Underground and Improvisation. Herakles Mediencollage

Hommage à La Sarraz is a tribute to independent filmmaking and the spirit of the avant-garde. In 1929 at the Swiss Castle of La Sarraz, the legendary congress of important protagonists of the new, independent film took place; elitism, mass taste and the difference between art and life were discussed. The party included the avant-garde filmmaker Walter Ruttmann, who was already producing abstract films for promotional purposes when his companions Viking Eggeling and Hans Richter were still concentrating on painting, though this did not prevent him from later dedicating himself to producing propaganda during the Nazi era. Dammbeck reflects on the sustainability of the avant-garde concept by suspending it between the poles of modernism and anti-modernism. Hommage à La Sarraz was the cinematic heart of Mediencollage Herakles (1979-1984). Matthias Flügge, who in 1995 curated the exhibition Der Riss im Raum (The Crack in Space) – one of the first exhibitions on the positions of art since 1945 in Germany, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – will discuss the film with Dammbeck.