Alice in Berlin

Interactive Installation (2012)

It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards – Lewis Carroll

Alice in Berlin slyly evokes our fantasy of childhood innocence to lead the audience on a hallucinatory trip into today’s global chaos. Each scene of the interactive installation builds on the audiences physical participation to question our place in history and individual accountability.

Initially the audience is passive for a short animation as Alice leaps off the page. Alice lures us into a topsy-turvy world where 19th century images collide with iconic moments of the 20th century. In front of the looking glass, fantasy and reality merge as Alice fluidly mirrors the viewer’s every move. A surreal landscape leads to a contemporary world of global change. Alice disappears and we land firmly back in contemporary Berlin

Please also see Ethel, Al, Turing Machine.

Created (program/animation) by Ruth Sergel.

White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane on Surrealistic Pillow.

Thanks to Peter von Salis, Kay Kastner + Multimedier Schlachthof, Mark Coniglio, Antonia Humm, Victoria Rothe and Helmut Tausentaufeld.

Exhibition: Arcilesi Homberg Fine Art (NYC), Out of Line Gallery (Chicago), Multimedier Schlachthof/ 48 Stunden Neukölln (Berlin).

Ethel

Live Interactive Documentary Performance (2007)

Created with Ethel Greenbaum, 89 years old.

Viewers enter a room where Ethel sits quietly at a dining table. Raising her hand, the table becomes a projection surface. Her movement triggers snippets from her life story. The audience is invited to use their hand movement to hear additional stories.

The memorabilia of Ethel’s life fades away. Ethel stands & for the first time directly addresses the audience:

We’re all human beings. We’re all one. You have to keep your spirits up. Without love a person cannot live. Its just beautiful to be here and see this crowd of people. Young ones and an old one like me and a middle-aged one and a baby that is the most precious thing of all. I see every color here, every nationality here, and that’s what this world needs. Love in many many ways. You can love a husband. Partners can love each other. You can love an animal but the basic thing of a life is to love and be loved by a human being and to love them in return

Ethel thanks the audience for attending and passes out chocolates and copies of a love letter she wrote to her late husband.

Please also see Belle, Al, Turing Machine

Created (program/camera/edit) by Ruth Sergel
Performer Ethel Greenbaum

Thank you Fay Greenbaum & Luke DuBois.

ITP Spring Show 2007

Created (program/camera/edit) by Ruth Sergel
Performer Ethel Greenbaum

Thank you Fay Greenbaum & Luke DuBois.

ITP Spring Show 2007

Turing Machine

Interactive Documentary (2007)
Created in collaboration with Gian Pablo Villamil.

Turing Machine utilizes a re-purposed typewriter as a model Turing Machine to depict the life of Alan Turing, the father of modern computing. Reknowned for his role in breaking the infamous Enigma code during World War II, Turing was later persecuted for his homosexuality.

For more information on Alan Turing please visit the Alan Turing Scrapbook and the Turing Archive for the History of Computing.

Please also see Ethel, Al

Exhibition

ITP Spring Show (2007)

Participant in Turing Machine installation

Credits

Created by Ruth Sergel + Gian Pablo Villamil

Exhibition ITP Spring Show (2007)

Al

Interactive Documentary (2005)

A portrait of homeless artist Alfred Carlo based on his stories and paintings. The audience moves physical objects which reveal and manipulate documentary video of Al’s multifaceted life as painter, vet, raconteur and man of the street.

Please also see Ethel, Turing Machine

Al was presented as a work-in-progress at the Troika Ranch Live-I Workshop at 3-Legged Dog in New York.