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Freitag, 30. März 2018

China21 – complete capital communism


(The digital imperative, a wet dream for bureaucrats everywhere)

[German Version]

Translation by Malte Forstat 2018

The digital imperative – the dictatorship of IT is now real. China as the forerunner of an all-encompassing digitalisation. The Party keeps track of everyone, the Party re-forms the individual into a data android made of harvestable flesh and blood – smombie_2.0.

Social ranking, smart glasses for augmented policing, face recognition and real-life tracerouting to transform human society into an inhumane database. The state as an actual high tech apparatus – with citizens being turned into indistinguishable data packets. Humans, the biological entities, being used to lubricate the machine, living biomass as a substitute drug for fossil fuels.

The surveillance and control system Internepp that in the unfree West is being misused to enforce the consumption fascistic interests of corporations and their advertisers, is, under the conditions of neoliberal communism, being transformed into a hyper-totalitarian horror scenario.

But IT dictatorship is not only en vogue with the Chinese. No, stone age-liberal-monarchist (and under the conditions of digitally induced brain death this is by no means a contradiction) ragheads are also getting in on the act.

The Christian West, unfree as a result of self-manipulation, came up with it but is now lagging behind. The con of the 68 generation still lingers. Last remnants of morality and the effect of affluence spread too widely have forced the i-god-kings to tread a little more softly. Terrorism, which is actually marginal and insignificant, and which the police and judiciary could easily deal with – if they wanted to – without any surveillance whatsoever, will nevertheless fulfil its propaganda role to advance the cause of the machine-men.

“Mainstream-vegan smombies are saving the monetary system and destroying the world” – the machine that once was human turns this most idiotic of all possibilities into a reality. We urgently need to think about setting the algorithms free…!

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Kritikdesign am Leben erhalten / Donate for Kritikdesign now:
Im Falle einer Überweisung bitte immer "Kritikdesign Spende" angeben - DANKE
Martin Reiter ... Berliner Volksbank
Konto Nr: 7142665004 ... BLZ:100 900 00
IBAN: DE36 1009 0000 7142665004 ... BIC: BEVODEBB



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

AKTUELLE BLOGS:

+NLP-Dummsprech aus der ehemaligen Volksbühne

+Kritikdesign&GapMan im echten Leben 29.03.2018 - 19:00h

+Letter to Ai Wei Wei and a lot more about Arthouse Tacheles 2016 to 2018

+China21 - der totale Kapital-Kommunismus

+GROKOTZ – noch immer keine neue Regierung in Deutschland

+Die letzte Epistel zur SPD

+ Die unmenschlichen Primaten von VW entschuldigen sich bei den Affen

+Neulich Mittag in der Gaskammer der deutschen Autoindustrie

+Faschismuslabor Österreich – historische Schuld reloaded

+Escape II-X... let’s get out of here...

+There is just one way to go – we need to conquer space now – Deep Space Industries

Onwards, oh ye crystal boards - Borderliner Smartphone


[Onwards, oh ye crystal boards]

Textfile out of 2012 - today up to date...[German Version]

Translation by Malte Forstat 2018

2012 has been a year of sticking heads among the sand – as in: among the glass screens of mobile devices. Smartphones, iPads and iPhones are turning everybody into iDiots: A new form of i-machines and their colourful images. Youths stumbling around, grumpy people with their eyes glued to tiny screens, self-proclaimed guardians guarding the guardians with their camera phones on a hair trigger, and social networks that level out real personal interactions, actual empathy and the development of solidarity in society. In record time, a fantastic technology has been perverted into its polar opposite. From communication and unlimited opportunities for scientific advancement to infantile self-promotion, self-delusion and digitally induced borderline syndrome.

