10 a.m.:
Performance and guided visit at Prohlis with Adam Page
and Eva Hertzsch (artists, Dresden) (text) |

We visit the Prohlis housing estate. I belong to the group
who have dressed up as property investors. Iara cuts the slyist
looking investor. She's wearing elegant shoes and criticises the
game's tour guides, Eva Hertzsch and Adam Page, for the long distances
on foot. Mr Schmidt and Mr Siekmann continue their conversation.
"Nervous artists are seen as being sensitive, nervous economists
are just uncertain", says Rudi Schmidt. The spaghetti in the
restaurant in Prohlis was not a good choice, even though kindly
cut small for me. |
3 p.m.:
The indvidual and the future of the city
Christoph Schäfer (artist, Hamburg / Park Fiction / Unlikely
Encounters) & Margit Czenki
(film-maker, Hamburg / Park Fiction / Unlikely Encounters): suitcase
criminal city
(text)
and
Tomislav Medak (philosopher / performer/ Zagreb – Cultural
Kapital of Europe) & Damir Blaevic (Platforma 9,81 / Zagreb
- Cultural Capital of Europe 3000): Constractors: Transformative
Culture in a City beyond Planning |
Christoph Schäfer
and Margit Czenki present Hamburg City Council's pioneering new
idea to develop an international city outside of the jurisdiction
of German immigration laws in its port's free trade zone. A city
called Suitcase City Grassbrook in which nobody is required to prove
their identity. The Hamburgers' daring is captivating.
During Tomislav Medak and Damir Blazevic's lecture an argument
about money and profit in culture ensues. "We are non-profit.
We are non-profit,” says Damir. During the break we polish
off a tray of cake. Luchezar tells me how artists were portrayed
in socialist Bulgaria: long hair and a long beard. He began studying
at an art academy at 17, he explains. He was completely foxed as
to why he couldn't grow a long enough beard. He also tells me about
the status of the chairman of the artists' union: he was the top
artist in the country. Luchezar describes the Visual Seminar, so
often mentioned here, like this: "Visual Seminar is really
just a pressure group".

|
7 p.m.:
The indvidual and the future of the city
Uwe Rada (journalist, Berlin):
The Limits of Freedom - Between
Postmodernism and Neoliberalism
and
Boyan Manchev (literary theory and aesthetics, Univeristy of Sofia):
Futures Only. Public Space in the Age of the Fetishism of the
Inorganic
(text,
material)
moderated by Luchezar Boyadjiev (Visual Seminar, Sofia)
|
One of Andreas's suggestions
is to create a free trade zone in Zossen. Attract capital by setting
up fake company adresses there. That's not possible under German
law, counters Rudi Schmidt. "Why?", asks Andreas, "are
our lawyers so bad?"
Later Uwe Rada speaks in praise of international commuters. He
talks about "regions where there is no capitalism anymore",
of "spaces of functional irrelevance“, of between places
and of "the temporary as a resource". He talks calmly
about not quite and just about. Rudi Schmidt calls
for consistant argumentation. The interpreter copies the striving
in the speaker's voice in her own pleasant way. She has a good tan.
She gesticulates in her cabin while translating.
|