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WHAT IS YOUR POSITION?

Studio Naxos, Implantieren Festival, Frankfurt

2015/ 2016

"Strolling is a physical act of reading, remembering, in a mode of absentmindedness. As one strolls, the hard asphalt of the city becomes ambiguous and resonates."

Walter Benjamin

The book "What is your position?" is an urban and architectural guide. It takes you to important monuments of Frankfurt's housing history, to utopian and dystopian scenarios, places of resistance and hatcheries of dreams.

At the same time, the book functions as an interface between different media and realities: using the book in conjunction with an app, videos and interview fragments can be played on the mobile phone. Thus the book becomes a very long walk through different times, a tutorial for strolling.

This book is a performance. It is not for sale.

City guides have the potential to change the city, that’s why they are probably the most performative book format of all.

I grew up in Barcelona, a very touristic city. In my neighborhood, I could observe an always same procedure. A bar or a restaurant was added to the Lonley Planet guide and four months after at the latest this place was no longer what it used to be. It was dead and totally dedicated to serve the needs of tourists. People who used to own this place had disappeared.

This led to the following thought: what happens if we use this performative potential? If instead of turning cities into places of consumption, we use the city guide to resurrect utopias?

A city guide can very concretely ask people to act and take action. For example, by asking the reader to order "the café con leche with blueberry crumbles on it". But what would happen if we asked the readers to follow new paths?

In such a case, the reader would not become a tourist, but an activist who creates a different city.

What is your position? Where are you at right now? In a bookstore? In a theatre? In a shop? Look around you... what do you see? Walls that protect you. Doors that can be locked. Windows with thick glass that allows you to observe the outside without being at a risk.

What is this "a house"? And what is a home? And what is a city? Can a city be seen as a collection of temporary and permanent homes? Can we speak of a city as a home?
And what does it mean, according to Article 13 of the Basic Law, that the dwelling is "inviolable"? And what does it mean when just below it, in article 14, it says "property is obligatory". To what?

This book is a homage to the city of Frankfurt, a city that takes about 2 years to be able to love. And it is an appeal to the potential that lies within this city. A city that, among many other things, revolutionized our view of living at the beginning of the last century.

This book is city guide. It takes you to important monuments of Frankfurt's housing history, to utopian and dystopian scenarios, places of resistance and hatcheries of dreams.
Along the way you will meet residents who perform a different Frankfurt every day.

This book works like a very long walk with good conversational partners and it is an exercise guide in strolling. For Walter Benjamin, strolling is "a physical act of reading, remembering, in a mode of absentmindedness. As one strolls, the hard asphalt of the city becomes ambiguous and resonates." And with every step you take, you formulate new statements. With every step you take, you draw new lines, draw the city map of another Frankfurt.

And finally, because it configures action and observation of subjects by other subjects, the space becomes a stage and you, dear reader, as soon as you walk through this door, you become an actor, a performer of the history of this city.

Take me with you and walk to the door that leads to the street. The curtain is about to open. Little by little the actors enter the stage of the city.

Editing and texts: Eleonora Herder
Layout und graphic design: Anna Sukhova
Video design and photography: Alla Poppersoni
Production and interviews: Maria Isabel Hagen
Sound design: Jan Mech
Dramaturgy and editing: Annegret Schlegel
Consulting and research: Tim Schuster

This is what the book looks like:

Und that's how it works:

Instructions for use:

„Was bedeutet „Stadt für alle“? Darf man lange leer stehende Häuser, die der Stadt gehören, besetzen? Darf die Stadt sie polizeilich räumen lassen?“ 

(Janette Faure: „Frankfurter Stadtlabor unterwegs: Stadtführung mit Buch“, Bornheimer Wochenblatt, 24.08.2015)

„Schade, dass der Stadtführer auf dem linken Auge ziemlich blind ist. Insgesamt jedoch ist das spannende Experiment sehr gelungen. Das Buch ist gespickt mit klugen Zitaten von Alexander Kluge, Theodor Adorno und Roland Barthes. Der lesende Flaneur lernt seine Stadt tatsächlich mit anderen Augen und aus einem anderen Blickwinkel kennen.“ 

(Rainer Schulze: „Mit dem blauen Buch durch die Stadt“, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 19.11.2016)

„Für alle die Frankfurt einmal aus einer völlig neuen Perspektive betrachten wollen“

(„Performance im Bethmannpark“, Frankfurter Rundschau, 14.08.2016)

„Das Buch leitet den Lesenden auf geheimen Wegen durch die Stadt und leitet ihn zugleich an, ,im Sinne eines aktivistischen Tourismus´ selbst Schritt für Schritt ein anderes Frankfurt zu machen.“

(Esther Boldt: „Implantieren“, Journal Frankfurt Nr. 20/ 16)