Bloom! Your Self Beautifully Enriched

Human in the Loop, HALLE 14, Spinnerei Leipzig (2022)

Note to Self, Museum of Fine Arts (MdbK) Leipzig, 2019

IDENTIFICATION, Künstlerhaus Sootbörn, Hamburg (2018)

25. Leipziger Jahresausstellung: SILBER, Spinnerei Leipzig, Werkschau (2018)

Video Stills

3-channel video installation, 17 min.

»In the video Bloom!, an oversized mouth spurs viewers on with quotes from different self-help books to increase creativity, directing them to rejuvenate, to work hard on themselves, to multiply their own opportunities, in short: to bloom. Joy as a work ethos, motivation as an imperative? If one follows to the advices of the self-help books, it’s all a question of attitude.« (Franciska Zólyom, director of MoCA/GfZK Leipzig)

An outsize mouth quotes creative self-help and management literature, the voice switching seamlessly between the roles of friendly narrator, hyped-up coach, and flippant clown. Pictures of lifestyle magazines, origami instructions, and start-up offices mix with statistical and motivational graphics. The video installation takes a skeptical look at the popularity of the concept of creativity and its new role in business and self-management. The setting is based on the architecture of the “fun offices” used by internet start-ups. In Bloom! the freedoms and burdens of the creative self become one.

Screenplay: Stefan Hurtig
Text is based on quotes from the following sources: Shamash Alidina: Achtsamkeit für Dummies, Evelyn Boos: Das große Buch der Kreativitätstechniken, Tony Buzan / Vanda North: Mind Mapping, Tony Buzan: Das Mind-Map Buch, Ulrich Bröckling: Das unternehmerische Selbst, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Kreativität, Heinz Hoffmann: Kreativitätstechniken für Manager, Tom Peters: Top 50 Service Management, Tom Peters: Top 50 Selbstmanagement
Performance: Jannik Hinsch
3D Animation: Felix Leffrank, Stefan Hurtig
Additional Footage: 3D models by Andrei Kletskov, Therealguy419, Renderiza, Kongorilla; video tutorials by Mahir Cecen, Crazy PT, Aleksey Orekhov; graphics from Kreativitätstechniken für Manager by Heinz Hoffmann; stats from Google Trends; Endomondo Globe by Chrome Experiments/Vojtech Kral
Additional Sounds: Setuniman, Mare Production, Leon Felekyan, S-DKG, Aquavitae
Special thanks: Romy Baumgarten, Jens Heitjohann and the University of Music and Theater (HMT) Leipzig

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