L'animoteur 1

background of content and title of «L'animoteur ...» for a series of image and performance works

«L'ani­moteur 1» is the initial work of the series «L'ani­moteur 1 to 11», with pictorial works, perfor­mances and inter­ventions in exhibition spaces and (semi) public spaces. One image scene, which I had realised in the ATACAMA desert, the driest desert on earth, shows a dead animal body (donkey) in a lateral position and a human body in a prone position with the head towards the animal. In this series and its sequels the line/​border between (wo)man and animal will be put up for discussion. The paintings are kinetic pictorial objects.

The titles of these works are referring to Derrida’s speech/​discourse «l’animal que donc je suis» («Das Tier, das ich also bin», «The Animal That Therefore I Am»). [1] In this speech Derrida uses the portmanteau word «l’animot»: The violence that is done to the animal begins with the pseudo-concept «the animal», this word used in the singular, as if all animals, from earthworms to chimpanzees, formed a homogeneous whole, to which «man» was radically opposed. As if in an answer to this violence Derrida would use this portmanteau-word «l'animot». It is said that the french philo­sopher and writer Hélène Cixous had been using «L’animot» for the first time in 1976. This word which can’t be translated, this neologisme is for Cixous a word animal. [2]

I use Jacques Derrida’s and Hélène Cixous’ porte­manteau-word in the title «L’ani­moteur …». The title is a porte­manteau-word again. It stands for the climate that is created in the milieu of a (perfor­mative) situation and at the same time constantly redirects it: L’âne is the french word for donkey. In these perfor­mances and instal­lations I open a somatic knowledge field about the donkey with speech, movement-gestures and action. The donkey is not a metaphor, the donkey is a laughing one with big ears, and as such, he is not natura­lis­tically in his flesh present, he is a redirective thinker.

L’ani­mateur is the french word for a person who works as an animator in social-cultural contextes and also as a creator of animated films. Last but not least in ’l’ani­moteur’ is also the word moteur which is the french word for motor. The perfor­mative situation assumes the function of an animator and as such is a motor for the climate in its milieu.



Since then, through my curiosity about donkeys, I have been coming into contact with people and finding out and collecting facts, hearing their stories and learning more about the different ecological-logical and cultural values of donkeys in different regions of the world.

[1] refers to Jacques Derrida's 10-hour speech in 1997 on the autobio­gra­phical animal, transcribed retro­s­pec­tively.
[2] Notes from the supplement of the publishers (p. 62) «Hélène Cixous. Gespräch mit dem Esel. Blind schreiben.» with two supplements. Published by Esther Hutfless & Elisabeth Schäfer in German, Zaglossus e. U., Wien 2017.

the image work

A pictorial scene that I found in the ATACAMA desert, the driest desert on earth, which I picked up and I added myself to it, now shows a dead animal body (donkey) lying on its side and a human body lying on its stomach with its head facing the animal.

The image work is attached to the wall by means of a screw through the centre of the image. An eyelet reinforces the screw guide. Two identical square plates are attached to the wall and to the back of the picture. The picture can be rotated endlessly in a 360 degree angle. The whirring rotational movement brings the image into a different position again and again. It is intended to trigger a movement in the viewer's mind, or perhaps to encourage them to investigate the mobility and the settling of the image in one position for themselves. After the rotational movement has stopped, the two bodies come to a standstill at a new angle and thus appear again and again in a different constellation in the space.

On the one hand, I wanted to evoke the instability of the image and thus also question the viewer's point of view. The viewer's intervention disturbs the image and possibly also injures it - the image surface is mounted on a stadur plate, on a very light and unstable material. On the other hand, I ask myself the question, what identity do these two bodies have, where do their boundaries, the boundaries between human and animal, dissolve/run. Between the head of the animal body and the human head, an apex line that runs through the image could be seen. The hole in the middle has become its proxy, so to speak.

expanded context and range of the image work

The image work «L'animoteur 1» and the performance «L'animoteur 2» have inspired Katharina Bochsler from SRF 2 to broadcast a six-hour 'Hörpunkt' program «Der Esel, der älteste Kleintransporter der Welt» (The Donkey, the oldest Transporter in the World).