Honorary Award for Film Art 2003 for Manfred Neuwirth

Speech given by Ralf Wieser at the award ceremony

Imagine the following:
You are in a dark room with about 20 people, sitting in a circle, with a brightly lit white spotlight on the floor in front of you, headphones on to enhance the sensory experience. No image, just sound, a film for the mind's eye.
This is not a spiritual session, but an installation by the director and cameraman Manfred Neuwirth. It is the audio film Barkhor Round. You accompany Manfred Neuwirth on the Barkhor – a middle circular route in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, an important religious and economic centre of the city.
He does not have a camera with him, but microphones. He observes and records – music from the horns of the monks, the haggling of the merchants, the sound of the video cinemas from the left, music from the cassette recorders from the right, the scraping sounds of the pilgrims, both male and female, as they prostrate themselves. A special spatial sound is achieved during playback by means of dummy head stereophony.

I have chosen an introduction to the work of Manfred Neuwirth that may seem unusual for a film work, and for that very reason is typical of the documentary and innovative work of the film and video artist. The artist shows us images that are supposedly unspectacular, stripped of any false sentimentality and aesthetics. With great sensitivity, he seems to constantly gauge the distance between the object and the camera's eye; he shies away from a lack of distance, from being too close. If he doesn't find the right image, he simply doesn't show any.

For example
Vom Leben Lieben Sterben – Erfahrungen mit Aids (i.e., About Living Loving Dying - Experiences with Aids). The camera remains motionless as it shows five people talking about AIDS, their own illness, their experiences with the world around them, and the reactions of their families. They are sitting in their own homes. The places of their suffering, the hospital and the doctor's office, are not shown. There are no zooms, no questions in between, the interviewers are not in the picture. There are no intermediate cuts or atmospheric gimmicks. This restraint and the cautious approach result in an intense and close – at the same time moving examination of this difficult topic without emotionalising the viewer with spectacular images.

Another film.
Memories of a Lost Country from 1988. Manfred Neuwirth went to the military training area Allentsteig to give a voice to the people of this forgotten area, to give them the opportunity of belated compensation or reparation at least in the sense of a public forum. Here, too, cinematic distractions are avoided, there is no commentary from the off. Those who were resettled in the past have their say and are able to put their memories and experiences into words. It is a search for traces, a document of an almost forgotten part of Austria's history.

It should be mentioned in passing that this film was shown at the Votivkino for weeks. A success with the audience that no longer seems possible with this topic in today's fast-paced cinema times.

In addition to these two works, which are clearly documentaries, there is a large number of experimental works. Manfred Neuwirth crosses the border between experimental and documentary film. As he said about one of his films (magic hour): ‘I prefer the experimental, and I love the documentary. And there are things where the two come very, very close and merge. When I manage that, it is the most beautiful moments...’
He describes himself as a collector of images, who uses the material he shoots as a kind of auxiliary memory.
He tries to find images of memories and moods. Manfred Neuwirth then processes these images in such wonderful works as Tibetan Recollections, manga train and magic hour. Again, it is the everyday things, seemingly trivial, subjective details that he tells us in a diary-like manner. A dream-like world is created in a montage of extreme slow motion – the mundane and the trivial take on new meaning through the frame, the perspective, and suddenly convey personal feelings and memories. A beer bottle on the table or a view from the train window. These minimalist notes help us to rediscover the flood of images in our hectic media world.

A brief aside:
Manfred Neuwirth was one of the founders of Medienwerkstatt Wien, which was established in 1978 as a self-governing video group. At that time, the medium of video was still in its infancy and was greeted with fascination by artists and filmmakers. Enthusiasm for a new medium, political vigilance and alertness created a counter-public. In the 25 years of its existence, about 380 productions have been created, from half-minute miniatures to eight-hour films. And Manfred Neuwirth was always one of those who initiated and supported them.
Access to technology has changed. People have digital editing suites on their home computers. But experience, attitude and vision are still the basic conditions for artistic work. And so it is important and good that Manfred Neuwirth, in his reserved, unassuming manner, also contributes to discussions on film, culture and socio-politics and clearly and pointedly advocates the interests of independent filmmakers and film artists, honestly and impartially representing his points of view and attitudes.

And again and again, it is about memory.
No other term describes Neuwirth's recording process as well. His realm of experience is divided into remembering as a political process, archiving images as proof of life, the camera as a storage aid. He sees himself as the crystalliser of this store, which organises the surfaces into a new space, aligns axes, and creates meaning through intersections.

In one of his last works, the installation Images of the Fleeting World, he tells of war, of resistance, of rituals, of happiness, of emptiness, of death. It is a personal as well as surprisingly political montage in memory of his grandfather, who lived to be over 100 years old. Neuwirth asked himself the question: ‘What is it like before death, when nothing essential happens in life anymore, when you don't experience anything new anymore, you just remember?’ In doing so, he draws on his almost inexhaustible archive of images, which, as he says, he wants to go through again, work through and then also empty out for once, in order to be free for new ideas.

We – that is Viktoria Salcher, Nikolaus Geyrhalter and I, Ralph Wieser, as jury members – but I assume that you are also curious to see which formal paths Manfred Neuwirth will continue to follow and where his further journey in his mind and in reality will take him.

Ralph Wieser, 13 September 2004