Vali E Export/Peter Wei
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VALIE EXPORT/PETERWEI BEL Multimedialfeminist art THCMASDREHER EXPANDED CINEMA passer-6yaccepted the offer, the artist turned her head to the sideto keep track of the time, After the time was up, ln 1968,the year of its founding,the UndependentFilm Export looked at the persontouching her and indicated Center in Munichorganized the FrrstEuropean Meetrng of that the actionhad come to an end. Export subjugated lndependentFilmmakers. Birgit Hein writes',The necessary passers-byto a disciplineof time, which subordinatedthe publicity for the well vrsited crnema events was provrded sub.lectivesense of touch to an objectiveframework. by the spectacularpresentatrons of ValreExport's Tupp- Export circumventedthe taboo of visualsexual attraction und Tastfrlm(Grope and Touch Film)and Peter Weibel's in publicplaces. By publiclypresenting female body parts action 'Exit'.l naked,but not visuallyso, she correctedthe sexual projectionfields, which are establishedvisually, but not In Exit, Weibel projecteda film onto a tin foil screen,until tactily,6y massreproductions: spectacular'object-images' he interruptedthe presentation6y physicallythreatening ('irages-objets')3,which arousecuriosity, were not the audiencefrom the cinema'sstage, the site of the present,By meansof the tactile,Export circumvented presentation:Rocket bodiesinstead of motion pictures.2 restrictivecodes and then re-introducedthem 6y meansof With the expulsionfrom the cinemain Exit, Weibel turned the disciplineof time: restrictivecodes are, on a tactile voyeurismagainst its own premises:Aggression and level,considerably more threateningfor the body and curiosity coupledin a phallocraticsexuality which places one's senseof his or her own body than visualcoding, but itselfat the disposalof the feminine becameopposing also lesssubtle. qualitiesin the expulsionfrom the cinema. ln Tapp-und Tastkrno,Export placeda box over her head FEATURE FILMS to cover her exposedbreasts; the open front of the box was covered by a curtain.The actiontaking place on stage Beginningin 1976, Export and Weibel transform becameinvisible and tangible,as opposedto the visible, dönouementmodels of the featurefilm genre by meansof intangibleglimmer of the cinema.Export invitedpassers-by montagetechniques, dream sequences,and pictorialmedia to grope throughthe curtainfor 12 seconds.As soon as a in the pictorialmedium, to make statementsfrom a ''tJta' ,ir.' ValreEXPORT Tapp-und Tastkrno,l968 aus.Valre Export. Eine intermedtaleKunstlerrn. Wien l9BB feministstandpoint, which, untilthen, had been either rare women were read by Widl onto an audio-cassettebefore or impossiblein this genre. the performanceand playedover loudspeakerstogether ln a scenefrom the film UnsichtbareGegner (lnvisible with compositions6y PatriciaJunger. The texts Adversary),which Export and Weibel realizedtogether in demonstratedhow much the feministopposition is stilla 1976177,Anna and Peter communicatewith one another consequenceand therefore,although more negative,a both directlyand, simultaneously,by meansof monitors.4 mirror of patriarchalstructures. ln 1984,in Die Praxis der Liebe (The Practiceof Love), Computer graphicsin slidesand videossplit up digitalized Export filmsa monitor-quarrelbetween Judith and Dr. imagesfrom Widl's impersonationsof famouswomen in JosefFrischkoff. Only Judithis present.sBoth scenesare variousways: From the limitednumber of shotsof Widl's determinedby criseswithin a relationship.In both cases, performance,Muki Pakesch(video) and H.W, Pangratz the monitor-imageof the masculinepart becomes (slides)generated images, which rangedfrom independentof the actor; and in each case,the male reconstructionsof the socialrole of the women presented imageexplicates the founderingof the relationship. to allusions,to completelyfree combinationsof images. ln both of thesefeature films, reproductivemedia, such as The videoswere presentedbehind the actressin serial photographyand video, which are presentedin the film as sequenceson a portablemulti-monitor-wall, which covered part of the action,place'viewers of the film in the role of almostthe entire back wall. Four electronicallycoupled the observer,who observethe (observedand observing) projectorspresented slides next to and over eachother observersin the film as they observe.The observedand on the back wall of the room. observingfemale observers in the film becomefemale protagonistsfor viewers of both sexes:Just äs, in the film, INTERMEDIAL ALLEGORICAL PROCEDURES the actressattempts to orient herselfbetween the imaginary,the symbolicand the real, the viewer attempts The performanceStimmen aus dem lnnenraum to orient his or herselfbetween his or her own reconstructsthe avant-gardemethod of montagewith projections,the film