică, totală. Şi pe urmă schimba rapid subiectul şi vorbea despre un alt subiect care i se părea mai interesant.

Dispariţia mistică

Unde dispar artiştii care nu sînt consemnaţi? Oare cîţi artişti au dispărut astfel? Mai are vreo importanţă? Pe mine mă sperie diferenţa asta care nu mai există între categorii care a dispărut. Care sînt categoriile de artişti? Care sînt artiştii? Conceptualişti? Performeri? Videaşti? Old-new-mediaşti? New-newmediaşti? Pictori? Sculptori? Desenatori? Arhitecţi? Neoexpresionişti?Post-conceptualişti? Teoreticieni? Care-i diferenţa dintre cadavrul unuia care a fumat şi cadavrul unuia care n-a fumat? Cadavrul ăluia care n-a fumat e mult mai sănătos. Problema e că unde dispar acele persoane? Care e procesul de dispariţie? El ce face? Artistul. De ce s-a ocupat o vreme Ylia de ceva care privea dispariţia mistică? Care a renunţat mai tîrziu cînd a fost asimilat.
Ăsta e un teritoriu vast, starea de dispariţie mistică. Tot timpul există artişti care staţionează în acest teritoriu. Un teritoriu al predispariţiei mistice (de fapt) în care artiştii dotaţi pentru studiu studiază, influenţează, determină starea de dispariţie mistică. Studiul lor are o finalitate (sau două finalităţi?). Ori, unu, dispar mistic. Sau, be, sînt asimilaţi de teritoriul major al artei contemporane. Neîntrerupt, din negura timpului, artiştii practică starea de predispariţie mistică. De ce n-a vorbit nimeni despre asta? Cei aflaţi pe teritoriul predispariţiei mistice erau într-o stare de conştiinţă elevată. Erau mult prea high-stoned şi ocupaţi, iar cînd îşi reveneau uitau tot. Sau dispăreau mistic de tot. Ce simt artiştii cînd dispar mistic? Nimic. Nu s-a mai întors nimeni de-acolo? Nu. Ba nu. Simt o complexitate de sentimente. Nasoale. Mona întreabă că de unde ştim noi? Că poate au sentimente frumoase. Mie nu-mi place cu nasoale. De unde ştim noi că? Şi Raluca spune că suntem cinici. Că de asta nu înţelegem. Nu insistăm. Oricum, dispariţia mistică n-are nimic cu underground-ul, cu misticul, cu dispariţia. Oricum, apropos de dispariţie, dacă dispar în jur de 50 de specii de animale pe zi, şi cei care dispar mistic fiind într-o legătură proporţională cu tendinţa de creştere a populaţiei umane au şi ei o tendinţă de creştere, putem concluziona că în materie de dispariţie mistică, aceasta tinde către infinit.

Ultimul capitol

Că arta românească prezintă simptome de dispariţie mistică. Şi că e extraordinar. Că arta culturilor minore dispare mistic iară nu e o noutate. Că arta culturilor majore din puctul de vedere al dispariţiei mistice are aceeaşi soartă ca arta culturilor minore, e normal. Şi cînd realizezi că dispariţia apare ca o problemă de sens nu mai e nici o diferenţă. Noi o să luăm oameni care teoretic n-au nici o şansă şi-i luăm la întîmplare pe criteriul că îi cunoaştem noi. Nu este o expoziţie colectivă, este un organism viu care se naşte şi va creşte ca urmare a unei necesităţi. De aceea expoziţia va alcătui / clasa / cuprinde / descrie/ povesti / cerceta diverse concepte, lucrări, preocupări, poveşti, sistematizate cu ajutorul mijloacelor multimedia, video, foto, text ale unor artişti prezenţi în Rostopasca şi alte alianţe, şi nu numai.

spaţiu: o încăpere semiobscură cu un perete alb pentru proiecţie (sau ecran de proiecţie, 200x300cm). Monitoarele fixate pe perete în acelaşi spaţiu vor prezenta 20 de filme* de diverşi autori. Pe cele două computere vor putea fi accesate 1) foldere cu informaţii şi documentaţie despre artiştii prezenţi sau nu în expoziţie 2) o adresă e-mail ce va funcţiona ca receptor de informaţie “internaţională” (artişti, grupuri şi nu numai ce urmează a fi contactaţi şi care
sînt aşteptaţi să răspundă cu text, imagini, etc.). Imaginile şi textele vor construi o mini-arhivă vis-a-vis de artişti, de dispariţie mistică, de lucrări şi vor fi proiectate succesiv.O documentaţie foto (mini-containere) cu artişti dispăruţi mistic sau artişti în curs de dispariţie mistică ce va putea fi consultată de către public.

*Filmele video au sau nu legătură cu subiectul (+ zone ca socialul, autobiograficul, psihiatric, psihologic, SF, ecologic). Alături de acestea va fi proiectat şi filmul Contemplaţia (Rostemplaţia 2), video VHS, 6’, un proiect de Florin Tudor care va reuni artiştii prezenţi în expoziţie:Camera se învîrte continuu. De data asta într-un interior. Nişte băieţi, fete, artişti apar. Vin, pleacă, se aşează, nu prea comentează, nu prea au nimic de discutat. Probabil că intră în contemplaţie instantaneu. Nu ştiu ce se întîmplă. Din punct de vedere tehnic nu pot să-mi explic decît că imaginea o ia un pic razna. Sînt două imagini suprapuse. Layer-ul de deasupra începe să se dizolve, ba nu, oamenii se dizolvă. Layer-ul de deasupra dispare, de fapt oamenii dispar. Camera
continuă să se rotească în camera goală. Camera menţine mai mult timp efectul de contemplaţie după ce artiştii au dispărut în contemplaţie.

