'APPEAL 2012': Kim Gurney interviews Elgin Rust in a
written exchange about her forthcoming research project and collaborative
exhibition that spans art, law and the media, opening 11 September in
Johannesburg.
KG: One element that recurs to
me in the story behind 'APPEAL 2012' is the question of voice. Achille Mbembe
has spoken a lot recently about the capacity to voice and how this is linked to
a crisis of language in this country, and in turn to imagination. And this
project really began with the silencing of your voice. In what ways would you
consider your project an exploration of giving voice?
ER: 'APPEAL' is the continuation of an investigation that I
initiated in 2008 for my Masters at Michaelis School of Fine Art, UCT. And yes,
its roots can be traced back to a personal experience of the judiciary. One
where I felt like my voice was silenced and which propelled me into this
journey investigating redress and what I have come to term aesthetic redress.
It now attempts to allow other voices represented by a 'jury' of artistic
collaborators to explore notions around the judiciary.
KG: You speak about processes of "aesthetic
redress", how the work may trigger memory for the audience to imagine the
invisible rather than seeking to reveal some kind of hidden essentialist truth.
Would you elaborate on how 'APPEAL' may explore this?
ER: I guess it would do so in a similar way as the initial
fictional trial did in 2010. R v Judicial Redress was and still is
driven by the invented characters Advocate Alice and Detective Prince. They
collected 'evidence' from various Cape Town based courts and re-staged the
material as a performative installation - the trial. This was based on three
precedents that encapsulate aesthetic redress: research + reconstruction + reinterpretation. It is a process that led me to play an
aesthetic game by re-staging heterogeneous objects and processes based in the
aesthetic and judicial realm. This revealed a clash, which is part
deconstruction and part constructive affirmation of subjectivity.
For 'APPEAL', I have invited a jury of participants
from different disciplines to re-investigate the same material. Much like a
trial gets re-opened for an appeal where evidence is re-evaluated, the project
is re-opened and investigated. And like a case that goes into an appeal moves
between courts, the project now moves location from Cape Town to Johannesburg.
The exhibition comprising the evidence and part of the
installation will be 'trial ready' for the opening 11 September. Over the
ensuing fortnight, the jury will incorporate its judgements, understood as
opinions, estimates, notions, or conclusions. I hope the collaborative
processes will reflect the complex nature of emotional transformation. A
vernissage will close the 'APPEAL' on 24 September.
 |
R v JR (installation view) (2010)
Mixed medium installation of found material from courthouses
Dimensions: variable
Photo credit: Dave Robertson
|
KG: One of the main symbols that you use in the installation
is a ship. What is the significance of this visual metaphor for you?
ER: The metaphor of the ship is effectively used by many
artists to express concerns around imagination, migration, colonialism and
globalisation. Yinka Shonibare, Cai Guo-Qiang, Kcho and closer to home Cara van
der Westhuizen and Renée Holleman come to mind. Unlike Shonibare's ship, which
is made using Dutch wax fabric, the ship for the trial Das Narrenshiff
is made entirely from found courtroom furniture -- the evidence collected by
the detective for the case. It is conceptually based on Sebastian Brant’s The
Ship of Fools, a reference indirectly to my roots but more
pertinently to law as a problematic colonial import. The ship stands where
the participants of a trial act out the controlled ritual of truth-finding. It
invites us to play an imaginative game, with notions of childhood memories and
contemporary social concerns.
KG: The project crosses mediums, from photography, to found
objects to sculpture and sound. Tell me something about how this enables your
conceptual ends.
ER: The play across different mediums allows for play
between the judicial and aesthetic realm. Photographs, physical evidence and
sound clips are read very differently when positioned in the court or in a
gallery. This game as described by Jacques Rancière, deconstructs, in a
Derridean sense the meaning, revealing inherent unresolvable binaries, which
create space for new meaning. This breaking of past and present, which leads to
an overload of meaning, reveals the fragility of materials, images and messages
in the installation. The deconstruction
of materiality is what makes it possible for the work to offer alternatives for
emancipated subjectivities.
KG: Your work is described as a kind of serial, performative
installation, much like a shifting archive of meaning. In an earlier personal
conversation, we touched on an apparent increasing incidence in contemporary
art-making that approaches the archival. Yet often this does not extend beyond
the catalogue to personal affect, a realm wherein your work finds full meaning.
What in your view is the key to this bridge?
