Slime Currency & Bohemian Conversationalists: Berlin Collective Comes to NYC

With all the talk of Berlin being the “new New York” it’s nice to see Berliners claiming a little bit of NYC for themselves. This past Saturday at Wyoming House, The Goethe Institut’s hip new downtown outpost, Berlin-based socialist-capitalist joint venture Zentrale Intelligenz Agentur (ZIA) transformed the 3rd street storefront into a makeshift employment center, complete with fake job applications, career counseling, a form of payment known as “slime currency” (a greenish goo which could be exchanged for beer or prizes) or actual US Dollars. What were some of the tasks delegated to job seekers? Some of the most popular included “Bohemian conversationalist”, “lone beer drinker”, and “task shirker”. Once participants were handed a position they were given an area to complete it in and checked on and evaluated regularly- just like with any “normal” job. This event was part of a weekend long series entitled Slow Capitalism, put on by the collective and the Goethe Institut to raise awareness of how our culture, economy, and the individual’s role in it, effects the world around us.

Friday night’s event “Faster, Capitalism! Kill Kill!” was a parody of how we (western capitalist democracies) have let a desire for material goods and wealth fuel our society and value system. ZIA have tried to replicate this idea in a microcosm, as explained in their press release: “Join the Slime Economy: Swap your greenbacks for a pot of Slime currency and start speculating! Waste it on drinks at the bar or try to make a slimy fortune at the casino. But watch out: when the Federal Slime Reserve floods the market with vast quantities of freshly minted slime, the bubble will certainly burst.” Some of the anti-establishment events also included a PowerPoint karaoke contest and slide show.

The event was part of a recent trend of arts and multi-media collaborative functions like the Unemployment Olympics – meant to not just console those who have recently been affected by the economic downturn, but also to put their misfortune into a sociological context, and make them think about the nature of the systems of finance we have put into place.

Wyoming House, and it’s fellow downtown Goethe outpost Ludlow 38, have recently been putting out consistently good events and lectures including the recent Reinventing Goethe Series featuring internationally acclaimed sound artist Carsten Nicolai, and also held an installation by multimedia adventurist Michaela Melián. These events have been bridging the gap between German and American artists, writers, theorists, and intellectuals, and introducing New Yorkers to international creatives that otherwise may have missed their cultural radar. Perhaps someday soon we’ll all be calling downtown Manhattan the new Berlin.