A video by Oliver Ressler
In cooperation with Dario Azzellini
Video, 54 min, 2002
The video "Disobbedienti," based on conversations with seven members of the movement, thematizes the Disobbedienti's origins, political bases, and forms of direct action.
The Disobbedienti emerged from the Tute Bianche during the demonstrations against the G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001. "Tute Bianche" was the name of the white-clad Italian activists who, in direct actions and demonstrations, used their bodies as weapons of civil disobedience, protected by foam rubber, tires, helmets, gas masks, and homemade shields. The Tute Bianche first appeared in Italy in 1994 in the midst of a social setting in which the "mass laborer," who had played a central role in the 1970s in production and in labor struggles, was gradually replaced in the transition to precarious post-Fordist means of production. The Tute Bianche became involved in protests against precarious working conditions and the immigrants' struggle for freedom of movement by forcing the closing of detention camps through specially developed acts of dismantling. The Tute Bianche were part of the demonstration against the WTO in Seattle in 1999 and the IMF in Prague in 2000. They sent delegates to the Lakandon rainforest in Chiapas and accompanied the Zapatist Comandantes 3,000 kilometers to Mexico City.
At the G8 summit in Genoa the Tute Bianche decided to take off their trademark white overalls that had given them their name and instead blend in the multitude of 300,000 demonstration participants. The transition from the Tute Bianche to the Disobbedienti, the disobedients, also marked a development from "civil disobedience" to "social disobedience." The repressive actions and massacre by the police force in Genoa brought the practice of social disobedience in from the streets to the most diverse social realms. In the video, the Disobbedienti spokesperson Luca Casarini describes the Tute Bianche as a subjective experience and a small army, whereas Disobbedienti is a multitude and a movement. Disobbedienti maintains the political form of the Tute Bianche and attempts to create a better legal justice of and from the people.
Spectacular actions are still being carried out against detention centers, such as the dismantling of the detention camp in the Via Mattei in Bologna on 25 January 2002, as shown in the video. There is also the attempt to further develop "social disobedience" as a collective practice of various groups, to block the flows of goods and communication, to make general the strikes of individual groups, and to plan and carry out general strikes.
The conversations with the Disobbedienti were carried out in Italian in Bologna and Genoa in July 2002. There are two versions of the video "Disobbedienti," one with German and one with English subtitles.
Black Box, K3, Malmoe University, Beijerskajen 8, 29.11. - 01.12.02, 12 - 5 pm
presentation of "Disobbedienti" and "This is what democracy looks like!" and discussion as part of the conference "Transgressing Culture", Lund/Malmoe (SE)
www.thirdspaceseminar.org
Stadshallen, Stortorget, Lund, 30.11.02 at 5:15 pm
Malmoe Konsthall, S:t Johannesgatan 7, SE-20010 Malmoe
04.12.02 at 6 - 8 pm (part of a seminar series including screenings by
Anna Brag, Heath Bunting and Swetlana Heger)
"Contemporary Film and Video", Moderna Museet, c/o Klarabergsviadukten
61, SE-103 27 Stockholm, 03, 04 & 05.12.02 at 6 pm,
http://www.modernamuseet.se/front
(Catrin Lundqvist talks with O. Ressler)
M Art In(n), c/o Martin Schibli, TÂgagatan 33, SE-Helsingborg, T.
+46/42/135723
07. - 29.12.02, Tue - Fri 2 - 6 pm, Sat - Sun 1 - 5 pm
Boris Konstmuseum, Boris (SE), 12.12.02
http://www.boras.se/kultur/museer/konstmus/index.htm
Kino Ebensee, Schulstrafle 6, A-4802 Ebensee, 12. - 13.12.02, 20 Uhr
http://www.kino-ebensee.at (am 12.12.02 Gespr‰ch mit O. Ressler)
Localbuhne Freistadt, Salzgasse 25, A-4240 Freistadt, 13.12.02, 20 Uhr
http://www.members.aon.at/local-buehne (Gespr‰ch mit O. Ressler)
Depot, Breiteg. 3, A-1070 Wien, 18.12.02, 19 Uhr
Veranstaltung von eipcp, http://www.republicart.net/news.htm
(O. Ressler im Gesprach mit Gerald Raunig)
Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istiklal Caddesi No: 276,
Beyoglu 80050 Istanbul (TR), T. + 90 212 293 23 61; 27.12.02 at 6:30 pm
