Marco Deseriis
Improper Names, Con-Dividual Subjectivities

The conference is inspired by Marco Deseriis’ book Improper Names: Collective Pseudonyms from the Luddites to Anonymous. Deseriis will introduce the conference by offering a genealogy of the “improper name,” which he defines as the adoption of the same pseudonym by organized collectives, affinity groups, and individual authors. Examples of collective pseudonyms include Ned Ludd, the fictional leader of the English Luddites; Alan Smithee, a shared signature used by Hollywood film directors to disown movies that have been re-cut against their will; Luther Blissett, a fictional media prankster, collective author, and anti-copyright activist; and the hacktivist group Anonymous. Deseriis’s central argument is that an improper name is a form of symbolic power that destabilizes the boundaries between the We and the I as the original creators of the alias lose control of its intended function to unforeseen uses. To express this tension between practices that are neither collective nor individual, Deseriis uses the notion of “condividuality”, a form of association that does not presuppose a community or a common intentionality, but only a concatenation of parts.

Gerald Raunig
Every Beginning Is Dividual

The concept of condividuality is also central to the recent work of Austrian philosopher Gerald Raunig, author of Dividuum. Machinic Capitalism and Molecular Revolution (2016). According to Raunig, a “dividual” is a singularity that is divisible and governed by the principle of similarity. As compared to the individual, which is governed by the principle of dissimilarity and distinction, a dividual can be easily combined with other dividuals that share some properties with it. Raunig argues that the “condividual assemblages” that emerge from the concatenation of multiple dividuals can be found everywhere in the online world, from the large data sets known as Big Data to financial transactions to networks of infected computers that share their processing power unbeknownst to their users. A conversation between Deseriis and Raunig will introduce a debate on how the notions of the improper and the condividual can help us rethink identity and collective action at a time in which many forms of association are automated, involuntary, and governed by algorithms.

Wu Ming
Collaborative Authorship and Condividuality in the Wu Ming Foundation

Wu Ming 1, a member of the Italian “band of novelists” Wu Ming, will explore the question of authorship from an unconventional angle. Wu Ming is the main offshoot of Luther Blissett—a collective pseudonym used by dozens of artists and activists in the 1990s—and a literary workshop that experiments with hybrid narrative genres such as the historic novel and non-fiction written with literary techniques. Wu Ming (“No Name” in Mandarin) has developed a model of authorship that is both collective and individual, as it is linked to collectively authored novels as well as works authored under five individual pseudonyms (Wu Ming 1, Wu Ming 2, and so forth). Rather than seeing individual and collective authorship as alternative to one another, Wu Ming 1 will explain how in-group and networked collaborations with other authors, friends, and readers across multiple media channels have allowed them to develop a condividual and transmedia mode of storytelling.

Natalie Bookchin
Prospective Collectives: Animating the Shared Self

Natalie Bookchin’s presentation will explore the notion of condividuality through an aesthetic analysis of the current status of the networked image. In recent years, Bookchin’s work has focused on the creation of online and offline video installations that combine hundreds of YouTube video clips in which ordinary people present themselves before an audience. From teenage girls who dance alone in their rooms to minority groups who reflect upon racial segregation and poverty, these individuals are simultaneously isolated from each other and connected to each other. Yet it is only when Bookchin aligns these personal video diaries in a matrix that emphasizes the recurrence of bodily and linguistic expressions that their connectedness comes to the fore. In this respect, Bookchin’s presentation will allow participants to discuss condividuality as a form of connection and concatenation that proceeds from individual to individual without necessarily passing through a shared narrative or communitarian mythology.

Kristin Sue Lucas
Refresh

A New York-based artist, Lucas became the most current version of herself in October 2007, when she succeeded in legally changing her name from Kristin Sue Lucas to Kristin Sue Lucas in a Superior Court of California courtroom. On the name change petition that she submitted, she wrote “Refresh” as the reason for the change, to evoke the refreshing of a web page. Since then, the artist has created the Refresh Archive (2013 – ongoing), a collection of newspaper clippings, courtroom drawings, official documents, performance documentation, and portraits of the artist before and after the refresh, and used the transcript of the courtroom sessions to develop an ongoing series of performances, the Refresh Cold Reads (2007 – ongoing), where guest readers are cast into the roles of Kristin and the Judge based on their personal backgrounds. In Ljubljana, the re-enactment will be exceptionally done by Kristin Sue Lucas in the role of Kristin Sue Lucas and by actor Dražen Dragojević in the role of the Judge. Dražen Dragojević has been, among other things, the main character and the narrative voice in the documentary film My Name is Janez Janša (2012).

Ryan Trecartin
I-Be Area (2007)

All the characters in the movie are live manifestations of the different online personas of one single individual, offering a sharp visualization of the impact of social networking on individual and collective identity. As the artist explains it, “the basic idea of the film is that what identifies people is not necessarily their bodies anymore; it’s all the relationships they maintain with others. You are your area, rather than you are yourself. If someone describes you, that description becomes a part of your area, whether you like it or not.”