#im in the process of translating some of these interviews from german

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

„as feminist practice ive become a paid sex object for men“ the brainwashing is unreal. i often feel like these women see the payment in prostitution as an appreciation they lack in their personal sex life. they often highlight how validated prostitution makes them feel or talk about how sad they find sex buyers even though theyre the ones freely choosing to subjugate themselves to male desires.

everyone has it wrong btw the worst pick-me women are college-educated women who enter prostitution as some sort of adventure, to shock their parents and because they have been fooled into believing this is somehow sticking it to the patriarchy and then write books intellectualising prostitution and get invited to tv shows to talk about how misunderstood and nice sex buyers are and that we should feel sorry for them. this is not even a useful idiot this is a terrorist

[jocia92]

… So much of an actor’s craft is figuring out the “I want” of their character, but that’s got to be a little different with Tom since he states that he literally cannot want anything. What challenge or opportunity did that pose for you?

I think he wants to improve. I think he wants to calibrate according to Alma’s needs, wants, and desires. I think he’s very ready to learn and to understand. That was the kind of primary objective: listen, learn, calibrate, improve. That’s almost the track of each scenario. He just gets a little better each time, and the process gets a little faster. But certainly, in the beginning, he’s just delivering this sort of 20 classic chat-up lines that he’s been uploaded with and getting it all wrong. It’s fun to watch the machine learn and chart that progress.

On a practical or philosophical level, how did you approach the process of humanizing a character that’s an algorithm, or did you at all?

It was very much about charting with Maria exactly when we want to see the machine, when we want to see the human. Even playing with that ratio was really interesting and fun. It’s not so much about watching him play the machine, but watching a character try to play the human. Certainly, in the beginning, in some of the not quite so successful human moments, shall we say, we deconstructed what we regarded as the conventional human behavior in that. We looked at a lot of screwball comedies, like Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Katharine Hepburn movies. [We were] taking a move or a gesture, breaking that down, and just doing two of the things. It just suddenly looks very odd and wrong, and you’re like, “Oh, this is what a human does in this moment!” But it’s just off. It was really as much about looking at the human.

You’ve mentioned things like The Philadelphia Story as shaping the film and its central relationship. Was that to ground it in reality or further ensconce it in the warped reality of cinema? Grant and Stewart are recognizable to us as people, but things like that mid-Atlantic lilt were entirely manufactured for the screen.

That was a very key point for Maria in referencing Cary Grant. The hair color that we chose for Tom was very much like Cary Grant’s hair color, being a shade darker than is possibly human. And the skin tone being slightly artificial for Tom. You’re right, Cary Grant is often very heightened and mannered sometimes, and it works in the situation in the style of the thing that he’s in. But we quite liked the idea that Tom has been uploaded with some outdated versions of what a romantic lead was supposed to behave like.

It’s striking just how thought-out things had to be down to how Tom responds to dead air space in a conversation. What was the process behind those small moments that can make or break the believability of a character?

It was very fun to play with, and probably quite frustrating for a lot of the human actors. Maren was giving a beautifully naturalistic performance, and the conventional responses that there should be from her scene partner weren’t there. We deliberately strip those away—sometimes without telling her, sometimes without needing to tell her. It’s just the way that Tom was, so it was about pushing those moments into a space that became a little uncomfortable: not jumping in on the lines where you might normally jump in, sometimes coming in hard, sometimes offering a delayed response, sometimes none at all. Playing with those, and watching how comfortable or uncomfortable that made them both, was really fun.

Did that frustration, built in by the process, bleed over for Maren into the character of Alma, do you think?

Maybe for Maren. Certainly, for me, it was frustrating in that I would have to remember not to respond in the way that I might normally and remove some of those things. [I had to] really break down exactly what Tom is thinking, what his programming is doing in that point, how he’s responding and calibrating, and whether we see that or not. Choosing moments to show the human, to show the machine. Along with Maria, that was one of the great joys of the role.

How did you settle on the physicality of the character? Was it at all helpful to have done something like Beauty and the Beast in a mo-cap suit to be hyper-aware of how your own movements translate to the screen?

