Games without Borders - on the magazine as a ‘zone of resistance/practice of invention’
On Jeaux Sans Frontières/Games without Borders/ Jogos Sem Fronteiras:
Jogos Sem Fronteiras #1 (Games Withouth Borders #1) on the camps of europe, was edited in Lisbon by Ana Bigotte Vieira, Marta Lança and José Nuno Matos in 2007, shortly after the EU-Africa Lisbon Summit. Its main subjects were south-north migrations and „the others“ produced by the mechanisms of exclusion represented by the Schengen borders. In 2007, when Jogos Sem Fronteiras #1was produced, the global financial crisis was just starting. Today, more than five years later, this crisis has evolved into a deep crisis of representational democracy and new borders seem to have been born inside Europe and even inside each country.
JFS # 2 at the summer expedition 2013 of Sound Development City:
This fall, we will participate with JFS #2 in a Zurich based project called Sound Development City which is associated to Lisbon Architecture Triennale. As part of the summer expedition 2013 of Sound Development City, we will set up a temporary production office of the magazine in Lisbon from September 23 to September 28 in which we will be working on the texts and artwork you’ve sent us. At the end of this week, we will organize a public event, namely an independent publishers bookfair where we will question the role of books and magazines as ‘spaces of resistance and zones of invention’. Invited artists will then present their artwork, whose documentation will be part of JFS #2. We see these artwork as a way another way of reflecting on the current situation from a contextual point of view. JFS #2 will therefore have a local focus, with Lisbon based artists and an international part with text contributions from different countries speaking about experiences and practices of resistance in Greece, New York, Italy, Portugal, Brasil, Morocco…
After this date, we will move to Marseille, were we will present both magazine JFS #1 and #2.
independent publishers bookfair
LISBON
1. Before September23rd:
Producing the magazine
- inviting people to write texts to JSF#2 whose main subject is ‘zones of resistance and practices of invention’. Texts will have up until 7 pages, font 12, line spacing 1.5. A symbolic fee of 80 € will be given to each author. Deadline for submission of texts is September 10th. Please see, at the bottom of this document, our invitation e-mail where we explain JSF#2 concept. We have decided not to close this concept too much in order to allow people to contribute in different ways.
2. Producing the event (bookfair w/ small performances)
- inviting small independent publishers to be part of a book fair where we address books and magazines as ‘zones of resistance and practices of invention’. This invitation is made from our own situation of actually being producing a magazine we would like to see as a ‘zone of resistance and practice of invention’. The book fair, to be held on September 28th at Trienal courtyard will be the culminating point of JSF#2 at Sound Development City in Lisbon and our single public event at SDC. Invited independent publishers will be responsible for their presence at the event and 2 of them will help us to organize it.
- inviting artists to contribute to this bookfair with small artwork whose subject is
‘zones of resistance and practices of invention’. Artwork documentation might be thought of by the artists in order to possibly enter magazine JSF#2. A symbolic fee of 100 € will be given to each artist. Artists were asked to be responsible for their performances, as we do not have a producer for JSF at SDC.
2. Producing our contribution to JSF#2 /SDC
- Collecting data in order to make a game/future map of Lisbon from the point of view of ‘zones of resistance and practices of invention’: mapping out places that have been resisting gentrification/the crisis (small bookshops, art galleries, gardens) and places that have been/will be “lost” (future luxury hotels, private condominiums).
Early September
- Asking independent publishers if they have tables.
- Organizing the bookfair: making a small schedule with the artists
- printing out flyers, printing out JSF#1 small booklet to take to Marseille
During September 23rd-28th week:
1. At INATEL/Mouraria
- Gathering all the texts we have received: drafting out JSF#2. Assigning translation work.
- Walk ‘zones of resistance and practices of invention’ in Lisbon
- Working with the graphic designer on the game/future map on ‘zones of resistance and practices of invention’ in Lisbon
- If artists need a place to rehearse for the little bookfair performances they can join us here.
independent publishers bookfair
2. Bookfair
- 10 am seting up the bookfair
- Open from 11 am to 18h
TRAVEL
- stopping by Madrid and Barcelona to visit small independent publishers
- working on JSF#2 future magazine
MARSEILLE
- PUBLIC EVENT: Film screening BAB CEPTA and discussion on JSF project
- working on JSF#2
Documentation from this work will be posted online at SDC/JSF facebook and blog.
Invitation to contribute to the magazine Games without Borders #2:
Sandra Lang and myself would like to invite you to contribute with a text for our magazine Jeaux Sans Frontières/Games Without Borders #2 (JFS #2) on zones of resistance and practices of invention.
2011 was the year of the occupations of the squares (OWS in the US, Plaza del Sol in Spain, Rossio in Lisbon) and we think that that which gave rise to those occupations was already going on and is not finished yet - at all. We are thinking of a multiplicity of practices of resistance that can be materialized in bodies, songs, gestures, actions, videos, or in the everyday work of actual seminal places (websites, associations, galleries, cafés), practices that all of a sudden have joined or come together in another configuration, the space of the square, a space that wouldn’t be possible with the intensity it achieved if these previous practices weren’t already there, at work.
As they were already there, they also continue in multiple forms in many places and molecular aggregations.
In our opinion it is imperative to not look at recent events in a epiphenomenal way, focusing exclusively on the squares themselves, as if these events were “irrational”, came out of nowhere and went back to noplace (the very name “Arab Spring” seems to imply that the Spring is outside the historical time). We should instead try to understand them in continuity, alongside a myriad of encounters, practices, actions – that we call ’zones of resistance and practices of invention’.
With JFS #2 we intend to point out the singularity of local practices, the interwovenness of struggles in a globalized world, and to emphasize the continuity between what was going on before 2011 and what is going on after 2011.
independent publishers bookfair
Text Contributions to JFS #2:
We would like you to write for JFS #2, thinking of the text as a format which allows both description and reflection upon experiences and practices you were and/or are currently involved/interested in. These practices do not need to be explicit ‘activist’ or considered political tout court (they can belong to different political, artistic, social,…, ‘scenes’, engage with different kinds of subjectivities and even be contradictory in terms), they should rather be considered in themselves and in their contexts, for their political/affective/inventive potentialities as ways of building up the common and pushing back fascism, racism, neoliberal inequalities, austerity, elitism…
The magazine as a physical object will be made to travel, to bring those experiences from one place to another and to discuss them. Simultaneously with the print version,we will work on an online format, probably a JSF website and, several months later, a blog to which we will send you an invitation if you are interested in participating.
Practical aspects:
The texts should have up to 17000 characters (Times New Roman, 12, line spacing 1.5).
The production of magazine JFS #2 is being made due to a grant we had from Sound Development City, of which a part will be used to commission original texts, artworks and translations (English-Portuguese, Portuguese-English).
Genealogy of our work together: Since 2011 when we first met in New York, we took part in different experiences such as The Crisis of Everything Everywhere (16 Beaver Group, New York City, January 2012), which was thought as a nine days long retreat to reflect on the season of the occupations of the squares. During 2012 we were consecutively in Kassel, visiting/being part of andandand (d)OCUMENTA 13 (Kassel, June- September 2012), and in Graz at Truth is Concrete. In December 2013 we participated at ORA BOLAS! Há espaço vamos usá-lo! with the program O mapa não é o do país (the map is not the one of the country). In march 2013 Ana and me made a presentation at the Offspace Corner College in Zurich with the title Austerity? ORA BOLAS! Notes on Lisbon’s cultural scene.
All these projects had in common the feeling of urgency and need to act upon and react on the current situation, on the crisis, and are experiments made to be actively part in a process of radical transformation.
independent publishers bookfair
