LECTURER, SCIENTISTS & ARTISTS
Heiko Alberti is a founding member of the amateur film collective “Das Barmbeker Manifest” and creates video clips for noise and underground bands.
Max Andersson is a Swedish comic creator. He studied graphic design at RMI-Berghs in Stockholm and film production at New York University in New York City. After publishing his first graphic novel Pixy his works were published in several languages and in various newspapers and art magazines. Max Andersson lives and works in Berlin.
Talk in German.
Evelyn Annuß is a literature and theatre scholar and curator. Currently a researcher at the Ruhr University in Bochum, she is investigating choral forms of mise-en-scène in National Socialism as part of her DFG project. Deeply involved in exploring the cultural history of non-protagonist representations, she completed her dissertation in 2005, since published as Elfriede Jelinek – Theater des Nachlebens.
Talk in German.
Peter Asaro is professor of media studies and film at the New School University in New York City. His work examines the interfaces between science, technology, and media, and is currently focused on the social dimensions of lethal robotics. In his film Love Machine he examines the development of robots designed to enter human social relations of love, caring and friendship and their potential to supplant human biological reproduction.
Talk in English.
Armen Avanessian is a literary scholar who is currently working as researcher in the collaborative cluster “Aesthetic Experience and the Dissolution of Artistic Limits” and lecturer at the Peter Szondi Institute for Comparative Literature at the FU Berlin. Focal points of his research are the philosophy and poetics of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Petra Bahr, Pastor and cultural officer of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). She studied theology and philosophy in Heidelberg, and got her PhD with a thesis on the Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant. She worked as a freelance author and published numerous works on the relationship of church and arts, and the complex relationship of law, religion and policy. In 2006 she became the first cultural representative of the Council of the EKD. Petra Bahr is on the advisory board of the project Die Untoten.
Talk in German.
Katja-Inga Baldowski studies at the HAW, the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. In her extremely feminine collections she calls into question the role of modern femininity.
Aya Ben Ron, artist, studied at Goldsmiths College in London. She works with and in various media such as video, installation, drawing, and sculpture, using them to intensively explore the conditions of human existence. Viewers of her work are confronted with morbid bodies, death, and suppressed pain and suffering. Aya Ben Ron lives in Tel Aviv.
Talk in English.
Silvia Berger, known as a musician under the name of Frau Kraushaar, works as a visual artist and DJane. She has long raved about the materialization experiments of the psychotherapist and parapsychologist Albert Freiherr von Schrenck Notzing.
Barbara Bilabel is director and set designer who teaches in Zurich, Berlin and Hamburg. Since 1987 she has repeatedly staged undead figures featuring in various plays by Elfriede Jelinek.
Cornelius Borck is professor and director of the institue for Medicine and History of Science, University of Lübeck. He was associate professor und Canada Research Chair in Philosophy and Language of Medicine an der McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and from 2002 to 2004, he was head of the research group "Life. Media technologies and the sciences of life, "at the Faculty of Media, Bauhaus University Weimar. His research work revolves around the history of biomedical visualization techniques, epistemology of the human-machine relationship, experimental cultures of brain and mind as well as sensory and neural prostheses. Cornelius Borck is on the advisory board of the project Die Untoten.
Talk in German.
Marijs Boulogne, author of theatre plays, musician and actresse, Brussels. She studied directing in Brussels at the Rits. She worked in Kaaitheater (Brussels) with Marianne van Kerkhoven, got into Siemens arts program Tanzquartier 2008-2009, and won the Alumni-award in Rits in 2010. She made the shows: Marzipan or Plexi (2009), Picknick (2004) and Hotel Zero Control (2003). In her piece "The Anatomy Lesson" she deals with the process of decomposition of the human body.
Talk in English.
Jutta Brückner is a film director, scriptwriter and producer. She studied politics, history and philosophy in Cologne, Berlin, Paris and Munich. She was professor for film and video at the Berlin School of Fine Arts and directed the film and media art section at the Academy of Arts. Her award-winning feature and documentary films include Hungerjahre.
Talk in German.
Jörg Buttgereit is a director and author of diverse art-house horror films, Der, arte television documentaries Monsterland Durch die Nacht mit… and playsCaptain Berlin Versus Hitler, Gabba Gabba Hey!. He also writes and directs radio plays for WDR and works as a film critic for diverse publications.
