Lutz Dammbeck

On a talkshow, actor and German TV ikon Joachim Fuchsberger recalls how the games for his show "Nur nicht nervös werden" (Don't Get Nervous), first broadcast on West German TV in 1960, were developed along the lines of American psychiatry. Asked "So how many crazy people watched you?", he responded: "A whole crazy, psychologically disturbed nation". Why were the Germans or to be more precise, the West Germans, a psychologically disturbed nation at that time? This is a film about cheerful and serious games, therapies for re-education and self-imposed re-education, as well as the history of the idea of permanent revolution. Those appearing include directors and producers of gameshows, psychiatrists, anthropologists, and the diversely paranoid.

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Explores the incredibly complex backstory of Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber. This exquisitely crafted inquiry into the rationale of this mythic figure situates him within a late 20th century web of technology—a system that he grew to oppose. A marvelously subversive approach to the history of the Internet, this insightful documentary combines speculative travelogue and investigative journalism to trace contrasting countercultural responses to the cybernetic revolution.

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From Stag Beetle to Swastika narrates in a richly detailed, associative montage the boundless possibilities of manipulating images and using images to seduce.

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At the Vienna Art Academy in 1994, an unidentified person painted over 27 works by Austrian painter Arnulf Rainer. Rainer had become world-famous for his abstract art and, in particular, for his over-layering of photographs and overpainting of his own and other artists’ works. But who painted over the “overpainter”? Speculation rages: Did he attack his works himself? A year later, an unsigned letter surfaces claiming responsibility for the act directed against Rainer – and modern art in general – and accusing the artist of being complicit with “destructive modernism.” At the same time, Austria is shaken by a series of mail bombs by the Bajuwarian Liberation Army, in response to the supposed threat to Austria’s “German identity.” Are there connections between the overpainting event and the mail bombs? Or is this all just a game? A dream? Or perhaps a hallucination?

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In this film, Dammbeck explores his own decision to relocate to Hamburg, West Germany, and tries to sort out his past as an artist. In the process, he interviews artists Cornelia Schleime, Hans-Hendrik Grimmling, and Hans Scheib, who had been core members of the alternative art scene in East Germany. They had all worked together in the 8mm scene and organized or planned multimedia and crossover exhibitions, including Tangents I in 1976-77 and the First Leipzig Autumn Salon in 1984. Each left for West Germany in the mid-1980s. What has become of their former artistic strategies and positions? How do they deal with their past? What is the force behind their art now? And how do they cope with the western art market?

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This multimedia collage, which includes performances by pantomime artist and dancer Fine Kwiatkowski, painter and filmmaker Lutz Dammbeck and musician Robert Linke, is a reflection on the medium of film and its elements: sound, light and movement. Dammbeck’s goal is to cleanse these elements of ideology and commerce and compose a new film out of them. The process is played out in the space in real time.

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Masao Adachi, the author and director of experimental works and pinku-eiga in the 1960s, was a member of the Japanese New Left that shifted from being a filmmaker to a guerrilla fighter. In 1974, he joined the Japanese Red Army in Lebanon, which worked closely with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Filmmaker Lutz Dammbeck met Adachi in Tokyo in 2018 and talked with him about a wide range of topics, including art, revolution, the influence of western avant-garde art and American underground; the Japanese Red Army; collaboration with secret services; the role of the Left after 1968; and the reasons for failures of leftist ideas and strategies.

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On a talkshow, actor and German TV ikon Joachim Fuchsberger recalls how the games for his show "Nur nicht nervös werden" (Don't Get Nervous), first broadcast on West German TV in 1960, were developed along the lines of American psychiatry. Asked "So how many crazy people watched you?", he responded: "A whole crazy, psychologically disturbed nation". Why were the Germans or to be more precise, the West Germans, a psychologically disturbed nation at that time? This is a film about cheerful and serious games, therapies for re-education and self-imposed re-education, as well as the history of the idea of permanent revolution. Those appearing include directors and producers of gameshows, psychiatrists, anthropologists, and the diversely paranoid.

Open details →

Explores the incredibly complex backstory of Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber. This exquisitely crafted inquiry into the rationale of this mythic figure situates him within a late 20th century web of technology—a system that he grew to oppose. A marvelously subversive approach to the history of the Internet, this insightful documentary combines speculative travelogue and investigative journalism to trace contrasting countercultural responses to the cybernetic revolution.

Open details →

At the Vienna Art Academy in 1994, an unidentified person painted over 27 works by Austrian painter Arnulf Rainer. Rainer had become world-famous for his abstract art and, in particular, for his over-layering of photographs and overpainting of his own and other artists’ works. But who painted over the “overpainter”? Speculation rages: Did he attack his works himself? A year later, an unsigned letter surfaces claiming responsibility for the act directed against Rainer – and modern art in general – and accusing the artist of being complicit with “destructive modernism.” At the same time, Austria is shaken by a series of mail bombs by the Bajuwarian Liberation Army, in response to the supposed threat to Austria’s “German identity.” Are there connections between the overpainting event and the mail bombs? Or is this all just a game? A dream? Or perhaps a hallucination?

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The film explores what transformations in power and politics do to art, how much opportunism can be found in “pure” art and whether fascist symbols can ever regain their aesthetic innocence. The questions it addresses about the relationship between ethics and aesthetics make a valuable contribution to any discussion about art and power.

