Nika Dubrovsky - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Nika Dubrovsky
Routledge eBooks, Aug 16, 2022
Brain Trust Project, 2023
Some questions for Brian Trust’s project, more in the style of a friendly conversation to broaden... more Some questions for Brian Trust’s project, more in the style of a friendly conversation to broaden our view of what can and should be done.
A conversation between Nika Dubrovsky and Vera Mey about (re)thinking cities, 2023
In the following interview for ARTS OF THE WORKING CLASS, Vera Mey and Nika Dubrovsky discuss the... more In the following interview for ARTS OF THE WORKING CLASS, Vera Mey and Nika Dubrovsky discuss their shared experiences as part of the conference series “Challenging Capitalist Modernity,” in which Dubrovsky had taken part on behalf of her organization, Anthropology for Kids. This conversation reflects on Dubrovsky’s experience at the workshop in collaboration with Kurdish activists, touching on themes of urbanism, community, and imagination. The conference took place in Hamburg, Germany, from April 7-9, 2023, and under the title We Want Our World Back, focused on the arts, education, and construction of democratic confederalism.
Disrupt Publications, 2022
In thinking about how artistic work is valued and whether artists should be paid at all, it makes... more In thinking about how artistic work is valued and whether artists should be paid at all, it makes sense to put this question in the broader context of the radical changes currently sweeping the world. These changes affect all aspects of our life, including, of course, the art. We are seeing the rise of strong nation-states in the Global South that are not just competing with their former masters for control over the production of culture but also offering a new model of what can be called "culture" and how to evaluate it. There appear to be two trends. The first is a public and private investment push by the Global South that competes with the Western art system and pulls the production and distribution of values into its own territory and under its own control. The second trend can be found in the grassroots movements of the Global South, in which Western art activists also participate, which propose a restructuring of the entire global system of cultural production as we know it. Let's look at all these aspects to try to understand the direction of change, not only in attitudes toward an artist's work but also in rethinking who artists are and what art is. Rethinking values in a changing world.
<jats:p>In diesem Buch geht es darum, wie sich die Vorstellungen der Menschen von Städten i... more <jats:p>In diesem Buch geht es darum, wie sich die Vorstellungen der Menschen von Städten im Laufe der Geschichte und in verschiedenen Kulturen verändert haben. Hier findet Ihr mittelalterliche Stiche, Zitate und Illustrationen aus der Science-Fiction, Standbilder aus Filmen und Architekturzeichnungen von Sam Chermaeff und mir (Nika Dubrovsky). In diesem Buch werdet Ihr viele verschiedene Grundrisse von Städten sehen – sowohl von Kindern ausgedachte als auch reale. Wie in allen Büchern unserer Serie gibt es jede Menge Platz für Dich zum Zeichnen, Träumen und kreativ sein. Fang an, die Stadt zu entwerfen, in der Du leben möchtest!</jats:p>
I would like to present my project called Anthropology for kids and a specific book, that I am wo... more I would like to present my project called Anthropology for kids and a specific book, that I am working on in the larger framework of this project. This book will look like an ordinary school notebook in which a teacher checks a student if the lesson had been learnt. But it is actually not! I gathered this collection of historical and anthropological notes, so that together with school kids we can think about how the very idea of privacy was developed in different countries and in different historical epochs. In ancient Babylon wealthy women were allowed to cover their faces and their bodies, but the poor ones were not. In the Soviet Union during Stalin times it was dangerous to tell a political joke even in the group of close friends. One of them may report a joke to the authorities. Punishment for a political joke could be a prison sentence. Today more or less all our online communication is watched or recorded by authorities. How does our present relate to other times in history, ...
RADICALIZING CARE. FEMINIST AND QUEER ACTIVISM IN CURATING, 2022
The idea of the Museum of Care is to provide a space where people: artists and non-artists cooper... more The idea of the Museum of Care is to provide a space where people: artists and non-artists cooperate with each other to change, restore and repair the social fabric of society, as op-posed to a traditional museum which most of the time is designed to create the space to ex-hibit, appreciate and archive certain sorts of objects or to document certain sorts of situa-tions, with the purpose of presenting them as one or another form of sublime.
Nature Climate Change
Carbon mitigation efforts often focus on the world's poorest people, dealing with topics ... more Carbon mitigation efforts often focus on the world's poorest people, dealing with topics such as food and energy security, and increased emissions potential from projected population, income and consumption growth. However, more policies are needed that target people at the opposite end of the social ladder-the super-rich.
There Is No Society? Individuals and Community in Pandemic Times: , 2020
"The show is a scam, and the props are cheap."-Holly Wood, private conversation, January 2021 Vla... more "The show is a scam, and the props are cheap."-Holly Wood, private conversation, January 2021 Vladimir Nabokov's novel Invitation to a Beheading (1935) tells the story of a thirty-year-old teacher sentenced to death for the crime of "gnostical turpitude," or non-transparency to otherness. At first, everything reads in the vein of other dystopian novels from Yevgeny Zamyatin to George Orwell, but it ends on a surprisingly optimistic note: instead of punishment and death, the execution becomes the teacher's liberation. He discovers that the world around him is just a poorly made theater set. The props collapse one after another. The stage buckles, backdrops fall, and the figures of terrible tyrants prove to be no more than cardboard cutouts. As soon as the protagonist realizes the surrounding reality is all artifice, he becomes free.
