Noć Reklamoždera: Democracy, Consumption, and the Contradictions of Representation in Post-Socialist Serbia

This article analyzes Noc ́ Reklamoždera, a popular screening of advertisements in Belgrade in 2003, in relationship to transformations in political practice and subjectivity in contemporary Serbia. The argument takes as its starting point a historical analysis of social and political practices among students and student organizations in socialist and post-socialist Yugoslavia. I argue that Noc ́ Reklamoždera’s use of socialist forms and iconography formulates new sites for youth political belonging that avoid interest-based politics and fragmentation endemic to liberal democratic modes of governance. Contradictions that emerge at the intersection of post-socialism, liberal democracy, and neoliberalism are revealed through the lens of Noc ́ Reklamoždera’s consumption-mediated approach to representation and its appropriation of socialist symbols.