(re)action: the survivor of henri chapelle
Schnellübersicht/Quickview: survivor of henri chapelle
We are collecting material around soldiers/soldiers life in war and peace - our mounting plate in this digital assemblage is the american soldiers cemetery near henri chapelle
Henri Chapelle is a little village near Liege (Luik). A large WW II soldiers memorial is located near that village. The neverending rows of crosses and solomon's seals are forming a military order which reclaims the death body of the soldiers as a symbol.
The cemetry is very clean. The rage is always cutted, not a single trace of breakup or oblivion. This cemetry is a "memorial of geometry", of cleanness.
Everything gets transformed into a symbol. The cemetry seems to be a part of a military concept. The militarypower which was at site sometime ago left back a graveyard to it's memory. Maybe this cemetry tells us more about the power behind it than it does about the destiny of every single soldier. The monument of the soldierscemetry is both: a memorial and a menace, because a power that can leave back such big military symbols seems to be indomitable. The single soldier is integreated into this concept of strategical (inner/outer) warfare. The death at henri chapelle is:
- cleanical clean
- white
- glorious
- patriotical
- monumental
- unforgotten
- conceptual integrated
The soldiers cemetry is the potential target and the final domicile of the soldier, the soldiers cemetry is the proof of the heroically meaning of the dead in the war, it is the manifested paying of the military promise that the army will take care for the killed soldiers. It is the promise that the death in war is not senseless. The soldiers cemetry is the opposite of the soldiers life in war: the bloody, sweaty dirty war is transformed into the clenical cleaness of the cemetry. The chaotic and confusing situation of a battlefield turns into the geometriacal form of the cemetry.
The serial "the survivor of henri chapelle" trys to ask questions about soldiers memorials in form of videos, pictures and text.
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Henri Chapelle ist ein kleiner Ort in der Nähe von Liege (Lüttich) dort befindet sich einer der zahlreichen Soldatenfriedhöfe des zweiten Weltkrieges. Die unendlich scheindenden Reihen mit weissen Kreuzen und Davidsternen formen eine militärische Ordnung über den Tod hinaus.
Der Friedhof wirkt sehr aufgeräumt und sauber. Der Rasen ist stets gemäht, keine Spur von Verfall oder Vergessen. Der Friedhof ist ein "Memorial der Geometrie", der Sauberkeit. Die bestimmde Farbe ist weiss.
Alles wird in ein Symbol überführt. Der Friedhof scheint Teil eines militärischen Konzeptes zu sein. Die Militärmacht, die einmal hier war, lässt zu ihrem Gedenken einen Friedhof zurück. Dieser Friedhof sagt wohl mehr über die Militärmacht selbst als über die individuellen Schicksale des einzelnen Soldaten. Das Monument des Friedhofs ist gleichzeitig Erinnerung und Drohung, denn eine Macht die derartige Symbole zurücklässt erscheint unbezwingbar. Über den Tod hinaus wird so der einzelne Soldat in das Konzept strategischer Kriegsführung integriert. Der Tod in Henri Chapelle ist:
- klinisch rein
- weiss
- prächtig
- patriotisch
- unvergessen
- monumental
- konzeptuell integriert
Der Soldatenfriedhof ist potentielles Ziel und finale "Wohnung" des Soldaten, der Soldatenfriedhof ist gleichsam der Beweis für die Heldenhaftigkeit des Todes im Krieg, er ist die steingewordene Einlösung des Versprechens der Armee, dass sie sich um ihre Toten kümmert, dass der Tod nicht sinnlos ist.
Er ist das genaue Gegenteil des Krieges, aus dem chotischen, blutigen, schwitzigem und dreckigem Krieg wird das reine und sauebere des Friedhofs. Aus der unübersichtlichen Schlacht, wird die übersichtliche, geometrische Anordnung der Grabmale.
Die Reihe "the survivor of henri chapelle" versucht in Texten, Bildern, Videos die angesprochenen Fragen rund um die letzte Ruhestätte des Soldaten zu ergründen.
Die unendlich scheindenden Reihen mit weissen Kreuzen und Davidsternen formen eine militärische Ordnung über den Tod hinaus. Du bist Soldat - auch nach deinem Tode, wenn du im Felde gefallen bist. Nur wenn du aus dem Krieg heimkehrst, vielleicht als ewig gezeichneter, darfst du deinen Frieden ausserhalb der Ordnung finden. Die Administration beansprucht auch die Leichen. Wer ist der Mann, der durch sein Hinken die Ordnung stört, der vielleicht als Überlebender den Apell der Toten abnimmt?
