/ CONTEXT 1994 - 2020

This program in the form of an essay aims to shed light on some of the more disturbing aspects of contemporary life. Specifically, it looks at experiences involving conflict with power and at the imminent arrival of an even greater confrontation. A clash that exceeds the political realm and expands towards the notion of civilisation itself, and that seems to emanate from a source within the inner life of human beings.

Bearing this in mind, we present a series of screenings that look further than the immediacy of recent events, the logic of action-reaction, and the persistent notion of the other as intrinsically negative, in order to take a step back and observe from a distance that allows reflection.

We convey this vision through a programme with a dual core: La Commune by Peter Watkins, and The Mahabharata by Peter Brook, which we have contextualised with a series of documentaries and other documents that show contemporary expressions of the central theme.

La Commune offers a vision of contemporary conflict that transcends political oblivion. A cinematic reflection that looks back to a historical milestone – the emergence and disappearance of the 1871 Paris Commune and, at the same time, questions our own social reality and its representation in the media, given that Watkins chose to work with non-actors, people who express the actual conditions of their lives in Paris in 1999.

We will screen this film in three parts, each followed by a discussion session led by members of Rebond La Commune , the group that was created as a result of the making of this film.

Peter Brook’s The Mahabharata also deals with conflict but rather than taking a historical approach it positions itself outside of history, outside of linear time. It plays out in mythical time, the time of constant return and of the dialectic tension between the oblivion and remembrance of true human nature. The Mahabharata presents this conflict on several levels – linked to politics (power), civilisation, and the survival of life on Earth –, but also as an expression of the inner struggle that is fought out within every human being.

Each of the three parts of The Mahabharata will be preceded by excerpts from a conversation that we recorded with Jean-Claude Carrière, the screenwriter in charge of the theatrical adaptation of Brook's The Mahabharata , in which we explore the keys to this work in relation to the notions of conflict and oblivion.

This story is about you

The programme begins by following the course of the Mahabharata, an immense poem that flows with the majesty of a great river, which is full of “inexhaustible riches, defies all analysis, whether structural, thematic, historical or psychological. Doors are continually opening, which lead onto other doors. The Mahabharata cannot be held in the hollow of one’s hand. There are many ramifications. Sometimes seemingly contradictory, they succeed each other and intertwine, but we never lose the central theme of a looming threat, to which everything starkly points. We are living in a time of destruction. The question is, can we avoid it?” (1)

Against this background, from its very first lines, the Mahabharata takes us on an inner journey of knowledge and transformation.

• What is the poem about?

• It is about you. It is the story of your race. How your ancestors were born. How they grew. How vast war arose. It is the poetical history of mankind. If you listen carefully, at the end you will be someone else. (2)

  The illusion of power

The story gradually introduces us into a confrontation between the Pandava and the Kaurava . A confrontation that is a battle for power, although it arises from two almost opposite conceptions of life. With all their nuances and ambivalence, we see the Pandava proceed in accordance with their quest to fulfil the dharma , while the Kaurava seem to be guided only by desire and fear: the desire to possess power and the fear of losing it. They do not hesitate to use all possible means to achieve their end, they respect no limits whatsoever. And they act with the complicity of their parents, a blind king and a queen who voluntarily blindfolds herself.

Then the two sides play a game of dice, as a way of representing and temporarily avoiding direct conflict; but it is also a frame-up. The game is rigged – power play is always rigged. There can only be one outcome: defeat and the loss of everything they own, even their freedom. The Pandava face a future of exile and war.

In the present day, this rigged game takes on shapes and names that often hide its true purpose: to create a reality that is tailored to the private interests of a few. This is the case of so-called “free trade”, for example, which is supposedly a fair game in the sphere of economics. But the unequal terms of its participants and the non-reciprocal nature of the rules mean that it is inherently based on a desire for supremacy. Other examples disguise the obvious corporate and entrepreneurial nature of some social networks, and of many digital tools that barely hide their dark underside of control. And so we dwell in a realm of appearances: we appear to choose, we appear to communicate, we appear to be safe, thanks to a dense network of social devices. But inadvertently, when we comply with the daily ritual of submission to our work, to the educational and health system, to culture and to entertainment, we are signing a silent contract:

I accept competition as the foundation of our system, even though I am aware that it generates frustration and anger for the majority of those who lose. I agree to be humiliated and exploited in exchange for being allowed to humiliate and exploit those on a lower rung of the social pyramid (...)"

