Neues Projekt: Anti-Monument für die Rote Ruhr Armee
Die Stadt ist unsere Fabrik - The City is our Factory, Christoph Schäfer, 2010
June 23: Black Box, Belfast, Ireland, 18-22 Hill Street, Belfast, BT1 4EF www.blackboxbelfast.com
May 27: Plymouth, AESTHETICS IN A TIME OF EMERGENCY? – beyond the relational-aesthetic paradigm SYMPOSIUM, Lewinsky Building, University of Plymouth
May 26: Kingston University London, 10:30, Arts Faculty
16.. April: Hamburg, Gängeviertel
26. März: Hamburg, Pudelsalon, Golden Pudel Klub, 20 Uhr
24. März: Berlin, Pro m2
19. März: Leipzig, Café Pilot im Central-Theater, 20 Uhr
Spector Books Leipzig - ISBN: 978-3-940064-95-0
Captions „The city is our factory“ Chapter 1 Lefebvre 4 Kids 02 The objects lay around divided and scattered in space 03/04/ 05 5000 years ago The invention of the city at the river bend 06 City = condensed difference 07/ 08 6500-3000 BCE Uçhisar, Cappadocia 09/10/11 12 Altars in form of houses, Ishtar temple, Assur, 3rd – 2nd millennium BC At first, these altars were interpreted as models of houses. But we now know from cuneiform tablets that sacrificial offerings were placed on them. But why houses – city houses – in the temple of the goddess of love? The goddess of sexuality? Assur, one of the oldest cities of the world. The people are aware of the ingenuity of the invention called “city” – a city that at this time wasn’t the seat of the state administration but an independent city state. 2400 – 2200 BCE 13 14 The landing of the emperor interrupts the currents of the city The empire lands in Assur, 1800 BCE 15/16/17/18 19 The military camp as a pioneer of the city Italy, 26 BCE 20 21 The city is not the state Kowloon Walled City 1946 – 1990s. A self-organised city on a piece of land concerning which it wasn’t clear whether it belonged to Hong Kong or China. Home of tens of thousands, hundreds of “factories”, self-administration, refuge for everything that was forbidden in the states. 22/23/24/25/26/27/28 29 On the first image you see a blanket. Point A and B are remote from each other. Condensation: The distance between both points is reduced through folding. Condensation means acceleration, multiplication of encounters. The brain… … flattened out its surface equals the size of France. A widespread opinion holds that these drawings, without writing and beyond that: this series of drawings without explanations would be far more elegant 30 Looking back we had to admit that it was precisely the most deviant of our ideas that proved to become the most influential… Consequently for purely pragmatic reasons we would immediately pursue the most harebrained ideas. – The industry had the same notion. With his new glasses and his beige corduroy suit you believed every word he said. 31 The city was huge. We drifted through the night. A new adventure behind every corner. 32 Paris, 1st half of the 19th century. 33 Embellissement stratégique Strategic embellishment 34 The linear is nearly always the evil. The evil. 35 War & road construction I 36 The fact is that a battle over the cities broke out. Flyovers against irregular neighbourhoods, Delhi 2003. 37 Chapter 2 The appropriated space 38 The city is inhabited world, appropriated space. Appropriation 39/40/41/ 42 To dwell as a poet 43 To dwell as a poet 44 Production of space Appropriation 45 The city passes through you. 100.000 guns. 46 Density Condensation It is impossible for the human being not to dwell as a poet. 47 48 The main part of human brain development in the past 200.000 years occurred in the development of the capacity to interact with other brains. 49 50 City: open to the foreign The different (Foreignness as part of the city) Such chaos Country: feudalism, identity, folklore, property The idiosyncratic 51 The inhabitants of Ur 52 We were dreaming up metropolises 53 54 55 Why do people like taking walks through complicated city layouts? 56 The imaginary is part of the urban space. The imaginary produces space. We talked about 3D printers the whole night. 57 The true story of the city. Kowloon, Assur, London Bridge, Christiania, Maclovio Rojas Appropriation Self-directed Intelligence Dance Collective Brains Non state No monuments No state Clay Fucking state No Greeks Right to the city 58 Appropriation Making inventions Surplus value Creative class discourse Gentrification 59 Participation Wish production Appropriation 60 Monkeys like us 61 Chapter 3 1979: The city is our factory 62 City of passions Immaterial work Creative class Subcultures The city that music built 63 64 1979 Punks storm a stage 65 First of all, to locate where we stand right now. Is the term “3rd sector” correct? What does 3rd sector mean – service, reproduction, immaterial work? What does that mean in Wolfsburg, the bastion of the 2nd sector? What does that mean for a corporation that can no longer sell a product without an image? Which new regulation model is being installed in this instant, which role does art play in it – and can this still be adequately described as “3rd sector”? At a point like this it is advisable to make use of a concrete example. We like to wallow too much in our own propagated entanglement with the circumstances only to then withdraw, enlightened about our own impotence. That won’t hurt anyone – but where will the fissures show, where the new disparities? Who wins and who loses? 