Art between On and Off

Self-organization, approaches to social reform, and the dangers of neoliberalism

About thirty self-run Hamburg exhibition spaces and organizations collaboratively produced the Wir sind woanders symposium in Fall 2006. This volume collects the speaker‘s presentations held at the event‘s closing congress. Topics spanned areas such as the critical questioning of the term Off-art, the exemplary nature of artistic practice for social processes, and examples of successful, as well as unsuccessful, self-organization. The texts have been ordered in a loose way, starting out with treatments of art-in-Hamburg phenomena. Then the focus moves on to general questions and, naturally, the moral dimension of this story. The series ends on a Realpolitik note, also addressing what can be demanded under current conditions.

As a well-versed and longtime observer of the Hamburg art-scene, Hans Christian Dany has changed his talk into a foreword. Tim Voss, one of the symposium coordinators, has a look back, trying to see the upside of such mega-projects, his newsanchor-tone wavering nonetheless, consistent with the realities of trying to direct a heap of people whose potential for chaos is quite underestimated.

Gerald Raunig addresses institutional critique and shows the impossibility of conducting it from a neutral standpoint. As an alternative, he suggests instituent practices: open, procedural forms of institution-critical, yet not institution-free, action. Michael Lingner focuses on artist funding. He contrasts a practice of open, transparent, and discursive selection processes involving the concerned artists (as experts in the matter) to the usual open call/competition/stipend jury-process.

The problem with the term Off: basically, it can only be defined in demarcation to something else. On, by this token, is the most difficult counter-term. Holger Kube Ventura sees unclarity at the close of his terminological investigation, and that‘s maybe a good thing. Jan Holtmann sketches an operative model for off-art practice, wants exhibition to be understood as a medium, and is confident off-art can introduce new ‘media-based spaces of contrast’. Marianne Gronemeyer pleads for evasion through a refusal of oppositions (such as On and Off), and tries to redefine the term ‘culture’ through a ‘we’ spirit: culture as a social-cooperative practice.

Chicago-based Brett Bloom presents examples and examines the experiences of various self-run initiatives. Saul Albert presents a case-study featuring experiences of failure: the self-organized NODE.London media-art network project. Arne Niederbacher and Matthias Euteneuer argue for a new cultural economy. They present an action-model for a new kind of cultural entrepreneur who first develops ideas and projects ‘value-rationally’ in order to later profit from them economically, ‘ends-rationally’. In Adrienne Goehler‘s view, now that creativity is also considered to be a new resource in politics and business, creative-types could now become the role-models for a new society based on ‘life-activity’ instead of on ‘work’. Enno Schmidt illustrates the concept of an unconditional basic income that could free people from their dependency on social services and jobs, thereby releasing new—creative—potential. Christina Kaindl searches for signs of neoliberalism in the new ‘self-determined’ work models. She describe artistic action and thought as models of a social order based, as before, on exploitation. Here, responsibility and coercion are passed on to individual actors.

WIR SIND WOANDERS #1: 2006.wirsindwoanders.de