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"
FRED FOREST PRESIDENT OF THE BULGARIAN TV"
THE PINK GLASSES FOR
THE PRESIDENCY OF THE NATIONAL BULGARIAN TELEVISION.
Under the generic title:
" Fred Forest, President for the Bulgarian television: for
an utopian and nervous TV" , I did a set of actions from 2d
to 9th of October, 1991, in the urban and media
context of Sofia. Sustained actively by the journalists of
the opposition, whereas the Communist strengths, (renamed
"socialist" modestly), always detained the levers of the power.
I led there a real public campaign to solicit an official
post. An official post to the highest level of the communication
of a socialist state, because it was about, simply, the one
of President general manager of the national television: BULGARSKA
TELEVISIJA, the society of exploitation of BTV 1 and BTV 2,
the two Bulgarian channels.
This post, besides,
was not at all at the time vacant. This provocation aimed
to anticipate in a way on the results to come from the next
elections for the designation of the representatives in the
Constituent assembly. Elections that should take place one
week later. My successive passages the very day of my arrival
in Sofia on the two national channels, at the strongest moments
of audience, immediately made of me the inescapable adversary
of the media, political power in place! This statute has been
bestowed me by Mr. Ognan Saparev himself, president in function
when, as unlikely as it can appear, it made announce by the
speaker of the News "that he raised the challenge of Frenchman
" for a face-to-face live! From now, my candidacy started
on the hats of wheel. As artist of the communication an astonishing
field of experimentation opened up before me. It is permissible
to imagine, already, what such a situation can constitute
in itself of exceptional to the title of a "singular personal
adventure". I would like in this setting to tempt to write
and to clarify how through such an experience, induced to
the title of a new practice, new territories of the communication
can be appropriate by the art, to produce the symbolic and
the critical questioning.
If we wait retrospectively
to analyze the continuation of the intervening events, it
is to note that the action in relation to its initial finality,
and to the script put in place to drive it, perfectly succeeded.
The space of the Bulgarian information will have been subverted
for one time by parasitic elements that, by contiguity contributed
to divert the codes in place; again more meaningfully in that
country. Well beyond Bulgaria, at this historic moment of
the mutations that affect the countries of the East, my subject
aimed an ingenuous way to question the use that is made of
this tool that is called the television and that by one way
or the other, models our societies, or even our minds. And
in this moment where the systems of information are the object
of multiple maneuvers of control, of power, of manipulation
of the opinion, make the object of crisis and ethical questionings,
to tempt to constitute a symbolic, original "object", taking
body in the very structure of information.
The artistic parody
of the political behaviors becoming, itself, an act of political
communication act, written down in the space of the information.
A space that is today, by the strength of the things, the
principal field of exchanges, strategies and the political
confrontations. In this experience, we made, in a deliberate
way, of the place of information the place of the art! The
one of the art, because, it was well, for us, of a symbolic
production. Of course it is not quite the same thing that
to give a piece of boulevard in a Parisian theater or a representation
on the racial segregation in a street of Harlem. It is not
either, precisely the same thing, to make a painting of rack,
that to present his candidacy for the post of President general
manager of the Bulgarian television...
I am minded to think
that in any case quoted, to different levels, we always work
with the imaginary, it is obvious that the direct implication
to the real is not the same. The displacement of the codes,
and in a way their parasitic, is always more interesting when
sudden is born by a kind of contamination the uncertainty
between what is of the order of the reality and what is a
matter of the pure fiction... It is the coming and going from
one to the other, in a distance that sometimes shrinks to
the point to annul itself, that creates itself the pleasure
of the receptor, his complicity, and sometimes his crisis
of conscience.
It was very clear for
people of my setting, and those of the Foundation Yanko Sakazov
responsible for the preparation of my campaign there that
this candidacy was of pure, symbolic range and challenging
character. Besides, how would it be otherwise? I was French
national, incapable to pronounce or to understand only one
word of the Bulgarian language. My program, extensively distributed,
affirmed without ambiguousness that I will immediately resign
the gotten post. Donít forget it, I am an artist. I would
be able to solicit the post of chief of the station of Perpignan
as well. But because I am an artist of the communication,
I had to pretend to the one of President of the Bulgarian
TV! For the highest number of observers, there, and especially
for the public of the media, it was difficult to make themselves
an opinion on this curious "candidacy", that yet benefitted
from two major assets: The one that confers, in Sofia, "the
aura" of a title of "to be in charge of courses at the Sorbonne
"... and the credibility that gave the recognition of the
journalists of the opposition that sustained him.
