Magazine #16 of the Federal Cultural Foundation / Kulturstiftung des Bundes

das magazin der kulturstiftung des bundes

texts

by petra gehring detlef hoffmann georg seeßlen joseph vogl ralf wagner hans zender et. al.

N o

autumn / winter 2010

This issue of our magazine offers readers a glimpse of the many activities we support at the German Federal Cultural Founda tion. We provide one-time grants to special projects (such as the exhibition on Lawrence of Arabia see p. 22 ), initiate longer-term projects (e.g. the Wanderlust Fund , p. 26 ), fi nance Germany’s internationally renowned beacons of culture for several years at a time (e.g. the Ensemble Modern , p. 29 ) and organize our own events. The festival The Undead Life Sciences & Pulp Fiction is one such major event, sched uled to take place at Kampnagel in Hamburg from 12 to 14 May 2011. The festival sees itself as a platform for scientific and artistic projects which probe the changing definitions of (human) life in the biotechnological age. The event will examine to what extent the conventional boundaries separating life and death, nature and artificiality are becoming blurred. In the space be tween life and death lies an anthropological and ethical grey zone which, in affluent regions, has sparked a lively debate on comatose patients, assisted suicide and living wills.

A growing feeling of uneasiness has accompanied the medical advances that claim to improve our standard of living (e.g. cos metic surgery, medicinal optimization, prosthesis implantation). The technological possibilities to create and prolong life could eventually dismantle one of the last bastions of cultural history, namely, the belief that life and death are uncontrollable events. We hope that the festival will initiate a debate on whether the creation of life and the encounter with death are becoming more and more like ›projects‹ which require individual decisions and a special framework of social conditions. To what extent is ›artifi cial‹, i.e. biotechnologically produced, medically perfected and mechanically aided extended life changing our attitudes of vitality and the quality of life? These new anxieties and problem atic issues could be behind the recent barrage of fantastic visions of threshold beings, man-machine hybrids and creatures with limited vitality. Consequently, it’s not surprising that artistic and pop-cultural productions are currently awash with fears and uto pias regarding new forms of human existence. Whenever science

fails to provide adequate answers to moral and social issues, a surge of stories, images and myths arises. Pop culture, especially film and literature, has long been dealing with basic anthropo logical issues based on undead characters, like zombies and vam pires, well before the scientific, political and legal fields began addressing the problem of ›natural life‹.

In this issue we have invited six writers from the fields of science and culture to examine the biotechnological developments and their impact on how we view life and death. The illustrations also explore this subject. This time we’ve decided to print comics a genre with a long history of ›undead‹ characters. Each epi sode is based on texts by writer Dietmar Dath who reflects on the historic development of the undead motif.

undead georg seeßlen the undead, and how to get there 4 petra gehring life devours death? 9 interview with ralf wagner building life 12 heiko stoff the creeping masses 15 marcus stiglegger when there is no more room in hell... 18 interview with joseph vogl the advantage of a little less life 20

exhibition detlef hoffmann lawrence of arabia the making of a legend 2 wanderlust fund renate klett borderline experiences 26 ensemble modern hans zender congratulations! 29

news 0 new projects 2 committees + imprint 5

Christopher Tauber (*1979 ), also known as Piwi in the comic scene, is an illustrator and the co-publisher of the independent comic publishing company Zwerchfell. Piwi’s comics, featured in this issue, are based on Kadaverwandten [Cadaver Clan] by the writer Dietmar Dath (*1970 ), whom Spiegel (forgivingly) characterized as a »Marxist with a strong interest in zombies, genetic engineering and heavy metal.« The truth is that Dath’s novels always present fabulous undead creatures (e.g. Die Abschaffung der Arten [The Elimination of the Species] , Suhrkamp, FfM 2008 ) and zombies ( Für immer in Honig [Forever in Honey], Implex Verlag, Berlin 2005 , Die salzweissen Augen : Vierzehn Briefe über Drastik und Deutli chkeit [The Salt-White Eyes: Fourteen Letters on Drasticity and Clarity], Suhrkamp 2005). Technology and the criticism thereof is also a recurrent theme (e.g. Maschinenwinter Wissen , Technik , Sozialismus Eine Streitschrift [Mechanical Winter. Knowledge, Technology, Socialism. A Polemic], Suhrkamp 2008 ). Dietmar Dath and Piwi have collaborated before; Piwi illustrated Dath’s political picture book Deutschland macht dicht [Germany Shuts Its Doors], published by Suhrkamp in 2009. Dietmar Dath’s latest book Eisenmäuse [Iron Mice] was published by the Halblizel-Verlag, Lohmar in September 2010

Hortensia Völckers / Alexander Farenholtz Executive Board of the Federal Cultural Foundation

the undead, and how to get there

Ethicists and artists are intensely debating to what extent life is still »fully hu man« when it is improved or prolonged through biotechnological means. Due to advances in science and technology, drawing the boundary between life and death, and culture and nature, has become more complicated than ever before. And with these advances, the undead have entered our social reality from the anthropological fringe. Georg Seeßlen conducts field research in the zones of the undead. by georg seeßlen

One word is currently in everyone’s mouth undead. It conveys a pervasive, outlandish feeling of our times. Being there, but not being there. Existing, but not existing. We think of ghosts, zombies, test-tube creatures or radically degraded beings, of hu mans living beyond their history and even their own humanity, of RoboCops and pill-poppers, vampires and junkies, bureau crats and assembly line workers, warfare droids and mechanized soldiers, brain-dopers and flatliners. Of people who work them selves to death, and people who party their life away. And of the prisoners, sentenced to death, waiting years for their execution, Dead Man Walking . Undead! And the whole time, we can’t help asking ourselves, am I, is my being, already contami nated with the undead?

Undead is a word that describes a newly discovered blurriness. Define ›life‹! Define ›death‹! It has never been easy and is now becoming even harder. No, it’s better to hang around in the undead zone instead, graphically and semantically, intangible, but with the resolve to face this future unafraid. A new zone has opened before us, between the life we know and scandalous death prolonged life, modified, improved, expropriated, re duced life, or viewed the other way around prolonged death, philosophical zombies, creatures who are denied what they were promised (at least in poetry), that is, »their own death«, the film quote uttered by one who has died, but doesn’t know it yet, re born as a machine, a monster, a mutant as an undead creature. Mysterious though the matter is, this expanding zone of uncertainty which we try our best to imagine, either through dis course, images, testing and modelling, there are social forces at work, driven by interests and means of their own, that are ad dressing the subject and interacting both directly and indirectly with one another.

It’s not that this zone between life and death is something new. It has always existed. At closer inspection, we might even recog nize it as the source of cults and cultures, religion and philoso phy, the arts and carnival. How otherwise could it be possible for someone (who witnesses death in others) to suddenly realize that he, too, will die, and at the same time, realize that he doesn’t want to die? »Almost everyone loved the world, when given two handfuls of soil,« Brecht said. But hardly anyone wants to give those two handfuls of soil. Where do the dead go?

To a better world, to paradise, to the eternal hunting grounds perhaps? Where do they go when we treat them right, when we re spect them, remember them, offer them victuals for their jour ney? But what if none of this happens? (And how can it ever hap pen in a world where nothing is sacred and everything is about profit and entertainment?) Sometimes they come back…

Long have we employed the time-honoured strategy of both cul turally accepting death and technically combating it, es pecially whenever culture and technology counterbalance one another. However, panic occasionally erupts along the fault lines dividing culture and technology. At times we fall prey to a cult of the dead (or even a death cult), and at other times, pure technol ogy leads to bizarre experiments.

From this point of view, the undead come across as symptomatic of the dividing line between the cult of the dead and the tech nology of life. It’s easy to assert that our current obsession with undead, post-human and trans-human entities is not merely due to the growing feasibility of technology to produce such ›miracles‹, but is also a symptom of the radical predominance of economized natural science and technology over philosophy and culture. Technology and information are constantly being ›revolutionized‹ while the misery of daily life and history has undergone little or no change at all. (Who knows, maybe the reason we want to live longer, or even become immortal, is to increase our chances of surviving this valley of tears of the Boring Age. Unfortunately, it seems we are actually prolonging it by focusing on building a new human instead of making demands on our old consciousness and its history.) Frankenstein flees from boredom; that never works.

We cannot say where the transition lies between social differ entiation and social disintegration. We only know that the transition is where the undead flourish. It’s not simply a depic tion of fear, rather it has curative quality. Creating and sustaining life through technological means is often a reaction to physical suffering and the threat of death, and to some extent, also mental anguish (I can no longer endure how I look. If I cannot have a child, or the child I wish for, I will die. I can’t stand the stress of my job, of my career, any other way. I have to create something of my own which the rest of the world refuses to grant me, even if it’s within my own body). But this form of the undead not only offers a solution, it causes a problem as well.

1The media is abuzz with such eerie creatures, life-forms unable to participate in our form of life. One can find any number of examples reported in the gazettes. People »lying in comas« and doctors unable to say whether they’ll ever »wake« up, whether they perceive »anything« of the world around them or whether they exist in an inner world of their own. People whose brain function has been so damaged by traumatic injury or debilitat ing illness they can no longer live »normal« lives. People who have lost touch with their past and their surroundings because of dementia. The most agonizing conflicts arise whenever we’re confronted by people whose minds have left their bodies behind. How do we live with those who no longer live with us? When they’re no longer truly »human«, what are they then? Ani mals, or »vegetables«, things, parts of machines to which they must stay connected for »life support«? Our collective imagination demands that we shut the machines off at the right moment. Every decision requires an enormous ethical and philo sophical effort. We must constantly redefine life and its value (and Germans are not the only ones with a dark chapter in their history, filled with unscrupulous figures who eliminated life they deemed »unworthy«). The social discourse regarding the undead is especially rampant, far beyond personal responsibility or trag edy, when body and mind are most clearly detached.

2The second case concerns those who have changed their appear ance so radically for example, with plastic surgery that nei ther they nor those around them can claim that they are essen tially themselves. The transformations from black to white, old to young, man to woman, etc., are rather preliminary exer cises, as are those based on the ideal of beauty (transformation into a picture), an efficiency principle (creation of an »artificial« super athlete), or the outsourcing of ›decisions‹ (microchips im planted in the brain, ›intelligent‹ prostheses, pre-programmed administration of drugs, etc.). Here we recognize the opposite trend the first case dealt with unnaturally prolonging the death process, while here in the second, it’s about unnaturally pimping life. Fundamentalists might ask, »Is this morally permissible?« The rest of us pose very different questions when

faced with »enhanced humans«, for instance, how do we com municate with someone whose outward appearance and inner being are so clearly divided? To put it simply, someone who has unique capabilities, not as a result of »predisposition« or past experience, but because his/her body has been altered mechani cally, chemically or organically? A »sex bomb« residing in the soul of an old woman. A politician unable to wipe away his per manent smile even after the cameras are off, because it has been implanted into his face. A woman who »reinvents« herself every few years with the help of her doctors. This is what we call a slow undeath people (like characters in horror movies) whose physical appearance reveals nothing of their inner soul, a mask which can no longer be removed (and even worse a mask no longer distinguishable from one’s face).

Instead of regulating the relationship between closeness and dis tance (along with hierarchy, order and sexual economy) through visible and tangible alterations to the body (which cannot take place without altering one’s soul if we regard pain as the physical expression of one’s emotional state), we are now literally see ing a deregulation, privatization, yes, a market regulation of the human body. The attempt to use the body to instil new meaning and create new abilities that never existed ›in life‹ (nor in work or love, for that matter).

Where does it begin? In the small corriger la fortune of cosmetology, at the fitness studio, with breast implants and do-it-yourself Botox injections? Or the more or less pleasurable scarifica tion of the body with piercings and tattoos? Or physical or intel lectual doping (unfair!), or merging the body with a machine, after which one is unthinkable without the other, or a prosthesis, which unlike Captain Hook’s grappling iron and Ahab’s leg of whalebone, can think for itself and functions better than the extremity it replaced?

There seems to be a certain point when the physical-technical shift becomes more the goal than the means, and such changes are no longer meant to fool others, but rather the subject himself. People are no longer satisfied at being taken for someone else; they want to become someone else, made irreversible by interven ing in the semiotics and machination of the body. In contrast to the man with the mask, the undead have no place of refuge, and a zombie is denied the one thing that even the most horrifying aliens possess a home. Everything undead is restless, even when bound and shackled, both within and without. It’s as if a person, facing the prospect of death, must decide between dying and never coming home. Or in other words homelessness is the precondition of the undead.

According to mythology (and despite all our progress, escaping mythology is much harder than undergoing plastic surgery), ma nipulating our physical form is equivalent to losing our soul, or in more secular terms, our identity. It’s the story of the Por trait of Dorian Gray told backwards as if outward beauty or mechanical efficiency were traded for emptiness with in. For as much fear that the mythos of betraying human whole ness may contain, an important question remains for social prac tice. Who or what kind of altered, enhanced, humanly-dimin ished (reinvented) entity can we expect to encounter in the public sphere? (And here it is again the nagging fear regarding the spread of the undead in society. The ›somewhat‹ post-human being may no longer participate in the public sphere. His sphere of life will be reduced to the medium and the spectacle. This ›kind of‹ undead person shall live in the spotlight and in the me dia, unable to ›return‹ to his old self.) This general, conventional

and largely controlled post-humanization is problematic, however, when it leaves the spheres of art, politics, sports and entertainment. Is it possible to reinvent oneself and live normally, or does the opposite occur, i.e. normal life becomes a spectacle as a result of the manipulation of one’s body? (For example, can the manager of a discount supermarket require ›his‹ female cash iers to transform themselves into customer-friendly Barbie dolls with artificial joints that never tire and implanted smiles that never fade even when their wages are cut? A wet dream of neoliberalism we’re getting there.)

ture, characteristic, insult, etc., reveals another project of over riding importance: the dismantling of the enlightened (and thus romantic) ideal of wholeness in the subject and his identity. In order to create a new human (newly invented human/the human who reinvents himself), this project does not begin with the transformation of the whole subjective and identical human (as friendly utopians were wont to do), but with the complete de construction and reassembly of the human.

In the company of those whose death we postpone, and those who improve and reinvent themselves, there are also the socially undead who exist but have no place in society (those superfluous individuals who we keep hearing about) or have relinquished their place due to faults of their own (druggies, TV junkies, worka holics and others who have so completely lost sight of the goal of achieving a ›rich, fulfilled life‹ that people often call them zombies). Behind the decomposition are the ones who could well serve as role models for those zombies of horror iconogra phy, and behind the functioning are the others, the emergence of whom is the result of a growing void which the ›improved‹ middle-class has buried deep within itself. The relationship be tween outer appearance and inner identity is reversed once again. The decaying body of a homeless man conceals the past of a uni versity professor who suffered a traumatic divorce and a long ill ness and didn’t receive adequate medical treatment. Within the empty body of a successful banker lies a hidden family history, a terrible injury perhaps, a wound to the soul, abuse. (We are tra versing, of course, a sphere of clichés and legends, as if on the run from sheer banality. But we knew from the start that this was all about images and stories. The conscious fuzziness of the word undead has no place in ›hard-core‹ science anyway.)

The sphere of the undead, however, expands beyond such mani festations of incomplete, divided and mechanized life. A mediabased dual existence is an inherent part of how it lives. One is an imaginary member of a soap-opera family. One pursues a ›rich and fulfilled life‹ in Second Life , where the somewhat post-human altered form described above already exists as a dig ital ›prescript‹. One begins a ›real life‹ in performance and ex treme sports beyond everyday life, and in contrast to privileged members of middle-class society, one learns to carefully distin guish these spheres from one another I’m a different person here than I am there. The presence of things far away (on television, for example) and the shift away from what is close and neighbourly, in other words, a lack of social practice which one aims to compensate for by achievements in more or less artificial parallel worlds appears to be a further betrayal of the whole ness of human life or what we generally designate as the sub ject (let us leave the philosophical-theoretical nuances of the term aside for the moment). In each of these spheres, one can only live if one has mastered the art of not being completely there; the clever ones of our times know how to remain unfo cused and detached.

We might get the feeling from these initial, careful and external approaches albeit far from the ›heated centre‹ of debate that the spread of the term undead as a feeling, rumour, myth, carica

The undead, a utopian/apocalyptic place, now appears as a com municative element in a system which we can easily identify as a process of civilization (adapting the human to his envi ronment with the goal that they’ll perfectly correspond to each other one day. That which Marx once regarded as the appropria tion and personification of nature and Kant as man’s perception of himself and his surroundings has now been technologically achieved we must no longer work to attain it, it is done to us).

In addition to the medical and social forms of the undead, there are many other ways of evading death all means of life prolon gation and enhancement, anti-aging products, new discoveries every day (and new cults which accompany them) on how to live a ›healthy life‹ (an apple a day keeps the doctor away, especially when you get some exercise and fresh air, avoid smoking and drinking, and let’s say, manage stress through simplifying your life and positive thinking ). This, of course, leads to the »demo graphic development« that gives insurance mathematicians and income tax collectors sleepless nights we simply live too long. And our lives are lasting longer and longer! And what for?

The fortunate circumstance of living longer (television and ad vertising supply us with images of sprightly retirees, paying cus tomers and enthusiastic readers of the Apotheken-Rund schau [Pharmacy Gazette]) poses an economic problem, puts wear and tear on the foundation of post-middle class society, and destroys not only the identical subject with the solidarity-based society, but also the genealogy (after honouring one’s father and mother, or one’s ancestors in general, started fading no ticeably in middle-class society and had to be replaced by artifi cial cults). Now the generations regard each other as undead. On one hand, it’s the old geezer who just won’t die, deadweight living off »our inheritance«. On the other hand, it’s the mindless, irresponsible member of a disembodied and overembodied fun society, who cares for little else but sex, drugs and Rock’n’Roll (or whatever happens to be in fashion at the time). Cultivated individuals express pity and empathy rather than hate and ridi cule, which certainly doesn’t improve matters. Various forms of imperfect and meaningless life are reflected in the division be tween old and young and the recent infatuation with being young. Punks, junkies, workaholics and careerists gather for a dance of the undead without touching each other. Consequently undead is not only an inner feeling and an outer project, but also a form of denunciation from afar. It’s usually other people who are the zombies.

4Another sphere of the undead is comprised of what a utopianideological community of scientists and prophets advanced as post-human life (practically immortal, without the misery of pain or loss) or trans-human life (living on in another form, de coupling the software of the human mind from the hardware of the body) in the discourse of middle-class and post-middle class

progressivism. It sounds quite simple, as explained, for example, by Ray Kurzweil: »With what we know today, even those of my own generation [Kurzweil was sixty at the time ed.] can still be in good health fifteen years from now. In time it will be possi ble to reprogram our biochemistry and modify our biological programme through biotechnology that’s bridge two. This in turn will allow us to live long enough to reach bridge three. And then nanotechnology and nanorobots inside our bodies will en able us to live forever.«

From an ethical standpoint, the life sciences have to address com pletely different entities in the zone between life and non-life more intensively than ever. How much artificiality can life contain? Can we regard what J. Craig Venter created with a cell and computer programme as artificial life? How far are we permitted to separate the hardware from the software, i.e. can we save, sort and combine the ›software‹ of life any which way we desire? When exactly is human life engendered, in other words, at what point may we no longer »kill« it? Are we already working on clone psychology? Will we someday be overrun by frozen angels ? And what is synthetic biology capable of?

The dual forms of undead existence the prolongation of life into near-death spheres (undead winners) and the anticipation of (social, intellectual and ultimately biological) death in the ›actual‹ full-life spheres (undead losers) hold a completely differ ent position in the field of life sciences. The condition, percep tion or attribution of the undead is now a zone, which one must cross to achieve eternal life. In other words, undead is no longer a mere symptom or development, but a post-human space for self-experimentation and creation. And as rational and enlight ening as the initial situation may be (pain-inflicted human life in need of significant improvement) or the final goal may be (a simply super life), this zone which we must cross remains mysterious and threatening. It is no black box (a radical, but extremely short-lived darkness), but indeed a twilight- zone, marked by incomplete knowledge, speculation, phantasms, rationalization and carnivalization, to name just a few of the most friendly spec tres in the undead zone. One of the most harmless things we could imagine happening to us (at first thought) is a radically and possibly violent complex reduction of human life. Would the new human, for example, have to relinquish some part of his mind after wandering through the valley of the undead and subjecting himself to those all-healing and all-knowing na norobots which Ray Kurzweil envisioned? What perception or knowledge do we humans stand to lose if we are no longer con nected to the world through pain? What would happen if ›sim plified‹ humans encountered a complex world what if the stuff of science fiction novels became reality and we robots, cyborgs and androids not only had to render humans incapable of think ing, but also of feeling, in other words, everything that contrib utes to complexity? Would the immortal, extremely complexreduced post-human end up as an eternal infant, feeding at the virtual breast of digital wet nurses? Or a mechanical work-slave fitted with wetware ?

Our imagination always seems to run away with us at every twilight zone of progress, as well as every »great upheaval« in hu man history from Copernicus to Darwin to Sigmund Freud. Man’s expulsion from the centre of the universe and ultimately from himself following the solar system, evolution and psy choanalysis, man’s place in the species is now at risk. The hu man species no longer exists and if it no longer exists, then it

may have never existed. There is a reason why we are so inclined to imagine catastrophe (and no, simply imagining the catastro phe won’t stop it from happening this time).

It’s the intertwining, the interaction between this concrete and blurry discourse, models and visions, numbers and bubbles, which makes the social treatment of the undead subject to what Jacques Rancière calls »soft ethics« ethics determined less by projects and positions than continual ad hoc repairs and read justments. Soft ethics constantly attempt to patch up cracks and holes so that they may continue to corroborate the facts (or at least those conveyed as such by the media).

These four areas of the undead have been the subject of a truly incredible production of pop-cultural images and stories which often extend to archaic depths to religion, childlike and ani malistic pre-religions and semantically unconstrained post-religions and highlight the secret capabilities of medicine, sci ence, computer programming and technology. »Particles of real ity« are as prevalent in the dream market’s production of images and stories as the fictitious rumours and images which haunt the laboratories of the life sciences. When producers are asked to explain the undead hype in the entertainment industry, they de scribe their product as a metaphor of real science and technology. When scientists in the field of computer technology, synthet ic biology, the life sciences and related areas speak publicly (that is, through the media), they use the language and images of popular culture (which sometimes reinforces the impression that scientists are more like children at play and the sandbox they’ve chosen to play in is nothing less than »our life«).

