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Projekt Atol was founded by Marko Peljhan in 1992 as an independent non-profit organization in Slovenia, working in the cultural sphere. At first it was only a framework for artistic and social activities like theater, performances, and lectures. At documenta, it will present Makrolab, a project which closes that phase and opens another of an ongoing cycle entitled Ladomir-FAKTURA. Ladomir is a name of a utopian poem written in 1920 by the Russian Futurist Velimir Khlebnikov which describes the universal landscape of the future through the destruction of the old world and the synthesis of the new. The word is a combination of lad, meaning both "harmony" and "living creature," and mir, both "peace" and "world, universe." The term FAKTURA (faktura), a central notion of the Russian avant-gardes, refers to a technique or method which results in the conferring of a tactile and sensorial quality onto abstract artistic or scientific elements. Ladomir-FAKTURA proposes to undertake a program of research into "dreams, psychoacoustics, acoustics, weather and low-energy-consumption systems." Makrolab is a research station set up on Lutterberg hill on the edge of Kassel, a first step before being set up in other parts of the world. Conceived as both a life and work environment, it is wind- and solar-powered and capable of providing three people with independent life-support for forty days. Although physically isolated, it is linked through various communications hookups to the documenta Halle (via video, Internet site, and cell phone). Visitors will, however, have the possibility of going directly to the Lutterberg site. After forty days in the station, Projekt Atol will present the results of their research and then commence a period of reflection. The data will be accessible on the Internet, transmitted over the radio, compiled in a publication, and presented publicly in a performance in the "100 Days - 100 Guests" series. From the moment of its founding, Projekt Atol has been fond of defining the preconditions for social utopias. Alluding to avant-garde projects in the tens and twenties, as well as to the experiences and thinking of Guy Debord and the Situationist International, it "tries to enable the creative communication of individual forces to converge into a scientific/psychic entity that would, in the final stage, result in the creation of an insulated/isolated environment and space-time. Insulation/isolation is understood as a vehicle to achieve independence from, and a reflection of, actual entropic social conditions." Combining the isolation proper to research and poetry with the need to convey information, Projekt Atol makes a utopian wager on the experience of tension between elitist thinking with pedagogical aims and the project of emancipating civil society. Paul Sztulman |