Utopia Station at DasTAT/Bockenheimer Depot
Warum Erst Jetzt? / Why Only Now?
04 February - 31 May 31 2004
DasTAT/Bockenheimer Depot
Bockenheimer Warte
60325 Frankfurt am Main
tel: +49-069-212-37435
www.DasTAT.de
A season of performances, events, exchanges
Curated by Louise Neri
image: Patti Smith, Utopia Station poster project
Plans for Utopia Station continue. The poster show has been shown at the Haus der Kunst in Munich and at Kunst + Projekte in Sindelfingen. The poster project at e-flux site has registered more than 15,000 downloads, which means that the posters are in constant, unplanned circulation around the world. Other new opportunities are presenting themselves. The Venice Biennale plans a tour of Southern Italy which will put Utopia Station in Naples this July. As the project goes forward however it is changing. One flexible structure does not fit every circumstance. We shall need others.
Last year at DasTAT/Bockenheimer Depot we were invited to meet as part of its programme Public Life. This year we will convene again there under the auspices of its 2004 season Warum Erst Jetzt?/Why Only Now? (www.DasTAT.de) on March 19th, 20th and 21st.
That March 20th has also been designated as the time for the next worldwide peace march has thrown us into the arms of some great chance operation. For last year’s Utopia Station meeting in Poughkeepsie found itself in the middle of the first of the worldwide peace marches. Their success led the New York Times to declare the great surge into the streets the second superpower. But what kind of superpower is this? And what is its culture? Is it always and already ours?
In Poughkeepsie the discussion led inevitably to the question of our relation to the politics sweeping through the streets that weekend. This year we should like to begin there. Many of those working on Utopia Station, not to exclude those of you reading this, have implicitly, or explicitly, embraced the movement of the demonstration in their work. Does that embrace include the movement of movements, as the World Social Forum (which has been meeting in Porto Alegre, this year in Mumbai) calls itself? Is our effort at Utopia Station part of the wider surge that sees that Another World To Be Possible? Is Another World a Chance Operation? Or not?
We must operate now.
The discussion has only just begun. You are cordially invited to join it.
Speakers on March 20th include Elizabeth Linden, Raqs Media Collective, Julian Roder, Bruno Serralongue, and Immanuel Wallerstein.
Arto Lindsay will give a concert that evening.
Speakers March 21st will be Thomas Bayerle, Michael Beutler, Daniel Birnbaum, Stefano Boeri, Ecke Bonk, Cerith Wyn Evans, Avery Gordon, Michael Hirsch, Tobias Rehberger, Tomas Saraceno and Anton Vidokle.
The video program will include work by Bernadette Corporation, John Bock, Disquiet Tectonica, Marine Hugonnier, Jonas Mekas, Deimantas Narkevicius, Philippe Parreno, Nick Relph and Oliver Payne, Anri Sala and Edi Rama, Agnes Varda, and Yang Fudong.
Molly Nesbit, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Rirkrit Tiravanija will present and moderate the ongoing discussion.
Friday March 19 22h00-24h00 late night video screenings
Saturday March 20 16h-20h30 discussions and video screenings 21h30 Arto Lindsay concert
Sunday March 21 14h-19h discussions and video screenings 20h00 Video screenings
Additional funding has been provided by the Haus der Kunst, Munich.