SidebySide Studio : Criticality / Network / Exchange about Value and Crisis

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 15: YES and NO and IT DOESN'T MATTER – Syncretism and Digital Art Making Today

I-WEI LI — 2012-09-03T23:11:32Z

This session explores syncretism – the collision or reconciliation of disparate beliefs, systems of thought and forms of expression. Recently, syncretism has been understood as the acceptance of foreign or unorthodox practice such as Candomble and in Diderot's thought, the harmony of eclectic sources. Standing in opposition of binary system, syncretism is the in-between condition of being both or more. Here, ostensible incorporation allows a rich process of mélange, in which associations between symbols, icons, and a variety of techniques and media are assembled.

We query whether syncretism maybe used to describe Jack Burnham's ‘System Esthetics' (1986) – the transition from an object-oriented to a systems-oriented culture in which change emanates not from things, but from the way things are done? Additionally, may syncretism be considered as a disjunctive and open form of cultural production, as applicable to Candomble as it is to digital art? In particular, to current Brazilian digital art making?

[DE] Die aktuelle Veranstaltung widmet sich dem Synkretismus – der Kollision bzw. der Übereinstimmung von verschiedenen Glaubensrichtungen, Gedankensystemen und Ausdrucksformen. Der Synkretismus wurde vor kurzen noch als die Akzeptanz von fremden und unorthodoxen Praktiken wie wir sie in der afro-brasilianische Religion Candomble finden oder in Diderots Denkweise als Einklang von verschiedenen Quellen verstanden. Konträr zum binären System, ist der Synkretismus der Zwischenzustand beides zu sein oder mehr. Die Zusammenführung erlaubt eine Mischung, in der Assoziationen innerhalb von Symbolen und Zeichen als auch eine Vielzahl unterschiedlichster Techniken und Medien zusammengebracht werden.

Zusammen mit bekannten Medienkünstlern und Wissenschaftlern Brasiliens gehen wir der Frage nach ob der Synkretismus auch genutzt werden kann um Jack Burnhams „System Esthetics“ (1968) zu beschreiben – die Transition einer Objekt basierten zu einer System orientierten Kultur, in der Veränderungen nicht von Dingen ausstrahlen sondern von der Art und Weise wie Dinge gemacht sind. Vielleicht kann Synkretismus auch als eine trennende und offene Art des kulturellen Schaffens verstanden werden, wie Candomble zur Medienkunst? Im Besonderen zur zeitgenössischen brasilianischen Medienkunst?

[PR-BR] Neste encontro exploraremos o sincretismo - a colisão ou reconciliação de crenças, sistemas de pensamento e formas de expressão opostas. Sincretismo vem sendo compreendido recentemente como a aceitação de práticas alheias ou não-ortodoxas, como o Candomblé, segundo o pensamento de Diderot, a harmonia de fontes ecléticas. No espaço de oposição ao sistema binário se encontra a condição intermediária de ser ambos, ou mais ainda. Aqui, a incorporação ostensiva permite um processo de mélange enriquecedor, onde são montadas associações entre símbolos e ícones através de uma variedade de técnicas e meios.

Nos perguntamos se o sincretismo poderia ser usado para descrever o ‘System Esthetics' de Jack Burnham (1986) – a transição de uma cultura orientada a objetos para uma cultura orientada a sistemas, na qual a mudança emana não das coisas em si, mas da maneira como as coisas são feitas? Além disso, poderia o sincretismo ser considerado como uma forma de produção cultural aberta e disjuntiva a ser aplicada à arte digital da mesma maneira como o é ao Candomblé? Especialmente no que se refere às práticas atuais de arte digital no Brasil?

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 15: YES and NO and IT DOESN'T MATTER – Syncretism and Digital Art Making Today

07.09.2012
19h Doors open
19:30 - 22h

O.T. Projectraum
Weichselstr. 55 12045 Berlin
http://otprojectspace.wordpress.com

Special thanks to dance-techtv, live video streaming will be available at www.ustream.tv/channel/dance-techtv

Vanessa Ramos-Velasquez - Interdisciplinary artist and researcher, Winner of Transmediale.11 Vilém Flusser Theory Award Distinction

Digital Anthropophagy and The Anthropophagic Re-Manifesto for the Digital Age, presented as a multimedia lecture-performance, this work comprises a theoretical essay where a new practice of consumption (ingestion, digestion and excretion) involving a technological mediation is proposed as the new paradigm arising from the internetworked society in which anyone can be a colonizer. 500+ years ago the ship was the laptop, carrying people and concepts far and wide. The artist thus invites the audience at the end of the performance to eat her re-manifesto in full ritualistic communion and deposit offerings to Yemanjá inside the boat from which she reads the manifesto as a new Requerimiento.

www.quietrevolution.me/ART_PAPERS.html

Marcus Bastos – Professor at PUC-SP, Curator for Vivo Arte Festival

Editor of the book “Mediation, Technology, Public Space: a critical panorama of mobile art” with Lucas Bambozzi and Rodrigo Minelli (Conrad, 2010). Marcus coordinates, with Priscila Arantes, the research group “Networld: ecologies of real time” at PUC-SP (where he is professor of Digital Media and Experimental Poetics). Among his recent projects are: “giuseppe, etc” (video essay launched at Mostra SESC de Artes, 2012); “fluxes” (audiovisual composition created with the group Telemusik, commissioned by Paço das Artes for the the “Listen, Dance” exhibition, 2010); “she, lonely, thinks of that” (live cinema presentation commissioned for the Circuito SESC de Artes, 2010) and “2346” (mapping of the Augusta Street developed with the group LAT-23 at Escola São Paulo, for the city anniversary).

http://contradiccoes.net

Lenara Verle – New Media artist, Researcher and lecturer at Unisinos University and PUC-RS University for Digital Communications, Game Development, and Expanded Cinema.

UNESCO-ASCHBERG resident artist at the Planetary Collegium (UK) and New Media Art resident artist at ZKM Center (DE).

