Theta Rhythm (While my father was sleeping…)

* Theta rhythms are one of several characteristic electroencephalogram waveforms associated with various sleep and wakefulness states. Theta activity can be observed in adults during some sleep states, and in states of quiet focus, for example meditation (e.g. Aftanas & Golosheykin, 2005). These rhythms are associated with spatial navigation, some forms of memory and learning and as well during some short-term memory tasks (reviewed in Vertes 2005).

Conception

Recently, I re-discovered a kind of symbolic image from my family history: the famous episode when my father fell asleep during one of the most important meetings in recent Serbian history. Yet, it had faded in my memory so much that I could not tell for sure whether this had actually happened. However, the idea that my father was sleeping while the future of Serbia was being decided became an obsession. I had to find that image and to understand what it meant to me. By finding my own way out of the labyrinth of references, I would look for the hidden potentials in order to imagine other possible outcomes.

The 8th session of the Central Committee of the Communist League of Serbia (CC CLS) was held on the 23rd and the 24th September 1987. The session was presided over by Slobodan Milošević, who was at that time the Chairman of the Presidium of the CC CLS.  It was during this meeting that Dragiša Pavlović, the Chairman of the Belgrade Communist Party section, was dismissed from the membership of CC CLS by a majority vote. The Communist Party was subsequently transformed into the Socialist Party of Serbia. The one-party Communist system was in this way transformed into a democratic parliamentary system that was manipulated by Milošević and his party over the next decade. Historians consider this meeting a symbolic turning point that led to the rise of nationalism, to wars, the devastation of Serbia’s economy and ultimately to the NATO bombing campaign in 1999.

Prior to and after the 8th session of CC CLS, numerous meetings were held. The sessions were long and exhausting. Until 1989, my father worked at a department of Belgrade’s City Committee. He was a deputy at the department of ideology, dealing with the organisation of these meetings, including the infamous 8th session. They were broadcast live on national television. As an eleven-year-old boy, I found those marathon meetings boring and senseless. Nevertheless, I followed them in order to catch a rare glimpse of my father’s face. It felt as if I had a celebrity for a father. It was during one of these televised meetings that the camera caught my father sleeping. This was an image that I did not seem to find important, apart from the fact that I could have made fun of him.

I am still confronted with this elusive image, even if it has faded in my memory. My father quit this job after his disagreement with the politics of Milošević, and in 1990 he turned to a completely different profession, which used to be his hobby – horse riding and show jumping. Therefore, all this remained in the realm of anecdotes. As far as I remember, we even had a VHS tape with this footage somewhere about the house. That is the document that I want to get hold of.

The fact is that my father’s falling asleep did not represent an embarrassment or any kind of scandal. On the contrary, this was an unnoticeable act. At the time when Milošević was fighting for power, the sessions and meetings were endless. His strategy was to allow anybody attending the meeting to speak about anything vaguely connected to the subject of the renewal of the Communist Party without time limit. These sessions were mostly lasting till the early morning hours, so the majority of the participants would vote yes without formulating their critical judgement just to be able to go home. Therefore, my father’s innocent act of falling asleep represents a metaphor of the impossibility of his generation to overcome the circumstances at that time and thus to affect the course of history.

The search for this piece of footage started in the archives of the Radio-Television of Serbia and continued with extensive interviews with my father and his colleagues. The focal points of these interviews are the moments when they try to remember certain seemingly unimportant details, which reveal sets of meanings and take us through the mirror hall of references. The colleagues of my father who were interviewed are those whose roles in the grand narrative can be considered minor or even nonexistent, but without them the system would not function – the printer, the sound-engineer, the waiter, the janitor, etc.

Second part of the project will consist of the re-creation of that day in my father's life through the reconstruction in which I will act my father, using the material that I have already collected. The re-enactment will include, besides the actual meeting (and the very moment of falling asleep), everything else foregoing that day. All the scenes will be shot on the authentic locations packed with symbolic meaning.

Dragan Alčević – Printer, Jole Karadjole  – Chief sound engineer and telephonist, Milivoje Radenković – Journalist, Dusan Kostić – Chief of the Department of Ideology, Zarko  – Waiter, Mirko Fajfrić – Deputy chief of the Department of Ideology

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