Invitation to the Defense of Alexandra Tatar
The Institute for Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna kindly invites you to the defense of Alexandra Tatar's dissertation "The Teleported Subject in Post-Socialist Romania – Rethinking the Possibility of Eastern European Subjects at the Intersection of (Global) Media and Regional History: The Example of Handmade Satellite Dishes".
The Examination Panel is made up of: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Phil. Ruth Sonderegger (chair), Univ.-Prof. Dr.Phil. Marina Gržinić Mauhler (supervisor), Univ.-Prof. MMag. Dr. Clemens Apprich (external appraiser, University of Applied Arts Vienna)
The defense will take place in English and in the Anatomy Hall at the Academy.
Abstract
The thesis aims to rethink the state of the former Eastern European subject in post-socialism, through the prism of a case study of a 1980s DIY satellite technoculture of handmade satellite installations in Romania. The concept of Eastern Europe is approached through the lens of decolonial theory, which provides a critique of modernity. I am approaching the socialist legacy through technology, in the form of a satellite dish, whose implications provide a recalibration for understanding the subject.
Satellite television is a child of the Space Race, whilst opening up a telematic global space. The development of Direct Satellite in the 1980s enabled its large-scale implementation in the 1990s, coinciding with the period of transition. While satellite footprints ignore terrestrial nation-state borders, in Europe, the development of technology paradoxically reinforced the East-West divide. Research on satellite television and its cultural implications remains limited and rarely examines media infrastructure directly. Drawing on archival sources (National Archives of Romania and former Securitate Archives), local electronics magazines, and ethnographic work, including oral history, the thesis traces the material evidence of the handmade satellite installations in socialism and post-socialism. Anchored in interdisciplinary readings, including post-socialist and critical infrastructure studies, I analyze the friction between the media phenomenon and technocapitalism, interrogating its effects upon the construction of subjectivity in post-socialism.
Short biography
Alexandra Tatar is a researcher and visual artist living and working in Vienna. Focusing on grassroots movements in technology during socialism, her doctoral research at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, supervised by Univ.-Prof. Dr. Phil Marina Gržinić, interrogates the formation of post-socialist subjectivities. Tatar’s research on subjectivity and on systems and interdependencies shaping the ‘Central and Eastern Europe’ terrain builds on previous works, in which she dealt with visual culture’s influence on identity construction. Her work has been exhibited at MNAC, the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest (RO), FLUCA – Austrian Cultural Pavilion, Plovdiv (BG), VBKÖ (AT), and at the Vienna Art Week, amongst others, and her video work has been screened at international film festivals.