| SUMMARY of the first issue, appeared in December 1997: Oleg Kireev http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Coffeehouse/1457/ Anatoly Osmolovsky, the editor-in-chief of RADEK, presents this new journal and the main theme of its first issue - new ideologies. Dmitrii Pimenov describes the way the society ignores and represses the revolutionary elements which try to avoid any identification on its terms. Its power is supported by the total media and communication networks, while an anarchist stands alone and is obliged for the chase to himself, because he has to speak for himself and to define his place within the society by what he says. This leads to an isolated position: the subject is enclosed in a mirrored space, or, more precisely -- in a space of crooked mirrors, because an anarchist is forced to see himself as those around him see him, which gives rise to claustrophobia and, finally,death. A.Osmolovsky, in his series of texts, which include "To demand more and more", "Yes" and "No" - a single mechanism", "USSR - yes! Only outside the USSR! USA - yes! Only outside the US!", "Interactive economic model", "Consumer society or Consumption of the consumer society?", "Human rights or humankind of "Human rights"?" analyzes the principles of any institutionalized opposition as a mechanism of ruling power, as suggested by the history of ideologies and theories connected with the G.Deleuze and F.Guattari's philosophy. Certain ideas on the new economic model which excludes the traditional opposition are also proposed: private/socialized property. He also touches on the problem of human rights and new posthumanistic sociality. Much attention is devoted to the problem of the category of choice as it exists in all democratic societes. This series of text is an attempt to find an adequate quasi-political conception of contemporary struggle based on the principle ideas of G.Deleuze and F.Guattari's book Anti-Oedipus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. M.Foucault & G.Deleuze "Intellectuals and Power" Two well-known theoreticians discuss and reject the strategies of representation in modern politics. They also rethink the idea of interactivity between political theory and practice. The article "Symbols of Power","written by Oleg Kireev, is comprised of a number of sketches devoted to the actual problems of power: in the style of R.Barthes'"Mythologies", they show what is what in today's art and politics. The first of them discusses the last electoral campaign and investigates modes of manipulation and dissimulation. The second is devoted to the famous history of M.Guelman's (the leading gallerist at Moscow) struggle against Z.Tsereteli (the state sculptor creating huge monuments in the centre of Moscow), which showed the totality of corruption even in the art-world. The third is about the ways the art-market corrupts or obliges artists for the conservation and sale of their "strategies," and the fourth continues that theme in a discussion the action of A.Brener at Stedelijk-museum in the light of these problems. The last sketch observes the history of "critical" and "politically engaged" discourse in the history of Russian intelligentsia. Sergey Kudryavtsev declares his position towards on the corrupted art and does it in a pretty ultimate way. The art project of the scientific-exploratory club "Panika" club demonstrates the militarist and repressive mentality of today's education through interviews with children. Oleg Mavromatti "What I think on..." is a literary text which laconically and ironically defines many different subjects and things. Alexander Brener's poem "A warning to Leiderman" describes how the author kills a fascist writer and editor Edouard Limonov. Internationale Situationniste is the central subject of the issue. This group of non-conformist politicians and philosophers headed by G. E. Debord existed in 1957-1971 and laid the groundwork for the Parisian events of May, 1968. We publish the collective writings "Questionnaire" and "Preliminary problems in constructing of situations", and the art-projects of R.Vaneigem, G.E.Debord etc. "Post-human", The article of international curator D.Deitsch is devoted to modern techniques of changing the human body and snows the non-human and anti-anthropologist roots of new imperialist ideologies. The conversation of A.Osmolovsky and O.Kireev which follows the text discuss and criticize that way of understanding the technologies and claim it to be, in Marxist terms, an instance of commodity fetishism. Alexander Tarasov observes the history of Russian anarchism and its contemporary turn to the "new left" ideology. In his view, this turn can have progressive results because of its radical break with the previously isolated and self-satisfied position of Russian left leaders. It brings to light many useful sources of experience, for example, the history of western leftist and guerilla movements. "General product", an exclusive interview with the Soviet-American artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, shows their dadaist position and their extraordinary place in the context of so-called "Russian Postmodernism". The artists discuss the position of contemporary art of so-called "modernism" within Western and Eastern societes, and state that most of Russian unofficial art's reasons for living were lost with the demise of their common enemy - the Soviet state. The ideology of the dadaist "total negation" might be the only thing which stays after that. Svilen Stefanov, artist and critic from Sofia, describes the history of Bulgarian radical art. That material lets us see many features of Eastern European cultural development which seem extremely important in the context of contemporary events. These are: the confrontation between the old generation of "left" authors who worked in the socialist 80s and the new generation of radicals. The main point is the views of new authors on the moral debts of "engaged" art and their struggle for the rejection from any forms of art elitism, intellectual and esthetic games etc. The magazine also concludes with reviews of recent books and events in the Moscow art world. Contact: 117333, Moscow, Vavilova 48-237, Kireev O.I., tel./fax: (095) 137 71 31, RADEK's WEBsite:(a few texts are in English). www.geocities.com/SoHo/Coffeehouse/1457 e-mail:radek@glasnet.ru |