The video Das künftige Geschlecht / The Generation to Come once again infuses a text [1] by Alexander Simon, which has been slumbering in the archives since the mid 19th century, a performative dimension. Two periods far apart in time are brought together in space. The combination of documentary material and performance takes the aesthetic form of the new theatrical genre of the “keynote address”. Through the performance of the original text, two dimensions become perceptible: the imagined landscapes described become almost tangible; and the dramatic structure of the scientific legitimation Simon undertakes emerges.
[1] For the video we used the second edition “Emigration and German-national colonization of South-America with particular reference to the Republic of Chile” from 1850. The first edition was published in 1848 under the title: “The emigration of democrats and proletarians and the German-national colonization of the South-American republic of Chile.”