Erik Bünger, Manuel Saiz
Even The Prompter Dies is an experimental video that investigates the power of speech over images. Multiple voices – all belonging to the two filmmakers – wrestle for mastery over the footage, from various positions inside and outside the frame. As the video progresses it becomes increasingly difficult to tell who remains on top; who is speaking from that ultimate meta-level that gives the image its final framing.
Erik Bünger is an artist, writer and composer whose work presents an ongoing investigation into the human voice and its contradictory relationship to language, technology and the human body. His work has been presented at venues such as Centre Pompidou in Paris, The Wellcome Collection in London, The Lincoln Center in New York, KW in Berlin, ACCA in Melbourne, The Curitiba Biennial in Brazil and the Art Encounters Biennial in Timisoara. He currently holds a four-year research fellowship at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, where he leads a group of artists in an investigation of the concept of ‘voice-over’.
Manuel Saiz is an artist and writer, whose videos, media installations and publications are meta-reflections on the nature of art. His work has been presented at venues including the Sao Paolo Biennial in Brazil; the Sculpture Biennial in Shenzhen, the ICA in London and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. His books such as 101 Excuses: How Art Legitimizes Itself and El Arte y el Resto are meticulous textual studies that attempt to dissect the many ways in which artists themselves legitimize their practice and what separates art from non-art.