The Lost Moment

The Book is Available At...

2007-07-18T06:28:00.000-07:00

Berlin,
- bbooks
lübbenerstr. 14

- proqm
Almstadtstraße 48-50

-barbara wien
Linienstrasse 158 im Hof

Istanbul
-Robinson Crusoe
Istiklal Caddesi 389

>And can be ordered at thelostmoment@hotmail.com

The Lost Moment in Press

2007-07-04T07:22:00.000-07:00

Tara McDowell, www.artforum.com, June Picks

http://www.artforum.com/picks/section=de#picks15505

"The Lost Moment"

SOCIETY FOR ARTISTIC RESEARCH BERLIN
Am Flutgraben 3
June 1–July 7

The lost moments to which this provocative and timely group exhibition (curated by Fatos Ustek) refers are those political or social actions that are, either immediately or over time, naturalized, forgotten, or whisked away. Bankleer, an artist duo, reminds us, for example, that the first zombie films emerged in the 1920s as a response to the fear and exoticization of the Caribbean. In their surreally pop video REALE RESTE, 2006, youngish urbanites, transformed into zombies, loll about an indoor, artificial tropical setting, carefully watched by riot-gear-clad security enforcers. Such confrontations between the individual and the state appear elsewhere, as in a drawing from Ahmet Ögut’s pop-up book in which a prostrate man is handcuffed by two policemen on the street, and can’t help but recall the concurrent G8 summit in Heiligendamm and attendant protests soon to be supplanted by tomorrow’s news. Some lost moments excavated by these artists are historical, such as Dani Gal’s re-enactment of Israel’s first television broadcast in 1966, a remarkable piece of national self-fashioning that the artist reconstructed from firsthand accounts, as the original broadcast is not to be found in Israeli television archives. More contemporary are Florian Wüst’s simple line drawings and animations derived from recent media images. In Creative Sentencing, 2007, a figure dons a sandwich board reading I AM A THIEF I STOLE FROM WALMART, referring to last month’s incident in which convicted shoplifters were obligated to wear the twenty-first-century version of a scarlet letter in front of an Alabama Wal-Mart store. A healthy dose of the absurd or fantastic is often mixed in: Annika Lundgren’s video projection seamlessly, and disarmingly, tells a tale of an illusionist performing before an audience over visuals of what appears to be a politician at a press conference. Bashir Borakov and Zbigniew Libera also embrace aspects of the absurd, theatrical, or cinematic, and Kirstine Roepstorff’s impactful large-scale collage, Study of Anthropology and Humankind, 2007, demonstrates how easily the detail or fragment can be made to disappear in a sea of visual information.

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Mathias Reichelt, Zitty, 20 June - 4 July, 2007

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Save the Date!!! 30th June at GfKFB

2007-06-29T01:42:00.000-07:00

We are glad to Invite you to the talk with Bik Van der Pol*, Kirstine Roepstorff, Nikola Dietrich and Mari Brellochs which will take place at 18:00.

Following the talk we will have the book launch of ‚the lost moment is the lost moment is the lost moment is...’ at 20:00. And a small party!

The Book is an outcome of the lost moment with 35 contributions. Bringing together various perspectives and positionings on the concept of The Lost Moment.

The contributors are: Dilek Huseyinzadegan / Bik Van der Pol / Sibel Irzik / Fatos Ustek / Renee Gabri / Ayreen Anastas / Katarina Zdjelar / Raimundas Malasauskas / Juul Hondius / Jun Yang / Banu Cennetoglu / Anita di Bianco / Shep Steiner / Jason Coburn / Adel Abidin / Man Ray Hsu & Maren Richter / Libia Castro & Olafur Olafsson / Arnoud Holleman / Babak Afrassiabi & Nasrin Tabatabai / Ariane Müller / Eva-Maria Kollischan / Carla Ahlander & Gernot Wieland / Heman Chong / Marc Volk / Runo Lagomarsino / Yane Calovski / Peter Lütje / Binna Choi / Sven Lütticken / Mary Bouquet / Asl Çavusoglu / Gülçin Aksoy / Sarah Pierce / Jan Kopp

The book is a collaboration with Bik Van der Pol and can be ordered from thelostmoment@hotmail.com

All very Best Wishes
Bik Van der Pol & Fatos Ustek

* Bik Van der Pol will participate the talk via phone.

Book Design by BILDWECHSEL / IMAGE-SHIFT

Film Excursions / films about, besides and despite the lost moment

2007-06-12T16:35:00.000-07:00

The Lost Moment Film Series
by Tobias Hering

The Film series that is to accompany the The Lost Moment project is focussing on the concept's overlapping interest for the forms and functions of image production and the realities of political power:
"The Lost Moment stands for a variety of moments in which the decisive action has been abstracted, made invisible, manipulated during the process of transmission to the society. The enormous amount of data flow versus the minor amount of knowledge production is the matter of fact of today's society. Receiving loads of information through various agents and producing from it an approximation of knowledge, creates the false consciousness typical for today's society. … In the last 25 years, the decisions made for large-scale social changes have been reflected through manipulated acts and data. Thus the decisions appear to be abstracted from their realms or at least unrelated to their process and infra-structure. The specific time and space frame of decision making appears to be invisible in relation to the process of its realization. More importantly, the decisions made on local and global political domains play an effective role on structuring the society and social understanding, thus on the evaluation and devaluation of events taking place. … Within the massive flow of information on a specific event, the decisions being made, appear to be not there, not here, not there of..." (from Fatos's concept)
The imbalance between a „reality" reproduced by the media as a constant series of events and its cognitive conceptualization is described here as an imbalance between image production and knowledge production. The image is recognized as a signifier for and vehicle of the truth, at the same time the realm of visibility is highlighted as a stage for various forms of manipulation. The film series will consist of films that deal with their own image production and visibility in these ambivalent terms.
The works and seminars presented in The Lost Moment raise questions about artistic production and political power. "These questions are not aiming at the actual moment of loss or act of decision making, they are rather meant to surround these notorious invisibilities with their ironic, confronting, re-editing, conglomerating potential." The film series takes part in this questioning. It uses the duration and expanse of a film projection to visually encircle various aspects of the misrepresentations and disparities discussed here: the assumed lost moment of decision; the abstraction into which it has been transformed; the spectacle which is produced to reconcile with the loss of the real; the suffering from a life of too many compromises.
In some films the connection to the Lost Moment project will be more obvious than in others. Yet all of them share the awareness of existing in and telling of a world that has turned „unheimlich" (uncanny) in a very fundamental sense. At times the blind spots are approached head-on in an investigative manner, at times the narration encircles them like a massage; in some, a representation or simulacrum is produced as the "real" face of the invisible power, yet in others the failure of the film image itself is pawned for the appearance of a truth.
Last but not least, such a film series claims that the colonization of the image by the interests of power is not the result of some intrinsic characteristics of an image as such. Much rather, this colonization is motivated by very actual desires and a political will and is organized by the according strategies and decisions. However, there are images which trace back those decisions and desires, or which tell of other decisions and desires thus confirming and claiming another imaginary. When we complain about manipulation we must believe that there is a truth to be known. If we talk about the misappropriation of reality, we must have a belief in a reality worth having and fighting for. When we make films, we must believe that there is something to see. The same is true when we show films.

German Version ----------------------

The Lost Moment: Filmreihe
kuratiert von Tobias Hering

In der Kunstfabrik am Flutgraben startete im April ein auf zwei Jahre angelegtes „künstlerisches Forschungsvorhaben" mit dem Titel „IRRTUM – Sprechen Sie mit uns, sonst sprechen wir mit Ihnen." Dabei geht es dem Initiator Mari Brellochs darum, den künstlerischen Schaffensprozess als einen fortlaufenden Forschungs- und Experimentierprozess zu begreifen, somit für eine kritische Befragung zugänglich und nutzbar zu machen und dabei auch den IRRTUM als wirksames kognitives Moment in den Blick nehmen. Verschiedene Künstler und Gruppen sind eingeladen, vor Ort ihre Arbeit in diesem Sinn zur Disposition zu stellen.
Das Ausstellungsprojekt „The Lost Moment" (31. Mai bis 7. Juli 2007), kuratiert von Fatoş Üstek, ist Teil dieses konzeptionellen Rahmens und hat vier Hauptformate: eine Ausstellung mit acht künstlerischen Positionen, ein Vortrags- und Diskussionsprogramm, eine Filmreihe sowie eine Publikation. Die Künstler der Ausstellung: Annika Lundgren / Ahmet Ögüt / bankleer / Basir Borlakov / Dani Gal / Zbigniew Libera / Florian Wüst / Kirstine Roepstorff
The Lost Moment zielt darauf, verschiedene Aspekte der jüngeren Zeitgeschichte herauszuarbeiten, indem künstlerische Positionen und Praktiken in eine politische Befragung verwickelt werden. The Lost Moment steht für eine Vielzahl von Prozessen, deren entscheidende, handlungsgeladenen Momente auf dem Weg der Übertragung in die Öffentlichkeit abstrahiert, unsichtbar gemacht oder manipuliert wurden. […] Schwerwiegende Entscheidungen der letzten 15 Jahre, die zu gravierenden gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen geführt haben, […] erscheinen abstrahiert von ihrer konkreten Wirklichkeit, oder zumindest losgelöst von dem Prozess und der Infrastruktur, an denen sie Teil haben. Ort und Zeitpunkt der Entscheidung bleiben unsichtbar, während sich die Realisierung des Entschiedenen und dessen Folgen in scheinbar vollkommener Sichtbarkeit ereignen. […] Mitten in einem massiven Datenstrom über ein spezifisches Ereignis wird es dennoch so aussehen, als seien die Entscheidungen, die zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt gefällt wurden, nicht da, nicht hier, nicht ausschlaggebend oder nicht zur Sache. (Auszug aus dem Ausstellungskonzept)
Das hier angesprochene Missverhältnis zwischen der ereignishaft strukturierten (oder konstruierten) Wirklichkeit und den Möglichkeiten, diese zu verstehen und mit der eigenen, individuellen Erfahrung in einen sinnvollen Zusammenhang zu bringen, wird als ein Missverhältnis zwischen Bildproduktion und Wissensproduktion beschrieben. Das Bild wird dabei als Erscheinungsform der Wahrheit und somit Vehikel des Wissens durchaus in Kraft gelassen, gleichzeitig jedoch wird die Ebene der Sichtbarkeit als Bühne der Manipulation akzentuiert und ins Spiel gebracht. Die Filmreihe interessiert sich für Filme, die ihre eigene Bildhaftigkeit und Sichtbarkeit in diesem Doppelsinn bespielen.
Mit den ausgestellten Arbeiten und den begleitenden Seminaren wirft The Lost Moment konkrete Fragen zu künstlerischer Produktion und politischer Macht auf. „Diese Fragen zielen jedoch nicht unmittelbar auf den tatsächlichen Moment des Verlusts oder der Entscheidung. Ich stelle mir eher vor, dass sie diese notorischen Unsichtbarkeiten […] umstellen und einkreisen." (a.a.o.) Die Filmauswahl nimmt Teil an dieser Befragung. Sie nutzt Dauer und Fläche der Filmprojektion dazu, unterschiedliche Momente des thematisierten Missverhältnisses auf der Ebene der Sichtbarkeit einzukreisen: den verloren erklärten Moment der Entscheidung; die Abstraktion, in die dieser überführt wurde; das Spektakel, das mit dem Verlust des Realen versöhnen soll; das Leiden an einem derart kompromittierten Leben.
Der Bezug zum Thema ist mal mehr, mal weniger offensichtlich, alle Filme verbindet jedoch das Bewusstsein, von und in einer unheimlich gewordenen Wirklichkeit zu erzählen. Mal werden die blinden Stellen frontal investigativ angegangen, mal lediglich narrativ massierend umkreist, mal wird eine Repräsentation oder Projektion als das eigentliche Gesicht der verborgenen Macht heraufbeschworen, ein andermal wird das Scheitern des Filmischen gewissermaßen als Pfand hinterlegt für das Hervortreten der Wahrheit.
Nicht zuletzt drückt sich in der Filmreihe die Überzeugung aus, dass die Kolonisierung der Bilder durch die Interessen der Macht keine intrinsische Notwendigkeit des Bildes ist, sondern auf ein konkretes Begehren und die dadurch motivierten Strategien und Entscheidungen zurückgeht. Und dass es Bilder gibt, die die Spur zurücklegen, oder die von anderen Begehren und Entscheidungen erzählen. Wer Manipulation beklagt, muss glauben, dass es etwas zu wissen lohnt. Wer die Veruntreuung der Realität beklagt, muss glauben, dass es eine Realität gibt, die es zurück zu erkämpfen und zu leben lohnt. Wer einen Film macht, muss davon überzeugt sein, dass es etwas zu sehen gibt. Ebenso derjenige, der einen Film zeigt.