Talk in German.
Oron Catts is an artist, researcher and a curator at the forefront of the emerging field of Biological-arts, whose work addresses shifting perceptions of life. Currently he is Director of SymbioticA, The Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts School of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia. Having background in art and design, he was a Research Fellow at the Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication Laboratory, Harvard Medical School, and worked with numerous other bio-medical laboratories around the world.
Talk in English.
Christopher Coenen, political scientist, is researcher at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He explores the social, political, ethical, cultural and historical aspects of new technological developments (e.g. synthetic biology, human enhancement) as well as modern information and communication technology.
Vaginal Davis is an originator of the homo-core punk movement and a gender-queer art-music icon. She made her name in LA’s club performance scene, and has earned herself a similar notoriety as a cultural antagonist and erotic provocateur.
Vinciane Despret studied philosophy, psychology, and ethnology. She is professor of philosophy at the Université de Liège in Belgium, exploring connections between psychology and philosophy. She is currently working on how the living and the dead are mobilizing one another to accomplish life projects, accomplishment and memories.
Talk in French.
Joachim Dinse is a psychological therapist and works in his own practice in Hamburg. Since the 1980s the psychotherapeutic work with homosexual men, in particular patients with HIV and AIDS, has been a focus of his work.
Ekkehard Ehlers is a composer, musician, DJ, record producer. He is concerned with translating the music of the 20th century into the language of digital musical art. Besides an array of publications and concert tours as solo artist and musical collaborator (including Josef Suchy, Stephan Mathieu and the Red Hot Chili Peppers), he is one half of the concert pop duo “März”. Most recently he has also curated and organized the conference “Audio Poverty –Music und Armut” in the House of World Cultures/Berlin and the festival “Lux Aeterna – The Transcendence of Music” in Berghain/Berlin.
Philipp Ekardt, received an M.A. in Comparative Literature and Art History from the Freie Universität and from Humboldt-Universitaet in Berlin. Currently he is a researcher at the Peter Szondi - Institute of FU Berlin and works on Alexander Kluges theory und his artistical practice of emotions. Philipp Ekardt also writes contemporary art criticism. He is co-founder of the Institute Glaspavillon at the Volksbühne at Rosa-Luxemburg- Platz in Berlin.
Talk in German.
Maja Falckenberg is a specialist for anesthesiology, pain therapy and palliative medicine. She is involved in consulting ambulatory, hospital and hospice patients. Together with the Medical Council she gives courses on palliative medicine and for years has been active in the German Society for Palliative Medicine.
Roy Frumkes is an independent filmmaker, and currently a professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York City where he teaches Screenwriting, International Cinema and the History of Horror. He is also a longtime member of the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures (NY), and is the Editor of Films in Review, the oldest film publication in America. Frumkes directed the documentary Document of the Dead, a comprehensive study of independent filmmaking in the U.S. focusing on the career of George A. Romero. Each decade, Frumkes added new codas to the film. His final expansion of the feature is entitled The Definitive Document Of The Dead.
Talk in English.
Georg Fülberth studied German literature, history, political science, and sociology in Frankfurt/Main, West-Berlin and Marburg. Following his doctorate and postdoctoral qualification, he taught political science at the University of Marburg; he is professor emeritus since 2004. His extensive array of publications has focused mainly on the theory and history of capitalism and socialism, as well as the history of the labor movement. He is currently active as a political commentator, writing for the German leftist weekly Freitag, Konkret, and junge Welt.
Talk in German.
Petra Gehring studied philosophy, political science, and law in Gießen, Marburg, and Bochum. She is professor of philosophy at the TU Darmstadt, specializing in the theory and critique of the life sciences, the history and metaphysics of the concept of life, theories of reality, and she explores the connection between technology, power and reality. Currently she is Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin – Institute For Advanced Study. She is the author of numerous works, for example Theorien des Todes: Traum und Wirklichkeit. Zur Geschichte einer Unterscheidung; Zur Einführung and Was ist Biomacht. Vom zweifelhaften Mehrwert des Lebens.
Talk in German.
Sander L. Gilman studied German literature and history at Munich and Berlin. He is distinguished professor of the liberal arts and sciences as well as professor of psychiatry at Emory University, Atlanta in the US. He is the author of numerous works on German literature since the 18th century, on themes concerning the history of culture, sexuality, and psychiatry, on anti-Semitism and Jewish studies, racism and physiognomy – in particular of the mentally ill. He is the author of the standard histories of cosmetic surgery.
