Participants engage with the urban space through a feminist and postcolonial practice of flânerie and produce their own short film projects that shed light on the interstices and connections between digitalisation, urban life and spatial processes.
In today’s cities analog and digital spaces are constantly dissolving, dichotomies like ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ no longer seem appropriate. Understanding this newly emerging space as a third space opens up the possibility to critically examine the new characteristics of urban space and life.
Berlin – as many cities – is heavily influenced by digitalisation and platformisation that shape daily urban life. While several aspects manifest strongly in the visible realm – such as colourful jackets of food delivery riders or controversial office buildings by big tech firms that claim space within the inner city – other (infra-)structures remain blurred. Behind these digital-spatial processes lie intense discussions about the right to urban space, working conditions, and resources (to name but a few).
The workshop will sensitise participants to these in-between-spaces and discourses through walking practices in contested areas of Berlin, drawing on Mirjana Mitrovi?’s artistic research practice “Third Space Walk”. Grounded in flânerie after Walter Benjamin, the practice de- and reconstructs the method from a postcolonial and feminist point of view. This perspective is then combined with filmmaking as a critical documentary practice, theoretically guided and with hands-on practical advice by Jan-Holger Hennies. This covers the development of visual narratives over camera operation to basic editing.
Throughout the workshop participants will develop and accomplish their own short film projects that shed light on the interstices and connections between digitalisation, urban life and spatial processes. Hence, participants will learn how to engage with urban space in an innovative way and act upon their reflections through the use of (audio)visual media, creating an output that can be further shared.
Schedule
Time: 10am to 5pm every day
Day 1: Analog and Digital Spaces
- Introduction to theory on hybridity and the third space
- Experimenting with the Third Space Walk in digital-analog spaces in Berlin
Day 2: Film and photography as critical documentary practice
- Concepts and theory of (audio)visual narratives as research
- Basics of Camera and Sound
- Basic Editing Skills
Day 3: Practical exercises and guided work on own projects
Day 4: Practical exercises and guided work on own projects
Day 5: Finishing of projects and presentations within the group
Equipment requirements
- Digital camera and/or smartphone
- Laptop
Mirjana Mitrovic is an artist and researcher working between Berlin and Mexico City. She combines artistic and academic practices, focusing on the influence of new technologies, especially Internet and smartphones, the everyday life of women and feminist activism as well as geographical, corporal and mental borders and the crossing of these. Currently, she is teaching and doing a PhD about the flâneuse and the digitalisation of the urban space at the College of Architecture, Media and Design, Berlin University of the Arts. She is an associated member of the CRC 1265 “Re-Figuration of Spaces”.
www.mirjana-mitrovic.de
Jan-Holger Hennies is a filmmaker and audiovisual researcher. He mostly works in non-fiction film and
transmedia projects where he takes on roles from directing over cinematography to editing and postproduction.
The results of these collaborations have been internationally screened, exhibited and awarded. He holds an MA
in Visual Anthropology from the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology (University of Manchester, UK) and
teaches audiovisual research methods as a means to investigate urban space as a lecturer at the Institute for the
History and Theory of Architecture and the City (GTAS), TU Braunschweig.
www.jhhennies.com