The SCHIRN is presenting Aernout Mik’s video installation “Double Bind” (2018), as well as the work “Threshold Barriers” (2022), which was conceived specially for the exhibition. Both works pursue the notions and dynamics of security and threat, power and powerlessness in public space and enter into dialogue with each other at the SCHIRN. In “Double Bind”, the artist addresses the presence of armed units from the national security apparatus. They move around the city in apparent isolation and without direct contact to passersby. “Threshold Barriers”, by contrast, shows an incident in which society and state power, citizens and police, engage in direct contact, with the traditional structures of authority and security having lost their validity. Mik’s fictitious scenarios move between documentation and performance, seeming familiar and disconcerting at the same time.

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