Very much so. In fact, in pretty much every role I’ve done since Beauty and the Beast, I’ve incorporated not always a movement coach, but I’ve definitely looked at movement theory and physicality in a totally new way because of the challenges of that role. And, I have to say, dance plays a huge part in that. Whether it’s incorporated on the screen or if it’s something that just feels as if it helps the role, I often find that a dance studio is a very fruitful space to discover things about your character’s physicality. Learning the rumba for this role was incredibly helpful because it’s a very precise, technical, almost robotic dance in terms of the laser precision that’s needed to get it absolutely right. I had a fantastically exact teacher in Berlin who was teaching me the rumba the whole way through the shoot. We shot that [one scene] quite near the end of the shoot. Just to have those lessons, that kind of physicality, and that poise with me the whole way through the role was really useful.

How did the role being in a non-native tongue affect the characterization of Tom? Was it all easier to make him seem slightly unreal given that the words might not come quite as naturally as they would in English?

I think it was a deliberate choice on the part of Maria to look for a foreign actor who could speak German. She needed somebody who could both get their heads and their mouths around the very technical German that was required, which, even for a German is pretty complex, but also who had that sense of otherness. I’m sure they could have tailored the screenplay to any number of nationalities, but I was very happy they came to me and made him British. It definitely helped with, as I say, the fact that he’s listening, learning, focusing, trying to improve…that was literally all I was doing last summer, every day.

How do you lock onto the frequency of German comedy, which isn’t always something people associate with that country or people? How is it different than doing something like the more mannered British wit of Blithe Spirit or the broad studio comedy of Eurovision Song Contest?

It’s not a country known for it, but I think they should [be]. I find Germans very funny. They have a very interesting sense of humor. What’s particularly delightful is the way that they can tackle really kind of big, sometimes weighty, issues with a certain wit and lightness of touch, which is not common to all countries. Physical comedy, I think, is fairly universal. I think there’s something almost farcical about some of the physical stuff that we managed to get in this. It was really fun to make people laugh in a foreign language. It was surprisingly delightful. It felt very unifying, somehow, to be able to get a joke across in any language.

[cazimagines]

After seeing @toobruhlforschool post the article, I had to translate it!

English translation by google translate below the cut

Daniel Brühl tried for the first time as a director - and he succeeds very well. His debut “next door” (in theaters July 15th) is full of black humor about how embarrassing, tricky and exhausting it can be to be a famous actor. Especially when you meet a neighbor in the corner bar in a Berlin neighborhood, played by Peter Kurth , who obviously hates you. The story is based on Brühl's idea, and very vaguely on his own experiences, from which the writer Daniel Kehlmann draws("Measuring the World") has made a script in which the price of fame is demonstrated with relish. In addition, allusions to Daniel Brühl himself are hidden in the film, who not only directed the film, but also plays the protagonist, a famous actor, in “next door”. Brühl, who last worked in the international Marvel series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” , speaks in an interview about what made him decide to make this story into a film and how to approach such a project.

Interview with Daniel Brühl: About the price of being in public and the success of projects

Mr. Brühl, in your directorial debut you investigate the price a successful actor pays for being in public. Why did you want to do this film?

One topic I've always been interested in is gentrification. The initial spark was an observation I made in Barcelona. That was about ten years ago. I moved to the city for a while. That made me very proud, because I've always felt very connected to Barcelona, ​​I was born there and finally wanted to say: “I'm a Barcelonian now”.

Instead, did you attract attention because the actor Daniel Brühl was recognized?

No, I just acted very silly, always walking through the streets with my key fob to show that I don't live in a hotel, I'm from here now, then I always talked loudly to the people in the market where Street, via FC Barcelona et cetera. Then I always enjoyed going to such a lunch spot and one day there was a crusher in front of me, such a real edge, and looked at me piercingly without blinking. Forever long. Like Clint Eastwood.

Just like in your film a man from the neighborhood, played by Peter Kurth, who takes on an actor who is very similar to you.

