unveiled and feeding the hungry leopard
kader attia's ghost
sun yuan's and peng yu's old persons home
after a little vacation in sunny london and cambridge i am back here and find myself facing the fact of having lost a majority of my intellectual property (...). anyhow, england was gorgeous, clearly demonstrated by the display of yet another fabulous levi's ad (see below) that (partly) did not make it to berlin (as of yet) and the (see above) unveiled exhibition in saatchi gallery in their fancyful building near sloane square.
basically, i was relaxing, enjoying the lovely weather, meeting nice people, catching up with old friends, reading - holidays in a very nice sense of the word! as i did in the picture below in hammersmith with luci, audrey and adrian after a long and beautiful walk through richmond, kew and chiswick. actually walking was what i did a lot, also in regent's park, in the docklands, battersea park, mayfair and beloved soho.
of burrowing
going back from potsdamer platz to my flat tonight was rather strange. a sort of alertness found its way back into my brain (... actually i just wrote "may brain" ... maybe may then). i am glad it has, to be perfectly honest.
alert indeed i was some days ago by the picture that was, in a packet of posters, sent to the forum office and on display in its wrapping some hours. intrigued i thought that this must be my favourite movie of the programm. i never even knew, then, what it was about, by whom, etc. tonight i finally made it to a screening of man tänker sitt (burrowing) and can say i was rarely as moved as with this debut by fredrik wenzel, henrik hellström. this depiction of solitude/loneliness/vulnerability/subliminal violence was so modestly brilliant and breathtakingly shot. the character of sebastian, a young boy, leaves traces of his whimsical, 'naive' wisdom in the narrational structure by overvoices. feeling of being vulnerable oneself as a viewer because of the ordinariness of situations and places. structurally you might judge sebastian's way of looking at things as something that will pass, some wishful thinking - as in the notion of his hope that his own loneliness is something that might be dealt with later in his life as he sort of settles professionally, emotionally. this inert wish striked me as so human. the cinematography as one way of staging the seclusion was just wonderful. but then this paradox of this hope he maybe carries within himself for himself (?) clashes with the precise descriptions of everyday suburban horrors he gives.
writing this now makes me think i should have just said nothing as what i was going through during the screening was just beyond words. which in itself might be something that helps to sensually grasp the lack of humanness in human interactions. man tänker sitt, if i understood correctly, means something like "everybody has their own thoughts". we have. yes. we have.
the aforementioned "unification" during berlinale only goes so far. wondering how the area around potsdamer platz would actually look like seen from above. because additionally to a zillion posters and billboards comes a lighting strategy that sort of stars out from potsdamer platz through all the streets on which there is some berlinale-connected building. remarkable as usual - despite all those lamps being red the ones for talent campus are pink.
a red center, a beating heart of humanness or lack thereof.
all expanded
trying for the third time to start this post i realize that maybe there is nothing much to say besides stressing the notion of expanded in my current life.
lucky me shared a car for the openings on friday with team of forum expanded, stefanie, nanna and uli, expanded by barbara hammer and michael snow, later marie losier and sebastien sanz de santamaria. what i loved when i actually saw the exhibitions was pavel büchler at tanya leighton gallery and i am very much looking forward to being at the artist talk with them tomorrow. karoe goldt's piece in galerie antje wachs was sort of really sad. eyes die. i find that utterly disturbing.
a must see - ludwig schönherr. i love his work. the exhibiton (as the installation in filmhaus and the filmprogramm curated by marc siegel) in halle a/14 is really something else, seriously. anything structural/chaotic that resonates within you should call you to that place. and once you're there, have a closer look at bill viola's "transfiguration" in haunch of venison. it is beautiful beyond belief.
being 'inside' the festival as somebody working there makes me feel like michel de certeau again ... no kidding, looking down at potsdamer platz from the office is ridiculous sometimes and you wish corporate design was never created, though i do believe that this year's design is sort of sweet and subliminally very much fitting the notion of unified masses hustling down unified streets in their unified ways of feeling utterly busy and important.
but tv-man on super-big screen inside sony centre said "die stimmung ist gut am potsdamer platz".
i'll go get some sleep now and hopefully will dream of that summer day when there's nothing to do besides having eyes and heart open again. maybe there will be water, too, a lake with a view or a drenching curtain that'll transfigure me back into something b/w.
you can have a look at the other forum expanded events (films, exhibitions, performances, talks, tours ...) here. don't miss "farewell" by stefan zeyen in the black box at filmhaus! and - do enjoy marie losier's gorgeous "movie boxes".
today today
yes, today is the day i will quit smoking again :) so, pretty please, pressure from all sides ... bear/bare with me should i find it unbearably hard and fail (oh, that is naughty, maybe i should fail). well, i'll have sweetie darling to smoke for me, looking quite a lot more exciting doing it than i ever could anyways ...
as for the many other overwhelmingly exciting things happening, it's too many of them, i can't tell.
my washing powder got stuck in the slot. if that is interesting.
i was on the phone with one lady right now who told me i am supposed to have technicians around today, although that was never scheduled. how lovely. they're doing the buzzer.
saw striptease with nico. she was gorgeous and serge did a wonderful soundtrack to it. a. was all melting next to me and is now about to learn how she moves for that one dance at the end ...
since i recorded the ghosts of the reading i did with the last books here are the latest:
the world according to garp oh, i liked it, i guess. although it has this wooden quality of language a lot of times and seemed very 'easy'. interesting for me whom i love to pick quotes or underline things for later reference, i was only at rare points able to do that with garp. i rather think it is a certain atmosphere transported or story told, in simplicity and with no big fondling around with language, which i realize, is also just another way of using language, and it definitely fit. so maybe actually i am not really thrilled. but at least, after two trials on the irving-front i finished one and hadn't stopped reading after 50 pages. well well.
and i did something very enjoyable which was getting anne of green gables, thanks to j., and hach, isn't it just lovely to see such a melodramatic, tragic child? i love it and started the second novel ... 
i also to the second third read in watermelon sugar by richard brautigan :)
wow, a lot.
i am also thrilled about the fact that i need to proofread texts and that there is material for seminars about to fill my head with fresh ideas.
re the filling. i added the literature part after 5 hours or so. i feel that my head wants to smoke. but i won't give in and allow myself 3 days of giving in to other temptations like chocolate. and i will go and have a walk. now that i missed the one seminar i am actually interested in because of waiting for the technician who, once here, only told me that it was a problem with the whole house and that there would be another date scheduled. grrrr.
when it doesn't need to be live unbuttoned
sure gorgeous advertising :)
also: visit margins to find out more about our current call for papers on paradiesische zustände. we're looking for student presentations ranging from lectures to installation to art to whatever kind of format you're feeling comfortable with when you're presenting your thoughts on paradise or hell or things that spring to your mind when you hear paradise.
nothing much.
still exhausted.
one book
another book
