"Tell to yourself in the morning hour: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungreatful, arrogant. dishonest, jealous, and surly..." 

 

Marcus Aurelius (121-180)

 

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A narrator is reciting sections of the antique and philosophical writings “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius. With a trembling voice he appeals for a fearless surrender before fate and death. The video focuses on a close-up of the mouth area of the person. Here he remains completely defenseless and exposed to the viewers. Nevertheless, this presents a deception of the close-up itself: the viewer remains close to the speaking person, without really seeing him. One can only guess the narrator's social background. The work is a confrontation on the smallest scale – in a close-up - between the aestheticism of the human thought and its physical imperfection. 

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Marcus Aurelius (121-180) was a philosopher and Roman Emperor. Aurelius was the last representative of Stoicism - an antique powerful philosophical teaching, which conveyed that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a person of "moral and intellectual perfection" would not suffer negative emotions. It also teaches how to find and preserve equanimity by following nature as a source of guidance and inspiration.

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Thanks to Anton Werner.

Narrator

Stephan Ruhr

 

Sound Design

Christian Obermaier
 

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