The Net
2003 | 121 min | Documentary
What is the connection between computer technology, hippie culture, mathematics, terrorism, the research of consciousness in the 1950s and paranoia?
Heinz von Foerster
ActorHeinz von Foerster was not an actor or director but a prominent Austrian-American scientist known for his work in cybernetics and systems theory. Born on November 13, 1911, in Vienna, Austria, he was a key figure in the development of second-order cybernetics. Von Foerster's research focused on self-organizing systems, cognition, and the interplay between observers and systems. He authored numerous influential papers and books in these fields. He was a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was instrumental in the establishment of the Biological Computer Laboratory there. Von Foerster made significant contributions to the understanding of human and artificial intelligence until his death on October 2, 2002.
Films
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The Net_GO TO TRIAL
2004 | 90 min | Icons & Media Art
Media coverage of the trial of Ted Kaczynski, better known as the “Unabomber,” was sensationalist and distorted. Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski carried out a series of bombings in the United States targeting executives of major airlines and scientists from various elite universities. He was arrested by the FBI in 1996, but a public trial never took place. Instead, Kaczynski accepted a plea bargain in 1998, thus avoiding both the death penalty and committal to a psychiatric institution. Since then, ...
Master Game
1998 | 106 min | Documentary
In the 1990s, the art world is shaken by a series of mysterious attacks. At first, paintings in renowned galleries were targeted, and later, bombs were set off by the pro-German movement in Austria. In 1994, the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts finally became a crime scene: unknown perpetrators painted over several works by the famous Austrian painter Arnulf Rainer with black paint – a targeted attack on the “Über-Maler” himself? In MASTER GAME, Lutz Dammbeck links these events with the controversial ...
Bruno & Bettina
2018 | 101 min | Documentary
In the 1970s, the radical left was in turmoil worldwide, and the boundaries between art and political activism were blurring. In 1974, the Japanese screenwriter and director Masao Adachi, known for his experimental and provocative works, made a radical turn and joined the “Japanese Red Army” (JRA) founded by Fusako Shigenobu in Lebanon. This extremist group fights for global revolution alongside the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Lutz Dammbeck's documentary film BRUNO & BETTINA ...
The Netz: SEEK II
2009 | 29 min | Icons & Media Art
While doing research for his film THE NET, Lutz Dammbeck came across the groundbreaking exhibition “Software – Information Technology: Its New Meaning for Art”, which took place at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1970. Curated by Jack Burnham, this exhibition presented the symbiosis of conceptual and media art with what were then new technologies developed for the American military. One of the central exhibits was the installation Seek by the Architecture Machine Group of the Massachusetts Institute ...
GDR Experimental: First Leipzig Autumn Salon
2006 | 22 min | Icons & Media Art
In 1984, the artists Lutz Dammbeck, Günter Firit, Hans Hendrik Grimmling, Frieder Heinze, Günter Huniat and Olaf Wegewitz occupied a trade fair building in the center of Leipzig to stage one of the first independent and public exhibitions in the GDR – the 1st LEIPZIGER HERBSTSALON. The event was an act of resistance against the GDR's system of state control and a creative form of self-assertion. The artists defied the restrictive guidelines of cultural policy and created an autonomous space for avant-garde, ...
This Land Is My Land
2020 | 105 min | Documentary
“What the hell is happening to my country?” After Trump was elected, filmmaker Susanne Brandstaetter investigates the growing divide in the USA. Among non-typical Trump voters in the swing state Ohio, she discovers surprising parallels between America and Europe. What determines people’s choices? Why do people form opinions and then stick to their political positions – no matter what? The filmmaker decides the only chance to understand why the divide is growing is to follow one rule: don’t argue, ...
GDR Experimental: Homage to La Sarraz
1981 | 12 min | Icons & Media Art
In September 1929, a group of visionary filmmakers gathered at La Sarraz Castle in Switzerland to discuss alternatives to commercial cinema. The participants, including Sergei Eisenstein, Hans Richter, Walter Ruttmann and Luis Buñuel, want to explore new ways of independent filmmaking and challenge the bourgeois narrative film. Lutz Dammbeck takes up this historic meeting and pays artistic tribute to it with DDR-EXPERIMENTAL: HOMMAGE À LA SARRAZ. The film combines documentary elements with experimental ...
Alice Schwarzer
2022 | 136 min | Biography
Alice Schwarzer, journalist, author and publisher, has been a media star since the 1970s through her many television appearances and as a leader of discussion panels. The focus of her work is women's self-determination. With Emma and her media presence, Alice Schwarzer has managed to bring feminist issues to the center of society. She is loved and hated for this. There is hardly anyone she leaves cold. Alice Schwarzer, the cinema documentary is the biography of a feisty journalist who never lets ...
Duke Ernest
1993 | 43 min | Animation
Duke Ernst is robbed of his castle as a result of a conspiracy and sent on the first crusade as penance. His journey takes him far beyond known borders into a world full of wonders and dangers. Accompanied by brave knights, he crosses the sea to reach the Orient, where he encounters numerous mythical creatures in his search for the legendary carbuncle: the one-legged Sciopods, the winged Ariasperns, the tiny Pygmies and the enigmatic birds Roch. During his adventures, he finds unexpected allies ...
The Cave of Hercules
1990 | 44 min | Icons & Media Art
For centuries, the mythical figure of Heracles has been a symbol of immense strength, divine mission and the challenges of human existence. His twelve heroic deeds are world-famous – including the slaying of the Nemean Lion, the slaying of the Lernaean Hydra and the cleansing of the Augean stables. But beyond the heroic saga, his image remains fragmentary, changeable and elusive. HERAKLES CAVE sets out on a quest to find the ancient hero and his legacy in the modern world. Director Lutz Dammbeck ...