THE FLASH JOB CAMPAIGN is a game, a social study, an aesthetic endeavor and a vehicle for touching upon a most sensible measure of people's hope: WORK as a mean to lead a SELF-GOVERNED LIFE. THE FLASH JOB CAMPAIGN seeks to encourage and facilitate artists and other applicants to act as CATALYSTS in the project, developing and publishing their own social interventions as part of the NEW LIFE BERLIN Festival, June 1–15, 2008. The campaign goal is to bring citizens together in Job-situations, and so to discover and portray what happens when cooperative scenarios are established for people who would most likely never form a relationship - because of ethnic or religious differences, their belonging to different social classes, age groups, gender, etc. Supported through workshops, lectures and multimedia trainings, THE FLASH JOB CAMPAIGN will be launched in Berlin Neukoelln, a borough said to be the hardest in the city; troubled by unemployment, stigmatized by social welfare, threatened by youth gangs, infiltrated by organized crime and energized by cultural diversity. The projects primary target group (to do jobs) is teenagers met by chance while walking around in Neukoelln. Equipped with THE FLASH JOB STARTER KIT (including a form for parental signature in cases of under-age youth and instructions concerning the Youth Work Protection Act), the CATALYST looks for small jobs beyond regular employment. In practical terms, selected applicants will set up DEALS between small businesses and local teenagers. Even without knowing each other, teenagers and business owners must be willing to commit to the rules of a Flash Job: A one-time job of maximum 3 hours where afterwards, the teenager is given a fee, the job client rates the performance quality of the teenager AND the teenager rates the job client. To secure a job deal, it will be up to you as a CATALYST to convince both parties about fairness and goals. Your task is furthermore to investigate, portray and REPORT to the NEW LIFE BERLIN Festival when, how and why things went the way they did. You can use whatever medium you prefer for your documentation. THE FLASH JOB CAMPAIGN is launched from the most simple of questions: "Why are the market mechanisms of globalization and the facilities of the so-called creative class, so impenetrable to such a vast number of people?" THE FLASH JOB CAMPAIGN and its conceptual patron TeenKom (a price-winning project currently being implemented in Berlin Schoeneweide) are conceived and coached by Berlin-based ArtSourceLab - an interdisciplinary network founded in 2001 by artist and activist Per Traasdahl for the development and societal implementation of sustainable, social micro-models. More about ArtSourceLab and TeenKom at http://www.wooloo.org/artsourcelab/

Download PDF with more About THE FLASH JOB CAMPAIGN, including Flash Job examples: http://www.artsourcelab.net/downloads/flashJobCampaign_openCall.pdf (English version) http://www.artsourcelab.net/downloads/BlitzjobKampagne_Teilnahmeinfo.pdf (German version)

SELECTED PARTICIPANTS - "CATALYSTS" Lucia Baruelli Marie-Laure de Beausacq Suzanne Caines Patrick Grueneberg Amanda Gutierrez Art Haegenbarth Christopher Anthony Harden Lucilla Kossowska Kristin Mueller Stefanie Schairer Fedele Spadafora Shelton Walker Ann Rapstoff Joanna Loveday