Handel mit der Zukunft / Dealing with the Future

May 29, 2015, 7:00 pm:
Handel mit der Zukunft / Dealing with the Future
screening, and artists’ talk with Arne Hector & Minze Tummescheit and Vermeir & Heiremans, introduced and moderated by Florian Wüst (in English).

“Futures” are standardised contracts in which the purchase or sale of a good on a date in the future is already set today at an agreed upon price. Arne Hector and Minze Tummescheit’s video “Fictions and Futures #1 – Happiness in the Abstract” (2013) departs from the idea that the future does not belong to us, it has already been colonised. Bets on future grain prices and intellectual property rights on seeds stipulate today what must be paid tomorrow. “Fictions and Futures #1” thematises the connection between futures markets, increasing food prices, and the progressive capitalisation of agriculture. In their new film “Masquerade” (2015) Vermeir & Heiremans examine the relationship between art and capital.
A financial market instrument they created, the Art House Index, which stages their own apartment in Brussels, a loft in Schaarbeek, as a tradable artwork, is the departure point for critical reflection upon speculation and value added, representation codes and marketing in the contemporary art world and beyond. The screenings of the two videos are embedded in an artists’ talk moderated by Florian Wüst.

In the framework of the exhibition LIFE’S FINEST VALUES, April 16 to May 30, 2015.