2081 – What happened?

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It is the year 2081 and we have forgotten everything. Men are forbidden, drama is forbidden, democracy is forbidden. There are rules, laws, algorithms, but there is no memory left, no history. Then,in South Africa, in India, in Brazil, fragments are discovered, which point to something that used to exist. Archives, hard discs, books, knowledge. We have to put the pieces together. In Berlin, in Johannesburg, in Tel Aviv, in Miniland. Later in New Delhi, in São Paulo maybe Moscowand Beijing and Rome. On the first day of the Berlin and Johannesburg Congress about 20 women and their clones tried to make sense of the present and the past: short talks, music, performance, films. 2081 only women are allowed – how will our world change? Why were men forbidden? What was violence? All that is left isneo-yogaism. At Kunst-Werke were Victoria Nelson, Anne Tismer, Julia Hummer, Barbara Kirchner, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Filipa César, Aino Laberenz, Lavinia Wilson, Sarah Nuttall, Anna-Catharina Gebbers, Vera Lehndorff, Avery F. Gordon, Melanie Forgeron, Katharina Sellheim, the children’s choir of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin, Ayzit Bostan, Sandra Bartoli, Joana Barrios, and Annie Gosfield. At Johannesburg’s Center for Historical Reenactments were Sarah Nuttall, Jill Richards, Julia Hummer with Tolo, Ngakna and Faraih, Sindi Sampson, Juanita Orecchia PhD, Gabi Ngcobo and Sanele Manqele, Sarah Michels, Julia Hummer and a piece by James Webb, and Leratu Maduna on skype from Zoo City: Lauren Beukes. Both times Amitesh Grover was with us live from Delhi with Maya Krishna Rao in Berlin and Vasudha Sinha in JHB, and at night Sam Chermayeff presented an archive for both cities. On the second day of the Congress was a walk, men accompanied us. The displaced, the rightless, nomads, holy men. Men are forbidden. Men are no longer cloned. In Berlin we walked from the Kunst-Werke to the Olympic Stadium – location of the 2084 Olympics. Iain Sinclair, his friend Chris Petit, Tobias Hönig, Arno Brandlhuber, and Bob Last were with us. In JHB we walked from Goethe on Main to Miniland with Chris Petit, Achille Mbembe, Doung Anwar Jahangeer, Arno Brandlhuber, and Sam Chermayeff. And this is our goal: We go into the future to escape a present that is stuck. We bring our own paranoia to the table. We are in this together.