[spectre] Fwd: 'The Situation of Unfreedom': final text by Ukrainian poet Konstantin Olmezov

[Andreas Broeckmann]

crossposted from nettime.

 Weitergeleitete Nachricht 
Betreff: 	 'The Situation of Unfreedom': final text by 
Ukrainian poet Konstantin Olmezov

Datum:  Thu, 24 Mar 2022 16:08:05 -0400

Ukrainian poet and mathematician Konstantin Olmezov died by his own hand 
four days ago, following an abortive attempt to escape Russia and return 
home. This is his final text, and in my view it deserves to be widely 
read and pondered.


THE SITUATION OF UNFREEDOM

by Konstantin Olmezov

From N+1 magazine

https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/the-situation-of-unfreedom/#fn2-24451

[The following essay contains discussions of suicide.]

[Introduction by Maya Vinokour, who also translated]

Konstantin Olmezov, a young Ukrainian mathematician and poet, died by 
suicide on March 20. He had come to Russia in 2018 to study a branch of 
mathematics—additive combinatorics—that was not well represented in his 
home country. He was a student at the elite Moscow Institute of Physics 
and Technology, whose list of alumni includes numerous Nobel Laureates. 
As his Telegram channel attests, he also wrote poetry on a large number 
of topics and in a variety of styles, meters, and moods—from moral 
tales, to ironic allegories, to sincere lyric.


Two days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Olmezov tried to go home but was 
apprehended by the FSB at a Moscow bus station. He was questioned and 
detained for fifteen days on trumped-up administrative charges. The 
experience shook him deeply. Fearing being trapped in a Russia he no 
longer recognized—and isolated from a Ukraine he couldn’t save—he 
tragically took his own life.


Olmezov’s death was first reported on Telegram by his lawyer, Dmitry 
Zakhvatov, who had been actively working to put together a second, more 
effective escape route for him. Olmezov had already secured a position 
at a university in Austria and purchased a ticket to Istanbul, but 
ultimately could not bring himself to face the terrifying prospect of 
further “unfreedom” at the hands of the Russian authorities.


Olmezov had created his Telegram channel [https://t.me/s/const_poems 
] on March 15, shortly after his release 
from FSB detention. The vast majority of the entries are poems copied 
over from his page on VKontakte, Russia’s version of Facebook. Perhaps 
Olmezov, observing the wholesale destruction of Russia’s independent 
media and the blocking of platforms like Twitter and Instagram, wanted 
to preserve his art in a safer-seeming forum. Just before his suicide, 
he left a series of final entries of shattering clarity and impact, 
mostly in prose but ending with a poem.


After his death was announced, passages from these final notes went 
viral on what is left of the free Russian internet. Olmezov’s Telegram 
channel doubled its subscriber count overnight. In translating his final 
missive, I hope to transmit his message to an even wider audience. It is 
not a hopeful message, but the world is not currently an especially 
hopeful place.


Olmezov is circumspect, but his circumspection is ironic and 
contradictory. He avoids the word “suicide” just as he largely avoids 
calling Russia’s war a war, a linguistic choice he negates through 
constant bitter emphasis on the new prohibitions in Russian public 
discourse. His circumlocutions are devastating, calling screaming 
attention to the very topics they ostensibly skirt. They are part of the 
euphemistic language of shock and trauma, which cannot name the things 
that hurt the most.


—Maya Vinokour

* * *

Hello. My name is Konstantin Olmezov. As of this writing, I am of sound 
mind and memory, and if you are reading it, most likely I will never 
write anything again.


Once, a long time ago, when I was first thinking seriouslyabout 
thatwhich cannotbe named on the Russian internet, I started looking for 
self-help videos. In one such video, a psychologist says that the main 
thought that drives almost everyone who intends to do this is: “The 
world owes me and the world has not lived up to my expectations.” I took 
this idea to heart and realized that, given the situation at the time, 
such a position was inappropriate—and the problem was solved. I returned 
to life relatively quickly.


