SERENGETI MUST NOT DIE
Real - time animation
8:30 min, Stereo, mini-DV
1999
This work is a real-time animated fairytale based on the plane crash of Michael Grzimek, son of the famous German zoologist Bernhard Grzimek, who died in a plane crash in the Serengeti in 1959. The film of the same name was the first German film to win the Oscar in the category ‘Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature’, and the book has been translated into more than twenty languages. The Serengeti Must Not Die freely interprets the events after the crash and explores topics such as natural selection, the domination of nature, or post-colonialisation. The video received an honourable mention at the Sehsüchte Festival in Berlin in 2000. The overall work took a long time to realise, despite the seemingly simple technical implementation.
INTERFERING WITH WORKS OF OTHERS
18:19 min, Stereo, mini-DV
2004
This documentary observes a public painting project that took place at the Berlinische Galerie in Berlin in 2004. The project was integrated into an existing exhibition and brought together six invited artists who jointly painted a large canvas positioned at the center of the exhibition space. No thematic or aesthetic guidelines were defined. The only shared agreement was to complete the work within a fixed timeframe and to allow each participant to intervene in and alter the painting at any moment. At the end of the scheduled period, the work was to remain in its resulting state.
After the allotted time had passed, a spectator approached one of the artists and asked to contribute to the painting. He agreed without consulting the others. The woman then drew a continuous red line across all canvases from left to right. This intervention triggered a conflict among the participating artists, raising questions of authorship, collective responsibility, trust, and the integrity of the artwork. Attempts to restore the painting escalated the situation further and affected additional works within the exhibition.
The evening unfolds through a series of escalating confrontations, driven by anger, frustration, and competing ethical positions within a constructed framework of collective artistic production.
REKORDER
19:53 min, Stereo, mini-DV
2007
Rekorder is a cinematic collage that brings together present time and historical imagery to construct an artistic approximation of the concept of “Africa.” The narrative emerges during production and remains open to improvisation. Producers and performers are identical, and the working process itself becomes visible and thematically integral. Alongside green screen footage, the film incorporates material from a cross media archive developed by Ulu Braun. This layered approach exposes both the constructed nature of the images and the conditions under which they are produced.
The first section focuses on the technical and creative realities of media production. Malfunctions, delays, and visible interventions reveal the fragility of the process and reflect the uneven path from initial idea to completed work. At its core lies the assertion that artistic production can engage with any subject, regardless of its perceived legitimacy. In the central part, distinctions between mysticism, reality, analysis, and fiction dissolve. The images condense into a tightly interwoven sequence in which meanings overlap and destabilize one another.
The final section shifts toward a more associative structure. Poetic imagery intersects with references to art history, underscored by Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata 106 Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit. Within this framework, emotional sovereignty takes precedence over a fixed intellectual system.
Maria Theresia and her 16 children
29:27 min, Stereo, HDV
2011
Artist duo BitteBitteJaJa employ sixteen portraits of Maria Theresia’s children to combine alternative historical facts about the lives of the empress’s offspring with a dense image collage. In a confident and direct approach, the artists reject established visual and genre conventions. They assemble historical and scientific film material, commercials, and ethnographic images, all digitally altered. A Teletubby appears strolling through an eighteenth century royal garden. Exotic birds seem to inhabit the Habsburg coat of arms. Individual images repeatedly reference places and achievements connected to the children, before being overtaken by an accelerating flow of images.
Footage of sporting events and factory workers contrasts with archival material on Emperor Franz Joseph. Scenes from Brazil replace a kitschy sunset as soon as Maria Elisabeth’s journey becomes central. The body of a well known athlete references Marie Antoinette, followed by images of action artist Hermann Nitsch.
Through these historical associations, the filmmakers draw on the archive of moving images to outline a speculative vision of Austria’s future.
