The exhibition Monitoring presents artworks which include film, audiovisual, digital or media-critical approaches into Installation.
It provides a forum for media art and presents well-established artists and promising up-and-coming talents. The thematic focus and the curatorial concept of the exhibition are composed based on received submissions of an open call by a Jury of cultural workers, artists, and curators. This year, the jury has selected 17 works out of more than 200 international submissions. All works in the exhibition are nominated for the Golden Cube award for the best media installation, which is endowed with €3,500. The award is donated by the software company Micromata GmbH.
Golden Cube
All works selected for the exhibition Monitoring compete for the Golden Cube, the prize for the best media installation, endowed with 3.500 € and sponsored by the software company Micromata GmbH, located in Kassel. Next to the “White Cube” of the showroom of contemporary art and the “Black Cube”, the room of film presentation painted black, the “Golden Cube” takes in an in-between position and explicitly promotes the interaction of spatial and audio-visual aspects of media installations.
The jury 2024 consists of Inke Arns, Juejun Chen, Fanny Hauser, Alfred Rotert und Jule Witte.
Selection Committee 2024
Elko Braas
Artist
Johanna Brummack
Artist / Educator
Marlene Denningmann
Artist
Holger Jenss
Artist
Inga Seidler
Curator / Head of Monitoring
Liese Schmidt
Curator / Artist / Technical Management Monitoring
Miriam Schmidtke
Media Artist / Author / Theater maker
Gerhard Wissner Ventura
Festival Director Kassel Dokfest
Exhibition Locations
Kasseler Kunstverein
Friedrichsplatz 18
Kulturbahnhof Kassel
Rainer-Dierichs-Platz 1
// In a figurative sense, “Bond Constraint Parameters” stands for the unspoken rules and conditions that define our relationships with other people, things, or their environment. They are the factors that determine the strength, flexibility, and limits of these bonds – whether in interpersonal relationships, belonging to social groups, or in emotional entanglements. Just as certain parameters in a physical system restrict freedom of movement, societal norms, expectations, personal fears, or past experiences act as constraints in our relationships. Such invisible “parameters” that shape our interpersonal dynamics are at the core of this year’s Monitoring exhibition as part of the 41st Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival.
The artists in the exhibition explore various dimensions of relationships – from familiar and personal connections to larger social and ecological entanglements. Perspectives constantly shift between the microcosm of individual experiences and the macrocosm of collective structures. The focus is on questions of exclusion and belonging, and in this context, on fixed role models and societal constraints, as well as the search for alternative forms of coexistence free from dominance and exploitative logics.
Belonging is considered on different levels in the seventeen works presented in the exhibition: for instance, as a subjective, intimate feeling that arises from a person’s social and emotional integration into certain environments and social collectives. Other works address belonging as a political and discursive resource that constructs, demands, justifies, or resists forms of socio-spatial inclusion/exclusion. Finally, the works also refer to belonging as a process and result of affective, deeply sensory relationships to places, manifesting in specific spatial ties.
At the KulturBahnhof, the works primarily address the first two levels of belonging and relationships – the positioning of people within their social contexts. These works illustrate personal spaces of experience and memory, such as the children’s room and family contexts, as well as clubs or cruising areas, while also linking them to broader societal issues like reproductive work, discrimination, and economic inequality. Here, the immediate, physical or affective dimension plays a decisive role: in the works on display, political events and societal constraints become just as visible as dreams, desires, and wishes inscribed in bodies and their movements.
Parallel to that, the works at the Kasseler Kunstverein focus on the relationship between humans and their environment, as well as specific spatial ties. Places and landscapes become carriers of memories, traumas, and longings. The artists trace the political conflicts and violence that are reflected in the landscape along the Mekong River. Stones and objects begin to speak of colonial pasts, their consequences, and the ongoing effects of environmental destruction. The traces of migrants from the Sahel zone to North Africa and Tunisia are made visible. They define the landscape and transform its backdrop into a tangible space of individual history(ies). As oral-historical testimonies, the voices of the migrants reveal memories, hint at experiences lived and endured, speak in fragments, and tell of dreams and events that transpired.