I accept that, in the name of peace, the largest Government expense will be Defence (...) I agree to be served up negative and terrifying news from around the world every day, so that I can ascertain the extent to which our situation is normal. (3)

Obviously, failure to sign “the contract” entails various increasing forms of exclusion. In view of this situation, protest can easily be channelled through the realm of appearance and made to give up its transformative power. But if protest tries to become real it will be stigmatised as sectarian, aggressive and violent, regardless of the means and ends it chooses.

Del Poder (“On Power”), the documentary by Zaván, focuses precisely on this aspect: the moment at which power reveals its true nature, beyond the fine names that it adopts to protect and legitimise its actions. This moment of revelation when power shows its true face comes about when it turns to the violence of repression. Genoa, 2001, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators protest on the streets. It is not an isolated event, the movement has been gaining strength, in Seattle in 1999, in Prague in 2000, and it is starting to represent a possibility for change… The “authorities” shield the city. They fence in entire neighbourhoods and suspend the Schengen treaty, to protect the summit of the heads of the world’s eight most powerful states. According to police trade union sources, they deliberately plan for a scenario of extreme violence, without ruling out the possibility that people may be killed (4). Police violence is unleashed, people are beaten indiscriminately. There are soon casualties, hundreds of them, some of people in comma. The situation quickly becomes a trap for the protesters, to such an extent that Amnesty International declares it “the greatest violation of human rights in Italy’s history since World War II.” Carlo Guiliani is killed by two shots to the head; the Commissioner who is tried for his murder is subsequently absolved. Far from reigning in the police violence, this death seems to stimulate it and give it its true meaning. The repression continues undiminished during the days that follow. De

/ CONTEXT 1994 - 2020

The word resistance is starting to gain currency in places and cultures all over the world, joining those that have never stopped practicing it. Resistance implies negation, the blocking of a process or power, but it also contains an affirmation: that there are other ways of doing, thinking, living. Minorities and majorities marginalized in their own land practice it in various active and passive ways. Today, this practice is bringing together very diverse cultures and peoples, some totally unconnected, that are starting to become aware of each other, to talk of each other amongst themselves in this struggle.

These resistances with their different origins and languages are being exercised against the expansion of a hegemonic " single thought " , a single way of understanding history and progress. This is often called " the West " ,...an amorphous, symbolic concept that initially referred to Europe, in particular the old European powers called the " western powers " , and then as the economic system expanded, to the United States of North America and even its allies in the Far and Middle East. Now the West seems to refer to an economic system and the culture it produces rather than the geographic sense.

What seems certain is that the Western imaginary needed to construct itself in opposition to another even larger and less exact invention: the Orient. The idea of " the Orient " was born as a result of the expansion of the " colonial powers " , and applied equally to the entire area ranging from the Maghreb to the Far East. As a new object of desire, it joined other previously conquered " uncivilized " territories, " indigenous peoples " , or the elusive " el Dorado " , etc...

It's important to recognise that the idea of the West itself was also constructed through the negation of its own diversity and heterodoxy, the violent negation of its own history(ies), and required the invention of an imaginary and exclusive genealogy in which one period succeeded the next, unopposed: classical antiquity, the Roman empire, Christianity, rationalism, the enlightenment, positivism, capitalism...all of them reinterpreted as gentle stereotypes with no violence or edge, ready for identity consumption. And so the " classical " was redefined as aristocratic origins already dominating the proto Orient or the " Persian enemy " , the Roman empire as a cruel but unifying force, Christianity as a sometimes fanatical and hypocritical but in the end civilising force, the Enlightenment as liberating and humanist in spite of its despotism and colonising approach to knowledge. And to top it off: the idea of never-ending, linear, acritical progress; and of capitalism as the ultimate guarantee of freedom ... The gradual technological hegemony is added to the succession and has arrived to test its raison d'etre and its power.