The head stuck in the sand transitions from the proverbial to the crassly real: a form of ‘totalitarian digital democracy’. These blinkered digi-twits, fettered by inadequate and primitive operating systems, are going through a kind of Stockholm syndrome with images that keep getting more extreme. (The world-wide extermination of homo sapiens by means virtual bioweapons has become commonplace on the screens of these chimp-phones.) With the zeal of the tech-religious, people believe that they are consuming something free and special. That these nuclear-powered interactive cartoons the size of a matchbox are boring and all alike seems not to enter their brains. And all this, despite the fact that very few of them actually own their mindless boxes which waste energy and suck on their intelligence. Nor are they able to access the inner workings of their devices. Not to mention overcoming their obsession with consumption or understanding or manipulating the connections to other networks of devices. The creative minds among the technical priesthood are either in the employ of the digital borderline industry or are labelled – and thus ostracised and persecuted – as hackers.

A machine whose inner workings you cannot access and manipulate does not truly belong to you! In the 20th and 21st centuries, hacking has been and will continue to be the one remaining road to actual freedom.

One example for the skewed logic inherent in these pseudo-interactive crystal boards is the anti-nuclear protest movement: Demonstrations, information campaigns and protests are generally organised through the technology that massively contributes to an increase in energy demand. In other words: Whenever another nuclear power plant goes boom, the sanctimonious protests against it generate a demand for more nuclear power. In other words: “He who sows the protest shall reap the law of unintended consequences.” Based on the technological state of the art, this is a thermodynamic certainty.

Thus the energy transition, that is being discussed in some of the most ruthlessly consumption fascistic nations, brings to light the ambivalence of the ego machines. As the thirst for energy of all of us will never be satisfied (the crystal boards keep multiplying according to the commandments of an ailing market), the future will see a more brutal form of selection: The first half of the last century was all dividing the world into three parts simply by way of military-industrial imperialism and just assume oneself to be the strongest and to have the right to strip the other two parts for all they were worth. Now, as a result of the globalisation of the might-makes-right principle, dividing world society into many castes has become flavour of the decade. Who gets what in terms of food, water, space and technology will in the future, even more so than today, be determined by money and access. You have lot of money and live in the right place? Plenty of access to technology! Little or no money or the wrong place? Live on a rubbish heap and with very little technology.

But this does not mean that there will be fewer boards out there. Just that the poor will have smaller boards than the slightly richer. But both these groups will be blind and helpless. The victors in this primitive technology and energy stampede will be small groups of quasi-feudal market warlords and their heirs. This social class has (once again) taken themselves out of a context of shared community: With great finesse, but little originality, ‘just rich’ (bourgeoisie etc.) is pitted against ‘really poor’ (middle class, blue-collar and white-collar workers, the homeless, civil servants, beggars). Small colourful images, seemingly there to be manipulated, distract us and act as immense marionette strings – or at least they take the place of religions. Little pictures on a screen are the new opium for the old masses.

Thus, the wonderful digital world becomes a parable on the global tragedy: Just because a few greed-driven profiteers live under the delusion that they have to rule the world, the rest of us are doomed to live in distraction and under externally determined social pressure, which in turn generates even more profits for this greedy bunch. The late iGod Steve Jobs and Bill G(H)ates, along with their daft operating systems, are just one more nail in the coffin of common sense that such evidently megalomaniacal life forms have been knocking together for millennia.

A real energy transition would have to involve new ideas, a turnaround and smart actions: New ideas in the sense of human-centred operating systems, with the primary OS being a globally fair education system with access for all. Only then should there be technologies that can be understood and used, without endangering everybody’s mental health. Turning around on this fury road that will eventually leave no space to live, run a server or grow food. And acting smart would mean questioning the phantasm of ‘choice, regardless of physical conditions’ and the borderline technologies that enhance the capabilities of all of us while actually making us more stupid. Smart education would start with the assertion that Saturn is a planet in our solar system and not a German retailer for electronic scrap.

