Peter Weibel
«Epistemic Videology (I + II)»

A plate of glass separates two video cameras installed opposite each other. On the glass plate hangs a banner with signs on it. The images recorded by the two cameras are transferred to a monitor via a video mixer. If the signs are significant, they now become insignificant, if they are insignificant, they now become the opposite: '-' becomes '+', '0' becomes ∞, and so on. Version II is a performance that works with the time-lagged playback of the words 'I know that I know that I know', meaning a tautological endless loop is produced by the repeated sequence. In a further work made for the «Projekt '74» exhibition, Weibel deals with language and the process of assigning meaning from the spatial viewpoint of mirror-reflection. With two cameras, 'nen' forms 'nennen' (German for 'to name'), 'tc' becomes 'tot' (German for 'dead'), and so on.
In these analytic closed-circuit systems, Weibel reduces video to the following definition: whatever you see through the conveyance of a medium has already been translated to a different system. Thus, every electronic reproduction of an image or signifier is basically manipulated. At the same time, however, Weibel vividly insists that 'art establishes significance between the meaningless things'.