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Eda Čufer
A conversation with Dušan Rutar

How did you as an intellectual - theoretic and pedagogue get involved in the theory and culture of handicapped persons?

It all started at the end of the last decade and at the beginning of the 1990's , when I attended a congress in Prague. At that time Europe was still strongly divided into Eastern and Western Europe. The Westerners were there in order to offer the Easterners a new doctrine, a doctrine of networks, the importance of establishing international networks, the importance of horizontal connections, deinstitunalisation, etc. At that time I got the idea. I decided that I do not want to take a part in the friction between the East and the West, for to me it seemed paternalistic, however I still managed to realise that maybe the time has come when we, in Slovenia, should also start thinking differently as regards handicapped persons. At the time I wrote a few articles on this subject and slowly I started to develop a concept, entitled the theory of handicap. The results were surprising. The first thing that happened to me was that the handicapped persons got me to court and this issue has not been settled to this very day. We have also formed the association YHD (Youth Handicapped Depriviliged), the purpose of which is to nurse the theory and culture of handicap. Today the association has its headquarters in the Lovci building on Metelkova. Alongside this I also had my post-graduate programme at the ISH (Institutum studiorum humanitatis) university. Today, this programme does not exist anymore, and while it existed four students finished their study within this programme. I feel that today the theory of handicap is being complemented by humanistic studies and I am trying to develop this field. We are also publishing our bulletin Awol.

We obtain most of the funds that we have at the association (which by the way are not that small) from abroad, which means that we are at least partially independent from the space in which we operate. With these means we have started the project of training assistants to work with handicapped persons. There are approximately one hundred individuals in our association and one of the main goals is to overcome the ghettoisation. Healthy individuals who get involved in the work and life of disabled persons are of great importance. On Metelkova, where our headquarters are located also other associations are present. A while ago the members of Magnus invited me to hold a lecture in their club and suddenly the public consisted of not only homosexuals but also my friends, handicapped people and women.

Your lecture within the frame of lectures on geopolitics and art was very different to the rest, which discussed variegated topics from the viewpoint of art. In the handicapped community, how do you practise art and theory? What is art and culture in this context?

This is a very difficult question. A while ago I saw some reproductions of paintings from the Spanish artist Frida Khalo, who was handicapped and often represented herself. A painting exists in which she presents herself with a broken back. A broken back represents to her a tower, upon which she is attached and which will break any moment now. Khalo is one of the few that I know and admire from history, because she is not emotional, and she shows her handicap in a universal way. I think it is important that handicapped persons accept that it is not about being unhappy, because they had the misfortune that it happened to them, but they should reach some universal revelations and discover the mechanism which regulates our lives through their particular problem. The painting which arose from the painter's trauma tells us about the fragility of the mechanisms upon which the human world is based. But these are extremely rare cases. I deal a lot with poetry of handicapped persons and as a rule the voice of the handicapped is sunk into its idiosyncraticy and any attempt to break free of these chains as a rule leads to pathos, regret, resignation and depression. I was also reminded of the book, written by an American theoretic, a student of Derrida. The book is entitled Prosthesis and in the book he discusses, in a unique way, his relation with his father. His father had a prosthesis and the author, his son, develops the entire theory of the Oedipus relation in a very refined way solely on this fact. I think that we, at our association for the theory and culture of handicap are trying to establish this culture through the dialogue as regards these issues.

In contemporary artistic production, which deals with the culture of globalisation and which as its expression means often uses the most modern technology the term "connected body" is often used, which critically reflects the situation of man, who needs a machine, a tool in order to normally operate in the sphere of the so called normality of the information era. This may be an inspirational connection, for also professional art often talks through pathos and resignation and in most cases achieves distance and universality with great difficulty.

I spent a lot of time dealing with the issues of body art and cybernetic bodies and I respect Stelarc and all other artists who deal with this form. In the life of handicapped people such performances are a regular practise. I will tell you an example. One of our boys was in a critical condition and he had to be put on a respirator. It is interesting that nobody dared to go and visit him, for he could die any moment. I tried to talk to him and this was an experience, which was not only comparable to that which the aforementioned artists perform but was, of course, also much more realistic. When Stelarc performs his performance, he plans everything ahead, therefore he is not helpless, while the boy was completely in the hand of the apparatus. And this is the difference: the boy was determined and kept alive by the apparatus, while Stelarc at least to some extent controls the apparatus he uses. I believe that the cybernetic body, as I have described it, can in a certain environment be a carrier of very liberating potentials. Helplessness can help very strong ideas appear, that is why I am sometimes tempted, to call upon an artist or an academic to go through such an experience.

For quite a while I am obsessed by the idea to put myself and my colleagues in wheelchairs in a shop window for a day. We went to the Nama store and asked if they would lend us a window and they were shocked. But maybe we will manage one day. People are willing to go to Kapelca, Cankarjev Dom (today body art is a trend), but they are not prepared to place three handicapped people into a shop window. This is the difference. This is the control of social borders. Maybe we should try with a professional curator, so he could lead the project through his gallery?

Theory as a professional activity has, even if it deals with marginal themes, its clearly defined social place of operating as well as its market. In the text, which you write, I recognise certain ideas, which are entertained by a certain intellectual milieu, which is very strong in Ljubljana. What community do you belong to? Your professional community of theorists and the theoretic market or the handicapped persons community within which you deal with theory strictly from humanitarian reasons?

My relation as regards this dilemma has become very clear during the last few years. I left behind all organisations which I worked for, from the comprehensive school to the Faculty of Arts and ISH. That social field is of no interest to me anymore. I have retreated to Metelkova and I will have lectures there to the moment I will feel that the space is still open, that it is not institutionalised. I have formed my, Freudian school. I am not interested in popularity. I am interested in independent spaces and if Metelkova will become to popular and institutionalised we will find a new independent space. I believe that the production of theory is possible only in an open environment and only for so long as it is open. And I am certain that theory is not possible in the archaic mechanism of the university. As Freud would say: "I enjoy splendid isolation."