Members: Constanze Ruhm im Gespräch mit Christa Blümlinger

<p>The conversation with media and film artist Constanze Ruhm focuses in particular on works from the last 20 years, starting with curatorial activities such as the exhibition <em>Fate of Alien Modes</em> (2003) commissioned by the Secession, which highlighted the discursive connections between film and art. After studying visual media design with Peter Weibel, her artistic projects evolved from conceptual art and an interest in digital technologies and media dispositives to the reconstruction of cinematic spaces and a critique of male-coded visual regimes and scenarios. Constanze Ruhm explains the gestures of appropriation she developed in the course of her work with female figures in film history. In the course of her research, which takes her from film archives to historical sites, she reinterprets ancient myths from a feminist perspective and links them to the roles of real figures and contemporary contexts. In this context, the conversation focuses on Ruhm’s work on Italian feminism, which stems from her engagement with Carla Lonzi. This is evident, among other things, in her interest in gestures of interruption and resistance as possibilities for political action, but also as strategies for self-empowerment and for making female labour and solidarity visible. The figure of the rehearsal plays a special role in Ruhm’s cinematic essays on forms of reenactment and casting. It leads to an essential question: how can the historical feminism of the 1970s be viewed from the present, and what can it say to younger generations today?</p> <p>This episode was recorded on 7 July 2025 at the Secession.</p>