Constanze Ruhm

Constanze Ruhm (born 1965) is an Austrian filmmaker, screenwriter, artist, author, professor, and curator. Her works include films, videos, installations, photographs, texts, and digital projects. She graduated from the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna and the Städelschule in Frankfurt. Since 1996, she has been teaching internationally as a professor of film and video art. In 2006, she became a tenured professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

Ruhm lives and works in Vienna and Berlin. From 2007 to 2011, alongside her work in Vienna, she was an adjunct professor at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2017, she founded the queer feminist concept choir Mala Sirena with musician Florian Paul Ebner. In 2023, the Austrian Film Museum dedicated a retrospective to Ruhm's film and video work.

Ruhm's style, technique and themes

In her artistic work, Ruhm explores film, other media, and archives, as well as feminist historiography.

She often accompanies her films with installations that expand on the films' ideas, themes and references.

Early digital work

Ruhm's initial work was in digital art: at the time she was working with Weibel, Birnbaum and Mullican—creating 3D environments for the latter—it was a field that "appeared unbelievably promising and exciting." The culmination of this period in her work was her collaboration with on an installation for the Venice Biennale of 1995. But shortly after this project, her interest in narrative cinema came to the fore, though still filtered through her background in digital art, as she reworked and re-envisioned the presuppositions of the earlier form by means of the new medium.

"Since the late 1990s, [Ruhm's] work has been characterized mainly by references to certain films." Apartment (1998), while still a digital piece, explicitly evokes a classic film of the French New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt (Le mépris), foregrounding "the representation of female characters within the cosmology of this male-dominated auteur cinema." In Ruhm's reworking of the breakup between the characters played by Brigitte Bardot and Michel Piccoli,

A move to working with actors and scripted features; the "seven characters"

In 2001, Ruhm started the process of moving "to real, analogue space, to work with real people, with actors[...].". This provided a better match with her literary background: "y works develop not least from a writing practice, from text, and through narrative storytelling, or rather through the script." But one last digital work, A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight (2002), named after a Joyce poem, served as a bridge between the digital period and the shift toward working with actors. Like Apartment, A Memory is built upon a digital reconstitution of a set from a narrative feature, in this case Irvin Kershner's Eyes of Laura Mars. But the narration of Ruhm's work is based on an assemblage of the dialogue of female characters from that film as well as from several other films—what Ruhm calls her "matrix films." In the decade to come, she will return regularly to these characters and films in her projects. In addition to the character of Laura Mars played by Faye Dunaway in Kershner's film, these characters include:

Nana, from Godard's Vivre sa vie (originally played by Anna Karina) Giuliana, from Antonioni's Red Desert (originally played by Monica Vitti) Alma, from Bergman's Persona (originally played by Bibi Andersson) Bree, from Alan J. Pakula's Klute (originally played by Jane Fonda) Hari, from Tarkovsky's Solaris (originally played by Natalya Bondarchuk) Rachel, from Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (originally played by Sean Young)

A Memory exists both as a standalone 26-minute film and as an installation. In a review of the installation, Michael Hall noted that Ruhm "sifted through this popular suspense film and eliminated nearly all the pertinent information, except for the elements that most interested her[...] leaving an obscure digital picture that looked neither real nor fake." In this process of "emptying out" the original film, "Ruhm's main concern centers on how the space of cinematic narratives and the stories invented by others can add to the understanding of our own social reality."

X Characters / RE(hers)AL (2003) was Ruhm's first film with on-screen actors. Here all seven of the characters appear in the flesh and interact with each other. Ruhm worked out the script in a collaborative process with seven friends, each focusing on one of the main roles. The film was shot in Berlin, with help from colleagues such as Harun Farocki, a fellow professor at the Academy in Vienna. In the film the seven characters,

Ruhm had originally planned on naming the series of films X Characters in Search of an Author, alluding to the Pirandello play. As for the "X" with which the titles of this film and the two next ones begin, normally it "is used in theater and film production to mark the position of an actor, and is applied with chalk or tape to a usually black-painted wooden floor. In her films, Constanze Ruhm turns the 'X' into a protagonist, into a transmitter between character and space."

X Characters is also her first film in which rehearsals play a key on-screen role. The exploration of the world of rehearsals—the postures, the gestures, the struggles, the shifts in identity—will become an integral part of nearly all of her films up to the present day. "The rehearsal as form and method forms the basis for most of my works."

X NaNa / Subroutine (2004), in which Farocki has a small role, was the first in an intended series of standalone films about each of the seven characters—thus a "subroutine" of the main "program" featuring all seven. X NaNa imagines Godard's Nana (who prefers spelling her name with two capital "N"s) working in a record shop while participating in hacking operations and interrogating her creator via an Internet chat screen. The soundtrack echoes her name through judicious selections from various pop songs.

