VIDEOART AT MIDNIGHT MEETS SEOUL
Cinematheque / Seoul Art Cinema
22-7 Jeong-dong, Jung District, Seoul, Südkorea
29 APR 2026, 19:00 | 7 pm
Since 2008, Videoart at Midnight has operated as a curatorial platform at the intersection of cinema, exhibition, and artistic video practice. Emerging from Berlin, the project has developed into a continuously expanding resonance space for experimental film and video works, situated beyond fixed formats and operating between screening, installation, and discursive practice.
The invitation by Seoul Art Cinema in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut marks another node within this network. The programme presents a one-off screening evening that understands Berlin and Seoul not as separate locations, but as interwoven sites of production and imagination. Artistic practice appears here as a movement between contexts, as translation, displacement, and the reconfiguration of perception, image, and the present.
The programme brings together works by Annika Kahrs, Young-jun Tak, Sylbee Kim, Vika Kirchenbauer, and Ayoung Kim. Their works operate at the boundaries of cinema and image systems, body and language, documentary and speculative fiction. They do not share a single thematic focus, but rather a common stance that questions the conditions under which reality is produced within the moving image.
In A BIG YEAR (Annika Kahrs, 2025), communication becomes legible as a more-than-human assemblage of sound and translation. WISH YOU A LOVELY SUNDAY (Young-jun Tak, 2021), approached from a queer perspective, conceives of body and space as choreographed social order, questioning normative forms of movement, belonging, and ritual. BERLIN BLUE (Sylbee Kim, 2026) negotiates Berlin as an image and memory space in which biographical and structural experience overlap. THIS SUFFOCATING NOW (Vika Kirchenbauer, 2026) analyzes the political and institutional conditions of subjectivation from a queer and critical perspective. Set in a near future shaped by climate crisis and algae-based biofuel economies, AT THE SURISOL UNDERWATER LAB(Ayoung Kim, 2020)follows a researcher in an underwater lab in Busan whose present-day mission becomes entangled with memories of migration and the lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Together, these works articulate cinema as a space of thought: not as a representation of the world, but as its continuous production. Within the condensation of a single screening evening, a temporary field of artistic image practice emerges between Seoul and Berlin, one that does not depict reality but renders it as a condition open to negotiation.
We are especially pleased that Sylbee Kim will be present at the screening and will speak about her new work, as well as about her life and artistic practice as a Korean artist based in Berlin.
Further information on the works and the artists:
Annika Kahrs – A BIG YEAR 2025, 12:00 min
The Mozart of ornithology, who knew every voice of the birds in the skies, ultimately fell from the sky himself – not out of hubris, but in a plane that could no longer defy gravity. In her work A BIG YEAR, artist Annika Kahrs engages with the legacy of ornithologist Ted Parker III (1953-1993), whose extraordinary hearing enabled him to identify over 4,000 bird species by their song alone – a talent that left a lasting mark on ornithology and fundamentally changed the way that birds are documented and understood.
Kahrs draws on original recordings from the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, including clips of Parker’s own voice – fragile traces of his life devoted to sound, and imbued with a quiet kind of poetics. The space of St. Peter’s church in Lübeck becomes a resonating body in itself – for historical audio material, the voices of performers, the sounds of triangles, and the knowledge of contemporary ornithologists.
Annika Kahrs (born 1984) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. In her practice, she explores the boundaries of what is generally understood as music, examining its cultural and social functions, communicative aspects, and formal nature. Through performances, video, and sound installations,, Kahrs investigates the roles that music, sound, and other forms of acoustic information play within diverse social, cultural, and political contexts of coexistence. Cross-disciplinary collaboration is an essential part of her process.
Recent and upcoming solo shows include Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Berlin (2025); La Banda, Produzentengalerie Hamburg (2024); Gravity’s Tune, Schering Stiftung, Berlin, (2023); Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden (2023), how to live in the echo of other places, in cooperation with IMAGINE THE CITY, Hamburg (2022). Kahrs studied Fine art in Braunschweig, Germany, Vienna, Austria, and Hamburg, Germany, where she graduated in 2012.
A BIG YEAR is commissioned and produced by Overbeck-Gesellschaft – Kunstverein Lübeck.
