Russian-Cyberspace.org:
Cultural Identity Performances on the Russian Internet
Workshop at the Lotman Institute for Russian
and Soviet Culture (Bochum), 22nd March 2005
On One Non-normative Subculture
on the Russian Net
by Olga Goriunova
When I was invited to participate in this project,
the topic proposed to me referred to "net art and political
community" and included three major elements: digital art,
political activism in its digitalized form and counterculture.
1. Digital Art
If we look at the first element - digital art on Russian internet,
it would not be very inaccurate to establish that digital art on
the Russian scene appeared to a large extent as a product of western
influence and infusion of money implemented by George Soros [1].
For a number of artists it was the Soros's politics that gave the
first push, for instance, in the form of education or/and access
to a personal computer; they developed into known digital artists
but for a number of reasons had/have to work in the western context
again [2]. Here internet looses the fight to traditional culture
and social structures: if the society in the form of media, education
and cultural institutes as well as traditional cultural habits and
norms do not recognize digital technology as an artistic language
and - widely - cultural domain, such things as self-reflected digital
art hardly exists.
However, if self-reflected digital art is scarce, Internet and digital
technologies are still the domains of creative work, the main difference
of which from its western companion is that it is not produced in
the framework of some study program or for some digital art festival.
It is the creative work that is mostly often not recognized by the
society as such and if transferred to art discourse could be labelled
"object trouve of digital art" [3]. In plus, such creative
work often reflects the inclination of Russian culture to the literature,
and can take various literary forms.
2. Political Activism
If we turn to the second element of my theme, which is political
activism, the first thing that comes to mind and I cannot help its
banality is intensive political passivity and let us say "active
inactivity" of the groups of people generally dominating or
at least that are used to dominate in the net: majority of educated
males and minority of females aged between 20 and 45 [4]. I cannot
imagine a sincere political action emerging from these groups of
people. This phenomenon will be partly addressed in the case of
my essay, though it is an enourmous issue for a separate piece of
writing.
There is material, however, for studying aharchistic, other radical
or supportive of president movements on the Russian net - in other
words, real political forces with specific self-organization, ideologies
and economics and their net bases or mirrors, but I believe this
is also beyond the scope of a present study.
3. Counterculture
The third element of my topic deals with counterculture.
Counterculture or subculture are the terms of the same order along
with underground movement, lifestyle, social strata, and some other
and popular in academic research since at least 1960-s (though some
of these terms are rooted in the 30-s). They are defined through
their relation to "culture": as opposed to culture these
terms represent areas (ideological, symbolical, of social relations,
of lifestyles) that are left outside of official dominating culture.
When appeared, terms such as subculture represented areas below
the culture (sub-) that was "high", supported and reproduced
by elits and sacred. These terms were used to signify movements
that were believed (and sometimes proclaimed that themselves) to
be against any culture (as only one dominating culture was considered
the Culture). By now, there is a clear understanding of a differentiated
character of culture that includes different practices - sacred
as well as profane, established and underworld, professional and
folk, etc.
Thus, subcultures and countercultures are all substructures of culture.
Prefix Sub- has lost its meaning of being subordinate and has taken
on a substructural shade.
Anyway, there are still difficulties with defining these terms,
as there is hardly a term having more definitions then "culture".
For our purposes in the case of this research I will use the following
meanings.
Subculture is a subsystem of culture defining itself through the
cultural code of the bigger system (through different levels of
exclusion) with a set of constitutive distinctive features, such
as sign (ideology, worldview, symbolic codes), behaviouristic (norms
and models, rituals), social (social stratas that produce the subculture),
and it is the system that is capable of reproduction [5].
I will also use counterculture as a term with a slightly different
meaning. Counterculture especially as a strategy of political action
(culture and art as polticical action) is a form of organization
of culture built on open opposition and aimed at decontsruction
of symbolic order of dominating social system. Counterculture presupposes
impossibility of political change from inside the institutional
structures [6].
Thus, counterculture is a more radical term. For instance, subculture
could be the children's culture whereas counterculture always has
political elements.
Both terms could be applied to internet communities with a number
of limitations related to the nature of internet.
So if we look at the three elements of the theme:
| 1. |
Unprofessional
and somewhat traditional artistic work in the digital domains
instead of digital art |
| |
|
| 2. |
Political passivity
with general discontent with mass media politics, unregulated
advertisment, the culture of glossy magazines, liveshows on
TV and other manifestations of "wild capitalism" |
| |
|
| 3. |
When we come to
the third element, a critical countercultural alternative subculture,
we will have to face the non-normative subcultures of the Russian
net. Such cultures are often based on Russian non-normative
vocabulary that is the richiest source for building countercultural
symbolics, and a language domain unknown to European languages.
It is hard to imagine a language in itself which is so obscene,
so beyond the verge of permissible speech behavior and so perfect
for manifesting the distinction, the protest then Russian non-normative
or "maternyi" lexicon. |
There is a resource uniting all three interpreted elements, which
is udaff.com.
