Uta Beyer Renzo Martens

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Locked in the Frame: The Difficulties of Criticising

a Discourse from Within

A Comparison of Joseph Conrad' s Heart of Darkness

and Renzo Martens' Film Episode III Enjoy Poverty

Uta Beyer

July 2011


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Not so very long ago, the earth numbered two

thousand million inhabitants: five hundredmillion men, and one thousand five hundred

million natives. The former had the Word; theothers had the use of it.

Frantz FanonThe Wretched of the Earth


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Table of Contents

1 Introduction___________________________________________________________4

2 A Comparison of the Africa Discourse in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Renzo

Martens Film and Interviews on Episode III_________________________________5

3 Conclusions____________________________________________________________9

4 Bibliography__________________________________________________________10

4.1 Printed Literature_________________________________________________10

4.2 Online Literature__________________________________________________ 11

4.3 Films____________________________________________________________12

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1 Introduction

The European1 Africa discourse has been analyzed critically and in depth2 mainly sincethe end of the colonial era, finding that the concept 'Africa' is dominantly a Westernconstruct of representation, where Africa is functionalised as the other world, theantithesis of Europe3 - and photography and the imagery being a part of it. 4 Within thisdiscourse especially the Congo is seen as a microcosmos for Africa in general 5, as areservoir of atrocities6, and thus a 'labeling reservoir', that serves various functions forthe labeling (Western) group.7

This essay aims at comparing the Africa discourse in Joseph Conrad's 1899 novella Heartof Darkness8 and in Renzo Martens' film and the interviews9 following his 2009 film

premiere ofEpisode III Enjoy Poverty, and asks the following research questions:10

- Which kind of contribution does Marten's film make to the contemporary Western Africadiscourse?- In view of the film, what are the prospects of criticising a discourse by means of thesame discourse?

1European here also refers to 'white', 'Western'.2cf. e.g. Pieterse, Jan Nederveen 1992. White on Black. Images of Africa and Blacks in Western PopularCulture. New Haven, London: Yale University Press. Jordan, Winthorp D., 1968. White over Black: AmericanAttitudes toward the Negro. Williamsburg, VA. Arndt, Susan, 2001.AfrikaBilder. Mnster: Unrast.3Achebe 1978: p. 3. It is now widely acknowledged that Africa, as an idea, a concept, has historically

served, and continues to serve, as a polemical argument for the Wests desperate desire to assert its

difference from the rest of the world (Mbembe 2001: p. 2).4In the 1960s/1970s, a critical analyses of the power relations implied in photography, and of the Westernvisual Africa discourse began, then mostly analysing colonial photography and its functions. Edward W.Said's book Orientalism from 1978 as well as Michel Foucault's work on discourse and power written in the1960s and 1970s have been ground-breaking in this process. Decades later, primarily since the early yearsof this millennium, a critical discussion also about the contemporary visual representations of Africa and thepossibilities of an alternative visual Africa discourse has emerged. Cf. e.g. the platforms Africa Knows,http://africaknows.com/ and African Lens, http://www.africanlens.com; Mark Sealy's (2007) essay EarlyPhotographic Practice and the Imaging of the Black Subject as Culturally Absent,http://www.marksealy.com/page6.htm ; David Campbell's research project Imaging Famine and the ImagingFamine blog, http://www.imaging-famine.org/blog/; D.J. Clark's (2009) thesis Representing the MAJORITYWORLD famine, photojournalism and the Changing Visual Economy. Durham University,http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/136/.

5Penney 2010.6Gettleman 2009.

7Thus, the 'Congo discourse' rates high in contributing to the Africa discourse, to the Western attributions,stereotypes, imagery, projections regarding Africa, and representations of 'otherness'. In this essay,therefore, Martens' film as well as Conrad's book are discussed under the topic Africa Discourse.8As methodical approach I use Chinua Achebe's analysis An Image of Africa (Achebe 1978). The text was

also published 1988 as An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness in the German languagecollection of Chinua Achebe essays with the title Ein Bild von Afrika (Achebe 1988), with some additions tothe 1978 text. All quotes in this essay from the 1988 German book are my own translations.9Subsequent to the first film screenings, four interviews have been conducted with Renzo Martens; cf.ArtReview 2009; Penney 2010; Guerin 2009; Tomme 2010.10This essay thus aims at contributing to the analysis of the contemporary Western representation of Africa

and the Africa discourse.

