Communist Ghosts - On the crisis of European identities and contemporary art

这个项目旨在巩固和传播我的博士论文关于后共产主义条件作为一个门槛经验的研究。我的项目讨论了后共产主义空间和时间的特殊性质，并认为后共产主义过渡地点允许对现代身份的当代危机的新视角，因为它们捕捉并带来了欧洲现代性核心的模糊性。在我的项目中，后共产主义遗址是短暂的社会心理空间，是在欧洲共产主义崩溃和东欧国家随后回归所谓的西方之后创建的。我认为，这些短暂的地点与西方主导结构和经验的关系不是严格的他者关系，而是失败的身份关系，从某种意义上说，这些地点揭示了构成欧洲启蒙工程的理想和原则的脆弱性、欺诈性和有限性。它们是由现代欧洲的概念框架和叙事塑造的，但它们代表了这些现代结构、它们的时间性和身份被严重破坏和破坏的特殊实例和经历。它们不提供对“他者”历史或非欧洲叙事的回归，也不允许在欧洲历史的演变中迈向一个新阶段，但它们迫使我们承认并面对当今欧洲及其近代史的模糊和当代僵局。因此，该项目的主要论点是，后共产主义遗址是对欧洲现代性进行批判性重新接触的来源，因为它们要求重新思考现代项目，而不是忽视或压制其历史特征的矛盾和暴力。除了认识论的论证，该项目还提出了方法论主张，强调作为阈值地点，后共产主义门槛经验需要通过知识生产的形式来探索，这些形式对短暂地点的矛盾、感性和神秘领域敏感。通过借鉴美学、社会和精神分析理论，我展示了当代艺术实践是如何包含工具和策略的，通过这些工具和策略，可以表达和了解临时场所，特别是后共产主义场所的特殊性质。因此，我对后共产主义遗址的论述从艺术情境和当代艺术作品中使用的象征主义开始，这些艺术作品与后共产主义领域的物质/社会结构有关。它不是通过思想的方式来了解艺术，而是发展一种替代形式的社会理论，从而实现一种替代形式的知识，如果社会理论模仿当代艺术的形式和内容。我认为，当以艺术形式传播时，后共产主义遗址变成了一种特定形式的了解和记忆欧洲历史的来源，一方面带来了过去未能在整个大陆上被理解的灾难的痛苦记忆，例如欧洲犹太社区的消失或极权主义政权实施的结构性暴力，同时引发了对激进希望和理想的记忆(自由，社会正义，（共产主义）与欧洲计划有关。因此，后共产主义的过渡地点是另一种选择的、反思的和批判的认识论的来源，它寻求重新实现现代的愿景和实践，同时通过反犹太主义、种族主义和殖民社会现实所造成的灾难，这些灾难迄今为止已经成为欧洲历史的特征。

This project aims at consolidating and disseminating the research of my doctoral thesis on the post-communist condition as a threshold experience. My project discusses the particular nature of post-communist space and time and argues that post-communist transitory sites allow for new perspectives on the contemporary crisis of modern identities as they capture and bring to life the ambiguities at the heart of European modernity. Post-communist sites, as conceptualized in my project, are transitory psychosocial spaces which were created after the breakdown of European communism and the subsequent return of Eastern European countries to the so-called West. I argue that the relation of these transitory sites to dominant structures and experiences in the West is not one of strict otherness but of failed identity, in the sense that these sites reveal the fragility, fraudulence and finitude of the ideals and principles that have formed Europe's enlightenment project. They have been shaped by the conceptual frameworks and narratives of modern Europe but they represent particular instances and experiences in which these modern structures, their temporalities and identities, have been severely disrupted and undone. They don't offer returns to 'other' histories or non-European narratives nor do they allow for progressing towards a new stage in the evolution of European history, but they force us to acknowledge and confront the ambiguities and contemporary impasses characterizing today's Europe and its modern history. Post-communist sites, so the main argument of this project, are therefore sources for a critical reengagement with European modernity as they demand to rethink the modern project without ignoring or repressing the contradictions and the violence that have characterized its history. Alongside the epistemological argument, this project makes also a methodological claim by stressing that as liminal sites post-communist threshold experiences need to be explored through forms of knowledge production that are sensitive to the contradictory, sensual and uncanny realm of transitory sites. By drawing on aesthetic, social and psychoanalytic theory I show how contemporary artistic practice contains tools and strategies through which the particular nature of transitory sites and specifically of post-communist sites can be expressed and known. My argument on post-communist sites therefore starts from artistic situations and the symbolism used in particular contemporary artworks which engage with the material/social fabric of the post-communist realm. It uses these not to know the art through the means of thought but to develop an alternative form of social theory and thus an alternative form of knowledge which can be achieved if social theory mimics the forms and contents of contemporary art. When transmitted in art, post-communist sites, I argue, turn into sources for a particular form of knowing and remembering Europe's history which on the one hand brings to life painful memories of past catastrophes that fail to be comprehended across the continent, such as the disappearance of Europe's Jewish community or the structural violence enacted by totalitarian regimes, while simultaneously triggering memories of the radical hopes and ideals (freedom, social justice, communism) associated with the European project. Post-communist transitory sites are thus sources for an alternative, reflexive and critical epistemology which seeks to reactualize modern visions and practices while working through the catastrophes caused by the anti-semitic, racist and colonial social realities which have characterized Europe's history so far.