First organized in 2006, Dictionary of War is a collaborative platform for creating concepts on the topic of "war", to be invented, arranged and presented at a public, two-day event. The aim is to introduce a series of concepts that either play an important role in the contemporary discourse of war, have so far been neglected, or have yet to be created.
Dictionary of War is a performance and a production space at the same time: At each edition, 25 concepts are presented in 30 minute time slots, in alphabetical order and without a break; they are recorded by several cameras, live mixed, encoded in real-time and published on the internet.
There are no restrictions with regard to format and each person invited to create a concept is free to decide about the title, genre, medium in which the concept will be produced. Dictionary of War is a project that started in 2006; it was initiated by Florian Schneider and Susanne Lang, organized by the non-profit association "Multitude e.V." (in collaboration with "Unfriendly Takeover").
Thus far, six editions have been organized in Frankfurt, Munich, Graz, Berlin, Novi Sad and Gwangju, featuring 139 concepts presented by a wide range of activists, architects, artists, composers, choreographers, dancers,filmmakers, generals, journalists, philosophers, scientists, theorists from across the globe.
For the 7th edition of Dictionary of War in Bolzano a series of concepts will be created that reflect on some of the general principles and conceptual frameworks of the project as such. Seven new concepts will be produced by the core developers of the project who are going to draw from the experiences of the first six editions, introduce their outcomes and, in addition to that, present a selection of concepts from former editions, most notably the 6th edition that took place just two weeks agon, at the opening of the Gwangju Bienale in Korea.
The Bolzano edition is realized by Annett Busch, Jan Gerber, Soeren Koehler, Susanne Lang, Sebastian Luetgert, Florian Schneider and Armin Smailovic in collaboration with manifesta7.
Performances will be held on Saturday 20th and Sunday 21th of September 2008, screenings of the performances can be seen in the following week from Monday 22th to Friday 26th September 2008.