Die unendlich scheindenden Reihen mit weissen Kreuzen und Davidsternen formen eine militärische Ordnung über den Tod hinaus. Du bist Soldat - auch nach deinem Tode, wenn du im Felde gefallen bist. Nur wenn du aus dem Krieg heimkehrst, vielleicht als ewig gezeichneter, darfst du deinen Frieden ausserhalb der Ordnung finden. Die Administration beansprucht auch die Leichen. Wer ist der Mann, der durch sein Hinken die Ordnung stört, der vielleicht als Überlebender den Apell der Toten abnimmt? Henri Chapell is a little village near Liege (Luik). A large WW II soldiers memorial is located near that village. The neverending rows of crosses and solomon's seals are forming a military order which reclaims the death body of the soldiers as a symbol. You are a soldier - if you loose your life in the battlefield you stay a soldier beyond your death, maybe if you survive you could make your peace outside the military order. The military administration reclaims the cold meat of the soldier. Who is this limping man walking besides the graves, who is this limping man walking through the roll call of death?
Henri Chapelle ist ein kleiner Ort in der Nähe von Liege (Lüttich) dort befindet sich einer der zahlreichen Soldatenfriedhöfe des zweiten Weltkrieges. In der Gedenkstätte, dem "Memorial", welches zum eigentlichen Friedhof gehört liegt ein Zettel mit einem Quiz aus. Dieser Quiz führt zu verschiedenen Gräbern, erklärt fragend die Bedeutung von Rangabzeichen und Medaillien. Von seiner Machart her richtet er sich an Kinder. Kannst du all diese Fragen beantworten?
Henri Chapelle is a little village near Liege (Luik). A large WW II soldiers memorial is located near that village. The neverending rows of crosses and solomon's seals are forming a military order which reclaims the death body of the soldiers as a symbol. In the "Memorial" you find a little paper with a quiz for children. This Quiz explains in form of questions some aspects of the Henri Chapelle Memorial. You must find certain graves, you learn something about medals of honor etc. Can you answer all these questions?
Of course you know Johan van der Keuken a documentarist and photographer from the Netherlands. Keuken did a really good documentation called "Face Value". This is a realistic and poetic movie, it is about the value of faces and facing, it is also a description of an imaginary europe, a europe with london, prag, marseille, rochlitz und delfzijl as landmarks in the north, east, south, west of europe. A europe of topographic faces and onr of traces in faces. Can a face have a value in a market sense, a value in an emotional sense. And if so - could you realize the value of a face through some kind of cognition?
Face Value / Henri Chapelle auf einer größeren Karte anzeigen
"Face Value" opens with the following scene: Keuken sits in front of his camera, we see his face with its glasses, Johann starts speaking he says something like: "While i watch through my glasses i can see you clear and sharp." Now he lifts his glasses off the face. The image turns blury. Keuken: "If i take off my glasses i can not see you." (roughly ;)) We share his view through a blury goin' camera. What are the glasses of Keuken? They are a protetic interface to a visual world, or better to definitions of a visual world - you dont leave visual world - you enter another one. In this scene the whole movie "Face Value" is already present in an abstract and compressed form. "Face Values" are made by certain definitions of visual sharpness, these definitions are as protetic as Johan van der Keukens glasses, as protetic as the camera itself, and as protetic as a definition of a "blury europe".
Anyhow - what makes the value of one single face out of millions and millions of random faces passing your visual/sensoric interfaces, what makes the value of a face for a blind person? It is time in any cases, how long? how intense? - cognition of a face is recognizing more and more details that makes the difference. Recognizing "story" in biological, genetics based face structure - this is knowing what makes a face wrinkled in a certain way.
The opposite of randomizing is individualizing through personal knowledge, not because of simple coincidence.
- time, traces, forms, personal knowledge of individual backgrounds - in the face of the other.
- time, traces, forms, personal knowledge of individual backgrounds - in your cognition of the face of the other (i'm afraid - the face of the other is misused as a mirror of yourself, but that is another story).
Keuken found his answers in a great dialogue between the real-time of the images, and the real-time of the video itself - in addition both aspects depend on the topography of modern europe. This is also a very photographic answer because one of the main more philosophical discourses about photography is about the time of/in the photographic image - the transformation of an eventstream into a frozen image of events. These freeze has no own time anymore, but it has a time of the view and a lifetime as a photography. By the way: This has nothing to do with digital, anlog or polaroid. The development process itself is a more or less boring question for photographers, but it does not play a role in a philosophical sense, because it is NOT part of the image, just part of a very subjective - aestetical questionset on photographic-images.
Keuken experiments with timeaspects of images. Face Value is a setting about traces of timedevelopment, the transformation of story and time into faces, facial expression, topography, cognition and social impact.
Back to the beginning, what sharpens the video is simply the camera as a servant of definitions, what is a complete protetic process.
Henri Chapell turns blury and abstract, geometrical, timeless, cold, clean through randomizing of geometrical forms - it could be de-randomized - individualized through faces. You might now ask yourself - what is the value of a face(image[portrait]), while you let your view move around at "Henri Chapelle American Cemetery"