With her slim green volume Bottroper Protokolle (‘Bottrop Protocols’, Suhrkamp 1968), Erika Runge coined the term and helped shape the practice of documentary literature. Born in 1939 in Halle an der Saale and passing away in late October 2023, Runge was a television director, PhD-holding author, committed feminist, and communist. In this book, she collected eight almost verbatim life stories of people from the Ruhr area. The tape-recorded interviews, conducted on location and transcribed with the speakers’ original idioms intact, were initially intended as research material for a feature-length film. As a by-product of this ultimately unrealised project, the highly acclaimed documentary film Why is Mrs B. Happy?(WDR, 43 min) was released in 1968. In it, Erika Runge invited Maria Bürger—coal miner’s widow, housewife, and cleaner, and one of the women interviewed in the book—to play the role of her own life.
The event Erika Runge und das systemsprengende Potenzial des Glücksanspruchs (‘Erika Runge and the System-Shattering Potential of the Pursuit of Happiness’) addresses the remarkably wide-ranging literary and cinematic work of Erika Runge, which moved fluidly between the arts and media. From the mid-1990s, the author and director—who consistently resisted narrow categorisation and early on demonstrated a sensitivity to the multidimensional nature of social power structures and the experiences of oppression they produce—worked as a psychotherapist in Berlin. The screenings and discussions focus on the tension between the individual pursuit of happiness and the common good, a theme that recurs throughout Runge’s books, films, and radio plays, including Michael oder die Schwierigkeiten mit dem Glück (1975), Anna auf der Suche nach dem Glück (1977), and Lias Traum vom Glück (1990).
This idea of happiness as a political, system-shattering force, and the critical reflections it inspires on rethinking the relationship between individual and society, forms the basis of a new artistic work by the Berlin-based artist duo titre provisoire (Cathleen Schuster and Marcel Dickhage). Following in-depth engagement with Runge’s oeuvre and intensive archival research, their film A cold case or happiness (2023) was created during a residency in Los Angeles. It premiered in summer 2023 as part of a solo exhibition of the same name at the Halle für Kunst Lüneburg and is now being shown in Berlin for the first time in dialogue with Runge’s work.
Due to the limited accessibility of Erika Runge’s films—most of which were produced for public broadcasters—public engagement with her work remains primarily focused on her writings. Alongside well-known books such as Bottrop Protocols (1968) and Women. Attempts at Emancipation (1969), this event also revisits her 1976 essay “Reflections Upon Saying Farewell to Documentary Literature”, in which she reflects on the reception and political efficacy of the documentary approach. In collaboration with the Cluster of Excellence Temporal Communities and the Harun Farocki Institute, Berlin (HaFI), this essay has now been republished and made available in English translation at the initiative of titre provisoire. HaFI-Heft 020: Erika Runge: ‘Überlegungen beim Abschied von der Dokumentarliteratur’ / ‘Reflections Upon Saying Farewell to Documentary Literature’, edited by Regine Ehleiter, Clio Nicastro and titre provisoire (Cathleen Schuster/Marcel Dickhage), was publicly presented at the close of the event.
Programme
Wednesday, 29 November 2023
11:00–11:15 | Registration and Welcome
Part I: A COLD CASE
11:15–11:45 | Welcome and Introduction by the organisers: Regine Ehleiter, Florian Fuchs and Till Kadritzke (EXC 2020)
11:45–12:30 | Screening of the film Why is Mrs B. Happy? (FRG, 1968, directed by Erika Runge; produced by WDR; cinematography by Horst Brever; 43 min)
12:30–13:00 | Statement by Bettina Runge, followed by a group discussion of the film
Moderation: Regine Ehleiter, Florian Fuchs and Till Kadritzke
13:00–14:30 | Lunch Break
Part II: HAPPINESS
14:30–15:15 | Screening of the film A cold case or happiness (34 min) by titre provisoire (Cathleen Schuster & Marcel Dickhage), with a brief introduction by the artists
15:15–16:15 | Panel 1 with titre provisoire and Ann-Kathrin Eickhoff (Co-Director, Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg) on their collaborative research into Erika Runge in the context of the solo exhibition at Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg (6 August–24 September 2023)
16:15–16:45 | Coffee Break
16:45–17:30 | Panel 2 with Sebastian Tränkle (EXC 2020) and Sarah Ralfs (Institute for Theatre Studies, Freie Universität Berlin) on Theodor W. Adorno’s and Bertolt Brecht’s writings on happiness
Plenary discussion: Reflections on the reception of these ideas in Erika Runge’s work
Moderation: Regine Ehleiter, Florian Fuchs and Till Kadritzke
17:30–18:00 | Launch of HaFI-Heft 020: “Erika Runge: ‘Reflections Upon Saying Farewell to Documentary Literature’”, presented by Clio Nicastro (Harun Farocki Institute, Berlin, and co-editor)
Time & Location
29 November 2023 | 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Freie Universität Berlin
EXC 2020 “Temporal Communities”
Room 00.05
Otto-von-Simson-Straße 15
14195 Berlin
https://www.temporal-communities.de/events/erika-runge.html
https://www.harun-farocki-institut.org/en/2023/12/20/hafi-020-erika-runge-reflections-upon-saying-farewell-to-documentary-literature/