Ultimately the only other film made in the series of standalone films was X Love Scenes / Pearls without a String (2007), centered on Giuliana. Here the "X", drawn on a piece of black cloth used in film shoots and called a "flag," figures physically and prominently as Giuliana, now an actress, not only plays herself but also Bree and Hari, "creating a kaleidoscopic fragmentation of identities." She is often obliged to act with the flag as her only partner (this is an evocation of a real film shoot during which Maureen O'Hara often had to perform love scenes alone with such a flag while her co-star Errol Flynn was too drunk to function). The director, also a woman, is a relatively overbearing, unfriendly presence, often criticizing Giuliana's acting. Only Nana, who has become a script supervisor in this film, tries to give Giuliana constructive advice.

Crash Site / My_Never_Ending_Burial_Plot (2010) was the last of Ruhm's films to feature any of the seven characters. Here, those remaining are Hari, Nana, and Giuliana, who has become "Julian" and is played by a male actor (wearing a slip). Although it is not presented as such, the film could be seen as centered on Hari this time, as

The other characters therefore emulate Hari's behavior in Solaris where she attempts more than once to commit suicide but is unsuccessful, being a mere projection from the surface of the planet Solaris.

FilmNanaGiulianaAlmaBreeHariLaura MarsRachelA Memory of the Players in a Mirror at MidnightX Characters / RE(hers)ALX NaNa / SubroutineX Love Scenes / Pearls without a StringCrash Site / My_Never_Ending_Burial_Plot—as "Julian"

Partnerships with co-directors Cold Rehearsal

The end of the period centered on the seven characters inaugurated a new one where Ruhm worked in collaboration with other directors. Again, a film bridges the divide between the two periods: in this case, it is Cold Rehearsal (Kalte Probe) (2011/12), co-directed by Christine Lang. The two main characters are Anna, clearly based on Anna Karina and as such a callback to Nana from the earlier films, and Hans, played by the same actor who played Julian in the previous film and evoking a name Godard used to pseudonymously sign several articles of film criticism.

The film begins, however, with three figures who Ruhm has identified as dead actresses formerly in Hans's films and marooned in a realm of detritus—a patch of land with folding chairs and a tent—that she calls "hell." But she has also said that the characters from the earlier series "find themselves together again," implying that the actresses are continuations or interpolations of the seven earlier characters. The actresses exact punishment on Hans by imagining him as a janitor on a talk show, made to appear on it as a guest with Anna (played by one of the dead actresses). Through a process of redoubling he is also forced to witness the events in the talk show studio with two other instances of Anna (played by the other two dead actresses) and himself (always himself, sometimes dirtier, sometimes stupider).

Other elements connect Cold Rehearsal to the earlier series: some of the actors (Judith van der Werff, Irina Kastrinidis, Dominic Oley); a sardine can; shovels for digging graves and knocking people unconscious; and the male character explaining that he is undergoing an identity crisis. "The film explores forms of female (self-)representation and the autonomy of female film characters as opposed to their male writers and directors." The dialogue in the film serves as "hidden instructions for the plot as well as its interpretation, thereby exposing the cinematic illusion -- in a very Brechtian sense -- by laying bare the modes of production." Ruhm has reiterated this lineage of her work: "By showing the contrived aspect of fiction, I am working in the Brechtian tradition, so to speak."

Panoramis Paramount Paranormal

Panoramis Paramount Paranormal (2014–16), co-directed by Emilien Awada, continues the connection with Godard and Karina. The film starts at Le Panoramis, an apartment complex in the Paris suburbs that was once the site of the , the French division of Paramount. Godard had shot scenes from A Woman Is a Woman at these studios. However, Ruhm saw this film as the beginning of a "new cycle" where "the form has become much more open and essayistic." Indeed, the film is less dominated by on-screen characters and features long passages of the surroundings of Le Panoramis with only ambient sound and the occasional passerby.

Alongside , actors from Ruhm's previous films rehearse passages from Marcel Carné's Juliette, or Key of Dreams, a film shot at the Saint-Maurice studios. They alternate between French and German, an allusion to the former practice of filming versions of films in multiple languages on the same sets with different directors and lead actors. Again, this was a practice associated with these studios.

The "paranormal" element of the film comes from two ghosts who prolong in a sense the role played in the earlier films by characters existing beyond their original films, or dead actresses imposing plotlines from their place in hell. For Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, the film "examines the role of cinema in the production of memory." She then quotes an unpublished text by Ruhm: "What form does the work against oblivion have to assume, and how can you live in peace with the specters, and should one even wish for it? Derrida responds that one cannot do anything but learn to live with the phantoms [...]."

