Kunsthal Charlottenborg launches streaming platform DIS.ART in Denmark

Following the Danish government's decision on new measures in relation to combating COVID-19, Kunsthal Charlottenborg is temporarily closed to the public. Instead, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, in collaboration with DIS, Tranen and CPH:DOX, will make all films and series on the streaming platform Dis.art available free of charge for all people in Denmark until September 1, 2020.

→ Experience films and series for free in Denmark until 1 September 2020 here.

The internationally renowned artists’ collective DIS, who curated the 9th Berlin Biennale, was originally to open their new exhibition DIS presents: What Do People Do All Day? March 19 at Kunsthal Charlottenborg. Following the Danish government’s decision on new measures in relation to combating COVID-19, Kunsthal Charlottenborg is temporarily closed to the public. Instead, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, in collaboration with DIS, Tranen and CPH:DOX, will make all films and series on the streaming platform Dis.art available free of charge to all people in Denmark from March 14 until September 1, 2020.

The newly developed video platform Dis.art that turns learning into a Netflix-like experience aims to convey a range of ideas conjured up by artists, filmmakers and thinkers, all of which posit the future of learning as edutainment. The selection of videos featured in the exhibition leverage forms like documentary films, cartoons, cooking shows, and advertorials, to take on the pressing questions that are DIS’s current obsessions: the nature of ‘belonging’ in a rootless, networked world; the advent of suburbia; artificial intelligence; the relationships between technology, vision, and power; and the future of work.

The films and series on Dis.art are created by Hannah Black (GB), Derek Larson (US), Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman (US), Ilana Harris-Babou (US), Will Benedict (US) & Steffen Jørgensen (DK), Olivia Erlanger (US) & Luis Ortega Govela (MX), DIS (US) amongst others, whose works are also included in the postponed exhibition among cinematic settings and installations:

The unboxing video is one of the more perverse capitalistic thrills—watching strangers open packages and show off their online purchases. In What’s in the Box? with Hannah Black (2018), artist Hannah Black turns this consumptive voyeurism on its head, revealing allegorical products and unpacking urgent ideas with special guests, like Zahira Kelly (@bad_dominicana), from behind her desk in this late night style talk show.

Derek Larson’s Très Mall (2019) is a serious cartoon about three young artists from Savannah, Georgia. Although the protagonist, Jon, and his friends may seem like disaffected, squatters driven less by political motivations and more financial limitations, they ask some of today’s most important questions: Can we invent a new kind of love? What do objects experience? Do animals have morality? What violence does the screen inflict? How much connection is too much connection? Do we need another remake of Stargate, again?

Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman’s Early Stage (2019) lets artificial intelligence speak for itself so we don’t have to wonder what they think of us: Do they worship us? Pity us? Are we pathetic for asking that? The A.I. embodied in Casey Jane Ellison wants us to know she’s in charge. Yeah, we can click pause but we’re just an ugly mass of cells that evolved for billions of years out of some primordial swamp. We didn’t create anything, we just gave way for the conditions for new intelligences to be born.

What better site for a 21st-century cooking show than a tower of nothing but eateries? In The Restaurant (2018-20) by Will Benedict and Steffen Jørgensen we get one possible take on what the future of food culture might be like. With pickled cop cars, blood ketchup, and Drano-based concoctions, there is certainly something for everyone in this gastronomic high rise and plenty of new kitchen tricks to learn from this otherworldly cooking show.

Reparation Hardware (2017), by Ilana Harris-Babou, is at once a furniture restoration tutorial, and a proposal for the delivery of reparations to African-Americans. She asks “what makes the idea of reparations for African Americans so terrifying?” Perhaps because reparations acknowledge the failure of the American Dream. That there is something here that needs to be repaired and reclaimed.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple Computer in a garage. Suburban men turned garages into man caves to escape from family life. Nirvana and No Doubt played their first chords as garage bands. Olivia Erlanger and Luis Ortega Govela explore this legacy in GARAGE (2019) through a series of skits with the help of actress Aubrey Plaza, visits from Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Sisters of the Valley—a group of entrepreneurial weed-growing nuns. GARAGE is shortlisted the New:Vision Award at CPH:DOX 2020.

→ Experience films and series for free in Denmark until 1 September 2020 here.

The launch of Dis.art in Denmark is supported by Augustinus Fonden, Beckett-Fonden, Bikubenfonden, Knud Højgaards Fond, Det Obelske Familiefond, Statens Kunstfond.