Agamben Protests Fingerprinting; Tate Tours; More
GIORGIO AGAMBEN PROTESTS "BIOPOLITICAL TATTOOING"
The move to fingerprint foreigners entering the United States has claimed its first victim in the realm of international cultural and intellectual exchanges. Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben canceled a contract to teach at New York University after learning that he would be subjected to the new security measure. In an open letter printed in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Agamben, whose books include The Coming Community and Homo Sacer, writes that fingerprinting goes beyond the borders of "personal sensitivity" and implies a major shift in biopolitical status for the citizens of democratic countries.
"The state's ability to control individuals through electronic means such as credit cards and mobile phones would have been unthinkable in earlier periods," writes Agamben. "This increased control and manipulation of bodies is a development that implies a new global biopolitical status—another step toward what Foucault described as a progressive 'animalization' of human beings through the most refined technologies. The electronic registration of fingerprints, tattooing under the epidermis, and other such practices are part of this phenomenon."
Agamben warns that security measures initially applied to foreigners usually end up being applied to citizens themselves. "Paradoxically, the citizen becomes the suspect par excellence—a person to be encountered with devices and technologies originally designed for the most dangerous individuals," continues Agamben. "Here, I would like to recall that tattooing most likely appeared at Auschwitz as a 'normal' procedure for coordinating the deportees entering the camp. Biopolitical tattooing, to which we are being subjected in order to enter the US, is a harbinger of a time when we will accept such registration processes as normal state mechanisms—if we wish to be identified as good citizens."
TATE TOURS: NEXT STOP IBIZA?
The United States is not among the many destinations offered by the "Tate Holiday Collection," a new series of art-historical vacation packages that are being marketed to visitors at Britain's Tate museums. Curators and art historians from Tate Britain and Tate Modern in London and from the Tate galleries in Liverpool and St. Ives have joined forces with one of Britain's most prominent travel agencies to organize the educational sojourns. After looking at an artist's paintings in the museum, visitors can now book a trip to see where the artist lived and worked.
Examining the travel packages with a wary eye, La Repubblica notes that all of the destinations are in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, despite the diverse origins of the artists in the Tate collections. Indeed, packages like the Lanzarote trip, which takes visitors to the Canary Islands to see the birthplace of painter Cesar Manrique, suggest that the new venture has more to do with enticing paying customers with sunny climes than with raising the public's art-history IQ.
"The possibility of obtaining state subsidies is becoming increasingly difficult," writes La Repubblica. "The Tate, like many other cultural institutions, finds itself depending more and more on external forms of financing: donations, ticket sales, sponsors, and, above all, commercial initiatives, from gadgets to vacation packages."
IN VENICE, CHANGING OF THE GUARD HITS SNAGS
Italy's minister of culture, Giuliano Urbani, has promised that there will be a number of personnel changes at the Venice Biennale, including a new administrative council (most likely composed of corporate and political leaders), a new director for the upcoming film festival, and a new Biennale president. The changes are a central part of the recently passed legislation designed to privatize the Biennale. But as Il Manifesto's Gianfranco Capitta reports, Urbani's promises have thus far proved to be as insubstantial as the fog in the laguna. January 7 was to have seen the nomination of the new council, but the date passed without an announcement. And instead of being replaced, current film-festival chief Moritz de Hadeln’s contract was extended by three months.
Meanwhile, Biennale president Franco Bernabè has unexpectedly announced that he will continue his duties for the time being. Capitta speculates that no one is willing to take over Bernabè's job, neither sociologist Francesco Alberoni nor arts administrator Carlo Fontana, who were initially considered the likeliest candidates. Now, according to Cristina Piccino, also writing in Il Manifesto, former Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (National Labor Bank) administrator Davide Croff is widely regarded as the favorite. But historian Piero Melograni, a former member of the Communist Party who currently counts himself among the ranks of the right-wing Forza Italia, is apparently also in the running.
For Capitta, these developments are further evidence that Urbani's legislation is a farce and a threat to the Biennale's credibility. Capitta notes that a new administrative council composed of business leaders and politicians, all with a say in programming, will obviously change the face of the festivals. "If Urbani is interested only in controlling the money and power of the Biennale," writes Capitta, "then he should realize that, in order to appeal to the market, its 'products' must maintain a bare minimum of attractiveness."
In the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Henning Klüver seems to agree and wonders what will happen to Venice's international reputation. "After everything that the Berlusconi regime has done to weaken the public television station RAI, it seems that the Venice Biennale is the next important Italian cultural institution in line," speculates Klüver. "Independent culture still seems to make the ruling politicians afraid, because, as a manifestation of public power in a media society, it resists the trend toward reducing everything to the level of commercial television."