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kunstraum niederoesterreich

SOCIAL GLITCH

Radical aesthetics and the consequences of extreme events

Curated by: Sylvia Eckermann, Gerald Nestler, Maximilian Thoman

 

An exhibition project at KUNSTRAUM NIEDEROESTERREICH 25 09 - 05 12 2015

and in the public space of Vienna with projects in collaboration with TONSPUR Kunstverein Wien and WUK.performing.arts

 

WORKS NEXT > Gerald Nestler (AT)

 

Jennifer Mattes (AT)

 

Jennifer Mattes

Trading Stories. A Cargo Named Desire, 2015, video still© Jennifer Mattes

 

Jennifer Mattes (AT)

 

Trading Stories. A Cargo Named Desire, 2015

HD Video (color, sound), 41:56 min

 

Trading Stories is originally based on a journey from Hamburg to Qingdao in 1905—today an important maritime trade route. The film is an ironic-critical reflection on the current complex political, social and economic situation. Within the capitalist system, love, the economy and trade are confronted with individual, historical and collective history. A collage of documentary and found footage as well as text, the work negotiates the constant swaying between possible emotions and attractions in the context of global market structures. The story becomes a message in a bottle that is contingent on chance and the uncontrollable within a world of control devoid of coincidence. The container ship is a metaphor for the unconscious, the symbolic representative of the body of a society as well as a mirror of its tensions, ambivalences and contradictions. The components of the story and its protagonists are clichés and repetitions, mass products and endless cycles – just like the market itself.