Thursday, June 7, 2007 El angel exterminador (The exterminating angel) by Luis Buñuel Mexico/Spain, 1962

The exhibition project The Lost Moment, which opened at GfKFB (Kunstfabrik) on May 31st and will run till July 7, is - in short terms - about the increasing obscurity and ideological manipulation of political decision making processes. An increasingly dense visual "information" facade is hiding a dramatic loss of knowledge and cognition. The project is curated by Fatos Üstek.
In this context I will show a number of films which I think are relating to the concept in interesting, yet very different ways. I would like to invite you to both the exhibtion and the film series.
The film series starts Thursday June 7 with Luis Bunuel's El Angel exterminador (The exterminating angel, span. mit engl UT), the story of a high society dinner party whose participants are forced by an invisible barrier to remain in the room for several days after the party has long been over. Soon the ugly grimaces show behind the well ordered faces and manners increasingly regress while each of them is seeking refuge in their own petty morals. The regression is complete when the group decides that only a ritual of repetition can break the inexplicable "spell".
Meeting time for all film screenings is 9 pm at the exhibition space (Am Flutgraben 3, 12435 Berlin) which will remain open on these occasions. The screening venues will vary each night, some will be a short walk away.

German Version ----------------

In dem Ausstellungsprojekt The Lost Moment, das am 31.5. in der GfKFB (Kunstfabrik) eröffnet wurde und bis 7.7.2007 dauert, geht es kurz gesagt um die zunehmende Unsichtbarkeit, Verschleierung und Ideologisierung politischer Entscheidungsprozesse, insbesondere um den Verlust an tatsächlichem Wissen hinter der zunehmend dichter werdenden visuellen "Informations"fassade. Das Gesamtprojekt ist von Fatos Üstek kuratiert.
In der begleitenden Filmreihe zeige ich ab Donnerstag 7.6. wöchentlich einige Filme, von denen ich glaube, dass sie eine interessante Beziehung zum Konzept der Ausstellung haben. Diese Beziehung ist sehr unterschiedlich, mehr oder weniger assoziativ und steht zur Diskussion - wenn es sich ergibt, auch gleich im Anschluss an die Filme. Ich möchte euch gerne einladen, die Ausstellung und die Filmreihe zu besuchen.
Die Reihe beginnt mit Luis Bunuels El Angel exterminador (Der Würgeengel, span. mit engl UT), der Geschichte einer reichen, bürgerlichen Abendgesellschaft, die eine unsichtbare Barriere für Tage daran hindert das Zimmer zu verlassen, in dem die Party eigentlich längst vorbei ist. Bald zeigen sich die Fratzen hinter den wohlgeordneten Gesichtern, setzen Regressionsprozesse ein und sucht eine jede, ein jeder Zuflucht zu seiner persönlichen mickrigen Moral oder Heilslehre. Der Regress ist vollständig, als die unsichtbar Eingeschlossenen glauben, durch ein Wiederholungsritual den vermeintlichen "Zauber" brechen zu können.
Treffpunkt für alle Filmscreenings ist jeweils um 21 Uhr in der Ausstellung, die dann auch noch geöffnet sein wird (Am Flutgraben 3, 12435 Berlin). Die jeweiligen Vorführorte variieren und liegen dann meist einen kurzen Fußweg entfernt.

Thursday, June 14, 2007 Code Inconnu (Code Unknown) by Michael Haneke France, 2000

The 2nd film we will be showing in the context of the "Lost Moment" project is Michael Haneke's "Code Inconnu" (Code Unknown, France 2000). The film combines a variety of stories situated in Paris. Time and place is here and now. In very different ways, all these stories deal with the failed attempt to conciliate the "General", the "Political" with the "Singular" and "Personal", and to make sense of that "which concerns all" in an individual daily life. While on a general/political level things are closing in on a totality, the individual life-experience is increasingly breaking up into fragments, and the breaks hurt, they are mostly harmful and far from any sexy ideas about "patchwork identity".
Even though Haneke shows a world, in which the combining element is to be concerned by a kind of shared trauma, he claims the difference between the trauma and its representation through a medium. While everyone is "participating in this world" and while „perpetrator" and „victim" seem to become indistinguishable, the distinction remains between those who are subject to immediate violence and those to whom this violence is transmitted by the media – and who then become players, collaborators, supporters. There is a difference between the displacement of a refugee and that of a successful actress who doesn't feel quite "at home with herself".
The film selection for The Lost Moment is meant to highlight some examples of how the cinema is dealing with its own image production, the uncanniness of representation and the presumed loss of reality therein. Here is a passage from a review I wrote on Code Inconnu a few years ago:
"[…] Cuts only in the dark between the fragments. All scenes are shot in one take, except for those in which the camera is part of the scene's narrative grammar. Then the image switches from the film to the film-within-the-film, thus pointing out that there is a real difference between the two. Theory and experience: the fragmentation of the image does not mean that reality is becoming an oblivious patchwork of arbitrary snippets.
The long takes and the meticulous montage are drawing attention to the image production process. That which is shown, however, does not lose its urgency on the way. Reality at the limits of comprehensiveness cannot be tackled with plain realism. In the face of this, Haneke presents the film as an open construction. In the darkness between "in" and "out", the montage comes as the suggestion of a truth which the images fail to show.
The guiding assumption that the narrative fragments have something in common below the surface of similarities has of course, aside from its dramaturgical function, an ethical and political relevance. Other than under the self-reflective rules of Haneke's earlier "Funny Games" (1998), in "Code Unknown" the screen does not limit the horizon of relations. There is a before and an after to all these fragments. They are part of the world from which the spectator is entering the cinema and into which he or she will return. Once again, Haneke's images are well aware of the spectator's gaze on them, but also of the fact that this spectator is not only a spectator and that he or she don't step into the cinema the way they would fall into a trap."

German Version -----------

Der zweite Film, den wir im Kontext des Ausstellungsprojekts The Lost Moment zeigen, ist Michael Hanekes "Code Inconnu" ("Code Unbekannt" – Frankreich, 2000). Der Film verbindet die Geschichten mehrerer Protagonisten in Paris. Zeit und Ort sind heute und jetzt. Auf sehr unterschiedliche Art geht es in allen Geschichten um das Scheitern des Versuchs, das „Allgemeine", das „Politische", das, „was alle betrifft", im täglichen Leben des „Individuellen" und „Persönlichen" adäquat aufzunehmen und zu verarbeiten. Je mehr das Politische/Allgemeine sich zu einer Totalität zusammenschließt, desto fragmentarischer und gebrochener geht es auf der Ebene des Individuellen zu. Und die Brüche schmerzen, sie haben in der Regel nichts mehr zu tun mit der vermeintlichen Sexiness von „Patchwork-Identitäten".
Zwar zeigt Haneke eine Welt, in der das einzig Verbindende die gemeinsame traumatische Betroffenheit ist, aber er beharrt auch auf dem Unterschied zwischen dem Trauma und dessen medialer Vermittlung. Während alle am Weltgeschehen teilnehmen, und dabei „Täter" und „Opfer" ununterscheidbar zu werden scheinen, verläuft doch die entscheidende Grenze zwischen denen, die der Gewalt unmittelbar ausgesetzt sind, und denjenigen, denen sie medial vermittelt wird – und die dann zu Mitspielern werden. Ein Flüchtling ist auf eine andere Art heimatlos, als eine erfolgreiche Schauspielerin, die nicht weiß, „wohin mit sich".
In der Filmauswahl zu The Lost Moment geht es auch darum, einige Beispiele zu zeigen, wie das Kino mit der eigenen Bildproduktion, dem allgemeinen Unbehagen am Bild und dem diesem zugeschriebenem Realitätsverlust umgeht. Zu Code Inconnu habe ich in einer Rezension vor ein paar Jahren mal folgendes geschrieben:
„[…] Schnitte nur im Dunkel zwischen den Fragmenten. Alle Szenen sind jeweils in einem kontinuierlichen Take gedreht, ohne Schnitt. Ausgenommen einzig diejenigen Episoden, in denen eine Kamera zum narrativen Inventar gehört. Dort springt das Bild vom Film zum Film im Film und verweist damit auf den realen Unterschied der beiden Ebenen. Theorie und Erfahrung: aus der Brüchigkeit der Bilder folgt nicht, dass sich die Realität bis zur Unkenntlichkeit in Beliebigkeitsschnipsel zerlegen ließe.
Die langen Einstellungen und die akribische Montage lenken die Aufmerksamkeit auf den Herstellungsprozess des Bildes. Jedoch verliert das Gezeigte damit keineswegs an Brisanz. Einer bis an die Grenzen der Verstehbarkeit komplexen Wirklichkeit ist mit Realismus nicht beizukommen. Haneke begegnet dieser Analyse mit dem Film als offenem Konstrukt: im Dunkel zwischen Auf- und Abblende wirkt die Montage als Suggestion und macht die Wahrheit sichtbar, an der die Bilder scheitern.
Die Leitvermutung, dass zwischen den Fragmenten ein keineswegs zufälliger Zusammenhang besteht, ist jenseits ihrer dramaturgischen Relevanz eine ethische und politische Aussage. Anders als unter den selbstreflexiven Spielregeln der "Funny Games" (Michael Haneke, 1998) ist in "Code:Unbekannt" die Leinwand nicht der ganze Horizont. Die Fragmente haben ein Vorher und ein Nachher und gehören damit der Welt an, aus der heraus der Zuschauer das Kino betritt und in die er auch wieder zurückkehren wird. Einmal mehr wissen Hanekes Bilder um den auf ihnen lastenden Blick des Zuschauers, der aber eben nicht nur Zuschauer ist und ins Kino nicht tappt wie in eine Falle."

Thursday, June 21, 2007 Crossroads at the Edge of the Worlds Switzerland/Morocco, 2006 & NEM-NEE Switzerland, 2005 both films by Charles Heller

In both his films, Crossroads at the Edge of the Worlds and NEM-NEE, Swiss artist and filmmaker Charles Heller ventures a research into the real condition of the "state of exception" which according to Giorgio Agamben has become permanent and under which more and more people's living conditions take on the shape of "lager", camps.

