Today’s trailer, advertising and music clip industries condition modern man to an unheard-of density and speed of information. Though lasting for only a few minutes, short films with a narrative and emotional density equaling that of feature films boom especially as downloads in the Internet.

Against the backdrop of this development, the Schirn asked ten international artists, Doug Aitken, Jonas Åkerlund, Hubbard/Birchler, Isaac Julien, Sarah Morris, Philippe Parreno, RothStauffenberg, Anri Sala, Markus Schinwald and Yang Fudong, to produce three-minute shorts that focus on condensed information and condensed narration as their issues. In terms of both their subject matter and their technique, the films suggest completely new perspectives regarding the condensation of contents and structures of perception through their cuts, fragmentizing strategies, poetic compressions, and the spectators’ emotionalization. An innovative form of presentation was developed in collaboration with the New York architects Asymptote.