So wie die Dinge liegen (as matters stand)

hartware medien kunst verein will be presenting the exhibition "So wie die Dinge liegen" (as matters stand) from 1 May to 4 July; the exhibition was conceived by Hans D. Christ and Iris Dressler as part of "scene: schweiz in nrw", the 37th International Culture Days of Dortmund with Switzerland.

"So wie die Dinge liegen" comprises works of photography and video, which explore the spatial concepts of the modern-day subject, i.e. its emplacement in the world, in a variety of different ways. The artists scrutinise constructs of national territories, urban models, architecture, and private interiors, along with the fictitious pictorial and illusory spaces of the self. The analyses focus on the self-images and ideologies reflected in these spaces. With the instruments of modern image technologies, the artists create their own, displaced concepts of space and spaces of narrative, within which things are never as they appear at first sight.

The exhibition is supplemented by a three-day film and lecture programme compiled by Katrin Mundt that will focus on the concepts and contradictions of national territories and identities from 4 to 6 June.

Parallel to the exhibition, the Dortmund based labels "genesungswerk", "sternschaltung" will be organising concerts and performances centred on electronic pop music on the four Fridays in May.

The venue for the exhibition is the new PhoenixHalle in Dortmund, that opened in October 2003 with the very successful exhibition "games. Computer games by artists". The 2200 sq. m hall – and former spare parts warehouse – at the disused Phoenix West blast furnace works has been used to showcase international media art projects since 2003. The extensive supporting programme for "So wie die Dinge liegen" will also take place here.

The exhibition is organised by medien_kunst_netz dortmund, an association comprising hartware medien kunst verein, Museum am Ostwall, Kulturbüro Stadt Dortmund, and Dortmund University. Co-operation partners are dortmund-project and Landesentwicklungsgesellschaft NRW, who are developing the Phoenix site.

Concept

"So wie die Dinge liegen" (as matters stand) presents works exploring various concepts of space – and their "order of things": the national and urban topographies of a society with global aspirations, its architectures and private interiors, but equally the pictorial and illusory spaces of the modern subject. It is about the – real and imaginary – environments that the self has created to entrench itself in the world and in which it is constantly reflecting its self-images, its narratives, its memory, its desire and its relationship to things.

Within these conditions of reflection of subject and space, the artists enact tilts, breaks and blind spots. To this end, they intervene in the linear narrative spaces and grammars of modern image media – photography, film, video, computer animation – in order to organise asymmetric conditions within these fields. They create open narratives that lead to a host of interpretations and conclusions that dislocate the homogeneity of the self and its environment, cause and effect, time and space. Within these pictorial and narrative spaces, things are never quite as they seem.

The strategies and fields of reference with which the artists approach the different concepts of space and narrative spaces of the individual differ greatly. The works deal with the 3D worlds of computer animations, the illusory spaces of cinema and stage, historical events, and fictitious stories. The focus is on scenes of private and public self-enactment, the places of identification of political representation, scenes of "crime", the "corporate identity" of states, and the physical and psychological condition of the self.

A project by
hartware medien kunst verein

In the framework of
Scene: Schweiz,
37. Internationale Kulturtage der Stadt Dortmund mit der Schweiz

Organisor
medien_kunst_netz dortmund
> hartware medien kunst verein
> Museum am Ostwall
> Kulturbüro Stadt Dortmund
> Universität Dortmund

In co-operation with
dortmund-project
LEG

Partner
Klangraum Phoenix
Programme electronic pop culture:
genesungswerk and sternschaltung

Supported by
Kulturbüro Stadt Dortmund
Ministerium für Städtebau und Wohnen, Kultur und Sport des Landes NRW
Pro Helvetia
and others