Nader Ahriman. Michael Bauer, Lutz Braun, Katinka Bock, André Butzer, Dadarhea, Verena Dengler, Matthias Dornfeld, Mark Flood, Pink Floyd, Sebastian Hammwöhner, Kalin Lindena, Stefan Müller, Martin Neumaier, Janne Räisänen, Ezra Pound

The second in a series devoted to the cannibalization of cultural signifiers, The Cannibal's Muse II is a reflection of the polyglotism going on in contemporary art. Craft, folk, outsider, non-western, decorative, applied art, pop, Dada, social media, and poetry, are devoured whole then synthesized.

An intertwining of traditions and integrity of materials encompass heterogeneity and vitality of expression. The strength of the artists lies in their formal clarity rather than naturalism. Many of the ideas of primitivism and modernity from a hundred years ago can also be found in this early 21st century. Within these parameters, the paintings, sculptures, drawings, and music videos owe their frames of aesthetic references to a conjugation of histories.

Through art historical precedents and the artist's self-aware strategies, a formal trans-coding of each fragment occurs allowing for a mediation of images and contexts. Within this decentralized referential field, linear history is no longer the supreme measure to classify and rank signifier's. One code to another code is a translation of one big idea.

In its overtly ritualistic double consciousness (JUNG) a broken and sparkling fracture in the gaps of media are unified; their separate distinctions are now closer together. The artist, priest, and artisan have become one; the master narrative is dead.

There may be poetic implications, and an impulse to breath truth into outmoded ideologies. Because the dead master narrative is overtly subversive it feeds itself the useful cognitive associations and discards the superfluous loose ends. Its mysterium is its own enthronement, not because of homogeneity but despite it. It is not fractured but made whole by fractious calculation. There are no servant narratives so much as there is one big overarching idea. Since there is only one big idea art thus quantifies the value of that one big idea in immortal ways.

As the shifty old paradigm wobbles, the archaic and antiquity come to the fore in much of contemporary art. Amidst collectivity and destabilized cultural signposts the artist's iconoclastic individualism carves out a zone of stability within a thousand points of light. Due to the virtual interface what used to be canonized is now cannibalized through an overlap of images. Still the muse must be conjured, and reconnect us to the relics of antiquity.

"We look at the relation between media and a sense for safety in the virtual word. In the electronic space we are all able to do almost anything and nothing can touch us. What happens to the natural sensitivity to safety and the fear of fear, our basic and ancient animal reflexes? Sometimes it seems that safety is considered uncool and boring but at the same time, contemporary safety-gear forms a futuristic and almost alien shape and transforms the person wearing it into some kind of avatar, a virtual and untouchable version of themselves. The equipment functions to improve the vulnerable human body. " HW

Visuals: Fubbi Karlsson

Music: Juliette Bonneviot

Over three performances, Mariechen Danz will activate her installation through improvisation, text and song, thus, simultaneously transforming it into a stage, prop and actor. Our concept of space and exhibited object as a stable configuration is distorted: processualization of the fixed installation takes place. The Performance 'Knot in Arrow: the Dig of no Body' is a kind of art process-room- drama in three acts. The live music is from the first album of DANZ, which the artist collaborated with Alex Stolze and Matthias Geserick, and is presently being recorded.

In his lecture/performance "I Am A Laser/Scream Like a Baby" Jeremy Shaw discusses state-of-the-art laser technologies, using comprehensive diagrams and schematics to illustrate the rigor and speed at which they are shaping current surgeries, weaponry, theory, and arguably even thought. This will serve as a stepping-off point for a dramatic proposition that links the laser’s advanced scientific capabilities to that of its aid in the transcendence-seeking activities of popular culture from the 1970’s until the present. This duality is highlighted by a narrative written in 1973 that recurred in 1980 - the second being labeled “future nostalgic” by its two-time author, David Bowie.

Show Real Drama connects and separates reality and fiction and turns actors into viewers. In 'Show Real Drama' the actors are investigating their personal life as they are trying to deal with their own performance on stage. Raw emotions collide with pure embarrassment.

Duration 1,5 h

The searchlight traverses silently across the urban terrain. Carefully, the players move from check point to check point as they are avoiding the light cone and tap passwords with radio receivers. But the waiting periods at the check points are getting longer and longer, and the missions increasingly starts to resemble a perverse open-air waiting loop. Further Street Games by Invisible Playground and international designers at the You Are Go! Festival (June 17-19 at HAU).

Duration 40 min / German

What do „art“ and „efficiency” have in common? / Who is part of the basis? / Who or what is „Based in Berlin” / Where does art in Berlin take place? / Is there still room for art? / And what is Klaus Wowereit’s part in all of this?

A play reading about „based in Berlin“, vacancies, scope for development, and the exhibition of substance.

Text and direction by Christoph Bannat and Axel Gerber / Actors by Ronald Marx, Lisa-Marie Janke

Helga Wretman transforms into a fitness trainer for the public of based in Berlin! Sport gains entry in the exhibition´s program : join the artist every Monday in the park to do some sparring, stretching and muscle training.

Fitness For Artists is a self-help project that has been taking place throughout Berlin. Wretman recently extended the project to "Fitness For Artists : Global", an online performance broadcast Live from DUVE Berlin.

A slide of Hans Holbein the Younger's Christina of Denmark 1538 – this image will perform for three hours, starting at 15.16 until 18.16. In 1538 Christina of Denmark sat for Hans Holbein the Younger for three hours when he visited her in Brussels in order for him to make a portrait for Henry VIII, so he could see the recently widowed Duchess’s likeness in connection with plans to marry her. He was apparently so delighted with Christina's portrait that he asked musicians to play on their instruments all day long. Christina of Denmark never married Henry VIII.

The new German-English magazine frieze d/e focuses on contemporary art in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In our age of global travel, the artists living and working in these countries are no longer nationals only but come from countless different countries around the world. The debut summer 2011 issue of frieze d/e addresses this state of affairs in a round table discussion "Living in a Bubble?": Do foreign artists based in Berlin eventually become citizens of Berlin with various rights and obligations, from learning the language to voting? Or do they belong to an international nomadic art community where both nationals and foreigners negotiate their own terms of belonging through professional and social activities? In this event, frieze d/e Editor Jennifer Allen and Assistant Editor Dominikus Müller will discuss the issues behind being based in Berlin and being a Berliner.

(2 hrs)

The Machete Group, represented by Avi Alpert, Evan Calder-Williams and Alexi Kukuljevic, will present a lecture and discussion on the relationship between pessimism and our artistic present. Responding to the idea of a post-1989 "there is no alternative" mantra, we will investigate the pitfalls and potentials of pessimism as a force in contemporary culture, especially as it relates to the themes and concerns of "based in Berlin" and the participating artists and curators.

Duration 30 min / English / The events start on time / Free Entry / Limited seating

Show Real Drama connects and separates reality and fiction and turns actors into viewers. In 'Show Real Drama' the actors are investigating their personal life as they are trying to deal with their own performance on stage. Raw emotions collide with pure embarrassment.

Helga Wretman transforms into a fitness trainer for the public of based in Berlin! Sport gains entry in the exhibition's program: join the artist every Monday in the park to do some sparring, stretching and muscle training.

Fitness For Artists is a self-help project that has been taking place throughout Berlin. Wretman recently extended the project to "Fitness For Artists : Global", an online performance broadcast Live from DUVE Berlin.

Video is central to the work of Karilampi, where the narrative is predominantly about music producers, focusing in particular on underground movements and rap music. For this event Karilampi presents two of his last films The Chief Architect of Gangsta Rap (2009), that focuses on a rumor that the American rapper Dr. Dre had actually studied to become an architect and h00dumentary, 2011, where Karilampi compares his own place of upbringing, Studiegången, Göteborg, with the former projects in Bijlmer outside Amsterdam.

Dieter Roelstraete, Martha Rosler and Florian Zeyfang in conversation, moderated by Axel John Wieder. (Conversation in English)

Which public functions does art have? What different forms of public are generated or addressed by different exhibition formats and practices? Primary artistic activity mostly occurs in a decentralized fashion, taking place in project spaces, studios or galleries, and addresses a highly specific audience. Popular formats such as large scale exhibitions, on the other hand, attempt to mediate artistic practice beyond a professional audience – with different approaches and goals. How do different exhibition formats such as survey exhibitions or thematic shows function in this regard? Parallel to an internationally oriented art world, networks of cultural producers with local agendas exist in Berlin and elsewhere. What is the relation between local and international publics?

