13 August 2009

nikusha to Upstairs 63

thinking of Upstairs always gives some feeling of being not in a center. being in a shaky place, which is not sattled and doesn't have a clear future. bored and a bit tired of epicenter, Upstairs gives a chance to distant yourself of that magic circle (fashion, establish styles, main stream).

forgotten places, that's what I'm interesting also. it reminds me of our brains. I belive that it could be some mental forgotten places, which is also out of market sirculation (of our main, everyday life interests), out of attention. start to act from that places is a chance to be distant from etsablished stagnation, rutine and monotone.

04 August 2009

Upstairs Dreams

Upstairs is sleeping. Its awaiting Joanna replying from Brazil, Valeria comming back from Roma, Joachim to go back to work after the first week of resting and juggling sideswaps this year.
Upstairs is stretching its legs and is looking foreward to see us all next week.

Upcoming from me will be a page about my reserches in colours.

And from Vale and me a page about our the trial of an project to extend Upstairs down to the black continent. Down to Tunesia, following the passage of people trying to find a way into our golden cage, comming from sicily out of that country enjoing being regented by this nicely roughed mafiosi. Or perhaps we dare to go to lybia where loads of people comming to our rich but guestunfriendly table.

Unfortunately we dont have a proper ship as the people are comming from there. We only have our coloured dreams. And we got some ballons and some plasteline (we call it fore some reason we dont know ourself pongo). Pongo multiplied with coulored ballons is about the syntesis of a children dream.

So we will build a seagoing boat out of our dreams, pongo and balloons (shouldnt be so hard), attach somehow a motor to it (thats the only thing I as an engineer cant even immagine now how to do it but i`m sure we can find out) and we will do that passage hopefully next year.

a warm huge to all of you,
wish me good luck and a clear mind or whatever for the weekend

Jo

Joachim to upstairs 63

Upstairs for me is to be somehow outside of the world, inside a field where i realy can do and explore what i want to. Upstairs is calling people who just cant stop doing there work possessed of there idea this work is important for them, important for the world and that is somebody needed to do what there are doing. Placed in Berlin, a special area of relatively freedom and open possibilities Upstairs shall and is calling the kind of people i need to deal to process and to develop the things i have to do. And I hope to be the one wich can give clues an ideas about projects around that place.

Its a unique area to have even though such places for me are very familiar in Berlin. Its one of hundreds of lost places over here, but now its starting to stand for a dying kind of areas. The speed of destroying beautiful places like this for the needs of market is hardly increasing through the last decade. I don’t feel to possess this place, nobody can do apart from destroying it. I feel i live in that place and live that place as it is.

Why to use such a place seems a big question between the people living upstairs.
Every answer ive heard the last days is far away of the feeling i have when i enter that rooms.

Of cause, is a place outside the market with no intensions to chance or lead your way because of expectations but because of experiences. But is that important to know when youre are able to feel it?
Ist not wanting anyting but it sharing everyting it gots, so go and share all experiences with that place, everything you got!

This space is offering so generously that to ask why to use is is some kind of a sakrileg.
Nowing all the possibilitys for some its realy possible to ask: So why to use such a place???

Because its one of the best places ive ever seen and I feel home

And questions are never stopping.
Why its the best place and why your are feeling home?
….
….
I don’t care!
You realy need to bother me and yourself with that questions?

Arent this place is giving you anything what you need to proceed in your moment?

If not: Why you are here? Go home!
If yes: Why you are deciding asking answered questions again and again and stop proceeding for that reason? I think you are here to have done things needed to be done? Go one and proceed in your way! Upstairs is a catalyst for almost any question apart from asking why upstairs? Again and again and again.

This place there its allowed and needed to ask questions about your work and not about the place itself. Ask how to connect rooms, to destill alcohol and where to hide it best within upstairs, how to make that this alcohol will reach the goal of changing a part of the world, why and how to help drowned African families, how to catch the moon with the branches of asian trees or perhaps how to print orange in a proper way.