The earth is a museum of humanity, traveling through the universe.-Nikolai Fyodorov In the first ... more The earth is a museum of humanity, traveling through the universe.-Nikolai Fyodorov In the first two parts of this essay, we analyzed the contemporary art world less in terms of how it works than in terms of what it does, in what is at stake in its existence. One of the most powerful and insidious roles the art world (at least as it is currently organized) plays is in the creation and maintenance of a larger symbolic order hierarchizing what are called "the arts," creating a kind of artificial scarcity that subordinates most forms of cultural creativity. In doing so, the art world has powerful effects on many who are not even aware of its existence. Other ways of organizing human creativity are possible. In analyzing the artificial production of scarcity, the strategic adoption of only half of the Romantic conception of creativity-or what the Romantics themselves called "genius"-we also wanted to identify exactly what made it possible for the art world to play this role, so as to imagine a different one. What if we spent half the creativity we spend on producing new works of art on reimagining the institutional structure of the art world itself? We set out to examine the matter historically, and cross-culturally, and also take inspiration from our own daydreams and nightmares, to produce a Borges-like catalogue of possible art-worlds, based on different principles of value: • What if there were an art world with the explicit aim of producing gossip? • What if there were an art world in which art is an extremely sophisticated form of personal insult directed at those the artist hates (such as other artists)? • What if there were an art world in which humans were not allowed to participate, but only observe the interactions of animals and machines? • What if there were an art world in which works are meant to express feelings of shame and remorse (art as apology)? • What if the art world were organized by the government to design previously unimaginable forms of sin, or just beautiful pornography, then sell carnal indulgences provided by the government to absolve consumers? This was a great deal of fun, and could easily have grown to hundreds, even thousands of possible other art worlds. But after the global pandemic and the veritable mass uprisings that followed, it seemed a trifle flippant. We decided to reconsider our approach. Inter anna silent Musae-the Muses all fall silent when cannons talk. But perhaps this true of only a certain kind of muse. We came to realize that the ideas we were developing, however imaginative, were ultimately reformist. Perhaps, as Black Lives Matter has argued so cogently of the police and prison-industrial complex, the art world can't be reformed. What would it mean to take an abolitionist position? On Monuments and the Rules of Engagement
The continuing adventures of the Yes Women, 2020
There was a joke once that in the Spanish civil war, the anarchists might have lost all the ba... more There was a joke once
that in the Spanish civil war, the anarchists might have lost all the battles, but
they had all the best songs. But for that very reason, in the end, in a way,
they won. What sort of songs might we sing today, what can we spray on a
real or imaginary wall, that will create a space in which the same people
currently shrugging their shoulders at the plight of such women might actually
begin to care.
Or more precisely, we are imagining a sane world after the virus, one where, instead of just tryi... more Or more precisely, we are imagining a sane world after the virus, one where, instead of just trying to put things back the way they were, we act on what we've learned.
n that future, those empty offices not used to house bureaucrats or secret police will be turned into state museums: conservative, elitist institutions whose general ambiance balances somewhere between that of a cemetery and that of a bank.
In a world built around care and solidarity, much of this vast and absurd office space would indeed be blown up, but others could be turned into free city universities, social centers and hotels for those in need of shelter. We could call them ‘Museums of Care’ — precisely because they are spaces that do not celebrate production of any sort but rather provide the space and means for the creation of social relationships and the imagining of entirely new forms of social relations.
Film critics appear to be unanimous that Bong Joon-Ho's 2019 film Parasite is a brilliant meditat... more Film critics appear to be unanimous that Bong Joon-Ho's 2019 film Parasite is a brilliant meditation on social inequality. They're wrong. It is not a movie about social inequality. Or, it is, but this is almost secondary. It is a theological movie, even if based in a religion the director has basically made up, about a God who abandoned us.
Why We Founded the Yes Women, an Art Group Demanding Justice for Divorcées in the Former East Germany, 2019
Why We Founded the Yes Women, an Art Group Demanding Justice for Divorcées in the Former East Ger... more Why We Founded the Yes Women, an Art Group Demanding Justice for Divorcées in the Former East Germany
The long, hard road to the birth of a new slogan: "Never Mind Us!"
Another Art World, Part 2: Utopia of Freedom as a Market Value, 2019
Nika Dubrovsky and David Graeber, in contemplating the relationship between the art world and ind... more Nika Dubrovsky and David Graeber, in contemplating the relationship between the art world and industrialism, pick apart the lingering specter of the individual “genius” in contemporary art narratives. Even though institutional nods to artists from groups that have been historically left out of this classification may appear to signal a return to a collective focus, Dubrovsky and Graeber insist that a preoccupation with individual artists’ particular identities and biographies still boils down to a continuation of vertical Romanticism. The two writers look at the larger constellation of mega-exhibitions, pointing out the absurdity in each of these trying to be its own historic event. These “historic events,” they contend, aim to expand notions of contemporary art, leaving the whole field a constellation of rules and meta-rules.
Another Art World, Part 2: Utopia of Freedom as a Market Value, 2019
Nika Dubrovsky and David Graeber, in contemplating the relationship between the art world and ind... more Nika Dubrovsky and David Graeber, in contemplating the relationship between the art world and industrialism, pick apart the lingering specter of the individual “genius” in contemporary art narratives. Even though institutional nods to artists from groups that have been historically left out of this classification may appear to signal a return to a collective focus, Dubrovsky and Graeber insist that a preoccupation with individual artists’ particular identities and biographies still boils down to a continuation of vertical Romanticism. The two writers look at the larger constellation of mega-exhibitions, pointing out the absurdity in each of these trying to be its own historic event. These “historic events,” they contend, aim to expand notions of contemporary art, leaving the whole field a constellation of rules and meta-rules.
Shift the focus from the super-poor to the super-rich | Nature, 2019
Carbon mitigation efforts often focus on the world's poorest people, dealing with topics such as ... more Carbon mitigation efforts often focus on the world's poorest people, dealing with topics such as food and energy security, and increased emissions potential from projected population, income and consumption growth. However, more policies are needed that target people at the opposite end of the social ladder-the super-rich.
Routledge eBooks, Aug 16, 2022
Brain Trust Project, 2023
Some questions for Brian Trust’s project, more in the style of a friendly conversation to broaden... more Some questions for Brian Trust’s project, more in the style of a friendly conversation to broaden our view of what can and should be done.