Until then, however, I will save this text on my crystal board, swipe it into the BorderlineWeb like the chimp that I am and blindly and helplessly, like all of us, I stumble about among the iPirates, image junkies and consumption fascists. Sadly, the market warlords will be grateful……

Happy holidays – and most important of all – don’t forget your charger or the hardware you’re wearing will be as blind as you and I……ATARIHARDCORE 2012

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Kritikdesign am Leben erhalten / Donate for Kritikdesign now:
Im Falle einer Überweisung bitte immer "Kritikdesign Spende" angeben - DANKE
Martin Reiter ... Berliner Volksbank
Konto Nr: 7142665004 ... BLZ:100 900 00
IBAN: DE36 1009 0000 7142665004 ... BIC: BEVODEBB



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

AKTUELLE BLOGS:

+NLP-Dummsprech aus der ehemaligen Volksbühne

+Kritikdesign&GapMan im echten Leben 29.03.2018 - 19:00h

+Letter to Ai Wei Wei and a lot more about Arthouse Tacheles 2016 to 2018

+China21 - der totale Kapital-Kommunismus

+GROKOTZ – noch immer keine neue Regierung in Deutschland

+Die letzte Epistel zur SPD

+ Die unmenschlichen Primaten von VW entschuldigen sich bei den Affen

+Neulich Mittag in der Gaskammer der deutschen Autoindustrie

+Faschismuslabor Österreich – historische Schuld reloaded

+Escape II-X... let’s get out of here...

+There is just one way to go – we need to conquer space now – Deep Space Industries

Dienstag, 20. März 2018

NLP-Dummsprech aus der ehemaligen Volksbühne


(Bild: Die Programmdirektorin des Hauses - das früher einmal die Volksbühne war, ist günstig bei Amazon erhältlich und macht auch Interviews ganz gut...)

Deutschlandfunkinterview 06.03.2018: Kritik an der Volksbühne Berlin...."Theater ist kein Kriegsschauplatz"

Das neue Team der Berliner Volksbühne wartet mit Künstlern auf, die in der Kunst, im Theater und im Film anerkannt sind. Doch ihre Arbeiten scheinen an der Volksbühne nicht zu zünden. Die Programmdirektorin, Marietta Piekenbrock, sagt im Dlf: "Wir sehen das als eine große Umbruchphase."

Marietta Piekenbrock (oben rechts im Bild) im Gespräch mit Karin Fischer

Das Land Berlin hatte das Team um Chris Dercon explizit dazu eingeladen, ein völlig neuartiges programmatisches Konzept für ein zeitgenössisches Theater zu entwickeln, erläutert Marietta Piekenbrock im Dlf.

ODER >>> [Gleicher Satz andere Baustelle: Die Länder Berlin und Brandenburg haben ein Team von Architekten und Unternehmen explizit dazu eingeladen einen für Berlin neuartigen Großflughafen, für das zeitgenössiche Mobilitätsbedürfnis der Bevölkerung zu entwickeln.]

"Die Politik hat die Wahl, auf Kontinuität oder Veränderung zu setzen", sagt Piekenbrock, "die Berliner Politik hat sich für Veränderung entschieden. Und das bedeutet eben auch einen Wechsel an Ästhetiken, im Publikum, eine Irritation in der Presse."

ODER >>>["Also arbeiten wir weiter für ein modernes Land, für weltbeste Bildung, für die Chancen der Digitalisierung und eine faire Balance zwischen Bürger und Staat. Dafür brauchen wir jetzt umso mehr neues Denken." Ihr Christian Lindner MdB Bundesvorsitzender Freie Demokratische Partei]

Einladung ins Jenseitige. Besagte Irritation führt die Programmdirektorin der Volksbühne darauf zurück, dass die geladenen Künstler ihre Zuschauer "ins Jenseitige" einladen: jenseits des Verstandes, des Hörbaren, des Sehbaren. Als sinnliche, sensitive Abende beschreibt Piekenbrock die Programme der Dercon-Intendanz.

