Core Dump is a series of videos set in Kinshasa, Shenzhen, New York, and Dakar - four cites intertwined in a complex web of fiber-optic cables, migratory patterns, conflicting histories, river systems, and trade routes. Originating from a project that traverses continents, the work explores the ecology of global information technology, including places of material origin, production, consumption, and distribution as well as disposal treatment, aiming to reveal the digital virtuality of capitalism. This journey surveys the possibilities of inverting the colonial culture of extraction by documenting it in the form of a fictional geopolitical map. Knoetze’s videos incorporate a mixture of found footage, performance documentation, and interview transcripts that collectively portrays a digital nervous system on the brink of collapse amid a collision of uncertainty and unsustainability. In this work, video and audio forge a distinct sense of time and space while foregrounding notions of digital technology, cybernetics, colonialism, and the Non-Aligned Movement, thereby underlining human connection and the significance of narrative. (SMB12 Guidebook)