A conversation between Nika Dubrovsky and Vera Mey about (re)thinking cities, 2023
In the following interview for ARTS OF THE WORKING CLASS, Vera Mey and Nika Dubrovsky discuss the... more In the following interview for ARTS OF THE WORKING CLASS, Vera Mey and Nika Dubrovsky discuss their shared experiences as part of the conference series “Challenging Capitalist Modernity,” in which Dubrovsky had taken part on behalf of her organization, Anthropology for Kids. This conversation reflects on Dubrovsky’s experience at the workshop in collaboration with Kurdish activists, touching on themes of urbanism, community, and imagination. The conference took place in Hamburg, Germany, from April 7-9, 2023, and under the title We Want Our World Back, focused on the arts, education, and construction of democratic confederalism.
Disrupt Publications, 2022
In thinking about how artistic work is valued and whether artists should be paid at all, it makes... more In thinking about how artistic work is valued and whether artists should be paid at all, it makes sense to put this question in the broader context of the radical changes currently sweeping the world. These changes affect all aspects of our life, including, of course, the art. We are seeing the rise of strong nation-states in the Global South that are not just competing with their former masters for control over the production of culture but also offering a new model of what can be called "culture" and how to evaluate it. There appear to be two trends. The first is a public and private investment push by the Global South that competes with the Western art system and pulls the production and distribution of values into its own territory and under its own control. The second trend can be found in the grassroots movements of the Global South, in which Western art activists also participate, which propose a restructuring of the entire global system of cultural production as we know it. Let's look at all these aspects to try to understand the direction of change, not only in attitudes toward an artist's work but also in rethinking who artists are and what art is. Rethinking values in a changing world.
<jats:p>In diesem Buch geht es darum, wie sich die Vorstellungen der Menschen von Städten i... more <jats:p>In diesem Buch geht es darum, wie sich die Vorstellungen der Menschen von Städten im Laufe der Geschichte und in verschiedenen Kulturen verändert haben. Hier findet Ihr mittelalterliche Stiche, Zitate und Illustrationen aus der Science-Fiction, Standbilder aus Filmen und Architekturzeichnungen von Sam Chermaeff und mir (Nika Dubrovsky). In diesem Buch werdet Ihr viele verschiedene Grundrisse von Städten sehen – sowohl von Kindern ausgedachte als auch reale. Wie in allen Büchern unserer Serie gibt es jede Menge Platz für Dich zum Zeichnen, Träumen und kreativ sein. Fang an, die Stadt zu entwerfen, in der Du leben möchtest!</jats:p>
I would like to present my project called Anthropology for kids and a specific book, that I am wo... more I would like to present my project called Anthropology for kids and a specific book, that I am working on in the larger framework of this project. This book will look like an ordinary school notebook in which a teacher checks a student if the lesson had been learnt. But it is actually not! I gathered this collection of historical and anthropological notes, so that together with school kids we can think about how the very idea of privacy was developed in different countries and in different historical epochs. In ancient Babylon wealthy women were allowed to cover their faces and their bodies, but the poor ones were not. In the Soviet Union during Stalin times it was dangerous to tell a political joke even in the group of close friends. One of them may report a joke to the authorities. Punishment for a political joke could be a prison sentence. Today more or less all our online communication is watched or recorded by authorities. How does our present relate to other times in history, ...
RADICALIZING CARE. FEMINIST AND QUEER ACTIVISM IN CURATING, 2022
The idea of the Museum of Care is to provide a space where people: artists and non-artists cooper... more The idea of the Museum of Care is to provide a space where people: artists and non-artists cooperate with each other to change, restore and repair the social fabric of society, as op-posed to a traditional museum which most of the time is designed to create the space to ex-hibit, appreciate and archive certain sorts of objects or to document certain sorts of situa-tions, with the purpose of presenting them as one or another form of sublime.
Nature Climate Change
Carbon mitigation efforts often focus on the world's poorest people, dealing with topics ... more Carbon mitigation efforts often focus on the world's poorest people, dealing with topics such as food and energy security, and increased emissions potential from projected population, income and consumption growth. However, more policies are needed that target people at the opposite end of the social ladder-the super-rich.
There Is No Society? Individuals and Community in Pandemic Times: , 2020
"The show is a scam, and the props are cheap."-Holly Wood, private conversation, January 2021 Vla... more "The show is a scam, and the props are cheap."-Holly Wood, private conversation, January 2021 Vladimir Nabokov's novel Invitation to a Beheading (1935) tells the story of a thirty-year-old teacher sentenced to death for the crime of "gnostical turpitude," or non-transparency to otherness. At first, everything reads in the vein of other dystopian novels from Yevgeny Zamyatin to George Orwell, but it ends on a surprisingly optimistic note: instead of punishment and death, the execution becomes the teacher's liberation. He discovers that the world around him is just a poorly made theater set. The props collapse one after another. The stage buckles, backdrops fall, and the figures of terrible tyrants prove to be no more than cardboard cutouts. As soon as the protagonist realizes the surrounding reality is all artifice, he becomes free.
