Living in the precarious-made world today feels - more often than not - like an odd romantic anachronistic fantasy - for tourists - who don’t know what bomb has dropped, and which walls have fallen and which are being built, which metropols and which cultures have capitulated. Neither the Kulisse nor the plot fits the realities, and nothing in the endlessly replayable archives syncs with the urgent challenges of the times, but we press the play button over and over again.
We’re pressing buttons all day, and nothing ever sufficiently moves to the next frame or the next scene. In our over-mediated lives we are all now discussing and theorizing the grim scenarios unfolding as if we are waiting for an art director or a (s)elected populist politician or a hollowed figurhead’s cue. Their instructions plop out like a bubble of text or a dim-witted script for a cartoon hanging above all our heads; It won’t bring a fucking thing, other than maybe a lone, cynical cubicle-ized laugh - in solitude - echoing from the desktop galley !
Only a society re-organizing from below stands a chance to re-arrange… NOT the deck chairs on the blockbuster Titanics… but the whole mechanisms by which we inform ourselves. In addition, we must plant terrestrial seeds for realistic physical infrastructures where collaborative and interactive future-making and sense-making can take place. And abundant fields for the reclaiming of inhabitable social space… beyond all the digital matrix shite uberalles !
The pic above is at the flattened and desolate Anhalter Banhof ruins ( near Postdamerplatz ) in the late 1980s, a chilling - but imbiss-cute - scene from Himmer Uber Berlin (1987) ... the bunker and the graffiti in the backround are REAL. “Those who build bunkers, throw bombs.” The ingenious painted black text jam is still there, and the bunker is now a tourist attraction museum ( w/ very incomplete WW2 + Cold War history in tourist-speak storyboards ). Narrowly curated and heavily-enforced narratives and gaping omissions ! Pre-memoried culture w/ very limited views of justice and reparations. More rooms without views.
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Many will recognize the scene with Peter Falk and the angel Damiel aka Bruno Ganz from “ Berlin Üzerindeki Gökyüzü” or “Alas del Deseo” or “Niebo Nad Berlinem” or “ Небо над Берлином “ … aka “Wings of Desire”. We’ve written (and ranted) about the Wender’s film before, who loves to inject American-icons into the already-scarred European psyche ( Dennis Hopper, Sam Shephard, Falk, Dafoe, Harry Dean Stanton, Lou Reed, etc.). It’s pioneering cinema art, that we indeed loved when it came out, but has - in hindsight - aged very badly, we would argue. And has so many odd flaws. Psychomedia analysis required ( an instrument + praxis we use in our CiTiZEN KiNO projects). No one has ever really dared to pick this arthouse legend apart, and analyze it as a very West German ( Düsseldorfer, to be specific ) specimen of the Cold War surrealities and the usual western-centric political ( and/or apolitical ) MASSAGE.
But nevermind the film, arts, culture and simulacrumbs (sic) worlds for now, our point here is to think deep about who is building BUNKERS, and who is manufacturing and throwing the 21st century BOMBS NOW ! And who is selling FICTITIOUS SOLUTIONS and SECURITY and HOLLOW-GRAM (sic) existence amidst a manufRactured and seemingly endless realworld terror !
Foto / visualization / marketing - for the “Medienbunker” and new Hard Rock Hotel in Hamburg - the former Nazi flakturm bunker, now a renovated mega-mix commercial enterprise, which re-opened w/ the new flowery penthouse additions this summer. As if neolibs are now putting mutant bio-tech feathers in their sustainable-greasy hair. Yes, the real version of this green-kopf’d chia-head of a Military Entertainment Zone ( niteclubs, techno clubs, rooftop bars, sound engineering school, theater, etc. ) looks exactly as stupid as the fotoshop advertisements. And you can imagine the type of people who will make a pilgrimage to stay overnite in a Nazi bunker !
So, just for some extra giggles… and maybe a few extra post-modern tears.
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Today is Oct.3, 2024. Tag der Deutschen Einheit, commemorating the re-unification of 1990. Anyone believing that there was a clear unity then or today would have to be stuck in some romantic and/or comedy propaganda frames from another (non-existent) era, or a super-imposed work of art !?
We will come back to continue this thread of XLt analysis…
But for now, we give you the…
XLt Herbst Radar ( part 2 )
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- OKTOBER -
02.10 - ‘Palestine Cinema Days’ - call for screenings - around the world !
02-06.10 - FFFB 6 - Female Filmmakers Festival at Kino Moviemento
03.10 - DEMO - Nein zu Krieg und Hochrüstung! Ja zu Frieden und intl Solidarität !
03.10 - 20 Years of Frontex – Abolish Frontex now at Potsdamer Platz, 14h
04.10 - Signals2Noise - Art, Aesthetics, Practice + Community Radio at Silent Green
04-12.10 - Human Rights Film Festival 2024 - Berlin
05.10 - The Big Chill - 1 day symposium - at Spore
02.10 - Palestine Resists Demo ( Migrantifa ) at Kotti, 14h
06.10 - It didn’t start on October 7th - open discussion + film at Oyoun
11.10 - Schneider TM + Marc Weiser & Lillevan (Rechenzentrum) at GalilaaKirche
11.10 - Casino - a cafe for social medicine -grand opening - at Sonnenallee 100
14.10 - Yuval Noah Harari + Nexus book + discussion at Tempodrom ( analysis required )
15.10 - Ein Felasophisches Treffen w/ Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 at HKW
18.10 - Ilan Pappe - lecture + discussion - location TBA
22.10 - Tanz den Kommunismus vs. Wir sind die Türken von morgen at GalilaaKirche
24-25.10 - A Tribute to Coum Transmissions & Throbbing Gristle at GalilaaKirche
31.10 - Disruption Lab w/ Marwa Fatafta + Hadi al Khatib at Stadtwerkstatt
tbc…
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- NOVEMBER -
07.11 - On Justice #1: uber intl. recht w/. Nahed Samour u.a at HAU1
tbc…
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As current events are getting evermore over-mediated, heated and surreal… be vigilant about where you’re getting informed perspectives, and looking for the more on-the-ground solutions to create more sustainable and realistic and de-colonial futures !
More XLt analysis coming soon !