The "Italian period"

In 2012 Schulte Strathaus invited Ruhm to participate in "Living Archive -- Archive Work as a Contemporary Artistic and Curatorial Practice," a long-term project of the Berlin Arsenal "in which artists are encouraged to appropriate and rework the films and footage stored in [its] vaults." Here, Ruhm encountered the film Anna (1975) by Alberto Grifi and Massimo Sarchielli. Schulte Strathaus has suggested that "it may have caught her eye because of its title: Anna, like Anna Karina [...]." Jan Lumholdt describes it as a "three-hour-plus cinéma vérité piece [...] hot on video in 1972" that "portrays a 16-year-old homeless drug addict who is eight months pregnant, discovered by the directors in central Rome and intimately explored, possibly also exploited, throughout the movie."

On the basis of the Grifi/Sarchielli film, Ruhm created Gli appunti di Anna Azzori / Uno specchio che viaggia nel tempo (The Notes of Anna Azzori / A Mirror that Travels through Time) (2019). But here again, as with Ruhm's earlier works, we have the theme of the character rebelling against her representation. In her article on Ruhm's film, Marina Pavido imagines Anna's thoughts: "What do these men want from her? Why do they film her? Why do they laugh when they talk about her in her absence?" We also have examples of Ruhm's predilection for revealing the "reverse shot" of what is shown, or what was "left on the cutting room floor." The "notes" of the title did not really exist, except in a slip of the tongue by one of the directors in a moment that was cut out of the original film; Ruhm provides them through "Anna's" voiceover (the casting of "Anna" is characteristically a major component of her film). In another outtake of the original film, Ruhm discovered Anna's last name, which is never mentioned in the finished product whereas all the other members of the crew were duly credited with their full names.

Ruhm's discovery of Anna "prompted her to undertake studies in the history of the Italian feminism of the 1970s." Around the same time, the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, which had presented a solo exhibition of Ruhm's work featuring Apartment in their 20er Haus space in 1998, renewed their interest in her work by proposing another collaboration. "In this instance, she delved into the history of the women's movement in Italy and discovered the Italian writer and art critic Carla Lonzi, who passed away too early." While doing research for Gli appunti di Anna Azzori Ruhm had come across the Casa Internazionale delle Donne (International Women's House) in Rome, and the herSTORY archive located there. On the basis of its resources, she developed La strada (è ancora) più lunga (2021), first a series of photographs and then an installation. She later incorporated the photographs into the exhibition Come una pupilla al variare della luce (2023) at the Belvedere, which also featured screenings of Gli appunti di Anna Azzori.

The research incorporated into La strada, Come une pupilla and another installation, A Shard is a Fragment of a Life, found filmic form in Ruhm's most recent feature, È a questo punto che nasce il bisogno di fare storia (It Is at This Point That the Need to Write History Arises) (2024). Here she combines her exploration of the work of Lonzi—and the Rivolta Femminile group that Lonzi co-founded—with a look back at the Précieuses, "a group of proto-feminist activists" in 17th century France. Molière parodied this movement in his plays Les précieuses ridicules and Les femmes savantes.

At one point in her film, Ruhm imagines an encounter between Lonzi and Armande.

Many sections of È a questo punto are accompanied only by an ambient soundscape: this is in particular the case for reenactments of paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi. The film is thus a development of the "open and essayistic" direction that Ruhm has pursued since Panoramis. But Godard has not been forgotten: the restaged paintings recall similar tableaux in Passion, and there are several images of hands reaching out to each other, a motif seen in Nouvelle Vague and Goodbye to Language among others. Unlike Godard's films, however, no men participate in these tableaux, and the women involved are staging themselves, imagining their own representations. The film also features archival footage of feminist demonstrations in Italy in the 1970s. Sight and Sound listed it as one of the best video essays of 2024.

