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SOMETIMES A DOG IS JUST A DOG
Interview
with Stephan Doesinger by Friederike Kühn
What was
the trigger, which sparked this project?
SD: I went to Thessaloniki for the first time in April 2004, for another
project I was working on. Then I heard from media reports and various
animal welfare groups that Greece was clearing its streets of stray animals
in order to create a clean image for the Summer Olympics 2004. Cleaning
means ”planned killing”, since Greece doesn`t support proper
animal shelters or the work of private animal welfare groups. But, as
usual, nobody is officially responsible and it makes a great difference
whether the poisonings and so on are organised or just singular assaults
by individuals. So the first question was: what do these dogs actually
mean to the cultural landscape they inhabit, and how is that space defined?
Why did you choose a soccer team?
The Olympic Soccer Games will be held in Thessaloniki, so that `s a direct
link to the Games.
What do the dogs mean in this project? To me they appear as anachronistic
time capsules living in their own universe and have nonetheless found
ways to survive in an hostile environment. They are slackers. They are
lazy and of no economic or other value. They are neither greyhounds on
which you could place a bet nor are they hunting dogs. They represent
the exact opposites of efficiency or
success. They stand for a relaxed way of living, which attracts innumerable
tourists to the area each year. They have characterised the Greek landscape
for centuries in a similar way as sacred cows define the public space
in India but, of course, in a very different way...
In your first book entitled "Elements
of time and space - The story of a turtle" you refer to Walter
Benjamins who wrote: “around 1840 it was fashionable to take turtles
for a walk in the arcades. (...)” Is there a connection to this
project?
Yes, although Benjamins refers in “Arcades” to the experiences
of the flaneur, who in this project is secondary. The turtle, however,
is a tool to slow us down and to be used as a guide. It is not about searching,
but about finding. It describes a way in which we could joyfully read
the city and discover it through coincidence. It turns us into a record
needle, which touches the surface of the city. The turtle defines the
speed of the needle`s progress.
The stray dogs are a good contrast to a quite hectic city like Thessaloniki.
They keep their own pace, which is not too fast. According to Oscar Wilde
the flaneur was also a hated figure.
Why are you interested in lazyness?
Instinctively, we reject everything that is of no obvious use. Therefore,
we stigmatise unemployed people, cut old people`s pensions and resent
those rich people who enjoy “the lazy lifestyle”. Tourists
are not considered lazy. Rather, they are considered active. Although
- or maybe because - I am constantly working, I really like the concept
of doing nothing, even though after a while I would no doubt find myself
working on something else...
What is the artist`s approach of painting the dogs?
There is a long cultural tradition of painting and decorating animals.
Usually it was important for certain religious purposes or other symbolic
rituals. With the exception of some fashion trends in Japan, marking livestock
and some examples in advertising, we don`t tend to paint living animals
in modern culture. In this project, it is more about identification. Whenever
we wear T-shirts featuring the names of soccer stars, we almost become
Beckham or Ronaldo and carry the name as a trophy for victories, which
we`ve never earned.
What are your experiences with the strays?
Other than in Beuys` project "I love America - America loves me"
a stray dog is not a wild coyote. The stray dogs are domesticated animals,
which are usually very social to humans. But they are creatures of neglect.
Therefore they react very differently, based on the experiences they have
had with people in the past. Those experiences have not always been nice.
In this respect, I assume that the coyote was quite innocent and not as
screwed up as some of these dogs are.
So it is not about nature versus culture?
No, not primarily. It is really more about domestication and neglect.
It is about a lost situation right between wild nature and and the domesticated
creature. The issue of neglect interests me a lot. Neglect is one of my
worst fears. As a result I had to get accquainted with these dogs.
Initially you planned to have
the painted dogs for the whole duration of the Olympic soccer tour-nament
in Thessaloniki. What happened during the project that made you change
your plans?
There was an incident about a year ago near to Thessaloniki, which changed
the whole thing. After a soccer game, a stray dog was set alight by hooligans,
who had first painted it in the colours of the opposing team. Argos, the
biggest local Animal Welfare group, was afraid that this project could
provoke a similar incident.
What was your experience with other artists you met in Thessaloniki?
