MKFOTO HFG

All that is Solid, 2014 15’40” in conversation with Louis Henderson Thursday, 22 May 2025, 9:00 Room 103 “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.” — Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1848 A technographic study of e-recycling and neo-colonial mining filmed in the Agbogbloshie electronic waste ground in Accra and illegal gold mines of Ghana. The video constructs a mise-en-abyme as critique in order to dispel the capitalist myth of the immateriality of new technology — thus revealing the mineral weight with which the Cloud is grounded to its earthly origins. "As technological progress pushes forward in the West, enormous piles of obsolete computers are thrown away and recycled. Pushed out of sight and sent to the coast of West Africa, these computers are thrown into waste grounds such as Agbogbloshie in Accra, Ghana. On arrival the e-waste is recuperated by young men, who break and burn the plastic casings in order to extract the precious metals contained within. Eventually the metals are sold, melted and reformed into new objects to be sold; it is a strange system of recycling, a kind of reverse neocolonial mining, whereby the African is searching for mineral resources in the materials of Europe. Through showing these heavy processes, the video highlights the importance of dispelling the capitalist myth of the immateriality of new technology to reveal the mineral weight with which the Cloud is grounded to its earthly origins.” — Louis Henderson

noch eine Werbung : Dear students, as our excursion to Vienna and Graz will be started soon, we warmly remind to whom interested to register now!! 🚄 we are really looking forward you to join us! For those who already registered, please join the organization meeting for the trip at next week Monday 28.04.2025 at 18:00 online 🔗 : https://bbb.hfg-karlsruhe.de/b/kar-qx1-9av-i6o for others is of course also welcome to join! Details about the excursion: Together, we will visit some of the most significant institutions, including the Vienna Secession (Aglaia Konrad), the Belvedere (Hans Haacke), the Albertina, the Leopold Museum, the MAK, the Kunsthaus, and the MuseumsQuartier. A special highlight in Vienna will be our visit to the Angewandte, particularly the Werkstätte Analoge Fotografie, led by artists Lisa Rastl and Claudia Rohrauer. In Graz, we will attend Susanne Kriemann’s solo exhibition "Ray, Rock, Rowan (Being a Photograph)" at Camera Austria. 📅 Excursion dates: May 14 – May 18, 2025 📍 Organizational meeting: April 28, 2025, 6:00 PM (online) We looking forward to your participation and see you!