marcy goldberg
The Dialectics of the Postcard
Front and back, image and text, beautiful/kitsch landscapes and bad news: the postcard has two sides, which often stand in contradiction to one another. Im Anfang war der Blick structures itself around this opposition at first, in order to ultimately dissolve it—analogous to the supposed tension between nature and culture which, upon closer inspection, stems from the impossibility of locating precisely where one leaves off and the other begins.
Early theories of photography dwelt on how the photograph's seemingly infinite interpretive potential could be limited and contained by the caption. But it is precisely this explanatory function of writing in relation to the image which Bady Minck's film calls into question. The relationship between word and image becomes even more unstable in the case of moving images – even if this 'movement' is likewise revealed to be an illusion, since it actually takes place not within, but between, the film frames. In fact, every film is based on the principles of animation, as Im Anfang war der Blick explicitly shows.
And yet: beyond the playfulness, this film ultimately treats serious themes that cannot be interpreted away, such as the real destruction of a landscape which is slowly but surely being commodified and consumed. Significantly, it is also about the darkest chapters of Austrian history. But that is no coincidence: legend has it that the postcard was an Austrian invention.
Heidi Dumreicher l Sergio
Fant l Bodo Hell l Christoph
Huber l Lilli Lička l
Johannes Moser l Michael
O'Pray l Hans Schifferle
l Burghart Schmidt l
Christian Stadelmann l Mika
Taanila l Jean-Philippe Tessé
l Barbara Wurm