4
http://africaknows.com/http://www.africanlens.com/http://www.marksealy.com/page6.htmhttp://www.imaging-famine.org/blog/http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/136/http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/136/http://www.africanlens.com/http://www.marksealy.com/page6.htmhttp://www.imaging-famine.org/blog/http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/136/http://africaknows.com/


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2 A Comparison of the Africa Discourse in Joseph Conrad'sHeart of Darkness and Renzo Martens Film andInterviews on Episode III

In the centre of Renzo Martens critique is the exploitation of Africa by Western media,Western industries, and Western humanitarian aid projects. The methodology he uses isthat it critiques by duplicating what may be bad.... it's the copy in a way of existing powerrelations11, it replicates colonial practices12. Also Joseph Conrad saw and condemnedthe malady of imperial exploitation13.

Like Marlow14, Martens comes through to us as a

witness of truth15. In the film I try to be very objective... All in all, the way I am there,it's...it's objective more than anything... I don't think that it is crazy or artistic... I think it isobjective... As I say, my role in that film is to be as close to objectivity as one can get.Truth, I just call it objectivity16. It's very hard to be objective, to...to fulfil this role, so, Itook a long time to do it, em, until I managed 17. Martens combines his claim to objectivitywith his claim to art18: There are many connections to documentary film, but for me,

Episode III is art19.

Achebe20

analyses the prospects of mediating truth by means of art21

and defines: Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of realityfrom that which is given to him; art is the pursuit to produce a second form of being bymeans of one's imagination22. Fiction (art) though, according to Achebe, is not equallyuseful or desirable..., there are good-natured and ill-natured ones23 - with Conradbelonging to the latter.

Conrad uses Africa merely as a stage for a white man's play that excludes Africans as(equal) human beings.

Africa as setting and backdrop which eliminates the African as human

factor. Africa as a metaphysical battlefield devoid of all recognizablehumanity, into which the wandering European enters at his peril. Ofcourse, there is a preposterous and perverse kind of arrogance in thusreducing Africa to the role of props for the breakup of one pettyEuropean mind. But that is not even the point. The real question is the

11Martens in: Penney 2010.12Martens in: Tomme 2010.13

Achebe 1988: p. 39; my own translation.14

Marlow is Joseph Conrad's protagonist and narrator in Heart of Darkness.15Achebe 1978: p. 7.16Martens in: ArtReview 2009a.17Martens in: ArtReview 2009b.18Thus following a trend in contemporary art, cf. Cramerotti 2009.19Guerin 2009. See also Rancire (2004: p. 38): writing history and writing story come under the same

regime of truth.20In his essay The Truth of Fiction (Achebe 1988: pp. 142-173); my own translations from German.21In his essay in particular fiction as a form of art.22

Achebe 1988: p. 143.23Achebe 1988: pp. 151-152. Ill-natured fiction like racial superiority, according to Achebe, declares fiction as

facts. Supporters of such fiction resemble lunatics; while a healthy person might from time to time perform a

play, the lunatic always lives in it (Achebe 1988: pp. 162-163).

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dehumanization of Africa and Africans which this age-long attitude hasfostered and continues to foster in the world.24

Similarly, Martens functionalises the Congo as a stage to make his point.

Obviously the film is a construction...i didn't know anybody in the Congobefore I went there but I did know I wanted to make this film thatreveals it's own function and therefore reveals the power relationshipsbetween the ones watching and the ones being watched.25

This is even visually staged, when Martens installs his large neon 'Enjoy please Poverty'sculpture in several Congolese villages.26 The villagers' role is that of mute and perplexedextras. In another section of the film Martens sets up his 'emancipatory project':

And so I looked for the best setting to execute that experiment. It

seemed to me that the Congo would be perfect. It has a long and well-documented history of extraction of natural resources by outsiderspaired with the local population's lack of information about the economicvalue of these natural assets.27

