projects

album cover On February 25^th, Heimathafen will be transformed into the mysterious underwater ballroom of a sunken cruise ship, where PRINCESSIN HANS will present a spectacular concert to celebrate the release of their new album "Because You Wouldn't Play Tennis With Freddy".

The cult Berlin band, who have been appearing in various incarnations on the Kleinkunst stages of the city since 2003, have made a name for themselves are not only with their brazen mix of cabaret, jazz and punk, but also for their wont to turn their concert spaces into charming parallel worlds, where the audience is as much part of the spectacle as the musicians themselves. Be it a sleazy cellar bar from Berlin in the 20s, the pop-up cardboard pomp of Schloss Friedrichshain or, indeed, the dancehall of a doomed ship – the audience are welcomed into sensual imaginary spaces where anything is possible and everyone is part of the spectacle..

For the premiere of their long-awaited new album Because You
Wouldn't Play Tennis With Freddy, singer Hans Kellett and pia-
nist Jörg Hochapfel head up a band of accoustic musicians to
bring to life the grittiness captured on the album – the sighs,
coughs, string-slaps and finger-snaps create a sound that brings
19^th century Romanticism home to 21^st century Berlin, and
picking up a good handful of the Roaring Twenties on it's way
through.
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Ceven has joined in with the fun by making a special one-of-a-
kind video art background to be shown behind the stage during
this performance. A little impression of this video work with
some stills:

This page will be updated almost daily with news concerning the show at Heimathafen. Please check back!

Tickets can be purchased here.

Princessin Hans is featured on the February 2012 cover of the Siegesäule and on page 12 there is a nice article about the project with a group photo including the musicians and Ceven. The digital version of the magazine can be downloaded as a pdf-file.

The Opiates | Hollywood Under the Knife THE OPIATES is the latest project from the "queen of electronic soul" Billie Ray Martin, together with Norwegian musician Robert Solheim. Already dubbed by the press as "The Carpenters of Electro", their album HOLLYWOOD UNDER THE KNIFE explores paths pioneered by the Chicago house and Detroit techno heroes, (not least Electribe 101), with the aim of taking things forward a step or two. Although Kraftwerk and Yazoo have been mentioned as influences, The Opiates’ unique brand of electronic music is not readily categorised. Theirs is a pursuit without compromise; a rare match of songwriting and cutting-edge beats and bleeps.

The album is available through Disco Activisto Records and distributed through Cargo UK and can be bought directly from Billie Ray Martin's website: billieraymartin.com

In September Ceven Knowles was invited to take up residency with the Opiates as visual artist in collaboration with Billie Ray Martin to reinterpret songs for videos as pieces of a theatrical installation in their stage performances. Due to the success of the results it was decided to open the videos online. Over the next few months we will showcase reworked versions of the videos and get into the stories behind them and how they were made. In part one we explore four pieces to this giant work of art.

HOLLYWOOD UNDER THE KNIFE is an album of real substance, both musically and visually. Artist Wolfgang Tillmans supplies nine previously unseen and unpublished images for the album cover and booklet, Jörn Hartmann made three music videos (Anatomy of a Plastic Girl , Rainy Days and Saturdays and an unpublished one). Ceven Knowles has taken both sources and merged them in with his own work for the live shows. Each song on the album portrays another social 'misfit'. Characters who, trying to change their outer appearance or tweak their behaviour, believe they might just fit and ultimately face the consequences:

Oprah's Book of the Month Club (Part 2)

The aging formerly rich daughter of a formerly famous actress who reminisces about her mother
feeding her tranquilizers as a kid to keep her out of the way
and who later goes through a path of plastic surgery, health foods, porn movie making... all to find out who she is.

A collage of memories in form of film leaders, old footage, pills composited onto clouds in a tranquilizer trip as experienced by a child. READ MORE

Candy Coated Crime (Disco Bloodbath Mix)

The woman who employs strange sexual fantasies involving the TV series CSI, to keep the boredom of life at bay.

Anatomy of a Plastic Girl

The young wannabe actress in L.A. who reflects on her facial surgery that has left her scarred
and punctured with holes inside and out.

This work came about after a conversation over Derek Jarman and postmodernist music video making and was the first completed piece. READ MORE

Silent Comes the Nighttime (Again)

The same woman who suffers from insomnia and tells the story how the demons of her soul
and the demons of the night keep her awake.

About lying in bed with the eyes closed waiting for the dream state. READ MORE

Rainy Days and Saturdays

The transvestite - Candy Darling - who, although leading the wild life and preparing for a sex change,
dreams of married life and a house in the suburbs.

