Berlin Remake is a double projection of exterior scenes from DEFA movies, alongside their “remade” version as shot by the artist in 2005. DEFA – East German State Film Studio – was founded in the spring of 1946 in the Soviet Zone of Occupation. It was the first film production company in postwar Germany. Siegel concentrates on shots taken in different public spaces in Berlin, depicting the same spaces years later, after the reunification. She follows the original camera movements and angles like a choreographed performance, showing the architecture, following in the footsteps of extras, but still leaving things out. The remade shots are a performance of absence, haunted by the emptiness and the feeling of another bygone era in the story of Berlin. Historical distance becomes present through its own replication.

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