Ego Armies. Deception. Camouflage. Drill

The symposium is bound up with the »Coolhunters exhibition« the ZKM_Karlsruhe is planning to hold in spring 2005. Adolescents today are confronted more than ever by radical change. Their everyday lives are marked by a trend towards ever greater individualisation; youth cultures help to establish an identity, while aesthetic distinctions create a temporary sense of stability in peer groups. The symposium addresses the creeping aesthetic militarization of society and examines the almost everyday nature of violence in the mass media. The presentations look at these aspects in further detail and help to answer the question about the ways in which the military as a social category is coming increasingly to the fore in today’s media-based society.

Organiser: Birgit Richard [Frankfurt am Main University] and Klaus Neumann-Braun [Koblenz/Landau University] in cooperation with the ZKM_Karlsruhe and the Hans Böckler Foundation [Düsseldorf]. Funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation.

Programme ::
Full version with abstracts and biographies: www.birgitrichard.de

Friday, 15 October

· 9.30 The Military - A Model Social Category?
Birgit Richard [Frankfurt am Main] and Klaus Neumann-Braun
[Koblenz / Landau] Manfred Schneider [Bochum] Edeltraud
Hanappi-Egger [Vienna]

· 14.00 Drill and Quartering in Barracks
Michaela Pfadenhauer [Dortmund / St. Gallen] Gottfried
Kerscher[Munich]

· 16.30 Camouflage
Ulf Poschardt [Hamburg / Berlin] The Yes Men [New York /
Paris / Abuelita]

· 18.30 Object Strategies
Immanuel Chi [Wuppertal] Ulrich Marchsteiner [Barcelona]
Tilman Baumgärtel [Berlin / Manila]

Saturday, 16 October

· 9.00 Battlefields
Peter Weibel [Karlsruhe] Iris Dressler [Dortmund] Peter
Berz [Berlin] Peter Wippermann [Hamburg]

· 15.00 Shoot out 1 - Battle of words
Axel Schmidt [Koblenz / Landau] Klaus Neumann-Braun
[Koblenz / Landau] Jannis Androutsopoulos [Hanover] and
Sascha Verlan [Cologne / Bonn] Birgit Richard [Frankfurt am Main]

· 17.30 Shoot out 2 - Battle of sounds
Rupert Huber [Vienna]

Presenters: Klaus Neumann-Braun and Birgit Richard