joaoflux / digital / analog / culture

A couple of days ago I had lunch across the street from good old Tachels, the former squat that became famous in the 90s. After a rather traumatic experience I had organizing an exhibition there back in 2001, I did not follow the development of the situation there during the last couple of years.

Waiting for my food and a not having anything to read with me a picked up one of the Tacheles Programs (I never see them anywhere else. Is it possible that they only manage to distribute it in their direct neighborhood?). The first sentence that caught my attention translates “scrap and bankruptcy aren’t art”. In a short text on the front page Tacheles e.V. distances itself from the scrap in their backyard. They claim that Fundus, the investor who bought the building a long time ago, tries to damage the reputation of Tacheles and teams up with small-time criminals to do so. According to Tacheles e.V. “Drug dealers and worse” use the territory for “deployment”.

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This morning I received a mail from Literaturwerkstatt containing a statement in which the Berlin literature hosts protest against all major town magazines and publications outsourcing their event calendars to one one company that will thus acquire a monopoly position. The publishers obviously don’t even feel that it is necessary to wait with using the newly formed cartel to put pressure on cultural organizers. Until now all of the publications (Zitty, Tip, Tagesspiegel, Berliner Zeitung, [030]) offered event notifications free, whereas now the are planning to charge a “service fee” starting at €400 per year.
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In France only professional journalists are allowed to beat up people, film it and publish the video on the net. If you are not a journalists you have to groove on the happy memory of your violent acts or pay one of those painters at Montmartre and Centre Pompidou to do quick sketches of the happy action. Depending on your artistic taste you buy the drawing or you have the painter do a full color painting which you can pick up 30 min later.

If that is not web 2.0 enough for you, just organize a flash mob gathering of journalists before you get going. The elegant part is that they will not only do the filming, but also take care of publishing the footage for you at no extra charge.