BETAVERSION 1.0, Leipzig-Plagwitz, 2004
Sound installation, copy-paste-transformed speech of Rosa Luxemburg originally about the world political situation
(Die weltpolitische Lage, 27. Mai 1913, Leipzig-Plagwitz)
spoken by: Barbara te Kock, sound mix: Lenz Schuster, time: 12 min
installed on the roof of Halle 14 / Stiftung Federkiel, Baumwollspinnerei Leipzig
also shown at No. 3, Rote Zelle Munich and at "YBA", Gagosian Gallery Berlin

 
On the roof top of Hall 14, a former cotton spinning factory, an unknown person hoisted a red worker flag. It becomes the anchor point for the exhibition Schichtwechsel (shift change) that started on labor day and circles the idea of the workers movement. With her sound installation betaversion 1.0 Beate Engl gives a voice to this flag, that is proclaiming a speech about the global art system. The source for this transformed text is a speech by Rosa Luxemburg held in Leipzig-Plagwitz on May 27th 1913 analyzing the world political situation and agitating for the boldness of the proletarian masses in the fight against the breakneck enterprises of the capitalists, that partition the world. Beate Engl keeps the general structure of the speech and transforms it by simply exchanging words: The worker and proletarian becomes the artist and cultural producer, the capitalist and social democrat becomes the gallerist and curator and the international wars become the global biennials and group shows. Megaphone speakers, red flag and public on the grass roof add to a demonstration like atmosphere.

> download text as PDF (German version only, 120 KB)
> audio excerpt as MP3, 808 KB
Beate Engl
Beate Engl Beate Engl