During the project, I spoke with various Greek artists who were quite
frustrated that most of the artists invited to participate at the Cultural
Olympics are coming from abroad. Would Greece`s artists show the world
a perspective, which could perhaps contradict an idealistic image of Greece?
Why only the view from the
outside?
How does the project relate to the contents of the Cultural Olympics,
which are described on the website of the Greek embassy in Berlin as the
“substance” of the Summer Olympics 2004?
Well, this project is not funded by the Cultural Olympics. Sponsor-driven
art usually has a certain purpose. It has to function the way the commissioner
expects, which for obvious reasons means it must not be too controversial.
Content is more or less defined in advance. Since the Cultural Olympics
are also driven by Coubertin`s creed of "tolerance”, content
is rarely progressive or provocative. Everything is “nice”,
“attractive”, and absolutely politically correct. If an artwork
does not fit into that framework, it will not be displayed. The basic
plot is to construct a cultural reality based on consensus. But this artificial
cultural reality really feels just like a vacuum.
The main theme of the Cultural Olympics is about
the cultural heritage of Greece. How does this project relate to that
concept?
Well, the question is: how do we use historical buildings or ruins, and
what is the meaning of cultural heritage to media society?
A building is usually defined by its use. Often, historic buildings or
sites are of no use other than for tourism. If we use cultural heritage
as a branding tool for the Games and put a building like, for example,
the Acropolis into the context of a cultural marketing strategy, we transform
it radically.
The Acropolis has become one of Robert Venturi`s so-called “ducks”.
A “duck” is a building the shape of which itself conveys a
message. But what is the message today? To most people the cultural memory
value of these buildings has been replaced by tourism-related entertainment
values. Buildings like the Acropolis have become 3-D symbols of a historical
theme park and have become icons for the Greek tourism industry. In the
computer game SIM city historical sites like the Acropolis play the same
role as any other theme park does. By the way, this phenomenon, which
I call “SIM”, is not limited to Greece. It is actually a global
issue.
Getting back to Greece and its dogs, the strays have been there since
ancient times and perhaps even witnessed the construction of the Acropolis.
They have defined that particular Greek landscape in the past, and still
do. They are themselves icons. Therefore, I truly consider them to be
part of the cultural heritage and propose to acknowledge their cultural
value.
What is your interest in public space?
Public space is just an imaginary space. The physical space has become
something that Rem Koolhaas calls “junk space”. It is basically
wasteland. But even junk is under total control.
Politically, however, public space has been replaced
by the media space. The voices of millions of people, who went on the
streets worldwide to protest against the illegal war in Iraq, were ignored.
At the present time, physical space has lost its relevance. It only exists
in places where television cameras are present. Public space gets constructed
at the moment when the produced images are edited. The broadcast images
of that space become what we consider to be the public space. Public space
is merely a battlefield of images.
Strangely enough, though, most of those images don`t show anything. They
are as empty as a bombsite in Iraq, which has been cleared of the dead
bodies of US troops. The US military`s creed is: No image must be left
behind! This means that we see sanitised images, which give us the feeling
that we are “informed”, but the actual purpose of which is
to hide reality.
So, what does it mean to you making art in that public space?
It is always about testing. Checking borders. Finding out what the field
is in which we act and how we actually construct the public space.
How long does it take for the police to come? That
is now even more interesting since the physical public space is threatened
from two forces, namely terrorism and the fight against it. This space,
and everyone who moves within it, has to be under total control. It has
also become a space of paranoia. So it is also about overcoming that paranoia.
What are the artist`s tactics working in public space?
There are various tactics possible, namely those with permission and those
without. Most art in the so-called public space means either “happy
art” and cultural entertainment or subversive street culture, which
gets adopted by commerce soon after it appears. Other works, such as Spencer
Tunick”s works, are placed there temporarily, mainly to build an
image. In other words, if you are the player, what is the field and what
are the rules?
So, what are these rules?
Public space is not a local space anymore. And that is why the cultural
essence of globalisation is based on media memories. One can receive the
images of CNN, MTV and other channels at almost every corner of our world.
These images are probably perceived very differently in each country,
but after a while they might change every recipient`s perception.
As an artist, one has to contribute other images and other contents, but
they will always stream through the same veins... •
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