Monat: Juni 2013

Full Steam Space Machine

I’m back in Berlin!
Took me a while …. from LA to London … then to Berlin.
These extremely beautiful beaming red dressed Ladies are stewardesses of Aeroflot / Russia! They know how to dress!

Berlin is LA’s cold little sister. I’m confused. It’s suddenly cold and not bright. I will have a nice jetlag.
That’s why I went to my favourite Burgeria around the corner (2 Americans, 1 German) and ordered a Superjalapeño Burger. And a Tyskie (Polish) beer while waiting.
They had the radio on or some private compilation … my two very personal waiting songs were “Full Steam Space Machine“ by I don’t know and then “Keep On Rockin‘ In The Free World“ by … you know.
Yeah, free world. There’s something going on right now. I feel for all who get killed right now fighting, no not even fighting: standing up for a free world.

Illy Cam

A little workshop today for Echo Park Film Center’s intimate friends Danny, Matt, Dicky, Chloé and Paolo and me of course.

We bought some Illy espresso coffee cans (the Film Center has now coffee for the next two years I guess), drilled holes, taped ready-made holes on them (I brought some from Germany, different diameters, laser drilled, from Monochrom), put sheet film inside, closed, ready! A perfect pinhole camera! The lid is absolutely light-tight!

We went into the park and shot some weird photos, then returned and developed them in … coffee! Success! At least partly! Some turned out to be overdeveloped because exposure time was more guessing than knowing … but anyway: fun and beauty!!!

Moca In And Outside

Art day for me. Riding the 4 bus downtown, there are two Mocas easily walkable from one to the other. Downtown is concrete and deserted but suddenly taken over by bikes … there was a race, don’t know for what reason, and then I remembered: Ciclavia! On Wilshire! But that’s somewhere else! Today! [CicLAvia temporarily removes cars from L.A. streets – and the streets fill up with smiles!] Like we had „autofreien Sonntag“ in Germany in the … seventies? When gas worries occured for the first time? Biking is a political attitude here and I like that.

Back to Moca. There’s a huge Urs Fischer exhibition going on in both Mocas. One has several of his works – I like the room full of 3-D rectangles like honey bear, banana, 1-dollar, things he likes I presume, their picture from all sides printed on a 3-D-mirror.

The other Moca exhibits a project of a collaboration with 1,500 LA people playing and working with clay. Gigantic. I love it.

When I walked out into the sun again I wondered whether that man on the bench was art or real ….

Same with that inscription on the building opposite Moca: art or reality?

Ten footsteps down another attraction: a camera and a projection, remembering Tōyō Miyatake (宮武東洋), who was a Japanese American photographer, best known for his photographs documenting the Japanese American people and the Japanese American internment at Manzanar during World War II.

The Ambassadors Of Coincidence In LA

Hooray!

Paolo and me we were the first two to play the game in Los Angeles!

[For those who want to know more, go to my other website www.ambassadorsofcoincidence.com, you’ll find tons of information and pictures and some films.]

It’s all about exploring your city. You can play it, too. Zigzag through your city, find paths and spots with the help of coincidence and philosophying over things, trash, objects, marks, graffiti – whatever – to get to the next spot. A street and a block or house number.

We started in the Echo Park, rolled the dice and, by narrowing down the LA street index (a sweet old book from the eighties) from pages to one page to columns to lines until we finally found our starting point: Harrington Avenue 3000!

We went there (by car of course) – a tiny street with only a few houses – and immediately stumbled upon a neat little house, embedded in roses with a striking golden statue, quite small, Buddha? A man appeared and told us that he found it in the back yard when he bought the house and it was him who painted it golden and set it up in the front. It was rather a Mary than a Buddha.

And on and on and on …. this spot led us to … Marygold Avenue! Another very short street in Harbor City. Deserted, hot, a giant beige building, a sand colored van and another one labeled „Southwind“ … three men lingering around, partly teethless … but friendly when we started to explain that we were playing a scavenger-like game. They told us about a beautiful park nearby with a lake where one good old day a crocodile was found.

And on and on and on … the whole game presented us 4 stations, we ended up in Electric Street in Silver Lake and immediately spotted a shimmering balloon tied to the electric cable above saying „hero“ …

Whow.

If you want to watch and listen to the whole story, check my website in about 1 month, it’s all been recorded and filmed … the whole trip, the whole day. Lots of footage. Going to edit a little film when I’m back in Berlin!!

This mural displaying elements … wind, water, sun, earth … plus the pipe next to it led us to „electricity“.

A beautiful park with a lake in Harbor City … and no crocodiles around!

And finally … coooool Hefeweizen and a cigarette in a beergarden in Silver Lake!!!

Jacaranda And Seaweed Soup

I filmed some Super 8 black&white films and then developed them in different soups: Jacaranda blossoms and seaweed … both mixed with vitamin c and washing soda as usual. The blossoms or the weed don’t do the job solo, it works only in combination with the other two (ph balance).

The results are amazing, the films came out beautiful, the seaweed film a little yellow-sepia! Maybe because of the salt contents? Must ask my chemist friend Thierry …

It’s hot at the Echo Park Film Center!

Jacaranda blossoms lose their sweet color as soon as you pour hot water over them …

(the yellowish image, the ocean waves: that’s a seaweed developing!
All film stills original negative and then scanned and digitally inverted)

The Filmmobile Is In The Park!

