Kybernein Institute is conducting research and critical analysis of the construction of grand narratives, conditions and strategies that lay behind ideological shifts and hegemonic transformations within democratic systems. We are exploring the strategies behind the successful transformation and implementation of the Neoliberal model (ideology and economic theory) in the Western world, and its effects on the democratic system. We are also investigating the impact of organizational structures
and distribution strategies.

We are specifically interested in the Neoliberal narrative production - how the grand narrative is constructed through storytelling and aesthetics, and the distribution strategies they used for spreading their message effectively. What impact does their network and organizational structure have on the democratic system (politics, academia, media, civil society), and how powerful is the institutional framework of think-tanks when it comes to production and distribution of Neoliberal ideology and policymaking, and how are their strategies designed to effectively change and steer public opinion. This research project will focus on how business and private interests operate to affect the democratic system, and how they develop new institutional models and cultural/conceptual
strategies to pursue social change.
 

How can we learn and extract knowledge from the Neoliberal transformation for (new/another) political organization? What can we learn from the strategic and effective aesthetics and storytelling?

How can this knowledge be informative when constructing counter-narratives? What strategies have great impact on public opinion and policymaking? And how can cultural and artistic practices extract knowledge to form new strategies for social change? What are the overlapping strategies between policymaking and cultural production? What role does art have in social change, what ideas, values, methods and strategies are developed that have an impact on society, communities, and politics? What strategies do artists extract from other fields, and are those strategies effective?

Art and art institutions are not only frameworks for knowledge production, but it is also a distribution format, organizational structure and network, and a space to formulate and encounter different democratic and political agendas.

Historically the relationship and exchange of values between the art world and the capitalist system has developed over time. An interesting example of this relationship is formulated by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello in The New spirit of Capitalism, who highlights that artistic critique has become an important element in management and capitalist productivity; that means how values and ideas that flourished within art at the end of the 1960s such as authenticity, autonomy and liberation became an integral part of re-organizing the economic structure, which shifted during the 1970’s from the so called Fordist production model in an industrial context, to a network-based model in a globalized economy.

This addresses the role that art has in our society; that art as an institution and the ‘ideology and politics of art’ has a great impact on society (maybe even more than aesthetic objects).