Conferences, workshops, installations, performances, concerts, films, excursions, discussions and readings

Festival Über Lebenskunst

101 hours at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and in the city of Berlin

17.08.2011 - 21.08.2011

The crisis as an opportunity! Man-made climate change creates new perspectives on our local lifestyles and our understanding of global policy. Can a new "art of living" also ensure our survival? How do we define "good living" given the global ecological crisis? And how can we bring about a cultural change in habits and behaviour?

In cooperation with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, the German Federal Cultural Foundation initiated the multi-part ÜBER LEBENSKUNST project which has been bringing together actors from widely varying disciplines to identify existing strategies and develop models of sustainable living fit for day-to-day life. During the Festival ÜBER LEBENSKUNST, which spans 101 hours, artists, scientists and activists will turn the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) into a place where visitors of all ages can try out the sustainable "art of living" around the clock. This "art of living" combines the enjoyment of life with active involvement – starting with a regional breakfast at the Haus, through to workshops, installations and excursions all the way to spending the night in temporary shelters.

The Haus der Kulturen der Welt is reinventing itself
Low-energy buildings, climate neutrality, improved energy efficiency – the switch to sustainable living doesn’t really sound all that exciting! But it can be done differently: for four summer days and nights, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt will showcase itself as well as the need to structure our lives differently, providing a space for experimentation in contemporary art and acting as a kind of "laboratory" for exploring new habits. Installations by international artists both in and around the HKW invite visitors to experience the building in a whole new way. Lettuce leaves sprout from the reflecting pool at the front of the Haus and the architecture of the Haus is enhanced by a sculpture by Folke Köbberling and Martin Kaltwasser which is made out of rubbish collected at large-scale events. Rikke Luthers' parasitic heating unit on the terrace shows how organic waste can provide heat for our living space. Das Numen H2O provides a source of drinking water there by purifying water from the Spree River while Adrian Lohmüller's installation invites guests to take a shower with rainwater on the external façade of the exhibition hall. Christoph Keller lights up an interior room of the HKW with a helioflex sun reflector, letting visitors experience the interplay of natural daylight and architecture.

A "Vorratskammer" (larder) which contains different kinds of food added throughout the year by the artist group myvillages.org will be emptied out at the festival. The stories that go along with this regional food will also be revealed. Every day, various dishes will be prepared for different events including breakfast, a large round table and a big barbecue.

The soundtrack for ÜBER LEBENSKUNST will be provided by Bonaparte with their "Look-at-what-we-found-in-your-backyard 4tet", Peaches with a DJ set, the avant-garde formation "zeitkratzer" with an unplugged concert of their electronic repertoire, the WMF DJs with a club night, and many others. On opening night, Berlin's international music scene will set climate change to music.

The performances during the festival deal with the themes of truly conscientious living and downscaling to only what is essential. While Benjamin Verdonck experiments with the idea of whether "half" can actually be the "whole" in his adventure park, Ivan Civic intentionally lets his living space be confined in a long-term performance called "Welcome Home". Kris Verdonck takes a look at a new quality of sleep. Martin Clausen, Lars Rudolph, Beatrice Fleischlin, Monster Truck, Mariahilff and others experiment with living in the forest in a night performance.

Florian Wüst's film programme reflects the complexity of ÜBER LEBENSKUNST through artistic visions and day-to-day stories.

In the lobby of the HKW, FAT KOEHL ARCHITECTS will place several wooden constructions next to and on top of one another to create a "city of the future" whose existence is just as important as its role in the festival. Visitors can take part in workshops that deal with themes like mobility, food, education, resource consumption as well as in discussions with experts, politicians and artists in the newly created rooms. The educational programme ÜBER LEBENSKUNST.School will be presented in activities and discussions and a radio show developed with students. Young adults will set up a camp during the festival and debate the programme from the perspective of the next generation. Festival visitors are also invited to become participants and agents of change for ÜBER LEBENSKUNST and spend the night in nomadic night shelters designed by students of the "Habitat Unit" at the Berlin Technical University.

Berlin - "The city of tomorrow exists under the pavement"
Saturday is devoted to Berlin and its inhabitants under the motto "Da mach ick mit", a Berliner's way of saying "I want to get involved". Berlin politicians will discuss current political issues in the HKW like a CO2-free climate capital, changing energy policy and many more. The festival will be held throughout the city of Berlin where the 14 ÜBER LEBENSKUNST.Initiatives that have received support since 2010 – following a worldwide call for future – will be on display. "Energy harvesters", utopian, practical objects, capture excess energy at subway stations, collection stations for bottles with refundable deposits in parks encourage a redistribution of wealth and a Kreuzberg fitness studio transforms itself into a mini-power station.
Students at the Center for Metropolitan Studies at the Berlin Technical University will take people on excursions to show them sustainable Berlin. The tours reveal the usually invisible paths that our waste travels, they go to places of reflection and contemplation and let mobility be experienced in a whole new way.

ÜBER LEBENSKUNST @ the world
ÜBER LEBENSKUNST establishes a link between local activities for sustainability and global discourse. The festival conference brings together six global regions in discourse and performance including the cities of St. Petersburg, New Delhi, Nairobi , São Paulo and Berlin. The auditorium of the HKW will be turned into a "Global Room" for this event where international experts from the realms of science, politics and economics as well as activists and artists can meet one another both virtually and in person, exchange ideas with the audience, give performances, present practical model projects, and discuss local problems and solutions for sustainable development from a global perspective. All debates can be followed live on five screens in the auditorium and in partner institutes on other continents. Six international experts will be guests at the HKW during the festival: Arjun Appadurai (USA), Nnimmo Bassey (Nigeria), Tim Jackson (GB), Juliet Schor (USA), Vandana Shiva (India) and Jerome Ringo (USA). They will explore the following questions together with festival visitors and other experts: What makes us truly happy and how do we get there? How will we live sustainably in a post-fossil society? What has to happen for us to achieve this? Whose responsibility is it, who makes the decisions and who will be involved? Do we bear responsibility for the rest of the world? When will we start?

Sustainability in cultural production
The ÜBER LEBENSKUNST festival also reflects on the practice of contemporary cultural production and aims to carry out the entire project using the fewest possible resources, producing the least amount of emissions and remaining as climate neutral as possible. The Öko-Institut e.V. is providing ÜBER LEBENSKUNST and all of its sub-projects with technical and scientific advice on sustainable management and environmentally friendly project implementation. The unavoidable negative impact on the climate and environment resulting from operations and events will not just be reduced by using as little energy and as few materials as possible, by largely avoiding long-haul flights and encouraging the use of environmentally friendly means of transportation, it will also be offset by investments in climate protection. As a central venue, the HKW is currently in the process of implementing an environmental management system that optimizes energy and resource consumption. Based on the experiences with the project, a guide will be created for the sustainable management of art and cultural events which relates to the Berlin-Brandenburg region.

ÜBER LEBENSKUNST publications
Anthology "ÜBER LEBENSKUNST. Utopien nach der Krise" (Utopias after the crisis) - edited by Katharina Narbutovič and Susanne Stemmler (Suhrkamp – August 2011)

"Berliner Atlas paradoxaler Mobilität" (Berlin Atlas of Paradoxical Mobility) - edited by Friedrich von Borries (Merve Verlag – August 2011)

Detailed information:
www.ueber-lebenskunst.org