Dorothea Grießbach, City_Neighbourhood_Videos, 2013, Hamburg

Dorothea Grießbach, Stadt_Teile_Videos, 2013, Hamburg

 

In autumn 2012, Dorothea Grießbach learned about a media group for teenagers in the Sonnenland district at the outskirts of Hamburg. For her research project City_Neighbourhood_Videos (Stadt_Teile_Videos), Grießbach assembled teenagers she met there to create their own videos. For many young people, Billstedt, the Sonnenland streets, and the local community project are the centre of their urban life and not, for example, the inner city of Hamburg. As a documentary filmmaker and researcher, Grießbach was interested in internet videos from a local context, from Hamburg Billstedt, far away from the popular and posh neighbourhoods that dominate the image of Hamburg. Her research question was aimed at different ideas of the public and the interests of the teenage video makers to publish on the Internet. In the media group, she worked with young video makers whose videos she had found published on the Internet, who had their own online video channel and who liked to work with the camera or who planned to make their own videos.

For City_Neighbourhood_Videos, teenagers from the media group worked on videos that represented their own interests and/or their neighbourhood. Grießbach presented those in a collection of different videos from Billstedt and Horn in a screening and lecture about the films shown. In addition, together with the teenagers, she created a performative media installation in the community centre of the Sonnenland district that incorporated a larger selection of videos and photos. The videos had different aesthetics. Some were presented offline, some could be streamed online. They were based on different concepts of publics and participation. Different expectations that users have of internet platforms – as archive, stage, forum, communication window or portal to fame – became evident in the confrontation of the different media and formats. Grießbach also used the 12th floor of the high-rise building opposite the community centre. While visitors were taking in the view over Hamburg, a (documentary) sound collage with voices and atmospheric recordings from Sonnenland could be heard: attributions, memories, interpretations of Sonnenland, formulated by ‘Sonnenlanderians’.

 

Researchers: Dorothea Griessbach

Collaboration: Stadtteilprojekt Sonnenland e.V.

Formats: Testing in Performance