hd video / 54:13 / language: english / subtitles: english & german

In 1824, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, was completed. In 1996, Takahashi Kazuki’s manga series Yu-Gi-Oh! was first released. In late 2016, Donald John Trump became President-elect of the United States of America.
All of these events are related. Let me tell you how.

SYMPTOMS is an examination of different points in time and space that are seemingly unrelated, but collide several times on their way to an unclear denouement. We follow the Ode to Joy throughout the centuries, learn how to draw dragons that are able to fight our demons, listen to a story about what might or might not be a brain tumor, discuss international politics through trading card games, and catch a glimpse at the most vitriolic and sugary-sweet places to be found on twitter. It is a take on oversaturation, information overload and the limits of causal reasoning. On people using images of animated Japanese fourteen-year-olds to endorse a right-wing political candidate and people of all sections of the political spectrum feeling validated in one single symphony; on an arts teacher trying to help a student fight his mental illness through drawing, while coping with the mysterious decline of their own health.