Normalität 1–10

Normality 1–X

Forum Special Fiktionsbescheinigung 2022

From 1999 to 2001, Hito Steyerl made a series of short videos, each with the same title: Normalität 1–X. As she comments at the end of the third part, it was never planned as a series, but what other reaction was possible at a time and place where normality had come to stand for violence? Steyerl passes the thematic baton from each part to the next with characteristic acuity, cutting a zig-zagging path through Germany and Austria on grainy VHS that ends at the 10-year anniversary of reunification, although there is little to celebrate. Desecrated Jewish graves foreshadow anti-Semitic comments on German chat shows, while the same defilements in Vienna flow into shouted expressions of solidarity with Austria in Berlin on the election success of the FPÖ. A bombing in Düsseldorf that targeted Jewish immigrants ushers in a whole series of attacks on refugees, migrants and foreigners across the country. The news ticker on the Hannover U-Bahn reporting on one such attack gives way to the empty promises of the Expo and people of colour in Germany mobilising against racism and capitalism. From the vantage point of now, such normality might seem far away, but there’s always a new normal.

by Hito Steyerl Austria / Germany 2001 German, English 38’ Colour & Black/White Documentary form

Crew

Director	Hito Steyerl
Cinematography	Hito Steyerl, Marcus Carney
Music	Arnold Schönberg

Additional information

Courtesy the artist, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York and Esther Schipper, Berlin

Hito Steyerl

Born in 1966 in Munich, Germany. She studied art as well as film. Her works operate at the intersection between film and visual art and are shown at film festivals and in art exhibitions around the world. Her teaching experience includes several years at the University of the Arts in Berlin. She currently teaches at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

Filmography

1994 Deutschland und das Ich; 42 min. 1998 Die leere Mitte (The Empty Centre); 62 min. 2001 Normalität 1–10 (Normality 1–X); 38 min. 2004 November; 25 min. 2007 Journal No. 1: An Artist's Impression; 21 min. · Lovely Andrea; 30 min. 2010 In Free Fall; 34 min. 2012 Abstract; 7 min. 2013 How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational; 16 min. 2014 Liquidity Inc.; 30 min. 2015 Factory of the Sun; 23 min. 2020 SocialSim; 18 min.

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2022