Independence park day - invite

Relational Aesthetics by Hennesy Youngman

Anat sent me this lovely guy a few days ago.

Haraway's Manifestos

I'm working on this beautiful text now by Donna Haraway called "the Companion Species Manifesto". Haraway, who in the 80's wrote the groundbreaking "Cyborg Manifesto", became at the turn of the millennium more and more interested in animals, and especially dogs. At some point she writes: "I tell stories about stories, all the way down. Woof."

How wonderful!

Luckily, both these texts are available online for free: The Old School Cyborg Manifesto (with the kick-ass ending "I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess") is here and the newer "Companion Species" one is here.

Wasrzawa Diary

So we're back home in Berlin, after five days as members of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland, and the entertainment committee of the union of the extras in Yael Bartnana's films.

Here's (some of) the story in pictures:

The city is kind of a disneyland, trashed completely by the Nazis and then reconstructed to look exactly the same. Walking the street where our hotel was really felt like strolling in a film set. In general, the whole experience was a funny mixture of fiction and "reality".

We love the pope

Our hotel, where the sauna is steaming and the breakfast warms your heart. Yes it is good to be Jewish

Some pix from the set:

The Schub in uniform

Nadia Borboletta Volkov Dunietz

Yael

Giori & Hadar

Sofitel - probably the most beautiful building in Warsaw

Anat is interested

The Tomb of the unknown soldier, dedicated to Polish soldiers that died in WW1. Next to the eternal flame there is a 24/7 honor guard of two soldiers:

One of the days we were filming in the Palace of Culture, Stalin's imposed gift to the people of Warsaw and one of the most shameless buildings I've ever seen. It wasn't, however, merely the impossible size or the weird, gotham-city-sque appearance of it that was so appealing (huge Batman fan here); The crazy theater inside was just unbelievable. Huge stage with a beautiful grey curtains, ridiculous ceiling, and the best feature by far: every one of the thousands seats in the house has it's own personal mono speaker! You gotta love those fucked up dictators

A speaker for every worker!

  

Impressions from a movement (and a movie) in the making

So im in Warsawa. Weird city (will post some more soon). Anyway, this is an image from the first day of shooting here. Of course, quality is iphone shitty, but i like this frame very much. It shows some extras on the set of Yael's new video, the third in the trilogy about the "jewish renaissance movement in poland", which will be presented at the Venice biennale. These guys, dressed like very well equipped cops, were on set all day and being around them wasn't nice at all. Besides the fact that the clothes does make the man, which is always good to remember, it was a nice reminder of another fact, which Althusser wrote about very simply and cleverly: even when "real" cops are wearing these costumes, it's us who give them the relevance to act as if they had some authority. We imagine them and they imagine themselves just like the three guys having fun in this picture.