MASCHINENHAUS M0

Lecture How Deep Is Now? An Archaeology of Contemporaneity by Knut Ebeling
in conjunction with the exhibition How Long Is Now?
24 November 2016

How Long Is Now? Exhibition at KINDL’s Power House (ground floor, M0) October 23, 2016 - February 19, 2017, Michael Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist, 2007, in the back: Philip Akkerman, Self-portraits, 2006–16, Photo: Jens Ziehe, 2016

How Long Is Now? Exhibition at KINDL’s Power House (ground floor, M0) October 23, 2016 - February 19, 2017, Michael Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist, 2007, in the back: Philip Akkerman, Self-portraits, 2006–16, Photo: Jens Ziehe, 2016

With its first thematic group show, How Long Is Now?, the KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art explores the topic of contemporaneity and its role in artistic production today. Looking at the exhibition – in particular Michael Rakowitz’s piece, The invisible enemy should not exist – Knut Ebeling asks how to reconcile the discourse on contemporaneity with the discourse on materiality. He looks for material conceptions of temporality that enable us to rethink the idea of the contemporary. What could "material contemporaneity" be, and how should we envision the contemporaneity of the material world?What happens if we replace the history of contemporary art with its archaeology? How would an archaeology of contemporaneity look?

Knut Ebeling is professor for Media theory and aesthetics at Weißensee – art academy berlin, and lecturer at Stanford University Berlin. Numerous publications on contemporary theory, art and aesthetics, recently: Die Aktualität des Archäologischen – in Wissenschaft, Medien und Künsten (Mithg.), Frankfurt am Main 2004; Das Archiv brennt (together with Georges Didi-Huberman), Berlin 2007; Wilde Archäologien 1. Theorien materieller Kultur von Kant bis Kittler, Berlin 2012; Wilde Archäologien 2. Begriffe der Materialität der Zeit von Archiv bis Zerstörung, Berlin 2016.