Why artists? - Franco Berardi Bifo's article ends under the influence of Postspectacle Shelter opening that he so movingly officiated:
Invited by a group of artists and activists, in April 2012 I spent some days in Bucharest and delivered a speech at the Museum of Contemporary Art. When I entered the space where a small crowd of listeners were gathering I saw two words written on the wall: No hope.
According to a recent survey it seems that 58% of Rumanians declare they are nostalgic for Ceausescu. Can you imagine someone longing for Ceausescu? My hosts told me: we have been the victims of two opposing nightmares: the communist nightmare of the past and the capitalist nightmare we are suffering now. Hope is over, for us, but the same can be said for our fellow humans all over the planet. "Give up hope, therefore, is our contribution to the emergence of a new consciousness" told me Florin Flueras, a dancer and activist who practices dystopic irony. Hope and growth are traps and our life is taken in these traps.
Dystopic irony (dyst-irony) is the language of those who understand without cynicism that the modern promise has been trashed because of the identification of Modernity and the capitalist dogma. Dystopia is the current imagination of future and irony is the rhetorical distance from the hypocritical discourse of power based on fake concepts such as competition, austerity, recovery and growth.
"Give up hope" is a dyst-ironic provocation meaning: don't trust the promises of power, don't expect growth, capitalism is agonizing, if we don't change the expectations that capitalism has produced we'll fall into depression and fascism.
Read the article
Invited by a group of artists and activists, in April 2012 I spent some days in Bucharest and delivered a speech at the Museum of Contemporary Art. When I entered the space where a small crowd of listeners were gathering I saw two words written on the wall: No hope.
According to a recent survey it seems that 58% of Rumanians declare they are nostalgic for Ceausescu. Can you imagine someone longing for Ceausescu? My hosts told me: we have been the victims of two opposing nightmares: the communist nightmare of the past and the capitalist nightmare we are suffering now. Hope is over, for us, but the same can be said for our fellow humans all over the planet. "Give up hope, therefore, is our contribution to the emergence of a new consciousness" told me Florin Flueras, a dancer and activist who practices dystopic irony. Hope and growth are traps and our life is taken in these traps.
Dystopic irony (dyst-irony) is the language of those who understand without cynicism that the modern promise has been trashed because of the identification of Modernity and the capitalist dogma. Dystopia is the current imagination of future and irony is the rhetorical distance from the hypocritical discourse of power based on fake concepts such as competition, austerity, recovery and growth.
"Give up hope" is a dyst-ironic provocation meaning: don't trust the promises of power, don't expect growth, capitalism is agonizing, if we don't change the expectations that capitalism has produced we'll fall into depression and fascism.
Read the article