Twice upon a time... - Balkan Video, Roma 2002

„7 ways to feel better” 2 min 5 s, 2001

Rostopasca @ Romanian Cultural Center NY 2001

Ecokillers to night

Ecokillers to night
Alina Buga, Alina Pentac, Dumitru Gorzo
Noaptea trecuta am visat ca eram cu niste prieteni intr-o masina mica, un fel de Tico, in care m-am trezit, dintr-o data, singura, incuiata acolo. Ma uitam afara, unde vedeam o droaie de pusti roind pe sosea. Erau si oameni mari dar nu se vedeau asa de bine. Nu stiu cum am scapat din masina! Erau cheile in contact dar m-am gandit ca nu stiu sa conduc, asa ca am hotarat sa iau masina mea.
In fine, parea ciudat ca masina mea bej era singura pata vie de culoare in orasul acela. M-am asezat la volan, care era foarte mic cu doua butoane stanga-dreapta, de unde mi-am zis ca nu-i chiar asa de
greu de condus si ma ghidam usor, apasand cate putin. In fata mea erau aduse cele mai rare specii de pusti fara directie, care alergau in toate partile si-mi era frica sa nu-i fac pilaf. Strangeam din ochi de cate ori parea c-am lovit cate unul, iar ei se distrau in continuare. Trebuia sa ajung la o intersectie, la o statie de autobuze, de unde o luam pe prietena aceea cu Tico, care m-a inchis in masina. Dintr-o data, parea ca intru-ntr-un stalp si cred c-am trecut pe langa ... cu mult secces !
Dupa aceea, ma aflam intr-o casa( de pe la 1900 ) cu incaperi inalte unde, pe fiecare colt de masa, erau farfurii cu portocale rase. Mi-am pus zahar intr-una din astea si am mancat. Era foarte bun!
Stateamac cu fata la una din usile acelea inalte si am vazut ca nu mai avea clanta! Am impins cu mana si dincolo era o doamna, la vreo 60 de ani, 1,70 cu 83 Kg., infasurata-ntr-un capot in cele mai vii culori pe
care le-am vazut vreodata, cu parul strans pe moate si acoperit cu o esarfa portocalie. M-a rugat s-o ajut sa-nchida usa dintre cele doua dormitoare ca sa-si puna sutienele la uscat, zicand ca se jeneaza sa nu I le vada cineva. Am inchis usa iar ea a-mpins inca una peste ...! Tocurile usilor erau strambe si se vedeau: prima pica-n dreapta, a doua-n stanga iar geamurile erau acoperite cu panze portocalii. Doamna aceea vorbea mult dar nu auzeam ce spunea! atarnase un sutien si ma gandeam ca va atarna foarte multe sutiene ... . Tot acolo, in dreapta, era un tip catarat pe masa, care se chinuia sa prinda o fasie mare de tull pe perete. Peretii erau umpluti cu albastru si cu verde. Erau pictati! Mai erau doi tipi, ghemuiti pe podea, care trageau de tull, unul stanga, celalalt in dreapta si inca unul care impingea, cu putere, masa in perete ca sa stea materialul bine intins. I-am intrebat de ce nu pun o bagheta jos!? Mi-au spus: " Pentru ca vrem sa mai punem doua bucati de panza albastra peste masa si sa facem o suprafata curba
peste care vine asezat un suport cu rufe pentru uscat si tu ne spui, cand incadrezi, daca se vede ceva pe langa! Tot asa, intr-o noapte, eram intr-o casa foarte mare pe care, cand o priveam in alte vise, toti imi spuneau sa nu merg acolo ca este a unui tip nasol. Cand am intrat, tipu'-mi zice sa-l astept putin, sa faca un dus. Geamurile erau uriase si-n casa intra o lumina de apus foarte rosie, ingrozitor de rosie care
te putea praji. In dreptul geamurilor erau asezate, in ordine, acvarii pline cu pixuri de plastic, de cinci lei, si de fiecare pix era atarnat cate un biletel pe care era inscris cate un an: 1913, 1934, 1942, etc.! Ma gandeam, deja, la varsta pe care ar fi putut-o avea omul asta !?

