So the next social structure we're going to investigate is what we're calling the state. What is the state? Well, the funny thing about art, I have to say, is that is basically thinks of everything as a form. So as opposed to thinking of the state, or government, or political system, as a given, artists or radicals can think of it as a malleable form that they can retool. So thinking of the state as something you can retool, also comes with a lot of benefits. Because some of the things that come with the state are rights, laws, citizenship, social welfare systems. So reinventing that, you can also rethink these things. >> So you maybe thinking, well, that's absurd the state and goes way beyond us, knowing individual controls the state. Even a powerful group doesn't control the state, unless you believe in conspiracy theories, right? And or oligarchies- >> [CROSSTALK] >> Yeah, but the point being that states are enormous. How can individuals have an impact in the state unless you're the president? Well, of course, there's the playful poetic side to that, like trying the impossible, but there's also what we call micronations. Artists who said, well, I'll let the state be the state, but I'll try to create my own nation here in my immediate everyday life. That could be one approach, but the other could be, for example, Native American communities. Many other populations who have not been allowed to participate actively in the life of the state, so they have to create alternative state structures, right? >> I was thinking of Marcus Garvy, the Garvy-ites. Where a radical African-American revolutionary who really believed in kind of producing a micronation for the Black diaspora. >> Exactly, diasporas are another example of that, what Benedict Anderson called Imagine Communities. Communities that are so dispersed around the world that their nation is actually around different places, within different countries, right? So the first example we thought we would want to talk about is a group called Neue Slowenische Kunst, or better known as NSK. Can you tell us something about it again? >> Yeah, so basically one of the things to think about NSK because they are interesting group to talk about. Because they're one of these groups that literally have different groups in different names that have circulated through it. So they have a group called IRWIN, I-R-W-I-N. There's NSK. There’s also a pop/industrial band from 1980 called LAIBACH. And all of them fit into a kind of genre of playing with the a stake that, Slowenische has called overidentification. >> And this concept, actually, it sounds complicated, but it's relatively simple, it comes from psychology. And overidentification means when, for example, you want to identify with a powerful figure and you don't have power yourself. Well, when you overidentify, it's like when a victim identifies with a perpetrator. >> Yep. >> And that happens quite often in psychology. But in the case of Art or the State is what other critics have called mirroring evil. And In fact, there was an exhibition at the Jewish museum many years ago of Israeli and Jewish artists who wanted to do work about the Holocaust, but identifying with the Nazi side. >> Yeah. >> Really complex work, right? >> And there was a protester part of the alt globalization movement. Gentleman named Andrew Boyd produced a political group called Billionaires for Bush. >> Yep. >> Basically being like if the Republican Party is supported by billionaires, we're going to over-identify with them by promoting it as a billionaires' social movement. >> There's even a great phrase that I think Shakespeare invented it, but it's in one of his plays. It may have existed before that, it's called out-Hera Hera, right? >> Really. >> You go beyond that, you kind of out do them. All kinds of event fashion manifestations are like that, like exaggerating a trend, etc. But so with Laibach, what it meant was that they wanted to over identify with all of the dark parts of Slovenia and Eastern European society. The repressed nationalist socialist dimension. The totalitarian side of socialism. And they just instead of repressing it, saying we need to correct it, they would just play it out in public. So at their concerts, you would have everything from far left radical people to really conservative like Neo Nazis also, so it's a really problematic, but interesting movement. >> But they also went so far as to produce what they call their own state, which is the NSK state. Which they are actually giving out passports. They in fact they want to have their own pavillion at the Venice B and all. They want to actually produce a state with its own citizens. >> And like with the currency, many of these things that artists do with social structure end up effectively being illegal. Citizens are not allowed to issue their own passports, right? >> No. >> But so these grooves often do that in spite of certain laws. So Nato, can you tell us a little bit about Nowhere Islands? This really interesting project also about nations and micro nations >> So an artist named Alex Hartley in collaboration with a group called Situations produced a