Tag: Marco Baravalle

ART FOR RADICAL ECOLOGIES | workshop at VENICE CLIMATE CAMP 2023

ENGLISH

ART FOR RADICA ECOLOGIES platform

Institute of Radical Imagination with Marco Baravalle, Emanuele Braga, Gabriella Riccio, Federica Timeto

September 9th, at 3 pm

What does ‘radical ecologies’ mean? An appointment to proceed in the collective writing of a manifesto that positions the art world in the fight for climate justice.

Follow up to the Art for Radical Ecologies Assembly opended at Venice Climate Camp 2022, to move towards the Art for Radical Ecologies (manifesto)

ITALIANO

ARTE PER LE ECOLOGIE RADICALI la piattaforma

Institute of Radical Imagination con Marco Baravalle, Emanuele Braga, Gabriella Riccio, Federica Timeto

9 Settembre alle 15:30

Cosa significa “ecologie radicali”? Un appuntamento per procedere nella scrittura collettiva di un manifesto che posizioni il mondo dell’arte nella lotta per la giustizia climatica.

Il seguito all’Assemblea Art for Radical Ecologies aperta al Venice Climate Camp 2022, per andare verso Art for Radical Ecologies (manifesto)

WORK, NOT UBI, MAKES US MORE LONELY AND COMPETITIVE

Marco Baravalle & Emanuele Braga

ENGLISH

Marco Baravalle and Emanuele Braga will be at Teatro do Bairro Alto, in Lisbon, for a live presentation of the Art for UBI manifesto. Before that, they answered some questions about this work and its central theme, the Unconditional Basic Income (RBI or UBI).

You dedicate all your time to studies. You behave in class, read the textbooks, do your homework. Progress and repeat the procedure at each new difficulty level until you unlock a new map. In the world of work, the days lengthen, and your concentration narrows. There is no longer time for discovery and all the time must be dedicated to complying, with professionalism and resilience, with the orders of the boss. You depend on your salary, social security does not guarantee a dignified life, and among so many duties, changing is no longer a right. You have to work at the expense of the present, and work with fear of the future that you never know what it will bring. Working to pay the rent, to feed the family, to enjoy the world. It is from the work that the reward comes, it is the work that justifies the salary, and it will be our aptitudes to do so that guarantee us a dignified life, we are told. But will it be so?

Without telling anyone’s story, this story that anyone can identify with, reflects a systemic narrative. Our life, from an early age, is organized according to work, in a bet based on the expectation that the salary will fulfill, one day, in a hypothetical future, the missive of guaranteeing each employee a dignified life. But if for many years its questioning was out of the question, the data we have today make it more difficult to believe it.

The inflation that is reflected in the profits of large corporations, the galloping cost of housing in low-wage areas, precariousness, which is spreading around the world like a virus that erodes rights and guarantees, with an almost pandemic character, or the flagrant crisis climate, not only threaten the promise of seeing a dignified life in wages, but also denote the perversity of the paths we have followed behind this idea. Faced with so many signs, it is urgent to broaden the horizons of our vision and that is the proposal of the Institute for Radical Imagination, the space where the Art For UBI manifesto by Marco Baravalle, Emanuele Braga and Gabriella Riccio was born.

“While the financial elite continues to use the art market as a safe haven for financial assets, the Covid-19 pandemic has further highlighted the fragility and precariousness of artistic workers around the world. This context fueled the discussion around the Universal Basic Income. The Art for UBI manifesto argues that this measure is a necessary condition to rethink an ecologically extractive economic model, correct race and gender asymmetries and change the current neoliberal structure of the art world”, reads in the project description.

Bringing together in book format a set of artists’ essays on Unconditional Basic Income, Baravalle, Braga and Riccio seek not only to create a publication that informs this debate, but also to initiate a broader conversation about the necessary changes in our society. As a result of this intention, Baravalle and Braga will be on the 29th of June (Thursday) at the Teatro do Bairro Alto, in Lisbon, for a live presentation of their manifesto and, before that, they responded by email to a short interview about their investigation.

Emanuele Braga is an activist, artist, co-founder of the Institute of Radical Imagination and member of MACAO, a structure where he experimented with Common Coin and Bank of the common. He contributed to the Income performances. The unconditional speech, at Wiener Festwochen in June 2021, and in One income, many worlds, at Museo Reina Sofia, in September 2021. Marco Baravalle is an activist, researcher, co-founder of the Institute of Radical Imagination and member of S.a.L.E. Docks, an independent collective dedicated to the relationship between art, activism and gentrification. He was one of the contributors to the performance One income, many worlds, at the Museo Reina Sofia, in September 2021.


Shifter (S.): I know it’s a tough question but since you’ve delved into the topic. Are you able to give us a snapshot of the horizon in relation to UBI? What did you feel are the main obstacles and, by the way, what did you feel would be the biggest gains globally?

E.B.: I think we need to flip the perspective: the truth is that work is no longer enough. The financialization of the economy and the dismantling and precarization of the labor market have made it impossible to distribute sufficient wealth through work. For this reason, I believe we should take these two possible scenarios in the European area seriously: on one hand, struggles for a welfare system that replaces and complements the lack of income from work. On the other hand, we must prepare for major processes of social expulsion and revolt.

M.B.: If, as Emanuele says, wage work is no longer the unique tool for the distribution of wealth, is also true that the main obstacles to deeply rethink our system in Europe, come from reactionary governments which, beyond their populist rhetoric, once in power, cut on the already weak welfare system and enact laws that widen the gap between rich and poor. We are witnessing this very process right now in Italy. But this is not simply a problem of the far right. The rigidity with which Macron reacted to the large French movement against his pension reform is unbelievable. On the other hand, the movements in France show that broad layers of society are strongly posing the issue of income distribution and are also doing so in connection with other issues, such as that of environmental justice.

S.: Lately, with the emergence of generative technologies we have seen a fuss about a possible devaluation of artists. However, if we understand these models we see that they are not really creative, they cannot really replace artists, they can produce objects that replace art in the value chains. This has more to do with the economic model of art than with art itself? Do you agree that there is confusion around this idea, and that it is important to think collectively about what is art and what is the art market?

E.B.: I don’t believe that AI is stealing artists’ jobs. I think the relationship between art and technological innovation should be interpreted in a different way. Creativity, the figure of the artist, has been the laboratory for transitioning from the paradigm of factory work to the post-Fordist one. It’s a production model based on being entrepreneurs of oneself, being flexible, collaborative, and multitasking. Within the paradigm of creative industries, the social organization of digital platforms has developed. The laboratory of creativity and the surplus it continually reproduces are captured by capital in the form of technological innovation. Creativity dissolves into society like an aspirin in a glass of water, as Paolo Virno said in “Grammar of the Multitude.” Now I add: from that glass of water, algorithmic control of society and the automation of our behaviors have emerged. Behind AI, there is the collective intelligence of billions of people who contribute to its capabilities, and hundreds of thousands of underpaid workers who invisibly maintain its infrastructure and functioning. Unlike the creative industries, art now more than ever has a role in giving expression to subversion, sabotage, and the space to de-automate the technological circuits of domination.

S.: Do you think it is important to free artists from this almost existential need to produce for the market?

E.B.: I don’t want to perpetuate the idea of art as a space of privilege, created by individuals who can afford it economically and culturally. Our friend and comrade Gregory Sholette, in “Dark Matter,” contrasts the enormous invisible production of symbols, art, and culture that takes place in activism and social cooperation with the few artists recognized as famous by the art system and the market. The immense production of art, signs, and culture within society is to famous artists what dark matter in the universe is to the few visible stars. I believe that as art institutions, we need to build discursive devices that exist within the social and the struggles. While the art market tends to commodify activism and militant research, aestheticizing the struggles, I believe in the exact opposite: we should understand how expressive dispositifs can become war-machines (in the sense Gilles Deleuze uses this term) to organize processes of liberation within society.

M.B.: I would like to add that I think it is very important to create new possibilities of subjectivation for artists outside the market. This is one of the goals of radical art, to find ways for art and for being an artist (or art worker) within, but also against and beyond the predefined track (art school-biennials-museum-gallery). This doesn’t mean, as in the common sense of avant-garde, to merge art and life, but to win new autonomy for the art fact, more autonomy from the pervasive presence of capital.

S.: Do you think this change is essential and necessary to unlock transfeminist and decolonial struggles? Can it be a way to mitigate structural inequalities?

