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His performance was ingenious: he gave all of himself in the film and learned his monologue for the next day of shooting at the same time; he ordered the least nourishing breakfast imaginable, flirted with the cameraman, and, on seeing his youthful face again, was overcome with sentimentality. All of this made it rather interesting to watch him. The video work «The space between us fills my hear with intolerable grief and impossible joy» (2002) was made with Martin Glade, a young actor from Berlin. For my production, he cried before the running camera for a half hour and, in conclusion, laughed for a half hour. The two videos were shown side by side. He found it hard sustaining such intense emotions for so long. Sometimes his laughter was almost crying, or the reverse. Also completed at this time was the photo-series «Martin as» (2002), a remake of a work by Douglas Huebler, from the 1970s, in collaboration with Bernd Becher. Martin interprets the same characters conceived by Huebler. Accompanying this series an artist’s book was also produced. «Waiting, Acting Waiting» (2002) is a 16mm film made during a stay in Vienna, with the actor Wolfram Berger. Wolfram Berger was instructed to play
an actor waiting for the first day of shooting to begin. While he waits, the camera and lights are positioned. But we began filming him while he waited for our shoot to start. So the film shows a genuine waiting and an acted waiting. Both parts are shown one after the other. «Pose» (2003) is an ongoing serial work consisting of series of Polaroid shots. One by one, I photograph the people who visit us in the apartment. This begins with photographing a certain pose and then asking that the previous pose be imitated for the subsequent shots. Each series differs in length, ranging from 20 to 30 Polaroids. To varying degrees, the poses change as well. «Two Films» is my second 16mm film after «Waiting, Acting Waiting». It is also made of two parts, and shows the actress Bibiana Beglau drinking a cup of coffee. In the first part, she simulates the act of drinking coffee with an empty cup; later she imitates what she had done with the empty cup, using a full cup of coffee this time. The difference is astoundingly slight. The film was presented at an exhibition in Paris together with a slide show of 33 slides, showing the hands of a man striking a match 33 times. The superimposing of these images creates a