Talk in English.
Aubrey de Grey, British biomedical gerontologist, is chief science officer of the SENS Foundation (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) and editor-in-chief of the high-impact, peer-reviewed academic journal Rejuvenation Research. His research work revolves around the molecular and cellular changes in the human body responsible for the aging process. He claims that it will soon be possible to comprehensively repair this "damage" and thus radically extend the healthy lifespan. He is also cofounder of the Methuselah Foundation, a fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), and an advisor to numerous organisations involved in future technology.
Talk in English.
Ulrike Grossarth is artist and professor at the Dresden Academy of Arts. After studying dance she created a number of artistic works dealing with cultural aspects of history, geography and mentalities. In 1997 her work BAU I was featured at the documenta X.
Elisabeth Günther studies modern German literature, specializing in theatre studies at the University of Hamburg. She is currently working on a dissertation about structures of the uncanny in the theatre texts of Elfriede Jelinek. In autumn 2009 she was a guest researcher at the Elfriede Jelinek Research Centre, funded by the German Academic Exchange Service. She is also working as dramaturge for the play “Maya the Bee and the Consequences of Fascism”, directed by Anja Behrens in Berlin, Hamburg and Frankfurt/Oder.
Karin Harrasser studied German literature and history in Vienna. She is artistic-scientific researcher at the Kunsthochschule für Medien in Cologne, and is working on cultural and scientific history of prosthetics. Other research projects are on gender, media and technology, theories of the subject / theories of the object, and pop culture/ science fiction. In the fields of art and knowledge-transfer she has developed several projects like Night Lesson Nr. 1: On hesitation (with Hannah Hurtzig/ featuring Joseph Vogl) at the Manifesta7/Trento, and the education/mediation program Secret Service for the 5th berlin biennial. Karin Harrasser is one of the scientific directors of the project "Die Untoten".
Talk in German.
Hans Werner Ingensiep studied biology, and philosophy in Bonn. Following teaching and research posts in Germany and abroad, he is professor at the Institute for Philosophy and at the Centre for Medical Biology at the University of Duisburg-Essen. He is currently working on synthetic organisms such as "chimeras" or bounds of human life as "vegetating".
Talk in German.
Jonathan Johnson is jewellery maker, photographer, filmmaker and DJ. In his work he tries to bring out pop cultural discourses of music, film and art. Along with Katja-Inga Baldowski he is working on a fashion / jewellery / photography / film project which deals with the phenomenon of “Hollywood and its Shining Lights" and the related impact of the drean factory on our culture.
Floris Kaayk, studied computer animation at Amsterdam’s Sandberg Institute and at the Academy of Art and Design in Breda (Netherlands); he currently lives in The Hague. In his works the video artist combines elements of computer animation with the real images of documentaries. One special characteristic of his approach is employing animation film as the basis for blending computer-generated images with reality. His characteristic technique and innovative style have been described as an emerging new genre.
Talk in English.
Schorsch Kamerun is singer, author, theatre director and club proprietor, Hamburg. He was guest professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich for the winter semester 2010/2011.
Nicole C. Karafyllis is professor of philosophy at the TU Braunschweig as well as the United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain/Abu Dhabi. She is specializes in theories of knowledge, anthropology, and the ontology of the natural and technological sciences, addressing issues of bio- and environmental ethics. For her contribution to the dialog between the humanities, the sciences and technology she was awarded the Abt Jerusalem Prize.
Talk in German.
Martina Keller is a freelance economics journalist in Hamburg. She has been investigating transplantation medicine for many years, including the definitions of death. Her 2008 book Ausgeschlachtet. Die menschliche Leiche als Rohstoff describes a booming medical sector: firms are utilizing parts of dead bodies such as skin, bones, cartilages or tendons for therapeutic and cosmetic products.
Jacob Kirkegaard is a sound artist and studied at the Academy for Media Arts in Cologne. His works delve into the potential musicality of unheard sounds in a variety of environments. In this context he collects and examines the sounds given off by vibrating earth, ice, atmospheric phenomena, nuclear power plants, and deserted places. Jacob Kirkegaard lives in Berlin and Copenhagen.
