Utopian World Championship News

The opening ceremony of the third UWC at the Knot

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:04:51 +0100

The inflatable, colorful "elephants" of the Knot were beautifully lit up by the sun, as it was starting its descent behind Kopa Cwila, when the opening ceremony for the third Utopian World Championship started on 7:30 pm Saturday July 4, 2010. It was indeed the most beautiful setting for this short but intense event that lasted around 15 minutes. I started my opening speech at the foot of the hill and moved slowly upwards towards the Knot, switching between a wireless microphone and a megaphone, keeping in contact with Markus Bader at the top of the hill, while making announcements to the audience at the top of the hill, passers-by and park-dwellers. I declared the third UWC officially opend when I arrived at one of the hilltops and it was followed by a rain of confetti and delicious snacks made by the Knot´s cooking unit. The third Utopian World Championship was finally underway, on the track. Again. It was a great feeling.

A few hours before this event the website opened for registration, which means that you can now submit your e-mail adress if you are and interested participant. We will get back to you when the competition proceeds with further instructions. We ask you to have patience since it may take a while until the next phase continues. We are only in the beginning of the process at this moment and we look forward to an inspiring and adventourus journey into new, uncharted utopian territories.

You are of course warmly welcome to participate, and join our journey, our quest for Utopia.

Photos from top:

1. Overview of Kopa Cwila
2. The UWC Helpdesk
3. Preparation of Utopian banquet food
4. The opening banquet

Photos from the opening ceremony at Facebook

Workshop frenzy

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:04:51 +0100

The last days the Knot has been boiling with a workshop frenzy that amazes me. Its a level of frenzy which is only matched by the kids that fervently jump around in the white ball-filled play-landscape.

A series of structures are now being built in and around the Knot by the three workshop groups. At the foot of this beautiful hill the group led by Anders and Erik from Testbedstudio has created a big football pitch that cuts through the existing park. A tower is being built at the very top of the hill by another group led by Peter Fattinger and the group led by the guys from Office for Subversive Architecture have fenced off a very small area in the slope in a comment to the neighbouring gated community.

I have myself started to build a desk in the slope, which will serve as a slightly absurd information desk for the UWC while I am here. Meanwhile I am producing information materials of various forms and shapes for the announcement of the third UWC on Saturday evening.

Another event in which I am participating that is coming up at the Knot, is ´Reading for Art Workers´ on thursday night, which includes a chapter from Manuel de Landas book ´A new Philosophy of Society´, which is a critique, as far as I understand, of the idea that a there is such a thing as a society as a whole. It is going to be very interesting to participate not the least because Utopian writing tend to be narrations of just such holistic societal models.

UWC at Ursynow: Presentations and preparations

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:04:51 +0100

This is the first in a series of blog posts from the Utopian World Championship´s presence at the Knot in Ursynów, Warsaw, Poland during the period June 22-July 4, 2010.

The sun finally pushed back the dark clouds over Warsaw, all of a sudden bringing the Knot into summer mode. The inflatable structures on the top of Kopa Cwila hill in Ursynów, a suburb to Warsaw which has an interesting history in itself as being an experiment in architecture, which apparently was quite unique for its time.

The Knot is, as is stated on the website knotland.org, a mobile platform for artistic presentation and production, traveling to Berlin, Warsaw and Bucharest in 2010. In each of the three cities, it stops for a few weeks, inhabiting different areas of public space, and offering itself as an open space of encounter, exchange and experimentation. It is curated by a group of German, Polish and Romanian architects and curators.

I am here presenting and representing the Utopian World Championship in a working week which will end in the announcement of the third U.W.C. I am not kidding you, it is time again, after five years of low-level activity, to start a new round in this global competition for all you utopians who wish to test your thinking and compete for the first prize of 1000 Euro.

More information is about to be released about this event soon on this web page The best way to keep yourself informed is of course to add our news feed to your feedreader of choice.

Read more

Knotland.org

The Utopian World Championship at the Knot

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:04:51 +0100

THE KNOT is a mobile platform for artistic presentation and production, traveling to Berlin, Warsaw and Bucharest in 2010. In each of the three cities, it stops for a few weeks, inhabiting different areas of public space, and offering itself as an open space of encounter, exchange and experimentation.

