A few weeks ago, the latest monograph of
Transversal
, the webjournal of the
Transform
,
project, was published. This project is itself derived from another project of the
European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies
(EIPCP), called
Republicart
, which was a “transnational research” initiative launched by the EIPCP itself between 2002 and 2005 with the intention of “promoting research and the development of interventionist and activist public art practices.”
The publication has generated considerable expectation in certain circles since it addresses a hot topic today: “the relationship between “institutions” and “movement.” And it does so not to eternalize the controversy over the binomial “state apparatuses versus autonomous politics,” but to critically focus on the state of movement institutions and postulate the possibility of undertaking a new phase of institutionality that we call hybrid and monstrous, which ultimately favors the materialization of another policy .” Proof of this monstrous hybridization is the fact that the monograph is the result of collaboration between Transform, which is a project of the
We insist that the topic is “very topical” at a time when the critical discourses of social movements are being re-appropriated or are being established in or from the heart of some “official” cultural institutions (see the nearby case of the MACBA). One more example that seems pertinent to us regarding the complexity of this process/phenomenon:
We read in the YP blog (we hadn’t mentioned them for a while) that the
Department of Cultural Studies
at Goldsmiths has launched a series of work sessions involving both students and the university staff themselves, which aims to rethink the role of the discipline in the academic context and which are titled a very significant
Attack the Headquarters
.
One of the contributions to the program blog highlighted by the YP guys is Will Davies’, who emphasizes the fluidity of the borders between the University, capitalism and the state. Davies points out four strategies with which this situation is usually confronted and which he characterizes as: “
We find it insufficient to reduce action to a mere exploration and awareness, although it is a necessary step for any transforming action in a “counter-hegemonic” or “antagonistic” sense. On the other hand, we understand and share the position of Will Davies (and the YP) when they affirm that criticism and antagonism have become a constitutive part of the power of the State, although we can think that the State, although it may seem otherwise, is not a monolithic and homogeneous entity, and that its capacity to be embodied in critical discourses and practices is not equal or synchronic in each and every one of its estates. An example to clarify this last point: although the cultural elites, through institutions such as the museum or the university, can incorporate critical discourses to offer an image of radicalism and social commitment that ultimately reinforces their position, other institutions such as the school remain anchored in discourses and forms of organization that correspond to those of the beginning of modernity.
In any case, it should perhaps be said that, although the museum or the university (or more exactly, some museum or some university) have been able to incorporate (the movements’) critical discourses into their own, it would be necessary to review to what extent these institutions have structurally and socially significantly modified their organization and their modes of operation. Hence, the idea of a “monster institution” may be interesting.
