These Creeps from the Middle East keep on haunting our mind, here at Radio Neverno. All the other editors have left the building, can´t stand it anymore.
Das Blut der Anderen, the latest episode now online, is not entertaining everywhere though, The Creeps team still seems to be looking for the right balance between fast and slow paced scenes. The slow scenes with the father, still too slow and slightly boring again though, combined with the tenderness and estrangement at the same time, contrasting with the scenes at the end of this episode, at The Unsafe House, made me think again.
These scenes at the end of this episode, starring Tarik Sadouma, Sina Khani and some pole dancers and running around nuts, where Sadouma exclaims his analysis of the current world, are so out-of-this-world and that all in black and white, with the shouting crazies at the end of the scene, anticlimaxing in a pole scene of mr. Sina Khani himself are maybe the best scenes I have seen till now in this ongoing sequence, and I have seen all of them.
The absolutely best scenes of Das Blut der Anderen are at the end, with an amazing Tarik Sadouma.
I know The Creeps from the Middle East demands a strong ass, I mean, you have to keep on sitting the whole episode to finally arrive at the climactic scenes in The Unsafe House. As we wrote in a former blog post, The Creeps should work more with actor Tarik Sadouma and they finally seem to have seen the light. He is the strong character needed at the side of Sina Khani, finally we have a duo, nicely to watch.
Sadouma in The Creeps is the uncle you don´t want to have, because he ends up reciting poetry while lurking at the water pipe and nervously touching his nose all the time, a bit like that wannabe philosopher Slavoj Žižek, and ending laughing like a crazy. Sadouma looks like the neighbour while you work on that car in your garage and you hear those strange sounds, cries, shouts and people with extreme laughs ending up in a smoker´s cough and you doubt whether you will pass by but are afraid it might end up badly, for you.
The camera (by Steven Bos), is handheld zooming in and out, while the lighting shimmers all around, black and white is back again in the HD era, Sadouma runs around like a combination of the Siberian Snowman and a preacher in a souk somewhere in the dark alleys of Cairo, young women, some beautiful, some weird looking like stepping out of a horror movie, these last scenes of The Creeps harbour so much richness, in sound and image, you have to see it, time after time, again and again.
This week I was thinking on hilariousness, I even know an artist with the first name Hilarius, protesting each Saturday in the center of Amsterdam against the continuous bombing of Gaza, hilariousness is what this scene is breathing and it saves another slow Creeps from The Middle East at the end, again.
The choice of music during the scene strengthens the visual parts in a way I seldom see anymore, me, as a musician, I am very sensitive to this. There are so many movies where they don´t understand, profoundly, the relation between sound and image, to my opinion, and this scene of The Creeps is an exception to the never ending slur of the bad usage of music in film.
For the first time I am looking forward to the next episode of the Creeps from The Middle East. I hope Sina Khani and his team are working partners again and don´t go to court. This episode convinced me, a bit, of the enormous potential lying beneath the surface of this creepy world, not always pleasing. The slow and fast scenes need some more finetuning though, but I have the feeling The Creeps might end up with a working combination.
(Photo:) On Instagram, Sina Khani claims to have been beaten up by his...new girlfriend.
You always have to take care if you are the carrier of bad news, people may be seduced to haunt you. But, in this case I have an urgent need to ask the question in public: Are the Creeps, the notorious series starring Sina Khani, dead?
I know it has been asked many times before to boost careers that were already on their way downwards, but The Creeps didn´t even seem to have reached their summum.
What happened? Main character Sina Khani, also one of the founders and directors of the project posted last week on a frequented social medium his apologies to not have posted a new episode yet...since a year.
Now, insiders whisper the Creeps team broke up! Khani got into a serious fight with his fellow Creeps creators and, so he told "they broke up". Why? It´s still unknown to outsiders - insiders know better.
I know Khani a little bit longer. You never know whether it´s a new ´episode´ in his theatrical way of being or not, but he looked rather serious, when I asked it him face to face. "It´s not going to be mended", were the last words he uttered on it. The Creeps are dead?
