 So, good evening everyone, and good evening to Mario Pfeiffer, who is connecting from Berlin. I'm Manuela Mazzonis, I've assisted Francesco Bonami, creating the MiFamily project and platform. Before starting, I want to first of all thank you Mario for being with us today and for having accepted to be part of this online public program that has been launched by the Moodham in October 2020, and today it's our sixth conversation. So, before we start the Q&A talk, I will make a brief introduction about you Mario, and then we can start with our questions and answers. So Mario Pfeiffer is a German artist who lives between New York and Berlin. He belongs to that category of artist researchers who focus their analysis on socio-political events, the repercussions that these facts have had on society and on individuals, and also the relationship that is established between the art world and the social sphere. His research is based above all on the ethnographic investigation of the place in which he decides to carry out his work. For you Mario, the inquiry into the surrounding environment becomes fundamental to the quality of the final result. You seek to document the reality of the facts without giving your individual judgment. You let the viewer formulate his or her own interpretation based on personal knowledge. And I'm thinking now about the two-channel video, hashtag Blacktivist from 2015, where you collaborated over a period of six months with the New York based hip-hop trio, the Flatbush Zombies, and the piece that has been a premier dedicated institute in New York was on view at our cologne and shown at Berlin's Akut, but overall had, if I'm not wrong, 2.5 million YouTube views, it went viral immediately just in one day. I would say that it's the most widely viewed piece of video in art history. In this work, you are analyzing many different topics such as identity, and I'm referring especially to the Black Lives Matter movement, the police brutality, the right of self-defense, the right of free speech, the weapon distribution in U.S., with reference to the Second Amendment, and actually you shot the second part of the video in a 3D gun manufacturing workshop in Texas based on defense distributed, an online open source hardware organization that develops digital schematics of firearms in CAD files that can be actually downloaded from internet and used in 3D printing. So practically you're able to print out your own headgun with freely available files from the WikiWeapon project. In the video you're also presenting Barack Obama as an ostrich knees in front of the camera, and in that moment the rappers are presented as terrorists who ultimately turn their weapons against themselves to be reborn in a new life, merging on the Brooklyn Bridge as a peaceful marching for a new change. Now I would like to ask you, Mario, if you can tell us more about the project and what was the aim you wanted to reach out, and also if you could ever imagine that this video would have gone viral in such a short amount of time. Yeah, thank you very much. Good evening to you, Emmanuel, and to our viewers. So Black activist was actually born out of, yeah, the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement, the death of Eric Garner, who actually coined the term icon breeze. So when I was invited to stage a solo show at Lattelow City 8 in New York, I wanted to as usually somehow confront myself and my audience through my artistic practice to an everyday situation, a situation that is current that is somehow urgent. Obviously, the Black Lives Matter movement and the death of Eric Garner was such a moment in our young history. And it was clear to me that I needed to collaborate with not only people that are part of the movement and somehow experience everyday police brutality, but also maybe have a cultural technique that would allow us to reach a wider audience. And I was always interested in hip hop, social political music, music was a message, the birthplace of hip hop was New York. So I followed somehow my wish to engage in music video production as an art piece with rappers of a younger generation that were sensitive to the topic, were able to reflect on the topic out of their own experience, and also to speak to really the audience via YouTube, for example. So the Flatbreeze Zombies had already then a huge fan base, a digital fan base and online fan base. And they were interested when I pitched them the idea, and they also had total control of the song so they composed the song they wrote the lyrics, we just had discussions to the production. And also the visual ideas in the video were pretty much the result of our discussions. I am as a white male German living in New York at the time, had quite a different perspective obviously than they had and the goal was to merge an outsider's perspective with an insider perspective. And for me, the Black Lives Matter movement through the song and the video installation Black Tuist of course was not per se an art piece only designed for galleries and museums. Obviously the topic is much larger than the institutional space of art. So it was immediately clear that besides the exhibitions we would release the piece on YouTube on 9 11 at 9 11pm, for example, a very symbolic time. Also for the Flatbreeze Zombies who had this idea because they previously had released video music videos online on that day at that time. And so, for me, it was also an experiment. What can I do for a society. Can we reach a new audience, maybe an audience on the street can this song and project be somehow a milestone in the movement. Can it be a document of our time. Unfortunately, I must say that even today, when we see the trial beginning against the police officer who killed George Floyd, the piece has still the momentum. This is ever more up to date, unfortunately, and describes exactly what is happening not only in the US but also in many parts of the world this morning I read the news about a Mexican Mexican police officers who killed a woman through stop and