In front of a vision of the multiculturalism as a space, predefined and consensual by power, institutions and violence, the "other" is enclosed in allotments.

/ 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

The Margins of the Empire _ OVNI 2008

/ CONTEXT 1994 - 2020

The Margins of the Empire _ OVNI 2008

"Open your eyes and look within. Are you satisfied with the life you're living? (...) So we gonna walk, alright, through the roads of creation. We're the generation (Tell my why) trod through great tribulation". Exodus Bob Marley

The videos screened at OVNI 2008 will offer an initial reflection on the “marginal” and the desire to cross margins, on forms of personal or collective exodus – whether physical or as a state of mind. They include perspectives on different forms of marginalization and exploitation which lie directly under the oppressive vertical force of power, such as workers in Chinese export factories or clandestine Palestinian day workers in Israel. And perspectives on armed conflict zones that go beyond the “propaganda-counter propaganda” dialectic: in South America, Chechnya, Lebanon, Iraq, Darfur, Afghanistan...

But they also include reflections and perspectives on other realities and forms of organization that grow on the margins: self-organization of the homeless, indigenous communities in Ecuador and Columbia, brotherhoods of transvestites in India, ancient heterodox traditions and their rituals, self-managed collectives in Barcelona, groups of deserters in the US... Together with accounts of dreams and the inner revolution, of seeking and of exodus... These are videos that question and consider this attraction towards exodus, the desire to abandon a reality and a set of values that we can no longer believe in, or wish for. Perspectives that refuse to remain trapped in an eternal “against” stance and use resistance tactically, but embark on a journey to other possible worlds. Exodus itself is another world, functionally unmappable, because exodus is always on the side of emptiness and movement, of listening to voices of the others (?) and recognising oneself in them. What gets left behind are societies swing between an abundance of poverty – made visible and turned into spectacle by the media – and the increasingly obvious misery of abundance, the misery of consumer societies.

Let's allow fragments of transcriptions from some of the videos that will be projected talk to us about the journey:

“A society that is always sicker, but always stronger, has everywhere concretely re-created the world as the environment and decor of its illness, a sick planet. A society that still hasn't become homogenous and that isn't determined by itself, but is always more determined by a part of itself that places itself above the rest and is exterior to it, has developed a movement that dominates natures but isn't itself dominated. (...) The production of non-life has more and more pursued its linear and cumulative process; overcoming a final threshold in its progress, it now directly produces death”. (1)

“The consumer society has destroyed the environment. Exterminated millions of species of plants and animals. Poisoned the seas, the rivers and the lakes. Polluted the air. Filled the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other harmful gases. Destroyed the ozone layer. Exhausted our oil, coal and gas reserves and rich mineral resources. Exterminated our forests and destroyed their own. So what is left for us? Underdevelopment. Poverty. Dependence. Underdevelopment. Debt. Uncertainty. For the super developed societies the problem is not growth but distribution. Not only amongst themselves but amongst everybody. Sustainable development is impossible without fairer distribution amongst all nations. After all, mankind is one great family all sharing the same destiny”. (2)

“Today's ideal is consumerism. It is a homologating civilisation that makes everything the same. Without ideology? What, it has no ideology? With a consumer ideology you don't... instead of having a flag, the clothes they wear are their flag. Some of the means and some of the external phenomena have changed but, in practice, it's a depauperation of individuality which is disguised through its valorisation (...) During the so-called “repressive” ages sex was a joy, because it was practiced in secret and it made a mockery of all the obligations and duties that the repressive power imposed. (...) And so, at a certain point, one of the characters in the films says exactly this: “Repressive societies repress everything... therefore, men can't do anything.” But I have added this concept which for me is lapidary: permissive societies permit a few things and only those things can me done. Hey! That is terrible! A degree of bestowed freedom that later becomes compulsory. As it is bestowed it becomes compulsory.

Sadomasochism is an eternal category of man: it was there in De Sade's time, it's here today, etc. But this is not what I care about. I also care about this, but the real sense of sex in my films is a metaphor of the relation between power and its subject. Therefore, in reality, it is true for all times. The drive came from the fact that I detest, above all things, today's power. Everyone hates the power he is subject to. Therefore, I hate the power of today, of 1975, with particular vehemence. It is a power that manipulates bodies in a horrible way, it has nothing to envy Himmler's or Hitler's manipulation. It manipulates them, transforming their conscience, in the worst way, establishing new values which are alienating and false. The values of consumerism, which accomplish what Marx called genocide of the living, real, previous cultures.

In reality, the producers force the consumers to eat shit. Knapp bouillon or... They give adulterated, bad things, little Robiola cheeses, processed cheese for babies,... all horrible things that are shit (...)

Power remains exactly the same, only its characteristics change, the subject is no longer parsimonious or religious, he is a consumer and so he is short-sighted, irreligious, secular, etc. The cultural characteristics change, but the relationship is identical. Therefore, it (Salò) is a film not only about power, but about what I call “the anarchy of power”. Nothing is more anarchic than power. Power does what it wants and what it wants is totally arbitrary or dictated by its economic reasons which escape common logic.

My real vision, the older, more archaic one given to me at birth and shaped in my early childhood, my original way of seeing is a sacred vision of things. In the end, I see the world like those who have a poetic vocation do, that is, like a miraculous, almost sacred fact. And nothing can desecrate my fundamental sacredness”. (3)

Constant work, constant consumption

“... We are terrorized into being consumers. We can choose between brand A, brand B or C, that's the freedom we have. Yes, I think there are too many things. Constant work and consumption, it's crazy. This is what's destroying everything, and it has to go. I can see very little worth preserving. I don't see any benefit or wellbeing in preserving this system. Achieving all these things is actually coercion. People are forced to work in mines and packaging factories. Without them we don't have all this. A world of things, which we have to spend our whole lives fighting for. I don't think anybody really takes it seriously, but inertia keeps it moving. This has to be stopped, it has to be destroyed (...)

Why do people go out and try to protest or try to do something? That's not violence. Sitting there doing dope and watching MTV. Then you go and get a job. Just schlep along. To me that is violence.

It is necessary to damage or destroy property, it lies outside political confines o the politics of the everyday. What do you achieve by holding a sign at the usual demonstration? I've seen the same thing for decades, it doesn't achieve anything! But when people fight, that’s something else. They capture people’s attention, it’s real. Corporate property is the most obvious legitimate target in my view. Banks, e