It is not Coronavirus it is your Desire

Many of us do not understand this lock down, we don't know what is beyond the plateau of a flattened curve. Right now we are like clockwork. When pushed to work for the sake of our and social survival we do so till be collapse -  then when told to stop work for the sake of our and social survival, we are trying to do so until we collapse. This is my  take - 1 in my personal attempt to understand this code.

When I was in class 8 (?), I understood what a virus is. Clearly it cannot be Chinese or Muslim, cause virus is not even a living cell. In fact like it is more conceptual; like religion and nationalism, viruses are not free-living; i.e., they cannot reproduce and carry on metabolic processes without a hosting on living creatures, but once they do find hosts then they can manipulate host behaviors to create environments in which to thrive and spread. My biology teacher had explained that viruses were not 'living beings' thus they cannot be killed, that's why we still had flu...explaining how vaccination and building anti bodies were the only hope. (Right now I will avoid looking at this as a political metaphor).

Since then a lot of water has flown under many bridges that I have crossed. HIV came, made the word virus a household name. I understood the danger, yet felt safe in my middle class cocoon. Safe sex was doable, and the media made me feel that HIV happened to either the rich or the poor...the middle class were to be worried about cancer...which was not a virus (though I was scared for my friends who pushed sugar). Many years later, SARS came in. My partner and I were thrilled! Chicken prices came crashing down we feasted for a whole month! Of course misplaced nationalism had a role to play in this act of bravado, as Indians our immunity was supposed to much higher, one of the great perks of living in one of the dirtiest nations. On a more serious note, I did begin (re) looking at the research around viruses, specially because governments and corporate started investing in cures.

Then one by one these cure/vaccine research projects began to shut down. Suddenly an old frustration, (which I felt heavily in my class 8 but never really expressed) began to rear its head. How come humans have made so much scientific  progress taking us from moon to Mars and beyond, to make nuclear weapon and power plants, to do pretty much anything...but could not cure us of common flu. Slowly it became clear that the answer to this lay in the priorities of funding. The pharmaceutical industry would actually lose money if some commonly available cheap drug was produced which could cure the flu.

Cut to the season on 2019-20, the times of COVID-19. The initial reaction was almost similar to SARS...and then like an avalanche it began to spread and take over. Before we knew it, February was over and by March, the world was entering into its lock down phase. Initially, my mind went numb. Much energy was spent in checking into my resources. Checking up on relatives, friends, students. Then the emotional stress of the lock down, coupled with the stress of 'work from home'.

The first trigger for me was the crisis of the immigrant contractual laborers being homeless, stateless and criminalised. The brutality that is unfolding in lockdown  situations globally and the normalisation of it all is unparalleled in civil society in the post WW-2 period. It slowly began to dawn that  COVID-19 had scared even the capitalists in power. Which seemed strange and confusing. After all we had seen so many epidemics. Also, contagious diseases like tuberculosis had also affected and killed the rich but there was never such a panic in such a large scale. Then of course in India we have had dengue for years now, so may people die every year post monsoon...but even in the most dengue ravaged, mosquito infected zones there has never been a lockdown.  What exactly was happening now? How is COVID-19 different ?

The clues (unsurprisingly) came in from the USA and (once) Great Britain. Led by Donald Duck and Boris Jonson, these two countries (along with Brazil and Turkey) have resisted the lockdown mode the most. Choosing the normal flu containing technique of evolving herd immunity and treating only  the severely ill and  quarantining the known infected were the measures taken up...and this turned out to be a severe misjudgment and is today costing many lives. But why did these measures fail so drastically? What pose does COVID-19 contain that it continues to overwhelm all our social structures?

The answer blows not in the winds of COVID-19, but in the winds of our Desire. Or rather on how our desires and our capitalist social structures have co-produced each other. After the WW 2, and the wave of decolonisations we had the space and time to imagine a new world order. We ended up voting for governments and policies which has led us to stick pile so much nuclear weapons that the world can be destroyed many times over. We have dreamt of taking vacations on Mars, designing all kinds of cosmetic makeovers, dreamt of destroying Pakistan, invested in Formula 1 technology...bullet trains, statues....

So we created a world with excess capacity of nuclear and non-nuclear ammunition, but a world where ventilators are scarce. Yes, it is that simple...we are under a lockdown, medical and para medical personnel putting their lives at risk, contractual workers are being left to die...because the world has a shortage of ventilators.

