Events | Welcoming Reception

Los Angeles | January 22, 2015 | 7:30 PM – 11:59 PM

Visual Artist
Benedikte Bjerre

Benedikte Bjerre was born in 1987 in Copenhagen (DK) and has been a student of Prof. Peter Fischli (CH) and Simon Starling (GB) at school of fine arts HfBK Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main since 2009. Bjerre received a BA in Sociology in 2009 from the University of Copenhagen prior to her studies in Fine Art. Since 2013 she has been a guest teacher at Fatamorgana The Danish School of Art Photography.

Benedikte Bjerre has, during her stay at Villa Aurora, through the medium of photography, focused on small-scale mobile architecture, as a possible peek into big-scale social structures.

On the occasion of Meet the Fellows Benedikte will collaborate with San Francisco born artist Buck Ellison (*1987) and Elif Erkan (born 1985 in Ankara/Turkey). Their topic: representation and social connotation in object making.

Musician
Steven Warwick / Heatsick

Heatsick is the project of musician and visual artist Steven Warwick, whose new album, Re-engineering, is out now on PAN. Heatsick's entrancing live show is created in real time based upon loops that are moulded, stretched and reduced to interlink, nestling and merging with one another in a similar way to his visual artwork, where objects and media combine and coalesce in an environment inviting the viewer's participation. Heatsick proposes a live dance music that expands and unlocks the senses: his use of limited resources to produce an immersive, maximalist sound environment - often stretched beyond three hours and augmented by elements of his broader art practice for his Extended Play... performance series - has been favourably received at venues, clubs and festivals across the world including Berghain/Panorama Bar, Unsound, MoMa and Novas Frequencias in Rio.

At Villa Aurora Heatsick will perform tracks from his latest album Re-engineering which he describes as a "cybernetic poem", indulging us in the mores of hypnotic dance music while holding a critical, and at times satirical, lens toward the culture writ large.

Filmmaker
Alice Agneskirchner 

Alice Agneskirchner:
“In my work as a film maker I always want to find stories about people who are besides the main stream. Men and women who are on their own track exploring the world with their eyes. Experience their dreams, hopes, desires, thoughts and also their failures, which sometimes may turn out to be the better choices. In filming I always try to hit the right moment to get real humor, meaningful moments and an insight view on society, history, culture and arts.
At Villa Aurora I am working on two projects.
 
Tracking down the huge impact of the American-produced mini series Holocaust (1978). Half of all Americans, Germans and Israelis were watching the show at the time. The film stunned generations of Germans and evoked empathy they never felt before. Interviews with the director Marvin J. Chomsky and other people involved in the making are part of the project.
 
I am also leaving my save ground of documentary film making. I am working on a screenplay based on a true story. In East-Germany there were clubs celebrating the myths of the Native American and Cowboy. The German writer Karl May inspired the German nation to admire "nobel savage". When I grew up my heroes were Winnetou, the Apache, and his German friend, Old Shatterhand. They stood for our desire to move West. So, in my new feature I will send three young Germans to explore the real West and their real desires."
 
Information and trailers from former films:

An apartment in Berlin

Modern ruins: Detroit – Hope for a motor city

Rauliens district

Filmmaker
Katrin Gebbe

Her first feature Nothing Bad Can Happen won the AFI- New Auteurs critics award in Los Angeles and was recently selected as Best Foreign-Language Film 2014 by LA Weekly.
At Villa Aurora Katrin Gebbe is working on her new screenplays Pelicanblood and the Danish-German-co-production The Begging Hand.


For more information about her work visit her website.

Visual Artist
Christine Matzke

Christine Matzke will be researching the roots of Hollywood, i.e. the stands of Holly Trees, Hollywod owes its name to. Her quest is based on the map Map of Hollywood by H.H. Wilcox and Co., 1887.

Christine Matzke works in the genres of drawing, print and photography. In her series of blackish-greyish images she fuses individual and collective memories.


Location

Villa Aurora, 520 Paseo Miramar, Los Angeles, CA 90272

This event is free of charge. RSVP is required.
Please write an email to infola@villa-aurora.org
or call +1 310.454-4231

Street Parking is available on Los Liones Drive. Shuttle service starts at 6:30 pm from Los Liones Drive, off Sunset Boulevard two blocks North East of Pacific Coast Highway.
Please do not park on the Topanga State Park Lot!

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