Agnieszka Polska's 'The Demon's Brain' at Hamburger Bahnhof

Agnieszka Polska's exhibition 'The Demon's Brain' at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin runs until March 3, 2019. The video installation draws from 15th-century correspondence between Polish official Mikołaj Serafin and miners in medieval salt mines, highlighting inhumane working conditions and capitalist exploitation. The fictional protagonist, an illiterate young messenger, encounters digital demons who whisper 'It is not too late.' Polska connects medieval salt mining to contemporary ultraliberal capitalism and AI, comparing resource extraction to data mining. Tiziana Terranova's annotation equates salt mining with data mining, extracting desires from collective intelligence. The work addresses ecological and political urgency, referencing the Hambach Forest resistance and a UN report on global warming.