A photographic work entitled “THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THEM” was created as a reaction to the period of a global pandemic. Modern humanity found itself in a state of bewilderment when, through the Internet, online media and social networks, a pandemic of disinformation, fake and unverified news began to spread, and brought public information to a state of complete dubiousness. Online platforms, which are a paradigm of virtual democracy, have provided great opportunities to various manipulators to create public discourse based on contradictory statements, digressions, the power of persuasion of gullible and confused people, creating a dangerous situation in which it is impossible to distinguish true information from false information. At the same time, a mass media, driven by profits, started distributing a large amount of information, news, analysis and research, forming a cacophony that led many people to a state of chronic anxiety, fear, and often complete nihilism. We could say that many people no longer had a vision of the future. Somehow, almost overnight, a war broke out between Russia and Ukraine. Corona crisis was no longer the main topic. This work is an embodiment and depiction of hypocrisy, socio-political manipulation and mass control, asking the question: to whom this kind of future actually belongs?
…
The Future Belongs to Them, is an ongoing project dealing with the political conception of the future, its obvious inevitability, but paradoxically enough, its uncertainty. In the Occidental view, which uses a linear conception of time, the future is the portion of the projected timeline that is anticipated to occur. How does the current political actions and decisions of a few, shape the future for so many?
If we could change the future, history would have been different.
The entire world is in constant turmoil and we are living in uncertain and treacherous times, in this day and age of growing number of extreme right wing ideologies, xenophobia, moralism, neo-nationalism and “contemporary puritanism”. In the past three years, we have been constantly bombarded with all possible health related, social, political and paranormal issues. The conspiracy theories, as a reaction, began spreading exponentially, causing so many troubles when it comes to general trust in our governments, lack of knowledge, stupidity boosted with overconfidence, hypocrisy, wrong convictions etc. From one lockdown to another one, informations and disinformations were mixed in such a chaotic system, that eventually made us pretty doubtful, maniacally questioning everything in our surroundings. Mass medias are competing in spreading fear and disastrous news, thriving on that, profiting and causing global chaos, confusion and dubiousness. On top of all pandemics and epidemics, a war between Russia and Ukraine escalated, causing chain reaction with some other geo-political conflicts, such as Israeli-Palestinian war, tensions between China and Taiwan, Serbia and Kosovo, pretending to lock the entire world in a permanent state of alert. There are also some other, never ending issues, like worldwide poverty, discrimination and injustice, hypocrisy of political immunity, dystopian rules, corporative-capitalistic precariat, insecurity, exploitation, forceful mass migrations, in other words, bitter survival in socio-economic, post pandemic jungle.
The Future Belongs to Them explores the concept of the future as an unreal social construct, and to whom that future actually belongs. Who deserves the future and who does not? And why? Is it a survival of the fittest? Is it even ethical to pose such a question, but the reality is merciless, claiming so many innocent victims and “unlived lives”. Finally, can we change the future with smart politics and current decisions?
This ongoing interdisciplinary project, consists of site specific photo and video installations, as well as textual installations in a form of a socio-political slogans. Since 2021, the project took place in Belgrade, Graz, New York, New Jersey and Los Angeles.
…
Postproduction by Danilo Mataruga, Edition 9 + 1 A/P
In the afternoon on September 11, 2023, immediately after the memorial service for the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York City was over, I showed up, holding a black panel with highly provocative slogan, standing before hundreds of very confused and intrigued visitors. I decided to leave when security arrived.
Before Dodger Stadium was a legendary baseball venue, it was known as Chavez Ravine. The area was home to generations of families, most of them Mexican American. Chavez Ravine was named after Julian Chavez, a rancher who served as assistant mayor, city councilman and, eventually, as one of L.A. County’s first supervisors. In 1844, he started buying up land in what was known as the Stone Quarry Hills, an area with several separate ravines. By the early 1900s, semi-rural communities had sprung up on the steep terrain, mostly on the ridges between the neighboring Sulfur and Cemetery ravines. Outsiders often saw the neighborhood as a slum. City officials decided that Chavez Ravine was ripe for redevelopment, kicking off a decade-long battle over the land.
