WAS IST M.RASKIN STICHTING ENS

RP Four of us studied fine arts at the academy in Hamburg, each of us working in a slightly different field. Andreas Coerper was into painting and sculpture; Eschi Fiege gave lectures about the colours of passion; Oliver Hirschbiegel was torn between formalistic story-telling and violent action-pieces; Kai Schirmer worked on artificial intelligence for a linguistics degree; and I did heavy-duty experimental films. We founded the group M. Raskin Stichting ens in 1980 so we could work together. Being an artist is a very lonely job, you are always by yourself. l spent most of my days sleeping and the nights working alone in the dark, so that was the perfect balance: live performance meant risk. We started to work in the street and in places where we would meet at midnight. We met at a certain time at a certain place—anyone could join in—for example at a construction site. We met and drove there 'in formation', occupied the building for a couple of hours, worked, and then toured the exhibition ourselves. Then we left and forgot about it. The more spectacular aspects were our performances. They were subtitled Ritual Mechanics, Studies on Hate Man & Love Culture or Studies on Brainpicking & True Emotions . It was the five of us on stage. lt was a live reflection on life on stage...

From the Supermarket of Sentences
An Interview with Rotraut Pape on the work of Raskin by Gabrielle Finnane and Colin Hood
in: Out Of The Intermix. West 6/7 1993 University of Western Sydney