Lex Luthor 2001

Lex Luthor

Cap. 1
It was more about dusk. It was about sunset. The sky had grown red, but now it started to darken. The sun had gone down. The air was red-hot. All was reddened. Not the sky, the sky was dark. Because the sunset. But the rest was reddened. Nay, ‘t was so reddened as of a burning heat, like a torpor, ‘t was a wilted orangish as of a strong heat. It had been a strong heat all the weeks before and it still was an intense heat, it seemed to maintain so, it didn’t cease, and as for the colours, ‘t was more of a reddened red-orangish such. And this ‘gish was yielding a state of torpor but not of numbness, ‘t was so hot that you couldn’t remain wilted for that torpor that was benumbing you mildly. At first it was easy. And a sunset, that was driving you crazy. Completely. People were looking in the shine and they couldn’t see the horizon line. Because of the thermic shock everything seemed more reddened and you were looking ten meters distance and the air was boiling up all-around, so it was a damn thermic shock that you couldn’t mark out the sharp, the distinction between forms, as for the photos, none made out a sharp image, that’s why you can’t find photos of that time, or to join them end to end. You’re looking at somebody near you and it was like looking in a stove. You’ve looked in the stove, you were pissing in the bed at night. Well, it depends on the stove, but at that time all stoves were red-hot. Everything was red-hot. And when you’re looking this burnings, the eyes were burned in your head. The eye sockets were as holes punched by bright kindled embers, but you could see through that light. I can’t say what you’ve seen because it blinded you completely and you could see nothingghhh. But a red, warm light. And the air, nobody was breathing, you couldn’t breathe that air because of the burning heat. And an orange-stunk-up-with-red atmosphere. But not only the sky and not only the air and the eyes and the stoves were red-hot. The women were also hot. The savarin, at least, you couldn’t find it at all, not at all, nothingghh. Or if you’ve found it, it was without that red jelly over for it couldn’t be seen because all the cakes were red. All Bucharest was like this. In the whole Bucharest, in all sweetshops you could find nothing but those red cakes. You didn’t’ make any difference between choux-a-la-crème and éclair or éclair and Negro cake with a tower. The same for the sweet cherries. They were red. And the greenish fondants were also red. Or something like a pink-stunk-up-with-red. And it seemed that because of heat it dropped I don’t know how some orange more orange-to-pink-stunk-up-with-red-in-it. But I can’t explain how it reached, that red in that pink, who was pouring it out, somebody must have put it in there, so that it was like this when it appeared. And there is another aspect. Nobody ever saw anything like this red, neither before nor after. Formerly you could make the distinction. Now, we can’t even talk about it. It’s impossible, you can’t make any distinction, I think it remained so because of the heat. The colours mix thermically and they all seem to you mixed with red. In which you pour out, just as an illusion, some orange-to-pink-stunk-up-with-red-in-it. To your sorrow. And that red was redder more towards the twilight and especially at the North Station. There were the flames bigger. In the rest they were smaller, more smouldering because there were bornbandments* in the last days. I think that in Berceni there were no flames because it wasn’t in the city area. It was the parish of Berceni. And when you arrived in the city you entered through Vergului, Vergului Athenaeum, respectively today it’s written there Milion Sexi Bar, but everybody knows what it really was there. In that part the flames were smaller. But that redness was all the same, everywhere, and that heat was there, that burning heat was there. It was on 23-rd of August 1944. At that time Lex Luthor was born...

Cap.2

About that time Lex Luthor was born. In America. His parents got lost when they were coming with the emigrants boat Barlad to America and aftathat** his mother gave him birth at one of their aunts in America and when he grew up a little after a while those ships Barlad were still coming with emigrants in Memphis and Lex Luthor who was at his tender age he was just a child living at his aunt he was going to watch them and one day he remembered something from the past and as he was looking at the Barlad that returned loaded with sand at last he got lost on a ship and the ship Barlad not noticing that Lex Luthor was aboard the captain commanded the sailing and after a short supply in La Venta port where it is said that the captain had a mistress they didn’t stop till Zanzibar where they took Cocofifi and finally they landed on the Romanian shore, near Calarasi. In Zanzibar they made a hairbreadth escape from a group of ships of a group of pirates, which were much likely of a grouping. That’s the reason they escaped. Well, let’s forget about Zanzibar and his parents who probably about that time lost their way at the carnival in New Orleans, ‘t happened in a Mardi Gras Thursday, the carnival. There were in that time groups of critics and puritanical organizations that were criticizing the carnival, mostly after the arriving of those girls from Cuba, and they were saying this carnival was much of a mass-media success and anyway it is facile to make a carnival. Later there were others who reflected more and they said maybe it is not facile. The girls from Cuba were anyhow criticized by the girls from the French Quarter. ‘T wasn’t an easy job.
Nevertheless Lex went in Calarasi with Cocofifi and later when they’ve grown up they’ve married and they lived peacefully nearby Calarasi, in a locality. Someday Lex Luthor*.
Till one day when Cocofifi returned from Calarasi and brought some bread and fish packed in an Austrian magazine. The fish was some Danube blue mackerel and shark bought from the alimentary shop in Techirghiol and the bread was fresh bread. In a word, turtz brand***, well, Lex Luthor took everything and unpacked and started to read the Austrian magazine. It was called Austernibelungen and he was going to find out that at that time of contemporary art this was considered a kind of Flashout well known in all Austria, Europe and America and even in Milano. Cocofifi prepared the dinner and after they’ve eaten they both started to read from the magazine about contemporary art in the world. All over the world. And they liked it and after that they subscribed and they’ve read more and more, because they liked it. They were sitting on the verandah and they were talking about their readings and they were looking as the sun was going down on the Bulgarian shore and the water became blue, it was a strange bluishness to a vague greenish and it went to turquoises shaded in blue as the sun set down and it became vaguely blue from the sunset so. And the blue went darkened slowly slowly over the choir of the greenish frogs from the surroundings lakes.
One day Cocofifi told Lex Luthor that it isn’t anymore space in the house because of the magazines. Well, it would have been enough space but anyway a new stage started in Lex Luthor’s life. And Cocofifi’s.
They thought what to do. And they thought about going in Bucharest to see anyhow how things went on for they’ve been reading in the issues of the Austrian magazine about the artists from Bucharest. In any case, it was worthing. It was worthing selling everything and leaving the place. They couldn’t sell the house for it hadn’t windows, it had only some boards nailed in the windows, but it was a matter of feeling so they’ve decided to sell a part of the Austrian magazines namely the publicity part and that with the writings of our critics.
And they’ve sold it through the Internet from their place at that time to an American company interested in it.
It was 1946. Just when they arrived in the front of the North Station in Bucharest, there was great ebullition in town, it was a big banner in front of the station, which was written on it about the inauguration of the “Muzeul de Arta Moderna”**** of the town and the peasants from Berceni called it stupidly Moma instead of Mamo. They went together with a flood of people at the Museum to see the inauguration and they were thinking how lucky they were to arrive here just when such event took place. People came from all over the world. Among the international presences they’ve remarked those whom they knew from Austernibelungen magazine there were surrealists lead by Breton who was saying that in ’47 the surrealism would move to Bucharest, there were also the American abstractionists de Kooning and Pollock and Guston, there were also some cubists who were standing together with the others Romanians and they were in great fashion and totally out of fashion, there were as well officials of the Pertu Gorza government who had received a medal of friend of the arts fact that it would be proved in ’48 when he had already said that he would sent in jail the whole generation of surrealists, actually very few went to jail for some of them have turned on to realism and others have moved to other places, and others more skillfully have succeeded to find their way somehow. And there was also Mondrian and it was beautiful and a lot of people and a nice weather and the building was a famous palace that just has been restored and it has been added a brand new ultramodern wing. Pollock has been staying for a while in a residence where he organized some workshops about the beginnings of the performance in his painting. Knowing all these Lex Luthor and Cocofifi applied for Pollock’s workshop particularly because a scholarship was offered and a lodging and free of charge Internet at the new opened library at Mamo. It has been an extraordinary month. They’ve met a lot of young guys and had many long discussions and there were some poets and talked about the death of the surrealism. Through the poets Dinu Marinescu and Lucian Tanasescu they contacted some American poets who were talking about a new concept, postmodernism, there were sayings in some circles about the necessity of a Museum of Postmodernism in town or at least it was imperative to create a center to deal with it. Lex Luthor and Cocofifi were staying calm and were continuing their studies on the theories applicability and information delivery.
They’ve rent a house with an attic close to the tower near the Greek Embassy and they were looking at the little Greek temple nearby and they’re thinking how Petre Antonescu’s project would stand there where once it had been The People House. It has been built there as well a nice esplanade where the two young people although they were extremely young went in the evening to look together with other young people at the beautiful view of the town offered by that place. However the esplanade has been criticized for its resemblance with the image of Via del Babuino seen from the left side as you have Piazza del Popolo behind. A bunch of imbeciles, those critics, considered our young people, but anyhow they were only a few so they didn’t matter, those imbeciles.
Mamo was functioning excellent, a succession of interesting exhibits have been continuing and a new generation was already expected, that was trying to destroy the frontiers between art and life already weakened and wheezed by the generation between the two wars. The faint air which had dominated town in the years of war made its absence felt. Everybody knew that in the upcoming years there it would be great changings in directions, tendencies and ideologies.