Within this project Martens assumes the role of the omniscient teacher, with Congolese villagers, starving children, his pupils as dummies around him, and thus eliminating allhumanity from the people he meets.28 Aline du Rocher analyses:

[Martens] makes his point to the viewing audience through humiliationand exploitation. Labelling his work as 'emancipation project' is nothing

more than cynicism. He is there to teach the uneducated, to show themhow things should be done. The photographers execute his orders andMartens becomes dominant in a master-slave relationship. These twomen are instrumentalised by Martens, like any other 'master', has'acquired them to serve his self-interest'... The way the artist treats achild in a hospital is more than simply offensive but hides the violation ofthe most basic human rights.29

Similarly Achebe evaluates Conrad's work: I am talking about a story in which the veryhumanity of black people is called in question30, or to speak with Conrad: The thought of

24Achebe 1978: p. 9.

25Martens in: ArtReview 2009a.26The sign is in English, and Martens explains to the villagers, that this is the language of the white people

that will see his film.27

Martens in: Tomme 2010. Martens' arrogant assumption about the 'local population' and its level of

knowledge is noteworthy.28Another noteworthy expression in this context is the following statement of Martens similar to several

others in his interviews: I just try to teach them some of the basic laws of capitalism (Martens in: Tomme2010).29Rocher 2009.30

Achebe 1978: p. 11.

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their humanity like yours...Ugly31. Achebe's main analysis is about the way Conraduses language and he concludes that Conrad was a bloody racist.... That this simple truthis glossed over is because white racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinkingthat its manifestations go completely undetected32. Likewise, Martens in several interview

passages reveals being rooted in an ethnocentric and stereotypical traditional WesternAfrica discourse- an issue not addressed in any of the interviews.33

Marlow and Martens are both travellers in a country they regard merely as stage for theirperformance, and are not able to cast off their spectacles of prejudice and stereotypesthat they have arrived with. As a result, what they bring back from the Congo is a narrativeabout themselves. And that is how the film was conceptualised:

When you are aware of yourself, you only have to study yourself, andyou see why all these other things are going wrong, too... The problemis that all of these people take their own privileges too seriously. They

attach to them. And I guess many of us do, and as you see in the film, Ido too.34

Conrad's picture of these peoples of the Congo seems grossly inadequate... Travellerswith closed minds can tell us little except about themselves35. The interviews withMartens are mainly an account of his experiences with and feelings about not at all newphenomena he has observed in the Congo: exploitation, and the downsides ofhumanitarian aid and journalism. Often in the interviews, Martens seems to reflect what hehas observed for the first time, and struggles for words and meaningful answers. In theguise of the melancholy artist in love with his impotent quest for redemption, RM ishimself. 'It was cold, and it rained, and I felt like an actor'. 36 Stabler illustrates Martens'

Nothingness endlessly striving to become Everything37 by means of an experience hehad with a group of people, which was super-creepy and not understandable for him:But my experience in itself is misremembered and described falsely. It offers nothing,except the hopelessness of trying to make it meaningful 38. Dan Fox concludes: Martens

31Cited in Achebe 1978: p. 8.

32Achebe 1988: p. 25; my own translation from the German 1988 publication, as the original 1978 speechhad printing errors.33Many examples could be given, and Martens Africa discourse needs to be analysed more thoroughly than

it can be done here; as an example, in one interview Martens states: Since I can't film many of the, let'ssay, white people in Africa committing all kinds of...doing all kinds of things, the only people that we see inour news media doing things in Africa...white people...are the ones helping and aiding Africa, obviouslywe're involved in many other things as well, but it's pretty much impossible to film those, because they wouldjust not give you a guided tour of their diamond smuggling or whatever....I can take over all these roles.(Martens in: ArtReview 2009a.)34

Penney 2010.35Achebe 1978: p. 12. Achebe gives the example of Marco Polo, who, in his memoires 'Description of the

World', written after 20 year that he had spent in China, forgot to mention the Chinese art of printing, as wellas the Chinese wall.36Veire 2008.37Stabler 2008.38

Ibid.

