Weltall Erde Mensch

Hi all,
I'm Erik the intern, and I'm promoting an art opening at the "loop-raum für aktuelle kunst" gallery in Mitte. You should come and hang out, great music, really cheap drinks, and cool art. Here are some bullet points:

Where: loop-raum für aktuelle kunst, Jägerstrasse 5, 10117 Berlin-Mitte (off the U6: Französische Straße stop)
When: Saturday, May 24, 8pm-2am
What: Till Exit's new exhibit "Weltall Erde Mensch" [Universal Earth Man]

About the installation:
loop - raum für aktuelle kunst is proud to present a new video and photography installation by Till Exit, entitled “Weltall Erde Mensch“ [Universe Earth Man] after the book presented at the GDR coming-of-age ceremony, which championed a near-future Utopia brought on the wings of technological progress.

We cannot deny the growing proliferation of technology in our lives. However, the reigning belief that technology makes for a “more beautiful life” has vanished.

Till Exit’s works attempt to remember the future. Utilizing five video-installations, the artist embarks upon a nostalgic journey, splicing footage of architectural spaces from ‘50s and ‘60s international sci-fi films. The spaceship hallways, airlocks and automatic doors immerse the viewer in the aesthetic of the then avant-garde.

The flashing lights and chunky props may strike the contemporary, digitally-spoiled observer as campy and clumsy. And, yet, the humility of the stage set is undeniably touching, and the scope of architectural vision that it metonymically embodies is as timeless as it is poetic.

The artist has imbued each video sculpture with its own specific content, and thus its own character. But these chatty personages conversing with each other really belong to another, lofty realm: the protoplasmic ideologies they so fervently espouse could be tenets of a book anticipating a “New Mankind.”

The monitors, mounted high on deer blinds, float like satellites in the gallery space. Yet, the observer remains securely grounded in reality: the gallery floor has been covered with typical East German flooring of a dispirited office; the brown-beige patina--patterned, penetrated, and ruptured--is a disturbing counterpoint to the futuristic vision emanating from the monitors.

“Weltall Erde Mensch” longs wistfully for the past’s perception of the future. But can the “hopes of yesterday” be rekindled amidst the modern knowledge of their impossibility? Perhaps, we can relive while remembering, and recognize that the dewy-eyed optimism portrayed, although deeply buried, still lingers inside of all of us.

For more information, please email loop@loop-raum.de, or call +49 (0) 30 / 283 900 28

Hope to see you all there.
Peace,
Erik