E.B.: The feminist perspective was the first to focus on this point, going beyond the interpretation that the working class made of Marx. Feminists have asserted that the central aspect of capital extraction lies in the invisibilization of reproductive labor. Capital has always profited from the cycles of life reproduction more than from exploiting wage labor. In the investigations we are conducting in various European territories, it becomes evident that citizenship and race are the other main dispositifs of exploitation. Denying equal rights and forcing individuals along racial lines to perform the most degrading jobs and social positions is an incredible lever for exploitation and the accumulation of privilege. Recognizing a Universal Basic Income and universal social services such as education, healthcare, and housing for everyone is undoubtedly a measure that breaks the chains of blackmail and exploitation. It is a way to ensure that all individuals have access to a basic level of economic security and fundamental services, regardless of their background or circumstances.

M.B: We see how often gender, race and class exploitations are intersected. We need to find ways to create a positive intersectionality too. That is why, beyond its social impact, we focused on the possible impact of UBI on gender, race, and ecological inequalities. If I may, one limit that is often visible within the art world at this very moment is a widespread attention towards decolonial and queer perspectives, but in the framework of a general acceptance of the neoliberal system. On the contrary, I agree with the Combahee River Collective (a collective of Afro-American feminists from the 70s) when they wrote: “We are socialists because we believe that work must be organized for the collective benefit of those who do the work and create the products, and not for the profit of the bosses. Material resources must be equally distributed among those who create these resources. We are not convinced, however, that a socialist revolution that is not also a feminist and anti-racist revolution will guarantee our liberation”.

S.: Some critics of UBI say that promoting such an agenda – where the money goes to the individual – may promote a more individualized society and lead to a disconnect from collective causes or even a weakening of social democracy. What would be your counter-argument to this criticism?

E.B.: I have no idea; I’m not trying to sell anything, but to understand. In the investigations we have conducted by listening to people, I have come to understand that people are prone to depression, burnout, bullying, feeling lonely and isolated, to the point of quitting their jobs because it is work that induces individualism, loneliness, and selective competition. Work, not UBI, leads us to be lonely and competitive. Secondly, people who have access to social services and income support usually begin to cooperate. They do things they couldn’t afford to do before. I believe it is similar to managing leisure time, time for nurturing relationships, for play, for doing something meaningful, for organizing based on one’s beliefs. I don’t think anyone has ever feared that granting more leisure time would result in a society of competitive individualists. It seems absurd and propaganda full of bias and preconceptions.

M.B.: I think such a statement is simply a lie. The neoliberal system is based on the ideology of individualization. Cooperation is disincentivized, our networked economy is the fruit of social intelligence, but its fruits are sifted and harvested for profit. Instead, we think that income guarantee measures and a solid welfare system are important tools to free up all that time now invested in individual competition and give more breathing space to collective dynamics and cooperative processes.

S.: Your project has several formats, among them a book where you put together several perspectives on the UBI. You identify yourselves as artists but you are a little different from the orthodoxy of producing pieces for the market or the galleries. Do you think it is important to go down this path, and create these pretexts for artists to think more about the world and less only about their next exhibition or their next work?

 E.B.: The history of art is filled with artists who have said things that couldn’t be said, who have shown what cultural and political regimes tried to make invisible. The history of art is also populated by political dissidents and activists who pretended to be artists or used art as a means to express their thoughts without being directly imprisoned. The history of art I want to belong to is populated by these kinds of figures. I challenge you to search carefully and study the history of art beneath the surface of appearances because I don’t believe you will find many artists who have made their mark without belonging to one of these two categories.

M.B. In my case I don’t even identify as an artist. I usually introduce myself as an activist, researcher and curator. To me, Art For UBI is mainly a tool for experimenting a method of performative militant investigation. Something where aesthetics and politics intersect. Maybe Emanuele is right, our genealogy is to be found mainly in that “other” history of art (one of the many that exist), and indeed what characterizes our curriculum is a long commitment to grassroots activism.

S.: And how important is it to do it collectively? Do you think that the traditional path of art is giving rise to artists who are also more isolated? Is it necessary to recover the social fabric?

E.B.: I have been working as an artist for 25 years, and I have always signed my main works with collective signatures. In truth, even when I sign a work with just my name and surname, I know deep down that I am cheating. I strongly feel that the works, actions, speeches, and texts we produce are the result of complex situated relationships. I would be nothing without the network of relationships in which I choose to operate. Authorship lies more in the series of interdependencies we choose or happen to have. I am nothing on my own. And my name is always an anagram, the meaning of which is continuously evolving and implies collective intelligence, non-human resources, desires, and conditions of oppression. That is why I advise everyone, when they sign a work as a single author, to spend a lot of time explicitly elucidating the genealogy and interdependencies from which it derives.


M.B. Emanuele’s answer perfectly works for me too. Let me add one thing. Besides recovering the social fabric, I think what is commonly called radical art must also re-discover its way to conflict and social struggles. Too often in the past decades socially engaged art has presented itself with an NGO attitude, worried about repairing supposed micro-fractures while completely ignoring the structural causes of such damages.

PORTUGUES

Marco Baravalle e Emanuele Braga estarão no Teatro do Bairro Alto, em Lisboa, para uma apresentação ao vivo do manifesto Art for UBI. Antes disso, responderam a algumas questões sobre este trabalho e o seu tema central, o Rendimento Básico Incondicional (RBI ou UBI, na sigla em inglês).

Dedicas todo o teu tempo aos estudos. Comportas-te nas aulas, lês os manuais, fazes os trabalhos de casa. Progrides e repetes o procedimento a cada novo nível de dificuldade até que desbloqueias um novo mapa. No mundo do trabalho os dias alongam-se, e a tua concentração afunila-se. Já não há tempo para a descoberta e todo o tempo se deve dedicar ao cumprimento, com profissionalismo e resiliência, das ordens do patrão. Dependes do salário, a providência social não garante uma vida digna, e entre tantos deveres mudar deixa de ser um direito. Há que trabalhar para as custas do presente, e trabalhar com medo do futuro que nunca se sabe o que trás. Trabalhar para pagar a renda, para alimentar a família, para fruir do mundo. É do trabalho que surge a recompensa, é o trabalho que justifica o salário, e serão as nossas aptidões para o fazer a garantir-nos uma vida digna, dizem-nos. Mas será mesmo assim? 

Sem contar a história de ninguém, esta história com que qualquer um se pode identificar, reflete uma narrativa de carácter sistémico. A nossa vida, desde cedo que se organiza em função do trabalho, numa aposta baseada na expectativa de que o salário cumprirá, um dia, num futuro hipotético, a missiva de garantir a cada assalariado uma vida digna. Mas se durante muitos anos o seu questionamento esteve for de questão, os dados de que hoje dispomos tornam mais difícil acreditar nela. 

A inflação que se reflete nos lucros das grandes corporações, o galopante custo da habitação em zonas de baixos salários, a precariedade, que se vai disseminando pelo mundo como um vírus que corrói direitos e garantias, com um carácter quase pandémico, ou a flagrante crise climática, não só ameaçam a promessa de ver no salário uma vida digna, como denotam a perversidade dos caminhos que temos percorrido atrás desta ideia. Perante tantos sinais, urge alargar os horizontes da nossa visão e essa é a proposta do Instituto para a Imaginação Radical, espaço onde nasceu o manifesto Art For UBI de Marco Baravalle, Emanuele Braga e Gabriella Riccio. 

“Enquanto a elite financeira continua a usar o mercado de arte como um porto seguro para ativos financeiros, a pandemia da Covid-19 evidenciou ainda mais a fragilidade e precariedade de trabalhadores do meio artístico em todo o mundo. Este contexto alimentou a discussão em torno do Universal Basic Income (Rendimento Básico Universal). O manifesto Art for UBI defende que esta medida é condição necessária para repensar um modelo económico ecologicamente extrativista, corrigir assimetrias de raça e género e mudar a atual estrutura neoliberal do mundo da arte”, lê-se na descrição do projeto

Reunindo em formato livro um conjunto de ensaios de artistas sobre o Rendimento Básico Incondicional, Baravalle, Braga e Riccio, procuram não só criar uma publicação que informe este debate, como iniciar uma conversa alargada sobre as mudanças necessárias na nossa sociedade. Fruto dessa intenção, Baravalle e Braga estarão dia 29 de Junho (Quinta feira) no Teatro do Bairro Alto, em Lisboa, para uma apresentação ao vivo do seu manifesto e, antes disso, responderam por e-mail a uma pequena entrevista sobre a sua investigação. 