Works

Filmography

1998: Apartment (18 min., b/w, silent) 1999: Evidence (5:30 min., color, silent) 1999: ID Remix (4:55 min., color, silent) (co-director: Elisabeth Fiege) 1999/2005: Travelling / Plan 234 / Extérieur Nuit (2:40 min., b/w, silent) 2001: A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight (26 min., color, sound) 2003-04: X Characters / RE(hers)AL (62 min., color, sound) 2004: X NaNa / Subroutine (30 min., color, sound) 2007: X Love Scenes / Pearls without a String (58 min., color, sound) 2010: Crash Site / My_Never_Ending_Burial_Plot (69 min., color, sound) 2011-12: Kalte Probe (Cold Rehearsal) (90 min., color, sound) (co-director: Christine Lang) 2012: Trailer Park (26 min., color, sound) (co-director: Christine Lang) 2014-16: Panoramis Paramount Paranormal (54 min., color, sound) (co-director: Emilien Awada) 2015: Comparing Local Spectres (18 min., b/w, sound) 2019: Gli appunti di Anna Azzori / Uno specchio che viaggia nel tempo (The Notes of Anna Azzori / A Mirror that Travels through Time) (72 min., color, sound) 2020: Pearls Without a String -- Trailer (3 min., color, sound) 2020: Pearls Without a String (72 min., color, sound) 2023: Dark Mirrors Turning Brighter (2:36 min., b/w, silent) 2024: È a questo punto che nasce il bisogno di fare storia (It Is at This Point That the Need to Write History Arises) (96 min., color & b/w, sound)

Installations 2013: Replay: ANNA 2021: La strada (è ancora) più lunga (2 channel installation / 2 x 60 min., color, sound) 2023: A Shard is a Fragment of a Life (2 channel installation / 2 x 23 min., color, sound) 2024: A Woman's Work is Never Done (2 channel installation / 2 x 12 min., color, sound)

Photographic works

1993: Un Coup De Dés, series of photographs / 3D-objects based on Mallarmé's poem 1997-98: Day for Night, series of digital photographs (C-print on aluminum): "10:45" (105 × 230 cm), "Cendrier" (105 × 230 cm), "Surdité" (105 × 230 cm), "Scaffold" (105 × 230 cm) 1999: Off, series of six digital photographs (C-print on aluminum): "Suburbia," "Desert," "Dancing," "Swamp," "Two Suns," "Kiss" 1999: Evidence, series of digital photographs (C-print on aluminum): "Snack" (180 × 300 cm), "Hut" (240 × 180 cm), "Terror" (214 x 180 cm), "Hangar" (214 x 180 cm) 2001-02: A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight, series of four photographs 2008: Renewal of Perspective: La Difficulté d'Être, series of 24 photographs, 37 x 25 cm, color (Photos: Jean-Luc Bertini) 2013: La Difficulté d'Une Perspective: A Life of Renewal, series of 22 photographs, variable dimensions, color (Photos: Emilien Awada) 2016: Panoramis Paramount Paranormal 2021: La strada (è ancora) più lunga, series of 59 analogue photographs, 41 cm x 28,5 cm 2024: A Woman's Work Is Never Done, series of 24 analogue photographs, 40 x 50 cm, b/w baryta prints

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

1991: A House Has a Top and Four Walls, Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna 1993: True / False / Else, Neue Galerie, Graz 1994: Secret of Life (with Peter Sandbichler), Galerie Grita Insam, Vienna 1994: Ars Electronica: Intelligente Ambiente (with Sandbichler), Brucknerhaus, Linz (new presentation of Secret of Life) 1995: kanal (with Sandbichler), Galerie Gaudens Pedit, Lienz, Austria 1995: kanal / The Media Pavilion (with Sandbichler), Austrian Pavilion, Venice Biennale 1995: The (W)hole Room (with Sandbichler), Galerie Trabant, Vienna 1996: knot.project (with Sandbichler), New York (a project in various spaces around the city such as the New Museum, Cooper Union, and the Austrian Cultural Institute) 1997: bo.track.32, Public Netbase, Vienna 1998: ...time and not the end of desire... (curated by Rainer Fuchs), mumok, 20er Haus, Vienna 1998: 10:45 / and then I often think of you (with Gert Rappenecker), Menotti Gallery, Baden / Vienna 1999: Apartment, Tyrolean State Museum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck 1999: Off, Kerstin Engholm Gallery, Vienna 2000: Art Statements, Art Basel 2000: Never Alone Again, La Panadería, Mexico City 2001: A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight, Entwistle Gallery, London, and Kerstin Engholm Gallery, Vienna 2003: blindstorey / silencetracks, commissioned work for the collection of Admont Abbey, Austria 2003: Constanze Ruhm, Remont Gallery, Belgrade (as part of the 2nd International Danube Conference on Art and Culture) 2004: X Subroutines, Kunsthalle Bern 2005: X NaNa / Subroutine (The Difficulty of Being), Kerstin Engholm Gallery, Vienna 2007: X Love Scenes, Kerstin Engholm Gallery, Vienna 2010: X Love Scenes/Pearls Without a String, The UAG / Room Gallery, University of California, Irvine 2010: My_Never_Ending_Burial_Plot, Kerstin Engholm Gallery, Vienna 2012: Trailer Park (with Christine Lang), Galerie der Stadt Schwaz, Schwaz 2013: Garage Exchange: Constanze Ruhm & Christine Lang and First Office, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Mackey Apartments Garage Top, Los Angeles 2014: Panoramis Paramount Paranormal (with Emilien Awada), Kerstin Engholm Gallery, Vienna 2015: Constanze Ruhm Re: Rehearsals (No Such Thing as Repetition), Zeit Kunst Niederösterreich, Lower Austria Museum, St. Pölten 2021: La strada (è ancora) più lunga, Kulturni center Tobačna 001, Ljubljana (as part of the When Gesture Becomes Event exhibition, but in Ljubljana the works by other artists were presented at the Mestna Galerija) 2023: Come una pupilla al variare della luce, Belvedere Museum, Vienna 2024: A Woman's Work Is Never Done -- the Culture of Women for the Preservation of Humanity, Charim Galerie, Vienna