Yes, with the man in Barcelona back then, I immediately felt that he couldn't take me. As I sit there with my trolley suitcase, just flown in from Berlin. The jet set that somehow rattles around loudly with the waiters, makes each other mean and wants to please. That totally exposed me. Then my imagination started. I thought it was a scaffolding builder who had been able to look into our apartment from a construction site for months and now wants to confront me with everything he knows about me.

How do you relate this story to gentrification?

There is such a constant feeling that you are not to blame for gentrification but are part of the process. I've been dealing with this since I've lived in Berlin and I noticed it again in Barcelona. Then the mind game started that an actor, someone who is in public, offers a completely different surface to attack.

How do you translate that feeling into a project?

I enjoyed the way such a person was approached in a masochistic way. As he is told, “I found your film poop. I think you shit as an actor. " Then I moved the story to Berlin, the East-West topic was added, but at some point I realized that I couldn't write it alone and approached Daniel Kehlmann. He could do something with it immediately. While we were writing we noticed how much more was there. That was around the time some public careers were collapsing. That was an interesting component, people who outwardly have perfect lives, whose careers are ruined by rumors that come out about them.

Which personalities are you thinking of?

Well, of course the case of Kevin Spacey, the very different case of Harvey Weinstein. There have been many cases, some of them based on real crimes. It became an interesting topic for me because I wanted to play someone who would completely lose himself in his career and then be held up in the mirror.

If so much of you went into the script, why is Daniel Kehlmann the only one who has the credit and you don't?

There are so many Daniels. At some point I just felt uncomfortable reading my name so often. In addition, Daniel Kehlmann did the most on the script. I couldn't have made the film without him. That a Kammerspiel (From what I learnt in my film studies, Kammerspiel is a certain type of German cinema) remains exciting for over 90 minutes depends on the dialogues and they mainly come from him. I was a sparring partner who fed him ideas.

You have had a veritable career as an actor for over 25 years, appearing in blockbusters and playing a leading role in an international Netflix series. Then that's a fundamental step in deciding whether to direct. How do you manage to take such a new path?

You can't take a quick shot. I've been waiting for the right time, but you can't let it pass. That's what happens when you're too scared, too respectful. At some point you have to trust yourself. Now that I've done it for the first time, my humility towards directing is even greater. I consciously wanted to do something small. I would not have believed myself capable of certain other substances. Then I would have the feeling that I am falling out.

How do you know that you are on the right track and that you can get started with a project?

If an idea remains interesting for you after long deliberation and reflection, and does not suddenly become stupid or boring, you can ask yourself whether this idea is reasonable, i.e. whether you trust yourself to implement it. I knew this was a world and that there were characters - I just know my way around that. If you are also lucky enough to be able to set up a good team, then you are on the right track. It is of course a total luxury that someone like Daniel Kehlmann has promised me to write this. Peter Kurth replied with a handwritten letter within 24 hours. We met and hugged in his local pub.

The role actors and actresses play in public is not only the topic of your film, but was also discussed in the course of the #allesdichtmachen campaign, a campaign against the measures taken by the federal government to contain the corona pandemic. Were you also asked about this?

I was actually not asked, but I know many of those involved. I wanted to stay out of this heated Shitstorm number and clarified that privately with those I know. I not only found the action unsuccessful, but also the counter-action excessive and absurd. I can see that in many areas at the moment, how quickly such a thermal rises, which is toxic. That's a bit of the theme of the film.

Then again quickly an easier topic: What is the most absurd thing that has ever happened to you as a public person?

Haha, a scene that also made it into the movie. In Barcelona a couple came up to me in a park, two blondes, with a camera in their hand. It was immediately clear to me that they were Germans and they wanted a photo with me. I instinctively put my arm around the woman. They were Swedes, of course, who didn't recognize me at all, but wanted me to take a photo of them. It was so embarrassing and even more terrible than in the film because then I started to explain in English “You know, I'm a famous actor…” The way they looked at me! Haha, that was one of those moments when you notice how you blush. Well then I think I could tell you about embarrassment for an hour.

