New at donumenta e.V: ART LAB on Screen

September 11 marks the premiere of a new format by donumenta e.V.. On the pulse of time, media and technology, donumenta e.V. presents video art in public space together with curator Raimund Ritz. From September to November, students from the German art and film academies will be showing short and experimental films in public spaces.

It is a first for everyone. Up to now, we have mainly encountered advertising films in public spaces. Now, for the first time, donumenta e.V. is installing a video column for art films in public spaces - an experiment for artists, curators and donumenta. Curator Raimund Ritz is excited. In an indoor space like a cinema, the conditions for enjoying a film are ideal. Advantages that do not exist in a public space and yet the idea of the donumenta ART LAB on Screen fascinates him: “ Coincidence plays a major role: how loud or how concentrated is it right now? Where does the viewer enter an installation played in a loop? Have we missed something?”

When art comes to the observer

The participating artists are getting involved in changing art in public space. For three months, art videos will flicker across the portrait-format screens of the three-sided donumenta video column. As darkness falls, they will change the scenery at Kohlenmarkt, on the university campus and in the shopping center "Donaueinkaufszentrum" and find their fans.

Portrait format and experiment

It all started with the smartphone, which turned the experimental film from horizontal to vertical. This changes the view, perspective and content. Nine vertical format films by students from art and film schools in Germany will be shown for three months at three locations in the city.

Artists: Vivian Bausch and Ella Knorz, Emil Silvester Ahlhelm, Felizitas Hoffman and Theresa Hoffmann, Hans Wagner, Katharina Rabl, Katharina Schnekenbühl with Lea Geerkens and Mariella Maier, Laura Sophia Rentz, Lina Killinger, Anja Verbeek von Loewis
Curator: Raimund Ritz, Munich

Locations 2024:

• September 11 - October 7 | Kohlenmarkt, Regensburg
• October 9 - November 3| Forum of the University, Regensburg
• November 5 - December 8 | Donau-Einkaufszentrum, Regensburg

• “Dreaming Bodies” is the title of the film by Vivian Bausch and Ella Knorz. The protagonist of this film observes herself with a thermal imaging camera. This makes feelings and sensations visible. Curiosity, insecurity, vulnerability or even fear are intensified by the images taken with a thermal imaging camera. They open up an additional dimension of perception. In a surprising and poetic way, they draw attention to hidden physical sensations that cannot be filmed. The authors of this film study at the University of Television and Film Munich. They have been filming together since 2020. As cinematographers, they were nominated for the Max Ophüls Prize 2022 with the feature film “Para:Dies”.
• In his video installation “Scalalogia”, Emil Silvester Ahlhelm uses a still camera to observe people streaming in the same direction to special places or events. The slow, deliberate flow of images only hints at the reason why the crowd is on the move. The dynamics of the people on the stairs are reminiscent of blood circulation systems or industrial streets in which vital substances are transported and important goods are produced. The aspiring filmmaker is studying documentary film and television journalism at the University of Television and Film Munich.
• The film “Love at First Byte” by sisters Felizitas and Theresa Hoffmann uses the surveillance images of the London Underground and uses the rearranged video material to tell the abstract story of the passenger 061651774505 through the transportation system of the metropolis of London. The video piece goes back to Theresa's inquiries to various organizations in London. She wanted to find out what personal data about her was being stored, used and shared. Theresa Hoffmann studied acting in London, Felizitas Hoffmann studied documentary film directing at the University of Television and Film Munich.
• „Alltagsnotizen“ ist die Videoinstallation von Hans Wagner, montiert aus unzähligen Schnappschüssen, die den Fotobibliotheken der Mobiltelefone entnommen sein könnten. Sie zeigt alltägliche Beobachtungen des Künstlers. Auf den ersten Blick sind es gewöhnliche Alltagsaufnahmen. Innerhalb von wenigen Sekunden verwandeln sie sich dramatisch und erzeugen ungeahnte Spannung. Hans Wagner studiert an der Akademie der Bildenden Künste München Fotografie.  
• The short film “Flight To Nowhere” is a work by Katharina Rabl. Told from different perspectives using a cell phone, it addresses the escapism of passengers in times of global crisis.The supposedly entertaining sightseeing flight turns the passengers into powerless witnesses of their own lifestyle.Katharina Rabl is a freelance writer and director.She has been studying documentary film directing at the University of Television and Film Munich since 2016. In 2020, she won the German Film Critics' Award and the Tenk Award for “Dead Sea Dying”.
• The experimental film “Caring Co-Existence” by Katharina Schnekenbühl, Lea Geerkens and Mariella Maier explores the relationship between humans and deaf people and questions the meaning for both.  Katharina Schnekenbühl has been studying directing at the University of Television and Film Munich since 2018, Lea Geerkens has been combining art and education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich since 2021 and Mariella Mair contributes her interdisciplinary expertise in philosophy and art.
• “ Staubfängerin” is the title of Laura Sophia Rentz's video installation.  In her project, the filmmaker deals with the meaning of time in the medium of film and how the past and change are perceived in it. What material is a body made of? Can it be dissolved and reassembled? Is this process also transferable to the past, to a memory? Is it possible to preserve an unaltered memory or an unchanging image of the past? Laura Sophia Rentz is studying art therapy at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences in Bonn.
• In “Farbstill I & II”, Lina Killinger examines the movement and consistency of color pigments in an aquarium filled with water.  By zooming in, she opens up a view of otherwise hidden processes such as condensation, expansion and dissolution. The constantly changing pictorial material is reminiscent of organic processes, of the constant cycle of creation and destruction, separation and connection. Lina Killinger studied painting and graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and will continue her studies in the glass class at the Académie de Strasbourg from the coming semester.
• “Close up” by Anja Verbeek von Loewis shares with us the otherwise hidden view of a painter while she is painting.  Verbeek von Loewis makes us witnesses to this creative process. As we watch, we experience moments of creation and moments of destruction, when structures that were thought to be finished are painted over or new forms and contexts emerge out of nowhere. Anja Verbeek von Loewis studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.