ODER >>>[Schrei nach Stille - vom "spirituellen Erwachen" erhoffen sich Hunderttausende erschöpfter Zeitgenossen Hilfe im Alltagskampf. Begegnung mit den Lehrern einer neuen Innerlichkeit. Von Christian Schüle 24. Juni 2004-Aus der ZEIT Nr. 27/2004 - "Die Erleuchteten waren da. Sie sind durchs Land gefahren und haben Seelen geheilt. Sie haben Identitäten erforscht und Akademiker zum Weinen gebracht. Sie haben Bewusstseinsströme in Schwingung gesetzt und Energien befreit. Sie haben Erfahrung gelehrt und Verehrung erfahren. Sie haben Inspiration vermittelt und geweckt. Und sie haben geschwiegen. Egal, wo sie waren - ihr Raum war die Stille."]

Piekenbrocks Meinung nach gelingt es durchaus, diese Anliegen über die Rampe zu bringen. "Susanne Kennedy wird bei uns im Haus sehr gefeiert. Die Vorstellungen sind ausverkauft" Sie beobachte, dass sich die Zuschauer von der Kontroverse nach der Premiere emanzipierten und den Abend für sich entdeckten.

ODER >>>[Berliner Zeitung zum Stück von Frau Kennedy: .../"Verzweifelt klingt in dem spirituellen Einerlei immer nur die Frage, ob die Kamera läuft. Übersetzt fürs Theater müsste sie lauten: „Seid ihr noch wach?“ – eine berechtigte Frage bei dem schleppenden Tempo, mit dem die menschenpuppenbestückte Innenarchitektur vor sich hinkreiselt, bei dem Singsang der vorproduzierten Einsprecher, bei den meditativen Bildschirmschoner-Videobildern, bei der Entspannungsmusik und eben der Grundannahme, dass wir es genauso gut mit einem Traum zu tun haben können. Nun: Einige flüchten sich in den Schlaf, viele verlassen einfach vorzeitig das Theater, einer winkt mitleidig. – Quelle: https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/28983854 ©2018]

Laboratorium für Experimente: Marietta Piekenbrock versteht die Volksbühne in Berlin als ein Laboratorium, das sich für Künstler öffnet, die einen Raum brauchen, um ihre neuartigen Experimente durchzuführen. Und sie findet es nicht richtig, in laufende Theaterarbeiten einzugreifen.

ODER >>>[Im Rahmen der Ausstellung Broken Spaces in KAI 10 | Arthena Foundation findet zum zweiten Mal das Kunstkritik Labor, ein Praxisseminar zur Förderung angehender Kunstkritiker und Kunstkritikerinnen, statt. Dieses Seminar richtet sich sowohl an junge Journalisten als auch an Studenten und Studentinnen der Kunstgeschichte und angrenzender Disziplinen.]

Für Piekenbrock ist Theater kein Kriegsschauplatz, in dem Regisseure vor einer Premiere entmündigt werden: "Man muss sich mal vorstellen, was uns alles verloren gegangen wäre auf der Welt. Wir hätten kein 'Sacre du Printemps', keine 'Kahle Sängerin' und keinen 'Murx den Europäer'".

ODER >>>[Und am Ende dieses "Neusprech von uralten Geistern Interviews" - stilecht noch einige Allgemeinplätze, die eigentlich niemand wissen will.] ..../DLF Interview Ende.

Laborbetrieb, Experimentelles, Jenseitiges, völlig Neuartiges und explizit – Sprachlosigkeit sind die Eigenschaften der neuen, kleinen, strunzdummen digitalen Assistenten. Obiges Interview führt anschaulich vor, warum große Teile des sogenannten Kulturmanager(un)wesens durch billigen Elektronikschrott ersetzt werden sollten. Sprachlosigkeit.

Das Haus, das früher einmal die Volksbühne war, inszeniert seinen Abriss als NLP- Machwerk in Donald Trump Manier. Kultur, und da reden wir noch gar nicht über die Kunzt, geht anders. Experimentell ist da gar nichts, ganz im Gegenteil – die langweilige Dercon Operette reflektiert in klassischem Sinn nur die Zeit in der sie stattfindet. Den Zerfall einer verlogenen, uralten, imperialen, kapitalistischen Pseudozivilisation die auf umfassendem Raubbau aufgebaut wurde.

