It seems that the artist survived (good news for the humankind)... here is the whole text from the website - including the list of the artists works which have put themselves in danger in the similar way.
¨There will be live Internet streaming for the ones who voted, each day from Nov 7th to Nov 13th 2010, from 7pm to 11pm, local Sofia time.
This project is not a game. It addresses issues of freedom of speech and expression as basic human right. You should motivate yourself WHY you think Oleg Mavromati is innocent or guilty, on the basis of his story and his legal case, explained below. Unmotivated votes do not count.
Short description
The on-line performance Ally / Foe gives an opportunity for the participants to vote for or against the discharge of artist Oleg Mavromati. The performance has several stages. If the votes against Mavromati prevail, the artist will release an electric current with certain parameters to his body. This will be a penalty, according to the will of the people who want the artist conviction. If the votes for his discharge prevail-the penalty will not be executed. (See Stages and structure of performance). The performance and the voting starts on November 7, 7 pm local Sofia, Bulgaria time.
What is this penalty for? Mavromati is currently prosecuted under article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for "inciting religious and national animosity" for a scene from a film, which he was shooting 10 years ago. The action took place at the yard of the Institute of Cultural Studies, Moscow. This scene featured a performance art piece called "Do not Believe Your Eyes," by the character in the film, which involved his crucifixion. This crucifixion was wrongly interpreted by certain fundamentalist Orthodox Christian circles as blasphemous and offensive to Christians. Since late nineties, these particular religious circles prosecute artists and cultural producers under the article 282. They face 3 to 5 years in prison. These prosecutions reflect particular moods against contemporary art in Russia, which resulted increasing censorship and violation of the freedom of speech and expression of Russian artists...¨
¨...This on-line voting has been designed to shorten the path between the accuser and the accused. The specificity of the particular judicial system, which may influence the process of conviction is meant to be eliminated in order to better understand what is people's opinion regarding the particular case. Mavromati's punishment or discharge will depend only on the personal decision and the conscience of voters.
Stages and structure of performance
The votes for and against will race.
The performance will be streamed each day for 4 hours from 7 to 11 local time. The votes will be collected in this period, access to the live streaming will have only those who voted. During the live broadcast Mavromati will respond to selected comments from the chat.
To vote, participants should register. Anonymous votes don't count.
The project has seven stages. Each day the votes are summed up by 10.30 pm. Sofia time. If the votes “guilty” prevail over the votes “innocent” Mavromatti will release an electric current of 600 000V in his body.
The parameters of the current remain the same, but the time increases. The first day it is 1 sec.
The release of the electrical current will be made by the artist himself in the presence and the control of an electrician and medical doctor.
Jail is a real threat to Mavromati's life due to the brutal informal relations between prisoners, manifested in violence against everyone who is suspected to be somehow different from the criminal majority-either by nationality, religion or political views.
Seeking a metaphorical expression of this threat, which usually remains invisible to the accusers, Mavromati decided to realize this performance. Often the accusers are not aware what are the physical and moral harm they cause to artists, or the people who they prosecute. They often do not know anything about them, they have never seen their work and have never tried to understand the meaning or the language of art. Now they have the opportunity to talk to this particular artist live...¨
The freedom of speech and expression is a basic human right. This freedom of expression of all artists and people from any nationality, race, religion, gender and class should be guaranteed and protected by the constitution and the legislation of each country which calls itself democratic. Democracy is guaranteed only if the right to freely share and express thoughts is not violated.
By the logic of this performance Mavromati trying to create a metaphorical illustration of the prosecution he is a victim of and the relationship between the major players in it – the accused, the prosecutors, and the defenders. In this performance these three parties are not mediated by the judiciary. By that the artist is trying to overcome the shortcomings of the laws and the probable dependence of the juridical system on corruption, political or economic powers. The artist is also trying to reveal and to make more visible the responsibility of the accuser and the defender for the life and the fate of the accused. This responsibility is often forgotten because the accuser usually acts through the mediation of the judicial and the executive branches and never meets the accused face to face. Enabling prosecutors and defenders to vote, the artist is trying to reach the most democratic voting, to create a system that reflects peoples conscience, rather than the jurisdiction of a particular country.
