Techno music swells as the camera scans a crowded room, pausing on people giving interviews. A cab door slams. 'Well you know, I just landed, I've only been here a few hours and I must say I'm already impressed.' An orchestra crashes as the camera cuts to a backdrop of the Brandenburger Tor covered in Lichtenstein dots. 'This is really much more than a conference, it's more a cultural immersion into art and technology.' A close-up of a paintbrush, an index finger on an Android, a knob of a mixer sliding upwards, a 3D printer revving back and forth, and a woman spraypainting the logo of the startup Eventbrite. The camera pulls back, a metal gate with the word 'tech' woven with neon string moves into focus. The music softens as a series of interviews are rapidly cut together: descriptions of Berlin's potential fade to the TV Tower at sunset. 'This is uniquely Berlin.'
A man in a blue shirt looks into the camera: 'There really is nowhere like this in the world.' A gust of wind blows a table of nametags. A faster techno beat begins as an animated map of Berlin scrolls from Mitte to Neukölln. Graphic pins drop from the sky emblazoned with the logos of startups: EyeEm, ResearchGate, Wooga, SoundCloud, Trademob...
For his second solo exhibition at Galerie Buchholz, Simon Denny presents an installation of new sculptures, videos, canvases and found objects drawn from his research on Berlin's newfound identity as a startup hub within Europe's tech-based economy.
Simon Denny would like to thank Jenny Jung, Factory, Techcrunch Disrupt, Seedcamp, Richard Hylerstedt, Hy!, Nikolas Woischnik, Tech Open Air, Marco Woldt, Tobias Leingruber, Mozilla, Matt Goetzen and Johanne Domke, Lukas Jaworski, Team Europe.
Press release courtesy Galerie Buchholz. Text: Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff.
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