Villa Aurora Events Archive
May 2021
Befriending Ghosts – Digital Hauntings
Online
Information
Welcome! Befriending Ghosts – Digital Hauntings is an interactive online performance specifically designed for the digital space, and it only “works” in this framework. At the end of the first video, which you can watch here, a URL will appear; type this URL into your browser and you’ll be taken to an external website, from which you can navigate further through a network of different sites and platforms. Only a very few endpoints have no further possible steps, and these are clearly marked as such. We recommend leaving all tabs open over the course of the performance, so you can always keep track of your path through the network and return to a previous stage easily if you so choose. Do not attempt to just click through the network as quickly as possible, instead spend enough time engaging with each stage and, if you can, use good headphones.
Over the course of the performance, you could be forwarded to the following sites/platforms: Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Docs, Soundcloud, Linktree, Instagram, Vimeo, YouTube, Cryptpad and a few more; you do not need your own account for any of the platforms. All links were carefully checked during production, however, it should be noted that unexpected problems can occur and that participation in this online performance is at your own risk; no liability is assumed for any damages or legal offences stemming from your use of the different websites’ offers. When visiting an external website, you agree to the terms and conditions and data protection regulations of the respective provider or website operator; it is possible that cookie preferences must be selected for each website.
If you should have further questions, have trouble finding your way in the online performance, be unable to continue, encounter other problems or stumble into a ghost, please write an email to ghosthelp2021@gmail.com; during the period the performance is online, your messages will be read regularly and answered as soon as possible. We hope you enjoy this digital ghost hunt and discover many exciting things along the way!
“Befriending Ghosts” is broadcast by Volksbühne Berlin in cooperation with Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House as part of the series Arman Avanessian & Enemies, the successful talk-think-theatre series for new political theory and theory formats, which has hosted over 70 events in the Volksbühne’s Roter Salon and is now in its fourth season.
Leadership in the Arts or Failure is what it's all about!
Online
Information
Why is failure a possible and important principle in artistic practice and its teachings? Our guests Steven D. Lavine and Jörn Jacob Rohwer will address this question in conversation with Mischa Kuball and Lilian Haberer. Based on Lavine's experience as long-term president of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts 1988-2017), our guests will connect the teachings of American (private) art schools with those in Germany.
CalArts lived through a long period of insignificance before Steven D. Lavine stepped in and led it to financial prosperity and international renown. Today, the art school is a cradle for Oscar and Pulitzer Prize winners, for Mellon and Guggenheim Fellows: a hotspot of U.S. creativity.
Background and starting point to this discussion is the newly published book "Steven D. Lavine. Failure is What It's All About. A Life Devoted to Leadership in the Arts" (Deutscher Kunstbuchverlag) by Villa Aurora alumnus Jörn Jacob Rohwer. In this book Lavine tells his personal story for the first time. He talks about cultural politics, philanthropy, the avant-garde, and his life in Los Angeles. Prompted by self-doubt and a desire to fail, he emerges as a subtle thinker, visionary, and transatlantic mediator between the worlds of art, education, and politics.
Jörn Jacob Rohwer is well known for biographical conversations with personalities from art, literature, science, and society - among others with Susan Sontag, Tomi Ungerer, Heinrich Hannover, Hans Keilson, Doris Lessing, George Tabori but also Leni Riefenstahl and Daniel Goldhagen or Richard Sennett. In 2004 Rohwer was a resident at the Villa Aurora.
The conversation is prompted by the just-published biography of former CalArts president Steven D. Lavine, written by Villa Aurora alumnus Jörn Jacon Rohwer: Jörn Jacob Rohwer / Steven D. Lavine. Failure is What It's All About. A Life Devoted to Leadership in the Arts. Deutscher Kunstbuchverlag, 2021. ISBN: 978-3-422-98155-3, Price: 34,90 € [D].
To join the event please register via e-mail by May 9, 2021 to: lecture120521@khm.de. The zoom link and password will be send to you one day in advance (May 11).
Partner
In cooperation with The Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM).
CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS: A Tribute to George Floyd
Online
Information
CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS: A Tribute to George Floyd in 8’46” (© Jacaranda Music, 2021)
Performed by renowned dancer/choreographer David Roussève and trumpeter Daniel Rosenboom, this work of visual music honors the late George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement for social justice. Conceived by Patrick Scott, Artistic Director of Jacaranda Music, this visualization of James Newton’s “The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness” trumpet solo is co-directed by Ben Caldwell, Director, KAOS Network, with camerawork by Wesley Groves, and additional music by James Tenney.
CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS was filmed with hand-held and drone cameras in Leimert Park, LA’s historic Black neighborhood. The plaza is painted with ancient African pictograms called adinkras. The motto adinkra for this work of visual music is Mako – pepper, from the proverb, “all peppers do not ripen at the same time” symbolizing inequality and uneven development. Mako tells us: we should help the less fortunate, as our own fortunes may one day change.
On David Roussève:
“The struggles of Black Americans—oppression and abuse, poverty and neglect, AIDS and alienation register in the body of this dancer-choreographer, whose death-haunted imagination is drawn to the polarity and paradox of bondage and antic freedom… Roussève moves from the personal to the historical and on to the universal.”
— Charles McNulty, The Los Angeles Times
Partners
An event by Jacaranda in collaboration with Villa Aurora, the City of Santa Monica, Cultural Affairs Division and the German Consulate General Los Angeles
Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e. V. is supported by the German Federal Foreign Office and Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
