Businessmans' Song of the Commodity

 

Brecht and Benjamin playing chess

Three remarkable photographs record Brecht and Benjamin playing chess. They were taken on the outskirts of Svendborg, on the island of Funen where Brecht lived during his six years of exile during the second world war. Benjamin visited him in 1934, 1936 and 1938, and the photographs record one of their games under a pear tree in Brecht's garden. These are the only photographic evidence of their productive friendship before Benjamin lost his life on the boarder of France and Spain, where he is thought to have committed suicide rather than surrender to fascist Republican forces.

Commisioned by the Akademie der Künste, Broomberg and Chanarin will present a series of 32 photographs of the original pieces in Brecht's chess set (Tactics of Attrition, 2017), meticulously recorded with forensic photographic detail. With their piece "Bertolt Brecht vs. Walter Benjamin, 2017" the artists will re-stage the famous encounter recorded in this photograph, using an automated chess board powered by artificial intelligence. The machine can predict the precise sequence of moves from the start of the game up until the moment the photograph was taken.

For the duration of the exhibition the computer will continue their unfinished game, simulating moves by both Brecht and Benjamin, and presenting various possible conclusions to their game. Viewers are therefore offered a prediction of the past, albeit within the narrow confines of an algorithm. Yet in the light of what later transpired between these two friends, we cannot avoid a lingering sense of melancholy for what did in fact happen, nor resist the urge to re-write history.

Brecht's House

Svendborg Bibliothek

Description

Brecht's House is the name given to a house on Svendborg Sund, where author Bertolt Brecht, as a refugee from Nazi Germany, lived from 1933 to 1939.

In the 1990's Svendborg Kommune began restoring Brecht's House. Today it is a residence and an inspiring workplace for artists and researchers from around the world. The thatched, half timbered house is offered to people who need, for a period, a peaceful and quiet place for their artistic or scientific work.
Accommodation Information

The house is fully furnished and equipped for max. 4 persons - all for the guest and family/friends.

Fully equipped kitchen, linen, 2 bicycles, washing machine, PC and wireless internet access.
Location

Brecht's House is located on Skovsbo Strand which is 3 km. west of Svendborg's town center and harbour and the house is also quite close to the coast.

Address:
Vieboeltet
5700 SVENDBORG Denmark

https://goo.gl/maps/21FtuUZjH2A4yXQZA

Questions From a Worker Who Reads

Who built Thebes of the 7 gates ?
In the books you will read the names of kings.
Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock ?

And Babylon, many times demolished,
Who raised it up so many times ?

In what houses of gold glittering Lima did its builders live ?
Where, the evening that the Great Wall of China was finished, did the masons go?

Great Rome is full of triumphal arches.
Who erected them ?

Over whom did the Caesars triumph ?
Had Byzantium, much praised in song, only palaces for its inhabitants ?

Even in fabled Atlantis, the night that the ocean engulfed it,
The drowning still cried out for their slaves.

The young Alexander conquered India.
Was he alone ?

Caesar defeated the Gauls.
Did he not even have a cook with him ?

Philip of Spain wept when his armada went down.
Was he the only one to weep ?

Frederick the 2nd won the 7 Years War.
Who else won it ?

Every page a victory.
Who cooked the feast for the victors ?

Every 10 years a great man.
Who paid the bill ?

So many reports.

So many questions.

In the dark times. Will there also be singing?

Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.