Notes
* see bombardments
** see after that
*** plum brandy
**** see MAMO (Muzeul de Arta Moderna) (rum.); MOMA (Modern Art Museum) (eng.)





Text by Nicolae Comanescu , Floe Tudor si Mona Vatamanu

Mystical Disappearance

Rostopasca Group

The project Mystical Disappearance is about documenting the work and life of various artists that are more or less in a state/process of disappearance. The reasons for this disappearance are socio-political and geographical or without any reason at all.
Mystical Disappearance is not an archive or an exhibition, is more like a series of stages, manifesting in various locations, virtual or real/until now there had been 2 stages: following text and the project in Venice Biennial/2001.
The next stage will be a net project describing disappearance and the following stages will be meeting other artists or supporters who are sharing the same state of disappearance and collaborate in organizing events in different places.
We will be glad if one of the project stages will be held in collaboration with you and your institution.

A stage of this project was included as an insert in the Context/Network project (www.context.ro), curated by Alexandru Patatics and Sebastian Berthalan, at the Venice Biennial / 2001, in the Romanian Pavilion, commissioner Ruxandra Balaci.
In this stage participated:
Rostopasca – Rostemplation, video dv, 5’, 2000
Nicolae Comanescu - Demo, video dv, 3’, 2001
Floe Tudor – Zen, video dv, 3’, 2001
Alina Pentac – X-Treme, video VHS, 1’ 35”, 2001
Mona Vatamanu – Outside, video dv, 3’, 2001


The Mystical Disappearance
A project by Florin Tudor
Co-curators Raluca Velisar, Nicolae Comanescu

Introduction in the History of the Disculture

Or I dreamt one night a dream that there were some bears, a father-bear, a mother-bear with two little bears and they had been made their home beneath a car, on the street. I’ve also seen a dog beside my block, a red one who made the same. And I don’t know what was about those bears, but they seemed to be trustworthy and I entered their den. In the actual context the postindustrial society operates extremely important mutations and the informational crisis operates absurdities accurately reflected by the chats on the Internet All these things determine us to introduce a new concept, that of disculture. References to disculture had already been made. There are even historical records, the disculture not being a phenomenon appeared in this moment or belonging exclusively to the post-informational society. 40 000 years ago a pre-figurative period existed (the niusterian period) or in the III-rd century BC China when, soon after the achievement of the apogee in the classic poetry, the experimentalism started. We don’t insist on these historical reconsiderations. It’s not the case for us to do this. In our case we can only give us as an example. For having dissociated personalities we cannot distinguish it anymore from the immediate reality. Whom? Why? Prophet reaffirms the fact that in the reconstruction of the humans as cyborgs their bodies remain the bases and they preserve the suffering and feeling-pain abilities. The body is no longer a functional complex medically defined but field of forces, which is not limited to what the Western medicine describes as organic. The body’s organs are not functional biologic apparatus but temporal condensations, energetically fluctuations that auto-transform constantly; they cannot be objectified as continuous corporeal elements. It is about a heterogeneous inform field, fractal maybe, where temporal limited events take place. This approach could have connections with the European anti-grammatical tradition that links the “empty body” of Bataille and the “non-organs body” of Artaud with the “intensities body” of Deleuse and Guattari. The development of the computer technology could represent in this sense an opportunity for questioning the European corporeal logic, the speculative and creative applications of the computer permitting the opening of an imaginative space for the body’s re-conceptualization. The nanotechnology could represent the potentiality for inventing hypothetical heterogeneous organs that would develop alternative cultural models, operational for the body. I read in this regard in Dilema something written by Andrei Codrescu who heard too, I don’t remember where, that the body’s organs are some kind of separated entities arrived from different planets and they stay together and we don’t know that. And what’s gravely is we don’t know either when they’ll separate for leaving on the planets they originally came. Aliens I mean. The post-industrialized society supposes cohabitation between the postindustrial society and a secret alien’s society, allowing us to speak in matter of social phenomenon about a dissocial phenomenon. The critic on the human ontological hegemony has not on its base the historical or philosophical reflections but it is a consequence of the human research and creativity. The liminal experience leads to the subjectivisation mechanism, a sort of taking knowledge of itself, attribute (and I avoid to say more) of Humans.

