Antonina Stebur | Universität der Künste Berlin / University of the Arts Berlin (original) (raw)
Papers by Antonina Stebur
Digital Icons: Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central European New Media, 2024
In the following article we aim to show, firstly, how IT and, more broadly, digital systems deter... more In the following article we aim to show, firstly, how IT and, more broadly, digital systems determine the specificity (both in a positive and negative sense) of Belarusian protests. And secondly, the systems change or call into question traditional political or philosophical categories such as citizenship, state boundaries, care, division into private and public spheres, representation, etc. The digital sphere plays a significant role in Belarusian protests and its potential is used to a much greater extent than is usually the case when protesters use social networks to quickly exchange information and organise events. Here we analyse not only the use of social networks, but also the creation of new IT products and platforms with the help of which citizens are 'connected' to the protest movement. Digital systems have proposed new organisational forms-horizontal and leaderless. The protest itself can be described as shimmering and peripheral. Thus, it was this horizontal format that was opposed to the rigid hierarchy of power and gave us a new sense of common future.
Topos, 2023
This thematic volume of the journal Topos sprang from the international conference entitled Gende... more This thematic volume of the journal Topos sprang from the international conference entitled Gender and Im/Material Labour, which was organized by the Center for Gender Studies at the the European Humanities University and held in Vilnius on June 15–16, 2023. The conference was part of the Women in Tech educational and research project, the project was launched by the EHU Center for Gender Studies and is funded by the European Union. Apart of the articles, submitted by the participants of the given conference, the volume also features the outcomes of the Women in Tech research grant program (held in 2022–2023), that was aimed specifically at the young female scholars, whose research has been focused on various gender-related issues of the IT industry in Belarus and in the region in the period of 2020–2023.
Topos No 2 (2023): GENDER AND IM/MATERIAL LABOUR, 2023
This article delves into the complex relationship between colonial dependencies and gender repres... more This article delves into the complex relationship between colonial dependencies and gender representation in Belarus’s IT industry. It highlights how, on the basis of colonialism/modernity, the standard of gender equality in Belarusian IT becomes not the equal representation of men and women, but the performance of first-world countries in the field of gender equality in IT. The study emphasizes how outsourcing, a significant component of the IT sector in Belarus, perpetuates gender discrimination by removing decision-making power and agency, particularly impacting women’s ability to advocate for gender equality. Additionally, the article explores the intersectionality of these issues, examining how the commodification of human capital in IT, influenced by past Soviet policies, creates a network of dependencies that hinders the promotion of gender equality in Belarus’s IT landscape.
Topos No 2 (2023): GENDER AND IM/MATERIAL LABOUR, 2023
This thematic volume of the journal Topos sprang from the international conference entitled Gende... more This thematic volume of the journal Topos sprang from the international conference entitled Gender and Im/Material Labour, which was organized by the Center for Gender Studies at the the European Humanities University and held in Vilnius on June 15–16, 2023. The con- ference was part of the Women in Tech educational and research project, the project was launched by the EHU Center for Gender Studies and is funded by the European Union. Apart of the articles, submitted by the participants of the given conference, the volume also features the outcomes of the Women in Tech research grant program (held in 2022–2023), that was aimed specifically at the young female scholars, whose research has been focused on various gender-related issues of the IT industry in Belarus and in the region in the period of 2020–2023.
Performance Philosophy
Our research group AGITATSIA unites researchers connected with post-Soviet history (from Belarus/... more Our research group AGITATSIA unites researchers connected with post-Soviet history (from Belarus/Germany, Russia, USA/Estonia and France), and with interest in collectivity and multidisciplinary approach. Our areas of study include philosophy, cultural studies, art criticism, linguistics, artistic performative activity, sociology; we are united by an interest in the most radical line in contemporary Russian art, which is actionism and political performance. We believe that the theme of performativity of death brings together two important lines of an involved, independent art—death and performance—which constitute the “burning and smouldering” problems of the contemporary cultural process in Russia. The COVID-19 pandemic became a pretext for artists and activists to resurrect the problem of death and methods of working with it. Now after the beginning of full-scale Russian military invasion throughout the whole territory of Ukraine it became clear that artists anticipated reality in...
