SERENGETI MUST NOT DIE
Real - time animation
8:30 min, Stereo, mini-DV
1999
„Die Serengeti darf nicht sterben“ is a real-time animated fairytale based on the deadly plane crash of Michael Grzimek in 1959. The film freely interprets the events after the crash to examine natural selection, human domination over nature, and post-colonialism. Serving as both inspiration and springboard, Bernhard Grzimek's world-famous, Oscar-winning documentary Serengeti Shall Not Die is transformed here into a minimalist, Art Brut raw live-puppet film. The video was shown in several exhibitions/screenings.
INTERFERING WITH WORKS OF OTHERS
18:19 min, Stereo, mini-DV
2004
The video documentary “Eingriffe in Arbeiten Anderer” captures a conceptual live painting performance at the Berlinische Galerie in 2002. Six international artists were brought together to collaboratively paint a large canvas under one strict rule: complete the work in exactly 30 minutes. Free from thematic guidelines, participants were permitted to overwrite and alter each other's work at any time, accompanied by interviews reflecting on the medium itself.
However, the experiment took an unscripted turn when an audience member asked to contribute after time had expired. Acting unilaterally, one artist agreed, and the stranger painted a continuous red line across the entire canvas. This intervention triggered an intense conflict over authorship, trust, and collective responsibility. Subsequent attempts to restore the painting escalated the situation further, ultimately affecting adjacent artworks and exposing the fragile ethics of joint artistic production.
REKORDER
19:53 min, Stereo, mini-DV
2007
Rekorder is a process-driven cinematic collage fusing contemporary and archival imagery to articulate an artistic approximation of "Africa."
By blurring the line between producer and performer, the film turns its own creation into its core theme, layering green-screen shots with Ulu Braun's cross-media archive to dismantle visual construction.
Opening with production failures, delays, and raw interventions, the first movement foregrounds the vulnerability of artistic creation and its freedom to address any topic. The middle movement collapses mysticism, reality, analysis, and fiction into a tightly packed sequence where meanings continuously shift. The final movement turns toward pure association, blending poetic visuals and art-historical references under the swell of Bach’s Cantata 106 to favor emotional sovereignty over fixed logic.
Maria Theresia and her 16 children
29:27 min, Stereo, HDV
2011
Artist duo BitteBitteJaJa employ sixteen portraits of Maria Theresia’s children as the anchor for a grotesque, poetic, and subversively satirical essay that re-examines Austria’s deadly serious history through the lens of our media-saturated present. Rejecting traditional visual conventions, the film layers digitally altered archival material with TV clips, commercials, and ethnographic found footage. A Teletubby strolls through an 18th-century royal garden; exotic birds inhabit the Habsburg coat of arms; footage of athletes and factory workers collides with Emperor Franz Joseph and action artist Hermann Nitsch. By embedding contemporary media clutter directly into historic iconography, the work exposes the subtle irony and fragility of national mythology, outlining a speculative vision of Austria's future.