Group exhibitions -- 1980s-1990s

1987: Cultura Digitalis, Academy of Applied Arts, Vienna 1988: Samples, Skala, Vienna 1992: Découvertes (with U.K.F.), Grand Palais, Paris 1992: Visual Communications Lab, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul 1992: CVC -- Computer Video Camera, Galerie Grita Insam, Vienna 1992: Die Idee einer Sammlung -- 20 Jahre Galerie Grita Insam, Dorotheum, Vienna 1992: On Justifying the Hypothetical Character of Art and Its Non-Identicality in the Object World (in collaboration with Peter Weibel), Galerie Tanja Grunert, Cologne 1993: Eigenwelt der Apparatewelt, Institut für Neue Medien an der Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main 1993: Photosynthese, , Hamburg 1993: Eigenwelt der Apparatewelt II, Galerie Stadtpark, Krems 1993: Keimfreie Wesen befehlen mir die Galerie keimfrei zu halten, Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna 1993: Gedanken, Skizzen, Entwürfe, Galerie Karin Sachs, Munich 1993: Computerkünstler , Munich 1993: Transparenz, , Feldkirch, Austria 1994: Translucent Writings, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY / USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, Florida 1994: Lokalzeit: Wiener Künstler im Spiegel des Unbehagens, Kunstraum Strohal, Vienna / Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana / Fondazione Querini, Venice 1995: D. O. G. Radio, Internet radio project 1995: Auf den Leib geschrieben, Kunsthalle, Vienna 1995: Skizzen, Modelle, Notizen, Galerie Martin Janda / Raum für Aktuelle Kunst, Vienna 1995: Self Construction, mumok, Vienna 1995: Raum annehmen IV, Galerie Grita Insam, Vienna 1996: Balance.akte, Niederösterreichische Landesgalerie, Vienna / Kunsthalle, Krems 1996: V6 -- We Six, Galerie Brasilica, Vienna 1996: Jenseits von Kunst / Beyond Art, Ludwig Museum, Budapest 1996: Film Stills, Galerie Grita Insam, Guadalajara 1996: Co właściwie sprawia, że dzisiejsze miasta są tak odmienne, tak seksy? (Just what is it that makes today's cities so different, so sexy?), BWA Galerie Grita Insam, Vienna / , Łódź 1996: Schrägspuren: Tage zeitgenössischer Videokunst in Klagenfurt, Haus der Architektur, Klagenfurt 1996: Rom suchen -- Artisti Austriaci a Roma, Palazzo Braschi / Museo di Roma, Rome 1996: Dress, Galleria Planita, Rome 1996: Habitus, Abito, Abitare, Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato 1996: Out of the Dark, Elga Wimmer Gallery, New York 1997: 10 Jahre Trabant, Galerie Trabant, Vienna 1997: Freeze Frame, Galerie Grita Insam, Vienna 1997: Time Is A Man -- Space Is A Woman, Galleria Viafarini, Milan 1997: Jenseits von Kunst / Beyond Art, Neue Galerie, Graz 1998: sincerely yours -- Videoart in Austria, Municipal Gallery, Sofia 1998: There Might be a Place Where One Goes to Feel Better, MAK Center, Los Angeles 1998: Positionen österreichischer Gegenwartskunst / positionen hedendaagse oostenrijkse kunst, , Knokke-Heist, Belgium 1998: Die österreichische Vision / A Visão Austriaca / The Austrian Vision / La visión austriaca, mumok, Vienna / Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon / Denver Art Museum, Denver / Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires 1998: Interactus V, Accademia d'Ungheria, Rome (in cooperation with mumok, Vienna) 1998: Bestandsaufnahme Sehen, transmediale, Berlin 1999: Richtung Museumsquartier -- Die neue Sammlung, mumok, Vienna 1999: Mars, Post Gallery, Los Angeles 1999: D.A.CH.com, Galerie Krinzinger at Benger Park, Bregenz 1999: Das Jahrhundert der Frauen, Kunstforum, Vienna 1999: Punkt Linie Fläche Raum: Abstrakte Fotografie aus den Beständen der Österreichischen Fotogalerie Rupertinum Salzburg, , Vienna 1999: D.A.CH.com, Galerie Krinzinger im Semperdepot, Vienna 1999: Junge Kunst: Aus der Sammlung Morgenbesser, Kunstverein Horn, Horn, Austria

