THE CONTENT OF THE STATE

A two screen installation video piece.

Screen 1: The Content of the State is Family, but also Law, Health, Religion, Jew, German, Nation, Race, People, Human Kind, Ancestor, Men, We, You (plural), You (singular). A convergence to and distancing from a document (“Explanatory Leaflet for Those Getting Married”, published in Germany in approx. 1935) through a process of repeated copying in which first words from the above mentioned categories are left out (separate for each category), then only words from the above mentioned categories are copied (separate for each category), then words are copied that are not part of these categories, from which then those words are crossed out that seem to have the potential to serve a fascist system, then increasingly more words are left out until those words are left that can serve a fascist system the least, which are “the” (der, die, das) and “a” (eine, ein) in nominative cases.

Running time: 18h 36 min in 40 parts

Screen 2: A selection of terms that have been listed by members of a family with the criteria to use the notion “Family” as the starting point and to find words that describe a group or grouping of people.

Running time: 2h 42 min in 6 parts

Place of production: London, UK

2 screen video installation, sound, colour, English subtitles

(Source: https://local-artists.org/node/89920)