26 January, 2024, 8pm |
Club der polnischen Versager - Ackerstrasse 169, Berlin, Germany |
¤ Film screening and Q&A with the film team
¤ Live cinema "The Belt" by Gergő Pápai
¤ Party
>> Event part of Vorspiel - transmediale/CTM <<
TV FREE EUROPE. THE MOVIE - film by Gergely Pápai and Pneuma Szöv.
(Budapest +Nova Gorica/Leipzig/Szombathely/Taarnby/Oberwart 2023, 63 min, Hungarian,English+German with English subtitles)
Mari Szürke and Marie Grau met at the Pan-European Picnic in 1989. They traveled together to the present day to understand how to live with the freedom that the fall of communism brought us. This film tells the story of a strange journey in which the characters try to understand what it means to be free. Where did the story or history lead that we, who were born around the fall of the actually existing socialist regimes, are not the creators of, but only the winners or victims of? The TV Free Europe film is also the story of the failure of this impossible undertaking.
The characters in the film stumble around in the shadow of COVID-19, the hollowed out fall of the socialist regimes, the Orbán regime, self-realization, and the expectations associated with success. They are looking for the narrow path that leads between a meaningful life, the compromises made or not made for success, the traps of cynicism, and being losers.
This film tries to get to know its characters, capture our time, and some of the fundamental questions of our generation.
Followed by a special presentation TV Free Europe - The Movie co-director Gergő Pápai's film project The Belt
THE BELT
cinematic journey with live-act
"What I know as the city is only a very, very small part of what Budapest actually occupies. Concrete channels for streams, logistics systems like railways, warehouse bases, high-voltage wires, outdated heating plants, abandoned factories and the heaps of by-products of former industrial production make up most of the city's territory. The Belt is a slow film in which we leave behind the well-known sights of the city to see the new stadiums, the the old marshalling yards and the gigantic real estate developments. The film provides an opportunity for a slow, drifting journey where we can meditate on the relationship between ourselves, the city, and the natural environment. This movie is a silent film and I play live music, similar to the pianist who would accompany silent films in the past." (G. Pápai)
Since 2008, we have been inhabiting places for shorter and longer periods, but now we are embarking on a long-term process of creating a new place.
In Józsefváros, we have recently (from 2021) rented a workshop office in Karácsony Sándor utca together with KÖME - Cultural Heritage Managers Association. We have been trying to rent a municipally owned space for years, and now we have finally been successful in our bid and together with KÖME we have been awarded the vacant 143 m2 shop space at Népszínház u. 26 for 5 years. We are able to give up our office rented on market basis (though at a friendly price) and move to Népszínház in October 2023!
***
quote from a text which we wrote about this placemaking experiment:
Népszínház street is located in the city center of Budapest, it is part of the 8th district but mentally it crosses much more diverse contexts. This multicultural street could well be a candidate for the title "folks’ street", and this is not a historical coincidence. The street has always been an important artery of Budapest, serving as a gathering place for the rural and distant population that came to the capital from the 2nd half of the 19th century on, and as a home for merchants, artisans and artists. It connected the first main railway station with the city centre, the outside with the inside, the new with the old, the foreign with the other foreigner, the resident with the foreigner. The street was given its current name in the year after the unification of the city (in 1873), in connection with the great theatre project of the time, which was intended to reach out to a wide range of people and provide them with access to culture. Today, the street, deprived of its folk theatre and cinemas, is best known as the antechamber of the district’s 'ghetto romanticism'. The local society became even more colourful in the 20th century when African and Asian migrants started to settle down in the neighbourhood. Since the turn of the millennium, an increasing gentrification makes the local dynamics and challenges even more complex.
The focus of the place-making process is the abandoned shop space at Népszínház Street 26. Thanks to the support of the Józsefváros Municipality, we can lease this space for the next 5 years. We aim to transform this space into an inclusive meeting point, a communication hub for Népszínház Street. Our goal is to go beyond conventional cultural representations and “safe spaces,” creating surfaces that can connect the most diverse people despite social fragmentation.
