EUROPE
A Cargo of Questions 1992
Germany
FRIEDRICHSKOOG
Subsidiarity, the principle that a central authority should control only those activities that cannot be satisfactorily undertaken at a more immediate or local level.
In the 13C the people of Dithmarschen expelled the nobility and founded an independent peasants republic. To think of a continuous German history is impossible, since there was no single nation called Germany until 1871, and even then it was not strictly speaking a country, but an empire made up of a number of sovereign states.
In 1864 the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein were part of Denmark. As the successes of industrial capital were consolidated, the creation of a single internal German market, preferably accompanied by a political union, became an issue of the utmost importance. Thus the Dithmarschen became part of Germany, not as the result of settlement by resolution and majority vote "but by blood and iron".
Information Wrap
Der Rechtsextremismus in Deutschland hat drastich zugenommen. Er drukt sich in einer Welle von Gewalttaten gegen Auslander Und Asylbewerber aus. Gegenwartig sind die Verbrechen des Rechtsextremismus bedrohlicker als die Aktionen der stagnierenden aussersten Linken. Allein in diesem Jahr wurden sieben Menschen OpferrechtsextremerGerwalt.Right-wing extremism in Germany has increased drastically. There is a wave of violence against foreigners and asylum seekers. Presently, the crimes of right-wing extremism are more threatening than the actions of the stagnating left-wing extremists. Alone this year, seven people were made sacrificial victims to this wave of violence.HAMBURGER ABENDBLATT, 14 August, 1992.
Au Hamburg - Vier Manner in Alter von 16 bis 26 Jahren, die der Gerwaltund Skinhead-Szene angehoren, haben Sprengstoffanschlage auf Telfonzellen und ein Auto in Bucholz (Nordheim) gestanden. Unterdessen wurde bekannt seit etwa einem Jahr Flugblatter des rassistschen Ku Klux Klan in Hamburg kursieren. Der Chef des Hamburger Verfassungsschutzes, Ernst Uhrlau, attestierte dem Klan “eine hohe Anziehungskraft” auf Rechtsextreme.In Hamburg - Four men 16 to 26 years of age, who have belonged to the skinhead scene, have reportedly been found with explosive charges on cellphones in a car in Bucholz (Nordheim). It has been known for about a year that the Ku Klux Klan movement is spreading around Hamburg. The head of Hamburg constitutional protection, Ernst Uhrlau, attested to the Klan having "a highly attractive appeal" for right-wing extremists.HAMBURGER ABENDBLATT, 14 August, 1992.
For the peasant there are natural disasters and the state. Homeland is homeland. Can Europe be a common home?
Is a homeland necessarily a state?
Is home too difficult to live in?
Why do people want to escape from home?
How can people feel at home in a foreign land?
What is the difference between a motherland and a fatherland?
Is being European a form of the anonymous urban identity?
A Cargo of Questions 2017
To every place there belongs a story . . .
Friedrichskoog
The LODE-Line crosses the geographic western border of Germany on the North Sea coast. The geographic boundary gives way to a landscape where territories have always been fluid and people and goods have moved as a result of trade for millennia. In one respect FRIEDRICHSKOOG is a place that challenges the certain boundary between land and sea. This is a coast where places have been reclaimed from the sea, by virtue of practical engineering and an industrious spirit. This industrious imperative has also resulted in other kinds of environmental impact. The LODE-Line then passes across over a place where the border that separated Eastern Germany from the West had only very recently been removed, leaving a scar in 1992 that in 2017 is not so visible. In the hinterland of LUBECK the landscape flows away to the east, uninterrupted, until the Schengen Agreement area for the free movement of people ends at the border with Belarus and the Ukraine.
When people travelled!
In 1992 the questions asked at this geographical edge of modern Germany, a country with huge influence in modern Europe, explores the idea of;
"a common home that is not necessarily identifiable with a state."
The notion of being "European" is also questioned. Is being European an extension of the urban identity and how the urban identity easily adapts to a planetary condition in 2017, that many refer to as "globalisation".
The LODE-Line crosses the geographic western border of Germany on the North Sea coast. The geographic boundary gives way to a landscape where territories have always been fluid and people and goods have moved as a result of trade for millennia. In one respect FRIEDRICHSKOOG is a place that challenges the certain boundary between land and sea. This is a coast where places have been reclaimed from the sea, by virtue of practical engineering and an industrious spirit. This industrious imperative has also resulted in other kinds of environmental impact. The LODE-Line then passes across over a place where the border that separated Eastern Germany from the West had only very recently been removed, leaving a scar in 1992 that in 2017 is not so visible. In the hinterland of LUBECK the landscape flows away to the east, uninterrupted, until the Schengen Agreement area for the free movement of people ends at the border with Belarus and the Ukraine.
In 1992 the questions asked at this geographical edge of modern Germany, a country with huge influence in modern Europe, explores the idea of;
"a common home that is not necessarily identifiable with a state."
The notion of being "European" is also questioned. Is being European an extension of the urban identity and how the urban identity easily adapts to a planetary condition in 2017, that many refer to as "globalisation".
The Dithmarschen - a state among many small states?
This will kill that!
In 2017 the questions raised are still connected to the matter of personal or national identity, but now in the context of a complex crisis of identity. The loss of identity, or a sense of the loss of identity, can instigate a desperate search for the recovery of something that cannot be recovered. Violence and extremism often attend such situations. In 1992 it was clear that what was needed was a project to open up the concept of personal, social and political identity in the context of what are becoming new forms of social reality. This has not happened.
Radio and the Tribal Drum?
Is it a form of "nativism", rather than "nationalism", that is one of many spectres haunting Europe today?
In 2017 the questions raised are still connected to the matter of personal or national identity, but now in the context of a complex crisis of identity. The loss of identity, or a sense of the loss of identity, can instigate a desperate search for the recovery of something that cannot be recovered. Violence and extremism often attend such situations. In 1992 it was clear that what was needed was a project to open up the concept of personal, social and political identity in the context of what are becoming new forms of social reality. This has not happened.
Is it a form of "nativism", rather than "nationalism", that is one of many spectres haunting Europe today?
Hate Speech versus Free Speech
To every place there belongs a story . . . and for the edge of the Dithmarschen . . .
. . . it's stories and the North Sea!
This blog-post is a matrix that originates first in the context of an artistic activity that relates to this place, Friedrichskoog, and then connections multiply through processes of association, suggesting links, articulations and juxtapositions that the contemporary information wrap affords us, in a particular and contemporary type of consciousness, where the "loop" or "ricorso" helps the zig zagging necessary to see what is going on.
That's just the way it is . . . but don't you believe them . . .
To every place there belongs a story . . . and for the edge of the Dithmarschen . . .
To every place there belongs a story . . . and for the edge of the Dithmarschen . . .
. . . it's stories and the North Sea!
This blog-post is a matrix that originates first in the context of an artistic activity that relates to this place, Friedrichskoog, and then connections multiply through processes of association, suggesting links, articulations and juxtapositions that the contemporary information wrap affords us, in a particular and contemporary type of consciousness, where the "loop" or "ricorso" helps the zig zagging necessary to see what is going on.
That's just the way it is . . . but don't you believe them . . .
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