Lenara participates in the award-winning group Sito Electronic Arts, a pioneer community of digital artists who have been developing collaborative Internet projects since 1994. Her work Gridcosm 1000-000 is winner of the VAD Net Art First Prize (Girona, Spain 2003) and the ZKM Media Art Award (Karlsruhe, Germany 2005).

Gridcosm is a collaborative Internet art project by Sito Electronic Arts launched in 1997. Over 3,000 artists have contributed more than 30,000 images during its fifteen year existence. Gridcosm's basic structure is an expandable three by three image grid. Each section of the grid is created by a different artist and the images must be designed to blend together forming a seamless bigger picture.

This "blending" requirement brings up interesting challenges and possibilities for the artists. Each image is not a finished piece in itself, it must be consider or take advantage of its surroundings. These surroundings are other images already created or yet to be created by other artists. In the collective image creation process, a concept brought up by one artist inside an image can be further developed, ignored or ruined by the adjacent image added by another artist.

The Gridcsom 1000-000 animation shows the first 1000 "levels" of Gridcosm, and features a soundtrack as part of the "gridpoem", a stream of text that is created collaboratively together with the images.

www.sito.org/synergy/gridcosm

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 14: Independent Publishing

I-WEI LI — 2012-04-24T13:15:31Z

In this session, we gather passionate Berlin based independent publishers to further explore pressing issues such as distribution and promotion, also strategies to improve the sustainability of independent publishing activities. We invite the following panel to reflect how they (individually or collectively) would exercise soft power in order to enhance their publication's credibility and desirability among international cultural elites and readership.

This forum is part of Unendliche festival and mark the launch of Kombinat Literatur Berlin - a new platform aims to support the independent publishing scene in Berlin by interconnecting the different elements involved in this process.

The goal of Kunst Apotheke Salon is to facilitate critical exchange among cultural workers, in particular to widen strategies to sustain creative practices. For more information, please visit here

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 14: Independent Publishing

05.05.2012
18:00 - 20:30 (doors open at 17:30)

Altes Finanzamt
Schönstedtstraße 7 - EG, 12043 Neukölln – Berlin
Access through the yard
U7 Rathaus Neukölln (Exit Schönstedtstraße)
altesfinanzamt.blogspot.com/

Anonymous Author Editions
Jorge Filipe – independent publisher, writer, and economist – Lisbon/Berlin
www.anonymousauthoreditions.blogspot.de

Anonymous Author Editions is an independent publisher, working as a collective of artists, designers and writers that was founded in May 2011. This project aims at researching how collective work in the process of publishing takes place when all the sense authorship is removed, which new meanings/narratives can a "book" acquire when this happens, and how does the process of doing and launching a book changes accordingly.

ATLAS Projectos
Nuno da Luz – independent publisher and artist – Berlin/Lisbon
http://www.atlasprojectos.net/

ATLAS Projectos is a publisher of art projects in printed, audio/visual and exhibition formats, founded in 2007 and currently based in Lisbon (PT) and Berlin (DE), run by André Romão, Gonçalo Sena and Nuno da Luz. As a publisher, we intend to give visibility and circulation to projects and contents we believe in, where each object follows its own logic of production and print run, working in close relation with authors and collaborators.

We edit, design, produce and distribute what we publish, along with independent collaborations with other publishers, allowing the circulation of resources and helping the progression from us to you: to publish→ to render public →to divulge. "

Broken Dimanche Press
John Holten - Chief editor, curator, riter
www.brokendimanche.eu

Fictional platform taking various forms, focused on the creation of steadfast and beautiful book-objects through book-projects with artists, writers and political agents with collaboration from F.U.K. laboratories™.

Sand Journal
Becky Crook – chief editor and writer – Seattle/Berlin
http://sandjournal.com/

Published twice annually, SAND is an independent English literary journal featuring original prose, poetry, translations and art from a wide array of artists and writers in Berlin and beyond. The journal was founded in May 2010 and has since published 5 issues and has held over 30 readings and collaborative projects in Berlin.

Kombinat Literatur Berlin
Jorge Filipe – independent publisher, writer, and economist – Lisbon/Berlin
http://kombinatliteraturberlin.com/

Kombinat Literatur Berlin is a platform that intends to support the independent publishing scene in Berlin by interconnecting the different elements involved in it (i.e. publishers, book shops, venues, printing houses, independent media) hereby improving the sustainability of their activities, namely by improving the conditions to print, the structure to promote and distribute the books, by creating a network where each individual independent actor benefits from the cooperation with the others.

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 13: Will Feminist Winners Be Defeated by Their Own Victories?

I-WEI LI — 2011-02-22T19:52:04Z

This International Women's Day, Kunst Apotheke Salon is focusing on the body as viewed by female photographers and filmmakers. How far have we come since the feminist art and discourse of 1970s? At a glance, women may seem to have the upper hand. But with traditional notions of male identity under threat (well illustrated by Tsai Min Liang's recent film 天邊一朵雲 aka The Wayward Cloud), how can we move beyond the discourse of "a battle of the sexes"?

Forty years on, has the post-feminist debate really freed women to enjoy their own sexuality, or has it made the commodification of women's bodies acceptable once more?Does the increasing treatment of men's bodies as objects of desire in fashion, advertising and the media make them victims of the same degrading treatment women have struggled to overcome? Do these depictions lack the nuanced complexity with which imagery of the female form has been explored, and if so how does this affect the way men feel about their own bodies?

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 13 - Will Feminist Winners Be Defeated by Their Own Victories?

08.03.2011
20:00 - 23:00

Limbus Europae
corner Kienitzer Strasse / Weisestrasse
U-Bahn: U8 Boddinstrasse
BERLIN NEUKÖLLN
www.limbus-europae.de

Bronwen Parker-Rhodes and Giovanna Schulte-Ontrop will each present a body of portraiture that raises questions about how we view sex and the human body.

