((the hidden agenda,, the ulterior motives))

pplying for federal money was a big deal for us in first place. within the set up of crashcourse,, it seemed to be of big importance for us to find out about what especially made us worthy for federal sponsorship. but when when adressing this question to the jury,, we were told that this is not to be answered. as a reason for this denial general regulations of the sponsorship were claimed.

by this time -- we have to start our own speculations.

according to the name of the donating institution,, which is 'federal culture foundation' ((bundeskulturstiftung in german,, refered as bks in the following)) the assumption,, that receipients of sponsorship should in any form represent national or federal culture,, seems to be fair.

strange enough that the jury who is supposed to decide who could match this task consists of characters,, which are vaguely to be associated with whatever could be representative for the federal republic of germany.
in contrary,, they all emerge from left-wing cultural politics and seem to be rather associated with critical practice and off-culture.

in perfect correspondance,, none of the projects we know to be sponsored has the appeal of being federal culture.
all rather refer to different shades of antagonistic positions to what could be a representation of federal or national values,, be it anticapitalistic,, queer,, internationalistic or antiimperialistic ways of thinking.

one may assume that sponsorship within capitalistic self-evidence does not in first place constitute from a federal responsibility for the presence of a variety of positions within society resp. the need for ((critical)) education,, but in first place always refers to the self-evidence of the market.

so what relation can be made up between the assumed tasks of an institution like the 'bks' and the reality of their sponsoring practice?

as berlin sets the frame conditions for our project,, and most of the other projects who got a donation do also come from berlin,, we will regard this question by scrutinizing the situation in berlin.

berlin has been broke for quite some time already. the major industry berlin could rely on to attract investors was and is still the media-industry in several manifestations,, be it filmproduction and postproduction ((a traditionally important business in berlin)),, electronic news gathering,, all kinds of e-commerce or the music-industry.

the main resource,, berlin could offer to the media industry to save berlins economy,, was an unusual amount of highly creative and ambitious young people who were keen on earning their money with something they do anyway or want to learn doing better.
or people who were willing to get paid for a responsibility they were not really able to take,, lacking of experience and qualification,, both of which no one had owing to the novelty of this market place's rules.

in other words,, the major natural resource was generated by a huge amount of semi-qualified freelancers,, who were highly ambitious to improve their knowledge ((in order as benefit for their own projects)).
In general,, they were willing and enabled to get paid much less in comparison to other cities,, because they could easily afford to make a living,, as half the city was still conducted by a corrupted infrastructure that didnt demand as much money to be moved as in other european metropolis.
fueled by their own eagerness to develop themselves and their ambitions ((however off--cultural,, critical and noncommercial they might have been)),, many people were ready to let economy be pushed into their lives and their identities.

what attracted this potential of freelancer-resources to come to berlin since the 90ies ((besides the open playground of half a city without parents)) was a certain cultural brand,, which was not constitued by the market,, but by people who tried to self-organize their platforms apart from the market.
most of the remarkable qualities which make the unity of production and the surrounding life-circumstances so easy in berlin were generated by the will to be self-determined and monetarily independant,, but got turned into a highly cathegorized lifestyle product.
the new elites which arouse from the 90ies and have changed the city so unreflectedly have turned into a bundle of attitudes and attributes everybody could share in easily,, just by moving to berlin and stepping into a certain cultural frame.
berlin trades in nomadity,, networking,, interim-solutions,, diy,, 'non-commercialism',, temporarity,,'critical' and 'sub'-'culture' and so on.

this still seems to be working for certain aspects of the music-industry at least,, as many producers,,, distributors and label-companies still are on their move to berlin.

on the other hand,, the ambitions of the industry to exploit and export every single aspect of the berlin-phenomena they can apply a grid to are obvious,, be it collectivism in art ((like the 'club berlin' at the venice biennale in 1995)) or electroclash.

since 97 there has been a massive raid on all informal and illegal carriers,, which have been left in peace for years to breed berlins 'remarkable' and 'unique' cultural techniques and strategies of self--organisation.
this raid was effectively accompanied by an obvious attempt to import and monopolize complete infrastructures of people and their thinking and their email--distributors to a few places of subventioned kind,, which could deal with the international branding of berlin-culture more effectively.

this manouver does not imply,, that the contents which were to be negotiated within the former self--organized structures would necessarily have been corrupted,, twisted or blurred.
we all have seen a lot of important topics mangled through the routines of berlin culture industry throughout the last years,, the most recent examples have been migration and illegal strategies within urban routines.
as an outcome,, these topics got effectively wasted and worn out.
the places which gain reputation for the berlin-culture stand for non-conformity,, critical practice,, crossingtheborder - be it theater,, art or music.
this is the attraction berlin has to offer and this is why companies,, which count on human capital which is modern,, open-minded and well-educated would like to have a dépendance in berlin.

if we look at ourselves,, little of our activities within the last years were remarkably traceable for the market or any govermental institutions,, they were never directly related to any kind of branding or trade ((this does not imply that we really would have been moving in a really independant infrastructure or from contributing to the berlin topography. as soon as you produce you get evidently exploitable)),, nor would they have been more than a graphical drop-out in financial administration,, if at least.

by way of the sponsorship,, these things changed.

we had to apply a legal corporation to ourselves,, we will have to make a tax--declaration,, we had to declare the content we want to touch,, we need to collect receipts for every pencil we buy and with the pencil,, we will have to write receipts for every geezer we give a euro for spinning records. every outcome of our research is ment to be unveilled and trackable.
we have not been on any map exploitable before the project ((except life)). afterwards,, we are well supposed to be.
it is a very simple way of gathering human potential and future ressources for branding--maintainance.
it seems logical,, that some of the granted projects have been asked to make suggestions for future donations,, as this jets to the next level of out-of-reach.

with a jury like this,, people like us are likely to apply,, and furthermore are likely to be chosen.

of course we don't want to state a kind of conspiracy,, we don't think an institution like the 'bks' is drafted and brought to life for literally this purpose. even if the free market can never constitute a society,, but only assimilate and transform what is developed apart from it,, it has its autodynamics as well as its retroactive self-evidence.