With their bombastic live radio play «Territerrortorium» Felix Kubin and Wojtek Kucharczyk waged a battle of sound at this year’s club transmediale in Berlin that jumped back and forth over the German-Polish border without heeding any customs restrictions. Commonplace domestic background tunes collided with chopped-up political phrases in the form of street, bar and subway tunnel noises and as music fragments. In this war of sounds two neighboring cultures seemed to approach one another without diplomacy or false politeness and, in the end, even to understand each other. «It’s Europe,» as the projection on the walls of the venue, Maria am Ostbahnhof, proclaimed, probably an allusion to the expansion of the EU taking place on 1 May 2004.

With its special program «Further East» club transmediale attempted to resume the transfer between «East» and «West» inaugurated with last year’s focus, «Go East.» The electronic concerts and music clips presented not only brought Eastern European musical geography into viewing – and hearing – range, but also provoked lively discussions. The panel entitled «Emancipate!» interrogated how current transformation processes in the post-communist countries would possibly be reflected in artistic and curatorial practice. Did these countries possess their own emancipatory models or would they merely reproduce Western patterns?

Susanna Niedermayr, whose book «European Meridians – New Music Territories» (PFAU 2003) functions as a guide through the Eastern European electronic music scene, and who hosted the panel, pleads for not measuring Eastern Europe against the «normal» Western reality. Instead, «we» in the West should try to learn something from «those people» who have had the opportunity to live under two different political systems. Although this idea at first seems to open up an interesting shift in perspective, it seems more difficult when it comes to cultural funding. Katarina Zivanovic, director of the Rex Cultural Centre ¹ in Belgrade, which has already been active as an independent cultural center since 1996, found it an oversimplification to view her organization as a positive example of independent cultural production; after all, she must constantly do battle against myriad obstacles and seek out alternative means of financing. With skepticism, she cited the evolution of B92 ², a radio station that began in 1989 as an independent student project and in 1996 contributed to the establishment of the Rex. Under the name of RTV B92 the station is now slated to become a private television channel – with an increasingly commercial orientation in order to become independent from sponsorship.

A more positive evaluation of the transitional situation was formulated by Wojtek Kucharczyk, co-founder of the Polish label Mik.Musik ³, one of the most important platforms for experimental music in Poland, but not only in Poland. By now the label, whose releases are usually limited to 111 copies, has not only formed contacts with artists in Austria, Germany, Spain, Italy and the USA, but has also released some of them on its label. This prompts Susanna Niedermayr to cite Mik.Musik as «probably the best example at this time of how the boundaries can be overcome that still separate musicians from the supposed ‹East› from the Western music scene, i.e. from the music production and presentation machinery of the European Union and North America.» In order to realize this goal even more successfully, Kucharczyk hopes «that we all get to know each other a little better and that we can actually build a big, friendly network.»

«State laboratory»

Goslab ⁴ functions according to a similar principle, an artists’ collective that works with visual media, music and fashion in both Tbilisi and Berlin – a translocal friendship network. «Goslab is not anything that you haven’t already seen, heard or felt. It is not a concrete list of objective goals, tasks and duties. It is more like a way of living that involves a collective and personal interplay and process of artistic creation. But it is nevertheless also a pragmatic standpoint that helps us to pursue paths that intersect.» This is how Tusia Beridze describes the network in the December 2002 issue of «Gazet’art.» ⁵ Goslab is an abbreviation for «Gosudarstvennaja Laboratoria» (Russian for state laboratory). This formal name has a lot to do with the group’s objective of participating as artists in the national and social reconstruction of Georgia. «In Georgia there is virtually no comprehension of modern art,» says Zaza Rusadze, who has been living in Berlin since 1996 and has just completed his first film, «Bandits.» «That’s why a small circle of young people started to organize some exhibitions.» But Goslab only gained public recognition in its own country when Nika Machaidze, a musician known by the stage name of Nikakoi, commented on Shevardnadze’s resignation in a music video on television and the local media played up the incident.

Goslab appears to still be better-known abroad than at home. In the exhibition «Slow – Strategien der Langsamkeit» in 2002 at the Shedhalle in Zurich, works by Goslab were shown for the first time, and in the «Exit» exhibition in Paris Goslab presented a fashion show by Nino Chubinishvili, films and videos by Tamuna Karumidze, Salome Machaidze, Zaza Rusadze, and music by Nikakoi. Nikakoi’s (Russian for «Nobody») first album appeared under the title «Sestrichka» in 2002 on [komfort.labor], WMF Records’ experimental sublabel. «My friends are their friends,» was the explanation provided on the occasion of the release by the Berlin WMF-Club label, referring to the fact that electronic music in Georgia is listened to only by the small circle of Nikakoi’s friends and perhaps 50 others. While Georgia is still an electronic no-man’s-land these days, Nikakoi has already released his second CD, «Shentimental,» was a guest at the Sonar Festival and has appeared in various locations with Matthew Herbert, Kid606 and Vladislav Delay. And Tusia Beridze, who produced Nikakoi’s music for numerous videos, has now also brought out her first CD – «Georgia is Like Spiritual Tokio» (max-ernst, 2004).

Nikakoi’s sound utilizes the international form language of electronic music, mixed with a hint of local color. By contrast, in their video work «Krasnagorski Dream» (2002) Machaidze and Beridze explicitly play with childhood memories. As if captured by Krasnagorski’s Russian film camera, the Caucasian steppe appears immersed in the colors of childhood, in contrast to the urban grit of Berlin. Seen from the outside, the richness of growing up here during a transitional phase riddled with contradictions captivates the viewer, and one senses the privilege of being able to work in such disparate geographical areas. It’s easy to forget the loss of cultural orientation left behind by the dissolution of the old system. Goslab confronts this situation not only with artistic means; its members are also actively establishing a center for modern art in Tbilisi. maf (media art farm) ⁶, as the independent Caucasian cultural center calls itself, is being built from the ground up, by the artists themselves. In order to foster greater acceptance of modern art and attract financing, foreign artists will be invited to present their work here, while Goslab is busy making a name for itself abroad.

 

Translated by Timothy Jones

 

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