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ACAB - All Cops Are Bastards // Autotune Compensates Any Bullshit









The work ‘Acab - ‘ consists of screenprints, collage and an autotune audio piece with Anarchist texts/manifestos from zines from all over Europe, as well as from Anarchist text generators (AI).

This work was developed for and exhibited at Nieuwe Vide for ‘The Hills are alive with the sound of Muzak’ about the influance of sound around us, in 2015. It was shown together with works of Yael Bartana, Erik Bünger, Mika Taanila,  Klaas Koetje, Natasha Taylor, Toon Fibbe, Ivette ‘Mrova’ Zub, Steven Jouwersma, Jeff Gibson and Danae Valenza.


Saskia raises questions about how to deal with violence and communication within anarchist movements. given the complex relationship between these several sorts of roots up organized communities and law enforcement. Questions rooted in her research-based theory on social hierarchies and rules. Who makes the rules when communicating anarchist tactics to others? What words are permitted or chaces someone away? Her installations highlight the ways in which (police) violence reinforces existing power structures, but it is also a critical examination of the strategies and tactics used by roots up organized but splintered movements (like antifa)to resist oppression dynamics and she asks questions on how to confront (police) violence, while also exploring alternative forms of community safety and conflict resolution as the onsequense of the use of violence is not the same for everybody. For this work they worked with an AI-generator to mix anarchist pamphlets with contradicting messages and outcries, they use autotune as a voice effect, that only used the notes "A.C.A.B",limiting the options in tone, but also as a semi hidden message within her critique. This project explores the intersection between technology and activism, and the complex thought on the mix of messages by all these movements wanting to dismantle power. Hopefully it challenges and subverts traditional power structures integrated in every movement.

In today's digital age, the intersection of activism, technology, and the constant stream of information presents a unique challenge. While technology has undoubtedly played a pivotal role in facilitating social movements and creating a platform for marginalized voices, it has also created a chaotic, overwhelming space where mixed messages can easily spread, including those that advocate for the use of violence in achieving social change. It is essential to question the ethics of such messages and the potential harm they may cause to different sorts of people. When is resistance violence and when is it civil disobedience when it is used by who? While violence has historically been a tool of resistance for marginalized communities, it is critical to consider its consequences and whether it aligns with the movement's values and goals on the long run. As such, it's crucial to remain vigilant and intentional in our use of technology and information, especially when it comes to activism and be critical of the term activism that should be deeply rooted in leftist ideology of social equality.


Read the Metropolis M review here

Drawings,(screen)prints, sketching & etching




Making Worlds: Feminist Theory in activist performance for inclusive Belonging
How to make space when you take space within urban squatter movements

Abstract


My thesis considers how internalized inequity of the neoliberal housing market and its property
mechanisms manifest themselves within the Dutch squatter movement (NKB), causing it to replicate
some of the structures it purports to oppose. As a femme queer-identifying artist with a squatter history,
I am interested in the inter-relationship between (activist) communities,
individual performances of property/non-proprietary comportments,
and the way physical spaces retain complex traces of patriarchal economic structures within daily life.

Putting the Dutch housing policy and struggle in the current context of global capitalism, and
drawing on Marxist, autonomist and feminist spatial theory, I argue that squatting culture in the
Netherlands stymied its radical potential by its structural inattention to the non-binary complexity of
bordered, domestic and interpersonal scales of the political within its un/recognized histories.

This thesis takes an alternative approach from materialist feminist theorists of race, geography, normativity,
and the structurally oppressive household, including Silvia Federici, Sarah Keenan, Davina Cooper and Doreen
Massey, to challenge the masculine norms of Marx’s historical materialism and property critique. The
works of Margaret Davies, Nazima Kadir, E.T.C. Dee/Deanna Dadusc and an interview of Wendelien van
Oldenborgh are used to further contextualize my argument concerning the necessity of feminist and queer
occupations/cohabitations as resistance to both late liberal capitalist belonging within “property logic”
and masculine-normed ideals of autonomy. Material feminist analytics, including from performance
theory, in the scene of activism, here enable radical politics to emerge that are savvy to housing needs and
anti-authoritarian politics by imagining intersubjective worlds that move beyond philosophically limited
concepts of belonging and singular events of property repossession.


Dutch Art Institute (DAI)
Art Praxis Graduate School ArtEZ University of the Arts
Master of Arts Thesis
Supervisor: Rachel O’Reilly
July 2020


3D prints
FUCK CHRONOLOGY AS TRUTH TELLING, 2022

Content warning, video contains text/voiceover
about sexual violence. Scroll down for info.

























Fuck Chronology as truth telling

video, VR, drawing, audio/text (14.13min)

Fuck Chronology as truth telling is a new video collage without beginning or end, made especially for the Queer Kunstlijn. It asks the viewer to think along with the maker about fragmentation; division into pieces, and chronology; a conceptual time sequence.
Why do stories only count if they are told from a certain perspective? Can we experience time outside the dominant capitalist and patriarchal ideology? Isn't it true that we all experience time very differently?

Time flies in all directions and is not linear, yet we want to capture the collective in a structure that is seen as objective; one form of history telling, fixed working hours, laws and simply; the clock.
As a collective we have decided to maintain certain structures, which do not necessarily suit everyone, but are in line with capitalism.

Another, queer idea of time gives room to interact in various ways, where we don't conform to a - straightforward - past-present-future chronology and where caring for each other is made central, not the capitalist idea where eternal growth and success is above all else. This work is a first attempt at thinking about how hidden stories can be made visible, seeking dreams about a life where society leaves no mark on how to deal with our collective and individual idea of time.

What if you can't keep up with everyday life, what if your head just doesn't work like that? What if an event makes such an impact that it seems as if time stands still forever or you get stuck in the past? Can we refuse to accept time as a standard that works the same for everyone? Can we protest linear thinking?

Saskia has remixed image and text from their personal archive, and has included theoretical work by: R. Levine: "A Geography of Time", M. Russel & R. Malthortrah: "Capitalism and disability", V. Browne: "Feminism, Time , and Nonlinear History", I. Milojevic: "Timing feminism, feminising time", M. O'Brien: "Taking Our Time: Feminist Perspectives on Temporality", J. Griffiths: "Boo to captain clock", B. Adam: "Timescapes of Modernity".

Sound: Menzo Schrik
Voice over: Anne Mul 
Text, video and editing: Saskia Burggraaf
Photos: Dirkje Baris