Praxis 18 - 12 Scenes (142 - 153)

Dietmar Brehm´s Praxis series is a steadily accumulating collection of audiovisual aphorisms that result in his very own (meanwhile, digitally grasped) "Notes sur le cinématographe." Brehm has also designed the 60- to 207-second scenes number 142 to 153, the eighteenth instalment of Praxis, with a knack for surprises and pure pleasure in absurd staging. The strange forms and signs that he designs embrace something strangely "iconic," and yet nonetheless incomprehensible, as though their recall value were only temporarily jammed. Brehm continuously newly modifies his arsenal of images in toxically colored loops and narrative splinters, but at the same time, also expands it; in this way he preserves it, keeps it fresh, as though below a sheet of ice.

Immanent to his choreography of faces, figures, and things is a strong graphic quality; Brehm breaks the rules and celebrates the damages; disturbs the images, over or under exposes them, allows positive and negative to collide, all to his characteristic soundtracks, in which occasionally muzak or children´s tunes can be distinguished from the monotone development of noise. At issue here is, quite fundamentally, the act of seeing: the yellow light of a traffic signal is furnished with an artificial pupil, another gig for Mabuse, the criminal hypnotizer. Praxis 18 is composed of reflections and avant-shockers en miniature; dynamic Rorschach tests and the outlines of his gothic girls. The ironic minimalism is just as much part of the concept as the emphatically idiosyncratic use of high-resolution video technology. Dietmar Brehm continues to feel extremely comfortable in the battle and twilight zones. (Stefan Grissemann)