Emanuele Braga é ativista, artista, cofundador do Institute of Radical Imagination e membro de MACAO, estrutura onde fez experiências com Common Coin e Bank of the common. Contribuiu para as performances Income. The unconditional speech, no Wiener Festwochen em junho 2021, e em One income, many worlds, no Museo Reina Sofia, em setembro 2021. Marco Baravalle é ativista, investigador, cofundador do Institute of Radical Imagination e membro de S.a.L.E. Docks, coletivo independente que se dedica à relação entre arte, ativismo e gentrificação. Foi um dos contribuidores para a performance One income, many worlds, no Museo Reina Sofia, em setembro 2021.


Shifter (S.): Sei que pode ser uma pergunta difícil, mas dado que mergulharam no tema: são capazes de nos dar um retrato do horizonte do RBI? Quais são os principais obstáculos e quais seriam os principais ganhos globalmente?

Emanuele Braga (E.B.): Acho que temos de alterar essa perspectiva: a verdade é que o trabalho já não chega. A financeirização da economia e o desmantelamento e a precarização do trabalho tornaram impossível distribuir suficiente riqueza através do trabalho. Por essa razão, acredito que na área europeia devemos levar estes dois possíveis cenários a sério: por um lado, lutas pelo estado social que substitua e complemente a falta de salário pelo trabalho. Por outro, temos de nos preparar para grandes processos de expulsão e revolta social.

Marco Baravalle (M.B.): Se, como o Emanuele diz, o dinheiro do salário já não é a única forma de distribuição da riqueza, também é verdade que o grande obstáculo para pensar o nosso sistema da Europa, vem dos governos reacionários, por de trás de retóricas populistas, que uma vez no poder cortam no já fraco sistema de proteção social e decretam leis que aumentam a diferença entre os ricos e os pobres. Estamos a assistir a esse processo agora em Itália. Mas não é um problema exclusivo da extrema direita. A rigidez com que o Macron reagiu ao grande movimento francês contra a sua pensão de reformas é inacreditável. Por outro lado, estes movimentos em França mostram que mais camadas da sociedade estão a questionar em força a distribuição de rendimentos, e também o fazem em conexão com outros problemas, com a justiça ambiental.

S.: Ultimamente, com a emergência dos modelos generativos temos visto muita conversa sobre a possível desvalorização dos artistas. Contudo se entendermos como funcionam estes modelos vemos que não são criativos, não podem substituir artistas – quanto muito podem produzir objectos para ser transacionados nas mesmas cadeias de valor. Acham que isto tem mais a ver com o modelo económico do que com a arte em si? Acham que é importante colectivamente pensar o que é a arte e o que é o mercado da arte? 

E.B.: Eu não acredito que a IA esteja a roubar trabalhos de artistas. Acho que a relação entre a arte e a inovação tecnológica tem de ser interpretada de forma diferente. A [ideia de] criatividadea figura do artista, foi um laboratório para a transição do paradigma do trabalho operário para um paradigma pós-fordista. É um modelo de produção baseado em ser empreendedor de si próprio, flexível, colaborativo, multi-tarefa. Dentro deste paradigma das indústrias criativas, a organização social das plataformas digitais desenvolveu-se. O laboratório da criatividade e o excedente que esta continuamente reproduz são capturadas pelo capital em forma de inovação tecnológica. A criatividade dissolve-se na sociedade como uma aspirina num copo de água, como diz Paolo Virno no “Gramática da multitude”. Eu acrescento: que desse copo de água emergiu uma sociedade de controlo algorítimico e a automação dos nossos comportamentos. Por trás da I.A. está a inteligência coletiva de milhões de pessoas que contribuíram para as suas capacidades, centenas de milhar de trabalhadores mal pagos que invisivelmente mantém a infraestrutura e o seu funcionamento. Ao contrário das indústrias criativas, a arte mais do que nunca tem o papel de dar expressão à subversão, sabotagem, ao espaço para desautomatizar os circuitos tecnológicos de dominação. 

S.: Acreditam que o RBI podia ser importante também para libertar artistas da sua necessidade quase existencial de produzir para o mercado? 

E.B.: Eu não quero perpetuar a ideia da arte como um espaço de privilégio, criado por individuos que podem pagar por ela económica e culturalmente. O nosso amigo e camarada, Gregory Sholette, no “Dark Matter”, contrasta a enorme produção invisível de símbolos, arte, cultura, que se dá no ativismo e na cooperação social, com os poucos artistas reconhecidos como famosos pelo sistema artístico e o mercado. A imensa produção de arte, signos, e a cultura da própria sociedade está para os artistas famosos como a matéria negra no universo está para as poucas estrelas visíveis. Eu acredito que enquanto instituições artísticas, temos de construir dispositivos discursivos que existam dentro do social e das lutas. Enquanto o mercado da arte tende a mercantilizar o ativismo e a investigação militante, a estetizar as lutas, eu acredito no oposto: devemos compreender como os dispositivos expressivos podem tornar-se máquinas de guerra (no sentido em que Gilles Deleuze usa este termo) para organizar processos de libertação na sociedade.

M.B.: Quero acrescentar que é muito importante criar novas possibilidades de subjetivação dos artistas fora do mercado. Esse é um dos objetivos da arte radical, encontrar caminhos para a arte e para ser um artista (ou um trabalhador da arte) dentro, mas também contra e para além dos caminhos pré-definidos (escola de artes-bineal-museu-galeria). Isto não significa, como no senso comum de vanguarda, fundir a vida e a arte, mas antes ganhar uma nova autonomia para a arte, uma maior autonomia da presença pervasiva do capital.

S.: Acreditam que esta mudança é importante para desbloquear outras “lutas transfeministas e decoloniais”? Pode servir para mitigar desigualdades estruturais?

E.B.: A perspectiva feminista foi a primeira a focar-se neste ponto, a ir para além da interpretação que Marx fez da classe trabalhadora. As feministas afirmaram que um dos aspetos centrais da extração de capital reside na inivisibilização do trabalho reprodutivo. O capital sempre lucrou mais de ciclos de reprodução mais do que da exploração do trabalho assalariado. Na investigação que estamos a fazer em vários territórios europeus torna-se evidente que a cidadania e a raça são outros dois grandes dispostivos de exploração. Negar direitos iguais, e relegar indivíduos racializados aos trabalhos e às posições sociais mais degradantes, é uma alavanca incrível para a exploração e a acumulação de privilégio. Reconhecendo um Rendimento Básico Incondicional, e serviços sociais universais como a educação, a saúde, ou a habitação para todos, é, sem dúvida, uma medida que quebra a cadeia de chantagem e exploração. É uma forma de assegurar que todos os individuos têm acesso ao nível mais básico de segurança económica e aos serviços fundamentais, independentemente do seu contexto ou das suas circunstâncias.

M.B.: Vemos muitas vezes como as explorações do género, raça e classe se intersectam. Precisamos de encontrar formas de criar intersececionalidade positiva também. É por isso que, para além do impacto social, nos focados nos possíveis impactos do RBI no género, raça e nas desigualdades ecológicas. Se me permitem, um limite que é por vezes visível dentro do mundo da arte neste preciso momento é a atenção generalizada a perspectivas decoloniais e queer, mas enquadradas no sistema de aceitação geral do sistema neoliberal. Pelo contrário, eu concordo com a Combahee River Collective (um colectivo de feministas afro-americanas dos anos 1970) quando escreveram: “Nós somos socialistas porque acreditamos que o trabalho deve ser organizado para benefício colectivo daqueles que trabalham e para criar produtos, não lucros para os chefes. Os recursos materiais devem ser equitativamente distribuidos por aqueles que criam esses recursos. Nós não estamos convencidas, contudo, que uma revolução socialista que não seja também feminista e anti-racista, garanta a nossa liberação”

S.: Alguns críticos do RBI dizem que promover essa agenda – de dar dinheiro aos individuos – pode promover uma sociedade mais individualizada, provocar a desconexão de causas colectivas e um enfraquecimento do estado social. Como responderiam a esta crítica?

