[TIMESCAPES CONCEPT]

[CORRIDOR X ]
    - Introduction Corridor X
    - Story Corridor X
        + Balkan non verbal
        + Monastiraki square
        + Videotopos
        + Salonica/EC conference

[ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT]
    - linear
    - non-linear
    - performative

[LINKS]

[BIOGRAPHY]

Before the wars in Yugoslavia started in 1991 the highway of “Brotherhood and Unity” was the major route on which migrant workers from Germany drove back to their place of birth. Every summer an endless row of spectacularly overloaded cars rolled “home” for vacation. This trip became the site of a collective memory for the first and second generation of German “Gastarbeiters”. Novels, poems and fiction films as a cultural expression from migrants in Germany had already been produced in the beginning of the 80ties (“Europastrasse 5” - a novel by Güney Dal) and during the 90ties (“Mercedes mon amour” - a film by Tunc Okan).
 

Travelling is generally considered as a form of cultural enrichment, as an event in time (Kairos) that allows for new experiences to be made. But the journey through Yugoslavia was considered as a painful and dangerous necessity in order to get home. Travelling through in closed cars, not stopping outside of the “corridor”, and being constantly afraid of accidents, become a metaphor describing the mentality inherent to migrants from Western Europe pre 1991 - feelings of being “locked out” or “locked in”, a monotonous work life, and closed circuit.
 

The traffic flow on Corridor X was finally interrupted in 1994 because the highway became a front line and was destroyed in the war between Croatia and Serbia. From then on migrants chose to travel via Italy to Greece and Turkey either by boat or by aeroplane. Today this most important transit road crossing Europe to the East has been reconstructed and reopened again. However, it still remains quite empty, not only because of the significant changes of borders and migration policy inside the EC, but also because of new travel restrictions for citizens from Ex-Yugoslavian states like Macedonia and Serbia.
 

Naming the highway in Yugoslavia “Bratstvo jedinstvo” (Brotherhood and Unity) points to the historical weight of the construction of the road. The building started after World War II with German reparation funds for the war. The project was not only intended to connect the different republics of Yugoslavia, but it was a programmatic issue as well - a political program for strengthening the national identity of the state lead by Josip Broz Tito.
Connecting the different republics of Yugoslavia meant to simultaneously unite the different ethnical groups of the country. Besides professional labour forces, so-called voluntary “Youth actions” were organized: young Yugoslavian citizens were called to contribute to the construction process of roads and railways. Building the infrastructure of the state became a matter of national pride. The youth involved in the project were meant to bring in “positive, emotional energy” as a kind of “mystical link” for the future of the nation.
 

Balkans non verbal
by Dragana Zarevaç

The footage is the result of cooperation between two artists from Belgrade and Ankara who based their work on non-verbal communication. There are two groups of images: video performances, and records of passing through the urban-spaces of Belgrade. Performances are created from gestures coming from Balkan cultures. Recorded urban spaces were chosen in reference to their connection to non-Serbian cultures (Moslems, Gypsies, traces of the Ottomans).

Indeed the post-war generation of Yugoslavia travelled to Western Europe or to the east to experience the world, and they recall nostalgically some exciting get-togethers on the highway of “Brotherhood and Unity”. Hitchhiking developed as a common way to travel and meet people from other cultures. Petrol stations near bigger cities developed as meeting places.
 

The construction of the highway between 1949 and 1985 remained a constant financial problem for Yugoslavia. The cooperation between Western Europe and the communist government during the cold war functioned, but inside the country the unequal financial power of the different republics delayed the finalisation of the project.
In 1995 the highway was blocked, then destroyed, and later during the war partially reconstructed.
 

MONASTIRAKI SQUARE
by Freddy Viannelis

A square located under the Acropolis, by a Byzantine church, next to a Mosque that is turned into a museum, surrounded by Macdonald’s, Kebab places, the entrance to the underground station, and people that move about. A girl in her early twenties is waiting. Her wait is very long; she waits for the whole day. Her day at work comes alive in her mind, she is a model at the art school; the people in the square, the places that surround her, their cultures and their roots and history come alive and allow us to share her perception. The images delineate the barriers of these crossroads between civilizations.

