Between one and absolute zero.

Absolute One is a project which began with the proposal to highlight the differences which still exist in forms of cultural and artistic expression flourishing in the so-called "non-Western" countries, in which a market still in a phase of adjustment - and in certain cases still inexistent - plays an important role in the development not only of the arts, but generally in man/object relations. It is an approach which is still in subtle contrast to Western politics, and is seen as a model to imitate, even if it is often acquired as an imposed formula from which it is impossible to escape if it is to be used within specific economic and cultural parameters. Yet however interesting the argument may seem, we have realised that it was impossible to confront it without examining the global process taking place which is changing the habits and actions of people all over the world. A kind of industrial revolution, even if ours could be defined as the information technology or information revolution, which provokes a sense of continual and frenetic movement and change. However, every so often we ask ourselves if all of this isn't merely an illusion which is hiding a centuries-old immobility, extremely productive exclusively for a restricted group of people. We have therefore asked experts from various branches of human knowledge, to hear the opinions of economists, philosophers, sociologists, art critics, and artists who have allowed us to have a view, albeit a small and limited one, of the various readings that this phenomenon is establishing. All of these views have been brought together on a web site where anyone who wants to interact and express their own opinions is welcome (www.absoluteone.exibart.it or www.absoluteone.ljudmila.org). The need to discuss the topic with academics from various fields is a consequence of the knowledge that it is difficult to separate artistic practice from those relationships in a phase of fluid elaboration, between politics, economics, and technology, and the function art assumes in this context. In some of the gathered texts and interviews in the catalogue we come across enthusiastic interpretations concerning the possibilities offered by technological development, thanks to which it is possible to reach information and create a network of extremely fertile collaboration, which just a few years ago would have been slow to develop or downright impossible. In others we notice a general diffidence about the homologisation of the arts in a language so powerful and unequivocal as the economic/technological apparatus. In the future will it still be possible for art to preserve at least a few of its many meanings linked to a determined way of life or culture in a global environment which tends towards the rationalisation of exchange? This facilitation in cultural exchange becomes a stimulating tool which, however, makes us reconsider certain positions, for example the position of museum institutions. These essentially cannot be reduced to being places in which objects of art are accumulated, but somehow not only have to actively try to relate to the artists and their working context, which often falls outside the pre-defined frames of these structures, but also rethink the way in which contemporary art works are exhibited, seeing as it frequently makes use of the possibilities offered by modern technology. Let's take Vuk Ćosić as an example, who has been one of the pioneers of net art, an expressive form divulged through the web and which uses the languages of it. It has become a world in which even the destiny of an art which not only is related to thousand-year-old and symbolic tradition, but which at the same time searches for a comparison with the contemporary context and with that part of human action determined by economic power and global technology. In spite of museums and institutions today competing to commission works on the net, these could and can live without the presence of an exhibition space, in fact they make use of the advantages that no other "container" of an art work manages to have. A practically total global diffusion happening contemporaneously, now and everywhere. The classic exhibition space in this sense is no longer necessary, but the "museum" moves in a virtual space in which the artist's work is shown. What is paradoxical is that following the traditional market forms, the works created for the net are put on sale, exhibitions and auctions are organised, all in the form of the most classic market, coming up against contradictions, such as the problem of copyright. How do we find where the borders are between what is actually a work of art and what is a copy?! This is a question which was perfectly identified by a group of artists called 0011010010101.ORG. when in 1999, "they appropriated" the site hell.com, where an exhibition of net art took place for those few possessors of the password, which they freely broadcast. This act of piracy carried out by 001 (we'll abbreviate) has put the finger on the problem not only concerning net art, but any art form which is reproduced hundreds of times, which uses expressive forms such as video, web, posters and so on. In the end, some actions and gestures lacking in the consistency of the object and therefore not saleable, nowadays are of more artistic impact because they work by penetrating directly in the information circuit. Yet obviously the art market has to find something to exchange, trade, transform into money, and therefore it is vital to create market forms even for situations and events which were the fruit of an antithetical spirit. A typical example was the historical process of the Fluxus group, famous for their performances, moments of intense energy, which had to remain recorded by memory, or at the most recorded on video. Today the fragments remaining from these events can also be found in museum catalogues, galleries, and above all can be bought at an exorbitant price. It is the law of the market, in which even information produces a profit, merchandising events which happen by chance. These are actual processes created and distributed by means of communication, which hold immense power, in which only news with certain ingredients are able to overcome the barriers imposed by the fixed rules: to be able to gain the attention of a wide audience. Thus it is of fundamental importance to appropriate situations which could be psychic bombs and even produce money. Even the character of Darko Maver, invented at the design table by 001.ORG, had all the right ingredients: a Serbian artist coming from a country at war, a tragic history, with a final tragic death. Thus he was able to enter not only the information circuit, but also the art one. Everybody knew Maver, even if nobody had ever seen him. What was important was the news and the most precious commodity of contemporaneity, which is sold at a higher price than any other product, representing the best visiting card for overcoming any barrier, even the apparent diffidence of the artistic world. Therefore, even is art makes use of the facilitations offered by technological development, even if artists are often able to express themselves with the means and languages produced by new inventions, it is fundamental that art is not identified with technology, but that technology always remains an instrument, not the aim. In fact, there are no enigmas that technology is able to reveal, but art can! And this is its role today, in spite of the technology on the horizon. Therefore, if the artist finds his/herself living in a situation in which his/her interests lead towards situations lying outside those of the global market, or outside market logic which is annulling differences and heading towards a simplifying homologisation, s/he must open up a space for being different within such a system. By working in a totally economic and technological environment, art has to find its relationship with man's older and more archaic traditions and situations. Only by doing this can it underline the relation and interdependency, but also the fundamental difference between artistic work and economic business. The work of Tadej Pogačar, director of the PARASITE Museum, and an exponent of new parasitism, wants to be a way of giving space to all those who work outside of the legally recognised economies: the homeless, tramps, prostitutes. He himself represents a structure which does not produce money, seeing as he always has to behave as a parasite, relying on other people's circumstances. The icon, for example, a reference to the project created for the Biennale, is hosted by various places across the city, thus becoming exhibition spaces, but also the site of exploitation by this new parasitical entity! However, if the icon represents a form of utilisation of alternative spaces by the artist, transforming them into temporary museums, the gesture of collaborating with the union for the civil rights of prostitutes around the world assumes another meaning. Prostitution has always been a parallel universe, governed by its own rules, which have no connection with the "official" economic system, and which adapts itself with difficulty to the rules of a global market. In a certain sense prostitution and art find themselves in the same situation, and raise questions about how those working in these environments can be safeguarded from the rules of a global market. Therefore Tadej Pogačar's work, as well as being an opportunity for giving a voice to this category, is also a means of highlighting and drawing attention to those worlds which continue to gravitate outside of global reasoning. On the contrary, you could say that for some of these categories it is necessary to maintain a form of inadequacy with regard to technology which only the human possesses in order to continue to exist. In effect they free the view, the reflection and intuition for that entity which is man and his economic and artistic history, confronting the total stasis which the utopian world, dominated by the rationality of technology and sustained by global economic policy, would like to establish. AURORA FONDA