GALLERY 2010/2011

This paper poses some strong challenges to the Capital of Culture concept. Basing their critique on the work of David Harvey, the authors argue that in a neoliberal political atmosphere that emphasizes universal norms of political behavior, cultural specificity is used to answer economic imperatives to differentiate products – in this case, actual cities seeking tourism and development resources. The interaction between political transnationalism, national identities, and various forms of culture is a crucial area of study and action today, and the authors use Harvey’s insights in a very useful way in their discussion of Belgrade’s mix of internationalism and hype, the increasing political liberty and the merchandising of its identity. The essay ends up being pretty depressing, in seeing cooptation by global capitalism as virtually inevitable in any effort to increase the interaction between Serbia and the rest of Europe in substantive political and cultural terms. This cooptation would appear to be inevitable in any cultural expression in a schema in which celebration of difference must be channeled into apolitical activities and commercial branding.

It is always easier to identify problems than offer alternatives, which does not lessen the power of the critique. But I wonder if the authors can offer some specifics of how they would escape this dynamic in encouraging cultural development of Belgrade in the new political environment, as they hoped to do in their original involvement with the project. Have any other cities involved in the Cultural Capital project managed to do so? I have a colleague who is studying the long-term effect of the designation in Avignon, France – how it helped some on-the-ground social and cultural projects, and how it failed to do so for others. What might the goals in Belgrade be? And are there ways to achieve them in an “Alternative Capital” project? Is that worth pursuing?

This is a very interesting and highly academic piece of critical writing. In some places the arguments are very sophisticated and productive for a better understanding of some of the conditions of cultural production in Belgrade and function well in the way they combine contemporary theoretical analysis with practical examples.
A number of concepts used (creative zombies, urban machines, despots of enlightenment, fascist terminology deployed within neoliberal discourse, etc.) would have benefited from some more detailed discussion of the ideas that inform them, however. In addition, and so as to avoid the condition in which the essay remains a more particular discussion of a specific case study, and the immediate connection between the subject of its discussion and the theme of Memefest is lost, an introduction framing the essay into the some of the more general questions raised by the concepts of love, conflict, and imagination would have been helpful as would have been a longer conclusion along much some the same lines. The essay would also have benefited from a detailed review and correction of its use of the English language as this, as it currently stands, occasionally made the essay quite hard to follow and give it the full attention its ideas deserve.
One of the questions future work on this essay, or other work arising out of it, could answer in more detail pertains to the possibilities of resistance. This could be followed by an enumeration of a broad range of specific and practical examples of such resistance, the dangers they face, and their cultural, intellectual and even pedagogic use value. All this could be presented in such a way that it would be meaningful for those living outside Belgrade but concerned with implementing change in their own environments, too.