Fire and Forget.
On Violence

"Fire and forget" comes from military jargon, and is a term for weapons systems that are no longer used in direct combat with an enemy but are launched from a safe distance. The exhibition Fire and Forget. On Violence takes the military expression as the starting point for an examination of the conventional ideas about war and force. It is oriented towards the most visible agent of violence: weapons.

Fire and Forget. On Violence applies the means of contemporary art to address the long-term effects of these new weapons on the human psyche.The loss of a direct, physical confrontation and the danger for one's own life had created, separates the violent situation itself from affects like reluctance for killing or overreaction, sympathy or hate. What may this mean for the arguments and evidence of political action? Which meaning does this context of the story receive: the memory and forgetting of an outburst, escalation or the prevention of violence? and which interest does art have in all this?

Curated by Ellen Blumenstein and Daniel Tyradellis

With works by Marina Abramović and Ulay; Ron Amir; Julius von Bismarck; Roy Brand, Ori Scialom and Keren Yeala Golan; James Bridle; Luis Camnitzer; Mircea Cantor; Jota Castro; Chto Delat; Marcelo Cidade; Jem Cohen; Martin Dammann; Öyvind Fahlström; Harun Farocki; Daniil Galkin; Rudolf Herz; Damien Hirst; Clara Ianni; Emily Jacir; Hunter Jonakin; Joachim Koester; Korpys/Löffler; Barbara Kruger; Armin Linke; Robert Longo; Jazmín López; Kris Martin; Ana Mendieta; Michael Müller; Timo Nasseri; NEOZOON; Katja Novitskova; Jon Rafman; Pipilotti Rist; Robbert&Frank Frank&Robbert; André Robillard; Julian Röder; Henning Rogge; Martha Rosler; Hrair Sarkissian; Santiago Sierra; Timur Si-Qin; Tal R; Javier Téllez; Sharif Waked; Gillian Wearing; He Xiangyu; Amir Yatziv; Ala Younis.

Every Thursday at 5 pm, a Dialogic Tour through the exhibition takes place. The tour is included in the exhibition ticket.

The series of talks On Violence with protagonists from the field of theater, film, and music focusses on strategies concerned with violence in our society, or more specifically, with violent experiences' processing. The guests discuss their own exposure to violence, as well as violence's socio-cultural transformations and its coding in each one of their fields.
All events are moderated by Tina Mendelsohn, who provides continuity between the three evenings, and conveys and accumulates the knowledge from each conversation to the next one.

Thursday, 23.7.15, 20 h, 3 € (German)
On Violence with Antonia Baum and Marcus Staiger

Thursday, 20.8.15, 20 h, 3 € (German)
On Violence with Rosa von Praunheim

Thursday, 27.8.15, 20 h, 3 € (German)
On Violence with Ulrich Matthes

The publication Friendly Fire & Forget accompanying the exhibition illuminates the theme from a literary perspective, and collects texts produced on the occasion by German and international authors. With texts by Petra Coronato, Ann Cotten, Ulrike Draesner, Alexander Heinich, Andreas Leopold Hofbauer, Schorsch Kamerun, Vladimir Kaminer, Hartmut Lange, Francis Nenik, Kathrin Passig, Christoph Peters, Annika Reich, Oliver Rohe, Mark von Schlegell, and Frank Witzel.

Fire and Forget. On Violence is funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation).
With thanks for the financial support of: KW Friends e. V. as well as Rivka Saker, the collector Uli Sigg, Mr. Xue, Peng Pei-Cheng, Outset Contemporary Art Fund, Contemporary Fine Arts Berlin, KOW Berlin.
The publication and the event- and educational program is funded by the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung/bpb (German Federal Agency for Civic Education).