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Click on a spot on the ground to move there.
Use Left Shift to lower the camera. Use Space to raise it.
web-based AI-generated 3D Video installation space by UBERMORGEN
With Presumption of Guilt, UBERMORGEN present a new series of works. Based on actual political events in Austria, they unfold a real dystopia of post-democratic tendencies that goes far beyond Austria’s local milieu. It is a piece about a democracy that is merely flaunted by the people involved and has degenerated into phrasemongering; it is about the fire of corruption that is downright stoked up by neoliberalism; about the cunning circumvention of the law and the corrosion of public information by media companies willingly instrumentalized by special interests. The starting point for Domneva krivde is the so-called “Ibiza affair,” the scandal that led to the collapse of the then ÖVP-FPÖ government and to early elections in Austria in 2019 because of a secretly recorded video. The footage—excerpts went viral on all media worldwide—shows two high-ranking political representatives with the alleged niece of a Russian oligarch in a several-hour conversation about political quid pro quos for the financial support of their own party. Caught in the act—a virtual performance, as it were.
In their staged installation, UBERMORGEN focus on one figure within this real-life spectacle who exemplifies the ambivalence of the entire event like no other: Julian Hessenthaler, the suspected mastermind behind the video, arrested more than a year after its release not for recording it but for drug trafficking and document forgery. Hessenthaler, a former private detective who unleashed a political earthquake, epitomizes the very figure of the trickster, that mythological-literary figure who breaks the rules in order to bring good to humanity for moral reasons. Hessenthaler—convicted in court of being a dealer on the basis of controversial evidence, according to critical media reports—also personifies the dark side of the trickster, an essential trait to be able to break with order in the first place. Changemaker of conventions or provocative counterfeiter, anonymous whistleblower or turncoat, hero or villain—at any rate, a fluid double being that plays a central role in UBERMORGEN’s Domneva krivde, a performance in which the artists expose parafictional realities and uncover elusive entanglements with the means of installation art.
The virtual installation takes the form of a newsroom where visitors can take a look from a hypothetical future to the present. AI-produced images speculatively illustrate numerous transfers between science, economics, culture, and politics. And thus, restructuring of political systems, modernization of infrastructures, relational work, and the planning of audience-engaging programs and their associated media campaigns are imagined. Everything and nothing is developed here, everything and nothing is reported here. “we are not activists. we are actionists in the communicative and experimental tradition of viennese actionism—performing in the global media, communication and technological networks, our body is the ultimate sensor and the immediate medium. Thus, “Presumption of Guilt” has less to do with a political art action—activism in the sense of an act with a purpose—rather an artistic intervention in politics, in its social mechanisms and media logics. And of course, the presumption of guilt applies. For all involved.
Touch the lower area of your screen to operate the joystick. Touch the edge of the lower area to strafe.
Touch the upper area of your screen to rotate.
When looking at a different floor, press 'Jump' to teleport there.
web-based AI-generated 3D Video installation space by UBERMORGEN
With Presumption of Guilt, UBERMORGEN present a new series of works. Based on actual political events in Austria, they unfold a real dystopia of post-democratic tendencies that goes far beyond Austria’s local milieu. It is a piece about a democracy that is merely flaunted by the people involved and has degenerated into phrasemongering; it is about the fire of corruption that is downright stoked up by neoliberalism; about the cunning circumvention of the law and the corrosion of public information by media companies willingly instrumentalized by special interests. The starting point for Domneva krivde is the so-called “Ibiza affair,” the scandal that led to the collapse of the then ÖVP-FPÖ government and to early elections in Austria in 2019 because of a secretly recorded video. The footage—excerpts went viral on all media worldwide—shows two high-ranking political representatives with the alleged niece of a Russian oligarch in a several-hour conversation about political quid pro quos for the financial support of their own party. Caught in the act—a virtual performance, as it were.