The earth is a museum of humanity, traveling through the universe.-Nikolai Fyodorov In the first ... more The earth is a museum of humanity, traveling through the universe.-Nikolai Fyodorov In the first two parts of this essay, we analyzed the contemporary art world less in terms of how it works than in terms of what it does, in what is at stake in its existence. One of the most powerful and insidious roles the art world (at least as it is currently organized) plays is in the creation and maintenance of a larger symbolic order hierarchizing what are called "the arts," creating a kind of artificial scarcity that subordinates most forms of cultural creativity. In doing so, the art world has powerful effects on many who are not even aware of its existence. Other ways of organizing human creativity are possible. In analyzing the artificial production of scarcity, the strategic adoption of only half of the Romantic conception of creativity-or what the Romantics themselves called "genius"-we also wanted to identify exactly what made it possible for the art world to play this role, so as to imagine a different one. What if we spent half the creativity we spend on producing new works of art on reimagining the institutional structure of the art world itself? We set out to examine the matter historically, and cross-culturally, and also take inspiration from our own daydreams and nightmares, to produce a Borges-like catalogue of possible art-worlds, based on different principles of value: • What if there were an art world with the explicit aim of producing gossip? • What if there were an art world in which art is an extremely sophisticated form of personal insult directed at those the artist hates (such as other artists)? • What if there were an art world in which humans were not allowed to participate, but only observe the interactions of animals and machines? • What if there were an art world in which works are meant to express feelings of shame and remorse (art as apology)? • What if the art world were organized by the government to design previously unimaginable forms of sin, or just beautiful pornography, then sell carnal indulgences provided by the government to absolve consumers? This was a great deal of fun, and could easily have grown to hundreds, even thousands of possible other art worlds. But after the global pandemic and the veritable mass uprisings that followed, it seemed a trifle flippant. We decided to reconsider our approach. Inter anna silent Musae-the Muses all fall silent when cannons talk. But perhaps this true of only a certain kind of muse. We came to realize that the ideas we were developing, however imaginative, were ultimately reformist. Perhaps, as Black Lives Matter has argued so cogently of the police and prison-industrial complex, the art world can't be reformed. What would it mean to take an abolitionist position? On Monuments and the Rules of Engagement
The continuing adventures of the Yes Women, 2020
There was a joke once that in the Spanish civil war, the anarchists might have lost all the ba... more There was a joke once
that in the Spanish civil war, the anarchists might have lost all the battles, but
they had all the best songs. But for that very reason, in the end, in a way,
they won. What sort of songs might we sing today, what can we spray on a
real or imaginary wall, that will create a space in which the same people
currently shrugging their shoulders at the plight of such women might actually
begin to care.
Or more precisely, we are imagining a sane world after the virus, one where, instead of just tryi... more Or more precisely, we are imagining a sane world after the virus, one where, instead of just trying to put things back the way they were, we act on what we've learned.
n that future, those empty offices not used to house bureaucrats or secret police will be turned into state museums: conservative, elitist institutions whose general ambiance balances somewhere between that of a cemetery and that of a bank.
In a world built around care and solidarity, much of this vast and absurd office space would indeed be blown up, but others could be turned into free city universities, social centers and hotels for those in need of shelter. We could call them ‘Museums of Care’ — precisely because they are spaces that do not celebrate production of any sort but rather provide the space and means for the creation of social relationships and the imagining of entirely new forms of social relations.
Film critics appear to be unanimous that Bong Joon-Ho's 2019 film Parasite is a brilliant meditat... more Film critics appear to be unanimous that Bong Joon-Ho's 2019 film Parasite is a brilliant meditation on social inequality. They're wrong. It is not a movie about social inequality. Or, it is, but this is almost secondary. It is a theological movie, even if based in a religion the director has basically made up, about a God who abandoned us.
Why We Founded the Yes Women, an Art Group Demanding Justice for Divorcées in the Former East Germany, 2019
Why We Founded the Yes Women, an Art Group Demanding Justice for Divorcées in the Former East Ger... more Why We Founded the Yes Women, an Art Group Demanding Justice for Divorcées in the Former East Germany
The long, hard road to the birth of a new slogan: "Never Mind Us!"
Another Art World, Part 2: Utopia of Freedom as a Market Value, 2019
Nika Dubrovsky and David Graeber, in contemplating the relationship between the art world and ind... more Nika Dubrovsky and David Graeber, in contemplating the relationship between the art world and industrialism, pick apart the lingering specter of the individual “genius” in contemporary art narratives. Even though institutional nods to artists from groups that have been historically left out of this classification may appear to signal a return to a collective focus, Dubrovsky and Graeber insist that a preoccupation with individual artists’ particular identities and biographies still boils down to a continuation of vertical Romanticism. The two writers look at the larger constellation of mega-exhibitions, pointing out the absurdity in each of these trying to be its own historic event. These “historic events,” they contend, aim to expand notions of contemporary art, leaving the whole field a constellation of rules and meta-rules.
Another Art World, Part 2: Utopia of Freedom as a Market Value, 2019
Nika Dubrovsky and David Graeber, in contemplating the relationship between the art world and ind... more Nika Dubrovsky and David Graeber, in contemplating the relationship between the art world and industrialism, pick apart the lingering specter of the individual “genius” in contemporary art narratives. Even though institutional nods to artists from groups that have been historically left out of this classification may appear to signal a return to a collective focus, Dubrovsky and Graeber insist that a preoccupation with individual artists’ particular identities and biographies still boils down to a continuation of vertical Romanticism. The two writers look at the larger constellation of mega-exhibitions, pointing out the absurdity in each of these trying to be its own historic event. These “historic events,” they contend, aim to expand notions of contemporary art, leaving the whole field a constellation of rules and meta-rules.
Shift the focus from the super-poor to the super-rich | Nature, 2019
Carbon mitigation efforts often focus on the world's poorest people, dealing with topics such as ... more Carbon mitigation efforts often focus on the world's poorest people, dealing with topics such as food and energy security, and increased emissions potential from projected population, income and consumption growth. However, more policies are needed that target people at the opposite end of the social ladder-the super-rich.
