Christoph Girardet: a stolen life

The focus of Christoph Girardet's video works is the use of appropriated film material ("found footage"), which is no longer found but researched in a seemingly limitless access to film history. Short shots removed from their narrative context are often sorted according to analog ciphers and edited into repetitions. By transferring them into a new dramaturgy, collective memory images are reconstructed into individual ones. In further essays, Michael Tarantino deals with his own experience of film history, the obsession with collecting and the compulsion to repeat, Marcel Schwierin with the image of the woman and the relationship metaphor in Girardet's work, Stephan Berg with the collapse of images and the disappearance of the viewer and Michael Girke with cinematic time and the different attitudes to reception of art and cinema audiences. The texts are supplemented by a catalog raisonné with short descriptions of the found footage works from 1991-2003. Christoph Girardet (born 1966) studied at the film class of the Braunschweig University of Fine Arts, which shaped experimental film and video art in Germany. His installations and video tapes have been shown in exhibitions and at festivals worldwide.

Texts Michael Girke, Stephan Berg, Marcel Schwierin, Michael Tarantino
First edition 2003
ISBN 978-3-922675-96-9
Pp. 96
Language EN, DE