Episoden zur arbeitsbefreiten Gesellschaft / Episodes of a society free of work, 1996-2002

Series of five SD Videos

Episodes of a society free of work is a project in progress which presents different episodes that take place in a studio, an amusement park, a shopping mall and an office building. All of the episodes deal with the very conception of work and also of its obsolescence and the way in which it manifests itself in the city – centred around deconstructive trends in the very conception of work as a (nowadays unbelievable) rehabilitation of the Utopia of freedom obtained through work – as it has been known since the Enlightenment.

It is said that this Utopia emerged with the machine-like architecture of the 1960s, but it seems more likely that it arose out of a disciplinary, militaristic mentality. Now, in the socalled post-Fordism period, the architecture of our glossy shopping malls and leisure centres can be deliberately misinterpreted. A slight change of perspective – or a little ignorance regarding the basic safety standards – would permit a state of affairs in which the evolutional trend in technology could come to represent the promise of rationalised work: not to create employment, but freedom from work. In fact, it seems that everything is ready: the shopping malls, the generously designed leisure areas, the small supermarkets with their climate of artificial oases – all that remains is to take care of a minute organisational detail, the redistribution of social wealth, in order to create logically a vision of intriguing reality. All of the episodes were filmed between 1996 and 2001, with the collaboration of friends who were interested in this theme.

1. Episode: Um sie erneut zu erwerben / 1st episode: ...To earn it again, 1996

with Alice Creischer, Martin Ebner, Andreas Siekmann und Klaus Weber, 1996 für UTV (unser TV, selbstorganisiertes Fernsehn) SD video, 4:3, color, silent, 5:21 minutes

The first episode takes place in a melancholy amusement park in Berlin. The park has a ghostlike air because there is no music or lights, not the slightest element of entertainment. We only hear the cries of the riders and the noises of the machines. It all makes us think, inevitably, of a factory. The text of this episode is taken from Friedrich Engels’ report entitled The Condition of the Working Class in England. The quotation will continue to weave an absurd spiral of meanings that leads to “work,” impotence and unawareness to a causal relationship.

2. Episode: Le truc couleur (Animation) / 2nd episode: The Colour Thing (Animation), 1999

with Alice Creischer, Mona Hahn, Jane Heiss, Andreas Siekmann, Kamera: Thomas Winkelkotte, Wien, 1999, SD video, 4:3, color, sound, 4:18 minutes

In the second episode, extraterrestrials land in the corridor of an office building, explore the mazelike carpeted structure and discover “human work gelatine” – a term Marx used to designate both wages and goods. But the extraterrestrials’ diagnosis isn’t entirely correct. “This seems to be getting complicated: capital is a semiotic operator.” From the window of the building, the view moves towards the façade of a block of flats from which people are leaping out into mid-air.

3. Episode: Easy Rider (Animation) / 3rd episode: Easy Rider (Animation), 2000

with Alice Creischer, Andreas Siekmann, Kamera Thomas Winkelkotte, Berlin 2000, SD video, 4:3, color, sound, 4:50 minutes

The third episode recreates a scene from Easy Rider.

4. Episode: Arbeitet nie / 4th episode: Never Work, 2000

Alice Creischer, Die Verallgemeinerung von NICHTARBEIT / The generalisation of not working (Episoden zur arbeitsbefreiten Gesellschaft / Episodes of a society free of work), 2000, SD video, color, sound, 2:44 minutes (Still)

The fourt episode takes place in a new shopping mall in East Berlin. It reproduces a scene from Nietzsche’s The Gay Science – except that now the madman with the lantern is not searching for God but looking for a job. His search is interspersed with reports in sabotage.

5. Episode: More and More (Animation) / 5th episode: More and More (Animation), 2001

Alice Creischer, Es gibt immer nur mehr / There is always only more (Episoden zur arbeitsbefreiten Gesellschaft / Episodes of a society free of work), 2002, Digital video, color, sound, 9:30 minutes (Production shot)

The fifth episode takes us to the Centro in Oberhausen, one of Europe’s largest commercial and leisure complexes. The Centro is often cited as an exemplary instance of the restructuring of heavy industry in the services and tourism sector. Here, the extraterrestrials must get the impression that the work-free society has been consummated. The film deals with this initial bedazzlement and the gradual disillusionment that follows.

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Alice Creischer

**WIDERLEGUNG DER GESCHICHTE VON ANTEK PISTOLE, 2021**

**Solo Exhibition at Culturgest Lisbon, 2017**

**Proudhon, die Gesellschaft des 10. Dezember und der Club der faulen Debitoren, 2000-2015**

**In the Stomach of the Predators, 2012-2014**

**Das Etablissement der Tatsachen / The Establishment of Matters of Fact, 2012**

**Auf einmal und gleichzeitig. Eine Machbarkeitsstudie. Musikalische Szenen zur Negation von Arbeit, 2007**

**Apparat zum osmotischen Druckausgleich von Reichtum bei der Betrachtung von Armut / Apparatus for the Osmotic Compensation of the Pressure of Wealth during the Contemplation of Poverty, 2005-2007**

**Atlas 2003 ongoing (Updating the Arntz and Neurath Atlas) in collaboration with Andreas Siekmann**

**Eine Flussfahrt wie am Tellerrand / A Boat Trip Around the Edge of the Plate, 2003**

**Feindesliebchen / The Enemy's Sweetheart, 2002**

**Episoden zur arbeitsbefreiten Gesellschaft / Episodes of a society free of work, 1996-2002**

**The Greatest Happiness Principle Party, 2001**

**L'Atelier de la peintrice / The Woman Painter's Atelier, 2000**

**Arbeitsplatzprojektionsmaschine, 1998-1999**

**Gruppe Gummi K - Wie Eins zum Andern Kam..., 1996**

Biography

Alice Creischer, born in Gerolstein in 1960, studied Philosophy, German literature and Visual Arts in Düsseldorf. As one of the key figures of German political art movements in the Nineties, Creischer contributed to a great amount of collective projects, publications, and exhibitions. Her artistic and theoretic agenda within institutional and economical critique has evolved over 30 years, more recently focusing on the early history of capitalism and globalization. As co-curator of such paradigmatic exhibitions like Messe 2ok (1995), ExArgentina (2004) and The Potosi Principle (2010-), Creischer has developed a specific curatorial practice that correlates with her work as an artist and theorist, including her extensive practice in archive research. As author Creischer has contributed to many publications, magazines and fanzines. Her work has been shown in institutions and art spaces all over the world such as Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2022, 2021, 2019, 2017), Kunstverein Heidelberg (2022), LWL Museum, Münster (2021), Gegenwartsmuseum, Basel (2020), Gropius Bau, Berlin (2019), Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven (2018), Culturgest, Lisbon (2017), Museum der Moderne, Salzburg (2016), Ludwig Forum Aachen (2015), Documenta 12 (2009), Macba, Barcelona (2008), Secession (2002) amongst many others. She currently holds a professorship together with Andreas Siekmann at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna.

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