SFitze issue 02 2022
-newsplatter by ST-
[issue 02 2022]
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This has turned out to be a trickle of a newsletter. Only two issues out, yet I hope in 2022 I am going to step up the game. Here I will try and sum up one of the most important events I have been an integral part of. Without any doubt in my mind, it is maybe one of the most important in my entire life. It macerated for an indefinite time and perhaps it could explain the Fermi Paradox rarity of SFitze newsletters.
In the autumn of 2021, just before the last Covid-19 wave struck Romania full power, we opened NEW TEMPOrealitites: The Xenogenesis (Timpuri Noi: Xenogeneze ale SF-ului), an exhibition dedicated to SF. It finally happened after more than 2 years of preparation, with much delay and me nearly giving up on it. Yes, like everything else, it seemed stuck in a peculiarly nebulous limbo, preferring a virtual impalpable status as one of the ‘lesser existences’ (in the words of Étienne Souriau). Many thanks to all those that intensified and pushed it into enhanced existence, making it more and more probable. I apologize in advance to all those whose names I did not manage to celebrate, offer enough visibility, or due mention in the current SFitze newsletter or in other materials relating to the show.
Long time New Temporealties was just a rough blueprint with toy spaceships, rudimentary drawings, names on Post-its, all sketched on the backside of an old poster. Maybe one can find inklings of this in the previous series of cozzzmonautica sleep sessions I have been co-curating and organizing over the years (since 2006) in various cities around the globe.
Yet, with the express help of co-curators Vasile Leac (publisher of one of the very first SF poetry collections in Romanian) and Alexandru Ciubotariu (historian and chronicler of Romanian comics and archivist of fanzines) I embarked on a curatorial tour de force at the Scena 9 residency exhibition space right at the center of the Romanian capital. New Temporealities/Timpuri Noi was dedicated to the constant drift of Science Fiction epiphenomena outside the borders of the SF genre per se. Even the term “anticipation” was questioned by this show, a term traditionally used in Romanian for Science Fiction literature (literatură de anticipaţie), as we tried to emphasise how SF can and should also dis-anticipate and un-predict certain trends or prefigured futures and tommorowlands.
This meant pulling various disparate pieces and distilling some life-long obsessions. It is difficult (and perhaps utterly boring) to retell all the various key encounters, research trips, and organic collaborations that have made this quite ambitious show a reality. Nothing would have happened without these fortunate and opportune discussions, negotiations, debates, suggestions, friendships in a difficult time and under COVID pandemic conditions. All these occasions have resulted in practical solutions that have emerged only out of an intensely collaborative substrate.
Together with Alin Răuţoiu and Suzana Dan (also the manager of rezidenta Scena 9 space, a friend and enabler of this show!), I have been able to illustrate in the central hallway of the exhibition space, with the help of a series of infographics - perhaps some of the most relevant directions I have tried to touch upon. Two these infographics are by Alin R./Trepanatsii publishing. First one has been documenting a quirky speculative ‘phylogenesis’ of alien memetics and extraterrestrial politics (gathered from the breath of the last 10~ years or so). The second one - “X-Invasion”, based on a previous article by Alin R and Bogdan Iordache helped visualize the various artistic immigration waves, thus countering the usual alien invader SF trope - with a mapping of how these various historical waves have shaped and forever change the US comics majors over the years.
Another central infographic by Suzana Dan was a partial mapping of the local networks and fluctuating social infrastructures that have made possible such a bloom of SF clubs (called “cenacle” in Romanian) from its very beginnings (in 1969 - 1970 Bucharest/Timisoara). One should not see this map only as synchronic but also as diachronic, with a temporal width and with all these centers blinking on and off during the years.
Certainly, such a fandom is not specific to just Romania or SE Europe, but one could argue that the whole East bloc has nurtured a healthy disposition towards organized forms of SF fandom. This Socialist-era fandom was avid for new translations from elsewhere, be it from Russian, Italian, Spanish, German, French, English, Polish, etc. prolific in output and was always curious and internationalist in scope. In a few years, cca 1971, Adrian Rogoz, was outlining the “rules of a good cenacle”, the aims, organizational structure, collectivist ethos, with intense libidinal energies barely contained by a rapid urban spread of SF clubs in Târgu Mureş, Cluj, Iaşi, Braşov, Galaţi joining Bucharest/Timişoara with Student Cultural Houses (case de cultură ale studenţilor) hosting regular SF gatherings and ceremoniously scripted meetings.
We drew a small galaxy (based on the work of Romanian SF historians/authors such as Mircea Opriţă) as if the sky would have landed on the earth. This map has basically supplanted (in our minds and hearts) the well-known topography and place-names of Romanian cities and urban agglomerations with SF-resounding names such as HG Wells, Solaris, Alphaville, The Fifth Dimension, Antares, Fantastron, Brain, Quasar, Alternativ SF, Paradox, Altair, Andromeda, etc. and many others (on the last count - more than 70+!).