Now, surprisingly, yesterday he posted a new ´episode´, episode 5, Das Blut der Anderen, of The Creeps from the Middle East, which is not new at all, for insiders, but looks exactly like the one they showed months ago in The Unsafe House in Amsterdam. Maybe there is some more post-production work attached to it, but that seems to be marginal. The story that Khani has found his ´real dad´, played by Philip van den Hurk, seems exactly the same. Is it a cover-up for potential new fans, that suggests there is still life in the Creeps project?
To dig a little deeper: The last year Khani seemed to be submerged in the Unsafe House project, initiated by Tarik Sadouma, he even lives in their dwellings and seems to have left Berlin. Did he leave The Creeps behind?
Sadouma, also a character in episode 5, intends himself to boost his ´career´ in several ways. This seems necessary because, as he claims himself, he has been cancelled by Dutch and other culture czars. To achieve this aim Sadouma claims to be running for the USA Venice Biennial pavillion, via his shady contacts with self-proclaimed tech guru Curtis Yarvin, who now even convinces Sadouma, he makes a serious chance to be the USA candidate for the Biennale di Venezia.
Now Sadouma is a great A.I. trailer producer - "I like this satirical way of using it", a friend of mine said. Sadouma is even a reasonable painter, but for the Biennale you need to produce something bigger. Trailers are not enough, and I didn´t see Sadouma produce any big installation yet, or it must be his ´relational artwork´, The Unsafe House itself. Maybe build it in the pavillion in Venice in 2026? Sadouma works like hell on a proposal that has to be brought by Yarvin to a secretary of culture in the ...Trump government. Bypass the liberal wokies of the art domain!
In this context, Sina Khani seems to have left his Creeps project behind , got into the Unsafe House cult, where he probably believes to boost his career in a better way. So, he seems to have hitchhiked into the Unsafe House, where Sadouma even confesses himself that ´he is burning money´, which means they don´t make a dime, except by selling their real estate to some big investment company - a classical capitalist story. Even Art Space 411, the only art venue to show their work in Berlin and currently in Haarlem (NL), has a hard time selling their work, where Sadouma thinks he can multiply his prices now ´Venice´ seems to be that close.
Scratches on the cheek - his girlfriend must be a cat...
But let´s stick to the main character of this post, mr. Sina Khani himself. Last week I was in the neighbourhood to talk to him face to face - yes, in the Unsafe House - but he was not to be seen anywhere around. Even the Unsafe House crew didn´t know where he hung out, I got the excuse: "He is an artist, they sometimes disappear for a few days, you know how it is".
Ok, maybe I was one of the lucky few who saw the PREVIEW of Episode 5, but that was almost a year ago. To present Episode 5 now as a completely new episode is a farce, but what do you expect of mr. Khani?
Steven Bos and Susan Lanting, the co-directors of the ´permanent series of Sina Khani, till he dies´, have totally disappeared from the scene, and story goes they have been in a fight with Khani on legal issues considering who owns the rights of the Creeps from the Middle East.
I hope these are not the first steps into the abyss of mr. Sina Khani, who seemed to be so promising one day...
POST SCRIPT
One of the directors reacted immediately and wrote: " Look from minute 43.00!" to convince us of a coming NEW episode, suggesting The Creepsare not dead at all. We only see a short (new) scene of a squirreldying, symbolic for the Creeps project and a coming s. attempt of one of the characters? WE are NOT convinced the story above ain´t right!
Kunstruimte 411 organiseert deze zomer weer een zomersalon met de titel:`BOOM BOOM CHA´.
Art Space 411 presents BOOM BOOM CHA, a new Summer Salon with participants from Amsterdam, Berlin, Leipzig, Hamburg, Brussels and Haarlem.
