Passierschein in die Zukunft / Ticket to the Future is an exhibition organized by the Kunstmuseum Bonn as part of beuys 2021, the series of events celebrating Joseph Beuys’ heritage, 100 years after his birth. The exhibition features works by Beuys, Katinka Bock, Christian Jankowski and Jon Rafman.

For the catalogue of the exhibition, I was asked to write a short text about Rafman’s contribution to the show, months before it was actually ready. I spoke with Jon, I read the script but, as the commissioned video work was in its very early stages, I focused my text on a story he often told in his artist talks, about a videogame that survived only in his personal memories. Eventually, that story became the subject of the final work, while the script I read remained an unreleased project, existing in the public – at least by now – only through the few lines at the very end of the text below.