In this way he hopes to clear up, as much as it is possible, the question of the necessity of freedom of speech and expression from the influence of particular state policy and leave the decision in the hands of voters. The most important part of this project is the public discussion that has already began. The physical part of the performance is just an illustration of this discussion.
Regardless of the length of the project or the voting results, this project has already been successful. It is successful simply because it has already set the agenda for discussing issues of the universal right of freedom of speech. Another very important question of this project is the dependence of the individual from the bureaucracy and from political, religious and economic lobbying of interests. These interests have very strong influence on the public opinion and even when taking decisions in court. These interests, which prevail in decision making, often have nothing to do with what the artist has done and what is the particular case. These interests have also nothing to do with the mission of art and the right of free expression. The disconnect between the influences on public opinion and court decisions and the freedom of the individual are also a subject of this project..."
Oleg Mavromati is a world renowned artist and film director, founder of Supernova Film Union and Stick Film Festival in Moscow. His works have been shown at places such as Museum of cinematography, Moscow; Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; Goethe Institute, Sofia; Cultural Center of the City of Stockholm; the American Cultural Center, Sofia; Central House of Artists, Moscow, Exit Art Gallery, New York, Stedlijk Museum, Amsterdam and others. Oleg Mavromati is included in the Encyclopaedia of the Russian film-makers (2001) and the Encyclopaedia of the Russian Actionism (2007).
Mavromati performs "Do not believe your eyes”, in 2000, in the yard of the Institute of Cultorology, Moscow. This performance art piece was part of a film directed by him called "Oil paints and canvas”. Mavromati plays the main character. According to the script his character has to be crucified. The story is based on the biography of the young Russian artist Oleg Golosiy who died tragically killed by his best friend. Mavromati plays the role of the artist who killed Golosiy. The killer repents and as a sign of his sincerity, he decides to change the medium he works with–the traditional paint and canvas-with direct physical action, which expresses his artistic thought. As proof of his repent, the character decides to be crucified, serving a disgraceful punishment for his guilt.
Performance "Do not believe your eyes" was not meant to offend the religious feelings of anyone, nor to oppose the Christian religion in particular. The artist did not intend to mock the Christian crucifix, or not even to represent a particular religious symbol, but rather to refer to an archetype of pain and humiliation. This was a gesture within the domain of arts, which has been wrongly interpreted.
As a result of this wrong interpretation a legal complain against Mavromati was submitted to the prosecutor's office and the artist was accused of "inciting religious hatred". Among the applicants was the chairman of the local church St. Nicholas (located near the Institute for Cultorology) as well as members of the radical nationalist organization "Union of Orthodox Gonfalon Holders" laymen from the same church. For the last ten years this organization specializes in prosecution of artists and are self-proclaimed public censor in Russia.
Mavromatti's case is not isolated. The 282 is the law successfully used to convict other artists, curators and journalists - most recently in July 2010 despite the wide support of the Russian and international art community, the court found guilty the organizers of the exhibition Forbidden Art, 2007 at the Sakharov Museum, Moscow.
Two artists prosecuted under the same article 282-Avdej Ter-Ogonian and Oleg Yanushevsky-already received refugee status in Czech Republic and the United Kingdom.
