THE RENAMING MACHINE - Zagreb, 20 May - 03 July, 2009

g - mk galerija miroslav kraljevic
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THE RENAMING MACHINE
May 20 - July 3, 2009


- exhibition, conference & video archive

Curatoress:
SUZANA MILEVSKA

In collaboration with:
Ivana Bago & Antonia Majaca


Participants:
Ivana Bago/Antonia Majaca, Magnus Bärtås Zdenko Bužek Liljana Gjuzelova Igor Grubić Dejan Habicht/Tanja Lažetić Kalle Hamm Albert Heta Sasha Huber IRWIN Hristina Ivanoska Sanja Iveković Suzana Milevska MONUMENT Group Oliver Musoviќ Tanja Ostojić/David Rych Dan Perjovschi Lia Perjovschi Tadej Pogačar Georg Schöllhammer Dejan Spasoviќ Sašo Stanojkoviќ Mladen Stilinović, Alexander Vaindorf, Žaneta Vangeli

Conference & exhibition opening:
20.05. 2009
4.00-7.30 pm / 8.00 pm
@
g-mk galerija miroslav kraljevic
Subiceva 29, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia

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Galerija Miroslav Kraljevic is proud to present The Renaming Machine - the ongoing, two-year project by cutaroress Suzana Milevska, whose Zagreb edition is curated in collaboration with Ivana Bago and Antonia Majača. The Renaming Machine looks at the complex entanglements involved in the political and cultural processes of renaming. Its main concept reflects the crucial need to question the way these processes have influenced the construction and destabilization of the memory of national, cultural and personal identities in the former Yugoslavia and South-Eastern Europe over the past two decades. The project examines various artistic and cultural phenomena and strategies associated with the notion of “renaming” in order to determine the extent to which renaming affects visual culture and shapes the cultural identities and cultural politics in the region and elsewhere.

The Renaming Machine underscores the arbitrary and contingent nature of names. Alongside the philosophical and theoretical implications of the “mystic writing pad” of historic renaming, the project examines clandestine ideological patterns of the “desiring renaming machine” at work behind the dominant and visible social machines. As a region overburdened with changes in its state borders, the Balkans, for example, possess a history that abounds with the politics of renaming. With the break-up of Yugoslavia, the renaming “apparatus” erased and overwrote most traces from the Tito era, including the Yugoslav leader’s own name, which had been attached to many places in the former country. The region itself has been called by different names: the Balkans, the Western Balkans, SouthEastern Europe, etc., depending on the geopolitical interests and attitudes regarding its integrity or dismemberment. The “renaming machine& rdquo; has also important implications for gender politics in the way the patriarchal marriage contract has traditionally dictated that a woman assumes her husband’s family name, thus overwriting her premarital identity.

Changes in the names of institutions, people, ethnicities, languages, toponyms and even states are usually viewed as the first step in the process of appropriation, or erasure, of national, cultural, and personal identities, as well as a way to protect long-term political interests and ensure the domination over a territory. For example, the on-going conceptual “war of names” between Greece and Macedonia (that in 1993 was forced by UNO to start using the description “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”) resulted in an international outwitting game that is the best example of ideology of renaming: how the endlessly postponed event of renaming can enable a “state of exception” whereby the power of the “renaming machine” is either underappreciated or overrated.

The Renaming Machine is imagined as a two-year umbrella project comprising a series of events: conferences, exhibitions, debates, video programmes, bloggers’ posts, etc. that take place in Ljubljana, Skopje, Prishtina, Zagreb and Vienna. A comprehensive publication edited by the Skopje-based curator and theorist Prof. Dr. Suzana Milevska and published by the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute is planned as the culminating segment of the project to be launched in autumn 2009.

The Zagreb exhibition includes new commissions by: Albert Heta, Sanja Iveković, Tanja Ostojić/David Rych, Tadej Pogačar, Dejan Spasoviќ and Alexander Vaindorf

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PROGRAM, MAY 20, 2009

4.00 - 7.30 pm
Conference / Panel discussions with:
Ivana Bago/Antonia Majaca, Magnus Bärtås, Igor Grubić, Dejan Habicht/Tanja Lažetić, Albert Heta, Sasha Huber, Suzana Milevska, Georg Schöllhammer, Alexander Vaindorf

8.00 pm
Performance:
Dejan Spasoviќ, Renaming Paradox, storytelling performance


VIDEO ARCHIVE / 3 SHIFTS:

20.05.- 03.06.2009
Video archive: Rewriting History
Dan Perjovschi, Dejan Habicht/Tanja Lažetić, Sasha Huber, Lia Perjovschi, Kalle Hamm

03.-16.06.2009
Video Archive: Renaming Troubles: Gender/Kinship/Culture: Liljana Gjuzelova, Hristina Ivanoska, Tadej Pogačar, Oliver Musoviќ

17.06.- 03.07. 2009
Video Archive: Renaming the Self: Pseudonyms/ Appropriations/Misnomers
Magnus Bärtås, Igor Grubić, Albert Heta, Sašo Stanojkoviќ,


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The main organiser of the project:

P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia, www.zavod-parasite.si

Partners:
g-mk galerija miroslav kraljević, Zagreb, Croatia, www.g-mk.hr
Peace Institute, Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies, Ljubljana, Slovenia, www.mirovni-institut.si
Press to exit project space, Skopje, Macedonia, www.presstoexit.org.mk
Cultural Centre “Točka”/Kontrapunkt, Skopje, Macedonia, www.kontrapunkt-mk.mk
Stacion Center for Contemporary Art, Prishtina, Kosovo, www.stacion.org

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The project is supported by:

Erste Foundation
European Cultural Foundation-ECF
Swiss Cultural Programme Macedonia
Ministry of Culture of Republic of Slovenia
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia
Municipality of Ljubljana
FRAME - Finnish Fund for Art Exchange
Majaoja Säätiö (Majaoja Foundation)
IASPIS - International Artists Studio Program in Sweden
City of Zagreb - City Office for education, culture and sport

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www.renamingmachine.blogspot.com

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GALLERY HOURS:
Tue-Fri: 12.00 - 7.00 PM
Sat: 11.00 – 1.00 PM
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g-mk galerija miroslav kraljevic
subiceva 29 10 000 Zagreb
t. +385 1 45 92 696
e. info@g-mk.hr
url. www.g-mk.hr

THE RENAMING MACHINE - Skopje 29-30.09 Programme

Curatoress of the Conference: Dr. Suzana Milevska

Conference Assistants: Irena Cvetkoviќ and Slavčo Dimitrov

29.09.2008, 10 am - 6 pm
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National and University Library, Conference and Study CentreBul. "Goce Delcev" 6, Skopje 1000

10.00-11.15 The Rights and Wrongs of Renaming
Introduction and Moderator: Suzana Milevska
Emancipatory politics as a process of involving “wrong” names, Lana Zdravković, researcher, activist and artist, The Peace Institute, Ljubljana
No Name, Aldo Milohnić, MA, sociologist of culture, The Peace Institute, Ljubljana
The Potentialities of Renaming: Negation or Agency, Suzana Milevska, Ph.D, curator and visual culture theorist, Skopje
11.15-12.00 Respondents and Discussion
Zhivka Valiavicharska, PhD candidate in rhetoric, Sofia/Berkeley-University of California
Slavčo Dimitrov, VCRC-“Euro-Balkan” Institute, activist, researcher and M.A. student, Skopje

12.00-12.30 Break

12.30-14.30 The Art of Governing: State Insignia and Governmentality
Moderator: Lana Zdravković
Changes while standing still, Dan Perjovschi, artist, Bucharest
From Neue Slowenische Kunst to NSK State in Time, Miran Mohar/IRWIN, artist, Ljubljana
Collective Panic, Žaneta Vangeli, artist, Skopje
Kosovo Pavilion, Albert Heta, artist, Prishtina
Eternal Recurrence, Liljana Gjuzelova, artist, Skopje

14.30 – 16.00 Break
Video programme during the break:
Liljana Gjuzelova, Eternal Recurrence IV, 45 min video projection
Kalle Hamm, Renamed Helsinki, 16 min video projection

16.00-17.30 Proper Names, Gender Politics and Kinship
Naming and Renaming, Lia Perjovschi, artist, Bucharest
Daslu/Daspu, Tadej Pogačar, artist, Ljubljana
Naming the Bridge, Hristina Ivanoska, artist, Skopje
Given Name/Family Name, Oliver Musoviќ, artist, Skopje

17.30-18.00 Now You See It, Now You Don’t (performance with matchboxes), Aleksandar Stankoski, artist, Skopje



30.09.2008, 7 pm – 10 pm
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Cultural Centre “Točka”,
Str. Kliment Ohridski 15, (behind the Church St Kliment)

19.00 – 20.15 The Politics and Ethics of Renaming
Introduction and Moderator: Slavčo Dimitrov
Name Exchange Office, Žarko Trajanoski, MA in Human Rights and Democracy, Skopje
“The Western Balkans”- News from One Invented Region, Tihomir Topuzovski, artist, Skopje
Laibach and NATO, Julijana Zabeva, musicologist, Skopje
The Failure of Naming: Towards an Ethics of the Renaming, Slavčo Dimitrov, VCRC-“Euro-Balkan” Institute, young researcher and M.A. student, Skopje

20.15 – 20.30 Break

20.30 – 21.45 Cyber Renaming/Virtual Identities
Introduction and Moderator: Irena Cvetkoviќ
Renaming Semantic Cloud, New Media Centre, Skopje
http://newmedia.org.mk/renaming-semantic-cloud
Can you name my IP address? A new representation of body, language and subjectivity in cyberspace, Irena Cvetkoviќ, “Euro-Balkan” Institute, M.A. student in Gender Studies and blogger, Skopje
Discussion with a group of bloggers from Macedonia

21.45 – 22.00 Discussion

The main organiser of the project:

P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute
Hruševska 661000 Ljubljana
Slovenia
www.zavod-parasite.si

Partners:

The Peace Institute, Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies
Metelkova 6, Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia
Phone: +386 1 234 77 20

Press to exit project space
Vasil Gorgjov 28/4, Skopje 1000, Macedonia
Phone: +389 2 322 85 94
www.presstoexit.org.mk/

Cultural Centre “Točka”
Str. Kliment Ohridski 15, (behind the Church St Kliment)
Skopje 1000, Macedonia
www.kontrapunkt-mk.org/
Phone:+389 2 322 58 25

Stacion Center for Contemporary Art
Zija Prishtina Street n. n. 10000, Prishtina 10000, Kosovo
Phone: +381 (0) 38 222 576
http://www.stacion.org/

The project is supported by:
Erste Foundation
European Cultural Foundation-ECF
Swiss Cultural Programme Macedonia / Pro Helvetia Skopje
Ministry of Culture of Republic of Slovenia
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia
Municipality of Ljubljana