Artist Talk: Francis Hunger

Photo: Francis Hunger, Statistical Hypnagogia, 2021

As part of Kleiner Freitag of the Dortmunder U, the HMKV invites you to an artist talk with Francis Hunger, who will discuss his work Statistical Hypnagogia with HMKV director Dr. Inke Arns. The work is part of the current group exhibition Robotron. Working Class and Intelligentsia, which is on view at the HMKV until July 26, 2026. Between archival material, ideological history, and data aesthetics, the conversation opens up access to the inconspicuous but powerful visual and linguistic worlds of administration—and shows how political systems are deeply inscribed in technologies, concepts, and visual orders. The artist talk offers the opportunity to discuss background information, research processes, and artistic decisions directly with the artist and to contextualize the work beyond the pure audiovisual experience.

Using historical film footage from the House of Statistics in Berlin, Francis Hunger explores how bureaucracy, statistics and computer technology shaped everyday administration in the GDR and were reflected in the language of socialist discourse. The term ‘hypnagogia’ in the title refers to a state of consciousness in which visual, auditory and tactile hallucinations can arise while falling asleep. Cumbersome bureaucratic terms echo throughout the video, in sharp contrast to the contemporary cityscape at Alexanderplatz. In the GDR, almost all procedures, institutions and legal frameworks were based on statistical data. To this end, the State Central Administration for Statistics and the Central Office for Primary Documentation were established in the House of Statistics. Here, the State Planning Commission worked on the implementation of socialist economic planning goals within a five-year plan.

Francis Hunger (Leipzig) combines artistic research and media theory with the possibilities of storytelling in his practice. In installations, radio plays, performances, and internet-based art, he explores the applications and implications of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and civilian drones. Hunger teaches at the AdBK Munich and is a postdoctoral researcher at the Dataunion ERC project at the VUB in Brussels. His work is regularly exhibited internationally and he is co-editor of www.carrier-bag.net.