Die Weltmaschine in Munich
November 23rd – 26th 2011

Max-Planck-Haus
Hofgartenstr. 8
80539 Munich

Since their performance at the Venice Beinnale in 2005, Kraftwerk’s multimedia shows were also seen as a kind of artistic performance.

Within the context of a multi-channel 3D video installation specially developed for the Kunstbau, Kraftwerk will be holding three concerts in the Munich Alten Kongresshalle – which are of course sold out..! To crown it all the after show party is presented by DJ Hell – the German techno icon.

For all those who still do not want to miss the unique exhibition from the godfathers of industrial music, can see the installation from 15 October until 13 November.

The exhibition in the Kunstbau at the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus Munich will be accompanied by a book:
Kraftwerk 3D- Kling Klang Produkt 2011

After Show Party ‘Elektro Nacht’ presented by DJ HELL
14 October @ Pacha München

Sounds good – it’s the mission motto of THE ICAS SUITE (ICAS: International Cities of Advanced Sound). Founded by Berlin festival CTM, 30 organisations and festivals on 5 continents joined forces to (co-)create projects and foster discourse, and thereby promote artistic development at the interface of music, art, technology and society. During the second Berlin Music Week (7. – 10. September) ICAS-member festivals from Europe and North and South America will present a selection of their work and the most exciting artists in their networks at Festsaal Kreuzberg, Monarch, West-Germany, the Palomabar and the new Blumenbar Club.

This art project starts the other way around than most projects. Instead of waiting for things to happen and capturing them, Postcards from the Future takes imaginary images and then tries to make them happen in exactly that way. It worked a couple of times already. The last section of the project set in Brussels will happen this Saturday in Matongé, the city’s Congolese neighbourhood. This is what the result is supposed to look like:

This is how it works: 67 people have been cast and were assigned a spot to take in the picture:

The fresco ‘Porte de Namur ! – Porte de l’Amour ?’ by artist Chéri Samba represents an imaginary gathering of members of the local community on the Chaussée d’Ixelles in Brussels, near Porte de Namur. Since it was first exhibited in 2002, this image has been widely disseminated and has sparked a great deal of controversy. On 25 June 2011 this fictitious scene will become reality, as the 80 or so people who posed for the artist create a tableau vivant in the very place where the painting was originally conceived.

The postcard from Matongé shows the first print (15 m x 12 m) of Chéri Samba’s original painting Porte de Namur-Porte de l’Amour. The performance will consist of a live restaging of the scene depicted. The aim of this postcard is to work on the sense of community this renowned work evokes by making a lifelike reconstruction of it. The remake of the work will rely on the independent culture that prevails in the Matongé neighbourhood. The sense of community portrayed in the painting will be challenged and put to the test. Its content will be embodied interactively in collaboration with the people of what is geographically the smallest, but culturally and emotionally the most distinctive neighbourhood in Elsene. The performance in Matongé will be a live representation of Chéri Samba’s well-known painting Porte de Namur-Porte de l’Amour, with all the characters portrayed in the painting.

These are the eight neighborhoods that Postcards from the Future were and will be realized in: Molenbeek (Sept. 2010), Place Flagey (Oct. 2010), St.Gillis (Nov. 2010), North Station (Dec. 2010), European district (March 2011), Anderlecht (April 2011), the city centre (May 2011) and Porte de Namur (June 2011).

I have a strange fascination and fondness of all things mystical like star signs and oracles (all with a longing to want to know what my future might hold?) so it comes really as little surprise that I’ve recently signed up to get forecasts of my future from the fabulous Miranda July of mono.kultur #16.

“This is an oracle like any other oracle, like the I Ching or astrology or Tarot cards – a technique for divining your future. The only real difference is that those are very old methods and this one is very new. But there was a first day for Tarot cards too, and the best friend of the person who invented them felt just like you do, suuuuper skeptical. (Especially since the Tarot card inventor kept saying things like “Oh, that card’s not quite done yet” and “I’m gonna change that part”.)” And please also note, “This service is only available for a limited time, i.e., I can’t really see doing this for the rest of my life. Occasionally you will receive the same future again. This probably means you didn’t really take it to heart properly the first time. It is no less true when it comes again.”

I’m also exited to see her new film The Future.

I had a conversation last night with a man who is working to develop neuro-enhancers. Do you take them yourself? I asked, casually. I wondered secretly whether the field of neuro-enhancement research was progressing at a faster rate than all the other neurosciences.

He said that he did not. He is happy with the progress he is making in life, and is uncomfortable with risk of side effects: nervousness, depression, headaches, sleeplessness, cardiac problems, decreased appetite and, of course, addiction. But the research will deal with the side effects within the next 10 to 20 years, and we will be able to take drugs to boost our mental capacity. Our memories will be crisper, we will learn faster; maybe we will have better ideas. Some of us will feel that we have no choice, and will take them just to keep up.

I suppose that this will be a revolution.

Despite myriad reservations, I would like to be smarter. There is a Borges story about a man who has suffered a brain injury that endows him with prefect perception and infallible memory:

We, at one glance, can perceive three glasses on a table; Funes, all the leaves and tendrils and fruit that make up a grape vine. He knew by heart the forms of the southern clouds at dawn on the 30th of April, 1882, and could compare them in his memory with the mottled streaks on a book of Spanish binding he had only seen once and with the outlines of the foam raised by an oar in the Rio Negro the night before the Quebracho uprising.

These memories were not simple ones; each visual image was linked to muscular sensations, thermal sensations, etc. He could reconstruct all his dreams, all his half-dreams. Two or three times he had reconstructed a whole day; he never hesitated, but each reconstruction had required a whole day. He told me: “I alone have more memories than all mankind has probably had since the world has been the world”. And again: “My dreams are like you people’s waking hours”. And again, toward dawn: “My memory, sir, is like a garbage heap”. A circle drawn on a blackboard, a right triangle, a lozenge – all these are forms we can fully and intuitively grasp; Ireno could do the same with the stormy mane of a pony; with a herd of cattle on a hill, with the changing fire and its innumerable ashes, with the many faces of a dead man throughout a long wake. I don’t know how many stars he saw in the sky.

Astro Black is a new work from Australian duo Soda_Jerk – showing at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien until 17 April. The four channel video installation is composed entirely of found materials, remixed to chronicle an alternative version of history according to the glittering vision of Sun Ra – a musician from outer space.

The work is built around the ideas of Afrofuturism, which uses science fiction tropes as an expression of ‘otherness’ and as a means of creating empowering cultural mythologies.

This could be the history of the future.

Astro Black by Soda_Jerk

Künstlerhaus Bethanien
Kottbusser Straße 10
10999 Berlin