FUTURES

PLATFORM3 Futures
J.-Peter Pinck, Managing Director and
Marlene Rigler, Program Manager
PLATFORM3 under the tutorial of the nonprofit corporation
Wohnforum München gemeinnützige GmbH
Das (ideale) Atelier
The (Ideal) Studio
“He would have discovered the enormous ever-changing timespace
which is created and limited by the forces of past and future.”
Hannah Arendt on Kafka’s short story He from 1920
With ‘Future(s),’ profit is made – and not only in the financial world,
where ‘Futures’ represent time-bound investments on the stock
market. This exhibition’s multivalent title calls attention to the fact
that this praxis applies also to political, urban, cultural and social
realms of society. The term ‘future’ functions as a metaphor for
possible progress, renewal, and change. In this context, the ‘past’
becomes an antagonistic element, a burden that must be discarded
in order to create space for the new.
According to Hannah Arendt, the relationship between the
past and the future is based on a paradox, and it is the resulting
gap that makes up our present. With a nod to William Faulkner, it
is equally important to recognize that all things that are forwardlooking
can generate the power of their focus largely by virtue of that
which has already taken place. The historical avant-gardes demonstrated
the extent to which utopian movements are, by definition,
designed for future thought and practice, beyond their respective
historical contexts. Utopias are effectual projections into the future
that, by their very nature, transcend their own coordinates of time
and space. At the same time, however, utopias strive to initiate this
process of transformation in the here and now, rather than at a
future time. It also lies in their nature to appear potentially too early
or to be recognized too late.
For the sake of experimentation, let us consider PLATFORM3
as a type of utopia. In this case, the conclusion drawn above has
to be revisited. The ‘utopian’ model, founded in Munich in March 2009,
might well have unexpectedly appeared on the scene to some; and,
after two years, it still causes occasional bewilderment because
of its unconventional format. Notwithstanding, it has been identified
and widely accepted as a trendsetter by now.
Because of its utopian, experimental character, this ‘platform’
has served as a vital sounding board for those artistic and cultural
discourses which remain difficult to situate within conventional frame -
works. Each project generates new questions concerning content
and form – questions that can only be resolved within the observer,
within each individual history and horizon.
The future path of PLATFORM3 has already taken shape,
it is firmly inscribed in its daily practice: in the effort to provide space
for those particular artistic and cultural processes which seem
aesthetically and socially relevant.
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