The motivation for NEM-NEE came when Heller was working with migrants in Switzerland. NEM-NEE is short for "Non-entrée en matière" - "Nichteintretensentscheid" („Non-actualization order"), a recently created grey zone in Suisse immigration laws, to which many asylum seekers are being deported: a juridical "non-existence", in which they nevertheless have to survive. The law has been inspired by the idea that toleration by ignorance is cheaper than deportation. The film documents the survival, the daily attempt to assert one self, one's body, one's officially questioned existence.

In Crossroads at the Edge of the Worlds, Charles Heller, together with Ursula Biemann, follows the most frequented migration route of sub-Saharan migrants from Algeria to Morocco. For countless people this route has become a vicious cycle. Here, the real struggle is being fought that Europe, by militantly enforcing its borders, is outsourcing to Northern Africa. Police violence, death of thirst in the desert, informal camps which are to become recruiting camps for cheap labour - here, too, a state of "permanent exception" creates zones outside the law. Politics are only pretending to eliminate them, because in fact they are the models and stepping stones for the more orderly exploitation of migrants through "job centers" just outside the EU borders.

German Version-----------------------

Die Motivation für NEM-NEE entstand durch die Arbeit mit MigrantInnen in der Schweiz. „NEM-NEE" steht für "Non-entrée en matière" - "Nichteintretensentscheid", eine im Ausländerrecht der Schweiz jüngst geschaffene Grauzone: ein Großteil von Asylsuchenden werden in eine rechtliche „Nicht-Existenz" abgeschoben, in der sie jedoch faktisch überleben müssen. Hinter dem Rechtskonstrukt steht die Einsicht, dass Duldung durch Ignoranz billiger ist als Deportation. Der Film dokumentiert dieses Überleben, den täglichen Versuch, sich selbst, seinen Körper und seine infrage gestellte Existenz zu behaupten.

In Crossroads at the Edge of the Worlds folgt Charles Heller gemeinsam mit Ursula Biemann der meistbenutzen Migrationsroute sub-saharischer Flüchtlinge von Algerien nach Marokko. Entlang dieser Route, die für viele MigrantInnen längst zu einem Teufelskreis geworden ist, wird der reale Kampf ausgetragen, den Europa durch die Militarisierung seiner Grenzen nach Nordafrika verlagert. Polizeigewalt, Tod durch Verdursten in der Wüste, informelle Camps, die regelmäßig geplündert werden, bald jedoch zu Rekrutierungslagern für Niedriglohnbeschäftigte werden: auch hier erzeugt ein permanenter Ausnahmezustand „rechtsfreie" Räume, die von der Politik scheinbar bekämpft werden, die in Wirklichkeit jedoch bereits das Muster abgeben für die geplante „geordnete" Ausbeutung extrem prekarisierter MigrantInnen durch „Job-Center" an den europäischen Außengrenzen.

Monday, June 25, 2007 Zwischen zwei Kriegen (Between two wars) by Harun Farocki Germany, 1978

In Between two wars, Harun Farocki attempts to interlock the logic of war with the logic of production as determining dynamics of the years 1918-1933, the period between the two "world wars". By way of didactical acting, voice-over reflections and by applying a associating and analytical montage the film develops its thesis, that in the early 1920's the "necessities" of capitalistic production have become more and more ignorant of the actual needs of the people. Rationalization and the forming of trusts finally lead to a point where the capitalist production machine directly transformed into a warfare and destruction machine.
Farocki's film is relevant for the discussion of "The Lost Moment", both in terms of its narrative and in formal and aesthetic terms. Farocki tries to reconstruct the enabling conditions of a historical period, which was to manifest itself as an ultimate catastrophe and which was often not understood or straightforwardly mystified. While the political and economical decision makers are trying to perfect their use of the capitalist machinery, the workers are confronted with the question how come they always and at any rate serve this machine as canon fodder.

The narrator Farocki explains in the film that he had intended to tell the story at the original historic sites, but that these were mostly destroyed and had vanished. The war, which was produced there, had swept them away. Instead the artist Farocki, who in one scene we see at his money job as a picture editor for a print publication, abstracts from the call for "authenticity" and thus clears the table for an argumentative editing of the images. One could say that the film re-interprets the distance to the lost historical moment and turns it into a freedom of thought. Instead of searching the archives, Farocki searches the historical consciousness. This way, the film – even in its primness - also bears testimony of its time and the way in which certain films were made in Germany then.

In Between two wars, Harun Farocki attempts to interlock the logic of war with the logic of production as determining dynamics of the years 1918-1933, the period between the two "world wars". By way of didactical acting, voice-over reflections and by applying a associating and analytical montage the film develops its thesis, that in the early 1920's the "necessities" of capitalistic production have become more and more ignorant of the actual needs of the people. Rationalization and the forming of trusts finally lead to a point where the capitalist production machine directly transformed into a warfare and destruction machine.
Farocki's film is relevant for the discussion of "The Lost Moment", both in terms of its narrative and in formal and aesthetic terms. Farocki tries to reconstruct the enabling conditions of a historical period, which was to manifest itself as an ultimate catastrophe and which was often not understood or straightforwardly mystified. While the political and economical decision makers are trying to perfect their use of the capitalist machinery, the workers are confronted with the question how come they always and at any rate serve this machine as canon fodder.

The narrator Farocki explains in the film that he had intended to tell the story at the original historic sites, but that these were mostly destroyed and had vanished. The war, which was produced there, had swept them away. Instead the artist Farocki, who in one scene we see at his money job as a picture editor for a print publication, abstracts from the call for "authenticity" and thus clears the table for an argumentative editing of the images. One could say that the film re-interprets the distance to the lost historical moment and turns it into a freedom of thought. Instead of searching the archives, Farocki searches the historical consciousness. This way, the film – even in its primness - also bears testimony of its time and the way in which certain films were made in Germany then.

The meeting point for the film screenings is always at 9 pm in the exhibition space on the 2nd floor of GfKFB, Kunstfabrik, Am Flutgraben 3. The film screening will then probably take place in a former sales and presentation building in the immediate vicinity. The incomplete emptiness of this room conveys an impression of the parasite use which a globalized economy makes of space and how the appearance of urban space becomes subject to the strategic decisions of a company.

Florian Wüst, as a film curator, is interested in political filmmaking in Germany and specifically in the ways in which films deal with the peculiar identity of a "Post-War" society. I see interesting parallels to Farocki's work in the 70's (of which Between two wars is a good example) in Florian Wüst's own artistic production – also in "Belated Advocacy", which deals with the ideology of production in post-war "Wirtschaftswunder" Germany. Especially the use of historical documents, the interest for the linguistic forms of quotation and statement, the use of abstraction and re-enactment and also the self-confident positioning in the distance to the historic moment suggest interesting connections between both oeuvres.
Florian Wüst, as a film curator, is interested in political filmmaking in Germany and specifically in the ways in which films deal with the peculiar identity of a "Post-War" society. I see interesting parallels to Farocki's work in the 70's (of which Between two wars is a good example) in Florian Wüst's own artistic production – also in "Belated Advocacy", which deals with the ideology of production in post-war "Wirtschaftswunder" Germany. Especially the use of historical documents, the interest for the linguistic forms of quotation and statement, the use of abstraction and re-enactment and also the self-confident positioning in the distance to the historic moment suggest interesting connections between both oeuvres.

German Version --------

In Zwischen zwei Kriegen unternimmt Harun Farocki den Versuch, die Logik des Krieges und die Logik der Produktionssteigerung als zwei bestimmende Faktoren der „Zwischenkriegsjahre" 1918 bis 1933 in Mitteleuropa argumentativ eng zu führen. In Form von didaktischen Spielszenen, Voice-Over-Reflektionen und mithilfe eines assoziativ-analytischen Bildschnitts nähert sich der Film der These an, dass sich die „Notwendigkeiten" der kapitalistischen Produktion in den frühen 20er Jahren durch Rationalisierung und Trust-Bildung immer mehr verselbständigt und von den Bedürfnissen der Menschen entfernt haben, um schließlich unmittelbar in eine Kriegs- und Vernichtungsmaschine umzuschlagen.

Für die Diskussion des „Lost Moment" ist Farockis Film sowohl thematisch, als auch in Form und Ästhetik von Belang. Farocki versucht die Bedingungen der Möglichkeit einer geschichtlichen Epoche zu rekonstruieren, die sich als Katastrophe manifestierte und dabei oft unverstanden blieb oder mystifiziert wurde. Während die politischen und ökonomischen Entscheidungsträger den Gebrauch der Sinnmaschine Kapitalismus zu perfektionieren suchen, stellt sich für die Arbeiterinnen die Frage, warum sie dieser Maschine stets als Kanonenfutter dienen.

Der Erzähler Farocki erklärt im Film, dass er die Geschichte eigentlich an Originalschauplätzen drehen wollte, dass diese aber zum großen Teil zerstört und verschwunden sind. Der Krieg, der an ihnen produziert wurde, hat sie zertrümmert. Der Künstler Farocki, den wir in einer Szene bei seiner Brotarbeit als Bildredakteur sehen, schafft sich stattdessen durch Abstraktion vom „Authentischen" eine tabula rasa, auf der die Bilder nun wie Argumente einer logischen Operation montiert werden. Man könnte sagen, dass der Film die Distanz zum verlorenen historischen Moment in eine Freiheit des Nachdenkens uminterpretiert. Anstatt in die Archive begibt sich Farocki in das eigene Geschichtsbewusstsein. Der Film ist damit – auch in seiner Sprödigkeit - ein Zeugnis seiner Zeit und einer bestimmten Art, in dieser Zeit in Deutschland Filme zu machen.

Treffpunkt für das Film-Screening ist wie immer um 21 Uhr der Ausstellungsraum im 2. Stock in der GfKFB, Kunstfabrik, Am Flutgraben 3. Das Film-Screening findet dann voraussichtlich in einem ehemaligen Verkaufs- und Präsentationsraum in der unmittelbaren Nähe der Kunstfabrik statt. Die nur unvollständig geräumte Brache dieses Raumes vermittelt etwas von den parasitären „Nutzungskonzepten" der globalisierten Ökonomie und wie das städtische Erscheinungsbild den strategischen Zielen von Konzernen unterworfen ist.

Als Filmkurator interessiert sich Florian Wüst unter anderem für den politischen Film in Deutschland und speziell für die filmische Auseinandersetzung mit der Identität eines „Nachkriegs"-Deutschland. In seiner künstlerischen Arbeit – auch in der Arbeit „Belated Advocacy", die sich ja auch mit der Ideologie der Produktivität auseinandersetzt - sehe ich zudem interessante Parallelen zu Harun Farockis Arbeit in den 70ern, für die Zwischen zwei Kriegen exemplarisch ist. Speziell der Umgang mit dem historischen Dokument, das Interesse für die sprachlichen Formen von Zitat und Aussage, das Arbeiten mit Abstraktion und Reinszenierung und auch der selbstbewusste Umgang mit der Distanz zum historischen Moment scheinen mir interessante Berührungspunkte zu sein.