Michi Knecht studied ethnology, psychology, and sociology in Cologne and received a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies with a thesis on the movement of life protection. She is currently working as a researcher at the Humboldt University’s Collaborative Research Centre (SFB 640) in Berlin, exploring the assistive reproductive technologies and relatives in Berlin, Istanbul and transnational spaces.
Talk in German.
Regine Kollek studied biology and chemistry in Braunschweig, Paris, and Würzburg. She is professor and director of the research group “Technological Impact Assessment in the Modern Biotechnology in the Medical Sciences”, part of the Research Centre for Biotechnology, Society, and the Environment at the University of Hamburg as well as being a member of the German Ethics Council.
Talk in German.
Aino Korvensyrjä is an artist based in Vienna and Cologne. Her work deals with psycho-historical and ethno-economical narratives, questioning the poetics, politics and technique of their construction and distribution.
Talk in German.
Felix Kubin is musician, composer, radio drama playwright and media artist. In his radio drama Paralektronoia (2004) he explores the connection between electricity and para-normality, focusing on the impact of invisible vibrations on the psyche.
Dietrich Kuhlbrodt, lawyer, author and actor, worked as a public prosecutor from 1964 to 1995, his last post was as chief prosecutor in Hamburg. He is co-editor of the online magazine and works as a film critic for a variety of film and weekly journals. He performs as actor at important European theatre venues as well as in films. He also regularly teaches at various universities, including Hamburg, Berlin and Munich.
Talk in German.
Bruce LaBruce, filmmaker, author, and photographer, studied film criticism and theory at York University in Toronto. His work takes a provocative and controversial look at themes concerning homosexuality and various other subcultures. Transgressing the boundaries of genres, his films are regularly featured at international festivals and move between independent art-house cinema, pornography and underground.
Talk in English.
Beate Lakotta studied German and politics in Heidelberg. Following practical training in television and a spell as a freelance journalist, in 1997 she joined the staff at SPIEGEL special and from there SPIEGEL. As a contributing author at the science desk she wrote mainly on themes concerning psychology and medicine. Together with her husband, the photograph Walter Schels, she realized an independent book and exhibition project “Noch mal leben vor dem Tod”, for which accompanied hospice patients for more than 18 months. Lakotta is currently working as a court reporter for SPIEGEL.
Zoe Laughlin is an artist who works with scientist and engineers at King’s College London to rethink the nature of materials. She explores the reciprocal relationships between objects and diverse materials, drawing on knowledge exchange and the approaches taken by individual scientific disciplines. Having studied performance and scenography, Zoe Laughlin is a cofounder and curator of the Materials Library and Creative Director of the Institute of Making; she lives and works in London.
Talk in English.
Jae Rhim Lee is a visual artist and designer whose work explores and challenges societal death denial via tools for the body and mind. Lee is a recipient of a 2009 Creative Capital Foundation Grant (NY, USA), a 2010 Grant from the Institut fur Raumexperimente/Universität der Künste Berlin (Germany), and a 2010-2011 MAK Schindler Scholarship. She received a master's degree from MIT in 2006, and is currently a Research Fellow in the MIT Program in Art, Culture, and Technology.
Talk in English.
Michael Liss studied molecular biology in Regensburg and Boulder, USA. At the biotechnological firm Gene Art/Life Technologies he is engaged in targeted evolution in the test tube as well as the production of artificial genes – a basic module in modern biotechnology and synthetic biology.
Thomas Macho is professor of cultural history and director of the Institute for Cultural Studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He studied philosophy, musicology, and education. In a vast number of publications he has explored how metaphors and images of death change historically and interact with the socio-political aspects of how death is approached and dealt with, including for example the current problem of death’s visibility in our society, underworlds, death masks, or Gustav Theodor Fechner’s The Little Book of Life After Death.
Talk in German.
Thomas Meinecke is a writer, musician and radio DJ. He was co-founder of the Band Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle (FSK) and currently he is publishing post-modern literature. His special way of writing is reminiscent of the technique of sampling in experimental musical fields. In his books he deals with topics in pop culture and music, German, Jewish and African diaspora in the U.S., and gender. He is also a radio DJ in his own broadcast called Nachtmix (BR 2). In 2010, he spent several months in Salvador da Bahia, where he studied the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé cult.
Talk in German.