66 How I became a neoliberal cultural enterprise show model subject It was in geography: Essen wasn’t the largest industrial city of the FRG any longer, they said. Because most people now worked in the 3rd sector. At home I advised papa to sell the Thyssen shares. 67 Becoming an artist would be a good excuse never to work. You’d be the avant-garde of non-work. Motor mechanic jacket Oranienbar, 1984. We wore our fathers’ shoes and suits as hand-me-downs. 68/69 70 Some succeeded in connecting their sub-cultural and art practice with the battles against gentrification. Unlike in the Berlin in the 90s it was necessary to get one’s teeth into it here, to fight for every square metre of freedom – instead of just moving to the next neighbourhood. 71 It was our most radical gestures that could best be made use of. – For the upward revaluation of real estate, for the construction of neighbourhood identities. As soon as there was an illegal club somewhere, a cappuccino bar would open next door, followed by a new media agency… … we were management consultants. 72 So we had acquired precisely the skills the image capitalism needs – visually alphabetised, consumption-competent niche douches… 73 … we were the heroes of immaterial work, pioneers in the field of post-Fordism, at the new front of the production of meaning and subjectivity. 74 The city of Hamburg sold two fiercely fought-over buildings to an investor – the Rote Flora and the Kasematten next to the Pudelclub and Hafenstraße, under the Park Fiction area… He calls himself an economical intellectual. Then the building was rented out to the city and they celebrated a Media Night in front of the harbour backdrop, with 300 cops + 3 water cannons… … part of the image policy of the city of Hamburg… … a hostile cultural takeover. 75 The “creative class” discourse conducts the domestication and colonisation of subjectivity. 76 At first unnoticed, something essential began to change in the cities when we started walking around with cardboard cups full of lattes. Whole city areas soon gave you the feeling that you were purchasing a stay permit with your latte. Brighton 1981: Instant coffee in a Styrofoam cup Brighton 1983: Italian cappuccino in a gay café Essen 1981: French latte + the “Radikal” at the café Regenbogen Barista Kolkata 2004: There is a guitar on the wall there with a sign saying “Play me”. Participation / Web 2.0 Café Coffee Day: Delhi 2003-Bangalore 2005-Vienna 2008: Starbucks: Vienna 2004-Pittsburg 2005-Düsseldorf central station 2009 77 The city is our factory 78 The city is our factory 79 The city is our factory Chapter 4 Black holes 80 Cologne, March 2009 Suddenly the earth opened up and the entire history of the city disappeared in a hole. 81 82 The city and the memory. The lost knowledge of the government offices. Neo-liberalism and memory. 83 Utopia Salon & Spa meeting in the Centro Sociale: Surrounding the growing city with projects. Markus describes the neo-liberal reorganisation of political decision-making structures – the denunciation of the old quality criteria, The abrasion of professional governmental competences, the reduction of the building inspection department to a stamping agency without influence, the transference of their surveillance function to private structural engineers paid for by the investor. You have to imagine the vastness of knowledge that was existent in these agencies. This knowledge is lost with the neo-liberal reorganisation – the history of the city is deleted. 84 85 Is this an inhabited planet? 86 Chapter 5 Hamburg – surrounding the growing city with projects 87 In Hamburg, the neo-liberal urban redevelopment runs under the title Hamburg growing city Maritime city of talent Hamburg Marketing Ltd. Brand-strengthening events Image City Cuts in social services Location marketing The Hamburg brand Landmark projects Jump over the Elbe 88 Hamburg, segregated city: Office Upmarket Green Living Quilted Jacket Neighbourhood Creative Knitting Supply + Felt hats + Wine Snob Zone IKEA Latte Zone BNQ Maritime Event Zone Brewery Quarter Harley Days Beach Club Bulgari High Security Embassy Sector Golden Retriever Jogging Strand Tommy Hilfinger Retention Zone Gay Upmarket Latte Zone Working Class Neighbourhood with Revaluation Potential Mass Shopping Maritime Shopping Zone Subvision Business Improvement District Social Crash and Skimming All The Same Eurogate Container Terminal Displacing with Art IBA IGA 89 90 In 2003, Hamburg applies to host the Olympic games. Dieter Wedel is commissioned to direct an image film. The culmination point and final shot is to be a mass scene: The citizens of Hamburg are meant to express their athletic enthusiasm for the Hamburg brand with frenetic jubilance in front of city hall, at the Rathausplatz. But the scene never comes about: Hundreds of supporters of the squatted trailer park “Bambule” disrupt the picture, hold fuck fingers into the camera, hold up signs. The film is never shown, Hamburg loses the preliminaries. Bambule – Image City kaput 91 In 2004, senator of commerce Dräger hands out Richard Florida books in the Hamburg senate Florida holds lectures Roland Berger develops “Hamburg, City of Talent” The artists leave the city. 92 It could have continued like this – forever. But then… 93 Right to the city. 94 Like a harbinger, the action network “Es regent Kaviar” (Its raining caviar) against gentrification forms in early 2008 95 96 97 In the middle of the gentrification area Schanze a couple of people found the Centro Sociale. An independent + self-organised community centre that works like an open source project extended into real space: a counterpoint to the gentrification. 98 Winter `08/`09. An evening at Buttclub Pelin Tan, urban theorist and activist, speaks about defending a neighbourhood against the demolition politics in Istanbul. 99 Again and again during our fights for the preservation of irregular neighbourhoods we are dealing with very disparate usage and ownership structures: Some people rent, some are subtenants, others bought illegally, still others have an entry in the land register or an official deed of ownership, and we right in the middle, a group of left activists, on top of that from different ethnical and religious backgrounds; to be able to fight together all the same we use the term “right to the city” (politics). Because if the city wants to, everything will be demolished, documents are declared invalid etc. 100 Artists’ plenum A few weeks ago at a former bowling alley at the Reeperbahn: When we moved in here 17 years ago we knew we would have to leave eventually. Exactly, we have no right to stay here. But we should make it clear to the city what we contribute to the revaluation of the neighbourhood. Maybe they’ll let us find a place somewhere else then. 101 I remembered a line from Shuddhabrata Sengupta: 102 Autumn 2008: Shore leave through the special rights zone. Es regent Kaviar (Its raining caviar) hosts a performative round tour through the history of replacement and gentrification and privatisation of St. Pauli. Video surveillance, the ban of glass bottles, criminalisation above all of adolescents with a migrant background accompany the revaluation efforts of the real estate sector. The closing event at the Spielbuden-Platz is dispersed by force by the police. 103 104 3 performers are beaten up and arrested. As was to be expected, not the police officers but the performers are brought on trial. Kaviar commissions a painting that depicts the incidents abstractly and opens the trial with a vernissage--- … on the steps of the criminal justice building. 105 April 2009: In St. Pauli, the minutes of a building department meeting are leaked to some neighbours. The content is explosive: Investors and politicians have agreed on a luxury modernisation of approximately 15 properties and plan to build new condominiums.. For the currents occupants this means: eviction. Residents circularise the minutes in the neighbourhood. The investors call their scheme “BNQ” – Bernard Nocht Quartier. 106 A few days later there is a first meeting. The “Kogge” is bursting at the seams… Everyone wants to prevent the BNQ. 107 … and as a sign that we are a new movement and speak a different language, we will not hang banners but instead these yellow pennants sprayed with neon colour – No BNQ! Everyone can hang these out their windows. Good idea! I don’t know… Hooray! That’s how we’ll do it. 108 109 At first I didn’t think this would work. But soon the pennants were hanging along the whole street and I was constantly asked: “What do the pennants everywhere mean?” That way you would get talking, about the investors’ project – and what you could do against it. 110 111 The movement gains momentum: When we’re finished with you… … you won’t be able to recognise St. Pauli. The “Rock’n’Wrestling”-team organises a fight show against gentrification. Copper Klopper Empire Riverside Strikes Back Anti-gentrification Man Robot “Bentolove” clobbers the “BNQ”, the “Empire Riverside” and the “Astra tower”. 