Performance at the “Truth is concrete” marathon of artistic activism, at Graz.

The Black Circle (2009-2013) is a SAGA by Kostis Stafylakis & Vana Kostayola focusing on the emergence and silent proliferation of ideas of alternative fascism in the post-2008 Greece. In the aftermath of the 2008 social uprising, that was triggered by the murder of the young Alexis Grigoropoulos by a police officer, and signaled the start of an immense crisis, Stafylakis and Kostayola noticed the sudden, yet disguised, emergence of radicalist groups belonging to the fringe space known as Third-Positionism (Autonomous Nationalism, Radical Traditionalism, National Anarchism and so on). Around 2009, KavecS started working on the Black Circle project: an awkward and alerting simulation of local Third-Positionist groups that appeared to propagate crypto-fascist ideas either on the blogosphere or through actual street activism. By drawing on the online material that was discovered at the webpages of groups such as the Black Lilly, KavecS produced a variety of performances that mimicked the style of their discourse, online aesthetics, and masculinist posture. In certain cases, Greek Autonomous nationalists would raid Athenian social spaces wearing Guy Fawkes masks. The Black Circle’s post-digital performances, spanning from online research to physical declarations, were rants mimicking the eclectic and, eventually, poisonous content of these masqueraded right-wing extremists.

At Steirischer Herbst, the Black Circle opened the performance section of Truth is Concrete with a rant against the “feminization of Europe” and its take-over by “political correctness”.