Microreview: To Dismantle

Frauchiger How To Dismantle A Bomb Still 1
Frauchiger How To Dismantle A Bomb Still 2
Frauchiger How To Dismantle A Bomb Still 3
Date
2020 September
Subtitle
Tine Melzer reviews Frauchiger, Marco. How to dismantle a bomb, 2020.
Type
microreview
Author / Publisher
Tine Melzer for NewsLibrary
Author Info

Tine Melzer (PhD) is an artist, author and researcher with a focus on language. Recent publications include Taxidermy for Language-Animals (2016) and Blumen sind geil (2020). She teaches at the University of the Arts Bern (HKB).

Language

English

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How does a complex political and historical context successfully inform a work of art without undermining its autonomy? Which examples show how transdisciplinary research genuinely produces trans-medial visual works? The work How to dismantle a bomb by photographer Marco Frauchiger, released in July 2020, is a great example of how research and art can conjoin naturally and un-academically. The online video was published on occasion of the CAP diploma festival at the University of the Arts Bern. Its representational format frames a set of acute questions: For one, the author’s perspective on a long-forgotten war in Laos, including its economic and social consequences, raises questions about armed conflicts; in general and in relation to the perceived distance from, yet economic proximity to, Switzerland’s weapon industry. Sharp editing, which carefully interweaves poetic imagery, physical proof, documentation, moving and still images, challenges the relationship between aesthetics and societal facts. Strikingly, the video of the physical turning of book pages interrupted by other video sequences augments the analogue medium and inventively replies to the digital exchange forced upon many of us this summer.