Daniel Hopp

Daniel Hopp, born in Vienna, lives and works in London and Hamburg. He studied Fine Arts at HFBK Hamburg and ABK Stuttgart, Germany. Since 2019 he has taken part in the "Contemporary Art Practice - Moving Image" master program at the Royal College of Art. In recent years, Daniel Hopp has exhibited at the Solitude Project Space, Stuttgart; Akademie der Künste, Berlin; Kunstverein Schwerin; Kunstverein Jesteburg; Videonale Parcours, Bonn; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; Surdez ApS, Copenhagen; Oberhausen Filmfestival (German Competition 2020) and the Kurzfilmfestival Hamburg (German Competition 2021), to name a few.

Everybody wants to be someone else; everyone fails.

My filmmaking process begins with an invitation, a call to action, gathering relatives, friends, professional actors and myself in performative constellations. When the shooting begins, the performance has already begun, set in motion through a narrative structure derived from the implicit premises and rules of the locations, activated by the group itself. Following the evolving group dynamics within these constellations, the protagonists of my films become bodies, fears and desires; thus mirroring the fictitiousness, respectively the impossibility of being “true“ to, or even knowing, oneself.

In my video works, I condense the footage of these stagings, extended and confronted with additional material from my research process. Thus the films’ characters are not only derived from the protagonists’ autobiographies but rather amalgamated through the editing process following the unforeseeable interactions between performers, roles and images. Drawing upon these interactions, my films seek to open up for an oscillating movement between the formation and dissolution of identity within both the representation and performance of gender, ethnicity and class throughout contemporary societies.

IF THERE IS LOVE, YOU WILL TAKE IT - trailer

Installation view HFBK Hamburg 2020 — Screen sponsored by ESE Service and Trade GmbH

Poster — IF THERE IS LOVE, YOU WILL TAKE IT, 100 x 70 cm, UV print on photo paper, 2020 (Design: Caspar Reuss) Edition of 10; 2APs

IF THERE IS LOVE, YOU WILL TAKE IT encompasses the overlapping of cinematic and everyday life constructions of reality and fiction. While we widely acknowledge that reality is constructed just as much as fiction, this realization doesn’t protect us from the effects the former produces. “Play the gangster you’d like to be“ is the task the protagonists, self-proclaimed ‘tough boys’ and the artist and director himself, take up in a cultural center and unofficial gambling spot in a red light district. What does a gangster talk like? References from old-school gangster films are implemented into the protagonists’ speech, and reverberate back to the speakers through the mechanical mouths of the cute stuffed talking animals sitting on the table. Questions of identity, subjectivity, role and hierarchy (both that of the art work and the artist) are a recurring theme of Daniel Hopp’s artistic practice. He works with friends, neighbours, colleagues, acquaintances from different social milieus, creating a topology of social roles and positions to locate his own position as an artist. (Charlotte Klink)

Medium:

Videoinstallation, 2020

Size:

As depicted: 4,5×2,5m LED-Screen for HD Video, 11 min, [16:9]

In Collaboration with:

Camera

Editing

Music

Sound Design

Grafic

ADRENOCHROM - Trailer

ADRENOCHROM - Still

Poster — ADRENOCHROM, 100 x 70 cm, UV print on photo paper, 2020 (Design: Caspar Reuss) Edition of 10; 2APs

Everyone pursues their own interests. Who makes up the plot here? The protagonists, the filmmaker, the audience? The film takes place during the first lockdown and tells of the relationship between a social worker, a conspiracy believer and a filmmaker. Almost like Big Brother.

The film will be shown at Cromwell Place 22 - 25 July.

Commissioned by Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein