We have probably all thought about the influence of digital logic and algorithms on our perception of the world at some point. This equally humorous and profound short film takes the interactive online tour service “Google Street View” as a starting point for an investigation of where the reality mapped by fifteen automatic cameras and the one perceived by human senses drift apart – and what the consequences are.
The “Accidental Animals” that happened to come across the lenses of Google cars defy the claim that every area, however remote, is reproduced as realistically as possible. Instead, their appearance in the frame produces unintentionally funny situations. Like glitches in the matrix, they remind us that we are watching only a patchy series of snapshots. Before we “drop” into a random place on the map, before we arrive to look around, the animals are already there. The fact that Google’s technology blurs many of those bird, dog and pig faces – like ours – to protect personality rights furnishes the directors with the perfect excuse for a provocative question: How is it that in this respect the algorithm acts more ethically than the humans who programmed it?

The truth is hidden behind blurs, but the allure of secrecy fades as the clarity increases. A woman in love ventures out of her cocoon to go out into the mundane world of “dead language.” Accompanied by a restless musical motif by Marian Mentrup, “Achill” boldly balances on the thin line between two universes – with raw, intimate drawings, shimmering stones and overpainted video sequences.

Every day the shoes from the shoe rack have new adventures. Today, the rubber boots Buddel and Torf tell the other shoes about their experience on a rainy day with a huge dark puddle in the playground, and what trick the unicorn rubber boots Chunk and Tuva used to take away their fear of getting thoroughly dirty … Episode three of the popular KiKA series.

Where the sandy beach of the Salton Sea, the biggest lake in California, begins to crunch harder, it does not even consist of sand any more: Millions of dead fish, plants and insects pile up on the shore to form a highly toxic substance. This is how Derek explains it, a member of a Cahuilla tribe that managed to escape an attempted genocide in the 19th century to the Salton Sea and now sees itself as a protective force for the once flourishing but increasingly deserted area and its outcasts.
Derek is one of the many locals whose trails Lukas Marxt and Vanja Smiljanić calmly follow, gliding with them through the desolate landscapes. In the process, they pick up slivers of nuclear history time and again: During the Second World War, the area was a test site for the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The experiments continued through the Cold War; the armed forces are still training here. The film finds its starting point and end two states away: The nuclear devices were sent on their way from Wendover, Utah. The local Airfield Museum pays tribute to their development. Once, the camera performs an almost weightless dance around a model of the Hiroshima bomb “Little Boy” on display there, to the sounds of the indestructible World War classic “We’ll Meet Again.”

Art is often in the unseen, and in this AR project art is in the motion. Motion is what brings together the changing characters, drawn by exhibition visitors and updated daily. By bringing anyone and everyone’s artwork to the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, this piece challenges the notion of authorship in the art space. Come draw!