The collective Chto Delat comprises artists, philosophers, and writers who set themselves the goal to merge aesthetics, politics, and activism. The group has always been openly politically engaged and addressed social issues related to the neoliberal order by linking local Russian concerns to the international agenda. The artists’ anti-nationalist left position is the reading key to their oeuvre, as well as the clear stance against Vladimir Putin’s regime that cost them persecution and political exile last autumn. Chto Delat has developed its recognizable aesthetic language by merging Soviet avante-garde strategies, Bertolt Brecht’s dialectical theater, and contemporary choreography. At the intersection of radical performance, art, and pedagogy, this approach aims to show that capitalism and social injustice have political roots and need to be seen historically to fight against, thus dismantling the capitalist myth of the natural order of things. My contribution will focus on how the Chto Delat’s image of the collective antagonist body has changed in twenty years: from the Soviet affirmative monumental imagery to the formation of the ‘European-like’ protest multitude (T. Hardt, A. Negri, Assemblea) to the desperate tentative by the excluded to invent new bodily languages in totalitarian Putin’s Russia. Through a selection of images and statements, I will illustrate the semiotics and the historical references behind the acclaimed art collective’s films. I will demonstrate that rather than a lone single hero, a hybrid multiform shared body and a ‘we’ exposed in language, gestures, and movements (J. Butler, Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly) are at the base of social and political subjectivation against neo-liberal atomization and totalitarian false ‘unity’. I include the images from Chto Delat’s works: “Builders” 2005, “Angry Sandwich People” 2006, “Partisan Songspiel. A Belgrade Story” 2009, “The Tower. A Songspiel” 2010, “The Excluded. In a Moment of Danger” 2014, “Nezhnost / Tenderness” 2020, “Canary Archive” 2022.
Rethinking the collective protest body. Evolution in the imagery of the post-Soviet group subject in Chto Delat’s performances through the twenty years of artistic production. 2003-2023 / Tikhomirova, Yulia. - (2023). (Intervento presentato al convegno "ACTS OF REBELLION: Repressions, Marginalities, Protests and Performing Arts" tenutosi a CEAA | Arnaldo Araújo Research Center of Escola Superior Artística do Porto, Portugal, , in collaboration with the Art and Society Iberoamerican Network).
Rethinking the collective protest body. Evolution in the imagery of the post-Soviet group subject in Chto Delat’s performances through the twenty years of artistic production. 2003-2023
YULIA TIKHOMIROVA
2023
Abstract
The collective Chto Delat comprises artists, philosophers, and writers who set themselves the goal to merge aesthetics, politics, and activism. The group has always been openly politically engaged and addressed social issues related to the neoliberal order by linking local Russian concerns to the international agenda. The artists’ anti-nationalist left position is the reading key to their oeuvre, as well as the clear stance against Vladimir Putin’s regime that cost them persecution and political exile last autumn. Chto Delat has developed its recognizable aesthetic language by merging Soviet avante-garde strategies, Bertolt Brecht’s dialectical theater, and contemporary choreography. At the intersection of radical performance, art, and pedagogy, this approach aims to show that capitalism and social injustice have political roots and need to be seen historically to fight against, thus dismantling the capitalist myth of the natural order of things. My contribution will focus on how the Chto Delat’s image of the collective antagonist body has changed in twenty years: from the Soviet affirmative monumental imagery to the formation of the ‘European-like’ protest multitude (T. Hardt, A. Negri, Assemblea) to the desperate tentative by the excluded to invent new bodily languages in totalitarian Putin’s Russia. Through a selection of images and statements, I will illustrate the semiotics and the historical references behind the acclaimed art collective’s films. I will demonstrate that rather than a lone single hero, a hybrid multiform shared body and a ‘we’ exposed in language, gestures, and movements (J. Butler, Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly) are at the base of social and political subjectivation against neo-liberal atomization and totalitarian false ‘unity’. I include the images from Chto Delat’s works: “Builders” 2005, “Angry Sandwich People” 2006, “Partisan Songspiel. A Belgrade Story” 2009, “The Tower. A Songspiel” 2010, “The Excluded. In a Moment of Danger” 2014, “Nezhnost / Tenderness” 2020, “Canary Archive” 2022.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
