Moritz Stumm and Stefan Neuberger
KONTROLLE
Jun 14, 2024 – Jul 19, 2024
Opening: Jun 14, 6-9pm

Our existence is saturated with violence. If looking at its many forms and practices, it is impossible to tell which area of life is not permeated by it. Violence is prolific even in its most radical forms. As a means of intimidation, injury, destruction and annihilation, it structures relationships. In conjunction with oppression, pain and trauma, it produces counter-violence and resistance. As witness and participant, one encounters violence in the exhibition space. Overwhelmingly close, albeit artistically staged, it stands here as a pure experience.

Neuberger & Stumm’s work series KONTROLLE explores mechanisms of discipline, indispensable for the production of violence in conformity to law. In observing the training methods for police service animals, violence becomes tangiable – malleable, predictable and legitimized. In doing so, the work explores the extensive assault to the animals’ sensory faculties and the simulation of hostile environments, both strongly dictated by culture. KONTROLLE shows assemblages of the training of humanimal subjects. In the choreography of commands, master and subject develop an interdependent relationship. The conditioning of the animals’ perception is accompanied by a chain of commands that always follows the same course. Both ends meet in sound of the video work. The horses’ harnesses and the iron of the hammer used to trim their hooves set the clicking rhythm of the sound composition. The success of the command lies in the repetition, the regularity, the unambiguousness. An acoustic environment builds up imposingly, while detailed shots reveal the emotional fragility, and the tension of the animals. Tenderness, twitching, nerves. Then, audible on the soundtrack. Breathing, deep inhalation, rapid snorting, sometimes visible in condensation clouds. So while the trained animal practises the calm encounter with an inhospitable environment, this strain comes to the fore as the work progresses. As abstract symbols of complex situations of conflict, they appear as speaking and acting objects. A green medicine ball simulates blows, a blue flag a protest. Due to the process of conditioning, these will soon be of no consequence to the stoically persevering animals. However, they speak to us as embodied messengers of social conflict. The fact that the training methods tell us just as much about the physical abilities of the animals as they do about the idiosyncrasies of their owners is ultimately made clear in the interiors of a police dog facility. What may appear to others as a simple setting of everyday dreariness is a parcour of significant identifiable scents for the animals. The outdated furnishings of a replica apartment lay a path into the private lives of the police officers. In an attempt to imitate reality as closely as possible, they have provided their own furniture. In the simulation of a potentially violent adversary, they encounter their own identity.

Sophia Gräfe

Translation Bárbara Borges de Campos