Constanze Ruhm

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In this performative archival viewing, Angela Melitopoulos and Constanze Ruhm collect statements about the concept of accessing an archive. Film clips from the Forum program in 1972 are shown in a performative act of assembly as a public process of viewing. Arsenal Cinema 1 will be transformed into an editing stage, becoming the production space for a live viewing. This control room between archive, theater, and cinema will become a psycho-technical plateau with invisible entrances and exits and a few magical archival films. Coincidence, the bodily insistence of being there, and reflections on the relationship between institutional architecture and cinematographic projection will all play an important role. The invited archivists will discuss the question of access to a virtual space of programming by means of films and film clips from fiction films, documentaries, and experimental films about workers’ struggles and urban warfare, relations between the sexes, and the ties between statement and film time, always focusing on the question of access.

With: Anselm Franke, Harun Farocki, Erika und Ulrich Gregor, Eunice Martins, Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Senta Siewert

Selected films: HUNGER IN WALDENBURG, Piel Jutzi, Germany 1929, 35mm; LA TERRA TREMA, Luchino Visconti, Italy 1948, 35mm; CHIRCALES (DIE ZIEGELARBEITER), Marta Rodrigues, Jorge Silva, Colombia 1972, 16mm; CHUNKO KUO – CHINA, Michelangelo Antonioni, PR China 1972, 35mm; ZORNS LEMMA, Hollis Frampton, USA 1970, 16mm; NEWSREEL COLLECTIVE: BREAK AND ENTER, USA 1970, 16mm; NEWSREEL COLLECTIVE: JAMIE'S JANIE, Geri Ashur, USA 1970, 16mm; A AND B IN ONTARIO, Joyce Wieland/Hollis Frampton, USA 1966-1984, 16mm

Angela Melitopoulos, was born in Munich in 1961 and lives in Berlin. Since 1985, she has developed art projects using time-based media which explore mobility / migration, mnemonic techniques and micropolitics. Her video works have been shown internationally (including the Berlin Documentary Forum, the Berlinale Forum Expanded, the Athens Biennale, the Antonin Tapies Foundation Barcelona, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, the Manifesta 7, the Centre Georges Pompidou Paris, the Whitney Museum New York, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía) and have received a range of different prizes.

The artist and author Constanze Ruhm was born in Vienna in 1965. Since 1990, she has exhibited internationally, with her work encompassing installations, film/videos, publications and curatorial activities (haus.0programm at the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart 2001–2003; Fate of Alien Modes, Secession Wien 2003 and ZKM Karlsruhe 2004). Her most recent video piece MY_NEVER_ENDING_BURIAL_PLOT received its world premiere at the Forum Expanded section in 2010.

The performance is part of "Living Archive – Archive Work as a Contemporary Artistic and Curatorial Practice", a project of Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation and the Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin.