Übung am Phantom – Revisited II: Count Me In (1)

In 1993, exactly 20 years after the 1st International Women’s Film Seminar in West Berlin in November 1973, the women’s curator, artist and researcher collective Übung am Phantom [Exercising the Phantom] was founded. Founding members were an art historian, a film theorist, a writer and a physician. After the fall of the wall there was a sense of opening that extended beyond urban space. In the intellectual environment of post-structuralist informed gender theory we believed interdisciplinary collaboration could open up new, unfinished spaces for thought and practice.

Übung am Phantom set out to investigate concepts of femininity in films from the aesthetic and political avant-garde. Beginning with structural films from the 1960s and 70s, which had replaced lineal cinematic narration with a narration of structure, the work continued with programmes of feminist film looking to determine women’s political scope of action, e.g. in the context of the major and minor contradiction – i.e. the double exploitation of women as workers and housewives – or of the subversive potential of performance.

Übung am Phantom (1993-1995): Anke Kempkes, Eva Peters, Monika Rinck, Stefanie Schulte Strathaus