Normalität 1-10

Normality 1–X

From 1999 to 2001, Hito Steyerl made a series of short videos, each with the same title: "Normalität 1–X". As she comments at the end of the third part, it was never planned as a series, but what other reaction was possible at a time and place where normality had come to stand for violence?

Steyerl passes the thematic baton from each part to the next with characteristic acuity, cutting a zig-zagging path through Germany and Austria on grainy VHS that ends at the 10-year anniversary of reunification, although there is little to celebrate. Desecrated Jewish graves foreshadow anti-Semitic comments on German chat shows, while the same defilements in Vienna flow into shouted expressions of solidarity with Austria in Berlin on the election success of the FPÖ. A bombing in Düsseldorf that targeted Jewish immigrants ushers in a whole series of attacks on refugees, migrants and foreigners across the country. The news ticker on the Hannover U-Bahn reporting on one such attack gives way to the empty promises of the Expo and people of colour in Germany mobilising against racism and capitalism. From the vantage point of now, such normality might seem far away, but there’s always a new normal.

Source: 72. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)