Guest
Michael Klier’s film is composed of images taken from surveillance cameras. In 1983, video surveillance was still a novelty. When in those days one was filming in the street, even if just with a video camera, passers-by would stop and ask when it was going to be broadcast. One assumed the person handling a camera was of a certain importance. Today, digital cameras are integrated in all sorts of devices, such as the locomotives of model railways, and in almost every mobile phone. A camera today has no greater value than a ball-point pen. And soon one will probably find it insulting to be given a camera as a gift. Being filmed is also something most people have become accustomed to. They do not disturb the film shoot by waving or by looking into the camera. They know that they are constantly, in a way, indirect persons of contemporary history, and have thus forfeited the right to their own image. In 1992, during the war of the Allies against Iraq, the press office of the U.S. military released special surveillance images: images from cameras that were installed at the nose of projectiles approaching their targets. Filming bombs with disposable cameras. It was said that these projectiles were intelligent weapons and so the two terms “surveillance images” and “intelligent” suddenly attained some proximity.