This is where the efficiency of economized science and the me dia’s thirst for entertainment collide. Science in the marketplace has to be loud in order to promise world changing advanc es (and to finance its research, it must produce undead for the market), and in order to get media time, science must employ the language and images used in the entertainment industry (mar keting and mythmaking). This results in a paradox in the life sciences regarding the zone of the unknown. Whatever happens in the zone must remain concealed, yet significant, irrational and yet rational, normal and yet fantastic, secret knowledge, yet the talk of the town. (What if, after passing through the zone of the undead, not only were we different, but also our language, that is, the language we use to describe the undead. The zombie is primarily speechless, an entity to which no human value judge ments apply, not dead, but deceased, not evil, but dangerous, one who possesses nothing but can be everything). Once again, this discursive muddle is necessary in order to activate soft ethics in a neoliberal society. They can adapt to whatever form the undead takes, because they can both understand and not understand, because they can masterfully organize what they don’t under stand (or don’t want to understand).

All of this is accompanied by a social and cultural practice that nourishes the imagination in matters of the undead, which is cre ated in reality by an entirely different source. On one hand, we foster mutual forgetting, the loss of those social contacts and the public space where the promises of the Enlightenment might be redeemed, that of recognizing oneself and interacting with others in a society, creating a coherence of identity and the world through work, personal interest and intelligence. On the other hand, we have created a gulf separating the poor and the rich, the intelligent and the ignorant, the important and the su perfluous, which in turn has created a double form of undead

the wealthy individual who survives and sustains his body and mind for pleasure, or at least for the enjoyment of his wealth and power, and the poor individual who merely ›exists‹ and is not permitted to die as long as his body can be exploited for some kind of profit, as a working machine, forced prostitute, spare parts depot, or a consumer on the state payroll, etc. After all, isn’t our economic system paradoxically alive with the spirit of the undead something we know so little about but enthrals us as much as human, post- or trans-human undead, namely, money?

In future we must try to think of everything at once, or think of everything as one. From the cell created in a laboratory, which may have once been human or something completely different, to a drastic zombie flick. From those who have lost their memory and consciousness to enhanced reality which views reality and fiction, dream and perception, in perfect stereoscopy.

The theatres of discourse, as we see, are so multifaceted that no single undead theory could do justice summarizing them. However, we cannot respond, in all humility, to the demands of uncertainty by merely staking out territory with a set of va l ues (which some possess and some don’t), in other words, conceding to rituals of soft ethics. In dealing with this new discourse, we must also critically evaluate the mechanisms of meaning, imagery, narration and rationalization that are in volved (within ourselves). Before and now during its technologi cal realization, the undead are recasting the questions that have dogged us for thousands of years. That alone is reason enough to love zombies.

Georg Seeßlen , *1948, studied Painting, Art History and Semiology in Munich. He has taught at universities as a lecturer in Germany and abroad, and is now a freelance writer and film critic. The Suhrkamp Verlag will release a new book by Georg Seeßlen and Markus Metz titled Blödmaschinen — Die Fabrikation der Stupidität [Dumb Machines — The Fabrication of Stupidity] in autumn 2010

the undead. life sciences & pulp fiction congress and theatre installation 12 14 May 2011 Kampnagel Hamburg. An event by the Federal Cultural Foun dation in collaboration with Kampnagel and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

life devours death ? dying in the age of life

How have attitudes about life and death changed in modern times and what new concepts and myths is society being confronted with? The philosopher Petra Gehring describes how our morals are shifting and why the undead is such a hot topic in ethical circles.

by

petra gehring

Is this modern era one in which technologies postpone death ever further, in which death is rendered invisible and devaluated, where only life is valued, ›deciphered‹ and mechanized? Do we refuse to accept death the mere destruction of life which one may regard as a necessary evil or not or do we view it as »belonging to life«, an object of self-realization, romanticized by new, modern images of death? On one hand, we have the repres sion of death, the formlessness of dying, biotechnological sce narios for abolishing death, and on the other, assisted suicide, the right to die, mass-media depictions of mortal fear, corpses and mourning.

Our relationship with death has become seemingly contradictory. It is strange that old-fashioned »death« pales in comparison to profane forms of »the conclusion of life«. However, death has not merely become inconsequential, but also intangible and ee rie. And the boundaries seem to have become blurred. For exam ple, when exactly is someone or something alive? Aren’t life-en hancing technologies responsible for creating strange, new states of existence between life and death?

And aren’t our morals shifting as well? We have become accus tomed to bioethicists debating the boundaries of life and death as two aspects of one common issue whereas long ago they were accepted as completely different human experiences, e.g. pregnancy (birth) and dying. Along with those who believe life should be protected at all costs, there are others who reflect on

the value of human life and when it’s no longer worth living. And in this way, bioethics has shifted the issue of human embryonic stem cells closer to that of the elderly woman lying in a coma. These were once regarded as an indefinable laboratory product and a human being approaching death. Now both seem to more closely resemble entities in a grey zone, states of exist ence on the boundary of life. The arguments sound the same in terms of how we assess the dying patient or the cell as ›human life‹. The issue of the undead is very much alive in ethical circles as well.

1. life’s rise to power

The way death and dying are changing today is largely the result of ›life‹ whose career began in the early modern era. This view is shared by most contemporary theories today. Many of us see life as a collective singular for a supraindividual whole, to which one attributes a biological quality and natural dynamics, and which extends over generations. But this is a modern construct. Before 1800, being alive was a quality which could possess a character. And most would have agreed that mortality was an earthly and perhaps even universal quality. People spoke of their »own life« or a »good life«. By this they meant life as a narrative or a memory, as the course of life and not as a substance of nature. With the development of tissue physiology, biology, demograph ics, anthropology and sociology, a new concept began forming after 1800 which assumed ›life‹ was a scientific quantity, some

thing empirical. A thing that could apply to cells as well as indi viduals or entire peoples, societies or species. Cells do not actually die, they divide occasionally and ensure the continuum of life. Similarly, inherited characteristics survive the death of a specimen of a genus or species as soon as the specimen reproduces. Life in this sense anchored within internal biological processes not only became the basic parameter of modern medicine, but also biomedicine and its techniques, epidemiolo gy and immunology, intensive care and transplantation surgery, genetic diagnostics and (as announced) gene therapy. The em pirical approach to ›life‹ also influenced the 19th -century socio logical view of society regarding moral statistics, welfare, so cial hygiene, eugenics and the ever intensifying battle against delinquency.

The life sciences, as we call them today, are strongly connected to the concept of social benefit. At the turn of 20th century, an atmosphere of Lebensreform helped merge the natural scientific view of the world, socio-technical visions and life philosophies of various kinds. Biological politics began to take form along with criteria for assessing the value of life, the first techniques of hu man selection and medically assisted euthanasia. It had a pre ventative quality. It tossed around the idea of ›designing‹ the quality of life on different scales. And it had only a limited inter est in individuals who required treatment at the time. The preva lent view was that if a measure were to improve life, then apply

ing it to the body of each individual would ultimately result in the treatment of the entire population creating the man of the future. For its own sake, life can devalue and reject something living without going so far as to kill it, or in other words, without reverting to the concept of death.

According to Michel Foucault, the power of life is what underlies sociopolitics of modernity. Politics is, in fact, biopolitics which permits things to live and requires things to die whereby dy ing, bereft of the gravity and solemnity of death, can be enlisted to produce life. And in fact, this is exactly what’s happening more and more. Consequently, there was talk about the »disappearance« of death in the 1970s and 1980s. Elisabeth KüblerRoss and Ivan Illich criticized the medical field for suppressing death, and Philippe Ariès claimed that modern death had be come »completely opposite«, a formless death that no one talked about. Foucault went further to claim that death has not so much become invisible, but utterly absorbed, a natural resource of life. According to Giorgio Agamben, the victims of the Nazi death camps and patients in modern intensive care units have unprotected life. In this case, dying is equivalent to extermina tion, as is allowing someone to die who no longer appears to be dying. However, it’s never about a single individual, but doing everything possible to achieve the best quality of life for the whole.

2. technologization of death

Another common view is that life is a continuum which can en hance itself and should enhance itself for its own good ulti mately, a continuum which devours its old counterpart (death) and everything around its perimeter. With such a view, death seems to be of little value if it merely means the end of life. An cient rituals have faded, the reasons to fear death are no long er the same, they’ve shifted to the concrete circumstances of dying being bedridden, feeling helpless, suffering pain. Per haps there remains an indescribable fear of something that has no name. However, as common as this construal may be, it’s in complete. There is another fact involved that can hardly be denied the economization and technologization of death. The devaluation of death is countered by its valorisation. If we choose to no longer recognize the reality of death, then the end of life must certainly be worth something.

Living bodies are unarguably integral to new economies. Yet in the same way, modern-day medical, military and burial technol ogies have integrated death and human remains into these same new economies. Living organisms have certain functions that can be replaced, strengthened or modified with technical means. This has provided intensive care medicine with numerous ways of bringing back patients from the brink of death, from artificial feeding and respiration to heart reanimation techniques. The human organism also contains useful substances, such as do nated blood, which now plays a crucial role in operation rooms everywhere. Even dead bodies have inspired new perspectives in human recycling. Society’s respect for peace in death is dwin dling. Even prior to 1900, corpses were cremated for reasons of hygiene. But nowadays the recently deceased are becoming a source of raw materials. After all, doctors are in constant need of organ transplants that are as close to living as possible. Removing organs from the living would be equivalent to murder. And therein lies the paradox of transplantation medicine. To transplant vital organs, doctors must extract life from dead bodies. Waiting until the heart of a dying patient stops beating lessens its quality and its functionality as a transplant. Is there perhaps a cannibalistic character to this technical vision of trans ferring »life«? Is that which is removed for the benefit of one pa tient the cause of death in the other? Following the first trans plantations in this grey zone, a new definition of death in 1968 paved the way for future organ transplants. Brain death set cere bral (and legally binding) criteria for determining the end of life. Based on this definition, a patient could be declared dead long

before his or her heart actually stopped. Although the heart is beating and the blood is circulating and the vital functions are working, the body is empirically dead whereby, legally speak ing, the medical use of the patient’s vital organs is permitted. The term »undead« might initially elicit images of intensive care medicine keeping comatose patients alive with feeding tubes and respirators. However, the ambivalence of brain death is far more typical of how biomedicine produces the undead. The sensually perceived contradiction of a body with a pulse and reflexes which the doctor declares as »dead« and releases for organ extraction casts transplantation medicine in a rather sinister light.

So is technology the cause of the blurring boundaries between life and death? Blaming the machines would grossly simplify the matter. The myth that technology changed death is as old as the criticism of the much-praised ideal of preserving life at all costs, which, in turn, supposedly makes apparatus-driven medicine nec essary. The technology used at one’s death bed is far more am bivalent. It enables us to either prolong life or end it prematurely, which based on previous standards is not legally sanctioned. Technology only serves to further the interests in the added value of life. By no means is the resource of life simply given to us sight unseen by apparatus-driven medicine ; it has been carefully measured, evaluated, apportioned, distributed and rationed. Medical technologies create possibilities and the technical possibilities do not exist for their own sake. They serve the needs of a complex economy of life usage, in which the interests of patients, families, caregivers, various medical personnel, insur ance companies and the health industry as a whole compete. The modern-day postponement of death is consequently more than a result of technology. It shows how a market has developed around the material, temporal and qualitative potentials of life where death used to be.

. animated material

Not only do the living and the dead get jumbled up in health clinics, but in laboratories as well. This has been especially evi dent in recent years in the field of biology which succeeded in producing living cells of important components with so-called synthetic methods. These technically manufactured forms are allegedly able to survive and reproduce as if they were naturally created.

The vision of animating dead material was first inspired by sci ence-fiction scenarios in the 20th century. Human brains inside a computer were able to live forever with tiny robots swimming around the body and carrying out symbiotic repairs to prevent the process of aging. The fascination with making dead material come alive goes back even further than that. ›Artificial‹ life is one of the visions that accompanied the romantic beginnings of modernity: putting a soul into an automat, creating a homuncu lus from a glass flask, using electricity to awaken a monster con structed with parts of corpses.

The scandal of artificial life differs from that of an untimely, unreal death. Initially the animation of material has little to do with death. Our difficulty with the fact that life can be created through biochemical synthesis is less a conflict between life and death than between life and artificial life. The issue is not about life shaping how and when we die, but rather the unnatural crea tion of life that being the crucial difference between nature and artificiality.

Indeed a metaphysical naturalness of life and the characteriza tion of everything artificial as dead are necessary to designate the artefacts of the laboratory as »undead«. Interestingly enough, current discourse makes use of laboratory facts which are sup ported by diametric principles, but produce similar results. On one hand, the religious-fundamentalistic bioethics community rejects biotechnical artefacts as »unnatural« constructs (i.e. non-creationist). On the other, sociologists and historians of sci ence analyze the hybrid character of biotechnological labora-

tory products. They are not artefacts, but »biofacts«, a term coined by the scientific philosopher Nicole Karafyllis some thing between nature and culture not life in the conven tional sense of the word. Though their positions are quite differ ent, both parties not only associate life with nature, but put life on equal terms with artificiality, culture and imitation a.k.a. the ›undead‹. This suggests that life created through technical means and animated material is fake, dead life.

4. hybrids everywhere?

Even Agamben’s »naked life« has its hybrid qualities not ex actly something between nature and art, but a combination of recognized humanity and mere object. Our age-old dealings with death have cemented our belief in the triumph of life and this conclusion is clearly linked to the suggestive image of the hybrid. The hybrid functions as a dualistic construct to help us interpret phenomena on the fringe or beyond the modern boundary of life. In other words, phenomena of something inbetween, of an intermediate realm between life and death. Of course, life/death and nature/culture can be easily mixed up. Hybrids are not automatically identical with one another. Nature, for example, can be quickly conjured out of the meta physical hat. Perhaps the role of technology or that of the technical artefact, technical intervention is why people revert to dualisms, people who basically doubt the innovation discourse by tech developers in view of the amazing transforma tion of all things living that we are witnessing in this age of life. And this eventually leads to categories like nature, creation or somehow true or real life which possesses characteristics of an unmanipulated natural substance.

If it is true that we live in an age built on a policy of the imma nence of life which has taken away death’s independence and forms, then we must beware of arbitrarily using dead as an attribute. Is unanimated material truly dead from a biological standpoint? Is the elderly woman who is pronounced brain dead really dead? Is a fringe phenomenon, which we designate as life today, on the fringe only because it does not fully fit the literal definition of life, but is already practically dead?

Life can be a force, but also a problem because there is no longer a concept that counters it today. Biopolitical analyses have en tered the picture. The shock of new technologies has made it possible to use, if not ›real‹ life, then nature or some other super human force to shape the contours of biopolitics a form of death politics which introduces variable value factors to dying, thus making it life politics. Or a field of biology that produces liv ing agents which had never existed before agents which can open up a broad range of new, unpredictable possibilities.

Petra Gehring , *1961, is a professor of Philosophy at the University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt. Her most recent book Theorien des Todes : Zur Einführung [Theories of Death: An Introduction] was pub lished by the Junius Verlag in 2010. Her book Was ist Biomacht ? Vom zweifelhaften Mehrwert des Lebens [What Is Biopower? The Du bious Added Value of Life] was published by the Campus Verlag in 2006. To gether with Marc Rölli and Maxine Saborowski, she edited the anthology Ambivalenzen des Todes Wirklichkeit des Sterbens und Todestheorien heute [Ambivalence of Death. The Reality of Dying and Death Theories Today], published by the Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft in 2007

building life

An interview with Dr. Ralf Wagner, professor of Molecular Microbiology and Gene Therapy at the University of Regensburg and CEO of the biotech company GeneArt (»The Gene of Your Choice«) about the opportunities and limits of synthetic biology.

Dr. Oliver Müller / Josef Mackert: Professor Wagner, the goal of syn thetic biology is often defined as the production of tailor-made biological components which can carry out certain tasks. What does that mean?

Prof. Dr. Ralf Wagner: I like using the definition offered by the bio engineer Sven Panke, namely that synthetic biology follows an engineering agenda and represents new methods of biosynthesis on the basis of standardized bio-components in a form that does not occur naturally. Research in biology has long been hypothesis-driven. However, in this age of genomics and post-genomics, we have access to new analytical tools. Not only can we form hy potheses with more precision, but also construct what we know about cellular processes. We find ourselves at the threshold of a new age. Ideally we should be using and this is what engineering agenda refers to standardized bio-components. This is comparable to electro-technology which uses resisters, capacitors, electrical circuits, etc., and depending on how I assemble these components, I can build a radio, television, hair dryer or vacuum cleaner. The same goes for standardized bio-components, which, depending on their combination, can be used to produce organisms with wide-ranging capabilities.

Müller/Mackert: How is this different from conventional bio technology?

Wagner: The degree of modification. In the past we used to insert a new gene into a bacterium, usually E. coli, or we modified one or two components of a metabolic pathway, which altered a sec ondary metabolism, causing it to produce, for example, large amounts of vitamin A. These were minimal alterations. A sig nificant modification would be to take an organism’s entire metabolic pathway and implant it into another organism. That’s extremely complex and has an entirely different quality than what we’ve done in the past. And finally, I would classify something as substantially modified if it’s absolutely new, for example, enzyme functions which never occur naturally in combination. In other words, when a bioengineer produces biological components that are yet unknown to nature.

Müller/Mackert: What components, for instance, are unknown to nature?

Wagner: We have 20 amino acids, the building blocks of life. May be 21 which occur in nature. Nowadays we have the ability to produce artificial amino acids a 22nd, a 25th amino acid up to 80 artificial components, possibly more. I no longer use the cell’s chemistry, but the ›machinery‹, the ›apparatus‹ inside the cell to generate entirely new protein components. I build a kind of parallel universe within the cell. That’s what I would designate as ›artificial‹. The bioengineer Petra Schwille claims that she builds life from scratch. She constructs artificial membranes which she could place in a transcription machine. In combination with a translation machine, she could then produce more than basic proteins. This may lead us to wonder why evolu

tion occurred as it did. It could have run a completely different course. For example, why do proteins have a polypeptide back bone? And why do they have peptide bonds at all? Other covalent bonds would work just as well, why, they could be completely different molecules. In my view, this has a completely new quality.

Müller/Mackert: What consequences will this have in terms of our concept of life?

Wagner: Eckart Wimmer from Stony Brooks University recently created an artificial polyvirus in the lab. Are such artificial virus es that are capable of penetrating cells truly alive? I try to look at it from a technical point of view, that is, life is everything that can reproduce, full stop…

Müller/Mackert: There are attempts to ›denucleate‹ cells, con struct a ›chassis‹, on the basis of which new organisms could be produced like what the bioengineer J. Craig Venter is doing. Are these the living machines, which researchers in synthetic biol ogy are talking about?

Wagner: All that Craig Venter did was to synthesize a genome that looked a little different than the genome that was originally in side the cell. He simply inserted the genome the programme of life, if you will into the cell. Then the cell started running the new programme, because the integrated selection markers helped to override the old programme. And following several cell generations, the new software (or new DNA ) made corre sponding changes to the hardware. So what is life? If a scientist looked at the chassis and DNA which Venter and his colleagues combined, he might call the DNA a physical component. No body would say that the DNA was ›life‹. It’s more like a pro gramme for life, comparable to a software tool. And when you insert it into a cell to summarize the paper published by Ven ter’s institute the cell reboots. And this is where the analogy to computer science ends, because in biotechnology, the soft ware determines the hardware. After a few cell generations, new hardware is created. I find it difficult to draw a line to say, that’s artificial life, a living machine, and that’s not artificial life… But when Venter says, regarding his most recent experi ment, »I simply take the genome and insert it into a cell, and that reprograms the cell« that I think is probably the most ›artifi cial ‹ aspect, but a living machine, I don’t know…

Müller/Mackert: Throughout our cultural and scientific history, life was regarded as something inexplicable and mysterious that couldn’t be completely controlled. Are such elementary con cepts and metaphors for life suddenly a matter of debate when synthetic biology makes life a product that can be manufactured and controlled?

Wagner: Hmm, I think I’d approach the issue from a scientist’s perspective. How is what we’re doing any different than what we’ve done in the past? Of course, I accept that a definition of

life can have both a technical and ethical or religious aspect. If I wanted to be provocative, I could ask, what difference does it make if I change one gene, or five or six or more? It’s just old wine in new bottles…

Müller/Mackert: But according to your original definition, if a characteristic of synthetic biology is that it produces organisms which don’t occur in nature, then this is, programmatically speak ing, different compared to what was being done ten or twenty years ago, right?

Wagner: Yes and no. We’ve always created things which go beyond what exists in nature. For example, nature could have never pro duced the rye or wheat plants that we have today. Evolution would have never gone in that direction by itself and yet re search in breeding has produced these things. We are now doing the same with biotechnology just more specifically. An oileating bacterium, I could build one right now, but there are surely other ways I can help evolution along…

Müller/Mackert: Is that what you mean by a parallel universe ?

Wagner: Apart from the fact that we can produce therapeutic medicine and new medication more efficiently in such intracel lular parallel universes, I find the idea especially fascinating be cause it encourages us to reflect on why our life looks the way it does. As I’ve mentioned, there are very specific amino acids and peptide bonds, and that’s the way they are. But could evolution have taken a different path? Why didn’t evolution head in different directions?

Müller/Mackert: With the goal of maybe heading in these differ ent directions someday?

Wagner: In the very distant future, perhaps yes.

Müller/Mackert: There are biologists who predict that someday it will be possible to insert an entire artificial chromosome into an embryo…

Wagner: Just because some things are possible doesn’t mean we ought to do them… Sure, it’s possible to construct and synthe size a chromosome, it’s probably not even very difficult. Techni cally speaking, I don’t find the goal especially visionary. Let’s take E. coli, for example, that’s a simple bacterium. E.coli has 4× 10 6 base pairs, which we at GeneArt are able to synthesize in four to six weeks. Not a big deal. If you take a look at how the synthesizing capacity at GeneArt has developed in recent years eight years ago we were able to synthesize 10,000 base pairs per month, and today we can synthesize 5× 10 6 base pairs per month. Maybe I’m going out on a limb here, but I might tell you next year no problem, we can do 107 base pairs in four weeks. All you need is a few small technological advances here or there and before you know it, you’ll be able to synthesize a chromo some. And now the question is How far do we go? Where is the limit? When should we stop?

Müller/Mackert: In view of how science is organized and the breathless pace of advances in recent years, is it even conceivable that the scientific community can form a consensus on setting limits?

Wagner: At least at my company, we’ve been discussing possible self-imposed limitations. We’ve set up a database at the IGSC (In ternational Gene Synthesis Consortium) with information about gene sequences and external requests for them, along with expla nations as to why we opposed certain requests. This applies par ticularly to dual-use cases, that is, organisms which bioterrorists could use. We don’t provide all our customers access to every thing. Generally I would supply material to colleagues whose project I’m familiar with and can review, while I wouldn’t sup port researchers who I don’t know or who don’t work at a univer sity. But, you’re right, it’s difficult to impose voluntary limits worldwide.

Müller/Mackert: The difficulty with self-imposed limitations might have something to do with the fact that they would limit work in areas that are generally known for being limitless and unrestricted, namely art and religion. Creativity and the perfec tion of creation seem to characterize synthetic biology even the name of your company is GeneArt…

Wagner: Yes, our name Gene and Art there’s no such thing as a completely artificial gene. We were actually thinking of art in a technical sense. Constructing a gene is an enormously complex process, it’s an art to construct a gene in a specific way, and it is a fine art to optimize a gene to carry out a certain application. What also played a role was the idea that nature is a Gesamtkunst werk, an unattainable design option that we as humans can only begin to fathom, much too complex, much too…well, divine. We do not say we are superior to nature or God in any area. For us and personally for me, playing God has never been the issue, contrary to what I’ve heard Venter occasionally mention…

Müller/Mackert: There seems to be a trend in synthetic biology to offer life as a designer product which inevitably puts one in competition with nature, doesn’t it?

Wagner: Better than God, or as good as God. This question always comes up when we’re asked what makes our work so special. When we say, we do it differently than nature, we do it better than nature, then by all appearances we’re one step away from making the claim: We’re better than God. Let me explain it an other way. The pancreas produces insulin on the basis of physiological parameters, and nature has developed the perfect meth od for regulating insulin production. It’s a stroke of genius nobody could have come up with a better method. Now when we say we’re better than nature because we produce more, we’re referring, for example, to the production environment. I’ve got a fermenter, a bioreactor and the right laboratory conditions, then I take a cell which I will use to produce insulin. I ask myself, how can I alter the gene and apply the optimal aeration and stir

ring rate so that the cell produces the most insulin possible? Based on this analysis, I modify my gene. Compared to the com pendium of rules that nature has produced, this is a completely banal process, using the most basic of tools. Sometimes I stop and ask myself what exactly I mean better than nature? And then I try to clarify in what sense it’s better than nature.

Müller/Mackert: What kind of bio-building blocks does your com pany offer? How do you do business with these titbits of life? Wagner: When I was working on the development of HIV vac cines, I was looking for someone who could make an artificial gene for me. Of course, I googled a few companies, but most of them turned me down high prices, long delays in delivery, technical problems. So then we tried it on our own. It was hard work, took a long time and was very expensive, but in the end, we got exactly what we wanted the capability to produce the HIV gene in large quantities. Then we realized that if somebody could produce such artificial genes fast and at a high throughput, it would completely revolutionize genetic engineering it all comes down to money and time. If it were cheap enough, then everyone could order tailor-made genes for their experimental needs. Our business concept was basically to lower operating costs and reduce the price. To do that, we required an elegant process, ideally arranged in modules, so that we could automate individual modules and miniaturize them further in the future. And that’s what we’ve been doing, step by step…

Müller/Mackert: So you offer base pairs that customers can order from you?

Wagner: Exactly. The customer says, GeneArt, I’d like to order an optimized HIV envelope protein gene and the protein sequence should look like this, please make me a gene that fits that descrip tion. Or I’d like to produce a Chinese hamster ovarian cell pro tein. Please construct a gene for me, encoded to produce exactly this protein! So then we sit down and figure out what the gene has to look like to produce the highest possible output in this production system. This initially involves design work, after which we synthesize the gene, place it inside a gene shuttle, put it through quality control and then deliver it to the customer.

Müller/Mackert: Gene sequences can be patented. But patenting living material seems strange…

Wagner: Our patents are essentially process patents which protect the methods we use to manufacture genes. The technical unique ness of the process is important. By this I mean that we use a technology that specifically alters the gene be it a protein or functional gene and combine it with a genetic optimizer in order to improve output in production. We have an entire series of patents for this type of procedure.

Müller/Mackert: Which means that you wouldn’t be able to pat ent entire microorganisms?

Wagner: Yes, you could! You could patent a bacterium, for exam ple, into which you’ve inserted a new metabolic pathway. Entire genes have also been patented. You wouldn’t be allowed to patent a gene which looks just like a natural gene. But you could pat ent artificial genes which have been ›improved‹ in terms of their production, or if they’ve been encoded by a protein whose func tion has been modified. In addition to these genes that are opti mized for certain applications, the scientific community is now discussing whether there should be patents on switches that con trol the genes. These biological pathways, also called BioBricks, are collected in databases, and now the question is whether re searchers will have to pay for them in the future, or whether there will be an open-access policy. At present we find ourselves in a grey zone because many BioBricks are offered for free. But many switches, genes and reagents are already patented. But I’m sure that if any of these find a commercial use, there’ll be somebody out there who will make use of his patent…

Müller/Mackert: The American computer scientist Ray Kurzweil claims, with the application of information technology and bio technology, we will be able to build the first bridge to immortality in fifteen years. Kurzweil believes that it will eventually be possible to reprogram our biology so that according to his cal culations we’ll be able to add another year to our life with each passing year. Do you think it’s possible?

Wagner: I find that rather improbable…Look, twenty years ago, when I began my career, we had hypothesis-driven research. Ten years ago the instruments were finally available to start decoding the genome. And at the time, around the year 2000 when Venter published his findings, everyone was saying, wow, we’ve got it! Now we understand life. In hindsight, what we knew back then was like alphabet soup. We have to write words, we have to write entire books, of volumes and volumes of books to tell that one story of life. We’ll definitely succeed in achieving new levels of complexity, from constructing a cell to organs to groups of or gans. But achieving the goal of immortality? I don’t know. The interview was conducted by Dr. Oliver Müller , researcher at the Institut für Ethik und Geschichte der Medizin at the University of Freiburg and Josef Mackert , deputy general director in artistic matters and head dramaturge at the Theater Freiburg.

the creeping masses

Where there’s one undead, there are more right behind. In the wake of the incredible suc cess of vampire stories in recent years, there is now an entire series of nightmarish monsters which have escaped the shadows of our collective imagination and entered the spotlight of public entertainment. The most recent arrivals from the realm of the dead are zombies, living corpses, clamouring for attention beyond the boundaries of their genre. And for good reason, for zombies genuinely embody the modern-day undead. We first became acquainted with the ›classical‹ zombie in Night of the Living Dead by the Ameri can underground filmmaker George A. Romero. The film was released in 1968, the same year the criteria for brain death were issued and one year after the world’s first successful heart transplant. This may be a coincidence, but in hindsight, the events appear intercon nected. The medical historian Heiko Stoff and the film scholar Marcus Stiglegger (p. 18 ) shed light on the history and the many implications of the modern zombie mythos. On closer examination, we discover that these frightening, apocalyptic characters were always closer to us than we assumed. These creatures, whose monstrosity make them appear absolutely different, alien and hostile, may actually be an expression of a deep suspicion that we harbour such monsters in us. Many races, religions and eras have contributed to an eclectic family of undead, but none embodies the central fears of humans in the restless, technologized and materialistic societies of today so well as zombies. It is the fear of lead ing a soulless, meaningless and hopeless life, reduced to the body and its capabilities. And the fear of being completely controlled by daily life, work, drugs and technology.

The popularity of zombies needs some explain ing. No other monster reminds us in such terri fying ways of our own mortality, its physical ex pression and its potential soullessness. The liv ing dead allegorically represent the horrors of our miserable present and our apocalyptic fu ture. But zombies, these creatures that are nei ther dead nor alive, belong to a long line of manmade inventions androids, cyborgs, clones which probe our relationship with life and death from a utopian-dystopian perspective.

zombie culture

In the 1930s Haitian voodoo myths were trans lated into popular culture. Films like White Zombie (1932 ) and I Walked with a Zom bie (1943) depicted the living dead as remotely controlled, somnambulistic slave creatures. The image proved to be extremely effective, had a successful B-movie career in the 1950s and was frequently celebrated as an icon of American trash and pop culture. After George R. Romero introduced his paradigmatic vision of zombies in Night of the Living Dead in 1968, which he refined in 1978 in Dawn of The Dead , the focus of zombie films shifted from the relationship of master and slave to their am bivalent, eerie status as creatures that are neither living nor dead. Romero’s »zombie invasion narrative«, i.e. masses of living dead attacking a few surviving humans, the zombie film genre and even zombies themselves became a species of sorts. Italian and Spanish productions, in par ticular, cultivated the splatter and gore elements of zombie films in the 1970s and 1980s. But that’s not the end of the story. In the stand ard work American Zombie Gothic pub lished in 2010, the literary scholar Kyle William Bishop identifies what he calls a »Zombie Ren aissance«, evidence of which he not only finds

in a growing number of zombie films in the 21st century, but also the increasing significance of computer games and graphic novels. What is more remarkable is the frequent use of the zom bie metaphor, which has even gained scientific relevance in information techntology and the neurosciences. One could justifiably claim that we are witnessing the rise of a zombie culture. One reason that zombie films are so attractive is that they are especially suited for contemporary allegorization racism and war, capitalism and consumer society, exclusion and oppression of minorities, biotechnologies and pandemics, 9 /11 and the ›War on Terror‹ all of these phe nomena have been the subject of zombie films. Zombies embody both existential and social fears. Zombie films have now been joined by an enormous and growing pool of literature in the areas of film and literary studies, polit ical science and philosophy. The zombie is an im aginary-fantastic character which provides in sights into our modern existence, similar to the cyborg. It comes as no surprise that Donna Har away’s famous Cyborg Manife s to was sup plemented by a Zombie Manifesto . Their existence on the threshold between life and death, nature and culture, reality and fiction is what underlies the importance of zombies in post-humanistic discourse.

life and death

Zombies are neither dead nor alive. This irrec oncilability reflects the biotechnological project which links the dissemination and regulation of human life with the suppression and control of death. At the end of the 19th century, evolution ary theory and cell research re-evaluated life and death, and sought an explanation for how death penetrated multicellular organisms. The

demographic and medical development at the start of the 20th century, longer life expectancies and the decrease in stillbirths and child mortal ity also forced death to retreat to the advanced years of life. The biological truth at the time was that there was no clear demarcation between life and death, because death arose from the pres ence of life. Biopolitics strived to enlarge the realm of life and weaken the power of death, necrobiosis. The life sciences of the 20th century were busy combating every type of death, first taking aim at the inevitability of aging and eventually death itself. But then the ontological and epistemic constraints of the human body became an issue. The biotechnological reinvention of the human being through genetic selection or the physiological-surgical manipu lation of the body stood in radical contrast to the enlightened project of human improvement through discipline and upbringing. The formation of body and soul were precariously at odds.

Since the 19th century the perfect body has been a product of the biological and literary labora tory. Immortality and immutability, on the oth er hand, are characteristics of androids the biotechnological answer to the imperfections of human nature. In Auguste de Villiers de l’IsleAdam’s novel L’Ève future of 1886, the ficti tious Thomas Alva Edison proclaims »We oth ers live, we die. But the android knows neither life, nor sickness, nor death. She is above all im perfections, all shortcomings; she preserves the beauty of the dream.« What most clearly distin guishes this android, the perfect woman, is her triumph over death, her flawless physical shape which shall never decay. But this entity lacks a soul. She submits herself to her fate as if in a trance, in sad realization that she will never be human. The inability to achieve subjectification

by heiko stoff

is ultimately her death sentence. Hanns Heinz Ewers’s horror novel of 1911, Alraune Die Geschichte eines lebenden Wesens [Alraune. The Story of a Living Creature], was essentially a commentary on the new experimen tal-physiological methods of transplantation and artificial insemination, which, according to the Halle-based anatomist Wilhelm Roux, could enable »us to experimentally construct living organisms as we wish«. A laboratory prod uct herself, created through the insemination of a prostitute with the sperm of an executed criminal, Alraune is also a creature without a soul. In a somnambulistic trance, she causes the downfall of men, for which she consequently must die. During the first three decades of the 20th century, the life sciences, in particular those related to transplantation medicine and hor mone research, were focused on extending and reju-venating life. The »elements of life«, organs and limbs of animals and corpses, were used as raw material for repairing and optimizing the human body. The experimental techniques in transplantation medicine erased the boundary separating natural and artificial, the self and the other, living and dead, human and animal. There was a fear, however, that the foreign ob jects, once implanted, could take control of the body.

neither living nor dead

The biotechnological utopia of improving and surpassing human beings which developed at the beginning of the 20th century set the stage in the 1960s for the advent of cyborgs (humanmachine systems) and clones, genetically altered and potentially dead organisms which could re produce on their own. The cybernetic logic of post-humanism made use of the trans-human

istic arsenal of cloning, life prolongation, im plantation and prosthesis technology. The fan tastic bodies, envisioned at the turn of the cen tury, were disembodied and dehistoricized. Su periority to human beings could now only be achieved through death the dispersion of all meaning that defines and stabilizes humanness. At the end of the 19th century, people asked themselves: Will there be humans in the future who have conquered their own humanity, who stay young and live forever, who need not worry about sickness, who live in a world of technical advances, who constantly reinvent themselves and are equipped with yet unknown psycho physical powers? Or will they be monstrosities, the horrifying results of failed or evil experi ments, technically remodelled and hierarchi cally recoded creatures without a soul?

In their Zombie Manifesto , Sarah Juliet Lauro and Karen Embry point out that emphatic post-humanism evokes zombies to a larger extent than cyborgs. When imagining a posthumanistic future and death of the subject, zombies are a more suitable phantasm than cy borgs as a swarm-like organism comprised of unconscious individuals. Each zombie by itself, teetering and shuffling along, driven by in stincts and vague memories, is weak and lost, but en masse, they are strong, a creeping, drool ing multitude which appears directionless, but is focused on a common goal.

Zombies are post-human because they pose the question of life and death in a new way. They are a walking paradox, somehow both living and dead. One can hardly attribute the potential of emancipation to zombies, as Haraway did in her treatment of cyborgs. Nonetheless, zombies, being both living and dead, subject and object, slave and rebel, can be used as a theoretical model which is steeped in power and history.

things and incarnation

The zombie is both an antagonist and protago nist among man-made creatures of the 20th and 21st centuries. It serves as a caricature of eternal life and completes the post-human project. In the blog antagonist , the writer Rodney takes it one step further, »A zomby [sic] is the material realization of the perpetual postpone ment of humanity. […] It is a thing among things. To some that’s the most horrifying pros pect possible.« Making the living dead into ›things‹ allows the brutalized human survivors in all of Romero’s films to take joy in merciless-

ly hunting and slaughtering them. Dismissed as »these things«, humans are freed from treating zombies as equals. In Dawn of the Dead , zombies are called »low-life bastards« and in the Day of the Dead , they are regarded as noth ing more than »dumbfucks«. In all of Romero’s zombie films, human society never changes de spite the sudden, shocking appearance of the living dead. Class conflicts continue, racism con tinues, sexism continues. In the Zombie Sur vival Guide , Max Brooks points to some thing even more dangerous than zombies marauding posses of humans that form when ever social structures disintegrate. But Romero adds a surprising twist to his zombie tales, which can certainly be regarded as a commentary on the post-humanistic project. With the release of Dawn of the Dead , Romero’s zombies ap pear melancholy, lost in thought, confused, as if only a veil were keeping them from becoming human. Zombies if we recall their original slave existence are rebellious creatures. They rebel against both death and those humans who refuse to recognize their humanity. In the Day of the Dead , it’s the mad scien tist Dr. Logan who allows zombies to become human by using his research on zombie brains to conduct an enlightened experiment similar to the re-socialisation of the »Wolf Boy«. Logan tries to teach a zombie named Bub to behave in a social, civilized manner (rewarding him for his progress with fresh human meat!). Indeed, Bub soon remembers the customs he learned long ago when he was human. He applies them again and even re-learns how to speak. When Logan is killed by a military which has no regard for his experiments, Bub shows signs of sadness and anger. In Day of the Dead , the living dead are the ones who learn how to be human. They communicate with one anoth er to organize a zombie revolt against the living. They reclaim their subject status they act out of vengeance, rather than hunger. Romero does not spare the viewer the tropes of their subjectification; the zombies even recognize themselves in a mirror. The souls return to their destroyed bodies. The warning cry »they’re not your neighbours«, which justified killing people who looked like your friends but were really ani malistic monsters, was now replaced by »they are us« in Day of the Dead , the acceptance of zombies into a human society capable of changing.

In the film Otto ; or Up with Dead Peo ple of 2008, Bruce LaBruce continues Rome

ro’s narrative with a unique twist the zombies are no longer extraordinary. They have devel oped and become more sophisticated. They’ve learned to converse and discuss to a limited de gree. The off-camera narrator describes this as an evolutionary process. Generation after generation, zombies were destroyed, because they re minded humans all too much of their own mor tality and somnambulistic behaviour. Those who survived the brutal and relentless hostility of the living passed down their knowledge to the next generation. Otto, the hero of this gay zombie film, is a pitiable, yet rather sexy looking zombie with an identity crisis and emotional disorder (»he looked extremely abject,« as the narrator puts it). The film authentically depicts Otto’s emptiness and his search for intensive stimulation, typical of this type of existence in a dead and sterile world.

the humanization of zombies

Today zombies are still frequently depicted as those despised beasts of the 1970s. Such portray als can be found, for example, in Danny Boyle’s 28 Hours Later (2002 ) in its post-apocalyp tic scenario accompanied by a pandemic theme, or David Cronenberg’s films Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977), which used the classic zom bie narrative monsters which change people into bloodthirsty predators, the slaughtering of whom not only seems legitimate, but necessary for survival. But Romero introduces a character trait in zombies, which LaBruce poignantly comments on, and which offers an entirely dif ferent approach to how the living can come to terms with the undead. Namely, the humaniza tion of zombies, mindful of the zombie-like life many humans lead in the age of capitalism. This can evoke empathy for zombies, and even iden tification with them. In Dawn of the Dead the zombies invade a shopping mall where they carry out rudimentary rituals of consumption. The zombies act instinctively, influenced by vague recollections of their former lives in capi talism. In a twisted way, they’ve remained soul less consumers. Humans themselves are the liv ing dead, LaBruce remarks laconically: »lonely, empty, dead inside.« That’s why Otto would be the perfect actor for a film called Up with Dead People , which the filmmaker Medea wants to make, because he seems so authentic. However, apart from his pale face, dirty-torn clothes and revolting smell, he looks very much like the living actors playing in the film.

Zombie is a term used to describe forms of existence which the increasingly brutal living de spise and cast off. Even Otto is beaten up in a back lot by young immigrants that’s how complicated it gets. The humanization of zom bies is a reflection of the dehumanization of the living. This, however, is a reaction to that equal ly fantastic and political project of creating a future biotechnological race which has finally overcome human weakness, fatigue, lethargy, mortality. The more we imagine cyborgs, the larger the number of living dead we encounter those lethargic »low-lifes« which do not be long to the post-human species. It is no coinci dence that usually the masses of undead in films are comprised of old people. Even in the utopias of the 20th century, the old were too close to death to be integrated into the new human race. The basic concept of post-humanism is to free the future of old people comparable to the French director Robin Campillo’s insightful idea explored in the film Les Revenants (2003 ), in which the dead decently dressed old people suddenly return to the world of the living and demand their place in society. A silent appeal which humans finally grant them after a legal tug-of-war. But these zombies have no desire for peaceful coexistence with humans; they secretly communicate with one another and finally sabotage the post-modern world in a bomb attack.

The tales and emotional wounds of zombies stand in contrast to the biotechnological perfec tionism of cyborgs. The post-humanistic death of the subject is not an option for the undead which are hunted down, despised and excluded, socially dead and forever forced to fight for their subjectification. This process of becoming human can be accomplished through rebellion (Romero), hipness (LaBruce) or terrorism (Camp illo). And it is always an appeal to the possibili ties of change and historicity which contradicts the rigid order of the cyborg. When it comes down to zombies and cyborgs, the zombies win the day!

Heiko Stoff , *1964 , is a scientific historian in Braunschweig. In 2004 he wrote the book Ewige Ju gend Konzepte der Verjüngung vom späten 19 Jahrhundert bis ins Dritte Reich [Eternal Youth. Concepts of Rejuvenation from the Late 19th Cen tury to the Third Reich], published by Böhlau, Cologne and Weimar. He is currently working on another book, ti tled Geschichte der Wirkstoffe [History of Cat alysers], which is scheduled for publication in 2011

when there is no more room in hell

Literature and film are the genres which most frequently explore the realm of the undead. However, the undead characters in these stories are by no means a revival of yesterday’s clichés. In his historical examination of zombie films, Mar cus Stiglegger shows how the undead have reacted to the socio-political context of their times and how they have evolved over the course of (film) history.

Our penchant for the eerie and strange has always evoked the return of the dead, who now densely populate numerous con cepts and subgenres. There is an undeniable relationship be tween the dead and all those other creatures that dwell on the threshold between life and death. Blood-sucking vampires, reawakened mummies, corpse-eating ghouls and last but not least, the returning dead zombies. Although these creatures may ap pear threatening, they are burdened by a tragic flaw. They have transcended death and must continue their existence beyond human life. There’s a price to pay for immortality; the undead must constantly find new sources of nourishment (blood, flesh) or take revenge on the living. Modern adaptations, in particular, tend to explore the tragic fate of the living dead in more depth. For example, when the undead recall their human existence and incompetently try to relive it, or when the vampire complains of the loneliness of his immortal life, or when the mummy goes out in search of his lost love, it’s then that these supposedly terrifying monsters seem more human than those who hunt them. The zombie is the most modern variety of the undead and undoubtedly the most primitive. The reawakened dead have be come a metaphor for the never-ending cycle of life and its recur rent structures beyond death. But where have they come from, these seemingly beastlike cannibals who thrive on contagion and pestilence?

