NEW SALON

THE NEW SALON

Qualities of Togetherness. Embodied.
Curated by: Micha Stella

doors open at 19// From 19:30 to 23 // Sliding scale from 10€ - 25€ // Drop in

6.3.24 “DOING IT ALL, the Social Power of Single Motherhood“

I am very excited to welcome Ruby Russell, who will share her thought-provoking Memoir/Manifesto "Doing It All".

Ruby dares to present a new perspective on motherhood, liberated from male control and transcending patriarchal constraints. Her book courageously explores the intersectional history of the resilience of single mothers, rooted in Ruby's personal journey and is at the same time a quest for empowerment and a much-needed critique of societal structures that marginalize and exhaust single mothers.

"Doing It All" is more than just a political manifesto; it's a call to reclaim mothering as a powerful life force: the foundation for a more empathic society, built on care and connection, fostering collective conscious communities and sustainability for humanity and for the earth.

About Ruby Russell

Ruby Russell is a journalist, writer, editor and single mum from London, based in Berlin.

Russell started out publishing books of photojournalism with award-winning publisher Trolley. Frustrated with the mediation of stories of injustice through the reporter's lens, she then worked on participatory projects that helped marginalised groups – from British teenage single mothers and adults with mental health challenges, to young women born and raised in refugee camps in North Africa – to tell their own stories and advocate for visibility.

She has written for The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and Deutsche Welle.

For the last decade her journalistic work has focused on the ecological crisis.

17.1.24 “GROWING WISER“ on 17th of January 2024 at 19 with Ruby May

As we grow older, we might increasingly wonder why a lot of information about our bodies and their

processes are kept secret, especially regarding sexuality, and even more when concerning the female body.

Our society largely ignores the elements that could potentially empower and support both our individual and collective growth. With the range of conditions that women’s bodies can experience from sexual ‘dysfunctions’ to widely common occurrences such as menstrual pain, PMS, endometriosis and menopausal symptoms, the medical systems attempts to ‘resolve’ these by covering up the symptoms, rather than seeing them as a wake up call to confront deeper root causes and often the destructive systems we live in.

No wonder that in this situation, strong feelings of rage and pain can emerge in relation to our betrayed and abused

planet, and our personal stories and struggles. This might be more evident in older women who have endured even more personally the absurdities and the violence of this capitalistic and patriarchal society, amplified by the rites of passage that is menopause.

I believe it's time to cultivate collective consciousness and reclaim knowledge that can enhance individual awareness, joy and freedom.

For this edition of the New Salon on “Growing Wiser“, I have invited Ruby May, international workshop facilitator

specializing in intimacy, sexuality, body awareness, and female cyclical rhythms. Her extensive research and

experiences aim to inspire us toward collective wisdom.

Ruby May: is an educator, activist, coach and community leader in the field of feminine leadership and human connection, who is rallying for a revolution through listening to the wisdom of our bodies.

After a decade of researching and studying intimacy, sexuality and shadow work, offering one-to-one sessions and facilitating workshops internationally, her interest in feminine leadership and collective shadows around power was catalysed by her work as a professional dominatrix.

In 2018, she founded Know Your Flow, an online education and membership program bringing together an international network of women who are exploring menstrual cycle awareness as a tool for developing body literacy, inspiring their leadership and creating cultural change, as well as co-founded Sensing the Change, an initiative that brought together somatics and political activism. Since 2023 she has worked as the community leader for the largest cycle awareness school in the world, Red School, leading their community of graduates of the Menstruality Leadership training. Her collaboration When Women Blossom seeks to create a new narrative around the topic of being a woman and aging.

She is also author of the interactive journal Know Your Flow and creator of The Game, a card game that brings people together to experience deeper and more meaningful intimacy. www.rubymay.co

15.11.23 CYBER KINKY GAMES - DIGITAL & PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS, AI & MIXED-REALITY with Matthias Smetana.

Matthias will share his knowledge about Sex AI and shows how the digital world and artificial realities are affecting sex consumption and porn content creation through conversational LLM’s ( Large Language Models) and picture generating artificial intelligences. In the talk he will demonstrate how easy nude, voice and text clones are created, and confront their possible misuse and fraud. There also will be showcased two virtual reality sex games. One heteronormative game called “CherryVX” by Polybay and a fetish dinosaur game named “Dinohazard – Mutant Alley” by TailsUp4Tyranno. To offer insight into mixed reality sex there will be a VR setup with “CherryVX” and a silicone sex doll from Cybrothel which will allow participants to dive into a digital sex vortex with the use of a Strap-On.

