Secret Messages from the Smallest Cell in Society
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| 12 EUR / reduced 6 EUR |
| Please book your ticket in advance online or on site at the Humboldt Forum cash register. |
| 16 years and older |
| German |
| Hall 1, Ground Floor |
| Belongs to: Family Matters |
Jürgen Kuttner presents his video clip lecture on the topic of “Family Secrets” at the Humboldt Forum. He shows media evidence from East and West — family recordings, commercials, television sermons, and sentimental pop songs — which, between humor and delusion, pop psychology, and Cold War comedy, portray the private sphere as political and absurd. The lecture is part of a public lecture series that has been running for over 25 years, in which Kuttner explains the world with selected film clips – quickly, wittily, sometimes mercilessly, often in Berlin dialect.
Kuttner addresses family life as an “intrusion into private life” (Karl Kraus) and reveals that family conflicts are universal – from the nuclear family of the Federal Republic in the 1970s to the GDR family.
His video snippet lectures have enjoyed cult status at Berlin’s Volksbühne theater since 1996, where he stages an all-German family drama with new, insightful material from East and West German television archives.
This ironic foray into the living room shows that the word “family ties” has a ring of truth to it and that family life is more than just private.
Participants
Jürgen Kuttner, born in East Berlin in 1958, is a radio presenter, cultural scientist, theater director, and freelance cultural worker. After graduating from high school in 1976 and completing his basic military service in the NVA, he chose to study cultural sciences rather than physics. In 1988, he received his doctorate from Humboldt University in Berlin with a thesis entitled “Mass Culture and the Masses – A Methodological and Conceptual History Study.” Until 1989, he was employed by the “Association of Visual Artists of the GDR” and in 1990 co-founded the East German edition of the taz newspaper, for which he also worked until 1992. From 1993 to the end of 2007, he hosted the legendary “Sprechfunk” program on the Berlin radio station Fritz. In addition, since November 1996, he has regularly given his so-called video snippet lectures entitled “From Mainz to the Memel” at the Volksbühne Berlin. Jürgen Kuttner lives and works in Berlin.