Udaff.com is a networked subculture with the elements of counterculture
centered on the platform udaff.com/net/org or padonki.ru. Udaff
is a very large platform (1.03.2005-14.03.2005: 165.594 of unique
visitors) with a maximum of 13 mln hits a month and a number of
distinctive features and modes of participation.
One participates through writing a "creatiff" [7] - a
short story often told in specific language associated with udaff.
Others comment on the "creatiff". Apart from textual creative
work, there is a section devoted to visuality (usually posters created
or edited in photoshop, often a parody on existing billboards),
There is also a photographic section.
The structure of Udaff is quite complex, and I will not spend time
now on thorough describtion of the sections and their roles. I can
mention that there are sections devoted to politics, to foreign
countires and life abroad, to sports, book, movie and website reviews,
cooking and sections such as polemics, comments to "creatiffs",
letters from the readers and other options for communication.
As many of on-line communities, Udaff has offline meetings. And
Udaff is adminstrated by only one person (he filters the entire
content himself).
Udaff visitors (there is no registration and
members) self-identify as "padonki" - scums or villains
(again mispelled).
Ideological basis of udaff.com is described through the scheme "sex,
drugs, rock-n-roll", but here it is transformed into "sex,
alcohol, hash". Most creatiffs have to cover at least one of
these topics (but it does not happen always); and thus creatiffs
differ from soft or hard porn stories to precious literary texts,
some of which follow the style developed by Mamleev and Sorokin,
to name two.
The symbolical platform of subculture of udaff is its language.
The stories are mostly written with abundance of non-normative vocabulary
and with wrong orthography. Thus, you receive not only non-normative
text thematically, but also lexically and grammatically.
The non-normative vocabulary ("mat" in Russian) used is
characterized by udaff users as "intelligent mat", "lexics
that is called to make the text vivid, spicy and graphic in contrast
to normative language of newspapers and vicious box (TV-O.G.) "
[8], "the usage of mat should be in appropriate place, in a
delicate combination of words, in a new unheard-of form, and exclusively
in a friendly chat" [9].
In some comments udaff participants call themselves "countercultural
writers" [10].
Due to the topics and the language used - which are all tabooed
- udaff provides a shocking first impression, and that what it enjoys.
After the first impression, one notices that there is a worldview
more or less shared by the users, which themselves can be roughly
described through a few groups belonging to different social stratas.
According to a number of interviews and polls, and also to comments
and texts, among other groups, there is definitely a group of users
that are aged from 20-25 till 35-45, having high education and working
in the spheres of service: managers, various office workers [11],
- white collars in sum.
Actually I am now describing a commonplace theory that one cannot
escape when browsing through udaff. To put shortly, this theory
suggests that white collars - a part of udaff users, enjoy udaff
as an antistress remedy. They read udaff stories in the morning
upon arrival to their workplaces, they keep udaff window open in
a toolbar of their desktops through the day and, thus, through its
violent style they are able to bare the meaninglessness of their
work and to get on with alien collegues [12].
This theory could be criticized as reductionist and simplifiying,
but there is definitely something in it.
If we look at the social strata this part of udaff users belong
to, we can presuppose that by their education, profession and social
position in general 15 years ago they would have played the role
of intelligentsia. As I have little time I will not dwell on the
concept of Russian intelligentsia, which I plan to do in the paper.
Since intelligentsia went throught the process of radical transformation
in the 90-s, and I would suggest there are very few places left
for its repsesentatives in the social and cultural structures of
the Russian society today, these people were left out of the culture
of self-definition according to which they were all brought up (remember,
that our childhood and for some - adolescence and youth - were spent
in the USSR). If USSR continued to live on, today's white collars
would probably become research fellows of numerous scientific institutions
- cheap engineering workforce of a military society [13].
However, today we have intellectuals (which number is radically
lower then 1.5 million) and we have office workers (that is to a
certain extent where potential "intelligentsia" went to).
So I would like to suggest that a part of users of udaff are unfortunate
descendants of intelligentsia, would-be intelligentsia. And correspondingly
to the tradition of criticism and negativism developed in the culture
of Russian intelligetsia, our white collars express unsatisfaction
with the wild capitalism of today's Russia. Political views and
general worldview of udaff's white collars are usually expressed
through the categories of unsatisfaction, escape, freedom and passivity.
"Padonok (Udaff user, see above - O.G.) is a human being who
are more or less free of hypocrisy… who fully understands and
despises the falsity of our society". "It is a form of
defense from bestiality of life. What do we see on the TV? .. Padonki
are smart and educated and they try to defend from corporate culture.
…You work the whole day in a very tough, almost totalitarian
conditions…" "To be drunk is the normal condition
of a thinking person, because a thinking person in a current socio-political
system can only hang himself". "Naturally the resource
fights massculture. … Here we have everything: literature,
foto, fine arts, music… Compare the content with the content
of .. television. Do you feel the difference? The resource is our
fight…" "Shall we go to demonstration? … No
community is possible, and any movement is meaningless in the end.
