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Monday, February 02, 2015

WERTHERSFIEBER




Just returned from one of the best queer art congresses I have ever been to with the dynamic title of Perverse Assemblages-Heteronormative Ordnungen Inter/Medial Queeren held at the Institut fuer Kunst und Visuelle Kulture Helene-Lange-Kolleg Queer Studies & Intermedialitaet Kunst-Musik-Medienkulture at the Carl von Ossietzky Universitaet Oldenburg.  It seems like the bold scholarship is bubbling forth from these small provincial university towns and hamlets.  I had a blast in Oldenburg which is quite pretty and inviting.  It was great to get away from Berlin and be someplace a little bit more laid back.  The atmosphere generated by the organizers of the conference was very congenial, open and gracious.  I want to give open mouth shout outs to Professor Dr. Barbara Paul the big boss at the University, creative instigators:  Atlanta Ina Beyer a lovesexy butch, Rena Onat a Turkish/German glamorour girl young scholarina and Natascha Frankenberg a willowy Amazon with personality plus.
Things started off with a nice low key bang in the form of a roundtable discussion under the heading: Queering and Decolonizing Art and Visual Culture with British writer, activist and interdisciplinaryartist Raju Rage and gorgeous Afro German blacktavist, curator and scholar Sandrine Micosse’-Atkins whose new tome Little Book of Big Visions I am dying to read.
The second day the theme was Queer Temporalities, Film & Movement and the first lecturina was by the dazzling Katrin Koppert, “Tableaux and Tableaux Vivants of Pain and Queer Time in Photography and/as Film. Katrin lives in Berlin but works in Linz Austria and collaborates with Todd Sekular.
My CHEAP kollektiv co-hort Marcuse Siegelstein also shined with his Catskills circuit talk Images From the Post Heterosexual Age.
I felt bad that I missed most of the vivacious Eliza Steinboch’s Puncture Wounds, Sensing Gender-Nonconformity Stigma in the Anti-Portrait and the personable and engaging Anthony Clair Wagner’s REappropriating the Monster:  From Stigma to Empowerment part of the Trans Media-Trans Bodies program as I had to get into hair & make-up as I was the keynote speaker that evening under the heading of Queer Punk Politics. 
Special thankx to my juicy & lovely personal assistant Marieka who is an undergraduate student who devoted herself to me during my visit and did a wonderful job doing my hair and make-up.  I love you Mareika you are the bestest!  After my artist talk there was a delish catered vegan dinner at Club Polyester in the Olde City Center and after party which featured the famous feministische Djane from Aotearoa, New Zealand Bella Cuts aka: Jen Bell who makes u dance on the ruins of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.  Miss Bella Cuts has relocated to Berlin and I hope to be seeing lots of her in the future as she is the one adoreable young woman.
The last day of the festivities WoWed and featured academic super shtar Mimi Thi Nguyen  an associate professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign who presented with punque aplomb Minor Threats.  Mimi has brought to her university my old comrade in femme arms Alice Bag Armendariz and is such a solid archivist of all things punc having written for Maximumrocknroll, Punk Planet and her own compilation zine Race Riot. Katherina Wiedlack who is based in Vienna Austria closed things beautifully and sonically with her lecture Loud, Rude and with an Attitude:  Queer-Feminist Punk in/as Form, Meaning and Affect concentrating on letting us hear some amazing new punk bands of color based in Portland and Seattle while mixing in a little theory via  Lee Edelman’s No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive.  Honey it doesn’t get any better then this.  But yes it did get better with a nice summation by the famed lesbianfeminist Antke Engel of the legendary Queer Institute Berlin.  Yowza!
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For those of you visiting Berlin in February and want to have some alternatives to the International Berlinale Film Festival please check out this exciting event by underground film legend Wilhelm Hein and his art photog girlfriend Annette Frick:
IN KÜRZE GROSSES TAMTAM!!!!!!!!!  
WIEDERERÖFFNUNG 
ZEIG' WAS DU WIRKLICH KANNST!!!!!


COMING SOON!!!!!!! RE-OPENING!!!!!!!!!
BIG WHOOPY-WHOOPY !!!! 
SHOW WHAT YOU REALLY CAN DO !!!!!!!!  

Achtung: neuer Termin:
Samstag 7.2.2015 ab 18 Uhr 

PFUSCHEN VERBOTEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NO MESSING AROUND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

schummeln und flunkern erlaubt
fudging and cheating allowed


YOU HAVE 3 MINUTES TO CREATE YOUR PIECE OF ART
DU HAST 3 MINUTEN ZEIT  (D)EIN KUNSTWERK ZU SCHAFFEN!!!


SEND US YOUR CONTRIBUTION: IMAGE,  SOUND,  TEXT,  FILM,  FOTO,  MUSIC,  POEM OR  PERFORMANCE TO THE FOLLOWING ADRESS: 
or analogue  Post to
Wilhelm Hein -  Seest.107 - D-13353 Berlin

or bring it personal at least one day before the big WHOOPY-WHOOPY !
oder bring es persönlich mindestens 1 Tag vor Eröffnung

schick uns deinen Beitrag: Bild, Sound, Text, Film, Foto, Musik, Gedicht, Poem, Performance, per mail an Kintoppp@gmx.de  oder Frick@gmx.de oder per Post an 
Wilhelm Hein -  Seest.107 - D-13353 Berlin

herzlichst Wilhelm Hein und Annette Frick

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And this happening by Basso Art Guru Yusuf Etiman:

dear friends of audio pleasures

i am very happy to announce that i will be programming some 'sonic adventures' at the non-profit exhibition space between bridges in schöneberg for the whole month of february. since september, between bridges has installed a playback room featuring a high end stereo sound system, which not only in its sweet spot provides a fabulous hearing experience.

the rough framework of the programme is like this:
throughout the month, between bridges will be open wednesdays to fridays from 3pm and i will be present during opening hours.
every wednesday at 7 pm, we will screen a film programme with a special emphasis on the soundtrack.
saturdays is open house, where everybody can come and share their favourite tracks (or video clips etc).
thursdays and fridays, there is the opportunity to put up special listening events…

so all of you, from high end nerds to disco fire birds - this goes out to you!

let me know if you have ideas! let's take the opportunity to spoil our ears… the only limit is that we keep it to the playback framework, meaning no live gigs/performances etc.

with great help of some of our friends, the space will be transformed for leisurely comfort and there will always be a hot tea waiting for you. i would also be very happy if this month gives us the framework to further reflect about spaces for sound presentation, which, as some of you well know, has been a main topic in my research since basso closed down. in recent time, i teamed up with mate galic and barbara architects to push and further crystalise the ideas about purpose building a sound space for our community. if you have any ideas, tips, knowledge, whatever you might think is important to share in this context - this february we can talk about all of that.

you will get a weekly programme email from between bridges on every sunday in the coming month - please let me know if you do not wish this. i know that some of you are abroad or packed with other things and can not join physically. but please, if you have any proposals for listening adventures, get in touch with me. i will be happy to spread your sound in your absence. also if you have friends who you think might be interested, please forward them the programme, or send their email to me or between bridges, so we can include them in the mailings.

there is a cd player, a turntable (not two!), a projector and the possiblity to play sound files - which preferably should be really good quality, not lores mp3s or so…
if you want to know precisely about the tech set up, please download: www.etiman.de/Techniks.pdf

i hope this finds you all well, and i wish all of you could pay a visit to

Bring Your Own (Playback Room part III)
a month of sonic adventures
04.02.2015 – 28.02.2015
www.betweenbridges.net
Keithstrasse 15, 10787 Berlin

a big hug, can't wait!
yusuf