The video installation lets the viewer drive in endless circles around a seemingly everyday scene. The underpass under the street Messedamm at the International Convention Center Berlin is an everyday urban place bustling with people. They go about their daily business and traverse the picture, while the camera remains in constant motion as well, slowly and smoothly. As the camera moves, the people initially clearly visible in the picture are superimposed, as if by chance, by the architecture and suddenly all disappear at once. The camera continues, unimpressed, and the viewers are given time to observe the emptied and now silent scenery. With the continuous movement of the camera, the people are actually bound to appear again behind the architecture; this expectation, however, remains unfulfilled.
Verschwinden v1 is the prelude to a video cycle that combines sequences of disappearances in various different places. This work was created in collaboration with the filmmaker Francesca Bertin and the Choreographer Marc Carerra and the help of many others.
From the Series Earthly Matters:
At the height of global capitalism, we continue to consume,
produce and live in a world that cannot regenerate at nearly
the same speed. The body of work Earthly Matters defines
our scope of action within this scenario as a space for imagination.
Simone Kessler‘s current works from installations and
sculptures to film, photographs and drawings. Each work is
dedicated, in its way, to central questions: Which problems do
we have to face today? Which other images of tomorrow are
already possible? How can we think them together? To use the
last words of a science fiction trilogy by Octavia E. Butler: How
can we sow them into fertile soil?
Earthly Matters is a body of work since 2019