Expertbase 0.7 [expert-paper, printed]

the story starts in may 2000 with the slogan 'everyone is an expert' as a spontaneous comment to the speech by german chancellor G. Schröder at the CeBIT [a commercial computer fair in Hannover]. He was proclaiming that, if its wanted to be able to maintain its first class standing and prosperity under the conditions of globalization, Germany was in need of hightechÜexperts form abroad, needed to open its borders to 'useful immigration' and had to devellop a more open mind to other lifestyles.

Reacting to this remarkable speach, activists connected to the network 'no one is illegal' pointed out the autonomy of migration, the migrants right to move to the prosperous countries in the world and described their backgrounds, flight-routes and the situation in the countries of departure. This resulted in the produion of a newspaper for the 4. antiracist bordercamp in Frankfurt am Main [Germany] that was intended to spark a discussion baout these issues within the left. In addition we started with that slogan a number of diverse crossover projects that were intended to underline the demand for freedom of movement and universal access in the social space. One of these projects is the expertbase...

Some texts from the expertpaper are available in english on this website: 'ghosts', 'autonomy', 'go west' and 'new actonomy'. You can also download the entire expertpaper in german as a pdf file

Expertbase 1.0 [make-world festival, october 2001, munich]

The first real version of the expertbase was presented in the context of the make-world festival that took place in munich in october 2001, where the project was running as a test version. The expertbase itself was realized as a web-based database application that allows persons who are kept out of the official labor market to publicize their knowledge and skills and thus to archive a social respect systematically denied to them by institutions and the economy. Anyone wishing to use the expertbase has the opportunity to input multimedia files or fill out a digital self-portrait without regard of his or her 'usefulness', 'value' or legal status. Every registered expert gets a free and anonymous email address '...@expertbase.net' that can be used for further communication.

In Munich the expertbase was presented embedded in an installation that was showed during and after the festival in a gallery space. The installation, realized in cooperation with artist Shu Lea Cheang and photographer Armin Smailovic, embedded the expertbase in the symbols of a typical labor office. Elements of the offline installation can be found in the interface design of the web application. In order to enter information into the expertbase one had to take a ticket and wait until the ticket number was displayed on a lcd-display above the computer terminals. This synchronization between public space an netspace was abandoned after the end of the exhibition, but the expertbase remained accessible via on the internet.

The expertbase's possibilities, limitations and strategies of use were discussed during in the expertlounge which was held on saturday evening bringing together antiracist activists, artists, researchers and union activists. The results of this discussion can be found here.

Expertbase 1.3 [BIG social game, april/may 2002, torino]

The second real world installation of the expertbase was to take place in the context of the 'biennale internazionale arte giovane' ['international biennial of young art'] in Torino, Italy [big torino 2002]. For this ocassion the expertbases' interface was slightly changed to make the expertbase accessible in multiple languages [english and italian]. Also the startpage was re-designed taking up a the theme of an already existing 'analogue expertbase' that we found in the courtyard of the foreigners office in torino

We had been invited to torino to install the expertbase in torino as part of what the organizers of the exhibition had called 'BIG social game'. In order to adapt the expertbase to the specific situation in torino [and encouraged to do so by the concept of the exhibition] we had been to torino twice in order to prepare the installation and. During these visits we noticed that we had come to torino in politically turbulent times. One of the issues that brought people to the streets was the pending introduction of new immigration legislation, the so-called 'bossi-fini-law'

The expertbase torino followed two-tired approach: we wanted to install public access terminals in four different locations in the city [a phone center, the fish marked, an unused kiosk in the city center and in the back of an old three-wheeler]. at the same time we were establishing contacts to migrants organizations and support groups in order to reach potential experts. Additionally we had produced a newspaper wherein we introduced and explained the expertbase. [You can download the newspaper as a pdf file here (page1) and here (page2)

One day after the opening of the exhibition we were asked by the direction to remove the sentence 'basta con belosconi, bossi e fini!' from the newspaper and to stop distributing stickers with the slogan. when we refused this, we were removed from the exhibition [for a more detailed description of this controversy see here]

While this made an end to our public installations and our stay in torino and thus kept us from finding ou if how the expertbase worked in the different environments we had installed it in, this episonde also taught us to avoid being completely dependend on the infrastructure of future exibitions. However we still managed to host the world expert forum in the forum of the exhibition. During this forum we introduced and explained the expertbase. We also discussed the attempt to censor our work and our subsequent removal form the exhibition there.

The next day we went to a demonstration, where we finally found lots of wonderfull people who to publicly supported our slogan. thanks!