Contingent Propositions
Installation of 283 digital collages. 13cm x 52m, 2015
czech / english / chinese version
A piecemeal, visually-oriented study of the background and historical consequences of late capitalism, its practices and outcomes led me to create comments and references, to my own version of footnotes. In order to orient myself better in this, I employed the tried and tested procedures of modernist collage, inspired by Baroque emblems complemented with text sections. My material consisted of newspaper cuttings from the Communist daily Rudé právo (1971-1989) and the post-revolutionary liberal daily Lidové noviny (1989-2008). On the basis of these local Czech newspaper sources mapping the demise of the two dominant ideological monsters of the 20th century, I am sketching out the coordinates of an as yet undisclosed global future. The recycling of documents of the past reveals clues leading to the Great Recession in 2008 and is perhaps also a reflection of the next form of the post capitalist world. Naturally in all modesty and within the bounds of possibility of an artist’s comments.
Photo (c) Adam Šakový
Photo from „So Far, So Right: A Study of Reforms and Transitions Across Borders“, TCAC, Taipei, 2018, english and chinese version
Script:
- It might seem that the oppression is not so heavy, but it is only a question of the degree of what can be endured.
- ONLY AN ILLUSION
COLLAPSE
Self-confidence
FATE
Human time
It is appalling to think about; better to remember jokes and sometimes that’s not possible either.
- Class fraternity
Structure of production relationships.
- The Americans have gone to the scrapheap of history. Their departure makes us sad.
- Contribution to characterizing imperialism
It thinks within itself without thinking itself.
- Conscious shaping of the future
Structure of production relationships and structure of the unconscious.
- Dialectics of social development
Some inventions are like a hammer: similarly simple and essentially effective.
- Modern slaves Modern slaves Misunderstanding of the sense of some event.
- Lawyer’s Structure of the unconscious.
- Bifurcation of the unconscious.
- Make use of every moment
The movement of photons through the skin occurs every day.
- ON THE EDGE
Hot diesel The conquest of space stands on firm foundations.
- THE BEGINNING OF A NEW PATH
The whole inhabited world has changed.
- Active resistance to bourgeois ideology It thinks within itself without thinking itself II.
- STUPIDITY CONTEST
Solidarity is a prerequisite of human coexistence.
- SOLIDARITY
Production relations and their interconnectivity.
- WE ARE PREPARED
We are not prepared.
- Cooperation
Commodity fetishism and its secret.
- AT THE CROSSROADS
Some trenches are very far away. This one leads right to your doorstep.
- They fear the truth
Being a nominalist leads to a very firm grasp of reality.
- Contribution to characterizing imperialism.
For all to see, but the stitches showing clear relations are invisible.
- TOGETHER A prerequisite is: to be born.
- Critically about criticism
Don’t believe your own eyes, but rely on them.
- The method of forgeries
IN THE NAME OF CAPITAL
Religious rhetoric provides a firm hand for any in.
- Active resistance to bourgeois ideology
Progress? In the struggle for a better future, it is a constant battle that never ends.
Pity, I was hoping there would be peace and quiet to work sometime.
- FUTURE WITHOUT A CEILING
Past without a floor.
- FUTURE WITHOUT A CEILING
Present without pictures on the walls.
- THIS DAY
Or any other day.
- Capitalist world
Anarchistic adventure
Power and power relations.
- Hysteria of reactionary forces
Revolutions and other events in a dark explanation.
- CHANGE
at this hour on this day Statistically nothing changes.
- Hysteria of reactionary forces
Peace good, good will prevail!
- HYPOCRISY
They incriminate themselves
ONE HAND WASHES THE OTHER
You don’t know whose you are; you don’t know what to think.
- STRUGGLE
Try God, or He will try you.
- SOCIAL CERTAINTY
Roast pigeons do not fall from heaven, and if they do fall they can kill you.
- The workers defended their factory
HASTY CONCLUSIONS
There are no factories; there are no workers.
- Imagination
Only imagination remains and it must be projected.
- There is success in complexity
Dialectic development on the planet Solaris.
- Months of terror
Appealing to psychologization.
- Foundations of cooperation
What is going on?
- What spectre is passing by Europe?
Illusions about themselves.
- Algorithm prepared for practical use in rocket research.