COVID-19 is mimics the commonest flu in the manner in which it spreads, making it highly contagious.  At the same time about 20 percent of infected people would need intensive medical attention and among them a sizeable portion would need ventilator support. So what COVID-19 essentially does is to expose a deep glitch in the system which is just not geared for community health crisis, or any kind of health crisis which outside the sphere of the pharmaceutical industry and its profit making. Most of us will survive the COVID-19 even if we catch it...but clearly the system will not. This lockdown, is an attempt by the existing capitalist machinery to save itself from collapse.  It is never your health that they are worried about.


-------------------
also, do read -

• https://www.marxist.com/italy-the-coronavirus-epidemic-is-an-emergency-but-capitalism-is-the-real-disaster.htm
• https://www.quantamagazine.org/viruses-have-a-secret-altruistic-social-life-20190415/
• https://www.britannica.com/science/virus  

Notes on Neo liberalism and Indian Art

Debanjan Roy|INDIA SHINING I (GANDHI AND THE LAPTOP)| Edition of 5 | 2007 | Fiberglass with acrylic paint| 27 x 46 x 30 in.

·         It is common to argue that dichotomy and polarities are out of fashion.  Moreover, nation states have been proven to have been constructed and hence in many arenas they have ceased to exist. In such a situation if one seeks to revisit the ‘global’ ‘local’ dialogue using contemporary Indian art as a case study, then the positioning of the ‘local’ suddenly seems to be on fleeting grounds. With ‘localities now being trans geographic, it is increasingly becoming difficult to position the ‘local’ within the ‘global’-’local’ debate. On the other hand, the ‘global’ is well positioned. It is clearly trans-geographic, it claims for it self a cosmopolitan identity and by and large subscribes to a life style where differences in space, time, gender, caste, sexuality, race, tend to collapse. It is this collapsed (constructed) identity that casts itself in a postmodern universalism, which can increasingly be called neo-liberal.*

• ·         To understand this neo-liberal identity, one could pose the India Shining campaign sponsored by the first BJP led NDA government(1999-2004)  with the ‘India Poised’ campaign (2006-07) sponsored by neo-liberal image building forces within in corporate India. At the core of both the campaigns lie the claim of re-presenting India in a newly shaping (reconstructing) Asia within a world which is increasingly trying to re configure itself while still being in the ‘crisis’ of being an unipolar world. How these two campaigns represented the notion of 'India' and 'development' become crucial in understanding the links between contemporanity and neoliberalism in india. Both these campaigns heavily deployed, 'scale',  'shine',  global, and the urban as both campaign strategy and and symbols for desire and progress. Though these campaingns failed badly as they did not comprehend the 'local' and the symbols of 'desire' was copy pasted from the 1st world imagination, the (this) language became the cornerstone for contemporary urban expression. 

A stadium hoisting events of the 'India shinning campaign'  and a satellite image of india during Diwali, heavily used during the 'India shinning campaign'

·         Of course contemporary Indian art (the part of which fetches the maximum prices and gets the highest degree of participation in international art spectacles, residencies etc) is constituent of practitioners who have strong (to superficial) left wing or center left ideological positionings. ‘India Shining’ was a center right campaign; I use it to argue that in matters of economic and foreign policy, there is an amazing collision between the new left and the new right. This collision has made it possible for the economic right wing to appropriate subversive Marxist concepts like ‘re-worlding’, and transformed it into something that sees the world as a constellation of cosmopolitan cities (and hence the easy manner in which the India Shining campaign get replaced yet adequately compensated by the ‘India Poised’ campaign.) This act of representing, the politics of such, the innocence of such, and (maybe) most importantly the ‘values’ involved in such can serve as key pegs as one seeks to interrogate the ‘global’, ‘local’ as polemics and conditions. 

The strong winds of neolibelisation that came to us, has only grown stronger and deeply affected our commonsense.  Recently second NDA government launched the 'Make in India Campaign' , which has been accused of being India Shinning on steroids. In the years between 2006-14 , much has changed in the global socio economic imagination. The 2008 financial crisis has lead to Neo liberalism turning aggressive and militaristic. Right now outside the restance pockets in Latin America, privatization, consumerism, war on environment, bing, and spectacle are operating on never before seen global levels. 