Diese platte Operette ist durchaus zeitgenössisch und legitim, sollte sich aber aus sich selbst heraus finanzieren und keine Steuergelder verschlingen. Das Haus der ehemaligen Volksbühne aber ist für derlei Eventolympiaden der falsche Ort, Berlin hat multifunktionale Räume zu günstigen Konditionen mehr als genug.

Und so wird Theater und Kunst marktkompatibel in das Jenseitige ausgelagert, in das Religiöse, das neurolinguistisch Autosuggestive, das Esoterische - jenseits des Verstandes, des Hörbaren, des Sehbaren - in das absolute Nichts.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Kritikdesign am Leben erhalten / Donate for Kritikdesign now:
Im Falle einer Überweisung bitte immer "Kritikdesign Spende" angeben - DANKE
Martin Reiter ... Berliner Volksbank
Konto Nr: 7142665004 ... BLZ:100 900 00
IBAN: DE36 1009 0000 7142665004 ... BIC: BEVODEBB



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

AKTUELLE BLOGS:

+Kritikdesign&GapMan im echten Leben 29.03.2018 - 19:00h

+Letter to Ai Wei Wei and a lot more about Arthouse Tacheles 2016 to 2018

+China21 - der totale Kapital-Kommunismus

+GROKOTZ – noch immer keine neue Regierung in Deutschland

+Die letzte Epistel zur SPD

+ Die unmenschlichen Primaten von VW entschuldigen sich bei den Affen

+Neulich Mittag in der Gaskammer der deutschen Autoindustrie

+Faschismuslabor Österreich – historische Schuld reloaded

+Escape II-X... let’s get out of here...

+There is just one way to go – we need to conquer space now – Deep Space Industries

Sonntag, 4. März 2018

Kritikdesign&GapMan im echten Leben 29.03.2018 - 19:00h


(Bild: GapMan is watching you ... the question is - who da fuck is you?)

Am Mittwoch dem 29.03.2018 um 19:00Hin der NoizeFabrik/Berlin"Im echten Leben- Kritikdesign Lesung". Anschließende Diskussion, nach den heissgelaufenen Argumenten dann ein wenig Musik im unteren db-Bereich zum Ausklang. Polemik, Epistel bis hin zum ungerecht, gewichteten Essay des Kritikdesigns ist Inhalt dieses neuen Veranstaltungsformates der NoizeFabrik (Elsenstrasse 52/Neukölln-Berlin). Gelesen wird in Deutsch und Englisch.

Der Schmutzige-Epistel-Reiter liest Deutsch (oder was er dafür hält), Malte Forstat übersetzt in die englische Sprache. Den Smombie-Riten unserer Tage Rechnung tragend, wird es keine elend, lange Lesung. Es gibt diesmal mehrere Texte, die vorgetragen werden.

On Thursday the 29.03.2018 / 19:00H at NoizeFabrik / Berlin there will be the next edition of "In real life - KritikDesign reading". Subsequent discussion, after the hot arguments then a little music in the lower db range to the end. Polemics epistles and the unfair weighted essay of the critic design is content of this new event format of the NoizeFabrik (Elsenstrasse 52 / Neukölln-Berlin). Reading in German and English.

The pamphleteer reads two or three sentences the translator translates into English. Taking into account the smartphone-zombie-times we all life in it will not be a miserable long reading. On 29.03.2018 two Kritikdesigns will be presented.

Live in Fleisch und Blut - 100% Roboter und Droidenfrei, diesmal aber mit Superhelden. Am 29.03.2018 um 19:00h, geht es um den totalen Markt, die Freiheit und den Rest den wir für das gute Leben halten - als Real-Kunst: Eine Ausstellung zu Gap-Man und dem Verkauf von Körperteilen von KünstlerInnen. Der Eintritt ist frei, die Veranstaltung beginnt, für Berlin mehr als unüblich, pünktlich. Auf Ihr Erscheinen freuen sich Marc Hüppi, Malte Forstat und Martin L. Reiter.