frisk policies by kneeling on her neck. So what black divas managed was not only to document and weave in police brutality visually, but it also is a testimony of young African Americans who faced this brutality. And music is of course a great catalyst to spread the message maybe even a better medium than art. Because we all there, there are a lot of people who listen to music and music has different ways of expanding into the world and reaching out and being a memory and I think we were all astonished that the music video went so far from my part, we must also admit that the fat presumedies have most often a huge online crowd. But of course our music video and the installation is somehow different than a regular music video is much more reflective is much more aware is much more nuanced, but it still carries some pop cultural elements. To me it was a very fruitful project until today, because it has opened so many doors that also perspectives and also different feedbacks from newspapers to art magazines but also to YouTube commentaries. So the engagement from the audience with the pieces is well documented, and it's still growing so today we have around 3.6 million views. There's a steady grow. And there's a steady interest and if you follow the YouTube comments and you can see how the message is unfortunately preserved every day, which also means that the the project in itself. You know, it's interestingly very valid. Yeah, often we think about art has also a moment when it when it appears that it reflects that moment of time. But here we have a constant update. I was saying I could re-edit activist using new types of body cam footage from police officers, which appear in the beginning of the video, because it's a repetitive moment. Unfortunately, so we see that state authorities haven't really learned much from their mistakes in the past. And I think black activist is a great reminder of that. So in that perspective, the artwork is to a certain extent very successful, because it describes what happened about six years ago. But we experience a very similar notion, basically every day. Which is actually dramatic in a sense because seems that nothing changed actually in a way. And listening to you talking about confront yourself to everyday life and situation. And you were just said that you are asking yourself, what can we do for our society. So what do you think about the artwork? What do you think about digital diffusion of artworks and how do you think museums could face and surpass the physical barriers of institutional venues in order to reach out a wider audience actually as you just did with this project. Yeah, I mean, I'm an artist. I'm not working necessarily in a museum all the time or I'm not a curator. I'm not a director of institution. But what I can say from artistic perspective is that projects that have different lives and different spheres seem very interesting to me. So when I try to produce an artistic project, I think not necessarily only about the museum or gallery space. I also think about how can I bring the project to another audience that doesn't necessarily go into museum how can I attract an audience outside the museum to go into the museum. Yeah, obviously it's also about what do you show where you mentioned the defense distributed 3D gun milling parts of the video installation. They are more explicitly explained in the exhibition space because they wouldn't necessarily fit into the rhythm of a music video. So it's also about maybe having a project and having different aspects in the project that need maybe different spaces. Yeah, so in other installations, I would work in between a video installation for a museum space, a TV version, a cinema version. Also trying to acknowledge to different languages in a different spaces. Yeah, so the language on YouTube is a different language and within a museum. And if I would imagine the museum of the future, I think it is about also granting artists the opportunities to work beyond the museum walls. Through commissions through projects. And I think that there's there's a lot of progress. Would like to think about outside of the box it's also about where do artists produce. Yeah, if you produce, let's say in epicenter like New York, or Berlin, it's something else than you produce in Lagos. So also the physical barriers to geographical barriers, I think they should not hinder artists to be visible. So, so that's another aspect that digital art has the opportunity to be seen everywhere and anywhere, and it's still valuable. And there shouldn't be a big difference. I mean, shown on YouTube or a museum like Moodham. Yeah, in the best case scenario it's a, it's somehow a symbiosis, and a large audience can gain from that but also the institution can gain from it by just simply having new audiences and I think it's also about the topic that's a music video for that part, because it attracts a lot of young people, and they understand the music video as as a piece of art anyways. Yeah for them as a cultural production that isn't about low and high culture and pop and elitist culture. It's simply culture, and I think museums in the past also have not acknowledged a strong intellectual barriers, they have built in order to present things in the museum and I think that keeps also audience away and then it's also the question what do you want to negotiate within the museum walls. Do you want to negotiate art history, do you want to negotiate society, politics, the law. Do you want to really negotiate very current and very urgent issues. The form of an artistic work, plus the audience, plus the space, they define also the momentum of the work. Yeah, and we have chosen that pass and for for black to this I think that was a very valid and very intriguing format because it allowed us to speak to the cultural environments because the black lives matter movement has also something to do with the institutional structures of museums. Yeah, we see this with workers rights we see it was minimum pay. All these things