Read the reportage of the daily newspaper Népszava about our opening Népsziasztok! Placemaking Festival here (in Hungarian)
Join our facebook group NÉPSZÍNHÁZ!
More info about Népszínház micropark and the micropark project of Joseph Town here.
Have a look at the essay by Pneuma's co-founders Zsuzsa Berecz and Sarah on Pneuma Szöv.'s art and activism. They present a set of tarot cards in Mezosfera's issue on Art 'After' Activism.
Ravishing tarot design by Dorottya Poór, Luca Szabados and Sarah Günther
The Spectacular Society warmly invites you to its political game evenings!
2 and 30 October, 2022, Gólya, Budapest
🥣 Constant supply: capitalist society of spectacle
🍳 Menu of the day: lazy karaoke, mindfucks, shredded sloth
🍟 Who is it for?
Anyone who can spare a little time for laziness.
Anyone who's under pressure at work.
Anyone who isn't afraid to put on the glasses we give them (and open their eyes while they're at it).
Who doesn't want to spend Sunday evening alone, but not very active either.
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/652034569585675
🔪 Our Spectacular Buffet is waiting for you with an abundance of dispossession!
The backbone of our events are the practices and methods developed by members of The Specacular Society: free exchange of ideas, drawing, associative text creation, movement and, of course, above all, having fun together.
🔪 Free program, donations accepted of course
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What is the Spectacular Society?
An open group formed in the spring of 2022 in the Márai Cultural Centre in Budapest.
At our open soirees we approach the social spectacle, everyone in their own way, yet together.
The social spectacle as a phenomenon was introducted by Guy Debord's "Society of the Spectacle" (1967), a fundamental inspiration for the '68 movements. The work is a critique of the capitalist spectacle society and is more relevant today than ever.
We unfold the facets of being exploited in order to find a way out together.
Organised by Pneuma Szöv.
Supported by Budapest Józsefváros Municipality; You; The Bourgeoisie; Spirits of Dead Poets and Other Assholes
This spring we have been working on a series of workshops based on the situationist Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle. In this book, Debord decribes with unwavering rigorosity and poetical richness the nature of capital that has gotten to a state of accumulation so that it became "spectacle". By using the word spectacle Debord describes the commodification of all aspects of human life, including love and the most intimate relationships to an extent when illusion becomes the real and the real is only a moment within the illusion.
Starting from chapters of The Society of the Spectacle we set out to find our own relationships to the spectacle. We used different practices, many of them public space observations, some kind of a dérive in the city (as situationists called this kind of method of psychogeography).
From April 29 on we are organising open soirées to share with others the practices used during the workshop.
See the facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/4653022051470467/4660771084028897
TV Free Europe was presented at Ars Electronica, one of the largest intermedia, new media, digital-cultural, contemporary media and research festivals in the world.
𝗔𝗥𝗦 𝗘𝗟𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗜𝗖𝗔 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟭
𝗔 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗗𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗲𝗮𝗹8.–12. SEPTEMBER 2021TV Free Europe / Studio Nova Gorica (University NG, School of Arts - Akademija umetnosti Univerza v Novi Gorici) was presented at the "Gardens" section.
"Fear Free"
TV show - created in the frame of a smeinary held by Sarah Günther and Jasna Hribernik
Panel discussion by and with the project's creators
Links:
GARDEN: https://ars.electronica.art/.../greetings-from-the.../
FESTIVAL - Basic: https://ars.electronica.art/newdigitaldeal/en/
TV Free Europe is a collaborative experimental Tele- and Theatre Vision, started in 2019, 30 years after the Fall of the Wall. It is the joint work of seven local studios from 5 countries. An artistic research about TV, with performance, public art, university classes, street interventions, life. A thinking about being free artists. Wanna know more? Listen to your inner David:
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September 12 | Border opening event with live transmission from Studio Oberwart (AT)
October 2020 - March 2021 | Winter is coming - stay tuned for programs coming up
April - June 2021 | TV Free Europe goes live in the local studios
///// stay tuned on tv-free-europe.eu
Our TV IN PROGRESS has been launched!