To kick-off our #AisforAnthropology thread, Nika Dubrovsky will be talking to us throughout the w... more To kick-off our #AisforAnthropology thread, Nika Dubrovsky will be talking to us throughout the week about her project, A4Kids. Our hope is that this thread and Nika's work will inspire thoughts and conversations on whether and how anthropology can be made accessible to children. A4Kids is a project developed and run by Nika Dubrovsky. It aims to bring the anthropological lens to children by way of (free) downloadable interactive books and workshops. In Nika's words, the project "started partly by way of in-between conversations-emails mostly-and Skype talks with David [Graeber] (…) It bridges two worlds: academia, and children. We are not supposed to talk to children about the questions accademia asks itself-such as what death is, what money is, or just even what is family. Rather, the parents tell their children what these things are, hence reproducing their own models. But anthropology is about something else." "A4Kids provides a framework for children to think through what Dostoevsky's calls the 'cursed questions'." Through children's workbooks and workshops, A4Kids provides a framework for children to think through what Dostoevsky's calls the 'cursed questions' (проклятые вопросы)-questions about life and its meaning we all ask
INtervew with Michal Kosinski for a book "What is Privacy" for the Anthropology for kids series o... more INtervew with Michal Kosinski for a book "What is Privacy" for the Anthropology for kids series of books
MICHAL KOSINSKI IS AN EXPERT IN DIGITAL PSYCHOMETRICS, WHO ANALYZES PEOPLE BASED ON THEIR DIGITAL FOOTPRINTS. NIKA DUBROVSKI IS CONCERNED, SO SHE TALKS TO HIM ABOUT THE FUTURE OF OUR PRIVACY
I asked Keith Hart to talk to me about nationalism and the changing idea of citizenship.
This is a proposal for an as-of-yet to be developed structure: the Museum of Care, a Museum that... more This is a proposal for an as-of-yet to be developed structure: the Museum of Care, a Museum that does not yet exist. A museum that would have no walls but many rooms. A museum that would have no director, no guards, no copyright on the works it shows.
In this text, I will try to describe how the idea of the Museum of Care came about and try to imagine a museum in which care and freedom can replace consumption and production.
Let’s start with the question: where do Museums come from?
How to Leave the Theater without Getting Beheaded, 2021
"The show is a scam, and the props are cheap."-Holly Wood, private conversation, January 2021 Vla... more "The show is a scam, and the props are cheap."-Holly Wood, private conversation, January 2021 Vladimir Nabokov's novel Invitation to a Beheading (1935) tells the story of a thirty-year-old teacher sentenced to death for the crime of "gnostical turpitude," or non-transparency to otherness. At first, everything reads in the vein of other dystopian novels from Yevgeny Zamyatin to George Orwell, but it ends on a surprisingly optimistic note: instead of punishment and death, the execution becomes the teacher's liberation. He discovers that the world around him is just a poorly made theater set. The props collapse one after another. The stage buckles, backdrops fall, and the figures of terrible tyrants prove to be no more than cardboard cutouts. As soon as the protagonist realizes the surrounding reality is all artifice, he becomes free.
This is a book about Kings. Where did they come from? How did anyone ever think it would be a bri... more This is a book about Kings. Where did they come from? How did anyone ever think it would be a bright idea to take one fairly random person and let them do whatever they want? What are the implications and why is it so incredibly difficult to get rid of them?
We'd like to put into question the very idea of art. How does it create the public space in which... more We'd like to put into question the very idea of art.
How does it create the public space in which it is understood and interpreted?
How might it do so differently? What sorts of artistic intervention might cause
people to ask these questions in a way that can't be recuperated by curators
and galleries as just another marketable commodity? There was a joke once
that in the Spanish civil war, the anarchists might have lost all the battles, but
they had all the best songs. But for that very reason, in the end, in a way,
they won. What sort of songs might we sing today, what can we spray on a
real or imaginary wall, that will create a space in which the same people
currently shrugging their shoulders at the plight of such women might actually
begin to care.
"Future City", 2018
What is a city? How is it constructed? Let’s together imagine a city in which you and I would lov... more What is a city? How is it constructed? Let’s together imagine a city in which you and I would love to live!
This book is about what people at different moments in history and in different cultures thought defined a city and how these ideas changed over time.
It contains many pictures, including drawings and graphic art, some dating from as far back as the Middle Ages, but also illustrations from science fiction books and pictures from movies, as well as drawings I myself and my friend the architect Sam Chermayeff made. There are also maps of cities that children invented. As with the other books in the series, there’s a lot of room for you to draw in and put your dreams and fantasies on paper. You can start right away, building the city in which you’d love to live.
History of Protest, 2017
This book is about protests which were organized by people in different countries and pursued dif... more This book is about protests which were organized by people in different countries and pursued different aims. It is composed of subjective, almost private remarks and opinions, as opposed to being structured around a single history or theory. I see my goal in creating space for your thoughts, ideas, and feelings.
Since this book is a doodle book: I want you, my reader and co-author, to join me in the quest to imagine different futures and rethink the past.
What would you come up with, if you were in the protesters’ shoes?
What are the options, but even more important, what do we want?
I think that posing a question is half an answer.
This is an essay about a museum that does not yet exist. The idea of the Museum of Care is to pr... more This is an essay about a museum that does not yet exist.
The idea of the Museum of Care is to provide a space where people: artists and non-artists cooperate with each other to change, restore and repair the social fabric of society, as opposed to a traditional museum which most of the time is designed to create the space to exhibit, appreciate and archive certain sorts of objects or to document certain sorts of situations, with the purpose of presenting them as one or another form of sublime.
"Nationalism and the changing idea of citizenship, 2012
I asked Keith Hart to talk to me about nationalism and the changing idea of citizenship.
What the Dutch Like?, 2018
This book is a drawing book, a coloring book, and a notebook. It shows parts of Dutch paintings f... more This book is a drawing book, a coloring book, and a notebook. It shows parts of Dutch paintings from the Hermitage Museum in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Draw in it! Write in it! Paint it! Color it! Now it’s your book, and it’s up to you to make it a unique work of art... Come into the vast world that the Dutch discovered for us. It is the world as observed not by a god or a king, but by an ordinary person — the same as you.
Что любят голландцы, 2018
Эта книжка — раскраска, рисовалка и блокнот. В ней есть фрагменты картин голландских художников и... more Эта книжка — раскраска, рисовалка и блокнот. В ней есть фрагменты картин голландских художников из коллекции Эрмитажа. А ещё — рисунки, записи и много места для тебя: рисуй поверх картин, раскрашивай, дописывай и додумывай!