Dieter Roelstraete is a curator at the Antwerp museum of contemporary art MuHKA and an editor of Afterall. He, too, is based in Berlin.

Martha Rosler (New York) works in video, photo-text, installation, and performance, and writes criticism. She has lectured extensively nationally and internationally and has published several books of photographs, texts, and commentary on public space. Rosler's career retrospective, "Positions in the Life World," was exhibited in five European cities and two museums in New York City. Rosler teaches at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Florian Zeyfang (Berlin) is an artist, videomaker and Professor for Moving Image at the Academy of Fine Arts in Umeå, Sweden. His work has been exhibited internationally and his videos have been shown in film festivals worldwide. Zeyfang has also (co)curated shows and written and published on subjects of contemporary art and film.

Axel J. Wieder (Berlin) was artistic director of the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart from 2007 to 2010. He has taken part in numerous exhibitions in collaboration with Jesko Fezer and is co-founder of “Pro qm” bookstore in Berlin. He also lectures and has published numerous books and contributes regularly to catalogues, anthologies and magazines.

With works by Leif Elggren, Lars Cuzner, Steven Cuzner, Sam Ashley

An evening dedicated to the phenomenon of ‘the silent voice’, a voice that manifests itself in a register beyond the acoustically measurable. The event will invite a number of guests, each one presenting a new location from which to call forth this voice. One finds it amidst the grooves of a copper engraving, where it for four hundred years has been laying in wait. For another one it is the voice of a missing brother, speaking to him from a place beyond. A third one lets the long gone voice of a dead gold digger enter his body and use his tongue to relate a series of events taking place during the California Gold Rush.

Taking up the debate around the cultural politics of Berlin and around the necessity, forms and function of public investment into contemporary art, based in Berlin invites guests from the arts and politics to reflect upon central questions and concepts. A series of talks and discussions will examine different functional areas of art as well as the function of art within larger social contexts

For every issue „von hundert“ arranges a release party at varying places. Within the framework of the based in Berlin show, „von hundert” presents its 15th issue, its thematical, and critical, focus being the exhibition itself and the aligning debate about a Kusthalle for Berlin.

„von hundert“ is an independent, non-commercial art magazine – a platform for critics, but also art historians, journalists or artists, who make their texts available to »von hundert« free of charge. Exhibition reviews, essays or interviews constitute the content of the journal and serve as a critical chaperonage exclusively of the Berlin art scene. Founded in 2006 by Andreas Koch and Kito Nedo, it is currently run by Barbara Buchmaier, Melanie Franke and Andreas Koch and is published triennially by the Redaktion und Alltag publishing house.

The artist presents an on-going project that will unfold in three performances. Currently she is devoting her attention to fluid substances and forms in a constant process of transformation, such as water or mud, which she performatively combines with new images and narratives.

After a short break, again, the bourgeoisie subject finds itself in a crisis. It remains to be seen, whether this will be followed by the big shit known as collective, or if the latter will be entirely repealed as well. Nuclear power? No thank you! versus Chance 2000, or something like that, or rather, and back.

HUSH HUSH was formed in Berlin in early 2010 and quickly rose to prominence opening for Yeasayer on 3 weeks of their Spring European tour. The latest incarnation of American artist Christopher Kline who has been working in the Berlin underground for the past 5 years under various monikers (with Wooden Veil, Snakebraid, Night Music, Gemeine Gesteine), HUSH HUSH is a self-styled "hit-machine" mixing r&b, soul, dance and the general Generation X Itunes library of vintage strangeness into one catapult of sweat, hooks, madness, and the more-than-occasional sexual innuendo. Live, he is an untethered, out-of-breath bottle rocket, sprawled across the stage one moment, then spinning into a precise dance-move the next. This summer he is touring North America with Yeasayer, and then returning to Berlin to present "Oozestravaganza" featuring DJs/artists Your Body and M.E.S.H. as well as back-up dancers, video projections and other surprises. Come and get sweaty.