Bronwen Parker-Rhodes - Photographer/filmmaker - London
bronfilms.com
Since graduating from Slade School of Fine Art in 2006 with a BA (1st Class Hons), Bronwen has directed two series of 3 Minute Wonders for Channel 4, made films for Vivienne Westwood, pop star Rihanna, Current TV and Spine TV. Her films and photography have been exhibited in group and solo exhibitions worldwide. Bronwen's first book, At Home, has just been published by Oodee, one of four titles in the series POV Female. At Home offers a glimpse behind the bedroom doors of girls who strip, revealing aspects of their personalities away from the stage or the communal dressing room. Surrounded by the clutter of their lives – from sentimental knick-knacks to the costumes of their trade – these are of sexy, confident women enjoying their exhibitionism on their own terms.
Chiqui at Home, 2010

Giovanna Schulte-Ontrop - photographer - Berlin
Schulte-Ontrop has turned her camera onto ‘ordinary' men – naked, unadorned and quietly confident in their bodies – raising questions about male vulnerability and the power of the female gaze. Tired of being constantly confronted with male nude images that are constructed with predictable marketing aesthetics, macho propaganda, and even romanticised nerdyness, Giovanna's body of work, Entspiegelung, presents a tender and sensual view of masculinity.

Entspiegelung, 2010

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 12: Kiss or Kill Facebook?

I-WEI LI — 2010-10-11T01:20:21Z

Kiss or Kill Facebook? 500 million friends, 33 billion business, even Hollywood now wants to cash in with the new release film ‘The Social Network.'
What are we without having our 'faces' on Facebook?
What have we become when we have more ‘friends' online than in real life?
Will the hype for social networking tip over?

Today, most social networks are invested by financial conglomerates, what are the consequences of digital citizen's voluntary disclosure of their private life online?
Will these social networks transform the Big Brother into a banal controlling system?
Are we evolving into a denounced population through these self surveillance tools?
Will total disconnection be the only alternative?
How is possible to invent other social media platforms to share in solidarity?

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 12

21.10.2010
20:00 - 23:00

Altes Finanzamt
Schönstedtstraße 7 - EG, 12043 Neukölln - Berlin
Access through the yard
U7 Rathaus Neukölln (Exit Schönstedtstraße)
altesfinanzamt.blogspot.com/

Altes Finanzamt is located in the former Neukölln Finanzamt building, started in 2010 by 9 different artistic practitioners. It aims to be an independent space for both local and international artists to showcase their work and share their experiences and ideas. In particular, through social networks and adventurous experimentation of visual, sound and site specific performances.

We are proud to announce the following presentations:

Web2.0 Suicidemachine
Moddr_ - digital experimentalists and interventionists - Rotterdam/Berlin
www.moddr.net
www.suicidemachine.org
www.yugo.at
www.k0a1a.net

As various social media platforms forge ahead in their attempt to make everything we do trackable, shareable and accessible, people are starting to become uneasy with just how much information about themselves is floating around the web and how much time they are spending in numerous Facebook pokes, likes and the gifts. The Web2.0 Suicidemachine promises an easy and chic way of getting rid of any social network by automatically cleaning all your traces from your social media past. Gordan Savicic and Walter Langelaar will present some background information about their ongoing fight with Facebook's lawyers and demystify other stories in and around the web2.0 suicidemachine.

moddr_ from Rotterdam/Berlin (Danja Vasiliev, Gordan Savicic and Walter Langelaar) are experimentalists and interventionists on the edge of digital life and everyday technology.

Arscenic.tv
Quentin Drouet – meida art curator/Spip program developer – Luxembourg/Berlin
spip.arscenic.tv/
www.spip.net

Former media art curator and art event organizer, Quentin now spends his time to develop online technical solutions with artists and many other non-profit organizations. To do this, he only uses open source solutions i.e. "puredata", "liquidsoap", "processing" and in particular, SPIP, in which he is involved in the main development.

SPIP is also the basis of his current project, Arscenic.tv, which consists of an open source platform dedicated to non-profit organization and public to promote their content on Internet. Like other well-known platforms (Youtube, Vimeo or Flickr), Arscenic.tv also creates similar social networks and enable users to broadcast their content to a larger audience. However, the main differences are that the source code is open source, meaning this platform is not "egocentric", that every single person or organization will be able to run their own program, connected or not, to the others. The main idea behind this, we (content producers) have the power, so why are we giving it to monopolistic companies if we could manage it by ourselves?

iRights.info Valie Djordjevic – editor of iRights.info/FACES mailing list coordinator – Berlin
www.irights.info/

iRights.info started out in 2005 as a website about copyright in the digital age.
In the past 15 years, as digitalisation and networked computers changed the production, distribution and consumption of cultural artefacts – music, films, texts and images – copyright has developed from the margins of law, interested only by specialists, to a contested field where different interests – freedom of information and commons of knowledge against profit-oriented production – clash and fight for predominance. In the beginning, iRights.info's goal was to explain the ensuing issues, that sometimes even leave lawyers baffled, to the public. For instance, we are confronted with copyright if we listened to music on the internet, upload a video on Youtube or post a link on our Facebook profiles.

Besides informing about the actual regulations of the law, what is more important is that we follow the different discourses, arguments and disputes between the interest groups – producers, consumers, distributors. Even though iRights.info strives for an objective journalistic view, we position ourselves in support of a free and open society where knowledge, culture and information are free for all people. Now, iRights.info consists of five editors Valie Djordjevic, Till Kreutzer, Philipp Otto, Matthias Spielkamp and John Weitzmann and several associated writers and contributors. We are lawyers, journalists, artists, researchers and media workers.

In 1996, Valie started working with internet through Internationale Stadt Berlin, one of the pioneering net culture projects in Germany. Since then, she has worked in different art and cultural projects including Old Boys Network and the Media Arts Lab at Künstlerhaus Bethanien. She is a member of mikro e.V. , a Berlin based association examining the different facets of media culture, and coordinator for FACES mailing list, a list for woman only, dealing with topics around notions of gender, technology and art.

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 11: Art Prostitution vs. Political Correctness

I-WEI LI — 2010-09-14T22:17:10Z

"No Soul For Sale" was printed on Tate Modern's invitation for its 10th anniversary. Perhaps we are not selling our ‘immaterial labour' (Maurizio Lazzarato) so easily yet we often treat our life as creative projects (Luc Boltanski). Chris Dercon, next director of Tate Modern, describes creative practitioners today as zombies and vampires due to the precarious working conditions we face and endless free services we are willing to offer.