Не/Справедливость, 2017
В разные времена в разных культурах представления о том, что такое справедливость, менялись. Когд... more В разные времена в разных культурах представления о том, что такое справедливость, менялись. Когда-то считалось несправедливым убивать людей, но торговля живыми людьми была вполне приемлемой и законной. В большинстве культур считается обязательным накормить и приютить странника, а где-то возможность напиться воды - предмет торговли и привилегия. От эпохи к эпохе, от культуры к культуре мы изменяем наше коллективное мнение о том, что такое хорошо, а что такое плохо. "НЕ/СПРАВЕДЛИВОСТЬ" - собрание историй и мнений из разных эпох. Эта книжка - часть проекта "Антропология для детей". В книге использованы произведения Уильяма Кентриджа, Мики Плутицкой, Алисы Йоффе, Андреаса Зигмана, а также граффити из Чьяпеса (Мексика) и Гренобля (Франция).
Для среднего школьного возраста
Подробнее: https://www.labirint.ru/books/620287/
VASTARINNAN HISTORIAA, 2020
This book is about protests which were organized by people in different countries and pursued di... more This book is about protests which were organized by people in different countries and pursued different aims. It is composed of subjective, almost private remarks and opinions, as opposed to being structured around a single history or theory. I see my goal in creating space for your thoughts, ideas, and feelings.
Since this book is a doodle book: I want you, my reader and co-author, to join me in the quest to imagine different futures and rethink the past.
What would you come up with, if you were in the protesters' shoes?
What are the options, but even more important, what do we want?
I think that posing a question is half an answer.
Шесть тезисов о доверии, 2011
Сайт Медведеву.ру сообщает: президент России на заседании Совета по содействию развитию институто... more Сайт Медведеву.ру сообщает: президент России на заседании Совета по содействию развитию институтов гражданского общества и правам человека назвал главное условие, без которого России не преодолеть кризис – необходимо справиться с хроническим недоверием к институтам власти.
Действительно, в России почти невозможно встретить человека, который бы верил в скорые изменения к лучшему. «Все воруют, все сделано через одно место, народ не тот» – причины могут называться разные, но результат один и
тот же: полный паралич общественной активности. Сделать ничего невозможно, поэтому и пробовать не стоит.
Что после после советского проекта - интервью с Борисом Рогинским, 2007
Что после "советского проекта"? В продолжение разговора о современной детской литературе-интервью... more Что после "советского проекта"? В продолжение разговора о современной детской литературе-интервью с Борисом Рогинским, эссеистом, преподавателем русского языка и литературы в Классической гимназии. Интервью взято Никой Дубровской. Каковы отношения современных российских властей и детской литературы? Нам хорошо известно о пристальной цензуре советского начальства, а что нам известно о постсоветской цензуре? В советское время цензура для меня всецело оставалась в области взрослой литературы. Может быть, потому что я еще был ребенком. Я не понимал тогда, что, скажем, первый перевод "Алисы в стране чудес" (Демуровой) мог выйти не раньше и не позже середины-конца 60-х годов, да и то в польском издании. Не понимал я и того, с какими трудами только на самом излете застойной эры выходила первая часть "Властелина колец"-"Хранители"-в переводе Муравьева и Кистяковского. Мне хватало "Хоббита", у которого, кажется, с цензурой трудностей не было. Но все эти тонкости касаются лишь переводной литературы. Вообще мне всего хватало. Вся детская литература, которую я с удовольствием перечитываю и сейчас, издавалась при советской власти: и Марк Твен, и Льюис, и Конан Дойль, и Носов, и Драгунский, и Коваль, и Чуковский, и Водовозова, и Короленко, и Диккенс, и Андерсен, и братья Гримм, и Туве Янссон, и Астрид Линдгрен, и Стивенсон, и сказки всех народов мира, и особенно любимая мной в детстве английская поэзия в переводах Маршака-все это печаталось, и в отличных изданиях. Оттого что не было в продаже Чарской, я думаю, я не много потерял. Мало того, вышло много переводов, правда, далеко не всегда хороших (раньше качество было как бы за скобками-работали такие редакторы, как Нора Галь). Вышли как детские некоторые книги, считавшиеся раньше взрослыми: например, сказки Аммоса Тотуолы. В 90-е вышло несколько чудесных вещей Коваля. А что до чудовищно упавшего качества переводов и иллюстраций-так тут все-таки не власть виновата, а какие-то мне неведомые законы рынка. Что-то пытается с этим сделать издательство "НЛО": у них есть своя, очень изысканная серия детских книг. Но это капля в море. Современная власть, по-моему, еще не догадалась взяться впрямую за цензурирование детской литературы.
ФИЛИПП НЭЛ — ДЕТСКАЯ ЛИТЕРАТУРА В АМЕРИКЕ, 2007
Последние 20 лет прошли в России под знаком американизации. Детская литература не осталась в стор... more Последние 20 лет прошли в России под знаком американизации. Детская литература не осталась в стороне от этих процессов. Полки книжных магазинов захватили большеглазые зверушки, фирменные русалочки, блестящие супер-герои и бесконечные производные успешных фильмов и мультфильмов. Детская книга оказалась зажатой между индустрией игрушек-сувениров и гигантской, бурно растущей медиа-реальностью: кино, анимацией и компьютерными играми. Все эти изменения мы приписываем влиянию американских ценностей. Об американских ценностях и их влиянии на американскую детскую литературу я и решила расспросить профессора Филиппа Нэла.
Трёхмерная революция 3D-принтер, печатающий себя, 2011
Лучший подарок на Рождество самому себе-трёхмерный принтер. Вполне сносную модель в Великобритани... more Лучший подарок на Рождество самому себе-трёхмерный принтер. Вполне сносную модель в Великобритании можно купить уже меньше чем за 900 фунтов. Такой принтер отличается от хорошо нам знакомогодвухмерного-тем, что распечатывает предметы. Настоящее воплощение традиционного пожелания «всего того, что сам себе желаешь». Теперь можешь напечать. Пока-из пластика.
