Roadtrip 2011

W.J.T. Mitchell Lecture: Cloning Terror

Last evening we visited the Hebbel Theater for a public lecture by W.J.T Mitchell, a leading U. S. scholar in visual studies, and editor of the esteemed journal Critical Inquiry. It was fun to be among a surprisingly large turnout of Berlin scholars and students.

 In search of a metaphor and critical framework for considering recent image politics, Mitchell organized his talk — and his new book, Cloning Terror: The War of Images 9/11 to the Present — around the themes in Freud's essay on the uncanny. a term denoting the feeling of strangeness or disjointedness one feels in the presence of something both familiar yet strange. From Freud's essay Mitchell drew a set of critical categories, and deployed these themes as a lens [and sometimes a hat-rack] for looking at recent politics and select images.

Chicago University Press offers a fine overview of Mitchell's argument: "The phrase “War on Terror” has quietly been retired from official usage, but it persists in the American psyche, and our understanding of it is hardly complete. Nor will it be, W. J. T Mitchell argues, without a grasp of the images that it spawned, and that spawned it. Exploring the role of verbal and visual images in the War on Terror, Mitchell finds a conflict whose shaky metaphoric and imaginary conception has created its own reality. At the same time, Mitchell locates in the concept of clones and cloning an anxiety about new forms of image-making that has amplified the political effects of the War on Terror. Cloning and terror, he argues, share an uncanny structural resemblance, shuttling back and forth between imaginary and real, metaphoric and literal manifestations.

In Mitchell’s startling analysis, cloning terror emerges as the inevitable metaphor for the way in which the War on Terror has not only helped recruit more fighters to the jihadist cause but undermined the American constitution with “faith-based” foreign and domestic policies. Bringing together the hooded prisoners of Abu Ghraib with the cloned stormtroopers of the Star Wars saga, Mitchell draws attention to the figures of faceless anonymity that stalk the ever-shifting and unlocatable “fronts” of the War on Terror. A striking new investigation of the role of images from our foremost scholar of iconology, Cloning Terror will expand our understanding of the visual legacy of a new kind of war and reframe our understanding of contemporary biopower and biopolitics."   – John Schott

C/O Berlin and Fritz Eschen - Berlin Under the Makeshift Roof

Again, we revisit the reoccurring photographic theme of our trip: rephotography.  But never fear; the redundancy ends in the short synopsis. 

On Monday, May 16th, we walked a short block away from our classroom at IES to C/O Berlin.  Housed in the former Royal Post Office building in Berlin-Mitte, C/O Berlin calls itself, “an international forum for visual dialogues.”

C/O Berlin's project manager Ann-Chrisoin Bertrand, along with Marc Volk, led us on a tour of the exhibit on Fritz Eschen's post-war photography of Berlin.  Volk described his process in rephotographing Eschen's work while displaying the result on an iPad.  Sometimes the building no longer existed; other times he had to ask for help from locals who had lived in the neighborhood when the original photo was taken. In a perfect combination of old photography and new media, C/O Berlin guests can also view Volk's modern-day rephotos with their iPhones and iPads via an application created for the exhibit.

Born in 1900 in Berlin, Eschen was a Jewish photojournalist and portrait photographer.  He survived the era of National Socialism through his second marriage to Aryan wife, Gertrude Thumm.  The approximately 120 photos in the exhibit span from 1945 to 1955, capturing everything from the post-war ruins to the Berlin Blockade to the division of the city.  In addition to documenting political tensions of the time, Eschen also portrays the struggle of the people and the rebirth of Berlin's cultural life. 

At the end of the tour, we were free to explore the other exhibits, one of which corresponded with the over-turned car displayed outside the building's entrance.  Like a potential rephoto in itself, the former Royal Post Office was a gymnasium before it became a place for visual exhibition.  So ends another rephotography journey; another investigation into the past, and another modern day translation, this time in the care of Berlin.