Premises of the Mystical Disappearance

I don’t like Russians. But I did like at a moment a project that had in view the lives of ten losers. And it was not about a special concourse of events. These losers were merely flops for whom never a chance was predicted. It was a project undertaken by Ylia Kabakov that referred to what happens with the art that doesn’t enter the museums, that does enter the museum, but those museums are situated in a wrong geopolitical context; that is not registered or does not enter into some financial or social system, a determined, safety one. I think, I don’t remember very well, Ylia’s critic mentioned all these problems and he was wondering where do the things, the works and the artists disappear. He said something about an almost mystic, total disappearance and then he was changed rapidly the subject talking about another topic he considered as being more interesting.

The Mystic Disappearance

Where disappears the not recorded artists? How many artists did disappear in this manner? Does it matter anymore? I’m scared about the difference between categories that doesn’t exist anymore, which disappeared. What are the categories of artists? Who are these artists anyway? Conceptualists? Performers? Videasts? Old-new-mediasts? New-new-mediasts? Painters? Sculptures? Drawers? Architects? Neo-expressionists? Post-conceptualists? Theoreticians? What is the difference between the corpse of a person who never smoked and that of a person who did? The not-smoker’s corpse is healthier than that of the smoker’s. The problem is where disappear those persons? Which is the disappearance process? What does he do? The Artist? Why was Ylia preoccupied for a while about something that concerned the mystic disappearance? Who gave up later when he was assimilated? This is a wide territory. The state of mystic disappearance. There always existed artists stationed in this territory. A territory of mystic predisappearance (in fact) where the artists gifted for study are studying, influencing, determining the state of mystical disappearance. Their study has finality (or two finalities?). Or, first, they mystically disappear. Or, bi, they are assimilated to the major territory of contemporary art.
Ceaselessly, for ages, the artists practiced the state of mystical disappearance. Why nobody talked about this so far? In the territory of mystical predisappearance they were in state of elevated consciousness, they were too high-stoned and preoccupied and when they recovered they forgot everything. Or they mystically disappeared for good. What do the artists feel when they mystically disappear? Nothing. Wasn’t anybody who returned from there? No, there wasn’t. No, they feel a complexity of feelings. Bad ones. Mona asked how do we know? ‘Cause they could have good feelings. I don’t like “bad”. How do we know that? Raluca says too that we are cynical. That this is why we don’t understand. We don’t insist. Anyway, the mystical disappearance has nothing in common with the underground, with the mystical, with the disappearance. However, apropos of disappearance, if around 50 species of animals are disappearing everyday, and those who mystically disappear, being in a proportional connection with the growing tendency of human population, have also a growing tendency, we can conclude that in matter of mystical disappearance, this one incline towards infinite.

The last chapter

That Romanian art manifests the symptoms of mystical disappearance. And that’s extraordinary. That the art of minor cultures disappears mystically is once again no news. That from the mystical disappearance perspective the art of major cultures has the same fate as that of the minor cultures, it’s normal. And when you realize that disappearance seems to be a problem of meaning there is no difference anymore. We are to take people that theoretically have no fortune, and we choose them by chance standing on the criteria that we know them. This is not a group exhibition it is an alive organism that borns and grows up as a consequence of a necessity. That’s why the exhibition will compose /classify/describe/tell/research/ various concepts, works, preoccupations, systematized by means of multimedia, video, photography, text of the artists of Rostopasca group and other alliances and not only.
Necessary equipment and materials

10 video monitors fixed with flexible structures on the walls
10 video players
2 computers Pentium II / III, 450-800 Mhz (video plate SVGA + TV video out), software - Windows X, connection with a projector
2 boxes for the photo documentation

Space: A dark room with a white wall for the projection (or a screen, 200x300cm). The monitors fixed on the walls of the same space will display 20 films* made by different authors. On the two computers could be accessed 1) folders with documentations and informations about the artist present or not in the exhibition 2) an e-mail address that will function as an “international” information receiver (artists, groups of artists and not only; they are to be contacted and they are ecpected to respond in text or image, etc.). The texts and images will build an archive about artists, mystic disappearance, works and they will be projeceted successively.
A photo documentation (in boxes) with artists mystically dissappeared or artists that are going to mystically disappear. This “archive” can be consulted by the public. Coordinator Mona Vatamanu.
The minimum of space necessary for the display (estimatively) 10 x 10 m.

