Dagies Blog

Me In A Gallery

Oh, I am beginning to like this … having photos hanging in a gallery … and also a super 8 film in a loop on a monitor!

It happens in Berlin at CLB-Galerie and this is what they say:

“The Königsheide in the district of Treptow-Köpenick is not only a popular recreational area, but also a historically and culturally significant place. Due to its biological diversity and as a natural space in the middle of the city, it appears to be worthy of protection and is a model for ecological thinkers on an international level
.
CLB is pleased to present the works of four artists who are currently investigating the past and present of Königsheide: Dagie Brundert, katrinem, Birgit Szepanski and Maike Zimmermann. In various media such as pinhole camera photography, video, augmented reality (preliminary work), sound walks and an open archive, they explore this special landscape and invite you to rediscover the Königsheide with them.”

If you have the chance come and meet us there!

Ode an Juni #10

My June film 2022 is ready to watch!!! Click here!! Or on the picture.

“Forest, Braunschweig, lake, heat, developing with henna and rhubarb, a big ice cream … and then the shit comes and changes my life.”

Zirkuswagentransportfilm

Watch the documented caravan transport on youtube! Super 8!!!

Let me introduce: Café Müller

Now this is a cool story, a sad and a happy one too, a story full of ideas!

My boyfriend jumped into another universe in summer. I got this gypsy caravan, half of it, the other half I share it with his best and oldest friend Christoph. We love it and we want to set it free (it slept 30 years in a stable / atelier; my boyfriend lived in it 40 years ago, travelled ultraslowly for 10 years).

Now we moved it to a place in North Germany where we will transform it to a café, an experimental kitchen, a tiny cinema, a culinary and artful lab.

It stands here now, in Bokel, a small village, a caravan community that merged into the rural farmer community with a 30 years history beginning with the first two couples in caravans with a big heart for nature and living together in harmony.

Now it is a little paradise in the middle of forests and meadows and you can be a guest for a while, you wouldn’t think but some caravans are rented via airbnb!
Some info here. 

We will start with slow renovation and the first cups of coffee over the winter. Stay tuned!

Autumn Forest

… I collected some forest stuff to make a developer for a super 8 film. What a wonderful day! Warm sun beams, all in colour, hidden surprises, happy mushrooms!

9.5

Did you know that there is not only 8 and 16 and 35 and 70 mm film … but also 9.5 mm? With central sprockets?

Wiki says: “9.5 mm film is an amateur film format introduced by Pathé in 1922 as part of the Pathé Baby amateur film system. It was conceived initially as an inexpensive format to provide copies of commercially made films to home users, although a simple camera was released shortly afterwards.
It became very popular in Europe over the next few decades and is still used by a small number of enthusiasts today.”

But how can you develop it? I have a Lomo tank designed for 8 or 16 mm, but not for 9.5. So I had to tinker something!

Have fun watching my tutorial! Click here!! It is on Youtube.

Quitty

Quitte is Quince in English.
Quincy Jones = Quitty Jones then.
I got a handful from my friend Torsten who has a garden. Made compote! Yum!

Darkroom Day

Just some photos swimming.

Golden October Sun And Friend And Dogs And A Pinhole Camera

I carry my loaded pinhole camera wherever I go … I met my friend Kasia and her two little dogs in a park, an old abandoned graveyard. She told me a funny story about her one dog Lichee: he is quite old now (15) and about to get blind and a little lame, but sometimes like being hit by an energy beam he’s running around like crazy and full of energy like a teen dog! Her dog whisperer friend told her that he is beginning to mix up his realities, remembers old memories and lives in them! For the moment. This is it. For the moment. I ponder and wonder about it.

Pinhole Power!

My most recent workshop at Bi’bak Berlin, a lovely place with a garden!

It’s easy to make your own personal pinhole camera, you just need a light-tight box (the best in the world is an Illy coffee can!!! Must have a removable / screwable lid), a hole and some photo paper or film. Negative and positive.

In this workshop we tinkered pinhole cameras (to take them home afterwards!), learned a lot about the beauty of analog photography, apertures and exposure times, went out and tried the different ways to create an oddly beautiful picture! Developed together in the adventurous, improvised darkroom! It was fun! Thank you all for being part of it!!!

Rainbow Over Friedrichshain

Nothing special, just a little smile-making beauty!

I Want Flower!

I found an old polaroid photo … my cat Morellino wants a flower! Pure sweetness. He is dead long time. Sniff.

