b-star, unkillable!
"Language is the symbolism of a patriarchal culture." (1) Nonetheless, we haven´t (or haven´t yet) escaped this symbolic order. On the contrary, in tales of an "other" history (her-story) we must remain aware of this fact to see and feel the way we fall back on this order. Sabine Marte uses seemingly simple means that run through the most varied representational systems to deconstruct this symbolic order. She manipulates the narrative, the picture (of a) woman, the medium (video). She decelerates, stops, restarts, stutters, repeats, leaves blanks, and at the pictorial level pays no heed to representational conventions or regimes of the gaze.
At first, all that is visible is the image of a woman´s torso, overexposed; on the sound track a rustle, crash, and voices. Ultimately, the picture of a woman - the artist herself - takes shape, a voice begins, but the woman does not move her lips, gazing steadfastly into the camera. This situation does not change over the course of the video, whereas the spatial setting (a couch in a loft) is steadily manipulated: the couch, as though animated by a ghost, moves back and forth in the room. The border between the real and cinematic spaces stretches, and in the end, dissolves.
When the protagonist is able to break through between these spaces - embedded in narrative (and, mainly, acoustic) references to horror films - when she overcomes inside and outside in terms of narrative and also does so literally, then she is on the way, in a Butlerian sense, to "the model by which other forms of identity-differentiation are accomplished."(2) B-star can thereby be seen as a transgressive figure that is re-mixed in innumerable films, rises again, and returns. The economic principle of (re-) usability, which is driven to extremes in these films, experiences a rebellious re-evaluation including a mixed happy end.
(Claudia Slanar)
Translation: Lisa Rosenblatt
1. Parker, Rozsika/Pollock, Griselda: Dame im Bild, in: Mostegl, Sabine/Ratzinger, Gudrun, Matrix, Springer Verlag, Wien/New York 2008, p. 40.
2. Butler, Judith, Das Unbehagen der Geschlechter, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/Main 1991, p. 197.
b-star, immortal! is the compelling interjection made by a character throughout the film. The story moves from the fictional level of filmic space into real space, producing a loop of fictionality and literality.
(Sabine Marte)
Jurybegründung: Preis Innovatives Kino | Diagonale 2010 (Award)
Im grellen Weiß des Videobildes stechen schemenhaft zwei Augen hervor, die einen nicht mehr loslassen. Ein obsessives Blickverhältnis setzt sich fest, verhakt sich, zwischen Performerin und Kamera, zwischen fiktiver Figur und Betrachter. Die Atmosphäre eines Psychothrillers vermischt sich mit der bruchstückhaften Erzählung über eine Frau, mit der verfahren" wird: metaphorisch wie wortwörtlich in der filmischen Bewegung durch den Raum. Ihr Zusammenbruch auf der Straße der Sieger" bringt sie auf die Anklagebank, ins Verhörlicht, in das Blitzgewitter der Gerichtsfotografie, gleichzeitig ins Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit, wie ein Star im Visier der Paparazzi. Sabine Martes Video B-star, untötbar! reloaded ist ein virtuoses Spiel mit Slam Poetry, Performance und Filmexperiment, das sich in eine morbid-heitere Moritat verwandelt, welche Erlösung verspricht: Der Galgenstrick wird zur Kinderschaukel.
Jury:
Mara Mattuschka (Filmemacherin, AT)
Marina Koul (Kuratorin / Festivalleiterin 25FPS, HR)
Florian Wüst (Künstler / Filmkurator, DE)
b-star, untötbar!
2009
Austria
7 min 30 sec