Monitoring – Exhibition for Time-Based Media Art
Opening Nov.13, 8:00 p.m. at KulturBahnhof, Südflügel
The exhibition Monitoring presents twenty art installations out of more than 300 international submissions. It provides a platform for time-based media art in the three-dimensional space as a complement to the film program of the festival. At two main venues and three single sites, from KulturBahnhof, via Treppe 4 in Treppenstrasse, to Fridericianum, this year’s Monitoring exhibition is showing twenty works by international media artists with various research approaches. Monitoring takes place in cooperation with Kasseler Kunstverein and Stellwerk.
The Golden Cube, endowed with 3,500 €, is awarded to the best media installation presented in the exhibition Monitoring and is sponsored by the software company Micromata GmbH.
The exhibition at Kasseler Kunstverein investigates, among other things, structures of power and exclusion, order as a social and aesthetic principle, as well as the possibilities and limits of artistic strategies: In what ways can historically volatile images be used to open up new contexts? How do we visually tackle ideological constructions such as that of national identity? How do we speak about topics which shy away from pictoriality? And how can hidden or marginalized perspectives, through artistic processes, be made visible?
With the examination of archives, technologies and practices of aesthetic standardization, and following the tracks of violent rhetorics, the installations approach these questions in different ways.
More and more people earn their money by generating content. The exhibition in the KulturBahnhof engages primarily with the term “work” and its various manifestations. In what type of economic system do we find ourselves? Whether a market economy or an attention economy, sex work or art trade – work is closely connected to the notion of identity, but also to desire and consumption, the contemporary cult around surfaces, objects and persons.
// MONITORING at a glance //
Nov.13. – 17, 2019
Opening Nov. 13, 8:00 p.m. at Südflügel KulturBahnhof
OPENING HOURS
Wednesday, Nov.13, 8:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.
Thursday, Nov.14 - Saturday,16, 3:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Sunday, Nov.17, 12:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
KASSELER KUNSTVEREIN | Fridericianum, Friedrichsplatz 18
Ulf Aminde: Körper Theorie Poetik , Berlin (Germany) 2018
Elko Braas: Try Keeping It Balanced, Kassel (Germany) 2019
Cihad Caner: Demonst(e)rating the Untamable Monster, Rotterdam (Netherlands) 2019
Kapwani Kiwanga: The Secretary’s Suite, Paris (France), New York (USA), 2016
Paulette Phillips: The Quoddy Fold, West Quoddy, Nova Scotia, Toronto (Canada) 2019
Kristin Reiman: The Drowse (or the Age of Constant Fatigue), Frankfurt (Germany) 2019
Silke Schönfeld: Ein Prozent – Imagined Communities, Dortmund, Halle (Germany) 2019
Clarissa Thieme: Can't you see them? – Repeat., Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Berlin (Germany) 1992 / 2019
Dagmar Weiß: Buxus, Schöppingen, Berlin (Germany) 2019
KULTURBAHNHOF KASSEL | Glass box next to travel center
Clara Winter: Der Adler ist ein mächtiges Tier, Mexico City (Mexico), Leipzig Germany) 2019
KULTURBAHNHOF KASSEL | Stellwerk
Mark Oliver: "Elvis: Strung Out", Vancouver (Canada) 2018
KULTURBAHNHOF KASSEL | Südflügel
Veneta Androva: From My Desert, Berlin (Germany) 2019
Kim Kielhofner: Whose Language You Don't Understand, Montreal (Canada), Vienna (Austria) 2018
Malin Kuht: OFFREAL, Kassel (Germany) 2019
NEOZOON: FragMANts, Dresden (Germany) 2019
Jan Peters: : 30 Jahre, aber den Sinn des Lebens habe ich immer noch nicht rausgefunden, Hamburg, Berlin (Germany), Paris (France), Geneva (Switzerland) 2019
Catharina Szonn: Flexible Erwartungsauffälligkeit, Frankfurt (Germany) 2018
Taietzel Ticalos: While the Future Unfolds, Bucharest (Romania) 2018
Guanyu Xu: Complex Formation, Beijing (China), Chicago (USA) 2019
TREPPE 4 | Haus der Sozialwirtschaft, Treppenstraße 4
Luna Hirt, Stefan Kreller and Jan Reuter: Erscanne dich selbst 2.0, Kassel (Germany) 2019
ARTIST TALKS
Nov.14, 4:30 p.m., Kasseler Kunstverein
what’s wrong with the art world and how to fix it – Artistic production and Social Standards by the example of Canada. Discussion (in English) with Lauren Howes, Kim Kielhofner, Mark Oliver, Paulette Phillips and Wanda vanderStoop, presented by Anna-Lisa Scherfose.
