January 19, 2012
YKON plays Baltic Games at Brut / Vienna

YKON invites people from Vienna join the YKON GAME, a beautifully bizarre journey & collective attempt to alter the World. Instead of solving the common problems that we are facing, The YKON GAME seeks to uncover the ideas that we haven’t payed attention to yet – ideas that are sometimes wonderful & sometimes terrifying. Other thoughts that could forever alter the world & the way we live in it.

The YKON GAME is based on a simple thought experiment: Imagine that the world is brought to a complete halt. Everything stops. No more business as usual. Everyone has to consider a new way for things to be. With the world being frozen, you &your fellow players can tinker with the world as you please. What will you change? How do you convince others to go along with your changes? And what about the consequences?

Through the 1960’s architect &utopian thinker, Buckminster Fuller developed the “World Game”. It was his master plan for our planet Earth. A tool that would formulate a comprehensive design & science approach to all the problems of the world. Inspired by Fuller’s vision we have taken its core ideas & developed a contemporary, poetic & YKONic version to provide a new perspective on the future of our world.

YKON GAME

Ort: Kunstlerhaus Brut
During "Baltic Games"
Datum: THU 19.01 & SAT 21.01. 2012.

Start: 19.00-22.00
Eintritt: 6 €

"Bring your friends, your colleagues, your aunt... you do not need to be an expert: Everybody is welcome to change the world"

Info+Tickets: http://www.brut-wien.at/programm/detail/675/de/

September 12, 2011
YKON takes part in Mercosul Bienial - Geopoetica, Porto Alegre

Within the framework of the 8th Mercosul Biennale dedicated to the topic of "Geopoetics", YKON presents two pieces, the "YKON game" and a new work "The Flag Piece" commissioned by the Biennale.

For "The Flag Piece" all the 204 Flags of UN-recognized countries where cut into their single color elements and symbols (Stars, Moons, Eagles..). In collaboration with a local seamstress cooperative the elements were re-united into a giant single transnational flag (915 cm x 480 cm). The flag is accompanied by a selection of international flag laws and stories about flag desecration.

YKON game was developed 2009 - inspired by Buckminster Fuller´s World Game. YKON GAME – also nominated for the DMY Berlin Design Festival prize 2011– is a beautifully bizarre journey and collective attempt to alter the World. Instead of solving the common problems that we are facing, The YKON GAME seeks to uncover the ideas that we haven’t payed attention to yet – ideas that are sometimes wonderful and sometimes terrifying – other thoughts that could forever alter the world and the way we live in it. YKON developed for the Mercosul Biennale a new version of the YKON-game. The game will be played daily throughout the biennale in a special constructed geodesic dome.

About the Mercosul Bienal

Entitled Essays on Geopoetics, the 8th edition is concerned with territoriality and its critical redefinition from an art standpoint. It will bring together 105 artists from 31 countries that develop relevant works regarding the notions of country, nation, identity.

The exhibition has 7 parts, the main exhibition is held under the title Geopoetics, presenting works and artists that question the notion of nationality.
Another part of the biennial, entitled Travel Notebooks – features artistic expeditions to nine regions of Rio Grande do Sul between April and August.

The 8ª Mercosul Biennial will be open from September 10th to November 15th 2011.

http://www.bienalmercosul.art.br

June 30, 2011
YKON at 37 Manifestos in Berlin



37 MANIFESTOS - How to become collective in four easy lessons.

10. bis 21. Juli 2011, Eröffnung 9. Juli 2011
Forum Factory, Besselstraße 13-14, Berlin

Artists Anonymous, Berg26, Club Real, Edition Taube, FAMED, Familie Kartenrecht, Klub7+44flavours=MAUER51, ligna, Nos Restes, REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT, Transidency, VIP, YKON, Zentrum für politische Schönheit.

Kuratiert von random relevance (Susanne Husse, Jana Sotzko und Komplizen)

Das Kollektiv ist zurück. Geteiltes Wissen, gemeinsames Handeln, vernetztes Arbeiten, Selbstorganisation und Kollaboration haben Einzug in Kunst, Kultur, Wirtschaft und Politik gehalten. Durch die weltweite Gründungswelle künstlerischer und kreativer Kollektive seit Mitte der 90er Jahre erfahren kollektive Arbeits- und Lebensformen wachsende Bedeutung. Während Strategien der Kollaboration neue künstlerische Wirkungsfelder in Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft eröffnen, lassen sich aktuelle Kollektivierungstendenzen auch als möglicher Gegenentwurf zu den gesellschaftlichen Mustern von Vereinzelung, Prekarität und Konkurrenz lesen.

