April 4-6, 2008
Future Game with Medard Gabel @ Taidehalli

"The world may need more than your love"

Welcome to solve the world's problems. All of them. In one day. YKON invites you to take part in a Future Game facilitated by renowned Medard Gabel. Saturday 5, April, 10.30-19.00. YKON will offer lunch and drinks.

The Future Game is part of YKON's first exhibition in Finland at Taidehalli, 4.4.-to 6.4. The artist group will give an overview of its recent international activities. Among the works included in the show are "Recognize Me!" – Micronations recognize Taiwan – produced for the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei and "M8-Singapore Summit of Micronation" commissioned by the Singapore Biennial 2006.

THE FUTURE GAME is a fast-paced multimedia simulation for 10 to 200 players that places you in charge of the future. The FutureGame - designed by BigPictureSmallWorld - is a modern variation of the famous WorldGame developed by Buckminster Fuller and Medard Gabel. Fullers idea was to create a subversive tool to "make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone."

MEDARD GABEL is the founder of BigPictureSmallWorld and the former Executive Director of the World Game Institute which he started with Buckminster Fuller. He is also known as the founder of the Encyclopaedia of World Problems Global Recall. In his work with Buckminster Fuller, he learned the power and utility of whole systems thinking, global perspectives and a good sense of humor. Gabel is the author of six books on global energy and food problems and solutions, environmentally sound planning methods, the global impact of multi-national corporations, and global sustainable economic development. He is for example auhtor of "Global Inc. - An Atlas of the Multinational Corporation."

YKON is an artist-run non-profit advocacy group for experimental countries and utopian thinkers. YKON evolved from the Amorph!03 Festival "Summit of Micronations" produced by Artists' Association MUU. The current members are Sasha Huber, Tellervo Kalleinen, Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Petri Saarikko and Tomas Träskman.

FRIDAY 4.4. 18:00-21:00
- Opening of the exhibition
- Q&A with Medard Gabel
- O-Samuli-A live @ the World
- Panoramic Sketches from the Betterlands by Ulu Braun
- World Karaoke
- Karkkitehtuuri
- Vodka Jelly & Hernekeitto

SATURDAY 5.4. 10:30-19:30
- Exhibition
- Future Game (registration info@ykon.org
- Lecture by Medard Gabel

SUNDAY 6.4. 12:00-17:00
- Exhibition
- 14:00 Guided Tour of the Exhibition with YKON
- 15:00 Screening "The Mouse that Roared" (1959, with Peter Sellers)
- Karkkitehtuuri

Poster for download...
Please reserve your place for the Saturday Game event:
Contact +358-50-3036702


The Project is kindly supported by Taidehalli and KIASMA.

March 20, 2008
BRIONI SUMMIT CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

FOR THE BRIONI TOP SUMMIT OF MICRONATIONS (AND OTHER ANTI-ANTI-UTOPIANS) HELD ON THE BRIONI ISLAND IN CROATIA IN THE YEAR 2013, YKON IS NOW CALLING FOR IDEAS, PROPOSALS, PAPERS, DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST (OR INDEPENDENCE), SECRET MESSAGES, ARCHITECTURAL PLANS, GOOD PRACTICES, LOVE LETTERS, HISTORIC TREATISES, AND OTHER DOCUMENTS FROM THE FUTURE.

We call YOU: peaceful mediators, psychedelic facilitators, social inventors, alien helpers, micronational achievers, autonomous space-invaders, co-operative bolo bolos, stealth designers, commited magicians, pensioned spies, utopian world-champions, transnational citizens, optimistic panarchists, light-hearted architects, participatory economists, libertarian municipalists, non-aligned revolutionaries, cross-disciplinary tinkerers, innocent visionaries, communal transcendentalists, voting-system plumbers, footnotes of history... and all those in search of the blueprints for the future.

WE INVITE YOU TO CREATE THE BRIONI SUMMIT OF MICRONATIONS TOGETHER WITH US!


Download the Call for Participation...

January 29, 2008
YKON at Conspire / Transmediale 2008

In Transmediale 08, Festival for art and digital culture in Berlin, YKON joins forces with a number of cross-disciplinary tinkerers, utopian spelunkers, conspiratorial hoaxsters and stealth tacticians who question, subvert, undermine and bypass the unspoken rules, hidden codes of conduct and assumed truths entrenched within our information driven communication cultures and ideological belief structures. The name of the exhibition, that focuses on the strategic notion of the conspiratorial act is CONSPIRE, and it is curated by Natasa Petresin-Bachelez. link...

