Christoph Neugebauer

The Alter Bahnhof Video Walk was designed for the old train station in Kassel, Germany as part of dOCUMENTA (13). Participants are able to borrow an iPod and headphones from a check-out booth. They are then directed by Cardiff and Miller through the station. An alternate world opens up where reality and fiction meld in a disturbing and uncanny way that has been referred to as “physical cinema”. The participants watch things unfold on the small screen but feel the presence of those events deeply because of being situated in the exact location where the footage was shot. As they follow the moving images (and try to frame them as if they were the camera operator) a strange confusion of realities occurs. In this confusion, the past and present conflate and Cardiff and Miller guide us through a meditation on memory and reveal the poignant moments of being alive and present.

Snowflakes drift through the forest. An old man, as old as the hills, lives alone in a remote hut. The winter is so cold that he can barely move his limbs. When a robin flies against his window and falls to the ground the old man first has to pause for thought. Then he pushes open the heavy front door and stomps outside to help the bird. Out in the deep snow his strength begins to fail him. But no sooner does he take the tender creature in his hands than a change comes over him. Life radiates in luminous colours and returns to the old man's hut. As it used to. Or is this just one last memory? An inventively animated rumination on love, on bidding farewell and the cycle of life.

“KulturBahnhof” – this title has been carried by Kassel Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) since 1995. Over the years, it has become home to many cultural workers and creatives. Galleries, studios, rehearsal rooms, music clubs, an arthouse cinema, and the Offene Kanal (Public Access TV) are all located here. Between abandoned train tracks and old industrial buildings, important venues of the city’s cultural life emerged. However, by the end of 2023, many of these alternative and subversive institutions were forced to close. Deutsche Bahn increased rents and sent out eviction notices, citing plans to build a new operations center. To make a statement against this development, a group from Piraten Kanal Kassel organized a performative takeover of the station on New Year’s Eve. The film shows live performances that took place in the station hall, at Franz Ulrich, and in Stellwerk, combining them with small portraits and clips about the now vanished creative spaces.