*The video films are or not related to the subject (+ themes like the social, autobiographic, psychiatric, psychological, SF, ecological). Except these works will also be projected the film The Contemplation (The Rostemplation 2), video VHS, 6’, a project by Florin Tudor which will bring together the artists present in the exhibition:
The camera spins around continousely. This time, inside of a room. Some boys and girls appear. They come, leave, sit down, they don’t talk too much, they don’t have too much to discuss. Probably they enter in contemplation instantaneously. They don’t realize what is going on. Technically speaking I can’t explain myself anything excepting the image that is getting crazy a little bit. There are two overlaped images. The above layer starts to disolve itself, no, the people is to disolve. The above layer disappears, in fact the people disappears. The camera continues to spin around the empty room. After the artists’ disappearance in contemplation the camera maintains the contemplation effect for a long time on .


Stadiul intermediar la care se referă textul introductiv (Context Network, pavilionul Ro de la Veneția) se găsește pe site-ul ce face parte din proiect www.context.ro, mai precis aici.

Project Rostopasca Disparitia Mistica

Grupul Rostopasca a participat cu o etapa a acestui proiect la Bienala de la Venetia, anul acesta, ca insert in proiectul Context Network, curatori Alexandru Patatics, Sebastian Berthalan.( vezi reviews)
Cumva acest proiect reflecta o stare proprie a artistilor care traiesc si lucreaza in contextul romanesc, starea asta de diparitie despre care e vorba in proiect se regaseste si in viata sociala sau economica din Romania si se pot face analogii cu situatia altor tari din sud-estul Europei sau chiar cu anumite tendinte din occident.
Conceptul tau Palpable In –Equilibrium defineste foarte exact starea de instabilitate cu care se confrunta un artist din Romania. Noi cind ne raportam la aceasta instabilitate, ok, lucru cu care dealfel te obisnuiesti dupa 10 ani, o facem cu detasare, nu incercam sa dam vina neaparat pe o anumita mentalitate socialista care se perpetueaza, pe care o regasesti chiar si la cei care au orientari politice diametral opuse fata de stinga, incercam sa nu ne lamentam si sa nu avem o politica de a expune numai in galerii de afara. Practic incercam sa gasim in aceasta stare de disparitie mistica un sens, o oaza, incercind sa construim ceva care oricum e sortit disparitiei. Si daca tot a venit vorba de oaza am avea de povestit o situatie destul de similara cu a noastra, dintr-un film italian: unii pica cu avionul pe o insula stau acolo o vreme, pina cind uita de cind sint acolo, si pe urma intr-o zi, zice unu: Bai voi stiti ce zi e azi? Pai azi este anul nou, si se hotarasc sa-l sarbatoreasca cu niste sampanie care o pitise unu intr-un geamantan in avion. Cam asta e situatia. Daca te opresti o secunda si evaluezi ce e in jur esti pierdut, singura solutie e sa existi si sa faci proiecte.

Instalarea: noi ne-am gindit ca sa situam central dupa un desen circular 6 monitoare plasate pe jos sau suspendate care sa ruleze vidoanele, si in jurul lor sa se organizeze instalatiile si foto related cu videourile care sa creeze un soi de parcurs, modificind spatiu dupa cum vezi si intr-unele dintre imaginile noastre.


