[spectre] Société Réaliste: Cosmopolites de tous les pays encore un effort

[Aksioma]

Aksioma - Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana presents:

 

Société Réaliste

Cosmopolites de tous les pays encore un effort

www.aksioma.org/cosmopolites

 

International Centre of Graphic Arts (MGLC)

Grad Tivoli, Pod turnom 3, Ljubljana, Slovenia

 

Unveiling of the public monument: 27 September 2010 at 6pm

 

 

There is a field of non-Euclidean geography that has never got its Nobel
Prize winner. The major tools of this emerging science are tearing, gluing
and stretching topographic elements in order to reach an idealized inertia
of a piece of land corresponding to the mental projections of its
inhabitants. The constant endeavor of the researchers of territorial
ergonomics consists in re-designing hypsometric tints, shaded reliefs,
longitudes, latitudes and contour lines in the direction to fit them with
their intrinsic stature. Indeed, not only natural objects and forces but all
topographical components have their will of completion, especially those
that were formed by human intention. The observation, identification,
description and experimental investigation of regional divisions are the
fundament of the art of territorial shaping. 

 

In 2008, Société Réaliste started a survey about "ecomorphism", about how
the forms of the physical surroundings of humans strain their perception,
how their attitude adapts to the specific architectural, urban and
geopolitical condition. In primary school one starts studying geography by
the description of the boundaries of the fatherland. Which are the
surrounding countries, which are the natural frontiers, mountains,
coastlines and rivers, where these dotted lines, drawn so elegantly through
deserts, hills and forests, run on the map. The form of the native country
is burned on the retina of every citizen: it is put on vehicles as stickers,
used on banknotes, coats of arms and stamps, shown in museums or on
television, used as bijou or even built as temples like the Bharat Mata
Mandir in Varanasi, India. The fellows of territorial ergonomics consider
this obsessive misuse of geographical data as the principal obstacle to
cosmopolitan imagination. In order to protest against the dictatorial
malpractice of topography and to dismantle the idolatry of miscellaneous
historico-geographical shapes, Société Réaliste has created a cognitive
see-through model under the title of Jacques Derrida's book Cosmopolites de
tous les pays encore un effort / Cosmopolitans of all countries, yet another
effort. The model is the result of the superimposition of the topographic
forms of the 192 member states of the United Nations. All these sovereign
states were put on the same scale using only two main bits of information:
their specific shape and the location of their capital city, with the
intention of producing the synthetic form of potentially any state. The
result is an eroded square, the average capital city lying almost in the
geometrical center of it, the chaos of the borderlines covering nearly its
entire surface. Parallel to the calculation of the shape of a "model state",
Société Réaliste started to work on a textual corpus that incorporates all
the national anthems of the aforementioned 192 UN member states. Using the
English translation of every anthem, Société Réaliste established a global
compilation of national(ist) vocabulary. All words are marked with the three
letter ISO code of the corresponding country, for example SVN for Slovenia,
FRA for France, HUN for Hungary, etc. 

 

Cosmopolitans of all countries, yet another effort is a standard tombstone
for any state. Presented vertically, into one of its sides is carved the
calculation method with the superimposition of all the national borders of
the world and the emplacement of the 192 capital cities, while into the
other side is carved a textual composition using the compiled adjectives of
all 192 national anthems. The complete list of 1839 hymnal adjectives -
which form a line from the word ABLAZE from the Turkish anthem, to YOUTHFUL,
from the Jordanian one - can be applied to any sovereignty of any time. This
ephemeral monument stands in the confrontation between the majestic and
ceremonious sculpture, the abstract figuration of the notion of the state
and the methodology of its construction. Cosmopolitans of all countries, yet
another effort intends to evoke and to represent the necessary escape and
excess from entrapment within historical forms of political domination and
to remain at the same time the parody of a monument. 

 

Société Réaliste is a Parisian cooperative created by Ferenc Gróf and
Jean-Baptiste Naudy in 2004. It works in the field of political design,
experimental economy, territorial ergonomics and social engineering
consulting. Polytechnic, it develops its production schemes through
exhibitions, publications and conferences. Société Réaliste is represented
by Galerie Martine Aboucaya (Paris) and Kisterem (Budapest). In 2010 they
presented their work at several collective exhibitions (Rennes Biennial, FR;
Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella, IT; Mücsarnok/Kunsthalle, Budapest, HU;
Walter and McBean Galleries, SFAI, San Francisco, USA) and they are
preparing a series of solo exhibitions starting in September at Platform3,
Munich, DE, which will be continued in Ljubljana at the Skuc Gallery in
November. For more information: www.societerealiste.net
<http://www.societerealiste.net/> 

 

 

Executive producers: Janez Janša, Marcela Okretič

Public relations: Mojca Zupanič

Realization: RPS d.o.o.

 

Production: Aksioma - Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, 2010

www.aksioma.org <http://www.aksioma.org/> 

Partner: International Centre of Graphic Arts (MGLC)

Supported by: the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, the
Municipality of Ljubljana and the French Institute Charles Nodier

 

 

Contact:

Marcela Okretič

Aksioma | Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana

Neubergerjeva 25, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

gsm: + 386 (0)41 250830

e-pošta: aksioma4 at siol.net

www.aksioma.org

 

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