3hd 2026 Beyond Imagining

As part of their festival “3hd 2026”, Creamcake presents a video programme at the Berlinische Galerie.Called “Beyond Imagining”, the festival confronts a world where the real and the invented bleed into each other, distorting what we see and inciting violence so extreme it defies belief, yet rarely earns more than a passing glance. It examines how images, words, and gestures acquire meaning and power, and invites viewers to critically examine familiar ways of thinking and social structures. The film programme, presented both here and online via 3hdTV, explores the idea that looking on is never neutral. Four works by four artists set a single figure, real or invented, against a force beyond their control. The state. The crowd. The camera. The institution. Found footage and essay film, allegory and impersonation each trace what gets remembered and who bears the blame for forgetting.

Sara Sadik’s “Ultimate Vatos: Force & Honneur” (23 min.) follows Zabuza as he is trained to become the ‘ultimate man’ in a fictional military programme, during which he experiences isolation, surveillance and physical challenges. Through shifting camera angles and a personal voice-over, the external pressure and his feelings of loneliness, stress and fear are exposed, thereby confronting stereotypical notions of strength and toughness with vulnerability and insecurity. Through Zabuza’s internal monologue the film reveals how marginalized individuals build resistance, solidarity, and community care as tools for survival and affirmation.

Vika Kirchenbauer’s “This Suffocating Now” (16 min.) reflects on the increasingly fascist tendencies the artist identifies in contemporary Germany, focusing on Palestine solidarity, queer and trans rights, and the forms of violence and discrimination that expose the illiberal undercurrents of a supposedly liberal society. Combining personal experiences of medical gender discrimination with archival, protest and personal footage, the video examines the relationship between state power and contemporary art, while drawing parallels to the authoritarian dynamics preceding the Nazi takeover.

Simone C Niquille’s “The Fragility of Life” (24 min.) is a short film following Teresa Barnwell, a Hillary Clinton impersonator, in the final days leading up to the 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections. The Fragility of Life questions the ownership of one‘s own image in a time of visual saturation: viral images, fake news, mass distribution of information and networked cameras create a slippery slope of identity, privacy and personal data.

Simona Andrioletti’s “Defence. What do you do with your anger?” (10 min.) is a found-footage collage that brings together a succession of situations in which individuals attempt, in different ways, to defend themselves against forms of physical, emotional, and environmental oppression—ultimately without success. The found-footage material has been re-filmed with a smartphone pointed at a computer monitor. This additional layer of mediatization deliberately reproduces the dynamics of voyeurism and Schadenfreude embedded in the original footage. The gesture of filming rather than intervening becomes an integral part of the work: a form of passive participation in which witnessing suffering is transformed into entertainment.

Creamcake (CC) is a Berlin-based interdisciplinary platform, navigating the point of convergence in electronic music, contemporary art, and digital technologies. CC organizes performances, exhibitions, club nights, concerts, digital commissions, and workshops. Further information: 3hd-festival.com and 3hd.tv.

Since 2011 the IBB Video Space has been screening artists who work with time-based media. The programme features not only established names in contemporary video art but also up-and-coming artists rarely seen in museums to date. For these, the Berlinische Galerie seeks to facilitate an institutional début. Each screening brings a new encounter with work that raises questions about the medium and about social or political issues. Importance is attached to including marginalised perspectives and to shedding light on the impact of power structures.

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