- Foundation
Flesh wrapping bone, skin covering flesh.
- Programme of disruption
Unexpected difficulties of financial liquidity.
- Poets and their poems in the age of poets.
- Alpha Centauri within reach; everything is prepared.
- Scientific and technical development and management
Social upheavals.
- EUROPEAN OPTIONS
One-way journey into space. The last act of violence on others.
- Get up and speak!
Time travel or only redundant action.
- Reaction escalates terror
The sign of defeat consists those forms that make ordinary things horrific instruments.
- APPROACHES
Success is in complexity
The incalculable power of money.
- Community of monopolies
Communism of corporations and their annuitants.
- LARGE SCALE MANIPULATION
Don’t believe what you see, don’t believe what you hear.
- Focal points of resistance growing
Everyone will need vegetables. Without vegetables there will be scurvy.
- Economic treaty – instrument of control
What is evident is constantly repeated, to universal surprise.
- Truth cannot be silenced
Everyone knows it, everyone knows what to do.
- Reactions do not break the people
Such a situation may last for ages.
- Propaganda of intimidation and deception
Disappointment in something that can be looked forward to. That is not spectacular.
- Document the supremacy of socialism
Seeking what is dead deadens the living.
- Wealth of a few, poverty of many
HOW TO LIVE
HOW TO GO ON?
Priceless answer.
- Assumptions
Space station being built on Earth for now.
- Aspiration to reality
Changes
Technology brings new forms of slavery.
- DISCLAIMER AND REALITY
Nothing is decided
Obsolete awareness might help with today’s difficulties.
- WHAT THEY ARE ATTEMPTING
Time’s arrow infallibly leads our hands.
- There is only one Fascism
Search on the financial markets, under the carpet, everywhere.
- OPTIONS OF COOPERATION
Cooperation as a programme
Conferences of the rich versus poverty
Everyone cooperates! What not us?
- Growth in exchange of goods
The art of expressing oneself by one’s own productivity.
- LETTER
Irrational numbers and what they reveal.
- Sources of growth and activity
Artistic intuition in the service of production.
- Dynamics of growth
Intuition multiplied by requalification courses.
- THE CHANGING COUNTRY
Immobility on other planets.
- Patience. Patience. Patience.
- A promising launch
Space station being built on Earth for now II.
- CONTROL
Belongs to the scrapheap of history
Everyone should remember that, even though it’s no use for anything.
- We realize our goals
The subject that acts is lost.
- Traders
The greatest invention of the Anthropocene.
- The danger of Fascism continues
Search on the financial markets, under the carpet, everywhere.
- No one is allowed to starve or freeze. Anyone who starves or freezes will be sent to a concentration camp.
- Crisis seeks victims
Even mice have access to bank loans.
- OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN
It’s not winning that’s important, but taking part.
- One does not live just for oneself
He who does not run away loses.
- He who does not see it will not believe.
- On questions of theory
The question of the issue of the subject emerges again.
- WATER
The simplest questions and answers.
- We found a system
Structures are not visible to the naked eye.
- Disturbing facts
Structures materialize in unpredictable relations and ties.
- INHUMAN PLANS
The greatest discovery of the Anthropocene.
- Brawl over a fat morsel
In every anthill there are still undiscovered nooks.
- FACTS
In society it is fitting to be a nominalist.
- Constant reduction in living standard
The mark of shame on the face of humanity
Romantic notion: Good and Evil.
- The fight resumes
Sleep strengthens and anticipates awakening.
- ONE DAY LIKE ANOTHER
Entropy is enemy number one.
- RESILIENCE
V.I. Lenin: Learn, learn, learn.
- The fight for truth
Proteins do not participate in the class struggle by themselves.
- The West in the grip of crisis
Report the news at the end,
- DARKNESS IS NOT ETERNAL
This line does not work either in times of darkness or even in lighter ones.
- Poison in the atmosphere again
Factories for learning
The dialectical issues of history dealt with in universities.
- Regime of terror and vengeance
Television broadcast repeated every hour. Constantly.
- We think of tomorrow
Buildings and their interior structures have their own logic.
- Work of generations
Who does not steal, does not lie, does not kill and thinks of children?
- Unequivocal agreement
You’ve seen it on TV, read it on the Internet, shared it on facebook.