Die Ausstellung 37 MANIFESTOS fragt nach gegenwärtigen Formen und Bedeutungen von Kollektivität in der Kunst. Die Vorstellung von gemeinschaftlicher Produktion als Prozess zwischen utopischem Handeln und ökonomischer Notwendigkeit dient als Ausgangspunkt für vier miteinander verknüpfte Annäherungen – einfache Lektionen in Kollektivität:

1 have an idea
2 invite others - share
3 form, storm, norm and perform
4 document - write a manifesto

June 1, 2011
YKON at DMY festival in Berlin

The YKON GAME will be presented at this years DMY International Design Festival in Berlin and is nominated for the DMY Award: "Das YKON Künstler-Kollektiv hat ein Spiel für ca. 30 – 50 Teilnehmer entworfen, das darauf abzielt, globale Ideen zu entwickeln, die verborgen geblieben sind: mal wunderbare, mal erschreckende Gedanken, die das Leben für immer verändern könnten."

Open Helsinki: YKON Game Intro & YKON Game
YKON artist collective has created a world simulation game for up to 30 -50 players. Day 1 and 2. Every hour, you can enter the world, the attic of make–believe, trough fragments, small teasers, of the YKON Game. The full version of the YKON game will be played on the third day of DMY Festival, in a hitherto unknown location. Instead of solving existing problems, the game seeks to uncover ideas that we’re still missing – sometimes wonderful, sometimes terrifying thoughts that could forever alter the world.

YKON Intro Thursday & Friday 11:00-21:00 No registration needed

YKON Game Saturday 13:00 – 18:00 –> Showroom 2

Registration for the game: workshop@dmy-berlin.com before 3.6. max. 30 participants

December 6, 2010
YKON in Brasil

YKON prepares a new meeting of micronations in Brasil at an yet undisclosed location. Updates will follow soon.

June 12, 2010
YKON Game in Paris at Mal Au Pixel

We invite you to play a game with us on the 20th june at Eof Galery from 14h to 19h.

The YKON Game is a world simulation game for up to 30 players. It's based on a simple thought experiment: imagine that the world is brought to a complete halt. Everything stops. No more business as usual. With the world frozen, you and your fellow players can tinker with it as you please. What will you change? How do you convince others to go along with your changes? And what about the consequences?

Through the 1960's, Buckminster Fuller was developing the "World Game". It was to be his masterplan for the planet Earth: a tool that would formulate a comprehensive, design science approach to all the problems of the world. Inspired by the ideas of Fuller, we have developed the YKON Game, a more poetic perspective on the future of our world.

Instead solving the problems that we know, The YKON Game seeks to uncover the ideas that we're still missing -- sometimes wonderful, sometimes terrifying thoughts that could forever alter the world, and the way we live in it. For its players, the game poses an existential challenge: they will have to think about what kind of world they truly want.

So come and change the world. You don't need to be an expert: everyone is welcome.

For more details check the YKON GAME F.A.Q.

Date and location
Sunday June 20th 2010, from 2 to 7pm

@ EOF GALLERY
15 rue Saint Fiacre - Paris 2
M° Grands Boulevards
http://eof5.free.fr/

Registration
Free entrance on registration, contact : info@ykon.org
The game is run in English and French. It will be played from 2 to 7, then a debriefing and friendly food & drinks break before the Mal au Pixel opening event. The proposed scenarios will be documented and added to the Ykon Game corpus (already 9 parties so far).

We are seeking for different kind of participants: gamers, teenagers, artists, social transformation thinkers and activists, or people curious about it…

April 22, 2010
The 2013 Brioni Summit of Micronations and Utopian Thinkers – Preview

Monday 3rd of May, 6 pm @ Dubrovnik (Eerikinkatu 11)

GUESTS
Davor Miskovic (Drugo More - The Other Sea, Rijeka)
Lina Dzuverovic (Electra, London)
Irene Revell (Electra, London)

SPECIAL GUEST
Georg Zoche (Transnational Republic)

YKON welcomes you to an evening introducing the preliminary plans for the Summit of Micronations and Utopian thinkers, which will take place at Brioni Islands (Croatia) in 2013. The evening includes presentations of the co-organisers of the Summit: Drugo More and Electra.

Special guest Georg Zoche - co-founder of Transnational Republic - will present his latest book "WORLD-POWER-MONEY" tackling the systemic relationship between currencies, political power, war and crisis. Zoche furthermore offers a perspective on the question: What could replace the US-dollar after its apparent decline as world key currency?