of institutional racism play into the larger black lives matter movement and I think, therefore, black activists should be, you know, visible in many many facets of our digital world. What we have tried to do with our me family platform is that exactly the point to try to develop in a very wider way. The art message, and the fact that all of the artists accepted to be part of this project was a really big success. And actually the film, we have chosen by you for the me family me family platform is very different from black to this is entitled again is from 2018 has been commissioned by the 10th Berlin by Emily. It was co produced by your studio together with the broadcaster run fun Berlin Brandenburg in collaboration with art and call you have reconstructed in this film, an incident that took place in 2016 near Dresden your home city. And in which after an argument with a supermarket sales person in Iraqi refugee Shabas al-Aziz has been physically attacked by four local residents and later tidy up to a tree. All the four men were allowed to return home unobstructed by the police. Al-Aziz was taken to the police station and then release the game after a amount of time. But almost a year later, the current case relating to the incident was opened and dismissed after just a few hours as the body of the refugee who should have testified the week before the hearing was found that in a forest. Really shocking from the story is that the court very easily dismissed the case because of they said lack of public interest and because the man the refugee has been always declared as a very seek aggressive person. While the four men, the court, the care they acted for self defense. Now thanks to the support of research done by investigative journalists you asked about the reasons for the dismissal of the case. And inspired by the amateur video taken in the supermarket which had immediately gone viral on the internet you reconstructed the incident using professional actors and invited citizens of different nationalities all immigrants to Germany to be the jurors. You recreated the case, installing a proper film stage, letting the professional actors being the narrator in the sense of the story, giving to all of us in this way the possibility to better understand to rethink about the story itself, about rising ourselves questions. You have explained in the video, the personal story of the refugee, and in order to give us more information about him and not just presenting him as a refugee who entered in a supermarket. He was actually suffering of epilepsy and this is the reason why he moved away from Iraq to Germany. To be treated and hopefully cured. Actually he was sent to when he arrived to an neurological clinic in Arnstorf, and then he went missing in a forest for a very long time, and he was always described that just as a sick man in danger for his lack of orientation. So, after this presentation you allow the jurors to present their own judgments on what happened, and you ask them universal questions about justice, identity, solidarity, the right of life, and the influence certain situation have on our perception of reality and manipulation of the the jurors who are all immigrants who have all been welcomed in Germany in a very different way from the Iraqi refugee, their rights has been accepted. They were really, I can say devastated and horrified by the story. And here I would like to quote some of the sentences they declared in the video. They said clearly everyone must be protected by the Constitution. This is not right. This is just hate. The mistake is by the state here. The state should be treated people who are coming from war countries in a different way. The total failure is by politician. I lost trust in police and in court. This is not democracy anymore. This is a just said normality reality. This is expression of poor racism. And the last woman who actually ended her comment crying, she said that I know what is like to be treated like an alien. Then you conclude the video with an ending message, civil courage is not punishable by law. So I was also very shocked by the video and is difficult actually to watch it more than one time because you're already devastated the first time. But I will watch it many times in order to better understand the story and also the position of the people you are invite you have invited to be part of the video itself. I would like to ask you first of all why you have entitled the video again, and then I will go on with my other questions. Yeah, again has actually two meanings for me in this project. First of all, we deal with a real scenario real case, a real story of a man who died in the forest and it was attacked in the supermarket by four men who acted in their words with civil courage. The case had to be proven and there was no real legal case it was dismissed around after four hours. The case was opened. So I wanted to stage it again, I wanted to, because I wasn't present in the courtroom, I wasn't present in a supermarket I wanted to understand how this case build up how, how it came alive. And so we said okay let's do it again. So the first idea about the title. The other title is that history repeats itself, it seems. So again and again, we have scenarios where people who migrated to Germany or to other European countries are attacked or discriminated live under fear. We have a strong history in the 1930s where racism ended up in a worldwide disaster. So, again also points out to how do we learn from our own history. Can we break through that devil circle. Can we have it not happening again. Yeah, so again is also somehow living in a historical loop. Yeah, and it's also. If you look at the video installation then because it's shown in the loop. You're confronted with the same story over and over again. Until we as a society would find a way to interrupt that circle. And obviously, we haven't found a way. It feels more like that the circle is spinning faster. Yeah, if you look at the US with the Trump administration. If