HMKV Hartware MedienKunstVerein
at the Dortmunder U, Level 3
Leonie-Reygers-Terrasse
44137 Dortmund
Germany
press release
Holding Pattern is the English term for the tactic used by air traffic controllers to keep several aeroplanes in the air above a busy airport without allowing them to crash. This symbolic scenario unfolds the motif of remote control and mastery: the sense that human destinies are closely interwoven with the circuits of technology - interwoven with expectation and fear, danger and rescue, as well as geometry, aesthetics and even beauty.
What are the patterns that guide our lives? Do we design them ourselves, or are they written elsewhere, in dark zones that we can only glimpse but never fully see? Holding Pattern presents a selection of international artists who explore the choreographies, rhythms and algorithms that characterise modern life, the ways in which data is embodied and how bodies are transformed into data.
Panhans/Winkler,, »Freeroam À Rebours, Mod#I.1 – Installation Version«, 2017/2025 4K video, single-channel-projection, colour/sound, 16:13 mins, stage elements, crowd control systems, chains, handbags, motorbike helmets, carbon fibre, silicone, pizza-delivery-bag, functional shirt, novel, etc., variable sizes
The exhibition Holding Pattern includes major installation pieces such as as Hasselblad Award-winner Stan Douglas’ Luanda-Kinshasa (2013), a six-hour loop depicting an imaginary jam session in New York’s legendary Columbia 30th Street Studio; Turner Prize-winner Elizabeth Price’s SLOW DANS (2019), an elaborate fictional history binding together mining, data storage and the female ‘teachers’ of a mysterious underground ritual as well as the short videos of FOOTNOTES (2020), that reprise and annotate these themes; Harun Farocki’s Deep Play (2007), a 12-channel extrapolation of the physical, social, security and broadcast patterns shaping a high-profile international football game; and Stefan Panhans and Andrea Winkler’s Freeroam À Rebours, Mod#I.1 – Installation Version All Choices All Endings II (2025), which toggles between human dancers and digital avatars as it examines the interaction sequences (by turns violent and tender), the loops and glitches of the Grand Theft Auto universe. It includes Turner Prize-winner Susan Philipsz’ Ambient Air (2021), in which she draws a literal holding pattern across Berlin’s sky as she hums Brian Eno’s “Music for Airports” from the cockpit of a small plane, transmitting her voice via radio tower to Tegel Airport’s PA system. Also, Åke Hodell’s work igevär (1963, english: “to arms”), in which the titular military command-word gathering soldiers into formation is unlocked through repetition to suggest other, more emancipatory calls-to-arms.
Artists: Stan Douglas, Harun Farocki, Åke Hodell, Stefan Panhans & Andrea Winkler, Susan Philipsz, Elizabeth Price
The exhibition will be on display at the HMKV from 15 March to 27 July 2025. The opening will take place on Friday, 14 March 2025 at 19:00.
LINK: Holding Pattern
