Series: Truth is concrete

“Art is a left-wing hobby.”

- Geert Wilders

The Netherlands, Hungary, Spain, Great Britain, Greece, Tunis, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Japan… A list in progress of countries as synonyms for crises, hopes, disasters that are changing the world so fast, we can’t keep track: Financial devastations threatening the whole European project, the rise of the populist right, fundamental destruction of economical, educational and cultural structures, democratic uprisings, Islamic fundamentalism, threats of technological and ecological catastrophes – where to start, where to end?

What is the role of art in this race of events that we can barely follow, let alone properly understand? At a time when theory and practice are constantly running behind reality? When art is seen rather as a mere leftist hobby than a foundation of humanity?

We have learned that there are no easy answers anymore. We don’t trust ideologies, even though we follow the ideology of capitalism. We know everything is contingent and relative. We replace critique with criticality, the political with the post-political, modernity with post-modernity, and capitalism with added value. But where the answers get too complicated, the desire for simple solutions is growing. And we – perhaps indeed leftist hobbyists – seem to have lost contact with a larger base. The constant awareness of the complexity of the notions of truth, reality or politics seems to have manoeuvred us into a dead-end road: either we are too simple, or we are too complex, too populist or too stuck in hermetic eremitism. Either we include too much or we exclude too many.

So what is to be done? Should art help in solving problems that politics and society themselves have ignored for so long? Should art be a social or political tool, can it be useful? And why should it know what to do when nobody else does?

“Truth is concrete” is the sentence written in big letters over Bertolt Brecht’s working desk in his Danish exile – quoting Lenin quoting Hegel quoting Augustin. We take the possibility of truth as a working hypothesis and look for direct action, for concrete change and knowledge. Big or small scale, loud and aggressive, or intimate and careful. Obscure or obvious. An art that not only presents and documents but that engages in specific political and social situations – and an activism that not only acts for the sake of acting but searches for intelligent, creative means of self-empowerment: artistic strategies and tactics in politics, political strategies and tactics in art.

“Truth is concrete” is a 24-hour, 7-day marathon camp: 150 artists, activists and theorists lecture, perform, play, produce, discuss, collect artistic strategies in politics and political strategies in art. All day long, all night long. It is a platform, a toolbox as well as a performative statement, an extreme effort at a time that seems to need some extreme efforts. The marathon is a machine, running in the centre, inspiring and frustrating. Surrounded by a camp-like living and working environment as a social space, that defines its own needs and demands. Having to miss is part of having to make choices.

“Truth is concrete” creates a one-week community, mixing day and night, developing its own jet lag towards the surrounding world – at the same time being confronted non-stop with an outside audience passing by, joining in, leaving and returning. Lectures, discussion, performances, films and concerts will be accompanied by one-day-workshops, open spaces and an exhibition. A full grant program invites additionally 100 students, artists, activists and theorists and from all over the world. In an attempt to not create just another event about politics, but a political event itself, the festival also investigates its own format and its own everyday decision making.

Filed under “Truth is concrete”