Dwutygodnik, 2021
Troska okazuje się dziś ważnym pojęciem, które pozwala zrozumieć nie tylko protesty w Białorusi, ... more Troska okazuje się dziś ważnym pojęciem, które pozwala zrozumieć nie tylko protesty w Białorusi, ale i szereg ruchów protestacyjnych, które przetaczają się przez cały świat.
tranzit.at, 2021
Fragility is one of the central theoretical concepts and emotional factors that characterize the ... more Fragility is one of the central theoretical concepts and emotional factors that characterize the Belarusian protest and make it proportionate to the global context. An important starting point in protests is the recognition of the concreteness of human existence, its bodily representation. This is not a heroic body but on the contrary: a fragile, vulnerable, emaciated body that needs support and protection. Moreover, these requirements of care must be understood politically and infrastructurally, as it is these requirements that ensure the political participation of people.
Performance Philosophy , 2022
We believe that the theme of performativity of death brings together two important lines of an in... more We believe that the theme of performativity of death brings together two important lines of an involved, independent art—death and performance—which constitute the “burning and smouldering” problems of the contemporary cultural process in Russia. The COVID-19 pandemic became a pretext for artists and activists to resurrect the problem of death and methods of working with it. Now after the beginning of full-scale Russian military invasion of Ukraine it became clear that artists anticipated reality in many ways. The question of death in Russia is haunted by a question of justice—both philosophically and in relation to the perceived failures of the system of law. The necro-performances of the collective Party of the Dead from Saint-Petersburg manifest the importance of performance as a ritual of mourning in days of pandemic and war.
Moscow Art Magazine No112, 2020
Through the analysis of three art projects – Н И И Ч Е Г О Д Е Л А Т Ь (Saint-Petersburg, Russia)... more Through the analysis of three art projects – Н И И Ч Е Г О Д Е Л А Т Ь (Saint-Petersburg, Russia), Work Hard! Play Hard! (Minsk. Belarus), User Experience (Yerevan, Armenia) – the author analyzes freedom as a process of its constant reassembly, criticizing its romantic classical interpretation. Vulnerability, instability, and the ability to fail are important requirements for the realization of freedom, which open up the possibility of both building utopian horizons of the future and reconfiguring new everyday practices. At the same time, the connection of these initiatives with the political agenda makes it possible to avoid infantilism, aesthetic excess, aimless muttering
PARTISANKA No34, 2020
Art does not exist without a gender perspective, neither does it live in an ivory tower, but gets... more Art does not exist without a gender perspective, neither does it live in an ivory tower, but gets embedded into the existing order. Moreover, it is the sphere of art that turns out to be a litmus test of the political, patriarchal, and economic processes taking place in Belarusian society. In this area, we can observe an imbalance between the symbolic capital men and women possess, where the latter are engaged in low-paid jobs in precarious positions with blurred functionality.
Printing House KOPA, Lithuania, 2019
The book is an attempt to comprehend the history of Belarusian photography not through the creati... more The book is an attempt to comprehend the history of Belarusian photography not through the creation of a single, continuous narrative as a "natural history", but through an indication of the gaps, the inclusion of the excluded, the analysis of photographic infrastructures.
The book consists of three parts:
1. Analytics: articles about the methodological base of the book
2. People: stories about specific photographers
3. Events: key events and directions related to Belarusian photography at one time or another.
Art Margins Online, 2021
This paper won Russian Art Focus prize for the "The best research on Russian contemporary art" in... more This paper won Russian Art Focus prize for the "The best research on Russian contemporary art" in 2021.
SEE THE FULL TEXT ONLINE https://artmargins.com/party-of-the-dead-necroaesthetics-and-transformation-of-political-performanity-in-russia-during-the-pandemic/
"Party of the Dead: Necroaesthetics and Transformation of Political Performativity in Russia During the Pandemic The Dead in the Dead City" by Agitatsia research group (Dasha Filippova, Antonina Stebur, Anastasiia Spirenkova, Vera Zamyslova and Pavel Mitenko). Art Margins Online, March 2021.
Calls for Submission by Antonina Stebur
Call for participation, 2024
The title of our conference refers to the inspirational reflections of Sara Ahmed on happiness as... more The title of our conference refers to the inspirational reflections of Sara Ahmed on happiness as an existential issue (“a problem”) for those who find themselves in the position of a displaced person. She ponders on a ‘melancholic migrant’ who, under new circumstances, while experiencing incongruence, loss and dispossession, considers happiness to be the key
factor of her/his adaptation to a new environment.
