discord. sabotage of realities
Week of Visual Arts Hamburg 1996

* Concept

Ute Vorkoeper / Inke Arns

The title is theme and strategy of an exhibition and action art project that intends to bring together a wide variety of different artistic positions of the Nineties. The origin of the concept lies in the "Peace Biennale", which was initiated by Robert Filliou and realized by René Block in 1985 as a project of the Week of Visual Arts and shown in the Kunstverein and the Kunsthaus in Hamburg. The central motto of this show was "to show peace more excitingly than war".

Filliou's concept, which had the goal of forming a world-wide artistic network for "peace-forming" art strategies, prompted a re-thinking and re-formulating of the questions originally raised. A new call for participation in a parallel project was initiated. However, utopian and moral expectations no longer stand in the foreground of the art-scape. Instead, art must test its ability to visualize increasingly unpeaceful realities. It should intervene in existing structures, and expose mistaken handlings of private, social and political realities so that they can be experienced in a suggestive or reflexive way.

Divided into six thematic zones (and mixtures of zones) - control, news services, everyday life, border politics, government machines, science ficion and economy - the exhibition discord. sabotage of realities will reflect upon themes central to society's experience of reality as mirrord by art. A "heterotope" of art reality should come into being - a world parallel to the world, in which artworks are resocialized and made palpable in their critical and subversive potential. It is a world of art in which the inconspicuous contents, definitions and attributions of our pluralistic realities are unveiled, doubled or distorted.

Zone 1 - control (security / insecurity) - this reappears in different forms throughout the entire exhibition. Particularly during times when there is social or political unrest - one need only think of all the threatening and dangerous enemies - it seems necessary to satisfy the growing need of the population for security by expanding the political or federal control and its protective services. Artists are asked to come up with new additions to or solutions for the "police state" and "walls with ears".

Zone 2 - news services (disinformation) - seen spatially, this will make up the heart of the show. Guided by the motto "information should be unfree", both old and new strategies of disinformaion and models of censorship will be presented, as well as new information services that begin their work transmitting daily news from the central news station of the project.

Zone 3 - everyday life (alienation) - this gives us a look upon the private and social life in the republics and dictatorships of the world. In this zone, disconcerting views of an alienating everyday existence will be shown. Patterns of identity, loss of indentity and the eternal fight for identity will be touched upon here.

Zone 4 - border politics (walking the tightrope) - questions the usual and new strategies for resolving conflicts. How were and how are conflicts dealt with? How could they be dealt with? Exemplary models should deliver impulses for our culture of war and conflict to rennovate its old structures.

Zone 5 - government machines (law, discipline, repression) - in an exclusive offer for those damaged by pluralism, this zone will introduce old and new societal models of order. Law, discipline and repression come up against situational thinking, variable identities and different understandings of democracy.

Zone 6 - Science fiction and economy (the administration of the future) - will take into account the never-ending desire for a perfect human being and that being's world. For the perfect person (mobile, good-smelling, communicative, liberal), the perfect environment must be created. Models for the future, even for the poorest of the poor and the most frustrated of the frustrated, are given priority as long as he profits are big enough.
 
 

All interested artists were invited to participate by sending their concepts to Hamburg. Artistic media were open. A panel of artists and critics reviewed the concepts sent and decided which projects would be realized.

application deadline: August 31st
concepts to:   un-frieden. sabotage von wirklichkeiten
    Rutschbahn 37
    D-20146 Hamburg
    Tel/Fax: ++49-40-4104937
    e-mail: 106032.2574@compuserve.com
    http://www.icf.de/discord

locations:   Kunstverein and Kunsthaus in Hamburg
Dates of Exhibition:  29. 11. 1996 - 19. 01. 1997
 
 

1. Entry Form
There are no pretences or paper entry forms except the request "concepts please in relatively small format". For not yet realized concepts a calculation of the costs and a declaration of the materials are requested.
 
2. Biographical Data or Materials
Brief informations about your work and your biography are welcome. Especially for not yet realized works some informations would be useful to explain your way of working.

3. Jury:
The members of the jury will be named finally in July. We have invited five artists and critics to participate in the panel. Curators of the exhibition: Ute Vorkoeper and Inke Arns.

4. Finances / Transports / Travels
Concerning projects selected by the jury:
a) Projects will be supported financially or materially depending on the amount that is necessary for realization.
b) Transport expenses will be paid.
c) Travelling expenses and accomodation of artists who have to realize their projects themselves in Hamburg will be paid.