 

Thomas Anschuetz

The afternoon of May 12th found the road-trippers assembled at the New School for Photography of Berlin, where photographer Thomas Anschuetz gave a talk recounting his career in the arts.

While our primary interest was in his photography, Anschuetz began his art career as a landscape painter. His first forays into photography were made in the pursuit of reference images for his paintings of rock formations. This proved to be something of a revelatory experience, and by 1980 he had moved to New York City and was producing works both on canvas and in the darkroom.

Anschuetz has since continued to experiment with the artistic applications of modern technologies, such as the early Macintosh computer he acquired in 1985, producing a diverse body of work, but perhaps his most compelling artistic endeavor would come about through the synthesis of his earliest fascinations. In 1990, having returned to Berlin, he began to experiment with the process of painting on transparent surfaces. By using these paintings as negatives in his darkroom, he found he could produce painterly images on photo paper, with a ghostly quality which resulted from the inversion of the light in the development process.

Today, Anschuetz teaches at the New School for Photography in Berlin, where he continues to seek out new and innovative photographic techniques - in describing his ambition, he quotes Star Trek, saying he wants "to boldly go where no man has gone before".

- Jonathan Hughes

A Day at the Arsenal Cinema with Robert Beavers and Ute Aurand

On Friday, we had the immense honor of spending an afternoon in the company of two great experimental filmmakers of our age at a private screening at the Arsenal cinema [above].  Robert Beavers and Ute Aurand, who live and work together here in Berlin, screened their respective first (or almost-first, in Beavers' case) films and one recent work each: Beavers selected a portion of his Early Monthly Segments and his later The Stoas, while Aurand showed us her first student film, Schweigend ins Gespräch Vertieft, and a recent meditation on her parents' passing called Kopfüber im Geäst.

When the lights rose after the four films, we had the opportunity to stretch our legs and check out the projection room with its 35 and 16 millimeter set-ups, as well as the Arsenal archives.  Once we were done  geeking out, we returned to engage in a contemplative and fascinating discussion of the works with the filmmakers themselves.  Avant-garde (although Aurand takes some issue with the term) and experimental film can be difficult, but coming to it with an open mind, and having the chance to explore its form and meaning with its creators themselves exposes so much of why I love both the independent experimental genre and the culture of discussion and experimentation that characterizes it.  We touched on issues of imagery and allusion, the delicate balance between discussing meaning and discussing form, the difficulty of articulating or discussing desire,  their feelings regarding the use or exclusion of sound and its relationship with the rhythm of the piece and the integrity of the image — a truly nourishing conversation for our souls as blossoming young theorists and artists. 

Currently, Beavers is in the editing process on his latests film, and is experimenting with the more systematic marriage of sound and color into a new filmic language, and Aurand is finishing cutting a film that is the culmination of three years of shooting in Japan.  When she mentioned her current project, I immediately expressed my interest (as a Japanese-speaker and student of asian studies as well as CAMS), and she responded by graciously inviting me to return to her studio on Monday afternoon to see the most recent cut!  I will do my best to help with a couple of translations, but it is truly a great honor to have my interest and opinion given such creedance and encouragement by a filmmaker that I respect so much. 

Simply to see these films and discuss them so thoroughly was a treat in itself, but the afternoon continued with a mass transition to Beavers' studio and then Aurand's studio in Kreuzberg, where they showed us their respective Steenbeck editing tables and talked more about their filmmaking and editing processes, to a completely rapt audience.  And after seeing  where the magic of editing occurs, we all headed down the block to one of Beavers' favorite Greek restaurant to share drinks, dinner, and more fascinating conversation.  Not only was the day one of learning and inspiration, but a pleasant reminder that our idols are people, too — wonderfully kind people who enjoy Greek food and Berliner just like the rest of us.