Fragments taken from the original music video reduced it down to video "stamps" inspired by printmaking techniques and a homage to Andy Warhol, for whom Candy Darling acted for.

bilder des ersten screenings | juni 2011

berliner liebespaare aller art

eine video-installation aus interviews und fotoserie
von ceven knowles und thorsten maurus hergasz

20 menschen verschiedenen geschlechts, alters und sexueller orientierung sprechen über ihr verständnis von liebe und beziehung und über das miteinander mit ihren lebensgefährten:

was für ein glück es ist oder dass es ein zufall war, inwiefern es beruhigend ist oder immer herausfordernd bleibt, wieviel arbeit es macht oder ob es nicht eigentlich ein wunder ist, dass wir zwei ein wir sind.

anhand von 15 fragen geht es um zeit, gewissheit, nähe und alltag, um beständigkeit, veränderung und das heimischsein mit und bei dem anderen. allesamt nicht hörbar lassen sich die fragen nur mittels der reaktionen und antworten auf sie rekonstruieren.

porträts der 10 paare ergänzen die interviewsequenzen. nur auf diesen 30 fotos sind sie, unterschiedlich zueinander direkt vor die kamera gestellt, als solche sichtbar, die gespräche wurden sämtlichst einzeln geführt.

die in ihrer audiovisuellen beschaffenheit bewusst an eine dokumentarfilmarbeit aus analoger zeit angelehnte, etwa zweistündige video-foto-collage ist als endlosschleife konzipiert und wird nahezu durchgehend von elektronischen musik-klang-bildern begleitet: teils eigens für dieses projekt entstandene stücke von nevec red wie beispielsweise medit, teils titel aus seinem album uncertain equinox.

die genaue art & weise der projektion und ihre inszenierung im detail ist je nach raum und rahmen variabel. ein starker kontrast zwischen thema und ort kann teil des präsentation sein: wunder passieren gerade auch dort, wo man sie nicht erwartet und sehen oft anders aus als gedacht.

ab märz 2011 konzipiert und produziert, haben wir die installation erstmals mitte juni drei tage lang im kellerraum eines neuköllner hinterhauses vorgestellt. wir sind offen für weitere möglichkeiten und anlässe, sie auf einen anderen raum zugeschnitten nochmals inszenieren und zeigen zu können. schreiben sie uns!

das nachfolgende video ist eine kleine arrangierte sammlung unbearbeiteter outtakes. es ist also in stil und machart weniger trailer als vielmehr dokument des arbeitsprozesses.

bilder des ersten screenings | juni 2011

hinausgehen

Running Time:

23:16

Released Date:

February 2010

Director:

Ceven Knowles

Camera:

Ceven Knowles

An audio-visual sonata Made from improvised studio sessions and
spontaneous video recordings layered upon each other to form a complete
audio-visual composition in the classical form with 1st exposition, 2nd
development and 3rd recapitulation

Eine audiovisuelle Sonate Studio-Improvisationen und ihre spon-
tane Visualisierung bilden gemeinsam eine audiovisuelle Komposition
in der klassischen Form der Sonate aus 1. Exposition, 2. Durchführung
und 3. Reprise

ABOUT A BEING

During the last three months I’ve been working on a project whose intention
is to be a metaphor to the creative and personal evolutions from one state to
another during the period I was being naturalized from an American citizen
into a fully fledged German-European. This project is called HINAUSGEHEN.
The word is German for to go out. Über etwas hinausgehen means to trans
cend something and to leave something behind. I chose to follow a 3-move
ment sonata form to narrate various metamorphoses. While making the first
movement I was an American (Exposition), in the second I was stateless with-
out any political affiliation (Development), and in the third I became a Ger-
man citizen (Recapitulation).

The music and images are meant to reflect not only these ideas but to also
give a personal retrospective. Movement 1 was made in a single studio ses-
sion at the Geräuschkulisse with Miriam Siebenstädt. We worked together
over several small studio projects during 2009. In this time I learned a great
deal about collaboration, experimentation, music theory and improvisation.
This movement was to be done within a couple takes and with no editing. It
is pure and naked and highlights the creative relationship we’ve built. The
second movement is an evolution into editing and arrangement. It becomes
playful and bright, much like my time spent making Anderecast. It’s the
state of learning and actively using what one learns. The third is fully
planned and calculated. It is about growth and obtaining control over one’s
creative power and to communicate directly with the viewer. HINAUSGEHEN
begins from chaotic analogue sources and refines itself into a programmed
electronic composition. The visuals reflect various methods learned and
experimented with over the last years, particularly in 2009. UNTER UNS
KOLLEGEN (movement 1) in German means roughly: between us colleagues.
Everything in this video is as improvised as the music and made in one
session. The second movement IMP (short for improvisation) was an un-
finished study project reimagined and rearranged into an entirely new com-
position. It is a conversation between me and the junction of creation. The
third, WESEN in German means: being, character, entity, nature or creature.
It is programmed to beintentional and self-aware.

HINAUSGEHEN serves as a catharsis. The first video I ever put together was
in high school in 1990. Over the last twenty years I’ve gone through one
creative endeavor after another with reasonable consistency and variable
success. I found art school unsatisfying and after a year chose to take a dif-
ferent path. Because of this I am a formally (and technically) uneducated
artist who has had to learn everything through trial and error. The last five
years have been particularly productive and so many projects have been
made that it’s impossible to account for how many. At the same time I’d
been going through an adaption (and adoption) process between languages
and cultures after walking completely blind into a country for which I had no
previous desire to see. As well all has been learned through trial and error. To
a certain extent learning also required unlearning. All boundaries have been
pushed and old skins have broken open to reveal new ones. This project is the
climactic end to one story and the foreword of another about to begin. The ex-
pulsion of old energy and ideas propels my transcension into a new form.

Ceven Knowles | March 2010