Thursday, June 28, 2007 The Halfmoon Files by Philip Scheffner Germany, 2007

In The Halfmoon Files, Philip Scheffner tries to reconstruct the story and identity of a man long dead and of whom all that is left is a voice recording made in 1916. The voice recording was made in the German prisoners of war camp in Wünsdorf, near Berlin. The majority of the prisoners were colonial soldiers from India, Pakistan and the „Orient". The man, whose voice we hear, was Indian and his name was Mall Singh. From the catalogue of the Berlinale 2007, where the film premiered in the "Forum" section:

"There once was a man. This man came into the European war. Germany captured this man. He wishes to return to India. If God has mercy, He will make peace soon. This man will go away from here." Mall Singh's crackling words are heard as he spoke into the phonographic funnel on 11th December 1916 in the city of Wünsdorf, near Berlin. 90 years later, Mall Singh is a number on an old Shellac record in an archive – one amongst hundreds of voices of colonial soldiers during the First World War. The recordings were produced as a result of a unique alliance between the military, the scientific community and the entertainment industry. In THE HALFMOON FILES, his experimental search for clues to these voices, Philip Scheffner follows the traces to the origin of their recording. Like a memory game – which remains incomplete right until the end – he uncovers pictures and sounds that revive the ghosts of the past. His protagonists' words intersect along the concentric spirals the story follows. Those who pressed the recording button on the phonographs, on photo and film cameras, were the ones who wrote the official history. Mall Singh and the other prisoners of war at the Halfmoon Camp have disappeared from this story. Their spirits and ghostly apparitions seem to play with the filmmaker, to lie in wait for him. They pursue him during his quest to bring their voices back to their home countries. Yet the narrator loses control of the ghosts' story. And the ghosts will not be sent away. "When a person dies, he constantly roams about and becomes a ghost. It is the soul that roams about. The roaming soul is like air. So a ghost is like air. It can go everywhere." (Bhawan Singh, Wünsdorf 1917 / 2007)

The film's director, Philip Scheffner, will be present during the screening and for a discussion afterwards. The meeting point for the film screening is as always at 9 pm in the exhibition space on the 2nd floor of GfKFB, Kunstfabrik, Am Flutgraben 3. From there we will take a 5 minute walk to the actual screening location, an empty apartment on Schlesische Straße.

German Version----------

In The Halfmoon Files versucht Philip Scheffner anhand einer Tonaufnahme aus dem Jahr 1916 die Geschichte und Identität eines Mannes zu rekonstruieren, der längst verstorben ist. Die Tonaufnahme entstand im Kriegsgefangenenlager Wünsdorf bei Berlin, in dem mehrheitlich gefangene Kolonialsoldaten inhaftiert waren, aus Indien, Pakistan und dem „Orient". Der Mann, dem die Stimme gehörte, war Inder und hieß Mall Singh. Aus dem Katalog des „Forums" der Berlinale 2007, wo der Film seine Premiere hatte:

„'Es war einmal ein Mann. Er geriet in den europäischen Krieg. Deutschland nahm diesen Mann gefangen. Er möchte nach Indien zurückkehren. Wenn Gott gnädig ist, wird er bald Frieden machen. Dann wird dieser Mann von hier fortgehen.' Knisternd verklingen die Worte von Mall Singh, gesprochen in einen Phonographentrichter am 11. Dezember 1916 in der Stadt Wünsdorf bei Berlin. 90 Jahre später ist Mall Singh eine Nummer auf einer alten Schellackplatte in einem Archiv, eine unter Hunderten von Stimmen von Kolonialsoldaten des Ersten Weltkrieges. Die Aufnahmen entstanden in einer einmaligen Allianz von Militär, Wissenschaft und Unterhaltungsindustrie. Philip Scheffner folgt in seiner experimentellen Spurensuche THE HALFMOON FILES diesen Stimmen an den Ort ihrer Aufnahme. Wie in einem Memoryspiel, das bis zum Ende unvollständig bleibt, deckt er Bilder und Töne auf, in denen die Geister der Vergangenheit zum Leben erwachen. Spiralförmig schrauben sich die Worte seiner Protagonisten ineinander. Diejenigen, die den Aufnahmeknopf drückten an ihren Phonographen, an ihren Foto- und Filmkameras, haben die offizielle Geschichte geschrieben. Mall Singh und die anderen Kriegsgefangenen aus dem Halbmondlager sind aus dieser Geschichte verschwunden. Ihre Geister scheinen mit dem Filmemacher zu spielen, ihm aufzulauern. Sie folgen ihm auf seinem Weg, die Stimmen in ihre Heimat zurückzubringen. Doch die Handlung der Geschichte entgleitet dem Erzähler. Und die Geister lassen sich nicht vertreiben. ‚Wenn ein Mensch stirbt, irrt er herum und wird ein Geist. Es ist die Seele, die umherschweift. Diese Seele ist wie ein Lufthauch. Der Geist ist wie die Luft, die uns umgibt. Er kann überall hingehen.' (Bhawan Singh, Wünsdorf 1917/2007)"

Der Regisseur Philip Scheffner wird bei der Vorführung und anschließend zum Gespräch dabei sein.

Treffpunkt ist wie immer um 21 Uhr der Ausstellungsraum für „The Lost Moment" im 2. Stock der Kunstfabrik, Am Flutgraben 3. Von dort gehen wir gemeinsam etwa 5 Minuten zu Fuß zum Ort der Filmvorführung, einer leeren Wohnung auf der Schlesischen Straße.

Thursday, July 5, 2007 He Liu (The River) by Tsai Ming-Liang Taiwan, 1997

The meeting point for the film screening is as always at 9 pm in the exhibition space on the 2nd floor of GfKFB, Kunstfabrik, Am Flutgraben 3. The film screening will take place in the same building. If you come later than 9.15, simply follow the signs in the stairway.

As a closing film to this programme, He Liu takes the quest for the "Lost Moment" onto an explicitly existential ground. The water, in this case: the river, plays a crucial role in all of Tsai Ming-Liang's films. He Liu begins at the river, and it is there, "where everything flows", that the film gets infected with a senseless pain and a bizarre blockade. The narration will not return to the river. Yet, the river persists in the film, oozing through the images as the constant rain and dripping from the bedroom ceiling. The water that neither washes away the stink nor quenches the thirst.

German Version--------------

Treffpunkt ist wie immer um 21 Uhr der Ausstellungsraum im 2. Stock der GfKFB/ Kunstfabrik, Am Flutgraben 3. Die Filmvorführung findet im selben Gebäude statt. Wenn ihr nach 21.15 Uhr kommt, folgt einfach der Beschilderung im Treppenhaus.

Zum Abschluss des Filmprogramms gibt He Liu dem Fragen nach dem „Lost Moment" eine existenzialistische Wendung. Das Wasser, hier der Fluss, spielt in Tsai Ming-Liangs Filmen eine wichtige Rolle. He Liu beginnt am Fluss und infiziert sich dort, „wo alles fließt", mit einem sinnlosen Schmerz, einer bizarren Blockade. Die Geschichte kehrt nicht mehr an den Fluss zurück. Dennoch bleibt der Fluss im Film, er dringt in die Bilder ein als Dauerregen, er sickert durch die Schlafzimmerdecke, er ist das Duschwasser, das den Gestank nicht wegwäscht, und das Trinkwasser, das den Durst nicht löscht.

Sessions

2007-06-12T15:10:00.000-07:00

Sessions organised and moderated by Fatos Üstek (held in English)

Special Zombie Night
06th July 2007, 10 pm
with bankleer, Tobias Hering, Dani Gal, Shannon Bool and Thomas Schmitt

Friday July 6th: Special Zombie night

The much talked about and anxiously awaited Zombie night will be launched in Kunstfabrik/GfKFB on Friday, 6th July, at 10 pm. Don't stay in your homes! The only safe place that night is Kunstfabrik.

Dani Gal will remind us that Zombies are not a recent invention but have been with us longer than we would like to admit. Thomas Schmitt, in explaining "How to survive a Zombie attack", will give precious advice on how to face the return of the real. Still recovering from the recent Zombie attack, Shannon Bool will be reporting live from London and talk about life after the unthinkable. bankleer, it seems, have already visited the aftermath in their recent art production – and came back with some Zombie-side-up impressions of life in the 21st century. Finally Tobias Hering will take some Zombie films more serious than they were asking for and feed us appetizers for the ZOMBIE-ALL-NIGHTER which is then to come. When the clock strikes 7/7/7, we will start watching Zombie films – stay with us till dawn and share a Zombie breakfast with the survivors.

German Version------------------

Freitag 6. Juli: Die Lange Zombie Nacht

Lange angekündigt, mit Spannung erwartet: die lange Zombie Nacht in der Kunstfabrik / GfKFB am Freitag, 6. Juli ab 22 Uhr. Bleibt bloß nicht in euren Häusern, der einzig sichere Ort in dieser Nacht ist die Kunstfabrik!

Dani Gal wird daran erinnern, dass Zombies keine neuere Erfindung sind, sondern die Menschheit schon länger begleiten, als wir gerne zugeben möchten. In seinem Vortrag „How to survive a Zombie attack" wird uns Thomas Schmitt lebenswichtige Tipps geben für den Tag, an dem das Reale zurückkehrt. Noch unter dem Eindruck der jüngsten Zombieattacke, wird Shannon Bool live aus London berichten über das Leben nach dem Eintritt des Undenkbaren. bankleer, so scheint es, sind mit ihren künstlerischen Arbeiten bereits dorthin vorausgeeilt – und kehren zurück mit Bildern von der zombigen Seite des Lebens. Schließlich wird Tobias Hering einige Zombiefilme ernster nehmen, als sie gemeint waren, und einige Appetithappen servieren für die dann folgende LANGE ZOMBIE NACHT. Sie beginnt, wenn die Uhr den 7ten 7ten Null7 schlägt und endet mit einem Zombiefrühstück der Überlebenden. Bleibt bei uns bis zum Morgen-Grauen!

30th June 2007, 06 pm Rethinking the Project ‘The Lost Moment’
Discussion with Mari Brellochs, Nikola Dietrich and Kirstine Roepstorff*

*Bik Van der Pol's participation in the discussion could not be held.

09th June 2007, 06 pm Discussion
The talking Mountain of Israel by Dani Gal
Reale Reste / Real Remnants by Bankleer
Belated Advocacy by Florian Wüst

06th June 2007, 06 pm Discussion
Magic & Politics by Annika Lundgren
Positives of Zbigniew Libera by Fatos Ustek
Films about, besides and despite the lost moment by Tobias Hering

02nd June 2007, 06 pm ‘Paradigms of Contemporary Society’
Art and Literature as Registers of the Lost Moment of Trauma by Sibel Irzik
The consequences of consequences - climate change & conflict by Dan Smith
About superman’s absence in NYC at 9-11-2001 by Gusztav Hamos

Exhibition / Installation

2007-06-11T03:07:00.000-07:00

The Lost Moment Wishes to Give

2007-06-09T04:58:00.000-07:00

Special Thanks To:

Mari Brellochs, Sirid Amsel, GfKFB, Annette Hering, Sandy K., Pierre, Jeff, Ohio, Christian Maertins, Kathrin, Carmen, Image Shift, Peres Projects, Jessica, Atlas Szuki, Jacek Michalak,
Ahmet Ogut, Annika Lundgren, bankleer, Bashir Borlakov, Dani Gal, Florian Wust, Kirstine Roepstorff, Zbigniew Libera, Tobias Hering, Sibel Irzik, Dan Smith, Gusztav Hamos, Nikola Dietrich, Liesbeth Bik and Jos van der Pol, Philip Scheffner, Charles Heller, Harun Farocki, Dilek Hüseyinzadegan, Mary Bouquet, Binna Choi, Sven Lütticken, Rene Gabri, Ayreen Anastas, Katarina Zdjelar, Raimundas Malasauskas, Juul Hondius, Jun Yang, Banu Cennetoglu, Anita di Bianco, Shep Steiner, Jason Coburn, Jan Kopp, Adel Abidin, Man Ray & Maren Richter, Libia Castro & Olafur Olafsson, Arnoud Holleman, Babak Afrassaibi & Nasrin Tabatabai, Ariane Müller, Eva-Maria Kollischan, Carla Ahlander & Gernot Wieland, Heman Chong, Marc Volk, Runo Lagomarsino, Yane Calovski, Asli Cavusoglu, Peter Lütje, Gulcin Aksoy

Project Assistant: Susanne Teichmann

The Lost Moment has been generously supported by GfKFB, Hering GmbH + CO. KG, Danish Art Council and Berliner Senate

Kirstine Roepstorff

2007-06-09T04:31:00.000-07:00

Study of Anthropology and Human Kind is a series of collages specially produced for the exhibition.
Courtesy Peres Projects, Los Angeles Berlin

The imagery produced as a proposal to rethink over the humankind in relation with the methodology of anthropology. Where anthropology fails to grasp the totality of aspects of humanity. Roepstorff deals with concepts as such. Her artistic practice tends to take the concept out of its bounds and re-establish its relational aesthetics. The history of humankind, is of images depicted from a close past. What has been through, where has been underlined, what has come out… The compositions of decomposed imagery are allied with cut outs, gold and silver paper, textures, textile pieces, glitters. The pieces stand out themselves and with each other.
The wall installation of Roepstorff requires attention and time from its audience. Its colourful state functions as an enjoyment aspect for the eye, whereas getting closer to the images, small cut outs of pictures, texts and taking a further look at the togetherness of the pieces and pieces in themselves point out a multi-layered stance.

