TODAY IS 12 MARCH 20267. 6th day of rehearsal

already the video has gone through a few ideas.

first thing is we need is an idea of the set.

Big Square on the left is an LED wall. 768 x 768 pixels.

After reading the text the first thig i htought about doing was to work on the Bios. The bio appear in the the text liek an intervention.
they break out of the flow of the dialogue. They aren't happening in a specific time. At least not at the same time.

They short about 90 - 120 seconds. A perfect length for a video intervention.

I examined german photographers from before WW2.

Came across this August Sander portrait.

And this self portrait by modernist from the thirties that I never heard of Ilsa Bing (She was known as queen of the Leica. The portrait is from 1931

Portrait of a young girl by August Sander

Ilse Bing's self portrait.

I took these images as my base

with ComfyUi using the z-image model. I made these. And fifty more.

then a little Ilse Bing

Then another German photographer Edmund Kesting --This is his "Portrait with Shadows" from 1930

Portrait with Shadows

AI could do this to.

However I knew as I was doing this that all these images were going in the wrong direction.

Somehow all of this becomes illustration. My plan was to have one of these woman speaking.

My plan was to have one of these woman speaking the first Bio text.

Ich, Maria Erika Weinart, wurde am 4. Juli 1925 in Marburg an der Lahn geboren.....

But we don't want ot do a documentary and I don't want the video to tell people how Maria looked.
Or to simply just give off an old time feeling I thoguht somehow by doing a hundred images I could escape the problem.

Not "the" Maria Erika Weinart", but al the possible Marias. the whole "Phase Space" of Marias... In fact I should cut in modren day images too

Even though I knew i was heading down the wrong track I went further.

Maria played Snow White in school

"Eines Tages durfte ich in der Schule das Schneewittchen spiele, trotz meiner blonden Haare. Das Gefühle, alsi ich vor den vielen Menschen auf der Bühne unserer Aula stand, konnte ich nicht vergessen."

I was a bit ipressed by this constant falling.

I tried exploding the office girls.

Two more clips -- one copying another image idea of Edmund Kesting - a woman with a hand in front of her face.

This creates such a wierd character. You would never direct a real person this way. An actress wouldn't improvise like this.

And finally Ilse Bing and her camera -- here I went away formt he Bio text and tried out the narrator voice.

Added some shots of the subway in Köln. This came from another conversation with Sebastian. More on tha later.

TODAY IS 17 MARCH 20267.

Still trying to get this document up to date.

We've come around to the decision that the "1940's" images take us in the wrong direction

at the same time is the question of whether AI is at all appropriate

One of the first pieces of inspiration menitoned when we first started was "Occupied City" a film from Steve McQueen.

Quite interesting just very lyrical slow shots of street scenes in Amsterdam. Long Takes, on the sound track we here a voice calmly reading through
varioud protocals and descriptions from ther Nazis when Amsterdam was occupied. The juztaposition is quite interestig. and leaves open a lot of room for reflection.

By reflection I mean a kind of unforced moving through thoughts - it's left open what you shoujld think.

I've started to do slow motion shots of Koeln. Starting in the neighborhood of the Probebühne.

We've decided to do the Bio's in piece with slow motion video. There are 9 Bios. each about 90 secs long

There is a bit of difficulty -- the structure that Sebastian has thougth up is text in darkeness and then Tableaus.

How to these video bios fit in?

In one way ro another they break the system.

Here is an image of the structure as it is at the moment. The placement of the Tableaus not yet decided.

STILL 17 MARCH 20267.

going out now to shoot more street scenes.

18 MARCH 20267.

Yesterday walked around Deutz, The shoot itself was not so interesting. but I started an experiment.

Do a slow motion moment, then take the final frame to generate and AI sequence. I thought I could follow the collapsing people idea.

or perhaps just a wierd pose. I don't know what it means yet....

All this seems too comic -- although a bit intriguing.

18 MARCH 2026

Did a long video walk aroud Hauptbahnhof.

odd, I shot a lot more, but I'm not sure if I got better material

just business people, travelers, somehow they seem less open to being projected on

but slowing things down makes everyone iconic

Continuing with the AI idea...

I take a section of video, cut out a bit in the middle, leaving me with two chunks and a gap between them

take the last frame of the first chunk, and the first frame of the second chunk. That is, the begining and end of the gap

This is something i'd like to work with.

Monday 23 MARCH 2026

Christiane always questions why I should AI in this piece. A guy with an exploding hand is oviously a bit wierd, and to
horror movie for this piece

But i feel there is something, what if in the midst of a slow motion sequence, a character looks up at the camera for a momentt
Breaks the isolation, the fourth wall, and looks at th viewer.

The switch from the audience watching, to being addressed.

This was my first idea about how AI and these sequences could work.

Tuesday 24 MARCH 2026

yesterday a sort of run-through of the text. wihtout sound.

I threw up on the screen some slo mo stuff from the Bahnhof. and lots from around the probe bühne

yesterday it really didnt work. On the one hand it needs the sound underneath.

on the other it really wasn't obvious why I should even play these videos. it didn't seem to have any power.

Some things will help -- need ot really follow one person for the whole two minutes - you need to have someone to project on.

To help wiht that I might need to be closer in on the people, less background.. my shots often seemed to have too much bahnhof environment

Sebastian mentioned both these things during the run through, in some way I agree... But I also wish that the video
Could somehow stand alone without needing to be a visualization that is so connected to the text. I find it a bit too easy

And at the same time the more I focus on one person the more the question of rights come into play.

I assume at the moment that it is not even allowed to do what I am doing. Just filming people in the street

Sebastian was also against the AI manipultions. But he didn't get ot see it in its best light

I still thiknit could be quite strong.. but it will probbaly seem just a lke a wierd arty thing until I get just right

Tuesday 24 MARCH 2026 FIRST STAGE REHEARSAL

Today we were finally on stage - stage looks great.

the three screens are in an odd position. And it's hard to figure out which is more present, and how I should work with the images.

My street people functioned on my computer screen with music, and with a certain amout of concentrated focus.

With images on three screens it gets mixed up. It's harder to figure out what to look at. that needs to be worked on.

But the good news is that we can project on the whole set fron the front. That looks great.

During the rehearsal I threw up some of my August Sander Inspired AI portrait. That gave Sebastian an Idea. During the Bio section we coud
we could project one on the LED wall. as if it an advertisment for a "Fotographiska" style museum. An exhibition of art photos.

I think this coud be a good idea.

wednesday 25 MARCH

So today the main goal is to start black new portraits made for the LED wall, and to see if I can combine that with a layer of the slow people

I imagine that this makes what I was hoping for -- a kind of time tunnel.

I created these two

Erika Maria Weinert

The Humpler