6 May 2019

Moving Sand / Topos
Premiere of the audiovisual essay by Floros Floridis and Jeanine Meerapfel
Part of “Wo kommen wir hin”
Wednesday, 29 May at 8 pm, further performances on 30 and 31 May 2019
Public rehearsal on 16 May at 7 pm, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg

Artificial intelligence has a radical effect on nearly all areas of human life. The audiovisual essay Moving Sand / Topos ‒ by composer and musician Floros Floridis and filmmaker and Akademie President Jeanine Meerapfel ‒ is inspired by these changes that affect our perception of “topos” in its various levels of meaning. Through the combination of film with live, improvised music, dance and text, the essay associatively points out how digital mania and technology increasingly colonise our daily lives.

The concept for Moving Sand / Topos originates from Floros Floridis. It is the continuation of an experimental format that the two artists had previously developed for their joint Akademie production Confusion / Diffusion (2015).
Moving Sand / Topos is the first collaboration with the Tanzcompagnie Rubato (Dieter Baumann and Jutta Hell). Floros Floridis and horn player Elena Kakaliagou will perform live, improvised music on stage.
Directed by Jeanine Meerapfel and Floros Floridis. Dance: Tanzcompagnie Rubato. Live music improvisation: Elena Kakaliagou (French horn) and Floros Floridis (clarinets). Lighting and set design: Siegfried Paul. Camera: Johann Feindt. Montage: Vasso Floridi. Soundtrack: Floros Floridis. Recording and sound editing: Titos Kariotakis and Christos Charmpilas.

Moving Sand / Topos was created as part of the experimental exhibition and special event project “Wo kommen wir hin”, which has been transforming the Akademie building on Hanseatenweg into a work Akademie since 21 March 2019.

Floros Floridis studied classical clarinet, founded a movement for improvised music in Greece, and is considered one of the most important free jazz greats in his country. In 1984 he brought to life the “Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music of the Municipality of Thessaloniki”, which he led for another seven years. He released more than 30 albums and produced works with Okay Temiz, Nicky Skopelitis, Peter Kowald, Paul Lytton, Paul Lovens, Phil Wachsman, et al. He founded numerous international music groups, including the Black Sea Orchestra, the Inter-Balcanic Orchestra and the Florina Brass Band, and for many years was a member of the Greek music group Chimerinoi Kolimvites (“Winter Swimmer”). In addition to making music, since the late 1990s, Floridis has concentrated on composing music for film, theatre and dance performances.

Jeanine Meerapfel lives in Berlin. She is a film director, scriptwriter and producer. Meerapfel has been president of the Akademie der Künste since 2015. Born in Buenos Aires, she attended the school of journalism there and subsequently worked as an editor and freelance journalist. She studied at the Institut für Filmgestaltung (Filmmaking department) at the Ulm School of Design (HfG Ulm) under Alexander Kluge and Edgar Reitz. From 1990 to 2008, Meerapfel was a professor in the Film/Television department at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM). Her film Malou (1980) was screened at this year's Berlinale Retrospektive. Her other feature films, which have won awards at various festivals, include La Amiga (1988), Amigomío (1995), Annas Sommer (2001) and Der deutsche Freund (2012). Retrospectives of her films have most recently been shown at the Bundesplatzkino in Berlin in 2018 and at the Cinemateca de Cuba in Havanna, through the Goethe-Institut, in 2019.

Special Event Information
Moving Sand / Topos
An audiovisual essay by Floros Floridis and Jeanine Meerapfel
Dance, film, text and improvisation: Jutta Hell, Dieter Baumann (Tanzcompagnie Rubato), Floros Floridis (clarinets), Elena Kakaliagou (French horn)
16 May, 7 pm, public rehearsal, followed by a discussion with Kristoffer Gansing, artistic director of transmediale, admission € 5/3
29 May, 8 pm, premiere
Further performances on 30 May and 31 May, 8 pm
Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin
Admission € 8/5, ticket reservations: Tel. +49 (0)30 200 57-2000, ticket@adk.de,
online: www.adk.de/tickets 

Further information about the complete programme: www.wokommenwirhin.de 

>> Press tickets: presse@adk.de, Tel. +49 (0)30 20057-1514