The beginning of the highway of “Brotherhood and Unity” is the tunnel of the Loiblpass. As with many other highways in Germany, this tunnel was built during World War II by forced workers who had been “selected” from concentration camps in Austria. Today at both sides of the tunnel a memorial site is installed to remember the prisoners of the camps. A few of them had escaped from the “hell at the Loiblpass” and became partisans in the army of Josip Broz Tito.
 

Today the last obstacle to the completion of the 4-6 lane Corridor X, which in fact no longer carries the name of “Brotherhood and Unity”, is a stunning mountain area on the border between Macedonia and Greece. A second lane to be broken through the valley of the river Varda is scheduled to be built before the start of the Olympic games in Athens.

 

 

Videotopos
by VIDEA (Media Collective)

This footage on forced migration is a series of images of emptied spaces and stories that resulted from the intervention of the Turkish state against minorities in various locations from East to West Turkey (Hakkari, Tavsanli, Gokceada).
The recordings reveal a connection between oral history and global politics in the general context of the B-Zone. They show the heavy affect resulting from a policy of modernity in Turkey and its invisible borders. These events are not mediated but have weight in the collective awareness of the people.
The footage of physical topographies leads to psychological topographies.
This project about forced migration explores the stories of migrants within the context of their changing relation to the places they lived and where they live now.
It also intends to raise questions about the effects of video making in these spaces.

Already in 1991, the European Union created a so-called pan-European program (PAN) for financing and building infrastructure in South-East Europe and far beyond the European borders. Three corridors (IV, VIII, X) were planned in order to integrate the economy of the ex-socialistic countries into the European market. The Corridor X might be the only one that will be finalized, but it was born with a different project idea in mind than for example the Corridor VIII, which was initiated by the Clinton administration after 1991 but still remains on paper.
Corridor VIII was to cross the Corridor X in Skopje and connect Tirana with Sofia and Burgas. Its realisation was stopped in autumn 2003 after the recent war in Iraq. The planning of Corridor VIII (road, train and pipeline) was partially investigated during the Yugoslavian wars by the same American enterprises that are currently involved in the oil business of Iraq (TDA: Trade and Development Agency). The connection between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea crossing Kosovo remains a burning subject of sometimes paranoid discussion on the Internet. The American attention in Corridor VIII, described as the attempt to “open a corridor for American multinationals having a hand in the policy of market deregulation in the backyard of Germany”, collided with the interests of the EC. The investigation was stopped by the EC in autumn 2003 and postponed to an uncertain future.

The entire concept of the pan-European networks, called pan-European transport spaces (PETRA), covers Europe between the Atlantic and the Ural, as well as the Mediterranean countries of North Africa. This is an area containing around one billion consumers.
 

The actual form of integrating pan-European territories via infrastructure reflects an idea of modern colonisation that existed already at the end of the nineteenth century. For example, in 1888 Bismarck initiated the project BAGHDAD BAHN in cooperation with German industries and the Deutsche Bank. To finance the construction of the railroad connecting Berlin with Baghdad, the Turkish government agreed with a consortium of the Deutsche Bank to be the operating company and to “earn income per kilometre”. To finance the second part of the railway between Ankara and Baghdad, in 1912 the Deutsche Bank was guaranteed by the Turkish Sultan to obtain all resources of oil and minerals within a 20 km territory spanning the length of the railway line, and enough working force that would cost no more than “water and bread” to build the railway. In reality forced workers were recruited from Armenians living in Turkey as a part of the genocide of 1914. Many of them are buried along the railway tracks.
The construction of Corridor X starts and ends with the history of the two world wars and forced labour. So, the concept of the highway of “Brotherhood and Unity” follows as a particular example of the methodologies of socialistic ideologies that today take a step back to new economic developments of globalisation.

Thessalonika/EC Conference
by Hito Steyerl

The footage documents the information structures of the EC conference held in Thessalonica in June 2003, and the violent demonstrations against the conference in the city of Thessalonica. The conference deals with the future of the political involvement of the EC in the Balkans.