Journey into the future?
a real-time mockumentary
After a system crash, a time traveller lands in the middle of Chemnitz in full space gear. There, the strange guest with the technical identification ‘KM-02’ and a striking resemblance to Karl Marx meets artists and cultural figures who are campaigning for the city to become the European Capital of Culture. The space odyssey ‘KOSMOS CHEMNITZ – Journey into the Future?’ tells the story of the recent past and the metamorphosis of a city that had to survive a ‘system crash’ on its way from the old Karl-Marx-Stadt to the Chemnitz of the post-reunification years.
Now available in the ARD media library and on 15 May at 10.40 p.m. on MDR television.
In the midst of preparations, a guest arrives whom no one in Chemnitz had anticipated. Wearing a helmet and a space suit, he suddenly appears in front of the futuristic bus station. A mirage that cannot be dismissed.
KARL, technical designation KM-02, has survived a system crash, just like the city. Confused by the nature of his landing and what awaits him in Chemnitz, he sets out to find the nearest spaceport and discovers – against his will – a city full of contradictions, fractures and surprises.
The fact that the city was chosen in 1964 to be the headquarters of a cosmonaut centre opens many doors for KM-02. Especially since this historic site, where tens of thousands of pioneers proved their cosmonaut skills, is supposed to still be in operation.
On the way there, he ends up in garage courtyards, an ice sports centre and, almost inevitably, at the Karl Marx monument. KM-02 bears unmistakable similarities to this city landmark and is anything but impressed by this giant bronze ‘Nischel’.
The fact that he nevertheless feels at home in this Saxon industrial metropolis, once christened ‘Karl-Marx-Stadt’, is mainly due to those who welcomed him here with open arms. People who also played a key role in ensuring that Chemnitz’s bid to become Capital of Culture was successful.
Among them is Joerg Fieback, whose advertising agency Zebra created the acclaimed bid book. Or Kai Winkler, the initiator of the European Peace Ride, who rediscovered the great legacy of the Peace Ride, which had been lost since 2005, and at the same time created something completely new.
KARL’s journey takes us from the 35-metre-high rocket tip in Chemnitz’s Küchwald forest to deep underground to the ‘Bazillenröhre’ (bacillus tube), where Kraftklub once shot their phenomenal music video ‘Schüsse in die Luft’ (Shots in the Air). And in general, the pop culture cosmos of Chemnitz is playing an increasingly important role in this special kind of space odyssey.
Inevitably so. For it was only thanks to this lively and politically alert cultural scene that the city was able to counter the most recent low point in its history, which attracted worldwide attention: the hostile takeover of the city centre by thousands of right-wing extremists over several days.
The ‘Wir sind Mehr’ festival, with 65,000 people, was the best possible democratic response and marked the birth of an event that continues to shape the city’s culture and politics to this day: the Kosmos Festival.
KM-02 finds out how it came about and what role the city’s bands, cultural institutions and clubs played in it from some of the protagonists, such as former Kosmos Festival director Julia Voigt and the city’s most exciting newcomer band, Power Plush. Having grown up in the legendary Club Atomino, they are now continuing the Chemnitz tradition of experimental dream and music cosmos journeys (AG Geige) that was created there.
It is this do-it-yourself mode of the independent scene, its partly playful, anarchic energy and enormous transformative power that increasingly captivate Kosmonaut Karl. And slowly give him a new sense of grounding. Enough, in the end, to dare to try an experiment.