Study of Humankind and anthropology has been specially produced for the lost moment. Roepstorff, who has established her artistic practice on collages, in other words taking out images from their frames and inserting them in different togetherness is an act of making a primordial significance order. For this work, Roepstorff has chosen to work with what she has left behind in the process of her productions. That is to say, she has focussed on the remains of the cut outs, what she has decided to be less important. The lost moment embodies itself in her work through the unchosen being chosen. The images of the rest have been transformed to attain significance, an importance to be considered again, to be looked back, to request their presences and their potential of creating meaning, being meaningful.
The wall installaton has various dynamics. Two pieces are of her previous series Grow Your Garden. Grow your garden is a proposal to think over what you are surrounded by and with which images, ideas, energies, thoughts, intentions, attentions, attainments, come-acrossings, tolerance, power, love … A statement on how you make up of your self and a proposal of widening up your scope of understanding and living, with the awareness of others – other plants, trees, forests, lakes, rivers… (which come out to be metaphors of knowledge on humankind)
The piece where the Pope connects to four well-known terrorists is accompanied with a row of sea shells asks for another relation, asks for a change of evaluation, understanding.

Roepstorff employs images as patterns. The repeating image of the woman (presumably a native living in a rural civilization, a woman of strong expression and standing) with different costumes and expressions resembles the world of possibilities. The different possibilities that the woman carries through the pieces is a proposal of perspectives. Roepstorrf produces perspectives of many, thus enriches her production and the meaning spheres that are due to be (re)produced in relation with their viewer.

The construction of deconstructed in collage where every element talks from the same ground, frontal or from behind engage interaction…

Florian Wüst

2007-06-08T08:39:00.000-07:00

Belated Advocacy is a series of drawings, video animations and photocopies.
The work has been specially produced for the exhibition.

Belated Advocacy is an urge to grasp the mind set of ongoing schemes. The images being exhibited has been cleaned off / abstracted from their surroundings even put out of their flesh. The projection into 2-dimensions appears to be the streamline of Wust’s approach and willing. The line drawings in their most simple expression underline what has been drawn, what has been underlined. The figures of the political genre, their captured images in their casualties and in preparation of their images for their audience hence for their public.
The video animations based on small gestures gain their power in the repetition. The repetition displays the void. Bayram sevgidir is picked from the news media image of Tayyip Erdogan who was showing kindness and gratitude to the school girl who presented him flowers. The image that is constructed to meet the expectations of the public.
As in the video animation titled Sechs Milliarden Gewinn, the absurd relation of the amount of profit made in the last year with the movement of the fingers displaying the significance. The glory is underestimated in order to draw an image or poverty.

The photocopies are clippings from newspapers. The news that have appeared in different context and brought together to reflect upon the absurdity of the consumption of power structures with the artists commentaries. The as if real state of what is being told in the news is a construction of the artist but in a way displays a parallelism of what is called to be real.
Creative sentencing is a drawing of a young woman who is carrying a board that states I am a thief I stole from wall mart. The ritual that is now legalised by the municipalities in USA in correlation with the wall mart super market chain. Instead of giving money or imprisonment punishment, the people who are caught while they were stealing from the market are made to carry these boards in front of the wall mart for several hours. The exhibiting of the guilt, the insult is not being turned over as the artist comments under the image.
The line of drawings and video animations and photocopies is a discussion of the ambivalent relationship between individual and society and representatives of power. A commentary realised in a silent and strong voice.

Bashir Borlakov

2007-06-08T05:38:00.000-07:00

Panorama 4 is from the series of five.
For the exhibition, it has been printed in the size of 65 x 433 cm.

Bashir Borlakov, realises large scale panoramas of landscapes in his series. Each member of the serie has a different combination of a landscape, which displays parallellism with the expression. A naturally pitoresque panorama , transforms its indifference to difference via details. The detail that is embedded in the nature has the power of turning over the romanticism of the image upside down. In panorama 4, the encounter of the green landscape with a beautiful sky is carried out to be the misé-en-scéne of a getting rid of a corpse. The indefinable gender of the naked corpse, the aftermath of a commitment of crime and its very moment of erasing the act, the act of making non-existent, the lyrical surrounding.
For Bashir Borlakov’s work it is maybe much proper to produce a wording: Nature Mort
A natur morté of our today… The dead in nature, the encounter of death and nature… Unlike the classical natur morté examples – the flowers in a vase, the apples with pears and grapes on a plate…- Borlakov’s natur morté displays the realm of us as such. It is not only a crime out of blue, the features of the car, the clothing of the people the deportation of the corpse give us hints and lead us to project in our means.

Annika Lundgren

2007-06-08T03:58:00.000-07:00

Magic & Politics is a projection and posters for take away. The works have been realised in three languages English, German and Turkish. The projection is a slide show of a narrative composed by Lundgren. The poster is a description of Magic and Politics with a memory game of political scandals of the last 15 years.

Magic & Politics has been specially produced for the exhibition.

Quoting Annika Lundgren: „Magic & Politics deal with the empowerment of politics and language and I choose to reflect these through a video work and posters. “Magic & Politics” is built around a narration that operates between the illusionist and the politician, displaying their parallelisms. The three structures -the magician, the mediator, the audience- are the three main symbols I choose to work with in order to display the interactive positioning of the power structures such as the politician, the media and the audience. In other words I display interplay on the basis of political processes.“

Lundgren realises a detailed research in the process of her art production. Her depiction of minor scale aspects resemble a major scale commentary. In Magic & Politics, Lundgren forms a smooth ground for interaction of ideas and production of meaning . Her well-told and simple structured narrative is strenghtened with the nuances which play an important role. Magic & Politics is a story of a magician realising the most well-known trick of losing the rabbit in the ordinary black hat. The act of being able to make something get lost for good is much more spectacular then it is assigned to be. Lundgren underlines this significance by suggesting to imagine this act being taken in other fields of life. To think what could be made non-existant with such a minor gesture and without so much effort and energy that is put in. Lundgren not only touches the embedded scheme of politics but also the functioning of the media and the positioning of the public as active-passive listeners.
The return of the rabbit is the unexpected as well as the tragic, it decreases the powerty of the magician and his reputation of supra-natural abilities. At this point Lundgren proposes an intelligent question and an uncommon perspective: what if the rabbit that returned is also an illusion...

The posters accompanying the projection is a memory game, a common aspect of collective memory. The game is composed of images of the political scandals. A humorous statement of short-term memory syndrome of societies. A proposal to grasp realities. The winner of the game is the holder of the most political scandals!!

Poster front & back

bankleer

2007-06-08T03:47:00.001-07:00

In the exhibition, bankleer realised the screening of REALE RESTE on a glass screen hanged down from the ceiling. Accompanying their video projection, bankleer placed a sculpture. A non-static monument. A fountain.
A police cap placed on top of a chocolate machine. The chocoate flows smoothly and smearingly over the cap.

REALE RESTE / REAL REMNANTS by bankleer is an application of the central theses of Slavoj Zizek's The Ticklish Subject to the neoliberal economy. bankleer makes use of the archetype of the zombie as it has entered into cultural memory via Homer's Odyssey , Haitian voodoo and Hollywood movies, in their quest for a direct confrontation with true universality - which Zizek sees as represented in the excluded. REALE RESTE / REAL REMNANTS wants to make visible what is excluded in all-inclusive post-politics [Agamben/Rancière ] and how this excluded dimension can be politically realized in a new way.

REALE RESTE is a mirroring of the current individual. The metaphorical standing of the elements in the film all relate to fields of social encounters and power structures. Depicting a wording of Zizek, places their art production in a composite direction. REALE RESTE is a statement more than a proposal, ending with an optimist outlook to the future of things.
bankleer realises activist encounters such as perfomances in a employment office, shooting at a zoo, depicting a botanic garden for a setting. As an artist group they enrich their art production within the events that they organise and the theoretical background in which they deploy a strong critical standing.

Dani Gal

2007-06-08T03:07:00.001-07:00

The installation by Dani Gal is the realisation of The first Israeli Tv program.
The work has been specially produced for the exhibition.

Quoting Dani Gal: „The event that signified the beginning of the television era in Israel a year before the 1967 war, when Israel occupied the Palestinian areas, reflects the way people in Israel perceived themselves as a society and a culture at the time and how people understood the role of television.
On the 4th of January 1966 the Israeli postal service aired for the first time television in Israel. The purpose of the broadcast was to try the broadcasting devices and to make a reception quality check of picture and sound in different areas of the country. A special machine was built especially for the broadcast constructed from a simple overhead projector (the one used for school lectures) connected to a television broadcaster. A technician stood next to the projector and replaced newspaper photos of different people, sites and national events every 30 seconds followed by sounds and music. The program, that lasted 30 minutes, ended with of a photo of an Israeli army missile battery and was followed by the Tchaikovsky’s - 1812 Overture where real cannons played as instruments.
During the first few minutes of the show a fly flew, accidentally, between one of the photos and the projector and viewers could see it flying across the screen.
A voice of a reporter asked viewers to report on the quality of the broadcast by sending letters to the station giving them a mailing address. Many people responded but one of the viewers, a woman, wrote and asked for one of the photos in which, as she claimed, recognized her self and her daughter picking flowers. It was actually the photographer’s wife and daughter.
One of the fears that arose by the government regarding the broadcast television was how to prevent the risk of Israeli children being exposed to Arab television that used the same channels to broadcast it’s own shows.
The Israeli television archive holds no documentation of this show. All the information about the broadcast was found in newspaper articles written around the time of the broadcast and stories told of people who were involved in the production.“

Dani Gal realises the first Israeli TV program by rebuilding the broadcast machine, collecting the photos from the Israeli photo archive and from David Haris who was the photographer of the time and by tracking down the viewers letters.
As Gal states: „By reconstructing the event that signified the beginning of the television era in Israel I will try to revile the moment in which, to my opinion, reflects the way people in Israel perceived themselves as a society and a culture at the time and how people understood the role of television.“
Dani Gal’s artistic practice is highly linked with documentation and the methodology of writing history. His art production evolves around a detailed search on the topic and bringing together various aspects. The realisation of the 1st Isareli tv program is not broadly screening the making of a tv channel but also displaying the norms of constructing a nation. The imagery and the background music are part of the similar methodologies of Italien neo-realist era or the agit-probs from the founding of the former USSR. The photos that are genuinely selected from the archies, the text on the founding of Israel within a detailed interrogation of the occurences by Yuval Benziman, the newspaper clip that display the discomfort of neighbouring Arab countries and Dani Gal’s response with an Israeli belly dancer poster has a unique togetherness in the form of stating, analyzing and commenting on the state of a foundation of a nation. In this specific case the country where the artist himself comes from.

