“There is no right life in the wrong one”. This dictum by Theodor W. Adorno echoes the intention of the multimedia installation “Im Bunker” (“In the Bunker”), for which artist Veronika Veit has placed a bunker entrance in the outdoor area of the Gasteig. A window provides a view into the strictly structured day-to-day life of a family living in isolation.
The family has put up secure barricades against the outside world, hoarded food and drinks and tries to live as independently as possible. The scenery of a twelve-minutes film reflects the wish for autonomy and self-determination and, at the same time, shows the problems of social isolation. Four short preview videos at www.veronika-veit.com show how the mother of the family posts her tough attitude towards survival. The attentive observer will recognise quotes from Margret Thatcher, who helped found the neo-liberal movement in the 1980s.
In a time increasingly dominated by individualisation instead of social interaction, in which watchwords such as self-fulfilment and self-optimisation are already found in the Kindergarten, this intervention aims to disturb, shake up and provoke. The project explores the tendency towards delimitation, cutting off the outside world, the attempt to exist fully autonomously and the absurd thought that everyone is responsible for their fate entirely on their own.
The placement of a bunker entrance on the Gasteig grounds has a disturbing effect, but for that very reason it creates a historical reference to the site: In World War II, the deep-level bunker LSB12 was located underneath the Bürgerbräukeller in today’s Gasteig, the building now used by GEMA. The information boards outside the Gasteig refer to the historical role played by this place, the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 and the Hitler assassination attempt in 1939 by Georg Elser.
Veronika Veit, born in Munich in 1968, lives and works in Munich.