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is too caught up playing the self-obsessed artist to really dig deep, which results in verylittle actually being revealed39.

Caught within himself and at the same time having to try to make it meaningful seems to

be one of the dilemmas Martens finds himself in. He had received the grants for the film,had chosen the Congo as the film's stage, had constructed his neon 'Enjoy pleasePoverty' sign (which he had brought all the way from Brussels), and had his concept inmind of what he wanted the film to be about regardless of what he would actually find insitu. It all started with the idea that I had to make a film that would reveal the powerdifferential between those who are watching it and the individuals who are depicted in it40.Alas, and probably unknown to Martens until confronted with it in the interviews, there isalso the power differential between the filmmaker and the individuals depicted in the film.41

When confronted with the reproach that Martens is actually the producer of suffering forthe sake of his film, he remains unimpressed; in these interview passages he expresses

his most cynical view of what he has created: Yes it is painful for them, it was painful forme, and now I hope that it is painful for you 42. Moreover: The pain is here, rather thanthere. These people have that all the time43. In the context of this apathetic empathyAchebe reminds us of Marie Antoinette, who, upon learning that the peasants had nobread, answered, Let them eat cake44. It seems the artist has an almost pathologicalcommitment to the artwork, to the degree that he will ruin lives and court disappointmentto elucidate a cynical logic of engagement and make a point about the impotence ofengagement45. Millar asks: Does Martens add to the sum of human suffering that heencounters?46. The answer resulting from this and related analyses is: yes.

Martens has represented himself in his work as an artist who does not

mind breaching basic human rights in order to make his point but afterhearing him speak, the audience is left suspecting that this is just publicpersona... Viewing Episode III-Please Enjoy Poverty on its own isshocking but with the artist talking about it, it makes it unethical.47

Why has Martens agreed to the interviews? It is apparent, that he talks about his work ingood faith, he does not doubt that he is right. For him the end a piece of art againstexploitation justifies all means, and he seems fully unaware, that it is a piece of art bymeans of (racist) exploitation. Also in this regard Martens fully stands in the tradition ofConrad: Conrad did see and condemn the malady of imperial exploitation, but was oddly

39Fox 2009.40Martens in: Tomme 2010. Unfortunately it is not clear from the interview transcript whether Martens said...the idea that I had, to make a film... or ...the idea that I had to make a film....41It is noteworthy that only one interview (ArtReview) touches the subject of suffering created by Martens

himself.42Martens in: ArtReview 2009a.43Martens in: ArtReview 2009b. This interview with Martens was conducted in London, so with 'here' Martensmeans the Western world, and 'there' is the Congo or the whole of Africa.44Achebe 1988: p. 165.45Millar 2009.46Millar 2009.47

Rocher 2009.

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blind regarding his own racism48. It can be assumed, that racism and racist actions cantake place independent of and against the agent's own will.

One of the core problems of the film is Martens' methodology of 'othering' that he chose,

consciously or not, to talk aboutrather than with the people around him. Susan Sontagwrites: ...for the 'Other', even when not an enemy, is regarded only as one to be seen, notsomeone (like us) who sees49. Likewise, Achebe finds that: The Whites do all the talking,and the Blacks always listen50. In addition, Martens' 'othering' process works by means ofdisplaying, exhibiting the other, the African, 'them'. This journalistic custom inherits thecenturies-old practice of exhibiting exotic that is colonized human beings:Africans...were displayed like zoo animals in ethnological exhibitions51.

Ultimately, Achebe tends to hope rather than fear. His hope is that the white man is socurious about the black man, that one day he actually pauses and listens to him 52.Achebe reminds us of the well known anecdote, when Wole Soyinka was asked about his

opinion about the 'negritude' movement answered that the tiger also doesn't speak abouthis 'tigritude' movement, and Leopold Senghor replied: But a tiger doesn't speak! 53 In thisregard one can only shout to Martens: The Negro speaks!54.