you look at Brazil. If you look at the rise of right wing parties across Europe. So, again, it's also a reminder that we, you know, we cannot be just sitting back, we need to intervene. And so there's a structural element there's a sociological element. There is maybe a technical element to the title, but there's also a human element to the title that again and again we need to learn a lesson. Yes. And we have to remember that, I think, is very important. So you have decided to involve people who had a very different experience from yours. The 10 persons you have called to be interviewed are individuals who do not have any relation with the art world and not even with the incident itself how do they react to your call when you invited them to be part of this project. First of all, the research for Germans who have a migrant history. Over about 3035 years was quite difficult. I wanted to work within this age group because for me it was very important being raised in the GDR in the eastern part of Germany before the wall came down. And then we had two Germany's so there were two political and economic systems, capitalism socialism, democracy, and maybe, yeah, a regime. So for me it was interesting how people migrated to the, to the both Germany's under which conditions how they were welcomed how they were integrated, if at all. How do they think about that past as well with the unification. There was also a rise of racism and through the change of the economic structure of the eastern part. There was even a two class society between the two Germanis. Yeah, and I wanted to cover these experience as well, talking about racism and discrimination today. So, often I was asked why are all these people like of a certain age 50 plus. And I said well it needs the experience that I don't have. I was eight when the wall came down I hardly could determine the difference, but people who were 1820 25 who maybe came from Cuba or from Hungary or from the Western Sahara. They live through these two political systems and the two racist systems very differently. And so it wasn't easy to track down such citizens. And it took a long time but it also took a long time to build trust amongst them to work with me because it's also something we don't usually see on the media or in TV on radio that people with a migrant history talk about their reflection of our society today. They are hardly invisible in our media economy. So, for me it was also being an artist and not being a TV reporter or broadcast or a moderator for a TV station. It was also about talking about art of sharing something and bringing attention to something maybe in a smaller way, but potentially also in a bigger way if the project would because we always had a TV broadcast or art as a co-producer on board as it would be clear that eventually the project would be broadcasted on TV, which is the biggest audience you can reach with a film nowadays besides streaming services. So reaching out and then over six months I had regular meetings with my jurors who decided to at least listen to me and we met at their homes. I explained what I'm trying to do. I didn't release too much information of what they're going to see, but it was more about I need your expertise based on your life experience to look at my art project and I want you to talk about it in relation to your own biography. So usually the longer somebody lives, the more life experience they have. That's not a rule per se, but for most of the people having lived through different political, economical, societal systems and moments they just have a wider range of emotions towards that society. And that's what interested me and that was the value because my experience is limited due to the political economic system I live through how I grew up and also the non experience of racism I've experienced in my life. So it's always about working with people, speaking with people that also I can learn from. That's kind of a premise in all of my projects. I try to work with people that have a different angle than I do, a different life experience, a different way to articulate these emotions and ideas. So once this trust was built we had limited time because they were present during the full production of the video installation and the film, but then they only had about three minutes to act on camera to give their response. And that's when the trust really came out when they trusted me and these big film cameras and a big film set in order to reflect on what they've seen reflect on the crime that happened to Shabas Al Aziz, but also to connect it with their own biography to stay based on my life and feel that way. Yeah, whether I can analytically look at the life of Shabas and the failure of our justice system. My jurors always had the emotional component because they might have felt reminded again what for they had experienced while they migrated or flat. Yeah, and I think that is something I wish they would come out with. In a way, I believe that being part of the project that's also what they wish to share with the audience. And these are testimonies we don't see on TV usually. And I think an art project at the space of art can also bring that trust, but it can also be a safe haven it can also be a bubble that protects its protagonist. Because as an artist I'm more interested in that somebody offers their opinion, then to judge it. That's not up to me. It's not something that I want to pressure somebody to come out with an idea. I want to be the person that moderates and creates an atmosphere of sharing and caring. Because I believe the only reason why we staged this film was to make these jurors speak so that an art audience, a film audience, a TV audience can learn from them. Yeah, because most of the audience that might see this film will not be in the position of Shabas. It will be in the position of somebody like me or of the jurors who live with us. So it's really about the strategy of saying who do we listen to? Who do I put into the frame? And so you have this interesting