[leoninapelliolovesconchitawurst]

ENGLISH TRANSLATION (by me)

NORDBAYERN 20/11/ 2019

https://www.nordbayern.de/kultur/konzert-in-nurnberg-conchita-wurst-im-gesprach-1.9535316

Concert in Nuremberg: Conchita Wurst in conversation

Singer Tom Neuwirth on his art figure, learning processes and world pictures -

NUREMBERG - On November 23, Tom Neuwirth alias Conchita Wurst gives a concert with the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra in the Meistersingerhalle; the musical director is big band leader and pianist Thilo Wolf from Fürth. In advance, we talked to the singer.

Conchita, you are a multiple personality, so I have to ask you at the beginning how you want to be addressed.

Privately all my friends say Tom about me, professionally and in public I do not care, I listen to Conchita, to Tom, to Wurst. I like to be the center of attention, when one of the names falls, I turn around immediately.

Since you have made a drastic change of image with your new album, we could surmise that the concert in Nuremberg is a kind of farewell tour for Conchita?

It felt like that some time ago, but I found my love for Conchita Wurst in a ProSieben production ("Queen of Drags") and I can imagine going on with concerts of this kind.

How did the contact with Thilo Wolf and the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra come about?

Two years ago I delivered a midnight show at the Opera Ball in Hanover, Thilo was involved with his band at the time and I think it was nice to see what I do. We made music together there and decided that we could do more with it.

In addition to the well-known big female voices, you can also present cover songs of men like David Bowie, Prince or Sam Smith live.

This will actually be the program of the evening. I like to move in different fields and love the challenge. I find a song by Sam Smith easier to vocally sing, but I also dare to sing Celine Dion and Shirley Bassey.

What were your prejudices when working with a "classical" orchestra?

The skepticism of classical musicians towards pop musicians is known and justified for me. Classical music is the cradle of music, I respect that very much - especially as an Austrian - and say that these musicians are almost supermen for me.

On the CD "From Vienna With Love" you reveal a close proximity to the theme tunes of the James Bond films. How do you relate to the masculinity cult of the main character?

This is a very dusty concept and it is time to have a female James Bond. I love the music, but I find the movies a bit boring.

The change to the art figure "Wurst" is described in the booklet of your new CD as a desire to find yourself. Is the time of epic ballads and disguises as a diva over?

Conchita was the truth about six years ago, I thought that was nice. But then I thought I would have to do something completely new to express what I felt and feel now. But it's just a new phase, a process, not an irreversible reset.

There are also two very personal songs: "Trash All The Glam" and "Truth Over Magnitude". How would you translate these first messages?

On the one hand it says that one leaves the superficiality, the show and the glamor behind and is more oneself; on the other hand it means that the truth is more important than the size. By that I mean the chasms of the entertainment business, but also my own ego. I have made mistakes in the past and can say "sorry"; that gives me a great new freedom.

Which concept is behind the pictorial design of the new CD?

We - the photographer Niklas von Schwarzdorn and I - realized in the photo shoot for the new CD that I have to be naked, because that's what it's all about: the end of illusions. It was an incredibly hot, sweaty summer's day, when I had to walk through the scenery as God created me.

How do you stand it in a world in which differentness is increasingly threatened?

For one thing, I am incredibly ignorant, yet I discover a trend toward greater understanding, a generation that is inclusive, sensitive and alert. On the other hand, however, I also see - especially in Austria - contrary developments. The solution for me is positive thinking, friendliness, humor; I concentrate on that.

Do you feel more as an Austrian, a European or a citizen of the world?

I love living in Vienna to taste this whipped cream in the middle of Europe; I also love traveling and learning from other people.

How is your relationship to the German language as a singer?

English is a bit easier to sing, but I realize that I have recently developed a great love for my dialect. It goes so far that during interviews many people do not understand me.

In Nuremberg you have to fill the wood-paneled Meistersingerhalle with your presence, where will the music of the new album really be?

I think a cool rock club location would suit, but I am also not averse to an orchestral version of my new music. The anticipation of a large concert hall leads to the fact that I get up in the morning more concentrated and with better posture.

Tom Neuwirth (31), Austrian travesty artist, catapulted himself into the spotlight at the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in the role of Conchita Wurst and has since established himself as the anti-discrimination commissioner of pop. With wig and beard he plays in the war of the sexes just as sophisticated a confusion as in the music. The singer performs with pop bands, sometimes with orchestra.

