Ulu Braun

In a place where a biblical landscape and western myths converge, there is a house, part biker hangout, part mountain farm. It welcomes all beings who traverse this inhospitable landscape. In „The Hostel“, past and future merge into one place, and deepest misery and recreation are not mutually exclusive. This is where our paths cross.

The magical-realist camera follows the trials and encounters of Jonathan as he attempts to fulfill his mother’s final wish: that her ashes be laid to rest at Alexanderplatz, Berlin. Carrying her blue urn and searching for a suitable location, he attempts to gain permission, assistance, and sometimes merely empathy from his fellow citizens.

Welcome to St. Mickeyland! In painting-like tableaus, a reservation inhabited by cartoon and media icons is displayed. The assembled characters are in search of meaning in life, reflecting on their creation in the honeypot of capital. While Snow White learns stand-up paddling, Winnie-the-Poo gives birth to a descendant, adding a dash of humanity to the ficitonal shell.

There it stands, the vulture. Majestically spreading its wings. Holding its position, it scours the open area. The other birds scrutinize their territory as well. Quo vadis, bird? Ulu Brauns latest film BIRDS looks at the life of birds in urban habitats. They apply their instinctive behaviour to the developed environment. What role do humans play therein? Bags and umbrellas become bushes, buildings become monoliths and people become organisms. The birds are forced to come to terms with a world that they are not responsible for.

What does a day in the life of the most famous painter alive look like? Is it a battleground of colour, a symphony of rebellion, a spectacle of squeegeeing? And what roles do the Sparkasse Bank and mysterious Anselm play in all of that? In his hilarious spoof documentary on the art world, Ulu Braun walks away from his trademark ‘video paintings’ and steps into a full blown AI universe.

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Red rose petals fall on mossy ground. Observed by hunters and gatherers, hikers and nature lovers, a passion play about nature, human achievement, and human degeneration unfolds.

Wellness oases, adventure worlds, and resting places. In Western society, great expectations are attached to the benefits of "free" time. It is a promise of salvation that feeds on the work performance.

The endless tracking shot through a picturesque US panorama allows the American Dream to slide into ghostly auto-suggestion while Assange and Bezos ponder life.

The film installation Rhabarber Boy (rhubarb boy) is setting a fantasy-world in relation to the archaic nature of a child, and raises the question about the moral responsibility of virtual creatures and content. The film describes the life of a wild boy, living in a forest without the influences of civilization. He is keeping an old comic-collage in his cottage and is trying to understand the colorful and figurative images of this icon.

A young mother and her daughters are sitting under a bridge. The camera scans the surroundings and follows them on a strange journey of changing sensory perceptions, self-discovery and different kinds of society. Like some unruly “painting by numbers”, it feels as if they are flying under the radar of symbols – from a Mercedes star to Barbie’s horse and the ruins of the world’s largest automobile factory in Detroit. How does one grow up in this kind of world?

Rather than reinventing the wheel, Ulu Braun re-envisions the structural potentiality of the brick, in this revisionist fable of mankind's urbanization of our planet. Employing playful and visually dense digital collages, Braun's associative tableaux collate an 'alternate' vision of our world, where nature invades the urban (and vice-versa). We're transported by a comforting narrator through post-apocalyptic, post-capitalist habitats, where the material co-exists with the metaphysical, the literal alongside the figurative (soap-bubble buildings stand alongside ruined churches turned car dealerships). Architektura echoes our civilization's childlike ingenuity in creation and destruction, as we question the inheritance we pass on to our future generations.

A presumably African village, inhabited by Germans. BURKINA BRANDENBURG KOMPLEX describes a geographical construction that makes use of “our” medial and collective image of Africa and puts it to the test through inaccuracies. An archaeological find is made in a mine: a Ferrari®. We tag along with Joachim on his everyday rounds. He has his heart set on realising a common energy project. The Museum of Prussian Cultural Heritage is run by a woman of color. She presents artefacts from Western consumer culture with a special emphasis on German products. Joachim is involved in the ritualistic production of energy in the village, but gets excluded when the ceremony is nearing its finale, finally catapulting himself out of the “story/history”.