(Image: Linda Weiss)
Kunstenaars die bevestigd hebben deel te nemen: Wafae Ahalouch, Arjan van Amsterdam, Anna Bolten, René Bosch, Margreet Bouman, Ronja Brainstorm (Leipzig), Anna Firmberger (Berlin), Maud Fernhout, Archi Galentz (Berlin), Margriet Gehrels, Willem Gorter, Alissa Guillouet (Brussel), Sina Khani (Berlin), Claudia Mulder, Eva van Ooijen, Hans Kuiper, Lucas Lelieveld, Urs Moore, Paul Ouwerkerk, Jean-Philippe Paumier, Luciano Pinna, Antonio Rego (Hamburg),Jean-Philippe Rousset, Ronald Ruseler, Tarik Sadouma,Ben Sampson, Markus Schaller (Berlin), Ivo Schouten, Ruth Spetter, Rutger van der Tas, Marjolein van Veen, Maria van der Velde, Gerard Veldman, Steffen Vogelezang, Ilja Warmerdam, Linda Weiss (Berlin), Jeroen Witvliet, Andreas Wolf (Berlin), Marius van Zandwijk e.a.
Na de salons afgelopen jaar in de Amstelkerk in Amsterdam en recent in Berlijn, organiseert kunstenaar/curator Hans Kuiper deze zomer weer een salon in Haarlem, waarbij een selectie van Haarlemse en Amsterdamse kunstenaars, samen met kunstenaars uit Hamburg, Leipzig, Brussel en Berlijn, nieuw werk tonen.
BOOM BOOM CHA wil een swingende, veelzijdige salon zijn, geïnspireerd op de persoonlijke ritmes die ook de beeldend kunstenaar met zich meedraagt.
Kunstenaars uit Haarlem, Amsterdam, Berlijn, Leipzig, Hamburg en Brussel.
Opening: Zondag 29 juni, vanaf 15.00 uur, met performances.
Locatie: Gebouw Het Seinwezen
Adres: Kinderhuissingel 1, 2013 AS Haarlem
(Image: Paul Ouwerkerk)
ENGLISH
Art Space 411 presents BOOM BOOM CHA, a new Summer Salon with participants from Amsterdam, Berlin, Leipzig, Hamburg, Brussels and Haarlem.
After organising salons in Amsterdam (2024, Amstelkerk) and recently in Berlin (2024-2025: 3 exhibitions in cooperation with InteriorDASein, Gallery Toolbox and Project space ´Rosalux´), initiator Hans Kuiper will organise a summer salon in Haarlem. A selection of artists is invited to participate from Haarlem and Amsterdam in combination with artists from Berlin, Hamburg, Leipzig and Brussels.
BOOM BOOM CHA aims to be a swinging, multimedia salon, inspired by the personal rhythms each artist harbours.
Confirmed participants are a.o. Wafae Ahalouch, Arjan van Amsterdam, Anna Bolten, René Bosch, Margreet Bouman, Ronja Brainstorm (Leipzig), Anna Firmberger (Berlin), Maud Fernhout, Archi Galentz (Berlin), Margriet Gehrels, Willem Gorter, Alissa Guillouet (Brussel), Sina Khani (Berlin), Claudia Mulder, Eva van Ooijen, Hans Kuiper, Lucas Lelieveld, Urs Moore, Paul Ouwerkerk, Jean-Philippe Paumier, Luciano Pinna, Antonio Rego (Hamburg),Jean-Philippe Rousset, Ronald Ruseler, Tarik Sadouma,Ben Sampson, Markus Schaller (Berlin), Ivo Schouten, Ruth Spetter, Rutger van der Tas, Marjolein van Veen, Maria van der Velde, Gerard Veldman, Steffen Vogelezang, Ilja Warmerdam, Linda Weiss (Berlin), Jeroen Witvliet, Andreas Wolf (Berlin), Marius van Zandwijk
Artist/ curator: Hans Kuiper
More Information on this event follows, keep on checking this website for updates on participants.
Photo: Sina Khani & Mohsen Namjoo (Photo: Steven Bos)
We are very happy to be able to present the recording of the interview of Sina Khani (Creeps from the Middle East), Tarik Sadouma (The Rise of the Unsafe House), and Ruth Spetter (idem) conducted with Mohsen Namjoo after his concert in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Mohsen Namjoo is an Iranian musician and poet currently living in New York. In 2025 he is touring the world with his Minooor Show, a multimedia solo show, singing, reciting, playing the setar, and showing images. Minooor refers to the minor scale, according to some the only allowed musical scale in current Iran.
