2016

site-specific video game, duration variable

single-channel video, colour, sound, 11m

“History was heavy, so my art had to be weightless.

For over sixty years I have worked with the motif of the monument and the aesthetic of virtual reality.

It is my way of resurrecting the present.

So when I was invited to make a solo retrospective for the 2042 Berlin Biennial,

I wanted to create something special.”

'Berlin Mirror (2042 Retrospective)' is Chapter 10 of Lawrence Lek's Bonus Levels (2013-2016), a series of site-specific video games based on alternate versions of real places.

Conceived as a virtual novel, Lek uses simulation as a medium to assemble collages of objects and places drawn from reality.  The project is usually presented as a double-screen installation with video game and narrative walkthrough video displayed side-by-side.

The project features an imaginary site-specific simulation of the 2042 Berlin Biennial, where fictional artist Daniela Graham leads a guided tour of her centennial exhibition at KW Berlin. The tour weaves together her practice in video and sculpture, her relationship to history and her four site-specific works at the institution.

Born in 1942 to a chemist who worked at the factory in the courtyard where Kunst Werke now stands, the artist looks back on over sixty years’ worth of her practice in sculpture, video, and performance. Moving between her early years growing up in Berlin, to her memories of East Germany, art school, and her current exhibition at the institution.

Her practice is based on American artist Dan Graham (who created the Cafe Bravo installation at KW), but imagined as if he was born in Berlin in 1942 instead of Illinois. Here, Graham's artistic preoccupation with materiality and space is tied together with the weight of history.