You have probably all seen these circular mushroom formations coming up at this time of the year. Circles are (sometimes) fine, but nature should also pay tribute to the pyramidal shape, as the symbol of Kopimi. Therefore we invite all myco-geneticists to join forces in creating a new spiece of fungi growing in triangular (pyramidal) formations
to: raqs [at] sarai dot net
from: s23x [at] internets
Subject: s23x is rollin! Wohoo!
Dear RAQS,
First of all we would like to thank you for giving us opportunities for our wonderful trip/performance/visit. With this mail we want to inform you on our soon coming exodus to Belgrade and of course ask for your support as we assume you share our concerns on what is happening in Italy. s23x is a project focused very much on nomadism, temporary communities, linking online and offline worlds, inclusion and exclusion etc. In light of this we feel very sad to observe the developments in Italy during this year where the Roma and immigrant population of Italy is being criminalized and targeted (Italy blocking the pirate bay is a minor offense in this situation) and the military is taking to the streets.
Thus, we feel that we can no longer keep up the s23m project in Italy and will to go into exile to a place where we can make the bus come alive again and re-establish “networks between nomadic entities in Beograd, Italy, Romania, irc and so forth” to quote ourselves. This is not to say that the Roma population of Beograd is perfectly well off, rather that we feel Beograd is the perfect place to start further enquiries and interventions on this issue.
Another aspect that was present immediately upon arrival was the feeling of an end. When the bus stopped moving, when the art realm lid came upon us.
We are in negotiations with institutions in Belgrade to host an alternative exodus Manifesta. We will invite all artists of manifesta7 to join us in the bus to this exhibition. We are planning on leaving in October. We are as we speak contacting different bodies to finance us (EU, OSI, private rich people) but so far we are without financial means. Of course we are also contacting Roma organizations for conceptual and tactical guidance and cooperation as we are definitely not out to represent any people or group.
This raises a lot of questions on cooperation among other this one; are you in favor of what you are hearing? We would very much like to discuss this and all other topics with you mouths to ears, so to speak. I’d like to suggest that we call you at wednesday morning 7.30 (for us) which should be at 12(IST?) for you.
Please let us know soon if its possible to schedule this meeting and if so to what landline/skype/other we should call. Maybe we could even do a video conference on skype, that would be awesome.
“Being a Host or a guest is a very important factor in Manifesta, because Manifesta is by nature a nomadic event, itinierant in its moving from one city to another, mostly in periferic areas of Europe.”
Hedwig Fijen
Johan Allgoth & Magnus Eriksson
for s23x
I think that our arival and our presence at the opening weekend easily made up the best contribution to Manifesta7 (or at least to the Ex-Alumix part). Since then, however, the bus as an object has degenerated into a crap piece of art. Still the video screened inside the bus is still, as an art video, definitely one of the very best at the whole exhibition – and the immediate context for the video screening (the middle part of the bus’ main room) is great, almost uncomparable to the rest of the inside, the outside, or the totality.
It wasn’t that we left S23M in Bolzano. We left as S23M, a deterritorialized project, leaving the bus behind.
One conclusion is that S23x must be at hand with the bus, or it will degrade.
Now, let’s reterritorialize it!
“While it was stationed in Bolzano during the summer, it was left with some spray cans inside. When we arrived again, we had noticed that someone had taken these and spraypainted the outside of the bus. I a very ugly manner I have to add. Now, as artists we had several choices in this situation. We could have kept the spraypaint, talking about how the people now had truly interacted with the art. But this would have been to fetischise authenticity. What we did I think was much better, we also remodified the bus. Removed some paint, added other, filled in some earlier paintings and generally made it look much better from our point of view. In this way we claimed just the same control over the art as the people with the spray cans had claimed. It was only our position as artists that made it possible to do this after the exhibition was closed and therefor have the final “word”. The artist has an information advantage over the public in relation to the art.”
— Monki commenting on Copyriot, regarding the cliché of “art in public space”
We said that, in principle at least, the bus was made for fifteen- to twenty-year-olds. There are, you see, two ways of engaging with a bus: you either see it as a box with something inside and start looking for what it signifies. And you annotate and interpret and question, and blog about the bus, and so on and on.
Or there’s the other way: you see the bus as a little non-signifying machine, and the only question is “Does it work, and how does it work?” How does it work for you? If it doesn’t work, if nothing comes through, you try another bus. This second way of engaging is intensive: something comes through or it doesn’t. There’s nothing to explain, nothing to understand, nothing to interpret. It’s like plugging in to an electric circuit.
A bus is a little cog in much more complicated external machinery. Discourse is one flow among others, with no special place in relation to the others, that comes into relations of current, countercurrent, and eddy with other flows-flows of shit, sperm, words, action, eroticism, money, politics, and so on.
