THE LAW OF CAPITAL: HISTORIES OF OPPRESSION
Ana Hoffner: MOVEMENT.PRIVATIZED
Reenactment for masters, citizens, artists and a dog
Artist: Good evening and welcome. My performance is a reenactment of a video performance by the American artist Bruce Nauman from 1968. Walking in an exaggerated manner in the perimeters of a square, in the privacy of his studio, Bruce Nauman was exploring the relationship between body and space. The artist walked within the perimeters of a square in a way which looked something like this.
The artist starts walking within the perimeters of the square.
His movement was being recorded by a camera, just like mine is now, in order to be accessible to the audience. This walk is “exaggerated” – excessive, elegant, perhaps even existential. Like many artists from that period, Nauman shows art as a process, as an activity, as work. This work, however, is not just a representation of so-called reality. Art is something that is going on. Bruce Nauman’s walk within the perimeters of the square can be art as well. The artist walks in his studio, a master in his house, a citizen in his country.
Pause
Today, 40 years later, I am repeating the movement of Bruce Nauman as I claim that the square as a symbol of abstraction and erasure in modernity has expanded. The symbol of a square does not only form a part of an artwork. It also marks the mode of functioning of neoliberal capitalism. This system is maintained through its continuous proclamation of itself as the centre that absorbs its peripheries. It functions as a process; using methods of privatization and depolitization, the distinctions between the centre and the periphery are blurred. In order for the capital to circulate boundlessly, all the differences that were until now able to resist the power of the centre are now incorporated within it. The act of walking within the perimeters of a square is not just an activity performed by the artist in his studio, but rather it is the activity of all productive forces dealing with capital. The square normalizes every difference. At least until every difference is not incorporated in a productive subject. This subject doesn’t need difference anymore, he appropriated it, enclosed it in its own body with all its extensions. He enclosed it into the system of home/homeland. He enclosed it into the reproductive heterosexuality that is the principle of home and the homeland.
Reproductive heterosexuality lives from perversity. For the master, the citizen, and the artist, there are no more obstacles, there is nothing that prevents his pleasure. Nobody has to be perverse enough to be able to consume all the perversions, just as nobody has to be straight enough to live a straight life. The chosen lesbians, gays and other perverts shall return to their homes. Their movement can be work or can just be an elegant gesture of an artist walking within the perimeters of a square.
Pause
In 1989, when one border disappeared allowing the square to expand, I did not move. I was a refugee, I was illegal. There is no proof of that; there is no authenticity, no trail of tears. There is no evidence proving me to be a migrant. Because I haven’t changed, I have always been the Other. I have surrendered to the apparatuses that produce life. I became just like those who were alive then.
The artist walks backwards within the perimeters of the square.
This is not walking, it’s a getaway. This is not a home, it’s the disfunctionality of homeland. There is no escape and no space outside the square. All barriers have fallen and now you are not my audience anymore, you have become a part of my drama. In this intimacy any distance between us is gone.
The artist disappears, replaced by a dog.
In the space with no borders you become a snob, and I become an animal. In this intimacy you are the consumer and I am consumed. I am Kulik. I take care of the cleanliness in your home, I am a sexual worker of your desires, I am a refugee declaring you a citizen. My language is the organ of the informal sector. I am the condition for your existence.
The dog licks the shoes of its masters, the citizens and artists. And then bites.
I am your Kulik! You can’t get rid of me! There is no space outside of the square! You are bound to me. I am yours… I can satisfy all your perversions! I am your Kulik – always on the run. I am your Kulik compelled to change constantly my positions, states, languages, bodies and ideologies. You can’t get rid of me. You can’t stop me. You can’t kill me.
Attempts to stop the dog are in vain.
Should I continue? Until where, until I reach the ultimate excess? Should I play the pervert for each of you? WHO has to be the animal, the migrant, the pervert, and who will be the masters, citizens and artists?
The dog ceases to perform its part, not taking on another one. On the scene remain the masters, citizens and artists with no function.
Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulović is a performance artist working in the fields of queer and migratory politics.
Artist: Good evening and welcome. My performance is a reenactment of a video performance by the American artist Bruce Nauman from 1968. Walking in an exaggerated manner in the perimeters of a square, in the privacy of his studio, Bruce Nauman was exploring the relationship between body and space. The artist walked within the perimeters of a square in a way which looked something like this.
The artist starts walking within the perimeters of the square.
His movement was being recorded by a camera, just like mine is now, in order to be accessible to the audience. This walk is “exaggerated” – excessive, elegant, perhaps even existential. Like many artists from that period, Nauman shows art as a process, as an activity, as work. This work, however, is not just a representation of so-called reality. Art is something that is going on. Bruce Nauman’s walk within the perimeters of the square can be art as well. The artist walks in his studio, a master in his house, a citizen in his country.
Pause
Today, 40 years later, I am repeating the movement of Bruce Nauman as I claim that the square as a symbol of abstraction and erasure in modernity has expanded. The symbol of a square does not only form a part of an artwork. It also marks the mode of functioning of neoliberal capitalism. This system is maintained through its continuous proclamation of itself as the centre that absorbs its peripheries. It functions as a process; using methods of privatization and depolitization, the distinctions between the centre and the periphery are blurred. In order for the capital to circulate boundlessly, all the differences that were until now able to resist the power of the centre are now incorporated within it. The act of walking within the perimeters of a square is not just an activity performed by the artist in his studio, but rather it is the activity of all productive forces dealing with capital. The square normalizes every difference. At least until every difference is not incorporated in a productive subject. This subject doesn’t need difference anymore, he appropriated it, enclosed it in its own body with all its extensions. He enclosed it into the system of home/homeland. He enclosed it into the reproductive heterosexuality that is the principle of home and the homeland.
Reproductive heterosexuality lives from perversity. For the master, the citizen, and the artist, there are no more obstacles, there is nothing that prevents his pleasure. Nobody has to be perverse enough to be able to consume all the perversions, just as nobody has to be straight enough to live a straight life. The chosen lesbians, gays and other perverts shall return to their homes. Their movement can be work or can just be an elegant gesture of an artist walking within the perimeters of a square.
Pause
In 1989, when one border disappeared allowing the square to expand, I did not move. I was a refugee, I was illegal. There is no proof of that; there is no authenticity, no trail of tears. There is no evidence proving me to be a migrant. Because I haven’t changed, I have always been the Other. I have surrendered to the apparatuses that produce life. I became just like those who were alive then.
The artist walks backwards within the perimeters of the square.
This is not walking, it’s a getaway. This is not a home, it’s the disfunctionality of homeland. There is no escape and no space outside the square. All barriers have fallen and now you are not my audience anymore, you have become a part of my drama. In this intimacy any distance between us is gone.
The artist disappears, replaced by a dog.
In the space with no borders you become a snob, and I become an animal. In this intimacy you are the consumer and I am consumed. I am Kulik. I take care of the cleanliness in your home, I am a sexual worker of your desires, I am a refugee declaring you a citizen. My language is the organ of the informal sector. I am the condition for your existence.
The dog licks the shoes of its masters, the citizens and artists. And then bites.
I am your Kulik! You can’t get rid of me! There is no space outside of the square! You are bound to me. I am yours… I can satisfy all your perversions! I am your Kulik – always on the run. I am your Kulik compelled to change constantly my positions, states, languages, bodies and ideologies. You can’t get rid of me. You can’t stop me. You can’t kill me.
Attempts to stop the dog are in vain.
Should I continue? Until where, until I reach the ultimate excess? Should I play the pervert for each of you? WHO has to be the animal, the migrant, the pervert, and who will be the masters, citizens and artists?
The dog ceases to perform its part, not taking on another one. On the scene remain the masters, citizens and artists with no function.
THE END
Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulović is a performance artist working in the fields of queer and migratory politics.
Ana Hoffner, Movement.Privatized, 2009, reenactment
