TOO SHORT

EN

Elbe Trakal (*1988, Dresden, GDR) is a filmmaker, writer and participatory artist based in Berlin. Through collaborative process, performative rituals, historical interrogation and psychodynamic research Trakal develops films, texts and installations that deal with the impact that neoliberal subject production, post-socialist processes and surveillance technology have on the formation of communities. Trakal’s work has been shown among others at Museum for Photography Berlin, Museum Folkwang Essen, Cinemateca Distrital Bogotá, Savvy Contemporary Berlin, Athens Biennale. Trakal was participant at the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2019.

DE

Elbe Trakal (*1988, Dresden, DDR) ist Autor, Filmemacher und partizipativer Künstler. Durch Kollaboration, Rituale, geschichtliche Befragung und psychodynamische Prozesse untersuchen Trakals künstlerische Arbeiten post-sozialistische und neoliberale Subjektivierunsprozesse nach Macht und Autorität, sowie Möglichkeiten von Widerstand und Kollektivität. Trakals Arbeiten waren unter anderem zusehen im Museum für Fotografie Berlin, Museum Folkwang Essen, Cinemateca Distrital Bogotá, Savvy Contemporary Berlin, Athen Biennale. Trakal war Teilnehmer am Whitney Independent Study Programm 2019.


TOO LONG

I was born 1988 in Dresden, a city that diligently eradicated its socialist history as I came of age while polishing its Disneyfied city center where tourists and fascists sizzle in each their own historical revisionism. I took refuge in video libraries, psychotropic forests and William Burroughs. I shot my first films as a trilogy about a virus outbreak before I moved to Berlin.

Today I am a filmmaker, writer and participatory artist based in Berlin. Through collaborative process, performative rituals, historical interrogation and psychodynamic research I develop films, texts and installations that deal with the impact that neoliberal subject production, post-socialist processes and surveillance technology have on individuals and communities. I am invested in questions of authority, resistance and collectivity that I bring into contexts of film production, role-playing and participation.

My first feature-length film Preparations (2019) developed out of an ongoing research about survivalism and preparationism and follows a group of tutorial makers outside of the surveilled space of society.

Among my roleplaying games The Great Success Machine (2017) has been shown widely at education institutions a.o. At HfbK Hamburg, Udk Berlin, Cooper Union, NYU Game Center, UCLA Game Lab. My Rules of Disengagement (2018) was developed at Paradise Air in Tokyo.

As a performer I work with film makers, theater makers and game designers. My own performative work has been shown at SAVVY Contemporary Berlin, Espacio Nigredo Madrid, NAVEL Los Angeles, Elizabeth Foundation New York.

I co-edit Mimesis Magazine: Cinema as Performance a Journal on cinema as performance and organize the independent Science Fiction and theory reading group Xenoverse in Berlin.

My work has been exhibited among others at Museum for Photography Berlin, Museum Folkwang Essen, Cinemateca Distrital Bogotá, the Athens Biennale. I was participant at the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2019.