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SHOT

a theatrical essay

WITHIN THE FESTIVAL "HOW ARTISTS APPROACH WAR"

2017

 

A theatrical essay between war images and image war. The invention of photography laid the physical foundation for the first atomic bomb. Meanwhile, photographic art is being made with the help of drones. War and image, destruction and preservation - Ernst Jünger already knew in 1918 that one is no longer possible without the other.
But what if the image itself has long since become the actual weapon? Or, conversely, does war only take place when it is staged?
SHOT is a snapshot of the lost and imaginable. A living archive. An installation, with light and sound. Without images. The imagination of them is left to the audience.


"The light of photography has shaped the war perhaps more decisively than any other technical achievements. The overcoming of the night by the light of the searchlight and the illumination of the terrain by photography has produced a new landscape of war. The eyesight of the highly equipped modern soldier is, at the latest since the Vietnam War, reinforced by the computer, the all-encompassing view from the air."

From: Anton Holzer, Armed with the Camera, Marburg 2003, p. 21.

 

Premiere January 2017, Theater Neumarkt Chorgasse

Concept and artistic direction Rebekka Bangerter

Performance Annabelle Sersch
Room Franca Manz
Light and sound design ensemble  

1846, officers in parade uniform, Mexican-American War, 1st known war photograph. taken in a studio in Texas, exposure time: 20 seconds


1845, fall of Sevastopol, Crimean War, 8 mighty
ships stand menacingly at the entrance to the
bay, the city is on fire. In the background the
French cavalry, which is riding towards the burning
place. Iridescent colors.


1855, crimean war, a photograph by roger fenton,
the valley of the shadow of death, the first
commissioned was photographer,
a stony path on which lies carefully arranged
cannonballs. They refer to absent dead. Time
to publication: 8 months


1914 pigeon with surrounding camera.


1916 rifle with built-in camera. Every shot triggers
a photo.


1917 scenes from everyday life, oddities, social
events, actors from the world of theater, fashion
topics.


1937, loyalist soldier at the moment of his death,
Robert Capa, Spanish Civil War
due to “too little action”, photographer Robert
Capa asks the resistance fighters present
to re-enact a warlike scene against the fascists.
Robert Borell, 24 years old, is fatally hit in this
was game.


1937, loyalist soldier at the moment of his death,
Robert Capa, Spanish Civil War, becomes
the most famous war photography in the world,
a soldier at the moment of death, hit by a bullet
in the head, collapses and throws away his
rifle as he falls. A timeless indication against
fascism.


1991, burning oil field, steve mc curry, gulf war
dark gray clouds of smoke that tower up in baroque
style rise from a pink-orange fire on the
horizon, in front of it small but clearly recognizable
the silhouettes of three camels. The lower
half of the picture, a dark brown steppe landscape.
High contrasts. The Austro-Czech writer
Pavel Kohout writes about it: and again I saw
pictures that I cannot forget the terrible thing
about these pictures is that they are stunningly
beautiful.
Bombing of baghdad, same year, 1st real-time
broadcast, the bombing is timed to match the
evening broadcasts so that the detonation can
be shown "live".


2010, us soldiers with ipod, Damian Winter,
afghanistan, 1st excellent war photography
with hipstamatic app


2014, Me and my Russian Liberator, Ukraine,
Selfie


2015 beheading of a journalist, Syria

© rebekka bangerter

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