Fortynine

Video installation • 49 short films • Austria-Germany 1996-2007 • 154 min

The walk-in video installation by Michal Kosakowski consists of 49 short films in which 160 people from all over the world re-enact their own murder fantasies.

www.zero-killed.com

Synopsis

Between 1996 and 2006 Michal Kosakowski produced 49 short movies on the subject of killing. 49 killings, dreamed up by inhabitants of the metropolis of morbidity – Vienna. In 1996, Kosakowski began to inquire into fantasies of killing – at first among his relatives and friends, then widening the circle to include artists, musicians and, eventually, actors.

Within a decade, Kosakowski made 49 short movies, an essential element of which is the fact that these killing fantasies were put into practice with the complicity of the respondents themselves and depicted in the 49 videos. The collaborations between Kosakowski and his fictitious killers and victims in scripting, acting and staging the films could not have been closer or more intense. Michal Kosakowski himself was in charge of directing, camera, editing and special effects for all 49 films.

The fantasies of violence, all of which seem to feed on the explicit violence omnipresent in film and television, are stunning. Not a single one of the 160 performers has a criminal record or was ever involved in any real acts of violence. And yet poisoning, torture, suicide, execution, ritual murder, violence by and against women, men, and children, murders motivated by sexual, political, and mental aberration come face to face with the recipients’ emotions, naked and uncensored.

The video-installation FORTYNINE is a 5x4x3 meter mirror-walled cube. Visitors who enter the cube are confronted by a 49-part HD split-screen that mirrors their reflections to infinity. The fact of interpersonal acts of violence, here anchored in present-day aesthetics, is also reflected in the emotions visible on the faces of the visitors, which are equally mirrored to infinity. 49 examples of fictitious killing collide head-on with the real emotions of the installation’s visitors. The collective experience of any emotion generates intimacy – and it is precisely this intimacy that acts as a further constitutive component of FORTYNINE: the confrontation of the individual with itself, in the face of the most atrocious examples of violence.

What Michal Kosakowski grants us is the rare occasion to experience a genuine taboo of our times and our Western society – death. A death that, for the time being, seems to present itself exclusively in the contemporary guise of the incessant violence staged by the media.

Making of

Credits

FILMS
Concept, direction & production: Michal Kosakowski
Music: Capillary, Paolo Marzocchi, Ray Sweeten
Cinematography, Editing: Michal Kosakowski
Sound Design: Fabian Lorenz, MG-Sound Vienna

INSTALLATION
Producer: Uli Aigner, Lothringer 3 - Städtische Kunsthalle München
Construction: Ernst Homeier, Andreas Oswald GmbH
HD-Production: Johann Auer, Yoda Design
Design, Rafal Kosakowski, Reya-D

PARTICIPANTS
featuring 7 DEADLY SINS by Lucas Vossoughi
Hakki Adanir, Uli Aigner, Diane Amiel, Johann Auer, Regina Augendopler, Clemens Bauer, Lisa Bauer, Dietmar Beinhauer, Alexandra Bekhit, Dorothée Berghaus, Clemens Bertsch, Michael Blank, Dietmar Böckmann, Max Boehme, Barbara Braun, David Bruckner, Philipp Buchner, Michèle Cavaliere, Tomas Chajneta, Dara Chassin Du Guerny, Rosina Chromy, Ramy Copty, Therese Davies, Joseph Denize, Nina Deubzer, Mi Dinh, Stephan Doleschal, Lamont Lee DuBose, Thomas Dücke, Michael Dürr, Evelyn Eberhardt, Sara Eliasz, Markus Enders, Karin Englhart, Tamás Eperjessy, Helmut Farkas, Julia Fencl, Sergio Figueroa-P., Nikolaus Firmkranz, Bernadette Fleischanderl, Christian Fössl, Gerald Freimuth, Verena Frensch, Ivan Gambini, Jakob Gasteiger, Markus Geson, Patricia Habsburg-Lothringen, Viktor Hahn, Gabriela Hegedüs, Simone Heher, Alexander Herburger, Angelika Herburger, Lothar Herburger, Ulli Herburger, Stephan Hojdar, Andreas Hoschek, Johannes Huber, Ingrid Pichler, Robert Jaczynski, Grzegorz Jaworski, Michael Jesch, Michael Kamler, Walter Kanzelmar, Ulrike Kapl, Franka Kaßner, Peter Kurt Kellner, Vinzenz Kemeter, Sava Kiprov, Bernhard Klob, Christian Knorst, Ulrich Koellensperger, Christina Kolin, Elzbieta Kosakowska, Michal Kosakowski, Pawel Kosakowski, Rafal Kosakowski, Hannes Kotratschek, Miranda Kragulj, Karoline Kretz, Béatrice Kretzer, Elke Krystufek, Martin Kuen, Heli Leitner, Sigrid Lentsch, Martin Lichtenwallner, Michael Lung, Pino Lux, Harald Maderbacher, Claudia Martini, Paolo Marzocchi, Genny Masterman, Sebastian Mazun, Markus Mertl, Aleksandar Mimica, Goran Mimica, Nenad Mimica, Vera Mimica, Hassan Mohanna, Nicholas Mortimore, Martin Nechvatal, Dorit Oitzinger, Gebhard Ottacher, Mark Parrett, Gerhard Paul, Josef Paul, Lucy Paul, Mimi Paul, Max Pelikan, Pepe, Denise Pitayataratorn, Stéphanie Pracht, Delio Pramhas, Ratko Radivojevic, Ahmed Radwan, Katja Richterschitz, Svenja Rossa, Andy Kartik Sarup, Christoph Savli, Christian Scharf, Evelyn Scharf, Peter Scharf, Daniela Schibalsky, Hubert Schillhuber, Oliver Schimek, Florian Schirg, Jürgen Schlattl, Karen Schmidt, Stephan Schmollgruber, Gerhard Schwertmann, Markus Sepperer, Sara Shulein, Dulce Silao, Reya Silao, Nicole Six, Manuel Smalis, Martina Spitzer, Christian Stoklas, Ries Straver, Martin Sturm, Alfred Ulrich, Branko Validzic, Oliver Van Haentjens, Juan A. Vetere Arellano, Christian Vossoughi, Neli Wagner, Mu Luen Wang, Roman Weber, Ursula Weilenman, Christian A. Weisz, Bernhard Wieland, Vitus Wieser, Donald Winkler, Bernhard Wolff, Bartosz Woznicki, John Wright, Andreas Wurscher, Samer Younes, Xuewei Zheng, Michal Zyszkowski

Official Poster