Oleg Kireev VOVCHIK & METALLISTS

Mechanism of trash values' appearing can be easily described by means of many culturologic theories, and this is not an interesting discussion topic at all. Both notions, 'high culture' and 'low culture' are stipulated not by inherent qualities of cultural phenomena but the rank scale within the actual context. All classical Soviet theorists devoted their works to correlation and turning upside-down both ones. So we can as well address the texts by Lotman, Grois or Bakhtin. Anyway, everything could be put in simple words written by Tynyanov in 1924: "During the decay of a genre, it shifts from the centre to periphery being replaced by little nothings of literature and a new phenomenon coming out from literary backyards and marshy lands¹". Tynyanov's thesis was based on sociological methodology, according to which you shouldn't study immanent qualities of a subject or a piece of work. It's only correlation of literary and social ranks that is worth attention.
The contemporary theory couldn't operate with comprehension of trash without addressing the texts by Boris Grois, who figures trash as 'the profane'. Trespassing the love of Moscow intellectuals of the 80s to Marsel Duchan, Grois describes Duchan's 'Fountain' as an elementary formula of 'valorization of the profane'. He invented the simpliest scheme of culture development, according to which 'the profane' forces out over and over again 'the sacred', that is why the aim of a sensible artists is to find the appropriate 'profane' and to introduce it to the culture. This scheme had a number of positive qualities, and, for instance, it paralized ridiculous categories of the former culturology intending to interprete a subject according to its immanent qualities, such as 'novelty', 'originality', 'giftness' (that didn't prevent Grois' Moscow inherents from combining it with the latters in their Manifesto). But this scheme rejected in advance any cultural paradigm shift, since it had interpreted the mechanism before the appearing. It reduced it in advance to a thing known, as if the purpose of theorizing is in making two steps backwards while the practice is one step ahead. As any general-purposed scheme, the scheme of shifting 'the sacred' and 'the profane' established total control on reality, solving the enigma of any new phenomenon in the following terms: 'Damian Hirst became famous, didn't he? That means he has valorized the profane. Moscow radicals stepped the front stage, didn't they? That means they worked with trash.' As to Grois, he made a successful career by describing that scheme, and, at the same time, pretended that his success was based on its 'originality' and 'giftness', and not 'profaness'.

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Story of an insane secret agent was one of principal stories of the 90s. And it is to be continued in the next century.
The insane secret agent is brought to the enemy state's territory. As he is executing his mission, his country fails, surrenders, and recalls him back. Then, the agent refuses to return and continues with his mission, though for his own sake. But his mission can be fulfilled only on terms of abandoning all rules of secret service:
- You can beat the sense, either yours or someone's, only by means of crazyness. It's the same as to put a spider into an inkpot, and then let him on the white paper to put down the most principal word. Suppose, we have a white paper full of text, we make it black all over, and start writing with white on the blackened paper. It's similar to cutting off a finger, and trying it in the keyhole, and it will match. Or throwing it out, and knocking out the chief's eye instead. We've got too many agents that are just screws in the alien machine because they are sound-minded. And you'll be insane. You might die the very first moment because you will not know anything, it will be nothing but your raving. But you could win, reach the 'Heart of the World' and cut it into four pieces - sensibility, will, sense and unconsciousness...
- You'll be able to guess the watchers, real watchers, only if your persecution mania becomes supermorbid. You'll be able to bring your ideas to life, only if they are superfixed. Your life will be secure, only if it turns into maniacal and super reactive.
Machine Thinking Right - Manic-Depressive Psychosis.
- You might die while training, and your phantom will go reconnoiting. You are our last chance, the desperate hope of our country, the non-existing heart of the world, which you've never felt, and that's why hated everything around you, instead of using your anger to fight other dimensions (D. Pimenov. Bullshit) 
The like meaning for Moscow conceptionalism had the mythology of Russian fairy-tale character named 'Kolobok' (round loaf). The crazy secret agent was invented once upon a time when Moscow radicalism wasn't familiar to anyone but twenty-years-old Dmitry Pimenov and Alexei Osmolovsky. They used to make spontaneous actions that were not documented, even not known to anyone (first versions of 'After Modernism There's Nothing Left But Cry Out', etc.), and still unknown paintings. They wrote texts full of inspiration. As that sort of a story tradition demands, the most important work, the novel 'RRR', was lost (similar to the lost works of Vvedensky and Gogol). And there's nothing left for us but come upon random tracks of the once upon a time creations.
The 1994 'Radek' was poor beyond levels, with incredible mistakes, with the famous word 'theoretical' on the first page. In 1997 the only work was demonstrated - naked Pimenov with naked Osmolovky on his hands, a black-and-white photo in 'The Acquaintances' yellow-papered weekly. 'Seek partner, not older than 25. I love o/s, a/s, golden rain...', reads the ad, and the following note is red-marked 'Chilled American woman! Let's make a right Anglo-Saxon marriage!'
Mythology of the insane secret agent made grounds for reformulating theoretical principals of anarchism. Anarchism of the insane agent has nothing to do with social programs and historical interpretations, since its decisions are based on anarchist, asystematic methodology.