The famous writer Lev Tolstoy and the artist Viktor Vasnetsov (born 1848), were also found posthumously guilty under the article 282...¨
This is art, because Mavromatti is an artist and he calls this art...¨
Historical parallels in performance art and science
Chris Burden
Performance Prelude to 110 and 220 , 1971. Burden had himself manacled with brass rings to a concrete floor, and flanked by two buckets of water with live electric wires in them. The audience was admitted, and it had to be trusted not to knock over a bucket and electrocute the artist. "I had absolute faith that they wouldn't," Burden said. "After all...I'm not suicidal." http://bit.ly/bHkH7X
Shoot, 1971. Burden is shoot in his hand by an assistant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE5u3ThYyl4
Doomed 1975, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. He set a clock on a wall at midnight, and lay down on the floor under a leaning sheet of glass. Viewers came and went. Burden didn’t move. Inevitably, he soiled his pants. (“It was awful,” he recalled.) Forty-five hours and ten minutes passed. Then a young museum employee named Dennis O’Shea took it upon himself to place a container of water within Burden’s reach. The artist got up, smashed the clock with a hammer, and left. http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2007/05/14/070514craw_artworld_schjeldahl
Marina Abramovic
Rhythm 0, 1974 Abramović had placed upon a table 72 objects that people were allowed to use (a sign informed them) in any way that they chose. Some of these were objects that could give pleasure, while others could be wielded to inflict pain, or to harm her. Among them were scissors, a knife, a whip, and, most notoriously, a gun and a single bullet. For six hours the artist allowed the audience members to manipulate her body and actions.Initially, members of the audience reacted with caution and modesty, but as time passed (and the artist remained impassive) several people began to act quite aggressively. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Abramovi%C4%87
Elena Kovylina
Do it Youtself, 1999. "I’m standing on a stool with a loop around my neck. On my breast I have a sign with instructions for the audience: you can see on it a leg kicking my stool. The duration of this performance is two hours. Once a man tried to kick the stool from under my feet but the cord broke off. " http://www.kovylina.com/?cid=23&pg=11
Wafaa Bilal
"Domestic Tension," 2005 - an unsettling interactive performancepiece: for one month, Bilal lived alone in a prison cell-sized room in the line of fire of a remote-controlled paintball gun and a camera that connected him to internet viewers around the world. Visitors to the gallery and a virtual audience that grew by the thousands could shoot at him 24 hours a day http://wafaabilal.com/html/shootAnIraqi.html
The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale Universitypsychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. http://bit.ly/aSVPW0.¨
It seems that the artist survived (good news for the humankind)... here is the whole text from the website - including the list of the artists works which have put themselves in danger in the similar way.
ReplyDelete¨There will be live Internet streaming for the ones who voted, each day from Nov 7th to Nov 13th 2010, from 7pm to 11pm, local Sofia time.
This project is not a game.
It addresses issues of freedom of speech and expression as basic human right.
You should motivate yourself WHY you think Oleg Mavromati is innocent or guilty, on the basis of his story and his legal case, explained below.
Unmotivated votes do not count.
Short description
The on-line performance Ally / Foe gives an opportunity for the participants to vote for or against the discharge of artist Oleg Mavromati. The performance has several stages. If the votes against Mavromati prevail, the artist will release an electric current with certain parameters to his body. This will be a penalty, according to the will of the people who want the artist conviction. If the votes for his discharge prevail-the penalty will not be executed. (See Stages and structure of performance). The performance and the voting starts on November 7, 7 pm local Sofia, Bulgaria time.
What is this penalty for? Mavromati is currently prosecuted under article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for "inciting religious and national animosity" for a scene from a film, which he was shooting 10 years ago. The action took place at the yard of the Institute of Cultural Studies, Moscow. This scene featured a performance art piece called "Do not Believe Your Eyes," by the character in the film, which involved his crucifixion. This crucifixion was wrongly interpreted by certain fundamentalist Orthodox Christian circles as blasphemous and offensive to Christians. Since late nineties, these particular religious circles prosecute artists and cultural producers under the article 282. They face 3 to 5 years in prison. These prosecutions reflect particular moods against contemporary art in Russia, which resulted increasing censorship and violation of the freedom of speech and expression of Russian artists...¨
¨...This on-line voting has been designed to shorten the path between the accuser and the accused. The specificity of the particular judicial system, which may influence the process of conviction is meant to be eliminated in order to better understand what is people's opinion regarding the particular case. Mavromati's punishment or discharge will depend only on the personal decision and the conscience of voters.
ReplyDeleteStages and structure of performance
The votes for and against will race.
The performance will be streamed each day for 4 hours from 7 to 11 local time. The votes will be collected in this period, access to the live streaming will have only those who voted. During the live broadcast Mavromati will respond to selected comments from the chat.
