Erik Urlings • Exit Exit

Erik Urlings NL Exit Exit 16 min 5s, DV, 2006 click pic to see the video

Reality and dream are merging during a seamingly endless car ride on the Amsterdam traffic circle (A10). An intense experience of traffic and land- and cityscape. The always moving camera and the unearthly soundtrack turn cars, lights and scapes into melancholy.

Exit Exit, the latest work by Erik Urlings that was screened at Directors Lounge 2007, is very different to the abstract Social Realism 1, a video installation that comes like a cinematic counterpart to the paintings of Mark Rothko. However both hypnotize the viewer not only with the pictures but with a mesmerising score as well.

see Exit Exit
see Social Realism 1

Ann Noel and Emmett Williams • Visual Poetry

Emmet Williams and his longtime companion Ann Noel performed on May 24th, 1997 during the opening of the exhibition "VISUELLE POESIE", curated by Uwe Warnke, at the Kurt Tucholsky memorial, Castle Rheinsberg. Hinrich Peters filmed the event on location. This short impression of Emmett Williams performing life with Ann Noel was screened subsequent to the presentation of the ZEBRA poetry and film awards in honour to Emmett Williams who died on Wednesday, 14th of February in Berlin.
Click on the pictures to see the video.

Jan Hermann has posted a conversation with Emmett that gives an additional insight and is worth a reading. snippet:
"I was a pretty good bartender once," he went on. "And foreman of a landfill project. I can wield a mean axe in the forest, too. Yes, I'd call myself a poet before anything else, though I wouldn't call it my occupation. Call it my preoccupation. Making poetry is the thing I've always done, or wanted to do, whatever else I was trying to accomplish. The thing that interrupts whatever else I'm doing. A 'disturbance' that I can't tune out."

Io sono il vento

Io sono il vento by Devis Venturelli was among he highlights of this years Directors Lounge. A poetic short that is formed by four female life portraits: the adolescence, the youth, the mature age and the old age. The wind crosses each histories modifying the obvious standstill, among the wait of an ineluctable destiny and the abandonment to unexpected openings.

click the picture to see this beautiful and dreamy movie.

Honouring Emmett Williams

Emmett Williams, artist and poet, died the day before yesterday, February 14, 2007 in Berlin. Emmett Williams, who collaborated with Daniel Spoerri in the Darmstadt circle of concrete poetry from 1957 to 1959 was the European coordinator of Fluxus, and a founding member of the Domaine Poetique in Paris, France. His theater essays have appeared in Das Neue Forum, Berner Blatter, Ulmer Theater, and other European magazines. Williams translated and reanecdoted Daniel Spoerri's Topographie Anecdotee du Hasard (An Anecdoted Topography of Chance), collaborated with Claes Oldenburg on Store Days, and edited An Anthology of Concrete Poetry, all published by the Something Else Press (owned and managed by fellow Fluxus artist Dick Higgins in New York and Vermont). In 1996 he received the Hannah-Hösch-Preis for his life work.
To honour Emmett Williams we will screen the short video work Emmett 06 by fellow Fluxus artist Wolf Kahlen subsequent to the presentation of the ZEBRA poetry and film awards, tomorrow, Sat 17th around 9:30 pm.
Emmett 06 will be screened in world premiere.

Showtime: The Making Of at Directors Lounge

The Making Of
a film by Viola Stephan

a documentary about vision, neuroscience and filmmaking



How creative is science ?
How objective is filmmaking ?
Seeing is believing - a documentary about vision, neuroscience and filmmaking

Tonight, Wednesday 14th at 6.30 pm
Directors Lounge 2007 • february 8-18 • Berlin F´hain, Karl Marx Allee 133


to see the trailer...





How creative is neuroscience, and how objective is documentary film?
The film approaches complex issues using various methods of investigation and recording.






Ein heiterer Essay ueber die Verbindung von Denken, Wahrnehmen und Kino, Kopfkino im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes, das anregt, Kino anders zu betrachten, als wir es bisher taten: Denn Film ist nicht nur Unterhaltung, sondern die Quintessenz unseres Denkens und Fuehlens, eine Analogie, die uns letztendlich tiefer zu uns selbst bringt.

Joachim Kurz







Starring Andreas Oehler, director of Hunger nach Heimat, to be screened afterwards.

In attendance of Viola Stephan

showtime: Nice Bombs

MY JOURNEY BACK TO IRAQ tonight 8pm at the Directors Lounge

Nice Bombs shows filmmaker Usama Alshaibi as he returns to Baghdad to reunite with his family after nearly 24 years. This documentary navigates through his unique relationship to an Iraq that is much different than the country of his childhood.
Usama captures the conflicting reactions to the conditions of life in Baghdad.
Through a wide range of opinions and experiences he provides a broad panorama of voices long neglected under Saddam’s regime.

to see the trailer..

The sound of a ground-shaking explosion awoke my wife and I from a deep sleep. It was about 7:00 in the morning. My cousin Tareef entered the bedroom
to find a tie for work. “What was that?” I asked. “It was a bomb. A nice bomb.”
The phrase was indicative of my family’s nonchalance about their situation. I had
been away for twenty-four years. They were used to it. As one young boy put it,
“We’re Iraqis. It’s normal.”
My Arabic is weak so I spoke to my relatives in English, both on and off camera. I
was surprised that, despite the language barrier, their meaning clearly broke through. I thought that most Iraqis would be reluctant to speak openly. It had been rumored that Saddam executed people for simply making jokes about him and they were accustomed to holding their tongues. The opposite was true.
Everyone wanted to speak, and they wanted Americans to hear them.
I left in 1980 in the midst of a war between Iraq and Iran. I was eleven years old and terrified of dying. The current war gave me an opportunity to return and revisit my birthplace and my family, and to explore a culture in which I feel both rooted and uprooted. I was frightened, but I felt that I had to go and see what TV and newspapers could not convey. I brought my camera along to document the experience.