When self-exploitation seems to be the norm as a survival strategy, how is it possible for cultural workers to say ‘no'?
Without existential security, what about our ability to challenge?
Has contemporary art been completely absorbed by the thought of political correctness?

Together with MAAS MEDIA, we have invited the founder and artist of Artout – professional artist escort service and chief editor of Luxemburg Journal – critical social analyzes and left praxis for the discussion. In the same evening, Artout will present its first e-book edition. For Artout e-book download, click here

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 11

24.09.2010
20:00 - 23:00

Rumbalotte
MetzerStraße 9
10405, Berlin

Rumbalotte is the new Literature and concert bar in Prenzlauer Berg. It is run by Bert Papenfuss, a well known writer and poet who is also responsible for KAFFE BURGER and its famous Literature Nights and party events ie Wladimir Kaminer, Russendisko.
Recent review about Rumbalotte, click here

Panel Biography
Anton Koslov Mayr – artist/author- Paris
Anton graduated from Harvard and EHESS in Paris. Currently, he teaches as associate professor of cultural and political anthropology at the American Graduate School in Paris. He is the founder of Artout – professional artist escort services.

www.political-photography.net
www.artout.org

Per Platou – artist/curator - Oslo
Per co-directed the art group Motherboard with Amanda Steggell from 1995-2008, a collaboration that produced a large number of performances, installations, seminars, worklabs and other activities closely connected to live and media art. In the nineties, Per was an active member of the first ever internet rock band, Res Rocket Surfer, and co-founded the offspring band Nood which released 2 CDs and performed internationally for many years. He has produced and performed a number of works for theatre and film, as well as sound art installations.

He is currently holding the position as director for PNEK (Production Network for Electronic Art, Norway).

www.perplatou.net
www.pnek.org

Mario Mentrup – actor/filmmaker/musician/editor of MAAS MEDIA - Berlin
Mario was an active member of GRUPPE M, this collective worked anonymously since 1991. In 1996, the collective revealed its membership - Claudia Basrawi, Michael Horn, Mario Mentrup – and continued working together till 2002. Meanwhile, Mario also played as guitarist for KNOCHEN-Girl band.

Since 1999, Mario works as the editor and co-publisher of the interdisciplinary book publishing house, MAAS MEDIA Verlag. Currently, Mario directs and produces experimental, fiction and art films with Volker Sattel. He also gives musical performances with PASADENA PROJEKT.

www.mariomentrup.com
www.maasmedia.net
www.youtube.com/user/vakantfilm
www.myspace.com/pasadenaprojekt

Christina Kaindl – psychologist/political scientist/Chief Editor of Luxemburg - Berlin
Christina has formerly been working for Das Argument, a Marxist journal for Philosophy and Social Science. Her freelance projects includes publishing, conference management, and teaching at University (Stendal). She is especially interested in the changing mode of production, in how neo-liberal politics and working culture affect the individualism and its self-concepts, and how this can be dealt with in arts while "the artist" being a role-model within the neo-liberal commercialism.

‘Luxemburg - critical social analyzes and left praxis' is edited by Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, that itself is linked to the German Left Party. It is centered around questions of strategies on social movements by either grassroots or German, European and global Left institutions. It is meant to link critical, left and anti-capitalist discussions within politics and arts, economy and everyday-life. Special attention is aimed on connecting left cultural discussions with political and strategic questions.

http://www.rosalux.de

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 10: Art, Science, and Biotechnology

I-WEI LI — 2010-07-29T19:21:47Z

In this session, we will tap into the confluence of art, science and biotechnology, in particular, the current bio-politics in relation to the global bio-industry. Also, we will carefully examine the perception of knowledge and its connections with technology and collective memory.

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 10

18.08.2010
20:00 - 23:00

Altes Finanzamt
Schönstedtstraße 7 - EG, 12043 Neukölln - Berlin
Access through the yard U7 Rathaus Neukölln (Exit Schönstedtstraße)
http://altesfinanzamt.blogspot.com/

We are proud to announce the following presentations:

Soft Power - Art and Technologies in The Biopolitical Age
Maria Ptqk – cultural producer/curator/researcher – Bilbao/Berlin
http://ptqkblogzine.blogspot.com

Today, the myth of the cyborg returns in the form of commodities supplied by the bio-industry global market. Research centers stock biological resources like cells, seeds, sperm, ovules, organs and tissues; intellectual property laws exclude them from the public domain; and the pharmaceutical and agro-industrial complex patents manipulates and distributes them in health centers and supermarket shelves. In the biotech age, we/cyborgs are not only the result of a set of technologies and scientific protocols but a compilation of cultural codes, as well as social and economic relations playing on a global ground. It is not a surprise that arts also play in the biopolitical narrative in the last decade.

Soft Power is a research project on biotechnology, at the crossroads of artistic practices and the language of biopolitics. It explores the interdisciplinary crossing of art and science, but also the real conditions of scientific research today: its impact on the lifestyles and the categories of imagination that are put into work by it and the international network of bio-industry.

www.amarika.org/softpower

Nouvelle Science Vague Fiction
Regina de Miguel - artist - Málaga/Berlin
www.reginademiguel.net

Nouvelle Science Vague Fiction examines the current relationships between construction and analysis of human ecologies and how their historical specificity in connection with technology. In particular, referring to how image creation in both the physical and virtual space modify our concept of domination of nature and the configuration of our conscience. It also proposes connections between analytic situations and scientific perception as objective knowledge (verisimilitude scales), non-experimental learning derived from technological imaginary (estrangement and projection) and levels of configuration of ideal and critical conscience (new orientation forms).

In the framework of collective memory, the new ideas of time and space generated by communications have transformed perception of things in a way that they are not anymore directly experienced, but they are represented. Landscape, as we discover it on the screens, from high-speed trains or planes, doesn't exist either, not as a place where people relate, only as an image for the spectator.