Wake up and proceed in your way! That’s why you are here now, that’s why you came, that’s how this place can help you!

I go to paint…

See you upstairs

Jo

23 July 2009

Joanna to Upstairs63

I believe that in unstable conditions (undefined, not finished, not clear, open, in suspension), there are more possibilities.
A place of possibilities where new things can emerge; that is how I see Upstairs.
Emergency, as you all know by now, is a word that interests me a lot.
For me the state of emergency is really interesting for the amount of possibilities that it holds and for the presence of real-possible change.
By real change I mean something that can alter a whole system (always with the consciousness that a change can be good or bad).
A System can be anything. Nowadays when someone says this word we have the tendency to think about big systems, but I see also my work as a system, myself as one.
Generally speaking I think that it is easier to change a system if it is under unstable conditions, because in such conditions every act means something and can change the structures whereas in other conditions that small act, although meaningful, would just be integrated by the Systems structure and stability without leaving any trace.

I see in Upstairs a territory in State of Emergency and that’s why, from the beginning (one year ago) I started going up. Immediately when one goes in the space ideas come to mind, and, even if they are unclear, the feeling that something can be done is present and I value this feeling a lot.

I think that places in State of Emergency can be found everywhere, in a person, in a group, in a city, in my country, in other countries, but mostly they are avoided (at least in the societies where I have lived all my life). In my opinion they are avoided because suspension, structure less, open, and unstable conditions are not exactly the most comfortable ones, and therefore most people, or at least the ones I know, artists or not, have the tendency to stick with what is known, what is there already, built and working, It is difficult for some to deal with non-definition, although it is precisely the necessary ground to build something new.

Pretending not to see Emergency or just forgetting about this part of life to avoid the hard job of dealing with change and instability is for me an interesting theme, and in my work I try do deal with this questions.

This year I am also thinking about UPSTAIRS in wider terms. My condition is different, I am going to Brazil in some weeks and the discussion that we started, about the metaphor of a forgotten place, about the forgotten place in ourselves or forgotten in our society helped me to see a clear connection between the space itself (the 5th floor) but also other spaces, physical or not.

For me, working Upstairs (here or in Brazil) is a choice. Less than a necessity to fight a System is an attempt to cause instability in a System so that new ideas and connections can emerge and produce change (hopefully good ones).

see you
Jo

Valeria to Upstairs63

Upstairs has started as reaction

- to a situation of stagnation/acceptance of conditions given

Suspension instead of stagnation – action and reaction instead of acceptance.

Movement and change against A:P:A:T:H:Y: The story is shortly told at the beginning of the Blog.


I wanted this year that people coming to share and participate to Upstairs63 would be conscient about this, that's why we wrote a text and asked to apply, and I feel in our firsts meeting that we all agree on this position, that implies for me a tension that has to be lived not to die out of it. I would like this position to find a space both real and metaphorical (we started upstairs with this relation between bi dimensional and three dimensional, the book/the real space and I feel this is getting clearer now) .

- In the work developing in the fifth floor, some installations and drawing are growing, as a long term dialogue accepting the exploration process we described in the text, and metaphorical, the blog as a metaphorical floor and the work itself in its meaning and intentions, because I think only artists are meant to bring this two dimensions together and know that only in the dialogue between this dimension there is a possibility of understanding. I feel our world is loosing matter and contact to matter and we should be aware of this and work on this relation, starting by getting back to the high technology of the human body.

More spacifically the projects I am developing inUpstairs63 relate to the idea of open space as space in between agression and protection and suspension as condition betwen life and death, Joanna would say emergency condition. These concepts are strictly related to the fifth floor situation.

See you there. Valeria

19 July 2009

CHAPTER 3 - Welcome!


Today...
The Fifth floor was closed for a year; we have the new keys for 20 days (?).
The building is still not sold.
And here we are, in a sunny Sunday afternoon, coffee and cigarettes, writing the story for the ones arriving now to this space, closing the Third Chapter to start Upstairs63 and keep fighting against A.P.A.T.H.Y. around us.

Meet you tomorrow at 16:00