- How power and law are bought
The academic sector of production relations is also able to participate.
- Convoluted development
Some answers only found after decades of asking the wrong questions.
- NEED FOR A SOLUTION
The legacy of colonialism manifested in detail.
- Against the raids of aggressors and colonialists
Conviction that colonialism is no more.
- Easing tensions the foundation of world politics
Technology overcomes obstacles on the way.
- Continent shifting
Pangaea ploughs out gulfs and ravines on the way to the new order.
- Who is afraid of truth
Infinity is a sequence of finite points.
- Historical watershed
Unobservable seams, though well visible against the light.
- You can shout, but no one will hear you.
- Everything is going well. It’s like a divine plan.
- No one has yet decoded the signals of extraterrestrial civilizations.
- The launch rockets are prepared, the astronauts trained.
- Telecommunications.
- The engine room is kept clean and tidy.
- Effectiveness of criticism
Self-criticism is an even better learning tool.
- Psychology and telekinesis I.
- Psychology and telekinesis II.
- Psychology and telekinesis III.
- Psychology and telekinesis IV.
- VIOLENCE AS A PROGRAMME
Applied psychology and telekinesis.
- Fascist dictatorship in crisis
The clean, tidy engine room from another perspective.
- Unemployment – a disease of capitalism
Oft-repeated truths become false.
- Mirror of fate.
- Uncertainty and discrimination
Fibres and capillaries are not invulnerable, they must be constantly repaired.
- Unsubstantiated rumours
Hurricanes are created artificially and specially targeted at certain locations.
- Racist conspiracy
When is that orbital station going to be ready?
- INSTRUMENT AND VICTIMS OF CAPITAL
What will there be after the capitalist era? When did it end?
- How simple and obvious it all is
The machine only has to be plugged into the socket. And that’s it.
- Sharp ears
Sounds of pulsars, neutron stars and red giants.
- Psychological warfare failed again
It’s enough to redraw the map and start again.
- Financial effects of crisis
Yes. Hyperinflation is here. The biggest bogeyman of all time.
- Hazardous deals
He who risks and survives. Can be glad he’s alive.
- INCREASINGLY HEAVY BURDEN
Pressure on the control system and on those who control.
- Under the patronage of the CIA
Large white leather purse.
- Reactions take revenge on the defenceless
Large white leather purse on a chain with a snap hook.
- armament
Large white leather purse on a chain with a snap hook in trouser back pocket.
- POSITIONS OF THE BIGGEST SUPRANATIONAL OIL MONOPOLIES
Large storage supplies of barrels, the sign of a good manager.
- Promises of new rulers
Terrism
The hope that our system is not built on the exploitation of others, that it is independent.
- Three minutes of tension
All that can be said in a few seconds.
- Mrs. Thatcher’s class war
History of repeated events.
- TERROR AND REPRESSION
The hope that our system is built on the exploitation of others, but indirectly.
- Canon, whip and repression
The hope that our system is built on exploitation by others.
- Resistance growing
The hope that our system is not built on our exploitation.
- Tension
The hope that our system can be changed.
- Fascists take revenge
Problems of intergalactic transport ships.
- ASSEMBLY
This is a methodological break.
- On questions of economics
Burial. Part of the economic processes.
- Mass murder “as a deterrent”
Symbolic world and actions and reactions.
- FORECAST
What wants to be said by talking.
- COMPLICATED DEVELOPMENT
Distracting attention by talking of inconsequential things.
- Good results
Method carried to perfection. No discrepancies.
- The ruthless mirror
Multiplication of multiplications.
- A PERSON LIVES AMONG PEOPLE
As if it meant something.
- MILLIONAIRES’ CLUB
Come and join us! Make an effort, or you’ll rot.
- New moments of capitalist crisis
Trying to blame it on natural laws again.
- The basic motive is cooperation
He who does not understand must go again on requalification courses.
- The incorrigible
Further multiplication of multiplications.
- Reverse the dangerous development of events
The useless are gradually realizing their status.
- Change the world for the better
The Hadron Collider and the price it all cost.
- Keeping the pace
The fuel for the particle accelerator doesn’t make itself.
- LOYALTY FOR LOYALTY
Loyalty is the most valuable quality of an employee I.
