Christian von Borries: The Dubai in Me & Neverland in Me

On Thursday, 8 December 2012, at 19:00 an artist talk with Christian von Borries (Berlin) will take place at HMKV. Hs film The Dubai in Me (2010) is currently on view in THE OIL SHOW by Hartware MedienKunstVerein at the Dortmunder U (until 19 February 2012). The evening starts with a sneak preview of his new film Neverland In Me (work in progress, Dir: Christian von Borries, HD, 78 min., Germany, 2011), afterwards there will be a discussion about both films between the artist and Dr. Inke Arns, artistic director of HMKV.

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NEVERLAND IN ME, work in progress
a documentary essay by Christian von Borries
HD, 78 min., Germany, 2011

Since the 1980s, this world has been characterized by four developments: the growth of political democracy, the growth of Online Democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.
The film examines consumerism, capitalism, oppression, misery rule and the help industry. People become a mass ornament, architecture a tuning tool for societies, self optimizing in file. Charity is the other side of democracy, while democracy appeares as a lifestyle option for the rich.
Michael Jackson is the soundtrack of the neoliberal 80s, a choreography of democracy. The film itself is imitating democracy in a nutshell, representing a failing polyphonie. In this sense, this film is a musical journey through Kasachstan, Kosovo, Pyonyong, Detroit, Moscow, Tokyo and Berlin, a neverland, the utopia of a non-place. Thus, the film clip serves as a disappropriation of the individual torso.

tags:
dubai "land as corporation”, “hightech-feudalismus”
astana "capital as identity tool”, “power as ritual kingdom”
pristina "colony as ethnofuturistic killer”, “power as government”
fashion bloggers, michael jackson, cosplayer, soldiers, music videos, turf dance.

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THE DUBAI IN ME
DE 2010, Dir. Christian von Borries, HD Video, 87:00 min.

Dubai, the capital of the eponymous emirate on the Persian Gulf, owes its tremendous wealth to oil. In recent years international media reports have focused on the city’s mind-boggling architectural projects such as the Burj al Arab, presumably the world’s most luxurious hotel, or the Burj Khalifa, the highest building on Earth. Architectural feats such as these conjure up images of fairy-tale wealth and boundless opportunities, while illustrating the power and influence of the ruling monarchy who manage the small country via their family business Dubai Holding. Christian von Borries’s film The Dubai In Me adopts a fresh point of view to look behind the slick facades of Dubai’s affluence. Its examination of the megalomaniac offshore construction project The World, for instance, departs from the traditional bird’s-eye view of media reports to investigate the living and working conditions of the Asian construction workers who provide the cheap labour that makes such projects possible. The World is a group of about 300 man-made islands in the shape of a map of the world off the coast of Dubai. Once completed, the islands will be sold for around 30 million dollars each to investors. However, due to the current worldwide financial crisis the project was put on hold indefinitely. Using a digital photo camera with HD video caption, von Borries documents the living and working environment of Dubai from the bottom up, adopting the perspective of the people who build the city and make its architectural dreams come true. These images are then confronted with excerpts from advertisement clips Dubai Holding uses as currency in the global real estate market. These computer-generated films, it appears, have more in common with the virtual reality of social networks such as Second Life than with functional architecture or engineering. Second Life, for instance, is based on the ancient dream of mankind to start anew, allowing users to start a new life in the virtual environment of the Internet and become rich by avoiding the mistakes they have made in real life. To the extent that it provides the possibility of changing »real« money into »virtual« money, Second Life has become a mirror of the deregulated global economy. For instance, a foreign worker in Dubai would have to work four months, or 864 hours, to afford one month’s rent for the virtual pendant of an island in The World. While refuting Western paternalism, von Borries’s work visualises numerous issues the global media never address because they would inevitably prompt further questions on the (crumbling) foundations of the West’s prosperity and hegemony.
Fabian Saavedra-Lara

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Christian von Borries (b. 1961) produces media from other media. He is an orchestra conductor, composer and producer of site specific psychogeographic projects. His work was comissioned by Lucerne Festival, Kunstfest Weimar, Volksbühne Berlin and Documenta 12 among others. His CD Replay Debussy won an Echo Award. His first film The Dubai in Me won a prize at the FID Marseille film festival and was shown at film festivals world wide as well as in Yekaterinburg, Madrid, Berlin and online. He is an anti copyright activist and lives in a green house in Berlin. In 2010 and 2011 he was guest professor at the Art Academy in Nuremberg.

www.masseundmacht.com
www.the-dubai-in-me.com
www.hegemonietempel.net