Programme
GEHEIMAGENTUR
Germany
TRICK-CASINO OF ZAGREB
research / production / exhibition
12 - 17 June 2007 daily from 3pm till 8pm
Frankopanska 1 
exhibition opening :
14 June 2007 at 7pm
GEHEIMAGENTUR (Secret Agency) has searched for miracles in Bochum, for Space on Earth, for tricks in Zagreb, but actually they pass from one reality into another. As an experimental environment for the production of open collectives, geheimagentur is sometimes big, sometimes small, sometimes not there at all, and mostly secret. Current fields of research: the theory and practice of burning money, how to develop enthusiasm for the improbable, foretelling the future as an emancipatory technique, and the applied science of the alibi.
Instances of interest to them: Situations and techniques which seem fictional and then suddenly pass the reality test - these are the instances we're looking for. Political performance is interesting to us when it crosses the boundaries of enlightenment and symbolic politics, heading in the direction of "instant pleasure". Our strategies encourage the appearance of an other, "small" reality, they don't affirm the old world in a critical gesture. Whether the issue is attention or money: we search for ways out of the logic of lack.
geheimagentur likes tricks. Most of the actions and situations constructed by geheimagentur are in themselves tricks. geheimagentur is not interested in art for art's sake, and maybe not even in art. To them, performance is rather a means to achieve something different: to escape from economy, to establish new possibilities, to enable new ways of collective and collaborative action.
Tricks - that's the kind of knowledge they are interested in: experimenting with the impossible, with minute quotidian tactics, with clandestine cooperation. Tricks - that's making more from less, taking sides with the underdogs, turning the tables. But: Tricks are a tacit kind of knowledge, an embodied knowledge that works best in its specific context and is mostly kept secret.
Given these conditions: how to do research on tricks and especially on the tricks of Zagreb? 
The research itself has to be tricky. Therefore geheimagentur is setting up an exhibition that will be like a seductive trap, to make you share your tricks with them, to make you aware of the tricks you know without knowing it, to make you an accomplice and to open up a stage for the performance of the smallest trick possible. Trick-casino of Zagreb is an exhibition where research, production, and representation will become inseparable and indistinguishable, and the result is still open. Tricks can be anything from balancing a spoon on your nose to crossing a border without a passport. So, maybe in the end they find people who can do both at the same time - these will be crowned as master-tricksters.
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