Group exhibitions -- 2000s

2000: Illicit Form of Meditation, haus.0 program, Künstlerhaus, Stuttgart 2000: Skulptur als Möbel / Möbel als Skulptur: Objekte und Grafiken aus der Sammlung der Neuen Galerie Graz, , Frohnleiten 2000: Medienturm, Galerie & Edition Artelier, Graz 2000: Video Art Festival, Saint Petersburg 2000: LKW Lebenskunstwerke -- Kunst in der Stadt 4, Kunsthaus, Bregenz 2000: New Austrian Spotlight, Faculty of Fine Arts, Marmara University, Istanbul 2000: Kampfzone, Ottakringer Straße 20, Vienna 2000: Ankauf: NÖ. Werke aus dem Bestand der Artothek des Bundes, Kunstraum Palais Porcia, Vienna / Karmeliterhof, St. Pölten / Artothek des Bundes, Belvedere Museum, Vienna 2000: cultural sidewalk, Gumpendorf 2000, Unit F - büro für mode / NIN.design / Informationsbüro Vektor K. / public and commercial spaces, Vienna 2001: Diesseits und jenseits des Traums: 100 Jahre Jacques Lacan, Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna 2001: Im Buchstabenfeld, Neue Galerie, Graz 2001: Action, on tourne -- endtroducing, Villa Arson, Nice 2001: Shopping, Generali Foundation, Vienna 2001: Interiors, Six / Ungar Gallery, Munich 2001: Artfilm, Art Basel / Stadtkino, Basel 2001: Life goes on, , Vienna 2002: Future Cinema, ZKM, Karlsruhe 2002: Transfer, Sammlung Falckenberg / Phönix-Hallen, Hamburg 2002: > redirect, haus.0 program, Künstlerhaus, Stuttgart 2002: Límits de la percepció, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona 2002: Uncommon Denominator, Mass MOCA, North Adams MA, USA 2002: Travelling, Kunstwerke, Berlin 2003: Made for Admont, Auftragsarbeit für die Sammlung Stift, Admont, Austria 2004: Busan Biennale, Busan, Korea 2004: 3rd Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art 2004: Virtual Frame by 3, Kunsthalle Karlsplatz, Vienna 2004: Communauté, , Villeurbanne 2005: The Postmedia Condition, Neue Galerie, Graz 2005: Nach Rokytnik -- Die Sammlung der EVN, mumok, Vienna 2005: Lebt und arbeitet in Wien II / Living and working in Vienna II, Kunsthalle, Vienna 2005: Simultan: Zwei Sammlungen österreichischer Fotografie, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg 2006: Demolition, Kerstin Engholm Gallery, Vienna 2006: Why Pictures Now, mumok, Vienna 2006: The Postmedia Condition, Centro Cultural Conde Duque, Madrid 2006: Kino wie noch nie / Cinema like never before, Generali Foundation, Vienna 2006: Österreich: 1900-2000 -- Konfrontationen und Kontinuitäten, Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg, Austria 2007: Kino wie noch nie / Cinema like never before, Academy of Arts, Berlin 2008: System Mensch, Works from the collection of the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg 2008: Paraflows, MAK Contemporary Art Depot, Arenbergpark Flak Tower, Vienna 2008: Femmes 'R' Us: Feminism in Pop Music Art Film Today, Radialsystem, Berlin (curated by Christine Lang and Ina Wudtke) 2008: Mimétisme, Extra City, Antwerp (curated by Anselm Franke) 2008: Under Pain of Death, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York 2009: Empfindung: In der Nähe der Fehler liegen die Wirkungen, Augarten Contemporary / Belvedere Museum, Vienna (curated by Eva Maria Stadler and Sabeth Buchmann) 2009: Die Fragilität des Seins: Ein medialer Bildessay in 9 Kapiteln, Works from the collection of the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), Bucharest, Romania 2009: See this Sound, Lentos Art Museum, Linz (curated by Cosima Rainer) 2009: Asian Village, as part of the Vienna Festival (curated by Susanne Rogenhofer) 2009: Another Tomorrow -- Young Video Art from the Collection of the Neue Galerie Graz, Slought Foundation, Philadelphia 2009: Rewind / Fast Forward, Neue Galerie, Graz

