SOLUTIONS 1-10: UMBAULAND

Ingo Niermann and Jens Thiel

The reunification of Germany at the fall of the Berlin Wall did not automatically accomplish the goal of reuniting the German people, who had five decades of differences in post-World War II government, education, and culture to overcome. Artist/novelist Ingo Niermann suggests ten provokingly simple ideas to reunite his homeland, including a new grammar, a new political party, and assigning allotment gardens to unemployed people and retirees. He also proposes building a Great Pyramid in a derelict region of eastern Germany, meant to be the tallest building in the world, which would be a tourist attraction and economic engine for the region.

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Solutions 11-167

The Book of Scotlands

Momus

In the spirit of Italo Calvino, Bruno Schulz, and French animation series Les Shadoks (using any language, that is, except the “wooden tongue” of official discourse), The Book of Scotlands will outline, in a numerical sequence, one hundred and fifty-six Scotlands which currently do not exist anywhere. At a time when functional independence seems to be a real possibility for Scotland—and yet no one is quite sure what that means – a delirium of visions, realistic and absurd, is necessary.

Published in the Solution series edited by Ingo Niermann, The Book of Scotlands will provide one answer—and a few more—to this appeal for focused dreaming about potential parallel world Scotlands. The author, Momus, is a Scottish artist who has lived in Paris, New York, Tokyo and now Berlin. Paradoxically, of course, there is nothing more Scottish than leaving Scotland. And the further a Scot travels from Scotland, the more vivid and lurid his “inner Scotlands” become—and the more tellingly they differ from the real place. 2009 will also see the publication of Momus’ first novel, The Book of Jokes.

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Solution 168-185

America

Tirdad Zolghadr

Solution 168–185: America is the fourth book in the Solution series. Opting for the United States of America, “still the most proficiently colonial place I know,” Zolghadr provides a compilation of highly entertaining “solutions,” where the objective is not the education of America so much as the pleasure of a text that purports to be just that. Tirdad Zolghadr is a writer/curator based in Berlin. He is editor-at-large for Cabinet magazine. He organized the United Arab Emirates pavilion, Venice Biennale 2009, and the long-term project Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie (with Nav Haq). Zolghadr teaches at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.

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SOLUTION 186-195: DUBAI DEMOCRACY

Ingo Niermann

Using Dubai as a sort of modernist blank slate for urban and social renewal, author Ingo Niermann – a relentlessly creative artist whose tongue is firmly jammed into his cheek – confronts today’s most relevant cultural and technological developments with elixirs that are as pertinent as they are unbelievable. In the fifth book in the Solution series, Niermann sees Dubai, a sparsely populated piece of desert, become specialized as housing the global center for treating diabetes, called Sugar World. And the Gulf state will be Kumbaya-style universal, too, offering non-confrontational public spaces where both a state of total advertising and compulsive kindness, or what he calls a “personal humaneness account,” co-exist.

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SOLUTION 196 – 213

United States of Palestine – Israel

Joshua Simon

Is there a region of the world where it’s harder to imagine a solution for anything than the Middle East? Solution 196-213: United States of Palestine-Israel plunges in, each contributor offering one solution that would make life better and proposes ways to do it. Since it seemed absurb to present a one-person master plan for the region, this collection departed from the previous books in the Solution series and invited several writers from the region to take a shot at something specific and doable. The idea is to rethink the different antagonisms that structure our ways of resistance and compliance: to rethink Semitism and 1948, identity and territory, resistance and memory, democracy and state, Zionism and decolonization, refugee and property, religion and solution. Contributors include Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti, Joshua Simon, and Eyal Weizman.

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SOLUTION 214 – 238

The Book of Japans

Momus

Yet another archly funny fantasy in Ingo Niermann’s endlessly inventive Solution Series, this nippophile tale is written by Scottish-born, Japan-based creative genius Momus, otherwise known as songwriter Nick Currie. Following the success of the pair’s The Book of Scotlands (shortlisted for the Scottish Arts Council’s First Book prize), this book makes a case for the rehabilitation of the idea of the “far.” We live in a time when difference and distance have been eroded and eradicated by globalization, the Internet, and cheap jet travel. The Book of Japans restores a sense of wonder – along with a plethora of imagination-triggering inaccuracies – by taking the reader on a trip not just through space but also time.

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SOLUTION 239 – 246

Finland: The Welfare Game

Martti Kalliala with Jenna Sutela and Tuomas Toivonen

Welcome to Finland, a young land experiencing a rapidly aging consciousness, where newly founded institutions are already outmoded and geographic impediments are a constant crippling agent. The latest addition to international prankster/deep thinker Ingo Niermann’s Solution series, this wryly entertaining book addresses the Nordic country’s numerous predicaments. The three Finnish authors offer solutions to their native country’s quandaries, ranging from the absurd (the implementation of fiction-mongering emissaries to boost tourism) to the earnest and probably half-serious (the repurposing of the country to host nuclear waste). The book elucidates the northern country’s modern history as a nation under construction, proposing that its identity remain a malleable myth.

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SOLUTION 257

Complete Love

Ingo Niermann (Ed.)

It’s 2011, late summer. All over Europe, young people are occupying central public squares to demonstrate for more social justice. But in Berlin, their agenda is different. As the Completists gather at Alexanderplatz, it turns out that they aspire for justice primarily on an intimate, sexual level. They believe that only when the redistribution of material wealth includes the equal chance of finding sex and love—no matter how elderly, disabled or ugly you are—will communism become a reality. Set during the 2011 Occupy movement, Complete Love is a tale of a love revolution started by an army of activists willing to bring justice and equality for all into an intimate and sexual level. The newest edition in the tongue-in-cheek series Solutions, created and edited by international prankster / deep thinker Ingo Niermann, this wryly entertaining book explores the reality and the absurdities of daily life. Complete Love marks the 13th issue in this truly entertaining series.

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SOLUTION 262: LAVAPOLIS

Michael Schindhelm

Ingo N iermann (Ed.)

“I am not sedentary and I am not itinerant. My home is a heterotopia with a thousand imaginary landscapes …” Thus begins the speculative novel by German writer and theater director Michael Schindhelm set on the fictional island of Lavapolis. Comprised of a series of accounts by a variety of island inhabitants including island natives, newcomers, refugees and illegal residents, the novel explores the individual experiences, insights and expectations that characterize and complicate our global society. “Those that exclude one another outside meet here. Those that are at war with one another outside negotiate here. Those that steal from one another outside trade here.” The latest volume in Solution’s tongue-in-cheek series edited by Ingo Niermann.

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SOLUTION 263

Double Agent

Alhena Katsof & Dana Yahalomi

The phenomenal performative relationship between the state and its cultural institutions was perhaps best exemplified when the declaration of the State of Israel was staged at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 1948. This relationship has been at the heart of Public Movement’s research. Solution 263: Double Agent, authored by Alhena Katsof and Dana Yahalomi, presents a methodology, manual, and performance offered as a culmination of efforts by the Office of Strategy and Protocol. It contains the necessary tools to activate Debriefing Sessions and in doing so trains future Agents in a series of one-to-one exchanges gathered from work in the field. At its root, Debriefing Sessions explore the possibility that to activate art in the political field, an agent may be a double agent.

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