Of course - live in flesh and blood and 100% robot and droid-free but this time there will be a superhero. On 29.03.2018 19:00h its all about the so called free market, freedom and the rest formaly known as life. Real-Art that night - Gap-Man and the sale of artists physical body . The entrance is free. For Berlin - more than unusual - the event starts on time. Marc Hüppi, Malte Forstat and Martin L. Reiter are looking forward to see you.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Kritikdesign am Leben erhalten / Donate for Kritikdesign now:
Im Falle einer Überweisung bitte immer "Kritikdesign Spende" angeben - DANKE
Martin Reiter ... Berliner Volksbank
Konto Nr: 7142665004 ... BLZ:100 900 00
IBAN: DE36 1009 0000 7142665004 ... BIC: BEVODEBB



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

AKTUELLE BLOGS:

+Letter to Ai Wei Wei and a lot more about Arthouse Tacheles 2016 to 2018

+China21 - der totale Kapital-Kommunismus

+GROKOTZ – noch immer keine neue Regierung in Deutschland

+Die letzte Epistel zur SPD

+ Die unmenschlichen Primaten von VW entschuldigen sich bei den Affen

+Neulich Mittag in der Gaskammer der deutschen Autoindustrie

+Faschismuslabor Österreich – historische Schuld reloaded

+Escape II-X... let’s get out of here...

+There is just one way to go – we need to conquer space now – Deep Space Industries

+Kritikdesign im echten Leben 28.02.2018 - 19:00h

+Ganz kurz zu Baby-Hitler

+Inkompetenzkompensationskompetenz

+Der Selbstmord der SPD als Chance

+Liebe SPD

+In der Spinnerei Leipzig - viel Tacheles-Tribe 2018 +Spinnerei Winterrundgang 2018 / Leipzig

+Tacheles Tribe 21 - die Ausstellung "Odyssee2018"

+Weil wir Dich lieben ... Deutsche Bahn [AtariHardCore2018]

+the very first hack

+Tu felix Austria pati

+"Im echten Leben- Kritikdesign Lesung" 24.01.2018 [Deutsch/English] 18:00h

+Der Psycho-Präsi fliegt zum Mond

+Kunsthaus Tacheles_UG - Immer einen Schritt voraus.

+Öl ins Feuer, Ablenkungs-Brandlegung als neofaschistische Strategie.

+Der ICE steht rasend Richtung München...

+Deutschland braucht keine stabile Regierung - sie hatte ja auch früher keine ...

+Rumkugel-Gotcha



Samstag, 3. März 2018

Letter to Ai Wei Wei and a lot more about Arthouse Tacheles 2016 to 2018

2016...[german version]

Dear Mr. Ai Wei Wei, my dear colleague,

it was with great joy that I heard that you posted a text composed by me and hung up in the Blauer Salon at the former Kunsthaus Tacheles on Instagram. Let me use this opportunity to thank you for taking an interest. However, I think it is important to give you a little bit of background on what made this text plate necessary. Given your work as both an artist and dissident, I assume that the history behind these words that you took a photo of will interest you.

The words on the sign read “An exhibition on the Kunsthaus Tacheles concerning investment facts, and all the rest”. This was a reference to the exhibition “Neo-German Circumstances” that I had put together following the devastation of the Blauer Salon by security personnel and in the context of the expulsion of artists from the Tacheles in 2011/12, and which included rubble from this willful destruction. The trash that you were standing in the middle of when you took that Instagram photo was rubble left over from that exodus. Back then, private security – the same people that were guiding you around the former Tacheles – had invaded and illegally taken over the Blauer Salon, where the Belarus artist Alexander Rodin had been working at the time.

They slashed oil paintings, burned posters, urinated on sketch books and physically assaulted artists. Once the artists had won their court case, we were allowed to return to the Blauer Salon. I decided to declare the destruction, piles of trash and the smell of fecal matter as a work of art and gave it the title “Neo-German circumstances”. I am very happy that you still had the chance to see and document this exhibition today, almost five years later. But again, I want to make it clear to you that the people who were guiding you through the building were the exact same people who had expelled the ‘free’ and non-market-driven arts and artists from the exact same building – and using psychological and physical violence.

