"Liquidity Inc." is exemplary of Hito Steyerl's merging and dissolution of reality and speculation, theory and entertainment, social diagnostics and the dream factory. In the large-scale video installation on the gallery’s upper floor, “Be water!” becomes a metaphor for a material existence in the irrational alternation of economic tides, for an amorphous subjectivity swimming in the river of capital. Jacob Woods, a Vietnam-born Lehman Brothers analyst who turned to martial arts after the bank failure of 2008, is the protagonist of a story crisscrossed by economic weather forecasts and digital animations, about self-determination in the face of unpredictable financial forces that influence even Steyerl during the film’s production process.
Liquidity Inc. 2014
HD video installation
With Jacob Wood
MMA Experts: Maverick The "SoulCollector" Harvey, Rage NG
The Weather Underground: Brian Kuan Wood, Esme Buden and Maximilian Brauer
Technical Director: Christoph Manz
Producer: Kevan Senson
Director of Photography Berlin: Christoph Manz
Director of Photography Los Angeles: Kevan Jenson
2nd Unit: Leon Kahane
Lighting Director Los Angeles: Tony Rudenko
Graphic Design/Assistant Post: Maximilian Schmoetzer
Music: Brian Kuan Wood "Tyler Stewart Superfunk", Melody Sheep "Bruce Lee Remix", Kassem Mosse "Shaqued", Arthur Russell "Lets go swimming", Cello samples from Joel Piersons "Gods World", Unknown and Untraceable Files from Public Harddrives
Clips by Maxim Maximov, Melody Sheep, John D. Boswell
Weather: Brian Kuan Wood
Nervoud Breakdown: Hito Steyerl
Thank you Nick Aikens, Abdullah Al-Mutairi, Esme Buden, Massimiliano Gioni, Gareth Jones, Leon Kahane, Sven Luetticken, Christoph Manz, Kassem Mosse, Kevin Slavin, Tom Swafford, Anton Vidokle
Special thanks to: TFA Total Fighting Alliance, Tod Meacham
Commissioned by David Riff and Ekaterina Degot for Bergen Assembly and submitted 8 months after the opening
Shot on Location in Hermosa Beach, CA
Works by Hito Steyerl
Hito Steyerl was born in Munich in 1966. She studied in Tokyo, Munich, and Vienna before she moved to Berlin, where she lives and works today. As a filmmaker, visual artist, and author in the field of essayist documentary video, Steyerl is a frequent lecturer, has published influencial writings, and participated in numerous international exhibitions and biennials. She exhibited at documenta 12 in 2007 and in the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2015.
- Anna Boghiguian
- Candice Breitz
- Marco A. Castillo
- CATPC
- Alice Creischer
- Chto Delat
- Clegg & Guttmann
- Eugenio Dittborn
- Heinrich Dunst
- Anna Ehrenstein
- Estate of León Ferrari
- Peter Friedl
- Sophie Gogl
- Estate of Barbara Hammer
- The Cabinet of Ramon Haze
- Hiwa K
- Simon Lehner
- Renzo Martens
- Chris Martin
- Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger
- Oswald Oberhuber
- Mario Pfeifer
- Dierk Schmidt
- Tina Schulz
- Santiago Sierra
- Michael E. Smith
- Franz Erhard Walther
- Clemens von Wedemeyer
- Tobias Zielony