The very first WOOLOO.ORG festival — NEW LIFE BERLIN - will open Saturday, May 31st, 2008 in Berlin :: Time: 6 PM :: Address: Choriner Strasse 85, Berlin-Mitte :: U-bahn: Rosenthaler Platz (U8)

Featuring a site-specific installation by Nathan Peter from the WOOLOO.ORG community, the opening night will mark the beginning of two exciting weeks in Berlin. Taking place all around the city, NEW LIFE BERLIN will from June 1st to 15th take up the challenge of connecting the transnational resources of WOOLOO.ORG with the physical geography of Berlin to directly address the mechanisms of globalization.

Marissa Olson writes the following about her participation in this festival: “June 1-15: Every day at 6pm I’ll be performing as a parody of Martha Stewart, in a futuristic TV show entitled Assisted Living, which is focused on coping with the health & environmental challenges of living a life prolonged by technology. I’ll devise craft-projects and recipes for 130-year-olds, taping the show on-site before a “live studio audience.”

See the published program. In addition the curators invite members of the online community to participate throughout the festival itself.

By building participation into the program (while still retaining curatorial control), NEW LIFE BERLIN investigates the much discussed ‘online community’. How effective is this community? What binds this community together? What does ‘community’ mean today? Presenting projects from both artistic and sociological starting points, NEW LIFE BERLIN uses group participation to explore real-life cultural mobility.

NEW LIFE BERLIN is an entirely artist-run festival. WOOLOO.ORG has chosen Berlin as the festival location because of its growing position as the preferred meeting place for cultural practitioners from around the world. Constantly exchanging experiences, ideas, and knowledge with other like-minded individuals within (and far from) the urban confines of the city, the artists of Berlin are forming and fortifying new human collectives that transcend the boundaries of citizenship or nationality. In this way, the city’s artistic communities are building important models for understanding how new kinds of mobile, global networks are being established today.

NEW LIFE BERLIN directly engages the effects of our unprecedented 21st century mobility and treats the exhibition venue itself as a network of past and future sites. Utilizing public spaces and soon-to-be-developed real estate for festival presentations, NEW LIFE BERLIN has taken up the challenge of connecting the transnational resources of WOOLOO.ORG with the physical geography of Berlin to address the mechanisms of globalization. In contrast to traditional art festivals and biennials, their aim is not to represent a set of cultural conclusions, but to create a model for a fluid cultural landscape.

They invite you to join them in this challenge, and to participate in the projects that make up NEW LIFE BERLIN.