Script File

SYSTEM DESIGN FOR IMPROVISED EPISODIC STORYTELLING

My system design for improvised episodic storytelling primarily explores the relationship between working with systems and the contents this process discharges.
Three systems generate an unscripted dialogue, scene, plot - a whole TV-series:
1 Reflection time between the alternating mutual (re)actions of at least two actors: 
creates FOOTAGE.
2 Repeating problems of any kind and continuing differently: 
creates CONTENT and UNITY - thank you Thelonious Monk.
3 Each performer(group) is or has their own director, camera, editor and music:
creates (aesthetic) CHARACTERS.

  • Sabina Maria van der Linden
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Television Script, Other
  • Number of Pages:
    1
  • Country of Origin:
    Germany
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Ars Digitalis-Vebacom Award, Animation Megaflittchen
    Berlin, Germany
    November 14, 2015
    2nd Prize Computer Animation
Writer Biography - Sabina Maria van der Linden

EDUCATION
2009-2010
Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam, NL
1976-1979
Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, NL
1973-1974
Hochschule für bildende Kunst, Berlin, DE

FELLOWSHIP / GRANTS / RESIDENCIES
2013
Arbeitsstipendium of the Culture Department of the Berlin Senate, DE
2011- 2012
Basisstipendium of the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture
2010
KRC Collection, NL
2009
Projektstipendium of the Culture Department of the Berlin Senate, DE
Van Bijleveltstichting, NL
2009- 2010
Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten/Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science
2007
Arbeitsstipendium of the Culture Department of the Berlin Senate, DE
Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Berlin, DE
2006
Triangle France and Videochroniques, Marseille, FR
Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Paris, FR
2004
Künstlerinnenprogramm of the Culture Department of the Berlin Senate, DE

AWARDS
1997
'Ars Digitalis-Vebacom Award', for 2D computer animation 'Megaflittchen'

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2015
'A weekend with Sabina Maria van der Linden', Exile, New York City, USA
2014
'Depressiva' Gallery September, Berlin, DE
'Give Us The Future' Neue Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, DE, 'Omigosh - An Economy of Narcissistic Reward' installation and performance
2013
'La Fille Neomoderne' Performance and Installation 'Early Works' Gallery Tete, Berlin, D
2011
'Readymade, Performance Trouvée', 'Funeral Charade of Poses', HAU2, Berlin, DE
2010
Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam, NL, 'RijksakademieOPEN', Video 'Depressiva', installation and performance 'Thoughts, cellphone monologues and conversations' (exh. cat.)
2009
Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam, NL, 'RijksakademieOPEN', Video 'Girlfriends', Wallinstallation.
Video and Performance 'Een lepeltje bruine suiker', premiere (exh. cat.) September, Berlin, DE
2007
Laura Mars Grp., Berlin, DE, 'Fluffy Minimalism', installation and performance, with Ursula Döbereiner
basso, Berlin, DE, 'Perfectly You', video premiere, and BASSO magazine 'Perfectly You'
2006
Triangle France, Marseille, FR, 'I like Politique', performance 'Perfectly You'
2002
Laura Mars Grp., Berlin, DE, 'Sabiha', video premiere
1997
Galerie Rupert Goldsworthy, Berlin, DE, video animation 'Megaflittchen'

TEACHING ACTIVITIES
2009 - 2010 AKV/St. Joost, Den Bosch, NL, workshop facilitator
2014 - 2014 Workshop facilitator, Hochschule Für Bildende Künste Hamburg, DE

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Writer Statement

"I'm a deeply superficial person"
Andy Warhol

"It is the form of appearance that really wins out over what appears, in the same way as metaphysics really precede physics, and not just in terms of logic.... Everyone looks to sell themselves and no one can manage to do it convincingly."
Comité Invisible, "Premiers Matériaux pour une Théorie de la Jeune-Fille"

The films, video installations, and performances of the Berlin-based Dutch artist Sabina Maria van der Linden examine female role models and the structures of representation and power in capitalist societies, in which bodies and relationships are ruthlessly economized. The desire for flawless beauty, absolute control, and perfection, and the reality hiding behind this façade: depression, feelings of inferiority, isolation, addiction, shame.
At the same time, van der Linden’s deeply narcissistic, perfection-obsessed YOUNG GIRL Cosmos is an homage to a variety of tropes from the entertainment industry: early Disney films, Vogue and voguing, models and runways, ads and Busby Berkeley musicals from the 1930s and 1940s, jingles and muzak. Van der Linden’s Depressiva trilogy (Depressiva, 2010, Subterranean Breathing, 2010, and Skype, 2011) explores the consequences of this overdose: cold turkey, panic, paralysis — which van der Linden sets in scene in the form of screwball comedies and slapstick chamber plays.
Van der Linden’s video and performance works owe as much influence to the early films of Warhol and Fassbinder as to mechanical Bauhaus ballets, bondage, and vintage pornography. They are all based on a compositional process that plays through the mechanisms of individual and collective control on an array of levels. Her films almost always arise as collective projects with actors, fellow artists, and directors. The point of departure consists of improvisations that are care- fully regimented: the setting and costumes determine the actors’ movements, the dialogues and monologues do not arise spontaneously, but take place with countless interruptions and repetitions — for as long as it takes to arrive at a result that is both authentic and completely artificial.
The continuously controlled improvisation process leads to content that is self-evident: the dialogues veer off in unexpected departures, the repetitions give rise to new meaning, or a lack thereof. The actors and voices in van der Linden’s video works often quote from pre-exis- ting material: art historical and feminist texts, texts that are critical of capitalism, artists’ statements, affirmative advertising slogans. Like the cloned YOUNG GIRL figures and the decorative backdrops, costumes, and objects in van der Linden’s films, language emerges as a modular form that speaks in ever-changing constellations of beauty, but also of emptiness, isolation, and superficiality.

Oliver Koerner von Gustorf, 2014