Regina's work includes drawing, installations, animation, photography and writing. She has worked on following projects: "Estancias Injuve" (Ministry of Social Affairs), the Avam Procesos 2008, and Laboratorio 987 MUSAC. Her latest project, Nouvelle Science Vague Fiction is produced in Holland and Slovenia with the support from Cam, Caja Mediterraneo.

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 9: The Paradox of Documenting Live Performances

I-WEI LI — 2010-07-09T16:16:32Z

In this session, we will investigate the paradox of documenting a live performance and how such documentation will be received or evaluated in relation to film and photography. We will also examine the coexistence of language and performance, either spoken or written, the im/materiality of words abides ambivalent tension for both spectators and performers.

For associated reading, we recommend "Sentence, Image, History" by Jacques Ranciere in his book "The Future of the Image"/ "Le destin des images”

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 9

22.07.2010
20:00 - 23:00

Mindpirates
Schlesische Str. 38
10997, Berlin
www.mindpirates.org
Mindpirates, a Berlin-based group who create and show films, art and scenarios with the intention of injecting awareness and free thinking into the minds of the people and into the “public mind”.

We are proud to announce the following presentations:

The Obsession of Language
Stephan Weitzel - artist - Berlin

In his drawings, sculptures and public interventions, Stephan uses language as signifier in his work titles to create tension between text and image or text and object. To him, language is the source of any mental construction. He also writes fiction and essays, and presents his texts - in German, English and French - through reading performances.

In Kunst Apotheke Salon, Stephan will read a selection of his work and present his visual work to reflect on his need of words for various purposes and in different cultural and linguistic contexts.
Can language work across those borders?
What about the permanent request for translation and contextualization?

Born in Germany, Stephan has lived in Paris, London, Marseille, New York and Québec and worked as a language teacher, translator, radio producer, public speaker, and art director in film. He has also received various grants and exhibited his artwork in Cuba, Ireland, Austria, Germany and India. Currently working on a series of large-scale drawings of fictitious film posters on German history.
www.stephanweitzel.com/

Supposing the Medium
Mischa Twitchin – funder-member of Shunt Lounge/lecturer at Goldsmiths College and School of Speech and Drama – London

The spectre of “the present” haunts the discourse of performance, as though for both the performer “being in the moment” and for the audience “being there” defined the performance event as a temporal medium. If “performance's only life is in the present”, as Peggy Phelan insists (whilst nonetheless discussing photographs), the film version of a performed work is supposed to be secondary, derivative, or simply “documentation”. In a typical elision, following so-called “indexical” thinking about stills photography, it is as if the film substituted for the presence of an “original” audience, eliding the temporal structure of the film itself with what was enacted before the camera.

In Kunst Apotheke Salon, Mischa wants to reflect on what he has learnt from transposing a live performance into the showing of a film. In simply asking “why show a film rather than do the live performance?”, he wants to consider how the techniques of image making in each visual medium makes possible the time particular to such reflection itself. Where a performance has not been made “for” the camera - although a film has been made “with” the material of the filmed performance.
How might one think of this relation between mediums, without supposing the priority of the one before the other?
What is it “of” a performance that becomes visible (and, indeed, thinkable) in a film, as framing a relation between word and image?

The work referred to in this presentation is a diptych called “The Children's Emperor and The Pianist” which can be viewed at: http://shunt.co.uk/mischa_twitchin/childrens.html. It will also be shown in the “Mart” exhibition at Stattbad Wedding, 21-28.07,www.mart.ie

Mischa Twitchin is a founder-member of the London-based performance collective, Shunt. Besides his own performance projects and work as a freelance lighting designer, he teaches at Goldsmiths College and at Central School of Speech and Drama, while also researching his PhD project at Queen Mary College, University of London.
shunt.co.uk/mischa_twitchin/index.html

Kunst Apotheke Salon Special Edition: Everyone Is Chinese Tomorrow? 明天每個人都是中國人？

I-WEI LI — 2010-05-13T13:53:11Z

After the media fever of Olympic in Beijing and World Expo in Shanghai, everything about China seems to be associated with ‘ the biggest', ‘the tallest', or ‘the fastest' in the world. Besides reading about China's massive urban development and unstoppable economic growth in the media, when is the last time you have the chance to be in real conversation with the Chinese?

Continuing with the critical spirit of Kunst Apotheke Salon, we will explore the love - hate relationship between the Occident and China. First, Chinese economist and Chinese cultural activists will tell us what they want us to know about modern China. The dialogue will then extend with stories, debates, and questions from European experts and cultural operators who have worked extensively in China. Together, to further investigate the possibility for China to shift its economic force from consumer production to immaterial value system.

Everyone Is Chinese Tomorrow? is initiated and produced by SideBySide Studio, in collaboration with MMX Open Art Venue e.V. Special thanks to Upgrade! Berlin for its generous support.

自北京奧運會和上海世博會在媒體發燒後，中國的一切似乎是同“最大”，“最高”，或“最快” 畫上等號。除了在媒體上閱讀有關中國大規模的城市發展和經濟增長外，何時你有真正的機會與中國人深入交談？

繼續Kunst Apotheke Salon的批判精神，我們將于6月16日在柏林MMX畫廊探討中國與西方愛恨交加複雜的關係。到場的中國記者、經濟學家和文化工作者將描繪中國人想要世界了解的中國。此次對話更將和歐洲文化工作者辯論探討：中國能否一改所謂的“世界工廠”和經濟大國的形象，轉而輸出成熟和系統的文化價值觀。

明天每個人都是中國人？由SideBySide工作室發起，與 MMX Open Art Venue e.V. 合作。特別感謝Upgrade Berlin!的慷慨支持。

On 16.06.2010, we had the following program at MMX Open Art Venue e.V.
One month after our session, The Economist published the article Fear of a Chinese Planet, which indicated even more why such dialogue is necessary. Thanks to Lars Kremkow for pointing out this recent analysis on China's growing power.

At TEDGlobal 2010, former assistant secretary of defense and former dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Joseph Nye offers sharp insights of the shifts in power between China and the US, and the global implications as economic, political and "soft" power shifts and moves around the globe. His speech can be viewed here

Part I: What Does China Want the World to Know about China?
Panel: Chaos Y. Chen, Tao Wang, and Vienne Chan
Moderated by Pablo M. Zerm and I-Wei Li

Everyone Is Chinese Tomorrow? Part I: What Does China Want the World to Know about China?

