Clemens von Wedemeyer (born 1974 in Göttingen, lives in Berlin) examines the complexity of places and their history in media-reflexive films. In his impressive dOCUMENTA (13) contribution Muster (2012), he episodically traced the vicissitudinous history of the former Benedictine monastery at Breitenau near Kassel in a 3-channel video installation. In the process, his filmic re-enactments distance themselves from the documentary as well as the dramatic, opening up spaces of perception instead that focus on the contingency of history and time.

Clemens von Wedemeyer is planning an almost purely acoustic presentation for his solo exhibition at the Kunstverein Braunschweig. It is dedicated to the history of the Deutsches Spracharchiv (German Language Archive), the work of its founder, the linguist and neurologist Eberhard Zwirner, and the ideas behind phono-metry, which he decisively influenced. The archive once temporarily resided in the Villa Salve Hospes – the present home of the Kunstverein. The exhibition brings together historical, scientific and fictional narratives on their same premises. Von Wedemeyer has developed an audio parcours through the building that explores the voice as an acoustic phenomenon as well as the constitutive characteristics of the human speaking apparatus. Interactive acoustic pieces make the permeation of architecture and history tangible and simultaneously nego-tiate the future of language as a means of communications and as an identificational factor. Historical audio documents and installations featuring computer-based sound syntheses developed especially for the exhibition will be presented alongside each other, sketching out a non-linear history in the blend of fact and fiction. The sound – generated by speech and noises – constructs a filmic space and forgoes traditional images.

Clemens von Wedemeyer studied at the Fachhochschule Bielefeld and the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig. He has received numerous international prizes and grants for his short films, videos and installations, including the main prize at the Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage Competition (2006), the Villa Romana Prize (2008) and the grant of the Deutsche Akademie Rome, Villa Massimo (2013). He has had solo exhibitions at MoMA PS1, New York (2006), the Barbican Centre, London (2009) and MAXXI, Rome (2013). A publication documenting the elaborate project will be published on the occasion of the exhibition.

Every Word You Say is an artistic collaboration with Moritz Fehr and Lukas Hoffmann.

The exhibition is supported by:
Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung
Braunschweigische Landessparkasse
Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur

With special thanks to:
Institut für deutsche Sprache