E.B.: Não faço ideia, não estou a tentar vender nada, mas a tentar compreender. E na investigação que temos feito ao ouvir as pessoas, eu fui-me apercebedo que as pessoas estão vulneráveis a depressão, burnoutbullying, a sentirem-se sós e isoladas, ao ponto de se despedirem dos trabalhos porque é esse trabalho que induz o individualismo, a solidão e a competição seletiva. O trabalho, não o RBI, torna-nos mais sós e competitivos. Para além disso, as pessoas quando têm acesso a serviços sociais e a apoios ao rendimento, geralmente, começam a cooperar. Fazem coisas que antes não se podiam dar ao luxo de fazer. Penso que é similar À gestão do tempo de lazer, tempo de nutrir relações, de brincar, para fazer algo com significado, para se organizar com base nas suas convicções. E não acho que alguém tema que dar mais tempo de lazer às pessoas possa resultar numa sociedade de individualistas competitivos. Parece-me absurdo e uma propaganda cheia de viéses e ideias pré-concebidas.

M.B.: Eu acho que tal afirmação é simplesmente uma mentira. O sistema neoliberal é baseado na ideologia da individualização. A cooperação é desincentivada, a nossa economia em rede é fruto da inteligência social, mas os seus frutos são escolhidos e colhidos apenas por lucro. Em vez disso, acreditamos que as medidas de garantia de rendimento e um sistema de segurança social sólido são instrumentos importantes para libertar todo o tempo atualmente investido na competição individual e dar mais espaço às dinâmicas colectivas e aos processos de cooperação.

S.: O vosso projecto tem várias vertentes, entre elas um livro com várias perspectivas sobre o RBI. Vocês identificam-se como artistas, mas o vosso trabalho foge à ortodoxia da produção de peças para o mercado e as galerias. Acham que é importante seguir esta via, criar pretextos para os artistas pensarem mais sobre o mundo e menos sobre a próxima exposição?

E.B.: A história da arte está cheia de artistas que disseram o que não podia ser dito, que mostraram o que os regimes políticos e culturais tentaram tornar invisível. A história da arte é também povoada por dissidentes políticos ou ativistas que fingiram ser artistas ou que usaram a arte como forma de exprimir os seus pensamentos sem serem directamente presos. A história da arte a que quero pertencer é povoada por este tipo de figuras. E deixo o desafio de procurar e estudar cuidadosamente a história da arte para além da superfície, porque não acredito que se encontre muitos artistas que tenham deixado marca sem pertencer a uma destas duas categorias.

M.B.: No meu caso, nem me identifico como artista. Normalmente apresento-me como activista, investigador e curador. Para mim, o Art for UBI é sobretudo uma ferramenta para experimentar um método performativo de investigação militante. Algo onde a política e a estética se intersectam. Talvez o Emanuele esteja certo, a nossa genealogia encontra-se principalmente nessa ‘outra’ história da arte (uma das várias que existem) e, de facto, o que caracteriza o nosso currículo é um logo compromisso com o activismo de origem popular.

S.: E quão importante é fazê-lo coletivamente? Acham que o caminho tradicional das artes tem dado lugar a artistas mais isolados? É necessário recuperar o tecido social neste aspeto?

E.B.: Eu tenho trabalhado como artista nos últimos 25 anos, e sempre assinei os meus principais trabalhos com assinaturas colectivas. Na verdade, mesmo quando assino um trabalho só com o meu nome e apelido, eu sei que, lá no fundo, estou a fazer batota. Tenho uma grande convicção de que os trabalhos, as acções, os discursos, e os textos que produzimos, são resultado de um complexas relações situadas. Eu não seria nada sem a rede de relações em que escolho operar. A autoria baseia-se mais nessa série de interdependências que escolhemos ou que calhamos a ter. Eu sozinho não sou nada. E o meu nome é sempre um anagrama, cujo significado está em constante evolução e implica inteligência colectiva, recursos não humanos, desejos e condições de opressão. É por isso que aconselho toda a gente, quando assina uma obra como autor único, a passar muito tempo a elucidar explicitamente a genealogia e as interdependências de que ela deriva.

M.B.: A resposta do Emanuele adequa-se perfeitamente ao meu caso. Mas deixa-me acrescentar uma coisa: para além de reconstituir o tecido social, eu acho que aquilo que habitualmente se chama arte radical também deve redescobrir o seu caminho para os conflitos e as lutas sociais. Muitas vezes, nas décadas passadas, a arte engaja socialmente apresentou-se muitas vezes com uma atitude de ONG, preocupada em reparar supostas micro-fracturas enquanto ignorava completamente as causas estruturais de tais danos.

ART FOR UBI | Talk TEATRO DO BARRIO ALTO

ENGLISH

ART FOR UBI Talk

With Marco Baravalle & Emanuele Braga (Institute of Radical Imagination) moderated by researcher Rita Barreira.

29 June 18:30

While the financial elite continues to use the art market as a safe haven for financial assets, the Covid-19 pandemic has further highlighted the fragility and precariousness of artistic workers around the world. This context fueled the discussion around the Universal Basic Income (Universal Basic Income). The Art for UBI manifesto argues that this measure is a necessary condition for rethinking an ecologically extractive economic model, correcting race and gender asymmetries and changing the current neoliberal structure of the art world. The Universal Basic Income can be seen as a tool to open up new subjective spaces, an alternative to the dominant entrepreneurial individualism, valuing the common and care. Written collectively within the Institute of Radical Imagination and edited by Marco Baravalle, Emanuele Braga and Gabriella Riccio, Art Form UBI (Manifesto) [Venice, Bruno, 2022] contains contributions from several artists, theorists and activists who address RBI in the generalized picture of the precariousness of artistic work, the search for income in transfeminist and decolonial struggles, mutualism practices in the independent artistic scene, the relationship between finance, fabulation and cryptophilosophy.

ACCESSIBILITY Streaming available on the same day at Teatrodobairroalto.pt and on social networks

Price Free admission upon prior ticket collection from 3 pm (maximum of 2 tickets per person) Sala Manuela Porto

PORTUGUES

ART FOR UBI Discurso

Con Marco Baravalle & Emanuele Braga (Institute of Radical Imagination) moderated by researcher Rita Barreira.

29 Junio 18:30

Enquanto a elite financeira continua a usar o mercado de arte como um porto seguro para ativos financeiros, a pandemia da Covid-19 evidenciou ainda mais a fragilidade e precariedade de trabalhadores do meio artís- tico em todo o mundo. Este contexto alimentou a discussão em torno do Universal Basic Income (Rendimento Básico Universal). O manifesto Art for UBI defende que esta medida é condição necessária para repensar um modelo económico ecologicamente extrativista, corrigir assimetrias de raça e género e mudar a atual estrutura neoliberal do mundo da arte. O Rendimento Básico Universal pode ser visto como uma ferramenta para abrir novos espaços subjetivos, alternativa ao individualismo empreen- dedorista dominante, valorizando o comum e o cuidado. Escrito coletiva- mente no âmbito do Institute of Radical Imagination e editado por Marco Baravalle, Emanuele Braga e Gabriella RiccioArt Form UBI (Manifesto) [Veneza, Bruno, 2022] contém contribuições de diversas artistas, teóricas e ativistas que abordam o RBI no quadro generalizado da precariedade do trabalho artístico, a procura de rendimentos nas lutas transfeministas e decoloniais, as práticas de mutualismo na cena artística independente, a relação entre finança, fabulação e criptofilosofia.

ACESSIBILIDADE Streaming disponível no próprio dia em teatrodobairroalto.pt e nas redes sociais

Preço Entrada Livre mediante levantamento prévio de bilhete a partir das 15h (máximo de 2 bilhetes por pessoa) Sala Manuela Porto

THE ART OF THE COMMONS | Panel

Basket Court, Piazza Selinunte, Milan – September 30th at 7 pm

Free entrance

MODERATOR

Emanuele Braga

WITH

Marco Baravalle, Kuba Szreder, Alberto Cossu, Gabriella Riccio, Massimiliano Mollona

Recent publications will be presented on the theme of precariousness and income: Art for UBI (manifesto), The ABC of the Projectariat: Living and Working in a Precarious Art World, Art/Commons, Autonomous Art Institutions Artists Disrupting the Creative City.

