Beaten

The video work ‘Beaten’ by Clemens Wittkowski stages the soul and the heart – and the inner conflict in dealing with both. How do I think and how do I feel? How do I get mixed up by influences and resistance, including from outside, and yet how can I achieve a lively inner balance with my conviction? This is impressively presented in a very minimalist setting. Dressed in a narrow, black catsuit, a performer moves in a warm, iridescent yellow spotlight. Is he calm? Is he content? Or is he just incredibly exhausted? He begins to slap the floor uncontrollably with his hands, sometimes softly and almost tenderly, but more and more also very hard and quite angrily. He gets more and more into this state. Into his soul and his heart. Restless, fighting and almost tearing him apart. Inwardly admitting defeat. ‘Beaten’. Very slowly, his beating becomes much more even. Calmness sets in, a great deal of courage, clarity, a harmonious beat, a rhythm that now also becomes musically more and more intense and powerful – through expressive movements and virtuosity. Balance, and stability at least for a while. We feel the performer’s body, literally, see how his soul and heart gain the upper hand until he strikes the last and final blow and disappears into it.