Nov.16, 6:30 p.m., KulturBahnhof Südflügel
interfiction@Monitoring: Within the scope of the interdisciplinary workshop-conference of art, media and net culture Malin Kuht will talk about her work OFFREAL.
PUBLIC TOURS | EDUCATION
Nov.15, 5:00 p.m., KulturBahnhof Südflügel
Nov.16, 3:00 p.m., Kasseler Kunstverein
Reservations are not required. The participation in the educational program and the events is free of charge.
Program catalog available online
Foto Credit: Luna Hirt, Stefan Kreller and Jan Reuter
At two main venues and three single sites, from KulturBahnhof, via Treppe 4 in Treppenstrasse, to Fridericianum, this year’s exhibition Monitoring is showing twenty works by international media artists with various research approaches. The exhibition at Kasseler Kunstverein investigates, among other things, structures of power and exclusion, order as a social and aesthetic principle, as well as the possibilities and limits of artistic strategies: In what ways can historically volatile images be used to open up new contexts? How do we visually tackle ideological constructions such as that of national identity? How do we speak about topics which shy away from pictoriality? And how can hidden or marginalized perspectives, through artistic processes, be made visible?
With the examination of archives, technologies and practices of aesthetic standardization, and following the tracks of violent rhetorics, the installations approach these questions in different ways. In the process, a wide variety of locations is explored: the meeting spot for a new right-wing citizens’ initiative; Sarajevo during the siege; the office of a former UN secretary general; and the front gardens of a German small town. The works allow us insight into the condition of permanent exhaustion, as well as those places which cannot be found on a map and which mark an outside of “our” world. Through speaking, singing, translating, reordering and tearing down, political, historical and medial connections are reprocessed and deconstructed – or they are actually brought to collapse. But can radical, emancipatory strategies within the so-called art market exist at all, or are they always ultimately swallowed by mechanisms of optimization and marketing? What does it mean to work today as an artist and to produce images? More and more people earn their money by generating content. The exhibition in the KulturBahnhof engages primarily with the term “work” and its various manifestations.
In what type of economic system do we find ourselves? Whether a market economy or an attention economy, sex work or art trade – work is closely connected to the notion of identity, but also to desire and consumption, the contemporary cult around surfaces, objects and persons. The boundaries between work and consumption gradually blur in so-called “paid partnerships” on the platforms of social media. The alleged glamour of successful producers and performers is unmasked in those places where the precarious conditions and the madness of constant productivity are exposed. Eternal, never ending processes increase, becoming at times a manic and at times a resigned speaking, stamping and shredding. Work can also mean struggling through the huge collection of images that constitute certain ideas of beauty, success and heteronormativity. Or through the vast and complex archive of a headstrong writer. It seems unavoidable that we ask if and how virtual assistants can serve to help us. But how are we to deal with simulated people? And what does it tell us, that forms of discrimination have long been directed towards algorithms and robots? While seeking a self-determined existence, “female impersonators”*, assistants and social care workers, come up against various limits: sexism, limited communication skills, illness, and the high provisions for online platforms. Amongst all this adversity, how can we develop strategies of resistance? How are we able to recapture and reoccupy niches and open spaces?
An insurmountable tiredness sets in. Tiredness as the only possible answer to performance pressure and the never-ending newsfeed. Back at the Kasseler Kunstverein, a question arises: Has sleep already been a part of work for a long time, and is it – as an indispensable process for regeneration in the workforce – calculated and abused? Or is sleep a way to withdraw ourselves and refuse, and thus by doing nothing, can we claim an utopian state?
* “Female impersonator” originally referred to a male actor playing a female role. In the context of artificial intelligence and virtual assistants, the term describes the imitation of female stereotypes through the use of voice and/ or appearance.
Lisa Dreykluft