112 Anti-gentrification Man against the myth The passage of humanity through the history of class wars – competition of ideas 113 June 2009: Empire St. Pauli is shown in Park Fiction; one year after Olaf Sobczak, Irene Budde and Steffen Jörg had begun making the film “On the gentrification of St. Pauli”. The film substantiates the discussion with hard facts and reveals the cynicism of the real estate development scene. The film develops additional force by the fact that the film team presents screenings at endangered places. Park Fiction, implemented in the 90s by the neighbourhood, is revived by the performance: Just under 1000 spectators appear – after the film a spontaneous demonstration marches through the district. “We want to position St. Pauli as a brand” Hamburg Marketing 114 Summer 2009: At a home match of the FC St. Pauli thousands of booklets appear, describing the current gentrification projects. Expensive Trendy Boring, St. Pauli 2009 115 Summer 2009: The city belongs to everyone-demonstration. Margit holds a speech from the balcony against the investors’ “Bernard Nocht Quartier” Cordless microphone 116 Somebody holds that: This is the beginning of a new movement. This is the beginning of the end of the “growing city”. Spontaneous interviews with participants are done at the demonstration. A shop assistant speaks about being laid off at the super market. A boat dweller speaks about his expulsion from the harbour by the privatised “Hamburg Port Authority” – that at the same time propagates “Living at the Water” for the wealthy. One week later the Right to the City Congress is held at the Centro Sociale. 117 Sommer 2009 – Right to the City Congress at the Centro: We must connect the initiatives from all parts of the city. In the long run the point is to develop a model of how a social city could look like after the failure of the neo-liberal city. I am a journalist and can’t afford an apartment any more, either. Making each other more clever! We should choose unconventional forms of action so that the people will take a closer look. The classes are reassembling. It is more and more difficult to distinguish private life from work. The city is the factory of the multitude. We can’t solve the problem solely in Hamburg – we’ll have to initiate a nationwide debate. What connects the discussions regarding self-organised free spaces for low rents and against ostracism and gentrification is the fact that these cases are all about spaces of possibility! 118 Invention of new collective spaces f.ex. Rote Flora, Park Fiction, housing projects (maybe) trailer parks, Hafenstraße, Hafenklang, raves. Location marketing, growing city, IBA, Creative class discourse, Leap over the Elbe, temporary use, Elbphilharmonie, Brauereiquartier, participation 119 Into the cities’ mountains 120 Right to the city: Appropriation, subcultures, politics of desire, infringement, self-organised spaces, social questions, tenant battles International, counter-projects, solidarity, exploiting legal means, maritime location marketing wasteland, image city, segregation, growing city, IBA, poverty, unlikely alliances, letting disparities co-exist, accentuating but acting together anyway. 121 122 At the same time in a basement in the Gängeviertel neighbourhood… For over 6 months artists and other people meet once a week. They are planning the biggest squat Hamburg has seen in the last 20 years – there where nobody suspects it, in the middle of the city centre, right next to the Springer publishing house. In August, a total of 15 houses are squatted with exhibitions all at once. 123 August 30 2009: On the weekend after the squatting of the Gängeviertel: 124 125 Pudel Art Basel – art market against gentrification Pictures are sold from car boots. The bourgeoisie is warned to leave the neighbourhood immediately after the purchase. 126 NoBNQ and Hafenstraße organise a “district assembly” Investor-architecture-critical bouncing castle by Michaela Melian Punch and the rent racketeer from the Schwabing youth The band Die Goldenen Zitronen Punk concerts Gentropoly Open air planning office 127 District assembly Let’s Play Gentropoly The group Lomu (Local organized Multitude) develops a gigantic monopoly game that is supplemented with the aspect of gentrification: The investor figure appears – and the element “culture-amplifier”, a kind of squat, that withdraws the property from the real estate market. 128 Instead of renewing the Centro’s contract, the city puts the building out to tender again. The city’s favourite candidate is the “Pferdestall” corporation, a neo-liberal gastronomic empire founded with Asta (students’ union) assets with a mildly alternative feel that runs the “Haus III&70” right next to the Rote Flora. On the eve of the Schanzen festival reloaded a “Waltz parade against rising rents and for the Centro Sociale” marches through the borough: The revolution will be a fête or will be nothing. 129 November 2009: Gängeviertel + Its raining Caviar invite Andrej Holm, Ingrid Breckner + me to speak: The city belongs to us all, really. The Jupi Bar is bursting at the seams – loudspeakers are brought outside into the street. A citywide discussion is sparked. Komm in die Gänge (Get started). 