Part II: Love, Hate, or Rock'n'Roll? – New Partnerships between the Occident and China
Panel: Chaos Y. Chen, Tao Wang, Vienne Chan, Pauline Doutreluingne, Edward Sanderson, and Stefan Richter
Moderated by Pablo M. Zerm and I-Wei Li

Everyone Is Chinese Tomorrow? Part II: Love, Hate, or Rock'n'Roll? – New Partnerships between the Occident and China

Part III: Q&A

Everyone Is Chinese Tomorrow? Part III: Q&A

Biography
Chaos Y. Chen
Chaos is the cofounder & director of WiE Kultur - a new platform in Berlin for dialogue and collaboration through art between the East and West. Prior to this, in Beijing she founded CHAOSPROJECTS |VisualThinking in 2005. She was Head of the Curatorial Department at the Millennium Art Museum (Beijing, 2002 2004), where she founded the “Open Forum”. She received the RAVE Stipendium (Germany, 2001) and worked at Kunst-Werke Berlin and later with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. She served as jury member for CENTRAL Contemporary Art Award (Köln,Germany, 2004) and REAL Photography Award (Rotterdam, 2008). She holds a Master's Degree in Art History & Theory from the Nanjing Academy of Arts.

www.rhiz.eu/person-43001-en.html

Tao Wang
Tao joined socialdesignsite/Segroup (Systemic Excellence Group) in 2009 as a researcher. He's responsible for strategic development and controlling of the project. He studied history, social sciences and strategic management and gained experiences in consulting industry in both China and Europe. Tao Wang is interested in business development international political economy and global history.

www.SEgroup.de

Vienne Chan
Vienne was born in Hong Kong and studied the philosophy of religion in Canada. She began making experimental videos independently in 2007 and has been screening internationally since then. Her works vary in subject matter but all strive towards an independence from the social constructs of natural language - and in a similar vein, the ruination of identity. With a somewhat nomadic background, the concept of indeterminacy is of special interest to Vienne.

www.artreview.com/video/video/listForContributor?screenName=1zg129wbnlbt1

Pauline Doutreluingne
Pauline is an independent curator, writer, researcher and Sinologist who went to Beijing in 2004 to do a master in art management and art critique at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. She is the founder of the Borderline Moving Images Festival, which is one of the first festivals in China to create a context for live audiovisual performance and video art. Since 2006, she was also a curator/assistant director at the Platform China Contemporary Art Institute in Beijing, whose profile has risen sharply for their shows of emerging artists. In 2008, after moving back to Europe, she continued to promote cultural exchange between Berlin and the creative cities of China as a curator of shows like 'There is no I in team' in New Castle (UK), a Night on Earth (Helsinki) through Berlin China Cultural Bridges. BCCB also initiates and organizes discussion forums, lectures, exchange programs and collaborative projects.

Besides writing catalogues for FRAC Nord-pas de Calais, she also works as a video researcher and film curator for the Mindpirates, a Berlin-based group who create and show films, art and scenarios with the intention of injecting awareness and free thinking into the minds of the people and into the “public mind”.

www.borderlinefestival.org www.berlin-china-bridge.com www.mindpirates.org

Edward Sanderson
Edward Sanderson is a curator and writer living and working in Beijing. Originally from the United Kingdom, Edward has lived in China since 2007. After graduating with a postgraduate degree in Contemporary Art History from Goldsmiths College in London, he moved to Beijing to open the gallery CPU:798 in the famous 798 Art District. CPU:798 showcased young Chinese photographers and new media artists.

Edward is now a partner at CPU:PRO, an arts consultancy created to provide support and services to artists and the art world. CPU:PRO represents five Chinese and one Australian artist, and works with galleries, institutions and collections on projects. As well as writing about contemporary art and music in China, Edward is currently curating the first solo show of the Chinese artist Cheng Ran, opening on the 3 July 2010 at White Box Museum of Art in Beijing.

www.cpu798.com

Stefan Richter
Since 2000 at Triad Berlin, Stefan oversees the project content development for Deutsche Börse AG, Toyota Europe, Bertelsmann AG, bpb, Hilti, Springer AG, AHG, M:AI, IBA Hamburg, create berlin, Expo Shanghai. Prior to this, he was the managing editor in various publishing houses: Reclam Verlag Leipzig, Remmert&Richter art edition, Verlag der Kunst, Dresden, Berlin, Wien, Correspondent in New York, and visiting Professor in Chicago.

Founded in 1994, Triad Berlin is one of Germany's most successful communication agencies of today. Its international and interdisciplinary teams create emotionally intelligent communication formats in spaces — from showrooms for small and medium-sized businesses, grand productions and brand center for global players to virtual communication rooms. Its award-winning exhibitions, Expo pavilions, trade fair presentations, experience center, and events can be found all over the world.

www.triad.de

Pablo M. Zerm
Originally from Dortmund, Pablo has resided in Buenos Aires, Moscow, Shanghai and Berlin. He holds a master degree in social science and currently, a doctoral candidate at Humboldt-University of Berlin. He has participated in Berlin (Daimler) and Shanghai (Linya Intl.) in qualitative research projects and is now working for WELT Online.

I-Wei Li
Born in Taiwan, grew up in Canada, I-Wei's first Commerce Degree had lead her to work as a banker in Kenya. In 2008, she graduated with first class honour in art from Goldsmiths College in London. Since 2009, she leads SideBySide Studio in Berlin.

I-Wei positions herself as a ‘contexterin' – a female person who aims to generate new context each time in her art practice. The artistic experience for her is an overall experience that queries all aspects of life. Solidarity within cultural sector is I-Wei's current research focus. Besides the theoretical framework, she also tackles this topic with animated events such as Kunst Apotheke Salon and The WAVE.

www.sidebysidestudio.net

Concept
Like many passionate encounters, it is possible to love or hate for the wrong reasons.

