12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art

Messy Glossary

Term

Imperialism

Texts

Proposed by Raoul Zoellner

Imperialism is a game played on extremely long tables, in backrooms packed with men and megalomania. It requires at least one player and ultimately ends with one player. Game boards come as foldable maps. Use pens in order to draw shapes on them. Be creative. If you find another player in a weak position, then team up with others, take his pen, and STAB IT IN HIS BACK. Momentum is everything. Paranoia and delusion are key and your prime advisors, reminding you that morals and rules are traps—set up by others at your table. Stick to them and end up with a pen in your back. Avoid them if you want to have the extremely long table all for yourself, which will earn you an equestrian statue: you on a horse, both in bronze, somewhere on a random public square, until you get spray-painted and torn down by iconoclastic kids. In the end, everything is shattered—until new men in new backrooms come up with new lines on their maps.