The word zombie derives from the word nzùmbe in the Afri can language Kimbundu, and means »spirit of the dead«. When African slaves were taken to Central America (specifically Haiti), elements of African culture were also transferred from one conti nent to another and merged with those of the Christian religion to become a multifaceted syncretism. While Haiti was under US occupation from 1915 to 1934 , a number of terms and elements of the voodoo cult spread to the southern United States, where they become popularized and mythologized. Even today, peo ple there still respect and fear the power of voodoo magic (hoo doo). In the voodoo cult, a zombie cadaver is a person who has been killed with a special powder, then rises from the dead as a mindless creature to serve the priest (houngan). For years the ethno-botanic field has tried to explain the effect of this mysteri ous powder. The ethnologist Wade Davis hypothesizes that the powder could be a combination of tetrodotoxin, found in puff erfish, and the datura (Devil’s Cucumber). Other researchers have claimed that alleged ›zombies‹ were simply falsely identi fied, mentally ill homeless people. According to legend, however, these individuals died and reawakened as zombies, transformed into apathetic, lost souls. Later, Davis claimed that all of the fac tors studied, both biological and social, were involved in the process of voodoo zombification (Davis 1988 1, p. 212 ). The most important thing, however, is the belief in the efficacy of such ritu

als a thesis that Wes Craven fantastically ›refuted‹ in his film adaptation of Davis’ first book The Serpent and the Rainbow in 1987. But Craven’s film also highlighted a political dimension of this cult the popular fear of becoming mindless (zombified) marionettes of a tyrannical dictatorship. After all, rumour has it that »Papa Doc«, the Haitian dictator, also had his hand in voodoo practices. We can assume that the fear of the dead returning to life is as old as human history in view of an cient religious myths of origin and their references to the resur rection of the dead. This may be why death vigils and funeral rites were introduced as a precautionary measure to prevent the terrifying return of the deceased. Nonetheless, they have en tered our world the undead, the revenants, the restless souls. With regard to the popularization of Haitian myths, Hollywood was quick to produce a film adaptation. White Zombie (1932 ) by Victor Halperin combined the criticism of colonialism, issues of slavery and religious syncretism to form a frightening model based on social reality. The voodoo religion initially took hold in Haiti as a form of resistance against the French colonial power and spawned numerous secret organizations which elaborated on and disseminated stories of zombification and eternal curses.

At the same time, voodoo was the religion of former slaves who directed their resentment at the plantation owners. In White Zombie , voodoo magic is abused to satisfy personal desire and create a breed of mindless, capitalistic slaves. The total exploita bility of the body the final goal of radical capitalism is a latent critical subtext in this first cinematic example.

The most influential film classic of this voodoo subgenre was I Walked With a Zombie (1942 ) by Jacques Tourneur and Val Lewton. Dramaturgically based on the Brontë novel Jane Eyre , the film tells the story of a nurse (Frances Dee), who goes to Jamaica to care for a mentally disturbed woman (Christine Hordon) who is married to a plantation owner (Tom Conway). In her encounter with the mysterious rituals of the Jamaicans, the nurse discovers a powerful, strange world which she tries to use to treat her patient’s apathy. However, her patient is already under the curse of voodoo magic. In this case, one can interpret the zombification as a political metaphor for the opposition to colonial influence. The British-based Hammer Studios also tried to establish this political metaphor in The Plague of the Zombies (1965) by John Gilling. The story takes place in Victorian England where a nobleman brings his colonialist plunder voodoo magic back to Cornwall, allowing him to use mindless, undead labourers to run his mining operations. In contrast to White Zombie , the zombie motif in this film is more clearly a metaphor for the exploited working class which is completely dominated by the control-hungry ruling class. The same applies to gender relations. The liberal-minded doctors

are also incapable of resisting this exploitative system. The venge ance of the exploited colonial empires also plays a role in these variations.

American cinema completely modernized the zombie phenom enon to fit the atomic age which had long eclipsed that of the co lonial powers. This modernization of the horror genre continued in 1968 with movies by Roman Polanski, Stanley Kubrick and George A. Romero (Nicholls, 1984 , p. 68 ). In the aftermath of World War II , the Holocaust, the Korean War, and increasing tensions of the Cold War and the escalation of the Vietnam War, Romero independently produced the now famous Night of the Living Dead in 1968 in his hometown of Pittsburgh. The pleasant shudder of black Romanticism was replaced by a socio-political component an expression of Romero’s anger with an America which seemed to teeter at the brink of totalitari anism. While the living dead surround a lonely cottage, a con flict ensues inside among the company of random individuals who have come from very different walks of life. The only one who survives the zombie onslaught is a black man only to be shot down by vigilantes, dragged out of the house on meat hooks and burned along with the other cadavers an obvious allusion to the Holocaust iconography. Romero poses an unusual ques tion: Could it be that human beings are the ones who are de stroying themselves? Are the cannibalistic undead truly more dangerous than the racist vigilantes? Aren’t the infected and now living dead still a part of something they used to be even though their appetite for life is now lethal? Romero’s zombies do not originate from voodoo magic they have been conjured by humans and have become an »infectious allegory« (Shaviro 1993 ).

Ten years later, Romero came out with the official sequel Dawn of the Dead (1978 ), which was promoted with that unforget table line, »When there’s no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth.« This is why the dead return, replies the reluctant Jamaican protagonist in this modern variation of an apocalypse painting. In Romero’s doomsday scenario, a random group of people fights its way through a zombie-infested America and finally hides out in a shopping mall. The zombies, recalling the habits of their past lives, stroll in and out of the stores. Romero emphasizes once again who these zombies really are dead Americans who have found their way back to life. In terms of its setting, Romero’s Dawn of the Dead qualifies as a satire on consumption, in which the surviving humans are themselves the last consumer good food for the undead. As in Night of the Living Dead , the authoritarian use of violence does not bring lasting success. Vigilantes, brutally violent rockers and armed militias fall victim to their own destructiveness. For the first time, Dawn of the Dead dares to ask the question

the perpetual return of the undead as a political metaphor

by marcus stiglegger

whether humans are perhaps the disruptive factor in a world of living dead. Romero uses the zombie as a metaphor for modern life running in idle. It’s not the humans fighting for survival who are the norm, but rather the apathetic undead who shuffle mind lessly from the suburbs to the shopping mall and back. The capi talistic system of consumption is a hell itself which only the un dead are capable of escaping.

Even though this metaphorical revolt of the undead took some years in the making, the modern zombie established itself in pop culture in comics, music videos, genre films and computer games. These dangerous monsters soon appeared as comic side kicks, playing a parody of themselves. The true overkill of the zombie comedy genre came with Peter Jackson’s Braindead (1992 ) in which an idyllic New Zealand community is gradually overrun by raving mad undead who can only be destroyed with lawnmowers. Excessive splatter and slapstick merge to form a daring horror parody which reveals the worst of middle-class consumer society. In Great Britain, Shaun of the Dead (2004) by Edgar Wright demonstrates what happens when a clumsy loser (Simon Pegg) discovers that his favourite pub has been taken over by aggressive zombies. Sometimes there’s no alternative but to defend oneself by using one’s favourite records as projectiles. In this film the apathetic city dwellers resemble the conventional cliché of zombies more than ever the transi tion from »human zombie« to those lethargic, remotely control led undead seems but a logical step. These terrifying figures of years ago have become more pitiable and comically tragic in these ironic models, and indeed even more human than the hu mans themselves. In one scene, the protagonist doesn’t even no tice that he’s surrounded by lurching zombies when he buys his morning paper at the kiosk; such individuals are apparently a normal part of his urban setting. Again the zombie is used to symbolize social apathy and middle-class idleness, but this time in the less contentious form of a parody. And soon a new idea found fertile ground namely the cohabi tation of the living and the dead. In the American comedy Fido (2006 ), society creates a service industry out of necessity. Here we recognize distinct elements of the economic slave model which featured in early voodoo treatments. If only the undead weren’t driven by their cannibalistic instincts. In the end, the humans are not quite able to fully subject themselves to the will of the undead. Two coming-of-age variations, Jennifer’s Body (2008 ) by Karyn Kusama and Dead Girl (2008 ) by Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel fully explore the rather marginal concept of sexually attractive undead women, which proves to be far stranger than one might expect. The character of these female revenants, which Romero was the first to flesh out, is fully developed in these films. The undead, once a threat to

humans, then a source of cheap labour, have now become an ob ject of sexual desire which ironically emancipates them from their existence as objects.

Many of these elements can be founded in George A. Romero’s visions of an undead America. In his film Day of the Dead (1984) Romero tells the story of the last bastion of resistance deep in an underground atomic bunker where a small group of sol diers and scientists stand firm against an attack of the undead, on whom they conduct experiments. The humans are their own worst enemy, while the undead join forces in silent solidarity. This idea was also inspired by the heightened Cold War anxi ety in the 1980s. In this film, the zombies seem to be a metaphor for the return of the oppressed Third World which accelerates the downfall of the privileged class. Again the leading roles are played by a woman and an African American, and there’s even a vague reference to the Haitian background, but ultimately the film is an anti-militaristic parable. Interestingly, the story intro duces a zombie named Bub who recalls much of his prior life as a human and is also capable of using a gun, as he demonstrates with a military salute. Bub leads his cohorts into the bunker and thus plays a key role in sealing the fate of the humans. The un dead finally rise in revolt, overcome their apathetic condition and become a symbol of a new beginning. The zombie is the hero of this revolt. The invoked apocalypse is only a place where pow er is handed over in a world where the dead have already sup planted the living.

In the new millennium the depiction of the undead radically changed. Danny Boyle rediscovered the theme of the British apocalypse in 28 Days Later (2002 ) and reapplied the motif of the froth-at-the-mouth undead who attack humans with in credible speed and unrestrained aggression. The undead are por trayed as far more dangerous and completely lacking in social romanticism. This society of rabid monsters is programmed to destroy everything, but functions more efficiently than human society which is fraught with in-fighting and dissention. The American Zack Snyder tries to reconcile all these new tendencies in his remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004), which pos sesses none of the original’s black humour and abandons its satir ical style, leaving it up to Romero himself to take the next step. Snyder’s vision is characterized by the pervasive American fear of terrorism, which certainly has parallels to the paranoia of atomic annihilation during the Cold War in the 1950s and 1980s. Its international success paved the way for Romero’s second zom bie trilogy which he began with the post-apocalyptic Land of the Dead (2005). Set again in an urban human enclave, the film contains obvious political references to the paranoid ten dencies of George W. Bush’s administration starring Dennis

Hopper as the American President in one of his last major roles and clearly shifts the sympathy away from the humans to the undead. The undead organize a final revolt, and under the lead ership of an intelligent black zombie, succeed in breaching the security of the last humans. The success of this film moved Romero to make the film Diary of the Dead (2007) which celebrates the end of humanity from the subjective point of view of a student film crew. In Survival of the Dead (2010 ) the undead themselves take centre-stage while the humans strive to kill one another on a deserted island. For the first time, Romero goes off-book by depicting zombies eating animals, (a horse), which makes them appear more human. For their part, however, the humans demand retribution and become a deadly menace themselves. In fact, humans are now the destructive factor in a world that is finally regaining its balance. The post-apocalyptic age has eliminated humans and elevated the zombies from a horrible threat to legitimate contemporaries.

We are now witnessing a new generation of undead in the most recent examples of zombies in films, comics and computer games. The once apathetic creatures have become smarter and faster. Their original regression reminds us of an ancient predator with superior instincts and rebellious potential. Zombifica tion, the contagion of the undead, has become more important, while their resurrection and curse made popular in classical horror stories dating back to the period of Dark Romanticism of the 19th century have become secondary. The transforma tion into a zombie no longer implies becoming a powerless mari onette. The community of the undead now strongly resembles an alternative functioning society, which most certainly mirrors fragments of human society that have fallen by the wayside due to the capitalist crisis. Now the company of cyborgs and pros thetic humans has been joined by the undead, the first post-hu man entities truly created in the human image. Whether con sciously or not, zombie films always reflect on the times in which they are made and apply the metaphor of the living dead for po litical, social or satirical purposes. While humans of (post-) mod ern society seem to place all their trust in authoritarian structures and resist shaking off social passivity, the undead offer a truly alternative model of society with actionistic instincts and a will to survive. One could even claim that the undead are becoming more human than humans themselves, gradually pushing them aside and replacing them. What we used to regard as regressive has surprisingly turned out to be quite evolutionary.

Marcus Stiglegger , Dr. phil. habil., *1971, is a senior researcher for film and image analysis at the University of Siegen. He studied Film and Thea tre Studies, Ethnology and Philosophy, and has produced several short films and music videos. His most recent book Terrorkino Angst/Lust und Körperhorror [Cinema of Terror. Fear/Desire and Body Horror] was pub lished by the Verlag Bertz + Fischer, Berlin in 2010

the advantage of a little less life

the cares of a family man

Some say the word Odradek is of Slavonic origin, and try to account for it on that basis. Others again believe it to be of German origin, only influ enced by Slavonic. The uncertainty of both interpretations allows one to assume with justice that neither is accurate, especially as neither of them provides an intelligent meaning of the word. No one, of course, would occupy himself with such studies if there were not a creature called Odradek. At first glance it looks like a flat star-shaped spool for thread, and indeed it does seem to have thread wound upon it; to be sure, they are only old, broken-off bits of thread, knotted and tan gled together, of the most varied sorts and colours. But it is not only a spool, for a small wooden crossbar sticks out of the middle of the star, and another small rod is joined to that at a right angle. By means of this latter rod on one side and one of the points of the star on the other, the whole thing can stand upright as if on two legs.

One is tempted to believe that the creature once had some sort of intelligible shape and is now only a broken-down remnant. Yet this does not seem to be the case; at least there is no sign of it; nowhere is there an un finished or unbroken surface to suggest anything of the kind; the whole thing looks senseless enough, but in its own way perfectly finished. In any case, closer scrutiny is impossible, since Odradek is extraordinarily nim ble and can never be laid hold of.

He lurks by turns in the garret, the stairway, the lobbies, the entrance hall. Often for months on end he is not to be seen; then he has presumably moved into other houses; but he always comes faithfully back to our house again. Many a time when you go out of the door and he happens just to be leaning directly beneath you against the banisters you feel in clined to speak to him. Of course, you put no difficult questions to him, you treat him he is so diminutive that you cannot help it rather like a child. »Well, what’s your name?« you ask him. »Odradek,« he says. »And where do you live?« »No fixed abode,« he says and laughs; but it is only the kind of laughter that has no lungs behind it. It sounds rather like the rustling of fallen leaves. And that is usually the end of the conversa tion. Even these answers are not always forthcoming; often he stays mute for a long time, as wooden as his appearance.

I ask myself, to no purpose, what is likely to happen to him? Can he pos sibly die? Anything that dies has had some kind of aim in life, some kind of activity, which has worn out; but that does not apply to Odradek. Am I to suppose, then, that he will always be rolling down the stairs, with ends of thread trailing after him, right before the feet of my children, and my children’s children? He does no harm to anyone that one can see; but the idea that he is likely to survive me I find almost painful.

by franz kafka

Karin Harrasser: In many ways Odradek in Cares of a Family Man is a threshold being. What makes Odradek so worrisome?

Joseph Vogl: First we must ask: Who is doing the worrying? Who is the protagonist? The term »family man« was already an archaic description of status in Kafka’s time. Derived from the Greek, it means the man of the house, the leader of an oikos. What is he responsible for? The family man is responsible for ensuring that all the things inside a house, inside an enclosed living space, are in the right place. He must ensure that all things and creatures within have a purpose so that this house, the smallest political unit, can reproduce properly. The second question we must ask is: What ›cares‹ is Kafka referring to? The family man’s cares refer to his ability to manage his house well. So we have a subject who is responsible for appropriately managing the things and beings in an enclosed living space. And Odradek disrupts this orderly community which strives to ensure that everything in the oikos has a purpose, that all creatures living inside have an inner pur pose, reproduce and pass away. Odradek has no place in this structure, has no identifiable purpose and, thus, threatens to de stroy the family man’s world.

Harrasser: There’s some speculation in the text whether this entity Odradek can die, which in effect is a question of whether it’s alive. The answer the protagonist gives is probably not, be cause it had no life to »wear out«. Does this response point to a very distinct concept of life?

Vogl: You might have to turn the question around, because Odradek gives us no answers, but only presents us with its radical form. There’s no way to tell whether Odradek is alive or not. There’s no telling whether it a thing or a non-thing. There’s no telling wheth er it’s a person or non-person. It leaves categorical classification of every kind completely open to interpretation. None of these traits fit Odradek, they all slide off. On the other hand, we can not assume that the traits are negated, either. It’s an entity which can be either this way or that way. Either living or dead, either person or non-person, either child or adult, either anorganic or or ganic. This makes it a collection of traits which are incoherent or incompatible in their entirety.

Harrasser: The undead are usually defined as characters which are neither living nor dead. They’re marked by deficiency. What you’ve just described sounds more like a character marked by ex cess. That would set Odradek completely apart from the undead in terms of how we generally view them the undead, vampires and zombies are always lacking something, while Kafka’s figure lacks nothing.

Vogl: Clearly it’s the polar opposite of your everyday undead. Be cause it has no place to exist in this world, Odradek is not a figure of deficiency, but of excess, a reservoir of unsolved questions.

Harrasser: Does this concept of excess apply to any of Kafka’s oth er threshold characters, for example, Rotpeter the ape or Gregor Samsa in The Metamorphosis ?

Vogl: All of these characters are overdetermined, they’re periph eral because they defy classification. They dwell in threshold spaces, characterized by vague conditions of habitation. They are neither of this world nor beyond, neither subterranean nor heavenly, neither spiritual nor material. And above all, they are creatures with a diminished humanity. They exist in a place we have created for such problematic cases in limbo. Thomas of Aquino defined limbo as the place where human souls which hadn’t been welcomed into the fold of Christian salvation went, namely those of unbaptized children. Despite their innocence, the children couldn’t simply go to heaven without having re ceived the sacrament of baptism. On the other hand, they couldn’t go to hell with a conscience free of guilt. Those in limbo comprise the group of ill-fated individuals who have no aware

Translated from the German by Willa and Edwin Muir

an interview with joseph vogl on the cares of a family man and the undead

ness of divine salvation. And although they are complete in every way, their destiny is determined by the lack of salvation. As nonclassified beings, they are creatures of abundance, but even as creatures of abundance, they are missing one thing, namely the awareness of the doctrine of salvation, the promise of salvation. I think Kafka finds one particular aspect of these entities espe cially intriguing. They are a kind of divining rod with which one can find forms of existence that are presumably innocent. It’s a search for a way to withdraw from a guilt process in an ethical, theological and economic sense. These are aneconomic beings. The reason why they are so resistant is because they do not dwell in the human, or anthropomorphic, realm which is so closely linked to issues of guilt. And one can only come across such indi viduals by turning to that which is not subject to a guilt process in this world.

Harrasser: At the end of the text, the family man suddenly expresses his horrible realization that Odradek may possibly live forever. What’s the reason for this dramatic turn?

Vogl: For most of the story, the narrative style is impersonal, but suddenly switches to the first person »I« at the end. The whole text is a cascade of questions whose answers lead to dead ends. The name ›Odradek‹ is linguistically, etymologically unidentifi able, he or she is undefined, undefinable and incomprehensible. Odradek is not a metaphor, but rather demonstrates the bottom lessness of metaphorical operation. Surprisingly, the interroga tion leads to a personal and direct moment of introspection when the narrator starts interrogating himself. In the end, the narrator is exposed as a stricken, wounded subject. What we have here is something that seems truly undead, some thing between life and death, and it proves to be a terrible im pediment to all the family man’s questions. We not only encoun ter the uncanny, in terms of Sigmund Freud, i.e. the most peculiar entity in a strange shape, but also an immortal being, a reser voir of lost, unredeemed and missed moments of happiness.

Harrasser: Obviously Odradek is a difficult specimen to classify. But at the same time, it circumscribes the limits of another category, namely that of biological species. At least since Charles Darwin, the question of species has elicited theories concerning the end of the human species. Can we regard Odradek as an entity which challenges the human species as such? Does its uncanniness correspond with the notion of the possible end of hu manity?

Vogl: That’s certainly one of the key lines of interpretation in Kaf ka’s piece, a line along which Kafka presents a gradual dehumanization, and this against a background of the life sciences of the 19th century. We need only recall one of Kafka’s early characters, Leni in The Trial , when she spreads out her fingers and re veals a web of skin connecting her middle and ring fingers, an atavism in a very biological sense. Something very similar occurs in the humanization tale of Rotpeter the ape. Kafka turns an evolutionary fairytale on its head, a parody of how species are classified with regard to their evolutionary biology. Kafka con ducts an intensive investigation of the law governing species, pre suming he means the ›law‹ in concrete terms. We could interpret all of Kafka’s texts, especially his novels in which he describes life, as a written effort to probe the boundaries of the human spe cies. His texts bring us to that moment at which the congruence of bio-graphy, writing in general, determination of species, classi fication and life form collapses or is distorted. These aberrations produce a strange assortment of threshold beings.

Harrasser: Another allusion to the undead can be found in Kaf ka’s institutions, in which one encounters their »unheroic forms of survival«. Erving Goffman came up with the term »underlife« while conducting ethnographic research on life in public insti-

tutions. Would you say that the term also fits Kafka’s unheroic characters?

Vogl: The dissolution of one’s form of identity is surely a critical moment. If life in the bio-political sense it had become in the 19th century means providing someone a life-form, then what Kafka does is put the associated attributes and figures of identity to the test. The interesting thing about his characters is that in some constellations, a little less life can be to one’s advantage. There is a tendency to not make life complete with vitality, but with biological forms of subtraction. I think we can interpret this as a reaction to bio-political techniques which Kafka was well acquainted with thanks to his work as an insurance officer. This not only concerns the life-generating force of the legal system, the question of managing life through insurance, the question of excess vitality within modern societies, forced vitality.

Harrasser: By forced vitality, are you referring to the political, ad ministrative and economic objective in the 19th century to en courage the population to produce and reproduce?

Vogl: Yes, exactly. And on this basis, Kafka appears to conclude that minimizing the possibility of access by powers (bureaucratic, administrative, economic) requires an initial weakening of what one could call ›life‹. It’s ironic that the surplus of forces, the surplus of energies, the surplus of vitality is what is needed in or der to bring to a halt the potential access of powers.

Harrasser: One could say that the undead characters which keep reappearing with increasing frequency in pop culture also repre sent a form of underlife. They are characterized by their lack of vital functions. In terms of what you’ve said, it would be worth considering whether zombies could be regarded as figures of hope because they allow us to imagine resisting bio-political ac cess by means of a minimization of vital functions. Zombies, of course, were originally a projection of social criticism, represent ing the burdens of alienation, insufficient freedom, a remotely controlled life and the violence associated with it especially in colonial subjects. We now get the impression, though, that some thing has changed in this respect, that the undead of today are appearing at the threshold to a world which they themselves are actively shaping.