balance between the jurors and the famous TV actors that serve as moderators, you have Shabas. So it's a mixture of people that are either involved, look at the case or emotionally attach themselves to the case and build empathy for all of us. Yes. As you're explaining at a certain moment in the video itself, and you also have explained in a conversation, a very interesting conversation you had with Stan Douglas. If you or any other German citizen could have been missed for more than just one day, the police would have started to search for you or for the missing person immediately. While in the case of the refugee who was missed for a very long time, if I'm not wrong, 28 days, no one looked for him. Also actually there is a testimony of the conversation in the video between the brother of Alaziz and a friend of him, and his brother is saying that he considered Germany as a developed country where things like these shouldn't happen. He defined Germany, a country of law and order. So this declaration open up an identity issue also about German identity. And again, as you have mentioned in this conversation with Stan Douglas, Germans suffered not to have experienced a national identity in public since World War Two, as you were just saying also before. How do you think Mario has changed today, the value of national identity in Germany and how the German people react in front of the war world refugees crisis and drama. Yeah, I think in Germany we have like in many other European countries, a very mixed perception of who we are as Germans and again, I must say, we need to always refer to history in order to assess certain shifts. Like the refugee crisis like big migration movements and we easily can determine the reasons why people migrate because their life is at risk. There's war, their social inequalities, there may be religious inequalities and discrimination and that makes people move. I would say there are only a few people in the world who would love to leave their house. But also I must always, when I when I discuss these topics point out to my own situation that how can I judge the decision to migrate, if I have never experienced war, terror, racism discrimination. Honestly, for me, it's very hard to judge so I will not judge that's also why I invited the jurors because I feel they are in a much stronger position to judge what they saw, and to, to discuss what happened to Shabbat al-Aziz so it's also the position from where we stand and discuss, I will not comment or judge somebody's decision to migrate to Germany for a better life. What it is to say, welcome. Our wealth is built on other countries, difficult situations. Yeah, we extract labor resources from other countries to build our wealth. So it's our immediate responsibility to help and to assist and to be open. Our wealth would not exist. So obviously, there is a growing number of German citizens who believe they need to protect the wealth that they have built on other countries and nations and continents resources. That's again, also a historical parallel to the 1930s that in order to protect our cultural identity which is always something that is developing, changing, growing. Yeah, becoming more complex becoming more diverse. It has always been that way. But of course they are nationalist ideas to define what is the German identity, and I think most of them are populist and that's why they are to a certain extent successful, but they are also false. Yeah, as many scholars could explain in a better way than I do. But somehow how do we deal with that because that's not easily going away by describing these are these are false arguments these are these are historically so sociologically wrong arguments they still exist and they gain power as we can see in elections. What we also see with the corona crisis is that we have nationalist way for example for the vaccine production and the vaccine distribution. That is I think also another very scary aspect that societies and especially capitalist societies of course always think short term in in a way to to be a profit and to be stable and to protect markets and to protect wealth and living standards. Yeah, without acknowledging that there will always be a weaker country next door probably. There is a race against who gets the vaccine first and who is exporting to which country and who's not exporting. I think that's maybe a more real and current feeling of the creation of national identities based on misery of a crisis. It was, it was never really an economic issue for Germany I would even say there's a great resource of of labor coming to the country that's how a lot of conservative politicians also argued in order to shift somehow the focus when just 1.5 million in Germany let that it be 2 million that somehow a manageable number in my point of view, and I think our welfare system can manage that and our wealth can manage that. And beyond that they're ethical and moral. We spotted the vulnerabilities that we just have as a central European country. It's a very tough question and each crisis puts oil into the fire. So, it's something I deal with in my work a lot with these ideas about discrimination cultural national identities. It's really really not easy so I do read a lot of sociological studies and books and reports and case studies and it's very hard for scientists for conflict researchers for sociologists to really define the political momentum with the emotional state of people of citizens. Yeah, and the Germany isn't so it's quite complex because we do have these two German states in the past and we have two parallel emotions governing our national and cultural identity in Germany up until today. Not necessarily so much in my generation but about older generations but also in my generation people will somehow start to believe that the East German identity is a different one than the West German identity whether I will belong to potentially group of citizens would say well I'm a European. And that comes also with a burden. European is not