Conference: Re-Visions of the Romanian Revolution in Arts and Media Theory, Berlin, 2 June 2012‏

DFG-Graduiertenkolleg "Mediale Historiographien" at the Universities of
Weimar, Erfurt and Jena; with support by Galeria Plan B.
01.06.2012-02.06.2012, Berlin, Arsenal & Galeria Plan B

The Romanian Revolution of December 1989, which culminated in the
execution of the dictatorial Ceaucescu couple, still represents a
challenge for historiography, cultural studies, social policy debates and
artistic interventions.

The gradual accessibility of the film, sound and image documentation of
the Ceaucescu era and its eruptive end, give us a particularly clear
reminder of the precarious nature of media documentation. The inherent
potential of the medial document to break up every semantic
determination - which plays out in the historical memory, in individual
experience and in the official culture of remembrance - has not only been
emphasized by prominent media theorist immediately following the events,
but has also been utilized in various forms of artistic
practice. Contrary to various standardizing or normalizing claims that
impose already available orders upon the medial transmission of
Socialism and its end these interventions bring out possibilities that
enrich the discussion by productively valuing the disruptive power of
images and breaking up the extant semantic overlays of historical events
and processes.

The productive dimension of the medial archive, which takes us beyond
questions of interpretation and reception, is in the focus of interest in
this conference. Thus the symposium takes the Romanian Revolution and the
mediatheoretical discourse and artistic practices that developed in
immediate response as the paradigmatic occasion to discuss the
connection of pictorial media and historiography.

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June 1, 2012 - 7.30 pm
Kino Arsenal, Potsdamer Str. 2, Berlin

AUTOBIOGRAFIA LUI NICOLAE CEAUCESCU (THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NICOLAE
CEAUCESCU, Romania 2010, 180 min., Romanian with English subtitles); in
presence of director Andrei Ujica

»From a formal point of view, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NICOLAE CEAUCESCU
proves that it is possible to only use existing images to yield films
focused on recent history, yet with an epic vein similar to that of the
historical fiction cinema. This is an eminently syntactic endeavor, where
montage plays a twofold part: mise-en-scene, as it builds scenes that do
not exist as such in the rushes, and classical editing,
connecting scenes together.« (Andrei Ujica)


June 2, 2012 - 10 am
Galeria Plan B, Potsdamer Str. 77-87, Berlin

10 am
Introductory Note
Konrad Petrovszky (Berlin) & Tobias Ebbrecht (Weimar)

Two Regimes of Visibility after the Televised Revolution
Ovidiu Tichindeleanu (Cluj/Chisinau)

11.30 am
Coffee Break

12 am
Engendered Histories. A Comment on VIDEOGRAMS OF A REVOLUTION and THE
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NICOLAE CEAUCESCU.
Susanne Wagner (Weimar)

The Revolutions of '89 in Romania and Poland. Comparing Intersections of
Media and History
Przemyslaw Suwart (Weimar-Jena-Erfurt)

1.30 pm
Lunch Break

2.30 pm
Piata Universitatii - The Site of Perpetual Re-enactment. Self-mirroring
and Difference
Raluca Voinea (Bucharest) & Bogdan Ghiu (Bucharest)

To Enact and Re-enact. Some Critical Remarks on a Current Artistic Practice
Maria Muhle (Stuttgart/ Berlin)

4 pm
Coffee Break

4.30 pm
Excerpts from: The Last Hour of Elena and Nicolae Ceaucescu (Die letzten
Tage der Ceaucescus) by Milo Rau

Panel Discussion: Re-Visions and Recreations of Romanian History in Film,
Theatre, Video & Per-formance Art
Andrei Ujica; (Karlsruhe), Milo Rau (Cologne), Raluca Voinea
(Bucharest)
Chair: Bert Rebhandl (Berlin)