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.