Sylbee Kim – BERLIN BLUE, 2025, 12:39 min
Isu (it/its), the protagonist of BERLIN BLUE, departs for spiral time travel to meet three lovers. Following the century-long journey of the pigment Prussian blue, individual lives intersect with various moments of militarist history. Isu returns to the present-future, and steps toward a lover in a yet-to-be-born future. BERLIN BLUE questions how minorities, like anyone everywhere, could stand up as they are, liberated from cultural and political projections. In doing so, the work prepares an intersecting realm of “∅-beings,” who are double- and multiple-marginalized in societies turning ever hostile to differences.
Sylbee Kim (born 1981 in Seoul, South Korea) is a South Korean video artist based in Berlin and Seoul since 2005. Kim’s video installations experiment with digital and physical making processes and extend virtual materialities to the real. Her practice questions whether art could bridge differences and simulate a pluralistic sociopolitical ground.
Kim has presented solo exhibitions at Artspace Boan Seoul, Mélange Cologne and Insa Art Space Seoul among others, and group exhibitions at Gwangju Biennale, MMCA Korea, SeMA Biennale: Mediacity Seoul, Kunstverein Göttingen, and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein. Kim received stipends from Stiftung Kunstfonds Germany, Art Council Korea, Berlin Senate and was resident artist at Gasworks, London and MeetFactory Prague. Her works are collected by KADIST San Francisco, Gwangju Biennale Foundation, MMCA Korea, and Seoul Museum of Art. Kim was the first Asian board member of bbk berlin—The Professional Association of Visual Artists Berlin. Kim is currently a guest professor at the School of Visual Art of the Korea National University of Arts, Seoul.
Young-jun Tak – WISH YOU A LOVELY SUNDAY, 2021, 18:45 min
The first film in Tak’s choreography series, WISH YOU A LOVELY SUNDAY (2021), boldly juxtaposes two distinct spatial settings: a church and a queer club. Two choreographers and two dancers were paired to create original choreography tailored to the church “Kirche am Südstern” and the queer club “SchwuZ” in Berlin, respectively. Each pair worked with a different Bach piano piece for four hands. After days of rehearsals and the completion of their choreographies, the assigned venues were unexpectedly swapped. The participants were unaware of the exact location where they would perform until the day of filming. As a result, they had to adapt their choreographies to the unique architectural features and atmospheres of the new locations.
Young-jun Tak (born 1989 in Seoul, South Korea) lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Solo exhibitions (selected): Spectrosynthesis Seoul, Art Sonje Center (Seoul, 20.3–28.6.2026), COMA (Sydney, 2024); at Atelier Hermès (Seoul, 2024); Julia Stoschek Foundation (Berlin and Düsseldorf, 2023); palace enterprise (Copenhagen, 2023); Wanås Konst (Knislinge 2023); O—Overgaden (Copenhagen, 2023); SOX (Berlin, 2022); and Efremidis (Berlin, 2022).
International group exhibitions (selected): 8th Singapore Biennale (2025), 14th Taipei Biennial (2025), Kalmar konstmuseum (Kalmar, 2025), 24th SONGEUN Art Award (Seoul 2024), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin 2024), 4th Bangkok Art Biennale (Bangkok, 2024), 5th Chicago Architecture Biennial (Chicago 2023), High Line (New York, 2023); Chicago Architecture Biennial (2023); Lyon Biennale (2022); Perrotin (Paris, 2022); KINDL Center for Contemporary Art (Berlin, 2022); Berlin Biennale (2020), Seoul Museum of Art (2019), and Istanbul Biennial (2017).