Andy Miah, bioethicist and cultural theorist, is "Fellow of Visions in Utopia and Dystopia" at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, University of the West of Scotland. His research discusses the intersections of art, ethics, technology and culture and he has published broadly in areas of emerging technologies, particularly related to human enhancement. Alongside his work on bioethics, he has written extensively about digital culture. He is the editor of 'Human Futures: Art in an Age of Uncertainty' (2008, Liverpool University Press and FACT).
Talk in English.
Julia Peiffer trained as medical-technical laboratory assistant and completed her dissertation in cultural studies in 2001. Until 2009 she was curator of the anatomical collection at the medical faculty in Jena and realized several exhibitions dealing with the theme of prosthetics. She is currently working on design development for micro-processor prosthetic systems at the Science Center Berlin. She lives in Jena and Berlin.
Mark Ravenhill studied drama and English at Bristol University; a freelance director, he also spent several years as the literary director of the Paines Plough Theatre Company in London. Following its premier, his first full-length play Shopping and Fucking was sold out for weeks in London’s West End and went on to become a worldwide success. Besides plays, adaptations, radio dramas, and scripts, he also writes for The Guardian.
Drehli Robnik studied film and media studies and philosophy in Vienna and Amsterdam. He is film theorist and historian and teaches in the field of film theory at Vienna University, Brno, Frankfurt am Main and Potsdam. His research focuses on the relationship between film and politics, history and war, as well as theories of horror cinema. His research publications deal with Siegfried Kracauer, the aesthetics of horror cinema, as well as the role of zombies in contemporary film theory.
Talk in German.
Roberto Rotondo has a diploma in psychology and a trained nurse. Since 1996 he is active as a freelance supervisor and team consultant in crisis intervention and vocational training in the health system. Up until 1996 he worked for many years as a nurse at an intensive care station and cared after “brain dead” patients. In 1995 and 1996 he was invited to contribute as a specialist to the Health Select Committee in Bonn on transplantation legislation. Besides his primary work as a psychologist, he also runs the website “Informationsstelle Transplantation und Organspende”.
Susanne Sachsse is an actress, director, performer, and installation artist. She has appeared in productions by Heiner Müller, Milan Peschel, Einar Schleef, and Barbara Weber. She has collaborated in videos, performances, and installations by Yael Bartana, Keren Cytter, Bruce LaBruce, and Katya Sander. Film appearances in Bruce LaBruce's "The Raspberry Reich" (2004) and "Otto, or Up With Dead People" (2008), amongst others. Susanne Sachsse co-founded the artists' collective CHEAP, the band RUTH FISCHER, and worked as curator of LIVE FILM! JACK SMITH! at the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, 2009.
Talk in German.
Stefan Sandrock is actor, illustrator, wigmaker, scriptwriter and cook. He has played in various hardcore punk bands and amongst others he is the singer of the band enfold.
Stephan Schad born in Pforzheim in 1964 is an actor and featured in numerous TV productions like “Girlfriends”, “Wolffs Revier”, “Der Dicke”, “Juls Freundin” and “Tatort”. He was engaged at the Schauspiel Frankfurt, the State Theatre Braunschweig and the National Theatre Mannheim before he joined the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg. Stephan Schad records radio plays and features for SWR, WDR, NDR and Deutschlandfunk.
Bernd Schoch studied media art at the Karlsuhe University of Arts and Design and is artistic contributor for film at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg.
Marianne Schuller is professor emeritus for literature studies at the University of Hamburg. She is theatre dramaturge and active in the field of psychoanalysis. She is currently working on Kafka and Kleist.
Georg Seeßlen studied painting, history of art, and semiology in Munich. Following teaching posts in Germany and abroad, he is currently working as a freelance author and film reviewer. In spring 2011, he will publishes his new book Blödmaschinen - Die Fabrikation der Stupidität (with Markus Metz ). Georg Seeßlen is one of the scientific directors of the project "Die Untoten".
Talk in German.
Husseini Shaibu, performing artist, journalist and film critic, writes for Nigeria’s flagship newspaper-The Guardian. He is an insider from Nigeria’s, “Nollywood”-film industry and he is reputed to be one of the most consistent documentarists of the Nigerian home video industry. An Alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Campus Press, Shaibu is the Chairman of the Selection Commitee of the prestigious African Movie Academy Award (AMAA), Secretary General of the Nigerian section of FIPRESCI and the Federation of African Film Critics (FAFC) and author of Moviedom....the Nollywood Narratives. Clips on the Pioneers 1&2.
