Neue Veröffentlichungen aus dem HfG/ZKM-Kooperationsprojekt VOX HUMANA

The archive of the German-born Jewish filmmaker and film critic Gideon Bachmann (1927-2016) contains more than 900 recordings of discussions with film personalities from the years 1955 to 2012. Since 2008, the archive belongs to the collection of the ZKM | Center for Art and Media. In a cooperation project with students of the HfG Karlsruhe, the tapes were digitized, scientifically recorded and published in exhibitions, texts and films.
An extensive scholarly engagement with the person Gideon Bachmann and his work is accomplished in the current issue of the online magazine "Lettere Aperte". HfG students Marie Falke, Victor Fancelli and Christian Haardt, all three from the HfG/ZKM working group VOX HUMANA, have contributed two essays.

Well-known and unknown film directors, actresses and film artists met in Bachmann's New York radio broadcasts to discuss their artistic motivations: among them Ingrid Bergmann, Fritz Lang, Maya Deren, Jonas Mekas, Agnès Varda or Federico Fellini. In addition to the authentic experience of the voices, the tape library thus forms an oral tradition of film history after the Second World War. With the talks Bachmann documented the expiring era of golden Hollywood cinema, and the emergence of an American avant-garde film and the European author's film. Bachmann recorded the uncut 30-minute interviews on magnetic tape. The over 500 tapes were to form the basis for the museum project VOX HUMANA, a collection and exhibition venue of the human voice that Bachmann wanted to realize in his last years.