ER: The key is the incorporation of affect, something that
got a bit lost in the 60’s and 70’s, the heyday of critical art. It was so
focussed on interrogating social systems by mimicking them that the artist's
personal touch almost completely disappeared. This project mimics the judicial
system but it also elicits affect as it incorporates the artist's mark. This
leads the viewer to see rather than to think the truth -- a truth that is
viscerally sensed, also termed by Deleuze as sense memory. Process art has a
long historical trajectory with affect or sense memory, which is understood to
run deeper than visual memory. According to Deleuze, this “seeing feeling” is
achieved by looking at the "how”, or the production of answers. These
emerge though the game-play.
 |
Process sketch (2010)
Dimensions: A4
Elgin Rust |
KG: You have also chosen to work collaboratively with other
artists. Can you give an example of how such collaboration has worked in the
past to serve the project's broader purpose?
ER: The exhibition 'JUDGEMENT-UITSPRAAK'
hosted by The AVA Gallery in Cape Town in 2011 was the first move in that
direction. I invited artists to spend time in the initial trial installation R v Judicial Redress set up for the 'Masters Moving Out' show facilitated
by the Michaelis Gallery to produce a work in response. The 14 judgements were
curated alongside elements from the initial trial installation, including Das
Narrenschiff. The artists worked mostly in their respective studios to
produce new work using material of their own choice. These judgements which,
while offering up some closure, nonetheless remain open-ended and up for
discussion. The responses were varied. From Max Wolpe’s ink drawing and Nina
Liebenberg’s performance piece to the direct interventions of Bridget Baker and
Sonja Rademeyer into pre-existing material or requested evidence. These
immediate interventions caught my eye.
KG: What role do you think artists have to play regarding
social justice if any; and how might a broader "trauma culture" that
you cite from Hal Foster underscore this?
ER: The primary aim of the court aside from law-making and
law enforcement is to resolve disputes and redress violations of rights. The
manner in which disputes are resolved has far-reaching effects especially for
South Africa emerging from the apartheid regime, which abused the judicial
system to enforce an unjust society. It is therefore pertinent for all South
Africans to continually keep vigil, to contribute, and to protect an
independent judiciary. The shadow of the law shapes society and society shapes
the law. The awareness of this circular nature should encourage voices to
re-imagine the judiciary. This dialogue fuelled by artists potentially has the
power to embolden courts to produce creative and innovative judgements that no
longer perpetuate what Foster terms a “trauma culture” but rather a culture of
emotional redress.
KG: Recently Khulumani Support Group in South Africa was
successful on behalf of 25 South Africans in receiving a settlement from a US
court against corporations that produced parts for military vehicles used by
the apartheid regime to carry out raids and assassinations. How do you view
such compensation in light of the concerns of your project?
ER: From what I understand, the settlement of [US]$1.5
million will be split between the Khulumani Group and the claimants represented
by Lungisile Ntsebeza. In the larger picture, it is just a very small
settlement from a company that has gone bankrupt. In light of my project, it’s
how these funds are put to use which is interesting. Money goes a long way to
cover actual incurred cost but I believe emotional redress cannot be bought.
That is why the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was so important. Also
interesting is the fact that the reason this case could go to court was the
Alien Tort Claims Act, which allows non-US citizens to bring cases against
non-US citizens in a US court. As a precedent it is interesting because it
paves the way for litigation against multinational corporations and foreign
banks that financed the apartheid government. The snowball effect could be
endless.
KG: Of what particular significance is bringing this
research project to Johannesburg?
ER: Johannesburg is richly steeped in matters pertaining to
the judiciary. It houses the Constitutional Court and places like the Drill
Hall. It seemed like a logical progression to allow for a broader band of
artists and audience. This attempts to further an awareness of the role art can
play in making abstract social systems more tangible. It also activates a
visual and theoretical discourse between cities across art, law and media.
KG: What is next for Elgin Rust, once 'APPEAL 2012' has
come and gone?
ER: I would like the project to travel more. And seeing the
response I had from people outside of South Africa, I believe this model can
still be taken further. Dakar springs to mind… [laughs]. The project containing
all the research, evidence and the various manifestations thereof is documented
and archived online. The call is open for interested
parties to get involved. In the interim, I am looking towards 'Infecting the
City' [public arts festival in Cape Town] in 2013. But for now I will
continue to take it one step at a time.
 |
R v JR (installation view) (2010)
Mixed medium installation of found material from courthouses
Dimensions: variable
Photo credit: Dave Robertson
|
Elgin Rust is an
artist, researcher and cultural practitioner based in Cape Town.
Kim Gurney is an
artist, researcher and journalist based in Johannesburg. She helps curate
'APPEAL 2012' through guerilla gallery, an artist-led initiative.
