FIGURE IT OUT: THE ART OF LIVING THROUGH SYSTEM FAILURES
– about the project
Figure it Out: The Art of Living Through System Failures explores practices and phenomena in which systems and institutions fail specific communities and populations. Trapped within constraining situations, these people are starting to develop strategies of lying, cheating and stealing to counter their limitations and powerlessness vis-à-vis these systems.
From the position of the dispossessed and excluded, actions and practices that would be condemned in the mainstream,assume a different ethical and political connotation. In popular culture, these practices are frequently celebrated as a cunning and crafty reworking, often poetic or humorous. They have also expanded into the digital sphere as well, where they are getting recombined in interesting ways facing new kinds of algorithmic power structures. Figure it Out will explore the use of these practices as forms of resistance and tools for bypassing rules, as attempts to obtain access to key rights that remain foreclosed for certain groups. The aim is not to indiscriminately celebrate personal gain through illicit behavior, but to acknowledge the ingenuity that comes in finding a way out of an impossible situation. Possible examples come from a broad variety of practices – such as the avoidance of internet censorship by transformation of entire websites into image formats or the camouflage techniques of migrants adopting a ‘western’ look to fool surveillance algorithms.
The project will explore similar practices that enable disenfranchised groups to overcome barriers established by administrative and algorithmic regimes. The focus is on the strategies of rural women, eco-commoners, LGBTIQ+, migrants, etc. in conflict with corporate or state rules.
Figure it Out involves partners from Croatia, France, Greece, Malta and Serbia who will work with and engage different communities sharing their stories through art productions, exhibitions, a radio festival, bonfire events and web-zines.
PROGRAMS AND ACTIVITIES:
Workshop ¡Estás solo, amigo!, Calafou, Spain
La Labomedia
Workshop @ OAVL
La Labomedia & RYBN.org
Workshop @ MiG
RYBN.org
Participants:
Kiosk (Belgrade, Serbia)
→ www.kioskngo.net
Labomedia (Orléans, France)
→ www.labomedia.org
Unfinished Foundation (Malta)
→ www.unfinishedartspace.org
Vektor (Athens, Greece)
→ www.vektorathens.org
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Education and Culture Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
Co-funded by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia.
Project is co-financed by the Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs. The views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of Drugo more and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs.