DRUGO MORE - THE OTHER SEA
Drugo more is a non profit organisation based in Rijeka, Croatia. Founded in 1999, Drugo More integrates art, culture, theory and policy actions in the local context of the Adriatic region. The organization develops alternative visions and models for the cultural development of the region.

Davor Miskovic is the president of Drugo more, part-time lecturer at the Faculty of Philosophy in Rijeka and president of the Clubture Network. He worked at the Faculty of Science and Croatian Ministry of Culture. He curated and organized numerous cultural events, conferences and educational programs

www.drugo-more.hr


ELECTRA
Electra is a London based contemporary art agency established in 2003, which specializes in curating, commissioning and producing ambitious cross-disciplinary projects. Electra curated Momentum 2009, 5th Nordic Biennial of Contemporary Art 'Favoured Nations' and commissioned numerous works, for example Reverse Karaoke, a project by Kim Gordon and Jutta Koether.

Lina Dzuverovic is the co-founder and Director of Electra. Formerly Lina was New Media Curator at London's ICA; prior to this she worked for The Wire magazine, Mute magazine and The Lux Centre.

Irene Revell works as curator and producer at Electra. Previously she worked and volunteered for small music charities Share Music and COMA (Contemporary Music-Making for Amateurs), and has a background in the DIY music scene, promoting gigs and festivals such as the Bring Yourself Fest.

www.electra-productions.com


TRANSNATIONAL REPUBLIC
The Transnational Republic is a political grassroots experiment to establish a democratic system of citizen representation within globalization. It was founded in 1996. Transnational Republic took part as delegates to the First Summit of Micronations in Helsinki 2003.

Georg Zoche is co-founder of the First Transnational Republic. Within this project his attention was brought to the question of currencies: What is the political role of currencies within globalisation? In which way do nation states use their currencies as political tools to exercise power? The astonishing findings to the questions mentioned above were published in book form in 2009 as "Welt-Macht-Geld". (World-Power-Money)

Exciting, entertaining and knowledgeable this book deals about the power of money. Zoche is reporting unheard-of facts and wouldn't his book be loaded with some 300 references to supporting documents, one would be tempted to take it for a fantastic fairy tale:
* 1944, during the Bretton Woods conference, the US clandestinely changed the wording of the conference documents, thus rendering the US-dollar world key currency and the US world super power. When Great Britain called foul and protested against this fraud, it was coerced by the USA under enormous pressure to the ratification of the agreement.
* During the past six decades, the USA took advantage of the privileged role of their currency, financing their political interests e.g. the wars in Vietnam and Iraq by externalising their costs on the rest of the world.
* To finance the war in Iraq, the Federal Reserve deliberately chose the hazardous gamble of fueling a housing boom thereby pushing the world into the biggest financial crisis of all times.

But Zoche not only explains the coherence between war and crisis, illuminating where and how the money disappeared. His book also offers a perspective on the question that is now coming to the forefront: What could replace the US-dollar after its apparent decline as world key currency? Reading about the British plan which was defeated in 1944, even die-hard economists will be flabbergasted: Keynes had envisioned a world economy free of interest, with a new global currency based on barter (instead of credit), thereby maintaining the equilibrium between the nation states.

www.transnationalrepublic.org
www.weltmachtgeld.de

December 14, 2009
YKON-GAME played for the first time in Iceland

We invite you to play a game with us on Saturday, December 19 at Hafnarhusid from 12:00 to 17:00.

The YKON Game is a world simulation game for up to 30 players. It's based on a simple thought experiment: imagine that the world is brought to a complete halt. Everything stops. No more business as usual. With the world frozen, you and your fellow players can tinker with it as you please. What will you change? How do you convince others to go along with your changes? And what about the consequences?

Through the 1960's, Buckminster Fuller was developing the "World Game". It was to be his masterplan for the planet Earth: a tool that would formulate a comprehensive, design science approach to all the problems of the world. Inspired by the ideas of Fuller, we have developed the YKON Game, a more poetic perspective on the future of our world.

Instead solving the problems that we know, The YKON Game seeks to uncover the ideas that we're still missing -- sometimes wonderful, sometimes terrifying thoughts that could forever alter the world, and the way we live in it. For its players, the game poses an existential challenge: they will have to think about what kind of world they truly want.

So come and change the world. You don't need to be an expert: everyone is welcome.

For more details check the YKON GAME F.A.Q.