necessarily a positive aspect of my cultural national identity. So, I made a project in 2016 called about education and fear. It's a nine hour interview project with people from the right wing protest movement in East Germany but also with conflict researchers and therapists sociologists. And that was quite eye opening how much your own biography, the way you grew up. What your parents in your school taught you how they influence your political behavior and thinking besides the media, but it's a symbiosis again, where do you come from. How do you define your cultural identity but also how do you define a prospective country, for example, what's a good country. And a lot of people answer this question and I asked them, or I wanted to be like 20 years ago. If you would have asked them 20 years ago they would have probably said I wanted to be like 20 years ago like 40 years ago. So, it's a it is an emotional topic. Yeah. It's about delusion in a way and it's not about necessarily about optimism, because if I want to think about a prosperous country I must project into the future not into the past. Yeah. Yeah, and if you do not have this optimism that based on the learning of the past of our history you can project into a brighter future. And then, I guess you have a problem as a nation, if you are backwards turn, and we have seen it in the US. What it what damage the election of Trump has created, and how difficult it will be to reverse that. Yeah. So, it's a very tough societal challenge. And the pandemic will not necessarily help I would have believed maybe in the early months of the pandemic that there must be a strong global movement of solidarity. And maybe that was existing for a few weeks and months but the longer the Western world was not able to function in their progressive profit making way of life and way of making business. The more tired people became. And the more they saw their life standard flush away while other regions that would never have this life standard. So people would complain about the isolation, the limitations, their non freedom. You would say well, it's for a certain time, and it will potentially not define all your life but there are other areas in the world, Palestine, Yemen, me on mar, where you will probably never have the freedom that we have. Yeah, and I think these are again reminders to each citizen. How do we live and how is the world governed, and how do I want to be part of that and also how do I want to engage with that. So I think for me that's more to learn from a pandemic than to miss. Yeah, and I think through an even greater effort of solidarity, there would have been less people killed. And there would have been an interesting rebalance of how is this word functioning. Instead, we see that a lot of countries that are not in the economic epicenters do not get vaccines or get vaccines that are not working. And so I think the to shift between. Yeah. For the gaps they between continents to get between countries, eventually will rise. And I think that's a huge miss chance and it will be oil into the fire of populace. Yes, I really like your comment about the pandemic the fact that you can learn instead of missing and I agree because we gain time at the end in this long year, where we finally had, I believe in my opinion more time to read to think to learn and to try to put yourself also I think in another approach in front of society and actually speaking about society of today of nowadays. We can have my last question actually for you that is about our generation we live in an area that is dominated by social media by new media by amplification of the news and most of the time these news that are surrounding us are always negative news. So, it's not easy to compare in this kind of society and to discern what is real from what is fake, what you read from what you really see, and you experience what do you think is the role of the art in relation to a word dominated by the social media by internet and by this immense dissemination of the news. Yeah, I think the power of art at least for me is that we define our information and the way we distribute this information pretty much independent in a way. And we don't have the necessity to be fast and quick and bold. That's one strategy of course, but we can also take time, and we can reflect and we can also have a very little voice and still be heard to a certain extent I think that's a power that as an individual artist, you can basically look for yourself and see what happens, and you can do that over a long period of time as many artists have proven, we didn't gain fame or never made somehow an existential minimum to live from. So artists first of all an expression of thoughts that has a great power to be very individual and very independent. Because we honestly don't really need a newspaper to print what we do we don't need a broadcast to show what we do. We don't need a publisher to print the book. It's of course wonderful if it happens, but nevertheless that's not really my premise and I think many artists would really somehow fight and then protect this kind of liberty to be independent. Yeah. And I think that makes you diametrile different than any social media, and also journalism because, you know, here and there we see that that great investigative journalism is respective. I don't respect it. But the business is dominated by news that are scandalous and that are fast and that are bold. So, of course we can we also have these moments in art, we have artists who are bold and fast and loud. But art history has also taught us that it's about the smaller voices, and that there's always a space for an artist to become visible at some moment in history. And I think that whole idea that we think about art in a very long time forward and backward makes it something very unique. We can read a book that is 200 years old and we feel like it was written yesterday. We can read it today. Yeah, think about how few news and journalistic achievements are re shown redistributed. There