Karin Lindstén
Tiergarten at Dusk

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the animals haunt / the flashlight on the other side / light near blue trees / leaning somewhat over the river / I stand there in the undergrowth like a screen / scratching bark / In skirt and heals in the soil.

In her poem and in her video work, Karin Lindstén deals with the cohabitation of animals and humans in the big city. In her film, the artist explores the characteristics and difficulties of human and animal cohabitation in a poetic way. Cities are not only living spaces for humans, but animals have always been inhabitants of metropolitan areas as well. Many wild animals find a habitat on green spaces, in parks and on balconies as well as in the walls of houses, in ruins of buildings and on construction sites. Often, living conditions for wildlife are better in cities than in rural areas. Monocultures in rural areas offer poorer conditions so that in general the migration of animals to cities is increasing. The artist makes clear that there are conflicts at the points of contact of human and animal cohabitation where animals suffer from human dominance. In the first half of the 20th century, farm animals and slaughterhouses were increasingly banished from cities, and at the same time, the practice of keeping pets was constituted along with the middle-class family. Wild animals are often identified as parasites that need to be controlled. This valence slowly changes with the extinction of individual wildlife species and with the recognition of food chains.

Lindstén’s video shows the documentation of a performance that took place in the Tiergarten at night: a female back figure illuminates the Tiergarten with a flashlight. Trees, branches, leaves and water become visible through the beam of light. In front of a screen, the shadows become larger, a swarm of mosquitoes and occasional moths can be seen, their flight hectic. The insects can no longer orient themselves in the glaring light. The nature of the screen is used in motion pictures to change surfaces, to adjust them or to make people, animals and things disappear. The insects buzzing disoriented on the screen stand for human dominance and for the disappearance of animals by the human way of life. What does urban nature in the Tiergarten mean for humans and for animals? How can the coexistence of animals and humans in the urban space work and which democratic values can be used for this?
Moths can be made out on the photograms, in some cases even their flight movements are frozen in the picture. To produce these images, Lindstén held photographic paper on the screen of her laptop for twenty seconds. The virtual moth flight was thus captured and materialized.

Whereas the light in the video stands for the incompatibility of human lifestyles with the needs of insects as well as for dependencies in the big city, light is essential for the photograms in order to be able to visualize the insects at all. Here, animal movement becomes visible with the help of media technology. Further reflection is necessary for the cohabitation of insects and humans in order to be able to come even more strongly into a democratic togetherness. Interspecies solidarity is closely connected to social justice and ecology in the city.

Text: Dr. Silke Förschler

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