Poetry Expo 26
/ 15 February 2026
Lieder der Dreistigkeit / Songs of Audacity
7 Poetry Film Rituals
Poetry Expo 2026
Three years after the publication of Ditzler’s debut poetry collection Lieder der Dreistigkeit (Songs of Audacity), the seven accompanying experimental and performative poetry films have been combined into a single long-form poetry film. It consists of seven ritualistic sections, each comprising a poem, a performance, and a moving image.
The work addresses (post-)Soviet identity, political mythologies, aggressive and abysmal femininity, propaganda, and ironic spirituality. The rituals draw on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s psychomagic, are intended to be experienced sensually, and explore the liminal space between the sacred and the profane, between madness and mysticism.
The sound collages are largely composed of found sounds, assembled in a musique concrète manner. The videos are partly staged and partly assembled from archival material. The arrangement of the individual elements often follows an esoteric or numerological compositional principle. The performance concepts themselves are based on a playful engagement with the complexes of magic and ritual.
The project is part of the subthemes Writing After – Catastrophe, Memory, and the Archive of Loss, Unruly Forms – Experiments in the Poetic Wild.
Author
Katia Sophia Ditzler
Katia Sophia Ditzler, * 1992, is a Russian-German interdisciplinary media artist, writer, and cultural anthropologist. Educated in Leipzig, Kyiv, Moscow, Yogyakarta, and Berlin, she works on the intersection of text, sound, video, performance art, and extended reality. She lives and works in Berlin, Bochum, and Zurich. More at www.katiasophiaditzler.com
