Gute Gesellschaften appear unexpectedly. Three protagonists are sent on their journey in Heiner Müller’s Der Auftrag, in order to finally become the patrons of their own selves, or to declare themselves free of assignments. In Arnsberg waited potential actors in appropriate precarious situations in their lifes, which readily animated the debate about the meaning of our missions. The energy and content of the talks held on the benches motivated i.a. the sculpture “Raub Europas”.

It was important to me that these texts are always related to reality: not just that they relate to it, but that they work in it; that they are a piece in the dramaturgy of the real, that they constitute the instrument of revenge, the weapon of hatred, an episode in battle, the gesticulation of despair or jealousy, a pleading or a command. Real lives have been “played” in these few sentences … have been decided.

(M.Foucault, The Life of the Infamous People)

Stories of economic realities of manufacturing processes should remain powerful. Here, the participants of the workshop for the unemployed were instructed to transform cheap bird houses from a Supermarket ­ according to their own ideas ­ into claws of a tiger. Shown is the tiger’s leap on top of a bird house which was produced by the youngsters themselves.

… and a place in the crowd would be freed, the tiger claw would hang there, tangible to everyone, and as long as they did not let each other off, they would not see the tiger claw, and there would be no apparent filling of empty space, they would have to become powerful themselves in this single grip, this sweeping and swinging movement that would finally sweep away the terrible pressure that weighed on them.

(Peter Weiss, Aesthetics of resistance)

Fama / goddess of the rumor: … There is a place in the middle of the globe … from there you can see everything that happens somewhere, no matter how far away, and every voice penetrates the listening ear. Fama lives there and has built a house at the highest point … day and night it is open; it’s all made of clay ore; Everywhere it reverberates, throws back the sounds and repeats what it hears … true and mythical stories swirl in their thousands, and there is a jumble of voices. Some fill idle ears with talk, the others carry on the narrative, and the measure of the fictitious grows …

The Kunstverein Arnsberg succeeded in reviving the local dynamics. The people living there were invited ­ by means of newspaper advertisements ­ to participate, at least through specific material contributions. Heiner Müller’s text Der Auftrag was used as a guide. So I searched for evidence for my mission in the Sauerland. Agitations are generally canceled. The mobilization of local forces seems obvious and soon reaches its limits. The inevitable commonplace of exotic transfiguration of the stranger could be brought to extremes. The site­specific and reception­-dependent, open, is brought to the final conclusion: all that shown emerges completely as the rest of the interaction and surpassing of the material, the place, the institution, and the realities during the time of staging the concept, the plan. Not the work, first the production process itself becomes theatrical, in order to ­- in case of success -­ give all the space to the reconstructing beholders, visitors, new protagonists. It is true, autonomy may be theirs!