|
Artists Main Programme Parallel Programme Workshop Performance Festival A-Ζ |
| biennale mission biennale shop |
| Hellenic Ministry of Culture
State Museum of Contemporary Art Thessaloniki Center of Contemporary Art Visual Arts in Greece Art Editions |
|
|
|
| Andreas Mitropoulos The film titled “State of Exception” is about societies of control, suppression and the quashing of freedoms in modern societies. The violent imposition of regulatory standards is one of the issue’s parameters and is more closely related to ruling models of the past. Another parameter is the consent of the ruled. Those who have an interest in this construction are increasingly, silently and systematically achieving the extraction of consent and the legalization of the arbitrary use of power by political and economic leaders. It is alarming how Aldous Huxley’s prophetic words in his book “Brave New World” (1946) apply to the present day: “[...]A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude”. Today, one notices that power mechanisms are penetrating ever more forcefully, both vertically and horizontally, into people’s individual and collective actions. The political practices of our time avoid-as much as they can-revealing the true nature of the processes that have led to their realization. They try to organize existence as a whole, parameterize every aspect of human life and exert biopolitical control. Of course, there are times when the old ruling model is summoned during crises to violently suppress any uprisings or the possibility of such tendencies. This occurs both at the collective level, which can be more easily discerned, and at the individual level, by implementing a state of exception, a form of exclusion, an individual case that comes forward and is dismissed by the general rule. At the same time, the exception is included in the regular case and has a direct relation to the rule, precisely due to its differentiation from it, as it does not form part of it. Contemporary political systems throughout the world, which usually like to call themselves democracies, do not concern themselves with the essence of the problems that cause violence, destruction and imbalance, in other words, they are not interested in avoiding the conditions leading to these problems, namely inequalities of every kind, instead they are more occupied with controlling the violence once it erupts. It is either this or prevention, by examining the symptom and not the cause, avoiding any treatment of the disease/conditions, since their very existence relies greatly on the latter. Andreas Mitropoulos  Download CV |  Situation of Exception, 2008 |
Sponsors - Media Sponsors