Installation detail

The text The Fly-effect by Yuval Benziman is available to be read in the installation of Dani Gal.

The Fly-Effect
By Yuval Benziman
The first test broadcast of the National Israeli television was allegedly only a technical matter: the Educational Television broadcasts were about to begin and the Ministry
of Post (who later became the Ministry of Communication) wished to examine the quality of its transmitters. Therefore, it was decided to air an experimental broadcast. The public was asked to open their television sets in order to try to receive the transmission. The spectators were asked to write personally to the Ministry of Post, regarding the quality of the received picture and sound. The trial broadcast had not been produced by the professionals in charge of the establishment of the Educational Television; and it had also not been produced with the broadcasting equipment available at that time. Instead, a few technicians and clerks, working in the Ministry of Post, initiated a half an hour- production, which included thirty-two still photographs, changed about every forty- five seconds by one of the technicians, accompanied by background music.
On the face of it, it might not be right to denote too much meaning to this televised event: even though substantial work was probably invested into it, it was made in an amateur manner. Thus, those responsible for it probably didn’t have the intention that the broadcast would carry a significant message to the people, they only wanted to inspect the broadcasting quality. The photographs were exclusively selected by two people and the music was selected by a few others. Hence, it might be by accident or not, but examining this pilot can teach a great deal, not only about the 1966’s Israeli society, but also about the current one of 2007.

The chosen photographs tell a fascinating story about Israel in 1966. Supposedly, a growing and strengthening, pluralistic, diverse, multi-ethnic and multi-religious society, establishes its hold on the Israeli land. The formal Israeli narrative always wished to tell about the Diaspora’s assembly, about welcoming the immigrants with open arms, about the socialist society who treated the Arab minority equally, (and as a place where the native Anglo-European Ashkenazi elite is not superior in relation to the Sephardi- oriental immigrants Jews). The photos were selected to tell this story, without neglecting any subgroup of the society: men and women, people from cities and rural areas, citizens and soldiers, immigrants and natives, people from different cultures and religions. In a continuance to this idea, the photos were taken from different areas of the country: Rosh- Pinah, Haifa, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, the Negev, Ein-Ovdat etc.

It has been known in the Israeli discourse for a while that a substantial discrepancy
exists between the official Israeli narrative, told by the state and its people, and
what happened in reality itself. Actually, in 1966 Israel (as well as in 2007) there
was no equality between Jewish and non-Jewish citizens; and the current equality
of opportunity between Ashkenazi and Sephardi- oriental Jews did not exist back then.
The Israeli society was not successful in actualizing its socialist values,
which led to today’s gap between rich and poor, one of the highest in the world.
The Kibbutz project did not survive. Naïveté and innocence transformed into
aggression and pugnacity.
The wish to hold the land became a desire for occupying and dominating.
Nonetheless, in 1966, the power of the dominating hegemony was expressed not
only by inculcating the Zionist narrative in innumerable ways, but also in displaying
it as a part of the representing images of Israel in this piloting Television show.
Even though the photos were chosen by only a small number of people, there is
no doubt that their selection carried out the Jewish-Zionist narrative’s introjection.
Their position as the representatives of this hegemony reflected the view of the general public.
The trial to give visual expression to the narrative, through photographs, enfolds not only the dominating narrative itself, but also its total opposite: the effort to represent the Jewish-Zionist story in 32 images uncovers its flaws, its failures, and the contrasting narrative, which hides inside. This visual utterance shows the problematic destructive potential, and thus, its upcoming collapse.

In parallel with the naïve, even childish appearance, which invites the spectator
to identify and worship, the photographs also tell the story of an overpowering,
conquering (even before 1967), militaristic and patronizing society.
The most interesting thing is how the photos succeeded to tell the two stories at the same time, showing how the two narratives coexist and integrate into each other. Apparently,
it is a story about an innocent, just society, going through a process of development, surrounded by hostile countries, which justifies its aggression and patronization
as imposed to reality.
The photo of Jerusalem is probably the clearest demonstration of this idea. What
is more innocent and justified than screening, in the first broadcast, a picture of
the capital city of Israel, which the Jewish people have longed for thousands of years?
This is undoubtedly the city that is mostly identified with Judaism and the Zionist dream. However, the chosen photo of Jerusalem is of the eastern part that in 1966
was by no means inside the borders of Israel. The bird’s eye view photograph
demonstrates the patronizing, arrogant, conquering Israeli stance, looking to hold the territories and the holy places not belonging to it at the time. Thus, the image, which was naturally expected by most of the spectators- and no Israeli broadcast could do
without it- demonstrates in itself the viewpoint of a public looking to expand their own borders.

As it seems, choosing a photograph of east-Jerusalem was not made only for the city’s holy position. It is a part of a more general trend of displaying the Israeli border zones, for asserting Israeli control on the ground, the sea, and the sky. Once again, the Israeli
narrative with the apparently innocent story of a nation searching for its path, building itself with its own “two hands”, establishing its hold in his own new land; thus,
at the same time becomes paranoid, craving power. The desire to show
the country’s borders, the domination over the fields, the sea and the sky,
is in a way typical for people in a time of national resurrection.
Nevertheless, the photos show how easily this line is crossed.
The pastoral landscape expresses the uncontrollable urge
to display precisely the border zones in order to demonstrate
the possession (Jerusalem from its eastern part,
the sea from the west, Rosh- Hanikra at the north, the Negev in the south)
and even the urge to sometimes look a bit beyond the border…

In direct relation to the tendency to overpower is the disproportionate
reference to the notion of the army. It prevails in marches, the helicopters in the sky
and the cannons on the ground. The background music selected for the broadcast
included, besides the song ha-ga-via (the cup) of the Israeli band Ge-sher Ha-yar-kon three, Leroy Anderson’s Trumpeter’s Lullaby and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Anderson’s piece, found in most musical arsenals of military orchestras, announces that even when “civilian” images are being displayed, they are still an integral part of the military march. The musical scrap of Tchaikovsky’s piece, written purposely to tell a story of a battle (Napoleon’s defeat), emphasizes this forcefully. Choosing to finish the broadcast in showing the missiles’ photo, accompanied by the sound of the cannons in Tchaikovsky’s piece, makes it clear. In case we have not noticed the militant images and sound overload, a direct statement about the dominance of the army in the Israeli society is blatantly brought to us in the end.

Photos of the army taking over the screen, together with photos of the country’s occupation, stems from, as it appears, the Israeli fear of the neighbouring Arab countries, seen as enemies. In the context of the test broadcast itself, and without judging the Israeli narrative according to it, Israel was always a peace-proponent country, which had to defend itself from the invasions and the attacks of the surrounding Arab countries. It is clear how the fear and the terror are another aspect of aggression: Egypt and Israel had the same broadcasting frequency; the Ministry of Post’s technicians were bothered with who will win the “frequency war”. Will the Egyptian’s broadcast overpower the Israeli’s, or will the Israeli spectators receive
a split picture, both of the Israeli and the Egyptian broadcasts?
The broadcast, as it was reported in the newspapers, proved the superiority of the Israeli frequency in relation to that of the Arab countries, promising that the Israeli citizens will not have to be exposed to the Arab programs. Israel had to prove its domination over the invisible frequencies in the air as well, wherever it was possible to win a battle- it had to be actualized. Surprisingly, according to the newspapers’ reports, there were more then 30,000 Television sets in Israel by 1966. What were those Television sets actually needed for, if the first formal Israeli broadcast was yet to come? It might be that the people who bought these sets were in fact interested in watching the Arab channels, and they were directing their antennas towards them. The Ministry of Post’s spokesman was even cited in one of the newspapers, explaining that part of the spectators reported about a low quality of receiving, were in fact because “many TV sets are currently tuned to receive the TV channels of Cairo and Lebanon”. Even this potential base for communication between people from both nations, and the opportunity of getting to know the “other’s” culture - though not intentionally but as a consequence of the absence of original Israeli television- was blocked. Although, the decision that both the Israeli and the Egyptian television would be broadcast on the same channel was of the “International Organization of Telecommunication” and not an Israeli one, the Israeli institution was quite enthusiastic about this battle and announced the Israeli victory. It was also stated
that during the hours there was no Israeli broadcasting, technical means would be employed to decrease the magnitude of the Arabic broadcast, in order to “assure that school children, will not be able to watch Arab television, before or after Israeli television”.

The need to denigrate the Arab television channels influenced
the journalistic coverage of the piloting broadcast. The press cooperated
with the authorities and showed an absolute disparagement of the Arab countries’ television contents. The Israeli journalists did not ask themselves why it was that so many people
owned television sets, if not to receive non-Israeli channels. In order to express
the gap between Am Ha-Se-Fer, (“the people of the book”) and the Arab countries,
one of the newspapers at the time claimed explicitly that the Television sets’
owners “will have to endure watching the belly dancing transmitted to them from
the various channels of the neighboring countries…” explaining that ”only when
the school lessons will be transmitted, and a teacher explaining the pupils a lesson
in geography or biology…” then “the jiggly belly dancer will disappear from the screen”. In this way, the conviction of the impossibility to create something in common is transmitted through the channels, and a categorical choice has to be made between what is Israeli and what is Arabic, needless to say that “We” are better then “Them”.

The first piloting broadcast’s spectators probably felt pride. The photos gave a visual expression to their lived narrative. The Israeli citizens were shown occupying the land. They were from multiple ethnic backgrounds. They welcomed immigration. They gave expression and voice to other religions as well. They were a part of a growing tribe. They were all over the country, strong and united, on the sea, on the ground, in the sky. Moreover, they had a strong army, which gave them a feeling of security. It is reasonable to assume that they had not realized how the same photos told the story of the society’s maladies and distorted the innocent pluralistic narrative. Only in retrospect, it is feasible to detect at the same photos, not only the dominant narrative but also, the seeds of its collapse: these photos are not belligerent in themselves, but hint of the beginning of militant and aggressive tendencies, and of
the patronizing relation to the “other”. The photos’ strength is at being on the verge, of telling the story of the hegemony but at the same time, enabling the understanding of the problematic aspects embedded in it.

The images and the stories behind them reflect the contradictions of the Zionist narrative: on the one hand, a small country, managed as a socialist kibbutz, characterized by mutual responsibility, where the citizens are requested to send letters reporting about the quality of the reception. On the other hand, the newspapers reported that one of the spectators asked for a copy of one of the photographs, claiming to be a picture of her with her daughter; another spectator wished to win fame by sending his son’s Bar-Mizvah pictures to be broadcasted all over the country.
The wish to examine the quality and the magnitude of the Israeli broadcast became
an act of invalidation of the enemy’s, and the triumph of the “frequencies’ war”.
On one side, representing a country that has to defend itself and keep holding over the land, and on the other, representing the wish to expand towards other territories, and the need to demonstrate its power and justification for its right for security, rendering it militant and overpowering.

According to the reports, a fly mistakenly entered the screen, and all the viewers could watch him “stealing” the show. Supposedly, it was a small human mistake, originating from amateur work that enabled the insurgent fly to get inside the frame. However, it might be seen as a symbolic event, in which the “butterfly- effect” transformed into a “fly- effect”: the fly’s flapping wings created a disruption that implies the beginning of quaking the Jewish-Israeli Zionist narrative.