are a few maybe the Watergate crisis investigation. Art and the institutions that protect art and collect art, somehow also give credit to this labor, yeah, of this cultural labor over a long period of time and I think the slowness of that system is a huge benefit for society. So also, one must say a very intellectual and critical environment. So it's our production and art critique art history these are quiet intellectual disciplines so there is also a great chance that art, you know gains attention or is discussed amongst people who take it very serious and who also have a responsibility to society and to readers, other scientists yeah so with the news economy it's about how many viewers you get. So it's a completely different approach. And I think there might be a few artists who take this as the first premise, how many people can I reach to which price. So potentially, we have different goals and aims and it's quite also difficult to make art. Yeah, because there are so many things to to reflect on and to think about. So, one can only hope as an practicing artist that art is more put into the center of society. I think the pandemic has shown how important culture is. Yeah, empty life sphere without culture I think that's another learning from the pandemic. Nevertheless, we still live and work and most of us in political and economic systems that somehow carry the right of the stronger. Yeah, at the core. And so art is always strong. Yeah, but it's not necessarily always put into the center place. Yeah, in the long term, yes. If you look at the Louvre and institutions like this, everybody loves them but it's also the question how can we integrate art into more pockets into everyday life how is this more accessible. And it feels like that only if you miss something you start to pay attention. Yeah, and however I also believe that I'm making artists a certain way of activism as well. It's because you have to find your own way you have to find your own standpoint you have to find a topic to deal with from your point of view. Art is not really a tool to make a statement to attract masses. It might be in some aspects, but it's much more than that and I think that differentiates it from. Yeah, the news business the entertainment business. There's also entertainment and can be critical and challenging that we come back to now and then. But overall I think art has the power to be quite analytical but also be emotional be aesthetic be political be ethical and moral in order to challenge audiences in a way from one individual to another which is also interesting because of the social media TV news, big Hollywood entertainment, it's always created by a huge group of people in order to bring it to a huge market. So, if you don't have a market per se as an artist, then you have to think about what you're going to put out. So it comes back to you. You can eventually hope that there will be an audience and maybe a market. But that's probably the only way to be meaningful within the context of art, but that meaningfulness can actually last for a long time, because I don't really remember a movie I saw in the cinema four years ago, because the perception of that cultural medium is okay there's another film next door there will be another one next week. So it must be an outstanding movie that I will remember it. Yeah, and I think with art of course we also look at the things that are that are visible, but we also have books as containers. So sometimes we overlook things but they are somehow documented here and there. So again the slowness of the art system is a huge benefit for for a total society that should also be constructed of social media and movies and TV I have issues with media, but we should also understand the power of them but also the weakness and vice versa the power of art but also maybe it's weakness that you need to invest something to find it to deal with it. Yeah, art needs attention in a very different way it's nothing to lean back. It's nothing that comes to your home, at least not until today. Yeah, in most cases you need to make an effort. And I think each society needs that effort. Yeah, and I mean, let's be honest, the, the oldest cultural artifacts are artworks. We put it, and that's the real power. So, if there is a crisis, let's say a war, what is being protected first. It's the artwork. It's the un reproducible artwork like a painting or sculpture that cannot be recreated because it was already created. Yeah, so that's something I find we should never forget. Yes, I mean, you are right and the power of art, we can say, we hope so is going to be eternal forever so this is extremely important for all of us and I believe that you are right during the pandemic we probably all rethink about the power of art and the importance of the role of art as a communication tool to all of us. So, Mario, I thank you very much. Unfortunately, we are running out of time. I want to just make a brief conclusion about this amazing conversation. Just underlining what I really find myself interesting in your work is the way you are immersing yourself in the story in the topic you are analyzing the fact that you want to always dive deep in this subject being in contact for a very long period of time with the persons you are involving in the project in the story that you have chosen to analyze in order to be able to unfold. I would say the secret value and the meaning of the story itself. So I would like to invite the public who is listening to us to discover this analytical approach that you have watching your video again but also your other works that actually are people can also see on your website and I really invite the public to rise questions about the perception of reality the role of ourselves as responsible and active citizens trying to be neutral and impartial in front of society and not too much instead manipulated by the power of the news by the social media. So thank you again Mario and I hope to talk to you very soon again. Thank you. Thank you Mario. Bye bye.