© Photo: Simona Koch, Staging Workshop, FS 2023

 Concept Track in the Master Film Programme

The "Concept" track focuses on cinematic narration: developing the material, finding the core of a story and specifying concepts that give contemporary expression to this core. The goal of the highly individualised training in this track is the development of a concept for a complex audiovisual or transmedia work, which is to be realised in a professional setting following the studies. To this end, the materials necessary for communication with partners in financing and production (concept, treatment, script, storyboard, teaser, pitch, prototypes, installation plans, etc.) are developed during the Master's programme. Students in this track learn narrative-related basics as well as how to work in different fields of media expression and, above all, they test their ideas.

Modul: Concept Format Development (Herbstsemester 2022)

Sessions: Tools, References, Characters, Formats
Individual Coaching

Modul: Concept Story Development (Frühjahrssemester 2023)

Session: Scene and Dialogue, Staging Workshop
Individual Coaching

Research Academy „Performative Interventions“ with Dana Yahalomi and Florian Malzacher
15-20 October 2022, ZHdK

Organisation and conducting of the study week (continuing education)

Research Academy "Performative Interventions" Artistic interventions are embedded in social structures and political processes and have received special media attention worldwide in the context of political movements in recent years, especially since the Arab Spring. The Research Academy examines the complex discourse fields and conditional structures in which performative interventions take place and develops strategies for moving effectively within them as an actor, artist or dancer. Interrupting usual routines, challenging the familiar, and coming to new ideas of the possibilities of a common togetherness - this year's "Research Academy" will be led by curator and author Florian Malzacher (https://art-of-assembly.net/about/) and choreographer and artist Dana Yahalomi (http://www.publicmovement.org/about/). From 15-20.10.2022 they will respond to the submitted project ideas of 13 selected participants, whose spectrum ranges from subtle to comical to drastic or therapeutic. The thematically very different concepts for performative interventions will be examined together and tested in practice. In addition, Florian Malzacher and Dana Yahalomi will present, discuss and further develop performative strategies that they have developed in their own projects. The focus is on discourse-specific ways of working that only unfold their effectiveness at a specific time and place. One such strategy is "pre-enactment," an artistic anticipation of future political events. Another strategy can be an organized assembly, a collective process of negotiation that can take place on a theater stage as well as in the midst of passersby and/or running cameras in public space. In addition to choreographies of protest and resistance, questions of particular interest include: Can we train for an unpredictable future? Or: How can theater, dance and performance open up new perspectives for society's collective practices?

Experimental Narration
1-day course in the Autumn Term

Topics: Topic Centered Narration, Genre Hybrids, Experimental Systems, Modular and Interactive narration, Narrative Games/Playable Stories

Sample Description "Narrative Games/Playable Stories"
New technological developments in the XR field challenge us as storytellers to question traditional knowledge about story construction and to reconceptualise it based on game-theoretical and spatial considerations. In parallel, interactive modes of storytelling are impacting on cinematic film. In this course, we will engage with various examples that explore the spectrum of aesthetic and narrative possibilities and develop our own concepts in a group exercise.

© Photo: Jodok Wehrli

Lectureship at the Institute for Aesthetic Practice and Theory (Bachelor)
University of Art and Design (FHNW), Basel (autumn semester 2017)

Experimental Practice and Theory and History of Documentary Film
half-day course every two weeks, seminar with exercise

Collecting and sorting, capturing, recording, asserting and proving, provoking - manifold are the gestures of documentary filmmakers and artists who engage with reality, and even more manifold are the films themselves. In view of the discussion about the factual, whose legitimacy is increasingly shifting from its provability to a condition of plausibility, in this course we will gain an overview of various documentary approaches in the field of moving images that design unique links between fact and fiction, using selected film examples.
Parallel to the examination of historical and current artistic positions, we will develop our own concepts for short cinematic miniatures that will be realised in small teams. The aim of the practical experiments is for each participant to realise a documentary composition - film or installation - that makes a personal statement on the present in terms of choice of subject, narrative and design.

Teaching Visual Communication (Video), Faculty of Art&Design, Bauhaus-University Weimar
Assistant Professor 2005-2010

As part of my work as assistant professor, I taught 9 SWS, which were divided into a thematically focused project modules and specialised practical modules on different aspects of moving image design each semester. I integrated the teaching of film history into the practical courses (film editing, documentary storytelling, compositing (2D), dramaturgy). However, the individual mentoring of students was the main focus in teaching. During this time, I was mentor to 17 diploma theses and one master's thesis. I also carried out a bilateral exhibition project on cultures of memory developed with the partner universities in Amiens (Université de Picardie Jules Verne and École supérieure d'art et de design d'Amiens). The exhibitions were shown in Amiens (FR) and at the New Museum Weimar (D). A bilingual catalogue was published for the exhibition.