— Anna Swanson

Processing Workshops

Friday and Saturday the roadtrip had the privilege of learningabout Processing from Christian Riekoff, a freelance computational designer. Based in Berlin, he works primarily on interactive installations, generative systems, and physical computing. I'd like to include a link to an absolutely incredible piece of his work that he showed us, but unfortunately it is so new there are not videos on-line yet, so I will try to describe it to illustrate what exactly it means to work on generative systems and physical computing. The piece consisted of many triangles cut out of a special lightweight material suspended by strings connected to motors in the ceiling. The triangles formed a membrane of sorts that moved in a synchronized fashion controlled a program Christian wrote in Processing. Light is then projected onto these moving triangles from above, with such precision so that the light covers the triangles exactly but doesn't hit the floor. [Video to follow eventually]. If that was too confusing or you'd just like to see more, you can find some of his other work here.

On Friday our workshop focused on simple photo manipulation to help us get the basics of programming down and the possibilities for animation and other creative programming. On Saturday, the first part of our workshop again focused on photo manipulation, but this time on more complex photo manipulation to make changes not easily possible in photoshop. Finally, for the second part of our processing workshop on Saturday, Christian showed us some other web resources for finding out more about Processing and other creative programming. 

Find out more about Christian and see his work at his website here.

– Yoni Blumberg

Street Photography with Stefan Maria Rother

   


On the afternoon of May 6th , guest speaker Stefan Maria Rother gave a brief presentation on street photography.  Stefan M. Rother is a German photographer who works with magazines such as Stern, Spiegel, Focus, etc. He has also published six black and white street photography books.

He began his presentation with some background information about his work and how his passion for photography has grown. He then went into how and why he takes his photos, emphasizing the importance of taking digital photography. According to Rother, digital photography creates dialogue, which “brings people together."

Most of Stefan’s street photographs shown in the presentation had vivid stories attached to each image. This was so because in most of his work, he takes the time to know his subjects before or after he makes photos, and most of his subjects have interesting stories to tell. Stefan ended his presentation by saying that the key to a successful photo is to have a concept and through that concept the image is captured. 

For more information on Rother and his work click here. --Lucy Quagraine

P. Adams Sitney Lectures at The American Academy in Berlin

This Thursday evening, the roadtrippers traveled to the esteemed American Academy in Berlin for a lecture on avant garde cinema. We were honored to be embraced by a community of scholars, filmmakers, and critics. Princeton professor P. Adams Sitney painted a biographical portrait of Gregory Markoupolos, an American expatriate who spent much of his professional career in Germany.

Deeply influenced by 19^th century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, Markoupolos was obsessed with Richard Wagner’s ideal “total artwork.” This culminated in Eniaios (1948-1990), an eighty-hour synthesis of the filmmaker’s greatest works. Sitney discussed “The Markopoulos Temenos,” a mythical pilgrimage site conceived by the filmmaker. In 2004 and 2008, cinephiles from around the world converged near Arcadia, Greece to experience the director’s masterpiece in a 200-seat amphitheater. Next summer, they will reconvene for a third screening. After the lecture, Sitney revealed to a group of CAMSers that he never could have predicted an exhibition of Eniaios within his lifetime.

One of the night’s highlights was a projection of Ming Green (1966), a short piece dedicated to avant garde legend Stan Brakhage. Impressively edited within the camera, the print included music by Wagner. The visuals fade between still lifes and anonymous portraits, forming a short symphony of multiple exposures. As the group eagerly anticipates an upcoming meeting with Robert Beavers (Markoupolos’ partner and filmmaking contemporary), we are already fantasizing about a pilgrimage to Greece in 2012.  

For more on Markopoulos and The Temenos, click here.

- Josiah Burns 

Sounding the City Workshop

On the 5th of May the group had the privilege to meet Derek Holzer, a self taught American sound artist from New Mexico who has been living in Berlin over the past 11 years. Having a background in radio, web streaming, and environmental recording, Holzer has been using the city in order to capture and transform small unnoticed sounds from various natural and urban locations into art. Throughout his lecture, Holzer took the afternoon to share some of the projects that he’s worked on along with helping the class develop and understand our sense of hearing. 