Mohsen Namjoo talks about his show, the use of sound and music, while in the background a selection of images are shown of the Green Movement, an oppositional political movement in Iran emerging in 2009.
This movement came to be after an apparently fraudulent presidential election in which the regime’s candidate, Ahmadinejad, became the winner, which was disputed by the opposition movement. The government arrested around 4,000 people and 72 people were killed during the protests.
Namjoo had already had a turbulent life and career, so it seems. After visiting the Tehran University of Art, he published his Toranj Album, which became a great success among the Iranian people but angered the government. In court he was sentenced to 5 years, in absentia, as he lived in Vienna at the time, for recording music that “dishonours passages from the Quran.”
The album featured nine traditional folk songs including poems of Rumi, Hafez, Baba Taher, and Attar, famous Persian poets of the past. It was mostly produced as underground music.
The story is, Namjoo was sentenced because of making animal sounds while singingthe 91st Sura of the Quran. Because of this sentence, Namjoo will not return to his native country until the Islamist regime is sacked.
A new Sina Khani movie premieres at Radio Neverno!
Rumor has it, this might be a work of genius—at least, that’s what some are saying...
According to Mr. Khani, "the shocking moments are designed to hit harder if you fuck with the pace."
A new genre in the making? Or is Mr. Khani simply a visionary, rewriting the rules of cinema and storytelling?
Check it out below and let us know what you think—we're curious!
A Fogg Film Production
Written by Alannah Stritch & Sina Khani
Camera & Edit by Iliya Braun
Sound Design & Mix by Iliya Braun & Silvio Vincent
Starring Sina Khani, Anastasia Bisila, Dinara Kerey, Sol Lagos, Puca Hoare and Alexandra Johansson
Special Thanks to Daria Kim, Klauss Dupeyrat, Neil Hoare, Rory Stritch, Sina's parents, Evaluna, Creeps From The Middle East & The Unsafe House Amsterdam.
In 2025 it will be 20 years since the foundation of Inspector Casino´s Detective Show with the (in)famous Inspector Casino.
It all started at the cellars of Radio Rietveld in the, at that time, new building of the Gerrit Rietveld Art Academy. Hans Kuiper started with online radio and was lucky to be around its developments in the age of digitalisation.
The original Inspector Casino Logo, designed by Babak Andishmand (2005).
Inspector Casino
Inspector Casino became a character in a series of radio plays, a hilarious connotation of the (predictable) detective stories all around (inter)national media. Inspector Casino fastly became a hype in the local Amsterdam art scene. What started as a ridiculisation of the almost traditional narrative soon splattered into associative sound sculptures with undiscernable story lines. The Inspector Casino soundscape was born.
In the meantime, Radio Rietveld was selected by the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam to be part of the 2006-2007 ´Just-in-Time´-exhibition, the Inspector Casino´s Detective Show was suddenly broadcasted via the airwaves over the whole city of Amsterdam. It would be not the last time. In 2008 the Show was listenable in the ´Kik´- art residence in Drenthe (NL) with a broadcasting reception reach of around 15 km.
Berlin
In 2009 the art radio program was broadcasted out of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, the show was transformed in a talk show on art and with artist guests talking on their work and projects, the participants often taking sound samples, and was listenable almost all over the city. It was one of the few shows solely on contemporary art in Berlin at that time, which made the show quickly famous in the art scene.
Initiator Hans Kuiper was also active at that time for other local TV and radio projects, like Pi Radio & B-Mix, as radio host and editor. He also started a talk show with German writer Tilo Koehler which ran till 2012.
Amsterdam FM
After returning to Amsterdam, The Inspector Casino programs on art were broadcasted at Amsterdam FM in 2012, the show contained soundscapes, live performances and interviews with local and international artists.
Radio Neverno
In 2015 initiator Hans Kuiper was asked for setting up another radio project in the art scene with Moritz Ebinger by curators of the ´Tomorrow Never Knows´ Exhibition in Arti et Amicitiae, the biggest art association in Amsterdam with exhibition halls in the center, Radio Neverno was born and the Inspector Casino´s Detective Show was back in the limelights.
