Silent Rocco | Blog

In 2012, I already had the chance to send the Metroccolis Man Machines to Hannover to perform for the Ministry at their huge CeBIT booth. We had tons of fun and our robot was a real crowd magnet. People were cueing to get close.

2013 arrived and we got asked to perform for the same client again, since the first round was that successful. So, we charged our batteries and went to Hannover. This time, we were even more free and could use the whole booth as our playground. And we did! Handing out pills to visitors, riding spinning bikes, gaining attention at the welcome desk, working as a survey bot equipped with a tablet loaded with questions, spreading vouchers or simply being a great subject for photographers and cameramen; there was a lot to do. Read more

SmirkMasks and Metroccolis invite you to the great great great absolutely amazing and outstanding 1st FREAXED OPEN! We will meet on 09.09.2012, 2 PM at the Flugfeld Tempelhof for a nice BBQ and MASQUERACE (200m 1on1 shootout)! Submissions for the race till Friday 7th – races will start around 3 PM. The winner will become world-famous and will win an original BTTB BoneBar©! Read more

Konnichiwa! I’m writing these words in the middle of Shibuya, Tokyo – one of the craziest places on earth. And that’s the reason why I can’t write too much right now. I still have to see, hear, breath and experience what’s happening around me. Constantly. It’s massive! Hard to describe. Going to Tokyo was my biggest dream in life. And last year, a friend called me and asked, if I’m interested to help making a science fiction movie in this city. I was speechless. Then, the tragic Fukushima incident stopped all plans for one year. But here I am, in the middle of Shibuya, Tokyo – producing an impassioned indie film with a bunch of damn cool people. And believe me, I would love to continue writing for hours now. About the city, about our film called FONOTUNE, about me already doing mime performances here, about speed, differences, food, customs, prog-rock, about meeting old friends & about new ones. But there simply is no time right now. Time is running twice as fast over here. So, I’m sure I will come back with some adventurous stories. Until then, just follow me on Facebook and enjoy these pics I took. Arigato! Read more

… I’m just still occupied fighting evil unicorns. I’LL BE BACK SOON (after saving mankind) !!

Mark Jenkins is an American artist based in Washington, DC. Since 2003, he has been creating lifelike installations using a unique, cheap and pretty ingenious technique to assemble realistic clones of himself that he then sets up in different places in all over the world, often in a very provocative, sometimes even disturbing way. All he needs is some plastic wrap and some box sealing tape. There is also a special website that’s showing you how it’s done. The result is nothing short of brilliant. Just scroll down and have a look at some of his best works. And after arriving at the bottom of this post, after sharing, liking and leaving a comment, make sure to head over to Mark’s homepage to see many more of his fantastic installations. He even set up a fake living statue at THE European street-walkers’ patch for acts like these – Las Ramblas in Barcelona – and he obviously made quite some money (click the title image for a video). Now, enjoy the pictures. And to all my real living statue friends out there: Think about it. Read more

Étienne Decroux (1898-1991) – one of the most important people in the history of contemporary theater, “father” of the modern mime/pantomime and teacher of famous mime artists like Jean-Louis Barrault and Marcel Marceau – spent nearly all his life creating and developing a subgroup of physical theater that he called mime corporel dramatique; the dramatic corporeal mime. With this article, I don’t want to explain that art form in detail (Google can help you here), I rather want to give you my personal insights on it, what I think is interesting or important. Read more

Either I have been doing the robot for a very long time already. Or the extremely skilled film geek Krabaz from filmaton in Leipzig just perfectly knows how to recreate the VHS look & feel of the ’80s. Enjoy 27 seconds of a journey back to the days of charming video interferences, cheesy sci-fi rock music and silly soft porn.

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Since I’m still in the mood to show you stuff that really impresses me and since I totally wanted to see these last to headlines in a row, here we go with another little off-topic post. In 2009, I accompanied Marie Elisa Scheidt – an impassioned filmmaker and the person who stole my heart – to her screening at the DOK Leipzig, the oldest documentary film festival in the world. There we also watched a program of selected animated shorts. And one piece just blew me (and the whole audience) away. Since then, PLEASE SAY SOMETHING from the young and visionary David O’Reilly has been my absolute favorite short film with its unique style, its thought-provoking story and its strong emotional impact. For me, 10 minutes of animated perfection. Enjoy:

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I just finished the novel Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami. After reading the last sentence, I closed the book (a real one) and sat there – absolutely speechless. I love these moments; sometimes seconds, sometimes minutes or even hours. Brilliant artistic work can make that happen. And all my life, I’m searching for these moments. It’s hard to describe, but extremely wonderful to experience. It’s kind of the first raw and intuitive reaction of your inner self after a new terrific exploration. Cheap entertainment is easy, getting truly touched needs something special. That’s the difference of art and great art for me. Be it a song, a photograph, a movie, a theater performance – if it makes me speechless, it’s a winner and won’t leave my memory ever again. Read more