The morning newspaper, someone said back in the
19th century, is a prayer of civic society.
The self-sufficient daily consumption of
information makes all of us believers. The information that reaches
us through newspapers, radio, television and the Internet, market
news, weather forecasts, black chronicles, horoscopes, "live
reporting" to "serious" sections where the economy, wars and
catastrophes are screened, create a map that helps us to go through
the day and get used to the world around us.
However, what happens when that map becomes
hopelessly unreliable and when, instead of safe paths, even if they
were "problematic", it offers us only doubt, cynicism and paranoia
as a new dogma? What happens when the basic intervention of the
ideological apparatus of power is not building trust among citizens,
but creating a constant feeling of fear, threat and distrust? How
can we turn that language of doubt and confusion into something
else, another new map?
The emergence of new media, social networks and
fast communication channels, which are warm to the point of
McLuhan's language, have led to the proliferation of "fake news".
These are "news from the unconscious" which do not aim to inform but
only serve to undermine faith in any form of wider sociability that
is not based on naked violence, power and cynicism.
The traditional media, long lulled into their
almost religious position, are unable to cope with this new
phenomenon. The facts are powerless in the face of these
"alternative truths." Art, on the other hand, was never enslaved to
facts but was always able to break through them to the truth.
To this end, the Helsinki Committee for Human
Rights in Serbia is organizing the first in a series of workshops
that will deal with artistic processes through which we can conquer
news – all that reach to us, the fake ones as well as the others –
and turn them upside down like a sock, turning the evening lies into
a world of eternal news. and the truth. The "Role of Art in Social
Struggles" workshop will use a variety of tools, including
intellectual and artistic experiences such as art history and
theory, conceptual practices, theater, poetry and design.
The practical part of the workshop, based on
previous artistic experiences and examples, will deal with the
analysis of daily newspapers, radio news and television diaries -
our daily pursuit of ideological interpretations. Using the news as
a blind guide through nationalisms and chauvinisms, we will read and
critique, draw and collage, write over and rewrite, dramatize and
demonstrate. In other words, we will intervene in the media world
around us and, through a three-day workshop, turn "news from the
unconscious" into "eternal news".
What: Workshop „The Role of
Art in Social Struggles“
Where: Belgrade
When: 13-15 November 2020
Who: Young artists (up to 35
years old), across Serbia and from all artistic fields
How: Apply at
HO.konkurs@gmail.com,
no later than 8 November 2020.
Lecturers
Olga Dimitrijević
Svebor Midžić
Branko Dimitrijević Prota
Mentor
Darinka Pop Mitić
The workshop is taking place within the project
„Making Diversity Reality: Building Inclusive Society through
Education and Culture“, with the assistance of the European Union.
The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the
Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia and may in no way be
taken to reflect the views of the European Union
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