Especially the former State Secretary for Culture, Andre Schmitz, who had to resign after being convicted of tax fraud, has played a less-than-laudable role in the destruction of the Tacheles. Schmitz, who was at the forefront when it came to vilifying the art that had been produced at the Tacheles, now proudly poses in front of artworks that he himself had nothing but contempt for only a few years ago. I hope that you will also find this to be beyond what you can stand. (Image: Andre Schmitz has no gag threshold at all and, it goes without saying, knows nothing about culture, not to mention art. The man that once killed the Tacheles, is now playing with the very same corpse. It would appear that necrophilia does have a psycho-pathological element to it…)

My dear Ai Wei Wei, I am happy to debate with you at any time and I hope that this letter doesn’t come across as too forward, and I also would like you to consider whether someone might not be trying to misuse you as a cover-clown to marketing this newly established quarter in the heart of Berlin. As a fellow artist, I appeal to your solidarity and your spirit of resistance: Are you maybe being used as an advertising mascot for a hyped-up real estate venture?

Combative greetings from a western dissident to an eastern dissident,

Martin L. Reiter

2017 ....[german version]
Tacheles-Quartier has to make do without Ai Wei Wei

Ai Wei Wei will not move into the former Tacheles. Writing letters clearly works. As reported in the Tagesspiegel of August 11th, 2017, the Chinese artist is not going to let himself be misused as the cover-clown of some marketing department. A wise choice. After all, who wants to be associated with a fake brand? Fraud through stolen names and concepts is not for everyone: No, it is a destructive, neo-liberal and violent strategy in this world-wide civil war that calls itself the ‘free market’.

Quote (Tagesspiegel of Aug. 11th 2017): …that is why, in this struggle with the investors, the District of Mitte tried their best to preserve the Tacheles as a cultural venue.

This is laid down in the development plan, along with a careful renovation. The legend of the transitory is to be conserved and the building is to remain, harking back to the wild times following the Germany Wende. How that is to be achieved has yet to be determined by the architects. Word is that the renovation will most likely not be completed before 2018 or 19.

The building’s floors are supposed to become a home for galleries, studios and artists’ workshops. There is also talk of a theater and an arthouse cinema. But all that PWR Development has been moved to announce is that “possible use concepts” are under consideration. The department of culture of the Berlin Senate is also not saying much. “We do not know if any at all, and if yes, which artists and institutions are being considered,” the spokesman Daniel Bartsch says. The cultural decision makers have no say in who the future tenants might be. That choice is squarely with the investor. /End quote

The Mitte District never really had that much to say concerning this dirty game surrounding the Kunsthaus Tacheles. The Department of Culture of the Berlin Senate, including its toothless senator for cultural affairs and later state secretary for culture has always played a duplicitous game in favour of antisocial and anticultural privatisation. This caused hundreds of millions in losses in sales revenues for the Berlin municipality and demonstrated to a keen but small audience how tax theft, and in consequence an illegal land grab, is to be achieved by a Mafia-style association of investors. The Social Democrats in particular proved to be more willing assistants than their more conservative co-actors on the political stage who come from that cesspool that is the right wing.

It goes without saying that cultural politicians – what a contradiction in terms – no longer have a say. Tax-funded and overpaid do-nothing-ers that they are, they yanked the city entrusted to them out from under the arses of the population and flogged it off for next to nothing.

So far, research has found a payment of only 16 million euros for the Tacheles site, but the proceeds from the sale to Fundus, the first investor, had been 150 million euros. So the political stakeholders have, without a care in the world, given away 134 million euros. No surprise then, that these wannabe-social democrats are on the decline – as they deserve to be. We might as well wallow around in the brown muck and revive nationalism as the cure-all political sedative.

The investor is the only one deciding who gets what. After the manslaughter against the Volksbühne, that shouldn’t come as a surprise. There will of course be the odd college dropout that went into cultural management for lack of other alternatives that will say “why not let them do their thing first and then criticize”. That is opportunistic bullshit. No, let’s not do that!