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'Trash' being defined as 'the profane' and 'the peripheral', the radicals agreed on regarding themselves as 'trash'. That was a great mistake which gave cause for defining them with the help of an alien co-ordinate system, as 'maginals' within the dominating culture. At present, all of them, including triumphant grandes of the cultural market, snobbishly calling themselves 'marginals' (including academic Moscow publishing house which edits Derrida and Podoroga). They easily define as 'trash' everything that doesn't fit mythologic list of values of the 'cultural establishment'. Even in the very end of the 20th century they interprete all conceptions of this 'establishment' within the bounds of the Impressionists' riot against Le Salon de Paris, or of the Europeans' against the 'middle class' in the 60s. And those still fighting with 'the aestheticism' and 'aristocracism', are just performing a traditional cliche of 'outrageous young men'. They still follow unsophisticated recommendations of the contemporary establishment (of Boris Grois, for instance). Nevertheless, if marginality exists, it exists beyond the bounds of discussions on the domination and the marginality, and it is actually not claimed by the culture, which means that no one makes money on it.
In fact, either simple usage of the notion 'maginality', or any discussions on 'high', 'low', 'acknowledged', 'rejected' do not serve but as a mark of affiliation to the world which interdecides these problems, taking these notions as unique interpretive terms. There's nothing surprising in art theory adherents contempt towards historical and social sciences. they are threatened by possible opening of 'social ranks' that might demand new criteria and new terms except coquettish 'marginality' and 'trash' (while 'the fine' is in demand only with irresponsible followers of the official style of Saint-Petersburg). Discourses on marginality on par with other traits of affiliation to the artistic circle (visiting galleries, reading of art issues, etc.) and all the 
The art world is a field for a game, and the game goes on due to the players that trust in its existence. According to Bourdieu, they 'create the game because they were created by the game', and they verify its existence by investing their own lives and interests into it².

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Alexander Brener liked to perform the role of 'le miserable' most of all. Each Brener's manifestation contained not only a very important message - against this or that social institution of suppression and power - but a necessary additional content self-represented by the author, showing him as the most dispised and the poorest member of society.

... I look like a whore under the rain,
I'm like a puppy just born,
And like a dirty comb.
If you take my clothes off
You'll smell my dirty asshole
Because I deadly suffer of piles,
And my arm-pits stink as much as the antilope
Brought to bay not by a tiger but a jackal...³

Genre of the scandal, or the situation created by Brener wouldn't have become so effective without self-representation. A situation is an action which provokes reaction of a context (though any work provokes a particular reaction, the author of the situation must be very conscious). Brener's actions followed tradition of art actions, addressing the indifferent and scorn context of Moscow snobbish artistic circle. At the moment, we should unbaisely reject this tradition. But in 1994-96, Moscow context which had already started calling itself 'marginal' considered Brener a 'trash hero'.
The real Brener's problem was and is in his desire to offer 'positive alternative', which could satisfy the society's simpliest claims towards his person. Actually, the very oppositon of 'positive and nagetive programs' is imposed by language cliche. Positive is the action itself which is here now, and not an abstract program of the future. Brener stopped on repeting simpliest moralistic exorcisms extorting the watchers: 'Don't you see me protecting 'the good' and 'the true'? Are you against it?'.

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Russian abbreviation zAiBI (sounds like a dirty word) stands for 'For Anonymous and Free Art', and DvURAK (sounds like 'double-fool') for 'The Movement of Anarcho-Regional Students'. These are two names of two not large groups of young people engaged in alternative music, marginal policy and many attending entertainments. As a rule, they are absolutely broke (one of the slogans is "We have no money, and we don't need it") and do not study anywhere. The zAiBI generates visual production and texts. The DvURAK organizes 'regional lore itineraries' showing interest in abandoned zones and junkyards of industrial civilization. 
The main slogan of these two is "No performances. Make happenings!". The feast must be universal and spontaneous. The role of the watcher is humiliating. Not a happening was documented. "It is post-modernists that document everything. Even if there was no action at all, it has to be fixed somehow and placed into general context. We make all vice versa - we just spit on it".

