Kafkamachine

On the eve of embarking on an ocean liner to Amerika to shoot "A Film by Kafka", three collectives
from Helsinki (Mollecular Organization), Paris (Presque ruins) and Sao Paulo (Cia Ueinzz Theatre) convene in Lisbon at the day of General Strike to the first stage of KAFKAMACHINE.
KAFKAMACHINE is an organizational experiment on cooperations to come. Its beginning is in the notes written by Félix Guattari in the 1980’s and published recently under a name Projet pour un film de Kafka.


The idea of Guattari’s unrealized project plan was to make a film not about Kafka but ”directed by” Kafka. Guattari thought that Kafka was nothing less than the future. For him Kafka was not a 19th century writer prisoned in dark family relations and guilt, loneliness, submission to law, anguish of modern man… but a writer of future who was able to deal with seeds of problems and openings which are only today starting to talk to us.

KAFKAMACHINE is a project taking place in the midst of the marvels of financial economy and crises of Europe, when the precariousness of immaterial labour defines our every day, semiocapitalism exercises its arbitrary power and forces us to continuously exploit ourselves and our friends while cynicism, depression and detachment form others have become important means of one’s survival.

The three working groups of KAFKAMACHINE have been Mollecular Organization (Helsinki), Ueinzz Theater Company (Sao Paulo) and Presque Ruines (Paris). Mollecular organization describes itself as a group of losers, sad figures, dark souls, cynical opportunists and depressed princesses. ”We are not tough or heroic, we are soft and feeble. We don’t march or demonstrate. We have difficulties in getting up from the bed. More, we are dependent on each other to see this softness. We are molle people, the future of cooperation.” Presque Ruines is almost in ruins, born out of an internal collapse that has not actually taken yet place, but virtually yes. Ueinzz is a territorio for those who feel the world falter, who feel sea-sickness on firm land.

There may be some self-sarcasism in these introductions, but only to express that there is no heroism in the exhaustion and disillusionment we are all experiencing at the moment when seeking a way forward together is necessary but without any one being able to lecture or show the way. There is no other ground but the broken one. The cognomen of the project is n-1, the one that dissappered.

This is the starting point of KAFKAMACHINE. It uses Guattari’s project plan as a organizational tool but works to lose it: the production phases presented in the plan function as a general frame for coordinating the project. Yet the visualization and directions concerning actual scenes are created anew starting from our own problems, fears, dreams and existential territories. This is the core of our project:  with Kafka it (1) maps and studies our life at the mercy of biopolitical economy and arbitrary power and (2) develops tools for cooperation and organization that are able to make our existential territory more habitable and create openings towards its future, tools for doing things together without a necessity for becoming the other or even understanding the other. KAFKAMACHINE is a metamodel, without any messianic politics. We want to build movement from analysis (map making) to experimentation (exercises of script production) to contribute to the dynamic structuring of the unfolding organization (machine). This is the machine we want to assemble.

KAFKAMACHINE works with perhaps the highest theatrical problem, the problem of a movement which would directly touch a soul, which would be that of the soul. It searches for a coming cooperation, a potential cooperation, a cooperation yet to come with which to connect through engaging sensibilities and production of new affects. It wants to produce becomings that will summon a people with whom minor organization connects.

KAFKAMACHINE is calling you! It is calling you today only! If you miss this opportunity, there will never be another! Anyone thinking of his or her future, your place is with us! All welcome! Anyone who wants to be an artist, step forward! We are the theatre that has a place for everyone, everyone in his or her place! If you decide to join us, we congratulate you here and now! But hurry, be sure not to miss the midnight deadline! We shut down at midnight 24.11.2011, never to reopen! Accursed be anyone who doesn’t believe in us! Recruitment on the day of the General Strike 24.11.2011 at 19.00-24.00 Casa Conveniente, R. Nova do Carvalho 11, Lisbon.
http://www.futureartbase.org/category/kafka-info/