3 Conclusions

Renzo Martens and thus Episode III are not able to transgress the narrow boundaries ofthe established Western representation of Africa. The image of Africa that Martens(re-)produces, and the methodological elements he applies, follow racist patterns of the

representation of Africa used since Joseph Conrad's times. This is Martens contribution tothe Africa discourse: Under the pretext of truth, reality, objectivity, and art, the stereotypicalimage of Africa is consolidated, the exotic African 'other' reproduced once again, whitestalk, blacks listen, and the white man maintains his power over the discourse.

Martens has made himself guilty of producing suffering in order to make his film. Heexploits to show that exploitation is wrong, and one is reminded of Amnesty International'scampaign: Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong? Notbeing guilty of the circumstances Martens observes in the Congo, does not make himguiltless of violating human rights himself. Good intentions are not a sufficient prerequisitefor any kind of work, and the photographers intentions do not determine the meaning of

the photograph, which will have its own career, blown by the whims and loyalties of thediverse communities that have use for it55. Martens' revealing interviews only reinforce

48Achebe 1988: p. 40.49Sontag 2003: p. 73.50Achebe 1988: p. 179.51Sontag 2003: p. 72.52

Achebe 1988: p. 180.53Achebe 1988: p. 183.54Achebe 1988: p. 184.55

Sontag 2003: p. 39.

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the unsettling feeling when seeing the film56, and the suspicion, that Martensunfortunately was unable to leave the 19 th Century Conradian representation of Africa,which made him choose an unethical methodology for his film. Including Congolese asequal partners in all decision making processes of the film production would probably

have been the only solution to the dilemma (if not making the film at all was not anoption57).

Martens cannot hope, that his method of criticizing the discourse by means of the samediscourse will be successful, as his film's viewers stem from exactly the same discourse.Discourses are tenacious, because they are fed, to a large extend, by the culturalsubconscious. Eva Hoevenaar in her Study Into The Effects Of Using A System ToComment on Itself, in which she examines Martens' film, summarizes: Identifying withsystems as a strategy for opening them up, exposing them as flawed or gaining newperspectives on them seems like a strategy ideally cut out for contemporary art 58 arather desperate conclusion in view of Martens' film. The above comparison with Conrad's

more than 100 year-old text, considering its success till present day despite its obviousracist connotations, sheds a less optimistic light on the effects and prospects of Martens'film. From Foucault's, Said's, and Bourdieu's discourse analysis contributions todisillusioned and disillusioning anthropological field reports59, the difficulties ofdocumenting and reporting on 'the other' have been analysed widely over the past fewdecades and an easy bypass to the established discourse, or any easy challenging of it,is likely to be impossible. Racism and racist discourses are not only right-wing extremism,violence, prejudice. Racism is expressed in practices of daily life like making art, a film,or an art film.

4 Bibliography

4.1 Printed Literature

Achebe, Chinua, 1988. Ein Bild von Afrika. Berlin: Alexander Verlag.

Cramerotti, Alfredo, 2009.Aesthetic Journalism. Bristol: Intellect Ltd.

Mbembe, Achille, 2001. On the Postcolony. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Ranciere, Jacques and Zizek, Slavoj, 2004. The Politics of Aesthetics. New York:Continuum.

Sontag, Susan, 2003. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador.

56J.J. Charlesworth in: ArtReview 2009a.57Which, according to Zizek, is often the best solution: The only thing to do is precisely nothing, we shouldjust sit and wait, and in the meantime learn, learn, learn. Cf. Zizek, Slavoj, 2008. Violence. New York:Picador.58Hoevenaar, n.d..59Cf. e.g. Barley, Nigel, 1986. The Innocent Anthropologist: Notes from a Mud Hut. New York: Viking

Penguin.

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4.2 Online Literature

Achebe, Chinua, 1978.An Image of Africa. Research in African Literatures, Vol. 9, No. 1,Special Issue on Literary Criticism, pp. 1 15. Viewed 22 April 2011. Available at:http://images.pcmac.org/SiSFiles/Schools/AL/HartselleCity/HartselleHigh/Uploads/Forms/Achebe_An_Image_of_Africa.pdf.

Bouwhuis, Jelle, 2008. Renzo Martens Episode III. Stedelijk Museum BureauAmsterdam, SMBA Newsletter No. 107. Viewed 11 April 2011. Available at:http://www.smba.nl/static/en/exhibitions/renzo-martens-episode-iii/107-nieuwsbrief-web-1-.pdf.