Yesterday Echo Park Film Center’s Filmmobile entered MacArthur Park and gave a free workshop for kids and older kids! Direct animation on 16 mm film! Make your own animation film with cut out paper stuff! And then: music on the stage! Yummy tacos at taco stands!

Levitt Pavilion for the Performing Arts MacArthur Park presents 50 summer concerts annually.  Admission is always FREE, making live music and the arts accessible to all!

¡Roberto Y Salvador, Un Burrito Pollo Por Favor!

… that’s almost all I can say in Spanish! Con algo hay que empezar … that was the name of my Spanish lesson book 100 years ago if I remember correctly!

That taco stand „Taco Salsa“ is located in front of the Vons parking lot during the day. The two guys are sympatico and the burrito is gigantic!

At night it miraculously changes its name and is then called „Tacozone“. Or maybe it’s another one …

Sea Scum Developer

I collected some sea weed and made a tea, strong and salty-fishy smelling and for sure not potable!
I developed a film in it … super 8 black & white … and it turned out quite light and low contrasty with a yellowish tint! Yippeeh!

Why light, why low contrast? I presume because of the salt content. Must ask my chemist friend.

Echo Aurora Under 1000 Stars And 1/2 Moon

I could not find better words, so I paste and copy the Echo Park Film Center & Villa Aurora’s words right into my blog:

Echo Park Film Center and its roving band of cinematic troubadours come to the beautiful hills of Malibu to present a night of short animated and experimental films to remind you of the beauty of life and living. Bring a blanket, a loved one and an open mind to sit under the stars and watch a collection of short films made by the Echo Park Film Center collective (& friends) between the years of 2001 – 2013.

This magical evening will include prizes and surprises, popcorn, Dagie Brundert (a visiting filmmaker from Berlin), laughter, love and the occasional tear.

All ages welcome. Sell your TV and come to the cinema. We look forward to seeing you.

*********

Now that was a wonderful event!

50 people and 1 dog enjoyed a summer evening sitting on the grass watching short films that have been made during workshops of the Film Center – so many lovely different films about flying rats, weddings in the Ukraine, Dirndl girls in rape seed fields … and so much more!

[The Villa Aurora was built in 1928 in the hills of the Pacific Palisades.
Villa Aurora is an international meeting place for artists and intellectuals fostering a lively exchange in the fields of literature, art, science and politics. It is located in the former home of exiled German-Jewish writer Lion Feuchtwanger, who founded „Der Spiegel“ in 1908, and his wife Marta.]

That was a perfect combination!!

Micheladas

I learned today: Michelada is a drink. Beer served in a glass with a salted rim (like Margarita). Plus chicken soup. Or chicken broth (Hühnerbrühe).
There’s a cool restaurant in Silverlake that Paolo and I went to this evening, called Diablo. We had a fantastic dinner. It was a Mexican restaurant before. California was something else before. I was a Scandinavian alien before. Whatever.
They made a popsicle of it. Not of the world but of the chicken soup. Bite in it, drink a sip and lick salt.
Wow.

Coffee! Wine! Jacaranda Flower Tea! Film Party!

The workshop is done! 9 people having fun! And me and helpers-co-teachers Paolo and Rick!

We split into 3 groups and went out filming … then came back and started the alchemistic kitchen performance: mixing coffee / red wine / jacaranda blossom tea with vitamin c and washing soda for the most interesting smelling and developing soups!

They worked fine! We got films! Black & white negative! Beautiful! Full success, yeeeeha!! It’s such a crazy miracle that it is possible to use almost healthy natural stuff instead of more or less poisonous regular developer! And in the end the developed films look almost the same! Coffee is the crispiest solution, red wine is dense and has many grey shades, jacaranda tea the same!

And to conclude that intense day I had a film show in the evening … showing some of my old and new films, also in the Echo Park Film Center, yay, we had a good time, thank you audience!!

EPFC Open Screening

They do it once a month: the Echo Park Film Center (that’s where I’m at this month, lucky me, tiny artist in residence, huge eco developer!) … opening the screen for filmmakers that just drop in and bring their works. 16 or 8 mm or digital, anything is possible.

What an interesting evening! I was quite amazed to realize that almost all films had something in common: brutality and horror elements. A war like scenery woman tortured man trying to rescue. Killing her in the end, thank you. Slowly of course.
A post modern female artist being defined, annoyed and molested by a man that she finally kills and transforms in an art piece, hopefully.
The only female artist that showed a film (besides me) presented an annoyed Jesus suffering on his cross in the desert. Looking for a reason? For lost religion?
Oooff …. heavy stuff, also conservative in terms of gender. Is it prettier to see a woman being raped and tortured? For me it just sucks. War is brutal, right, I agree. Is it prettier to see a woman being raped and tortured? For me it just sucks. Is it prettier to see a woman being raped and tortured? For me it just sucks.

OK, enough shitting: the best film of the evening was made by … name forgotten … coming later … a 17 year old cool greasy hair guy … a film in black and white, contrasty like hell, about another guy, coffee addict maybe, restless, weirdo cuts and breaks, awesome sound and music. Congrats! Keep on keeping on!!

This is me just before the screening:

This is Paolo doing the best announcement ever:

16 mm and a long way to go …