Good-Bye, Summer!

Come back next year!

A Dreamy Parking Lot

In the center of one of Berlin’s ugliest parts and close to Lidl there is this parking lot of hope!

i am a

Baltic Sea mood. Misty and warm rain, me all alone at the beach. I made a film, I sang. Here it is!

Rain Swimming

Nothing beats this feeling: swimming naked in the sea (quite cold) when it’s raining (warm)!

More Baltic Sea Beach Life

A sandy birthday cake, some unknown people with umbrellas, friends and an old dog, collecting seaweed to make developer!

Baltic Sea Beach Life

Some days to swim and relax and watch and contemplate and … not much more!

About Love, Life And Death

My Big Love died four days ago. It feels absurd and I feel calm and superweird and paralyzed. But also full and saturated with his love and the full 13 years that we had together. Full of images and coincidences and words and shared situations and so much that I know not many people have in one life. Thankfulness will prevail, I know now with one Dagie-part. The other one is still paralyzed.
But I wanted to tell you something else: The last film that we made together (ideas shared, he on the camera, me editing and making the sound later, refining the story) is now – in retrospect – astonishingly predictive!
It is a film about broken lines. Broken communication lines (communication was very special and fruitful between us!). New communication lines. Me connecting trees that communicate underground. Take a look:
Deutsche Version https://vimeo.com/710046723
English version https://vimeo.com/710130718
clickclick
This film is dedicated to my Big Love Jochen.

Me In New York

This picture! Lily took it … Lily organized a filmshow! A bunch of my films in a New York cinema: Spectacle Theater in Brooklyn.
“Spectacle (est. 2010) is a collectively-run screening space in Brooklyn, NY, established and staffed by hard-working, cinema-loving volunteers. Our programming runs seven days a week and includes overlooked works, offbeat gems, contemporary art, radical polemics, live performance and more.”
Yeah! I was there … at least in spirit!
Lily took a photo of my audience.
I love it.

Ode An Juni Begins!

Remember? I do it every June … filming some super 8 each single day of June, my favourite month, making it an ode to this fresh and lovely month!
Day 3 took me to the Königsheide (King’s Heather) in the East part of Berlin. Just a small forest. But it felt like being far away from the city!

Pling-Ke-Ling: New Tram Sound

I was riding the tram here in my city and I noticed: they have a new announcing sound! I like it.

Münster Workshop Snippets

The workshop was fantastic and resulted in a sackful of films!
I edited some scenes of the two group films we shot spontaneously together!
Click here or on the picture! It’s on Youtube.

Münster Art Academy Super 8 Workshop #1

I am guest teacher at Münster Art Academy! I teach analogue film and eco developing! Two weeks only, but very intense, 5 students participating!
The weather was gorgeous the first week, so we did part of the process outside!

One Year Later – Kiss The Moment!

One year ago (it was actually in June and July 2021) I started a pinhole photo project: I take something from nature (the image and the developing ingredients like clover, sage, peppermint, food waste etc) and I give it back: I hang the photo in the place where it was taken. It remains there until it gets stolen, rained down, or weathered.
It is in transit, it will disappear, but that doesn’t matter, the flowers are wilting as well and the trees are losing their leaves.
Nothing is forever, but for a while it is just there, delightful: kiss the moment, it’s not a pyramid!

(This installation was part of the exhibition THE GARDEN. CINEMATICS OF THE SOIL at Silent Green Kulturquartier, Berlin 2021)

Now one year later the photos are still hanging there! Some torn, all a bit withered … but still so beautiful!

Foto Impex

What is an impex actually? A disease? An input? Is it Latin? No, much easier: “business, (in company names) import and export”.

Anyway, Foto-Impex is my favourite photo shop in Berlin, they sell all the sweet stuff that I need … photo paper, fix and developer, sheet film … all Adox and all Foma and all the others!
Big kiss goes out to them!!

The First Day Of Spring

… Hiking! With my friend Gesine and her dog Sumi! 12 km! Yay! 77 km away from Berlin! Pure joy and forgetting about miserable things one day long. New leaves, crisp air, a freshly born spring … the earth is such a beautiful space if only …

2 Dagies

The weather is ugly, spring won’t come, winter lingers here forever, so I stay inside and tinker with old and new film stripes …

Headless Swan

This photo represents … the world / people / the present / you name it …

A Walk In The Woods

A little snippet from my upcoming super 8 film!