"The proverbial cat, however, is now finally out of the bag, for the slogan to ‘Make in India’ is an invitation to global corporate capital to come loot and plunder the natural commons, to destroy the environment, to dispossess populations made dispensable and to exploit cheap Indian labour; it is an invitation to global corporations who are being forced out of their home countries because high environmental and labour costs have been long been eating into their profits. Whether or not the notorious Lawrence Summers Memo of 1991 that talked of moving ‘dirty’ industries to the third world was a serious policy proposal or a mere sarcastic prank, the Modi government seems to have internalized its impeccable economic logic. China was the trail blazer in this regard and one can already see the devastating impact it has had on daily life in China. Even as GDP soars to the skies, daily life gets more and more insecure and violent. That is the direction that the new government has chosen to take India in the name of making India the manufacturing hub of the world. Yes, there will always be people to point out how GDP growth has meant more employment and money circulating among ordinary people at large, but these are the classically myopic economics-drunk people who have not spent a minute thinking about what all this means in the longer run." Aditya Nigam http://kafila.org/2014/10/20/make-in-india-modis-war-on-the-poor/

"On Sunday, along with German Chancellor Angela Mekel, Narendra Modi inaugurated Hannover Messe, World’s largest trade fair. In the fair top businesses from numerous countries participated. Indian P.M Modi said India is an attractive destination and his government will make it easy to conduct business and it will be place where there will not be any surprise element. Raising the pitch for Make in India, he said it is a national movement that covers both businesses and society. We have moved with speed and created confidence both at home as well as abroad. Modi told his audience, we will protect your intellectual rights. The tax system will be more predictable and also talked about new financial instruments to fund nation’s growth. Modi further added, the will to change is there and also it is moving with speed in an right direction. His last line, during the inauguration of the industrial fair along with Merkel, encouraging businessmen from both sides, he said. When the shutter comes down at this industrial fair, I wish many new doors to open."  13th April,2015 http://www.bjptelangana.org/en/tbjp_news/make-in-india-a-new-national-movement-modi

·        

Valay Shende, Scooter, 2007, welded metal buttons, 45 x 70 x 30 in.| IMAGE: COURTESY SEATTLE ART MUSEUM

"SQUARE AVASA for elite: North Face Entrance Concept. East and West facing houses will be of equal priority where north face entrance concept is unique in our project. Individual opinion matters as East shows mental/Spiritual progress with prosperity & North Shows Prosperity with tremondous growth in monetary wise and Wealth.Recreation is plenty at Square Avasa. You can relax by the cool environs of the swimming pool or take a swim to tone your body. For those who are serious about fitness, you have the gym where you can strengthen and beautify your muscles. If you are keen on sports, there is the indoor & out door games facility where you can try your hand at different games or practice Yoga. Besides the excellent landscaping and the shimmering water bodies comfort you to the point of relaxation. SuqareMile Projects Constructions, a leading construction company with good experience and reputation for delivering quality housing" http://www.clickindia.com/detail.php?id=133633946

Art practice does not operate outside socio-political hegemony. One needs  to question whether the dominant forces of contemporary art while claiming for itself a leftist intellectual base is in fact like the British New Labour completely complicit with the right wing in matters of economic and foreign policy.  There is a claim that the fruits of ‘globalization have opened up horizons for ‘contemporary Indian art’, and that the fruits of the strategic and commercial interest shown in the newly liberalised India by the industrially advanced ‘global’ communities since the early 1990s, has had a cultural resonance on the realm of ‘contemporary Indian art’. Over the last decade or so Indian painters and sculptors have enjoyed a measure of visibility in the ‘global’ art structure. They have, more recently, been joined by installation and video artists, and artists’ active in the new digital media, whose projects have outgrown the ‘local’ limitations of production , exhibition and consumption. These young to mid-career artists have been represented (and have represented India) in major international art events, such as the, various Triennales, Biennales and (of course the) Documenta.

·         Their work has been showcased in blockbuster exhibitions organised by prestigious art societies and institutions, the dominant articulation celebrates an articulation to advocate a certain kind of post-modern Indian art, which is rich with the possibilities especially through their value within a particular definition of multiculturalism. However, even in the ideological framing of their practices there is a complete refusal to interrogate this ‘fruits of globalization’ which fellow leftist intellectuals and activists have grave anxieties about.

·         There  is a feeling in some corners that contemporary Indian art has not (yet) established itself as a major and sustained ‘global’ presence. Artists curators claim that this is modest and intermittent by comparison, for instance, with the domineering attendance contemporary Chinese art has secured since its advent on the ‘global’ scene in the late 1980s, or how east and south east Asia have recently become hubs of a much larger scale. However, very rarely do we express concerns about monopolizing of cultural capital, an oligarchic control over knowledge and resources.  We also fail to consider that China as a nation, (and not just its art) enjoy much greater attention than India does on a global scale. It enjoys more attention in the UN, Olympics, Biennales, sea trade…etc. Is it an unfair argument that ‘contemporary Indian art’ cannot locate itself outside the operative hegemony called ‘contemporary India’, and the various hegemonies that operate within it? And is this question relevant even as  (or specifically because) a newly dominant strand within ‘contemporary Indian art’ is deeply engaged with forces blurring national boundaries, taking up representational roles in ‘global art institutions’ and creating an oligarchy of power? 

