Art practices/Three Sided Football/World Cup/Ntae Anteh Report

After 10 months of discussions by DAMTP, between ABRACADABRA, FIASCo, CLASS/ KLASSE, OKK, POLARIS, NXTPA, Asemic International and others,

communication on the organising was difficult, the organisers of 3sf world cup, Baader Meinhof had said that accommodation campsite would be provided by them but they withdrew this offer the day after discussions on the DAMTP list about flooding the stadium. unlike previous conferences of DATMP we had no clear funding but the 1person organisations ABRACADABRA and FIASCO managed to fund their respective busses and some assistance with individuals camping and other things was also provided

ABRACADABRA organised a bus from Alytus and FIASCo organised one from London - to converge on Kassel

OKK, POLARIS, most of CLASS and the Asemic International did not make it for various reasons - some political some practical, economic, etc. OKK had been conducting activities in Athens and continue to do so

the discussions could be categorised I think as a split between the art side (abracadabra), political side (okk, polaris and class) and the experimental/ esoteric side (fiasco, nxtpa). no one I am sure would really agree with this contention - and especially the labels - but I think it illustrates the point that I was the sole representative of a pov calling for a political analysuis and program of action.

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The factions in the discussions which had gone on for nearly a year could be classified as above: different groups and different individuals were moving from one category to another but mainly the factions continued with their agendas and mainly supported on e another in their differing objectives.

okk, polaris, asemic international - all involved in the discussions from an activist position did not attend - iww and other local activist discussions did not happen. the anteh art faction were focussed on an intervention or situagraphical/ desakalapatragraphicalisation of Ben Patterson's posthumous instalation

the anteh athletic faction were focussed on the entaglement game while the anteh activist faction wanted to make a critical attack against both world cup and documenta art fayre.

The relationship to documenta was very different in the 3 factions. The athletic faction did not want to acknowledge documenta or visit it or intervene. The art faction colaborated with the art school and made an event which was part of documenta programme. The polical faction wanted to attack documenta clearly.

The shrimp commando had been planned a guerrilla offensive on the very fabric of the buildings of the neu gallery or documenta halle – we were able to get free tickets as we were programmed in documenta by the anteh art faction. However in order to get these free tickerts we would have to furnish the documenta with a list of names – and the art faction decided not to get these free tickets for the other members and factions of damtp. The art faction also did not want to support the shrimp faction and so it was the athletic and activist factions that spearheaded the shrimp commando op[ening of the olfactory offensive.

game as spectacle - art event. the opening of a new front is curtailed at the borders - the frame. the setting of goals - how to change a 2 sided pitch to a 3 sided pitch? Circling - hexing - the square. another problem is going from an 8 sided to a 6 sided configuration - we had this issue on the leyline peak but also at the luther and the avant-garde exhibition as well as the parthenon.

the parthenon game, labyrinth game and also the blind ben paterson game were 3sf interventions into documenta instalations. the parthenon game was stopped by the documenta security. allwere auto-recuperated into documenta. the confrontation with security at the parthenon too but a clear critiue of documenta was also presented. the dead non human workers union aka shrimp commando was finally mobilised from food to destructive worker. the location for this was discussed through the weekend with the neu gallery, freidrichplatz, documenta hall being put forward but in the end drifting around the centre of town the press centre presented itself.we also passed the "luther and the avant garde" exhibition and we discussed whether or not to open the olfactory and other fronts in this point. however we decided to go for the press centre instead...

NoOneIsIllegal kassel were present at the opening ceremony of the so-called world cup – petitioning supoprt for a mass demonstration in Berlin in september (http://www.welcome-united.org/en/newsletter-5/) we supported their actions at the ceremony and we made our position very clear against the world cup: against nations, against teams, against hierarchical classificaitons. Against a eurocentric organisation – against a world cup. And for\? For creating a new way /s to play together – to come together – to fascilitate us coming together from around the world to continue, share and kearn from our experiments in 3sf.

Having had 7 opiut of the 14 teams registered to play we had any number of strategical options open to us. we discussed assisting the refugee team to win and also the mermaids team - being both representative of Women and Black proletarian nations. after all matches on the day all DAMTP teams came,predictably, joint 7th. No One Is Illegal/ no human is illegal>>>> no border no nation - all inspired the name of one of our temas: No One Is Luther Blissett.... and in the awards ceremony, while abracadabra, mermaids, atlantis and other teams all took part entusiatically i was glad to see that no one went up to receive a trophy when No One Is Luther Blissett team was announced. the next up was KLASSE and i was pushed forward by comrades

so i went up and took the world cup to denounce the awards ceremony and hierarchical classification of participants

i then tossed the world cup to the floor smashing the top.

Having destroyed the world cup I was happy to help the shrimp commando spearhead the attack against documenta. A few weeks later their majik seemed to work when the spectacle of documenta started to unwind from the top down. No doubt the work of the comrades in Athens was instrumental in this.

In their statement the curators of documenta say they have no political power "as such" because they dont want to really get into how financial, cultural and political power are interwoven as it undermines what seems to be a call for autonomy of art while attempting to simultaneously critique art as a situation or mode of production...

now the artists in their statement of support for the curators, have ignored the workers exploitation altogether - at least the curators statement acknowledged that...! artists just went back to that neoliberal myth of progressive art against fascism. maybe that was the point of the politicians and media intervention

to shore up this myth

of art as struggling for its autonomy against capital and fascism

borgeois culture is in crisis anyway

like i said before - its not just financial but also moral cultural spiritual etc bankrupt

so at these points the spectacle starts to disintegrate into its constituent elements

poitics, art, finance - once integrated start to break apart

Yes. Well this statement seems to me to be a plea for the autonomy of art

not autonomy but maybe status of art

as a superior cultural form ... in the time of pop art - art politics finance was integrated spectacle

now its disintegrating

Yes. Well in order for art to be political it cant be autonomous

yes i think art has today subsumed some aspects of politics as aesthetics

like walter benjamin said - fascism was aesthetics in politics. And communism responds by politicising art... but rather than communism it is neoliberalism that inherits “political art” ie the aestheticisation of politics...