Unlearn the apparatus - Opening night
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
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After a week of working, testing, re-working in the pop-up store at 2 Bernward street in Hildesheim, we opened on June 18, 2026 our first part of "Unlearn the Apparatus" to the public: the participatory multi-media performance called "The Plate Camera Intervention Game". We welcomed randomly walk-in citizen audiences but also a delegation of the University of Hildesheim, co-sponsor of the project. The DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) also provided funding through the Visiting Professorship (March-June 2026) of Antje Budde.
The delegation of Hildesheim University included:
Prof. Dr. Julius Heinicke, UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy for the Arts and Transformation
Prof. Dr. Bettina Kluge, the Vice President for International Affairs at the University of Hildesheim
Professors Shumirai Nyota and Enna Gudhlanga, visiting scholars from the Open University, Zimbabwe
Dr. Daniel Gad, Managing director of the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy for the Arts and Transformation
Merriam Bousselmi, doctoral student, Hildesheim University, Dept. for Cultural Policy
Daniela Puhrsch, university's office for International Affairs
To mark the importance of the occasion, Prof. Dr. Bettina Kluge, the Vice President for International Affairs at the University of Hildesheim, gave a brief meaningful speech to celebrate this artistic research project as well as the university's support and to officially welcome the colleagues from Zimbabwe and the creative project collaborators from Canada and Germany.
All but one person of the university delegation and their guests then proceeded to actively participate in the performance, tell stories in our story telling corner of the space. Antje Budde welcomed every individual co-performer and assisted them in the storytelling corner before guiding them over to the plate camera performance stage where Martin Kulinna was welcoming them.
Daniela Puhrsch (upper left), Enna Gudhlanga (upper centre), Julius Heinicke (upper right), Antje Budde (lower left) and Shumirai Nyota (lower right). Photos: Dave Kemp
Our co-performers interacted with the plate camera and photographer Martin Kulinna, listened to the beautiful real-time soundscape by Lars Crosby, chatted with other audience members, watched their physical photos emerge on the walls and the digital ones being integrated in the video projection wall (by Dave Kemp) that subtly pulsated in response to soundscape rhythms. Digital photos also appeared on the store front window’s smaller monitors. (by Don Sinclair). All creative team members were involved in audience/co-performer interactions.
Daniela Puhrsch (left to right), Shumirai Nyota, Enna Gudhlanga, Bettina Kluge. Martin Kulinna. Photos: Dave Kemp
Meriam Bousselmi performing with the camera (upper). Audiences could follow the actions of their fellow citizen-co-performers when storytelling or co-performing with the camera and photographer. (lower). They could also just enjoy the pulsating video projection on the wall and ceiling, that integrated their photographs soon after the photo was created with the plate camera.
Some went outside to chat or sit in front of the space at the table we had set up for street-level interactions with the people of Hildesheim.
Two students, Meriam Bousselmi and Julius Heinicke (photo left), Don Sinclair, his wife Mariana Di Iorio and Daniel Gad (photo right). Photos: Dave Kemp
In addition, audiences could watch the time-lapse video of their presence on the main window monitor (by Don Sinclair) or read more closely the curated text fragments that Emre Cenit, a student of the university, had curated and installed.
The text fragments were quotes from Ariella Aïsha Azoulay’s essay ‘’Toward the Abolition of Photography’s Imperial Rights’’, which inspired major dramaturgical/conceptual considerations for the project (see project proposal from July 2025).
Emre had been participating in the graduate course “Anarcheology and A/I (artistic intelligence) - Engineering mediated performance as time machine” taught by Antje Budde as part of her DAAD Visiting Professorship. The course offered creative project participation and contributions as course assignments. Emre took up that opportunity and was a wonderful presence and became part of the creative team.
Also present was Johanna Stevens, student at the department for Cultural Policy who had a job as student assistant (Studentische Hilfskraft). She helped us as production assistant and we are grateful for her work.
Reference
Azoulay, Ariella Aïsha. ‘’Toward the Abolition of Photography’s Imperial Rights’’. Capitalism and the Camera: Essays on Photography and Extraction. Eds. Kevin Coleman and Daniel James: Verso, 2021. 25-54.
More links
DAAD Visiting Professorship at the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policies for the Arts and Transformation, Institute for Cultural Policy at Hildesheim University
