Lecture Performance
Folgen, a 45-minute lecture performance, draws on the existing narratives of video makers found on YouTube to build a multi-layered media landscape of Berlin. My subjective approach, which weaves together mapping, literature and live performance, combines fragments of images and sound from YouTube videos with my own narration, using the traces video makers have left in the public sphere of the internet to follow people throughout the city. The performance is a deliberate mixing between reality and fiction, an interweaving narrative about desire.
During the performance I read from a small paperback novel containing approximately 20 short-short stories about different people I have found, observed through YouTube and then followed through the city.
This text is projected onto a screen as live video while on another screen the audience views a slide-show of images and video that documents my process of exploring the city through the experiences of different people as they are archived online. Through this process, the city becomes a place to be inhabited and experienced through an other’s narrative — stepping into somebody else’s shoes. The many protagonists create the stories told during the performance involved in the making of the work.
Text references:
Eric Gorden (The Urban Spectator)
Michel de Certeau (Walking in the City)
Miguel de Unamuno (Mist)
Paul Auster (Leviathan)
JoschiWeLobe (YouTube Channel)
StadtArchiv software (Berlin dataset of geo-tagged YouTube videos)
ManyTyBy (Mit Stäbchen am Alexa)
MatureMuscles4U (YouTube Channel)
ManyTyBy (Ulcus Cruris 26)
ManyTyBy (Traute öffnet Walnüsse)
VIDEO DOCUMENTATION:
Introduction: 0:00
Chapters:
Letter: 1:03
Alone at home smoke: 3:03
Wartenburgerstrasse 5: 4:04
Dear Joschi: 8:34
Streichkonzert am Alexanderplatz: 11:41
Mit Stäbchen am Alexa: 14:33
Hakke sein – nach Sonne schrei ‘n Teil 3: 16:03
Dear MatureMuscles4U: 17:04
Dear ManyTyBy: 20:30
52 8177-9 Berlin Ostkreuz: 24:04
Dear Manne: 29:04