130 2000 artists compose “Not in our Name, Hamburg brand”. At the same time a fake image magazine appears. Hamburg under vultures – Right to the city. The manifesto is printed in the newspaper “Die Zeit” and in the “Hamburger Abendblatt”. Richard Florida has to explain himself in the magazine “Spiegel”. 131 November 2009: We are all staying – rally at the same place where the demolition of the Gängeviertel* and the Hamburg redevelopment policy began at the end of the 19th century. *after the dock worker strike organised here 132 Nov 28 2009 The shopping mall Frappant is squatted. 3000 people New protest songs No Ikea For self-organised social centres The city belongs to us Right to the city 133 Nico’s Farm, a group of parents with disabled children, squats buildings and forces negotiations about their housing project December – in the Gählepark trees are squatted to stop the construction of a district heating pipeline belonging to the coal-fired power station Moorburg. 134 December 18: The citywide network becomes manifest in the Right to the city-parade, moves through Hamburg in the biting cold. Not in our Name, Hamburg brand + EuroMayDays Caviar NoBNQ Rock’n’Wrestling Frappant Stop Moorburg Pipeline Apfelbaum braucht Wurzelraum (Apple tree needs root territory) Centro Schanzen tower Ini Bambule water cannons Flora 3 rows of police Blackbloc Komm in die Gänge City centre ban 4000 people 1000 balls 135 Surrounding the growing city with projects (autumn 2009) A: Gängeviertel is squatted (Aug 22 2009) B: NoBNQ district assembly with the Goldenen Zitronen C: Expensive Trendy Boring – gentrification-critical St. Pauli fan magazine D: Waltz parade for the Centro Sociale E: Pillow fight – Schanzenviertel reloaded F: Faked Hamburg marketing brochure – Hamburg under vultures G: Manifesto Not in our name, Hamburg brand H: Kill Billy – No Ikea I: Right to the City Network J: Seven years Bordsteinkante (kerb) – Bambule Retro K: Frappant squat / Nico’s Farm squat L: The city buys back the Gängeviertel M: Right to the city parade N: Fabrik is squatted again O: Tree squat Moorburg pipeline P: Pudel Art Basel art market against gentrification 136 137 The social Creative class discourse (“Worpswede in the city centre”) (art as the privileged exception) The art Anti-art resentments Neo-puritanism Ethics of guilt Self-definition as victim Impotence-Omnipotence 138 Social questions as spatial questions What connects the new battles? Urban praxis Graffiti Squatting Skateboard Parade Happiness Production Living Art Rave Network Chapter 6 The evening I’d like to have as a movie The evening I’d like to have as a movie began like this: We had arranged to meet with Utopia Salon & Spa Group at the central station McDonald’s. We drank lattes and gazed at the tracks. Only 3 people had come. The conversation circled around passages, urbanity, rambling, promises of a past age encapsulated in architecture. After a while we left the place and kept on talking while we walked. The evening was dry and warm. It was August 21, 2009. Daniel, Nils and I. 140 I didn’t know Daniel at all before. We passed the ex-Burger King which is now called Elbphilharmonie Kulturcafé, a joint venture between the department of culture and Starbucks. In which culture is represented by the counter inside where you can buy tickets for musicals. And by the name which refers to Hamburg’s prestige building project that is meant to increase the value of the stagnating Hafencity. 141 We were so deep in conversation that we walked straight passed our actual goal, the Passage-Kino which was being threatened with shutdown. 142 We couldn’t get into the Shopping Arcade Hanseviertel, it was already locked up. We continued walking to the Gängeviertel. It was the eve of the squat. 143 It started to rain heavily. We knocked and entered the “Puppenstube” in Gängeviertel: XXX and XXX were busy with the exhibition preparations. Last arrangements were made for the next day. It would all begin at 2pm. During the day the police had already been there: “You’re not planning to squat anything, are you?” The whole city was full of “Komm in die Gänge”-stickers. For my painting I was assigned a place at the construction fence. I wanted to paint a collective picture with the others. We talked over beer and cigarettes. Then we walked on. 144 We stopped at a cellar restaurant. A place I had never been before. We got hold of a corner sofa and on went the conversation: Lefebvre and the urban revolution, David Harvey and the urban roots of the fiscal crisis, how a post crisis urbanisation model could look like, the invention of the Bohemian and its totalisation today, the 3D printer and Fab Lab, the idea for a gigantic wall newspaper that – installed at lots of places in the city – could visualise the different struggles. The rain pattered on the pavement. Hours later we left the pub, poisoned with alcohol and nicotine. 145 The city is our factory.
the saloon is owned by artist and barman christoph schäfer (visdp) bernhard nocht strasse 51 20359 hamburg