[p2p-research] Fwd: [Newsletter] Video installation "5 Factories" in Tallinn

Tue Dec 15 10:10:25 CET 2009

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Oliver Ressler <oliver at ressler.at>
Date: Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 12:40 AM
Subject: [Newsletter] Video installation "5 Factories" in Tallinn
To: newsletter at ressler.at

5 Factories–Worker Control in Venezuela

A 6-channel video installation by Dario Azzellini & Oliver Ressler
2006

Blue-Collar Blues…
Kunsthalle Tallinn & Gallery of Kunsthalle
December 22, 2009 – January 31, 2010
Exhibition opening: Monday, December 21 at 6 pm
www.kunstihoone.ee

The 6-channel video installation “5 Factories–Worker Control in Venezuela”
is presented in Europe, in Tallinn, for the first time, after it was
presented and commissioned for the controversial MATRIX cycle “Now-Time
Venezuela: Media Along the Path of the Bolivarian Process” at the Berkeley
Art Museum (U.S.A.), organized by Chris Gilbert, in 2006.

In their second project regarding political and social change in Venezuela,
after “Venezuela from Below” (67 min., 2004), Azzellini and Ressler focus on
the industrial sector in “5 Factories–Worker Control in Venezuela“. The
changes in Venezuela's productive sphere are demonstrated with five large
companies in various regions: a textile company, an aluminum works, a tomato
factory, a cocoa factory, and a paper factory. In all, the workers are
struggling for different forms of co- or self-management supported by
credits from the government. “The assembly is basically governing the
company”, says Rigoberto López from the textile factory “Textileros del
Táchira” in front of steaming tubs. And coning machine operator Carmen Ortiz
summarizes the experience as follows: “Working collectively is much better
than working for another–working for another is like being a slave to that
other”.

The protagonists portrayed at the five production locations present insights
into ways of alternative organizing and models of workers' control.
Mechanisms and difficulties of self-organization are explained as well as
the production processes. The portrayal of machine processes could be seen
as a metaphor for the dream machine of the “Bolivarian process”, and the
hopes and desires it inspires among the workers. The situation in the five
factories varies, but they share the common search for better models of
production and life. This not only means concrete improvements for the
workers. Aury Arocha, laboratory analyst at the ketchup factory “Tomates
Guárico”, emphasizes that the difference between “social production
companies” (EPS) and capitalist corporations is that the EPS “work for the
community and society”. Carlos Lanz, president of the second largest
aluminum factory in Venezuela, Alcasa, coins the key question: “How does a
company push toward socialism within a capitalist framework?”
The sixth screen shows an extended sequence from a management meeting at
Alcasa, a company with 2.700 workers, with discussions about co-management
and the changes of production relations they aspire towards.

The 6-channel video installation is in Spanish with English subtitles.

Concept, interviews, film editing, production: Dario Azzellini & Oliver
Ressler
Camera: Volkmar Geiblinger
Production Assistant in Venezuela: Eduardo Daza
Image editing and titles: Markus Koessl
Sound Editor: Rudi Gottsberger

Related texts:
http://www.ressler.at/now_time_venezuela_ted_purves/
http://www.ressler.at/occupied-factories-an-occupied-present/
http://www.ressler.at/one-two-transition/
http://www.ressler.at/along-the-path-of-revolution/
http://www.ressler.at/activism-in-the-gallery/
http://www.ressler.at/statement-on-resigning/
http://www.ressler.at/can-the-bolivarian-process-achieve-socialism/

Blue-Collar Blues…
Kunsthalle Tallinn & Gallery of Kunsthalle
December 22, 2009 – January 31, 2010

Artists: Art Center for Dismissed Employees, Francis Alÿs, Fahim Amir &
Krõõt Juurak, Dario Azzellini & Oliver Ressler, Dénes Farkas, Vladan Jeremić
& Rena Rädle, Johnson ja Johnson, Olga Jürgenson, Kennedy Browne, Tellervo
Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta, Marge Monko, Eléonore de Montesquiou, Santiago
Sierra