The photographs of the first test broadcast froze life for us. It was created, precisely, on the verge of a change in the Israeli national consciousness, that was actualized after 1967’s war. The fly’s taking over the screen tells us about the shape of things to come, and if one wishes to see it, as a formative event in the history of questioning the Israeli narrative.

Dr. Yuval Benziman is a cultural researcher

Translation from Hebrew Yaarit Wald

Ahmet Ogut

2007-06-08T02:31:00.000-07:00

The Book of Lost World by Ahmet Ogut, has been exhibited with three originals. The display embedded in the office structure has been specially produced for the books.

Ahmet Ogut brings the diversity of specific local determinations which appear to take place in a particular time and space relationship. Ögüt’s production of art and its patent subjectivism is anchored through the significant role of the media to construct and manipulate reality, thus he employs the images of events that appear in the daily digestive methodologies such as newspapers, television, and recaptures those images in a totally different frame. In his work titled Coloring Book which has been co-produced with Sener Özmen, the images of the circumstances taking place in the east part of Turkey has been selected and brought together in the form of a coloring book. The images represented in the coloring book addresses itself to the audience that is first asked to witness and interfere and at the same time questioning its underlying position and manipulation. His work, in the exhibition, titled The Book of Lost World which comes in a three dimensional fairy tale book format is sequel to the coloring book. Through the pages of his latest work, the layers of the collective memory and its represented state is being displayed in simple drawings , while concentrating attention on the diversity of its determinations which appear to mark a certain narrative.

The pictorial narratives are brought to the forefront in the works of Ögüt in a variety of ways, through using mediums that actually appear and used in for different concepts. Ögüt’s works not only appear as a documentation of a specific geography and history but also display a critical stance against what is actually taking place: The patriarchal society as a strikingly “non-anonymous” society, a society based on attributive-subjective, personal participation in historical processes. Therefore, not only does this art reveal some specific, local obsessions and phantasms: in its imagery, we clearly recognize signs of the current global paths of civilization.

Zbigniew Libera

2007-06-08T02:17:00.000-07:00

There has been 500 copies of postcards produced of Zbigniew Libera's photograph titled Che, 2002. The postcards are for take away. The small scale mass production of a new reality of Che is in collision with Che Guevara as an icon which has been massively produced in various mediums; t-shirts, pins, jackets, cigarettes...
Courtesy of Atlas Szuki

Zbigniew Libera- is in the pursuit of the "facts," rather than fetishizing empirical data by suggesting that they might be relied upon to provide the interpretations that are actually forced on them by particular consequences. In substituting an interpretive agenda for the allegedly neutral dedication to description, Libera juxtaposes a simulation through restaging historical events.
Zbigniew Libera’s encounter with the past may constitute a retreat from the cultural values of the present, one that valorizes the qualities that distinguish the culture of another moment in time. The images are identified with a mentor, so the audience of Libera’s reconstructed images may identify with a historical period, in which case the interpretive construct that arises from this encounter of the present and the past may well be marked by transference. The values of another horizon may be adopted, and used in the construction of a historical narrative. While the audience will inevitably project into the past, the values of the contemporary world, as well as those of the selected historiographic paradigms, a historical interpretation may in turn be unconsciously shaped by the values of another horizon that have been incorporated into the construction of the past in the present. This intention can be evaluated as a way to posit a direct connection between the images selected from history and the re-established relational aesthetics. In this scenario, the introduction of the personal serves to ground the narrative in the artist’s intention, in such a way as to make the intimate bond between subjectivity and memory serve as an unassailable foundation for the images being presented. On this view, the re-made image of Che Guevara as a strong anecdote from history is dominant, thus instructing the original through undermining the authority of the original. The viewer is being defamiliarized through an interpretative desertification process. Libera, constructing his images through veining of effect, points out the multitude of reality. The reality that have shaped our subjectivities, not necessarily accessible to that subjectivity as such, it is inevitable that the character of the individual narration, the production of Libera is full of implications for the historical moment in which it is composed, can be fully recognized but not evaluated in the one-to-one correspondence.

Assuming, then, that identity is an "ongoing process of differentiation," what conclusions can we draw from the work of Libera? How do we conceive of the discursive practices of which the history is an "effect," and what is the nature of the "agency" they posses in the production of an historical interpretation?
First, how rationally are disciplinary paradigms of knowledge production transmitted and received? To what extent is the production enabling references? Libera's series titled Positives, are establishing a composed language of visual culture through the images produced. The photography work by Libera extends the notion of how reality is placed and modified. Secondly, the call for the construction of a unique subjectivity, the cult of the exceptional individual, is, of course, also the heritage of a culture deeply invested in the ideology. And third, Libera is simply duplicating or creatively extending and manipulating an established disciplinary paradigm. Paradoxical as it appears in a positivist tradition that insists that the historian's task is to afford the public access to the truth a process that might be undertaken, presumably, by anyone.

Opening / Vernissage / Acilis

2007-06-08T01:58:00.000-07:00

Press Release

2007-05-25T02:38:00.000-07:00

scroll down for German version

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PRESSRELEASE

GfKFB presents

The Lost Moment
curated by Fatos Üstek
1st June – 7th July 2007

Artists: Ahmet Ögüt, Annika Lundgren, bankleer, Bashir Borlakov, Dani Gal, Florian Wüst, Kirstine Roepstorrf, Zbigniew Libera

Opening: 31st Mai 2007, 7 – 9 pm
Press Opening: 31st Mai 2007, 6 – 7 pm
Opening Party: 31st Mai 2007 at Ohio/Schlesische Str. 35 A,Starts 9 pm
Venue: GfKFB, Am Flutgraben 3, 12435 Berlin
Opening Hours: Di – Fr, 2 – 6 pm; Sa 2 – 7 pm

The Lost Moment stands for a variety of moments in which the decisive action has been abstracted, made invisible, manipulated during the process of transmission to the society.
The four events that take place under the roof of the project are an urge to gather attitudes and reflections on the concept of the lost moment. The Sessions host Academicians, Activists, Artists and Curators. The Film Excursions by Tobias Hering will be an attempt to discuss the concept through the medium film. The book produced in collaboration with Bik Van der Pol has 33 contributions of artists, art historians, anthropologists, curators and writers who reflect their understanding of the concept in their production.

Sessions organised and moderated by Fatos Üstek (held in English)

02nd June 2007, 06 pm ‘Paradigms of Contemporary Society’
Art and Literature as Registers of the Lost Moment of Trauma by Sibel Irzik
The consequences of consequences - climate change & conflict by Dan Smith
About superman’s absence in NYC at 9-11-2001 by Gusztav Hamos

06th June 2007, 06 pm Discussion
Magic & Politics, with Annika Lundgren
Positives, with Zbigniew Libera
Films about, besides and despite the lost moment, with Tobias Hering

09th June 2007, 06 pm Discussion
The talking Mountain of Israel, with Dani Gal
REALE RESTE / REAL REMNANTS, with bankleer
Belated Advocacy, with Florian Wüst

30th June 2007, 06 pm Rethinking the Project ‘The Lost Moment’
Discussion with Bik Van der Pol, Mari Brellochs, Nikola Dietrich and Kirstine Roepstorff

Special Zombie Night
06th July 2007, 10 pm with bankleer, Tobias Hering, Dani Gal, Shannon Bool and Thomas Schmitt

Film Excursions will take place on 7/14/21/28. June, 5.July.2007, where the meetings will be held in front of the building, am Flutgraben 3, at 9 pm.

The Lost Moment is taking place in the Irrtum-Program by GfKFB - Gesellschaft für künstlerische Forschung Berlin - Society for Artistic Research Berlin. GfKFB perceives itself as a platform for work and communication, as a laboratory, host and contact spot for projects, initiatives, activists, artists, and scientists in the field of artistic research and transdisciplinary cooperations that aim at a constant extension of art and deduced models, starting points, playgrounds, solutions, complications, questions, and fragments emerging from the research on artistic practice, processes and methods. Artistic research is understood as artistic practice in itself (in contrast to the traditional understanding of art-research in art history and science of art). GfKFB is hosted by Flutgraben e.V. Berlin.

GfKFB
Am Flutgraben 3, 12435 Berlin
Tel.: ++49(0)30-53013280
gfkfb@kunstfabrik.org , www.kunstfabrik.org

www.thelostmoment.blogspot.com

Supported by the Danish Art Council, Hering GmbH + Co. KG and the Berlin Department for Cultural Affairs.

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Pressemitteilung

Die GfKFB präsentiert:

The Lost Moment
kuratiert von Fatos Üstek
1. Juni – 7.Juli 2007

beteiligte Künstler: Ahmet Ögüt, Annika Lundgren, bankleer, Bashir Borlakov, Dani Gal, Florian Wüst, Kirstine Roepstorff, Zbigniew Libera

Eröffnung: 31.Mai 2007, 19 – 21 Uhr
Pressegespräch: 31.Mai 2007, 18 – 19 Uhr
Eröffnungsparty: 31.Mai 2007 im Ohio/Schlesische Str. 35 A, ab 21 Uhr
Ort: GfKFB, Am Flutgraben 3, 12435 Berlin
Öffnungszeiten: Di – Fr, 14 – 18 Uhr; Sa 14 – 19 Uhr

The Lost Moment hinterfragt politische Entscheidungsmechanismen, die im Prozess ihrer Übertragung in gesellschaftliche Realität abstrahiert, manipuliert und unsichtbar gemacht wurden.
Das Projekt mit seinen vier Hauptelementen - der Ausstellung, den Diskussionsrunden, einer Filmreihe und einer Publikation – zielt darauf ab, Haltungen und Aspekte dieser Entscheidungsprozesse im konzeptuellen Zusammenhang zu reflektieren. Zu den Gesprächsrunden (sessions) werden Referenten aus wissenschaftlichen, künstlerischen und kuratorischen Feldern eingeladen, um mit den beteiligten KünstlerInnen zu diskutieren. Im Rahmen des von Tobias Hering gestalteten Filmprogramms werden während der Ausstellung jeden Donnerstag Filme gezeigt. Die Publikation entsteht in Zusammenarbeit mit der Künstlergruppe Bik Van der Pol und versammelt 33 Beiträge von KünstlerInnen, KunsthistorikerInnen, KuratorInnen und SchriftstellerInnen, die in ihrer Arbeit zum Thema des Projektes reflektierend Bezug nehmen.

Sessions organisiert und moderiert von Fatos Üstek (in englisch):

02.06.2007, 18 Uhr ‚Paradigmen der gegenwärtigen Gesellschaft’
Kunst und Literatur als Medium der Aufzeichnung vom ‚verlorenen Moment’ des Traumas, mit Sibel Irzik
Die Konsequenzen der Konsequenzen, Klimawandel & Konflikte, mit Dan Smith
Über Supermans Abwesenheit in NY am 11 September 2001,
mit Gusztav Hamos

06.06.2007, 18 Uhr Diskussion
Magie & Politik, mit Annika Lundgren
Positives, mit Zbigniew Libera
Filme über, neben und trotz des 'verlorenen Moments', mit Tobias Hering

09.06.2007, 18 Uhr Diskussion
Der sprechende Felsen Israels, mit Dani Gal
REALE RESTE, mit bankleer
Verspätete Befürwortung, mit Florian Wüst

30.06.2007, 18 Uhr Die Konzeption des Projektes „The Lost Moment“
Diskussion mit Bik Van der Pol, Mari Brellochs, Nikola Dietrich und Kirstine Roepstorff

Special Zombie Night:
06.07.2007, 22 Uhr mit bankleer, Tobias Hering, Dani Gal, Shannon Bool und Thomas Schmitt

Die Film Exkursionen finden am 7./14./21./28. Juni und am 5.Juli 2007 statt, der Treffpunkt ist vor dem Gebäude, am Flutgraben 3, jeweils um 21 Uhr.