It is indeed, much rare to love or hate for good reasons.

These principles apply to the relations between the West (capitalist, democratic, internationalist) and China (communist, authoritarian, nationalist).

The wrong reason to love China: Since China is the new economic Eldorado, the Occident now can take a break and cease to be innovative as long as it is fast at forming partnerships, joint adventures and complicity with China.

The bad reason to hate China: China will be malevolent, dictatorial, or oppressive, and any research collaboration would be a priori suspect. However, the reality is much more complex and it is imperative to continue the belief that only the Occident has the strategies for innovation, technology and research.

In fact, China has the superpower to actively change the world's future. Anyone serious about this subject cannot predict what China will be in 10 years. In reality, nobody can say what will be the future for the West in 10 years either.

But one thing is certain: the challenges China and the West facing are exactly the same – cybernetic revolution, Islamic conflicts, geo-climatic challenges. With these crises, we need to invent new models of development and citizenship. We cannot do it without China.

There remains only one possibility: learn to understand and appreciate each other for good reasons. The reason is quite simple: we either invent the future together or we suffer from the disaster together, better, we arrange the ideal conditions of no disaster together.

Like any successful love stories, it is essential that both partners continue to remain autonomous with their unique differences. Such differences are fertile and necessary to explore new areas of innovation.

Everyone Is Chinese Tomorrow? aims to stimulate the exchange between the Occident and China with respect for their differences, more with care for the complexity we face today. Such exchange is not based on origins but references.

像許多熱烈的戀情，對於中國, 西方常常有可能因為錯誤的理由或者片面的了解去愛或恨。正確的愛或恨的理由和全面的了解卻少之又少。這些原則適用中國與於西方在媒體和坊間的表象；西方往往代表資本主義、民主、國際主義，而中國卻只是共產主義、獨裁、民族主義。

愛恨交織的中國經濟：自從改革開放以來，每年兩位數的經濟增長使得中國成為新的經濟天堂，西方積極利用中國的資源禀賦和巨大市場，迅速和中國建立更為密切的經濟和商務夥伴關係，追逐利潤。但是這並不意味著西方可以長遠的依靠中國市場，停止創新或不求進步。

實用主義的中國政治：政治上的中國是被批評為威權主義，國內的人權狀況也是飽受詬病。國際上的中國奉行的是不干涉內政的外交政策。中國在次發達國家中的影響力越來越大，使西方感受到一定的威脅。

傳統或者新的中國文化：中國的傳統文化象徵：長城、故宮、太極和中醫是固有的中國元素。然而中國繼1978年以來在文化範疇內也出現了新的變化。新新人類、多元文化、網絡世界將所謂的中國文化變得更加複雜和撲朔迷離。

事實上，中國已是國際上重要大國之一，將積極改變世界的未來。任何人認真對待這個問題都不能預測未來10年中國的轉變。但有一點是肯定的, 中國和西方面臨著相同的挑戰 : 數位革命，伊斯蘭衝突，和全球地理氣候變化。面對這些危機，中國與西方需要一同創新現有的發展模式。

西方作為中國的觀察者、競爭者和共存者應該怎樣理解中國？中國又對西方有着怎樣的想像呢？如同任何成功的愛情故事，至關重要的是雙方應該保持開放的心靈和溝通的渠道。明天每個人都是中國人？的目的是促進西方與中國之間的交流，試圖揭開神秘的面紗和錯誤的理解，讓雙方能夠更加清晰的了解對方和當今的世界。

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 7: Mobility, Elasticity, and Flexibility

I-WEI LI — 2010-05-10T19:20:48Z

In this session, we will explore the spatial and technological landscape of urban mobility. The impact of influx of international cultural workers on urban development is often coincided with gentrification, how is it possible to find other alternatives to co-exist with the local inhabitants? Also, the relationship between mobility, elasticity, and flexibility - the capability to be transplantable for work is often demanded without saying on cultural workers, how to cope with such loss as a Diaspora?

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 7 took place on 20.05.2010 with the following programme:

Urban Mobility of Cultural Workers
Camille Boichot – urban geography researcher/PhD student at Paris La Sorbonne University and Viadrina Frankfurter University – Paris/Berlin

Camille Boichot writes about urban organization and how artists and artistic practices can contribute to change them, in particular, the process of gentrification. She concentrates her work on how to take structural and conjectural urban mobilities of the cultural workers into account and asks about the ways to represent it between an artistic an a scientific way.

MISS
Chun-chi Wang – multimedia artist/lecturer – Taipei/New York/Berlin

Since 1997, Chun-chi has created virtual reality environments as an exploration into the perceptual and emotional aspects of real-time 3d technology. In 2000, she created the virtual actor, Hiakru, whose first assignment was to broadcast the latest art news from digital database. She is the recipientof Grand Prize Winner of Taipei Digital Art Festival 2007. Her work was also selected in Taipei Fine Arts Award 2008 and shown widely on the Net and in international exhibitions throughout Europe, USA and Asia. Besides teaching at the Chinese Culture University in Taipei and BIFT Fast-track Culture Curriculum, Bei-Jing, China, she has published two books, the Futurists Guide to the Web (2002) and Softimage Design Guide.

Eunice Maurice and Chun- Chi Wang have both worked and lived in a variety of countries. Drawing from their experiences as women "in-between cultures" whose biographies bridge Asia and the West, their project - Miss investigates how cultural origin shapes and influences collective memories, ideals and desires and the consequent feeling of loss that derive from those experiences. Utilizing visuals, sound, text and spatial movement, Miss is a multi-layered performance piece based on the narratives from worldwide participants submitted to the MISS website and also on interviews with women in Germany, the Netherlands and Taiwan, who moved away from their home-countries at different stages of their lives. The participants were involved in creating the performances by sharing ideas, directions, and lines of dialogue that the performances could use and improvise on. This project will not be realized without the assistance of Pei-Wen Liu and I-Fen Tung.

www.chunchiwang.de

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 6: Art and Branding

I-WEI LI — 2010-03-04T21:25:35Z

In this session, we will reflect on issues related to art and environment with emphasis on the values generated in social and cultural activities.
What are the relationships between the cultural production and the business strategies of branding?
What are the implications of blending or erasing the divide between the arts and the purposes of branding in private and public spaces?