To vote, participants should register. Anonymous votes don't count.
The project has seven stages. Each day the votes are summed up by 10.30 pm. Sofia time. If the votes “guilty” prevail over the votes “innocent” Mavromatti will release an electric current of 600 000V in his body.
The parameters of the current remain the same, but the time increases. The first day it is 1 sec.
The release of the electrical current will be made by the artist himself in the presence and the control of an electrician and medical doctor.
Jail is a real threat to Mavromati's life due to the brutal informal relations between prisoners, manifested in violence against everyone who is suspected to be somehow different from the criminal majority-either by nationality, religion or political views.
Seeking a metaphorical expression of this threat, which usually remains invisible to the accusers, Mavromati decided to realize this performance. Often the accusers are not aware what are the physical and moral harm they cause to artists, or the people who they prosecute. They often do not know anything about them, they have never seen their work and have never tried to understand the meaning or the language of art. Now they have the opportunity to talk to this particular artist live...¨
¨...What does the artist want to say?
ReplyDeleteThe freedom of speech and expression is a basic human right. This freedom of expression of all artists and people from any nationality, race, religion, gender and class should be guaranteed and protected by the constitution and the legislation of each country which calls itself democratic. Democracy is guaranteed only if the right to freely share and express thoughts is not violated.
By the logic of this performance Mavromati trying to create a metaphorical illustration of the prosecution he is a victim of and the relationship between the major players in it – the accused, the prosecutors, and the defenders.
In this performance these three parties are not mediated by the judiciary. By that the artist is trying to overcome the shortcomings of the laws and the probable dependence of the juridical system on corruption, political or economic powers. The artist is also trying to reveal and to make more visible the responsibility of the accuser and the defender for the life and the fate of the accused. This responsibility is often forgotten because the accuser usually acts through the mediation of the judicial and the executive branches and never meets the accused face to face.
Enabling prosecutors and defenders to vote, the artist is trying to reach the most democratic voting, to create a system that reflects peoples conscience, rather than the jurisdiction of a particular country.
In this way he hopes to clear up, as much as it is possible, the question of the necessity of freedom of speech and expression from the influence of particular state policy and leave the decision in the hands of voters.
The most important part of this project is the public discussion that has already began. The physical part of the performance is just an illustration of this discussion.
Regardless of the length of the project or the voting results, this project has already been successful. It is successful simply because it has already set the agenda for discussing issues of the universal right of freedom of speech. Another very important question of this project is the dependence of the individual from the bureaucracy and from political, religious and economic lobbying of interests. These interests have very strong influence on the public opinion and even when taking decisions in court. These interests, which prevail in decision making, often have nothing to do with what the artist has done and what is the particular case. These interests have also nothing to do with the mission of art and the right of free expression. The disconnect between the influences on public opinion and court decisions and the freedom of the individual are also a subject of this project..."
"...Who is Mavromati and what is he accused of?
ReplyDeleteOleg Mavromati is a world renowned artist and film director, founder of Supernova Film Union and Stick Film Festival in Moscow. His works have been shown at places such as Museum of cinematography, Moscow; Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; Goethe Institute, Sofia; Cultural Center of the City of Stockholm; the American Cultural Center, Sofia; Central House of Artists, Moscow, Exit Art Gallery, New York, Stedlijk Museum, Amsterdam and others. Oleg Mavromati is included in the Encyclopaedia of the Russian film-makers (2001) and the Encyclopaedia of the Russian Actionism (2007).
Mavromati performs "Do not believe your eyes”, in 2000, in the yard of the Institute of Cultorology, Moscow. This performance art piece was part of a film directed by him called "Oil paints and canvas”. Mavromati plays the main character. According to the script his character has to be crucified. The story is based on the biography of the young Russian artist Oleg Golosiy who died tragically killed by his best friend. Mavromati plays the role of the artist who killed Golosiy. The killer repents and as a sign of his sincerity, he decides to change the medium he works with–the traditional paint and canvas-with direct physical action, which expresses his artistic thought. As proof of his repent, the character decides to be crucified, serving a disgraceful punishment for his guilt.
