FOTO FAKE II- Peter Weibel’s essay on the significance of Sigmund Freud for a theory of the media serves as a framework for this issue – a fitting framework also for many of the works published in the privies issue. Weibel’s approach, his treatment of original material(images and, mostly, texts) seem to be coherent with and applicable to the medication of contemporary photography as we understand and try to realize it in CAMERA AUSTRIA, in our SYMPOSIUM ON PHOTOGRAPHY  and in the exhibition program of Forum Stadtpark. Our point is to offer an opportunity of confrontation with original materials (including the rests of artistic work) and to attempt a continuous reconstruction of the space wherein exploration and debate can take place while refusing to give once-and-for-al interpretations. The concept principally remains open where Weibel locates Freud’s signifiernce for a theory of the media: in contrast to a trivializing realization of psychoanalytical knowledge in a interpretative approach to art( which often seem to obscure rather than reveal the poignancy of these theories), the task here is a search for a quality of the media (representing , as such , our refractured experience of reality) without having to abandon the analytical view. Our object is not the establishment of immovable convictions but an appropriation of methods that promise to change a seemingly decided and agreed-on overall picture.

This intention to find approaches to images and texts without passing final judgements find its continuation in the articles on Pierre Moliner and Roland Schneider: By what other means could the purity of Molinier’s work be preserved if not by putting it, his “life’s work”, in the context of the artist’s biography? How else could the “most powerless” of photo works, as Roland Schneider describes his Interim” project, be the result of a continous rebellion against defined borderlines and of trespassing the same?

We have received many positive reactions to our most recent issue of CAMERA AUSTRIA , encouraging us to continue on our present course. CAMERA AUSTRIA subscribers are reals “readers” who regard the modern debate about photography as a continuous process over time, and precisely this process is the theme of the issue before you. We thank the artists and authors for their cooperation in this issue and for their willingness to support CAMERA AUSTRIA in this way.

Looking ahead, the next issue no. 37, will again be dedicated to photographers in greater measure. Points of emphasis will be contributions by Helen Chadwick, Willie Doherty and Olivier Richon- photo works alongside specific theoretical articles by Paul Groot and Slavoj Zizek: the issue will also include the first publication by Aleksander Chumakov outside the Soviet Union.

Christine Frisinghelli