The Department of Useful Art: Recent Episodes
Summer Banks
A podcast about works at the intersection of art and activism. Through interviews with the artists and other stakeholders, host Summer Banks and co-host Cory Tamler take a comprehensive look at socially-engaged, participatory and maybe even useful art.
Ever wonder just what goes into making a delicious beer? Ayumi Matsuzaka, a Japanese artist based in Berlin, went beyond the usual home brew process in her 2015 work Future Beer, Berlin Cycle. Because it's not just about the ingredients you use, but what went into growing those ingredients.
In this episode Summer chats with Ayumi about closing nutrient cycles, the power of disgust, and the difference between art and business. And Cory and Summer look at the work's playfullness, how it incorporates non-human participants, and the right time to drink beer in a closet. Also featuring Cristal Peck, a brewer and biologist, and Stefan Riekeles, curator of the Dortmund Cycle.
Future Beer, Berlin Cycle - 2015
by Ayumi Matsuzaka
Barley grown at the TerraBoGa- Projekt
Malting at the Prinzessinnengarten
Documentation:
Blog
Video (Dortmund)
Podcast hosted and produced by Summer Banks
Co-host: Cory Tamler
Music: Ben Southam
Image Credit: Ayumi Matsuzaka, printed in the Dortmunder Neu Gold – Kunst, Bier & Alchemie catalogue - Curator and Publisher: Stefan Riekeles
Sound Effects from FreeSound.org:
beer: by hdm2013
flush: "Toilet Flush, European, Distant, Lid Up.wav" by InspectorJ (www.jshaw.co.uk)
Slowly but surely the names of the victims are starting to become an integral part of protests against far-right extremism and police brutality. But what about the names of those who were murdered over two decades ago? And what if most people in the country they were killed in don't know how to pronounce them?
Takdir. Die Anerkennung is one artist's response to this ongoing problem. A participatory performance that's part language lesson and part collective ritual, it's the subject of our conversation with Stuttgart-based artist Ülkü Süngün.
Takdir. Die Anerkennung - Berlin 2021
by Ülkü Süngün
October 3rd performance hosted by the Maxim Gorki Theatre
Video installation version on display as part of the Offener Prozess exhibition. Online version of the work here.
NOTE: this is the 2021 version which does not have the updated pronounciation of Mehmet (Mɛmɛt) Kubaşık.
Please go support the NSU Tribunal and NSU Watch.
Podcast hosted and produced by Summer Banks
Co-host: Cory Tamler
Music: Ben Southam
Sound from: Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin
Photo Credit: Summer Banks
Dedicated to the memory of
Enver Şimşek
Abdurrahim Özüdoğru
Süleyman Taşköprü
Habil Kılıç
Mehmet Turgut
İsmail Yaşar
Theodoros Boulgarides
Mehmet Kubaşık
Halit Yozgat
Michèle Kiesewetter
Dortmund, 2016. A neo-Nazi march is scheduled to take place in June, and a group of artists decide to take a different approach to participating in the counterprotests. And join up with the city theater and a variety of other organizations along the way. The Mirror Barricade is a work of social sculpture and the subject of the pilot episode of The Department of Useful Art.
Mirror Barricade - Dortmund 2016
by TOOLS FOR ACTION in collaboration with Theater Dortmund
Photo Credit: Regenfrei productions
Podcast hosted and produced by Summer Banks
Music: Ben Southam
Voiceover: Shiri Lanton
Sound from: TOOLS FOR ACTION
original from 2021. remastered and rereleased in 2022.