Public Colloquium

Date: Saturday, 22nd of April 2006, 11am – 5pm
Venue: Dortmund, domicil, Hansastr. 7-11

The central question of the public colloquium, which will be held in English, is: What kind of structures of/at institutions does cultural production need today? What kind of qualities does a certain institutional/organisational structure produce?

A process of centralization of culture – festivalisation, the commitment to politicised major events concerning content and finances which leads to structural upheavals of cultural systems, takes place not only in Germany but also European-wide and beyond the borders of the European union. The colloquium topic was developed by Hartware MedienKunstVerein together with the team of "Zagreb – Cultural Kapital of Europe 3000," which has dealt intensively with the development of a cultural policy in the last two years – in fact on aggravated conditions of so-called ‘normalization,’ a transition from socialist market economy to the neoliberal affected one, accelerated by the increasing pressure of globalization. These developments, which are in Croatia very manifest, are still pending in the former West. They have started less abruptly than in eastern Europe and take place in a more socially protected way.

The topic of ‘center’ and ‘periphery’ pulls like the red thread through the list of questions of discussion. Is a ‘center’ characterised per se by centrality, immobility, hierarchical structures and impermeability while smaller units are per se its opposite? Rather then detecting if a structure is centralized or distributed, old or new, big or small, homogeneous or heterogeneous, it has to be looked for suitable structures to enable different qualities, velocities and intensities.

In the context of the colloquium both theoretical positions and practical models will be presented by representatives of different organizational forms of institutions for culture in Germany and in Croatia.

Klub Peripherie 3000

Date: April 21, 2006, 7pm – open end
Venue: Dortmund, Sissikingkong, Landwehrstr. 17

The always new search for identities of inhabitants of the Ruhr Region who live in an urban network with no center and no periphery consisting of continuous transitions between urban and non-urban areas where various cities grown together: this is a topic of Klub Peripherie 3000.

In the context of the general public presentation of the project "Peripherie 3000," an informal meeting with guests of the Klub Peripherie 3000 will take place in Dortmund. In the forefront of the meeting, sociologists, city planners, philosophers and artists will be invited to participate in a discussion on the web page of the project.