Performance
The Improbability Drive
geheimagentur & Joshua Sofaer
Performative study
The Improbability Drive © geheimagentur / Joshua Sofaer
Over the last five years, hundreds of luxury limousines have been abandoned in the desert close to Dubai airport. Facing the threat of bankruptcy, their owners fled. Since 2008 all kinds of improbable events have taken place: mighty institutions have fallen, millions of people have rallied for change. But here in central Europe, nothing much has changed: no new opportunities, no redistribution of wealth, no rethought rules. What might be the odds that one of the abandoned cars from Dubai, ownerless and covered in dust, appears on the streets of Berlin? An abandoned stretch limousine from Dubai is turned into an improbability drive. During a week of test-drives through the city they will try to escape from the regime of old probabilities. How might the car be used in the future? Do you need a lift or have an idea?
Just give us a call +49 30 25489 333 or e-mail: improbability@berlinerfestspiele.de
The Decision
Performance
FRI 12 July 2013, 19:00
Haus der Berliner Festspiele
After cruising the streets of Berlin for a week, the improbability drive limousine will now drive onto the stage where the results of the test-drives, as well as the most improbable suggestions for the future use of the limousine, will be presented. Its destiny will be decided together with the audience.
Afterwards: Shuttle bus to the KW Institute for Contemporary Art
The Bank of Burning Money, the Wunder-Annahmestelle (i.e. Miracle Receiving Office), the Alibi-Agentur (i.e. Alibi Agency), the Tourism-Art-Stipendienprogramm (i.e. Tourism Art Scholarship Programme) – geheimagentur (i.e. the secret agency) produces situations and institutions that appear to be fictional but then nonetheless withstand the test of reality. The performances of geheimagentur cross the boundaries of symbolic politics towards ‘instant pleasure’: they create a miniature version of another reality rather than confirming the old world in critical gestures. geheimagentur is an independent label, an open collective and the attempt to practise the “art of being many”.
www.geheimagentur.net
Joshua Sofaer (b. 1972 Cambridge, England) is an artist who is centrally concerned with modes of collaboration and participation. Often with an irreverent use of humour, he plays with established forms of production, appropriating and reconfiguring the chat show, competition, lecture, or museum display. He acts as curator, producer or director of a broad range of projects, including large-scale events, intimate performances, and publications. After a BA in Drama & English at Bristol University, Joshua went on to complete an MA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design and was subsequently awarded a PhD from Dartington College of Arts.Joshua was a winner of the 2009 Bank of America CREATE Art Award, and the first Artist Fellow on the 2010/11 Clore Leadership Programme.
www.joshuasofaer.com