[spectre] Boulevard of Illusions: Learning from New Belgrade

[Geert Lovink]

> MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART
> Usce 10, Blok 15, 11070 Novi Beograd
> phone (+ 381 11) 3115 713
> fax (+ 381 11) 3112 955
> e-mail: msub at msub.org.yu
> web: www.msub.org.yu
>
> Sunday, 16th of September 2007
>
> Boulevard of Illusions: Learning from New Belgrade
> a public project by Stefan Römer
>   
> In the framework of the project of the Centre for Visual Culture MoCAB 
> titled Differentiated Neighbourhoods, a public art project and filming 
> of a road-movie of German artist Stefan Roemer was staged on the 
> Boulevard of  Mihajlo Pupin. For this the Boulevard is framed with two 
> billboards with the title of the project at the beginning and the end 
> into a film scenario which is in the same time an art intervention in 
> the public sphere.
>
> The project:
> The project is prospecting a history of New Belgrade’s development on 
> the former Boulevard of Lenin. It raises a discussion of the urban and 
> historical function of New Belgrade: What was the plan for the block 
> system as a socialist utopian city project? How did the people (miss-) 
> use the planned urban structure? Which are the specific stories told 
> here in this new extension of the old city of Beograd? If the whole 
> city is a panoptic system, New Belgrade with its block system is a 
> utopian format of this. Specifically, with the new growing areas with 
> big international hotels, banks and shopping malls in relation to the 
> apartment blocks and the representational buildings from the socialist 
> area prospected on the “Boulevard of Illusions” are all together 
> visible history in its own.
>  
> The artist:
> Stefan Roemer works conceptually between art practice and theory; his 
> works and essays are widely exhibited. He is teaching New Media at the 
> Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.
> His last documentary film »Conceptual Paradise« is a discussion on 
> Conceptual art and is released 2006.
>
> On the project Differentiated Neighbourhoods:
> The project Differentiated Neighbourhoods consists of socio-spatial 
> research and artistic intervention in local urban structures.
> The project will explore different connotations of the term 
> neighbourhood, in the vocabulary of its urban, architectural and 
> social context. It will comprise of two parallel sets of events:
> -        Series of presentations and lectures at the MOCAB by guest 
> experts in 2006/2007
> -        Workshops, research and art projects of the members of 
> initial research group coming from different fields such as sociology, 
> urbanism, architecture, art history, visual arts, philosophy that will 
> try to address the issue from the perspective of their profession. The 
> team has chosen for the case study several neighbourhoods in New 
> Belgrade.
>   
> Initial research group:
> Vera Backovic, MA  student of sociology, Belgrade, Serbia; Bik Van der 
> Pol, artists Rotterdam, Netherlands; Sabine Bitter  and Helmut Weber, 
> artists, Vienna, Austria; Ljiljana Blagojevic, professor, Faculty of 
> Architecture, Belgrade, Serbia; Adam Budak, curator, Kunsthaus Graz, 
> Austria; Dusan Cavic, journalist, RTV B92, Belgrade, Serbia; 
> Aleksandar Dimitrijevic, artist, Belgrade, Serbia; Davor Eres, 
> architect, Belgrade, Serbia; Sanja Jovovic, architect, Belgrade, 
> Serbia; Jakob Kolding, artist, Copenhagen, Denmark / Berlin, Germany; 
> Tamara Maricic, urban planner, Belgrade, Serbia; Ivana Milenkovic, 
> architect of the New Belgrade municipality, Belgrade, Serbia; Jelena 
> Mitrovic, architect, Belgrade, Serbia; Mina Petrovic, Professor at the 
> Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Sociology, University of 
> Belgrade, Serbia; Ivan Petrovic, film and TV director, Belgrade, 
> Serbia; Dunja Predic, student of architecture, Belgrade, Serbia; 
> Stefan Roemer, artist and theorist, Munich, Germany; Dubravka Sekulic, 
> student of architecture, Belgrade, Serbia; Dusan Saponja, journalist, 
> RTV B92, Belgrade, Serbia; Mark Terkessidis, theorist, Berlin, 
> Germany.
>  
> Initiator of the project:
> Zoran Eric, curator of the Centre for Visual Culture, MoCAB