ZAUBERHAUFTEN HEXEN

So sorry its taken me forever to write on the olde blogina but I have been suffering from a very clingy flu which has been holding on for dear life and making me miserable in the process. So even though I was Typhoid Mary I still kept ahold of my commitment to be a part of a fascinating Visuelle Decolonizing Congress in the small very pretty university town of Braunschweig which is about two hours by train from Berlin. My dear colleague Nanna Heidenreich of Forum Expanded was one of the organizers of this symposium along with her boss the charming and love sexxy Dr. Professor Ulrike Bergerman which took place at the Hochscule fur Bildende Kunst(HBK) Institut fur Medienforschung(IMF).The two day conference was packed to the high rafters with lots of juicy young students from the Darstellende Spiel(Performance Studies) department flocking into the filmstudio. Among the faculty was Florian Krautkrämer who is editing with Nanna a book on Birgit Hein. Herr Krautkraemer is a true cinephile, a film studies scholar and expertin on feminist experimental film plus much more, also Eyke Isensee, the school's archivist and historian. I got to meet the wonderful Storm Janse van Rensburg a handsome South Afrikan curator and artist Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa who is just lovely and a Cheryl Dunye Doppelganger. Miss Emma had been at a conference at Oldenburg where I will be in January and after Braunschweig she is off traveling the four corners on a joint venture between the Zurich and Uganda Art Schools.
My incredible student collaborateurs who designed my lovely dressing and green room were Lennart Kudla & Helena Lauinger, two young scholars who are at the forefront of pumping up the political spirit on the Branunschweig campus. The other student assistants were Lennart Sörensen, Louisa Görs, Ines, Erik & Julia of the Logotorium the Meisterschülerinnen in the
Asta Gröting class and they were the genius chefs of the hearty soups and empanadas that enabled us to endure the bus trip back to Berlin. Yes because of the Bahnstreik we took a German version of The Greyhound Bus which was a bit uncomfortable but Nanna made it sweet by supplying plenty of healthy snacks and being the overall activities leader.  Nanna is a treasure and took good care of me as I was in a most fragile state.  Joining our party tour bus: the "Artefakte" - Brigitta Kuster, Dierk Schmidt, Regina Sarreiter, Michaela Ott - the philosophy/aesthetic theory professor from the art school in Hamburg, who has recently published "dividuationen" with bbooks - as well as tomes on affect & affizierung (she's a deleuze super scholar!). she provided entertainment for the entire caravan by reading from the book she had with her Ernst Jünger's Feldpostbriefe. I also shared a taxi back to Rote Insel with the magnificent Tobias Nagl who wrote the lauded book on Black German film history which Scandanavian Muslim Daniel Hendrickson will translate in English. Tobias talked the group into buying a distilling machine so that they can make their own schnaps. Also sharing the 5 hour plus journey was Melanie Ulz, who is an art historian from Berlin, teaching in Osnabrück. Nanna and Melanie went to graduate school together. The reason why it took so long to get back to Berlin was the driver attempted to avoid the traffic jam by getting off the autobahn in Magdeburg and taking surface streets which turned into a big mistake making the cranky passengers and michieveous teenage boys on the bus very grumpy and agitated. Also special shout out to Peter Dargel, Michael Brynntrup, congress photo documenteress Sybille Bauriedl the delightful girlfriend of Ulrike who is also a brilliant Geographer and Urbanity scholar doing lots of work organizing and presenting around and against the Olympics.
Even though I was sickly I had a great time during the symposium, the artist dinners and my comfy hotel Fruhlings in the olde city center. Discovered a Korean TV channel called Arirang that features lots of K-pop programs like The After School Club and vidoes of K-pop shtars like Beast, 2AM, Mad Town and Bestie.