Clark, David, James, 2009. Representing the MAJORITY WORLD famine,photojournalism and the Changing Visual Economy. Doctoral thesis, Durham University.Viewed 18 March 2011. Available at: Durham E-Theses Online:http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/136/.

Fox, Dan, 2009. Renzo Martens. Frieze Magazine, Issue 122, April 2009. Viewed 11 April2011. Available at: http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/renzo_martens/.

Gettleman, Jeffrey, 2009. Symbol of Unhealed Congo Male Rape Victims. The New YorkTimes. 4 Aug 2009. Available at:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/world/africa/05congo.html?_r=1.

Griffin, Jonathan, 2010.Atrocity Exhibition. Tank Magazine. Viewed 8 April 2011. Availableat: http://www.tankmagazine.com/magazine/magazine-feature/atrocity-exhibition-720.

Guerin, Frances, 2009. Interview with Renzo Martens. Artslant. Viewed 11 April 2011.Available at: http://www.artslant.com/ny/articles/show/4443.

Hoevenaar, Eva, n.d..A Study Into The Effects Of Using A System To Comment On Itself.Gerrit Rietveld Academie. Viewed 11 April 2011. Available at:http://www.gerritrietveldacademie.nl/project/a-study-into-the-effects-of-using-a-system-to-comment-on-itself.

Millar, John Douglas, 2009. The Atrocity Exhibition. Viewed 11 April 2011. Available at:http://www.metamute.org/en/content/the_atrocity_exhibition.

Penney, Joe, 2010. The Politics of Helping Others - Interview with Renzo Martens. Viewed11 April 2011. Available at: http://www.joepenney.com/index.php?/project/interview-with-renzo-martens/.

Rocher, Aline du, 2009. Review of Episode III Please Enjoy Poverty by Renzo

Martens. 2009. Viewed 10 April 2011. Available at:http://www.slideshare.net/guest58df7f/review-of-episode-iii-please-enjoy-poverty-by-renzo-martens.

Roelandt, Els, 2008. Episode 3. Analysis of a Film Process in Three Conversations. APrior No. 16. Viewed 11 April 2011. Available at: http://www.aprior.org/articles/34.

Seijdel, Jorinde, 2008: NJOY POV RTY. Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, SMBANewsletter No. 107. Viewed 11 April 2011. http://www.smba.nl/static/en/exhibitions/renzo-martens-episode-iii/107-nieuwsbrief-web-1-.pdf.

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Stabler, Bert, 2008. Renzo Martens and the Circus of Suffering. Proximity Magazine,12/09/08, issue 2. Viewed 10 April 2011. Available at:http://proximitymagazine.com/2008/12/circus-of-suffering/.

Tomme, Niels Van, 2010. Enjoy Poverty: Disclosing the Political Impasse of Contemporary

Art. Renzo Martens in conversation with Niels Van Tomme. Art Papers. Viewed 11 April2011. Available at: http://www.artpapers.org/feature_articles/feature1_2010_0910.htm.

Veire, Frank Vande, 2008: Une bonne nouvelle - Notes on Episode III. Stedelijk MuseumBureau Amsterdam, SMBA Newsletter No. 107. Viewed 11 April 2001. Available at:http://www.smba.nl/static/en/exhibitions/renzo-martens-episode-iii/107-nieuwsbrief-web-1-.pdf.

4.3 Films

Episode III Enjoy Poverty. 2009. Directed by Renzo Martens. Netherlands.Renzo Martens in discussion with J.J. Charlesworth. 2009. ArtReview, Part I. Uploaded byartreview.com on March 31, 2009. Viewed 10 March 2011. Available at:http://www.artreview.com/video/renzo-martens-in-discussion-1; [cited as ArtReview2009a].

Renzo Martens in discussion with J.J. Charlesworth. 2009. ArtReview, Part II. Uploadedby artreview.com on March 31, 2009. Viewed 10 March 2011. Available at:http://www.artreview.com/video/renzo-martens-in-discussion; [cited as ArtReview 2009b].

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