Steffen KÖHN & Nestor SIRÉ

Steffen Köhn, b.1980, Germany & Nestor Siré, b.1988, Cuba

Steffen Köhn is a filmmaker, artist, and anthropologist. He often collaborates with slashers, software engineers, and Sci-Fi authors to explore the alternatives in technology and power distribution mechanisms. Nestor Siré was born in Cuba. He is fascinated by the informal means to message and commodity distribution as well as the creative scarcity that follows. Most of Siré’s creative projects involve alternative networks or informal economic power structures. He believes that the unique networks in the local environment of Cuba is the alternative to the capitalism-controlled networks in the world today.

MEMORIA is a Sci-Fi work of artists Steffen Köhn and Nestor Siré with reference to the dystopian science fiction, Johnny Mnemonic. The protagonist attempts to retrieve his memory in the midst of overloaded images. These images appear to be familiar. Yet, with each experience, there is something different somehow. The artists also insert the images from El Paquete Semanal (The Weekly Package), the former underground channel for distribution of the images banned by the government in Cuban history. In this four-screen immersive work, it is as if the spectators were involved in the collective memory of the Cuban people, who are controlled by different powers. (S.H)