It is useful to give,
some information on the genesis of this candidacy. No one
could believe that I decided to present me to the post of
President of the Bulgarian TV following a sudden "revelation",
as some decide, overnight, that they are Napoleon! No, it
is a question of circumstances that always makes the thief.
Simply the fortuitous meeting of Bulgarian journalists in
the passageways of the Video Festival of Locarno. (1)
Journalists who had
knowledge of my practice by information received in Berlin,
some months earlier, on an achieved action between... Moscow
and Paris by telephone. (2) Delighted, visibly, to meet the
author of the first world musical creation, who had for setting
the international telephonic network between the East and
the West. Seduced by this artistic practice, Rossen Milev
after a long discussion proposed to me in an enthusiastic
impetus the realization of a "media event" in Sofia. Director
of the magazine Balkan Medium he assured me the collaboration
of a high number of press supports... Some months later he
took contact with me. Considering the central position occupied
again by the TV at that time, in the permanent polemic instituted
between the opposition and the Communists, possessors of the
power, Milev estimated that it was from this pole that himself
had to develop our action. He was decided therefore that my
action would consist in soliciting the post of President of
the Bulgarian television! Initially, the operation fixed and
prepared for December 1991, was reported following the demonstrations
occurred at the university in a generalized climate of social
tensions. It achieved ten months later, in the foreseen conditions.
When I apply for to
the posts of the Bulgarian TV, to the highest level, it is
quite obvious that the discounted success rests entirely on
the capacity to invest the media space. On the good working
of the device, elaborated in order to put in stage my candidacy
in the space of information. While producing the events, while
practicing a systematic diversion of the codes in use, we
would make emerge a critical questioning of a quite unpublished
shape in a country under the totalitarian model ascendancy.
Some " strength ideas" and some signs selected would constitute
the vocabulary of basis of this campaign to guarantee, at
the same time, the provocation and the legitimacy: the promised
Television will be "utopian and nervous". The candidate is
not a politician. The candidate is not a bureaucrat. The candidate
is not an administrator. The candidate is not a technocrat.
The candidate is a "artist" of the media, of international
renown. The candidate is of French nationality. The candidate
doesn't have any link of relationship with President Mitterrand.
The candidate will carry the pink glasses. The candidate will
announce the date of his resignation the very day of his designation.
At the time of his public apparitions, and to the television,
the candidate will always be clothed of rock musician jacket
made of black leather. The candidate is in charge of course
at the Sorbonne. The candidate concerning television challenges
the models of the East, as those of the West. It will be reduce
the aimed subject to want to bring back this type of action
to the level of the hoax. Certainly Coluche had already considered,
in the setting of an electoral consultation in France, to
solicit the supreme elysean post. Pressures of all orders
dissuaded him quickly. Coluche, with his own genius, was before
all an artist of varieties, who only saw there an opportunity,
like another, to exercise his humor and his corrosive vivacity.
The step engaged in Sofia doesn't aim the same goals. It essentially
aims to subvert the systems, media to better reveal the mechanisms
of it. It is a work and a praxis on the codes. A metacommunication
on the communication that tends by his specific practice to
question the working of information in our societies. This
questioning doesn't operate with the help of conceptual tools,
by an analysis and a theoretical speech but, by an action
that plays on the situation, itself, live. By a diversion
of the codes that play on several levels.
Retrospectively, what
appears astonishing, it is the fact that the media power in
place, incarnated by Saparev, himself to the summit, President
of the Television Bulgarian, didn't smell the ruse, and that
he hurried on the contrary, fallen head in the nets stretched
by us... Since the day of my arrival in Sofia, that had been
preceded of some information distilled by my friends journalists
of the written press, I threw him the challenge of a face-to-face,
live. Stated challenge at the time of my first conference,
before the journalists, to the International Center of Press,
I unveiled the contents at the same time my program for a
new Bulgarian television: "utopian and nervous". Since 8 P.M.
