I come as a tree

'I come as a tree' 

7000 The Oaks of 

Joseph Beuys

The Center for Arts & Culture Beton7 and Goethe-Institut Athen, from 9 to 27 April 2013, are organising the exhibition-tribute to Joseph Beuys curated by Dr. Rhea Thoenges-Stringaris. 

The exhibition focuses mainly on the flagship project "The 7000 Oaks», which is connected like no other with the concept of "Social Sculpture".

The report includes photos of the famous photographer Dieter Schwerdtle, objects, unreleased material and documents around this famous action of Joseph Beuys, which is a milestone of contemporary art. The program also includes a lecture by Ms Dr. Rhea Thönges-Stringaris at Goethe Institut Athen.

With the generous support of the Foundation "7000 Oaks" Kassel  [ more ]

L'Idee

Athens based collective MiniMaximum improVision redesigned the soundtrack for L'Idee, a masterpiece from the 1930s,  on 28.3. 2013 at Goethe-Institut.

Berthold Bartosch (December 29, 1893 – November 13, 1968) was a film-maker, born in the Bohemia region of Austria-Hungary

In 1930 Bartosch moved to Paris and created the 30 minute film entitled L'idee (The Idea) to which he is most remembered for. The film is described as the first serious, poetic, tragic work in animation. The film's characters and backdrops were composed of several layers of different types of paper from semi-transparent to thick cardboard. Special effects like halos, smoke and fog were made with lather spread on glass plates and lit from behind. Bartosch based the film on a wordless novel of woodcuts by Frans Masereel, The Idea (1920).

L'idee, when released in 1933, featured a score by composer Arthur Honegger, including an ondes Martenot, which is believed to be the very first use of an electronic musical instrument in film history. The following year, Franz Waxman's score for Liliom (1934) used a theremin. -- [ source ]

L'idée is often mistaken for being the first movie to use the Ondes Martenot musical instrument. In fact, it is the second. L'idée was made in 1932 but the soundtrack was added in 1934, a few months after the release of the movie Liliom. Liliom had a score composed by Franz Waxman which used the Theremin. Therefore, L'idée is the oldest movie to use the Ondes Martenot, but not the first one. --[ source ]

The Other Globalisation

 

"Why do you do what you’re doing?"

For three years the photographer Katharina Mouratidi portrayed activists of the Global Justice Movement from 43 countries: farmers and workers, students, reindeer-breeders, native and indigenous people, scientists, Christians, atheists, citizens and revolutionaries. She asked all of them, including many internationally recognized, prominent personalities - like Peace Nobel Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchú and Nobel Prize Laureate for Economics Joseph Stiglitz - the same question:"Why do you do what you’re doing?"

 

In answering this question, the interviewed related a great deal about their own stories and personal motives for their engagement.

The answers Mouratidi collected are as exceptional as they are varied - spectacular and normal, aggressive, loving, full of longing, idealism and hope, but also moving, alarming, and thought-provoking.

Considered together, they have only one thing in common: the certainty that, for the survival of humanity and our planet, a change in consciousness - leading to another globalisation from which all people profit, as well as to a sustainable relationship with the environment - is absolutely indispensable.

 

This work has been traveling internationally since September 2005. [ more info ] . Photos are from the Athens' exhibition at Goethe Institute.