bricolagekitchen took Pan-demonium to The Knot at Tempelhof in Berlin
Saturday 29th May 2010 in collaboration with oneoftheroughs/ The Shape of the Inconstruable Question (Geoff Bright, Gillian Whiteley, Danny Bright, Dhaleen Devenish)
The text below was used in conjunction with the Pan-demonium performance at The Knot in Berlin. The multimedia performance featured the handing out of handmade packets ( see the image featured above) , created from found papers; each one included a short text and invitation to participate, a balloon with the slogan ‘So Pan-demonium goes on…’ and a specially designed Pan badge.
The performance and project was documented in The Knot: an Experiment on Collaborative Art in Public Urban Space, 2011
Every spontaneous ‘coming together’ in live improvisation establishes a transitory utopian space of possibility, a short-lived site of cultural resistance. Free improvisation promises a new community in a permanent state of re-formation and potentiality. But what are the affective possibilities of disorder and noise? Can the utopic potenza of Pan-demonium challenge the current global political and economic situation – one in which the hegemonic forces of order have been overwhelmed by a dynamic of chaos and disorder, turning the world ‘upside-down’? Pan-demonium offers a viral stratagem to disrupt global capitalism and its ‘devils’, its pan-demons and pan-demics. Following the Pan-demonium project in New York in 2009, bricolagekitchen and The Shape of the Inconstruable Question will explore the creation of a transitory utopian space both discursively and through a pan-demonic performance/cacophonic suite of argumentative, text-based, instrumental and vocal improvisation.
(Original Pan playing pipes design by Dhaleen Devenish)
The Knot
linking the existing with the imaginary
mobile unit for artistic production and presentation in Berlin, Warsaw and Bucharest in 2010
The physical core of the project consists in a specially designed structure, adaptable to different urban situations, easily expandable and transportable. Conceived by architectural office raumlabor Berlin, this unit responds to the programmatic needs of the KNOT project, comprising different functions such as: production/manufacture workshop, kitchen, café, laboratory, classroom, stage, dormitory, disco, exhibition space, and archive.
Through its unexpected presence in the city, THE KNOT proposes a model for social interaction, thus being not so much a container as a transformer, creating new ways in which the public space could be used and produced. The participants invited by the curatorial collective to activate THE KNOT put forward not only their professional skills, but also their physical company, their desires and imaginative will. They become temporary members of a protean and nomad crew, acting both as hosts and guests in a shared and welcoming place.
At the intersection between the real and the imaginary, THE KNOT is an initial point where a thorough examination of the relationships between the individual, the group and the place of interaction is undertaken. The project responds to the increasingly normative way in which these relationships are defined in our current societies. Envisioning alternative behaviours in the city, based on cooperation and self-empowerment is one of the main tasks of THE KNOT. Also of actual relevance is to explore what is left of collective ideals or how one can overcome the current conditions of harsh economic competition and the tendency towards national or ethnic isolation. Temporary communities are the tool of creating another notion of a “promised city”, apart from its capitalist vision.
The project takes its inspiration from and links back to the cities of Berlin, Warsaw and Bucharest, always with references to other cities wherefrom the participants originate or live. Personal and institutional partnerships in each place make THE KNOT a living organism which is integrated in the life of the city. At the same time an obstacle disrupting the daily habits and rituals, and an autonomous zone of experiment, THE KNOT provokes and satisfies the public with every object, performance, installation, action, screening, party, discussion, meeting, workshop, dinner or other activity which takes place in and around it.
Through its flexible programme and innovative appearance, THE KNOT will become a landmark in the city of today and a reference point in a broader discussion on the urban network of tomorrow.