Larry’s se7en with: Dena Yago, Morag Keil, Michele Di Menna, Natascha Goldenberg, Martin Thacker, Alex Turgeon, Nicolas Ceccaldi, Maxwell Simmer, Carson Chan, Heji Shin, Daytona Bleach, Mathieu Malouf, Juliette Bonneviot, Dan Bodan, Kayla Guthrie, Valentina Liernur (http://larrys.eu)

PETUNIA #3 with: Katarina Burin, Frances Stark, Laetitia Paviani, Lina Viste Gronli, Nana Oforiatta Ayim, Géraldine Gourbe, Dorothée Dupuis, Emmanuelle Lainé, Clara Meister, Kitty Kraus, Lili Reynaud Dewar, Kathy Acker, Fiona Jardine, bell hooks, Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc, Sisters of Jam, Spartacus Chetwynd, Elizabeth Diller. (http://petunia.eu)

mono.kultur #27 Ryan McGinley: Daydreaming “I love the idea of the unexpected.” (http://www.mono-kultur.com​)

'Der Duft des Geldes', Dieter Gränicher, 1998, 79' (Digibeta) / 'The Anarchist Banker', Jan Peter Hammer, 2010, 30' (von Blueray) / (10' Pause) / 'The Woodmans' Scott Willis, 2010, 82' (von Blueray)

What really determines our careers? Inner or outer factors? What qualities determine and shape our course? Talent, intelligence, willpower, privilege, capital or luck? Our current ideology will have us belief its all down to individual choice, yet is it?

And how closely related are these issues with the production of art? Or better put –is art answering this question? I personally tried to in a recent project which was also my point of departure for the present film screening.

‘Inner Wealth’ will thus show films which revolve around this question, both with a certain sociological distance and a measure of artistic engagement.

As well as painting, David Hominal works in a range of media, including installation, sculpture, video and performances, thus investigating the possibilities of contemporary painting. His almost obsessive treatment of these genres results in a wild assemblage of different topics from art history, music and the everyday culture all around us. (English)

Music: EMEF

Sound technician: Clive Jenkins

Performance of a group of people moving and speaking, attempting to produce a continuous stream of original situations, challenging and studying themselves.

Kosma often crosses boundaries and creates aggressive situations, producing feelings such as shame or disgust in spectators, with which they are then left alone. He does not offer any resolution of the situation, leaving both performers and audiences in various forms of self-observation and reflection.

Jana Unmüßig is a choreographer, but in a way that is different from that of the major representatives of the generation preceding her own: she has internalized the critique of representation of Jérôme Bel and Xavier Le Roy, but shifted their accent. The grammar of the stage is no longer applied in her work; rather she seeks a moment of movement that coils up out of the familiar vocabulary in a highly-concentrated way. This coiling up and out is meticulously prepared and minimalistic in tone. During the rehearsal process, Unmüßig draws storyboards for her dancers; on stage bodies then condense into complex compositions without a center. For based in Berlin, Unmüßig developed the choreography Der Himmel hängt weit together with dancers Sofia Simola and Venke Sortland. (NT)

Christine Macel in conversation with Mariechen Danz, Yorgos Sapountzis, Jana Unmüßig und Helga Wretman about their performances...

In his talk, Andrej Holm analyzes the interrelation of cultural production and urban development: cities are privileged sites of cultural production and mediation, and the contradictions and differences of urban everyday life generate multiple impulses and occasions for artistic examination. Rising rents, cut-down budgets and a re-orientation of city-politics have immediate effects on the spaces of artistic possibilities in cities. But art and culture also impact urban development and as indispensible elements of a city’s “face,” its image and economy. As branding strategies of the real estate business, as symbolic valorization in processes of gentrification and as wooed creative class artists and their activities make up an essential part of spatially oriented strategies of valorization. The talk will focus on the complicated relationship between the spatial preconditions and the spatial effects of cultural production.

Andrej Holm PhD works as an urban sociologist at the institute for social sciences at Humboldt University.

Monopol was founded in 2004 by the two jounalists Amélie von Heydebreck and Florian Illies. From the beginning, the „Magazin für Kunst und Leben“ (Magazine for Art and Life) is dedicated to contemporary art and its relations to society. Monopol explores the field of contemporary art not only from the perspective of art theory, but focuses especially on the artistic practice. Every month, the magazine offers interviews and portraits of international artists, as well as reviews of important exhibitions. It also aims to discuss questions currently pending in the art world, discover talents and find points of convergence with design, architecture, film and music. Since 2006 Monopol is published by Ringier Gruppe, Switzerland. From 2007 Cornelius Tittel was Chief Editor of the magazine, who was superseded by Holger Liebs in mid-2010.