Ahmed relates happiness with a modality of good citizenship, as for her, “to see happily” means, first of all, not to face violence, asymmetry, or
compulsion.
Such an approach prompts further reflection on the aspects that are often neglected or overlooked, namely, the interrelation between women’s migration and labour, which may, under certain conditions, become a locus of self-fulfilment and confidence or turn into a trap of alienation and, consequently, the reason for deprivation and unhappiness. It is worth noting that some aspects of migration (transition, transformation, translation, adaptation, change, etc.) are gender-neutral regarding their impact on professional identity and individual career opportunities. However, women often find themselves in the most vulnerable position, as their needs and experiences require particular research.
Viewing the issue of (un)happiness in women’s migration and exile through a dialectical lens, we see that the negative effects of migration, regardless of its prerequisites, can be laden with melancholy and depression, exacerbated by a sense of vulnerability or a state of precariousness and insecurity. Yet, these conditions and feelings can also be intertwined with new opportunities, the vision of alternatives, and the anticipation of a different future. This conference continues a series of events devoted to different aspects of labour at the intersection of women and technology (as part of the long-term project “Women In Tech” - https://www.wintech.me/ ). Therefore, one of the conference’s focuses is women’s IT sphere and the transnationalisation of its labour market in the context of migration.
We invite scholars from different fields and disciplines (gender studies, sociology, history, anthropology, cultural studies, law, media studies, art and others) with various theoretical perspectives and interdisciplinary approaches to reflect on the following topics:
challenges of women’s migration in the conditions of wars, humanitarian
crises and political turbulences;
effects of migration on women’s professional identity, career tracks and
working conditions
displacement, exile and new precarity
invisible (im/material and emotional) aspects of labour in the context of
women’s migration (asymmetry and inequality);
the status, citizenship and new identity);
the gendered aspects of labour migration and dilemmas of motherhood and care;
migration and mental health (resilience);
the forms of exclusion from the labour market (gender, age, sex, family status and others);
gendered dimension of the transnational labour market in high-tech industries.
Digital Icons: Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central European New Media, 2024
In the following article we aim to show, firstly, how IT and, more broadly, digital systems deter... more In the following article we aim to show, firstly, how IT and, more broadly, digital systems determine the specificity (both in a positive and negative sense) of Belarusian protests. And secondly, the systems change or call into question traditional political or philosophical categories such as citizenship, state boundaries, care, division into private and public spheres, representation, etc. The digital sphere plays a significant role in Belarusian protests and its potential is used to a much greater extent than is usually the case when protesters use social networks to quickly exchange information and organise events. Here we analyse not only the use of social networks, but also the creation of new IT products and platforms with the help of which citizens are 'connected' to the protest movement. Digital systems have proposed new organisational forms-horizontal and leaderless. The protest itself can be described as shimmering and peripheral. Thus, it was this horizontal format that was opposed to the rigid hierarchy of power and gave us a new sense of common future.
Topos, 2023
This thematic volume of the journal Topos sprang from the international conference entitled Gende... more This thematic volume of the journal Topos sprang from the international conference entitled Gender and Im/Material Labour, which was organized by the Center for Gender Studies at the the European Humanities University and held in Vilnius on June 15–16, 2023. The conference was part of the Women in Tech educational and research project, the project was launched by the EHU Center for Gender Studies and is funded by the European Union. Apart of the articles, submitted by the participants of the given conference, the volume also features the outcomes of the Women in Tech research grant program (held in 2022–2023), that was aimed specifically at the young female scholars, whose research has been focused on various gender-related issues of the IT industry in Belarus and in the region in the period of 2020–2023.
Topos No 2 (2023): GENDER AND IM/MATERIAL LABOUR, 2023
This article delves into the complex relationship between colonial dependencies and gender repres... more This article delves into the complex relationship between colonial dependencies and gender representation in Belarus’s IT industry. It highlights how, on the basis of colonialism/modernity, the standard of gender equality in Belarusian IT becomes not the equal representation of men and women, but the performance of first-world countries in the field of gender equality in IT. The study emphasizes how outsourcing, a significant component of the IT sector in Belarus, perpetuates gender discrimination by removing decision-making power and agency, particularly impacting women’s ability to advocate for gender equality. Additionally, the article explores the intersectionality of these issues, examining how the commodification of human capital in IT, influenced by past Soviet policies, creates a network of dependencies that hinders the promotion of gender equality in Belarus’s IT landscape.