the pictures of this press conference were broadcasted in
the newspaper of in the evening, commented by the star-announcer,
Nery Terzieva, on the first BTV1 channel. At 10 P.M. it was
to the turn of the second channel to give some information
in its News broadcast. To the seen of these pictures the reaction
of Saparev Ognan, under the influence of the impulse, was
to pick up his direct line to call the writing. At the end
of News, Nery Terzieva read a communiqué by which Ognan
Saparev made know, officially: "that he raises the challenge
of the Frenchman"... The following day, his setting became
aware of his blunder. The representativeness of a French artist
is not at the same level that the one of a President of the
Bulgarian Television... Counseled by his director of cabinet,
on different pretexts, he tempted to win time: journey in
province, diplomatic flu, meeting of work with the... Chief
of the State. The journalists of the opposition, on its traces,
harassed it, without respite, so that he made know the day
and the hour of the confrontation on the small screens. The
press, in headlines, titled: "Saparev is afraid of the artist",
"Saparev hides", "Saparev dreads the Frenchman". I imagine
without pain the distinguished embarrassment of the services
of the embassy of France to Sofia... Having heard of the project
the Quai díOrsay (Foreign affairs) already tempted to dissuade
me to engage this action. The pressure was hardly veiled.
It emanated of a diplomat in post in Sofia, even before my
departure of Paris. France negotiated at this time agreements
on TV with Bulgaria, judged of first importance. My inopportune
"action" risked to put them in peril. One dreaded a diplomatic
incident that "would put all on the floor"! Interference of
a French national in State affairs of a foreign State. Still
elusive Saparev offered by its avoidance the best springboard
to the dynamics of our campaign. The affair became national.
Henceforth, it was impossible to me to circulate in the streets
of Sofia without improvising a press conference on the sidewalk.
The Frenchman by his repeated apparitions to the TV had become:
"the cathodic icon with pink glasses!" to the eyes of the
Bulgarian people!
The calendar that had
been established for the campaign continued not less to take
place according to the script written at the time of its preparation.
- Meeting with soccers
on a stadium during an international match.
- Diner with a family-type
at the hour of the prime-time.
- Meeting with intellectuals
to the literary coffee of Sofia.
- Diner-debate to the
restaurant of the press.
- Meeting with the union
representatives of the audiovisual press.
- Tour in province,
to the Plodiv, the second city of the country
- Duplex with the FIAC
in Paris, to give information, in direct, of the development
of my campaign for an utopian television...
- Visit of courtesy
to the orthodox community at the Monastery of Patchko
- Debate to the university,
to the department of political sciences with the students
etc.
My displacements and
my consultations, at a wild rhythm, had for advantage to maintain
the pressure in the media. Saparev, invisible, made resurgence
by an astonishing and perfectly incongruous initiative: Thursday
October 8, breaking his muteness, het made known that he waited
for me to lunch in one of the best restaurants of Sofia...
If the day before, I had answered with pleasure similar invitation
of Mikhail Petkov chief of the Democratic Social Party and
leader of the opposition forces, it was not conceivable that
I go to sit at the table of Saparev. The maneuver seemed quite
coarse to me. I saw, already, the following day, in the Bulgarian
press, our photo,: The hand of Saparev on my shoulder! Saparev,
napkin to the neck waiting for me, inside, in company of his
cabinet chief. I asked Katia Vladimirova, journalist, to be
my spokeswoman. She would make know to Saparev that I was
coming to Sofia to catch his post, that I didn't have anything
against his person, but that I won't get sit to his table
only if he communicated to the public, date and hour of our
face-to-face, in direct, foreseen to the television! On the
sidewalk, through the steamy window, I could see his chief
of cabinet agitate his both arms, like a semaphore. Red of
anger, his indignation expressed without restraint: "It was
the first time that similar affront was made to a President
in exercise". To dare to put some conditions before sitting
down to his table constituted an unspeakable injury. Saparev,
frozen in his three pieces "soviet" gray, didn't have visibly
any right to the speech. From this moment the events hurry.
I return by ambulance, all howling sirens to the head office
of the television to put back a letter made public by which
I take act of the avoidance of Saparev. The members of the
video team that follow me since the first day have all donned
of the blouses... of nurses for the circumstance. The letter
mentions that "the power of the imagination will always be
above the political power, the language of wood, and the bureaucracy".
I follow in the streets of Sofia an itinerary that brings
me to the Parliament. It is about, in a way, of an election
campaign trailer. Perched on the roof of a car, I greet the
crowd.
