Klaus, vom Bruch
«The Propeller Tape»

In this video from the series 'Warum wir Männer die Technik so lieben' (‘Why We Men Love Technology So Much’), Bruch for the first time deploys repetition editing as a central principle, joining together for half an hour a single documentary sequence in which soldiers repeatedly attempt to start up the propeller of a B-17 bomber until finally the plane takes off. A picture of the artist’s face is flashed in between the colour footage from World War II. The length of the video is not only a test of the viewer’s patience, but also alters the impact of the visuals. A one-time event becomes a Sisyphus-like key scene throwing light on the relation between body and machine, and the links of the latter with the war machinery. The self-portraits of the artist as ‘young hero’ were cut into the tape in the course of a live editing event.