SYNTROPIA

Artistic strategies, interventions and social action

30 June–30 July 2007
Opening: 29 June 2007

Exhibition
Publication

Intervention in public space

Location(s):
NGBK, Oranienstraße 25
verschiedene Orte in Kreuzberg

Artists

Ei Arakawa, Diana Arthus , Christine Berndt, Peter Boerboom, Stefanie Bürkle, Rachel Dagnall, Jonas Eggen, Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius, Bob Grieve, Sirko Knüpfer, Anna Katharina Laggner, Gabriele Obermaier, Simon Polli, Raumlabor , Per Sander, Lucy Skaer, Carola Vogt, Klaus Weber, Silke Witzsch

Project group RealismusStudio

Hildtrud Ebert, Anke Hoffmann, Christin Lahr, Mara Traumane, Frank Wagner, Susanne Weiß

In the title of the new RealismusStudio exhibition the concepts of syntropia and utopia merge. Six art projects will be presenting themselves to public scrutiny at various locations throughout the city –the NGBK is one of them.

The concept of “syntropia” was introduced to scholarly debate by the Italian mathematician Luigi Fantappié in 1944 and describes the ability of living systems to align themselves in accordance with a future state of optimal organization. Unlike the idea of entropy, which assumes that systems tend towards a balancing out of energy levels, syntropia is characterized by the concentration of energy through order, by the production of differences as well as by the system’s ability to work to counter entropic death.
Stories from near and far are told under a mobile, artificial starry sky. Over the course of a week a mobile bar will be created, integrating itself into the Kreuzberg CSD for a time and evoking memories of the origins of the queer and lesbian movement. An experiment is being undertaken to provide the population of Kreuzberg with electricity from a public socket. A homemade tornado rages through Oranienstraße. Prototypes for a tea-service represent another stage in the attempt to realize Tatlin’s famous archtitectural vision of a “monument to the Third International 0 10”, as a monument to a grand utopia. Graffiti tags are subjected to significant changes.

SYNTROPIA introduces artistic positions that focus on interventions and social activity. Interactions and interventions in urban systems play a role as does the reassignment of value to urban spaces and examinations of the rules, guiding concepts, statements and displays that prevail there. In this, the interfaces between so called public and private space are pivotal.

All the artistic projects shown are concerned with principles of reutilization, reassessment, distribution and allocation. They infiltrate history, economics and architecture and alter their systems in distinctive ways.

SYNTROPIA deals with artistic strategies which employ means such as affirmation, camouflage and subversive infiltration as well as methods such as irritation or open protest. All the works share the vision of bundling artistic energies so as to achieve positive reassessments and to reevaluate and/or change public spaces in sustainable ways.

Events:

RIOT THE 8 BARS

by Ei Arakawa

Oranienstrasse 25, U8 Kottbusser Tor, Berlin
June 22 to June 29, 2007
Opening Hour: 20:00 till after midnight

Friday, June 22
a day of 2.5euro Manhattan
Nick Mauss reading Denton Welch (interrupted by L. D.)
Free drinks for Lukas Duwenhögger
Julian Göethe - selection for Japanese Restaurant
Klara Liden “Bodies of Society”
James Tsang live performance
Sound Installation by Bill Dietz
Mid-night Guitar Noodling by John Miller
Bar staff recomposing BARS with NGBK employees and Q Takaki

Saturday, June 23
a day of 2.5euro Sex on the Beach
Cheyney Thompson - Ibiza Apocalypse with Lanka Tattersall/Ken Okiishi
Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt - Stonewall Inn 1969 interview
Julian Göethe - selection for Japanese Restaurant
Basso Posters and Mix CD by Sebastian
Free drinks for Yusuf Etiman
Sound Installation by Bill Dietz (interrupted by the police)
Bar staff recomposing BARS for Oranienstrasse with Klara Liden and her friend

Sunday, June 24
a day of 2.5 euro Lond Island Ice Tea (slow night)
Savage Love Podcast
Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt - Stonewall Inn 1969 interview
DJ Ipek Ipekcioglu of Gayhane (interrupted by the police)
Sound Installation by Bill Dietz
Bar staff recomposing BARS with 2 customers: Karl Holmquist and Henning Bohl
Dance by Ipek Ipekcioglu and her friend

Monday, June 25
a day of 2.5euro Mojito
Rhythm King and Her Friends screening
Ken Okiishi performance with Negar Azimi
Arthur Russell Film Teaser by Matt Wolf
Arthur Russell/Phill Niblock “Terrace of Unintelligibility” (1988)
Domininique Eichler reading for Richard Hawkins (with Daniel)
Skype talk with Richard Hawkins
Skype talk with LTTR
Sound Installation by Bill Dietz
Bar staff recomposing BARS with Ken Okiishi and Nick Mauss
Mid-night Guitar Noodling by John Miller

Tuesday, June 26
a day of 2.5euro Whiskey Sour
Jay Chang and Q Takaki Maeda “Terayama & Tanigawa” video letters
Gerry Bibby live performance
Nora Schulz live copy machine
Danh Vo might pick screening
Sound Installation by Bill Dietz
Bar staff recomposing BARS with Nora Schulz
Mid-night Guitar Noodling by John Miller

Wednesday, June 27
a day of 2.5euro Cosmopolitan
Annika Larrson Film
Tobias Bernstrup sings live
Skype talks with Joshua Thorson and David Carter
Sound Installation by Bill Dietz
Bar staff recomposing BARS with Annika Larrson
Mid-night Guitar Noodling by John Miller

Thursday, June 28
a day of 2.5euro Tequila Sunrise
Julia Lazarus - Heilingendamm 2007 preview
Josef Strau and His Friends, exclusive live
Emily Sundblad , late night net-live
Free drinks for Henrik Olsen
Sound Installation by Bill Dietz
Bar staff recomposing BARS with TBA
Mid-night Guitar Noodling by John Miller

Friday, June 29
a day of 2.5euro Red Bull Vodka
RIOT THE 8 BARS Accounting Report by Lith
Susan Winterling - Elusive Girl - performance
Megan Sullivan talks on Charlotte Posenenske on TV
Sound Installation and CD distribution by Bill Dietz
Free drinks for Rosa von Praunheim
Bar staff recomposing BARS with TBA
Mid-night Guitar Noodling by John Miller (live?)