The artists employ diverse strategies to reveal the hidden stories and narratives inscribed in bodies, landscapes, and objects. At the center are marginalized perspectives and experiences of people whose voices are often overheard. How and to whom attention is paid is determined by power and tied to one’s position within social relations. The works shown in “Bond Constraint Parameters” point to the hegemonic structures of listening, closely linked to representation, identity and belonging, dominance, and power.
Inga Seidler
KASSELER
KUNSTVEREIN
Taiki Sakpisit: The Spirit Level, Thailand / South Korea 2023
Karin Ferrari: Freaky Fairy Flux Foundation, Austria 2023
Benjamin Dobó, Anafee Fränznick: You call me my friend, you call it love,
but I can't trust you, Germany / Switzerland 2023
Kathrin Stumreich: mid-air collisions, Austria 2024
Thea Josepha Konatsu: speaking nearby: Shaking Skies & Trembling Earth,
Germany / Taiwan 2024
Rita Macedo: Farewell Recording for an Observer of an Unknown Time and Place,
Germany 2023
KULTURBAHNHOF KASSEL | Stellwerk
Moritz Jekat: Wetlands of Pharmacology (Installation Part I),
Switzerland / Germany 2023
KULTURBAHNHOF KASSEL | Kubatur
T(n)C - Tina Kult, Agnes Varnai: Retraining Laziness, Great Britain 2023
KULTURBAHNHOF KASSEL | Südflügel
Samira Elagoz, Z Walsh: you can't get what you want but you can get me,
Netherlands / Finland 2024
Agil Abdullayev: Radicals in Between Trees and Dicks, Austria /
Azerbaijan / Georgia / Kazakhstan 2024
Elisa Jule Braun: Calibration Mum: I Prefer Not To, Germany 2024
Fritz Eggenwirth: Erzähl es den Bergen, Germany 2023
Kerstin Honeit: THIS IS POOR! Patterns of Poverty, Germany 2024
Hansol Kim: K-BOB STAR, South Korea / Germany 2023
Tess Marschner: HeLa et al., Spain 2024
Zora Jöst: CATWALK*KASSEL, Germany 2023
Stefanie Schroeder: Eine unsichere Bank, Germany 2023
40. Kasseler Dokfest | Monitoring
The award winners of the past editions
2023: Tanita Olbrich RING 2022: John Hussain Flindt TALES 2021: Yuk-Yiu Ip 流/言 [FALSE WORDS] 2020: Paula Ábalos DIARIOS DE TRABAJOS 2019: Kapwani Kiwanga THE SECRETARY'S SUITE 2018: Grace Philips, Laurie Robins REAL PERFORMANCE 2017: Ralph Schulz TESTIMONIALS 2016: Lotte Meret SURFACE GLACE 2015: Gerald Schauder SKULPTUR21 2014: Bertrand Flanet: UNMANNED DISTANCES 2013: !Mediengruppe Bitnik: DELIVERY FOR MR. ASSANGE 2012: Emanuel Mathias NEBAHATS SCHWESTERN 2011: Anu Pennanen LA RUINE DE REGARDE 2010: Lukas Thiele / Tilman Hatje WELTMASCHINE
Honorable mention of the past editions
2023: Juejun Chen Mechanical Resoncance 2022: Benjamin Busch Scanning the Horizon: An Immersive Archive 2021 Sophie Hoyle Hyperacusis (Chronica) 2020: Mazen Khaddaj THE ARTISTS ARE NOT PRESENT 2019: Clarissa Thieme Can't You See Them? – Repeat. 2018: Wermke/Leinkauf 4. HALBZEIT 2017: Marlene Maier FOOD ONLY EXISTS IN PICTURES 2016: Jolander Gsponder / Yves Netzhammer / Annette Brütsch / u.a. PETER LIECHTI – DEDICATIONS 2015: Kerstin Honeit Talking Business 2014: Daniel Laufer REDUX 2013: Franz Christoph Pfannkuch γαλαξίας (GALAXIS) 2011 Ryota Kuwakubo THE TENTH SENTIMENT 2010: Anthony McCall LEAVING [WITH TWO-MINUTE SILENCE]
Partner
