In her work, Marianna Christofides addresses juxtapositions of geological and sociohistorical narratives; she is concerned with the (mis)use of the concept of nature as justification for determinist mindsets that attempt to obscure the contingent character of things.

In their book Capitalist Sorcery: Breaking the Spell, Philippe Pignarre and Isabelle Stengers remind us that capitalism is a mystifying practice that conceals conditions of production and is unable to recognize affective labor.

Yuki Higashino’s new film Extinguishment (2020) explores what awaits a society characterized by both a rapidly aging population and xenophobia. Taking Japan, the fastest aging country in the world, as its case study, the film examines the explosion of wildlife that accompanies Japan’s depopulation, and imagines a future where humans have been almost completely wiped out by aging coupled with an untold ecological disaster. The Japanese islands will be inhabited by thriving wildlife and autonomous robots originally built for the care of the elderly.

The Rojava Film Commune is a collective of filmmakers founded in 2015 and based in the autonomous region of Rojava, northern Syria. Darên Bi Tenê (The Lonely Trees) and Evîn Di Rûyê Qirkirinê De (Love in The Face Of Genocide) are two documentaries about the traditional forms of singing (Dengbêj) in Kurdistan, and in Rojava and Shengal in particular. We choose to showcase these two films together, given that they are part of a series of documentaries that the Rojava Film Commune has been working on.

Since the 1970s Ericka Beckman has been known for her idiosyncratic visual language integrating gaming structures as well as aspects of experimental cinema and popular culture in her moving image works. Based on her research on the strategy game Monopoly and its unexpected socialist origins, Beckman’s most recent film Reach Capacity (2020) addresses the current property crisis and gentrification in the US.

Observing, imitating, revisiting the forgotten, remembering. The program Learning by Heart brings together a series of films that look into the hidden facets of learning, teaching, and the intergenerational connections created by it. The program includes abstract and intimate images of translating experience into individual languages of empathy, memory, and resistance. It is a compliment to the ease we once learned with, the joy we felt, and our yearning for knowledge.

mumok presents a new work by Ghislaine Leung specially conceived for the cinema. Much like Leung’s score-based works for exhibition, PRESENTS takes the structure of the screening to task, amplifying and doubling up the conditions of presentation. Leung will be joined in conversation by writer and curator Mike Sperlinger.

Networks have us firmly in their grasp. So much so that we often lose sight of their powerful effects. But these ubiquitous webs in all of our lives can no longer be seen in isolation from each other—assuming we are able in the first place to still form some objective overview of them all. Christian Höller presents films that adress specific network nodes or partial networks on October 12 and October 19 at mumok cinema.

Networks have us firmly in their grasp. So much so that we often lose sight of their powerful effects. But these ubiquitous webs in all of our lives can no longer be seen in isolation from each other—assuming we are able in the first place to still form some objective overview of them all. Christian Höller presents films that adress specific network nodes or partial networks on October 12 and October 19 at mumok cinema.