Group exhibitions -- 2010s-2020s

2011: Living Archive, Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art, Berlin (ongoing project, curated by Stefanie Schulte Strathaus) 2011: Pieces, Kerstin Engholm Galerie, Vienna 2011: History Lessons, mumok, Vienna (curated by Matthias Michalka) 2011: Plumpe Spekulation (as part of the project The Art of Knowing / The Limits of Knowledge), Garage X, Vienna 2011: Moderne: Selbstmord der Kunst?, Neue Galerie, Graz 2012: DLF 1874 -- Die Biografie der Bilder, Camera Austria, Graz (curated by Ruth Horak) 2012: Liebhaber des Halbschattens, Metropolis Kino—Kinemathek, Hamburg (curated by Susan Chales de Beaulieu) 2012: Utopia Gesamtkunstwerk, 21er Haus, Belvedere Museum, Vienna 2012: medien.kunst.sammeln: Perspektiven einer Sammlung, Kunsthaus, Graz 2013: Die Sammlung #4, 21er Haus, Belvedere Museum, Vienna 2013: Living Archive, Kunstwerke, Berlin 2013: Screening Room, Temporary Gallery, Cologne (curated by Regina Barunke) 2013: Theatrical Fields, Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden (curated by Ute Meta Bauer) 2013: FOTOS -- Österreichische Fotografien von den 1930er Jahren bis heute, 21er Haus, Belvedere Museum, Vienna (curated by Severin Dünser and Axel Köhne) 2014: There Was Nothing To It: Sigmund Freud and the Play on the Burden of Representation, 21er Haus, Belvedere Museum, Vienna 2014: Theatrical Fields, Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore (curated by Ute Meta Bauer) 2015: Forum Expanded, Museum of Modern Art, Seoul (curated by Uli Ziemons) 2015: Self-timer Stories, MUSAC, León, Spain (curated by Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein) 2015: To the Sound of the Closing Door: FORUM EXPANDED / Berlinale 2015, Academy of Arts, Berlin (curated by Bettina Steinbrügge, Anselm Franke, Nanna Heidenreich, Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, and Uli Ziemons) 2015: Libidinal Economies: Art in the Age of Bull Markets, UCI Gallery, University of California Irvine (curated by Juli Carson) 2015: Vienna for Art's Sake! / Archive Austria, Winterpalais, Vienna 2015: Now, at the latest, Kunsthalle, Krems 2016: Sensuous Discontent: Critical Aesthetics The First 10 Years film series, UCI Gallery, University of California Irvine (curated by Kelly Donahey and Ian Meares) 2016: Putting Rehearsals to the Test / It's not about models, it's about modelling, Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal 2016: FIAC Hors Les Murs, Paris 2017: ever elusive | thirty years of transmediale, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin 2017: Remastered -- Die Kunst der Aneignung, Kunsthalle, Krems (curated by Verena Gamper and Naoko Kaltschmidt) 2018: The Remains of Cinema, Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst and Medien, Graz (curated by Norbert Pfaffenbichler) 2018: Die 90er-Jahre | 3. Aufzug - Mobile Kunst im mobilen Markt, MUSA, Vienna 2019: When Gesture Becomes Event, Künstlerhaus, Vienna (curated by Felicitas Thun Hohenstein and Alenka Gregorič) 2020: Cybernetics of the Poor, Tabakalera International Centre for Contemporary Culture, Donostia/San Sebastián, Spain / Kunsthalle, Vienna 2021: Wake Words (lecture performance by and with Golden Pixel Cooperative), , Vienna (curated by Enar de Dios Rodriguez, Olena Newkryta and Marlies Poeschl) 2023: On Stage -- Kunst als Bühne, mumok, Vienna (curated by Rainer Fuchs) 2024: I love you and leave you, Charim Galerie, Vienna 2024: Auf den Schultern von Riesinnen (On the Shoulders of Giantesses), Künstlerhaus Vienna (curated by Nina Schedlmayer)

