Lecture

10 December 2005

On Mutation (post–Cold War and new order)

Worse than Cold War? The new paradigm of war is often discussed in comparison to the Cold War, which came to an end over a decade ago. This link is not only due to the proximity of the post-Cold War era. For philosopher Jacques Derrida, the Cold War was the initial stage of what he calls “autoimmunity”—the present crisis of which 9/11 is the symptom—a mechanism of destroying one’s own protection. Apropos Derrida, the production of massive destructive power and military intelligence that now threaten the world have been disseminated and disciplined by the major powers, particularly as the United States has emerged from the Cold War and pursued global sovereignty. Marxist philosopher Antonio Negri also points out that the Cold War introduced novel elements of war, including the superpower nations’ attempts to maintain a permanent status-quo of global order in the name of “just war.” Instead of outright destruction, this type of war aims to “contaminate” society. The current global state of war is a mutation of the Cold War situation, strongly organizing social life and exerting its influence through “biopower.” Taking the Cold War as a comparative parameter to measure how war has been altered in recent history, and how it has consequently infiltrated social structures and the individual, Moscow-based art critic and curator Viktor Misiano, Korean artists-collective YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES, and American artist Sean Snyder respond to these new conditions, and through lectures and discussions, consider how artistic practices can respond to and resist these developments.

Suggestions from the archive

Exhibitionary

8 March, 19.00–7 March, 22.00 2024

Yallah Sabaya

Community Portal Hosts… Yallah Sabaya Join us on 8 March 2024 at BAK, Yallah Sabaya is happening again! “Come on ladies, let’s have fun together,” would be a good translation of yallah sabaya. All women of different cultural backgrounds are welcome to dance, chat, and connect with others also through movement and celebration. 8 March 2024, […]

Reading Group

Exhibition

07 March–02 June 2024

Usufructuaries of earth
Chapter one: exhibition

The exhibition foregrounds the artist’s collaborative approach to bringing together ecological, feminist, and decolonial knowledges and practices that put forward ideologies of usufruct, unhinging property-relations from the idiom of individuated possession and toward forms of common userships between humans and other-than-humans.

Convention