Vogl: Zombies are wiedergänger revenants. Which means their identity is inextricably linked to the place they return to. In con trast to Kafka’s threshold beings, zombies are searching for an address. They are in search of the living. When a zombie appears, those who encounter it understand they are the ones the zombie is seeking and that this encounter cannot simply be taken care of or dealt with. But what is it? One of the first zombie scenes ever written can be found in a late Romantic text of the 19th cen tury in Goethe’s Faust II . At the end of the tale, Faust, a powerful entrepreneur, finds himself in a perplexing situation. He is busy building dikes and digging canals to acquire more land. Suddenly he hears the workers. His worries have caused him to go blind, and now he realizes that what he has been build ing and digging is not a new capitalistic project of the future, but actually his own grave. His workers are called lemures. And as we know, lemures are the undead, corpselike figures of Roman mythology. If we regard this as the first zombie scene ever, then we could claim that they appear as figures of exhaustion. Actual ly they are the dregs of a burgeoning energetic age. They show the living the powers that parasitically feed off life. They are nei ther spirits, i.e. witnesses of past failures, nor monsters, i.e. »per verted« life which defies all classification, but rather the mortal shell of one’s life which can never be shaken off. It is the product of cremation or waste, a reminder that the living produce their own death in the energetic age during which they believe to be living. The production of one’s own death in life is visibly pre sented in the funeral scene at the end of Faust II

Harrasser: Doesn’t this fall in line with Alain Ehrenberg’s theory that depression is now a symptom of the collective? He argues that the emergence of depression, exhaustion as a popular illness, is not the result of disciplining, restricting mechanisms of social ization, like a neurosis. Rather depression is the illness of life which results from too many possibilities, so many that not all can be embraced. In other words, depression is a symptom in people who are able, permitted or forced to do too much. Would you say that such a theory might be behind the current popularity of the undead?

Vogl: Well, I think it corresponds with it. You probably would have to regard the shifting figurations of the undead in the highly industrialized and highly capitalized countries since the 19th century as a shift in zones of exhaustion. The question is not only what and how many waste products industrialization has pro duced, but what the shadows of our own death look like in these societies. Since the 19th century, wear-and-tear and exhaustion have been key traits of the undead. This was followed by new forms of a pathological »weakness of will«. In addition to exces sive wanting or having to want or being able to want, individuals with a lack of will have appeared here and there. The embodi ment of flagging willpower often took a zombielike form. And they were depicted very specifically faceless, in a pack, in an impersonal form. They looked like something from A Cho rus Line , the musical. The only difference was that they performed a dance of the dead instead of a dance of vitality, which ought to have been the melody of the age. It demonstrates how much decayed, how much disposed, how much produced death liness surrounds us. And the depression, which seems so ubiqui tous in modern society nowadays, is most likely the dark side of a general culture of motivation and the need to motivate oneself.

Harrasser: So the demand for vitality is what produces the undead? Vogl: What we have is a densely organized array of self-constraints which guarantee that I can positively define myself, which guar antee that I can function reliably in this world, in this life, profes sion, society, family, or what have you and that’s where zom bies appear. And the horror these creatures evoke can be traced to an excess of positivities. In view of these positivities, the zom bie forces us to examine our own finiteness in its most impersonal form finiteness as something that we continually and permanently reproduce right here and now against our will. This finiteness you can’t dispose of it, you can’t delegate it, you can’t even say that someone or something else, like ›the system‹, is responsible for it. If you wanted to include all of this into a story of subjectivity, you would have to say that the zombie is truly a ›dead end‹ when it comes to our very light-hearted, very effi cient and very productive inner relationship to ourselves.

Joseph Vogl , *1957, is a literary scholar and philosopher. He currently holds the chair of New German Literature: Literary and Cultural Studies/Me dia at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and is the permanent visiting profes sor of German at Princeton University. His most recent publication, written in collaboration with Alexander Kluge, is Soll und Haben Fernsehge spräche [On the One Hand and On the Other. Television Interviews], pub lished by Diaphanes (Zurich/Berlin) in 2009

The interview was conducted by Karin Harrasser , media and cul tural studies researcher at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne.

lawrence of arabia

the making of a legend

by detlef hoffmann

Everyone talks about legends nowadays. Legends are larger than life and evoke the greatest expectations. Yet our conventional use of the term is rather vague. Enlightened scholars would de fine a ›legend‹ as a widely held, but false assumption. In their writ ings they attempt to rid the world of such errors and aid scientific and historic truth to victory. Such texts equate the making of a legend with mystification and secrecy. Then there are those who regard legends as myths the tales of the gods and their regulative intervention in the world like those transcribed by the ancient Greeks. An upcoming exhibition in Oldenburg and Co logne examines the making of a modern legend, namely, the leg end of Lawrence of Arabia. It will attempt to demonstrate how a historic figure of flesh and blood could assume an identity of mythical proportions that goes far beyond biographical fact. The report of T E . Lawrence’s death appeared in the tabloid Daily Sketch on 20 May 1935 with the headline »Too Big for Wealth and Glory« and the subtitle »Lawrence the Soldier Dies to Live for Ever«. Two photos accompany the story Law rence dressed as a Sharif of Mecca and Lawrence, sitting on his motorcycle, wearing his RAF uniform. Perhaps saints and gods have this power, but ordinary mortals never get the chance to die so that they can live forever. But as secularization became more widespread, national heroes and even ordinary soldiers were granted ›immortality‹. In contrast to Lawrence, however, they usually died on the battlefield. The headline »Too Big for Wealth and Glory« signalized that this was a man who had lived beyond the ideals of the common citizen.

The interests of modern complex societies are so splintered that no collective identities can be formed. This doesn’t change the fact that we all need something in common which provides struc ture to our lives and stories and images do this exceedingly well. The myths of antiquity were also the kind of stories that in stilled meaning to society. The image- and text-driven media of today is far more effective in creating legends than were the tales of ancient cultures, perhaps because we are surrounded by media. One story can have developed from various sources and at various locations. And this occasionally leads to contradictory meanings of the same legend as is the case with T E . Lawrence. Let’s reacquaint ourselves in brief with the biographical details of this man so that we can understand how and when the legendmaking began.

Thomas Edward Lawrence was born in Tremadoc, Caernarvon shire in Wales on 16 August 1888, the child of Thomas Robert Tighe Chapman and Sarah Maden. The Chapmans had lived in Ireland since the 17th century. In 1884 Thomas Robert left his first wife and moved to Wales to be with Sarah Maden. It was at this time he gave himself and his new family the name ›Law rence‹. T E . Lawrence had four brothers. To ensure their boys a good education, the family moved to Oxford in 1896 where Tho mas Edward took an interest in archaeology. He discovered late medieval pottery at an excavation site, which he showed the di rector of the Ashmolean Museum, David George Hogarth, who then actively supported Lawrence.

In 1906, 1907 and 1908 T E . Lawrence travelled by bicycle through France as far south as the Mediterranean Sea. He primarily visit ed castles, of which he took numerous photos. He graduated from Jesus College in Oxford in 1907. To prepare for a trip to the Orient, during which he hoped to collect material for his bach elor’s thesis, he began studying Arabic. Between the months of June and September 1909, he travelled 1,760 km through Syria and Palestine. He took pictures of Crusade-period castles and al so made sketches. He compiled the results of his studies in a the sis titled The Influence of the Crusades on Euro pean Military Architecture to the End of the 12th Century

After completing his degree, he became a research assistant for excavations conducted by the British Museum in Carchemish, located on the upper Euphrates (now near the Syrian-Turkish border). On 15 December 1910, the 22-year-old boarded a freighter to Istanbul. From there, he continued on land and arrived in Carchemish in February 1911. The excavation efforts in Carchemish lasted three years, interrupted only by occasional periods of travel. In January 1914 , T E . Lawrence and Leonard Woolley, Hogarth’s excavation assistant in Carchemish, were ordered to support Captain Newcombe in gathering topographical meas urements of the Sinai Peninsula. In February T E . Lawrence trav elled to Akaba and then on to Damascus. In May he returned to England and, in collaboration with Woolley, wrote the exca vation report The Wilderness of Zin Following the outbreak of hostilities which began World War I on 2 August 1914 , T E . Lawrence received a post in the carto graphic department of the General Staff in Egypt. At the time Egypt was a British protectorate. On 16 May 1916 Sir Mark Sykes and Georges Picot made a secret pact that established the demar cation of English and French interests. The newly created states of Syria and Lebanon fell under the sphere of French influence. The agreement was particularly significant because it led the Eng lish government to promise to support Sharif Hussein of Mecca, the ruler of the Hashemites, with creating an Arabic state if he would join England in their war against the Ottoman Empire. Sharif Hussein rallied the Arab tribes to wage war on the Turks on 5 June 1916. In October 1916, T E . Lawrence travelled as a mem ber of an English delegation for talks in Jeddah in the Hejaz prov ince. Shortly thereafter, he met Emir Feisal, Hussein’s third son, who would lead the Arab forces into battle. In March 1917, after an unsuccessful campaign to drive the Turks out of Medina, T E . Lawrence counselled Feisal to take Akaba from land so that Feisal’s Bedouin army could establish a supply route. Auda Abu Tayi, the ruler of Howeitat, played a crucial role in this operation.

On 6 July 1917, Akaba was captured by Feisal’s forces. Back in Cairo, Lawrence was introduced to General Edmund Allenby, the commander-in-chief of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. Allenby began his offensive against the Turks and marched into Jerusalem on 11 December 1917

With the help of the Bedouins, whom he admired for their excel lent skills in guerrilla warfare, T E . Lawrence conducted acts of sabotage on the Hejaz railway which connected Damascus to Mecca, thereby interrupting the Turkish supply line. Thanks in

part to Allenby’s offensive, the Turkish army was vanquished in the region of Amman. On 1 October 1918, Feisal and T E . Law rence arrived in the now liberated Damascus, where Sharif Hus sein was proclaimed King of the Arabs . On 4 October 1918, T E . Lawrence submitted his resignation from active duty to General Allenby and returned to England from Cairo. Following the surrender of the Ottoman Empire at Mudros Bay on 30 October 1918 and that of the German Empire with the sign ing of the Armistice in Compiègne on 11 November 1918, prepa rations began for the Paris Peace Conference. Emir Feisal trav elled to England in December 1918 with the intention of attend ing the conference. But before he continued his journey to Paris, he met with Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the prominent Zionist leader in England. Both politicians had met earlier in the year at Feisal’s military camp on 4 June 1918. At their second meeting on 11 December 1918, T E . Lawrence was on hand as an interpreter. England, however, had not only promised state sovereignty to the Arabs. On 2 November 1917, the British foreign minister Lord Balfour announced that the British government would guaran tee a »national home for the Jewish people in Palestine«. This was the objective of the meeting between Dr. Chaim Weizmann and Emir Feisal. On 3 January 1919 both politicians signed an agree ment, establishing diplomatic relations between the Arab State and Palestine

At the Paris Peace Conference, which commenced on 18 January 1919, Emir Feisal insisted that the Allies make good on their promise to grant sovereignty to the Arabs. However, this demand was met with resistance. When T E . Lawrence received word that he was to be honoured with the Order of Bath by King George V personally, he declined because he felt it impossible to accept such an award as long as England did not honour its promise to the Arabs.

As advisor to Winston Churchill and the director of the Colonial Office, T E . Lawrence participated in the conference in Cairo in March 1921. Resolutions were made at the conference to name Emir Feisal the King of Iraq and Emir Abdullah the ruler of Transjordan. T E . Lawrence travelled to Jeddah twice that year to urge King Hussein to recognize the resolutions that were passed in Cairo, but to no avail. In the long term, this strength ened Hussein’s adversary Ibn Saud, who, in 1925 , was crowned King of Arabia present-day Saudi Arabia.

Parallel to his efforts on the world political stage, T E . Lawrence began working on a literary adaptation of his war experiences while attending the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. He planned to name his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom T E . Law rence was assisted in this endeavour by a number of leading Eng lish intellectuals. He didn’t want to publish a text, but rather a bibliophile treasure in the tradition of William Morris and Wal ter Crane. He enlisted the painter Eric Kennington to portray the heroes of the Arab revolt. He chose Edward Wadsworth to design the initials and solicited William Roberts, Gertrude Hermes, Paul Nash and Blair Hughes-Stanton to provide illustra tions. He asked his close friends, such as George Bernhard Shaw, H G . Wells and Winston Churchill to proofread the galleys and proofs. After losing several manuscripts, he moved in to the at-

tic storey at Barton Street 14 , right next to the Houses of Parlia ment, and rewrote the final draft in 1922. In 1926 he printed a lim ited edition of 120 pre-ordered copies. The book project had de pleted his finances. In order to cover his expenses, he published an abridged edition titled Revolt in the Desert which was released in Great Britain and the United States in March 1927

While T E . Lawrence was putting his wartime memoirs to paper in Seven Pillars of Wisdom , the American journalist Lowell Thomas did much to increase his fame in the form of a romantic fairy tale. Lowell Thomas and his cameraman Harry Chase arrived in Egypt in 1918 and were granted extensive per mission to photograph and film whatever they wanted. In Febru ary 1918 he met up with T E . Lawrence in Jerusalem, while Harry Chase took numerous snapshots and film footage. Similar to the famous Magic Lantern Shows, which Mr. Albert Smith had perfected in the mid-19th century in England, Lowell Thomas put together an incredibly successful spectacle that including stunning sets, slide and film projections, music and dance and his own personal presentation. His »Lawrence of Arabia« show debuted in the United States. When it was shown in England at Covent Garden in August 1919, it was a huge success. T E . Law rence expressed a rather critical opinion of the show, but none theless offered to cooperate and stand for photos. Thomas took his show on a four-year world tour and staged 4 ,000 perform ances to approximately four million viewers. The script of his presentation was published in book form in 1924 , titled With Lawrence in Arabia , and sold very well. Lowell Thomas made a star out of Lawrence, who people started recognizing on the streets of London. He was a brilliant ray of light, symbolizing the glory of a war that was otherwise sullied by the millions who had perished. However, instead of basking in the glow of fame, from which he could have reaped substantial profit, Lawrence retreated from the public eye more and more. For as daring as he was on the battlefield, he proved to be quite shy in public life.

While the public embraced the imaginative, romantic portrayal of the revolt in the desert, a number of literary figures and schol ars published their own treatments of the subject matter starting in the 1920s. Although the writers Robert Graves, Liddell Hart and Edward Robinson depicted T E . Lawrence somewhat less ro mantically, they never questioned his status as a great hero. They all knew T E . Lawrence personally, discussed their texts with him, and as a result, were influenced by his very suggestive personality. The popular, intellectual and scientific writings, most of which were produced during his lifetime and until World War II , pre sented Lawrence as a romantic hero. This image formed the basis of David Lean’s film in 1962

As with any star, the legendary hero of our times had two lives a media life and a real life the latter of which he tried to con ceal. In August 1922 he signed up for regular duty with the Royal Air Force under the alias John Hume Ross. But by December of that same year, the Daily Express discovered the ruse and revealed his identity. Journalists camped outside his barrack. In March 1923 he joined the armoured corps in Bovington, Dor-

set under the name T E . Shaw. Several kilometres away, he pur chased a small house, called »Clouds Hill«, which is now a his toric landmark with the National Trust. In July 1925 he was grant ed permission to return to the RAF and was deployed at a mili tary airstrip in Cranwell, Lincolnshire. The RAF transferred him to India in 1927 where he served at a small airport named Miran shah Fort close to the Afghan border. That’s where he stayed un til 1929, while the British press relished in pursuing rumours of top-secret assignments in the Orient. To counter the legend-mak ing by the media, the real-life T. E . Lawrence was ordered back to England in 1929. The RAF deployed him at a seaplane airbase in Cattewater near Plymouth, where he worked on developing speed boats in the following years.

T E . Lawrence’s service with the Royal Air Force ended on 26 February 1935. He moved to Clouds Hill to devote himself to his literary pursuits. During his time in the air force, he had faithfully kept a diary which he compiled in book form in 1928, titled The Mint . Because his portrayal of the military was so realistic, publication of the book had to wait until well after World War II He had also been working on a translation of the Odyssey , published in 1932 , which is still regarded as one of the most beau tiful, bibliophile editions of the epic tale of the 20th century. On 13 May 1935 T E . Lawrence was fatally injured in a motorcycle accident and died at hospital on 19 May 1935 at the age of 42. He was buried at the Moreton cemetery not far from Clouds Hill on 21 May 1935

As we know, T E . Lawrence’s media life did not end with his mortal one. On the contrary, he has become immortalized. The American Lowell Thomas invented the legendary Lawrence. Us ing the most modern tools available at the time, Thomas’s pres entation was a lesson in gross simplification. He counted Law rence among the likes of Achilles, Siegfried and El Cid. This was an essential factor in creating the legend that would not tolerate any complexities or contingencies. As opposed to the mundane details of daily life, legends tell the grand story. Bert Brecht dem onstrates the breakdown of legends when a worker asks if there wasn’t perhaps a cook who did his part in helping Caesar’s army conquer the Gauls. For him, the real life characters are more in teresting than those legendary figures presented by the media. Although Lawrence posed for numerous photos himself, which were later used by Lowell Thomas, Peter O’Toole gave him a new body in David Lean’s film in 1962 . One could even call it another avatar (of which the god Vishnu possesses ten). With the success of the film, the historic T E . Lawrence retreated one step further behind the legendary hero. Legends are not only made by producers, but also their recipients, the people. After World War I and the dreadful battles on the Western Front, Great Britain, and the entire British Empire for that matter, needed a shining role model that embodied British virtues. Lawrence’s ambivalent, self-doubting personality of fered a surface for such projections. Writers in the Arab world transformed this crusader of British fantasy into an imperialistic traitor. Peter O’Toole’s performance suggested that Lawrence

was a homosexual who dared not come out of the closet. It was the beginning of the gay rights movement. Yet historic sources support neither of these interpretations. Indeed such fragments of historical research are not necessary for forming legends. Rather, legends are made by the artists and media factories that generate them, and the people who accept them as their own. Our fascination with legends reflects a desire for orientation in a world that is becoming increasingly diversified. The fact that Lawrence’s legend includes the cosmopolitan intellectual shows that it provides orientation that certainly deserves our support. Detlef Hoffmann , *1940, is an art historian and was a professor at the University of Oldenburg until 2006. Together with Kurt Dröge, he edited the book Museum revisited Transdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf eine Institution im Wandel [Museum revisited. Transdisciplinary Perspectives on a Changing Institution], published by the transcript-Verlag, Bielefeld in 2010. Detlef Hoffmann is the curator of the exhibition Lawrence of Arabia — The Making of a Legend

lawrence of arabia. the making of a legend. exhibition at the Landesmuseum Natur und Mensch, Oldenburg: 21 Novem ber 2010 – 27 March 2011 / Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Cologne: 29 April – 11 September 2011 www.naturundmensch.de

borderline experiences

The theatre project Homeland Biladi , a joint collaboration between the Schauspiel Leipzig / Spinnwerk and the Freedom Theatre Jenin (Palestinian territory), is one of 28 in ternational theatre partnerships funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation’s Wander lust Fund . The theatre critic Renate Klett, who accompanied the project in Leipzig and Jenin, reports on her impressions of this not-so-easy cooperative endeavour.

by renate klett

Homeland Biladi is a two-year theatre project, divided into four working periods, called »camps« which alternate between Leipzig and Jenin. The project gathers ten young Palestinian actors and ten young German actors together and offers them an environment to get to know one another, learn from one another and work with one another, and then present their impres sions in small dramatic scenes. The participants are all between the ages of 17 and 23 and have amateur theatre experience. The participating institutions are the Spinnwerk, the youth project at the Schauspiel Leipzig and the Freedom Theatre in Jenin in the occupied West Bank. Al though the idea may sound enlightening on pa per, putting it into practice has turned out to be quite problematic. It is a delicately complex and often contradictory project with difficulties that don’t always have a ready solution. Camp 1 took place in Leipzig for three weeks in February 2010. At their very first meeting, the two groups began what would be, in hindsight, a basic pattern that would repeat itself in vary ing shapes and forms in the coming months. The Germans greeted the Palestinians the way 18 -year-olds normally receive close friends at the airport waving a giant banner and hollering cheers of welcome. The Palestinians were taken aback. They didn’t know what to make of it. Yet the Germans only meant well! Both groups were extremely curious and willing to get to know each other, but subconscious cli chés and prejudices had shaped their attitudes. Because the Freedom Theatre is located in a ref ugee camp, the Germans half expected poor, shabbily clothed kids, but instead encountered confident, well-dressed young adults whose »iPods are cooler than ours« (according to a Leipzig participant). The Palestinians, who come from well-situated families, felt insulted: »What did you expect, tattered refugees on donkeys?« (a Jenin participant). And so the beginning was fraught with misunderstandings, as is usu ally the case with unprepared, international ex change programmes. These initial difficulties subsided and later everyone was able to laugh about this initial phase. There was, however, an unsolvable problem that remained their con tradictory positions, where one group viewed it self as the voice of Palestine and the others re fused to be instrumentalized by it. It’s remarka ble that despite these contrasting positions and

occasional bouts of disagreement, the partici pants succeeded in forming personal relation ships with their partners.

Endless discussions that kept going in circles, mutual accusations of not understanding, not wanting to understand, frustration, sadness, ag gressiveness, tears sometimes every good res olution and desire for friendship gets buried when cultures clash. When the Germans com plained about the Palestinian lack of punctuali ty and Palestinians took this as proof of lack of solidarity with their occupied land, the discus sion took on grotesque dimensions. And things weren’t made easier by the fact that not every one spoke English, as was agreed upon in the beginning, which slowed communication to a crawl with constant translating back and forth. Or the accusation of racism, which the Palestin ians were quicker to utter than the Germans were able to digest.

Furthermore, neither group was as homogenous as the other perceived it to be. The Germans liked to emphasize that each person spoke for him/herself and that some matters required a lot of debate to resolve, while the Palestinians presented themselves at least outwardly as having one opinion. Consequently, the discus sions, in which everyone had to express an opin ion even if they didn’t have one, only seemed to make things worse. Expressing problems through spontaneous improvisation proved much more effective. However, even this method had its pitfalls. One of the early exercises, in which the actors were supposed to demonstrate their prej udices toward the other group, did not end in cathartic laughter, but bitterness and hurt feel ings when the Germans presented their clichéd view of Palestinians as howling and squirming in prayer five times a day. The Palestinians took a more respectful stance and depicted Germans as lonely individuals who do not speak to one another, and whose isolation is sad and pitiful.

As weeks passed, both groups laughed at these initial difficulties. They pulled together and got used to each other, focusing more on what they had in common than on what they didn’t. It seemed they had an easier time getting along with each other when they weren’t ›chaperoned‹, i.e. not in the company of their theatre directors.

