Thinkact

The film shows me sitting while off-screen my voice is heard reading the text Nimm eine Handvoll Zelluloid [Take a Handful of Celluloid] from 1967 (in: Werkstatt Blatt, 3, Vienna, January 1968). This work shows how, while shifting from one host medium to another – namely from sensory reality to filmic representation – I also shifted between speech act and think act, while always remaining in the medium of the body. On screen a thinking body is seen, the cognitive act. The speaking itself takes place outside the image; it was added in post-production, therefore it arises in the realm of technical representation and reproduction. The separation of reality and representation becomes clearly recognizable through the separation of seeing and speaking, image and sound, and so the difference between thinking and being, language and being, speaking and thinking is also made clear: split reality. The text itself reports on my theory about the relationship of film and reality in a metaphorical language playing upon the two comedians Laurel and Hardy. Film is given the name “Dick” [“fat” in German, used in Germany as the name for Hardy] and reality the name “Doof” [“dumb,” used as the name for Laurel] and thus arises the question: What is the dumb reality in the fat perception? (Peter Weibel)