The Mystical Disappearance presents:
Angela Bontas – Crinoline /2001, photo installation and object, dimension variable / psycho-pathological
Installation using Crinoline conceived like a trap/ a series of photographs describing people caught in this Crinoline with ironic sexual content.
Nicolae Comanescu – Demo, I trust in progress/ 2001,2000, video about copyright, 25’/ photo-installation using digital prints on plastic painted with spray paint/ social and economical
Demo is a video and a series of digital prints based on the idea of copyright and commercial material protected by copyright laws and some parts of the images are altered by a mosaic of pixels, I trust in progress is a series of photos using pampers painted suggesting an evolution in the shit color.
Alina Pentac – 10 ways to feel better, / 2001, work in progress, video about 10’ including 10 video pieces and photo installation/ social, psychological, sf and autobiographical
1- 10 WAYS TO FEEL BETTER”
2- it contains 10 experimental short films;
3- it is a work in progress , so the number of “ways” may increase(if it’s fine with you,hi,hi);
4- every one has a title (a way/remark, whatever you want to call it);
5- every one is 1 minute and few seconds long; that makes in total around 10-12 minutes (by now);
6- every one express an ironical way to try to feel better trough a solution/a way which is also the title at every one of them, and my “solutions” are inspired from my every day life in Bucharest and from the multitude of the books, very spread in every country I’ve been in, of course also in Romania, the books you can find in gift sections in libraries and all of them include/provide solutions, or ways to feel or to do everything you want or you can think of… Of course my video project inspired my them, is an ironical attitude to this form of false (in my opinion) solutions/ways/ keys to solve every ones problems/to achieve your goals, your happiness in life, bla,bla,bla, and also every one has a liaison with the cultural/ social life here.
7- titles:
1: Enjoy The Muuusic Of The Spheres…= short passage in an after hours house music club in Bucharest, the film is edit in slow motion effect, the image is reworked , exaggerated brightfull colors, the music is also changed , the atmosphere is becoming like an alien abduction.
2: Rerereinvent Yourself …= is a usual morning in my house, when I start preparing myself for the day, washing myself, trying to dress nicer, trying to look better, everything is in fast motion, like a silent movie, in the end I collapse, I’m existed. (by the way, the process seems to me that is very similar to what happens in this country…)
3. Search For The Herooo Inside Yourself…= is just a run into a labyrint and every way has a dead end.
4: Improve Your Sexxxx Life…= is like a slide show of sex-positions drawings, with Romanian voices speaking over (like in a sex intercourse), in the end is a scrolling text that leads to the thought that is nothing to improve, better to take a shower;
5: Clear Your Auuuura…= is just an ironical/funny way to imagine your aura as a chalk( but in flour) trace of a corps on a street, and the action of cleaning it is me sweeping it from the sidewalk.
6: Take Your Day Oooone Step At A Time…= is a one step walk (only feet filmed) with very different type of shoes, and different attitudes in the step take, depending of the shoe type.
7: Stay Coooool…= “ If you are feeling worried, nervous, angry, upset or irritated try the Emotion Cooler: put your right thumb over your right nostril, just lightly closing it off, exhale, inhale, slowly through your left nostril only for 20 complete breaths. Keep your mouth closed as long and smooth as you can. Each time you exhale let go off all tension, hurt, anger, irritability and negative emotions. Visualize these emotions draining out of your body so you feel clear and positive.”
The visualization part is a mixture between street dogs, street aurolaci, organs, shit, durt, misery.
8. Expect A Miiiiracle…
9. Stay Foooorever Young…
10: Make Gooood Vibrations…
Floe Tudor – Zen, The End of Postmodernism, Stroumfloe / 2001, 2000, video 3’, photo installation, digital print/ autobiographical, social
Zen is a video and a series of photographs about seeing things/images in other things/images suggesting various connections between events or objects apparently having nothing in common, also some of them are containing sexual allusions. The End of Postmodernism is a series of photographs made in Pellestrina island by spinning around and making photos 360o documenting common events. Stroumfloe is about manipulating an image and transforming trough Photoshop myself portrait using parts of a smurf portrait and the other way around.
Mona Vatamanu – Outside, Breakfast, Hypertrip / 2001,2000, 2001, video 3’, 14’, photo installation / autobiographical, ecological, social, political
Outside is a video about socio-political issues, Mona projects herself in an afgan women posture by wearing this black fabric mask, Breakfast is a registered performance, ecological about humans disguised in animals taking breakfast in an ironic way. Hypertrip contains touristic ironical references, is a series of photos presenting a little zebra toy voyaging in Italy and New York, studying the social involvement of the little zebra in this common touristic situation.
Rostopasca Group – Rostemplation/ 2000, video 5’/ social, cultural
Rostemplation at first it was thought like a contest who is better in spinning around with the camera but gradually the contestants are falling into deep rostemplation, the camera didn’t dig it and continues to film like nothing was happening.


The Mystical Disappearance
A project by Florin Tudor
in collaboration with Raluca Velisar, Nicolae Comanescu

Introduction in the History of the Disculture

Or I dreamt one night a dream that there were some bears, a father-bear, a mother-bear with two little bears and they had been made their home beneath a car, on the street. I’ve also seen a dog beside my block, a red one who made the same. And I don’t know what was about those bears, but they seemed to be trustworthy and I entered their den. In the actual context the post-industrial society operates extremely important mutations and the informatic crisis operates absurdities accurately reflected by the chats on the Internet All these things determine us to introduce a new concept, that of disculture . References to disculture had already been made . There are even historical records, the disculture not being a phenomenon appeared in this moment or belonging exclusively to the post-informational society. 40 000 years ago a prefigurative period existed (the niusterian period) or in the III rd century BC China when, soon after the achievement of the apogee in the classic poetry, the experimentalism started. We don’t insist on this historical reconsideration. It’s not the case for us to do this. In our case we can only give us as an example. For having dissociated personalities we can not distinguish it anymore from the immediate reality. Whom? Why? Prophet reaffirms the fact that in the reconstruction of the humans as cyborgs their bodies remain the bases and they preserve the suffering and feeling-pain abilities. The body is no longer a functional complex medically defined but field of forces, which is not limited to what the Western medicine describes as organic. The body’s organs are not functional biologic apparatus but temporal condensations, energetically fluctuations that auto-transform constantly; they can not be objectified as continuos corporeal elements. It is about a heterogeneous inform field, fractal maybe, where temporal limited events take place. This approach could have connections with the European antigrammatical tradition that links the “empty body” of Bataille and the “non-organs body” of Artaud with the “intensities body” of Deleuse and Guattari. The development of the computer technology could represent in this sense an opportunity for questioning the European corporeal logic, the speculative and creative applications of the computer permitting the opening of an imaginative space for the body’s re conceptualisation. The nanotechnology could represent the potentiality for inventing hypothetical heterogeneous organs that would develop alternative cultural models, operational for the body. I read in this regard in Dilema something written by Andrei Codrescu who heard too, I don’t remember where, that the body’s organs are some kind of separated entities arrived from different planets and they stay together and we don’t know that. And what’s gravely is we don’t know either when they’ll separate for leaving on the planets they originally came. Aliens I mean. The post-industrialised society supposes cohabitation between the postindustrial society and a secret alien’s society, allowing us to speak in matter of social phenomenon about a disocial phenomenon. The critic on the human ontological hegemony has not on its base the historical or philosophical reflections but it is a consequence of the human research and creativity. The liminal experience leads to the subjectivisation mechanism, a sort of taking knowledge of itself, attribute (and I avoid to say more) of Humans.

