bled

The gaze look into the camera demonstrates a consciousness that there is someone looking back before the images were created. (Siegfried A. Fruhauf) « Kinan di leid wider bled schaun heid / kinan di leid wider bled schaun. »* This couplet, which is repeated like a mantra, forms the textual structure of BLED by the group Attwenger. In the course of the song it successively condenses into a loop which is underlined by the rumbling rhythm and the merciless electronic and accordion passages. Almost like a prayer wheel the invocation wobbles until its meaning and intonation begin to dissolve in the acoustic environment. A similar process takes place on the visual level. Beginning with a shot of a man´s head (that of the filmmaker) which turns slightly to face the viewer, Siegfried A. Fruhauf alters the film in a number of steps. The picture dissolves into its grain, digital crosshatching or self-reflection, concluded by reworking in the style of drawing and painting with oil applied thickly and gesturally: The gaze into the camera – the faux pas which ruins the classic fiction-film shot – is visually disassembled, as a result of which this ur-scene of a break with fiction begins to decompose in a rhythmically eloquent manner. In all these variants the head is repeatedly dismantled into material textures that form a kind of formal structure underlying the concrete object. "Look stupid" means, in the Austrian vernacular, not only to lose out, but also to stand around with gaping mouth, to wear a facial expression which incites aggression. Fruhauf works with the literal meaning of the latter to create a visual counterpart, which could be said to defuse this look. All stupidity is limited by sufficient deformation. (Christian Höller) Translation: Steve Wilder * Können die Leut´ wieder blöd schauen heut´ / können die Leut´ wieder blöd schauen (they´ll look stupid again today / they´ll look stupid again.)