Den Wandel der Vorstellungen, die bestimmt sind durch Kultur, Traditionen und Staatsordnungen lotet IDENTITÄT (1991) aus. Diese Vorstellungen und die Rollen, die der Einzelne in der Gesellschaft einzunehmen oder zu spielen hat, sind es, die die Identität bestimmen. Die Öffnung des Eisernen Vorhangs hat viele Vorstellungen und die auf Vorstellungen basierenden Gedanken -und Ideologiegebäude einstürzen lassen. Momenthaft werden noch einmal Stationen der deutschen Geschichte der letzten 50 Jahre vorgeführt und als Phänomene einer sich wandelnden Welt beleuchtet, als Beispiele vom Wandel der Identität auch des Einzelnen. (heiko Daxl, 1994)
Identity ( 1991)
This work by the Hungarian video artist Antal Lux is not concerned with the material manifestation of German division, but far more with the psychological. The most essential aspect is the question of identity. What is identity? Is it only personal data, or is it rather individual and collective psychical experiences? So what is German identity? What role does the past play here? With considerable technical sensitivity, Lux attempts to find an answer to these questions.
Antal Lux «Identity» The tape is a technically complex montage of various visual and acoustic sources. Archive pictures of modern German history – in particular the Third Reich as a period in which the national identity was epochally ruptured – are juxtaposed with a long acoustic passage Lux taped from TV in which Otto Graf Lambsdorff (former leader of the liberal FDP party) pontificates on what is best for the population in former East Germany following the collapse of the Honecker regime and German re-unification. The politician stresses the model character of the West German economy, and the responsibility for the East to be shouldered by the Federal Republic – all this from a man who was formally convicted of tax evasion. The jerky montage is further fragmented by recurrent inserts of pieces of writing and picture windows.