In their staged installation, UBERMORGEN focus on one figure within this real-life spectacle who exemplifies the ambivalence of the entire event like no other: Julian Hessenthaler, the suspected mastermind behind the video, arrested more than a year after its release not for recording it but for drug trafficking and document forgery. Hessenthaler, a former private detective who unleashed a political earthquake, epitomizes the very figure of the trickster, that mythological-literary figure who breaks the rules in order to bring good to humanity for moral reasons. Hessenthaler—convicted in court of being a dealer on the basis of controversial evidence, according to critical media reports—also personifies the dark side of the trickster, an essential trait to be able to break with order in the first place. Changemaker of conventions or provocative counterfeiter, anonymous whistleblower or turncoat, hero or villain—at any rate, a fluid double being that plays a central role in UBERMORGEN’s Domneva krivde, a performance in which the artists expose parafictional realities and uncover elusive entanglements with the means of installation art.
The virtual installation takes the form of a newsroom where visitors can take a look from a hypothetical future to the present. AI-produced images speculatively illustrate numerous transfers between science, economics, culture, and politics. And thus, restructuring of political systems, modernization of infrastructures, relational work, and the planning of audience-engaging programs and their associated media campaigns are imagined. Everything and nothing is developed here, everything and nothing is reported here. “we are not activists. we are actionists in the communicative and experimental tradition of viennese actionism—performing in the global media, communication and technological networks, our body is the ultimate sensor and the immediate medium. Thus, “Presumption of Guilt” has less to do with a political art action—activism in the sense of an act with a purpose—rather an artistic intervention in politics, in its social mechanisms and media logics. And of course, the presumption of guilt applies. For all involved.
web-based AI-generated 3D Video installation space by UBERMORGEN
With Presumption of Guilt, UBERMORGEN present a new series of works. Based on actual political events in Austria, they unfold a real dystopia of post-democratic tendencies that goes far beyond Austria’s local milieu. It is a piece about a democracy that is merely flaunted by the people involved and has degenerated into phrasemongering; it is about the fire of corruption that is downright stoked up by neoliberalism; about the cunning circumvention of the law and the corrosion of public information by media companies willingly instrumentalized by special interests. The starting point for Domneva krivde is the so-called “Ibiza affair,” the scandal that led to the collapse of the then ÖVP-FPÖ government and to early elections in Austria in 2019 because of a secretly recorded video. The footage—excerpts went viral on all media worldwide—shows two high-ranking political representatives with the alleged niece of a Russian oligarch in a several-hour conversation about political quid pro quos for the financial support of their own party. Caught in the act—a virtual performance, as it were.
In their staged installation, UBERMORGEN focus on one figure within this real-life spectacle who exemplifies the ambivalence of the entire event like no other: Julian Hessenthaler, the suspected mastermind behind the video, arrested more than a year after its release not for recording it but for drug trafficking and document forgery. Hessenthaler, a former private detective who unleashed a political earthquake, epitomizes the very figure of the trickster, that mythological-literary figure who breaks the rules in order to bring good to humanity for moral reasons. Hessenthaler—convicted in court of being a dealer on the basis of controversial evidence, according to critical media reports—also personifies the dark side of the trickster, an essential trait to be able to break with order in the first place. Changemaker of conventions or provocative counterfeiter, anonymous whistleblower or turncoat, hero or villain—at any rate, a fluid double being that plays a central role in UBERMORGEN’s Domneva krivde, a performance in which the artists expose parafictional realities and uncover elusive entanglements with the means of installation art.
The virtual installation takes the form of a newsroom where visitors can take a look from a hypothetical future to the present. AI-produced images speculatively illustrate numerous transfers between science, economics, culture, and politics. And thus, restructuring of political systems, modernization of infrastructures, relational work, and the planning of audience-engaging programs and their associated media campaigns are imagined. Everything and nothing is developed here, everything and nothing is reported here. “we are not activists. we are actionists in the communicative and experimental tradition of viennese actionism—performing in the global media, communication and technological networks, our body is the ultimate sensor and the immediate medium. Thus, “Presumption of Guilt” has less to do with a political art action—activism in the sense of an act with a purpose—rather an artistic intervention in politics, in its social mechanisms and media logics. And of course, the presumption of guilt applies. For all involved.
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