Projektbeschreibung in Englisch – Project Description
		By Kenneth A. Balfelt
		Now we are here, lets build a new world • East + West = Best For Berlin-Alexanderplatz "Urban Art Stories" and Where we all find ways – circulation as matter, to be transformed • (East+West=Best) For "Urban Circulation" Lichtenberg Berlin URBAN PANIC The city is historically an escape away from the old forces of nature, uncertainty, criminals and enemies into a safe life behind city walls, justice and order. But times have changed so that the city is rather the site for such threats and the countryside is associated with harmony and peace of mind. But even though, the move to the city is a historical path. Because of this the city is an attempt to create something sustainable and an end-solution to the needs of its citizens! The city was and is a work in progress towards utopia. But because history can never be physically erased, because there are always traces of the past it cannot be totally forgotten and the preparation for the utopia is forever postponed. The "in progress" is the only thing stable.1 Within this trajectory, Berlin has undergone a great change towards the better. With the unification a great step, it was believed, was taken towards progress. But as this condition is so much in progress, so much not reached, rather a state of what we could call "Urban Panic" is reached, to take a condition Rem Koolhaas consciously injects in his urban planning; called "practice of panic". This I forward to say that "Urban Panic" is two sides of the same coin – one side, is in order to infuse possibilities, entrepreneurship, movement, the unfinished as a facilitator for ideas and many other conditions now present in Berlin. The other side is uncertainty, frustration and fear. But contrary to Koolhaas' loathing for the historical, Berlin is inscribed in history not to say an embodiment of history. But there is a problem. The communistic era cannot be historicized. Communism turned society into a model of society and was therefore post-national. It did not let the society be a product of history and thereby something unique but something artificial that could be exported and imported from country to country. Therefore this era is now merely seen as a break or pause in the national project, and this national project is now what Germany and the other eastern countries have returned to. Also, a story needs a hero to be told and as we still live in a time of national states there need to be a national state, and not a temporary project as communism, as hero for our history writing to work. An episode only becomes part of history of mankind when it is an episode in the history of the national state2. Therefore communism as a historical event we can learn from is slipping through our fingers like sand! So both from the perspective of the idea of the city as utopia as well as the condition of the communistic era as not part of history we live in an time of 'erasure in progress'. And an erasure of contributions from the people of DDR. To me, Germany had a historic chance to unify two systems into one. To use good ideas, structures and systems from the past DDR times and pare them with good ideas from liberal capitalism. The ideas from the DDR time we could have used did not need to be communistic. They could have sprung out of that ideology but could also just be ideas produced in that period. What is important is that every kind of idea has been repressed after the reunion in order to give place a total take-over by liberal capitalism. 1. Inspired by 'Total Tourism' by Boris Groys in Lettre International, no. 6 December 2004 2. 'The Post-communistic situation' by Boris Groys in Le Monde Diplomatique January 2005 My project is about how to revive some of the ideas and systems from the DDR period that could be useful today. I want first to collect these ideas and then put one or more of them into practice. The knowledge production of so many people and with a great effort must not be buried in the ruins of a time repressed and forgotten. One aspect of this wish from my side is that the DDR period was a doubtful implementation of communism. To me Marxism and communism carry in it a focus on community and love as the platform of society rather than earning, buying and consuming. This focus means that a different evaluation system than the capitalistic one creates an emphasis on people and their interaction rather than on products. An emphasis on progress for mankind rather than for products. What is intriguingly interesting is what this emphasis produced of ideas and solutions on all levels of life! This is a hard task though, because the system of fear and repression from the dictatorial government also created situations that led to the development of systems that might not be of any use today! Method and Working Process For this project I want to talk to al kinds of people who lived under the DDR and collect ideas that they think were, and maybe still are, good and valuable. My emphasis will be on ideas about how to run things, how to create a better society, good relations between people and how to address a public. The result of this process will manifest itself in the following: For Berlin-Alexanderplatz 1. The collection will be structured and launched on a web page and maybe a folder. The latter is presented in the connected info point of the exhibition 2. An implementation of one or more of such an idea, solution or structure in real life One place to centre the project around could be in Rote Rathaus, which was also the Town Hall during the DDR period, and where a lot of former DDR Town Hall staff still are. One example of an idea that might be useful today I heard about is gender equality where the Eastern European countries should be ahead of the West. What did they do to secure this and how did it work in practice? For Urban Circulation Lichtenberg Berlin 3. The collection will be structured and launched on a web page and maybe a folder. The latter is presented in the connected gallery/info point of the exhibition 4. A poster that presents ideas and advertise the homepage and folder 5. An implementation of one or more of such an idea, solution or structure in real life The latter part will be a collaborative project with a community or self-organizing group in Lichtenberg's Victoriastadt near Ostkreuz. Through the project "No One Can Wake Up" that I did in Berlin I researched on self-organizing groups and found a great and vital life of these. Therefore it is possible that I would like to use this drive as part of my project by working together with one of these groups. The projects will very much be formed in a process of interaction with people from resp. Alexanderplatz and Lichtenberg. Therefore the project as described above is only a direction or starting point. Another factor is that the two projects have the same starting point and that this might spin off good ideas and exchanges between them. I look very much forward to doing these projects. Kenneth A. Balfelt March 2005
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