The exhibition Monitoring of the 39th Kassel
Documentary Film and Video Festival presents 19 media installations by
international artists. With Monitoring, the cinematographic space of the
festival expands to include works that go beyond the conventional presentation
form of the cinema screen.The exhibition venues are the Kasseler Kunstverein
and the KulturBahnhof Kassel.
The title of this year's Monitoring Absolutely Killing It refers, on the
one hand, to techniques of self-affirmation prevalent in today's late
capitalism and thus, in a figurative sense, to the higher-faster-further
principle and belief in progress that underlie them. On the other hand, it
alludes to the frightening scientific assessment that we are currently
experiencing the sixth great mass extinction – the greatest loss of life on
Earth since the time of the dinosaurs – and that humans are responsible.
We are consuming beyond the planet's limits, exploiting natural resources as
well as human labor at an unrestrained rate. In the face of environmental
destruction and species extinction, discriminatory devaluations and
exploitations, the 20 artists call in their works – sometimes playfully ironic,
sometimes urgently evocative – to listen, to slow down, to organize and to
become active.
In the Südflügel, positions are grouped that appeal to humankind, but
also those that emphasize the resilience of nature in a hopeful way. Others
show how possibilities for the common existence of all species can nevertheless
be imagined, as well as sustainable growth models, new habits and ways of
living.
Over the course of the exhibition, which spans four additional rooms within the
KulturBahnhof, the artists devote video works and media installations to
the consequences of our consumption, throwaway relationships, and exploitative
labor conditions. At the same time, they speculate on what happens when we
evade these mechanisms, slow them down or go on strike.
The themes of witnessing and providing evidence in the face of violence,
environmental destruction, and displacement are also encountered by visitors in
the temporary spaces of the Kasseler Kunstverein at Freiheit 13.
The artists of the exhibition refer to practices of remembering and reflecting,
to the importance of slowness and the recognition of the interdependence of all
living beings, in order to counter the uncompromising higher-faster-further
principle and the underlying world views.
OPENING HOURS
Wednesday Nov. 16, 8:00 p.m – 11 p.m.
Thursday until Saturday, Nov. 17–19, 3:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Sunday Nov. 20, 12:00 noon – 8:00 p.m.
KASSELER KUNSTVEREIN | Die Freiheit 13
Scanning the Horizon: An Immersive Archive / Benjamin Busch // If
these walls could talk, they would cough and eat a snack at Nordsee. /
Stefanie Schwarzwimmer / 10' // Acts of Improbable Genius / Melanie-Jame
Wolf / 18'
KULTURBAHNHOF KASSEL | Glaskasten
5.752.414.468 / Gabriela Löffel / 114'
KULTURBAHNHOF KASSEL | Projektraum Bahnhofshalle, gegenüber Gleis 7
Plus Ultra / Sebastian Weise / 26'
KULTURBAHNHOF KASSEL | Kubatur
Platform / Johannes Büttner, Steffen Köhn / 15'
KULTURBAHNHOF KASSEL | Stellwerk
小埃 💞 Iris / I-Chieh Tsai / 15'
KULTURBAHNHOF KASSEL | Südflügel
Nature See You / Erik Bünger / 19' // Tales / John
Hussain Flindt / 21' // Miss Ginkgo (Chapter1) / Tang Han / 5'
// Such as – You, Kind of / Helene Kummer / 12' // Life
Eternal / Salvador Miranda / 23' // Human Reality /
Ziming Peng // I am absolutely killing it / Lea Roth /
12' // Yummy Body Truck / Noam Youngrak Son / 7' //
Chronicle of an Extinction Foretold / Frank Theys / 20' // We The
Nature / Borjana Ventzislavova / 28' // The End Of
Something / Clemens Wilhelm / 16 '// OCTAVIA'S VISIONS / Zara
Zandieh / 18'