PROFILES

Kuba Szreder is a researcher, lecturer and independent curator, working as an associate professor at the department for art theory of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He has co-curated many interdisciplinary projects hybridizing art with critical reflection and social experiments. He actively cooperates with artistic unions, consortia of post-artistic practitioners, clusters of art-researchers, art collectives and artistic institutions in Poland, the UK, and other European countries. In 2009 he initiated the Free / Slow University of Warsaw, and in 2018 he established the Center for Plausible Economies in London, a research cluster investigating artistic economies. His most recent book The ABC of the projectariat. Living and working in a precarious art world, was published by the Whitworth Museum and Manchester University Press in December 2021.

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Alberto Cossu is a sociologist and media scholar who does research at the intersection between digital media and activism qualitative and digital methods collaborative and digital economies. Before joining the University of Leicester he was Lecturer in New Media & Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam and previously a Research Fellow at the Department of Social & Political Sciences University of Milan where he has obtained his PhD in Sociology. During his PhD he has conducted research on the mobilisation of knowledge and art workers in Italy; within the EU project P2PValue he was part of an international team led by Prof. A. Arvidsson on peer-to-peer models of organisation and production in Italy and France on digital economy and co-working spaces in Italy and Thailand.

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Marco Baravalle is a member of S.a.L.E. Docks, a collective and an independent space for visual arts, activism, and experimental theater located in what had been an abandoned salt-storage facility in Dorsoduro, Venice. Founded in 2007, its programming includes activist-group meetings, formal exhibitions, screenings, and actions. In addition to managing the diverse programming at S.a.L.E. Docks, Baravalle is currently a research fellow at INCOMMON (IUAV University of Venice). His fields of research include the relationship between art, theatre and activism, creative labor, gentrification, and the positioning of art within neoliberal economics.

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Emanuele Braga co-founder of Macao center, an artist, researcher and activist. In addition to his work at Macao, he co-founded the dance and theatre company Balletto Civile (2003), the contemporary art project Rhaze (2011), as well as Landscape Choreography (2012), an art platform questioning the role of the body under capitalism. His research focuses on models of cultural production, processes of social transformation, political economy, labor rights and the institution of the commons.

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Massimiliano (Mao) Mollona writer, filmmaker and anthropologist. He has a multidisciplinary background in economics and anthropology and his work focuses on the relationships between art and political economy. He conducted extensive fieldworks in Italy, UK, Norway and Brazil, mainly in economic institutions, looking at the relationships between economic development and political identity through participatory and experimental film projects. His practice is situated at the intersection of pedagogy, art and activism.  Mollona is a founding member of the  LUC Laboratory for the Urban Commons (LUC), Athens.

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Gabriella Riccio is an artist, activist and independent researcher. Since 2000 she has been active as choreographer, as well as cultural advisor. Since 2010 Gabriella is engaged in the movement for the commons, artworkers struggles and the Italian movement of self-governed cultural spaces, where as a resident member of L’Asilo – Ex Asilo Filangieri in Naples, she contributed to the Declaration of urban civic and collective use. She is regularly invited as keynote, public speaker and lecturer on practices of commoning and governance. She contributed to EU participatory policy development within the framework of EU Citizen’s Engagement and Deliberative Democracy Festival, EU projects Cultural and Creative Spaces and CitiesDISCE Developing Inclusive Sustainable Creative Economies, Creative Lenses. She contributed to several publications, a.o. Home of Commons, online toolkit for participatory development  2021, Per un approccio sistemico al patrimonio culturale: usi civici e beni comuni. Il caso dell’Ex Asilo Filangieri di Napoli in Visioni al Futuro 2018, La pratica dell’uso civico come scelta estetica etica e politica per il sensible comune in Stefano Rodotà, I beni comuni. L’inaspettata rinascita degli usi collettivi, 2016, L’Asilo as a case study for Creative Lenses,  and L’Asilo in Models to Manifestos, 2019.  Gabriella is a co-founding member of the Institute for Radical Imagination.

L’ARTE DEI COMMONS | Panel

Campo di Basket, Piazza Selinunte Milano

30 Settembre 2022 ore 18:00

Accesso libero

MODERA

Emanuele Braga

CON

Marco Baravalle, Kuba Szreder, Alberto Cossu, Gabriella Riccio, Massimiliano Mollona

Saranno presentate recenti pubblicazioni intorno al tema della precarietà e del reddito: Art for UBI (manifesto), The ABC of the Projectariat: Living and Working in a Precarious Art World, Art/Commons, Autonomous Art Institutions Artists Disrupting the Creative City.

BIO

Emanuele Braga co-fondatore del Macao center, artista, ricercatore e attivista. Oltre al suo lavoro a Macao, ha co-fondato la compagnia di danza e teatro Balletto Civile (2003), il progetto di arte contemporanea Rhaze (2011) e Landscape Choreography (2012), una piattaforma artistica che mette in discussione il ruolo del corpo sotto il capitalismo. La sua ricerca verte sui modelli di produzione culturale, sui processi di trasformazione sociale, sull’economia politica, sui diritti del lavoro e sull’istituzione dei beni comuni.

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ART FOR RADICAL ECOLOGIES (MANIFESTO) @ Venice Climate Camp 2022

Un progetto di Sale Docks & Institute of Radical Imagination per Venice Climate Camp 2022

English | Italiano

Programma

Workshop / Assemblea Plenaria

Art for Radical Ecologies (Manifesto)

9 Settembre, 2022, ore 14.00

Venice Climate Camp, Lido di Venezia

Organizzato da Sale Docks & Institute of Radical Imagination

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The Venice Climate Camp 2022 is the opportunity to bring together art and performing arts workers to initiate a discussion that will lead to the collective writing of a manifesto on the role of art in the struggle for climate justice and in the creation of new ecologies (which take into account the intersection of environmental and social facts). If the pandemic had already dramatically underlined the consequences of extractivist anthropization, the war in Ukraine (in addition to its immediate death toll) is a manifestation of what Andreas Malm has called ‘fossil fascism’, a mix of authoritarianism and fossil fuels that weakens the already insufficient measures to combat global warming.  The scarcity of Russian gas has brought coal back into vogue and, in Italy, the construction of new re-gasifiers is on the agenda. The decision to organize the workshop at the Venice Climate Camp (promoted by Rise Up For Climate Justice and Fridays For Future) reflects our belief in the importance of freeing art from the capture of institutional circuits. We want to experience, as participants in social movements, aesthetic-political concatenations that interpret creativity as a radical character of the social and not as a commodity. The participants also share the conviction that the fight for climate justice is, necessarily, a fight against and beyond extractive capitalism, even in its green version (actually an attempt to turn the crisis into new accumulation).

The workshop will be a moment of discussion based on the practices of the invited guests, who convoke some central themes: the use of art as a method of inquiry and visualization in the climate crisis; the production of activist art forms that look at the performativity of direct action; art as a ground for radical imagination in designing new ecologies that reshape the relationship between human and non-human; art as an archive of movement practices and so on.

During Camp days, in addition to the main meeting moment, there will be a screening of films by Oliver Ressler, a workshop by Paolo Cirio and collective performative practice by Andreco.

First participants: Sale Docks, Institute of Radical Imagination, Caracol Olol Jackson, Rise Up For Climate Justice, Andreco, Annaclara Basilicò, Paolo Cirio, Terike Haapoja, Rosa Jijon, Francesco Martone, Teresa Masini, Oliver Ressler, Federica Timeto 


ART FOR RADICAL ECOLOGIES (MANIFESTO) | Venice Climate Camp 2022

A project by Sale Docks & the Institute of Radical Imagination for Venice Climate Camp 2022

English | Italiano

Program

Workshop / Plenary Assembly

Art for Radical Ecologies (Manifesto)

September 9th, 2022, at 2 pm

Venice Climate Camp, Lido di Venezia

Organized by Sale Docks & Institute of Radical Imagination

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The Venice Climate Camp 2022 is the opportunity to bring together art and performing arts workers to initiate a discussion that will lead to the collective writing of a manifesto on the role of art in the struggle for climate justice and in the creation of new ecologies (which take into account the intersection of environmental and social facts). If the pandemic had already dramatically underlined the consequences of extractivist anthropization, the war in Ukraine (in addition to its immediate death toll) is a manifestation of what Andreas Malm has called ‘fossil fascism’, a mix of authoritarianism and fossil fuels that weakens the already insufficient measures to combat global warming.  The scarcity of Russian gas has brought coal back into vogue and, in Italy, the construction of new re-gasifiers is on the agenda. The decision to organize the workshop at the Venice Climate Camp (promoted by Rise Up For Climate Justice and Fridays For Future) reflects our belief in the importance of freeing art from the capture of institutional circuits. We want to experience, as participants in social movements, aesthetic-political concatenations that interpret creativity as a radical character of the social and not as a commodity. The participants also share the conviction that the fight for climate justice is, necessarily, a fight against and beyond extractive capitalism, even in its green version (actually an attempt to turn the crisis into new accumulation).

