MACHT NICHTS
Performance in public space
Intervention on LED-Screen at Gasometer Berlin-Schöneberg
Billboard
Photo (variable size)
free badges
2009-2012

The two seemingly simple German syllables „MACHT NICHTS“ appear and interrupt the flow of advertisements on Europe's largest LED-advertisement screen. For one night in February a 10-second "MACHT NICHTS"-spot was repeated every 5 minutes. Clemens Wilhelm's message "MACHT NICHTS" is an ambiguous German word play: on the one hand one can read it as a pacification ("It's no so bad, it doesn't matter"), on the other hand one could understand it as the imperative "Don't do anything! Make nothing! Remain passive!".

The absence of a sender enhances this ambivalence and makes it somewhat uncanny. Omnipresent advertisement strategies animate us every day to consume. A standstill has to be avoided at all costs, permanent action is demanded from us. Not only in the economy a standstill equals regression.

„Doing nothing" seems dangerous. However, many of us wish to finally "not do anything". Lastly, one could read "MACHT NICHTS" as a paradoxical meeting of the nouns "power"(Macht) and "nothing"(Nichts). A paradoxical couple with a full void of meaning that everyone will read differently. But the question remains: Does it not matter if we don't do anything?

MACHT NICHTS has appeared in different shapes: free badges which are handed out in exhibitions, a spot on an LED-Screen, and a billboard in public space. The final stage is an airplane banner flight over Berlin.
https://vimeo.com/40605478

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MACHT NICHTS