Talk in English.
Nicolas Siepen is filmmaker, theorist, and cofounder of the b_books project, as well as professor for visual arts at the University of Tromsø (Norway). As a journalist he contributed to journals and newspapers such as Springerin, Texte zur Kunst, Phase Zwei, Jungle World, FAZ (Berliner Seiten), as well as coeditor of the journals A.N.Y.P. and ASSEMBLY INTERNATIONAL. He has worked together with Tara Herbst on various film projects for the last seven years and is currently busy completing the “nouvelle vague soap” Le Ping Pong d’Amour.
Talk in German.
Katrin Solhdju read cultural and religious studies in Berlin. She is currently a researcher at Department of Language, Literature und Media Studies at the University of Siegen, and specializes in science and technology studies, historical epistemologies, as well as theories of knowledge and experimentation with living organisms.
Talk in German.
Hossein Solhdju was Anaesthesiologist of the first heart transplant surgery in Germany, Munich.
Talk in German.
Marcus Stiglegger is a lecturer of film studies at the University of Siegen, as well at the University of Mainz, Mannheim and Cologne, and specialized in film and philosophy, essayism, montage theory, personal cinema and auteur theory. He has published several books on film history and film aesthetics and theory both as a writer and as an editor, and regularly writes for the German magazines Filmdienst, epd Film Testcard, Screenshot, Splatting Image and his own cultural magazine :Ikonen:, which he founded in 2002.
Talk in German.
Sandy Stone is professor and founding director of the Advanced Communication Technologies Laboratory at UT Austin, senior artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts, a fellow of the Humanities Research Institute, UC Irvine, and teaches at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. She has worked as a filmmaker, a rock ’n roll music engineer, neurologist, social scientist, science fiction author, and cultural theorist.
Talk in English.
Klaus Theweleit studied German literature and English in Kiel and Freiburg. Until 2008 he was professor for art and theory at the Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Arts. Today he is a freelance writer who teaches in Germany, the US, Switzerland, and Austria. He came to the attention of a wider audience in 1977 with the publication of his two-volume work Male Fantasies.
Talk in German.
Saskia Timm played the main role in “The Wrestler German Version alongside Johnson. A passionate music love and is DJane (Kali The Destroyer, Nana Obskuri) in an array of Hamburg dives.
Florian Töbe plays the boxing promoter in "The Wrestler German version". In addition to his work as a media designer in Karlsruhe, for years he organized parties and concerts in self-managed cultural projects.
Oliver Tolmein is co-founder of the firm Menschen und Rechte and a lawyer specializing in medical law, and freelance journalist. He has long sympathized with the disability movement and deals with bioethical issues, terminal care and palliative medicine. On faz.net (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) he regularly writes a blog on biopolitics.
Talk in German.
Monika Treut is a film director and owner of the production company Hyena Films in Hamburg. In 2009 her film Ghosted, a mixture of mystery drama and love story, premiered at the Berlinale.
Maria Trifu lived until 2007 in Bucharest and worked there with the new wave of Romanian filmmakers (Mungiu, Mitulescu, etc). Since 2008 a resident of Hamburg she works as a freelance makeup artist for film, photography and videos.
Joseph Vogl is professor for German Literature at the Humboldt- University Berlin permanent visiting professor at Princeton University, USA. He has translate Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault and written on Franz Kafka’s concept of ‚minor literature’, about the extensive complex of Goethe’s poetics, about the colour yellow, about the ‚homo oeconomicus’, about hesitation and about the specter of capital.
Talk in German.
Christiane Voss is guest professor for media philosophy at the Bauhaus University, Weimar, since 2009, specializing in the philosophy of aesthetics, epistemology, the philosophy of film, theories of emotions, and the anthropology of media philosophy. Prior to this she was a researcher in the Free University of Berlin’s Collaborative Research Centre 626, active in the project “On the Significance of Illusion and Fiction in Film Aesthetics”, where she examined the strategy of aesthetic fictionalization in narrative film.
Talk in German.
Ralf Wagner is professor at the Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene at the University of Regensburg, and is CEO of the biotech company GENEART. He has developed gene synthesis as a means of enhancing the safety and potency profile of vaccines and (gene) therapeutics, and is the author of numerous patent applications and scientific publications.
