Contribution by Olaf Bargheer An Apple DVI adapter is the simplest tool to make artists happy. It’s something one should always have in one’s bag, along with a pack of cable straps and a roll of gaffer tape. A digital mirror-reflex camera belongs to the simplest but also most unthankful basic pieces of equipment of a blogger. It’s always around one’s shoulders during a festival. But it is always readily borrowed by press assistants, student assistants and artists to quickly shoot a photo spread of a performance or a panel discussion. The camera is then returned with a full memory card, empty battery or not at all. By the way: A festival entrance container is not the appropriate place to store a camera in a supposedly secure way. More >>
Barter Trade Between Unequal Parties
Contribution by Ele Jansen Ever since Richard Florida’s notion that a vibrating “creative class” decisively contributes to the attractiveness of an economic region, city marketers love to refer to “their creative workers”. But it is often forgotten that a distinctive creative scene is fed by an active off scene comprised of young artists less interested in the mainstream and instead intervening with alternative approaches – eagerly consumed by the masses. Hamburg is such as city offering glamour, a bit of grunge, a lot of underbelly, and a scene. More >>
Leakage Current
Contribution by Olaf Bargheer One has to openly admit: On the first weekend, we were flooded. The Baltic Raw formwork structure is a carpentry and aesthetic pleasure, but a tarpaulin spanned in an improvised manner offered no protection against the strong late-summer showers on Saturday evening. It hit the atrium from all sides. At first it didn’t bend the mood inside; we fought against the pouring rain with specially invented hot caipirinhas and finest electronic sounds of Tobias Schmid’s und Niko Tzoukmatis’ audision DJ set. Until even the most robust Totec sound system capitulated to the immense wetness. Leakage current somewhere, audio cables in puddles, crackling speakers, main switch off. More >>
Contradictions undesired
Contribution by Ele Jansen If we lived in a tradition of Confucianism and not in that of rationalist, occidental philosophers, the dispute surrounding the subvision festival in Hamburg would probably not have emerged. The criticism directed against celebrating off art in HafenCity and thus dragging it into the commercial “on” gives evidence to the paradox that, according to Confucius, is inherent to everything. Only we – little Descartes, Leibniz and Kants – seek rational self-containedness in every concept. If we do not find it, we feel unpleasant and all too often react with criticism to logical dissonance. Contradictions undesired. More >>
subvision concept
Article for the subvision short guide by Brigitte Kölle
At the last sculpture projects in Muenster (2007), one could experience an inconspicuous yet extremely impressive work by the Polish artist Pawel Althamer. It consisted of a small path in a grain field, which near the Aasee, led out of the city and abruptly ended after a few hundred metres: A nice picture for leaving predefined trails, walking cross-country and creating new paths, in view of which the structures and possibilities can and must be renegotiated.
An architecture with a high degree of free improvisation for the the off initiatives
Simon Putz, Prof. Michael Staffa and a number of other architects of Architekturwerstatt Hamburg e.V. were faced with the challenge of designing an exhibition architecture for a 10,000-square-metre festival area – with a budget that they would normally calculate for half a single-family home. More >>
Guided Tours at the subvision Festival
Festival visitors can find the art mediation team at the information container near Strandkai-Plaza. Five members of team*partake offer individual and group tours daily at regular times from 08/27 to 09/06/2009, 3 & 6 pm.
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New Media vs. High Culture
Article for the subvision short guide by Olaf Bargheer
For a communication strategist, there is in principle hardly a task more unthankful than doing public relations work for a festival that is taking place for the first time. There’s nothing to pick up on. Neither existing structures nor any kind of previous knowledge of the people one wants to address and whose interest in the matter one wants
to arouse. More >>
Design concept
Article for the subvision short guide by Prof. Ingo Offermanns “Design concepts” or “communication strategies” suggest a sense of overview and control. But negative insinuations of constraint and conventionality are also always associated with these concepts. More >>
Online Editorial Staff
At noon of the opening day, an editorial staff of five members met in the subvision press container: Olaf Bargheer has been responsible for one-and-a-half years for subvision’s communication strategy. Anyone who is acquainted with this texts from DARE magazine knows his editorial incorruptibility. To not blur the borders between PR and journalism, Olaf is mainly engaged in “soft themes” at subvision: small storeys and gossip derived from the organisational context of the festival. Ele Jansen is project manager and online editor from Leipzig, living in various clusters of the creative industries. We are happy about her view from the outside that promises to set the art-specific content of her reports in a broader context. As crew members, Jennifer Smailes, Christina Ruppert and Sabrina Schmid will be on site at Strandkai the entire three weeks. It is not expected that there will be a discussion round, panel or presentation of artists’ initiatives without one of them being present. An incomplete yet informative reporting on our twelve-day academy is guaranteed by the precise eyes of the three. More >>