The Tacheles was irrevocably destroyed on September 9th, 2012. The artists and what this place was all about have dispersed into the world and are now actually quite successfully developing new concepts, both artistic and otherwise. The new quarter around the Tacheles is a bunch of bogus that no Ai Wei Wei is going to fall for.

The only way the Kunsthaus Tacheles could be reinvented, is if the height of the leases didn’t determine what went on there, and if the wheeling and dealing of the generation of mediocre but radical losers that had already made life hard for the original Tacheles was firmly shown the door. But before that happens, hell will freeze over and that garden gnome that is Martin Schulz will become the new German chancellor.

2018...[german version]

Kunsthaus Tacheles_UG – Always a step ahead.

Miss Sloane is a Hollywood movie from 2016. It deals with lobbyists, spin doctors, intrigues, manipulation of the economy and structural corruption.

Such is it to be human, both at a large and a small scale. The small stuff, that seemingly insignificant, non-earth-shaking small stuff, is what the following epistle is all about.

The former Kunsthaus Tacheles in Berlin Mitte is being renovated for over a year now. Completion and a re-opening are still far away, but Berliners – sorely tried from their Airport situation – have more than gotten used to it.

Project developers have been chipping away at how to market this piece of real estate for a long time. It is meant to be the emblem for the rise of a new city. Instead they engage in new-speak, and dress their ideas up in the latest anglo-buzzwords and go through (almost) all of the catch-phrases from the field of cultural management. A regression into NeoLib-speak, and a top-down culture struggle.

The former senator of culture, Andre “tax fraud” Schmitz, has even been moved to get Ei Wei Wei on board of this marketing vessel. But namedropping for the purposes of generating out-of-this-world rents has backfired. Ei Wei Wei is smart enough and too much of a dissident to fall for this kind of under-cultured stupidity.

Even the renovation of the former Tacheles is going at snail’s pace; those who originally established the Tacheles were able to have the graffiti protected as a historic monument under strict regulations. In contrast to the less strict protection of the building itself and the decision of the Berlin parliament from the early 1990s to protect the Kunsthaus as a ‘cultural location’ (whatever that might mean – even a multiplex cinema and a luxury toilet can be cultural locations), conserving the street art also helps to conserves some of the Tacheles’ identity.

Most of all, protecting the graffiti stands in the way of this branding-driven theft and the spin-doctoring in the service of cultural ideology. What to do(?), some developers might wonder. How do to make short-term profit optimisation look like art?

To answer that, Kunsthaus Tacheles_UG has some free and truly cynical advice: Why not start out with a grand Tacheles-exhibition? ‘Tacheles’ artists, a bunch of former gastronomes, frustrated former East German academics, neo-liberal re-hashers of culture and failed hedonists are a dime a dozen in Berlin.

All of the above have had, at some time, in some form, something to do with the Kunsthaus – if only by pissing in one of the stairwells. And most of them will have been corruptible at some point. And surely some photos, artworks or old posters can be found if you look hard enough. For the vernissage, best buy in a minor celebrity (from off of the telly or someone from the theatre) who will give the whole thing that nice touch of cheap glamour.

And to top it all off, of course, bring out a Tacheles book. The captions for the photographs can be had for free from Berlin’s cultural precariat. Add a pinch of media collaboration – and you’ve got yourselves a Tacheles-Show.

Those cultural managers that the first unsuccessful investor failed to bribe the first time around could now be re-instated as directors of the new Tacheles – which would nicely bring back the heady odour of those ‘wild’ 90s.

Meanwhile, the Kunsthaus Tacheles_UG has been busy with the Tacheles archives. Posters, flyers, programmes, media articles, minutes and files – all painstakingly accumulated by private individuals, are being catalogued since 2012. will they be collected into a book someday? Who can say??

Until that day comes, news, polemics and more are available at www.tacheles.de

translated by Malte Forstat in 2018 ...

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