Kino B: Contemporary Cinema by Berlin-based Artists

NIETZSCHE À NICE by Isabella Gresser

(2013, video, color, sound, 5:00)

Friedrich Nietzsche's "Noon and Eternity" in times of mass tourism and digital viewing habits. A young tourist is mirroring himself on his tablet PC at the beach while in the air above Nice, up to 49,000 passengers a day, longing for happiness. Down at the beach they can watch themselves flying over. An animated screenplay frames the setting for Nietzsche's thoughts out of his late work written in Nice. As if the sky embodies a dystopian image of "The eternal return of the same.".

The low-tech animation contrasts the high-tech digital media through which we are viewing our world. The perception of Nietzsche and the perceptions as an artist and tourist mix together. Nietzsche's mystical affirmation under the sun turns in an observation of a post-apocalyptic scenery. The digital turn as a dead end or a decadent spectacle on a cruiser.

Isabella Gresser is a visual artist living in Berlin since 1998. In addition to studies at the University of Fine Arts in Braunschweig with Marina Abramović, she has studied at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) as part of the Free Class. Her multilayered videos—in which distinctions between analog and digital technologies are foregrounded—encompass found-footage, drawings and photographs combined with literature. Main subjects in recent years have been Western and Eastern cultures, as well as sociology and philosophy referring to global tiredness and "Fatigue societies". Her latest film project is a 35 min. essayistic documentary filmed in Seoul, South Korea portraying the theses of Philosopher Byung-Chul Han from Berlin. She has been awarded residencies in Asian countries and her videos have screened at many international art and film festivals.

Curated by Caroline Koebel for Aurora Picture Show         (Kino B program)