The pairs of terms do not correlate with  the asked for norms of thinking in for example intelligence tests and quizzes but propagate quasi anarchistic and humorous alternatives chosen from the knowledge that nobody can be perfect but becomes different possibly even freer by the reversal of existing practices.

By singing, percussion and body language Kira Stein connected doors, walls, windows and the basement stairs of the exhibition room with bicycle stands, lamp posts, advertising pillars and other elements of the street. The noises she elicited from the things with the handle of a screw driver revealed their never or rarely heard acoustic qualities and channeled the attention of the present people through the visual to the haptic and acoustic qualities. With her doing the performance artist addressed the outside space on the footpath, where neighbors and passing-by people lured to their windows were included. The intensity with which Stein made the existing but mostly overseen things of daily life touch a string and connected that with her singing goes back to the suggestions from the theatre laboratory of Jerzy Grotowski in Warsaw. In the Wandsbeker Chaussee Kira Stein carried forward the intensity of encounter demanded by Grotowski from actors and spectators to the elemental interaction with things and rooms accompanying them with her tone sequences from the here-and-now of her existence which converted the title "Schubumkehr" (reverse thrust) to the anagram USCHKUMBREH phonetically. In a bright red dress, barfoot, calling against the stream of cars she drew attention to the so banal as well as common  which in its otherness is rarely watched and exists parallel to the tv shows broadcasted in the evenings. By the way the unappeasable traffic noise lost its dominance.

On your own risk: to inhabit the body all anew

1. To block (movement)

As a prelude of the second day of festival Lars Mueller looked back at the protest movement 1967/68 with his talk "Gleich wird's Gruen (
Soon it will be green) - social movement and perform-like protest". In Freiburg/Br. there were in fact no illustrious people that act at the interface of art, political movement and media as it was the case in Berlin with Dieter Kunzelmann
but still also in Freibung the protest thrived from great directness. Also "Gleich wird's gruen"(Soon it will be green)  had nothing to do with the party founding later but meant the traffic light phases which were used to block the inner-city streets with the help of the police. After the pre-work of the protesters  eventually the police brought the traffic to a standstill themselves with their intervention. Such activities made the citizens feel sympathy for the students and they won a majority for their  concern within
a short time. Even though in the beginning it was 'only' for affordable public transport fares later on it was about general debates about democracy with the known consequences.

2. Falling (gravitation)

The performance by Monica Pantel took place in a neighboring empty shop where the artist picked up an aspect with which her male colleagues put the cat among the pigeons and changed the reception of the body in arts in the Body Works in the 1970s.
Non-theatrically and objectively Pantel took various positions in relation to a bed-plate - partially acrobatically apperaring positions. She lay on a bed-plate and varied the classic relation of the body to the base. This also happened by her pushing the bed-plate lengthwise horizontally against the wall so that the performer who beforehand laid face down on the short side of the bed-plate appeared purely visual turned by 90 degrees whilst the physical burden which in relation to gravity had changed asked for completely other tasks of the body.
In a third sequence the performer leaned with her upper body against one of the long areas of the cuboid in order to keep it pushed to the wall against gravity. Alone the pressure of the body kept the cupoid at the wall and by variation let it slip down jerkily. Definitely the body was employed as a brake that in a controlling way worked against gravity with that the position of the body in relation to the bed-plate varied.

The first and second part of this performance sequence tempts art historians to see action-like variations of the theme figure and bed-plate in this
(4). This perception is challenged in the third part by  the relocation of the axle. When the body leans against the wall the effect of the gravity on figure and bed-plate demands input of muscle power to produce a balance.
Founded by BKSM Hamburg and Office for district Wandsbek
back
next
4 Chris Burdens Aktion Sculpture in Three Parts (1974). And also: J. L. Schršder: Naturwissenschaft, Hitze und Zeit / Science, Heat, and Time. Minimalismus und Body Art in den StŸcken von Chris Burden (s.above, minimalism and body art in the plays by Chris Burden)  in: Chris Burden. Beyond the Limits. Exhibition catalog …sterreichisches Museum fŸr angewandte Kunst (Austrian Museum for applied arts), publisher: Wien and Cantz, Ostfildern 1996, pages 191-209,  pages 200-204