- TOO CRUEL A GAME
What really was? After death it is easily recognized.
- Hysteria and what it serves
An instrument of propaganda. Energy dosed at short intervals.
- INTERNATIONAL AIR CORRIDOR
Transparent hysteria
Monuments to hysteria line the main streets of big cities.
- Aggression
of method
The possibility of choice gets lost under the weight of oppressive conditions.
- CURRENCY QUADRILLE
Development of dance under the dictate of economical interests.
- Assault weapon of mass destruction of people.
Musical instruments and musical boxes developed under the auspices of good.
- ARTIST’S VOICE
Passionately recited poems of love, life and death.
- The way of historical transformations
Artists are capable of capturing the nuances of joy and a satisfied life.
- LOVE FOR LOVE
The imperative of ancestors transmitted to the future with the help of bio-politics.
- The testimony of archives
The imperative of ancestors transmitted to the future with the help of politics.
- It’s not possible just to think about the future
The Hadron Collider and its operators.
- Loyalty is the most valuable quality of an employee II.
- Why they are silent now
Loyalty is the most valuable quality of an employee. The ability to enforce it.
- They live in our memory
The Hadron Collider will soon be ready.
- Collapse
New reinforcements in the race to the centre of the earth.
- Terrorist training
Enemies have to be cultivated.
- The lesson of history still topical
Repetition of events refreshes the memory. It crystallizes decision-making.
- Despite the terror
Hadron Colliders in the hands of terrorists could inflict immense damage.
- Equality of women and the struggle for peace cannot be separated
The strategy of renaming old inequalities as new terms.
- Fabrications instead of facts
Elimination of the enemy by hi integration.
- Double metre
The so-called active metre and the so-called passive metre.
- For liquidation of all forms of economic colonialism
An old adage: Measure twice, cut once.
- What structural changes?
An old adage: You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
- He who doesn’t want to
We’ll help him there. And if not we, then definitely they.
- Encounter with the system
Don’t let the victim exhale, he won’t be able to resist.
- Common experimental base
Innovation in the area of manual and auxiliary work.
- Great future of space stations
Evoking model situations as preparation for complicated future problems.
- Authentic reflection of the present
The past mined from old auxiliary apparatuses.
- There’s no room for complacency
Construction of spaceships, a necessary prerequisite of corporate success. 192. Coordination
Of aggression
Shock. Research opposes experienced reality.
- Insidious messengers of death
Experiments get out of control only in exceptional cases.
- Illusion revealed by one logical trick: Feedback.
- Instrument
Illusion revealed by one logical trick: Critical stance.
- PUBLIC DISCUSSION
Democracy and its forms in the advanced stage of capitalism.
- Sense of reality
We’re alone! We’re alone! We’re alone!
- Reconciliation is a chance, not an illusion
Surrender, nothing will happen to you.
- Encounter
Theme of a movie: The most moving moments come to one when one least expects it.
- Thinking pays off
Symposium, the basic unit of disciplinary arrangement.
- Let’s consolidate forces to carry out the programme of rebuilding society
The old is collapsing, the new must be helped into life.
- White square on a maquette
New forms of art built on the foundations of a black square.
- Prospects
Mid-morning exercise. Roles are switched in the afternoon.
- A spectre haunted Europe
It is said that spectres do not exist. They never left.
- Devastation, fiction, debt…
Truth revealed to economists only after death.
- Battle or competition?
Truth revealed to corpses only after death.
- Future filled with problems
Truth revealed to the yet unborn.
- Period of cardinal transformations
The evolutionarily impossible is becoming reality.
- ARE WE DECAYING?
Not yet understood evolutionary processes I.
- No turning back
Not yet understood evolutionary processes II.
- Error
Not yet understood evolutionary processes III.
- Change of system
The building of spaceships creates the impression that it is about an escape strategy, but have no fear, we won’t leave you here.
- and for the better times?
And if we do leave you, you won’t be badly off here.
- Alone finally; those annoying others are no longer here.
- Animals prepared!
Take example from them!
- Consumer society the road to perdition
Guerrilla war without unequivocal victors.
- Fire on the horizon, an extraordinary situation is becoming a routine matter.
- Funereal quiet
You’re alone! You’re alone! You’re alone!
