Das Los 2001
September 2001
Interventions in public spaces
Schorndorf, Germany
Das Los – A Word and Parlour Game, interventions in public spaces
Das Los – A Word Game from Iris Buchholz
is an interventionist project in the city space, which works with the communication struc-
tures of the public space. According to the cultural philosopher Robert Faller we move in a time of inter passivity, in which the delegating of attention and in consequence the discharge of personal responsibility is declared to a collec-
tive aim. “This discharge, to understand as a gesture of cultural catharsis, compose the inter passive aim” of all in the 20th century devel-
oped communication forms of the public space.
The project Das Los picks up this phenomena
of the passive consumption, by using a simple form of communication: the written word. Single word combinations (-los as suffix to nouns, in combination with their word defini-
tion, eg scham | los, basic translation: shame-
less. Scham (noun, feminine): 1. Vulva, external area of female genitalia 2. Tormenting feeling that one is guilty of having failed (particularly in moral terms); uncomfortable feeling of embarrassment, repentance and fear of being exposed—thus arise different positive/ironic/negative levels of meanings and reference) are at different places in the whole city visible, on billboards, shopping bags, beer mats, adhesive letters, video installation. As viewer one is hence confronted with different (mass)media
in different public contexts. Through the fact, that this is not about defined art places, every-
body is asked, to load this ‚information‘ with meaning and emotions. With this simple refer-
ential frame of action the project questions
the reception attitude, its patterns but also the political responsibility of every one in connec-
tion with a public life.
Das Los is conceived as a game, which back-
ground is based on the thesis of the human as homo ludens/playing human. Friedrich Schiller has in his letters over the aesthetic education
of humans (1795) extract the play instinct as a basic characteristic. In one of the letters he wrote: ”The human is playing only, where he is in the full meaning of the sense human, and he is only there entirely human, where he is play-
ing.“ Both from Schiller mentioned elements are picked up in Das Los: the power of the word and the game. The concept of the project itself refers on a playful access, which is refering not only to the power of a capitalist, global society and their structure of power, but also to the significance of each of us inside of this system: The word Los, linguistic positive connoted, suggest mostly pretended felicity. In the use as suffix however -los describes something missing and marks very often even something which accords not to the social norm: schamlos, mittellos, ahnungslos (shameless, penniless, clueless) ... Without an obvious game instruc-
tion, the viewer is put on his own at this game. And like this animated to think.
Maren Richter,
Kunstraum, Linz, Austria