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Eda Čufer
A conversation with Călin Dan

You are a member of the Romanian art group SubReal, which was formed in the beginning of the 1990's. Your relation to social reality, which can be gathered from the documents, published in the book, reminds me of some Eastern European art projects from the 80's. Did a public alternative culture, which was typical for other Eastern European countries in the 80's, exist in Romania before the revolution in 1989?

SubReal started operating in the summer of 1990, when my colleague Josif Kirali and I decided to respond to the existing collective depression in Romania in a different way. Maybe the approach itself was not that much different, but it was certainly more tactical, socially aggressive and ironic. We started with very simple events, such as street installations, or as organisers and curators of events in which we ourselves participated. To get to the point, we tried to influence the artistic community in a way, which was not present before hand and which was a challenge for those who co-operated in these events. For example, we prepared a series of projects entitled Alimentara and Dracula Land, which raised very ambivalent reactions. One of the projects was an exhibition on food, which was scarce in the 1980's. We invited a lot of people, theoreticians and artists and together we tried to reconstruct the inside of a grocery store from the 1980's. Memories of these experiences and this environment were disappearing very fast, for people were forgetting or repressing all unpleasant memories of the past. This was a sort of cleansing period. However, it is true that such public events were almost impossible in Romania of the 80's. There was an experience I had, which will give you an idea about the gradual release of possibilities for public operations. Sometime, around 1986, my friends and I tried to set up an exhibition which would point out some key trends of the 80's. It was entitled Alternatives and we had an opening, but straight after that the exhibition was closed for the public and the publications were confiscated. After this event we were black listed and for a certain period of time it was absolutely impossible to obtain any permission for organising any sort of public event. So, we started gathering at a friends house and had some sort of private parties. At the time there were at least two other groups of people who organised such private events, but we were the only ones to document them- (photographs, sketches, etc.)

We were able to follow the Romanian revolution in 1989 live on the TV. In fact this revolution opened the history of TV revolutions and wars. How did you experience this process from within?

I think we knew very well what it was all about. Our media culture in the 80's was catastrophic; with regards to the events outside of our country, we were informed with a ten year delay. However, a very strong critical consciousness was present in Romania at the time. We knew that we were trapped within this massive manipulation. I can speak for my friends and myself, when I say that we did not believe local rumours and mediated information, but we tried to analyse the state with the means and knowledge which we had at our disposal. The 1989 revolution represented a very brutal contact with the media culture, which resulted in a deep collective depression. Our eyes were suddenly opened into a very dark world in a very brutal fashion.

You are an art historian. You write very theoretical texts, connected with the perception and policy of new media. How did you start dealing with art and do you think of yourself as an artist?

This is a very important question. I was educated as an art historian and theoretician. During my studies I was especially drawn to mediaeval art. After I completed my studies I suddenly transferred and became an art critic and a journalist. I did this for 15 years, during which I worked for newspapers, radio and television, and this enabled me to travel round the country and follow the current art production. Then I became the editor in chief of the art newspaper Art, but I was always interested in a somewhat broader perspective of operation and suddenly just writing about art was not enough. I wanted to have control over what I was doing. I was not satisfied by only reporting on what other people were doing. I do not know how to answer the question whether I am an artist or not. If I operate in a cultural environment, then I prefer not to identify myself as an artist. There are some negative things in my understanding of this concept. I see myself more as a writer and some sort of a director. I still work a lot with other people. I have strong visions, which I, by no means try to realise by myself. But, if I had to work in an office or some sort of a concrete, closed social system, I would most definitely characterise myself as an artist.

In your more recent texts you are developing some sort of a theory of perception, connected to the new media. At your lecture you have presented the project of designing a video game on the subject of war. Is possible to conclude from this that you are now somehow integrating your knowledge from history art to theory art.

When dealing with new media, I place special attention to two things: inter-activity and the capability of creating fantastic worlds, the capability of fantasising within a three dimensional illusion. Inter-activity is a very challenging concept, which is still very hard to successfully integrate into the artistic practise. I will leave aside the technical aspect, but it is obvious, that people are trying to establish a contact with machines and create models, which would imitate the behaviour of their brains and bodies. This is, by all means, a big thing, which tells us a lot about the good and bad sides of human nature. On one side it tells us about the lust and obsession with control and manipulation, and on the other side about the desire for surprises and challenges. Technical capabilities enable very entertaining ways of setting the questions dealing with who and what are we, and how we operate. The basic issue of inter-activity is connected with the issue of the speed of the brain. One could say, that even this very primitive level, in which we are today, is entertaining and offers numerous possibilities for thought. It is possible to, for instance, draw very interesting parallels between inter-activity and politics; the dominant side of human nature in a virtual model operates very similar to the political model. I think that the newest technology apart from trying to technically realise the concept of virtual reality, also offers new possibilities for thought and the analyses of human fantasies and narratives, for it can shape mental projections, the creation of imaginary environments, which are being shaped within a human from the time he/she is still a child, from the very moment he/she hears the first stories from their parents. This seems to me a very good reason for researching how our perception of things work. New media certainly enables the spreading of knowledge with regards to our perceptions, and this is most definitely a subject of art.

