CTM festival exhibition

 I recently attended the opening art exhibition of the CTM festival at Kunstraum Kreuzberg, a turn of the century hospital turned art space. Each year, musicians and creative people come to Berlin to exhibit and perform their work in the city. The CTM festival centres on music and sound but they also collaborate with the concurrent Transmediale festival and its focus on the visual arts.

  The exhibition covered many areas around music, media and the current reality of being creative in this genre. One artist from Mexico, Pedro Reyes presented a large automaton project in the exhibition. Disarm (Mechanized) is a collaboration with Reyes and a media workshop in Mexico city called COCOLAB. The project constructed musical automatons out of guns that were donated through a campaign to rid the Mexican state of Sinaloa of weapons. The idea was to create something positive and useful out of an object of destruction as a commentary on the sale of arms around the world, thus creating an alternate ideology for a society plagued by gun violence.

  Each piece created out of discarded weapons represents a version of a musical instrument. In most cases the visual similarity is evident however all are distinctly unique due in no small part to the source material. The percussion instruments had a metallic resonance but the stringed instruments had a fairly traditional sound and the entire ensemble was able to play individually or together in a harmonic style. It had moments reminiscent of digitized, sampled or electronic mechanical notes which were right at home with a Berliner's ear for the alternative techno or dubstep club soundtrack. I can't quite say it was an award winning composition however that was never the goal of Reyes and his team. Its visually compelling while at the same time opening the subject of weapons in our society for commentary (no to mention recycling as a means of disposal of the problematic objects).

  The over all shape of each automaton is obviously heavily influenced by the source materials and by the traditional musical shape of instruments. Perhaps its just by chance but I can see shapes reminiscent of H.R. Giger's bio-mechanical work of the 1970's, most famously used in the Hollywood film Alien. No doubt this band would be at home in Giger's Swiss castle home.

Until next time,
Andy

Not so silent exhibition at Delphi

I recently went to the "Projektionen" exhibition put on by Art van Demon. Art van Demon is a nonprofit organization founded in Heidelberg in 2007 by art students. Now with a Berlin branch, the group put together this exhibition which coincided with 100 years of the Delphi theatre and film production in Berlin.

 The Delphi silent film theatre is located in the northern district of Berlin called Weißensee. During the 20's this was the ultra hip cultural location of the city. Great stars of the era like Marlene Dietrich and Fritz Lang are said to have been there at this time. The street Gustav-Adolf Straße had a great many silent film theatres and Berliners flocked to experience the new medium. This was also a film making area of Berlin and films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari were filmed in the area.
  The cinema survived WWII but damage later caused it to be closed for many decades. Only recently has a new owner come forward with plans to revitalize its former glory as a new centre for the arts.

  It was a treat for me to be in a theatre with such provenience let alone also enjoy a gallery exhibition. The renovations are a work in progress so the theatre still has the feel of having been abandoned. The lights are rather low but well designed to bring out the Art Deco styling from the 20's architecture.

The hall leading to the auditorium with the main lobby behind.

The bar at the back of the main seating area, box seats above.

View from the balcony box seats, on the right is a long seating area with tables.

The Deco design details around the proscenium arch.

Looking back from the orchestra pit.

  Up in the balcony was an installation work by Jae-­Yong Choi, a cloud of plastic strands spread out over some of the original theatre seats. More of his work here.

 During the evening there was a presentation by Matthias Conrady on the subject of film which seemed to focus on zombie films. Unfortunately my German wasn't good enough to follow his thesis but numerous images and clips from various low budget slasher films were shown.

  Work was hung around the theatre and on temporary surfaces in the centre. The work here is from Marlet Heckhoff and Masaki Hagino.

  Part of the evenings events included an animated film that rotoscoped clips from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and isolated movements from a number of scenes. A film by Will Kempkes & David Dommel.

  The final performance of the night was from two dancers, Marisa Akeny and Lukas Steltner in modern dress who created an interpretive dance.

  On the main stage was a striking triptych by Felix Wunderlich. The imagery, painting style and application are great and I look forward to seeing more from this artist.

  Up in the balcony was an installation by Rimma Elbert. A collection of household items in a small film set like presentation that invited the viewer to participate in the scene.

The surface of the sculpture played off the painted walls of the interior of the theatre

  The ladies at the entrance teased about there being a hidden cake in the exhibition. One geometric sculpture hanging on the wall looked like a good candidate and later in the evening it was taken down by the artist Kristiane Kegelmann and promptly carved up for the crowd.

The promise of free cake brought us all running.

  It turns out that Kristiane Kegelmann is an accomplished pastry chef who honed her skills at high end bakeries in Austria. This was quite evident when tasting this delicious sculpture. No packet cake mix here, simply top notch Torts with fruit, chocolate and loads of Marzipan. Vielen dank Kristiane!

And in the grand tradition of the smoke filled clubs and bars of Berlin, the evening ended with everyone puffing away at the bar in a scene reminiscent of an opening night at the cinema a century before.

Until next time, Ciao.
Andy