‘That is beyond my control,’ coquettishly states Vicomte de Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos – the first epistolary novel in literary history, which can be read as a forerunner of today’s social media platforms – and presents himself as a victim after schemingly and maliciously bringing murder, death and betrayal upon his fellow human beings.

SCHAUM plays with viewing and depiction habits. The artist group’s works quote art history: they make use of aesthetics and compositions  that in their poetry seem diffusely familiar to the viewer, often only allowing him to recognise at second glance that they are dealing with very topical social issues.

SCHAUM scrutinises this ‘that’s beyond my control’ in a socio-critical way through the exhibited works and questions the immovable. Irresponsible behaviour from the dim past – supposedly long gone – is catapulted into the present and reflects the trend towards a ‘culture of irresponsibility’ (C. Wright Mills).

Neoliberalism has created a new category of human behaviour – namely deeds without perpetrators. This does not refer to the action and irresponsibility of the individual, but to that of political and economic decision-makers. Their decisions would only follow the constraints of the (free) market and supposed natural laws, as Rainer Mausfeld explains.
We sacrifice everything! Our society, our future, even our children, in order to keep this current free market alive, as SCHAUM wordlessly shows us in its video performance Last Supper.
We live in a time in which we believe we cannot control the results of the processes that have already been set in motion. Are we giving up on the future, as Douglas Rushkoff surmises?

SCHAUM asks us: Can we accept what we see? And are we really powerless?