"3' Überlebensversuche"

Video (VHS), color, sound, 3 min., loop

So, too, in the video work 3' Survival Attempts the frontal view of the images, the reduction of the selection of topics to just one central motif and its repetition are factors that play an important role in the mental re-channeling towards what lies behind the given image. Fourteen 'stand-up men' start to move about by means of an unknown power and can no longer be stopped. With ever increasing speed they drop directly into the unknown and disappear accompanied by the loud noise of explosions. 'Stand-up men' are not merely toys for children; they symbolise the capacity of the individuell to cope with problems. Whatever happens - a 'stand-up man' cannot be bowled over by anything and will always get up again, to start from scratch. The video takes up this motif in a literal sense by means of a loop procedure. The intense, almost shot-like banging together of the figures beyond the line of visibility does get 'under one's skin' and is physically perceived. The dolls as size-reduced representatives of human beings imitate the physical sphere and create an image for comparison of human actions within social contexts.
Sabine Schaschl, Never stop the action in: Catalogue: Living and working in vienna, Kunsthalle Vienna, 2000/2001