Is there a special reason that you opted for the theme of war for the design of your video game?

All video games deal with war, aggression. The question is: Why? The challenge which drew me to designing games and digital environments was connected to the fact that you can not create games as an inspired artist. Instead you have to somehow guess the desire of the consumer. In the same way as a fashion a creator does. Violence is a very structuralised subject. Violence must be faced. Psychoanalytically, directly, in any manner. This is not a pleasant conclusion, but everything draws our attention to this fact. Geopolitics is a science of violence.

These days a lot is being said about the nature of technological means in the hands of NATO, about the war which is lead through a view-finder, like a video game, a war without human casualties.

I do not believe in a war without human casualties. That is plain propaganda. War is a story of endless human suffering. Such propaganda is repulsive and also hurts whoever launches it. I am not an advocate of NATO or a Balkan patriot, but I think that whoever thought of a war without bloodshed does not know much about propaganda itself. War is dirty. The Balkan war is interesting, because it is medially symmetrically opposite to the experience of the Romanian revolution. There, we were dealing with hyperinflation of media coverage, while here the war was in many things that were totally hidden and inaccessible to the media, or received media coverage which hid the real information. An interesting phenomenon, of which I still do not know what it truly means. It is a new experience for all of us. At the moment my main worry is Serbia. A part of the Serbian population is living through a trauma, which we experienced in Romania during the 80's - the trauma of collective guilt. This is a dangerous situation, and if Serbia itself will not set the rules by which the Serbian past will be discussed, the future will not run smoothly. Political and moral pressures from outside and media hyper-production create a situation, which does not offer a lot of room for such complex self-reflection.

You were the first director of the Romanian Soros Center for Contemporary Arts. When you left this post you also left Romania. A few years ago you wrote a renown text, which analysis your personal experience of dealing with the Soros administration. What is your view of the role of the Soros Open Society Institutes and Centers for Contemporary Arts today?

The reason I wrote that text years ago, was that I found an exiting similarity between my work within Soros and my experience in working in the former Romanian regime. I arrived to the conclusion that every country has some sort of a minority that gives it trouble, and this minority and problems are usually exactly such as the country deserves. The Soros centers in Eastern Europe are also such as we deserve, for locals are in charge of them. In general I have more remarks as concerns the policy of the people who work at the very top of the network, in New York. In fact I am glad that Soros is moving out of Eastern Europe; it would be scary if this story would go on forever. I am totally convinced that the experience was very useful for us and that if the countries of Eastern Europe were better prepared, they could have benefited from the Soros charity to a greater extent. I am not talking only about the money, but also the knowledge, how to use it and the vision what to do with the money.

This year you held an exhibition with the group SubReal in the Romanian pavilion at the Venice Biennale. What are your experiences and impressions?

Very subjective and very different to those of 1993, when we held an exhibition with SubReal at Aperto and the main curator was a Czech woman, who has been living in Italy for a long time. In the general chaos around the setting up of the exhibition, I, by chance, caught an Italian comment regarding SubReal, which was: that we Eastern Europeans think that everything in the West is for free. A pretty sour experience to hear this from a Czech who immigrated to Italy! This time I had only positive experiences, not only as regards the responses to our work, but also in general. I can not state that this years biannual exhibition was a special challenge , but the parts that I enjoyed the most as a rule came from Central and Eastern Europe. And this was not noticed only by myself. My colleagues in Amsterdam and I have been asking ourselves what does this mean and we arrived to the conclusion that the East needed ten years to adjust to the speed and manner of operation of the Western system. The problem was also in the language, which does not present an obstacle to the newer generations. I think that our time is coming, and this is very interesting. We are not something exotic any more, like we were in the 80's and beginning of the 90's. It is for real now.

At the moment you are living in Amsterdam. Do you ever toy with the idea of returning to Romania?

No, never. I return to my homeland a few times each year. I have my family there; my parents and my son. I still hope that I will be able to work on some projects in Romania, and it is interesting that now, that I do not live there anymore, I am becoming more of a Romanian each day. However, I would never return. To me Romania does not present an inspirational environment and even though the political and economic boarders have opened up the mental borders still exist. I lived in Romania and that part of Europe for forty years and I have experienced all the poverty and characteristics of that area, so now I want to experience something else in life.