[deutscheshausnyu]

Interview with DAAD Visiting Scholar at Deutsches Haus at NYU, Susanne Rohr

Susanne Rohr is Chair of North American Literature and Culture at the University of Hamburg. She is currently a DAAD Visiting Scholar at Deutsches Haus at NYU. Her publications include “Die Wahrheit der Täuschung: Wirklichkeitskonstitution im amerikanischen Roman 1889-1989″ (Fink 2004) and with Andrew S. Gross “Pop – Avant-Garde – Scandal: Remembering the Holocaust after the End of History” (Winter 2010). Susanne Rohr has also published numerous essays in the fields of literary and cultural theory, semiotics, American pragmatism, epistemology, and on a broad range of topics in American literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 2017, Susanne Rohr was awarded an “opus magnum” stipend by the Volkswagen Foundation to finish her current research project on representations of the Holocaust in German and U.S.-American literature in the new millennium.

During her stay here as a DAAD visiting scholar, Deutsches Haus at NYU will present a talk by Susanne Rohr about the desire for continuity, identity, and belonging in one’s own family history and her interpretation of Katja Petrowskaja’s collection of stories, Maybe Esther. We invite you to join us for the talk, On Finding and Fabricating: Memory and Family History in Katja Petrowskaja’s "Maybe Esther" on November 25th, at 6pm, at Deutsches Haus at NYU.

Since 1983, when you studied at Cornell University as a graduate student, you have traveled to the United States on numerous occasions to research and to teach. What motivates you to continue returning to the U.S.? What do you find especially appealing about researching in New York?

Doing research (and staying) in the U.S. is particularly appealing to me for a number of reasons. First of all, the academic institutions and facilities supporting research are just so much more efficient at the American universities that I have visited. Here at NYU, my research profits enormously from the terrific possibilities to get all kinds of materials (journal articles, book chapter, books etc.) extremely fast, most of the time by immediate digital access or via interlibrary loan, from the support of the kind and professional library staff who are always ready to help, or the opening hours of the libraries. This is very different at my home university, where my student assistant usually has to spend hours to hunt down certain materials that I need. Apart from that, the cultural and academic activities of the various departments at NYU – among them the terrific program of Deutsches Haus at NYU – are very inspiring and enjoyable. In short: the academic milieu at American universities is just so very motivating.

A lot of your research throughout your career as an “Amerikanistin�� has been centered around American literature – from American literature of the 20th century to American poetry to Jewish-American literature. Why did you choose this subject as the focus of your projects? Is there a commonality among these various subtopics of American literature – something uniquely American?

That is a good question – and not easy to be answered. On the most general level, I would say that literature helps the reader to more profoundly understand their position in the world, and it does so in a playful way. Fiction investigates reality by offering alternative versions of it that the reader can explore in the reading process. More specifically, the beauty of American literature in my view lies in the multitude of voices that partake in expressing the “American experience.” Also, compared to European literatures, American literature is relatively young. It is fascinating to trace the lively process of how it struggled to first declare its cultural independence and find its own national forms of expression and to then endlessly form and revise its corpus of canonical texts – all the while negotiating transnational influences.

What are some works of literature that have influenced your career?

I would say, the works that have influenced my career most are Henry James’ wonderful late novels and Gertrude Stein’s admirable avant-garde experiments. These works – both highly complex in their own right – have taught me to develop and sharpen my close-reading skills. Interacting with them turned me from a lover of literature into a professional literary scholar and opened my career options.

Your talk at Deutsches Haus at NYU on November 25 will focus on the desire for continuity, identity, and connection that are shared across borders and generations that one can find in German and American literature, using your interpretation of Katja Petrowskaja’s Maybe Esther as a basis. Why did you choose this collection of stories to explore this idea?  In what ways, if any, do German and American literature express this desire differently?