They labeled it “blighted” and came up with a plan for a massive public housing project, known as Elysian Park Heights. Designed by architects Robert E. Alexander and Richard Neutra and funded in part by federal money, the project was supposed to include more than 1,000 units — two dozen 13-story buildings and 160 two-story townhouses — as well as several new schools and playgrounds.
In the early 1950s, the city began trying to convince Chavez Ravine homeowners to sell. Despite intense pressure, many residents resisted. Developers offered immediate cash payments to residents for their property. They offered remaining homeowners less money so residents feared that if they held out, they wouldn’t get a fair price. In other cases, officials used the power of eminent domain to acquire plots of land and force residents out of their homes. When they did, they typically lowballed homeowners, offering them far less money than their land was worth. Chavez Ravine residents were also told that the land would be used for public housing and those who were displaced could return to live in the housing projects. One way or another, by choice or by force, most residents of the three neighborhoods had left Chavez Ravine by 1953, when the Elysian Park Heights project fell apart. Norris Poulson, the new mayor of Los Angeles, opposed public housing as “un-American,” as did many business leaders who wanted the land for private development. The city bought back the land, at a much lower price, from the Federal Housing Authority — with the agreement that the city would use it for a public purpose. In June of 1958, voters approved (by a slim, 3% margin) a referendum to trade 352 acres of land at Chavez Ravine to the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Walter O’Malley. The following year, the city began clearing the land for the stadium. On Friday, May 9, 1959, bulldozers and sheriff’s deputies showed up to forcibly evict the last few families in Chavez Ravine. Residents of the area called it Black Friday. Crews broke ground for Dodger Stadium four months later, on September 17, 1959. While it was being built, the Dodgers played games at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The 56,000-seat Dodger Stadium opened on April 10, 1962, on a site that thousands of people had once called home.
Source: https://laist.com/news/la-history/dodger-stadium-chavez-ravine-battle
…
BODY AND TERRITORY, Group exhibition, Kunsthaus Graz, Austria, 25.05-27.08.2023
Branko Milisković * 1982 in Belgrade, Serbia
THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THEM (Todesmarsch/Labour camp), 2022 Two screen, 4K video installation, dimensions variable, 04:58 min, 4 min Camera: Maryam Mohammadi Graz, 2023
Supported by Styria A.i.R
Courtesy of the artist
Branko Milisković uses his own body as the main medium in his performances. He always engages in communication with the audience–even when he remains motionless, as in the “living installation” 710196, in which Milisković’s naked body lies for hours on a table in the exhibition space (the title, incidentally, quotes his social security number). In the process, Milisković negotiates questions of identity and nation, usually by slipping into roles, creating enigmatic figures or an alter ego that he resurrects again and again in long-term concepts. He is interested in “individual and social choreography” and the “power of stillness and repetition”, as reflected in his current video series THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THEM. Like a memorial, the artist pauses, text panels in hand, at various sites of historical significance – even if the importance is not necessarily visible at first glance, as is the case with Todesmarsch/Labour camp. The videos were created as part of an artist residency in Graz and were shot on the grounds of a former labour camp that briefly sheltered Hungarian Jews on a death march to the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1945. In the gesture of pausing, Milisković’s practice becomes a system of designated and highly self-controlled situations that the artist passes in order to leave a permanent trace.
https://www.museum-joanneum.at/en/kunsthaus-graz/our-programme/exhibitions/event/body-and-territory
Camera: Maryam Mohammadi
Video installations (stills), Liebenau, Former Nazi Labour Camp area. Graz, Austria, January 2023.
***
Project partially supported by The Ministry of Culture of Serbia
***
The entire world is in turmoil and we are living in uncertain and treacherous times. Mass medias are competing in spreading fear and disastrous news, thriving on that, and causing global chaos and confusion. On top of all the pandemics and epidemics, a war between Russia and Ukraine escalated, causing a chain reaction with some other political conflicts on stand by, bringing the entire world in never ending state of alert. In order to establish peace, total destruction is sometimes the only option left.
Live performance. Duration: 2 hours, Berensluis bridge, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
September 3rd, 2022
Photos. Galerie Ron Mandos
brankomiliskovic.wordpress.com 