Talk in German.
Ulrich Waller is an author and director, head of the Hamburg Cabaret Festival since 1987. From 1995 to 2003 he was artistic director of the Hamburg Kammerspiele together with Ulrich Tukur. He then switched to the St. Pauli Theatre. In January 2011 he directed the Udo Lindenberg musical “Hinterm Horizont” at the Theatre am Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. Together with his partner at St. Pauli, Thomas Collien, he also plays the legendary Hansa Theatre Varieté since January 2009.
Dorothee Wenner studied German literature and history in Hamburg and currently works as a freelance journalist, author, and filmmaker. Since 1990 she is a member of the selection committee of the International Forum/Berlinale and scouts the Indian and African cinema scene for the festival as its “ambassador”. She is a member of the prestigious African Movie Academy Award (AMAA) jury Lagos/Nigeria.
Talk in English.
Katherina Zakravsky is philosopher, cultural theorist, performer and curator. Her last publication: Omega Surfing. Transhumane Perspektiven in Biopolitik, Science Fiction und Pornographie (2011).
Andreas Zieger studied biology and medicine in Heidelberg and Frankfurt/Main. He specialized in the areas of neurosurgery and rehabilitation and since 1997 he is medical director of the special ward for severe head and brain damage (early rehabilitation) at the Protestant Hospital Oldenburg. He is also adjunct professor at the Institute for Special and Rehabilitation Pedagogy at the University of Oldenburg, specializing in clinical neurological rehabilitation and interdisciplinary applied neuroscience.
SCIENTIFIC DIRECTION
Karin Harrasser studied German literature and history in Vienna. She is artistic-scientific researcher at the Kunsthochschule für Medien in Cologne, and is working on cultural and scientific history of prosthetics. Other research projects are on gender, media and technology, theories of the subject / theories of the object, and pop culture/ science fiction. In the fields of art and knowledge-transfer she has developed several projects like Night Lesson Nr. 1: On hesitation (with Hannah Hurtzig/ featuring Joseph Vogl) at the Manifesta7/Trento, and the education/mediation program Secret Service for the 5th berlin biennial.
Markus Metz studied journalism, politics and theatre in Berlin. He works as a freelance journalist and author mainly for radio. In the spring of 2011 his collaborative work with Georg Seeßlen is to be published Blödmaschinen– Die Fabrikation der Stupidität.
Oliver Müller studied philosophy, modern German literature and history in Heidelberg, Hamburg, Venice and Berlin. He is head of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research’s young scholars group “Zur Relevanz der Natur des Menschen als Orientierungsnorm für Anwendungsfragen der biomedizinischen Ethik” at the Institute for the Ethics and History of Medicine, University of Freiburg. In 2007 he was awarded the MTZ Förderpreis for bioethics. He conceived and directed the artistic-scientific discourse project supported by the Federal Cultural Foundation, Optimizing the Human Brain, as well as the currently running project Wunschkinder [Planned Children].
Georg Seeßlen studied painting, history of art, and semiology in Munich. Following teaching posts in Germany and abroad, he is currently working as a freelance author and film reviewer. In spring of 2011 his collaborative work with Markus Metz is to be published Blödmaschinen - Die Fabrikation der Stupidität.
ADVISORY BOARD
Petra Bahr, Pastor and cultural officer of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). She studied theology and philosophy in Heidelberg, and got her PhD with a thesis on the Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant. She worked as a freelance author and published numerous works on the relationship of church and arts, and the complex relationship of law, religion and policy. In 2006 she became the first cultural representative of the Council of the EKD.
Cornelius Borck is professor and director of the institue for Medicine and History of Science, University of Lübeck. He was associate professor und Canada Research Chair in Philosophy and Language of Medicine an der McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and from 2002 to 2004, he was head of the research group "Life. Media technologies and the sciences of life, "at the Faculty of Media, Bauhaus University Weimar. His research work revolves around the history of biomedical visualization techniques, epistemology of the human-machine relationship, experimental cultures of brain and mind as well as sensory and neural prostheses.
