The film is both a representation of the installation elements (tiled mosaics of images projected on four walls and the ceiling of a gallery) and a record of the installation / performance, with footage of the installation in situ with Kluge seated within it reading out his texts. It's dedicated to...
Müller describes Ovid's Metamorphoses, Golding's translation of which (1603) was one of Shakespeare's sources, as an encyclopedia of the Greek myths, its dramatic central theme being the transformation of human beings into animals, plants, stones---either as a punishment or out of a need to escape.
"The metaphor is cleverer than the author" (Lichtenberg), a "screen," an "instrument for bundling" (Müller), because "everything changes so much" (Gertrude Stein) - Müller explicates these functions of figurative language with reference to the use of metaphors in Shakespeare. This use of metaphor...
His prose text "An Attempt at Love", published in 1962, can be classified in the prehistory of the Auschwitz trials and deals with the attempt by the camp supervisors to manipulate two imprisoned Jews to engage in sexual intercourse in order to test sterilization measures.
Weltmacht Staub. Hartmut Bitomsky über einen unbesiegbaren Zustand der Materie
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Alexander Kluge and Hartmut Bitomsky discuss the film Staub (Dust). Dust is called “matter in the wrong place.” In fact, dust is an irresistible state of dissolution at the beginning and end of all things and living things.
Das Prinzip Stadt. Oskar Negt über die "Stadt in uns"
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The metropolises in Mesopotamia (Uruk, Babylon), the city in Greek antiquity (Athens), the founding of Rome and the Celtic castle sites (oppida) establish quite different communities.
Thanks to technological developments, film has been through many transformations. Now, with the development of Artificial Intelligence another begins. In this new age of image-making, Young German Cinema paragon Alexander Kluge finds himself experimenting with this latest tool of image creation....
This video segment complements the 2014 English-language edition of History and Obstinacy by Alexander Kluge and Oskar Negt, edited by Devin Fore and translated by Richard Langston (Zone Books).