One Palestinian girl, when asked what her most memorable moment in Leipzig was, replied,

»When Blume [one of the German boys] sud denly took both my hands and we twirled in a circle. Right on the street! I felt so free, so strong! That would never have been possible back home.« And for another participant, his most wonderful memory was »the performance, when we were on stage together in front of all those people looking at us. That’s when I felt really happy.«

The final presentation was titled Border line Experiences and was performed at the Spinnwerk Leipzig on 18 and 19 February 2010. It dealt with many of the major and minor problems that the participants overcame a revue of about a dozen short sketches based on personal stories and borderline experiences, the chasms that hindered and the bridges that pro moted mutual understanding. The theme of the performance was established in a scene called The Wall , in which a Charlie Chaplin-like comedy duo tried all sorts of ways to climb over a wall to visit a friend. The performance, direct ed by Katrin Richter and Nabeel Al Raee, was well received, though not all the scenes were understandable for an audience unfamiliar with the background. But the topics and the actors’ authenticity made it a moving experience, even more so because of the impressive set: an interior (or exterior?) wall, which appeared solid at first, but became increasingly permeable, un til the audience realized that it was completely made of a web of rubber bands.

Everyone was happy and relieved that the pro duction was a success, but in hindsight, it was clear that it couldn’t truly solve the problems they had. They all separated as friends, for that’s what they had become despite (or perhaps be cause of) the many explosive situations. But in Camp 2 , which took place in Jenin for three weeks in June/July 2010, the old conflicts reignit ed, this time stronger and more irreconcilable than ever. The incompatible interests of both sides had not changed at all despite their friendships and obligations. The Germans want ed to do theatre, the Palestinians wanted to talk politics, one group sought self-fulfilment, and the other solidarity. The Germans complained that they kept talking and talking about the same thing, but the Palestinians were never satisfied: »You’re not listening, you don’t under stand the situation. We need more time to dis cuss it.«

To make the Israeli occupation more palpable, the Palestinians took the Germans on four ex cursions to Nablus, Hebron, Jerusalem and Ramallah, and to the weekly Friday demo in Bil’in. They wanted the Germans to cast off their neutrality and see for themselves the wall, the checkpoints, the settlements, the Israeli sol diers. But the Germans refused. They weren’t necessarily pro-Israel; they simply wanted to as sess both sides, compare and contrast them, and not feel forced to accept the opinion of one side. They were far more interested in the oppression of women than they were with the influence of occupation on Palestinian life. The Palestinians could not understand this.

When they were in Leipzig, one of their excur sions the trip to Berlin became a touch stone that evoked the worst controversy of the entire camp. The Palestinians were excited to visit a wall that had become a museum (»Some day we hope to experience our wall the same way.«). But when they arrived late for a meeting with a representative from the Federal Foreign Office, German tempers flared at the Palestini ans’ lack of punctuality. Then came the accusa tion of racism (»That’s our culture, we have a different concept of time«), which sent the disagreement spiralling out of control. Watching the scene unfold, I had the feeling that the esca lation could have been prevented with a little less obstinacy and more sensitivity, knowledge, tolerance, and also humour from both sides. But there was something positive that resulted from this bonfire of emotions; when all was said and done and the tears had subsided, they found the energy to make a fresh start. They were able to share very private and often very emotional sto ries with one another, and became closer than ever. I admired them for that.

Unfortunately, this kind of emotional somersault did not occur in Jenin. Camp 2 was ill-fated from the start. Nabeel Al Raee, the responsible director, took a leave of absence for professional and personal reasons, and his replacement, though dedicated, was quickly overwhelmed by the project. Several days passed. The partici pants did research on location to use their time more productively. Finally Nabeel returned and the real work began. But it was different than Leipzig where everyone had spent their days training in intensive rehearsals. In Jenin hardly

a day passed when everyone was present there was always someone who had to go to the uni versity or an important family get-together. One young woman, who was 23 years old and lived in Jenin, had to be home by seven p.m. at the latest, and the two girls from Ramallah lived in a different guest house than the Germans. In Leipzig everyone used to get together down town in the evening, sit together, talk, dance, have fun and iron out their daily differences. But in Jenin, the groups were strictly separated except for when they met at rehearsals. Without the chance to »blow off steam« in each other’s company, the disputes escalated needlessly and their positions became visibly inflexible, espe cially in their view of the excursions. The Palestinians could not understand that their con stant pressure was counterproductive, and the Germans couldn’t recognize that this was not about propaganda, but deeply held convictions. But even the Germans were not of one mind some wanted to see more of the country, in par ticular Israel, while others wanted to spend more time rehearsing instead of taking excursions. In fact, more rehearsals would have been a good idea. They only started preparing for their final presentation three days before the premiere. Once again it was conceived as a series of selfdeveloped sketches, based on the experiences and observations gained in the previous three weeks. Nabeel didn’t actually »direct« the actors, which some criticized, but only helped »stage« the sketches, providing advice on rhythm, tim ing, body tension and stage presence. He kept saying, »You have to develop the scenes by your selves, and then I will fix them.« He wanted to stimulate their creativity and inventiveness, al lowing them to do what they wanted, and saw himself more as a motivator than a director. This strategy resulted in scenes, which, similar to some in Leipzig, the audience could not under stand without knowing the background infor mation. The situations were only depicted, but not explained and communicated. One of the Germans developed two Israel-Palestine sketch es which were meant to be satirical but were ut terly lacking in humour. The director didn’t step in and veto the sketches. Luckily, the partici pants themselves decided to leave them out and thereby saved the performance.

The presentation was held at the construction site where the Freedom Theatre was building

its new headquarters in the centre of town. The venue was a massive concrete slab with spot lights and puddles of water nothing more. A large audience, sitting on blocks of stone, came to see the show many from the Freedom The atre and CinemaJenin, family members, friends and numerous people who had happened by. After Nabeel gave a short introduction in Arabic and English, the untitled performance be gan. Each scene was received with resounding applause, and the running gag with the Tourist Police was a crowd-pleaser. It formed the back bone of the whole performance (as The Wall did in Leipzig), again with the Palestinian com edy duo, who, in hilarious improvisations and numerous variations, encountered tourists who were annoyed more than helped by their stock reply »No speak English!«. Other scenes ad dressed the oppression of women, mountains of trash and internal dissent with actors shout ing each other down with their incessant ap peals »You must do!« / »You must see!« The per formance concluded with a self-composed song of peace which everyone sang together, creating a campfire atmosphere which was refreshing and unpretentious. The young actors are always at their best when they are simply themselves. Spirits were high following the performance. They had pulled it off, together, and wanted to celebrate. But the theatre director insisted that everyone vacate the construction site so that the technicians could take down the lights. The party eventually took place at the guest house where the Germans were staying, and even a few Palestinians (including two women!) were able to sneak away to join the party. But the hango ver came the next day, and the concluding dis cussion was as bitter as ever. The participants re garded their collaboration as catastrophic and could see no reason whatsoever to continue. Some even threatened to drop out. There was one who claimed »If I had known what I was getting into here, I wouldn’t have come,« and when someone pointed out that this was sup posed to be a cultural, not political exchange, someone shot back, »The occupation is my cul ture.«

Even the project coordinators were very critical and wondered whether it was worth continuing the project. Although everyone agreed that major changes needed to be made, there was still disagreement as to what exactly should be

changed and how. The German group now plans on utilizing the time until the next scheduled camp in spring 2011 to meet every month and hold acting workshops. The joint website will also be reactivated as a forum to discuss selected topics of the month. Two »performative presen tations in public spaces« are planned for next year. A Palestinian director will produce the piece in Leipzig, and Jörg Lukas Matthaei, who had conducted research with the group in the West Bank last June, will direct the presentation in Jenin.

The young actors have been asked whether they wish to continue, and they’ve all agreed to stay on. The cohesiveness of the group was probably stronger than their injured feelings. It’s also quite likely that the old conflict will flare up again, but there’s reason to hope that everyone is prepared to demonstrate more sensitivity and flexibility and try to understand where the other group is coming from and why they are there. Biladi , which means »my country«, is the title of the Palestinian national anthem and echoes the challenges these young theatre makers mean to overcome: »I have climbed the mountains and fought the wars / I have conquered the im possible, and crossed the frontiers«.

Renate Klett worked as a dramaturge at the Schauspiel Frankfurt, Schauspiel Köln, Staatstheater Stuttgart and Thalia Theater Hamburg. She was Artistic Director/ Programme Director of the Theater der Welt festi val in Cologne in 1981, Stuttgart in 1987, Hamburg in 1989 and Munich in 1993 . She was a theatre critic and cultural correspondent in Paris, London, Rome, Vienna and New York. She currently works in Berlin as a freelance theatre and dance critic for numerous publications, including the FAZ , Süddeutsche Zeitung , Neue Zürcher Zeitung , Frankfurter Rundschau and Theater der Zeit . The Alexander-Verlag Berlin has recently published two interview books by Renate Klett, titled Nahaufnahme Alain Platel (2007) [Close Up of Alain Platel] and Nahaufnahme Robert Lepage (2009 ) [Close Up of Robert Lepage].

The Wanderlust Fund supports collaborative projects between municipal, state and re gional theatres in Germany with foreign theatres in Eu rope and beyond for two to three seasons. The range of productions includes traditional dramatic works, dance pieces, puppet theatre, youth projects and theatre for preschoolers. The long-term projects feature bilingual co-productions, commissioned works, research projects and theatrical interventions in urban space. Guest per formances and the exchange of artistic personnel sup plement the extensive theatre partnerships. / / / Up coming premieres: IstanbulTR: 11 November 2010 Cabi net (Theater Freiburg & garajistanbulTR) / Heidelberg: 14 November 2010 Medicament (Theater Heidelberg & Tea tron Beit Lessin Tel Aviv IL) / Ghent B: 5 December 2010

The First Play (Oldenburgisches Staatstheater & Koper gietery GhentB) / Osnabrück: 28 January 2011 Canetti Project (Theater Osnabrück & Drama Theater RusseBG) / CracowPL: March 2011 To Be or Not to Be (Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin & Narodowy Stary Teatr KrakówPL) / Ber lin: 6 April 2011 Borderlines (Theater an der Parkaue Ber lin & West Yorkshire Playhouse LeedsGB) / Oberhausen: 8 April 2011 I Moved in as a Stranger (Theater Oberhausen & Nationaltheater Radu Stanca SibiuRO) /Mannheim: 10 April 2011 The Boy with the Suitcase (Nationaltheater Mannheim / Schnawwl & Ranga Shankara Theater Ban galoreIND) / / / For more information about the Wanderlust Fund, the theatre partnerships and upcoming dates, please visit www.kulturstiftung-bund.de/wanderlust / / / Also check out the Wanderlust Blog for reports, photos and videos on the latest cross-disciplinary theatre coop eration at: www.wanderlust-blog.de

wanderlust fund

congratulations!

Thirty years ago on 30 October 1980, students of the Young German Philhar monic Orchestra established the Ensemble Modern as a democratically based musical ensemble. With nineteen soloists from eight nations, the Ensemble Modern is one of the world’s leading ensembles of New Music today. In close cooperation with some of the world’s best composers, such as John Adams, George Benjamin, Peter Eötvös, Heiner Goebbels, Hans Werner Henze, Mauricio Kagel, Helmut Lachenmann, György Kurtág, György Ligeti, Benedict Mason, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Steve Reich, Frank Zappa and Hans Zender, the ensemble performs approximately 70 new works each year, including about 20 world premieres. Even today the Ensemble Modern continues to embrace a democratic working method; it has no artistic director, the whole ensemble jointly decides on projects, guest musicians, co-productions and financial mat ters, and each musician is encouraged to share his/her experience and wishes with the group. Its wide-ranging programme includes music theatre, dance and video pro-jects, chamber music, and ensemble and orchestral concerts. The Fed eral Cultural Foundation has been supporting the Ensemble Modern as one of Germany’s »beacons of contemporary culture« since 2004. The conductor and composer Hans Zender is one of the ensemble’s renowned artists and leading proponents who had recognized the bright potential of the musicians in the Young German Philharmonic Orchestra at the end of the 1970s. Hans Zender played a decisive role in establishing the Ensemble Modern and, in 1993 , initiated a series of workshop concerts titled Happy New Ears which is still going strong today. He congratulates the Ensemble Modern, which is as cutting-edge today as it was

back then, when it was founded, with no money, no security, no guarantee that the concept would work in the long term, nothing but enthusiasm, immense professional skill, diligence to the point of obsession and inquisitiveness about New Music. The French had just founded the Ensemble Intercontempo rain with federal subsidies, but in Germany, where interest in establishing a full-time ensemble for New Music was just as in tense, there was no money to be had, neither from the munici palities nor the media. And so we had to take matters into our own hands and at our own risk which is always the best way to go! There are few musicians I admire more than those in the Ensemble Modern. In a society of surplus which pampers its art ists (assuming they conform to this society), the musicians in the Ensemble Modern lead a comparably Spartan life, comprised of an extremely strenuous schedule which continually takes them on long journeys and demands an amazing capacity to learn. For practically every concert features a world premiere with poten tially new performance techniques, new notation and an unac customed style. The demands placed on each musician are many times those of well-paid members of our cultural orchestras, and the performance schedules are twice or three times as intensive. It goes to show what creative energy is capable of achieving when it’s self-motivated and arises from the feeling of doing something very important. Even after all these years, the musicians’ vitality, which has helped elevate their performances to amazing heights and gain international fame, is stronger than ever. The ensem ble’s democratically based constitution allows the musicians to decide what they want to play, and there’s room enough for all

possible styles and genres. There are no dogmas which run coun ter to the spirit of our times the ensemble adheres to a very natural, contemporary form of pluralism.

The composers, both young and old, are quite familiar with the niche that the Ensemble Modern fills in our country’s rich, but entirely conservative-minded and increasingly commerciallyoriented musical life. It is almost ridiculous how much effort is put into continually performing the same pieces of a rather limited and sufficiently well-known repertoire again and again, while modern music, which expresses our contemporary emo tional and social circumstances, is increasingly one might even claim, systematically being pushed to the fringe. At the same time, people complain that it’s too difficult and incomprehensible and no wonder since people rarely have the op portunity to listen to New Music and to embrace the miracles of its novel colours, sounds and rhythms. Listening is believing that is, listening to a live performance, for there is no substitute.

Our society hasn’t made much progress since we first established our ensemble. One gets the feeling that ignorance, stupidity and above all, risk aversion has actually increased among major con cert organizers with regard to New Music. And the responsibility for New Music and our music culture on the whole appears to have completely dwindled. European music culture has always been one that renews, as well as preserves, its classical forms. This characteristic is uniquely European; it is this spirit that has given rise to our sciences and philosophy. But if we don’t give new

by hans zender

things a cultural-political chance, this entire tradition will wither away. It will transform it into a sterile, museum-like culture in the long term. Of course, the great composers of our time are not as easy to »digest« as numerous imitations that are »just a little modern« or »entertainingly modern«. That’s why it’s important to ›face the music‹, especially when it’s difficult, for therein lies the truth. Our problems today are difficult.

That is why we still need the Ensemble Modern today as we did 30 years ago! At least for me and my peers, it is the best »ambassa dor of music« that our country could possibly send out into the world. It is true that the ensemble has acquired numerous spon sors over the course of its successful career, but the fact that no state institution is prepared to accept full responsibility for its financing demonstrates the difficulty of German cultural policy with regard to such constitutional circumstances. We are all the more fortunate, therefore, that the Federal Cultural Founda tion has been funding the Ensemble Modern with almost a half million euros each year. It is highly laudable and represents that proverbial »step in the right direction«. Life never gets easier and true friends are hard to find. Let us wish this courageous and firstrate ensemble many more years of success and thank them for their remarkable achievements!

Hans Zender , Prof. Dr. h.c., *1936, is a composer, conductor, musicogra pher, member of the Munich, Berlin and Hamburg Academy of the Arts and re cipient of the Goethe Award by the city of Frankfurt. He has worked with the Ensemble Modern numerous times as a guest since the 1980s. Upcoming world premieres: 8 July 2011 musica viva in Munich, 4 September 2011 Berlin Festspiele

review of the new länder fund

One of the very first funding programmes launched by the Fed eral Cultural Foundation in 2002 was the Fund to Strength en Citizen Involvement in the Culture of the New Länder (in short: New Länder Fund ). Since then, over 140 art and cultural projects have received funding through the programme. The projects range from using village churches in Brandenburg for cultural purposes to supporting international music and theatre festivals. In a three-part workshop series, or ganized by the Federal Cultural Foundation in September and October 2010, project participants and experts discussed how well the funding goals corresponded with the final results, and reported on the free cultural scene and current trends in cultural involvement. In November 2010 the Federal Cultural Foundation will post a downloadable dossier documenting the pro grammes, debates and conclusions of the discussions on its web site: www.kulturstiftung-bund.de/fnl

young literature in small-town germany

The towns of Suhl, Altenburg and Döbeln hope to energize the literary scene with a number of writing competitions, workshops and poetry slams. The events, scheduled this autumn and winter 2010 /11 in Thuringia and Saxony, are organized by young people who have returned home after studying in large cities and want to enrich the culture of their hometowns and regions. For exam ple, audiences will have the chance to listen to late-night radio plays in various observatories in Thuringia. The Theater Döbeln will hold a reading performance featuring the winning submis sions of a literature competition. The Treibhaus Association in Döbeln has urged young people to take advantage of the sociocultural youth centre to stage their own projects. The event series Lesezeichen , coordinated by the Zeitgeist Association in Altenburg, will present an established author and two up-andcoming young writers from the region each evening. The New Länder Fund specializes in promoting citizen involvement in the culture of the new states in eastern Germany. For more in formation, visit: www.provinzschrei.de, www.treibhaus-doebeln. de, www.zeitgeist-altenburg.de

art:philosophy 2009–2011

— two new publications

Does beauty have a purpose? What is ›real‹ art? Can pictures lie? Finding answers to these central questions of art theory from an analytical-philosophical perspective is the goal of this two-year event series held at five German museums and coordinated by the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and the Federal Cultural Foundation. The results of the first two events are now presented in two books of a five-part series, published by the Hatje Cantz Verlag. The first volume, titled Aesthetic Values and Design , examines whether the aesthetic catego ries of artworks equally apply to design objects. The second vol ume, Context Architecture , investigates the demands placed on architecture in the context of museum spaces. The Art:Philosophy event series will continue in 2011 with a conference titled What exactly are they teaching us ?

Considerations on the task and role of art educa tion in the media on 29 January 2011 at the Museum Villa Stuck in Munich, and the concluding conference Photogra phy between documentation and dramatization on 7 July 2011 at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.

rosemarie tietze wins the paul celan prize 2010

The German Literature Fund , supported by the Federal Cultural Foundation, awards the Paul Celan Prize every year to distinguish outstanding translations in German. This year’s Paul Celan Prize goes to Rosemarie Tietze for her entire collec tion of German translations of Russian literature by such writers as Bitow, Nabokov and Pasternak. Particularly her translation of Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina , published by the Carl Hanser Verlag in 2009, received international acclaim and was nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize 2010. According to the jury, »her new translation sparkles with verity to detail and sensuality, freshness and elegance«. They also praised her for be ing faithful to the text, but nonetheless conveying its message in a contemporary style. Rosemarie Tietze was born in Oberkirch in 1944 , studied Theatre Studies, Slavic Studies and German Studies and now works as a translator, interpreter and lecturer. She was one of the co-founders of the German Literature Fund , of which she was chairwoman until 2009. The prize of 15 ,000 euros will be conferred during the Frankfurt Book Fair, and the laudation will be given by Esther Kinsky. For more infor mation, visit: www.deutscher-literaturfonds.de

Susanne Lange will succeed Stefan Weidner in the winter semes ter 2010 /2011 as the August Wilhelm von Schlegel Guest Professor for the Poetics of Transla tion . The chair was established by the German Transla tor Fund and the Freie Universität Berlin in 2007. The Peter Szondi Institute for General and Comparative Literature Stud ies is proud to host this professorship, which is the first of its kind in the German-speaking countries. Susanne Lange’s spectacular debut as a translator came in 1992 when she translated Fernando del Paso’s monumental novel Palinurus of Mex ico (Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt) from Spanish into German, which paved the way to further success and acclaim as the Ger man voice of Latin American and Spanish literature. Her prizewinning translation of Cervantes’ Don Quixote (Hanser Verlag) appeared in 2008. The purpose of the professorship is not to illustrate the practical exercises of translation for literary schol ars, but rather to critically reflect on one’s own and others’ trans lation methods and comparative text analysis. The German Translator Fund and the Peter Szondi Institute view the August Wilhelm von Schlegel Guest Professor ship as a significant step toward the appreciation of literary translation as an independent artistic endeavour. The Federal Cultural Foundation has funded the guest professorship since 2009 For more information, visit: www.uebersetzerfonds.de

›sounds‹ exhibition opens in

karlsruhe

The exhibition project Sounds. Radio Art New Music at the New Berlin Art Association (n.b.k.) garnered public and critical acclaim in the first half of the year. It was de veloped as a joint project by the n.b.k. and Zipp GermanCzech Cultural Projects , a programme initiated by the Federal Cultural Foundation. The exhibition will now be shown at the Centre for Art and Media Technology ( ZKM ) in Karlsruhe. Both the exhibition and the ARD Radio Play Days are scheduled to begin in Karlsruhe on 10 November 2010. The exhi bition will present the artistic medium of radio as a spatial experi ence. Five radio plays, developed as part of the German-Czech radio art project rádio d-cz , form the heart of an interactive, walk-through archive, comprised of a network of historic and systematic references to almost one hundred years of radio art. The exhibition is supplemented by a catalogue with texts and a slipcase containing all five radio plays on CD s. ZKM , Museum für Neue Kunst, 11 November 2010 – 27 March 2011, opens 10 November 2010, 6 pm. For more information, visit: www.zkm.de

world cinema fund wins in cannes

The World Cinema Fund (WCF ), founded by the Federal Cul tural Foundation and the Berlin International Film Festival, funds some of the most highly-acclaimed films at top interna tional film festivals. Last year the WCF film by Claudia Llosa »The Milk of Sorrow« received the Golden Lion in Venice, and this past spring the WCF production Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives by the Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul was awarded the Golden Palm in Cannes. Since it was established in 2004 , the WCF has awarded production and distribution funding to 70 projects, selected from 1,165 applications from Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Central and Southeast Asia, and the Caucasus. All the films funded by the WCF have been shown in cinemas or have featured at renowned film festivals around the world proof of the international success of this funding organization. In July the WCF jury awarded production funding to three new projects: Death for Sale (director: Faouzi Ben Saidi, Marocco), The Prize , (director: Paula Markovitch, Argentina) and I’m Go ing to Change My Name (director: Maria Saakyan, Arme nia). For more information, visit: www.berlinale.de