Anselm Franke is a curator and writer based in Brussels and Berlin. As last he was the Artistic Director of Extra City – Center for Contemporary Art in Antwerp, and he was a co-curator of Manifesta 7 in Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy, in 2008. Previously, Franke acted as curator of KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin until 2006, where he organized exhibitions such as Territories. Islands, Camps and Other States of Utopia (2003); Image Archives (2001/2002) and B-Zone – Becoming Europe and Beyond (2006). Within the project Tulip House he developed together with Hannah Hurtzig installations which construct public spaces of knowledge-transfer. He has edited and published various publications and writes for magazines like Metropolis M, Piktogram, and Cabinet.
Gesa Lindemann is professor of sociology at Oldenburg University. Her specialist areas include social theory, the limits of socialization, the sociology of natural science and, in particular, the relationship between sociology and anthropology. Following her dissertation dealing with the social construction of gender and teaching posts at the FU Berlin and Frankfurt University, she was a member of the working group “Death and Dying” at the Academy for Ethics in Medicine (Göttingen). In 2001 Gesa Lindemann gained her professorship and, along with various lectureships, was a visiting professor in the UK, Brazil and Sweden. She also acted as an external expert for the EU project “Challenges of Biomedicine – Socio-Cultural Contexts, European Governance and Bioethics”. In 2008/09 she was a member of the academic advisory board to the journal Ethik in der Medizin.
Giovanni Maio, professor for bioethics, is the director of the Institute for the Ethics and History of Medicine at the Albert Ludwigs University, Freiburg. After studying philosophy and medicine, he completed a five year spell as a clinical internist before gaining his professorship in the area of medical ethics at the University of Lübeck. In 2002 he was appointed by the German government to sit on the ethics commission for stem cell research. In 2005 he moved to the Albert Ludwigs University, Freiburg, where he assumed the chair for bioethics/medical ethics. He was also named director of the Interdisciplinary Ethics Center in Freiburg. Giovanni Maio sits on a variety of regional and national ethic commissions as well as serving on the German Medical Association’s committee for ethical and legal issues.
TEAM
Stefan Aue, Project Communication
works in the Office of Information and Communication of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. After studying sociology, psychology and communication studies with a focus on the areas of metropolitan studies and sociology of space, he worked first in the field of political education.
Carena Brenner, Artistic Projects
is working as a freelance Production and Project Manager for international music/theatre projects. She studied Audiovisual Communication in Santiago de Chile and Applied Cultural Studies at the University of Lüneburg and is currently working on her PhD in Cultural Theory.
Samo Darian, CEO and Board relations e.V.
studied languages, economics and cultural studies in Passau, London and Granada. Since 2003 he was Managing Director of the relations eV, also head of the Organizational and project relations 2007-2010 Head of Organisational Zipp - German-Czech cultural projects, both project initiated by the Federal Cultural Foundation.
Julia Huebner, Artistic Projects
has studied opera directing at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Hamburg. She has produced musical theater productions including the Theater Freiburg, Augsburg and the opera theater stable Hamburg. As a project assiatant and assistant director, she worked for collective physical virus / Theater Freiburg and at the Bregenz Festival.
Hannah Hurtzig, Artistic Director
founded the Mobile Academy, an art project combines interdisciplinary course work with fieldwork, theory and activism and has been realising projects with alternating partners, in which different narrative formats of communicating knowledgeare put to the test, among other the Blackmarket for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knowledge.
Kathrin Klingan, Board relations e.V.
Studies in comparative literature and Hispanic studies in Vienna and Madrid. Planning and organizing various cultural events in Vienna. Since 2003 Director of the association relations e.V. and artistic director of the project, relations, and 2007-2010 Director of Zipp - German-Czech cultural projects, both project initiated by the Federal Cultural Foundation.
Alexander Klose, Advice and Support
studied history, law, philosophy, art and cultural studies. He worked as a freelance writer, curator and university lecturer. Since 2010, he worked as a researcher at the Federal Cultural Foundation.
Florian Stirnemann, Film Architect
is an architect and set designer and works as a freelancer for raumlaborberlin. He has developed the "Flight Case Archive" and the interior design "On the Scene of intimacy" for Mobile Academy.
Katharina Tenti, Project Assistant, Visitor Organization, Workshop Management
studied history, German Literature and Politics in Bonn and Rome. Previous activities were at the Theater Bonn, interdisciplinary arts festival Biennale Bonn 2006 and 2008 and at the Goethe Institute Genoa. She also works on various projects for the Federal Agency for Civic Education.