My crew: riders on their
settings that wave antennas of television. Returning on a
television stage to record a programmed for a longtime broadcast
I refuse to participate: my guests have been changed, replaced
by perfectly unknown people, but of which there is no mystery
of their political adherence. My friends take me to part on
the stage. Some precise information have been communicated
to them: They are incapable, henceforth, to assure my security.
I must leave, as soon as possible for Paris, in the twenty
four hours by the first plane!
Tuesday October 8, before
a high number of journalists, I draw up the balance of my
campaign. The meeting has been organized in the local of the
International Center of Press. It will be my last press conference
before my departure for the airport. First of all, changing
alternately of place, on all sides of the table, I simulate
the face-to-face that won't have had place finally. There
is in the room several people who occupy posts of first plan
on the two national channels, also of very numerous journalists
who have been dismissed by Saparev. Then I reaffirm the principles
founding of an utopian and nervous "television". Here below,
some excerpts:
"For the first time,
since my arrival in Sofia I am going to remove before you
these pink glasses that made me famous until in the most far
countries... At the time of leaving for Paris I am going to
deliver you my true face. To be quite clear on the mind that
governed this candidacy I must to specify the following facts:
Being, nor a technocrat,
nor an administrator, nor even less a politician, or an entrepreneur
of press, I solicited this post in my quality of artist of
the communication, and solely to this title. It is why breaking
with the admitted uses I proposed since my nomination to institute
of straightaway, and in an irreversible way, the utopian,
creative, interactive and nervous television of tomorrow.
Such was the repeated
slogan, all along my campaign. I noted well that your television
was in crisis and that the task that waited for me would not
be restful. A lot of televisions are throughout the world
in crisis. The action that I undertook, here, aimed, under
the pretext of the Bulgarian television, to question, beyond
this country, what makes the man today of this extraordinary
tool? How does he use it? What are the stakes of it? the perspectives?
Its function to the service of the humanity, to the threshold
of the third millennium? It is to the Bulgarian, of course,
to adjust their own problems. Besides, they will make it next
Sunday at the time of the elections while going at the urns.
I don't have a lesson to give them. You understood as I leave
toward my own life, in France, that the post of President
General of the Television was not important for me. My mission
is filled. What is important, it is what we achieved in these
some days, together: a symbolic event, an exemplary media
action that interrogates in the media the working of the media.
At the same time, a call to the imagination of which the place
of broadcast will have been Sofia in the year 1991. Sofia
at this historic moment where the world topples, because such
an action would not have made sense, nor in Paris, nor in
Tokyo, nor to New York. When the former systems collapse and
where the world searches for its new values, the creation
and the hope must take their right. My campaign to solicit
this post, and even my pink glasses, have only for goal to
agitate the ideas, to open a debate on the role that should
play the media and the television in a society said of communication
that opens up on the 21st century. We came to Sofia
to work in this sense. To make sense. The artists make sense
according to a tried technique that is their own: to practice
the derision in an ocean of non sense, to recover the sense.
In spite of the appearances, candidacy will never have been
as serious. Mr. Saparev, and the bureaucracy that secreted
it, were not able to seize it. Such an attitude is located
outside of the political logic that structures his mental
horizon. What counts is what happened, here, in the week.
What counts, these are the symbols. The symbols, also, are
weapons. My candidacy was a symbolic act that would become
meaningful to the eyes of the world.
For the unconditional
support to my candidacy, I thank the Internationale Association
of the men and the women of imagination, the Body of the firemen
of Oise, the Philharmonic Orchestra of New York, the team
of soccers of the Ajax of Amsterdam, Mr. Smith dentist and
viewer to Bristol, UK, the chief of the police of the Canton
of Vaud in Switzerland, the brother-in-law of the President
of the French Republic, Neil Armstrong cosmonaut, André
Breton and his friends, the anonymous person who addressed
me a telegram of support of South Africa, the Circle of the
cavalry officers at the retirement of Liepzig, the Amicale
of the television Presidents general managers dismissed these
last years. I don't thank three people: Fidel Castro, Saddam
Hussein, President Khadafi.
Since last October,
after this odd and flaming campaign at a time, some months
passed... The opposition won the elections of a short advance.
Strength is to note that the "utopian and nervous" television
is put back sine die, in Bulgaria, as elsewhere. Like what,
it is not sufficient to raise pink glasses to become in Bulgaria
the President of the national Television, nor even the one
of a private channel in France... That one tells it!
FRED FOREST
December 1991
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