MASTERCLASS

In their music videos Katharina Duve and Timo Schierhorn use analog everyday objects like postcards, group-photographies, maps or banknotes to appropriate the potential of the mass media in an experimental way. In the tradition of copy art they sample, cut up and re-unite pre-existing images in analog collages, which they later digitalize for further editing. For their masterclass they prepared a performative presentation, using a top-down live camera installed on a table which was broadcasting to a screen. Therefore they could present all their archive of original, analog footage to the audience and animate it underneath the camera, while explicating the production process and the context of the visual footage and music.

In the first session, Kati and Timo present two music videos: "Fratzengulasch" (20119 and "Ich Verblühe" (2012). Starting point of both of these works are found footage materials which focus on representation: a school photo and former banknotes. They talk about strategies of appropriation, mashup, destruction and renewal.

In Janie Geiser's photo-based films, she has been obsessed with unearthing possible and impossible narratives from found photographs and related images. For the Masterclass, she will discuss the process of constructing her films, her overall approach to the moving image, and other aspects of her work, including performance and installation.

IFirst Session: Fabricated Histories, will focus on two recent photo films: Flowers of the Sky (2016) centers on two panoramic photographs depicting a 1949 gathering of members of the Masonic Order of the Eastern Star. 22 Light-years (2021) merges found photo negatives from the 1940’s with screen recordings Janie Geiser made while designing fictitious homes and landscapes by manipulating consumer home design software.

In their music videos Katharina Duve and Timo Schierhorn use analog everyday objects like postcards, group-photographies, maps or banknotes to appropriate the potential of the mass media in an experimental way. In the tradition of copy art they sample, cut up and re-unite pre-existing images in analog collages, which they later digitalize for further editing. For their masterclass they prepared a performative presentation, using a top-down live camera installed on a table which was broadcasting to a screen. Therefore they could present all their archive of original, analog footage to the audience and animate it underneath the camera, while explicating the production process and the context of the visual footage and music.

In the second block, the music videos “Woher Kommst Du” (2016) and “Mrs Yamaha's Summer Tune” (2020) are examined more closely. The central idea of this work is the recontextualization of everyday documents: (old) maps and (old) postcards. How do you question the ordering systems of the world by shifting the known boundaries? What do the images of tourism tell about our desires and dreams?

In Janie Geiser's photo-based films, she has been obsessed with unearthing possible and impossible narratives from found photographs and related images. For the Masterclass, she will discuss the process of constructing her films, her overall approach to the moving image, and other aspects of her work, including performance and installation.

Second Session of the Masterclass: Presence and Absence, is centered on two photo-related films. Valeria Street (2018) began with a series of seven found slides of her father and four other men, gathered around a table in a generic mid-century office. The film explores the implications suggested in the images about power, complicity, and the landscape of industry. Absent Objects (2020) examines three empty photo albums as evidence of both memory and loss.