Zala Dobovšek, 17th International Festival Ex Ponto (Delo Ljubljana, 22. September 2010)
Boris Kadin (Via Negativa): Guilty!
(…) This theoretically buttressed performance, which in the manner of a pedagogical lesson critically sifts the ethical function of ‘affirming responsibility’ from antiquity onwards, acts as a summons to a serious consideration of the role of world economic magnates (the performer takes the example of the economist Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the International Monetary Fund to make his point), whose scheming tentacles have a global reach and affect us as well. Kadin’s provocativeness, which realizes itself fully once he has delivered his extensive socio-ethical monologue, does not rest merely in his sharp commenting on some governing organization, but rather in his final summons to the audience to arrive at a judgement as to whether the key figure under consideration, Strauss-Kahn, is guilty or not guilty. The spectator’s engaged voting yields a result that – accompanied by the performer’s previous arguments and in his name – is sent to the email address of the financial mogul. An unexpectedly bitter aftertaste of the spectator, who sent off his voice in an emotional affect, functions as a test in confronting the ‘real’ also on the other – observing – side of the stage. Not to mention the nagging thought of whether there is any guarantee that any of the contents of the (presented) web construct were even real.
Nika Leskovšek, Why ostracism was expelled and why art today?
(Tribuna Ljubljana, oktober 2010)
(…) The performance assumes the form of a performance lecture, which Kadin – equipped with seminar material and the always useful internet (by clicking on imp.org you can create a similar performance for yourself at home) – demonstratively delivers in a monotonous tone. Rather than using various rhetorical manipulative procedures, the performer prefers to objectify and generalise a given personal issue (in line with the tenets of Via Negativa, what else). This way he counteracts the documentary-style presentations of the workings of the IMF with its overly simplified, didactic and above all (suspiciously) enthusiastic tone that introduces the average lay person to this complex system, appealing to their sense of citizenship, so that all of us together will build the foundation of this much extolled life of stability and safety – and that without exception for each and every inhabitant of the world. By way of such antithesis Kadin unmasks the inherent performance procedures existing in (political, economic) tactics of seduction and manipulation, the target of which is not only the little man, but also, and especially, small states delving ever deeper into debt. (…) In fact, Kadin bears no illusions about the possibility of bringing about change. His engagement lies elsewhere: in his attempt to mobilize the apathetic voting body. That’s why he simulates elections (a real ostracism, not anonymous, of course), in which the audience, following the presentation, cast their vote: is IMF guilty or not? Kadin then enters the results of the vote on the bill of indictment in a form of an email to be sent to the incriminated lot after every performance (the process of sending is cut off in the middle, so the execution itself remains uncertain). It does however highlight the issue of socially engaged art and its impact on the real world, while stretching its (fictive or real) socially critical Sisyphus labour onto our present-day system, for contemporary democracy no longer knows of any such ostracism-like form of diffusion. (…)
Iva Pejković, Kadinov izlet pod kožu MMF-a (www.ezadar.hr, Zadar, 26. oktober, 2010)
‘Kriv!’ osvješćuje onu istinu na koju sumnjamo, ali je guramo pod tepih; dok slušamo kako nam govore da će sve biti u redu i da se izlaz iz krize nazire. ‘Nema umjetnosti, večeras samo razum’ – Kadina smo zatekli u vrlo službenom izdanju, statičnom, sjedilačkom, uredskom položaju u kojem nam je pokušao predstaviti jedno od brojnih aktualnih problema suvremenosti. Riječ ‘recesija’ izgovaramo češće nego ‘volim te’, kaže Kadin, dok se na video platnu izmjenjuju isječci koji nam otkrivaju mutnu pozadinu MMF-a. (…)