Katja Petrowskaja’s Maybe Esther is an example of a literary topic that has become quite popular lately: the search of an individual for their roots and family history. While in American literature – where the immigrant autobiography or life writing has always played an important role – this topic has been present from the beginning, its popularity on the German literary landscape is rather recent. Following the upheavals in the geopolitical landscape after the Second World War and the end of the Cold War, on both sides of the Atlantic, there seems to be a renewed interest among the younger generations in tracing their family history and finding the roots of one’s places of belonging. Maybe Esther now is a peculiar mixture of family novel and memoir, half fictional, half autobiographical, and its attraction lies in its wonderous language. Petrowskaja was born in the Ukraine and belongs to the so called third generation of survivors. She only came to Germany in her mid-twenties and learned German then, yet insists on writing in German, which to her is an act of self-empowerment. Her careful and explorative use of the language and the highly self-reflexive style of writing make this text particularly rewarding for interpretation and analysis.

The talk on Maybe Esther also involves another one of your fields of study: the representations of the Holocaust at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. In your view, how have these representations changed over the years, if at all? Are there any differences in the ways the Holocaust is being represented in German and American literature?

Representations of the Holocaust have changed very much over the course of the last decades. In the immediate post-war era and during the time of the Cold War, realist conventions of representation dominated that were rarely transgressed in order to bear witness to the unfathomable atrocities. In the 1990s, the situation changed, due to the end of the Cold War and generational shifts. More and more, the next generations realized that the Holocaust had become a mediatized event that can only be encountered in indirect ways and thus in certain standardized forms of narrativization. And it was these standardized forms of representation that now became the target of exploration or even attack, as in the form of the provocative “camp comedy.” The 1990s were, in short, the time of taboo breaking experiment, of bringing together the topic of the Holocaust and forms of representation that had hitherto been thought unthinkable and scandalous. While this took place on a transnational scale, in Germany, the land of the perpetrators, the experiment was much more reluctant. If at all, art went against the Nazis and their pompous behavior, following the tradition of Charlie Chaplin’s movie The Great Dictator (1940). Generally, in Germany, the topic is primarily dealt with by exploring intergenerational conflicts and the question of guilt and responsibility.

What project(s) are you currently working on? What do you hope to achieve during your time here as the DAAD Visiting Scholar at Deutsches Haus at NYU?

Right now, I am enjoying the privilege of an “opus magnum”-fellowship, granted me by the VW foundation. This fellowship, by releasing me from my teaching obligations at Hamburg University, supports my writing my “opus magnum,” i.e. that book that is supposed to bring together my research on representations of the Holocaust I have carried out over the last years. The working title is “Of Horror and Glamor: Contemporary Representations of the Holocaust in the US and Germany.” In this book, I examine the artistic experiments indicated above, which can be described as an arc of increasing radicalization. They have now slowly come to their foreseeable end – and the scandal is no longer that scandalous. So what follows, then, the ultimate breach in taboo? It is this question my book addresses, and it does so by closely examining the forms of artistic expression currently visible in German and American artistic practice. The Holocaust is a semiotic universe of image-worlds and discourses, an iconography and a transnational narrative of horror that artistic practice increasingly engages in and borrows from, and the nature of which is characterized by the worldwide influence – and in some cases dominance – of American culture and practices. Contemporary works of art are thus also representations that unfold within the interplay between nationally-specific traditions and Americanized forms. In my book, I hence examine the question of how these relations are specifically commented upon and negotiated within the transatlantic German-American dialogue; that is, I am interested in how they become visible within the American and German cultural landscapes and their cultural productions. As part of assessing the current status of such productions, this book will also examine the ways in which Germany understands and represents the historical event as well as how idiosyncratically American perspectives of the Holocaust are translated into German thought. Via an analysis of the development of German and American literature as well as film and television productions on the Holocaust since the turn of the millennium until today, I will show where and in which ways an ‘Americanized’ form of the Holocaust is circulating in, and sometimes dominating, the German cultural landscape.