Witness to the ruins
steirischer herbst ’12

Donde el tiempo se detiene/ Where time stands still & Holy fire
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Some kind of beginning
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Truth is concrete
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Are you talking to me?
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Austrian politics – a crash course for foreigners
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Graz in times of revolution
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The province and the avantgarde
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Protest covered I
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Welcome & opening of steirischer herbst festival
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The 7th black circle declaration: Europe amongst the ruins
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Bogotá change
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Laughtivism
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Everyday rebellion
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Tactic talk by Róza El-Hassan (H/SYR)
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Hacking media and houses
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7 promises
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Worthy son of Africa
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Awesome tapes from Africa
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Daybreak into the city I: Park politics
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Renunciation & revolution
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re.act.feminism
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Movement. Women power. Bare breasts.
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Art and crime. Legally on the edge
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Unpleasant cat stories for learning
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Random acts: Free Syria air force
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General Assembly I
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From the individual to the collective
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Art as anti-propaganda
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Altruism as arttruism
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Name readymade
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Staging political action
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Actions and what we learn from them
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Hip hop as a weapon
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Magic in interventional politics
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Trashspacedream-now!
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The Norwegian way
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Spoken karaoke
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VJing the revolution (a nostalgia)
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Hack the jellyfish: How to mess with reality
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Daybreak into the city II: Meet and greet at squatters’ breakfast
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Guerilla gardening
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The pansy project
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The garden of biological disobedience
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History of art, according to the resistance
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Infiltrate and intercept
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The dirty discount revival
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Random acts: Reverend Billy & The Church of Earthalujah
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General Assembly II
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The politics of artistic practices
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The art of binationalism
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Picasso in Palestine
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Protest covered II
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Politics: Truth or representation?
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Daybreak into the city III: The political in public spaces
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Who can still change course?
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100 questions I-IV
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Action theatre / Théâtre de l’Opprimé
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Political spectatorship within and outside the theatre
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Legislative Theatre
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No time for art?
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Random acts: The Haircut Before The Party
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General Assembly III
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Freethought I: Economy of crisis
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The state artist 2012
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Enacting populism: On the transformations of myths
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Occupy now?
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Every city has a soul
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Disobedience archive (the free square cinema)
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Daybreak into the city IV: Feminist blinking
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Who can still change course?
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Sound of sirens
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Imagens do Povo
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Contradictions reconstituted
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Welcome to the desert of the real
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Random acts: Metropolitan lice
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General Assembly IV
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Freethought II: Crisis education
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CorruptTour.com The first corruption travel agency
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Network as a medium of critique and action
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The Jessy Cohen project
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Escapologies
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Methods of social resistance on Russian examples
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What is to be done?
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Daybreak into the city IV: Listening is a political act
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Who can still change course?
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Commoning the space
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Wording
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Random acts: Dr D
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General Assembly V
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Freethought III: Creative strike
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Graz choir
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Absolute Democracy (Gespräch)
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Too many protest singers, not enough protest songs
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Where has all the protest gone?
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Not PC: Talks and songs
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Daybreak into the city VI: Redressing the market
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Who can still change course?
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Copycats vs Mr Big
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Chancellor gone underground
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Random acts: Space Hijackers
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General Assembly VI
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Neither working nor unworking: Contemporary politics of art and labour
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Strike: Opera
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Crackle of time.
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Protest covered III
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Instant pocket soap opera
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Concert
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D.WattsRiot
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Protest covered IV
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Daybreak into the city VII: Russian twilight
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Who can still change course?
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Leaving the ghetto of art
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Collective mapping
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Cracking the system
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Inflatables for action
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Photography, performance and guerrilla tactics of communication against financial abuses
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NSK State in Time
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Random acts: Brandalism
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Final Assembly
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Blogs 1-2 Truth is concrete
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Randnotizen How to talk about what´s important
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Adaptation
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Studio 24/7 – Radio
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Garden of biological disobedience
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Camp Library
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The Mobile Archive – Video library
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Mobile Salon – Hairdresser
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Network map of tactics & Network map of collaborations
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Truth in context
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The Camp
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No revolution without innovation
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From Cairo to Graz: The Choir Project
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Resistant matters Art, activism and permaculture
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Hacking doors & media for fighting housing problems
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The art of dumpster diving
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Strategies of public intervention
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How to end evil
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Bogotá change - continued
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Work in Progress: Everyday Rebellion
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Köken Ergun / Carlos Celdran
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Syrian Voices
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Concrete
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The Pansy Project - Plantings
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Binibining Promised Land
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Ataya – Tea palaver in the sahelian tradition
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Spoken Karaoke II
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One way, a Tuareg journey
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Legwork Goes Truth is Concrete
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Resistance for idiots
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Knowledge is Power
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Performing Rio de Janeiro: Artistic strategies in times of banditocracy
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Three Workshops on Books and Hair
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Operation-For something black and hot
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We are the Hartmans
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The Pinky Show
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SOSka group: self organization as survival
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Ataya – Tea palaver in the sahelian tradition: On visa issues
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Three workshops on books and hair
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Dumpster Dinner
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Interactive intervention
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Disidencia
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Trust me I trust you
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Three workshops on books and hair 3
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Partizaning / Partizaning.org
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Speed dating
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Performing disobedience in the streets
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Concretizing communism. Being-in-common and the worlding force of radical communities
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Decade
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Global stories / Through different eyes
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Queer the concrete
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Presentation and open discussion
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Crackle of time - discussion
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Debt Jubilee Rave Ritual
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How to lie to tell the truth
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Works of Art Academy Students of the International Academy of Art Palestine
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Backwards shopping
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Retrospective
Retrospective
Retrospective