Contemporary art and the political and economic crisis in Bulgaria:
An Interview with Luchezar Boyadjiev
By Geert Lovink

Hybrid Workspace, Documenta X, Kassel
June 20, 1997

Luchezar Boyadjiev (Sofia, 1957) is working currently as an artist. His
background is studies in art history and theory, pursued both in
Bulgaria and the United States. Recently he had shows at the 4th
Istanbul Biennial, Chicago (Beyond Belief in the Museum of Contemporary
Art), Liverpool (at LEAF 97), in Koeln and Berlin, and the anual
exhibition of the Soros Foundation in Plovdiv.

[…]

Geert Lovink: The media situation in Bulgaria seems to be mixed: lots of
radio stations, software piracy, loosening control of the State over
television, some Soros publishing activities, combined with a
considirable amount of chaos. Is this correct?

Luchezar Boyadjiev: Absolutely. After 89 the student TV-programme
Kuckkuck made a perfect simulation of a news announcement concerning a
nuclear acident on the Danube river. It was so convinving that people
behaved just like after Tchernobyl. This programme was immediately
stopped. The state channels became more and more commercialized. The few
private channels are also not of much help either. The only useful media
are some private, independant radio stations.

Recently, there was a report in Nettime about software piracy in
Bulgaria. Of all the Comecon-countries (the former Sovjet equivalent of
the EC), Bulgaria was allocated the task to do develop computers. Funny
enough a factory for hardware was built in the village of our former
dictator, just to show how progressive he was. The computers they
produced were not of high quality. But there were a lot well educated
programmers, which were not allowed to work on their own programs.
Industrial espionage was heavily encouraged and the Bulgarian spies were
given the task to get hold of software. That led to programmers not
working on their own programs but breaking into other people's programs.
As a sort of revenge they created a lot of computer viruses. Some of
those are still around. That tradition continues: a group of youngsters
in the Black Sea city of Varna was arrested recently. They managed to
steal the codes from credit cards of tourists. They used these cards to
order computer parts through the internet in the United States. They
were so confident that they gave their own home addresses for the parts
to be delivered. Till somebody got a Christmas card from a company he
did not know at all, thanking its best customers. That's how it was
traced back.

GL: What is the current influence of computers and new media on the arts
and culture?

LB: It is growing. Recently, three media labs opened in Sofia. In the
past it was stagnating. Now this is, again, a substitute for a physical
reality. When you have a deficiency of the physical reality, you have
some hopes that in the virtual reality you may find some compensations.
For example, in Bulgaria there is no museum of contemporary art, for the
good or the bad. One could make probably make a virtual museum and
appropriate some existing space, make a CD-ROM, a website somewhere.
Almost like a computer game. Video is also compensating for the lack of
possibilities. It is a symptom of crisis and of a utopian hope.

GL: Now that the production is almost at ground zero and the country is
bankrupt, virtuality seems the only solution. Is this what you are
saying? And what is the role of the artist in all this?

LB: Everything that could be sold is being sold and this is the only way
to make fresh cash, as they say. Bulgarians have this survival
capability, which is very high. The absurdity is taking place on many
levels, not only in the media, the economy or the social situation.

Concerning art, in the past in Bulgaria there was no dissident movement.
The regime found flexible ways of accomodating deviations in the sphere
of art. Non-conventional art started in the mid-eighties. It was not
underground by any definition. You cannot really say that it is
backward. In any case, there are not more than 25 to 30 people working
in the field of contemporary art. Then comes in the Soros Foundation and
its Centers for Contemporary Art. When the Center in Sofia was about to
be opened, in early 1994, the Soros Foundation itself had changed.
George Soros had given more authority to the local branches. The Sofia
Center is an outcome of this bigger power of the local branch. It was
established by the local office, not by the international network, Suzy
Meszoly and the headquarters in New York. The good thing is that it has
more programs, related to theatre, music, literature, not only visual
arts. The bad thing is that it was quite provincial. It took them four
years to make more relevant exibitions. Bulgarian art is always first
and foremost content-oriented art. It does not really matter what the
medium is. The message is one of absurdity. How to turn a liability into
an asset. The best Bulgarian art deals with this aspect. A liability in
terms of inferiority, identity or provincial complexes, is turned into a
bombastic statement or one sort or another.

GL: How did the artists you know responded to the current economic and
political crisis?

They responded in a very direct way. For about two months, we had a
special meeting at 4 p.m. each day, in front of parliament. Artists
would meet and have a lot of fresh air, jump up and down and
demonstrate. We used cans full of coins to produce a lot of noise. The
big change compared to 89 is that people, artists including, can change
things. After these seven years of having simulated reforms, without
actual change, people all of the sudden became dissidents. They lost all
their feelings of nostalgia for the security of the past. Unfortunately
that also implies to the word socialism which is compromised in many
ways. A new party was founded in the winter and is already called in the
parliament 'the Euroleft.' It brings together former socialists,
liberals and intellectuals. It is a significant sign that very soon
there will be the possibility to name things with the proper name. Soon
it will be possible to work on alternatives and create progressive,
radical movements, without being immediately branded a communist.

[…]

[originally distributed via nettime-l (http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/).
Posted on RHIZOME with permission of Geert Lovink.]