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For the next lecture of INIMKOND on 31 October, we will be hosting Prof Andres Kurg from the Estonian Academy of Arts. Prof Kurg's lecture is entitled: Free Communication: From Soviet Future Cities to Kitchen Conversations

Abstract

The Russian term obshchenie, referring simultaneously to communication, conversation and spending time together, has been central to investigations of informal life practices in the late-Soviet context. It has been described as a means of creating a distance from the official world, a way to reach distinct interiority and a sense of authenticity that has generally been associated with the domestic and the private sphere. During Perestroika obshchenie was described as a substitute for religion and portrayed as the only valuable way of existence that defined all other spheres and meanings.

I want to juxtapose this anthropological viewpoint of obshchenie with the way this term was used in the 1960s in discussions of Communist urban planning and in relation to both Marxist theory of ideology and communication theory. Works on the future communist city by the group NER in Moscow saw free communication (obshchenie) as one of the principal functions to be accommodated in the future context of increasing leisure time. I will bring this trajectory together with discussions in the so-called paper architecture of the 1980s and ask if we could view these works as sites of struggle over the meaning of obshchenieon the eve of Perestroika.

All welcome for drinks after the lecture. Event takes place in room A-325.

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Carlo Cubero