WISH YOU A LOVELY SUNDAY, 2021 was supported by Arts Council Korea, Burger Collection, Berlin Masters Foundation, and Center Stage
Vika Kirchenbauer – THIS SUFFOVCATING NOW, 2026, 15:35 min
At a time when elements of fascisation are becoming ever more apparent, ever more pervasive, artist Vika Kirchenbauer takes a personal look at what is in the air in Germany today. THIS SUFFOCATING NOW witnesses the historical present as a condition marked by vectors of violence that have continuously and habitually existed, and puts its focus on the fault lines that have most explicitly exposed the illiberal underbelly of a liberal state and society in recent years: Palestine solidarity as well as queer and trans rights. Drawing from a vast variety of source material, the 16-minute essay video flows in an uneven rhythm through still and moving imagery. Observations from the past three years—such as the increased police presence and recurring police violence, which Kirchenbauer captures from her balcony in Berlin—are viewed within a broader German historical framework. Over mundane images of her home improvement efforts, the artist problematises her own social ascent to becoming a university professor and civil servant. This personal reflection serves as an entry point to addressing the intimate relation between state and contemporary art in the German cultural system as a whole.
Vika Kirchenbauer (born 1983) is an artist, writer and music producer based in Berlin. Comprehensive solo exhibitions of Kirchenbauer’s practice were presented at the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen in Düsseldorf, and at the Kunstverein Kevin Space in Vienna. Her videos and installations were part of exhibitions and screenings at, among others, the Shedhalle, Zurich; the Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart; d/p, Seoul; the Tainan Art Museum, Taiwan; the Whitechapel Gallery, London; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; the Berlin International Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival and the European Media Art Festival. Two monographs combining the artistic and theoretical strands of her practice have been published by Mousse Publishing. From 2022, she was a Professor of Fine Art at the Braunschweig University of Art. She was recently appointed Professor of Fine Art in a Contemporary Context at the Kunsthochschule Kassel.
Ayoung Kim – AT THE SURISOL UNDERWATER LAB, 2020, 17min
This speculative fiction is set in the near future, around a decade after the COVID-19 global pandemic of 2020. In the wake of climate change and depletion of natural resources brought on by fossil fuels, eco-friendly bio-fuels have become society’s main energy source. The chief source of energy in the world is algae—macro-algae that are fermented to produce biofuel. In the Korean city of Busan, a “biomass town” has been established over a long belt stretching from Gijang to the waters near the Oryukdo Islands. (Kelp from Busan has been renowned since the 19th century for its quality and yields.) Surisol Underwater Lab, which manages an integrated process involving seaweed farming, water quality, ocean currents, and biomass, is also located in the area of the Oryukdo Islands. Sohila, a former humanitarian status holder who left Yemen escaping the Yemen War, is a senior researcher at the lab. She has just returned to the lab after taking an early month-long vacation for Ramadan. She hears good news and a bad news from Surisol, and sends Turbo Shell( the remotely operated vehicle) to conduct reconnaissance in the waters in question. Viewing the images sent by the ROV, Sohila shares its point-of-view as it is imperiled during its journey when it encounters a large swarm of squid and turbulent currents. Suddenly, she blacks out. This segues into a flashback, as she recalls what happened to Korea, and to her, during the COVID-19 pandemic that swept over the world in 2020.
* The character Sohila was played by Sohila AlBna’a, an actual Yemeni migrant living in Korea.
Ayoung Kim (born 1979 in Seoul, South Korea) lives and works in Seoul. In her work she weaves reality anew through a tapestry of hybrid fictions, integrating geopolitics, biopolitics, mythology, technology, technoprecarity, and speculative temporalities into her work. Kim often depicts nonconformists or technoprecariousentities whose resistance or misalignment leaves behind strange and singular traces as they deviate from prescribed trajectories. Kim’s synthesized narratives result in far-reaching speculation, establishing connections between biopolitics and border controls, the memories of stones and virtual memories, and ancestral origins and imminent futures across various media. Her practice incorporates discourses on optical and post-optical media, machine vision, performativity, game simulation, and the narrativity of fiction.
Kim’s works have been presented at MoMA PS1, New York (2025); Performa Biennial, New York (2025); M+, Hong Kong (2025, 2024); Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2025); Tate Modern, London (2025); The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Osaka, (2025); Atelier Hermès, Seoul (2025); Copenhagen Contemporary, Copenhagen (2025); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2025); ACMI, Melbourne (2024); MoMA, New York (2024); Sharjah Biennial (2023); International Film Festival Rotterdam (2023); Asian Art Biennial, Taichung (2021); Berlin International Film Festival (2020); Palais de Tokyo (2016); and the Venice Biennale (2015), among others.