Radio Show Me What Democracy Looks Like is a new minus plato? weekly radio show inspired by 34 Exercises of Freedom at documenta 14, held in Athens, Greece in September 2016.
The show has been created for the online class Art Education 2600: Visual Culture: Representation and Society that I’m currently teaching at This Ohio State University.
It could also be called 14 New Exercises of Freedom, Ohio, made during the frenzy of the Midterm election season in an increasingly less free and democratic society in this, the 250 anniversary of the United States of America as an independent, settler colony.
In this first episode, we focus on the visual culture of political campaigns, Pope. L’s Whispering Campaign and the virtues of ignorance.
For notes on the Visual Accompaniment to Episodes go here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aJS-Pd_k3RuRcL9238pAoQ_SY7QtB1BhxdlxeT88NdE/edit?tab=t.0
The visual culture of political campaigns
Pope. L Whispering Campaign (2017)
- “Like many folks who make things, I learned as I went. initially I believed I could actually make a work that could speak to people, different people across a wide spectrum and geography. And speak to them in layers. I gradually realized this was a fantasy—maybe a very American one? And even if I could speak in such a way, what was I really saying? Finally, I realized that no matter what I said I’d never be able to say enough or the right thing at the right time.” –
- Pope. L in ‘The Virtues of Ignorance: Interview with Dieter Roelstraete and William Pope.L by Zachary Cahill https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/701369
“Ignorance is a Virtue” – Adam Szymczyk, documenta 14 & German political campaigns – clip from Exergue on documenta 14
- In the 14-hour documentary Exergue on documenta 14 directed by Dimitris Athiridis and released in 2024, the first chapter uses Pope.L’s Whispering Campaign to introduce a scene of the artistic director of documenta 14 – Adam Szymczyk – listening to the radio in his car, breaking the news about the budget deficit.
Musical Outro: Pope.L Skin Set Project (1997-2023) + Dolly Parton cover of Everyday People by Sly & the Family Stone with Kermit the Frog
Thank you for the music & the books, Dolly! You’re a legend!
Footnote on Ignorance
In my normal life, I’m artistic director of documenta 14. My name is Adam Szymczyk, and today I am very honored to be one of the, for a short time, knowledge keepers. And we have more of them here today, our prominent guests, whom I would like to thank for participating. Tonight, you will hear them later and see Nillas Somby to my left and Antonio Negri sitting over there on the rocks. And Linnea Dick, who was singing before, and Sergio Zevallos, who is going to offer us a performance later. Then my duty is to thank all those who made our stay here possible for maybe a short period of time, because this is all a passage of a small group of people through a relatively short moment in time. This is what we are practicing here. So this is not to say the program is in advance of the exhibition. So the exhibition of documenta 14, however it happens, is not meant to be any final station, and these things on the way are not meant to be just preparatory exercises, but they are important because they actually embody what Documenta 14 wants to be. So we’ll see tonight whether it succeeded or not. And you’ll tell us. I would like to thank the city of Athens, the municipality, and particularly to the mayor, Georgios Kaminis, for having us here in what used to be and still will be, or is, the Municipal Gallery, and also one of the buildings with rather long and complicated history that we have addressed already in some public statements that stirred up a lot of debate and sometimes negative and sometimes positive reactions. So we hope that this discussion will continue, and that we will be able throughout the discussion to refine our ignorant arguments. So we are putting ourselves in this position of ignorance towards all the specialists here in Greece who know everything about the Greek history and politics, and we are trying to contribute together with participants coming from all over the place, bringing their own experiences and their own history into this very place.
- Adam Szymczyk
And we came to this conclusion, maybe it’s an ignorant conclusion, as Adam was saying before, that our democratic institutions today are in ruins.
- Paul B. Preciado
