Iva Kontic

Developed as a doctoral research project at the University of Arts in Belgrade, AGIT-PROP-FLASH-MOB presents a series of public performances taking place in different geographical and social contexts, which are subsequently transferred from everyday spaces to the exhibition space in the form of video-sound installations.

AGIT-PROP-FLASH-MOB analyses the role of engaged art practices in contemporary socio-economic contexts and the potential of art to actively participate in social change. Its starting point is the precarious position of individuals in the contemporary labour market, which increasingly leaves them to their own devices and makes it more difficult for them to adapt to and fit into a system in ways that are consistent with their approaches to fighting for their existential and labour rights.

The project draws inspiration from the increasingly popular phenomenon of public group dancing within workers’ protests that emerged in the aftermath of the 2009 global financial crisis, using dance as a creative means of expressing collective dissatisfaction and addressing issues related to individual survival within contemporary society and its economic structures. The work takes its name from the contemporary phenomenon of the flash mob, a term often used by the mass media to describe protest dances, as well as from the agitprop practices of the historical avant-garde, which employed art to disseminate political ideas and ideologies to the masses.

AGIT-PROP-FLASH-MOB recontextualises the strategies of historical avant-garde movements, referring in particular to the revolutionary dance performances of American leftist dance companies in the 1930s. These groups pioneered the use of dance as a form of collective protest and mobilisation, exposing the harsh social realities of workers and the labouring class in direct response to the 1929 stock market crash and the subsequent Great Depression.

Today, in the context of the Great Recession, these strategies once again raise questions about the role and function of art in relation to everyday reality and its responsibility towards social issues. Yet, in an era deeply immersed in digital and telematic mass culture and saturated with technological apparatuses—where ideological enchantments are declared to have long since been overcome—can a form of artistic activism comparable to these earlier experiences still operate successfully within a contemporary context?

Can art, through physical movement, agitate the public and mobilise social consciousness around a common cause, or does each action and gesture simply dissipate into the electronic ocean of shared experiences and sophisticated forms of marketing?