[nofomoartworld]

Trust Me I’m an Artist. Ethics surrounding art & science collaborations (part 1)

Kira O’Reilly and Jennifer Willet, Be-wildering performance. Photo: Bas de Brouwer

Trust Me, Im an Artist. Opening of the exhibition at Het Glazen Huis, Amstelpark, Amsterdam. Photos by Bas de Brouwer

Do artists using biotechnological materials and scientific processes have the same obligations, rights and responsibilities as scientists? Or should they enjoy more liberties and particular prerogatives? And finally, do art and science collaborations bring about new ethical dilemmas, new debates and challenges?

A group exhibition open until Sunday evening at Zone2Source’s Het Glazen Huis in Amsterdam is engaging with all these questions through artworks that explore issues such as the ethical complexities of gene editing, the communication of nuclear culture over thousands of generations, the risks associated with medical self-experimentation, the difficulty to empathize with plants, etc.

The exhibition is the result of a European research project that aims to help artists, cultural institutions and audiences understand the ethical issues that arise in the creation and display of artworks developed in collaboration with scientific institutions.

The model followed by each of the artwork participating to the Trust Me I’m an Artist project is as follows: an artist or artist collective is teamed up with a research center to create a work that investigate the ethical limits of innovative (bio)technologies. The work is then exhibited. So far, so very usual.

What makes Trust Me I’m an Artist different from other science & art collaborations is that, as is practice for scientists, the artists need to present their work in front of a specially formed ethics panel made of scientists. Because the whole process takes place in front of an audience, the project also brings into the public sphere a series of mechanisms and discussions that are usually kept hidden.

As i mentioned above, the exhibition closes soon but don’t despair if you can’t make it to Amsterdam over the weekend! The whole project has been splendidly documented on the website of Trust Me I’m An Artist, in a book, in a series of podcasts by art critic and curator Annick Bureaud (who also chronicled the project in a diary in french) and in videos.

I’ll get back to you with a second story detailing other projects exhibited at Zone2Source’s Het Glazen Huis, but here’s the ones i managed to delve into since i returned from Amsterdam:

Howard Boland, Cellular Propeller, 2013

Howard Boland, Cellular Propeller, 2013

Howard Boland, Cellular Propeller, 2013

Cellular Propeller, Howard Boland’s provocative project, explores the possibility to recruit bio matter to perform novel tasks and behaviours unintended by nature. In particular, the artist hopes to use his own sperm cells to spin and thrust forward a thin wheel about the size of a ten pence coin.

Inspiration for the project came from the famous scientific paper describing how bioengineers had used heart cells of a rat to create an artificial swimming jellyfish.

Howard Boland kicked off his research during his experimental laboratory residency at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg. He first wanted to experiment with heart cells from newborn rats to make motile scaffolds. Unfortunately for the artist, obtaining these cells is not only difficult as they are sought-after materials in laboratories, it also involves a very cruel procedure. Hence, his decision to use his own sperm cells to propel the synthetic material.

The project is still ongoing and it might look ludicrous at first sight. However, it provides an invaluable starting point to reflect upon issues such as: How do you perform self-experimentation in an institutional setting? How can sperm function in an artificial environment and what are the fundamental laws that govern its behaviour? What is the status and definition of this bio hybrid artefact? If it moves and is powered by human cells, is it human? Etc.

Gina Czarnecki and John Hunt (with Saskia and Lola Czarnecki-Stubbs), Heirloom, 2016

Gina Czarnecki and John Hunt (with Saskia and Lola Czarnecki-Stubbs), Heirloom, 2016

Gina Czarnecki and John Hunt (with Saskia and Lola Czarnecki-Stubbs), Heirloom. Credit photo: Florian Voggeneder

Gina Czarnecki and John Hunt, Heirloom. Credit photo: Florian Voggeneder

Artist Gina Czarnecki collaborated with John Hunt (a professor of clinical sciences who worked with John O’Shea a few years ago to create the famous Pigs Bladder Football) to create living portraits of her two daughters using cells collected from inside their mouths. The cells, bathed in a nourishing liquid, grew on glass casts of the girls’ faces until they reached the thickness of tissue paper.

Heirloom redefines the boundaries of the art of portraiture in a fascinating way. It is not made of oil nor clay, yet it replicates the face of the young girls as any photo or painting would.

