[spectre] lacking words

[florian schneider]

LACKING WORDS

The second edition of the DICTIONARY OF WAR this weekend in Munich
takes place during a war that provokes fear, rage and horror across
the world.

The recent escalation of military force in the Middle East and its
responses reveil how difficult it got today, to assess the extent of
a war, that is as mad as calculated, that in its actuality is total
and unquestionable, a war that is endless and apparently without
ends.

"At least when we create concepts we are doing something" - the slogan
borrowed by Deleuze and Guattari might gain urgency and special
relevance these days:

The Lebanse video artist Akram Zaatari, who stayed in Paris when the
Israely army started to bomb Beirut and could not return home,
spontaneously agreed to come to Munich and to contribute a concept.

Mansur Jacoubi, who created the concept of "Realtively Calm" for the
last edition, will join live from Beirut through an internet relay.

Eyal Weizman, israeli architect, is going to formulate an "exergue"
that will deal with the actual situation and build a connection to the
first edition in Frankfurt.

Additionally to her concept, the New York based artist Julieta Aranda
is going to screen films by Lebanse artists like Walid Raad, Akram
Zaatari, Lamia Joreige, Joana Hadjithomas/Khalil Joreige, Ali Cherri
und Nesrine Khodr from the "e-flux Video Rental" project.

The Munich edition of DICTIONARY OF WAR features contributions by 25
scientists, artists, filmmakers, architects, theorists, and activists
from twelve different countries:

Amsterdam based performance group andcompany&Co; the mexican artist
Julieta Aranda; media theorist Konrad Becker from Vienna; sociologist
Ulrich Bröckling from Freiburg; artist Hans-Christian Dany from
Hamburg; Berlin based writer Katja Diefenbach; sociologist and
theorist Avery Gordon from Los Angeles; architect Manuel Herz from
Cologne; Paris based art critic, translator and activist Brian Holmes;
Beirut based media activist Mansur Jacoubi; human rights expert Tom
Keenan from New York; Belgrad based architect Ivan Kucina; filmmaker
and media artist Naeem Mohaiemen from New York and Dhaka; artist
Ariane Müller from Berlin; slovenian artist Marko Peljhan; Armin
Petras, writer and theatre director from Berlin; Munich based
photographer and writer Stefan Römer; artist Erzen Shkololli from
Kosovo; the film critics and writers Georg Seeßlen and Markus Mertz;
theorist Rob Stone from London; Vienna based curator Nora Sternfeld;
journalist and writer Ingrid Strobl from Cologne; activist, typesetter
and lay-outer Klaus Viehmann from Berlin; London based architect Eyal
Weizman.

The concepts are introduced in alphabetical order by their concept
persons in half-hour long presentations or performances.

The event starts on Saturday, July 22 at 2 pm in Muffathalle Munich,
Zellstrasse 4, and will be continued on Sunday from noon on.

Video recordings of the presentations of the Munich session will,
near-on-realtime, be available for download from the website:

http://dictionaryofwar.org