Luchezar Boyadjiev

Luchezar Boyadjiev is a Bulgarian artist, working and living in Sofia, Bulgaria. As an Eastern European artist he often found himself in the position of a GastArtBeiter after the fall of Communism in EE.

• post-governmental organisation

CHANCE 2000: Vote yourself! Just do it! 

Germany 1998: 2 years before the New Millenium a new form of Political Party came into existence: CHANCE 2000 - The Party of the Last Chance. In the midst of an election that was one of the most important in postfascist Germany an artist jumped into the political arena to "make politics more aesthetic and aesthetics more political". The film- and theatremaker and talk show host Christoph Schlingensief started the Campagne: "VOTE YOURSELF!" In Berlin he started the project with an "Election Circus". Together with a famous circus-family from former East Germany and with his crew of actors and his family of handicapped performers he founded "CHANCE 2000 - Party of the Last Chance" in a circus tent in Berlin/ Prenzlauer Berg. The message for the Republic was: "Vote Yourself, we know how to do it!" Every citizen was asked to become an independent candidate for the new Bundestag. Manuals were sent out how to become a direct candidate. And many different people realized their chance to "prove that they exist" by bringing their name on the ballot sheet: "Chance Meier", "Chance Mueller", "Chance Schmidt". If you managed to collect 200 signatures of support in your political region you were part of the game and you could vote yourself. Why not voting somebody you know by heart, you trust and love?

• campaign,
• social sculpture,
• post-governmental organisation

Chance 2000 - The Last Chance Party (1998) 

Right in time for the 1998 German elections, Christoph Schlingensief decided to found his own party with the futuristic-sounding name CHANCE2000 - motto: Vote Yourself!

• politics,
• campaign,
• democracy,
• trickster

Corporate Counter Campaigns - Introduction 

Introducing the panel on Counter-strategies of Corporations against Campaigns Featuring: What are the modern-times strategies of present day companies? And: How can we respond to these?

This part of the introduction includes a short outline of the themes to be discussed at the forum. Being used are examples from the work of the panelists and cases they have been working on. Also included are exerpts from recent articles on the corporate world's reaction to social and environmental cam-paigns, illuminating the main themes from different points of view. References are included below, if you would like to receive four further texts on this subject, please let me know: evel@xs4all.nl

• campaign

The Art of Campaigning 

The idea for the Art of Campaigning topic originates from the works of the McLibel group [www.mcspotlight.org]. Their type of net.campaign questions previous forms of activism, which was focused on the mass media and their ability to influence public opinion, by staging direct action (targeted at known media makers). Big NGO's such as Greenpeace have built up experiences with this model for decades. The scenarios they use have not changed much since the seventies. There is the usual PR material: official reports, books, folders, flyers, magazine and original video footage, shot on location. Campaigns are being planned long in advance. The way of working does not differ much from a campaign to launch a new product. Professionalism has taken over the task of volunteers. Their role is being reduced to that of a local support group, doing the actual grass roots work with the population.

Eveline Lubbers

Eveline Lubbers (NL), monitoring police and secret services since the eighties, supporting social activist groups against oppressive surveillance tactics of authorities. Recently she specialized in corporate intelligence and PR-strategies of multinationals against their critics- including net- activists.

• campaign,
• grassroot journalism,
• infopolitics,
• info-activism

N5M3 Editors

Editorial Committee of Next 5 Minutes 3:

• tactical media

Christoph Schlingensief

A biography on Christoph Schlingensief.
By Till Briegleb.

• art,
• campaign,
• identity theft,
• trickster

 Candida TV

Candida TV was born from the melting of different realities: underground cinema, video production, rave parties, street theaters, independent radios, underground bulletin board systems on the net and counterculture pop-magazines in the last seven years in Rome.

• art,
• activism,
• independent media