Спирулина — суперъеда XXI века, 2011
Спирулина-суперъеда XXI века В последнее время много говорят о водоросли спирулине-дешёвом в прои... more Спирулина-суперъеда XXI века В последнее время много говорят о водоросли спирулине-дешёвом в производстве и невероятно полезном для человеческого организма продукте. Спирулина-это цианобактерия, размножающаяся делением в воде с добавлением несложных смесей. «Частный корреспондент» решил расспросить о перспективах использования спирулины сотрудника Института биологии южных морей (Севастополь) Руслана Геваргиза.-Расскажите, пожалуйста, как вы начали заниматься спирулиной? Почему выбрали именно её среди других водорослей?
Славой Жижек в Берлине, 2011
Берлинский институт Культурных программ провёл семинар с участием «словенской тройки»: Славоя Жи... more Берлинский институт Культурных программ провёл семинар с
участием «словенской тройки»: Славоя Жижека (Slavoj ?i?ek), Алёнки
Жупанчич (Alenka Zupan?i?) и Младена Долара (Mladen Dolar). После
окончания семинара Славой Жижек в рамках программы Гегелевских чтений прочёл отдельную лекцию в Берлинском свободном университете. Несмотря на довольно специальную тему семинара, касающуюся
определённых аспектов философии Гегеля, мест в зале не хватало.
Слушатели начали заполнять аудиторию за 2 часа до лекции, а многие так и не смогли попасть. На лекцию в Свободном университете нужно было записываться за несколько недель.
Интервью с брокером, 2011
Интервью с брокером-А как вы относитесь к возможному повторению кризиса? Многие экономисты предск... more Интервью с брокером-А как вы относитесь к возможному повторению кризиса? Многие экономисты предсказывают, что кризис не закончился, что он будет продолжаться долго и худшее ещё впереди.
Почему русские голосуют за Буша, 2004
Мы живем в эпоху политических мифов, заботливо созданных для нас профессиональными маркетологами.... more Мы живем в эпоху политических мифов, заботливо созданных для нас профессиональными маркетологами. Миф республиканцев повествует о среднем человеке, «простом американце», который всего добился сам, тяжелым и упорным трудом, не преуспел в науках и иностранных языках, но добр и открыт, а также всегда готов постоять за правду.
Кто такие необразованные люди?, 2011
Одна моя немецкая знакомая вышла замуж на нигерийца. Она рассказывает, что в Нигерии 400 (sic!) я... more Одна моя немецкая знакомая вышла замуж на нигерийца. Она рассказывает, что в Нигерии 400 (sic!) языков: 3-4 официальных и ещё по собственному языку в каждое деревне. Чтобы попросить щепотку соли у соседей в другой деревне, приходится учить новый язык. Большинство нигерийцев свободно владеют, как минимум, четырьмя языками. При этом местные языки друг на друга не похожи. Они отличаются так же, как, скажем, немецкий от французского. Слушая её, я размышляю о том, как мы гордимся своими детьми, свободно разговаривающими на трёх языках и изучающими четвертый. Они будут совершенно справедливо считаться образованными людьми, ведь каждый новый язык-это как новый мир и, вместе с тем, абсолютно новое понимание реальности. Но вот почему-то никто не хочет считать образованными людьми нигерийцев. Наверное, потому что на их языках не выпускают биржевые сводки или технические описания оружия… Что же на самом деле означает «образование»?
О ДЕТСКОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЕ — С ИРИНОЙ АРЗАМАСЦЕВОЙ, 2007
Серию бесед о детской литературе начнем разговором с кандидатом филологических наук, литературове... more Серию бесед о детской литературе начнем разговором с кандидатом филологических наук, литературоведом, доцентом кафедры русской литературы в МПГУ-Ириной Николаевной Арзамасцевой.
Ирина Арзамасцева – автор одного из самых популярных на
постсоветском пространстве учебников по детской литературе, активный участник немногочисленных общественных дебатов, посвященных детству и детской литературе.
Новыи закон об Образовании в РФ совместно с Г Лосевым, 2011
Новый закон Согласно конституции, Российская Федерация является социальноориентированным государс... more Новый закон Согласно конституции, Российская Федерация является социальноориентированным государством. Социальный контракт между государством и гражданином предполагает, что последний может рассчитывать на защиту жизни, здоровья, на получение пенсий, пособий, бесплатного образования, на охрану окружающей среды. В обмен на это граждане гарантируют государству лояльность, платят налоги и выполняют другие, описанные в конституции обязанности. В СССР существовала поговорка: «Они делают вид, что нам платят, а мы делаем вид, что работаем». РФ медленно, но неуклонно идет по этому же пути, нарушая базовые социальные соглашения Гражданин-Государство.