The “SF cenacle” constellation is a legend of its own. Its jagged dynamics and fabulous clashes and anecdotes merit a show of their own. Some have only existed in name, like falling stars during brief explosions of enthusiasm & can-do spirit, popping up into existence and then disappearing into obscurity. Some have shaped scientific careers, and others are still existing with dwindling membership, yet they are still organizing short story competitions, publishing fanzines, reading, translating, reviewing avidly and awarding prizes.
Another one was done with the help of materials gathered by Vasile Leac and historian Cătălin Ghercioiu tracing an alternative timeline of alien encounters stretching over the whole of Romanian history. Whatever strange lights in the sky were mentioned in ancient chronicles or got told by monks in feats of oral storytelling and visionary accounts, all were added to our time spiral without prejudice and strict criteria.
This was partially the aim of the show, to overlap such differing even contradictory timespace realities and acknowledge such alternate histories and extrapolations. Curating the show was a way to further speculate about the ways Eastern European fandoms have been re-imaging the most familiar contours of their lives. In the spirit of much speculative fiction, it was a first attempt to dissolve the known geographical, gender, identity and perceptual certitudes and encapsulate these worlds for today’s viewers and visitors, no matter if they even remember or understand the meaning or practice of the cenacle/SF club or its past history.
The show also helped counter the sort of amnesia about the various playful histories and imaginative utopian-critical projects that have sprung up even during the scarcity times and purported isolation of N. Ceausescu’s last years or immediately after 1989, with several waves of destructo-capitalism and anti-utopian market “shock therapy”. For this is brought together both original works and historical pieces. Thus, we commissioned a video essay by film director/critic Cristian E. Drăgan about the history of Romanian SF cinema from the 1960s till now, that included many rare and small indie SF small-budget productions that existed only as promos or have lingered in post-production hell. We also had a small SF library with recent translations from Stanislaw Lem’s oeuvre (2021 was S Lem’s year) plus a series of books about the history of Chinese robotics, the Chinese Space program translated in English and graciously provided by the Chinese Embassy in Bucharest.
We also translated and screened forgotten East German SF classics such as In the Dust of Stars/Im Staub der Sterne directed by Gottfried Kolditz in 1976 and filmed on location in Romania, including at the celebrated sculpture park Măgura.
Romania was used in this DDR movie as a background to a totalitarian capitalist planet that was visited by an emancipated socialist spaceship responding to a help message and trying to help out and free its exploited masses.
We also screened a recent German documentary (Utopia in Babelsberg: Science Fiction from the DDR) about the utopian SF subgenre of the East German DEFA studios by Knut Elstermann. Probably for the first time in Romania in an exhibition context we were able to screen Andrei Ujică’s key 1995 documentary Out of the Present about the last citizen of the Soviet Union (clue: a cosmonaut). You can watch the entire movie on Vimeo (which I heartedly recommend).
We also published a theoretical-critical zine on the occasion of the show with bilingual RO/EN contributions including texts by Steven Shaviro, Irina Gheorghe (who also performed “Foreign Language for Beginners”), Mihaela Drăgan, Ion Dumitrescu (with whom I participated at the Communism & SF congress in Blagoevgrad), Dialectical Center (Mihai Lukasz & Bogdan Popa), Alin Răuţoiu, Ralitsa Konstantinova, Vasile Leac and Koter Vilmos. I wanted to post Koter’s “Help message to the universe” here in its squeeky squelchy audio form (in the show we only had the graphic representation):
On this occasion I manged to finally re-publish a key text by Steven Shaviro entitled "Defining Speculation: Speculative Fiction, Speculative Philosophy, and Speculative Finance"(initially published on Alienocene) with the help of newly launched TLTxt platform for the first time in Romanian language.
Vasile Leac also curated as part of Timpuri Noi/New Temporealities a poster-bombing project intervention in several Romanian cities: Laika is Back. Several illustrators and street artists participated with poster designs, almost mimicking the “have you seen my pet reward” notices. Silvestru Muntean, Newclearfairy, Mimi Cioara, Kaps Crew, Căpitanul Pulă were invited to portray space-dog Laika as if returned on Earth from space.
New Temporealities also tried to diverge from the space billionaire hype by focusing or foregrounding local UFOlogical projects, forgotten (even patented) lenticular spaceship low-budget no-budget designs, and actual rocketry by local groups of aerospace engineers and students. This has been the aim (as with cozzzmonautica) to highlight and celebrate the sort of space projects that have lingered in limbo but have meant a lot to those involved, allowing an afterlife to these cosmic plans and daring but abandoned sketches.
