On January 28th, 2008, Janez Janša, Janez Janša, and Janez Janša performed Signature Event Context at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, a walking action in the corridors of the Memorial. Each one of them, equipped with a GPS device, covered a different path within the Memorial’s structure this way, together assembling a common signature visible only in the internet. During the performance artists continuously repeated “Jaz sem Janez Janša, Jaz sem Janez Janša, Jaz sem Janez Janša…” (”My name is Janez Janša”).

Signature Event Context at the Holocaust Memorial puts together 3 concepts (signature, event and context) from Derrida’s essay in complex relation; signature itself is an event which re-contextualizes the site of signature. The performance scheduled for the opening of TRANSMEDIALE.08 the 29th of January 2008 at 8.30 pm at the foyer of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Germany, was conjunctively cancelled by the director of transmediale Stephen Kovats and the Guest-Curator Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez. Consequently, Janez Janša, Janez Janša and Janez Janša rescheduled the date of the action performing on January 28, 2008 at 00.01 am. Watch the performance. [posted on VVork] More:

In summer 2007, three Slovenian artists officially changed their names to Janez Jan a. Their work focuses on the question of signature, and more particularly on the role of signature in public space. In their various approaches, they explore Derrida’s famous statement on signature and its paradoxical relationship towards originality and repetition.

“By definition, a written signature implies the actual or empirical nonpresence of the signer. But, it will be said, it also marks and retains his having-been present in a past now, which will remain a future now, and therefore in a now, in general, in the transcendental form of nowness (maintenance). This general maintenance is somehow inscribed, stapled to the present punctuality, always evident and always singular, in the form of the signature. This is the enigmatic originality of every paraph. For the attachment to the source to occur, the absolute singularity of an event of the signature and of a form of the signature must be retained: the pure reproducibility of a pure event.” (Jacques Derrida, “Signature Event Context” in Margins of Philosophy, tr. Alan Bass, pp. 307-330) …

Signature Event Context at the Holocaust Memorial puts together 3 concepts (signature, event and context) from Derrida’s essay in complex relation; signature itself is an event which re-contextualizes the site of signature.

In his book At Memory’s Edge: After-images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture (Yale University Press, 2000) the American scholar James E. Young writes that there is no intrinsic meaning in memorials. Instead, they derive their meaning from visitors’ interactions: each visitor makes their own experience of memory at a memorial.

The structure of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, which invites a visitor for an individual experience as has been stated by its architect Peter Eisenman, points to the intention of the Signature Event Context project. Eisenman concludes his statement with the following explanation of the experience in the Memorial:

“In this monument there is no goal, no end, no working one’s way in or out. The duration of an individual’s experience of it grants no further understanding, since understanding is impossible. The time of the monument, its duration from top surface to ground, is disjoined from the time of experience. In this context, there is no nostalgia, no memory of the past, only the living memory of the individual experience. Here, we can only know the past through its manifestation in the present.” (Eisenman Architects, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin); Project text by Peter Eisenman)

In Derrida’s words, walking and talking signatures by Jan a, Jan a and Jan a are the physical manifestations of nowness via individual experience. The traces of the walking and talking signature are left only in virtual space. Memory is always already a performance of virtuality.

REASON FOR BANNING S.E.C. FROM TRANSMEDIALE.08

According to the new director of Transmediale Stephen Kovats and to the Guest Curator of the exhibition CONSPIRE Nata a Petre in-Bachelez, the great cause for banning this project from the festival 4 days before its opening has to be find in “judicial and legislative reasons” (Kovats) and “personal - curatorial and ethical convictions” (Petre in-Bachelez). Janez Jan a, Janez Jan a, Janez Jan a understand the banning act as an ACT OF POWER perpetrated by the artistic director of the festival and its guest-curator to the detriment of the artists and as an ACT OF VIOLENCE towards freedom of artistic expression. Artists hereby formally invite the director of Transmediale Stephen Kovats, the guest-curator of the exhibition CONSPIRE Nata a Petre in-Bachelez and the general public to an open confrontation on issues disclosed by Signature Event Context to take place in form of a public round table.

UPDATE: As reported today on the Transmediale.08 website, the project Signature, Event, Context by Janez Jansa, Janez Jansa and Janez Jansa has been officially re-included to the exhibition CONSPIRE.
This decision came along with the following mutual statement of the festival direction, the guest curator and the artists:

Disclaimer - The performative installation Signature, Event, Context as proposed to the transmediale.08 exhibition by Janez Jansa, Janez Jansa and Janez Jansa had been accepted for inclusion to the exhibition. In the run-up to the festival due to the curatorial and ethical convictions of Natasa Petresin Bachelez, the guest curator of the transmediale.08 exhibition, a decision was taken with the festival direction to not include the project. However, after the exhibition opening, and following a discussion with the artists, the festival direction has agreed with the curator to re-include the project, while the curator would like to distance herself from the project. A documentation of the project is on display at the foyer of the House of World Cultures.

http://www.transmediale.de/site/fileadmin/user/08/download/JJJ_Statement.pdf
http://www.transmediale.de
The documentation of the performance is available here.