Matthias Smetana is a Sextech Entrepreneur and Artificial Intelligence Specialist known for his inquisitive nature and unwavering commitment to pushing boundaries. He has backgrounds in mechanics, electronics, international business and innovation management, Matthias is uniquely positioned at the intersection of technology and commerce.

Currently Matthias is dedicated to the development of Sex AI, a pioneering initiative at Cybrothel which is a Sex Doll brothel based in Berlin, that seeks to redefine human intimacy through innovation in Mixed Reality, AI, Cybersex, and Robotics. In both his professional and personal life, he exemplifies a bridge between technology and physical experiences, with a focus on Virtual and Augmented Reality, AI, and erotic innovation.

If you have inquiries or questions, you can reach out to him matthias@cybrothel.com or www.cybrothel.com

20.9.2023 ON CRITICAL JOURNALISMS, the body of freedom (and thinking with one’s legs)
with Nadja Vancauwenberghe, Journalist, senior reporter and publisher, founder of Exberliner magazine.

Doors open 20// From 20:30 to 23:30 // Donation-based from 10€ and up // Drop in

We welcomed journalist, senior reporter and publisher Nadja Vancauwenberghe. She shared her experience, after spending twenty years running an independent publication, and working in diverse capacities (from news agency to war-reporting to magazine publishing) across four languages, and how this helped sharpen her analysis of the distorted media age we live in.

As she explains it, we live in a confused information age, in which professional media have failed in their mission to inform adequately and to act as counter-powers: mainstream Ideological conformism (to do with both state and private media oligarchies), (self)censorship and the distribution of information organised across social/digital’s echo chambers (each cultivating their own (alternative) truths) – have all contributed to a dangerous polarisation of our societies across irreconcilable divides.

The recent Corona episode and now the Ukraine War are two examples of how difficult it has become for journalists to do their job: to investigate and challenge established B&W discourses; to reflect the many shades of grey reality is made of. For that Nadja calls for journalists to go back to the roots: first-hand, ground reporting.

“I’m often baffled by young journalists’ lack of reporting practice and their ignorance of the ground is astounding. How can you report about something you have no clue about? You haven't seen? Go!"

“Recently, I was talking to a friend who’s a famous International war correspondent for French TV - and he told me “you know, in my job, I think with my feet” it made me laugh and … wish more journalists did - that they used their feet!!"

Nadja - also with her tireless work as a film curator, wishes to reclaim a space for critical thinking and lively conversations. She has a long experience of training her staff and juniors in critical media analysis, because she believes that in our information-saturated age, it is crucial to give journalists (and their audience) some markers and tools to help them unravel the information web they soak in.

Using her experience as a war reporter in Russia, and an editor in Berlin, she will explain how to approach news and mass media, identifying sources, fact-checking steps and options; to look for diversity and beyond media agenda; to understand the difference between a journalism angle and a political bias, to critically approach controversial news … and to be open to challenge our own opinions and certitudes with new facts and information…

Journalism is by essence inquisitive and potentially disruptive but it takes distance, guts and time.

Doors open 20// From 20:30 to 23:30 // Donation-based from 10€ and up //

Drop-In until availability

Nadja Vancauwenberghe co-founded EXBERLINER, the Berlin magazine which she ran for 21years. She studied journalism in London; Russian and politics in Paris.

Sent to Moscow on a doctoral scholarship, she embarked on a journalism career, working for AFP‘s Moscow Bureau, while freelancing investigative stories for international media, most notably undercover reports from the Chechen war. Blacklisted by the Putin regime in 2002, Nadja came to Berlin and founded EXBERLINER with two fellow journalists in 2002.

Responsible for the magazine’s content since its creation, she’s developed an editorial concept driven by a strict commitment to first-hand journalism and her enduring belief in quality print journalism.

COMING SOON on 25th & 26th September 2023

exBlicks Special: Donbas(s) on Film /4 films – 4 original takes on the embattled region.

A mini festival curated and hosted by Nadja Vancauwenberghe

-----> Donbas(s)

10.5.23

MIDLIFE with Katja Bigalke & Marietta Schwarz

Together with Katja Bigalke & Marietta Schwarz, we will discuss their recent project “MIDLIFE“, that, after being a very successful Podcast, just turned into a book, which questions, explores and addresses the challenges and wonders of being in “the middle of life“.

Is the experience of getting older the same for everybody?

What makes a difference?

How does it change relationships – those to friends, parents, partners, kids?

How does it affect our sexuality?

The way we take care or appreciate our bodies? And so much more...

New paragraph

08.03.2023

Reimagining educational relationships: post-pedagogy and the consent to learn

// Guest: Gregor Arntz

Together with Gregor Arntz, we will dive into the world of practices and theoretical thoughts around the post-pedagogical concept of Amication.

--> https://www.amication.de/philosophie.html

Post-pedagogy aims at reshaping the relationships inside teacher-student or parent-child relations, removing the notion that parents (or teachers) know best and may therefore impose their convictions on younger humans. Self-responsibility on both sides is put central, whilst the responsibility for another being is critically analysed for its intrusive and smothering potential. How can we imagine relationships of learning as friendships, rather than parent-child or teacher-student-relations? What does this say about our early experiences on consent and emotional empowerment?

Gregor grew up in a family that explicitly tried to be non-pedagogical. He continued to dive deeper into his interest and critical relation to given pedagogical approaches and finished the first state examination in university teacher training for primary schools. He is actively engaged in the amication community, co-organises this years’ summer-seminar.

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16.11.2022

Sick Sex & Healthy Sex?!

The Pathologization of Sexual Behavior // Guest: Psychiatrist Gustavo Gehling

Studies on human sexuality started over one hundred years ago in the institute of medicine of Berlin. Some of the first movement of sexual marginalized minorities (as LGBT, Gay) have reach visibility, recognition and support thank to some of those studies, but the medicalization of sexuality puts still lot of stigma on people with non normative sexual expressions and behaviour. Gustavo Gehling will share his experience as psychiatrist and his point of view, using some exemples (on libido, trans-sexuality, paraphilia) to discuss how the political bias in sexual medicine plays a role in what we view as normal or not and how this affects our sexual freedom.

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14.09.2022

Our Bodies, the Temple of Creation // Guest: Itay Ganot

Itay will introduce us to a Modern Mystic Art journey, a path of Creation, to awaken the Intelligence of our Bodies and the Power of our Spiritual Craft and Magic. We wish to collectively reach the doors of our consciousness and learn how to heal ourself and shift realities, reclaiming our eternal essence of artist and master creator of our lives.

Itay Ganot is a multi- diverse artist, creator, director, choreographer and modern mystic. Today, in the midst of a decade of intensive practical research and over 400 sessions in various formats for thousands of people (individuals, groups, companies and artists from all over the spectrum), Modern Mystic Arts offers a wide range of innovative structures for changing states of consciousness, psycho-magical rituals, and the keys to mystic movements.

https://www.modernmysticarts.com

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18.05.2022

Martial Arts and Self Defence// Guest: Daniel Rohe

Together with Daniel, we will experience a journey through different styles of Martial Arts and Self Defence. Doing the exercises together, we will explore and express the aesthetics of our own bodies. This pragmatic approach wish to make us more aware et empower ourself.

Daniel Rohe has started to study Martial Arts in his childhood. He earned three Black Belts and won several Championships. Furthermore he was trained by the Special Forces in Self Defence.

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23.03.2022

Designing (for) conversations with bodies // Guest: Sam Chermayeff

Sam Chermayeff (Office) is creating spaces, objects and atmospheres that help us see ourselves in concert with others. The work is about interacting with functions. Sometimes we are creating bodies. Sometimes the work is in a dance with bodies. Sometimes we are connecting bodies.

https://samchermayeffoffice.com/

https://032c.com/the-chermayeff-century/

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17.11.2021

Home Body - Free body // Guests: Pr. Martin Gruber assisted by Viatcheslav Kushkov

Together with Martin, we will bring awareness to our inhibiting patterns ad learn how to reach a new quality of movement and sensitivity. We will discuss and experience how to feed our movements with presence, trust and ultimately connect with our inherent knowledge, to achieve more joy and freedom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gruber_(choreographer)

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22.09.2021

New Systems - Shifting body awareness // Guest: Dr. Alan Bern

Together with Alan, we will dive into the world of the smallest entities in creative body communication - our impulses! We will talk about perspectives on how we collectively shape decisions and how deeply our understanding of self is relying on interactions and evaluations of the Other. Inspired by his improvisation method Present Time Composition, we want to open a space for conversation on Sexual Empowerment and the architectures of collective sensual creativity!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Bern

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What does it take to be “together”?

How does being connected feel in your body?

Are you many?

The New Salon is a space for encounter. It’s a personal space for experts and guests, to share thoughts, aesthetics and expressions.

We invite you to collectively explore dimensions of EMBODIED TOGETHERNESS: in conversation, through expert-inputs, small performances, physical exercises and contemporary rituals. Intellectually empowering, pragmatic and curious, the salon evenings invite you to learn, contribute and ask.

“OUR DARLINGS“ – Topics of the next evenings.