picture this.... Orientalism at its best

a performance by Aline Benecke (curator / artist)

ausland is a non-commercially run venue in berlin for music and performance and related public and non-public events. ausland is also a workspace for local, national and international artists and projects. ausland holds on the average three shows a week and is run by a group of up to 6 people, who all have a high degree of autonomy in deciding which band is to play here or which performace should take place. or which film is shown or which lecture read. the focus clearly is on experimental, non-mainstream, demanding, kind of weird stuff which either makes you comfortable or makes you leave the place before you've even finished your first (cheap) drink... devoted to this weird stuff since over 5 years, the staff of ausland tries its best to respect the human need of consuming arts in its finest forms. there are practical constraints, as always in heavenly life, coming (i.e.) from the limited amount of money, or time; from the limited number of people (avail)able to realize special projects, or maybe just from the absence of a holy spirit. but, who comes here, might be saved on the spur of the moment.

picture this.... Orientalism at its best
The discourse of 'the other' has been in crisis since la différance. We have come to the recognition that our (old) patterns of thinking about 'the other,'  and thus also 'the foreigner,' work through attributions and stipulations which do not do the plurality and heterogeneity of the world justice. Political, leftist discourse has ever since been enmeshed in an attempt to find language which suits the problems of the land we formerly colonized.I am, according to experience, described as a German with an immigrant background. I balk at this definition. How can that be? My foreignness -- in this case meaning my 'nongermanness' on account to my 'foreign blood' -- is pure fiction. As is my being a woman or being young or being an artist, incidentally.Back to foreignness: I grew up with the history of the French-colonial là-bas, but I was mainly in the mainland European ici. My experience of and with Algeria is supplemented by photography and myths of the Middle East and the Maghreb. I continue to forge this bridge . I have a substantial collection of foreign photography and stories like those from One thousand and One Nights with which I fabricate my western identity. Imagine... picture this... I am your storyteller. I offer you the finest in Orientalism, baby: stories of beautiful, veiled and lonely women gone mad, of homoerotic steam baths, of toes which have grown together, of women in the Algerian resistance movement. An evening about  the power of the narratives which form our consciousness and which questions  our gaze upon ________ (the foreign)."

Vernissage/Opening time & date: 29 January 2012, 20:00
Cost: 5,00 €
Address: Ausland, Lychener Str. 60 10437 Berlin
> ausland-berlin.de/
> myspace.com/auslandberlin 

(Image: Courtesy Umlaut Festival)