The use of human material of a subject also raises the issue of privacy. As she explains in an interview with Annick Bureaud, Czarnecki never posts photos of her children online out of concern for their privacy. Yet, as she added, would displaying the portraits in their hometown of Liverpool be too invasive, even if her daughters are comfortable with the exhibition? And isn’t biological material more intimate than pixel? Since they are disembodied, can these cells be perceived in the same way as any other material traditionally used in art? Is Heirloom the new selfie?

Finally, this process of creating a living 3d architecture of face points to a future of personalized medicine where it will not only be easier to perform facial reconstruction and cosmetic modification on people who have been disfigured but it might even become desirable for some to go back to the face they had when they were 20. How far will obsession with an eternally youthful appearance lead society?

Anna Dumitriu, Controlled Commodity, 2017. Exhibition view of the Trust Me, Im an Artist at Het Glazen Huis, Amstelpark, Amsterdam. Photos by Bas de Brouwer

Anna Dumitriu, Controlled Commodity, 2017. Exhibition view of the Trust Me, Im an Artist at Het Glazen Huis, Amstelpark, Amsterdam. Photos by Bas de Brouwer

Anna Dumitriu’s piece explores the “fundamental threat” to global health and safety posed by antibiotic resistance. The works also commemorates the 75th anniversary of the first use of penicillin in a human patient in 1941. This patient was Albert Alexander, a policeman with a severe face infection. Within 24 hours of being given an intravenous infusion of the antibiotic, his condition improved significantly. However, due to the instability of penicillin and the war-time restrictions, only a small quantity of the drug was available, and the patient died when the pathologists ran out of supplies. Nowadays, securing the drug is easy in most parts of the world. However, penicillin and other antibiotics have become less effective, they’ve been overused (to treat humans but also in animal farming) and a number of pathogens have now evolved resistance to these drugs.

Dumitrius’ traveled back to the early 1940s through an antique wartime dress. She patched up any hole or stain in the fabric with cloth that contains genetically modified E. coli bacteria. The genomes of these E. coli bacteria have been edited using CRISPR gene editing technique to remove the gene that provides modern day bacteria with resistance to antibiotics. The deleted sequenced was then replaced with the WWII slogan Make, Do and Mend encrypted with ASCII code and then translated into DNA code.

“In a way it is conceptually and poetically true to say that, with this artistic genomic edit, Anna Dumitriu and her collaborator Dr Sarah Goldberg have used today’s latest technology to ‘mend’ the organism back to its pre-1941, pre-antibiotic era state.”

The title of the work, Controlled Commodity, refers to two facts. The first one is that the wartime women’s suit was labelled with the British Board of Trade’s logo CC41, or ‘Controlled Commodity 1941’, which ensured that the use of materials met the government’s austerity regulations. This contrasts with our current antibiotic stocks which have not been protected as the ‘controlled commodities’ they should have been.

More images from the opening of the exhibition:

Erich Berger and Mari Keto, INHERITANCE, 2016. Trust Me, Im an Artist. Opening of the exhibition at Het Glazen Huis, Amstelpark, Amsterdam. Photos by Bas de Brouwer

Trust Me, Im an Artist. Opening of the exhibition at Het Glazen Huis, Amstelpark, Amsterdam. Photos by Bas de Brouwer

Also part of the exhibition: Inheritance, a precious heirloom made of gold and radioactive stones.

Trust Me, I’m an Artist is curated by Anna Dumitriu and Lucas Evers along with project partners Nicola Triscott, Louise Emma Whiteley, Jurij Krpan. The exhibition remains open at Zone2Source’s Het Glazen Huis in the Amstelpark in Amsterdam until Sunday, the 25th of June.

The Waag Society has a flickr set of the exhibition and of the Be-wildering performance. I also uploaded a few images online. The photo on the homepage is Heirloom by Gina Czarnecki and John Hunt. Credit: Gina Czarnecki.

The project Trust Me I’m an Artist: Towards an Ethics of Art/Science Collaboration was set up by artist Anna Dumitriu and Professor of Clinical and Biomedical Ethics Bobbie Farsides in collaboration with Waag Society and Leiden University.

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