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7/3/2012

Forays. Systems of Self-Interest

Open Space - Zentrum fur Kunstprojekte, Wien

Project curator: Sabine Winkler

Participating artists:
Lara Baladi
Jan Peter Hammer
Maryam Jafri
Lina Khatib
Candida TV/D Media
Joanne Richardson
David Rych

The project deals with different systems of exploitation and its consequences. Within the dramatic occurrences of the last years, there was one obvious motif, forming the basis of the financial crisis as well as the basis of the riots in the countries of the Arabic-Spring: Exploitation and systems of self-interest are mechanisms of looting, which occurs as neoliberalism disguised as democracy or naked as dictatorial system. The possibilities of exploitation are unlimited. Loss of reality characterizes the stakeholders of both systems. The loot-mechanisms of the financial systems are inscrutable in their abstract complexity and virtuality, the exploitation systems of totalitarian governed countries define the everyday life struggle of survival of the population. Political, economical and judicial conditions of forays are installed to systematize methods of self-interest and to strengthen elitist power systems.

What is now then the difference between these two exploitation systems? That the people in Europe have not yet fought the ruthless methods of the finance markets? The saving of the banking-institutions and the big concerns will destroy more and more the social systems, as everybody (except the rich) will have to pay for the gambling debts of the financial-markets-speculators in the following years. Exploitation is a means to eliminate the social state: Public money that is supposed to be spent for the communality is shifted to banking institutions and big concerns. Thievery of the commons, tax privileges of the rich and methods of self-interest, which are sold as competence of competition do not only involve public fields, but also affect increasingly private zones. The looters at the financial-markets still feel secure and protected within the neoliberal system and its same old representatives. Corruption has a long tradition and is taken for granted as a method of enrichment, inasmuch it is increasingly perceived as a legalized tactic for succeeding economically.

In the Arabic countries of revolution the autocrats enriched themselves by public and by governmental institutionalized methods of looting, establishing systems of corruption, regarding all social classes. Structures for systemic and personal enrichment methods were installed by the colonial policy, exploitation was and is practised by elitist gangs. Authoritarian and hierarchic systems, which are operating self-interestedly in clans, feudal or Mafia-like gangs, disregarding necessities of life, rights, social conditions, etc., are producing every day disasters and lack of perspectives, especially for the young people. The governmental father figures have served their time; patriarchal systems of control are forced back by the desire of self-determination and the right to say. At the moment, some of the dictatorial looters are losing their power positions and new possibilities for political orders can be developed.

The worst is coming to the worst, when territorial claims of both exploitation systems coincide, when military interventions are whitewashed on the pretext of humanitarian aid, or when the ventures of the financial markets force up the prices of food, causing mass starvation in political and economical instable countries.

What are the systemic overlapping and differences in this two systems of loot-generation? In which way mechanisms of exploitation are legitimized and masked, which pseudo-arguments are appearing again and again in this context and which counter-mechanisms could stop this generation of loot?

Image: Jan Peter Hammer The Anarchist Banker, 2010 HD video installation,

Opening: 8 March, 19:00 pm

Open Space - Zentrum fur Kunstprojekte
Lassingleithnerplatz 2 - Wien
Open Friday, Saturday 13.00 - 18.30 and open for the rest of the week days by appointment only.
Admission free

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