Time
SATURDAY, December 19
12:00 – 17:00

Location
Hafnarhusid
Tryggvagat 17
Reykjavik

Contact/Info/RSVP
info@ykon.org

December 8, 2009
YKON in Iceland

Four members of YKON have arrived to Iceland to spent some time in Reykjavik at the SIM artist residency. For YKON the current situation in Iceland is of special interest; the group will facilitate a new version of the YKON game hoping to generate amazing ideas for desperate times.

i f you want to get to know YKON, the groups members and some of their solo projects, please join us to a relaxed get together:

Welcome to the YKON Dart Evening at CIA and SIM headquarters
with Ulu Braun, Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Pekko Koskinen
and Tomas Träskman

INTERACTIVE, ENTERTAINING, DEEP

Overwhelming variety of programs! Throw your darts to choose!

++ Westcoast - panoramic video collage of a mystic collapsing water world (anime)
++ Complaints Choirs Worldwide - see the latest efforts of complainers from around the globe (vids)
++ Reality Gaming - play with real life! (live)
++ I Love My Job - horror stories from the wonderful world of work (vids)
++ Hot Potatoes (the forbidden fruit of the 21st century) - a brief report from the Helsinki Design week (live)
++ Dreamland - Dreams (or Nightmares) of Finnish people in which their President makes an appearance (vids)
++ Santa Clause is Stupid - Finnish Kids complain (ids)
++ Question-Answer-Question session (live)
++ Summit of Micronations - brief intro the the Helsinki Summit 2003 and the future Summit in 2013 at Brioni (spoken word)
++ Ykon Game - a short Introduction to the game's development
++ YKON members family pictures (slide-show)
++ free beer (until resources are exhausted) (live)
++ and much more…

Friday December 11, start 19:30, open end
SIM/CIA
Hafnarstræti 16

October 1, 2009
YKON - game MINE-YOURS-OURS Festival in Rijeka / Croatia

The YKON Game is a world simulation game for up to 30 players. It's based on
a simple thought experiment: imagine that the world is brought to a complete halt. Everything stops. No more business as usual. With the world frozen, you and your fellow players can tinker with it as you please. What will you change? How do you convince others to go along with your changes? And what about the consequences?

Through the 1960's, Buckminster Fuller was developing the “World Game”. It was to be his masterplan for the planet Earth: a tool that would formulate a comprehensive, design science approach to all the problems of the world. Inspired by the ideas of Fuller, we have developed the YKON Game, a more poetic perspective on the future of our world.

Instead solving the problems that we know, The YKON Game seeks to uncover the ideas that we're still missing -- sometimes wonderful, sometimes terrifying thoughts that could forever alter the world, and the way we live in it. For its players, the game poses an existential challenge: they will have to think about what kind of world they truly want.

So come and change the world. You don't need to be an expert: everyone is welcome.

Time
FRIDAY, October 16
18:30- 24:00

Location
Molekula
Delta 5
51000 Rijeka

Contact/Info/ RSVP
info@ykon.org

August 29, 2009
YKON -game at subvision survives rain and thunder storm

Despite the most harsh weather conditions imaginable the YKON game was played relocating the game several times. After initial confusion 8 players were crammed in a standrad 20 feet container developing various scenarios; one group named HAPPY WORKERS tested the idea of basic income in relation to democratically decided upper/lower limits for wages per workhour. This scheme was accompanied by a global social service in which workers would spent 4 weeks of their work life per year in work places outside of their original profession.

Here you can see a few images from the game in Hamburg. Thanks to all players for their endurance.

August 26 - September 6, 2009
Join the YKON Game - at Subvision Art Festival in Hamburg

Are you facing annihilation? Join YKON and other uncommon comrades in arms for a day of speculative scenario development and alternate future writing.

The YKON Game is a world simulation for up to 30 players. We put the world “on hold” for 6 years. You can tinker with it as you please. What will you change? How can you seduce others to go along with your changes?

This game will uncover the daring, breathtaking, sometimes wonderful, sometimes terrifying thoughts that could forever alter the world, and the way we live in it. The game process will reveal uncertainties of the presence and open up lateral thinking about the future at the same time.

The YKON Game was inspired by the World Game by Buckminster Fuller and reminds some people of Douglas Adams´ equally famous Restaurant at the End of the Universe. The game was developed in a collaboration with Pekko Koskinen.

Welcome! Bring your friends, your colleagues, your aunt ...you do not need to be an expert: everyone is welcome.

Time
Saturday August 29 from 3 to 9 pm

Location
Subvision Festival
Strandkai.Hafencity.Hamburg.Germany
presented at the containers of Sparwasser HQ

Contact/Info/ RSVP