Kunst Apotheke Salon Session 6 took place on 18.03.2010 with the following programme:

Limbus Europae
Bernd Richter – artist / event organizer – Berlin
Etienne Allaix – artist / event organizer – Berlin

Limbus Europae was initiated in October 2009 by two artists, Bernd Richter and Etienne Allaix, who had no curatorial experiences and who would never have thought to organize such events. The idea was to show ephemeral art, that's why each episode only lasts for four hours. That is to say, the invited artists create site specific works especially for this evening: they work so much for themselves as well as for the audience. Limbus Europae has no connection with any economical purpose, nothing is to be sold, no entry fee, no advertising, nor luminous signage on the door, everything is through word of mouth.

www.limbus-europae.de

Mysterious anti-war monument
Candice Novak – Journalist – Berlin, Hawaii
Tim Pinault – photographer - Boston

Candice Novak writes about culture, history, politics and business and anything that mainstream news sources aren't covering. Born and raised in Hawaii, Candice studied art history, literature, German and journalism.
Tim Pinault manages a visual arts lab at the University of Massachussetts, Boston. Tim is braving the ridiculous weather of New England while working on the art of collodion photography – a 19th century photography process involving metal-plate negatives and lots of quasi-illegal chemicals. Tim, born and raised in New Hampshire, has his Bachelors in Fine Arts in Photography. Tim and Candice - partners in live, art, crime and other things – recently discovered a secret anti-war monument in the no-man´s land of the once Berlin Wall-border area now under siege of condo-building contractors. They are interested in comparing the politically-endorced monuments in the history-thick area with the unofficial one they found.

www.candicenovak.com

Social Design
Tao Wang – researcher / consultant – Berlin

Tao Wang joined socialdesignsite/Segroup (Systemic Excellence Group) in November 2009 as a researcher. He's responsible for strategic development and controlling of the project. He studied history and strategic management and gained experiences in consulting industry. Tao Wang is interested in business development and fundraising for social entrepreneurs.

www.SEgroup.de

Visual thinking
Anna Lena Schiller – graphic artist - Berlin

After having spent three years at The KaosPilots, a Danish university for creativity and social innovation, Anna Lena Schiller started up her own business that encompasses multiple disciplines of visual thinking. She specializes in graphic recording, infographics and visual facilitation. Anna Lena has worked with companies ranging from international businesses to small start-ups, as well as freelancers and NGOs.

www.annalenaschiller.com

/////////////////////////Duetsch

Limbus Europae
Bernd Richter – kunst / Veranstalter – Berlin
Etienne Allaix – kunst / Veranstalter – Berlin

Limbus Europae wurde im Oktober 2009 von 2 Künstlern gegründet, die selber überhaupt keine kuratorische Erfahrung hatten und auch nie gedacht haben, das mal zu tun. Die Idee war, ephemere Kunst zu zeigen - darum ist eine Episode nur 4 Stunden lang zu sehen. Das heißt, dass die eingeladenen Künstler gezielt für diesen einen Abend arbeiten, also genauso stark für sich selbst wie für das Publikum. Der Limbus ist ein marktferner und marktkritischer Ort, es wird nichts verkauft und es wird kein Eintritt genommen, es gibt keine Werbung, alles läuft über Mundpropaganda - und von der Straße aus ist der Ort nicht wirklich wahrzunehmen.

www.limbus-europae.de

geheimnis Anti-Kriegs-Denkmal
Candice Novak – Journalisterin – Berlin, Hawaii
Tim Pinault – Fotographen – Boston

Candice Novak ist Journalistin und wohnt in Berlin. Sie schreibt über Kultur, Geschichte, Politik und Wirtschaft, und irgend etwas was Mainstream Medien nicht darüber berichten. In Hawaii geboren und aufgewachsen, Candice hat Kunstgeschichte, Literatur, Deutsch und Journalismus studiert.

Tim Pinault ist Photograph und wohnt in Boston. Er arbeitet bei einem Kunst Lab bei der University of Massachussetts in Boston. Tim forderte das lächerliches Wetter in New England heraus und bearbeitet jetzt die Methode vom Kollodium Photographie – ein 1800s photographischen Prozess das mit metal-platten negativen und quasi-illegale Chemie gemacht ist. Tim, geboren und aufgewachsen in New Hampshire, hat seine Bachelors in Fine Arts in Photographie.

Tim und Candice – Partnern im Leben, Kunst und Kriminalität, unter anderem – zu lezter Zeit haben ein geheimnis anti-kriegs Denkmal in der Todesstreife, wo die Berliner Mauer-Grenze früher stand, gefunden. Tim und Candice interesieren sich für einer Gegenüberstellung von den politisch-indossierten Denmäler um herum der historischen Umbgebung im Vergleich mit dem unoffiziellen Denkmal sie gefunden haben.

www.candicenovak.com

Social Design
Tao Wang – Researcher – Berlin

Tao Wang ist im November 2009 bei socialdesignsite/SEgroup als Researcher eingestiegen. Seine Aufgaben umfassen strategische Entwicklung und Controlling. Er hat Geschichte und Strategisches Management studiert und konnte Erfahrungen in der Unternehmensberatung sammeln. Tao Wang interessiert sich für Design und Systems Thinking, Geschäftsentwicklung und Fundraising für soziale Unternehmer.

www.SEgroup.de

visuellen Denkens
Anna Lena Schiller – graphic kunsterin – Berlin

Nach ihrem Diplom an der KaosPilot-Universität in Dänemark, einer Hochschule für Kreativität und gesellschaftliche Innovation, machte sich Anna Lena Schiller das Denken in Bildern zum Beruf. Ihre Arbeit umfasst mehrere Disziplinen des visuellen Denkens. Sie hat sich auf visuelle Protokolle, Infografiken und Moderation spezialisiert. Ihre Kunden sind sowohl große internationale Firmen als auch Start-Ups, Freiberufler und NGOs. Sie lebt und arbeitet in Berlin.