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Grois, following the spirit of his predecessors in abstract culturology, put a task to explain anything new a priori. Our task is to think over a kind of culturology which would be strong enough to become new by its own means. This kind of culturology must abandon any posture of an outside watcher, since it is, as much as the culture, inserted into the process of permanent renovation, and it will come to renovation even if it doesn't expect the one. A new thing is new just because it can't be determined by means of anything old. You can sought out a new thing only with the help of negation - the words for its determination haven't been invented yet. The only thing is obvious - it doesn't look like anything old. And this new thing doesn't have anything in common with either the generation change mechanism, or with 'objective' economy of novelty (its 'objectiveness' being invented by theorists). The trust in possibility of the phenomenon is an indispensable term of existence within actuality. And don't let anyone call it Utopian. Or let them forecast what we'll have here in half a year. The authors can't be preaware of what they discuss or bring into the world. Brener's positive theory of 'democratic art' was born earlier than his nihilistic declarations of destruction of the old.
The zAiBI generates rather odd production which loses characteristics of an art article.
Ideological apology of 'trash' appeared as a product of the market ideology. Since every dominating ideology demands legal opponent for itself it was, and still it is, very radical and secure to discuss 'trash' within the capitalist society. Forceless and melancholic left movement of the 80s turned to 'trash' ideology many times, especially when represented by two authoritated members of German autonomists and cyberpank movements. Hakim Bay, one of the heroes of cyberpank, proclaimed the idea of Temporary Autonomous Zones - the world of capital is total, none has forces to conquer at least a small territory of freedom, and that is the reason why such little islands of freedom must be searched and invented on limited zones. Internet was proclaimed one of these zones.
German squatters generated many Temporary Autonomous Zones. Now you can see the ramnents in Kroizberg in Berlin. Music of the 80s and the Survival Research Laboratory art came out from trash-squat-autonomous industrial aesthetics. There, they organize exhibitions and make performances for money (not much, of course). The walls of galleries are not as clean and white as of the professional ones, giving the place an advantageous underground shade. Young people in bright clothes relax smoking harsh in the expensive cafe. Last time I visited the place (in August 1999) during the festival of Asian artists; exhibitions were devoted to the Internet, new technologies, etc. Up to the moment people lead a more easy life there than in other places of the city, and little by little, or headlong from the point of view of a unique life, integrate into the reality.
Extent of autonomy of these zones was too much exaggerated. "The life became worse. There are no squatters in this city, everything became so clean, came to a full order. Dope friends, junkers, beggers have to move out of the city, and you can't see them here. This is hypocricy because they do exist - homeless and unemployed - though, it's necessary that none meets them. The rich don't want to see their shit⁴.
Perhaps, Holland was the most fertile ground for the idea of Temporary Autonomous Zones, with the powerful movement of hakers and squatters of the 80s, with incredible, since 1968, mass disturbances. The agressive pank-haker of the epoque, solemnly rambling in the Internet, haking all data of peaceful citizens he comes across, was sure that it was his autonomous zone. Dutch 'terminal volonteers' (according to curator and media theorist Guert Lovink) generated a unique zone of autonomous Internet provider named 'xs4all'. At the moment their obsolete methods demonstratively named 'low-tech' are lost in the sea of new information technologies, and the small world of new generations of 'volonteers' will soon be identified in the stylistics of number/letter combinations only (n5m - Next Five Minutes, P2P - From Practive to Policy, etc.).

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According to the zAiBI theory, there is no art but creation. The creation could be realized and is being realized by means of whatever (songs of a drunk man in the night, iced glass). In order to create, it's necessary to get the Initial Creative Impulse. One can create novels, and even wash up creatively. "Take the cops, their problem is that they don't get creative approach to make the work." It's natural that the creation is anonymous, and nobody gets money for it, none pays for it. The art monopolized creative right and turned it into industry. It exaggerated significance of 'the quality' of creation. It started evaluating not the process but the product, and estimated market price for it. 
Estranged labour at an industrial enterprise kills creative life of activity. Official politics, TV, advertisements, taken as estranged zones, form estraged consciousness which can't awake the Initial Creative Impulse. Simplicity of this theory only enforces it. On the one hand, it is minimum and not contradictory, so it can serve studies of the maximum empiric basis. On the other hand, implicit doubt in the forces of theorization reads - yes, the theory will not explain anything, so take an absolutely 'childish' theory. Unlike retrospective and critical theories, it doesn't analyse environment situation, and conclusions on actuality of the reality might be taken as obvious merely due to obviousness of the contrast between this reality and the Utopia of the zAiBI. And that is the specificy of the paradox. The Utopia has nothing in common with doubtful historical narrations ("Revolution starts where history stops", writes Alexei Tsvetkov). The theory doesn't need to deduce further conclusions, it is good as primeval, 'just born', with its child-language terms, unclear sketches of generalizations, and not as a completed system with dogmatic synopses and methodics. This theory of creation might die by itself in the society which could realize it to get the action as it is, momental and free.
Art must happen and happens in a moment. Art stops, and creation starts. So, creation doesn't keep in mind any representation, museufication, preservation for the future, and doesn't care for anyone. Creation is something that doesn't leave a trace, and nobody ever learns of it, and this makes it look like a dream. 

1 Y.Tynianov. Litarary fact // Poethics. History of Literature. - M., 1977, ñ. 257-258.

2 P. Bourdieu. The Field of Cultural Production. - Columbia University Press, 1993, p.191.

3 A.Brener. International of non-operating torpedos. Ì., 1996, p.24.

4 Ania Fussbach, creator of 'trash sculptures' in the Buntertor sqatt in Bremen. From the interview to the author of the article (1997).