- Range of conditions
If it wasn’t for that, there wouldn’t be this. Vice versa.
- No one can stop the market now
The party has begun. Join in each day from 6:00 a.m. with a symbolic hurrah.
- State versus market
The party continues; join in each day from 6:00 pm with a symbolic hurrah, then you can go home.
- Truth revealed to passers-by by the way.
- End of monopoly
The truth that no one will ever find out.
- Preserved moments
Museum of victims.
- Fire on the horizon; what is an extraordinary situation?
- Ptydepe
It’s necessary to set up processes so that the mistakes peculiar to certain set-up processes are not repeated.
- The problem of squaring the circle
Some processes are set up badly; it is necessary to set them up again and better.
- The past has overlapped the present
The arrow of time and its capricious and mischievous malevolence.
- End of the era of schizophrenia
From now on everything will be fine.
- QUEUE FOR THE FUTURE
On the other side a different world awaits; just one signature and salvation is guaranteed.
- A chance for everyone
Joy of victory for no one.
- A one-way street cannot under any circumstances be driven through from the other end.
- A two-way street is designed for passage in both directions.
- Fatality of production processes I.
- hope for the future
Fatality of production processes II.
- Fatality of production processes III.
- hope for the future
Faster, more accurate weapons.
- Majority approval of arms manufacture
Peace cannot be built on the production of peace goods: that would be illogical I.
- No one is alone, and if you feel that way, we’ll come to see you.
- Peace cannot be built on the production of peace goods: that would be illogical II.
- Absolute truth
You, too, will become a commodity and your relationships will also be commoditized!
- Absolute truth constructed on the basis of endlessly repeated little lies.
- Food for the global flow of capital I.
- Food for the global flow of capital II.
- Melanoma, free space travel.
- Small joys of the proletariat I.
- Small joys of the proletariat II.
- YOUR BEST MOVE ON THE EQUITIES MARKET
STOCK-LIST
Man’s best friend the horse.
- Man’s best friend the hen, which never disappoints.
- Liberty, equality, fraternity…
Allegiance to the ideals of the revolution, whoever stole them.
- Unemployment
Man and his failure in the face of the universe.
- Privatization without anaesthetic
Man and his great victory over the universe.
- The market will not protect the environment
A mimesis that can also be used for reinforcing narcissism.
- Objects are “shrinking”
Natural laws exposed to “market” principles.
- Unrest
Do they want to pay? We give nothing to anyone for free.
- The struggle for justice does not end
The commoditization of everything has triumphed at 89%.
- ONE MONTH FREE!!
The commoditization of everything has triumphed at 90%.
- Microcosm and macrocosm in the dialectical development of consumer society.
- Congratulations!
You are exceptional and therefore you have been chosen for the dangerous mission of saving mankind I.
260 he bet cleverly on evolution
Sexual practices carried as far as the fulfilment of all libidinal imaginings.
- Basic building blocks and liquids.
- Artificial brain is able to learn
Copulation as an innovative production principle.
- Machines cleverer than people?
Sexual practices inspired by human ones.
- Darwin’s bad dream of the 21stcentury world
Sexual degradation.
- Sex
Violent sexual practices are the precise image of the majority of capitalist deeds.
- Nezdokuntovatelné The undocumentable crimes of capital and its minions.
- FREE!
You are exceptional and therefore you have been chosen for the dangerous mission of saving mankind II.
- Estimates of the future state of the world are generally imprecise
Capital and its prognostic capabilities.
- The Third World did not greatly appreciate the new world order
Trust cannot be gained by blackmail and money for bribery will run out one day.
- Accumulation of capital I.
- Hopes of a quick end to the war are fading, markets falling
Accumulation of capital II.
- Accumulation of capital and masochism.
- A free person has the possibility of choice at every historic moment I.
- Surrender or die
A free person has the possibility of choice at every historic moment II.
- Fuels will be readily available and renewable.
- Virtual reality will soon replace the sector of fatigued services.
- Share value is still rising; we’re on the right track.
- Financial portfolio full of packages ensuring continuously growing profits.
- work until death
The right to work for all.
- You, too, will have a contented, just life one day I.
- New stimulus for mortgages
You, too, will have a contented, just life one day II.
- Mortgage: today even for the less affluent
You, too, will have a contented, just life one day III.