The workshop will be a moment of discussion based on the practices of the invited guests, who convoke some central themes: the use of art as a method of inquiry and visualization in the climate crisis; the production of activist art forms that look at the performativity of direct action; art as a ground for radical imagination in designing new ecologies that reshape the relationship between human and non-human; art as an archive of movement practices and so on.

During Camp days, in addition to the main meeting moment, there will be a screening of films by Oliver Ressler, a workshop by Paolo Cirio and collective performative practice by Andreco.

First participants: Sale Docks, Institute of Radical Imagination, Caracol Olol Jackson, Rise Up For Climate Justice, Andreco, Annaclara Basilicò, Paolo Cirio, Terike Haapoja, Rosa Jijon, Francesco Martone, Teresa Masini, Oliver Ressler, Federica Timeto 


NO LAND AHOY! DRIFTING CONVERSATIONS ON RADICAL ART | PODCAST Marco Baravalle & MTL+ Collective


Marco Baravalle in conversation with MTL* Collective Episode #4 of the podcast series No Land Ahoy! Drifting Conversations on Radical Art within the framework of The School of Mutation

Marco Baravalle talks to artists, curators and activists. From the phantom archive of activist art to the museo situado, from Afrofutirism to decolonisation of neoliberal museums, these constellations of radical art may help us trace possible routes through the drift of the present.

EPISODE #4 with MTL+ Collective

How to act in the face of a scenario in which the major US art institutions function as artwashers of a colonial, patriarchal and extractivist capitalism? MTL+ tells of concrete actions such as Decolonize this Place and Strike MOMA, of the need to escape institutional co-optation and the urgency of creating new infrastructures of solidarity. The museum is an object to be de-fetishised, not a temple of memory (whose memory?), just another battlefield.

Eposode #4 MTL+ Collective

Profile

Decolonize This Place (DTP) is an action-oriented, decolonial formation and a call to action. Facilitated by MTL+ Collective (Nitasha Dhillon, Amin Husain, Marz Saffore, Amy Weng), DTP resists and unsettles settler colonial structures in our cities as it builds movement infrastructure of care and solidarity on the path of collective freedom and liberation. Organizing, research, aesthetics, and action are rooted in interconnected struggles that are anti-colonial, anti-imperial, anti-patriarchal, and anti-capitalist. The university, museum, and city are sites of struggles and organizing. They are sites of refusal, sabotage, infrastructure, sanctuary, play, exit. Let them be sites of training in the practice of freedom. When we breathe we breathe together. 

NO LAND AHOY! DRIFTING CONVERSATIONS ON RADICAL ART | PODCAST Marco Baravalle & Manuel Borja Villel


Marco Baravalle in conversation with Manuel Borja Villel Episode #3 of the podcast series No Land Ahoy! Drifting Conversations on Radical Art within the framework of The School of Mutation

Marco Baravalle talks to artists, curators and activists. From the phantom archive of activist art to the museo situado, from Afrofutirism to decolonisation of neoliberal museums, these constellations of radical art may help us trace possible routes through the drift of the present.

EPISODE #3 with MANUEL BORJA VILLEL

Borja Villel addresses his critical practice as a museum director. How to transform from within the neoliberal structure and functions of an art institutions? How to work with concepts such as “Museo situado”? How to create alliances with the subalterns instead of the wealthy? How to break the cause-effect relationship between museums and gentrification? How to dialogue with examples of radical art from the Global South avoiding cultural extractivism? How to work on an epistemological revolution of collections?

Profile

Manuel Borja-Villel is Director of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS) in Madrid and is one of the institutional agents of Spanish culture. Borja-Villel has directed three of the major art institutions in Spain: Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona (1990–1998); Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA, 1998–2008); and Museo Reina Sofía (2008–present). He has curated solo exhibitions of some of the most important artists of the last century: Marcel Broodthaers, Lygia Clark, James Coleman, Óyvind Fahlström, Luis Gordillo, Hans Haacke, Lygia Pape, Antoni Muntadas, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Nancy Spero, Antoni Tàpies, Krzysztof Wodiczko, amongst others. His most recent book is titled Campos magnéticos: Escritos de arte y política (Arcadia, 2020).

NO LAND AHOY! DRIFTING CONVERSATIONS ON RADICAL ART | PODCAST Marco Baravalle & Coco Fusco


Marco Baravalle in conversation with Coco Fusco Episode #2 of the podcast serie No Land Ahoy! Drifting Conversations on Radical Art within the framework of The School of Mutation

Marco Baravalle talks to artists, curators and activists. From the phantom archive of activist art to the museo situado, from Afrofutirism to decolonisation of neoliberal museums, these constellations of radical art may help us trace possible routes through the drift of the present.

EPISODE #2 with COCO FUSCO

Coco Fusco discusses her encounter with Afrofuturism in the 1980s through the Black Audio Film Collective and how this encounter has influenced her performance work. In the second part, Fusco discusses the recent mobilisations for freedom of expression in Cuba, where artists are in the forefront.

Profile

Coco Fusco is an interdisciplinary artist and writer. She is a recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim fellowship, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, Latinx Art Award, a Fulbright fellowship and a Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. Fusco’s performances and videos have been presented in the 56th Venice Biennale, Frieze Special Projects, Basel Unlimited, three Whitney Biennials (2022, 2008 and 1993), and several other international exhibitions. Her works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Walker Art Center, the Centre Pompidou, the Imperial War Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona. She is the author of Dangerous Moves: Performance and Politics in Cuba (2015). She is represented by Alexander Gray Associates in New York. She is a Professor of Art at Cooper Union. Fusco is currently preparing new works for the next Sharjah Biennial and a solo retrospective that will open in 2023.

NO LAND AHOY! DRIFTING CONVERSATIONS ON RADICAL ART | PODCAST Marco Baravalle & Gregory Sholette


Marco Baravalle in conversation with Gregory Sholette Episode #1 of the podcast serie No Land Ahoy! Drifting Conversations on Radical Art within the framework of The School of Mutation

Marco Baravalle talks to artists, curators and activists. From the phantom archive of activist art to the museo situado, from Afrofutirism to decolonisation of neoliberal museums, these constellations of radical art may help us trace possible routes through the drift of the present.

EPISODE #1 with GREGORY SHOLETTE

The conversation builds on Sholette’s forthcoming book The Art Of Activism, The Activism of Art (Lund Humphries) in which the author attempts an account of what he calls the phantom archive of activist art, namely a series of counter-histories of radical art from the 1960s to the present. Situationists in France and Argentinean pioneers of activist art are discussed, as well as the challenges posed to art and politics by the current condition that Sholette  names unreality. 

Profile

Dr. Gregory Sholette is a New York-based artist, writer, activist and curator Imaginary Archive: a peripatetic collection of documents speculating on a past whose future never arrived. His art and research theorize and document issues of collective cultural labor, activist art, and decolonial historical representation after 1968. Sholette is also co-founder of the collectives, Political Art Documentation/Distribution (1980-1988); REPOhistory (1989-2000); and Gulf Labor Coalition (2010 ongoing), as well as the author of Delirium and Resistance: Activist Art and the Crisis of Capitalism (2017); Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture (2011); Art As Social Action (with C. Bass: 2018), and the forthcoming book, The Art of Activism and the Activism of Art from Lund Humphries (2021). Along with his colleague Chloë Bass, Sholette co-directs Social Practice CUNY (SPCUNY), a new, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded art and social justice initiative at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

ART FOR UBI (Manifesto) #3 | Assembly

Art for UBI Terraforming, courtesy of Emanuele Braga

Location / Lugar Museo Reina Sofia, Edificio Sabatini Jardin Date / Fecha: September 17 19:00

with Andy Abbot, Emanuele Braga, Marco Baravalle, Érik Bordeleau, Ilenia Caleo, Anna Cerdà Callís, Kuba Szreder.