The Utopian World Championship will participate in the Knot when it stops in Ursynów, Warsaw, June 22-July 4, where Jon Brunberg will present the project in several ways. There will be daily, public, readings from the participating essays and seminars with the Knot´s inhabitants. In a concluding, public event the third Utopian World Championship will be officially announced, and the website open for registration of participants. The two hitherto awarded essays in the revised edition of 2009 will be available. The championship aims to promote the idea about the good society (eu-topos) at all levels of society, and the edition is an important part of that work. A part of it is earmarked for Heads of State all over the world, including the Acting President of Poland, to whom copies will be delivered during the week.

The Utopian W.C. in 2009: Facing a New Day

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:04:51 +0100

You could say that 2009 was the year that the Utopian World Championship woke up from a long sleep, shook her head, wiped the grains out of her eyes and and started a new day with a strong cup of coffee.

We were really in need of a break in 2005 after the second Utopian W.C. Gala, mainly because the artist group SOC.Stockholm, which arranged the championship at that time, was in disarray and on its way to disband. Me and my colleague Annika Drougge thus took the sole responsibility of managing the project. It was after all our baby. But the process of disbanding SOC took almost two years and by the time we were through that phase we had a lot of other things on our hands. The project went into deep sleep.

The first sign of an awakening came in 2007 when Staffan Lundgren of the publishing house Axl Books and I started to discuss the possibility of doing a book project together, and the texts from the Utopian W.C. came up as a strong candidate. The Foundation for the Future of the Culture contributed with funding to the printing, but the process of actually creating the books took another two years, and was in the end published by Raketa Press.

Finally, in september 2009, the two volumes arrived from the printer. One volume each for the two winning essays by T.R.O.Y. and Cyril Belshaw. These volumes have yet to be officially released and distributed. We have also to distribute Beshaw´s essay to Heads of State and other institutions and individuals, a comittment that is yet to be fulfillled, but a work that we have commenced when we delivered the first copies of the essays to the Spokesperson of the Swedish Green Party, Maria Wetterstrand, at her office in the Parliament in Stockholm in October 2009.

This meeting was the result of a poll by a Swedish newspaper among Swedish politicians about their cultural preferences, that was part of a intense public debate about cultural policies that raged in Sweden in 2009. Two representatives from the publisher Raketa Press were also present at the meeting and took the photos that you can view on this page.

We hope that we will have exciting news for you in the coming months, so stay connected! The Utopian World Championship is facing a new day!

Jon Brunberg, January 7, 2010.

New Edition of the Winning Essays Released!

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:04:51 +0100

We are proud to present a new, revised, and re-designed, edition of the two winning essays in the Utopian World Championship in two separate volumes, an edition that marks that more than eight years have passed since we embarked on a quest for the utopias of the 21st century by initiating a world-wide competition in visionary thinking and writing. For this edition we have added new fore- and afterwords and made minor edits to the essays toghether with the authors.

The books are published by Raketa Press with financial support for the printing from The Foundation for the Culture of the Future. The first volume includes the winning essay of 2001 with the title The New Word Disorder, which was submitted by an American student and activist living in Sweden under the pseudonym T.R.O.Y. The Canadian Professor Emeritus in anthropology, Mr Cyril Belshaw, won the second in 2005 with his essay From Youth Maturity to Global Government - The Utopian Tapestry, which is printed in the second volume. The books are not yet in commercial distribution but will be during this fall. A pre-release of the volumes were made at the NY Art Book Fair in cooperation with Raketa Press on October 1-2 2009. If you want to pre-order a copy of the books, please contact jon@brunberg.se.

ABOUT THE BOOKS

Volume I
Author: T.R.O.Y.
Title: A New World Disorder
Pages: 80 Size: 19 x 20 cm
ISBN: 91-976057-8-6
Language: English

Volume II
Author: Cyril Belshaw
Title: From Youth Maturity to Global Government - The Utopian Tapestry
Pages: 96
Size: 19 x 20 cm
ISBN: 91-976057-9-4
Language: English

New Utopian Beginnings

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:04:51 +0100

It is time for the Utopian World Championship to open up the shop again. To let in some sun and air in and dust off and rearrange the furniture. The fresh start is not only about the new, redesigned and re-programmed website and the new domain name, utopianwc.com, which reflects the fact that this project is not run by the group SOC.Stockholm anymore. We will soon announce new events and cooperations, and continue to publish material from the previous events. We are, in short, picking up the work where we left it four years ago. In the meantime we have restored all the participating essays, and present them in a more reader-friendly design. The essays from 2001 will follow shortly. You can also join our Vimeo group Utopia, which is dedicated to videos about the subject, including of course our own documentation videos. Welcome once again to the Utopian World Championship!