Germany

Germany 1999/2000, 20:00 min. Video: Heiko Daxl Music: Mona Mur monamur.com ... Would You like to be modified?... I like You, the way You are ....a little bit more radical... (Dr. Tyrell and the Replicants 1983) ... To make us question whether remaining human is any longer an advantage. (Stelarc 1995) "A country doctor talks about the threat of humanitas. His implorations seem to stem from a time of heroic stubbornness as if they are meant to once again disempower the polarity of health and civilization and,to evoke the myth of a reasonably good social system that supports one to stay healthy. However, the images counteract all salvation and confirm the unconcious entanglement of the individual in an anonymous maelstrom of coming revolutions. And the music that wonders on paths of demonic beauty hypnotizes the viewer completely and allows a view on civilization as agony. But, isn't there still a temptation, a desire?" (Wolfgang Höntzke, 1999) Deficiency symptoms: We search in our civilization for conditions, that threaten the health and accelerate malady. Chronical diseases, cancer, circulatory disturbances, rheumatism, metabolism illnesss and the neurosis are caused by influences of our life-form. The list of tortures: The noise of motors and all kind of engines, the polluted air in the cities, the dense population, the lack of loneliless, to much of artificial light, the forfeiture of the night, the sunless urban environment, the nerv-racking telephone, the rapid change of locality and climate by our means of traffic, the deficit of physical work, the termination of time, the loss of calmness and leisure, the tobacco, and the alcohol the psychic condition of our todays´s world, the standardization and levelling of individuality, the equalization of conceptions and necessaries, the flattening of spiritual life through mercantile contamination, the secularization of the mystery of art, the loss of consistency through religion and metaphysics, neurosis, neurosis, neurosis. we are convinced of the reality of the list of torture, every environment, that is touched by the forming hand of man, signifies civilization, the mass mortality caused by plague, cholera, leprosy we are in a process of accomodation into the environment created by us, but yet did not conceive this occurrence. (Dr. Louis R. Groote ,1957) "... Would You like to be modified?... I like you just the way you are ....I wouldn't mind something a little bit more radical... so, what seems to be the problem? death." (Dr. Tyrell and the Replicants 1983) "... to make us question whether remaining human is any longer an advantage." (Stelarc 1995) "In 1957 the doctor Louis R. Groote made a speech in which he said that some situations foster illness and threaten one´s health. Situations like engine noise, exhaust fumes, population density, the lack of one´s own space, the huge amount of artificial light and many other factors threaten physical health. Man´s psyche is under pressure for instance to reduce his personality to the owest common denominator, to bring needs into line, resulting in an increase in the number of neuroses. From the start, this text sets the tone: together with images that look like corroded film images of a lecture, the text presents associations with past times. The sound and the black-and-white images of city situations, wave patterns and animations make reference to a genuine world and the accompanying consequences. For although on the one hand everything is influenced by this thougt: the man walks through a long corridor and the image of the corridor changes while he is walking through it. Then the image changes from technical to organic constructions and Daxl calls on us to be sceptical. The makeability of the world is for him not only about building and cars, but also about genetic manipulation, food production and the human body. Manipulation also raises questions about what the nucleus of a body, a person or a thought is, what individual and what general human characteristics are: an environement changes under influence of man just as man changes under the influence of his environment. How the nucleus of man changes in this remains the question, just as who will be in the best situation in the end and i the best shape to survive and not incur all sorts of illness. Hence the question Stelarc formulated: "whether remaining human is any longer an advantage." (Carla Hoekendijk, World Wide Video, Amsterdam 2000)

• published: 09 May 2009
• views: 4617