Something with Media – Integration – Improvisation – Intervention

This course focuses—taking its cue from film as a semi-industrially produced, collaborative medium—on the collective development of media-based artistic works situated between improvisation, political intervention, and inclusive organization. Together, we explore strategies for creating relevant, formally precise media works using minimal means—but with maximum clarity—and, crucially, for organizing their realization.

Experiences from independent film production serve as a toolbox adaptable to various formats (video, installation, performance, hybrid forms). Particular emphasis is placed on structured work in small units, on the adapted use of professional tools and organizational strategies in flexible contexts, and on an open, self-assured approach to failure and legal issues concerning the use of image and sound (sampling, fair use, Creative Commons, et al.).

Media art today often emerges under paradoxical conditions: maximum visibility within minimal space, shrinking budgets alongside rising expectations, political urgency within institutional precarity. We address these tensions with an intentionally open, practice-oriented, and critically reflective approach.

This is not a conventional production course. Rather, it is a space in which media-based artistic practice is understood as a situational, inclusive, and collaborative act. Here, media work is approached as a socially embedded and radically open-ended process—somewhere between assertion and research, between structure and chaos, between micro-organization and societal reflection. I believe in learning from one another, in the playful and consensual distribution of artistic and organizational roles—not only in front of the camera but throughout the entire production process.

In this course, we want to explore together what it means today to do “something with media” – and how that something can become work that is relevant to us and to others. We ask: How can media art be created with limited means but a clear sense of purpose? How do we build structures that are sustainable – artistically and socially? And how do we empower ourselves as a group – even in the face of the pressures and paradoxes that often come with working in art and media production?

At the center of our work lies the development and realization of individual, self-directed projects – in any media form or combination: video, performance, installation, hybrid formats, or any type of film. What matters to us is linking creative thinking with organizational practice – to question, to examine, to challenge, and to recognize that this is already the beginning of a statement, simply because it’s never finished. We practice collective planning, reflective improvisation, and a productive relationship with uncertainty. All of this happens in an applied setting. Whether as simulation, mock-up, or fully-fledged production with a real deadline – that’s up to us.

We assume that each person in the group is an expert of their own perspective – and that this creates a shared space of resonance where we all learn from one another, regardless of prior experience, technical background, or chosen medium.

The Three Vectors of Our Shared Work

Integration

We understand integration not only as a social or political concept, but also as an artistic attitude:

– Who is made visible? Who gets to tell stories? Who is heard – and who isn’t? What is said, and what remains unsaid?

– How can we shape collaboration without narrowing roles or reinforcing hierarchies?

– And how can failure – especially my failure, whether content-related, technical, or personal – not only be accepted but recognized as an essential part of the process and the outcome? Or rather: how must it be? Because, to borrow from Max Reinhardt: “Revelation is the goal of art. Not disguise.”

Improvisation

Improvisation is not a fallback. It’s a skill. A position.

– We explore how time pressure, limited resources, or chaos can generate productive momentum.

– We learn to organize spontaneously, to observe attentively, and to develop solutions in motion.

– We already work in small, adaptable units every day (sometimes, let’s be honest, one-person units :) ) that respond quickly to changing conditions – and are often closer to the world than big production machines ever could be.

Intervention

Media-based art is always also an intervention.

– In narratives, in spaces, in formal systems.

– We seek friction – because that’s where art becomes relevant. Poetry and politics as productive tension.

– We approach media work as a way to set language, image, and sound into motion – artistically and socially. To mix them, recontextualize them, and use them outside their intended environments. Like propping up a laptop with a coaster so it can render your semester project without overheating.

I make my experience in fictional film production available to us – not as a rulebook, but as a toolbox. In projects like 3 Freunde 2 Feinde (made for under €3,000), Die Vermieterin, or AMS, I’ve learned that even with minimal means, big stories can be told – if we know how to structure them. Even more so: if we know how to structure ourselves. Not as rigid hierarchies, but as temporary teams of specialists, driven by shared intention.

What We’ll Shamelessly Steal from Cinema

We’ll help ourselves – shamelessly, cheerfully – to some of the best that the world of feature film production has to offer. Not to imitate it, but to hijack it for our own media purposes. Shooting schedules, callsheets, dispos, shot lists, location scouting plans, casting processes, dramaturgical models, even catering logistics – we’ll dissect them, bend them, simplify them, and rebuild them into functional mini-systems for our own contexts. These are tools made for million-euro productions, but we’ll use them to shape our own nimble, precise, and responsive micro-projects – rigorously where they help us, humorously where they’re overkill. We call this: productive appropriation. Organizing without bureaucracy. Structuring without hierarchy. Storytelling without permission.

What Film Can Learn from Us (and We from Film)

At the same time, we don’t see this exchange as a one-way street. Cinema – especially commercial cinema – can also learn from our stance: from our improvisation, our embrace of the gap, our shared culture of failure. The methods we practice together – beyond norms, with flat hierarchies, queer-feminist role distributions, and real participation – are not a compromise. They are a model for the future. They reveal something that is too often overlooked: that film – and media art in general – is not just product, but process and relationship. That’s where we begin. And that’s what we take with us.

Assessment is based on regular active participation and practical engagement, the independent application of the content covered in the context of individual artistic work, as well as a final report—in the student’s own words and in an open format—reflecting on what was learned and how it was applied.

Note on the Use of Audio, Video, and Image Recordings in the Context of the Course

An integral part of this course is the situational use of media recordings—particularly video—which may include both the instructor and participating colleagues. These recordings will take place as part of our collaborative working environment, such as during exercises, discussions, presentations, or process reflections.

The resulting material will be used exclusively for educational purposes—for example, as working material, a basis for discussion, or a creative readymade in the context of critical engagement with media production and its representational logic.

The following principles apply, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):

• Recordings are made only with a clearly communicated purpose and with mutual consent.

• Storage and/or further use of the material occurs solely by mutual agreement.

• Participants may object to any recording or use at any time—without needing to provide reasons and without facing any disadvantages.

• The recorded material will not be publicly distributed or used for external purposes; it remains within the protected framework of the course.

By choosing to participate in this course, individuals acknowledge a general willingness to become visible through media as part of a shared artistic practice—always with respect for personal integrity and voluntariness.

This practice follows an artistic-didactic principle based on transparency, participation, and trust, and encourages new perspectives on artistic media work through the reflective use of recorded material.