Art Installation
GÖTTERFUNKEN FEUERTRUNKEN
DER ERLKÖNIG WHITEOUT
June 17 - July 1, 2018
Former Soviet Garrison
in the “Forbidden City” Wünsdorf near Berlin
Hauptallee 116
15806 Zossen (Brandenburg)
Germany
I choreographed an installation of film, photography and sculpture to ask critical questions about the ethical limits of science, technology and the pursuit of power in the former "Forbidden City" of Wunsdorf near Berlin. The Soviet military complex was off limits for the German population. At this site of abandoned buildings and overgrown nature I juxtapose the great mystery of the evolution of the universe with atomic weapons, latest developments in military weapons using Big Data and I pay tribute to the victims of Leninism/Stalinism.
I ask where is the sublime, wonder and enchantment? Where is Love?
The parcourse begins with the screening of Götterfunken at the former Theater, continues through a nature path to the Sports Complex, passes one of the last standing statues of Vladimir llyich Ulyanov aka Lenin on German soil and returns once again the former Theater for a second viewing of Götterfunken.
The Theater GÖTTERFUNKEN (SPARKS OF THE DEITY)
The screen for "Götterfunken" is suspended within a black space in the disused theater to evoke the mysterious cosmic black energy which expands our universe - as the film is a metaphysical exploration of Cyclical Bang Theory. After a moment of black emptiness, a goddess like Apsara reassembles and the dance sequences, I filmed over a period of several years all over the world, recommence in reverse order.
Today's audience smells the staleness and is caught in a low light, but may not be aware that under the Soviets citizens were rarely allowed to travel. They would not have been able to see the dances in real life animating "Götterfunken".
The Sports Complex I FEUERTRUNKEN DER ERLKÖNIG
"Now I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds" Robert Oppenheimer quoted from the Bhagavad Gita after the first successful detonation of a nuclear device. In the Sports Complex, in the empty swimming pool, devoid of water and life, I installed two screens of Oppenheimer (before and after the test), the American Prometheus who brought humanity the atomic fire that left for all ensuing generations around the globe a legacy of permanent underlying fear of annihilation. Oppenheimer's devastated voice echoes across the space in waves of sound as the viewer stands inside the empty swimming pool. The experience is disconcerning and unnatural. Across the video screens I installed a large symbol of the Singularity which it is meant to caution - do we want superintelligent machines? What will the legacy be of Artificial Intelligence so advanced that it erases the boundary between humanity and computer?
The Sports Complex II WHITEOUT
The viewers walk past a series of posters of chemical formulae of poisons and germs used in biological and chemical warfare. They ask a disturbing question: how is it possible that great minds and professionals become Masters of Death? What is missing or has died in these scientists and technocrats that they are able to hand over their giftedness to the military for the purpose of perpetuating, refining and inventing new forms of suffering?
Today all militaries race to develop Artificial Intelligence for the newest weapon system.
"The Eye and Finger of God" using Big Data and facial recognition software, can pick out and track any person in a crowd of thousands, eliminate that person at any given moment with a remote controlled micro drone that injects a poison. Imagine what life will be like under such ever present micro assassin machines. The pervasive fear effectively disables and unravels any social structure. Fear will win the war - it is game over. White out.
The Statue of Lenin THE ERLKING
We poured 15 tons of broken black asphalt around the statue of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov aka Lenin. As the viewers approach to look closer at the images mounted around the base they must watch where they step carefully, just like the citizens in Lenin's Reich. Photographs of the victims of the Bolsheviks, whose existence was whited out by terror, deportation and starvation are mounted behind barbed wire. Lenin, who founded the notorious Cheka and the GULag prison system which claimed the lives of millions, said: "Mass execution is a legitimate means of a revolution.” And “A lie told often enough becomes the truth".