October 31, 2003
SoS – State of Sabotage
October 31, 2003: STATE OF THE ART, Vienna
Embassy Opening and Exhibition
Burggasse 100, 1070 Wien
SoS Embassy & Consulate in Vienna: Start 31.10.2003
1.11.-1.12.2003
State of Sabotage, the newly founded microstate, will open their first embassy in Austria and a series of specially commissioned artworks.
Empire STATE OF SABOTAGE
On August 30, 2003 the Viennese label Sabotage Communications manifested its own state on the uninhabited island of Harakka off of Helsinki and was renamed “SoS – State of Sabotage.” First initiated as a project by artist Robert Jelinek in 1992, in operation as an international music/art label, collective and organization since 1994, Sabotage has now, in 2003, drawn its own artistic conclusions and declared itself a state – a state in time, with constantly expanding citizens’ territories, but without the demarcation of national borders. Everyone can own an SoS passport and enjoy the status of an SoS citizen. SoS is a physically vital collective body, installed in real everyday social and political space. It is a growing organism whose dynamics, spirit and diversity are shaped by the citizens themselves.
Jerry Ahern, in his novel Survivalist 1: Total War, established that America is not a geographic place, but rather a concept. The State of Sabotage is also primarily an idea and only secondarily a concrete territory. Like the USA, the State of Sabotage has no pre-defined territory, but one characterized by constant, and theoretically unlimited, growth. Also like the USA, the State of Sabotage has no indigenous population, but is open to all those who wish to join of their own free will. Unlike the USA, the territory of the State of Sabotage grows with each new citizen. And unlike many micronations, the State of Sabotage is not a purely virtual community, but encompasses real state territory.
At the beginning of 2004, SoS will first hoist its flag over its own territory on the fifth continent. SoS is purchasing a real piece of land (650 hectares) in “Bald Rock Bush Retreat” (35km from Tenterfield / 200km from Brisbane / East Australia) and will place it at the disposal of its citizens and their projects. In addition, worldwide temporary embassies are planned.
STAATSKUNST (THE ART OF THE STATE)
State diplomacy is conducted through artistic sovereignty and trans-nationality – art as state as a direct form of independent state art.
The “state” is static by definition (both concepts derive from Latin “status”). In our contemporary understanding the state is a kind of steely skeleton or matrix – constructed so that it can provide structure, grounding, and duration to a constantly changing society. Political scientists and state theorists, however, maintain that the state reached the apex of its development in the seventies and has since been in decline. Yet even at a time when the state is being pushed out of more and more areas of life and continues to lose esteem, it remains the highest existing authority – precisely because the state is more static than other forces affecting our lives. On the other hand, the state is inferior to these highly dynamic forces and lags helplessly behind the newest developments in science and technology.
The German concept of Staatskunst (art of state) alludes to the fact that in governments of previous centuries the balancing and equalization of manifold factors and powers was in fact understood as an art. The antiquated concept of Staatskunst also has another meaning: It reminds us that in former times the promotion of art and culture was seen as a state goal and rulers recognized that art and culture were essential components of their wealth and capital. The newly formed State of Sabotage feels bound to this understanding of Staatskunst and will, for the first time in Austria with the STATE OF THE ART event, present its capital by means of artistic positions.
STATE OF THE ART visualizes the attributes of trans-nationalities and the new conditions of state and artistic reality through artistic practices, models, visions, and utopias.
Commissioned Artists
HR. GIGER
FRANZ GRAF
JULIE MONACO
FRANZ POMASSL
ROMAN SIGNER
HEIMO ZOBERNIG
MICRONATIONS
Micronations are states with relatively small populations (from one to 10,000 people) active along the peripheries of extant legal communities. Some of them even enjoy recognized status or have applied for it from the UN. Often the goal of newly formed mini-states is to break out of the monoculture of a neo-liberal, superficially democratic shopping world of the American variety. Many of them are mind games played out in reality, centering on the question of how a state and society in general might look beyond known and established systems. They demonstrate functioning economic, political and social structures and even imitate the appearances of traditional states – with their own passports, languages and national anthems. Just like their relatives, they conclude treaties with other states or join with them to form larger communities of interest. They impose sanctions and imports bans, and even declare war, just like “normal” states do.
In most cases micronations abstain from secession and submit to the tax regime or police power of another state. They claim only a small piece of autonomy on the territory of the latter. The motives for founding a state are as varied and diverse as the micronations themselves. Along with religiously and politically motivated micronations, there are also: tax havens that implement a legal framework or gaming communities that suddenly draw up a constitution; occupied drilling platforms; movable islands in international waters; purely virtual juntas and anti-states; art projects that depict the ideas of an alternative political system and even make them interactively useable.
The first wave of new micronations occurred with the end of colonialism as many territories and islands, e.g. former assets of the bankrupt British Empire, declared their independence. Another tradition derives from Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, in which an autarkic and elitist political enclave waits in the shadows while the world as we know it collapses, and then constructs a new state structure out of the ruins of society. Inspired by Ayn Rand, the “New Country Movement” had its boom in the sixties and seventies and combined the political philosophy of Libertarianism with hippy Darwinism. Ideological heterogeneity and the partly contradictory mixture of libertarian and extremely individualistic ideas with communitarian ideals is also characteristic of today’s micronation movement.
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State diplomacy is conducted through artistic sovereignty and trans-nationality – art as state as a direct form of inde- pendent state art.
Settlement coming soon 