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BLACK/WHITE/GREY, 2020

video installation

In his latest video installation Black/White/Grey (2020) Mario Pfeifer investigates the relationship between hacking as political tool and the energy producing and distributing sector. During his research Pfeifer discussed different scenarios and situations with digital forensics, cyber-range instructors and in-the-field operators. Based on these conversations and site visits Pfeifer scripted a monologue for the German actress Sandra Borgmann to be performed in a virtual space that looks into different global key examples of hacking critical infrastructure such as electricity grid operators, power plants, refineries or multinationals' websites. While the performer engages virtually with the audience on basic questions of data security, a digital forensic and hacker shares details on paradigm changing hacking attacks commonly known as industroyer, stuxnet or trisis. Black/White/Grey points out that such worm attacks indicate new territories of geopolitical conflicts fought in cyberspace. The artist raises the question if blackouts as a form of strategic political attacks have become a realistic thread to societies and nations.

Mario Pfeifer, BLACK/WHITE/GREY, 2020, 4K-video-installation, 17min, color, stereo, videostill, photo: Museum Folkwang
Mario Pfeifer, BLACK/WHITE/GREY, 2020, 4K-video-installation, 17min, color, stereo, videostill, photo: Museum Folkwang
Mario Pfeifer, BLACK/WHITE/GREY, 2020, 4K-video-installation, 17min, color, stereo, videostill, photo: Museum Folkwang
Mario Pfeifer, BLACK/WHITE/GREY, 2020, 4K-video-installation, 17min, color, stereo, videostill, photo: Museum Folkwang

4K-video-installation, 17min, color, stereo
Photos: Museum Folkwang

Mario Pfeifer

Mario Pfeifer was born in 1981 in Dresden, Germany. His work explores representational structures and conventions in the medium of film, in locations ranging from Mumbai to California to the Western Sahara. Conceiving each project out of a specific cultural situation, he researches social-political backgrounds and weaves further cross-cultural art historical, filmic and political references into a richly layered practice, ranging from film and video installations to photographs and text installations. Often, Pfeifer collaborates on publications that reconsider these projects, offering research materials and critical investigations by writers and thinkers of related fields, concerning issues suggested in his projects for a wider social-political discussion. After his studies in Leipzig (HGB) and Berlin (UDK), Pfeifer graduates from Willem de Rooij's class at Städelschule Frankfurt in 2008. He is a Fulbright fellow in Los Angeles (California Institute of the Arts) in 2008/09. Further grants and projects lead him to Bangkok, Mumbai, Marrakesh, Beirut, Tierra del Fuego, Santiago de Chile, and New York. Mario participated in the 10th Berlin Biennale (2018), the 11th Bienal do Mercosul (2017), the 3° Montevideo Bienal (2016) as well as the 4th Marrakesh Biennal (2012). Survey exhibitions took place in 2016 at the GfZK Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig and in 2019 at The Power Plant Toronto. In 2019 IDFA commissioned the first performance work AGAIN – Live which premiered at Amsterdam's Pakhuis de Zwijger. Pfeifer lives in Berlin and Dresden. In 2023 Pfeifer was awarded the Hessian Film- and Cinema award in the categorie "Best Short Film" for "Zelle 5 - Eine Rekonstruktion".



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