In popular culture the nostalgic backward look has become a clichéd, predetermined way of viewing the past, no longer anchored in a particular personal memory. What exactly is the current state of nostalgia in pop music and art? Sven Lütticken argues for an active and critical approach to the past.

Matthew Buckingham, an American artist living in Berlin since his DAAD scholarship, leaves little to chance. In his installations he digs like a detective, in search of the fact behind fiction and the fiction behind fact. His analyses are daring, clever and precise.