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Despite seeing his film project HERCULES rejected by DEFA Studios in 1983-84, Dammbeck remained fascinated by the Hercules story. He started experimenting with different media combinations, using overpainting, photography, film clips, collage, painting, and movement. These experiments resulted in groundbreaking multimedia collaborations, as well as the film THE CAVE OF HERCULES, in which Dammbeck explores a series of questions inspired by this classical figure. Who was the legendary hero Hercules? Is there a new Hercules today? How are heroes created in a totalitarian society? What are the virtues of heroes? This multi-layered experimental film combines projections of collected film clips, quotations from “The Willful Child” by the Brothers Grimm, and “Hercules 2 or the Hydra” by Heiner Müller, as well as dance scenes with Eva Schmale that were performed – at Kampnagel in Hamburg – specifically for the film.

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In this film, Dammbeck explores his own decision to relocate to Hamburg, West Germany, and tries to sort out his past as an artist. In the process, he interviews artists Cornelia Schleime, Hans-Hendrik Grimmling, and Hans Scheib, who had been core members of the alternative art scene in East Germany. They had all worked together in the 8mm scene and organized or planned multimedia and crossover exhibitions, including Tangents I in 1976-77 and the First Leipzig Autumn Salon in 1984. Each left for West Germany in the mid-1980s. What has become of their former artistic strategies and positions? How do they deal with their past? What is the force behind their art now? And how do they cope with the western art market?

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Two men sit on an island watching the sunset. When a storm gathers, they decide to build a boat. While one man is mindful of the coming danger and urges speed, the other wastes his time on decorative details. Dammbeck’s last film made in the GDR before he left for West Germany is based on a Chinese fable, with music by internationally known jazz musician Günter “Baby” Sommer.

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This multimedia collage, which includes performances by pantomime artist and dancer Fine Kwiatkowski, painter and filmmaker Lutz Dammbeck and musician Robert Linke, is a reflection on the medium of film and its elements: sound, light and movement. Dammbeck’s goal is to cleanse these elements of ideology and commerce and compose a new film out of them. The process is played out in the space in real time.

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A little bumblebee is tired of her daily routine and the other boring bumblebees. She flies to the place of her dreams and meets a frog who is also seeking something new. Despite their differences, the two animals become friends and start their adventure together. This children’s animation film was a success in East German cinemas. Older viewers, however, saw it as a metaphor for their longing to escape – daily life, or even their walled-in country.

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The very first images in the film set unprecedented standards in East German animated film: a Buñuelean eye that fills the entire screen, real-life sequences of fleeing animals and a sound collage running contrary to what is seen on the screen. This also extends to the protagonist of the film, a head on a foot without a body or arms who pads wearily through the depressing surroundings. Upon seeing various figures in the sky, he begins to copy their movements. To his surprise, he himself manages to grow wings and takes to the skies. But his attempt at flight ends in a sobering manner however, as it is revealed that flying creatures are just restricted in their range.

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Dammbeck relocates the Leipzig-based artists' circle known as Herbstsalon to La Sarraz Palace in Switzerland, which in 1929 was the venue of the legendary congress held by important protagonists of new, independent cinema as a forum to discuss issues such as elitist thinking, the taste of the masses, and the difference between art and life. One participant was the avant-garde filmmaker Walter Ruttman, who had already begun to produce abstract films for advertising purposes at a time when his co-pioneers Viking Eggeling and Hans Richter were still preoccupied with painting. All the same, Ruttman placed his talent at the disposal of Nazi propagandists during the Third Reich. Dammbeck reflects upon the durability of the notion we term avant garde by vacillating it between the extremes of Modernism and anti-modernism. Hommage à La Sarraz was at the core of the film footage deployed in Dammbeck's 'Hercules Media Collage' of 1984/85.

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Dammbeck made this film – a reference to the myth of Icarus and a metaphor for failure, hope, and human exploration – at the invitation of the legendary animator Kurt Weiler. It’s the first example of Dammbeck’s experimental, grotesque, surrealistic style of animation. The idea of flying, which Dammbeck uses here for the first time, will reappear continuously in his next films. THE TAILOR OF ULM established Dammbeck’s reputation among East German animation directors.

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For the multimedia exhibition Tangenten I (Tangents I), Dammbeck and co-organizer, sculptor and painter Frieder Heinze had planned to collaborate on a film that would combine non-camera animation with 35mm footage of a train ride between the two Dresden districts of Radebeul and Pieschen. When the exhibition was banned in 1978, Heinze turned to other projects, but Dammbeck continued working on the film by himself. Metamorphoses I—the first experimental film ever to be shown publicly in East Germany—marks the filmic beginning of Dammbeck’s long-term art project the Herakles-Konzept (Hercules Concept).

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This short film traces the story of a man from birth to old age. The magical dreams of his youth appear from time to time, but daily routine quickly takes over. His striving for material wealth – including a Trabant car, a shelving unit, a boat – leads him to betray his youthful ideals, and he ultimately becomes a slave to his possessions. In the final frames of the film, “LIVE” – written in large white letters – ironically reminds viewers not to forget to follow their dreams.

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The moon swirls happily around, watching strange animals enjoying themselves and dancing to gramophone music in its light. Then, suddenly, the moon falls out of the sky, and a greedy dragon drags it into his cave and forces it to give him light while he eats all the cakes. When the nights stay dark, the animals come up with a plan. Otto Sacher, East Germany’s legendary animation director and co-founder of the DEFA Studio for Animation Film, was the artistic advisor for this film, the first of Dammbeck’s animated works.

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