Premises of the Mystical Disappearance

I don’t like Russians. But I did like at a moment a project that had in view the lives of ten loosers. And it was not about a special concourse of events. These losers were merely flops for whom never a chance was predicted . It was a project undertaken by Ylia Kabakov that referred to what happens with the art that doesn’t enter the museums, that does enter the museum, but those museums are situated in a wrong geopolitical context; that is not registered or does not enter into some financial or social system, a determined, safety one. I think, I don’t remember very well, Ylia’s critic mentioned all these problems and he was wondering where do the things, the works and the artists disappear. He said something about an almost mystic, total disappearance and then he was changed rapidly the subject talking about another topic he considered as being more interesting.

The Mystic Disappearance

Where disappears the not recorded artists? How many artists did disappear in this manner? Does it matter anymore? I’m scared about the difference between categories that doesn’t exist anymore, which disappeared . What are the categories of artists? Who are these artists anyway? Conceptualists? Performers? Videasts? Old-new-mediasts? New-new-mediasts? Painters? Sculptures? Drawers? Architects? Neo-expressionists? Post-conceptualists? Theoreticians? What is the difference between the corpse of a person who never smoked and that of a person who did? The not-smoker’s corpse is healthier than that of the smoker’s . The problem is where disappear those persons? Which is the disappearance process? What does he do? The Artist? Why was Ylia preoccupied for a while about something that concerned the mystic disappearance? Who gave up later when he was assimilated? This is a wide territory. The state of mystic disappearance. There always existed artists stationed in this territory. A territory of mystic predisappearance (in fact) where the artists gifted for study are studying, influencing, determining the state of mystical disappearance. Their study has finality (or two finalities?). Or, first, they mystically disappear. Or, bi, they are assimilated to the major territory of contemporary art.
Ceaselessly, for ages, the artists practised the state of mystical disappearance. Why nobody talked about this so far? In the territory of mystical predisappearance they were in state of elevated consciousness, they were too high-stoned and preoccupied and when they recovered they forgot everything. Or they mystically disappeared for good. What do the artists feel when they mystically disappear? Nothing. Wasn’t anybody who returned from there? No, there wasn’t. No, they feel a complexity of feelings. Bad ones. Mona asked how do we know? ‘Cause they could have good feelings. I don’t like “bad”. How do we know that? Raluca says too that we are cynical. That this is why we don’t understand. We don’t insist. Anyway, the mystical disappearance has nothing in common with the underground , with the mystical, with the disappearance . However, apropos of disappearance, if around 50 species of animals are disappearing everyday, and those who mystically disappear, being in a proportional connection with the growing tendency of human population, have also a growing tendency, we can conclude that in matter of mystical disappearance, this one incline towards infinite.

The last chapter

That Romanian art manifests the symptoms of mystical disappearance. And that’s extraordinary. That the art of minor cultures disappears mystically is once again no news. That from the mystical disappearance perspective the art of major cultures has the same fate as that of the minor cultures, it’s normal. And when you realise that disappearance seems to be a problem of meaning there is no difference anymore. We are to take people that theoretically have no fortune, and we choose them by chance standing on the criteria that we know them. This is not a group exhibition it is an alive organism that rises and grows up as a consequence of a necessity. That’s why the exhibition will compose /classify/describe/tell/research/ various concepts, works, preoccupations, systematised by means of multimedia, video, photography, text of the artists of Rostopasca Group and other alliances and not only.
Space: The monitors fixed on the walls of the same space will display videos* made by authors from Rostopasca Group. On a computer could be accessed folders with documentation and information about the artists presenting the state of mystical disappearance, the texts and images will “build” an archive about artists/ a photo documentation (on CD- Rom ) with artists mystically disappeared or artists in the process of mystical disappearance. The public can consult this “archive”. Coordinator Mona Vatamanu.

*The video films are or not related to the subject (themes as the social, autobiographic, economical, political, psychological, SF, ecological).

Transcafe 2001

5 octombrie 2001, ora 18

Digital media festival, Quezon City, Philippines 2001

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iata un link catre acest festival

Bienala de la Veneția - CONTEXT

Catalogul pavilionului RO la Bienala de la Veneția, „Context Network”, 10 iunie-4 noiembrie 2001

The inserts for the Romanian pavilion project space:
Rostopasca Group:
ROSTEMPLAȚIA (Rostopasca)
ZEN (Floe Tudor)
OUTSIDE (Mona Vătămanu)
DEMO (Nicolae Comănescu)
XTREME (Alina Pențac)
TOXICOLOGIE (Alina Buga)

Catalogul e online integral. Scan-ul e superfluu.
Site-ul ce face parte din proiect e încă online, iar pagina Rostopasca e aici.

Lex Luthor Found Projects

Lex Luthor Found Projects
expo din 2001 la Fotogaleria GAD
Nicolae Comanescu si Angela Bontas
graffiti: Florin Tudor, Nicolae Comanescu, Andrei Gruia

COOP 1

Afiș COOP 1, Eforie, Atelier 35, 5 februarie, de la 7 seara

Angela Bontaș - „Scaun” (?) @ Lex Luthor Found Projects, Fotogaleria GAD, 2001

instalație a Angelei Bontaș (inițial) parte din Lex Luthor Found Projects, Fotogaleria GAD, 2001 cu versiuni ulterioare

Transitionland - Magda Cârneci

Magda Cârneci în Observator Cultural nr. 48, ianuarie 2001
textul e în arhiva online a revistei, aici.

I trust in progress (Lex Luthor Found Projects) 2001

Angela Bontaș & Nicolae Comănescu

Lex Luthor Found Projects

Lex Luthor Found Projects
expo din 2001 la Fotogaleria GAD
Nicolae Comanescu si Angela Bontas
fotografii dintr-un performance facut de mine si de Florin Tudor cu lucrarile Angelei Bontas




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