Villa Aurora Events Archive
2020
Louisa Clement: Images of humans in the digital age
Berlin (Raum 1, 1. OG, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Markgrafenstr. 38)
Information
This event is part of Salon Sophie Charlotte 2020: Weltbilder
Since the beginning of time mankind has created images of the world it lives in. As early as the Stone Age people painted pictures of their surroundings on cave walls. Since then man has developed numerous scientific, philosophical and religious theories about the nature of the world. Individuals as well as societies took extreme risks to broaden their geographical horizons and to map the world even more accurately. To discover new worlds, they travelled long distances – even as far as into space. Until today they continue to develop new technologies to capture and depict the world in ever more differentiated ways. Worldviews can offer explanations of the world, they can provide reassurance, but they can also collide. Today only one thing appears to be certain: The singular use of the term "worldview" is outdated in an increasingly globalized and diversified world.
The Salon Sophie Charlotte 2020 therefore takes the plural form "Weltbilder/Worldviews" literally: It is dedicated to historical depictions of nature, to a wide range of world interpretations and models as well as current and future perspectives of the world. More than 100 scientists and artists will share their visionary approaches to the world with you. Hear from the austronaut Thomas Reiter about how the perspective on the world changes when viewed from space, listen to Nobel Prize winner Stefan Hell discuss how the new technology of nanoscopy surpasses the time-proven microscopic view of the world and debate with the winner of the German Book Prize Saša Stanišić about the connection between one's origin and one's worldview. While the Berlin Singakademie invites you to immerse yourself in its sound worlds and the author Judith Schalansky asks you to travel with her to remote islands, Jörg Thadeusz, Bibiana Beglau and Burghart Klaußner will take you on a journey into the underworld and back. And if you dare to put on virtual reality glasses you might just dive into entirely new worlds altogether.
Salon Sophie Charlotte 2020 "Weltbilder / Worldviews" is an event of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities with the participation of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Max Planck Society, the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities, Die Junge Akademie, the Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the German Academic Scholarship Foundation and the Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e. V., supported by the Gerda Henkel Foundation and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.
Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Akademiegebäude am Gendarmenmarkt
Markgrafenstraße 38, 10117 Berlin
Free admission. No registration required.
Partner
A Cooperation with Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschafte.
Meet the Fellows on Jan 30th
Los Angeles
Participants
Composer, director and choreographer Helmut Oehring’s work spans from the application of his mother tongue, sign language, musical and dance theatre, to audiovisual creations for choreography and video. His pieces for baroque orchestras are a fusion of old and contemporary musicFor more information visit Helmut Oerings website.
Petra Volpe is a writer and director known internationally for her feature film "The Divine Order" addressing the fight of Swiss women in the seventies to achieve the right to vote. Together with Judith Kaufmann who worked as cinematographer for this and other films of Petra Volpe's the two are working on a new project during their stay at the Villa.
Filmmaker Nele Wohlatz explores the border between fiction and documentary film. She is currently working on a film about animal training for film.
Babylon Berlin Season 3 Premiere
Los Angeles
Information
An evening in style of the 1920s! On February 28th Villa Aurora and the Robert Gore Rifkind Foundation are proudly presenting 2 episodes of the brand new season 3 of the hit series BABYLON BERLIN.
Following the screening co-creator, writer & director, Henk Handloegten and curator of the Robert Gore Rifkind Center, Timothy O. Benson, are going to talk about the art, music and politics that influenced BABYLON BERLIN and changed the course of history.
Participants
Henk Handloegten is a writer, director and co-creator of the internationally renown TV series BABYLON BERLIN.
He is known -among others- for Goodbye Lenin, Summer Window, Learning to Lie and is currently a filmmaker-in-residence at Villa Aurora.
Concert ECLECTIC SALON: Helmut Oehring [CANCELED]
Los Angeles, Villa Aurora
Information
The emotional center of gravity of my music is located in the philosophical superstructure of the stories I continue to tell in music.
Every human being is connected to all others through an existential bond.
The intellectual positions we humans create transcend time and death.
And Music is the inconsolable narrator. She tells of doubt
And hope, between the interior and the exterior,
Me and You, Yesterday and Today,
Life and Death,
Love and Loss.
Always between the entrancing beauty of life and its devaluation.
Participant
Helmut Oehring was born to deaf-mute parents in East-Berlin in 1961. Self-taught, he started out as a guitarist and composer, however, as a conscientious objector in the GDR, he was barred from attending university. In 1990 he became master student with Georg Katzer at the Academy of the Arts in Berlin, where he is a member today.
His oeuvre is comprised of over 400, for the most part, audiovisual works of all genres, garnering numerous international awards, such as the Arnold Schoenberg Prize, the Hanns Eisler Prize, the Prometheus Award for Chamber Opera, the Schott Prize and the Musikautoren Prize in the category of musical theater.
