Goran Sergej Pristaš: Undecidable Question

Myth Interrupted by Goran Sergej Pristaš is a project proposition from 2006 that was published in the 100th issue of the Maska magazine. It is based on the reconstruction of three mass gatherings from the ex-Yugoslavian period in Zagreb: the arrival of the partisans in Zagreb (1945), the student demonstrations (1968) and the final farewell from Tito’s remains (1980).

“We haven’t re-enacted, reconstructed or institutionalised anything. We tried to expose ourselves to those watching and listening, to suspend the time flow of our own speech and say that we are interrupting it. By interrupting our own speech and myths, we have entered the realm of politics.” Thus begins the performative installation Undecidable Question. It uses sound recordings from the documentary Oslobođenje Zagreba (“The Liberation of Zagreb”; 1945), of a spontaneous mass singing of the song Fala (“Thank you”) at the farewell from J. B. Tito’s remains, and of discussions in the framework of the BADco. project Institucije treba graditi (“Institutions Need to be Constructed”; 2016). The text is inspired by Emily Dickinson’s poem I Dwell in Possibility.

The installation reflects on these spontaneously formed collectives whose actions were entirely unpredictable. As we live in uncertain times ourselves, we will ask the audience to help us activate the meaning of community and the pronoun “we”.