Episode 1 Participant: Redas Diržys
Ah, Vladimir Ilyich, if you were sitting in our office, you would be so proud of us. Your inspiring example has enlightened our quest. The mere utterance of your famous “What’s to be done” thrills us as it carries the promise of solutions.
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“The Birth of Agit’ Prop”
Act 1, scene 1: Lenin and Lunacharsky sit in some anonymous room. The air is filled with cigarette smoke (because everybody knows the Bolsheviks were chain-smokers)
LENIN (thumping his fist on the table): We need to promote art as means of agitation!
LUNACHARSKY (approvingly): You’re right. What do you propose?
LENIN (wide horizontal hand gesture): First, we’ll put slogans everywhere, on the walls of buildings, on fences, everywhere!
LUNACHARSKY (enthusiastic): It’s great.
LENIN (finger raised): Then, we’ll do monumental propaganda!
LUNACHARSKY (excitingly): What do you mean?
LENIN (opening his arms as if to embrace the whole universe): We’ll erect temporary plaster monuments to all the great revolutionaries in all the cities!
LUNACHARSKY (admiringly): What a wonderful idea.
LENIN (looking at the radiant future): We’ll organize an unveiling ceremony for each monument, and we’ll make a speech about the revolutionary to whom it is dedicated!
LUNACHARSKY (ecstatic): Amazing.
The question is twofold. On the one hand, it’s about efficacy of carriers: how to convey, through artworks, the strongest message possible to the widest audience possible. The softer and somewhat more refined version is: how to create conditions for artworks to be perceived, commented and appreciated by people, how to strengthen their impact once they are displayed in public spaces. In other terms, how to implement an explanatory (to say the least) dimension of, through, for the artwork? On the other hand, it’s about response. To convey a message supposes that there is somebody who receives it, before even understanding, accepting, or refusing it. And here, all that was fine and good becomes more slippery. What if – horrible question – there was nobody? The message would vanish in vacuum. Scientists have overcome this terrible perspective: they keep on sending Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man and the Pi sign throughout the Milky Way without too much hope of extra-terrestrial answer. Are artists, curators, and art theoreticians able of such steadfastness and selflessness? As we mass produce all kinds of art works and art talks for all kinds of audiences, driven we are by objectives of communication, we lose track of one basic question: where are the masses for art?
Well, let’s look for them. Let’s grasp them! True, you cannot force them to enter the symposium auditorium. But you may perhaps sneak out of the peaceful lecture hall and reach people where they are.
Our idea: very simple - Let’s amplify art speech!
Our problem: no big deal - We need an instrument.
Our solution: a loudspeaker, the trustful ally of (sound) dictatorship.
History: On the Black Book of unfortunate devices which got the favour of political regimes, the loudspeaker features prominently. Gleefully spitting up either the impressive results of the five-year plan, the names of purged traitors, or songs on happy workers and military victories, at each street corner it delivered its unstoppable, hysterical babbling, transforming the life of poor citizens into noisy hell. Nowadays, the loudspeaker pursues its bright career in many other, less political nevertheless as intrusive, realms; cars passing with deafening techno music, repetitive announcements in all kinds of public spaces (trains stations, subways stations, shops…), essential component of any demonstration or parade… Let’s contribute to some new field of development.
Our proposal: a small space, preferably with a window. You go solo. The loudspeakers are placed outside. It’s ready, you can start talking.
When does communication turn into invasion? When does the artistic good willingness of sharing become enforcement and abuse? Could art speech be more than a mere urban spectacle, one more street noise?