The Lost Moment findet im Rahmen des Irrtumsprogramms der GfKFB - Gesellschaft für künstlerische Forschung Berlin, statt. Die GfKFB versteht sich als eine Kommunikations- und Arbeitsplattform; als Labor künstlerischer Forschung; als Gastgeberin und Ansprechpartnerin für Projekte, Initiativen, AktivistInnen, KünstlerInnen, WissenschaftlerInnen im Feld der transdiziplinären Zusammenarbeit, die auf die stetige Erweiterung der Kunst zielt und auf daraus abgeleitete Modelle, Ansatzpunkte, Spielfelder, Lösungen, Verwicklungen, Fragen und Fragmente. „Künstlerische Forschung“ wird dabei selbst als originäre künstlerische Praxis verstanden (im Unterschied zu kunstwissenschaftlicher Forschung, die Kunst oder künstlerische Tätigkeit zu ihrem Gegenstand macht). GfKFB ist ein Projekt des Flutgraben e.V. Berlin.

GfKFB
Am Flutgraben 3, 12435 Berlin
Tel.: ++49(0)30-53013280
gfkfb@kunstfabrik.org , www.kunstfabrik.org

www.thelostmoment.blogspot.com

Dieses Projekt wird gefördert durch das Danish Art Council, Hering GmbH + Co. KG und die Kulturverwaltung des Berliner Senats.

The Lost Moment Project in Berlin

2007-05-03T07:41:00.000-07:00

-Exhibition:
curated by Fatos Üstek
with Ahmet Ögüt, Annika Lundgren, bankleer, Bashir Borlakov, Dani Gal, Florian Wüst, Kirstine Roepstorff, Zbigniew Libera
at GfKFB / Kunstfabrik am Flutgraben e.V. Am Flutgraben 3 - 12435 Berlin
31.05.2007 – 07.07.2007
open between 13:00 – 18:00 except Mondays, Tuesdays

-Film Excursions
by Tobias Hering
31.05.2007 – 07.07.2007
venue to be announced with the film program

-Sessions
organised and moderated by Fatos Üstek
02.06.07 Sibel Irzik, Dan Smith, Gusztav Hamos
06.06.07 Annika Lundgren, Zbigniew Libera, Tobias Hering
09.06.07 Dani Gal, bankleer, Florian Wüst
30.06.07 Bik Van der Pol, Mari Brellochs, Nikola Dietrich, Kirstine Roepstorff
07.07.07 Special Zombie Night
always starts at 18:00, GfKFB / Kunstfabrik am Flutgraben e.V. Am Flutgraben 3 Berlin

-Book
Collaboration of Fatos Üstek and Bik Van der Pol.
The Contributors:
Jun Yang / Jason Coburn / Anita di Bianco / Ariane Müller / Eva-Maria Kollischan / Carla Ahlander & Gernot Wieland/ Marc Volk / Peter Lutje / Manray Hsu / Maren Richter / Mary Bouquet / Binna Choi / Sven Lüttiken / Katharina Zdjelar / Juul Hondius / Libia Castro & Olafur Olafursson / Shep Steiner / Babak Afrassiabi & Nasrin Tabatabai/ Yane Calovski / Arnoud Holleman / Jan Kopp / Heman Chong / Runo Lagomarsino / Adel Abidin / Dilek Hüseyinzadegan / Sibel Irzik / Banu Cennetoglu / Asli Cavusoglu / Gulcin Aksoy / Rene Gabri / Ayreen Anastas / Raimundas Malasauskas

The Lost Moment Concept

2007-05-03T07:39:00.000-07:00

IN English:
Rejecting to be a symptom of a theory complex, the Lost Moment aims to bring out various aspects of the recent history into discussion by engaging artistic practices in a political interrogation.

The Lost Moment stands for variety of moments in which the decisive action has been abstracted, made invisible, manipulated during the process of transmission to the society. The enormous amount of data flow versus the minor amount of knowledge production is the matter of fact of today’s society. Receiving loads of information through various agents and producing from it an approximation of knowledge, creates the false consciousness typical for in today’s society.
The Lost Moment tends to underline the positioning of the political decisions in the last fifteen years within the processes of decision making and the reflections of those decisions onto the society. In the last 25 years, the decisions made for large-scale social changes have been reflected through manipulated acts and data. Thus the decisions appear to be abstracted from their realms or at least unrelated to their process and infra-structure. The specific time and space frame of decision making appears to be invisible in relation to the process of its realization. More importantly, the decisions made on local and global political domains play an effective role on structuring the society and social understanding, thus on the evaluation and devaluation of events taking place. The construction of social belonging in accordance with the decision making mechanisms structures the dialogue, the understanding, the passive-active involvement of the individuals.
Within the massive flow of information on a specific event, the decisions being made, appear to be not there, not here, not there of... That is to say, the concept of the sovereign in political theory is currently experiencing a turn over.
In the modern era, concept of the sovereign was identified with the state and the apparatuses of the state. The playful state of the sovereign in the 90’s, during a period of simulacra and simulation, is being shaken by the uprising call for the real today. The fragmented state of knowledge is no longer satisfactory for constructing an understanding of the whole picture.

With the exhibition titled The Lost Moment, I want to display different approaches on the realities we are surrounded by and construct an awareness of the blind spots of the socio-political presences. Furthermore, I intend to bring several questions out through the works selected and the seminars during the exhibition. These questions are not aiming at the actual moment of loss or act of decision making, they are rather meant to surround these notorious invisibilities with their ironic, confronting, re-editing, conglomerating potential.

Deutsch:
The Lost Moment ist nicht als Diskursbeitrag oder Baustein zu einem Theoriegebäude gedacht. The Lost Moment zielt darauf, verschiedene Aspekte der jüngeren Zeitgeschichte herauszuarbeiten, indem künstlerische Positionen und Praktiken in eine politische Befragung verwickelt werden.

The Lost Moment steht für eine Vielzahl von Prozessen, deren entscheidende, handlungsgeladene Momente auf dem Weg der Übertragung in die Öffentlichkeit abstrahiert, unsichtbar gemacht oder manipuliert wurden. Der Gegensatz von enormem Datenaustausch einerseits und unzureichender Wissensbildung andererseits ist eine hegemoniale Tatsache der heutigen Gesellschaft. Sich aus der unüberschaubaren Menge von Informationen, die einem von verschiedenen Akteuren übermittelt werden, eine Annäherung an ein angenommenes Wissen zu fabrizieren: das ist der Herstellungsprozess des für die heutige Gesellschaft typischen „falschen Bewusstseins“.

The Lost Moment versucht, die Bedeutung politischer Entscheidungen der letzten 15 Jahre für allgemeine Prozesse der Entscheidungsfindung herauszustellen, und auch sichtbar zu machen, wie diese Entscheidungen wiederum in der Gesellschaft abgebildet werden, wie über sie kommuniziert wird. Schwerwiegende Entscheidungen der letzten 15 Jahre, die zu gravierenden gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen geführt haben, wurden mittels manipulierter Handlungen und Daten kommuniziert. Sie erscheinen abstrahiert von ihrer konkreten Wirklichkeit, oder zumindest losgelöst von dem Prozess und der Infrastruktur, an denen sie Teil haben. Ort und Zeitpunkt der Entscheidung bleiben unsichtbar, während sich die Realisierung des Entschiedenen und dessen Folgen in scheinbar vollkommener Sichtbarkeit ereignen. Diese Diskrepanz ist umso bedeutsamer, weil die politischen Entscheidungen, die auf globaler oder lokaler Ebene gefällt werden, gestaltend in die gesellschaftlichen Beziehungen und die Art, wie diese verstanden werden, eingreifen. Politische Entscheidungen beeinflussen maßgeblich die Art und Weise, wie tatsächliche Ereignisse bewertet, entwertet werden. In gleichem Maße wie die Mechanismen der Entscheidungsfindung strukturieren auch die Konstrukte sozialer Zugehörigkeit den Dialog, das Verständnis und die aktive-passive Teilnahme des Einzelnen.

Mitten in einem massiven Datenstrom über ein spezifisches Ereignis wird es dennoch so aussehen, als seien die Entscheidungen, die zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt gefällt wurden, nicht da, nicht hier, nicht ausschlaggebend oder nicht zur Sache. Damit erlebt das Konzept der Souveränität in der politischen Theorie derzeit eine radikale Veränderung. Die Moderne identifizierte den Souverän mit dem Staat und den staatlichen Institutionen. Dem folgenden spielerischen Umgang mit dem Souverän in den 90ern, während einer Phase der Simulakren und Simulationen, wird durch den zunehmend lauter werdenden Ruf nach einer „Rückkehr des Realen“ heute ein Ende gesetzt. Das fragmentarische Wissen und das kreative „Basteln“ werden nicht länger als befriedigend erfahren. Die Forderung nach dem Gesamtbild stellt sich mit neuer Dringlichkeit.

Mit der Ausstellung The Lost Moment möchte ich einige künstlerische Annäherungen an die uns umgebende Realität vorstellen, um damit die blinden Stellen unserer socio-politischen Aktualitäten ins Bewusstsein zu rücken. Darüber hinaus möchte ich durch die Zusammenstellung der ausgewählten Arbeiten und in den die Ausstellung begleitenden Seminaren einige konkrete Fragen aufwerfen. Diese Fragen zielen nicht unmittelbar auf den tatsächlichen Moment des Verlusts oder der Entscheidung. Ich stelle mir eher vor, dass sie diese notorischen Unsichtbarkeiten mit ihrem ironischen, konfrontierenden, rekapitulierenden und zusammenführenden Potenzial umstellen und einkreisen.

Turkce:
Karar verme mekanizmalarinin gorunur gorunmez bir surec izledigi, yogun veri akisinin bazi yorum asamalarindan gecerek ve donusume ugrayarak gerceklestigi bilgisinden yola cikarak, bu karar verme mekanizmalarin isleyisi, yari transparan bir forma büründürülmüs olan 'gercegin' etkileri üzerine kollektif bir yorum sergisi olarak tanimlanabilir. Ozellikle son on bes yila odaklanan sergi, olaylarin hangi algi süreclerinden gecerek gerceklik bulduguna dair bir sorgulama. Körfez savasi ile baslayan simulasyon fantazisi günümüzde yerini gerceklige özleme birakmis durumda. Bu özlemin totaliter bir özlem oldugunu savunmuyorum kesinlikle. Fakat, her dakika maruz kaldigimiz görüntüler ve haberlerin bir kakafoni yarattigini ve asil olanin geride kaldigini imlemek amacindayim. Irak savasinin karar asamasina tanik olmadan savasin kendisine görüntüleri üzerinden tanik olmaktan, ve hatta bu görüntülerin kesintili, sansüre ugramis, degistirilmis, yeniden duzenlenmis görüntüler ve anlamlar olmasindan bahsediyorum. Bu noktada, kayip an kavrami benim icin onemli bir anlam teskil ediyor. Bu kayip anlar üzerinden toplumsal bellek ve algida kör noktalarin olustugunu ve bu kör noktalarin sosyal aidiyet, pasif veya aktif bireysel konumlanmada belirleyici oldugunu savunuyorum. Kayip an son on bes yildaki bir andan bahsetmiyor, cogullugunu imliyor. Bu cogullugu da gerek sergide yer alan sanatcilarin isleri üzerinden, film serisi ile, dört seminer ve sergi kitabi ile acmayi ve vurgu yapmayi amacliyorum.