Confronting
the cliché
Performances:
16-21 Feb 1998 in the Narrenturm (Fools´Tower) (Federal Pathologic-anatomical
museum of Vienna)
The Fools´ Tower: a text collage by Emre
Tuncer
Perpetuum Mobile of Violence
"Is
violence the evil product of depraved individuals or a mass phenomenon?
If we subscribe to the former view, criminal acts are only carried
out by a scattering of independant perpetrators. To maintain order,
stringent legislation must ensure that they are kept behind bars,
cut off from the outside world. Cause and effect are placed on an
equal footing which inevitably leads to the situation worsening
,thus highlighting the holes in this theory.
One of the most famous proponents of adopting a comprehensive society-based
approach was Wilhelm Reich (Harald Jokesch). His theory, that all
patriarchal-authoritarian societies are based upon sexual repression,
seeking a pleasure substitute in heightened aggression and brutal
sadism, made headlines in the 30s and showed Reich to be far too
prickly a contemporary, better suited to a life in jail, where he
died in 1957.
One generation earlier, Helen von Druskowitz (Eva
Dité) had already met a similar fate. A university-qualified
philospher, she developed the theory of a Pyramid of Violence: Man
on top, lording it over all mechanisms of repression. Women and
children serve as catalysts. A perpetuum mobile of barbarism is
created, the abused become the abusers.
Druskowitz sought to investigate the roots of madness throughout
the world and was herself declared insane.
In "The Fools´Tower....or is it?" (still on show
till 21 Feb in the Narrenturm, former AKH-General Hospital) Emre
Tuncer links these historic figures with the present. The feminist
linguist Luise F.Pusch (Gabriele Rahnama) also makes an appearance
as does the super-ego of the mass media (Christian
Aichinger).
Throbbing drum rhythmns (Leon Koffi) echo the urgency of this topic
and make this collage a testimony of Zeitgeist, throughout generations,
as well as a pacifist manifesto."
Christine
Dobretsberger,
Wiener Zeitung: 19/2/98
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