A TV in progress, with plenty of absurdity and inspiration, and lots of fishes for a meditation break.
If you are bored of livestreamings, tired of online cultural products and all the framed information,
try tv-free-europe.eu
We planned it to be a series of LIVE EVENTS, but now we decided to put it all back into the box of a classical TV. Later we will break out of it again!
An artistic research and a common platform of learning with and about TV.
A TV that builds on the system changing media around 1989 and explores the since then forgotten relationship of TV and art.
If you wanna transmit something, connect to it!
A mass medium not for the masses. For up and coming stars, for the late comers, for those who want to transform personal into public, for the loners, for those who want more joy.
📺
FROM OUR TV PROGRAMME (in progress) :
- a new game every day
- shooting stars at 9:11
- revolutionary minutes from 19:56 to 19:89
- technical bugs and the most varied broadcast breaks.
PROGRAM CREATORS:
An open group of artists, art students, and other contributors. Maybe you as well!
Participating regional studios:
Studio Budapest, Studio Szombathely, Studio OHO Oberwart, Studio Nova (Gorica), Studio Leipzig, Tårnby Park Studio
Participating organisations:
Pneuma Szöv. / Mókusok, KÖME - Kulturális Örökség Menedzserek Egyesülete / Association of Cultural Heritage Managers, OHO offenes Haus Oberwart (AT), University of Nova Gorica (SL), UT Connewitz (Leipzig / DE), Tårnby Torv Festival (DK), Pneuma Vizuál, BOHÉM (Szombathely), ELTE Savaria University Centre – Department of Visual Arts, Szombathely Arts High School
Co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, with the support of Allianz Kulturstiftung and the U.S. Embassy of Budapest
Mari @ Marie's Early Night Show @TRIP Ship Budapest | 5 October, 2019
The show happened in the context of our European Democracy Network and was co-organised with KÖME - Kulturális Örökség Menedzserek Egyesülete
One of the main demands of active citizens in Central and Eastern Europe in the late 80s was the right for information and a democratic public sphere. In 2019 we face a narrowing public sphere with increasing restrictions on the freedom of press, assembly and expression in many European countries and beyond. More and more moments emerge reminiscent of the “velvet prison” as writer, politician and human rights advocate Miklós Haraszti called the late Kádár regime.
Greetings from the future of 1989, feel the wind of CHANGE!
Hungarian Mari and East-German refugee Marie, two young journalists, are time travelling from 1989 to 2019 to host today’s talk show. Join them for an interactive conversation with performative elements around shrinking civic spaces and civic actors’ legitimacy, reputation and freedom fundamentally being challenged. Together, we want to explore how civic spaces are being restricted in European and neighbouring countries; what are the similarities and differences across Europe; how we as civil society can stand in solidarity with each other and learn from each others‘ reactions and actions against these threatening tendencies in our specific local contexts.
by and with Pneuma Szöv. ft. Pneuma Vizuál
Sarah Günther (Marie)
Csilla File (Mari)
& Zsuzsa Berecz (the old free & single groupie), Árpád Bőczén (sound), Balázs Kellner (mummy blue), Viktor Markos (visuals), Luca Szabados (visuals, design)
special guests Anna Illés (Extinction Rebellion Hungary), Dr. Purple aka Lilla Magyari
Co-organised with the European Democracy Network, Pneuma Szöv. / Mókusok, Pneuma Vizuál and KÖME - Association of Cultural Heritage Managers / KÖME - Kulturális Örökség Menedzserek Egyesülete.
The event was kindly supported by the Governing Mayor of Berlin - Senate Chancellery, Citizens For Europe and TASZ, co-funded by the Europe for Citizens Programme of the European Union and the U.S. Embassy of Budapest.