Usama Alshaibi US/IQ Nice Bombs 92 min, DV, 2006 mon 12 02 8pm

Winner Best Documentary at The Chicago Underground Festival 2006

º° °º Tonight´s the Night º° °º

Willkommen • Bienvenue

To The Grand Opening

still from AV RU Dubus 4 min 9s, DV, 2005

Join us celebrating the opening of the third Berlin Directors Lounge with Heavy Swing by Don Bad´Habong, Loungy Tunes by Djane Hatifa Zou, cocktails and cinelicious tidbits.

thursday 8. doors open at 8 pm
Berlin F´hain, Karl Marx Allee 133 at the Kosmos

welcome cocktails

Enjoy some teasing compilations from all flavours of this years Directors Lounge 2007

Djane Hatifa Zou will serve aural delights

welcome cocktail 1

The first mix will start with the birth of cinema building a bridge to contemporary cinema within minutes. You will dive into the festival circuit and under the water. We will celebrate american sillyness, and say what we want, No to family values. And last but not least we will listen to the breathing and squeaking of reduced food packages. Just to name a bit.

Der erste Mix beginnt da wo das Kino das Licht der Welt erblickte, schlägt innerhalb von wenigen Minuten die Brücke ins 21 Jahrhundert, lobhudelt amerikanische Dusseligkeit, taucht ein in Licht- und Festivalwelten, sagt was er will, sagt nein zu "family values" und verschafft dem Quieken des Instant Futters eine Plattform. Um nur einiges zu nennen.

welcome cocktail 2

The second part explores the sensual relation of a girl and a squid, enters the Brazilian night, listen to the wind and, in the end, realizes that some girls are beasts.

Im zweiten Teil erfahren wir mehr über die sinnlichen Beziehungen einer jungen Frau zu einem Oktopus, verlieren uns in der brasilianischen Nacht, lauschen dem Wind und müssen erkennen, dass manche Mädchen Bestien sind.

welcome cocktail 3

The third part of our journey through the pictures let the music play, follows mans best friend, questions truth, experiences the law of love, seeks new friendships and realizes the cosmic order: "Boy meets Girl" "Girl leaves Boy" "Boy meets DVD"..

As you know, three things enhances every movie: Cyborgs, Zombies, Ninjas




Im dritten Teil unserer Reise durch die Bilder spielen wir zum Tanze auf, folgen unserem treuesten Freund, fragen nach Wahrheit, erfahren die Macht der Liebe, suchen neue Freunde und erkennen die ewige Abfolge: "Boy meets Girl" "Girl leaves Boy" "Boy meets DVD"..
Drei Dinge sind es die jeden Film verbessern: Ninjas, Cyborgs, Zombies.

cu there

mtc • the multitouch console by the c-base crew

pic by kai0chi

The c-base MultiTouchConsole (mtc) is a touch-sensitive table interface that reacts to more than one touch at a time. Similiar to the works of Jeff Han, previously mentioned here, it interacts at the touch of your fingers. While still a prototype, it is a remarkable product that can be experienced first hand at the Directors Lounge. As Régine puts it, the mtc comes with a couple of benefits, it is robust enough to take a couple of beer bottles (and even understands the difference between bottles and fingers), it is a low cost solution and it´s open source. Interested beings are highly encouraged to get in touch with the mtc crew during Directors Lounge (only till sunday 11th).

The c-base MultiTouchConsole mtc is a completely self-contained, touch-sensitive table built in spare time by a group of c-base members. A projector in the table displays an image on the table surface and an infrared-sensitive camera is used to track positions of fingers touching it. The mtc reacts to an unlimited amount of touches at once. Touch locations are determined with an accuracy of a few millimeters..

The Lunatics have taken over

Jenny Holzer

Today is a sad date as it marks the undeserved death of the old, with reason classic called, blogspot templates. It is hard to imagine what goes in the minds of these folks that ru(i)n this fine enviroment. Do they smoke too much Adsense? Are they just power hungry controll freaks? Is it the sadistic pleasure to destroy a running system? Whatever googles around the brains that are in power, it forces every poor soul trapped in the blogspot universe to switch to the wonderful world of the new, for good reason long time beta called, blogger dash board.

"No reason to worry" they squeak, everything will be the same, nothing will be touched. What a joke, these wannabe coders aren´t able to transport a little apostrophe "´" or a bullet "•" in the sidebar without changing it into a mess of strange characters. And that´s just an easy task as you can still fix the mess in the html template, but that´s only true for certain parts. More and more you can´t edit parts of your own blog as they remain hidden somewhere else.
But the worst of all is that by now every picture you like to post is in a way hosted that awakes memories of the earliest days of the 28k modem. You may have noticed that over the last weeks many blogspot blogs displayed pictures only extremely slow, often with many pictures completely missing. The new way the googles are hosting the pictures is a complete mess, not only is it pure chance if a pic is displayed, you are also forced to use their resizing, posting the original is deliberately disabled. One wonders for what reason. Is the picasa team still offended by flickr, or has it something to do with the strange image id tags that are now connected with every pic.

The sweet smell of surveillance.