This genealogical construction rests on the global society of consumption, and its hard core that has concentrated in the web of interests of the giant oil, pharmaceutical and military industry companies, which project a spectacular world through the mass media. A way of colonising desire and fears through images and slogans, but above all a mechanism for reversibility, in which not only success and triumph but also tragedy and disaster, even our own, are instantly turned to profit through the spectacle of consumption. In this process, the idea of a single economy based on permanent and aggressive growth and the dogma of technological euphoria play key roles. Even moderate voices calling for sustainable models don't try to depart from this radical economic model, they may modulate the degree of aggressiveness, but not growth itself. The global society of consumption is so because it consumes to the point of extinction not just products but also natural resources, people and communities.

This expansive economy is generating a state of permanent conflict with many fronts: obviously military interventions, repression, occupation. But also in the field of food: local products are increasingly playing a minority role (whether marginal or elitist) and the presence and accessibility of global processed products is increasing on the free(?) market. The concept of intensive and industrialised agriculture is literally being imposed, an idea in which all processes: genetically modified seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, etc...form a single package... The planet's natural resources are coming under the prism of private property and exploitation, not just raw materials and fuels but also water, on which speculating investments are starting to converge. Public and private medicine is infiltrated by the interests of the pharmaceutical giants, not only in the virtually undisputed empire of chemical medicine, but also in the concept of what public health implies, fighting, discrediting or ignoring preventative practices and their inescapable link with education. In fact, the education system's most utopian end seems to be ergonomic adjustment to the needs of " the market " . To introduce content or practices that are not necessarily even critical, just foreign to these needs, is perceived as noise, an obstacle.

The mass media is mainly fed by ready-made news from the few major news agencies. As a group, their effect is a constant resetting of events, which are presented as a series absurdities. They propagate the idea of a hyper-privileged West in contrast to an " underdeveloped " and always suffering world, that could only possibly be of interest as a tourist destination (and, in fact, " tourists get to the places where armies don't " ). In this way, day by day, they create a single perception of poverty and wealth. The third-world media image of a boy soldier participating in incomprehensible wars, that touches the consciences of so many, never finds its parallel in the increasingly common image of a western child devoting hours to violent videogames, with some of the best-selling games being versions of military training programs.

But in these areas too, resistance persists and is growing, not always ideologically or consciously, and in ways that are different because they respond to specific contexts, cultures and traditions that vary widely from each other. We should then speak about resistances. Some of these arise from western critical thought, the remains of shipwrecked liberating ideologies, alternative practices, new foundations and connections... Others arise from the indigenous rhizome that extends unevenly throughout the world and knows that constant aggression against the earth and nature is a self-destructive process, destroying our resources and also our knowledge. Other radical resistances arise from cultures, like the now-demonised Islamic culture, a culture that is barely known and which has suffered almost 10 million victims (1) in the last decade while the West remained largely silent,... and from many other positions, religions and practices that increasingly need the awareness of the others and mutual respect. A key dialogue for accepting our knowledge and practical diversity and for self-criticism in relation to the totalitarian, exclusive aspects that exist in almost every culture. In this respect Europe and by extension the West, in spite of the majestic role it has assigned itself in the history of humanity and the construction of freedom and human rights, can hardly claim to have a model record in terms of racial, religious or national tolerance, even compared to neighbouring cultures. Paradoxically, even some parts of current critical thought and activism too easily reproduce and extend ethnocentric criteria.

OVNI 2005 Resistances will program and then include in the Observatory Archives a series of audiovisual works (155), mostly independent documentaries, media archaeology, agit-prop,.. that tell us of different forms of resistance and conflicts. From their dive