 |
| download this
video! |
| 'In Germany,
around the turn of the century, a number of groups were formed that can
be subsumed under the term 'Lebensreform' (Life Reform). These part
utopian, revolutionary, reactionary and reformist approaches
characterised the most varied attempts to break free from the Empire of
the day: the nationalistic, capitalistic and monolithic Wilhelminian
Reich. In view of the development of 'multitudes' of parallel
conceptions of life, the Life Reform movements were certainly
predecessors of today's 'escapist' constructions of identity, formed
via lifestyle conceptions. At the time, some of these approaches lent a
sense of 'metaphysical depth' to the arising National Socialism. Other
groups were, on the contrary, persecuted by the society of the Third
Reich, and incorporated or forced into line, which again produced
another monolithic homogeneity.' 'The video that Stephan Dillemuth attempted to make about these matters was bound to fail in the face of their very complexity. Instead of presenting a refined and finished product, he confronts us with the assembled rubble of his investigation... a performance?' |