This past September, first graders at King George Elementary School in Hamilton, Canada began taking AIFEC classes. AI FEC is the acronym for An Instrument for Every Child, a cultural education project based on the project of the same name, launched by the Federal Cultural Foundation and the GLS Fu ture Foundation for Education in 2007 as a contribution to the European Capital of Culture RUHR 2010 festivities. In Hamilton, the programme is the result of an alliance between the school administration, the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra and Hamilton Music Collective ( HMC ) and provides socially disadvantaged, inner-city school children the opportunity to learn an instrument. The HMC is a network devoted to promot ing young talent and audience development in the field of jazz music. A businessman in Hamilton donated 125 ,000 Canadian dollars to establish the ambitious project. For more information, visit: www.aninstrumentforeverychild.org

august wilhelm von schlegel guest professorship for the poetics of translation 2010/2011

aifec goes to canada — new export »made in germany«

year of kleist 2011 — online portal is up and running

November 21, 2011 will mark the 200th anniversary of the death of the poet Heinrich von Kleist. In cooperation with the Hein rich von Kleist Society in Berlin, the Kleist Museum in Frankfurt (Oder), the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin and the theatre group Rimini Protokoll, the Federal Cultural Foundation will support various projects which explore the significance of Kleist’s life and works in contemporary culture. An overview of the many events scheduled in the coming year and extensive background information about Kleist is now posted on the new online porta www.heinrich-von-kleist.org

bkm prize 2010 for cultural education

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home game 2011. theatre — workshops — symposium

festival

»Another word for the systematic search for redefinition of mu nicipal theatre,« is how Barbara Mundel, general theatre director of the Theater Freiburg, recently described the Home Game Fund . The fund, established by the Federal Cultural Founda tion in 2006, has supported over fifty theatre projects which address the social and urban reality of their cities. In cooperation with the Schauspiel Cologne, the Federal Cultural Founda tion will hold a conference from 28 March to 3 April 2011 to re view the progress of the programme. The event titled Home Game 2011 . Who does the stage belong to ? will include an international symposium, a walk-through archive of past Home Game productions, a special festival and workshops for dramaturges and artists. For more information, visit: www.heimspiel 2011.de If you wish to apply for project funding from the Home Game Fund , submit your applica tions to the Federal Cultural Foundation by 31 October 2010, 30 April 2011 or 31 October 2011 (final round). More information: www.kulturstiftung-bund.de/heimspiel

For the second year in a row, the Federal Commissioner for Cul tural and Media Affairs, Bernd Neumann, conferred the BKM Prize 2010 for Cultural Education at the Genshagen Foundation on 30 August 2010. And for the second time since 2009, the Federal Cultural Foundation was pleased that its nominee, the art project Hauptschule der Freiheit [High School of Freedom] was one of the three prize winners. It all be gan in January 2009 when theatre artists approached the school director Ursula Schneider about teaming up for collaboration on an artistic project. Although admittedly reluctant at first, Ms. Schneider agreed to participate in the cooperative project which concluded at the end of the school year with a climactic Gesamtkunstwerk comprised of school, life and theatre. Not only has the school on Schwindstrasse continued to benefit from the im pact of this unusual partnership. According to the managing di rector of the Kammerspiele, Siegfried Lederer, who accepted the 20,000 -euro prize, the »encounter on equal footing resulted in a variety of aesthetic and artistic after-effects« for the theatre. The music theatre project Village Produces Opera by the FestLand Association in Prignitz, Brandenburg, is also among the prize winners. The residents of Prignitz transformed a former pigsty into a small »festival house« which became the venue for Midsummer Night’s Dream , performed by 60 amateurs and professionals. Village Produces Opera was funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation’s New Länder Fund .

Friedrich Nietzsche was closely connected to central Germany for most of his life. The house of his birth, his school and his mother’s house are all located in Saxony-Anhalt. An especially important place in Nietzsche’s life was his mother’s house where he cared for her between 1890 and 1897 and wrote many of his philosophical works. The Friedrich Nietzsche Foundation has worked to preserve and utilize these sites since 2006. In October 2010 the Nietzsche Documentation Centre in Naumburg cele brated its grand opening. The newly built centre is located in close proximity to Nietzsche’s former residence which houses a permanent exhibition on the life and works of Friedrich Nietzsche. The Federal Cultural Foundation’s New Länder Fund has provided the documentation centre with start-up capital. Visitors can peruse the collection of Nietzsche literature, use the rooms to study or hold events, and view artistic exhibi tions. Initiated by volunteers, the operation of the Nietzsche Documentation Centre will be (partially) financed by the Nietzsche Foundation. Only 87,000 euros of the necessary capital stock of three million euros has been secured, and therefore, sponsors and patrons are urgently needed. For more information, please visit: www.friedrich-nietzsche-stiftung.de

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grand opening of the nietzsche documentation centre in naumburg — patrons needed!

new projects

At its joint session in spring 2010, the jury select ed 25 new projects to receive funding through the application-based »General Project Funding« programme.

of the art sector. The collaboration will hope fully encourage intensive exchange which will address many of today’s important artistic, cu ratorial and organizational issues.

image and space

glück happens opening exhibition in the newly renovated palais stutter heim The Städtische Galerie Erlangen opened an exhibition last June, titled Glück hap pens [Happiness happens] at the Palais Stut terheim, now named the »Kunstpalais«, to mark its grand re-opening after two years of renova tion. The exhibition featured positions by 15 art ists from eight countries, all of whom express widely differing aspects and views of happiness in their artworks happiness as a promise, hap piness as a climax or meaning in life, or its am bivalent, often deceptive nature as a fleeting moment, such as happiness in the form of sex, rapture and ecstasy. An interdisciplinary accom panying programme with supplementary publi cation focused on the experience of happiness in today’s society, viewed from an art-historical and philosophical perspective.

Curator: Claudia Emmert / Artists: Lars Arrhenius ( S ) and Daniel Westlund S ) , Birgit Brenner, Mona Hatoum ( RL/GB , Runa Islam ( BD/GB ) , Christian Jankowski, Šejla Kameric´ BIH , Katharina Karrenberg, Aleksandra Mir S/I , Karina Nimmerfall A , Peter Piller, Tobias Rehberger, Luzia Simons BR/F , Alejandro Vidal ( E Erwin Wurm ( A ) Paola Yacoub RL ) and others /Städtische Galerie Erlangen, 2 June – 25 July 2010 / www.kunstpalais.de

thermostat cooperative project between twelve german kunstvereine and twelve french centres d’art The project Thermostat has invited twelve Ger man Kunstvereine [art associations] and twelve French centres d’art [art centres] to collaborate on ca. 30 joint exhibitions and events for presen tation in both countries from June 2010 to April 2011. Although both institutions are firmly an chored in each country, German Kunstvereine had a completely different origin than that of the French centres d’art. Most German art asso ciations were founded by the rising, artistica llyminded middle class of the 19th century, while private interest groups established the first French art centres in the 1970s. Traditionally the French art centres have strongly focused on in troducing artistic content to children and young adults. In both countries, these art associations and centres are among the most influential pro ponents of contemporary art, provide the first platform for many young artists and shape cul tural life far beyond the large metropolitan are as. One of the project’s central goals is to exam ine and strengthen the decentralized structures

Artistic director: Cédric Aurelle / Curators: Silke Albrecht, Pierre Bal-Blanc, Sylvie Boulanger, Anja Casser, Yann Chevallier, Marie Cozette, Keren Detton, Lilian Engel mann, Ralf F. Hartmann, Sophie Kaplan, Anne Kersten, Ulrike Kremeier, Marianne Lanavère, Sophie Legrand jacques, Claire Le Restif, Hannes Loichinger, Astrid Ma nia, Madeleine Mathé, Martine Michard, Sandra Patron, Britta Peters, Kathleen Rahn, Thomas Thiel, Janneke de Vries, Hilke Wagner, Axel John Wieder / / / CAC Brétigny, Brétigny-sur-Orge, October – November 2010 / Künstler haus Stuttgart, 5 November – 31 December 2010 / La Galerie, Centre d’art contemporain de Noisy-le-Sec, 11 December 2010 – 12 February 2011 / Kunstverein Braunschweig, 5 June – 15 August 2010 / CRAC Alsace, Centre rhénan d’art con temporain d’Altkirch, 17 June – 12 September 2010 / Centre d’art contemporain d’Irvy – le Crédac, Ivry-sur-Seine, 22 September – 19 December 2010 / Kunstverein Nürnberg, 9 October – 5 December 2010 / Centre d’art contemporain – la synagogue de Delme, 2 October 2010 – 9 January 2011 / Brandenburgischer Kunstverein, Potsdam, 11 December 2010 – 30 January 2011 / Centre d’art passerelle, Brest, 28 January – 2 April 2011 / Le Quartier, centre d’art contem porain de Quimper, 5 February – 27 March 2011 /Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, 24 September – 21 November 2010 / cneai=, Chatou, 19 October – 19 December 2010 / Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Hamburg, 29 October – 19 De cember 2010 / Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg, 20 November 2010 – 16 January 2011 / GAK – Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Shanon Bool, 27 November 2010 – 30 Janu ary 2011 / Julien Bismuth, 19 February – 30 April 2011 / Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers, March – May 2011 /Bielefelder Kunstverein, 13 November 2010 – 30 January 2011 /Le Grand Café, Centre d’art contemporain, Saint-Nazaire, 19 March – 8 May 2011 / Kunstverein Wolfsburg, 26 November 2010 – 6 February 2011 / Maison des arts Georges Pompidou, Ca jarc, 16 April – 5 June 2011 /Kunstverein Tiergarten | Galerie Nord, Berlin, 26 February – 2 April 2011 / Parc Saint Léger, Centre d’art contemporain, Pougues-les-Eaux, 10 October – 19 December 2010 / / / Frankfurter Kunstverein / www. institut-francais.fr

between film and art exhibition of film storyboards The Kunsthalle Emden and the Museum für Film und Fernsehen Berlin have developed an exhibition featuring a rel atively unknown art form. Both museums will display outstanding cinematic storyboards, i.e. illustrated film scripts, characterized by an indi vidual, artistic style. The exhibition will display storyboards of films by 15 influential directors, such as Alfred Hitchcock, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and François Truffeaut. Most of the storyboard artists are trained graphic artists, illus trators and fine artists, whose drawings widely vary in terms of style and technique. The exhibi tion will present the storyboards alongside the original film sequences and other works by fine artists which are aesthetically or conceptually related to the storyboard. Not only will this al low the museums to present the topic of story boards to a large audience, but also to place these utility illustrations in a context of fine art and other cultural and technical influences.

Curators: Katharina Henkel, Kristina Jaspers, Peter Mänz / Artists: Jean-Jacques Annaud F ) , Francis Ford Coppola ( USA ) , Victor Fleming USA ) Alfred Hitchcock ( GB/USA Fritz Lang A/

USA ) , George Lucas USA ) , Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Michael Powell ( GB ) , Martin Scorsese ( USA , Ridley Scott ( USA , Steven Spielberg USA , François Truffeaut ( F , Tom Tykwer, King Vidor ( USA , Wim Wenders, Konrad Wolf and others /Kunsthalle Emden, 16 April – 17 July 2011 / Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen Berlin, 18 August –4 December 2011 / www.kunsthalle-emden.de

images of the mind envisioning the mind in art and science The study of the brain and the mind has been the subject of sci entific, philosophical and artistic expression for centuries. Modern artists, in particular, have produced numerous works as metaphors of the human mind. Natural scientists have also en deavoured to visually depict complex mental phenomena and have applied methods similar to those used by fine artists sketches, draw ings, photography, film and new image process ing technology. The German Hygiene Museum in Dresden and the Moravská Gallery in Brno, the second largest art museum in the Czech Re public, will collaborate on an exhibition which explores these ›images of the mind‹. The exhibition will feature works spanning eight centuries, e.g. scientific and artistic paintings, graphic works, illustrations and photography, and estab lish a link to contemporary works and images produced by the neuro- and cognitive sciences. This cross-disciplinary approach will demon strate how the portrayal and understanding of the human mind has changed over the past cen turies, and encourage critical reflection on the promises of so-called neuro-imaging. In addition to an international, interdisciplinary confer ence, the accompanying programme features special events for young people related to school subjects like biology, ethics and religion.

Curators: Colleen Schmitz, Ladislav Kesner CZ / Artists: Guiseppe Arcimboldo ( , Albrecht Dürer, Hans Baldung Grien, Chales Le Brun ( F ) , Rembrandt van Rijn ( NL ) , Leonar do da Vinci ( Santiago Ramón y Cajala ( E ) Hugh Welch Diamond ( GB , Sigmund Freud ( A ) , Vincent van Gogh ( NL ) , Max Klinger, Edvard Munch N ) , Odilon Redon ( F , Salvador Dalí ( E , Arnold Schönberg ( A ) , Vojteˇch Preissig ( CZ , Susan Aldworth GB , Andrew Carnie GB , Jirˇi Cernicky´ ( CZ , Antony Gormley ( GB , Martin Kippenberger, Via Lewandowsky, Warren Neidich USA ) , Adriena Simotová ( CZ ) , Rosemarie Trockel, Bill Viola, Adolf Wöfli and others / Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden, 22 July – 1 October 2011 / Moravská Galerie Brno (Czech Republic), 26 November 2011 – 24 February 2012 / www.dhmd.de

the more i draw understanding the world through drawing Despite new me dia-driven possibilities, an increasing number of contemporary artists are returning to the drawing as the primary form of artistic expres sion. The More I Draw provides an over view of the current practice of drawing and how it has evolved since the 1960s. This exhibition features works by forty international artists, including some very recent positions, e.g. by Ryoko Aoki, Jorinde Voigt and Mariusz Tarkawian, and classical and conceptual works by renowned artists, such as Joseph Beuys, Cy Twombly and Heinz Emigholz. The title of the exhibition emphasizes the personal perspective which is integral to drawing, and the potential of using drawings to comprehend the world, to

›record‹ and interpret reality or create fantastic worlds through images. The exhibition wishes to present the multifaceted character of illustra tive practice and the ability to visualize abstract thought and produce and present new insights. The project will especially focus on museum ed ucation with a planned conference for teachers, a drawing machine competition for schools and drawing courses for various target groups. The bilingual catalogue will serve as a reference work for contemporary drawing practice.

Curators: Eva Schmidt / Artists: Ryoko Aoki JP , Silvia Bächli ( CH ) , Joseph Beuys, Stanley Brouwn NL , Heinz Emigholz Claude Heath GB ) Katharina Meldner Pavel Pepperstein RU ) Tomas Schmit and others / Museum für Gegen wartskunst Siegen, 5 September 2010 – 13 February 2011 / www.kunstmuseum-siegen.de

not in fashion. fashion and photography of the early 1990s This large exhibi tion, demonstrating how fashion, photography and art of the early 1990s mutually influenced each other, is the first ever to be shown at a mu seum of contemporary art. Developed by the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, the exhibition curators wish to examine how radi cal and stylistically influential this generation was and how it has continued to influence the fine arts to the present day. The project is com prised of two segments. The first is an exhibi tion featuring photography and art of the early 1990s, supplemented by historic documentation (original magazines, campaigns, archived mate rials). The second is a performance programme which will be presented at the Museum für Moderne Kunst, the Zollamt and other institu tions in Frankfurt.

Curator: Sophie von Olfers / Artists: Vanessa Beecroft IT , Walter van Beirendonck B , Bernadette Corporation ( USA , BLESS D/F ) , Mark Borthwick GB , Susan Cianciolo USA ) , Com me des Garcons JP ) , Maria Cornejo CL ) , Corinne Day GB , Anders Edström ( SE ) Jason Evans ( GB Inez van Lamsweerde ( NL , Helmut Lang AT , Martin Margiela B , M /M ( F , Cris Moor ( USA , Kostas Murkudis, Collier Schorr USA ) , Nigel Shafran GB ) , Jürgen Teller, Wolfgang Tillmans, Yohji Yamamoto ( JP /Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, 25 Sept 2010 – 9 January 2011 / www.mmk-frankfurt.de

the ernst jandl show exhibition multimedia biography events To mark the tenth anniversary of Ernst Jandl’s death, the Literaturhaus Berlin will present an exhibition dedicated to one of the most important and in fluential poets of post-war German literature whose works explored the overlap of literature, music and the fine arts. The exhibition mainly focuses on the multilingual, international and intermedial character of Jandl’s works which include poems, prose, radio and stage plays, il lustrations, collaborative works with musicians, films and a ballet. An extensive body of material including unpublished works from Jandl’s estate will document the artistic versatility of this writer. A comprehensive accom panying programme will illustrate the many cross-disciplinary references contained in his works. The Austrian Literature Archive will contribute a multimedia DVD which presents the complex interaction between the events of Jandl’s life and the production of his works.

Curators: Bernhard Fetz ( AT ) Hannes Schweiger AT )/Performance: Blixa Bargeld / Music: Dieter Glawischnig / Slam po etry: Mieze Medusa ( A ) /Writers: Bodo Hell A , Franz Josef Czernin ( A ) , Ulf Stolterfoht, Jürg Laederach ( CH , Marcel Beyer, Urs Allemann CH , Michael Lentz, Nora-Eugenie Gomringer /Museum Wien (Austria), 4 November 2010 –13 February 2011 / Literaturhaus Berlin, 11 March – 15 May 2011 / Muzeul National Brukenthal mit Institutul Cultural Român, Sibiu/Hermannstadt (Romania), 30 September –6 November 2011 / www.literaturhaus-berlin.de

last paintings. ad reinhardt exhibition The Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop has been working on a long-term project called Albers in Context since 2004 which investigates the interconnection between Josef Albers’ art work and artistic teachings and American art since the middle of the 20th century. Following exhibitions on Agnes Martin (2004), Sol LeWitt (2006 ) and Donald Judd (2008 ), the museum will now focus on works by Ad Reinhardt, a leading protagonist of abstract expressionism one of the first distinctly American genres which consciously set itself apart from tradi tional European models. Reinhardt and Albers first met at Yale University. The German painter received a teaching position there after the Na tional Socialists banned the Bauhaus and made it impossible for him to work in Germany any longer. Shortly thereafter Ad Reinhardt became renowned for his Black Paintings , seem ingly monochrome black images which he in cessantly painted starting in 1953 and described as the ›last paintings‹ which could ever be painted. The exhibition will place 40 works by Rein hardt alongside 30 pieces by Albers. It will also feature loans from important European collections as well as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Yale University Gal lery and National Gallery of Art in Washington. The organizers hope the exhibition will signifi cantly advance the study of American-German art history after World War II

Curator: Heinz Liesbrock /Artist: Ad Reinhardt ( USA , Josef Albers / Josef Albers Museum Quadrat, Bottrop, 26 Sep tember 2010 – 9 January 2011 / www.bottrop.de

ludwig wittgenstein localizing a ge nius In commemoration of the 60th anniversary of his death, this exhibition on Ludwig Witt genstein’s life and works will feature a large-scale media-based installation. In addition to situat ing the content of his works in European cultur al and intellectual history, the exhibition will take visitors to the places where he lived and worked in Austria, England and Norway. In or der to vividly illustrate Wittgenstein’s working style, methods and philosophical theories, the exhibition will draw on an extensive pool of original material from his writings, diaries and correspondence. The dialogical form of the ex hibition will convey his philosophy as a living process in much the same way Wittgenstein developed his theories with colleagues, friends and siblings in intensive exchange. With a series of accompanying events which reflect on cur rent scientific discourse, the curators wish to vis ualize the many facets of Wittgenstein’s work and illustrate the relevance of his theories to contemporary scientific disciplines.

Curators: Kristina Jaspers, Jan Drehmel/Schwules Museum Berlin, 18 March – 13 June 2011 / www.schwulesmuseum.de

escalier du chant audio-visual per formative installation The human voice resonates at the centre of this performance, for which Olaf Nicolai has invited composers to write short a-cappella pieces about political events that are meaningful to them. The result will be twelve-part song cycle that will premiere over a period of twelve Sundays. The unannounced performances will be staged on the main staircase of the Pinakothek der Moderne. In contrast to conventional concerts, these brief,

unexpected performances will offer both sing ers and listeners an extraordinary sound experience. This approach expresses Olaf Nicolai’s expanded working concept which regards the artist, composer, singer and listener as partici pants of equal importance. The project Escalier du Chant is part of an ongoing interdisciplinary programme by the Pinakothek der Moderne. Along with its world premiere in Munich, the project includes other perform ances and a recording for radio and Internet.

Curator: Bernhart Schwenk / Artist: Olaf Nicolai / Composers: Tony Conrad USA , Georg Friedrich Haas ( A ) , Georg Katzer ( PL , Olga Neuwirth ( A ) , Samir Odeh-Tamimi JL , En no Poppe, Rolf Riehm, Elliott Sharp USA , Iris ter Shiphorst, Mika Vainio ( FI , Jennifer Walshe ( JE ) and others / Pinako thek der Moderne, Munich, 1 January – 31 December 2011 / www.pinakothek.de

christoph schlingensief a compre hensive exhibition This exhibition is the first attempt to present Christoph Schlingen sief’s complete works. His radical nature, his obsessive need to go to extremes and his exces sive demands on everyone involved in his work have carved Schlingensief a special place in to day’s art world. His artistic path has taken him from film to theatre, performances, actions, in stallations, opera and, most recently, the con struction of a festival house in Africa. His theatre work inspired him to develop actionistic forms with audience integration which he used to found his own political party (Chance 2000, 1998 ) and a church (Church of Fear, 2003 ) breaking with artistic conventions, boundaries and institutions. The exhibition is chiefly based on archived material and focuses on the impor tant events of Schlingensief’s artistic life. The films, productions, actions and performances bear witness to the times and societal circum stances in which they were created, focusing on issues like German history, fascism, church and family. Consequently, the exhibition aims to emphasize the socio-historical and political context of the works and their socially contro versial nature.

Curator: Susanne Pfeffer / KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 6 February – 20 March 2011 /www.kw-berlin.de

examples to follow expeditions in aesthetics and sustainability What so lutions can art provide us in the face of global challenges like climate change, the depletion of fossil fuels and the loss of biodiversity? The ex hibition Examples to Follow focuses on the cultural and aesthetic dimension of sus tainability. Like an expedition in aesthetics and sustainability, the curators venture out in search of creative objects and approaches which en hance the viability of our society. They empha size practices which combine artistic methods with the experiences and activities of environ mental organizations, and present artistic posi tions which address environmental issues, e.g. renewable sources of energy, climate change, re cycling, upcycling and sustainable development. The participating artists have developed models, courses of action, inventions, prototypes and materials in which artistic and technical in novation merge. Following its debut in Berlin, the exhibition will go on tour through Wend land, to Dessau, Ingolstadt, Neuburg and the Neuer Kunstverein Pfaffenhofen. The exhibi tion will also be shown in St. Petersburg, Mel bourne and Athens in cooperation with the Goethe Institutes in each city.

