In a kebab stand in Rotterdam the British artist Helen Anna Flanagan (b. 1988 in Birmingham, lives and works between Ghent, Rotterdam, and Birmingham) brings together an illustrious constellation of characters who reveal different facets of the society of excess. One man of the greedily scarfs down to fill his stomach; a woman forces herself to fast; a third serves with a smile; one woman takes advantage of an All You Can Eat offer and then leaves devastating restaurant reviews at an evaluation portal on the Internet. In the absurd, associative texts of the artist, the rotating kebab spit becomes a DNA helix and hence a multilayered symbol of the old proverb “You are what you eat.”

The New York artist Dara Birnbaum (b. 1946 in New York, lives and works in New York) has been criticizing in her videos since the late 1970s the images of women and consumer thinking of American television advertising. . While Jimi Hendrix sings of his burning desire for his flame, the images quickly alternate back and forth between a woman drinking and the anonymous transactions at the drive-in counters of various fast-food chains. Money changes hands, and the car races away as Hendrix sings: “You try to give me your money. You’d better save it, babe.”

An English satire on exploitation in the world of fast-food restaurants. The sample-and-scratch techniques of hip-hop music have been transferred here to video editing and combine to form an infectious collage of news and entertainment shows on bloodthirsty multinational corporations and hamburger-consuming politicians. The Englishmen John Dovey (b. 1955), Gavin Hodge (b. 1954), and Tim Morrison (b. 1955) met in a video workshop in Luton and as the artists’ group Gorilla Tapes quickly became known for their biting videos critical of Thatcher. The group produced the video Lo Pay No Way under the pseudonym Vulture Video to avoid suit from a litigious fast-food corporation.

Unbelievable but true: The American Virginia Astley from Lumberton, OH, USA, won a suit against the manufacturer of a microwave oven whose manual had not mentioned dogs. With great humor Petr Vrána (b. 1956 in Prague, lives and works in Prague) discusses in his video the differences between the “hot dog” as prepared food and pet.