We even had a temporary makeshift SFTV studio where we interviewed various invited guests from the “scene”, previously or currently involved in SF endeavors, in keeping with the 1980s and 1990s local-regional TV science fiction shows that are still inhabiting our mindscape & heartscape. We did not want to organize an archival show, or to dwell too much on the nostalgia of lost futures (or Ostalgie as the German call it) and fashionable retro-futurism, although we did not eschew it or deny that it hovers in space out there.
Our small and incomplete guest list of SFTV shows included Marius Leftarache that recorded his own audio-video work and studio experience as sound design artist for a recent indie Euro-SF movie Blood Machines (directed by Seth Ickerman, Raphaël Hernandez and Savitri Joly-Gonfard). M. Leftarache (now sound designer at Avantpost postproduction studio Bucharest) made audible the life of sound effects in such crowd-funded science fiction projects making spaceship hum and sigh. The SFTV shows do not yet include EN subtitles, but we hope to add some in the near future.
We also had Carolina Vozian, editor of one of the first queer-feminist speculative fiction short story collections in Romanian as a SFTV guest introducing us to her own personal route of discovering ground-breaking SF authors, whose worldbuilding may help us inhabit and see ahead of current capitalist realist nightmares, while living in the very midst of catabolic civilisational collapse (no subs on this one yet!).
There is no way I could do a synthetic recap of the whole show - and there have been very few foreign-language reviews of it, although we made it to the Calvert Journal, which is just great. We enjoyed lots of support from all sides
If interested in further background or images and artifacts from the Scena 9 2021 exhibition SF show check this post on Timespacewarps (including the ‘alien’ UFO Out of Place Artifact from Aiud that is seen below with the ‘Predator’ tri-laser pointer on top)
or this exploration of the exhibition logo made by Suzana Dan and based on the OOPart artifact.
Here is a kind of personal history - quite lengthy interview (in RO - but works with Google translate) not just about the show but about US cultural imperialism in the 1980s, speculative fiction and financial speculation, mutating SF fandoms in the East, medical SF and a pleading for a more benign representation of scientists in media, movies, comics pulp etc.
More on the Out of the Present 1995 documentary by Andrei Ujică
More on the Utopia in Babelsberg: Science Fiction in the DDR documentary (an amazing piece that anyone even slightly interested in Easter European/Socialist SF should watch) from 2021 made by RBB, and detailing a lot of behind-the-scenes of special effects, costumes, acting etc and collaborative work inside the Eastern bloc cinematic productions.
Alexandru Ciubotariu helped me (together with Suzana Dan) select several fanzine cover stripes documenting more than 70 years of Romanian SF magazines, zines, pioneering exoplantary RO comics (and comics with pioneers), tapes etc. and their artworks. #Issues of ORION magazine (1988-1989) were included. The large format of the magazine and high-quality articles have left a long impression on me (and others I suppose) and ORION somehow figures as an important reference in the show. In the SFTV studio, there is a large full-wall print, a back cover originally drawn by SF comics celebrity Victor Pîrligras from Craiova (who pulled out of the show but that we still felt like celebrating)in 1983 and featuring a homeless robot. To me it is the ultimate image of full automation fears under capitalism, of both robotic and human planned obsolescence.
In the end, I would like to make a mention of another group exhibition that opened at nearly the same time in the city of Timişoara at the artist run space Indecis. Indecis, founded in 2020 in Timișoara, is an independent artist run space initiated by the artists Mimi Ciora and Sergiu Sas and it is an intersectional, inclusive and safe space. Even if I could not attend, it sure looks phenomenal, running nearly in parallel with New Temporealities. Here's an excerpt of the exhibition statement:
Seeing the commercials for the off world colonies from the classic sci-fi movie Blade Runner, we were tempted to look for tickets, maybe just one way, no return. But unlike the movie, ecosystems are not yet completely collapsed. Replicants are found more likely in Boston Dynamics videos, and are sources of memes and not of scares or spasms. Viruses and wars make overpopulation not a problem yet.For these reasons we decided to try to bring these colonies here through the exhibition "Off World Colonies" where we invited a number of artists to share with us their vision of worlds outside the world. Whether it's colonies on other planets where different natural environments force the finding of alternative means of living, perhaps more balanced and sustainable, or colonies in the world of plants, animals or fungi, or even underground worlds or colonies from the future of the Earth, these visions are found in this exhibition in the form of works made in various environments such as video, installation, sculpture, engraving, performance, text.
In retrospect 2021 was a wild year for SF and/or space- themed shows. The show was called Colonii din afara lumii / Off World Colonies and featured a varied selection of works and artists (I also participated with an interview/text), works that are well-documented on the official Instagram account and FB page. Please take a look!
Another [related] important 2021 mention is the translation and publication in Romanian of I Want to Believe: Posadism, UFOs and Apocalypse Communism by A.M. Gittlitz via Dezarticulat.