On March 18, 2023, the exhibit FAKKT »Gift« celebrated its premiere as part of the opening ceremony for the annual exhibition of the Franke Foundations.
FAKKT - Gift:
Rap can be considered as an artistic culture of dispute, encompassing both scenic-visual and linguistic-acoustic dimensions. It finds its performative expression in 'battles', in which 'dissing' through words, gestures, and poses is elevated to a stylistic device. These cultural practices of disputing are frequently accompanied by a formalized representation of mockery and shaming. The genre is therefore attractive for artistic transgressions of taboo, through which the boundaries of what can be said are constantly renegotiated and staged anew.
In his contribution to the exhibition, Halle-based rapper FAKKT slips into a role: The artist engages textually, acoustically, and visually in a state of confrontation with internal and external perspectives of 'dissent', which manifests in the music video through stylized gestures, poses, and speech acts. The exhibit deliberately plays with invisible and visible masquerades. What is said and shown is intended as an interpretation of contemporary digital hate comments, which are processed as fragments and worked through (self-)critically within the exhibit GIFT.
SCREENS:
By their very nature, technologically mediated (mass) media such as film, television, or social media make the process of communication complex. After all, these media detach our natural communication – face to face – from the otherwise necessary physical presence. Watching others argue, being entertained, laughing about it, but also thinking, reflecting, commenting, and talking about it – this is what audiovisual media and digital media make possible.
This is primarily seen through screens – or, more broadly – screens in a wide variety of formats: whether the wide widescreen format that unfolds a particular fascination in the cinema, or the former 4:3 television screen, which later adopted the dimensions of 16:9; or, quite emblematically and currently: the characteristic vertical format of the smartphone. These screens, with their specificities, shape communication spaces in manifold ways, in which media users as observers find themselves confronted with many questions: What is my own position toward what I see mediated through media? How am I being positioned? Why do I continue watching? Do I remain passive or do I become active? How do I actually use the images that surround me?
Further information: Annual exhibition 2023