Topos No 2 (2023): GENDER AND IM/MATERIAL LABOUR, 2023
This thematic volume of the journal Topos sprang from the international conference entitled Gende... more This thematic volume of the journal Topos sprang from the international conference entitled Gender and Im/Material Labour, which was organized by the Center for Gender Studies at the the European Humanities University and held in Vilnius on June 15–16, 2023. The con- ference was part of the Women in Tech educational and research project, the project was launched by the EHU Center for Gender Studies and is funded by the European Union. Apart of the articles, submitted by the participants of the given conference, the volume also features the outcomes of the Women in Tech research grant program (held in 2022–2023), that was aimed specifically at the young female scholars, whose research has been focused on various gender-related issues of the IT industry in Belarus and in the region in the period of 2020–2023.
Performance Philosophy
Our research group AGITATSIA unites researchers connected with post-Soviet history (from Belarus/... more Our research group AGITATSIA unites researchers connected with post-Soviet history (from Belarus/Germany, Russia, USA/Estonia and France), and with interest in collectivity and multidisciplinary approach. Our areas of study include philosophy, cultural studies, art criticism, linguistics, artistic performative activity, sociology; we are united by an interest in the most radical line in contemporary Russian art, which is actionism and political performance. We believe that the theme of performativity of death brings together two important lines of an involved, independent art—death and performance—which constitute the “burning and smouldering” problems of the contemporary cultural process in Russia. The COVID-19 pandemic became a pretext for artists and activists to resurrect the problem of death and methods of working with it. Now after the beginning of full-scale Russian military invasion throughout the whole territory of Ukraine it became clear that artists anticipated reality in...
Dwutygodnik, 2021
Troska okazuje się dziś ważnym pojęciem, które pozwala zrozumieć nie tylko protesty w Białorusi, ... more Troska okazuje się dziś ważnym pojęciem, które pozwala zrozumieć nie tylko protesty w Białorusi, ale i szereg ruchów protestacyjnych, które przetaczają się przez cały świat.
tranzit.at, 2021
Fragility is one of the central theoretical concepts and emotional factors that characterize the ... more Fragility is one of the central theoretical concepts and emotional factors that characterize the Belarusian protest and make it proportionate to the global context. An important starting point in protests is the recognition of the concreteness of human existence, its bodily representation. This is not a heroic body but on the contrary: a fragile, vulnerable, emaciated body that needs support and protection. Moreover, these requirements of care must be understood politically and infrastructurally, as it is these requirements that ensure the political participation of people.
Performance Philosophy , 2022
We believe that the theme of performativity of death brings together two important lines of an in... more We believe that the theme of performativity of death brings together two important lines of an involved, independent art—death and performance—which constitute the “burning and smouldering” problems of the contemporary cultural process in Russia. The COVID-19 pandemic became a pretext for artists and activists to resurrect the problem of death and methods of working with it. Now after the beginning of full-scale Russian military invasion of Ukraine it became clear that artists anticipated reality in many ways. The question of death in Russia is haunted by a question of justice—both philosophically and in relation to the perceived failures of the system of law. The necro-performances of the collective Party of the Dead from Saint-Petersburg manifest the importance of performance as a ritual of mourning in days of pandemic and war.
Moscow Art Magazine No112, 2020
Through the analysis of three art projects – Н И И Ч Е Г О Д Е Л А Т Ь (Saint-Petersburg, Russia)... more Through the analysis of three art projects – Н И И Ч Е Г О Д Е Л А Т Ь (Saint-Petersburg, Russia), Work Hard! Play Hard! (Minsk. Belarus), User Experience (Yerevan, Armenia) – the author analyzes freedom as a process of its constant reassembly, criticizing its romantic classical interpretation. Vulnerability, instability, and the ability to fail are important requirements for the realization of freedom, which open up the possibility of both building utopian horizons of the future and reconfiguring new everyday practices. At the same time, the connection of these initiatives with the political agenda makes it possible to avoid infantilism, aesthetic excess, aimless muttering
PARTISANKA No34, 2020
Art does not exist without a gender perspective, neither does it live in an ivory tower, but gets... more Art does not exist without a gender perspective, neither does it live in an ivory tower, but gets embedded into the existing order. Moreover, it is the sphere of art that turns out to be a litmus test of the political, patriarchal, and economic processes taking place in Belarusian society. In this area, we can observe an imbalance between the symbolic capital men and women possess, where the latter are engaged in low-paid jobs in precarious positions with blurred functionality.
