Wednesday 25 april 4 pm>12 pm Palazzo Re Enzo
Hartmut Geerken (D)
The White Screen is a Red Cape
durational cinema + live, italian première
The White Screen is a Red Cape is a film in progress started in the mid-70s that is now twenty-six hours in length. The film, begun at the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, is an assemblage of images on 16mm and video from disparate sources, partly collected and partly filmed by Geerken himself. A 'fast footage film', scattered with rare audio and visual moments of pure ecstasy. The version of the film presented to Live Arts Week unfolds over the course of eight hours, segmented into three adjoining rooms, and accompanied by live sound performed by Hartmut Geerken mixed with audio inserts and excerpts from his vast collection of tapes. An invitation to immerse oneself in a translucent world, a vast, vivid and wild historical archive.
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Hartmut Geerken, born in 1939 in Stuttgart, belongs to the generation that after World War II decided to leave to carry out a variety of geographic and cultural research, contributing to the expansion of perception and references that were to give relativity to many certainties and centralisms in the European tradition. He studied Oriental languages, comparative religion and philosophy in Tübingen, Constantine (Algeria) and Istanbul. Between 1966 and 1984 he worked at the Goethe Institut in Cairo, Kabul, and Athens. Geerken is also a composer, musician, filmmaker, actor, mycologist, logger and publisher of authors linked to the literary field of dada and expressionism. At the age of eight he began playing the piano and performed his first radio concert at age fourteen, playing Bela Bartok. After a classical education he discovered jazz and contemporary music. He studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen, György Ligeti, Aloys Kontarsky and has collaborated with John Tchicai, Salah Ragab, Famoudou Don Moye, Sunny Murray, Grace Yoon, Don Cherry, Takehisa Kosugi, Sainkho Namtchilak, Robert Lax, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. During his time in Cairo, he invited Sun Ra to be reunited with his spiritual land and, as owner of one of the most complete archives of Sun Ra in the world, since 1994, he annually organizes the International Sun Ra Convention. He co-edited the complete edition in 35 volumes of the entire philosophical work of Solomon Friedlaender/Mynona and has produced a countless number of books, LPs, CDs, films and exhibitions.
www.hartmutgeerken.com
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Hartmut Geerken (D)
The White Screen is a Red Cape
durational cinema + live, italian première
The White Screen is a Red Cape is a film in progress started in the mid-70s that is now twenty-six hours in length. The film, begun at the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, is an assemblage of images on 16mm and video from disparate sources, partly collected and partly filmed by Geerken himself. A 'fast footage film', scattered with rare audio and visual moments of pure ecstasy. The version of the film presented to Live Arts Week unfolds over the course of eight hours, segmented into three adjoining rooms, and accompanied by live sound performed by Hartmut Geerken mixed with audio inserts and excerpts from his vast collection of tapes. An invitation to immerse oneself in a translucent world, a vast, vivid and wild historical archive.
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Hartmut Geerken, born in 1939 in Stuttgart, belongs to the generation that after World War II decided to leave to carry out a variety of geographic and cultural research, contributing to the expansion of perception and references that were to give relativity to many certainties and centralisms in the European tradition. He studied Oriental languages, comparative religion and philosophy in Tübingen, Constantine (Algeria) and Istanbul. Between 1966 and 1984 he worked at the Goethe Institut in Cairo, Kabul, and Athens. Geerken is also a composer, musician, filmmaker, actor, mycologist, logger and publisher of authors linked to the literary field of dada and expressionism. At the age of eight he began playing the piano and performed his first radio concert at age fourteen, playing Bela Bartok. After a classical education he discovered jazz and contemporary music. He studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen, György Ligeti, Aloys Kontarsky and has collaborated with John Tchicai, Salah Ragab, Famoudou Don Moye, Sunny Murray, Grace Yoon, Don Cherry, Takehisa Kosugi, Sainkho Namtchilak, Robert Lax, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. During his time in Cairo, he invited Sun Ra to be reunited with his spiritual land and, as owner of one of the most complete archives of Sun Ra in the world, since 1994, he annually organizes the International Sun Ra Convention. He co-edited the complete edition in 35 volumes of the entire philosophical work of Solomon Friedlaender/Mynona and has produced a countless number of books, LPs, CDs, films and exhibitions.
www.hartmutgeerken.com
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