In the series HMKV Video of the Month, HMKV presents current video works by international artists for the duration of one month each – selected by Inke Arns.
Nora Al-Badri / Jan Nikolai Nelles: Robo Polke
HMKV Video of the Month
On view 1 – 30 June 2020
„Höhere Wesen befahlen: rechte obere Ecke schwarz malen!“ ("Higher beings commanded: Paint the upper right-hand corner black!") is the title of a painting by the German artist Sigmar Polke (1941-2010). The 1969 painting displays the result of this divine command: a black corner - top right - on an otherwise empty canvas. In his inimitable way, Polke thus made fun of the institution of the (divine) inspiration-receiving artistic genius. In her video Robo Polke (2018), Nora Al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles transform the divine command into a mechanical instruction: An algorithm controls an industrial robot arm, which paints a black corner at the top right-hand corner on a canvas in front of it. The "higher beings" that Polke was still poking fun at today are programming instructions which are often assumed to have no less divine authority. Many people forget that software is not natural, but is written by humans. Al-Badri's and Nelles’ video is also a moody commentary on the non-creativity of the machine and the over stretched robot-in-the-art hype. (IA)
Nora Al-Badri is a multi-disciplinary media artist with a German-Iraqi background. She lives and works in Berlin. She graduated in political sciences at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main. She is currently the first artist-in-residence at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and its Laboratory for Experimental Museology (eM+). Her works got granted by several institutions like Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Goethe-Institut, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (IfA), German Federal Foreign Office and European Cultural Foundation (ECF), Senate of Berlin City. She has exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museums' Applied Arts Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia, 3rd Design Biennal Istanbul, ZKM Karlsruhe, Science Gallery, Dublin, NRW Forum, Space Fundacion Telefonica, Berliner Herbstsalon - Gorki Theater, Ars Electronica, Abandon Normal Devices, The Influencers, Gray Area Festival Art& Technology etc.