Art for UBI Terraforming, courtesy of Emanuele Braga
Art for UBI Terraforming, courtesy of Emanuele Braga

Third public assembly organized by the ART for UBI (Manifesto) an initiative born within the framework of the activities of The School of Mutation by the Institute of Radical Imagination. The Pandemic of Covid19 has been correctly defined as a syndemic. The term clearly shows how pre-existing conditions of social, race, gender and environmental asymmetries, influenced the impact of Covid19, exposing to serious consequences poor and precarious workers, women and lgbtqia+ subjectivities, racialized and indigenous people and those living in areas more subjected to pollution and extractivism. In Europe (and elsewhere) thousands of billions of Euros are allocated to respond to the crisis. Unfortunately, at least from European perspective, it looks like the vast majority of these funds will go to the supply side, in the vain hope that financing private companies will have an overall positive impact on society. The result will be a further polarization of global richness, and the progressive impoverishment of millions of people. Contrary to this option, It is time to support the implementation of forms of universal, basic and unconditional income. We believe UBI is a struggle of primary importance in order to finally achieve a fair remuneration for the value freely extracted from our lives on a daily basis (for example through platform capitalism and through the still invisible care work performed mainly by women). We believe UBI will have a radical impact on social life, not only in terms of reducing poverty and precarity, but also freeing time and energies to build worlds where care, mutual aid and the commons become priorities.

Using the ART FOR UBI [Art for Universal Basic Income] Manifesto as its starting point, the IRI has been proposing discussions on the role that art and the world of cultural production should play in the fight for financial redistribution based on mutualism, methods of self-management of resources, access to the means of production and other solidarity practices. This activity begins in the Museum’s Sabatini Garden, with a “performative round table” based on the proposal of the artist Anna Rispoli, who regularly works on topics such as remuneration, income and the UBI (universal basic income), mixing performance, social research and conducting real experiments on how to share assets and financial resources.


PROFILES

Andy Abbot is an artist, musician and cultural activator. He has exhibited and performed as a solo artist and in various collaborations, including the Black Dogs art collective. He participates in different projects as a musician, both solo and in groups, and composes music for film, performance and installations. In 2012 he obtained his PhD from the University of Leeds with his thesis “Art, self-organized cultural activity and the production of post-capitalist subjectivity”.

——

Marco Baravalle is a member of S.a.L.E. Docks, a collective and an independent space for visual arts, activism, and experimental theater located in what had been an abandoned salt-storage facility in Dorsoduro, Venice. Founded in 2007, its programming includes activist-group meetings, formal exhibitions, screenings, and actions. In addition to managing the diverse programming at S.a.L.E. Docks, Baravalle is currently a research fellow at INCOMMON (IUAV University of Venice). His fields of research include the relationship between art, theatre and activism, creative labor, gentrification, and the positioning of art within neoliberal economics.

——

Emanuele Braga co-founder of Macao center, an artist, researcher and activist. In addition to his work at Macao, he co-founded the dance and theatre company Balletto Civile (2003), the contemporary art project Rhaze (2011), as well as Landscape Choreography (2012), an art platform questioning the role of the body under capitalism. His research focuses on models of cultural production, processes of social transformation, political economy, labor rights and the institution of the commons.

——

Anna Cerdà Callís is a manager and cultural activist. She has been working in the MACBA Department of Exhibitions since 2005, a task that she combines with the field of music. She co-directed the popArb festival (2005-2015) and since 2017 she is involved in the design and organization of Acció Cultura Viva. She is also part of the governing council of La Murga, and participates in MIM (Women of the Music Industry) and the board of the Xàfec association of small festivals.

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Ilenia Caleo is performer and researcher in queer studies and feminist epistemologies at the IUAV University of Venice. She is among the co-founders of Campo Innocente, a network founded after the pandemic outbreak to defend art workers rights and to promote UBI.

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Érik Bordeleau is a researcher at the SenseLab of the Université Concordia de Montreal and the Center for Arts, Business and Culture of the Stockholm School of Economics, which he combines with his activity as a fugitive financial designer at the Economic Space Agency (ECSA). His work is articulated at the intersection of political philosophy, media and financial theory, contemporary art, and film studies. He is currently working on creating a Master’s program in Cryptoeconomics at the Global Center for Advanced Studies (GCAS) with campuses in Dublin and New York.

UNA RENTA, MUCHOS MUNDOS | Performance

Spanish | English

Location / Lugar: Museo Reina Sofia, Jardin Edificio Sabatini Date / Fecha: September 17, 18:00 Language / Idioma: Español Access / Entradas: Free until full capacity, free tickets available from Reina Sofia Museum website (here) from September 15

the performance introduces the Art for UBI #3 | assembly at 19:00

Based on an idea by / Basado en una idea de Anna Rispoli

Concept Concepto Marco Baravalle, Elena Blesa, Emanuele Braga, Sara Buraya Boned, Gabriella Riccio, Anna Rispoli

Text / Texto Marco Baravalle, Elena Blesa, Emanuele Braga, Gabriella Riccio, Anna Rispoli and 14 citizens of Madrid and Barcelona

Direction / Dirección: Gabriella Riccio

Research & Interviews / Investigación y Entrevistas: Gabriella Riccio with the collaboration of Ana Campillos, Maite Gandulfo, Maria Mallol, Celina Poloni

With the support of / Apoyan Hablarenarte / Planta Alta

With the participation of / Con la participación de: Miguel Ángel Álvarez Tornero, Andrei Alexandru Mazga, Sara Babiker Moreno, Elena Blesa Cabéz, Amalia Caballero, José Antonio Campillos Martín-Consuegra, Constanza Cisneros, Ana Gutiérrez Borreguero, Sebastián Laina, Mar Núñez, Lucía Núñez Ortega, Gabriella Riccio, Juan Manuel Rodriguez, Hella Spinelli

A production by / Una producción de: Institute of Radical Imagination, FfAI Foundation for the Arts Activities / Museo Reina Sofia

One income, many worlds

Sabatini Gardens, Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, September 21, 2021

Con el Manifiesto ART FOR UBI [Arte por la Renta Básica Universal] como punto de partida, el IRI viene proponiendo discusiones sobre el papel que el arte y el mundo de la producción cultural deben tener en la lucha por una redistribución financiera basada en el mutualismo, los métodos de autogestión de recursos, el acceso a los medios de producción y otras prácticas solidarias. Esta actividad comienza en el Jardín de Sabatini del Museo, con “Una renta muchos mundos” mesa redonda performativa basada en la propuesta de la artista Anna Rispoli, que trabaja regularmente temas como la remuneración, los ingresos y la RBU (renta básica universal), mezclando performance, investigación social y realizando experimentos reales sobre cómo compartir bienes y recursos financieros.

En la performance Una Renta, Muchos Mundos (One Income, Many worlds) un grupo diversificado de personas interpretará una asamblea ficticia en forma de discurso público coral donde se analiza el hipotético impacto en sus vidas de una renta universal, básica e incondicional en el contexto de la actual crisis pandémica. ¿Es la RBU una medida financiera “simple” o una herramienta fundamental para una alternativa radical a la realidad neoliberal que vivimos? ¿Qué pasa con ganar dinero no relacionado con el trabajo y las horas de trabajo? ¿Y la posibilidad de decir no al chantaje de la precariedad? ¿Qué hay de poner fin a las asimetrías de raza y género tan comunes en el mercado laboral actual? ¿Qué hay de desintoxicar el planeta de trabajos ecológicamente peligrosos? ¿Qué pasa con el cuidado y la ayuda mutua frente a la interminable invitación a ser individuos competitivos? Estas son algunas de las preguntas que inspiran el diálogo público La actuación será seguida por el panel Art For Ubi # 3 en el Museo Reina Sofía.

En esta ocasión, un equipo del IRI ha trabajado para adaptar la propuesta de Rispoli y realizar una dramaturgia que retome estas líneas a partir del diálogo con un grupo de personas que viven y trabajan en España, y que han participado en una serie de entrevistas que han dado lugar a la dramaturgia de esta performance. Esta fase de investigación, se enmarca dentro del Programa Abierto de DESVÍO una herramienta de diálogo y trabajo colectivo impulsada por hablarenarte / Planta Alta que se propone accionar y afectar nuestro contexto inmediato.

Using the ART FOR UBI [Art for Universal Basic Income] Manifesto as its starting point, IRI has been proposing discussions on the role that art and the world of cultural production should play in the fight for financial redistribution based on mutualism, methods of self-management of resources, access to the means of production and other solidarity practices. This activity begins in the Sabatini Garden of the Museum, with “One income many worlds” performative round table based on the proposal of the artist Anna Rispoli, who regularly works on topics such as remuneration, income and the UBI (universal basic income), mixing performance, social research and conducting real experiments on how to share assets and financial resources.