Performance "Do not believe your eyes" was not meant to offend the religious feelings of anyone, nor to oppose the Christian religion in particular. The artist did not intend to mock the Christian crucifix, or not even to represent a particular religious symbol, but rather to refer to an archetype of pain and humiliation. This was a gesture within the domain of arts, which has been wrongly interpreted.
As a result of this wrong interpretation a legal complain against Mavromati was submitted to the prosecutor's office and the artist was accused of "inciting religious hatred". Among the applicants was the chairman of the local church St. Nicholas (located near the Institute for Cultorology) as well as members of the radical nationalist organization "Union of Orthodox Gonfalon Holders" laymen from the same church. For the last ten years this organization specializes in prosecution of artists and are self-proclaimed public censor in Russia.
Mavromatti's case is not isolated. The 282 is the law successfully used to convict other artists, curators and journalists - most recently in July 2010 despite the wide support of the Russian and international art community, the court found guilty the organizers of the exhibition Forbidden Art, 2007 at the Sakharov Museum, Moscow.
Two artists prosecuted under the same article 282-Avdej Ter-Ogonian and Oleg Yanushevsky-already received refugee status in Czech Republic and the United Kingdom.
The famous writer Lev Tolstoy and the artist Viktor Vasnetsov (born 1848), were also found posthumously guilty under the article 282...¨
¨...Is this art?
ReplyDeleteThis is art, because Mavromatti is an artist and he calls this art...¨
Historical parallels in performance art and science
Chris Burden
Performance Prelude to 110 and 220 , 1971. Burden had himself manacled with brass rings to a concrete floor, and flanked by two buckets of water with live electric wires in them. The audience was admitted, and it had to be trusted not to knock over a bucket and electrocute the artist. "I had absolute faith that they wouldn't," Burden said. "After all...I'm not suicidal."
http://bit.ly/bHkH7X
Shoot, 1971. Burden is shoot in his hand by an assistant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE5u3ThYyl4
Doomed 1975, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. He set a clock on a wall at midnight, and lay down on the floor under a leaning sheet of glass. Viewers came and went. Burden didn’t move. Inevitably, he soiled his pants. (“It was awful,” he recalled.) Forty-five hours and ten minutes passed. Then a young museum employee named Dennis O’Shea took it upon himself to place a container of water within Burden’s reach. The artist got up, smashed the clock with a hammer, and left.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2007/05/14/070514craw_artworld_schjeldahl
Marina Abramovic
Rhythm 0, 1974 Abramović had placed upon a table 72 objects that people were allowed to use (a sign informed them) in any way that they chose. Some of these were objects that could give pleasure, while others could be wielded to inflict pain, or to harm her. Among them were scissors, a knife, a whip, and, most notoriously, a gun and a single bullet. For six hours the artist allowed the audience members to manipulate her body and actions.Initially, members of the audience reacted with caution and modesty, but as time passed (and the artist remained impassive) several people began to act quite aggressively.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Abramovi%C4%87
Elena Kovylina
Do it Youtself, 1999. "I’m standing on a stool with a loop around my neck. On my breast I have a sign with instructions for the audience: you can see on it a leg kicking my stool.
The duration of this performance is two hours. Once a man tried to kick the stool from under my feet but the cord broke off. "
http://www.kovylina.com/?cid=23&pg=11
Wafaa Bilal
"Domestic Tension," 2005 - an unsettling interactive performancepiece: for one month, Bilal lived alone in a prison cell-sized room in the line of fire of a remote-controlled paintball gun and a camera that connected him to internet viewers around the world. Visitors to the gallery and a virtual audience that grew by the thousands could shoot at him 24 hours a day
http://wafaabilal.com/html/shootAnIraqi.html
Stelarc
Movatar
http://v2.stelarc.org/projects/movatar/index.html
The Milgram experiment
The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale Universitypsychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.
http://bit.ly/aSVPW0.¨