Clemens von Wedemeyer, 'Esiod 2015', 2016

Film, 38 min., Grand Hall, Annual screening until 2051

Clemens von Wedemeyer has made the Erste Campus the centerpiece of a film. “Esiod 2015” tells of a young woman who in 2051 returns to Vienna in order to close her bank account. Stored on the account is not just money, however, but also memories and digitized personal information. When the computer system fails to recognize the young woman, she is obliged to undergo a “memory check”. Retaining its sci-fi format throughout, “Esiod 2015” addresses the complexity of contemporary structures defined by digital technology and economics.

Interwoven with the story of the bank customer are the architectural plans of the Erste Campus and the as yet unfinished bank building, as well as references to other “art in architecture” projects. Torn between the virtual world and the real world, the film adds a future dimension to the artistic projects undertaken at the Erste Campus. “Esiod 2015”, explains Clemens von Wedemeyer, is an imagined version of the present. It “plays in a parallel future–a future that is already here”. It reveals how technological networks and infrastructure are accelerating the present and how this is having a lasting and transformative influence on society. The film ends with a message from the future that is already present: “Please listen to me. The images you are about to see are a warning. I am speaking from the future”.

Clemens von Wedemeyer was born in 1974 in Göttingen, Germany, and lives and works in Berlin and Leipzig. Wedemeyer’s films and filmic installations experiment with non-linear narrative forms as a means of conveying subjective realities. His filmic creations frequently incorporate the history of the specific places where they are set as well as aesthetic figures drawn from the history of cinema. Wedemeyer won the German competition of the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen in 2006 and has shown his works at documenta 13 in Kassel, as well as at various biennales, including the 4^th Berlin Biennale and the Moscow Biennale. His work has also been featured in exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the CAC Brétigny, MoMA PS1, New York, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, and the Barbican Art Centre, London.

Text: Kathrin Rhomberg & Pierre Bal-Blanc