Curator: Anders Härm

The direct and most immediate motivation for this exhibition is the new
“more flexible” Employment Contracts Act that came into force on July 1st of
this year, and the disputes revolving around it for the past two years. In
the middle of November, the number of unemployed in the country with 1,3
million inhabitants rose above 100,000. At the same time, this law is a
result of large-scale global processes, a symptom of systemic global
neoliberalization. These processes, which have lasted for the last half
century and are the focus of this exhibition, have resulted in changes in
work relations, the nature of production and salaried labor as well as the
economy as a whole. Labor issues affect everyone – if only indirectly – and
therefore a direct relationship exists with them (as opposed to global cash
flow movements or the real estate bubble related thereto). This is a topic
in which class conflict break through the post-political haze and is
articulated fervently, quite uncharacteristically of the
administrative-political era. This is also occurring with increasing
momentum in Estonia, where we are slowly overcoming the post-Soviet false
shame related to trade unions, workers’ rights, etc. The time is ripe to
talk about these topics! It’s time for Blue-Collar Blues.

Through symbolic gestures, direct actions, as well as relational projects,
the Blue-Collar Blues exhibition attempts to give meaning to labor issues at
a time that can rightfully be called global capitalism’s greatest crisis. In
the course of 20 years, we have become aware that we live in a world, where
attempts at governance are based on a combination of global “free market”
dictatorship and neoliberalism as the only possible philosophy of life,
where democracy has just become a hollow colloquial phrase. This is a world,
where, on the one hand, a fatal end is predicted for work, while an attempt
is being made to show the uncertainty and instability of the labor market as
a positive challenge. This is a world where initiative and business are
equated. Creativity is one of the favorite expressions of this new mutation
of capitalism, which is required under conditions where any and all
creativity is precluded. This is a world where every employment relationship
may develop into something resembling slavery. This is capitalism without
part-time work opportunities or social guarantees, where the employer’s
expenditures for the workers are minimal, while the profits are maximal.
This is a world that, despite resounding slogans and promises, has arrived
at the most serious crisis of its existence.

Since labor issues are universal in some sense, being densely integrated
under conditions of globalization, the geographic range of this exhibition
is also broad, reaching from Latin America to Eastern Europe and from the
Balkans to the Nordic countries. Naturally, those participating in the
exhibition include great international names like Francis Alÿs and Santiago
Sierra, Oliver Ressler and Kennedy Browne, as well as a large number of
younger Estonian artists, whose works deal with these topics. All the
Estonian artists are producing new works especially for this exhibition,
which are motivated by local issues. The exhibition’s focus is on labor
relations, the psychological and social changes caused by the changes in
these relations, and the more general situation of workers under conditions
of neoliberal capitalism.

Several additional events will also take place at the Kunsthalle during the
exhibition. On Saturday, January 16th at 9 pm, a performance by Krõõt Juurak
and Fahim Amir, entitled Autodomestication, will take place, which deals
with the situation of “creative workers” in the labor market. Since Estonian
trade unions, politicians and social scientists are involved in the
exhibition project, in order to try and better understand labor issues, a
seminar entitled “The Position of the Citizens in Labor Relations” will take
place at the Kunsthalle on Friday, January 22nd at 12 noon. The main
participants are political scientist Oudekki Loone and sociologist Marju
Lauristin. The panelists include Harri Taliga, Tarmo Kriis, Eiki Nestor,
Raul Eamets, Allar Jõks, and others. Within the framework of the exhibition,
another event in the Porotfolio Café series will take on Saturday, January
30th at 12 noon, in which art students will be offered free consultations
and feedback from international curators, and some of the artists that are
participating in the exhibitions, such as Eleonore de Montesquiou, Tellervo
and Oliver Kalleinen, as well as from older colleagues and Estonian
specialists.

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