Art-o-Gram: RLF – Art and Protest

What is an art protest movement?

Well, it's a movement that uses art for protest.

The art protest movement “RLF ” around architect and author Friedrich von Borries aims to protest against capitalism. It seeks to overcome capitalism using its own methods and, according to its own statements, intends to achieve this by transforming protest into luxury products and their consumption into a revolutionary act.

RLF finally manages to live the "right life in the wrong one," something that has threatened to derail so many Western protest movements. RLF turns resistance on its head and simply sells the protest to capitalism.

An intriguing idea; how it's supposed to work can be found rlf-propaganda.com

Approaching RLF is not entirely straightforward

And this isn't because every respectable citizen or disgruntled citizen rejects the positions RLF criticizes. Rather, it's due to the "perfectly normal impossibility of design" that often makes it difficult for us to absorb content online. But curiosity drives us to great feats of reception:

When you visit the RLF website, you are greeted with the aforementioned deafeningly garish design – presumably intended to wake up the millions of fellow citizens who have been permanently asleep since the New Economy crisis; if that succeeds, a little eye strain can be forgiven.

“THERE IS NO RIGHT LIFE IN THE WRONG LIFE” is written there not only in capital letters, but also in very large print, so large that it is almost unnoticeable.

RLF, by the way, is the abbreviation for “Living Right in the Wrong,” because Friedrich von Borries and his followers say YES!!!, you can live right in the wrong, and that gives every average subversive mind fun and hope.

But first, a little confusion follows, namely a line with menu items:

• RLF
• Resistance Ticker
• Start a revolution
• forum
• Pursue
• Products
• calendar

A click on RLF leads back to the homepage, and not, as would be obvious, to the link hidden behind the heading “What is RLF”, which the inquisitive reader then clicks on himself and is led to the following page:

“SHOW YOU ARE NOT AFRAID” – absolutely. The goals are also explained on this page:

That RLF wants to overcome capitalism with its own means, that RLF opposes increasing (child) poverty despite rising capital volume, gambling in the financial sector, political and police defense of ever more extreme inequality and a feeling of powerlessness despite “democratic participation”, that the shareholders decide how the profit is invested in the revolution.

Sounds great and necessary, although most readers will still not be clear on how this is supposed to work after reading these lines.

So, on to the next menu item. Clicking on “Resistance Ticker” unfortunately doesn't get the interested reader much further. There are more menu items: Overview (which doesn't actually show an overview, but rather a series of articles), Friedrich, Revolution, BTW13 (Federal Election), Internal, The Wrong in the Wrong, Tactics and Methods, Slavia (who is no longer involved), Global Resistance, and Other Places.

Under all these menu items you will find a whole range of interesting articles, about the Hamburg Rote Flora, the NSA, the free trade zone, calls to participate in the revolution, articles on drone warfare, the power struggles in Thailand, Fukushima, the last federal election, a free state in the port of Rotterdam and the investigative lifestyle of the artist Andrea Zittel.

Here you'll find articles on almost everything you've ever wanted to do something about, as well as interesting articles on alternative lifestyles – great reading material if you don't get lost in the articles scattered haphazardly across the categories above and give up in disappointment – ​​after all, you still want to know what it's all about first…

So, off to “Start-a-revolution” , and there you'll finally find “real stuff”, namely content, with the “challenges” that RLF has set for the community so far:

Under the heading “Say-Offs” there are 51 comments with “striking to downright idiotic sayings from politicians” that stuck in people’s minds before or after the election, including classics like Franz-Josef Strauss’s statement: “The democratization of society is the beginning of anarchy.” and new, controversial remarks from Angela Merkel that would have gone far too unnoticed without this page: that she appointed Guttenberg as a minister, “and not as a research assistant ,” and more…

Under the heading “Controversial Issues,” 50 comments show us what citizens perceive as such, while another 300 or so contributions were received on the following topics: Living the right life in the wrong one, Information and inspiration, Are you still living or are you already consuming?, Where should the alternative system emerge?, The alternative system, Develop a challenge!, Role models for the masses!, Make the ugly more beautiful!, A first tender shoot, Where is the resistance discussing and organizing itself?, Show you are not afraid!, Everything is washable, Go outside!, The true price, and Free Hugs.

Plenty of reading material, with many further links, and the last “challenge” under START-A-REVOLUTION is currently underway: Stage IV – Action – Take the square! Under the motto: “Creatively occupy a piece of public space and post a link to a photo of your action!”, more details at www.rlf-propaganda.com .

More about RLF has already been featured on ARTE, as the channel accompanied the activities of the art protest movement “RLF” around Friedrich von Borries with a TV documentary in August 2013, which aired on ARTE on February 10, 2014 at 11:30 pm. The title: “RLF – Art Protest from Berlin”; a glimpse can be seen in the following video clip: