Disobedience Archive has been exhibited
in several configurations over the years.
On the occasion of most recent displays
three newspapers have been produced as
compendium of the installation.
in several configurations over the years.
On the occasion of most recent displays
three newspapers have been produced as
compendium of the installation.
Among the other venue, Disobedience Archive has been presented at Kunstraum Bethanien, Berlin; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven;
Badischer-Kunstverein, Karlsruhe; Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham;
Mestrovic Pavilion, Zagreb; Riga Art Space, Riga; MNAC, Bucharest; Ernest G.
Welch Gallery, Atlanta; Raven Row, London; MIT, Boston; Bildmuseet, Umeå; Castello di Rivoli, Rivoli, Turin and Salt in Istanbul.
Disobedience Archive (The Parliament)
When the word “disobedience” first appeared in the political vocabulary, its meaning was reduced, so Hannah Arendt maintains, to one particular field of moral philosophy. “Disobedience” turned into “civil disobedience,” and the generic “refuses to obey” turned into the specific “refuses to obey the law”; that is, the failed observance of jurisdictional rules on principle. The
dilemma of whether to obey or not to obey constitutional laws was effectively raised by Henry David Thoreau. In 1846, in Concord, he refused to pay the electoral tax to a government—an American government—that permitted slavery. In
the case of Thoreau, this shift from disobedience to legal order became not only
possible—it could seem that his gesture did not go beyond the level of individual morality—but even caused civil disobedience to be inscribed in the liberal tradition.
This would find its apogee in 1968, when protest against any authority became a mass phenomenon.
Disobedience Archive (The Republic)
Disobeying does not mean simply dismissing or denying something. Disobeying is,
on the contrary, an innovative, experimental, foundational action. Freeing
oneself from a representation or from a set of rules requires a high degree of
alternative self-assertion, antagonistic planning, and a new creation of
subjectivities.
Disobedience Archive (The Park)
Millions of tents continue to spring up everywhere across the world. There are
thousands of singular demonstrations and local battles that are all signs of a
common, global struggle. There is not one correct response to the question What is to be done? There is just a multiplicity of insurrections that despite always being
autonomous are never atomized. From the 1999 protests in Seattle to the recent
demonstrations of the many international Occupy movements, from Zapatista
uprisings to the Arab and Turkish insurrections, there is an identical
transformative tension (global, chaotic, plural) that has never stopped to act.
The insurgent movements respond to the decline of the representative political
model, the neoliberal economy’s new hegemony along with the governing police and military forces, with
effective political experimentation and new ways of political visualization
that dislocates the classic methods of exercising power and resists the logics
of representation (political leaders and parties, the ruling classes and the
state). In fact, one of the questions the mainstream media, analysts and
opinion makers asked the various Occupy movements was: “What are your specific demands? What are your demands that deal with issues such
as public education, housing, justice, distribution of labor, etc.?”