project where they basically floated an island from the Arctic to England. And it floated through international waters. Thus the island became it's own nation. Playing kind of into the idea of international law and nation status. And when it became its own nation, they then began an online petition of gathering citizens where they acquired 23,000 citizens. And when it docked on the coast of England, it actually was redistributed to its citizenry as their own kind of place. So it's playing with international law with a physical place. >> And you know what's kind of fascinating about some of these structures is that we are trying to present them as separate. But they actually flow into each other, right? >> Yeah. >> Just like social art and artist flow in social movements and vice versa. And the state and the corporation in our days is actually quite hard to tell apart. But the next structure we're looking at is the corporation. You can think that basically 50 of the largest corporations in the world are larger than the majority of national economies, right? And so many artists were interested in these social structures, have kind of wanted to do work about the corporation. And RTMark is a really important example. Already a couple of decades ago, they started this group called RTMark. And they actually imitate that model of the overidentification. They imitate the legal structures of the corporations, they even are registered as a corporation. But basically stockholders instead of owning stock, they propose radical actions, right? And that kind of stuff. And so the kinds of the kinds of things they've done is like the Barbie liberation organization was one of their earliest pieces. They took all the Barbie dolls and replaced the sound contraptions. And they basically replaced this with the GI Joe. So they effectively queered all the Barbies, and they sent them back to the store. So people are buying these Barbies that would speak like GI Joe. >> Hey, let's go. >> Yeah, exactly. >> He's like, hey, ho, let's go. >> These are really great, very playful, but also quite an intelligent project. A group that has become incredibly famous, but also has done all kinds of amazing work is The Yes Men. Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno are their pseudo names. But it's Igor Vamos and Jacques Servin are the artists. And they've impersonated all kinds of states, but also multinational corporations, to basically expose what they call corporate wrongdoing. And they've done, for example, for Dow Chemical, which the largest industrial disaster of our era, was related to Dow Chemical and was in India. And thousands of people died in this chemical disaster. And to this day, people have not been remunerated. And The Yes Men went live they impersonated on the BBC a representative of this company, announcing that people would get remunerated and so on. The company then had to say that they wouldn't and that this was a false statement. But that way they expose all kinds of structures of corporate power that they think are unjust. >> And also just to say on to your point. I think one of the key things with this is by pretending to be a corporation they also reveal. In effect, a corporation is also a project by the powerful. It is also an art project of sorts. >> Yeah, and in fact, many artists are also part of the powerful. So that's another thing that we can focus on. >> That's a good one. >> And can you tell us about the church? We haven't talked about it, but it's a really important- >> So the church is another form that artists have taken on. I'm not going to get into scientology, because I'm a member, I'm joking. >> [LAUGH] >> But I'm talking about Reverend Billy and the church of stop shopping. And the Reverend Billy, it's basically now run by a woman named Civitra Dee and the Reverend Billy. And it is a church that goes around preaching a kind of intake capitalist, eco-friendly, holistic view of the world in the halls of corporate power. So they use the kind of idiom of the church as a kind of religious holistic world. They got a choir, they sing, they show up in the middle of Starbucks. They might show up in the Disney Store, talk about sweatshop labor. But in some ways too, I think in a very sincere element, as opposed to just being a parody, I think they're also trying to reclaim a kind of spiritual journey towards reasonable attitudes towards our social lives. >> That and also the whole idea of charismatic leadership, and emotion, and affect, right? But there's the parody site, but I'm really happy you brought up the sincerity and the genuine. Because so many elements of the left, that some of which we have listed around the world, are in denial about the importance of the church, religiosity, etc., in radial movements, right? And so artists like Reverend Billy really confront that and say, no, let's actually use that and be emotional, be charismatic, etc., like church leaders do. >> And you know what? Every time I hear, I become a believer. >> Yeah, of course [LAUGH]. And in this case, it's a believer in environmentalism, right? And anti-consumerism, which is kind of, in itself, interesting.