Club Chez Jacki (chezjacki.com) / 11pm to 8am / Schilling Brücke next to the Spree (map: http://bit.ly/9v6bvt)

GERWALD ROCKENSCHAUB Mehdi Chouakri, Thaddaeus Ropac, TVYKS Paper recordings (residentadvisor.net/dj/tvyks), ED DAVENPORT Poker Flat, Vidab, Falkplatz (residentadvisor.net/dj/eddavenport), M.E.S.H Dyssembler, Big Dada (jameswhipple.info)

The artist collected “idents,” audio-visual jingles, from TV news broadcasted in the countries of former Yugoslavia and has techno DJs sample these historic documents into tracks, while she creates live visuals.

Duration 1 hour / English / The events start on time / Free Entry / limited seating

Artist Dafna Maimon presents two films. Like Seitlax and a new work, which plays on the exhibition venues of based in Berlin. She mainly works in the medium of video and is interested in the construction of situations that go beyond the surface of the screen and directly involve the spectators.

Pantha du Prince claims: music slumbers in all matter; any sound, even silence, is already music. The mission, then, must be to render audible what is unheard and unheard of.

In his compositions he fuses aspects of experimental music, pop music, house and techno as well as Concept art and photography. New sounds emerge as images and vice versa – sound as art. The sounds of silence and the music of nature are recorded as readymades, confronted with each other and synthesised. On the cover of XI versions of Black Noise, the mountains and lake are repeated but abstracted as superimposed cubes. Like his music, the image has freed itself from the original and undergoes a re-reading of its form.

Ute Meta Bauer, Anselm Franke and Anton Vidokle in conversation, moderated by Axel John Wieder (in English)

Taking up the debate around the cultural politics of Berlin and around the necessity, forms and function of public investment into contemporary art, based in Berlin invites guests from the arts and politics to reflect upon central questions and concepts of the debate. A series of talks and discussions will examine different functional areas of art as well as the function of art within larger social contexts.

Talks to the topic ‚Shanzhai‘ with Oliver Laric, Prof. Dr. Byung-Chul Han, professor of philosophy and media theory at Staatlichen Hochschule für Gestaltung in Karlsruhe and Vera Tollmann (journalist/curator in Berlin) and curator Fredi Fischli.

Over three performances, Mariechen Danz will activate her installation through improvisation, text and song, thus, simultaneously transforming it into a stage, prop and actor. Our concept of space and exhibited object as a stable configuration is distorted: processualization of the fixed installation takes place. The Performance 'Knot in Arrow: the Dig of no Body' is a kind of art process-room- drama in three acts. The live music is from the first album of DANZ, which the artist collaborated with Alex Stolze and Matthias Geserick, and is presently being recorded.

Founded by Alexis Zavioloff, Motto was initiated in Switzerland as a distribution company for magazines and fanzines, gradually developing an interest in books and smaller self-published items - now constituting a significant part of Motto’s focus. Having organized traveling temporary bookshops internationally since 2007, it was a natural progression that in December 2008, Motto opened its first permanent bookstore, in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Since then – by offering new and back issues of selected magazines, and a wide selection of artists’ publications, including also more experimental projects with very small print runs - Motto has become a destination for many from far and near. While still being the center for distributing more than 100 publishers to more than 100 stores worldwide, Motto’s beautiful interior (a former frame factory showroom) also provides a fantastic setting for regular events such as book and magazine presentations, film evenings, discussions and talks about a wide range of topics.

For based in Berlin, Motto will collaborate with fellow Berlin bookshop, proqm, to create a thematic bookstore at the Monbijoupark building with regular events and a selection of books, magazines, fanzines and special artists publications.

The “thematic bookshop” Pro qm was founded by Katja Reichard, Axel John Wieder and Jesko Fezer in 1999. There is a certain understatement in this description. It is true that they focus on the topics of “urbanism, politics, pop, economic criticism, architecture, design, art and theory”, but Pro qm is not just a bookshop. Its very architecture undermines the usual notions of retail space. The customer will not find a ‘labelled’ shopping landscape here, but is prompted to explore the shop’s own structure. Its founders - an artist, curator and architect - successfully identify and make productive the points of intersection of the topics listed.

www.pro-qm.de