Artistic director: Adrienne Goehler / Project manager: Jaana Prüss /Artists: Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla ( US/ CU ) , Néle Azevedo ( BR , Josef Beuys, Richard Box GB , Ines Doujak ( A ) , Lukas Feireiss and Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today ( GB ) feat. Luis Berríos-Negrón ( PRI , Adib Fricke, Galerie für Landschaftskunst: Till Krause and others, Dionisio Gónzalez E , Tue Greenfort DK , Hermann Josef Hack , Ilkka Halso FIN ) Cornelia Hesse-Honegger ( CH ) Henrik Håkans-

son S ) Christoph Keller Folke Köbberling & Martin Kalt wasser, Christian Kuhtz, Christin Lahr, Antal Lakner ( HU , Jae Rhim Lee ( KR/US ) , Till Leeser, Marlen Liebau & Marc Lingk , Susanne Lorenz, Gordon Matta Clark USA ) , Gerd Niemöller, Dan Peterman US ) , Nana Petzet, Marjetica Potrcˇ( SI , Clement Price-Thomas ( US ) , Dodi Reifenberg ( IL/D , Gustavo Romano AR , Miguel Rothschild AR , Otmar Sattel, Michael Saup, Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, Dina Shenhav IL , Robert Smithson USA ) , Superflex ( DK , Jakub Szczesny PL , The Yes Men ( US ) Gudrun Widlok Zwischenbericht / Ufer hallen Berlin, exhibition: 3 September – 10 October 2010 / Arsenal Berlin and Uferhallen, film programme: 3 Septem ber – 1 October 2010 / Uferhallen and schools, workshops with children and young people: 30 August – 20 September 2010 /Uferhallen, panel discussions: 9 September – 9 Octo ber 2010 /www.z-n-e.info

Artistic director: Dieter Jaenicke / Artists: Dresdner Philhar monie, Ensemble Courage, Morton Subotnik USA ) , Michael Wertmüller, Steamboat Switzerland ( CH , Ginette Laurin ( CA , O Vertigo CA ) , Michael Nyman ( USA , Asolta, Jennifer Walshe ( GB ) , Komponistenklasse Dresden, Ensemble Reso nanz, Beat Furrer AT ) , Ulf Langenheinrich, Wendy Carlos ( USA ) , HK Gruber ( AT ) , Andy Warhol USA ) , Fusedmarc LT ) and others / Festspielhaus Hellerau, Dresden, 1 – 17 Octo ber 2010 / www.hellerau.org

music and sound

jazzwerkstatt around the world con certs in berlin potsdam rome new york In recent years, Berlin has witnessed the rise of a jazz scene with a distinctive, recognizable sound. The music by such artists as Aki Takase, Rudi Mahall, Gerhard Gschlößl and many others is now known here and abroad as German jazz and has a sound uniquely different from that of free jazz of the 1970s. Many artists have released their music with jazzwerkstatt Berlin, for which they have garnered numerous awards. One of the world’s most influential jazz magazines the New York All about Jazz magazine distinguished several of the label’s CD s in 2008 and 2009. Audiences in Berlin, New York and Rome will now have the opportunity to listen to several of these artists and bands in concert. The festival in New York will feature such bands as ›Aki and the good boys‹, ›Der Mo ment‹ and ›Dok Wallach‹. The concert series in Rome will include performances by the ›Ulrich Gumpert Workshop Band‹, the ›Henrik Walsdorff Trio‹ and many others.

Artistic director: Ulli Blobel /Artists: Dok Wallach, Gerhard Gschlößl G 9 , Hyperactive Kid, Gumpert-Sommer-Duo, Perry Robinson Trio, Ulrich Gumpert Workshop Band feat. Paul Brody ( USA ) , Wolfgang Schmidtke »Heimatlieder«, Henrik Walsdorff Trio /Goethe Institute, Rome IT ) 16 July, 17 September, 30 October, 11 December 2010 / Public re hearsals in Berlin and Potsdam: Nikolaisaal, 18 November 2010 ; Kino Babylon, 19 November 2010 ; Jazzwerkstatt Café, 20 November 2010 / New York, Irondale Center in Brooklyn USA ) , 26 – 28 November 2010 / www.jazzwerkstatt-online.de

tonlagen festival of contemporary music 2010 in dresden New Music is one of the most productive fields of contemporary art. In 2009 the annual Festival of Con temporary Music in Dresden began explor ing new ways of promoting the diversity and innovative spirit of New Music. Popular is the motto of the 2010 festival an almost offensive word in the field of contemporary music. In cooperation with the Dresden-based partners KlangNetz Dresden and the New Mu sic Network , the festival organizers have developed a programme which links New Mu sic to other art forms, like dance, New Media and the fine arts, as well as opens a door to pop music and club music. A wide variety of produc tions will participate at this year’s festival, in cluding New Music pioneers from the 1950s and 1960s, the newest experiments in electronic mu sic, performances, experimental jazz and instal lations.

art and artificiality on the marionet te theatre dramatized concerts with dance based on »the marionette theatre« by heinrich von kleist In his text On the Marionette Theatre , Heinrich von Kleist poses a fundamental aesthetic ques tion, namely, where does a »true« artist dwell between the vastly contrasting positions of un touched naturalness and elaborate artistry. On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Kleist’s death in 2011, Isabel Mundry has composed the concert Kunst und Künstlichkeit [Art and Artificiality] for an instrumental and vocal ensemble, dancers and soprano, which address es the subject of Kleist’s essay and explores the relationship between humans, machines, art and nature. The text, music and choreography refer to and overlap one another in various ways. They come in contact with different forms of artificiality and even digitalization through a multifaceted interplay of images and copies. In a process of reflection and differentiation, the composition ultimately achieves what the text describes a complex self-reflection. The pre miere will take place in Thun together with oth er Kleist festivities and will be followed by addi tional performances at locations where Kleist lived and worked.

Artistic co-directors: Isabel Mundry (composition) , Jörg Weinöhl (dance and choreography) / Music: Ensemble Recher che, Vokalensemble Zürich ( CH ) / Dramaturgy: Anett Lütteken CH / Singer: Petra Hoffmann / Schlosskonzerte Thun ( CH , 3 June 2011 /Zurich Festival ( CH ) , 25 June 2011 /Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf / Duisburg

work and leisure () the lucky hand documentary cine-spatial opera with music by arnold schönberg Outsourc ing, a growing demand for flexibility and new Internet-generated possibilities have fundamen tally transformed working life. The difference between private and public, or maintenance and entertainment are no longer clearly definable in terms of work and leisure . As our view of work has changed, so has our understanding of artistic production. The artists Daniel Kötter and Rebecca Ringst of the group labor für musik:theater have made a documentary film that portrays those who have especially felt the impact of this transformation former indus trial workers, local politicians, artists and cura tors. The subject of labour is the basis for twelve portraits and will be presented as a documentary film installation and a multimedia opera production of Schönberg’s music theatre piece

Die glückliche Hand [The Lucky Hand]. The protagonists of the film will also play the roles in Schönberg’s one-act piece and will be accompanied by a live chorus and orchestra.

Artistic director: Daniel Kötter / Musical director: Peter Run del / Set and room design: Rebecca Ringst / ECLAT Festival Neue Musik Stuttgart, Theaterhaus 1, world premiere: 13 February 2011 / Additional performances: Fundação Casa da Música Porto PO , 2012 / www.labor-musik-theater.de

100 years of oskar sala theme-based weekend with plays, performances, tours and an international symposium The musician, composer and natural scien tist Oskar Sala (1910 2002 ) is one of the most in fluential pioneers of 20th -century electro-acous tic music. At the end of the 1920s, he and Frie drich Trautwein (1888 1956 ) developed the Trau tonium one of the first electro-acoustic instru

ments capable of producing noises and sounds of all kinds. His next-generation instrument, the ›Mixturtrautonium‹, enabled Sala to create nu merous sounds for theatre and documentary, industrial and feature films, including famous works like Hitchcock’s The Birds . To com memorate the 100th anniversary of his birth, the Deutsches Museum in Munich, the legatee of Sala’s complete collection of audio tapes, organ ized a theme-based weekend of events last July. The festival weekend included two new music theatre productions, performances, an interna tional symposium, tours and lectures. For the first time, audiences had the chance to listen to digital copies of his audio tapes, which were remastered thanks to funding from the KUR –Programme for the Conservation of Moveable Cultural Assets . The project demonstrated Oskar Sala’s artistic foresight and remarkable influence on today’s musical life and presented his work in new artistic con texts.

Artistic directors: Silke Berdux , Wilhelm Füßl, Andreas Am mer and Peter Pichler / Deutsches Museum, Munich, 16 –19 July 2010 / www.deutsches-museum.de

developments for the literary scene. These new perspectives will hopefully enhance the discus sion concerning the future of books and offer pragmatic and theoretical approaches in the long term.

Artistic directors: Katarine Tojjic, Kateryna Stetsevych and Stefanie Stegmann /Artists: Nora Gomringer, Masterplanet ( CH , Thomas Meinecke, Jürgen Neffe, Barbara Köhler, Sherman Young ( AUS ) , Kathrin Passig, Chris Meade GB/USA ) and others / Alter Wiehrebahnhof, Freiburg im Breisgau, 3 – 5 December 2010 /www.literaturbuero-freiburg.de

ly realizing that he didn’t know his next-door neighbour, although he lived only 80 centime tres away from her and was able to hear every thing she did. For this project he will reassemble his award-winning hotel installation, which was last shown at the Salzburg Festival, in a vacant hangar at the now closed Tempelhof airport in Berlin. Together with performers from Berlin and Holland, Verhoeven will develop a per formance at the venue which highlights the si multaneity of isolation and nearness. The view ers themselves will participate in the spatial ex perience, as each will receive his/her own room in the 20 × 20 metre hotel. Verhoeven’s works are unique in that he makes no distinction be tween viewers and actors or the stage and audi torium. His projects search for new forms of theatricality, and though they do not mirror re ality, they do address fundamental issues of the real world.

Director: Sebastian Nübling / Dramaturgy: Viola Hassel berg / Theater Freiburg, 19 – 22 May 2011 / www.theater. freiburg.de

word and knowledge

1st munich literature festival The main feature of the first Munich Literature Festival will be an international conference of writers from Africa, Asia and Latin America in par ticular representatives of universal writing whose work probes the conflicting relationship between socio-cultural rootedness and global orientation. Curator Ilija Trojanow, whose life and work have distinguished him as a transna tional and cross-border thinker, has chosen to focus on the cosmo-political aspect, which, in times of accelerated globalization, offers a creative balance between the local and global spheres, and between the familiar and the for eign. This literature festival shall limit its view to this specific area of the expansive metropoli tan literary market, explore vital current issues from a literary and scientific perspective in nu merous events, and present a wide spectrum of local and global developments, upheavals, solu tions and revolutions.

Curator: Ilija Trojanow /Artists: Rafael Chirbes ES , Umber to Eco ( I , Peter Esterhazy HU ) , Nuruddin Farah GB ) , Ranjit Hoskot IN , Gail Jones AUS ) , Yang Lian ( CN and others / Literaturhaus Munich, Muffathalle, Münchner Volkstheater, Haus der Kunst, Munich State Museum of Ethnology, Kulturzentrum Gasteig, 17 November – 5 December 2010 / www.literaturhaus-muenchen.de

writing supplies! the book and its fu ture international symposium Though their extinction was predicted decades ago, books remain the leading cultural medium of our times despite the trend toward digitaliza tion which has rapidly transformed the distribu tion, promotion, production and reception of the written word. The current and future significance of books is the theme of an upcoming symposium in Freiburg titled Writing Sup plies! How has the rapid development of me dia in past years affected the habits of readers and artistic-literary production? The primary aim is to establish closer proximity between the theoretical considerations and the practical de velopments from the digital book and publish ing market. The international symposium will focus on current literary and transmedial posi tions and assess the potential of new technical

theatre and movement

the legacy plan merce cunningham dance company in berlin Before he passed away in 2009, the choreographer Merce Cunningham drew up a will, stating that upon his death, his dance company should give one last major world tour, after which it would be disbanded. With this Legacy Plan, which explicitly stipulates how he wished his work to be artistically presented, Cunningham of fered an alternative model to reconstructing and nostalgically idealizing artistic monuments. Cunningham revolutionized the perception of 20th -century dance and choreography and pro duced over 200 works during his lifetime, many of which are still performed by all major dance theatre companies throughout the world. He worked with such renowned artists as Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage and Andy Warhol, and influenced generations of young choreographers with a unique style that celebrated the almost limitless possibilities of human move ment. Stunning examples of Cunningham’s achievements of the past century will be pre sented in six performances and an extensive ac companying programme during the Tanz im August festival.

Artists: Merce Cunningham Dance Company / Academy of the Arts, Berlin and Haus der Berliner Festspiele, 26 Sep tember – 3 October 2011 / www.adk.de

ship o’ fools performative installation

The Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller have gained international acclaim for their sophisticated room and sound installa tions which explore the boundary between fic tion and reality. Cardiff and Miller are currently designing a new walk-in multimedia art in stallation made from the hull of 1930s-vintage Chinese junk, which will be presented on the green in front of the Hebbel am Ufer theatre. The work was inspired by Sebastian Brant’s Dass Narrenschyff ad Narragoniam of 1494 , one of the most widely read Germanlanguage books published prior to the Reforma tion. As a moral satire, the book portrays human failings and vices as causes of foolishness and stupidity. Decorated with lights and objects out side, the Ship o’ Fools will offer visitors a world full of stories inside, presented with acous tic and light-mechanical installations. A performance by an actor and active participation by the audience will make the Ship o’ Fools a performative experiment that explores new possibilities of theatre.

Artists: Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller CA ) /Hebbel am Ufer ( HAU 2 ) Berlin, 13 – 23 June 2011 / www.hebbel-amufer.de

you are here installation-based performance The Dutch set designer and direc tor Dries Verhoeven came up with the idea for his project You Are Here after sudden-

Artist: Dries Verhoeven NL / Hebbel am Ufer, 16 – 26 May 2011 / www.hebbel-am-ufer.de

simple life theatre festival from the fringe The theatre festival Simple Life gathers international dance and theatre produc tions which tell stories of normal people who live their lives on the fringe of society. The en sembles are comprised of both professional ac tors and the ›protagonists of daily life‹ ama teur actors who depict events in their life on stage in the sense of real fiction. The festival presents a broad spectrum of theatrical and choreo graphic approaches which address such subjects as living with a handicap, transsexuality and the fear of dying. The invited groups include Pippo Delbono from Italy with his ensemble of outsiders, and the French acting troupe L’OiseauMouche, comprised of mentally handicapped actors. A dance theatre production is being de veloped for the festival, featuring performers who have been unemployed for an extended pe riod of time. Theatre productions that tell reallife stories and feature amateur actors have at tracted more and more attention in recent years. The goal of the festival is not to regard this form of artistic work as a passing trend, but rather continue to develop the art and anchor it firmly into theatre programmes everywhere.

Artistic director: Jutta Schubert / Artists: Peeping Tom ( BE ) , Pippo Delbono ( IT ) , L’Oiseau-Mouche FR ) , Alvis Hermanis ( LV , Dance Theatre Chang KR , Vanessa van Durme BE ) and others /Kampnagel Hamburg, 11 – 21 November 2010 / www.eucrea.de

wunschkinder theatrical and scienti fic project on the technologization of human reproduction No medical tech nique has had such direct social repercussions and impacted life planning, career planning, family models and gender roles as strongly as reproductive medicine. In what phase of life should we have children? How can we influence and control what kind of children we have? What price do we pay for this freedom and who pays it? Following their successful joint theatre project Optimizing the Human Brain , the Theater Freiburg and the Interdis ciplinary Ethics Center at the University of Freiburg have now commenced on a new project ti tled Wunschkinder [Planned Children] together with approximately 50 amateur actors. Working groups, comprised of directors, inter national scientists, dramaturges and amateur actors, will begin by jointly researching repro ductive issues, such as dissociated parenthood and involuntary childlessness. A key aspect of the project involves collecting personal stories, a so-called bioethical narrative. These local sto ries will then be compared with extreme cases from the United States, Canada and Holland. The working groups will then collaborate with actors to develop a theatre performance to pre miere at the closing theme-based conference.

gamblers play based on two novels by f. m. dostoyevsky Is it possible to force the hand of fate? Is coincidence a matter of mathematical certainties which we need only recognize and use to our advantage? Seven char acters succumb to the temptation of gambling characters based on Dostoyevsky’s novels The Gambler and The Raw Youth who take on a life of their own on stage. The contours of their identities merge as their gambling addiction grows and they withdraw from the out side world. In effect, each of them is leading a life that takes them further away from what they truly desire and leads them to the brink of despair. The rules of the game now determine their lives and their every waking thought. This international theatre project intertwines the fates of individuals who are hopelessly addicted to gambling and, in portraying this addiction on stage, wishes to illustrate the contradictory relationship between reason and risk-taking.

Director: Christiane Pohle / Dramaturgy: Malte Ubenauf / Artistic collaboration: Angelika Fink / Set design: Duri Bischoff ( CH / Costume design: Sara Kittelmann / Production assistants: Katrin Dollinger, Franz Meiller / Actors: Cora Frost, Carina Braunschmidt CH ) , Marie Jung, Magne Hå vard Brekke ( NO , Pascal Lalo FR , Jörg Schröder, Jörg Witte /

Music: Philipp Haagen, Rainer Süßmilch / Theater Basel ( CH ) , 23 – 30 September 2010 / Pathos Transport Theater, Mu nich, 5 – 10 October 2010 /www.pathostransporttheater.de

Curators: Oliver Müller Joachim Boldt Uta Bittner HansPeter Zahradnik , Francoise Baylis ( CA ) , Jean-Pierre Wils NL /

committees

board of trustees The Board of Trustees is re sponsible for making final decisions concerning the gener al focus of the Foundation’s activities, its funding priorities and organizational structure. The 14-member board reflects the political levels which were integral to the Foundation’s establishment. Trustees are appointed for a five-year term.

Bernd Neumann

Chairman of the Board

Representing the Federal Foreign Office

Representing the Federal Ministry of Finance Representing the German Bundestag

Representing the German Länder

Representing the German municipalities

Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Cultural Foundation of German States

Representing the fields of art and culture

Minister of State in the Federal Chancellery and Commissioner for Cultural and Media Affairs Cornelia Pieper Minister of State Steffen Kampeter Parliamentary State Secretary Prof. Dr. Norbert Lammert President of the German Bundestag Dr. h.c. Wolfgang Thierse Vice President of the German Bundestag Hans-Joachim Otto Parliamentary State Secretary Dr. Valentin Gramlich State Secretary, Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs of Saxony-Anhalt Walter Schumacher State Secretary, Ministry of Education, Science, Youth and Cultural Affairs of Rhineland-Palatinate Klaus Hebborn Councillor for Education, Culture and Sports, German Association of Cities Uwe Lübking Councillor, Association of German Towns and Municipalities Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Böhmer Minister-President of Saxony-Anhalt

Senta Berger Actress

Durs Grünbein Author Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Wolf Lepenies Sociologist

advisory committee The Advisory Committee makes recommendations on the thematic focus of the Foun dation’s activities. The committee is comprised of leading figures in the arts, culture, business, academics and politics.

Dr. Christian Bode Secretary General of the DAAD Prof. Dr. Clemens Börsig Chairman of the Cultural Committee of German Business with the BDI e.V. Jens Cording President of the Society for Contemporary Music Prof. Martin Maria Krüger President of the German Music Council Prof. Dr. h.c. Klaus-Dieter Lehmann President of the Goethe-Institut

Isabel Pfeiffer-Poensgen Secretary General of the Cultural Foundation of German States Dr. Volker Rodekamp President of the Association of German Museums Dr. Georg Ruppelt Vice President of the German Arts Council Prof. Dr. Oliver Scheytt President of the Cultural Policy Society Johano Strasser President of the German P E N. Center Frank Werneke Deputy Chairman of the ver.di labour union Prof. Klaus Zehelein President of the German Theatre Association

juries and curatorial panels The Federal Cultural Foundation draws on the scientific and artistic expertise of about 50 jury and curatorial panel members who consult the Foundation on thematic and project-specific matters. For more information about these committees, please visit the corresponding projects posted on our web site www.kulturstiftung-bund.de.

executive board team

Hortensia Völckers

Artistic Director Alexander Farenholtz Administrative Director Secretarial offices

Beatrix Kluge / Beate Ollesch [Berlin office] / Christine Werner

Dr. Lutz Nitsche

Assistant to the Executive Board

Contract department

Dr. Ferdinand von Saint André [legal advisor] / Doris Heise / Anja Petzold / Katja Storm Press and Public Relations

Funding department

Friederike Tappe-Hornbostel [dept. head] / Tinatin Eppmann / Diana Keppler / Julia Mai / Christoph Sauerbrey / Arite Studier

Kirsten Haß [dept. head] General Project Funding Torsten Maß [dept. head] / Bärbel Hejkal / Steffi Khazhueva

Programme department

Eva Maria Gauß / Dr. Ulrike Gropp / Teresa Jahn / Anita Kerzmann / Dr. Alexander Klose / Anne Maase /

Annett Meineke / Uta Schnell / Friederike Zobel / Ines Deák / Marcel Gärtner / Kristin Salomon / Kristin Schulz

Andreas Heimann [dept. head] / Berit Koch / Fabian Märtin / Antje Wagner / Barbara Weiß Administration

Project controlling

Steffen Schille [dept. head] / Margit Ducke / Maik Jacob / Steffen Rothe

Publisher Kulturstiftung des Bundes / Franckeplatz 1 / 06110 Halle an der Saale / Tel +49(0)345 2997 0 / Fax -333 / info@kulturstiftung-bund.de / www.kulturstiftung-bund.de

Executive Board Hortensia Völckers / Alexander Farenholtz [responsible for the content]

Editor Friederike Tappe-Hornbostel

Editorial staff Tinatin Eppmann /Diana Keppler / Design cyan Berlin Dr. Alexander Klose / Christoph Sauerbrey

Production hausstætter herstellung Translation Robert Brambeer Copy date 20 August 2010

Illustrations courtesy of the Artist Print run 26,000 [German] / 4,000 [English]

By-lined contributions do not necessarily reflect the opin ion of the editor. © Kulturstiftung des Bundes All rights reserved. Reproduction in part or whole without prior written consent from the German Federal Cultural Foun dation is strictly prohibited.