But now, I think exactly this: “The world owes me and the world has not 
lived up to my expectations.”


The world should strive to correct errors. And it doesn’t. The world 
should be comprisedof thinking, empathetic, and responsible people. And 
it isn’t. The world should permit creative freedom and freedom of 
choice. And it constantly takes them away. The world should consider 
these demands normal. And it considers them excessive.


That which began on February 24 changed certain existential positions 
within me. It is more than horrible how people who only yesterday seemed 
to be leading quite mundane lives so easily acquired all the 
characteristics I’d read about in books. I am afraid our language 
doesn’t 

[spectre] EMAP 2022 call

[NeMe]

With the support of the European Union’s Creative Europe programme, and for
the next 3 years, the European Media Art Platform (https://emare.eu/)
expands its residency program for artists duos, collectives or other
artistic collaborations working in the fields of digital art, media art,
and bio-art to residencies in 15 countries.
European artists or collectives can apply with a project proposal for a
residency of two months within June 2022 to January 2023. The artists will
be collaborating with a person of their choice or a person local to the
host institution: Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria; Antre Peux, Bourges,
France; FACT, Liverpool, United Kingdom; gnration, Braga, Portugal; iMAL
Brussels, Belgium; IMPAKT [Centre for Media Culture], Utrecht, the
Netherlands; Kersnikova Institute (Kapelica Gallery), Ljubljana, Slovenia;
KONTEJNER, Zagreb, Croatia; LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial,
Gijón, Spain; M-Cult, Helsinki, Finland; NeMe, Limassol, Cyprus; Onassis
Stegi, Athens, Greece; RIXC Centre for New Media Culture, Riga, Latvia;
Werkleitz Centre for Media Art, Halle (Saale), Germany; WRO Art Center,
Wroclaw, Poland

The residency includes an invitation to the kick-off conference in Zagreb
17th-19th of June, a grant of €4,000 for the applying artist(s) including
subsistence costs, a grant of €2,000 for collaborating artist(s), a project
budget of €4,000, free accommodation, travel expenses up to €1,000, and
free access to technical facilities and/or media labs of the host
institution. It also includes a professional presentation and the option to
participate in exhibition tours at our members’ festivals/exhibitions in
2022-2024, plus the option to receive mobility/presentation grants if
exhibited by EMAP partner institutions.

Applications should be submitted online and must include a CV,
(audio-)visual documentation of previous works, and a preliminary plan and
presentation of the proposed project to be developed within the EMAP
Residencies programme. The collaborating artists do not have to be fixed at
the time of submission.

Applicants must be EU residents or taxpayers in an EU member country or the
UK.

Undergraduate and Master’s students are not eligible (PhD candidates are
accepted), but emerging artists, regardless of age and academic degree, are
encouraged to apply.

If you have any questions, please read the relevant section on
https://call.emare.eu/faq!

Deadline for applications: 27 April 2022
NeMe: http://www.neme.org

Follow us on
https://twitter.com/nemeorg/
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[spectre] (re)programming - Strategies for Self-Renewal [A READER]

[marcela]

Dear friends,

 

Aksioma is proud to present a new publication: 

 

(re)programming

Strategies for Self-Renewal 

[A READER]

 

  aksioma.org/reprogramming.book

 

Marta Peirano in conversation with Kim Stanley Robinson, Benjamin Bratton, 
Holly Jean Buck, Anab Jain, Kate Crawford, Joana Moll, Astra Taylor and Eyal 
Weizman

Editors: Marko Bauer, Janez Fakin Janša

 

-

 

What will it take for humanity to change its course and build a responsible 
future for the generations to come? And what can really be accomplished when we 
finally do this?

 

Inspired by   (re)programming festival of 
conversations, this reader presents the eight episodes in a ready-to-read 
format. It seeks to answer the above questions with contributions from 
world-class thinkers as well as specialists from the local and online 
communities.