world and the real circumstancesof theatricaland electronicmedia - media,which are older the presentation,and the projectionin the cinema. and youngerthan montage itself.Montage as a recombinationof decontextualizedset piecesleads to M U LTIM EDIA-PERFORMANCE AllegoricalProcedures6, to allusionsto world conditionsin a state of upheaval.The allegoricalin montageprocesses Stimmen aus dem lnnenraum (Voicesfrom the Interior) rangesfrom history in a state of d ecayTto a Vitally was produced as a commissionfor the Ars Electronicaand progressive history of humankinds:ruininge not only allows presentedin lgBBat the Brucknerhausin Linz.The 'medial that which has become staticto tumble down, it also structure'was realizedby Export and Weibel. Duringthe producesthe dynamicnecessary for change- without performance,Susanne Widl dressedup as UnicaZürn, constitutinga new conceptionof the world through the Mae West, Mary Shell"y,Augusta Ada Byron (Countessof contradictory relationshipof heterogeneouspartst]. In Lovelace)and Linda Lovelace.\^/idl worked with props Stimmen aus dem lnnenrauffi,Export and Weibel choose and gestures,which were characteristicfor the women suchcode-fragments of the feminine,which reveal beingpresented. Excerpts from documentsof the five themselvesas ruinsof collapsedpatriarchal conceptions of Peter WEIBEL On Justifyingthe Hypothetical Nature of Art and the Non-ldenticalitywithin the Object World. lmage of the World of Language, 1992 CourtesyGalerie Tanja Grunert, Köln the world. Computer graphicsenergize the intercourse with the signsof decay: static contrasts between patriarchalsociety and futile femininecounter-movements become feministprocesses of transformation,a dialecticof transformer and transformed. ln Stimmen,an intermedialmontage is constitutedby the mutual referencebetween three levels: a.) A llvingbody (actress). b.) Masqueradeof the actress(a.) for a simulationof roles in real space.The roles refer to referencepoints in past reality:The past is re-enactedas the semblanceof a formerly livingbeing with the help of accessones. c.) Electronicimage simulation, in which signsare rnfinitely reproducibleand transformableand signoperations are reversible.The imagesimulation combines fragments from b.) with each other as well as with additionalelements. C.) receivesa functionthrough b.) that refers back to historicalhandicaps. Through the infinite,unlimrted possibilitiesof transformation,which c.) presentsin facets, the historicalframework of b.) is revealedas being limited and restrictedby pre-codings. ANAGRAMS ln a text on the oerformance Stimmen aus oem lnnenraum,Weibel placesimage simulation in connection Valie EXPORT Die Praxrsder Lrebe, l9B4 aus: ValieExport. Einerntermediale Künstlerin, Wien l98B with the anagramsof UnicaZürntt: from the fountain- headsof one of the chosenwomen who struggleagainst for a feministnegation of the phallocraticpower that had their pre-conditionedroles - the only one to have put an previouslynegated them. abrupt end to her own life - Export and Weibel take In the unrestrictedelectronic generation of signs(..), self- possibilitiesfor an alternativeinterpretation of signs. referentialtransformations become possible beyond'binary Syllables,sounds and letters can be substrtutedin anagrams ambivalences'.The differencebetween the electronic without regard for their semantics:ln anagrams, generationof signs(..) and the theatricalsimulation of onomatopoeic expressionsand numerous other linguistic roles(b ) cannotbe describedas the divisionof a tricks, the word, the syllable and the sound strut, phallocraticstructure into binaryfeatures, but rather as 'binary emancipated from every semantic association, as a thing, the yet to be and alreadyarrived at solutionof which may be allegorically exploited.tz ambivalences'.Computer simulationthematicizes this Accordingto Weibel, with referenceto the dolls of Hans separationwith its spectrumfrom reconstructionsof social Bellmer,who was married to Zürn, the use of signs historyto free combinations. without semanticrestrictions is translatableinto an anagrammaticismof the bodyt3. The double role of POTLATCH Bellmer'sdolls - of beingsign-like and real simultaneously, and thus presentingas dead bodies an amalgamationof The concept'sign-function' stands for a limitednumber of sign-formsand sign-bearers- which allowsthem to possibleways of coordinatingsigns with meaning(poetic, become ideal bearersof wishful phantasies,is, however, emotive, referential,imperative, phatic and meta-linguistic), not reoeated in the oerformance.Bellmer's doll mechanics while the concept'code' standsfor an accumulationof is divided in two levels:in the masquerade(b.) and the signs,which are coordinatedwith meanings.The signs imagesimulation of body set pieces(c.), and both levels receivetheir meaningand