We are here only to smile and chat with like-minded people…"
[14].
So it is a subculture of anti-mainstream; advertisment,
television, glossy media, mass culture of consumption get critisized.
Udaff users discuss political processes in Russia in relation to
themselves (there is, for instance, a big number of discussions
on immigration), and there is definitely a space for political manoevres
(like boycott of elections). However, their views do not constitute
any coherent political countercultural ideology. Here we come to
political passivity mentioned earlier. The ignorance is spread through
the whole resource, and it is the ignorance characteristic of these,
most active groups of the Russian society in general.
So in the conclusion I could say, that udaff
is an interesting non-normative subculture, the most obscene of
possible due to its symbolics; important communication platform
and a corner of autonomy; community characterized by semi-radicality
and a mirror of contemporainety in the areas concerning social roles,
political views and ideologies. Finalizing my talk I'd like to conclude
that my research will dwell on udaff's symbolics, ideology and social
basis and apart from the mentioned directions will focus on:
| - |
The history of
non-normative subcultures on the Russian net, at least the history
of udaff.com that starts from 1998 in the form of irc channel
#flex and domain fuck.ru. |
| |
|
| - |
Some other artistic/cultural
forms of political and critical commentary and their potential
in their historical dynamics, such as Why we do not like Moscow
(http://www.teterin.raid.ru/maskva/), vladimirvladimirovich.ru
and others. These smaller projects should be mentioned to illustrate
the variety of critical practices on the Russian net, though
they probably could not form any significant body of practice.
|
| |
|
Plan:
Subcultures / countercultures: to the question of definition in
the situation of the Russian net.
Short history of non-normative subcultures on the Russian net.
Udaff.com/org/net: ideology, social basis, political side, artworks/style
analysis.
Political and critical commentary: other
________________________
|
[1]
|
1993-1994: work of Moscow New
Media Art Laboratory, NewMediaTopia exhibition and NewMediaLogia
symposium, and other programmes of Soros Center for Contemporary
Arts. |
|
{2]
|
Alexei Shulgin, for instance.
http://easylife.org |
|
[3]
|
putin.exe is a perfect example
http://www.macros-center.ru/read_me/inde5.htm#port |
|
[4]
|
This statistics has been changing
in the recent years (for statistic see http://www.monitoring.ru/off-line/products/free/internet/Russian_Internet_monitoring.pdf),
but the general picture of political passivity of Internet users
has not been challenged. |
|
[5]
|
See T.Shchepanskaya. System:
Texts and Traditions of Subcultures. Moscow: OGI, 2004. http://poehaly.narod.ru/ |
|
[6]
|
See texts of the seminar "Youth
movements and subcultures of S.-Petersburg" at http://subculture.narod.ru/texts/index.html
and works by M.Sokolov in particular http://socnet.narod.ru/Rubez/16-17/Sokolov.htm |
|
[7]
|
It is a mispelled
for "creativ", a term that appeared in Russian together
with the capitalist economy and advertisement agencies with
"creators"working there. Interesting, that English
terms such as creator, creative and "creativ" [kri?'tif]
as a noun (piece of creation) were adopted and are used untranslated,
whereas corresponding Russian terms are used when referred to
art and other values of traditional high culture. |
|
[8]
|
http://udaff.org/polemika/41896.html
|
|
[9]
|
http://www.forum.udaff.com/showthread.php?t=2926&page=4&pp=30 |
|
[10]
|
http://udaff.org/authors/renson/38607.html |
|
[11]
|
32%
graduated from the university, 17% - from the institute, and
9% has two high degrees: see http://www.forum.udaff.com/showthread.php?t=1277;
http://www.forum.udaff.com/showthread.php?t=1521 is devoted
to profession of udaff users. |
|
[12]
|
Such statements are often at
udaff along with the notes similat to: "the story has given
a good kick for the whole working day in the office". Some
of them can be found here: http://www.udaff.com/polemika/33606.html
|
|
[13]
|
L.Gudkov explains the overproduction
of engineers and technical intelligentsia in the last decades
of the USSR through military economy that needed the increase
in technical potential. Gudkov gives the following numbers:
by the end of the 1980-s the number of research fellows reached
1.5 million people, and 2/3 of them worked in departmental scientific
institutions of military-industrial establishment.
See L.Gudkov. Negative Identity: Articles Written between 1997
and 2002. Moscow: NLO. 2004. p.718-724. |
|
[14]
|
http://www.kp.ru/daily/23162.5/24867/,
http://www.udaff.net/polemika/41471.html, http://old.versiasovsek.ru/2003/34/manenjoy/4529.html,
http://www.udaff.com/polemika/35165.html, http://www.udaff.com/polemika/37869.html |
|