Curatorial projects

1999: Hotel Utopia (film program), Summerstage Festival, Vienna 2001: Inextinguishable Fire / Traces of a Staging: Harun Farocki, Olaf Metzel, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, haus.0 program, Künstlerhaus, Stuttgart 2001: Economy of Desire (Isaac Julien film retrospective), Neue Galerie / Steirischer Herbst, Graz 2002: The Other Side: Missing Link, Wien 1970–1980, haus.0 program, Künstlerhaus, Stuttgart 2002: Wendelien van Oldenborgh / heaven's gift, MAK / CAT Contemporary Art Tower, Vienna 2003: Fate of Alien Modes, Secession, Vienna 2003: How We Got Into Pictures (Noël Burch film retrospective), ZKM, Karlsruhe, and haus.0 program, Künstlerhaus, Stuttgart 2003: Laura Cottingham: Not for Sale (Feminism and Art in the USA in the 1970s), Medienwerkstatt, Vienna 2004: Fate of Alien Modes (film program), ZKM, Karlsruhe 2006: Cinema Is Not A Bad School (presentation series as part of a lecture series), Merz Akademie, Stuttgart (co-curated with Elfi Mikesch, Christa Blümlinger, Babette Mangolte, Thomas Tode) 2008: Mimétisme (film program), Hebbel am Ufer (HAU), Berlin (exhibition curated by Anselm Franke) 2012: Keine Zeit (film program), 21er Haus, Vienna (exhibition curated by Bettina Steinbrügge) 2013: Positions in Experimental Films & Video: Familienfilme, University of the Arts, Berlin (co-curated with Christine Lang) 2013: Proben aufs Exempel (film and lecture series), mumok, Vienna (co-curated with Sabeth Buchmann) 2014: For the Birds (film program), Kunsthalle, Vienna 2015: You’ve Seen Me Before: Between Appropriation and Déjà-vu (projections and performances by students of the Art and Media class), Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna 2015: Blühendes Gift (collection exhibition), mumok, Vienna (co-curated with Diedrich Diederichsen and the students in the Master program in Critical Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts) 2016: Laura Mulvey: Feminismus und/im Kino, 1. mumok Kino, Vienna 2016: Putting Rehearsals to the Test / La répétition mise à l’épreuve, / Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery, Concordia University / SBC Gallery / Cinémathèque Québécoise, Montreal 2017: Erkennen und Verfolgen (a series of events on the work and teaching of Harun Farocki), Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna (co-curated with Michael Baute, Christa Blümlinger, Sezgin Boynik, Filipa César, Diedrich Diederichsen, Antje Ehmann, Thomas Elsaesser, Maren Grimm, Thomas Heise, Tom Holert, Jens Kastner, Christine Lang) 2017: Jene Tage (film and lecture series on Iran), topkino, Vienna (co-curated with the Golden Pixel Cooperative: Marlies Pöschl, Bernhard Staudinger, Lydia Nsiah) 2018: Casting a Shadow (film and lecture series), mumok and mumok Kino, Vienna (co-curated with Sabeth Buchmann) 2022: Raise and Unraise Your Voices! Choirs in Moving Images (three-part series), mumok Kino, Vienna (co-curated with Marietta Kesting) 2022: La Lotta Non È Ancora Finita (multi-part film program), Filmmuseum Vienna (co-curated with Annamaria Licciardello and Katharina Müller)

Film festival screenings

2007: X Love Scenes / Pearls without a String : Berlinale 2007 (premiere) 2010: Crash Site / My_Never_Ending_Burial_Plot: Berlinale, Forum; New Horizons Film Festival, Wrocław, Poland; Tel Aviv 5th Video Biennial, Tel Aviv 2013: Kalte Probe (Cold Rehearsal): Forum Expanded - Berlinale 2013 (premiere); Diagonale 2013, Graz 2015: Panoramis Paramount Paranormal: Diagonale 2015, Graz 2016: Panoramis Paramount Paranormal: FIDMarseille 2016 2020: Gli appunti di Anna Azzori / Uno specchio che viaggia nel tempo: Berlinale, Forum (world premiere); Diagonale, Graz; Jeonju International Film Festival, Jeonju, Korea; New Horizons Film Festival, Wrocław; FIDMarseille (International Competition); Festival Films Femmes Mediterranée, Marseille; She Makes Noise Festival, Madrid; Viennale; Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Mar del Plata, Argentina ; 44th Duisburger Filmwoche, Duisburg, Germany; Perugia Social Film Festival, Perugia; Essay Film Festival, London 2024: È a questo punto che nasce il bisogno di fare storia: FIDMarseille (world premiere); Pravo Ljudski Festival, Sarajevo; She Makes Noise, Madrid; Festival dei Popoli, Florence; Festival Efebo d'Oro, Palermo; Villa Medici Festival, Rome 2025: È a questo punto che nasce il bisogno di fare storia: DOK.fest, Munich; Diagonale, Graz; Image Ouverte, Paris; Pensa Festival, Barcelona; Exground Filmfest, Wiesbaden