THE ART ACADEMY STUTTGART CELEBRATES, GREETING, BYD / Mercedes Benz, Sabine Maier

This intervention was performed as part of the official program to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart , June 2011. The minister of culture, the mayor of Stuttgart and other dignitaries attended the event in the Neue Schloss, the castle of the governing president. For this event, I wrote a fictional sponsor talk presented in Chinese by a German woman fluent in Mandarin. The lady, Sabine Maier, (Laura Sturm) introduces herself - in Chinese only - as a representative of BYD / Mercedes-Benz. Behind the presentation in Chinese as a company language stands the fictional takeover of Mercedes-Benz by BYD which stands for Build Your Dreams. The moment the unexpected Chinese presentation began, a translation was handed out in English language, most German people are fluent in. English is quite often spoken in public presentation and adopted as company language by transnational companies in Europe. Due to an international student body teaching in German universities and art schools often occures defacto in English. BYD is an existing companiy and actually has a business relationship with Mercedes-Benz. (just google it or see pdfs below). A (hostile or friendly) takeover of Mercedes-Benz by BYD - which in today's capital markets cannot be totally ruled out - would be considered a provocation and a loss of German national identity. As a reminder of company history: Stuttgart just lost one of its finest and most known company: Porsche to a hostile takeover by Volkswagen. It is not unthinkable that major stakes of Mercedes-Benz could actually be subject to hostile international acquisitions including those by Chinese companies which are bursting with liquidity. So far, the only merger here is between reality and fiction, technology and politics, to represent something really beyond Germany's dreams or nightmares. In this BYD / Mercedes-Benz presentation the new company talks about itself, its e-mobility department and confirms its commitment to sponsor the Art Academy also in the future. The speaker shows an electric bicycle made by Mercedes-Benz but with the logo of BYD / Mercedes-Benz. The bike is presented here as one of 5 bikes given to the best students of the art school. In reality, Mercedes Benz which is forthcoming with a wonderful e-bike - see at the bottom of the page - refused to sponsor us with a bike. It is very hard to get to get sponsorship for local causes by this Stuttgart headquartered international company.The presented Benz e-bike I purchased on ebay and is a model produced over a decade ago. It still looks good though the new Smart e-bikes look sensentionally much better. As a fact, Mercedes-Benz has been developing electric cars in conjunction with BYD.