Holzer began his presentation by introducing Canadian composer Ray Murray Schafer and his work on soundscape. Schafer, who coined the term, described soundscape as the study of both natural sounds, which can consist of animal vocalizations and, for example, the sounds of weather and other natural elements. This can also include environmental sounds created by humans such as an ordinary conversation between people. With that in mind, Holzer began showing the class some of the soundscape work that he’s done over the past years around the world.

 Coming into this workshop, we all have been exposed to some form of sounds, whether that’s music or daily noises on the street, however, the sounds from the natural environment that Holzer showed the class was a completely different experience. Much like a White Noise machine, the first recording captured the noises of the moving water of a river along with a rhythmic temple of frogs that were near the recorder. For five minutes we listened carefully to the recording in order to pick out each individual sound to create the bigger image of what we were listening to. When asked about how he goes about choosing sounds to record, Holzer replied  by saying that he’s often invited to go to places whether through workshops or through performances. Holzer has given us the opportunity to experiment with different audio equipment for our audio assignment for Monday.

 Besides giving lectures, Holzer has also given live performances around the city of Berlin. Although the workshop did not consist of his improvised electronic music, you can check out some of the work Holzer has done below!     -Richard Tovar

Derek Holzer from Elektronen Toto on Vimeo. 

‘Massaging the Medium’ with Joachim Schmid

On Tuesday, Joachim Schmid started his lecture with a short introduction. An artist both formally-educated and self-taught, Schmid— born in Balingen and now based in Berlin— is a conceptual artist/photographer, but eschews any formal label or movement to his work. Since his school days, Schmid has done work cultivated by his own self-education—fueled by his interest in photographic culture and what he has observed to be the unaddressed, unobserved facets of the medium as a phenomenon.

Schmid has made it his life work to address these gaps. His projects are diverse and fascinating, a thread of endeavors that chart his own interests and queries into visual media. Rather than focus on the craftsmanship of photography or the formal qualities of the art, his work explores the conceptual (while being relatable)— through the selection, accumulation, organization and presentation of other people’s work. One of his earlier projects, entitled “Pictures From the Street”, was based entirely around found photographs— memories meant to be thrown away or destroyed. These photos, some burned, others torn-up and disintegrating, not only serve as pieces of artwork in themselves, but contained another element not seen in formal works meant for exhibition. This new layer of information (the grime, the tears in the paper, the materiality and human touch of the photographs) speaks to the road of photography in everyday life. Stories and personal relationships are projected onto the photograph and the factors of time, subjectivity and the elements that alter or enhance its narrative are highlighted.

Schmid has continued his work in projects such as ‘Collective Portrait of a City’, in which he found and gathered the negatives of photos from street portrait photographers in Brazil. In more recent years, as photography has changed from an analogue to a predominately digital medium, Schmid has found equally absorbing material. In his ‘Sex Cam Project’, Schmid has photographed the spaces created by cyber sex workers— without the physical presence of the workers themselves. It is a meditation on the intimacy and the sterility of cyberspace, revealing the taste and fantasies of the contemporary audience being catered to. Other projects, such as “The Coach House: An Inventory” and ‘Nine Errors’, highlight the subtle way in which public space, and ‘objective’ resources are coopted and influenced/manipulated despite their innocuous reputation. In each of his works, it is clear that Schmidt is a meticulous observer— highlighting the humorous and surprising way that we relate to images and the nuances of visual culture.

Joachim Schmid's visit was thorough, fascinating, and exciting. Hearing about his thought process behind each investigation-- and his take on the postmodern state of the image in society-- was a breath of fresh air to the student preparing his/herself for a career in the arts. It is clear that Schmid’s work is an honest account of the artistic process of realizing curiosity—destabilizing the pretension of the art world and the elitism that has come from fetishizing the photo.

You can learn more about Joachim Schmid and his work here.

–Chisa Hughes  [Above: a photo from Schmid's 'Pictures from the Street' Project]