DemoKino - Virtual Biopolitical Agora
Edited by Ivana Ivkovic and Davide Grassi
Published by Maska, Institute for publishing, production and education
www.maska.si and
Aksioma, Institute for Contemporary Arts www.aksioma.org

About the book:
DemoKino_book.pdf

TRANSformacije series, book no. 19
www.maska.si/eng/siTransformacije.php
160 pages, 170 x 240 mm, 64 b/w illustrations
Price: 16 EUR

Marcela Okretic
Executive producer
Aksioma - Institute for Contemporary Arts
Gerbiceva 23, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Tel: +386 1 283 9686
E-mail: aksioma4@siol.net
www.aksioma.org

Virtual Biopolitical Parliament
Davide Grassi's DemoKino
Bojana Kunst
[SLO]
I. Introduction

Over the last decade, numerous reflections have dealt with the political potentiality of cyberspace: with the direct participation it enables, cyberspace establishes a different form of contemporary community. Pierre Levy talks about the contemporary "virtual agora"; he views cyberspace as a field characterized by a different way of activity, a parallel collective intelligence of some sort, an 'inclusive society' born online. The net enables one to be active directly because a different field of the public is involved: in order to enter, one is not necessarily represented by another, but everyone can make a direct contribution to society. With their new ways of connecting, online communities are supposed to embody the ideals of the sixties student revolutions and establish forms of parallel direct democracy. Levy's definition of the virtual agora thus echoes some of the findings of the revolutionary movements in the sixties of the twentieth century; a direct way of activity is thereby not understood as an acclamation of direct voice, but as a unique demand for the transfer of the private into the public, with this transfer constantly putting the public sphere under the question mark. The demand for the transfer of the private into the public can be understood not only from the perspective of private pleasure (as this, for example, is dealt with by Kristeva), but also from the materialistic perspective. This demand namely represents the multitude which incessantly thwarts and contests the public sphere with its unstoppable productivity, realized through contemporary connections and multilayered participation. This direct participation, however, with its numerous interactive connections, turns into a grave threat in the science fiction novel Noir by the American author K.W. Jeter. The word "connection" is used as a swearword, with people cursing at each other with expressions like "connect-you, mother-connector", "get the connect outta here". In short, you are fucked, when connected. (1)

Soon after the initial wave of optimism, the ideal of direct and multiplying connections is turning out to be the worst of nightmares. There is, of course, a variety of reasons for this disappointment, ranging from the commercialization of both the private field of the sixties and the cyberspace of the nineties, to paranoid contemporaneity, where everybody can be controlled / observed / basically dislocated by everybody over that connection. In my opinion, today's disappointment and pessimism are especially generated by the emptiness of contemporary democratic procedures. Despite the civil initiatives resulting from the utopian demands at the end of the sixties (and included by the cyberspace of the nineties), despite a number of the in-between communities that have found their ambivalent ways into political space, we can sense disappointment with the democratic ways of participation and connecting. It has been sort of generally accepted that today every community, regardless how parallel and different it might be, and every initiative no matter how private in character, gets lost in its own procedure. It thus seems that it is necessary to profoundly rethink the manner of contemporary connecting, and thus also the relationship between the interior and the public, as established through various forms of political activity.

II. Virtual Agora: DemoKino

Contemporary artistic projects can often serve as an excellent basis for such rethinking, especially as their critical orientation can no longer be understood only as a formation of oppositional standpoints, a presentation of opposite contents, or a reflection of already existing forms. Today, these kinds of projects use the same procedures as we ourselves do in our private or public activities; they succumb to the same bureaucratic laws and participatory problems. Nevertheless, their gesture can still be uncivil - they still somehow don't succumb to the strict contemporary demarcation of territories and to the division of labour: according to Nicolas Bourriaud, the contemporary artist is our contemporary sophist.(2) This is why it seems to me that the critical potentiality of these kinds of projects can be grasped precisely through the connections and transgressions they establish, through their performative gestures: the political power of the project is revealed by the situation through which it establishes itself as project.

At this point, we will make a reflection on the pains of contemporary political activity and contemporary connections with the help of DemoKino, a project by the Italian-Slovenian artist Davide Grassi. It consists of a series of eight virtual sessions in the form of interactive short films: "Eight bills are presented to the cyber-electorate in form of a short movies that show the "pro and contra" inner dialogues of its protagonists. By means of voting the electorate leads the character around his home in a parliamentary kind of way." (DemoKino, www.demokino.net) The films depict a young man: in short dialogues (texts by the Italian philosopher Antonio Caronia), he states his views on eight topical contemporary ethic dilemmas: those of abortion, cloning, genetic manipulation, gay marriages, privatization of water sources, copyright / copyleft, euthanasia and therapeutic cloning. Each of the virtual conferences or short films takes place in a certain part of his apartment, with the ends of the films determined interactively by the electorate / spectators. At the end of each session (film), they vote for or against the issue, with the majority of the votes determining a door in the apartment which will lead the man to the next dilemma. The spectators thus take stands to the issues and the man, directing him towards the next door, which not only opens an entrance to the next room in the apartment, but also to the next dilemma, film and virtual session. The sequence of the stories, the man's moving through the apartment, the private geography if his daily routine (going to the toilet, teeth brushing, rest, web surfing, phoning, etc.) is thus determined in a referendum-like way, leading the man through his private abode. In general, there are two, but not totally distinct possibilities of such "referendums": that of virtual individuals within a virtual community, and that of 'life' parliamentary decision-making in the cinema hall.

The basis of DemoKino is precisely Levy's concept of the virtual agora. With the interactive mimicry of contemporary connections, and nearly laboratorial simulation of democratic decision-making, DemoKino lucidly points out the symptoms of contemporary politics. Using the interactive form in order to practically realize the utopia of direct activity, it also demonstrates the deep problems of this kind of activity. In other words, the project reveals an impossible connection that characterizes contemporary political decision-making. In our direct co-operation as interactive spectators in DemoKino (by voting, stating our views and competing with the majority or minority in connection with the topical ethical issues), the majority of the votes does not only determine the narrative and geographic course or the film, but for some time, makes us an agreed part of a voting community. The project simulates sessions on ethical and economic dilemmas, which we witness on a daily basis, as well as the form of the political life surrounding these questions. And yet, at the end of the DemoKino project, our co-operation in this virtual agora is put under an enormous question mark. The last of the films is namely shown regardless of the course we have determined, and has not been chosen by us at all. It shows a spinning head of a clown whistling a well-known melody, with the caption saying: "What if I tell you now that everything was pre-defined?"

When DemoKino comes to an end and the virtual sessions are over, it is no longer clear to what degree our direct and interactive pleasure has been forged and simulated in advance. Wherein lies the potentiality of our decision-making, i.e. the actuality of our participation? Does our connection makes any sense at all if even the most direct forms of co-operation between the private and the public can turn into their own parodies