DEMASKIERT

The video work ‘DEMASKIERT’ (DEMASKED) by Clemens Wittkowski is an artistic examination of the corona pandemic. A verbal-emotional reaction that relentlessly dissects our individual pandemic behavior. From one day to the next, we have had to learn to change our structures and our ways of behaving and thinking and to adapt them immediately time and again. New terms, formulations, phrases, names, abbreviations and terminology have become repetitive in our use of language and have had an impact on our lives in a very short space of time. This is where ‘DEMASKIERT’ comes in timelessly, because every human being is fundamentally self-referential in crises. The words addressed directly to us by actress Stella Roberts take on an unpredictably powerful and lyrical dimension. The sequence of terms in acted and composed order has the effect of a narrative. The nuances of emotionality, humility and fear through to objectivity, criticism and subliminal hope triggered by the selection of pandemic buzzwords are poignant: (original in German) “Global Warning. Due to the occasion. COVID-19 pandemic. In these times. Shutting the country down to emergency mode. Shutdown. Lockdown. Lockdown light. Emptiness. Contact reduction. Sorry, we are closed. The complete cessation of gaming operations. I don’t want to lose what I have. System relevance. Superspreader event. Risk area. The current situation. The new normal.” These are just a few quotes from the haunting monologue. Everything that is said and felt is what drives us and does not let us go, even if many would like to suppress it. It is a call to an individually experienced, masked environment characterized by distance, which emotionally only seems to care about itself and thus supposedly ‘DEMASKED’ us all for who knows how long.