Helmut Oehring has worked with Ruth Berghaus, Claus Guth, Robert Wilson, Peter Greenaway, Maxim Dessau, Daniele Abbado, and Dagmar Manzel.
His music has been performed in all major European concert houses and internationally in São Paulo, Johannesburg, Yerevan, Istanbul, Seoul, Sydney, Montreal, Bejing, New York, and Cairo.
The program will include pieces based on the poetry of American poet Anne Sexton (LIVE and The Portrait of a Woman), works referring to Albrecht Dürer and Heinrich Heine and deliver a portrait of the infamous Fred A. Leuchter, U.S. expert in execution technology and Holocaust denier.
The evening will feature: Helmut Oehring (narrator), Stacey Fraser (Soprano), Nic Gerpe (Piano), Adrianne Pope (Violin), Jennifer Bewerse (Cello), Brian Walsh, (Kontrabassclarinet), Dan Flores (Trumpet).
Special thanks to Aron Kallay for his support.
Virtual Reading and Conversation with Villa Aurora Fellow Maike Wetzel
Online
Information
A missing child is a nightmare for any family. But what happens when they come back?
Eleven-year-old Elly is missing. After an extensive police search she is presumed dead, and her family must learn to live with a gaping hole in their lives. Her parents’ marriage is torn apart by grief, while her sister Ines swings between jealousy and guilt.
Then, four years later, Elly reappears. Her strange behaviour is initially put down to the trauma of what has happened to her, but soon her family is plagued by doubts. Elly’s grandmother is sure this is not her granddaughter and her sister tests her with childhood games and memories, but her mother cannot bear the thought of losing her child again, and her father just wants the family back together again.
Is this dark-eyed stranger really the same little girl who went missing? And if not, who is she?
Elly is a gripping tale of grief, longing, and doubt, which takes every parent’s greatest fear and lets it play out to an emotionally powerful, memorable climax. It is a literary novel with all the best qualities of a thriller, and a fascinating exploration of how well we can ever truly know one another or ourselves.
Location
Friday July 24, 2020, 6pm PST on Crowdcast:
Register via https://www.crowdcast.io
Participants
Maike Wetzel was born in 1974 and works as a writer, playwright and screenwriter in Berlin. She studied at the Munich Film School and in the UK. The manuscript of her first novel, Elly, won the Robert Gernhardt Prize and the Martha Saalfeld Prize. Maike’s short stories have been translated into numerous languages and received multiple awards. Her collection Long Days was published by Comma Press in 2008, translated by Lyn Marven.
Brooklyn-born, Los Angeles based writer Lisa Napoli is the author of three books: Radio Shangri-La, about the kingdom of Bhutan; Ray & Joan, about the great philanthropist, Joan Kroc, and Up All Night, about Ted Turner and the birth of 24-hour News.
She’s currently at work on her fourth, about the founding mothers of NPR, to be released next year by Abrams.
Partner
The Eye - Second Season: Outdoor Screening Exhibition
Los Angeles
Information
The works of 18 artists are being projected onto a 12-foot wide elliptical screen installed at the corner outside Müller’s home. This glowing “eye” is visible from a large intersection, which safely accommodates visitors on foot and by car.
The Eye is Müller’s artistic response to the sudden closure of galleries and museums forced by the coronavirus pandemic. The first season was in July 2020. The sudden vacuum of art-centered socializing inspired Müller to collaborate with artists, family, friends and neighbors to produce an alternative space for the shared experience of art.
Annika Kahrs and Clemens von Wedemeyer (Villa Aurora Fellows 2021) are participating in this community effort for a safe art experience in unprecedented times.
On view are Sunset Sunrise (2011) by Annika Kahrs and The Fourth Wall (2009) by Clemens von Wedemeyer.
Artists featured in this outdoor exhibition screening include Melodie McDaniel, Becca Mann, Ulrike Arnold, Janet Sternburg, Thomas Demand, Armon Williams, Alison Saar, Rinko Kawauchi, Rosha Yaghmai, Vincent Ramos, Brandy Triguero, Ken Kitano, Susan Morse, Manfred Müller, Nancy Louise Jones and Zimo Zhao.]
Manfred Müller is a sculptor working in Los Angeles, California, and Dusseldorf, Germany. He is represented by ROSEGALLERY, Santa Monica, California.
The Eye will be open to the public Thursday and Friday evenings from October 29 through December 11, 6:30-9:30 p.m.
Partners
Thanks for the generous support of Matthew Blute, Brice Cooper, Anne Etheridge,
Villa Aurora Countdown to 25
online
Information
If you haven't followed us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter yet, now is the right time to join us!
