by Inke Arns, Berlin, June 2000 <inke@snafu.de> written for Technologies to the People [d.i. Daniel Garcia Andujar], La sociedad informacional, catalogue, to be published in August 2000 [English / Spanish]

„I am not fond of manipulation, and I think you should not use it for political aims." (1) (Left-wing squatter in Berlin, April 2000) In 1996-1997 together with Ute Vorkoeper we organized and curated the international exhibition project discord. sabotage of realities (2) which took place in the Kunstverein and the Kunsthaus in Hamburg. The exhibition was part of the Hamburg Week of Visual Arts 1996, partly funded by the city's Cultural Office. Artists worldwide were invited to submit artistic concepts dealing with today's more and more un-peaceful political and social realities. The organizers received more than 500 concepts from 31 countries. The actual exibition discord was divided into six thematic zones focussing on control (security/insecurity), news services (disinformation), everyday (alienation), border politics (walking the tightrope), state machineries (law, discipline, repression), science fiction & economy (the administration of the future) and included an international selection of 34 artistic works most of which were premiered in the exhibition, and 26 additional artistic concepts from 18 countries.