Victims’ Symptom, curated by Ana Peraica (Croatia/The Netherlands) and specially commissioned by LabforCulture to celebrate its first year anniversary in the summer of 2007, invites the public to join in the preparation for the Victims’ Symptom online debate to take place in April 2008.

Victims’ Symptom focuses on the concept of the victim as it is practically used in politics and journalism, but also as it is explored theoretically in victimology and in psychiatry and psychotherapy, as well as in the field of cultural studies. The project features critical texts, documentation, commissioned artworks and reflections by the curator and a number of other theorists and artists throughout the project.

The project focuses on the following questions:

Why does the mass media prefer to talk in terms of numbers of corpses, calculating them morbidly, with apparent disregard for the victims’ status? Do numbers matter? Or is each loss a single one? Does the number of victims reported by the media’s “truth speaking” make any real difference or is it perpetuating the media myth that cannot report on few?

Who profits from death? Is there a bureaucracy of death? What is the dominant exchange rate between civilians and soldiers, our victims and their victims?

Is the cultural production of victims preventing us from seeing the actual victims? Are we able to see what happened only after a sufficient number of movies, novels and theses published on massacres? Is earning a degree on a massacre ethical? Furthermore, how can denying a massacre lead to no consequences? Are we losing our capacity for empathy? Are we victimised ourselves? Is there a therapy for such a world?

We are inviting the public to send in their responses (artworks, comments, texts and debates) to these questions in the following ways:

1. Links to existing projects to be reviewed

Links should be accompanied by a short description (100 words max) explaining which particular curatorial question or questions they address. This description will subsequently accompany the selected links on the Victims’ Symptom website.

2. Full, published texts or interviews (html, blog, wiki…)

Texts should be summarised in a short description (200 words max) outlining the specific issues and questions they address. Texts that require users to login for access will not be considered.

3. Separate discussions on mailing lists, message boards and forums with public access

Moderators with proposals for discussions should send an email outlining the concept along with the names of the proposed participants. If the discussion is to take place on external mailing lists, message boards or discussion forums, the forums should be open access and, optionally, have an RSS feed. A one-line description of the location of the discussion should be provided, stating the URL, focus of the group / forum, year it was founded, number of members, etc.

Send an e-mail to victims_symptom@yahoo.com with your proposal for participation by 21 March 2008.

All contributions will be reviewed by Victims’ Symptom curator Ana Peraica and assistant Marko Stamenkovic. Selected material will be included in the online space and debate in April 2008.

More information on Victims’ Symptom.

More about the participating artists and theorists in the Victims’ Symptom project.

Victims' Symptom blog