Мозги Буша, 2010
Победа команды Буша на выборах 2000, привела к расцвету политического искусства во всем мире. Кол... more Победа команды Буша на выборах 2000, привела к расцвету политического искусства во всем мире. Количество комиксов, документальных фильмов и накал страстей в политической журналистике поражает воображение. Антибушевские демонстрации во время Республиканского Когресса а Нью Йорке превратились в уличный фестиваль народного творчества с театральными постановками, перформансами и песнями. Майкл Мур положил начало новому популярному жанруполитическим документальным фильмам. «Мозги Буша» ("Bush's Brain") Джозефа Милей (Joseph Mealey) и Михаэля Парадиес Схоб (Michael Paradies Shoob)-один из таких фильмов. Он посвящен Карлу Роувуполиттехнологу Буша, который по мнению многих, все время его правления, не только являлся кукловодом белого дома, но и определял внешнюю и внутреннюю политику Америки. Кто же этот гениальный и жестокий манипулятор, так виртуозно организующий народную поддержку президенту Америки? Карл Роув толстый неприметный человек в очках, с детства само утверждался за счет более видного, но глупого товарища, которому Роув «вправлял мозги». Постепенно эта деятельность стала для Карла Роува профессией и он превратился в успешного политического консультанта. Познакомившись в самом начале своей карьеры с молодым статным Бушем в
Метод Гринберга, 2015
Ритм жизни не дает нам передохнуть, а постоянные стрессовые ситуации выматывают и приводят к сбоя... more Ритм жизни не дает нам передохнуть, а постоянные стрессовые ситуации выматывают и приводят к сбоям в организме. Оказывается, своим состоянием можно и нужно управлять. А научиться этому можно, воспользовавшись методом Гринберга. Бессонница-это когда лежишь с закрытыми глазами часами под одеялом, уставший до такой степени, что не можешь даже думать-мысли превращаются в разбухшие поленья. Это когда давление вокруг глазниц становиться сильным и тупым. А потом наступает утро и приходится вставать, чистить зубы и кое-как функционировать. В голове зудят тонкие иголочки недосыпа, но заснуть все равно не получается.
МАРК СУССМАН: «НАШИ КУКЛЫ ПОКАЗЫВАЮТ НОВОСТИ», 2009
Марк Суссман-театральный режиссер, сценарист, художник и один из организаторов театрального фести... more Марк Суссман-театральный режиссер, сценарист, художник и один из организаторов театрального фестиваля «Великие маленькие творения» (Great Small Works). Уже несколько лет каждое лето фестиваль собирает в Нью-Йорке художников и актеров со всего мира. Параллельно с фестивалем проходит выставка временного музея театраигрушки, на которой представлены сотни работ: от эксцентричных произведений любителей оперы и коллекционных бумажных театров прошлого века, сделанных монахами, до книг массового производства начала ХХ столетия, использовавшихся в домашних выступлениях. Выставка демонстрирует не только историю театра за прошедшие два века, но и эволюцию взаимоотношений между зрителем и представлением.
Марина Потапова: «Сценарий еще не дописан - может, я успею что-то понять...», 2006
Смогут ли Потапова и Лобан сделать кино с «нормальным» бюджетом?-сомневались кинокритики после вы... more Смогут ли Потапова и Лобан сделать кино с «нормальным» бюджетом?-сомневались кинокритики после выхода «Пыли». Выдержат ли они суровые будни кинопроизводства? Сегодня Марина Потапова работает над новым сценарием. Предполагается, что фильм получит государственную поддержку, и его бюджет составит около полумиллиона.
Креативный класс и мир искусства, 2011
В тексте о глобализованном мире искусства я попробовала описать его строение. Мир Искусства устр... more В тексте о глобализованном мире искусства я попробовала описать
его строение. Мир Искусства устроен сложно. Он состоит из связанных в единое целое институций: коммерческие галереи незаметно перетекают в абсолютно некоммерческие арт-центры, государственные музеи формируют цены на частных аукционах, благотворительные частные собрания служат способом масштабного ухода от налогов. Весь этот гигантский мир существует по типу единой корпорации, где нет реальных границ между странами и идеологиями, между отдельными художественными школами и национальными культурами. Каковы же отношение между художниками-зрителям и международной
корпорацией «Мира искусства»?
Конец невинных буржуев, 2011
Новый мэр Москвы Сергей Собянин решил покончить с ларёчной торговлей. Вместе с ларьками прекратит... more Новый мэр Москвы Сергей Собянин решил покончить с ларёчной
торговлей. Вместе с ларьками прекратит своё существование целая эпоха
смыслов, надежд, языковых и визуальных трендов.
О ДЕТСКОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЕ. КОММЕРЦИЯ VS ДЕМОКРАТИЯ., 2010
О том, чем же отличается коммерческая массовая литература от некоммерческой, и какова их роль в ... more О том, чем же отличается коммерческая массовая литература от
некоммерческой, и какова их роль в жизни общества, я поговорила с Мироном
Петровским — литературным критиком, автором моего любимого текста,
посвященного детской литературе — «Книги нашего детства».
Екатерина Деготь: Художники больше не элита общества, 2006
Eкатерина Деготь любезно согласилась поговорить со мной в кафе ньюйоркского книжного магазина Ba... more Eкатерина Деготь любезно согласилась поговорить со мной в кафе ньюйоркского книжного магазина Barnes & Noble. Она приехала выступить на симпозиуме в рамках выставки российских художников в Нью-Йорке «Contested Spaces in Post-Soviet Art», организованной Еленой Сорокиной. Екатерина, литератор, критик и куратор выставок, принимает активное участие как в московском, так и в международном художественном процессе. Мне хотелось расспросить ее о взаимосвязи этих явлений. Каковы перспективы интернационализации российского современного искусства, как западное искусство влияет на формирование современных российских идей.
Разговор с антропологом Кит Харт о национальном государстве, 2012
Под напором глобализации национальные государства ослабевают, провоцируя рост националистических ... more Под напором глобализации национальные государства ослабевают, провоцируя рост националистических настроений. Национализм становится важнейшей болевой точкой современного общества. После окончания Холодной войны многие рассчитывали оказаться в мире торжества гражданского общества, гуманизма и власти закона. Однако всё сложилось иначе. Какая судьба ожидает в будущем гуманистические идеалы? Какова роль экономического кризиса в распространении националистических настроений? Об этом наш разговор с профессором антропологии Университета Голдсмита в Лондоне, автором книг по экономической антропологии, например, «Деньги в мире неравенства» (“Money in an Unequal World”) и других, Кейтом ХАРТОМ. Кейт участвовал в формировании таких базовых для современного миропонимания понятий, как «неформальная экономика». Постоянной темой его творчества является изменяющаяся идентичность в процессе перехода от национального к мировому сообществу.