RLF

The Right Life in the Midst of Falsity
A Novel
RLF / RLF
The Right Life in the Midst of Falsity
A Novel
The story begins with the London riots: the losers of consumer society take to the streets to show the world that they exist; cars and shops are set on fire. Young advertising executive Jan’s world is turned upside down.


He’s made a lot of money on campaigns for the fashion industry, but when he gets swept up in the unrest he comes to realise: capitalism must be overthrown, and it must be done with its own means. Jan finds the perfect allies in the activist Slavia and the artist ...
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The story begins with the London riots: the losers of consumer society take to the streets to show the world that they exist; cars and shops are set on fire. Young advertising executive Jan’s world is turned upside down.


He’s made a lot of money on campaigns for the fashion industry, but when he gets swept up in the unrest he comes to realise: capitalism must be overthrown, and it must be done with its own means. Jan finds the perfect allies in the activist Slavia and the artist Mikael Mikael. Together they found RLF, a lifestyle company specialising in transforming the desire for protest and dissent into commodities; the goal is to bring the system to the brink of collapse through a revolutionary act.

But the revolution comes at a price, and someone will have to pay it – maybe even with their life. Novel, artwork, film, fashion statement – RLF is a trans-medial event with cameos by Stéphane Hessel, Oliviero Toscani, Femen, and many others.

»The novel reads like a particularly generic piece of genre fiction, a crude thriller with oodles of conspiracy and even more seduction. But as a thriller it also bleeds over into reality, which makes it dizzyingly believable.« Tobias Becker, Kultur Spiegel

»The novel reads like a particularly generic piece of genre fiction, a crude thriller with oodles of conspiracy and even more seduction. But as a thriller it also bleeds over into reality, which makes it dizzyingly believable.« Tobias Becker, Kultur Spiegel

2013, 252 pages


Persons

Friedrich von Borries, born in Berlin in 1974, is an architect and Professor at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg.
Friedrich von Borries, born in Berlin in 1974, is an architect and Professor at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Caught in the Titotality Machine
Year of Publication: 2022
Franz Ehrlich’s (1907-1984) eventful life as an architect began at the Bauhaus in Dessau. In 1937, he was taken to Buchenwald concentration camp as a resistance fighter, where he had to design the gate with the inscription »To each his own«. Ehrlich later had a successful career in the GDR – but his all-encompassing assertiveness collided with the political...
Festival of Inconsequentiality
Year of Publication: 2021
Friedrich von BorriesYear of Publication: 2021

Manager Cornelia tasks curator Florian with creating a museum for ecological art for the »Sustainability in German Industries Foundation«. What would a life look like that remained – in an ecological sense – as inconsequential as possible?


Through his project, Florian meets artist Lisa, who plants trees to produce charcoal for her installations and drawings – and...

To Project the World
Year of Publication: 2016
Friedrich von BorriesYear of Publication: 2016

Years ago, designers drafted things. Today, almost everything is being designed: the climate, processes, refugee camps. But if everything is being designed, it’s time to stop evaluating design...

Rights sold to:

Spanish world rights (Metales Pesados)

Climate Capsules
Year of Publication: 2010
Friedrich von BorriesYear of Publication: 2010
Until now, we have chosen to ignore the consequences of global warming in the blind hope that our politicians and engineers will come up with solutions once the problems have become sufficiently...
Rights sold to:

Arabic world rights (NCT)

Home from Home
Year of Publication: 2009
Berlin, in the late 1920s. The Hirsch Kupfer und Messingwerke designed a prefabricated house – made of the weather-resistant copper from their own factory. Walter Gropius was...
Rights sold to:

Brazilian Portuguese rights (Editura Nau)

Socialist Cowboys
Year of Publication: 2008
Germans have long shown an interest in Native American and cowboy culture. But after World War II, this »hobby« became something more – at least in East Germany. In real socialism, after all, the »Wild West« meant one thing above all others: America. And since that was where the »imperialist enemies of the people« ruled, the cowboys and Native Americans...