The Earth’s subterranean layer has long been an object of fascination to artists, archaeologists, and technologists as a meeting point of past and future. This lecture addresses contemporary video art’s habitation of the underground — as a space of enclosure and exclusivity, and of capitalist extraction — redefining it as one of radical inclusivity and commonality, and as a site through which to explore the material histories and futures of media.

Leo Goldsmith is a writer, curator, and teacher based in Amsterdam and Brooklyn. His writing has appeared in Artforum, art-agenda, Cinema Scope, and The Brooklyn Rail, where he was film editor from 2011 to 2018. He is currently writing a book about the filmmaker Peter Watkins with Rachael Rakes. Goldsmith has lectured on media and film at New York University, Brooklyn College, Harvard University, and The New School.

The international symposium Future Continuous Presenst(s) on the occasion of the Videoart at Midnight Festival '18, in cooperation with Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart - Berlin and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.), tracks the history, present, and future of all that is commonly called video art.