After the exhibition and a renewed participation in the Museumnacht 2015, Ebinger left the radio focusing on his other art projects. Kuiper kept on posting and interviewing artists, galerists and other players in the art scene, often looking for cross overs. Interviews appeared with art dealers, reportages on art and politics and opinion pieces were published, also with new contributors.
Since then Radio Neverno is a Podcast Radio station with occasionally Inspector Casino´s Detective Show in its program list, but in 2025-2026, it plans to go live again and The Inspector Casino´s Detective Show will be in the limelight again, producing live shows and podcasts on a regular basis.
Stay informed for these new series of art shows and updates on the streaming days!
Some shows will be streamed live via the known streaming channels (Radioneverno.nl, Youtube.com, Twitch.tv & Instagram.).
HET GEZICHT VAN DE STAD Dat Amsterdam schilderachtig en fotogeniek is behoeft geen betoog. Zoals alle steden waar over liedjes worden gezongen heeft de stad een visuele eigenheid die haar soms meer personage dan stad maakt. De stad die fameus op palen is gebouwd, wordt in meer overdrachtelijke zin evenzeer gedragen door de beelden die er van haar door de tijd heen werden gemaakt. Wie heden ten dage op een zoekmachine de naam van de stad invoert krijgt het officiële portret van de stad te zien. Een bijna geheel ontvolkt decor, ideaal als achtergrond voor selfies en vakantie herinneringen. Dit is niet zoals de meeste bewoners de stad dagelijks zien.
AMSTERDAM GEBOUWD OP FOTO’S toont, als langs een tijdlijn, foto’s van de stad die de periode tussen 1975 en 2025 beslaat, en een beeld geven van de recente geschiedenis van de stad zoals die niet eerder in zulk een samenhang getoond werd. Met aandacht voor het schuwe, het onopvallende en het intieme dat, in een verzameling gevangen, patronen en een levenshouding laten zien die, meer dan die officiële paspoortfoto, het ware gezicht en wezen van de stad onthullen: de stad als speeltuin van haar bewoners, de bewoners als speelgoed van de stad.
Wat deze foto’s naast de afbeeldingen zelf tonen is dat de makers ervan deze stad en haar bewoners als eigen en zelfs rechtmatig eigendom beschouwen. Een manier van kijken die in haar onbevangenheid plaats biedt aan zo goed als alles en iedereen. Een liefdevolle- en bovenal democratische blik.
TERUGKIJKEN NAAR DE TOEKOMST De tentoonstelling komt op een moment dat Amsterdam opnieuw een metamorfose aan het ondergaan is, met grote bouwkundige projecten enerzijds en een ingrijpende verandering waar het de samenstelling van de bevolking betreft. De eens zo rommelige maar ook toegankelijke stad is voor veel van haar bewoners onbetaalbaar geworden. De enorme toestroom van toeristen heeft grote delen van de stad ontzield en tot een cliché gemaakt. Deze tentoonstelling laat zien dat dit geen onwrikbare werkelijkheid is. Dat het anders was, en dus ook anders kan. Door terug te blikken op de laatste vijftig jaar, kijken we ook vooruit. In welke richting beweegt de stad zich, en is dat de goede richting? Kunnen we anders leren kijken naar deze stad gebouwd op beelden en er dus anders over leren denken?
"Reclaim Reality" - A Group Exhibition by Salon Kuiperdomingos Projects.
Location: Project space rosalux, Wriezener Strasse 12. 13359 Berlin.
Opening night: Friday November 29th, 7-10pm. Special Opening hourse during the kolonie Wedding weekend: Sat & Sun, Nov. 30- Dec. 1: 2-6pm.
Other times by appointment.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:
Join us as over 50 international artists from Berlin, Amsterdam & beyond come together to reimagine reality through art. This powerful reunion follows our landmark 2011 exhibtion and the recent Salon in Amsterdam, bringing back the spirit of artistic networking in physical space.
Curated by Tiny Domingos (Berlin) & Hans Kuiper (Amsterdam).
A collaboration between Kunstruimte 411/ Art Space 411 (Haarlem/ mobile) & rosalux (Berlin).
More detailed information viaKunstruimte 411, the hybrid art space. Design: 1405 design and direction. www.1405.eu