May 31, 2007
The Future of Welfare

YKON will have a short appearance at the open air campo event with the wonderful title: "The Future of Welfare"
Campo di Santa Margherita, Dorsoduro, Venice
On Saturday 9th of June, 2007 at 8 – 11 pm

May 15, 2007
YKON at the G8 Summit 2007

YKON is invited to join ART GOES HEILIGENDAMM. This project responds to the challenge of going to the places where the social movements are, in order to interact with the different participants. The art interventions are intended to allow a "permeability” of action and perception between forms of presentation and representation in art and social movements. The intention of the project is to bridge the gap between the perception of pros and cons, of black and white. It is a matter of permeability and "growth of the present". Art works conceived during the former G8 summits have, until now, almost exclusively been shown within the art context. link...

May 10, 2007
FRAMEWORKS issue 7 presents YKON

In this special issue for the Nordic Pavilion Exhibition at the Venice Biennale 2007 Frameworks puts nationality in context. Framworks asks itself and the rest of the world a difficult question: could the Biennale grow into an antidote of uncontrollable globalization, turning into a sort of preserve that takes care of the positive aspects of national identities? link...

April 28, 2007
M8 – YKON’s “cult video” in Hongkong

The festival, Le French May (19-28.05.2008), that is described as “one of the most important art festivals in Hong Kong”, celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. YKON participates in the exhibition “Our Voices” with the film M8. “Don’t miss the cult video M8 by YKON”, says the organizers. We say, “WOW Thank You !" link...

April 18, 2007
YKON at Palais de Tokyo

On Wednesday 18th of April YKON will do a presentation followed by a screening of the film M8 in Palais de Tokyo. This event is done in collaboration with the Pixelache Festival 2007 in Paris. link...

February 1, 2007
YKON goes French!

YKON present their works and operations in four different locations this spring. Palais de Tokyo, the Finnish Institute in Paris, Main D’Ouvre and Le French May in Hongkong, all host this artist group from Finland. In one of the most prominent of art institutions in France, Palais de Tokyo, YKON, joins forces with a number of artists in the exhibition “News from the upside Down” (01.02-06.05.2007).

February 1, 2007
YKON joins Mal au Pixel

In a new manifestation of their work, YKON, again in collaboration with the Pixelache Festival will present a Roadmap of their activities in the Finnish Institute in Paris in the exhibition “YKON: Roadside Picnic in Paris.” At the same time the film M8 will be screened at Main D’Ouvre. link...

December 6, 2006
Dreamlands Burn in Budapest

YKON presents a documentation of its current work at "Dreamlands Burn" at the Kunsthalle Budapest. In this exhibition the organizers attempt to offer a contemporary reading of the complex artistic reality of Northern Europe with the help of various concepts – nation, identity, statehood, personal versus public, the question of communities, etc –, metaphors and thoughts, and their overlapping or parallel representations. link...

December 1, 2006
YKON goes to Antarctica

In Pist Protta Atlas, YKON presents its explorations on Antarctica. Walking in the footsteps of Edgar Allan Poe, YKON does a mapping of micronations and other utopias on Antarctica, and inside the earth. link...

November 27, 2006
Micronations recognize Taiwan!

On November 27, the non-profit advocacy group YKON revealed that it has been secretly negotiating with a number of Microstates and Micronations on full recognition of the sovereignty and independence. The proposals are being presented to the public at MOCA Taipei between December 2 and February 4, 2006. Taiwanese citizens can also express their support for negotiations with the Group of Ten by signing a petition on display at MOCA. [A BIG “thank You” from YKON to Manray Hsu and Maren Richter¡] link...

September 3, 2006
YKON at the IMF/ World Bank meetings in Suntex City

M8, an installation created by YKON for the Singapore Biennale, looks at Singapore with reference to the utopias of the micronations. What is the utopia reflected in and by Singapore? M8 - Summit of Micronations, Singapore, 2006
YKON's film and installation present fragments from the M8 summit convened by the artists and hosted by Singapore. link...

February 3, 2006
Sign Up! Travel with YKON.

Sign up for a "Micronations Manifesting in Berlin"-tour with the Micronation Travelling Agency. The idea of the tours is to extend the topic of Micronations with the surroundings of the gallery space and to locate and to pin point related phenomena in Berlin. Seats are limited! link...