Printing House KOPA, Lithuania, 2019
The book is an attempt to comprehend the history of Belarusian photography not through the creati... more The book is an attempt to comprehend the history of Belarusian photography not through the creation of a single, continuous narrative as a "natural history", but through an indication of the gaps, the inclusion of the excluded, the analysis of photographic infrastructures.
The book consists of three parts:
1. Analytics: articles about the methodological base of the book
2. People: stories about specific photographers
3. Events: key events and directions related to Belarusian photography at one time or another.
Art Margins Online, 2021
This paper won Russian Art Focus prize for the "The best research on Russian contemporary art" in... more This paper won Russian Art Focus prize for the "The best research on Russian contemporary art" in 2021.
SEE THE FULL TEXT ONLINE https://artmargins.com/party-of-the-dead-necroaesthetics-and-transformation-of-political-performanity-in-russia-during-the-pandemic/
"Party of the Dead: Necroaesthetics and Transformation of Political Performativity in Russia During the Pandemic The Dead in the Dead City" by Agitatsia research group (Dasha Filippova, Antonina Stebur, Anastasiia Spirenkova, Vera Zamyslova and Pavel Mitenko). Art Margins Online, March 2021.
Call for participation, 2024
The title of our conference refers to the inspirational reflections of Sara Ahmed on happiness as... more The title of our conference refers to the inspirational reflections of Sara Ahmed on happiness as an existential issue (“a problem”) for those who find themselves in the position of a displaced person. She ponders on a ‘melancholic migrant’ who, under new circumstances, while experiencing incongruence, loss and dispossession, considers happiness to be the key
factor of her/his adaptation to a new environment.
Ahmed relates happiness with a modality of good citizenship, as for her, “to see happily” means, first of all, not to face violence, asymmetry, or
compulsion.
Such an approach prompts further reflection on the aspects that are often neglected or overlooked, namely, the interrelation between women’s migration and labour, which may, under certain conditions, become a locus of self-fulfilment and confidence or turn into a trap of alienation and, consequently, the reason for deprivation and unhappiness. It is worth noting that some aspects of migration (transition, transformation, translation, adaptation, change, etc.) are gender-neutral regarding their impact on professional identity and individual career opportunities. However, women often find themselves in the most vulnerable position, as their needs and experiences require particular research.
Viewing the issue of (un)happiness in women’s migration and exile through a dialectical lens, we see that the negative effects of migration, regardless of its prerequisites, can be laden with melancholy and depression, exacerbated by a sense of vulnerability or a state of precariousness and insecurity. Yet, these conditions and feelings can also be intertwined with new opportunities, the vision of alternatives, and the anticipation of a different future. This conference continues a series of events devoted to different aspects of labour at the intersection of women and technology (as part of the long-term project “Women In Tech” - https://www.wintech.me/ ). Therefore, one of the conference’s focuses is women’s IT sphere and the transnationalisation of its labour market in the context of migration.
We invite scholars from different fields and disciplines (gender studies, sociology, history, anthropology, cultural studies, law, media studies, art and others) with various theoretical perspectives and interdisciplinary approaches to reflect on the following topics:
challenges of women’s migration in the conditions of wars, humanitarian
crises and political turbulences;
effects of migration on women’s professional identity, career tracks and
working conditions
displacement, exile and new precarity
invisible (im/material and emotional) aspects of labour in the context of
women’s migration (asymmetry and inequality);
the status, citizenship and new identity);
the gendered aspects of labour migration and dilemmas of motherhood and care;
migration and mental health (resilience);
the forms of exclusion from the labour market (gender, age, sex, family status and others);
gendered dimension of the transnational labour market in high-tech industries.