·         One of the biggest problems has been that the great inflow of financial and cultural capital, have some how bypassed the grassroots infrastructure of Fine Art in India. Institutional neglect, and lack of non-institutionalized support, ensures skeletally existing library facilities, scant archives, and absolute neglect as ‘conditions’ of art colleges all over the India. The net as a medium is extremely difficult to access, and that coupled with the lack of English education, is keeping out art students from the domain of knowledge that is now dominating the multicultural contemporary art. Essentially there is not enough of the (new) money and exposure coming back to nurture, or to even have a debate with the grass roots. It does seem that the poor, peasant, and the proletariat as categories have become grossly out of fashion in Marxist thought, and with that these ‘residual’ categories seem to have lost the right to be ‘talked to’ or engage with…contributing to a collapse of the ‘local’ as a point of consideration. The ‘local’ and its ‘public’ could be the ‘inspiration’ informing the work, can even be the ‘represented’ in the works, but somewhere s/he seems to have lost the right to be considered to be ‘peer’…the work is no longer addressed to him/her.

·         Most people don't talk about it, but the most thriving days for art criticism in India were in the 1920's when a heated debate on the formation of an Indian national style was being played out amongst art journals, popular literary magazines, and newspapers. (Read Partha Mitter, Art and Nationalism in Colonial India, 1850-1922: Occidental Orientations Cambridge University Press, 1995). Today, a critical contestation over arts in the public domain is absolutely unimaginable.#

·         Art criticism in India today essentially find two strands...in one mode the critic represents the artist like a suave court painter; the writer uses skills in rhetoric and imagination (often in collaboration with the artist) to weave and or locate a suitable context and bestow it with cultural capital. Such is the celebrated 'up market’ criticism in India, which helps to legitimize a certain kind of post-modern Indian art, which is rich with the possibilities exiting consumers through their value within a particular definition of multiculturalism. The ability of a critic is, (now) judged by how s/he can represent Indian art in international terms. Clearly the role of the critic as an aesthetic interrogator has no space within contemporary art practices, and one begins to wonder where to locate writings on contemporary Indian art, and consider its role vis-à-vis the production of the analyzable subject and look at what relation does such production have with consumerism?#

·         Print and online magazines have created space for critical art history of contemporary arts, but the print media magazines (due to reasons of funding of the high production cost), hesitate to publish interventionist, alternate writings on art.  The online magazines, on the other hand, have a greater discursive potential. However, currently they suffer from financial instability (the online publishing industry in India is yet to take off), and are yet to ideologically position themselves vis à vis the mainstream.#

• Another key critical vacuum is caused because our attention is so taken up by the mediatic aspect of new media, and we don’t seem to be engaging with what it does to language. We seem to be yet so Ruskinian in our analysis that the media is often read as a vehicle for a direct reflection of the artistic-aesthetic intentions. Especially in the context of new media art, a much more complex analysis of about how media influences language is very important. It is only such an analysis that will help us to understand how language and power operate within the contemporary Indian art society. This is also particularly important because there seems to be an erosion of the notion of the public as peer, and often we forget to make the simple connections between language and communication. Peer-hood now is something that can be found in the globe’s various cosmopolitan pockets where the vernacular (‘local’?) is mostly the ‘other’. This is more significant because new media art is a key instrument through which trans geography articulates.

  Of course this does not mean that a ‘local’ ‘global’ structure should dis-privilege the ‘global’ either. It is the tension that often keeps the balance. The strategic advocacy for the ‘local’ in this article is an attempt to keep the tension alive at a time when the theoretical validity of the ‘local’ is under intense scrutiny. Of course cosmopolitan art contains within itself radical possibilities of counter geography and the cosmopolitan centers of Asia have enabled the creation of a discursive terrain called new Asia rising from the debris of a post Cold War uni-polar world. Is it just the complacency, and the unhindered celebration of the cosmopolitan which is being rendered problematic though this article? Somehow it is also an article that seeks to realize the frame(s) one operates within seeks to understand the extent of implication within which the self dwells. 

Subodh Gupta | U.F.O | 2007 | Brass utensils | 114 x 305 x 305 cm

                                                     ---------------------------------------------------
* Cited from AAA>Diaaalogue > May 2007 > Perspectives  A Note on the Re-worlding of 'Contemporary Indian Art', Rahul Bhattacharya    (http://www.aaa.org.hk/Diaaalogue/Details/33 )

# Cited from Short notes on art history and criticism:, Rahul Bhattacrarya (http://theblackyellowarrow.blogspot.in/2015/06/a-short-note-on-art-history-and.html)

A ‘take’ on Art and Rudeness.. ?