In the performance Una Renta, Muchos Mundos (One Income, Many worlds) a diversified group of people will perform a fictional assembly in the form of a public coral speech, where the hypothetical impact on their lives of a universal, basic and unconditional income is analyzed on the background of the current pandemic crisis. Is UBI a “simple” financial measure, or is it an essential tool for a radical alternative to the neoliberal reality we are experiencing? What about earning money unrelated to jobs and working hours? What about the possibility to say no to the blackmail of precarity? What about putting and end to race and gender asymmetries so common in today’s labor market? What about detoxing the planet from ecologically dangerous jobs? What about care and mutual aid in front of the endless invitation to be competitive individuals? These are some or the questions inspiring the public dialogue.The performance will be followed by the panel Art For Ubi #3 at the Museum Reina Sofia. 

On this occasion, an IRI team has worked to adapt Rispoli’s proposal and carry out a dramaturgy that takes up these lines from dialogue with a group of people who live and work in Spain, and who have participated in a series of interviews that have given rise to the dramaturgy of this performance. This research phase is part of the DESVÍO Open Program, a tool for dialogue and collective work promoted by hablarenarte / Planta Alta that aims to actuate and affect our immediate context.


UNA RENTA MUCHOS MUNDOS, Sabatini Gardens, Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, September 21, 2021

Rearhsal at La Corrala, Madrid September 2021

ART FOR UBI (Manifesto) #2 | Open online Assembly


Online Assembly ART for UBI (Manifesto) N°2 on Thursday, December 17th at 18:30 CET. With Ilenia Caleo, Dena Beard, Julio Linares, Anna Rispoli, Emanuele Braga, Marco Baravalle. The School of Mutation within the framework of the iteration Art for UBI.  Join us on Zoom https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87252121414 Meeting ID: 872 5212 1414

We continue our collective debate towards the drafting of the ARTS FOR UBI Manifesto. In this session we will address the mobilizations of art workers in Italy during the pandemic. We will analyze the experimental basic income for artists implemented by the city of San Francisco. We will talk about basic incomes models on blockchain and about art as a possible field of experimentation of alternative economic models

Art for UBI (manifesto) online assembly #2 December, 2nd 2020
PARTICIPANTS TO THE ASSEMBLY

Emanuele Braga (Macao – ITA) Emanuele is an activist and artist, member of Macao, center for art and research in Milano (IT). His intervention will describe the self organized Basic Income redistribution within the community of Macao in the last 5 years. http://www.macaomilano.org/IMG/pdf/3_-_commoncoin_basic_income.pdf?1498/0c7e90052d75f199cb712e014f1f8100f3113c3e

Marco Baravallle (S.a.L.E. Docks – ITA) http://www.saledocks.org/ Marco is a member of S.a.L.E. Doks, a self-managed art space in Venice. His intervention will focus on the importance of UBI and dis-identification in the organization of art and culture living labor.

Gabriella Riccio (L’Asilo – ITA) is an artist, activist and researcher, member of L’Asilo, art & culture common in Naples IT. L’Asilo elaborated on UBI within the framework of The commons as ecosystems for culture on EU scale.

Ilenia Caleo: Performer and researcher in queer studies and feminist epistemologies at the IUAV University of Venice. She is among the co-founders of Campo Innocente, a network founded after the pandemic outbreak to defend art workers rights and to promote UBI. (https://ilcampoinnocente.blogspot.com/)

Dena Beard: Executive Director of The Lab in San Francisco. She received her M.A. in Art History, Theory, and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was previously Assistant Curator at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

Julio Linares: researcher at Circles, a blockchain based basic income made to promote local economies. https://joincircles.net/

Anna Rispoli: (Common Wallet) Common Wallet is a community based practice in Brussels created by artists. They are socializing their personal income basing the access to liquidity on mutual aid principles.

Giuseppe Micciarelli (L’Asilo – ITA) jurist and political philosopher. PhD in Public Law, Theory of National and European Institutions and Legal Philosophy at the University of Salerno, Italy. He is member of Laboratorio filosofico-giuridico e filosofico-politico ‘Hans Kelsen and editor of Soft Power, Euro-American Journal of Historical and Theoretical Studies of Politics. L’Asilo elaborated on UBI within the framework of The commons as ecosystems for culture on EU scale.

ART FOR UBI

Initiators

Expanding Nodes Venice

Art for UBI (manifesto) on the press

Art for UBI (manifesto) in the squares

A platform and a Manifesto on the role of art and art workers in the struggle for social justice

While the art market confirms his status as a safe-haven assets provider for the financial elite, the current pandemic has highlighted the fragility and precarity of art workers around the world, a condition common to a growing portion of humanity. In this situation a UBI (Universal Basic Income) would then represent a solution and indeed an urgent measure to implement. But UBI is not “only” a response to poverty, it is a necessary condition in order to rethink our extractivist ecological model, to correct many race and gender asymmetries and, last but not least, to change the art world’s present neoliberal structure. UBI must be seen as a tool to open up new subjective spaces, alternative to the dominating entrepreneurial individualism and focused instead on commons and care. If artists are already creating new collective economy models and alter-institutions, these small scale experiments will be much more valuable when connected with those growing social movements around the world fighting for a Universal Basic Income.

ART FOR UBI | The manifesto & the campaign

NOTES ON A PERFORMATIVE INVESTIGATION | Article

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The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw invites the public to the summit “Internationalism after the end of globalisation”. It will play the dual role of a conference and a workshop session.

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IRI MEETING #3 ATHENS | SOLIDARITY SCHOOLS

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NOTES ON MAPPING THE INSTITUTE OF RADICAL IMAGINATION

Relationship between the visible and the invisible

To map or to create a diagram means to visualize a certain chose contents, be it the physical geography of a portion of space or the relational network of people and organizations working to define an Institute for Radial Imagination. Of course, by creating maps, we are only partially describing already existing territories that will define the space covered by the Institute activity.

During the first phase of this attempt we immediately encounter a first problem of knots that can not be mapped, of relations that can not be made public because of safety reasons. This happens in Turkey of course, but it could happen elsewhere, especially if IRI will focus on the space of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. So first of all we decided to allow a geography of opacity, but the presence of invisible territories must not lead to a disengagement on these very portions of space. How do we visualize the urgencies, the emergencies, but also the richness of answers and the agency that these invisible territories embody? How do we, as an Institute, culturally and politically deal with it without paternalism and without the arrogance of representing them and speaking for them?

Translation and Geography

An issue, linked to the previous point, that emerged in the conversation with alessandro Petti, in that of translation of the theoretical vocabulary of the Institute. Alessandro noted that the vocabulary of the commons could be shared even in the Arab context, even if, historically, it has more to do with Islam. Alessandro also pointed out that it would be important to really engage with the space of the Mediterranean also by promoting activities in those contexts that apparently look “more difficult”.

Representative logic

Another issue with design the rational map of the Institute was the difficulty of appear in the diagram as a spokesperson of a certain activists group, where the issue of representation is especially felt. Again, the dialectic between visibility and invisibility comes back and it raises questions about the individual and the collective. Questions that are probably relevant for our Insitute too. How an aspiring Institution for Radical Multitudinarian Imagination represents itself?

Finding the right routes

The single knots of the Institute already show a very complex geography, a variety of fields of intervention that (from activism, to art, to academia) compose a rich map. This may sound obvious but the map Showa that we deal with individual or collective subjects characterized by full agendas and scarcity of time, sometimes facing a lack of resources, sometimes dealing with repressive political conditions and/or with the global economy attention. A crucial challenge for the future of IRI will be to serious consider these starting conditions. We need to find those unexplored routes on the map that will boost meaningful cooperation between the different knots and not only a reciprocally instrumental relation on episodic bases.

Towards a queer Institute?

We must pay attention to gender balance, the risk of creating a male Institute is always present. And gender balance is a good starting point, a deeper reflection should be developed on the “becoming minor” of the institute. Do we instead want a queer institution? What does it mean? How do we achieve this goal?

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  5. Legalising the Commons and new Municipalism introduced by Giuseppe Micciarelli.
  6. Mapping the Institute of Radical Imagination introduced by Emanuele Braga and Marco Baravalle.
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