Your Villa Aurora Team, Los Angeles and Berlin
During his fellowship at the Getty Research Institute, Heiner Müller decided to move into the newly renovated Villa Aurora with his family. Thus, he became the first guest and unofficial honorary fellow even before the house opened as an artist residency on December 1st in 1995.
Heiner Müller stayed in the house for several weeks with his daughter Anna and his wife Brigitte Maria Mayer. He was already very sick with cancer when his wife wrote The Final Battle, a gripping, very personal text about their unusual time in the Palisades.
Die Kaschierte Bibliothek aus der Serie L O N G I N G (The Hidden Library from the Series L O N G I NG) von Thomas Klegin
1999 Installation im Speisezimmer (Installation in the dining room) Villa Aurora / Los Angeles Hartfaserplatte (Masonite) / Kunststoffsaugnäpfe (PVC) / Neonleuchten (Circle light) / The Cambridge Modern History, (Vol.I - XIII, Cambridge 1911/1934) / 1 Tisch (1 table) geschredderte Zeitungen L.A. Stadtkulturmagazine (shredded newspaper, L.A. Stadtkulturmagazine: LA Weekly / New York Times Oct.1st - Dec. 8th, 1999.
Anna McCarthy – Fassbinder in LALAland
The short film tells the story of a woman living in Los Angeles who pretends to be Fassbinder. She speaks Bavarian with a strong American accent. On the occasion of “her” birthday she gives the first interview since 33 years – commissioned by the Fassbindertage 2015.
Thomas Hettche – Woraus wir gemacht sind (What we are made of), 2006 Arrival in Pacific Palisades after traveling cross country. On the shores of the Pacific Ocean, behind me the continent, everything started to turn. In the garden of Villa Aurora and the silence of the parrots, in the shade of the eucalyptus tree, I began to write. This city in my dreams forever.
Exactly one year ago he brooded over the connections between machine music, cyborgs and algorithms in the California sun. The sound artist Leo Hofmann showed the first study of his sound performance "Bias Dialogs", developed in LA, at the fellow reception in his studio apartment.
Jens Brand, Philipp Lachenmann and Lutz Seiler (2003)
While working on our space-time experiments (“The Living and the Dead”, conceived and directed by Josefa Corválan), we took the opportunity to take these pictures. The protagonists are Jens Brand, Philipp Lachenmann, and Lutz Seiler.
Pazifik Exil Musical theater installation for six voices and live electronics based on Michael Lentz’ novel “Pazifik Exil”.
Libretto: Michael Lentz (Villa Aurora Fellow 2001)
Composition: Sergej Newski (Villa Aurora Fellow 2014)
Interludes: Paul Frick (Villa Aurora Fellow 2018)
The Anniversary
Since Heiner Müller stayed at Villa Aurora, more than 450 artists have lived and worked here. We are profoundly grateful for your friendship and loyalty and cannot wait to celebrate this milestone with you in-person! While we wait, please enjoy this sneak peak of the English version of our video tour.
Partners
Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e. V. is supported by the German Federal Foreign Office and Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
VATMH NACHT 2020
Online
Information
Program
7:00pm | Welcoming Remarks
Dr. Markus Klimmer
Chairman VATMH
Minister of State Michelle Müntefering MdB
Federal Foreign Office
7:10pm | World premiere
AURORA (from: Nachtschatten)
for Saxophone Quartet & Theremin
Helmut Oehring Honorary Fellow
Performers: Adumá Saxophone Quartet and Susanne Kohnen (Theremin)
Commissioned work for the Adumá Saxophone Quartet with funding from the
Capital City Culture Fund and the Culture Fund Frankfurt RheinMain
© 2020 Helmut Oehring / LOWmusicMOL
7:25pm | in memoriam Freimut Duve
Marianne Heuwagen
Deputy Chairman of the Board, VATMH
7:30pm | Dis-Course through 25 years Villa Aurora
Anne-Dore Krohn und Marianne Heuwagen
7:40pm | Behind the Scenes
Tour with Marta Feuchtwanger and others through the Villa Aurora
7:45pm | Etymological Gossip
Uljana Wolf Villa Aurora Alumna
8:00pm | State of the Union(s) Speech
Prof. Dr. Heike Paul Thomas Mann Fellow
8:10pm | Concert
Pantha du Prince Villa Aurora Alumnus
Happy Holidays! A Visit to the Brecht House in Santa Monica: Conversation & Concert
Online
Information
The conversation will be followed by a concert in the garden of the house featuring international music stars such as Israeli soprano Hila Plitmann, jazz singer Michelle Coltrane, and soul legend Freda Payne. The musical program will be led by guitarist and songwriter Shea Welsh.
The film of the conversation and concert will premiere on the Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House on December 20, 11. a.m (PT). Watch here
No admission.
Partners
Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e. V. is supported by the German Federal Foreign Office and Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.