 

  GET YOUR COPY HERE

 

-

 

ABOUT THE READER

 

As a growing population is sharing an ever-shrinking planet, we have found 
ourselves at an existential crossroads: do we bring the mistakes of the 
enlightenment and industrialization to their logical conclusion or should we 
develop a capacity to reprogram ourselves as a species, in order to survive? 
Some of the solutions might be technical but most of the obstacles are not.

 

Through surveillance, manipulation and escapism, multinationals and foreign 
governments are using the powerful tools that could help us manage the climate 
emergency to manage us instead. The apocalyptic narratives of destruction, 
natural selection and space colonisation distract us from the urgent need to 
manage our resources and mitigate a disaster.

 

The discussions documented in this reader focus on solutions, finding tools, 
words or visions across the different disciplines, from energy and 
infrastructure to community building and AI. They analyse the strategies used 
by successful communities and proposed by social and scientific institutions to 
help us reset and find the way back. Not to the way it was, but to the way it 
should have been: an engaged community that encompasses all living beings on 
this planet.

 

-

 

CREDITS

 

(re)programming: Strategies for Self-Renewal 

 

Publisher: Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, 2022

Co-publisher: Mladinski center Velenje, 2022

Outreach partner: NERO

In the framework of: konS – Platform for Contemporary Investigative Art

 

konS is a project chosen on the public call for the selection of the operations 
“Network of Investigative Art and Culture Centres”.

The investment is co-financed by the Republic of Slovenia and by the European 
Regional Development Fund of the European Union.

 

 

 

Marcela Okretič

Aksioma | Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana

Jakopičeva 11, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

 

Aksioma | Project Space

Komenskega 18, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

gsm: + 386 – (0)41 – 250830

e-mail: marc...@aksioma.org  

www.aksioma.org  

 

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[spectre] Reminder: THE KILL CLOUD: Networked Warfare, Drones & AI - March 25-27

[Tatiana Bazzichelli]

Dear all,

I would like to remind you about our upcoming conference THE KILL CLOUD:
Networked Warfare, Drones & AI at Kunstquartier Bethanien, 25 – 27
March, in Berlin. We would love to see you in person, but it will also
be possible to follow us online. A chat will be active on our website to
ask questions to our speakers from remote.

Challenging AI powered global military programmes & targeted killings
through civic action and whistleblowing.
Details: https://www.disruptionlab.org/the-kill-cloud

Keynote speakers are drone whistleblowers and intelligence analysts Cian
Westmoreland and Lisa Ling, co-authors of "The Kill Cloud: Real World
Implications of Network Centric Warfare", a revealing book chapter of
our anthology Whistleblowing for Change (transcript Verlag, November
2021), which gives the title to this conference.

Free digital version of the book:
https://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-5793-7/whistleblowing-for-change/

Former sensor operator Brandon Bryant, the first whistleblower that
analysed and exposed drone-systems and their strategies, will also be
present, together with AI researchers and experts, lawyers, journalists
and human rights advocates from Afghanistan, Germany and internationally.

The aim is to provide some understanding into ethical problems with the
use of AI and satellite technology to enable targeted killing via drones
and unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as give an insight into how
atrocities such as the collateral bombing of civilians without soldiers
can happen.

Diffusion of responsibility and desensitisation of conflicts are
characterising the network of modern warfare, which is based on a
complex interconnection of technologies and systems of hierarchy.

We believe that it is crucial to keep such debate alive internationally
and in Germany in particular, considering the presence of the U.S. air
force base in Ramstein.

The schedule of the events is here:
https://www.disruptionlab.org/the-kill-cloud#schedule

Full programme:
https://www.disruptionlab.org/the-kill-cloud#programme

Tickets: https://pretix.eu/disruptionlab/the-kill-cloud/

I hope to see you in person or online.

All the best,

Tatiana

-- 
Tatiana Bazzichelli // Artistic Director
Disruption Network Lab
http://disruptionlab.org
E-mail for personal messages: tbazz(at)disruptionlab.org
Twitter: @disruptberlin // @t_bazz
Fingerprint: A87C 3637 03ED 1D1C E6FE E828 1F55 2B2F F5A5 C9A0
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