When I got a the mail from Johny requesting a "take on Art and Rudeness", must admit that there was a feeling of being stumped. There was been a strong post-modern critic of the 20th century Avant-garde as being culturally violent and brash, the image of a artistic genius has been cast in the mould of arrogance, but art/artist as rude?  True the practice of 'sniggle' exists…but it is seen more as a politically subversive breaching experiment…not exactly fitting the definition of rudeness (i.e. the most commonplace definition of rudeness as uncouth, ill mannered). Rudeness is not a quality claimed from within, it is more of a quality pushed from the top. The culturally dominant is never rude…its acts will be labeled as Subversive, Anarchic, Absurdist…all labels claiming a positive ethical space in the ream of social history. On the other hand rudeness has always been 'out there in the margins'.    

So I begin to think …"is 'rudeness' as a category definable by its failure to become acceptable in the mainstream definition of manners…" suddenly it felt that I was looking at a 'concave' and a 'convex'…art and rudeness.  This realization surprised me…as I had begun my 'take' assuming that parallels would surface. 'Art' sometimes plays the role of   legitimization of rudeness, and when legitimized an act ceases to be termed as rude.

Am I creating too much of a uni-planer version of rudeness? Throughout  the history of art under capitalism or its variants, certain artists have reveled in being 'rude'. The alleged inability of the mainstream to digest rudeness has been the lure to explore rudeness as a site of subversion. Is it that there are two 'takes' on rudeness that we constantly experience? Celebrating it and de-meaning it all at the same time, what does Art do to our experience of rudeness…

But it also a one sided view of Art that I am taking. There have been objects and actions which have been celebrated in the realm of high culture, but have been found extremely 'rude' in pockets of the 'popular'. So what is art and what is rudeness is sometimes determined by where-how strong the hegemony of certain avant-garde practices or affiliations to them lie.

When an act of 'rudeness' is declared to be 'valid' and pedestialized inside institutions…a certain set of narratives are generated around it, casting the semantics of the object/action into a completely different sphere. Viewed through these new prisms of meanings the actions/objects begin to represent acts of (often poetic) subversions…some are even viewed as important monuments in rebellions against hegemonic powers.  Supported by elitist intellectual discourses, a set of actions/objects goes on to become desirably rude.  Actions/objects (falling under the purview of rudeness), which fail to get accreditation by any dominant, or emergent discourses, tend to just fade away…momentarily mockingly dismissed.

The dialogues between Art and rudeness have been played out on the site of aesthetics. Rudeness has been celebrated as a strategy to shock the bourgeois from its capitalist complacence and reveal glimpses of a greater reality…or rather the realities that were taking shape with the avant-garde mocking on Kantian Truth or Beauty.  The rudeness was allegedly justified by 'intentionality'  (or whatever that means). So 'intentionality'   has gone on to become the yardstick of aesthetics…or rather its ph scale. Is it just the presence or absence of 'intentionality' that determines which side of the fence the action/object is? Over the years 'intentionality' is being increasingly pre-defined…and it tends to find legitimacy only within certain set of politics. To be 'desirable', 'legitimate', 'aesthetic' and hence Art, rudeness has to cooperate or participate within these 'certain sets of politics' (or at least intend to participate).

Then there are other things to consider. The capitalist system thrives not on repressive conformity (as one have learnt to imagine) but rather on individualism and a quest for counter-cultural distinction…this is how the imagined 'logic of late capitalism operates'. Like everything else that aesthetics has touched, 'rudeness' also has the potential to accumulate cultural capital. As such it should not be so much of a problem, but one still needs to point out that 'original' intentions are usually anti-hegemonic. 

What does one do, it is these conditions that have lead certain minds to call our times 'Schizophrenic'. A Schizophrenia to be celebrated …or to be lamented…. A, certain angst is often needed to be the licensed to indulge in rudeness… but this is also the times when it is idealism is not 'cool'. The logic of our times has ensured that traditional bourgeois ethics that nearly defined Art  (production, consumption and distribution) have been eroded. Sometimes rudeness is a subversive leap into forgotten imaginations…and no matter what the fate of the act is, it has to be judged in the moment of its action.

So what about the day-to-day actions which we dismiss as 'unacceptable rudeness'? Their neglect of the mainstream arrogance reflect a conscious or subconscious rejection of mainstream 'manners'…perhaps not 'aestheticised' by our ramblings…it is in these kinds of 'forgetting' that 'innocence' allegedly lies. But it a completely different 'take' involving Art and 'innocence'….some other time.

Publised in mattersofart in the summer of 2006